We all experience seasons within our sexuality. At times seasons stack together to create sexual eras within our lives. We explore how embracing erotic eras can be an incredibly useful framework to use as we reflect on our erotic lives. This podcast is a continuation of the ideas we shared in podcast #297: Surviving Sexual Seasons. Our community of listeners told us the ideas within that podcast were incredibly useful and supportive, and we build on those ideas in this podcast. We get personal as we share how Charlotte is transitioning from one decade long erotic era into a new one. We cover what we can do to support the transition from one era to another, both individually and within our relationships. And when to accept the stages we are in, and when to activate our agency to support erotic change and evolution. Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: Tap into your erotic imagination with DipseaStories – and explore freely with a FREE 30 day experience by visiting DipseaStories.com/Pleasure Continue the conversation with these Speaking of Sex Podcast Episodes: * Surviving Sexual Seasons * Cultivate Your Erotic Context

If you are ready to start exploring kink but feel overwhelmed by where to begin, we invite you to try MiniKink! And if you are already kinky and expanding into new dynamics or activities, MiniKink gives us the chance to efficiently and safely explore what more is possible. MiniKink invites you to create very short, bite-sized kink scenes to explore one small element of kinky play at a time – a long kiss up against the wall to explore immobilization, for example. Kink doesn’t have to be big, serious, lengthy scenes to be satisfying – and MiniKink scenes give us the opportunity to level up our skills for when we are ready for more immersion. Ready for a guided tour into your own kinks? Enroll in our online Kink course here with a pre-loaded discount! Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * Go to GreenChef.com/Pleasure60 to receive 60% off and free shipping on delicious meals delivered to your door * Tap into your erotic imagination with DipseaStories – and explore freely with a FREE 30 day experience by visiting DipseaStories.com/Pleasure Explore More With These Speaking of Sex Episodes: *  Getting Kinky In A Long Term Relationship * Explore With Curiosity: Attitudes For Kinkier Sex * Responsive Kink

Riding the red wave, surfing the red tide, earning your red beard… there are as many euphemisms for period sex as there are opinions about it, and in this episode we dive right into the charged and tender conversation of getting intimate while bleeding. Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: Tap into your erotic imagination with DipseaStories – and explore freely with a FREE 30 day experience by visiting DipseaStories.com/Pleasure Click here to enroll in Erotic Touch Mastery, our two bestselling courses in one bundle! Many of our transcripts are AI generated and thus may not be 100% accurate. We are working towards (well-paid) human editors for every transcript, but for now hope these transcripts help with accessibility, search and engagement for all of our listeners. Podcast Transcript For Episode #462: Getting Intimate While Bleeding [00:00:00] Chris Maxwell Rose: Welcome to Speaking of Sex With the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris. I’m Charlotte. We are the Pleasure Mechanics, and on this podcast we have raw, honest, explicit conversations about sex, pleasure, and the joy of connection. Come on over to pleasure mechanics.com where you will find all of the resources we have been lovingly generating for you since 2000 and. [00:00:30] When we launched Pleasure Mechanics on our first Valentine’s Day together, um, we met in the halls of sexological body work training way back in the day, and we fell in love through and with this work. Hmm, with the questions of how do we share the gifts that we were learning. Students in the time in San Francisco, in the lineage of erotic massage. [00:00:58] And that lineage is all about honoring the body, showing up for the full body and exploring what is erotically possible, uh, what her bodies are capable of, and really kind of re mystifying, falling back in love with the beauty and mystery and. Animal body of our bodies. Mm. Right. And on today’s episode, we’re gonna be talking about something that the body does, um, as a matter of natural course, right? [00:01:31] It’s just part of what some of our bodies do some of the time. And it’s a place where we have so much cultural baggage and taboo, and not just cultural, like intergenerational historical taboo. Still with us in our bedrooms, in our play spaces, in how we treat our own and one another’s bodies. And it’s one of these places that as we confront it together, we might be kind of stunned by how much other people’s stories and opinions and cultural and religious taboo right, and control of our bodies, um, Interferes with our ability to have our own relationship with these bodies of ours and to come to our own conclusions about what we want to do with our bodies and let alone treat one another’s bodies with just like kindness and compassion and like awe and reverence maybe, right?

