Why Women Feel Ashamed of Pleasure (And What the Science Says to Do Instead) | Dr. Laurie Mintz

0:01Dr. Laurie Mintz:This is a Be Well Moment, the most replayed moments from my latest conversation. It's a glimpse into the wider episode, which you can find linked in the show notes below. Because sometimes one small moment is enough to reconnect to living well and being well.

0:22Dr. Laurie Mintz:I think the most important thing is to talk about masturbation. Men talk about this really freely and openly and it's quite normal and I don't think women do at all and you have a whole chapter by saying like we kind of need to start there and it's interesting when I asked Google and chat GPT I was like what's the most common question that women and men ask the number one was how do women orgasm it's still the number one most searched and then the next one was how many women cannot orgasm? And then why can I not orgasm? Which is the woman. Wow. We got to answer all those and clear this off. And there were so many more obviously that we're going to go through, but it was interesting.

1:08Dr. Laurie Mintz:I was like, this is obviously what most people are trying to get from Google and ChatGPT. So you have a whole thing in your book with women saying you need to start exploring yourself first. So let's start there. I mean, we've already seen the clitoris and understanding that's kind of like the powerhouse stimulation, mitochondria of the cell. But what's next? Like, how do women not feel ashamed? How do women feel comfortable doing it, not stigmatized? Like, talk women through this who are listening. First of all, I'm so glad you asked that masturbation is the most important thing a woman can do.

1:47And the research is so clear. It is the first step to being orgasmic. Women need to masturbate. It's the most empirically, scientifically supported technique. And it feels great. And it's going to give you orgasms and pleasure and make you sleep. We've been talking about a lot of negative stuff. This is positive stuff. Like this feels good. So, and a lot of times it is like scary. You've been told not to do it. So, you know, start slow, right? understand that women have been doing this for centuries, forever. There's no harm in it. It's, in fact, it's extremely healthy. In fact, I, you know, sometimes like I, if someone's hesitant, I'll like make a little prescription pad and say, this is your doctor's orders.

2:38Go home and masturbate. It's so healthy. So women really need to know, this is a way to say, I am empowered. I I love myself. I love my body. And I'm going to make myself feel good. And then, you know, first of all, it's I really recommend people getting a picture and looking at themselves so they know what they're touching and they know how beautiful their vulva is. Every vulva is beautiful. It's like a snowflake. Even identical twins don't have identical vulvas. They're like, they're such a beautiful part of you. But so get to know it, you know, get a diagram, identify the parts. and then put your hands down there.

3:19See what feels good. And I'm going to go over some common things that feel good. A lot of women like to rub circles on the clitoral hood, either directly or through panties. A lot of women like to rub to the side because the hood and glands and you're stimulating the internal clitoris. This is the mons pubis. It's where your hair starts. A lot of women like to squeeze there. Why? Because the legs of the clitoris run through there. A lot of women like to rub up and down. And, you know, you can try to, that's a great place to practice mindfulness. There's no one else to monitor. How are they thinking?

4:01How are they feeling? It's just you and you. So it's a great place to really learn to focus on sensations. and use some lube because vulvas are not most meant to be touched dry and just have fun. You don't have to have the goal of orgasming, but most people will if they touch and figure out what they like. But then, number one suggestion, get a clitoral vibrator. There was a study with anorgasmic women. There's been a lot of studies actually. Women who'd never had an orgasm gave them knowledge of their bodies, a clitoral vibrator. 93 % became orgasmic pretty immediately. These are the best tools.

4:50Doctors are prescribing them. Here's something that wasn't in the book that's been discovered since the book came out. We have special corpuscles in our vulvas that respond exactly to vibration. So, and they're in our fingers too. They're not on our forehead. This turns on. Can you hear it? Yeah, well, I love the central airing. Yeah. So I'm going to ask you to do it too, if you would. Yeah. Okay. Hold that to your forehead. Do you see if you feel it?

5:22Dr. Laurie Mintz:Oh, yeah. Okay. So I've got it on my forehead right now. Okay. Does it feel, how does it feel? Is it kind of? Relax. Okay. Now put it on your fingertip. Okay. Does it feel more intense?

5:39No. It doesn't to me. It doesn't. Okay, put it a little higher up on your forehead. Okay.

5:48Yeah. Okay. So up here, we don't have very many of those corpuscles. So you probably just felt buzzing. Yeah, yeah. But on your finger, you might feel more. Well, there's tons of these on the vulva. Tons of them. And so basically, most women who use clitoral vibrators orgasm, where do you use it? On the hood, to the side, on the lips. And guess what? Penises have these core muscles too. So when I tell men, if she uses a vibrator while your penis is parked anywhere down there, You're going to catch what I call vicarious vibrations because your penis has these receptors too, and you're going to love it.

6:38In fact, we're starting to make sex toys for erectile dysfunction with vibration. The penis and the clitoris love vibration. And, you know, women who use vibrators have more orgasms, easier orgasms. They have more life satisfaction. They have less depression. women whose male partners like their vibrator use are more sexually satisfied and they one there was one study I love this study they gave vibrators to men who'd never use one with a woman they should use it twice a week for four months then they interviewed them the men said it was really exciting for novelty's sake it was really exciting because she got more excited it was really exciting because I felt the vibrations on my penis and it enhanced our intimacy because we had to talk about it.

7:31Dr. Laurie Mintz:Thank you for listening to this Be Well Moment. If it resonated, the full conversation is linked in the show notes. And I hope it gave you a small pause to take a moment for you and to reconnect to living well and being well. If you loved it, please do leave a review, follow the show, or share this maybe with someone you love. Thank you.