SEASON 3
Read Porn! (With Aurore Founder Carly Pifer)
Have you ever had sex so good you wish you could freeze the memory in time? This week we’re joined by Carly Pifer, founder of Aurore, a curated collection of erotica written by and for women and LGBTQIA+ people, that encourages you to do just that by writing a story based on your real sex experiences.
Carly tells us how she started Aurore and how erotica is different from other kinds of porn. Whereas visual porn can be limited in terms of the body types, genders and positions involved, erotica leaves more up to the imagination, so Carly explains how this appeals particularly to women, trans folk and queer people.
Carly has also had feedback about Aurore that it gives representation to sexual minorities and can be great education for people hoping to learn about how to give women pleasure.
“The next time you’re having an intimate moment, think about how you would write it”
Whether you’re looking to improve your sexual imagination, realise what it is you like by reading about other people’s real life sex experiences or simply want to try out a new kind of porn or erotica, Aurore has a whole collection for you.
You can read Aurore here, or find them on Instagram. Carly is on Instagram @carlydangerous. We’ll be back soon with another miniseries, or you can find our most recent miniseries about Family, Parenting and Sex here. Can’t wait to see you then!
Do Gen Z Want To Be Parents?
There are so many stereotypes about Gen Z it’s hard to keep track of where they’re really at: they’re a sexless generation, they’re the most sensitive because they have a victim mentality. They want to be parents, they don’t want to have babies because they’re worried about the planet; they’ll be the best parents… oh no, wait, they’ll be the worst.
But parenting has changed a lot over the years and what went for one generation can completely change for another. With all the unpacking of toxic masculinity, changing attitudes towards work and greater acceptance of LGBTQIA+ identities, we predict that will make for radically different parenting. So, to get down to the truth of the matter (and of course there is no one answer) we surveyed out Gen Z audience to delve into whether they want to be parents and what Gen Z will be like as parents, from different parenting styles to how they want to talk to their kids about sex.
We start by asking them about their relationship with their parents, what they were told about sex and relationships growing up and how they want to change that when they talk to their kids about sex. That is, if they even want to have kids, so we asked who they want to have kids with and how they’d want to raise them if they do. We also asked how Gen Z think attitudes towards sex have changed from generation to generation, including what their grandparents and parents think and how that impacts their relationship with their families.
We hope you have enjoyed our Family, Parenting & Sex miniseries; if you have please leave us a (5 star!) review wherever you listen and don’t forget to subscribe to make sure you don’t miss our next one. You can find more of us on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook @sextraspodcast or our website and you can get in contact with us at sextraspodcast@gmail.com to request future episodes. Pitching guidelines are on our website. See you next time!
Produced by Mable Productions
Original music by Sacha Puttnam
Parenting, Family & Sex Miniseries
How To Talk To Your Kid About Sex (with Dr Tina Schermer Sellers)
Raising kids is hard in a bunch of different ways, but one of the main things parents dread is having the inevitable “talk” with their children. How do you have the talk, when should you have it, what is appropriate to say: these are all questions that nobody really gives parents the answers to. But what if that one, all-important moment never needed to happen, because kids got the information they needed as they needed it growing up?
Author of the incredible resource Shameless Parenting: Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free, Confident Kids and Heal, Dr Tina Schermer Sellers, joins us this week to discuss how to raise kids in a shame-free way, including “drip-feeding” them snippets of information about sex and their bodies throughout life, starting from toddler-age.
We start the episode hearing about Tina’s own upbringing, which was exactly the kind of parenting she has found is beneficial to kids in her research. Tina explains what sex-positive and shame-free parenting means and what parents need to do to make sure they’re not passing on their own shame to their kids.
Dr Tina gets into the different developmental stages kids go through with understanding sex, and what is age appropriate to teach them at each stage, including what to do if your kid is touching themselves or trying to experiment with other children. You might experience conflict in your own relationships, so she also goes into what is appropriate to share with your kids and what to do if they ask you questions.
We then get into how to talk about bodies in positive ways; Dr Tina explains that not having these crucial conversations with your children can set them up for loneliness and feeling as though they are unequipped for the world later on in life, which can in turn make them look to harmful examples in the world around them.
