Florence Bark

0:00Hello and welcome to Happy Place, the show that shines a light on topics we're told to keep hidden in the dark. Today, I'm chatting to Florence Park. We set a lot of time aside to have sex with our partners, but we never think of it for ourselves. And I don't think we can rely on our partners to give us that pleasure and give us all those good hormones and stuff like that. We should be able to do that for ourselves as well. And I think carving out that time to really make yourself feel good about your body, make yourself feel good in your body, is so important. and it should just be like the time that you set aside for yoga, for breath work, for that walk in the morning that you do.

0:43Like it should be part of that routine. Florence is a content creator and sex and relationships expert. She and best friend Reid make a YouTube series called Come Curious and they also host the Fucks Given podcast. Their videos, by the way, have over 42 million downloads. So clearly there is an appetite for learning about sex and our bodies in a way that feels more responsible and kind than we might be getting from porn. Let me tell you, though, that does not mean less explicit. Florence has now written a brilliant book that focuses on something that, I'll be honest, even I slightly awkwardly steer clear of, masturbation and in particular women masturbating.

1:31It's called This Book Will Make You Feel Something and is a fantastic mix of really sexy science that teaches us about the female anatomy and gorgeous erotic stories or meditations as Florence calls them. Florence lives in LA and she gets to go on gorgeous hikes out in nature right on her doorstep. But she very kindly flew back here to London to have this, quite frankly, mind blowing chat with me. Masturbation is self-care. That's the top line here. It's a way of connecting deeply with our body, with our inner world. But as we chat about a lot, there's so much shame surrounding it, especially for women.

2:18And I also found it fascinating how much of this conversation seemed to come back to body image. Okay, here it is. This is the show.

2:50Florence, it's so lovely to meet you. So great to meet you as well. How's the jet lag? It's intense. Yeah. Jet lag's awful, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Plus, when you didn't sleep very well as well, it's even worse. Do you have that feeling like you're not really here? You're sort of half floating. Kind of, yeah. Yeah. It's like you've got this foggy haze in your head that's just like a cloud. Serves you right for living in Los Angeles. I know it does. Quite frankly. I know, I deserve it. You do. I do. Welcome back to grey, grey England. We've got so much to talk about because we're going to talk all about your brilliant book.

3:29And let me tell you, we are now at nearly over 230 episodes of Happy Place. Wow. And we are yet to cover female masturbation. That's shocking. Haven't gone anywhere near it at all. Well, I'm so glad to be the one that talks to you about it. Yeah, we really, really need to for many reasons. I think the most obvious and pertinent reason, I'm sure it was a big push for you to write this book all about that subject matter, is the fact that for women, it's still highly awkward to talk about. I'm 41. I've obviously had sex. I've had children. But I find talking about masturbation extremely awkward. And I'm pretty sure that most people listening to this, and I hope some men are sticking with this conversation too.

4:16There's lots to be unpicked and learned from this subject matter. But I think it's really awkward to talk about still. Why do you think that is? It's crazy, isn't it? There's a survey at the beginning of 2020 that said that half of women in the survey are still embarrassed to talk about masturbation. And I mean, it's quite simple why this is the case that it is because we haven't been educated about it at all. We were never taught that it was like normal to talk about these things. I remember like back in the day when I was at school me and my friends talking at the like the back of maths class and we would talk about condoms about sex about our boyfriends but we would never talk about masturbation and there's always been this like weird shame about it and I think maybe also because our parents don't tell us that it's okay either and I feel like we've all gone through that like weird stage where you like started masturbating when you were like like a young adult or like a teenager or maybe even a child.

5:20And you don't know what you're doing. You know it feels good. And there's people around you that might pick up on what you're doing, but no one says anything and no one says that it's okay. And you kind of weirdly just know that it's this thing that you should keep to yourself. And because we've all been just keeping it to ourselves and not talking about it, there's this like weird like... There's shame. There's shame. I think we have to be that sort of bold to say there's big shame around it. And for women to talk about it. And it does feel very sort of that shame is solely, I think, for females.