JoEllen Notte, author of In It Together : Navigating Depression with Partners, Friends, and Family joins us to discuss how we can all show up more fully for the people in our lives who are living with depression. We ALL know someone who struggles with depression, and in this podcast episode we explore how we can love one another more fully while steering clear of the resentment, guilt and shame that can damage our most intimate relationships. “Depression does not inherently break our bonds, but our inability to navigate depression can lead to avoidance, hurt feelings, and anger” ~ JoEllen Notte, In It Together Also be sure to check out JoEllen Notte’s first book, The Monster Under the Bed: Sex, Depression, and the Conversations We Aren’t Having Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * DipseaStories : Explore an audio library of immersive erotic soundscapes, explicit stories and more. Use code PLEASURE for 30 day free trial Continue the conversation with these Speaking of Sex Podcast Episodes: * Sex and Depression with JoEllen Notte JoEllen Notte is a writer, speaker, and mental health advocate whose work explores the impact of depression on sex and relationships. Since 2012 she has written about sex, mental health, and how none of us are broken on her award-winning site The Redhead Bedhead

Cockwarming, Docking & Engulfment are all names for different applications of a similar erotic move, where we hold an intimate part of the body inside our holes, bodies or crevices. This warm, wet, intimate embrace is an erotic technique that we can all explore in our own way, and this episode explores this move in depth revealing all the powerful erotic energies and arousal arcs it can be a part of. Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * Go to GreenChef.com/Pleasure60 to receive 60% off and free shipping on delicious meals delivered to your door * Tap into your erotic imagination with DipseaStories – and explore freely with a FREE 30 day experience by visiting DipseaStories.com/Pleasure Continue the conversation with these Speaking of Sex Podcast Episodes: * Just Hold Me

On the other side of curiosity there is a boundless playground of pleasure, intimacy and connection. When we listen to what other people find pleasurable about their kinks and turn-ons, we can start noticing the responsive desire that stirs within, and find our own Responsive Kinks! In this episode we invite you into the practice of turning towards other people’s pleasure with more curiosity, wonder and willingness to discover new parts of your own erotic being. Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * Back to the Body Retreats for Women : If you are ready for an immersive erotic journey at a luxurious retreat, we highly recommend the Back to the Body experience. Connect with Back to the Body and take their Sexual Wellness Quiz for Women at backtothebody.org – tell them we sent you and use code Pleasure for $500 off selected retreats * DipseaStories : Explore an audio library of immersive erotic soundscapes, explicit stories and more. Use code PLEASURE for 30 day free trial Continue the conversation with these Speaking of Sex Podcast Episodes: * Explore With Curiosity: Attitudes For Kinkier Sex * Before Pleasure Comes Safety

What would it feel like to stretch a little more? How much release, relaxation, relief and pleasure are just a stretch away? In this episode we invite you into stretching into more pleasure – with both the physical practice of stretching whenever and however it feels good to you and the emotional practice of stretching open into receiving more pleasure, joy and love. Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * Go to GreenChef.com/Pleasure60 to receive 60% off and free shipping on delicious meals delivered to your door * Back to the Body Retreats for Women : If you are ready for an immersive erotic journey at a luxurious retreat, we highly recommend the Back to the Body experience. Connect with Back to the Body and take their Sexual Wellness Quiz for Women at backtothebody.org – tell them we sent you and use code Pleasure for $500 off selected retreats * Explore SheVibe.com for a complete selection of high quality sex toys at the best prices Continue the conversation with these Speaking of Sex Podcast Episodes: * Resilient Edge of Resistance * Opening To Receiving

Getting naked brings up emotions for all of us – from fear and shame to bliss and exultation and just about every emotional experience in between, getting naked exposes us and reveals so much about our cultural and personal histories. How do we find more comfort, safety and freedom in our skins? How do we strip down with more confidence and less shame? On this episode we talk all about getting naked, together, so we can all find more pleasure and joy in these beautiful bodies of ours. Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * Back to the Body Retreats for Women : If you are ready for an immersive erotic journey at a luxurious retreat, we highly recommend the Back to the Body experience. Connect with Back to the Body and take their Sexual Wellness Quiz for Women at backtothebody.org – tell them we sent you and use code Pleasure for $500 off selected retreats * Explore SheVibe.com for a complete selection of high quality sex toys at the best prices Continue the conversation with these Speaking of Sex Podcast Episodes: * Your Body Is Good Enough * Before Pleasure Comes Safety