Thank you so much to Dr Tina for joining us, we learnt so much about how to raise sex-positive children and we hope you did too. You can find more from her on her website and find her Instagram @drtinashameless, or on Twitter @tinassellers. You can also find the Northwest Institute on Intimacy on Instagram and buy her books on Amazon.
As always, you can find more of us on Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Facebook @sextraspodcast, our website or email us at sextraspodcast@gmail.com. We’ll be back next week with the last episode of our Family, Parenting & Sex miniseries, make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it!
Produced by Mable Productions
Original music by Sacha Puttnam
Having Sex After Birth (with Smile Makers Collection)
After having a literal human come out of you, getting little to no sleep and suddenly being entirely responsible for another human being is not exactly conducive to new parents’ sex life. But when you are at a point where you want to start having sex again, what do you do?
Cecile Gasnault, brand director of Smile Makers Collection, joins us this week to tell us all about the research the company has done into having sex after birth.
Mothers - being the ones who have actually given birth - are often worried about having sex after birth and the research shows that they aren’t given nearly enough information about when the right time is to start having sex again or how to go about doing it. They might be scared of experiencing pain during sex or causing unnecessary complications in their healing.
Cecile tells us what Smile Makers have discovered in their research with Mumsnet and all about their vibrator The Whisperer, the first ever created with new mothers’ pleasure in mind.
Listen in to hear all the details, you can find more of Smile Makers, the sex toy company focused on women's pleasure, on their website and their Instagram. As always you can find more of us on Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook and Threads @sextraspodcast, on our website or contact us sextraspodcast@gmail.com.
This episode is part of our Family & Parenting miniseries, find the whole miniseries here. Or, catch up with previous related episodes like ‘Talking With My Mum’ Parts 1 and 2, Why Learn Your Attachment Style?, Family Matters and Our Sexual Genesis.
Produced by Mable Productions
Original music by Sacha Puttnam
related episodes:
S1 Ep.19 Our Sexual Genesis
S1 Ep.21 Family Matters
S2 Ep.16 Why Learn Your Attachment Style?
S1 Ep. 39 Talking With My Mum Pt.1
S2 Ep.29 Talking With My Mum Pt.2
How Sex Changes With Age (with Beducated co-founder Mariah Freya)
In episode one of our Family, Parenting and Sex miniseries were joined by Mariah Freya, who founded pleasure-based sex education website Beducated with her husband, to discuss how our sex lives change throughout our lives.
We begin the episode hearing about Mariah’s experience with low libido in her 20s and how that influenced her and her partner to find new ways of approaching sex. Mariah explains that sex education is so rarely focused on women’s pleasure and it wasn’t until she heard about tantric practice that she became aware of the many ways for how to pleasure yourself or a partner.
You really do learn something new every day, and so part of Beducated’s mission is to encourage people to continue learning about sex and pleasure throughout their lives, so Mariah tells us about the different sexual phases you can experience throughout your life and how sex changes as you age.
Just as we always talk about, establishing a sexual dialogue early on can set you up for a life of success, despite whatever changes might happen, and Mariah gives us tips for how to do that in a way that honours our sexual needs and ensures that we continue experiencing pleasure throughout our lives.
Thank you so much to Mariah for joining us. You can watch her Ted talk here and sign up for Beducated with a 40% discount on the yearly package here. As always you can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Threads and Facebook @sextraspodcast, on our website or get in contact with us at sextraspodcast@gmail.com. We’ll be back next week with the second episode of our miniseries, can’t wait to see you then!
Ending Celibacy & Making a Sex Bucket List (ft. the Curious Girl)
More and more people are becoming celibate nowadays, but what happens when you want it to end? We're joined by Layla London, anonymous host of the sex podcast the Curious Girl Diaries, who ended her self-imposed celibacy after 3.5 years.
We’ve already recorded an episode with Layla over on her podcast, which you can listen to here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Layla delves into what made her stop having sex in the first place, before offering tips about how to make a sex bucket list and for finding the right people to go along with it.