5:56Because men, I've heard male friends talking about having a wank. And we've seen it in movies and TV shows. It's a joke, isn't it? It's more of a joke. It's like, oh, he's a wanker. A light-hearted wank. Yeah. But for women, it feels like a very shameful thing to admit. Do you think that's just, when did that start in history? When did that happen? That shameful religion? I would say it was probably religion. It's a sin to touch yourself. And I think, you know, religion has ruled the world for such a long time that it's just been ingrained in us, even if we're not religious anymore. And I think it's also the fact that sex education isn't done properly at schools.

6:34if you look at the scandinavian countries they're all teaching their kids about sex education like age appropriate sex education from a very young age and they have a really healthy outlook on bodies on sex on all of that stuff whereas i think in countries like ours in america and other places around the world we're not taught about it like how are we supposed to know female pleasure has always been such a myth. When we had education, we were taught about the male ejaculation. And we were never told that sex was supposed to be pleasurable. I didn't know that pleasure existed until I found it myself.

7:12Yeah, this is so interesting, because the pleasure thing, it fascinates me greatly, because I think again, culturally, and maybe it is a very British thing as well. It's not encouraged in any sense, I think in and outside of sex or masturbation, pleasure is kind of like for the lucky few or you know you're allowed like what even is pleasure I think if you quizzed people they'd say you know if you said how do you find pleasure most people would go hmm or like kind of like just chilling out at home watching telly or it's not that eating food eating food but it's not that pleasure that you know obviously masturbation is free pleasure and it's something that is for you all about you and that's that's a really interesting it's why I love self-esteem and her whole concept about pleasure and enjoying it and accepting it and knowing that you deserve it.

7:59I think that's a big part of it. Feeling as if we deserve pleasure. I think most of us spend our days self-flagellating and feeling in self-loathing and like we don't deserve anything. We all deserve pleasure. We do. We do. And it's in like the power is in our hands, literally we can literally touch ourselves yeah and give ourselves pleasure and there are so many good things about it there's a hormone that gets released when you masturbate oxytocin that is literally good for your self-esteem so touching yourself will make you feel better about your body like there's so many crazy cool things about it that's why it's really interesting having this chat today because this topic fits so perfectly into well-being but is so often totally just dismissed in the well-being conversation when we think of well-being we might think of the real sort of cliched format which is to do with what you're eating drinking how you're exercising or might be a bit more woo-woo with crystals or something but actually this is so important because you list in your brilliant book the benefits of masturbation and they all link to well-being.

9:10So first of all, you describe it as self-care. This fits into the self-care conversation. It is. It helps us reduce stress. It makes us happier. It's just such an amazing thing to do for yourself. It's interesting because we set a lot of time aside to have sex with our partners, but we never think of it for ourselves and I don't think we can rely on our partners to give us that pleasure and give us all those good hormones and stuff like that we should be able to do that for ourselves as well and I think carving out that time to really like make yourself feel good about your body make yourself feel good in your body is so important and it should just be like you know the time that you set aside for yoga, for breath work, for that walk in the morning that you do, like it should be part of that routine.

10:02Yeah, I think the body confidence thing's really, really key as well. And you go into this in the book, because many of us, I think, again, maybe more females than males feel quite disconnected from their physical body. And And that might then manifest as self-loathing, just feeling uncomfortable in your own skin. I've certainly had moments of that over the years when I've probably mentally not been feeling brilliant. And that will really relate to my physical body and what I see in the mirror and how I feel in my own skin. And masturbation is an amazing way to feel comfortable in your own skin, to like your body.

10:43How do you feel about your body confidence and how has masturbation helped? It's a really interesting that one because I feel like I had a lot of shame around my body in my teenage years, as we all do. I remember that when I started talking about sex, which I started doing in my early 20s with my friend Reid, who I have my podcast with, we started talking about all these things like nipple hair, discharge, masturbation, the kinks that we liked in the bedroom. and we both started feeling all this confidence suddenly and I was looking at my body in a different way and I was feeling a lot more like normal because I think that's what we all feel weird about when it comes to sex is that it doesn't feel normal to feel this way because no one talks about it so my personal confidence has grown with having these conversations I just think that's so cool and I think masturbation's been a really big part of that because having the The ability to explore it on your own is so valuable because, you know, we don't all have like partners all the time in our lives.

