News! Podcasts! And Previews From Recent Premium Q&A Posts
Not to mention some really cute dog photos
Confidence and Joy is a newsletter by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Subscribe here. You can also follow Emily on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!
Hello everybody! This is a roundup of Emily news and some excerpts from premium subscriber posts. Stick around 'til the end for some very cute dog photos.
I'm the Very Tiny Team AKA "Marital Euphemism" if you listened to the Feminist Survival Project podcast. If you enjoyed her book Burnout, or are still meaning to read it, my favorite is episode 8: The Monitor. This concept will redefine your relationship with frustration.
Emily's co-author and twin sister Amelia will be joining the newsletter soon. She's going to answer your questions on dealing with burnout starting later this month.
If you'd like to meet Amelia, she and Emily were recently on We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle. The second half of the episode is pure, unadulterated Nagoskis! You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audacy, and Overcast. (My personal favorite podcast player. iOS only.)
I've probably edited a hundred hours of E & A audio and video since 2020, and it never gets boring. They're really fun together.
On to the good stuff! Here are excerpts from two recent premium posts that were really popular.
If you want to read more premium Q&A posts, you can upgrade or grab a free trial subscription here. Free trials are good for 14 days and I can tell you that this Friday's question will be about matching your partner's sex drive.)
Q: I really enjoy your work. I love your podcast. I have a question about CAYA (which ironically enough, is the name of a diaphragm!) Where can I get more information about having an orgasm with your breath like Olivia did in the book?
A: To fill in some information for anyone who hasn’t read CAYA: Olivia is a composite character representing women with relatively sensitive accelerators and/or relatively insensitive brakes, who may have fewer barriers to accessing a wide variety of erotic sensations, but with the tradeoff that they might be more prone to using sex as a maladaptive coping strategy when they’re stressed, depressed, anxious, lonely, or repressing their rage. One of the experiences she has in the book is an orgasm without any physical touch, just her breath and her body and her attention.
The actual person behind the story of the breath orgasm was inspired by the book ESO: Extended Sexual Orgasm. It’s pretty dated and has some language that people don’t use these days, but it’s a starting place. Nowadays I send people to Barbara Carellas’s Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the 21st Century.
Another resource is a film called Zen Pussy: A Meditation on Eleven Vulvas. We, the viewers, get to watch eleven people with vulvas breathe their way to orgasms and it is mesmerizing, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. It doesn’t offer instructions, it just shows how it’s done.
The post continues here for premium subscribers...
Q: Why is it that I have dryness even when I'm aroused?
(Emily sets the table for this one with loads of great information on the dual control model, consent, and of course lube. Here's some of the practical science from the post:)
But let me take this opportunity to talk more comprehensively about the nature of vaginal lubrication.
First, there are several different sources of lubrication in and around the vagina:
The one we generally think of as associated with sexual arousal comes from a pair of glands at the mouth of the vagina, which are directly connected to the head of the clitoris. Broadly speaking, if you stimulate the clitoris, you eventually get lubrication at the mouth of the vagina.
There’s also the cervical mucus that flows from the cervix down the walls of the vagina and out. This mucus is a vital part of vaginal immune functioning, sweeping away stray potential infectious agents before they have a chance to make their way into the bloodstream.
And then there’s vaginal transudation, which is the expression of fluids along the walls of the vagina itself. This is blood plasma filtered through the tissue to the surface of the vagina. It’s part of sexual arousal and just part of standard vaginal operation.
Second of all, there’s only one really well-established cause of vaginal dryness: the hormone changes of menopause. If you’re menopausal and experiencing dryness, pain, or light bleeding with vaginal penetration, this is probably your situation and there are prescription creams that help. Talk to a medical provider, and anticipate that it takes time for the vaginal tissue to repair itself, so this isn’t an overnight fix, it’s an… over-months fix.
Both (2.) and (3.) are for sure impacted by hormonal changes of menopause. (It’s not clear to me if sexual lubrication at the mouth of the vagina is impacted? If there’s an expert reading this, can you let me know?) There are effective medical interventions—and I’ll be the first to tell you if medical interventions are bogus! Given the right dosage and enough time, these things help!
It can also be a side effect of hormone-related medication, like hormonal contraception. But if there’s anything that’s true about the side effects of birth control it’s that people vary. Literally, the side effects of different pills can include acne and clearer skin, lower interest in sex and higher interest in sex, less vaginal mucus or more vaginal mucus.
Third, if we’re talking about lack of lubrication during sexual arousal for premenopausal women, the answer is: people vary. We don’t know why. I can’t tell you why sometimes your genitals aren’t getting wet when you’re aroused—but I can tell you that the solution is easy: LUBE, MY FRIENDS. Lube it up. And if you’re experiencing discomfort, you have to choose really great lube (bc: osmolality [PDF—here’s a non-pdf resource based on the PDF, which includes specific brand and product recommendations])
And here's a link to the entire post.
Did you make it all the way to the bottom? I think I promised some cute dog photos.
But first, we'd love to hear from you. I'm opening up comments on this post.
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Comment away!
And now I leave you with our two strange, lovely princesses: Thunder and Olive. (Thunder is the big one who snores really loudly.)
Questions or comments? Please email my very tiny team at unrulywellness@gmail.com
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Signed copies of Come As You Are can be obtained from my amazing local bookseller, Book Moon Books.
Stay safe and see you next time.