From sex parties, to squirting and threesomes, Layla has experienced a plethora of wild experiences along the way and she leaves us with some valuable advice for jumping back into the world of sex when you’ve been out of the game for a while.
Thank you so much to Layla for joining us this week, you can find more of her on her website and you can get in contact with us at sextraspodcast@gmail.com.
Episodes about celibacy
Am I A Lesbian? & Compulsory Heterosexuality
Happy Lesbian Visibility Week! We’re so happy to be back talking all things compulsory heterosexuality and realising you’re a lesbian. We’re joined by the most (!) guests we’ve ever had to hear about their experiences.
We start the episode discussing Adrienne Rich’s theory of compulsory heterosexuality, the lesbian masterdoc and how it can help you if you’re wondering how to know if you’re a lesbian, bisexual, pansexual or it’s just compulsory heterosexuality. We tell our own experiences unpacking whether we really like men before welcoming Dani, Emily and Cassie to discuss their experiences realising they were into women.
They tell us what it was like to come to terms with being gay in their own time, from their first ‘I think I’m a lesbian’ to then coming out to friends and family and whether that was a difficult experience or not. They unpack how they feel about their sexuality now, whether people in their lives responded well and how they unlearned compulsory heterosexuality, plus the difficult distinction between being bisexual or suffering from the affliction of compulsory heterosexuality.
We also discuss: learning you’re lesbian through Orange is the New Black (a surprisingly common experience), not telling your dad you’re gay (another common one), how to ‘look’ lesbian (if there’s really a way), the importance of representation and what they’d tell themselves as baby gays. Thank you so much to Dani, Emily and Cassie for joining us in probably the most chaotic episode to record and edit we’ve ever done.
Apologies to you, our lovely listeners, if the sound is dodgy at times (we tried our best but guess what?! after three years we still don’t know how to record!!) but, thanks to our guests, this episode is really an excellent one to listen to if you’re at all questioning your sexuality. Have an amazing Lesbian Visibility Week 2023 and we will be back very soon with another episode.
As always if you have anything you’d like to share with us or any questions, you can do so on our website, on TikTok, Instagram or Facebook @sextraspodcast or email us at sextraspodcast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed please leave a review/ rating and subscribe and we’ll see you very soon with another episode!
Am I Bisexual? podcast episode
Bisexual Attraction podcast episode
Let’s Talk (to our partner) About Sex with Keeley Rankin
In the next episode of our pleasure and desire miniseries, we’re joined by sex and relationship coach Keeley Rankin to learn how to talk to your partner about what you enjoy during sex.
We begin the episode by asking what people commonly struggle with during sex and where people’s fear of communicating about what they enjoy in the bedroom comes from.
Keeley explains that often it is a mixture of things that prevent us from being able to talk about sex- first is that we don’t know what gives us pleasure (maybe there are too many options or maybe we don’t know what the options are). Secondly we don’t know what language to use and what the best way to approach the conversation is, and lastly we’re worried we won’t be accepted or, at worst, shamed.
Keeley then gives us some tips for how to talk to a partner about sex from the start of a relationship, explaining that it’s good to set the precedent of having an open dialogue about sex, as well as going in to how to communicate about sex if your desires change after being with someone for a long time.
Lastly, Keeley covers whether there is such a thing as sexual compatibility (you’ll have to listen to find out) and if communication can help with that or not.
We hope you enjoy this episode, thank you so much to Keeley for joining us. You can find more of her on her website.
Female Anatomy & the Orgasm Gap with Dr Amir Marashi
In the second episode of our pleasure and desire miniseries we’re joined by Dr Amir Marashi, MD, FACS, FACOG, Founder of Cerē, the first anatomically aligned vibrator, to talk all about female anatomy and female pleasure. If you’ve not already joined our Patreon you will want to for this episode so you can watch the full video with Dr Marashi, who has a whole load of models to demonstrate what we talk about throughout the episode!
We begin by hearing about how Dr Marashi started learning about female pleasure while being brought up in Iran, where women are subject to virginity tests and female pleasure is rarely talked about. Amir tells us about how doctors are taught about female anatomy and how this contributes to general misinformation about female pleasure and the orgasm gap.