11:53So that solo time is where you really get to learn yourself and learn your body. And that's that's really cool. Yeah. And I I love the fact that in this book, not only do you actually sort of dissect the the notion of masturbating, but also you have these stories that you've written. I mean, you've written some seriously sexy stories in this book. Oh, my God. You've gone for it. Wild imagination, just totally gone for it. It's so brilliant to read. And I love it because, again, it encourages all of us in this world of technology to use our imaginations. Yes. Which completely get just discarded when you become an adult.

12:34You don't need an imagination anymore. That was when you were a kid. But actually, this is why I always prefer reading to watching TV. because I love creating an image if I'm reading a novel, creating that imagery in my head and seeing what my brain dreams up from reading these words. Isn't it cool? It's so cool. I always just visualise almost like a movie happening in my head. And the cool thing about the stories in the book is that there's no kind of big descriptors in any of the characters. So you can literally visualise yourself being the character and the character that you're intimate with being someone that really turns you on.

13:14Yeah, and I think because of that element of mystery that you've allowed the reader, you can just sort of go wild in your imagination, whereas the other side of the spectrum, when you look at porn and how graphic it is and how two-dimensional it often is. And it's scary also. Scary! I think people are scared of it. And there's been a lot of bad press around porn recently as well with the whole, I don't know if anyone's watched the Money Shot documentary on Netflix. It's really, really important. But it basically goes over a lot of what's happened in the porn industry where, you know, Pornhub became like the main thing that took everything over.

13:56You don't have to pay for things anymore. And it allowed anyone to upload anything. so the things that you saw on the internet were scary and sometimes really bad and really unethical and I think after like with people hearing all of that stuff they're not going to want to go watch porn and it's not representative anyway like a lot of the stuff that's out there you look at it and you're like that's not me or that doesn't turn me on I think that's also where people start to lose their confidence not only in having sex but in their bodies because if we look at stereotypical porn we can imagine what those two people might look like and and how they're acting and it's so as you've just said it doesn't illustrate what we're actually experiencing or feeling and when it comes to body confidence and we've maybe i don't know if we've got body hair or whatever we start to feel like we're flawed we're wrong and that's just because we've been just trained to look in this direction and see one image.

14:54And I think it's also like the other way around as well. Like the partners start getting an image for what people should look like or what they want or what turns them on. I had this awful thing happen to me when I was 17 where I fooled around with someone on a New Year's Eve party. We both like put hands in each other's pants and stuff like that. And the next week at college, I was in sixth form college at the time, I got him shouting at me across the other side of like the college yard loads of people around Florence is really hairy and I was like wow like was I supposed that's just the way that my body is are we supposed to not look like that because I hadn't been watching porn at that time but I guess he had and if you grew up in the 90s and the noughties porn was just this very bald a bald affair yeah which is fine if you want to if you want to take your hair away from but not to the detriment of just regular body hair right and it made me feel shame yes that's where the shame came in again and then suddenly I felt self-conscious when I was with other people and I started going to get waxes and shaving and you know how uncomfortable shaving is down there we don't love an ingrown hair in that area oh my god I've had some bad ones we've all had a bad one babes it's awful and I think that's why I really like what people like yourself and the community that are really driving this message on Instagram are portraying all different body types with varying types of hair in varying places and we're exposed to a lot more of it and it's so important so that you have a choice you have a choice how you show up with a partner and and and you decide on how confident you are you don't you don't allow messaging to corrode your own confidence which as a you know a young person obviously I you know I think back to my own teen years and you're so sponge-like to what's going on around you and you want to fit in you want to be liked you're really impressionable yeah I think the more we can see lots of varied body types body shapes body hair discussion honest discussions about sex it's so so important for people to feel empowered by what they're seeing and hearing rather than absolutely terrified we just need to talk about it and that's just as simple as that it's like maybe going to a friend and saying oh i tried this sex toy the other day like have you tried something like that like that's all it takes and it just opens up this this like plethora where they're like oh it's comfortable like I can share this we can we can have this talk and it's game changing like when me and Reid sat down and had those conversations I was like wow and who initiated the conversation you know what I can't remember I can't remember we were both fascinated by sex though like it was the main thing that we were just like we wanted to we wanted to shoot porn like when I graduated from university I left thinking I want to make feminist porn because there's nothing out there that I like and that feels good to me and I want to show that sex can be this like really magnificent beautiful experience that feels amazing and looks amazing because what you see out there on what I was watching on Pornhub back in the day was not that.