Since 2006, we’ve been The Pleasure Mechanics, dedicated full time to exploring the power of pleasure, intimacy, joy and connection. It’s been our mission to remember the role of pleasure in our human experience and the creative, generative, healing force of eroticism. One of our anthems since the very early days has been : Prioritize Pleasure In this episode we explore the practice of prioritizing pleasure. Why can it be so hard to prioritize pleasure, even when we know it is such a positive and healthy force in our lives? How can we prioritize pleasure more often, and reap the personal and collective benefits of this tremendous force? Ready to explore with us? Start here. Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * Back to the Body Retreats for Women : If you are ready for an immersive erotic journey at a luxurious retreat, we highly recommend the Back to the Body experience. Connect with Back to the Body and take their Sexual Wellness Quiz for Women at backtothebody.org – tell them we sent you and use code Pleasure for $500 off selected retreats * DipseaStories : Explore an audio library of immersive erotic soundscapes, explicit stories and more. Use code PLEASURE for 30 day free trial Check Out Our Ignite!Raleigh talk from 2010! We have been teaching about making pleasure a priority since we formed Pleasure Mechanics in 2006. We wouldn’t use the same highly gendered language or examples today, but we are still just as passionate about tapping into our human pleasure potential! Feeling guilty about making time for pleasure? Pleasure is often thought about as being selfish, greedy, or hedonistic. We believe in making Pleasure a Priority. Pleasure does not just happen to us – we must actively choose to cultivate pleasure in our individual lives and in our relationships. Pleasure is healthy, makes us feel happier, more alive, and gives us energy to fuel our days. We believe that being fulfilled with pleasure makes us better partners, parents, friends and coworkers. 10 Ways Pleasure Can Save Your Life Here’s a transcript of a live talk we gave in about 2009 about “10 Ways Pleasure Can Save Your Life” And, we believe Pleasure can SAVE your life. Literally. Here are 10 reasons why: #10 – The autonomic nervous system controls the heart, the smooth muscles around your organs, and your glands. There are two modes – Sympathetic and Parasympathetic – Stress and Pleasure. Many adults stay stuck in the stress mode, which has devastating impact on your health. Experiencing pleasure counteracts the impact of stress and gives your body the chance to heal. #9 – Pleasure is essential for your heart health.

Get discounts on pleasure tools and toys from all of our podcast sponsors here There are so many reasons why receiving sexual pleasure can be challenging for so many of us.  Receiving sexual pleasure is a specific skill set that is necessary to complete the circuit of pleasure when we are making love.  We can think about receiving sexual pleasure as being similar to receiving a gift, where the gift is the attention, care and presence of our lover. Click here to enroll in Erotic Touch Mastery, our two bestselling courses in one bundle! When we don’t fully receive the gift of sexual pleasure that is being offered, it is similar to leaving a gift unopened. Instead of fully receiving the gift, some of us might find it easier to deflect, disagree or diminish the offering. We can explore how we feel and respond to receiving, in and out of the bedroom, by noticing how we respond to receiving compliments and gifts.  When we are given a compliment, we can practice saying “thank you” as a complete response. This can become a practice of receiving the gift of a compliment without diminishing, deflecting or disagreeing with the offering. Uncomfortable feelings may arise in response to receiving a compliment, but we can notice this and practice choosing a different response that allows us to receive the compliment a little more deeply. There is an art to receiving gifts, compliments and sexual pleasure. We can constantly increase our artistry and capacity for receiving pleasure by practicing receiving both in and out of the bedroom.  Part of allowing ourselves to deeply enjoy the gift of what is offered to us, is to remember that we do not just have to receive what is given. You are always allowed to kindly and sensitively ask for adjustments so you can receive more pleasure. Your lover wants nothing more than to delight you and bring you pleasure. When you make adjustments to allow yourself to receive more pleasure you are contributing to increasing the circuit of pleasure between you.  When we bring some attention to the skillset of receiving pleasure we can allow the conversation and micro practices to encourage you to keep receiving more pleasure, joy and connection. We can allow our successes to contribute to a pleasurable upward spiral of feeling and experiencing more pleasure in your body and relationships over time. Join us in exploring this conversation within this podcast episode. Click here to enroll in Erotic Touch Mastery, our two bestselling courses in one bundle! Thanks to our episode sponsors for being part of our global team of Pleasure Partners: * Check out the high quality silicone lubricant from Uberlube.com and use the code PLEASURE for 10% off and Free Shipping Use promo code PLEASURE at check out...