Having conducted research into female pleasure and the anatomy of the clitoris, Dr Marashi knows that understanding female anatomy can help with arousal and close the orgasm gap, and he tells us how women and men can get to better know this and improve communication about what gives women pleasure. He also teaches us a bit about the female anatomy and what sex positions are most pleasurable for people with a vulva to improve clitoral stimulation.
Finally, we discuss how society feels a lot of shame about the vulva, and the harmful impact this has on normalising women’s pain with periods and their vulva, and how encouraging conversations about women’s bodies and pleasure fights this stigma and helps save women’s lives.
We hope you enjoy the episode. Thank you so much to Dr Marashi for joining us, we learnt an incredible amount! If you want to learn more you can find him on TikTok @nycgyno or visit https://getcere.com to find out more about the first anatomically aligned clitoral vibrator.
Good Sex: Does What We Desire Give Us Pleasure?
Welcome to our pleasure and desire miniseries! In this episode we’re joined by the wonderful Catherine Roach, professor of gender and cultural studies at the University of Alabama and author of the book Good Sex: Transforming America Through the New Gender and Sexual Revolution to talk all about what society teaches us about pleasure and how beauty standards determine who and what we find desirable.
We begin the episode by defining what good sex actually is, does it refer to societal standards for what sex should look like or is it more focused on pleasure? Catherine explores whether we have any control over what we find desirable, and how much this might be impacted be societal norms like beauty standards and the porn we watch.
Beauty standards are harmful when it comes to our desire, because of how tied they are to gender, sexuality, age and race, and so Catherine tells us how we can begin to detach ourselves from what we should view as desirable and to tune into what gives us pleasure personally, particularly if you’re a woman.
We then look at social media and beauty standards, and whether it’s helping improve conversations around what we view as desirable or not, and also how conversations about pleasure and desire on social media and in popular culture impact everyone, not just women.
Finally, we unpack how we can have more diversity in conversations about sex, from moving away from unrealistic beauty standards for men and women, to understanding how our bodies work and what personally gives us pleasure, as well as examining what good sex means to us and should mean more broadly in society.
Thank you so much to Catherine for joining us, if you enjoyed the episode please go check out her book Good Sex. As always, you know where to find us— on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok @sextraspodcast, our website www.sextraspodcast.com, email us sextraspodcast@gmail.com, or join our Patreon to watch the full video episode, get access to exclusive bonus content and join our community to continue having these wonderful conversations.
Celibacy Eras, Long Distance Relationships & Moving in with Your Boyfriend
Welcome to 2023! The start of this year marks a lot of changes for us, as Maria is moving to Paris tomorrow so this is our last episode recorded in our beautiful studio :( to watch the episode in full go join our Patreon (you get a ton of other benefits too!)
In this episode we decided to have a look back at the things we learnt about sex and relationships in 2022, and what our relationship and sex goals are for the coming year, as well as doing a brief and questionable ins and outs list of our dating prediction for 2023.
We start the episode talking about Honey’s year of no sex and what the benefits have been. She’s in two minds about her celibacy era, wanting both to leave it behind and also feeling very comfortable in it, so we discuss everything she’s learnt about herself from her boundaries to crushing on people unlike ever before in her life. We also discuss how Honey’s feelings about men have affected her dating habits in 2022 and that she wants to really embrace her bisexuality and date more women in 2023.
Maria obviously has very different sex goals for 2023 than Honey, mainly because she’s actually having sex and is about to move in with her boyfriend so she’ll be having a lot more, so we discuss what those are and also what she’s learnt from the past year of being in a long distance relationship.
Finally, we end the episode discussing our impromptu ins and outs list for dating and sex in 2023, including everyone spontaneously deleting dating apps to more people eloping.
We’d love to hear if you have any sex and dating goals for 2023, or if you have any ideas about what might be general trends. You can get in touch with us at sextraspodcast@gmail.com, on TikTok, Facebook or Instagram @sextraspodcast, or join our Patreon to continue having conversations we have on the pod. We can’t wait for what the year has to bring, we’ll see you soon for our pleasure miniseries!!