18:34Not that. But I guess this book is kind of like a manifestation of all of that stuff because I've made basically porn for women. Yeah. And you call these stories, and I love this, you call them meditations. Yeah. I love that. What was the decision making around that? I think it just I really wanted this to feel like a safe space and I think it also the decision in that was that it is part of the wellness space and we should treat it like that we should treat it like doing a meditation in the morning because it it's the same it's the same importance and you're present you're not on your phone you're in your head and you're in your body exactly yeah Yeah, because I think we could all spend a little bit more time masturbating.

19:26I'm sure everyone's kind of guilty of doing the quick one before bed to help get them get to sleep. I definitely just get out my like big wand vibrator, buzz it on for a few seconds and then I'm done. Good night. Night. And even me, even me, I should like, I need to sometimes take the tips out of my book and spend more time because I know that if I did do that, I would feel better about myself and my body. But we all get into places where we're not. Yeah, of course. And that's okay too. Absolutely. Good days and bad days with all of this stuff. And one tip that you give in the book is to really, I mean, again, this I think relates to body confidence as well, is to have a look down there.

20:07Yes. I mean, for men, you can very easily look down, there is your willy. For us, unless you're a sort of circus performer, you have to make effort to do this. You have to get a mirror. You have to get a mirror. You're going to have to prop your legs up somehow. Do you remember the first time you looked at your vagina? Yes, and like you say in the book, you were sort of horrified. I think I remember a similar feeling, like, what is that? Because you don't look at it for years and years. You don't look at it. I mean, after having children, I've now become very friendly with that area, having to do all sorts of things down there and doctor appointments, but also examining yourself and checking what's going on.

20:42But for years, I didn't dare look down there. And that is, again, really strange. We've just all accepted that. You don't look down there, don't need to see it. But actually, it's a really healthy thing to get to know what's happening down there. So tell me about that. What's the importance behind it, would you say? We need to know our anatomy. me if we're going to know what we like during sex and if we want to have good sex in our lives or nice pleasure in our lives then we need to know how it all works because it's kind of fair enough just like putting things in there or you know letting your partner do whatever but if you don't know what your body looks like or what what's going on inside then how are you supposed to really communicate what you do like because there's so much to explore as well and this is our body if we're feeling ashamed of like that place and how is that going to make us feel about sex in general I think we need to build the confidence down there because that's kind of where it all starts all it takes is just looking and in my book you know I kind of walk everyone through that journey of like okay let's get out a mirror and let's look in there read it read the book at the same time as looking at yourself so you can see like okay that's my clitoris that's my outer labia that's the inner labia and like what is it inside let's like feel inside i think i was really scared of inside my vagina for such a long time yeah because you know what it's so scary as a teenager because all of a sudden you start your period and then you're meant to insert something up there and i remember thinking no way i'm not putting anything up there absolutely no well I was maybe 12 years old yeah it's horrendous and your mum sort of just gives you this pack of tampons and you're like yes there's no way and I think that's that's where it all started for me certainly the fear of I don't want to know what's going on down there it's just all scary it's a kind of weird place and I think it's like it's normal to feel that way because women we've and people with vulvas we've been blessed with this strange little opening between our legs and if you think about it it is quite weird yeah it's weird that there's you know bacteria in there and it's self-cleaning and all of those things but we're human beings and we need to like actually just learn about like the process and what being a human being means And that means that we have vulvas and vaginas and there's things inside them.

23:21What's really cool about our clitoris is that we have 10 ,000 nerve endings in it compared to men who only have 6 ,000. So why do, because I love that fact in the book, why do so many women still have real trouble having an orgasm, probably more during sex if we have thousands more nerve endings down there. Yeah, so the clitoris isn't actually inside. The clitoris is what's under your little hood at the top. And quite often during sex, we won't incorporate that, even though that's where we feel most of our pleasure. And if you don't know about your anatomy, then you're not really going to know which parts are the pleasurable parts, which one has all the nerve endings.

24:12The clitoris is this really cool thing and it kind of looks like a little wishbone. I wish I could like show a little diagram or a picture right now. We'll put a picture on Instagram. I can tell Amelia's already Googling something as we speak. Drawing a picture in a notepad. And this is the thing that holds all this pleasure. So if you then know what that is and what it looks like, you can kind of navigate, okay, well then maybe if during sex we incorporated a sex toy like a vibrator on the clit or if you if you position maybe a pillow underneath where you're having sex then the clitoris will be tilted up in that way where your g-spot is which is a kind of like that's a weird subject in the space because some people are like the g-spot doesn't exist it's a myth and other people very much believe in it but all we really do know is that the clitoris does exist and this is where the pleasure is and because you have the parts that kind of go down around the side as well and you've got bits that are inside behind that could be the g-spot and that's the bit that you need to pleasure but it's just learning about yourself yeah we need a very detailed diagram amelia please for this one there's lots to cover Yeah.

25:31And in the book, I talk about like ways to insert like sex toys or your fingers in a way to pleasure yourself. But yeah, the orgasm gap is real for straight women. And I think also a lot of the time for straight women, there is a fear to express that to their partners. Oh, it's so hard. Yeah, that they're not getting what they need out of it or they might fake it. You know, I think there's a lot to be said for the courage it takes to say, could you do this differently or I'm not getting what I want out of this. There's a problem there with masculinity and the fact that quite a lot of men in our lives do have toxic masculinity.

26:11and if you say something like that to them, they're going to feel like, oh, I'm not enough of a man. I can't pleasure my woman. And I think that's partly why people get scared to say something because they feel like their partner is going to react in a bad way. Maybe when you've got the mirror out, having a look, get them to have a look. Yes. Because you point, it's like a science lesson in your book. You're going through all of it. And the real obvious misconception is we just go vagina, that bit down there, vagina, that's your vulva and the vagina is the inside bit. So it's just simple stuff like that that I think if we all had these open conversations and the anatomy was discussed a bit more freely, these conversations wouldn't create a defensive reaction.

26:54It would be more of just an open forum. Yeah. Actually, someone came on our podcast a very long time ago and said that they had almost like a sex education session with their partner, with one of their partners. and they would sit naked together and just explore their bodies and explore like what parts felt good. And I was like, that's what we should all be doing. That's very sensible, isn't it? It's a very sensible idea. Yeah, and it's fun. And fun, sensible and fun. That doesn't happen very often. And it feels good too. It's so good. I always wonder with the female and male anatomy, with that sort of fear of, especially when you're younger, inserting a tampon or anything going inside.

27:41Because male sexual organs are all on the outside, it obviously is a very different experience. And I think anything in the body, to me personally, feels very emotional. There's a real emotional attachment and an emotional, it's very hard to articulate, but an emotional feeling. I think that a lot of the time there's fear there. And when we look at stress and tension, physical tension, When we're tense and stressed, our muscles are contracted. And that's something else that we don't talk about, that we need to be relaxed to feel pleasure. We need to physically and mentally be relaxed. And that's something else that you touch on in the book is that, OK, we can cover all the physical side of things.

28:24We can look at the anatomy. We can look at what does what. But actually, our minds are such an important part of this whole process, whether it's to do with sex or masturbating. yeah yeah we need to be in the right mindset for it and there's so many things you can do for that as well I think that there's a lot about like setting setting the mood and making sure you're actually like you know taking a little step away from the stress in your life like maybe making sure you don't have like you know loads of tasks hanging over you just before you're like okay like I'm gonna like slot this in to a really already busy day like that's not gonna work you need to like make sure that you have the time and you're not stressing about the outside world to really enjoy your inside world and you know there's there's so many things that you can get involved like I don't know putting some like relaxing music on or lighting your favorite candles or maybe you're doing it in a bath because you can touch yourself in the bath I've touched myself in the bath many times and it's a great place to do it because it's a super relaxing place But yeah, we get we get a lot in our heads about sex.

29:33And I think male pleasure and female pleasure is very different in that way. Like I think men could probably orgasm from just doing the action and women can't. We need to really focus. I mean, I'm sure we've all had that moment. during sex you're just about to orgasm and suddenly something happens and it completely distracts you and you have to start all the way from the beginning again and that's because our minds are in charge of our pleasure so in that case we need to practice I guess and I think that's what kind of my book is encouraging as well is just like just start taking some time and it's if it doesn't work out at the beginning.

30:17Yeah. Just take a little chill and... But that's why the stories, the meditations are good because your mind is then focused on something and you're involved in the story and you're letting your mind go there rather than, oh my God, I need to go to the supermarket because we have no milk for tomorrow or whatever bullshit your head's, you know, moving towards. It's actually making sure that you prioritise your headspace and where your head's at before you, if it's sex or masturbating, that your head is in the right space. It's so important. And another thing, which is a very well-being thing to talk about, and we've spent loads of time talking about it on this very podcast, is breathing.

30:57And I don't think I've ever heard breath work being used within this conversation. So how is that helping us? This is actually game-changing. Because I think a lot of us have sort of learnt, maybe from porn as well, that you hold your breath or it's short, sharp breaths. for sex but if you actually take a moment and really do some deep breathing during masturbation you'll be so surprised at the change in the pleasure capacity there's a couple of really good exercises in my book but basically it's really simple and all you have to do is really focus on the body part I like to put some of my hands on my lower stomach to really like focus in and you want to take a deep breath through your nose or your mouth and just like almost like bring the breath up to the top of your head and then back down again and if you're touching yourself you will feel the pleasure kind of like grow and expand when you're breathing I guess it's like when you get really lost in like a good sex session with a partner and you're like no one cares what they look like or what what they sound like anymore and it's just all this like deep animalistic breathing and it's like yeah you're fully in your body and I think breathing is the way that we can really connect with ourselves I mean we all know how incredible breath work is yeah it's really really life-changing so yeah during sex incorporating it it will be a game changer it's so brilliant to have that as part of the conversation for people out there that that find again whether it's sex or masturbating very challenging because of how their heads work or where their where their brains are at I think specifically to do with confidence and self-loathing how how do you get over that because I think there will be people out there that will be either really challenged or confronted by having to touch their own bodies I'm sure there are quite a few people that feel like that because of self-loathing because their mental state is so focused on the negatives how do you start to write that and mentally feel more positive about your body and in the headspace where you can have sex with a partner or masturbate I mean it really is all about becoming comfortable with yourself first and it is a long journey and I think we've all been through it I think it's really about learning to accept that you are normal and that like there are so many people out there that also look like you and for me I did this thing a while ago where I did like this 30-day nude challenge where I took a nude of myself every day for 30 days the nude didn't didn't go anywhere it was just on my phone and even if like I started it off and I saw the first one and I was like I'm not into that if you take a photo of yourself every single day you just learn to get more and more comfortable with yourself and I think that's why masturbation is so important in this because even if you start and you're like oh I don't like my body right now but if you keep going you're just going to learn if you start touching it if you start seeing it you're going to become more and more comfortable with it might like I had this crazy experience where I went to this nudist resort and I was terrified to get my kit off in front of people but I did it and when I went out into the space where there was all these other naked people out there I was like wow every no one looks like a glamour model no one looks like how they do in the movies everyone looks like me and like in different shapes and forms and you kind of just need to it's almost that you need to put yourself in that space by yourself to really start accepting yourself but it is a hard journey and it's not it's not like there's no quick fix to any of this but I really like the idea of being in front of a mirror and just just saying nice things to yourself like even if you don't feel it we all need to do this right look at your belly and be like I love my belly and just repeat it until you actually do love it we all I think everybody listening to this needs to do this today me massively included to look at yourself in the mirror because we get so swarmed with imagery all day every day whether you're on social media or not it's everywhere and we go into that awful mind state of compare and despair and we just need to look at ourselves and like you say repeat nice little mantras to yourself in the mirror and do I think the practice element is really brilliant.

35:43Like you taking a nude photo every day for 30 days and the sort of discipline of that is so important. So we don't think, oh, I'm not doing that anymore. Sod that. I don't believe these words I'm saying. And it is that repetition and that practice to move from a bad habit to a good habit. It's so important. We've all just been taught a really bad way of looking at ourselves. And we have to unlearn that. And the only way that we're going to unlearn that is by accepting ourselves for who we actually are. Because it's all bullshit. everything that people told us about beauty standards it's so bullshit like when you look at that girl across the other side of the street do you start picking her apart and you're saying like oh yeah I don't like that and I don't like her toe there and her knee looks weird like no you're thinking wow she looks amazing yeah and actually when you're with people in real life which is something we need to do much more of it's actually more of a feeling like that person seems comfortable in their skin I'm attracted to people like that who I'm not going, oh, nice eyeliner or whatever.

36:45I'm thinking, oh, they seem really comfy in their skin and they're exuding that sort of energy. That's what we should be trying to cultivate for ourselves. And I think by doing that, like taking a picture of yourself or saying nice things to yourself in the mirror is so important. And it's funny, like you mentioning the nudist resort. Again, there's so much weirdness around nudity. nudity we've all got a naked body under these clothes we've chosen to wear we've all got one but even I think I've probably still got quite an immature reaction to that kind of thing you know if I there's a nudist beach on the south coast that I've sort of walked past and I've sort of been giggling and sort of being a bit teenage about it and like yeah it's like a man buying an ice cream at the van with his bits out and I'm sort of laughing and it's like why why am I like It's just a naked body and we've got to get over that.

37:36That's a big cultural one we've got to get over. Yeah, I know. There's more saunas in Finland than there are cars. And it's like... Yeah. We somehow need to incorporate this into our culture. I mean, it's never going to happen. But maybe we can go to a spa where people don't have their clothes on. There's this fantastic Korean spa in LA that I go to called We Spa. and it's just like this room of women. Everyone's naked. Everyone's dipping in and out of the hot tubs, going in the saunas and everyone looks completely different and so amazing and so normal. And it's just such a good experience to have.

38:17So I think if you can, put yourself into those experiences, even though it's scary. Yeah. I think that's the thing is that you do have to get over that fear barrier. And I'm sure you've felt nervous going into that resort. But actually, it's liberating. So liberating. Just to feel comfy in your own skin. Yeah. To feel okay about yourself. Yeah. I mean, I do want to have this conversation and bring in the more challenging aspects, which are people that are terrified of sex, have had trauma in the past, whether it's abuse or have been through something that has felt really traumatic. And they've severed that part of their existence.

38:58They're not in touch with their sexuality. they're scared of sex how do people start to move from that to feel comfortable in their own skin to experience pleasure with their bodies how can how can you start to move over something very challenging like that I mean firstly I would 100 % recommend therapy for that specifically sex and relationships therapists that's what they're there for they're really like they will help you get over that trauma and I know it's such like a big hurdle to like go and book yourself into a therapist but there's something about talking to people about these things and even if it's a friend or you know or even if you're just listening to a podcast just start putting yourself slowly into these spaces where you will build this comfortability and confidence around hearing about sex again like we've had I don't want to big myself up but we've had like a lot of people message us about our podcast fucks given might be changing the name to come curious soon both great names yeah a lot of people listen to it and say look I had this trauma happen to me and listening to your podcast has changed my life how beautiful I feel like I'm having a really amazing sex life again and I think that's literally just because we just talk about everything we talk about like basic no holes barred literally like just listening to two people talking about sex can open it up in your own head in your own body and obviously it's hard if you've really distanced yourself from your own body to touch yourself but maybe just looking at yourself is the first step in that and then maybe once you've become comfortable with looking at yourself then maybe you can incorporate touch in like just take things so slow yeah and that's okay and just talk about it if you've got a partner make sure you communicate to them exactly what you're going through they will understand yeah it's beautiful what you're doing with your podcast it's so wonderful and you've been working in the sex education relationship and intimacy space for what 10 10 years is it now what drew you to that area what made you want to to to help people in in this domain it's really interesting like I said earlier it was the I started by just thinking that I wanted to direct feminist porn and then after having conversations with my business partner Reid Amber we we just started feeling super comfortable with ourselves after talking about sex and it was the way that we were feeling after having these conversations after never having these conversations with anyone else in our lives they were like well if this is helping us let's just film it and see if it connects with people and it did because there wasn't really anyone else out there at that time maybe there was like maybe like five different youtubers that were talking about sex you saw a lot of like anonymous blogs and you know those sort of things and we were like well I think to get over the shame people need to see faces people need to see real people and we were like we'll be we'll we'll we'll do it yeah we'll take that one yeah yeah because it just helps so many people and I think after hearing from just one person that they felt more comfortable with their body it just pushed us further and we were like okay well if we can help that one person then what we're doing is good yeah and we'll keep going because then we'll help more people and there's something I'm sure you know like once you start helping people it just feels so good in your soul and your body that you're like okay like I will take this on as my purpose and really lovely when people share their stories with you because I think yes you know it's one thing to share your own story and that can be exhausting and beautiful and everything in between but when people actually then I'm sure approach you or message you on social media and explain what they've been going through and their progress whatever it might be that's a real privilege so many messages have made me cry like full tears because I'm just like I can't believe that I get to be the person that made you have that experience or helped in some kind of way it's it's really quite beautiful yeah and it does seem just from talking to you today it feels like the two main blocks and correct me if I'm wrong are body confidence or feeling comfy in your own skin and the shame piece.

43:43Yes. These are the two big ones that we've got to dismantle. They're the hurdles that we just need to jump over. But they're huge huge cultural hurdles. I mean the shame one which has been running for hundreds of years hundreds of years we've got to somehow dismantle that. How hopeful do you feel that that's possible for generations to come? I think we're getting more and more open about talking about these things. It's a weird one feeling hopeful in these times in this world because we're seeing politics all over the world pushing this back down. We've got everything that's happening in America with the abortion rights.

44:25We've got people banning drag shows they banned porn in ohio i think it was recently and so you've just got all these things that are pushing it further and further away but we also have social media and we have our friends and we have our community and i think that's more powerful than the oppression of the world right now and the people that run this whole thing let's not go there but the power is in us basically and it's as simple as having a conversation it's so easy i mean you said a lovely idea take your book to the next book club and see how that goes down like guys we've just read a gorgeous period piece a novel here's this book about masturbating let's chat because that's a really good way to you know bring this subject into your regular conversations that you're having and you could help dismantle shame in your own friendship circle very easily doing that and it's so important like literally by having that conversation you're being an activist because there's so much oppression in the world and we need people like you to be having that conversation I actually just wanted to thank you for having me on your podcast because because like it's so important for people to hear this and to be open to hearing this and just maybe they maybe they won't talk to anyone after hearing this but they did they heard it and that's really important that's why I was so keen to have this chat because I think there are so many people out there so many women who feel absolute shame or have severed all ties with their physical body and just don't even think about it.

46:11And I think as women, we all deserve to feel pleasure and to experience it on a very physical level without guilt or shame or feeling weird about our bodies. I certainly feel very passionate about the body piece, having had a disastrous relationship with my own body in my teens and 20s and now actually feeling a level of comfort that allows me to encourage others that it is absolutely possible. Coming from having sort of eating disorders and real terrible body dysmorphia and, you know, no shit Sherlock, I work in the worst industry for that probably or one of the worst. But it's absolutely possible to change your attitude towards your body when it comes to sex or when it comes to just feeling comfortable in your own skin.

46:59And I think talking about masturbating, something that is still so massively taboo, is a brilliant way of really getting to the core of this conversation and allowing women to enjoy their bodies and to celebrate their bodies and to feel good and to feel pleasure. It's almost going for the scariest bit. It's going to give you the biggest outcome. I think so. I think so. It's just brilliant and I love this book. I love reading the meditations. They're so incredible to read. They do make you feel something, which I know is your absolute goal. yeah it's brilliant and just good luck with your your podcast and all the brilliant work that you're doing thank you florence so much well let me tell you that diagrams of the clitoris were indeed being excitedly googled during that chat and if you head over to happy place official on instagram you will no doubt be getting a brilliant education this week get your mirrors out ladies and gents with your partner if you have a female partner get the mirror out have a good old look Florence the biggest thank you for your time and for just sharing so much with us I loved that chat Florence's wonderful book including all that science and those masturbation meditations is called this book will make you feel something and it's out now make sure you're following happy place on your podcast app of choice so you're notified when new episodes are available.

48:30I will, of course, be back next week. Go and get the mirror, little reminder. All right, massive thanks again to Florence, to the producer Anushka Tate at Rethink Audio and to you. You are gorgeous and you bloody well deserve to feel pleasure.

48:55Thank you.