Ménage à Moi

Introducing Jessa, the wonderful woman who answered MàM's online call for masturbators.  What a fearless move! As you will learn, Jessa is an old pro at arranging IRL encounters. Anyone remember IRC chat rooms? Yes, that was the early 90’s. Jessa's pioneering use of the web as a means to explore her adolescent sexual curiosity does not mean that 20 years later she’s become a tech geek when it comes to getting off. Her method of choice is the antithesis of the $150 vibrator, in fact you probably have a few of them sitting in a closet at home.

Guess what? Lots of women have lots to say about masturbation. All you have to do is ask. Politely and respectfully, of course! At least that’s what I did with this week’s guest: Nicole from the amazing Bitchface podcast. Clearly she’s thought about the topic a lot, which comes up in her writing as well as what she calls her ‘crush politics.’ While you consider drafting your own crush manifesto—and you should— here’s a start courtesy of my conversation with Nicole: get really sexy with yourself and indulge in your crush fantasy for all the potential that it holds, but not necessarily as a means to land your crush, which, as we all know is usually less fulfilling than fanning the flames. You know what they say, ‘It’s the journey, man!’

Assholes, what are they good for? No, not the orifice, those are great. I mean the people! This week’s guest, Ellen, gives credit where credit is due, to all the assholes she encountered in her budding sex life. With their help, she’s developed a healthy amount of sexual grit, and she knows damn well how to ‘get hers.’ She’s sixty years old and has been married for thirty-five years. What are her secrets to a happy marriage? Alone time for jerking off and the privacy necessary to take a dump in peace. Now you can throw all those relationship advice books away—Ellen has you covered. This woman speaks her mind and takes no prisoners.

Testosterone orgasms vs. estrogen orgasms—this week I attempt to get my medically trained guest, Cadyn, to give the final verdict on which one is better. Spoiler alert: I fail. Male and female hormones aside, too much focus on achieving orgasm can distract from all sorts of pleasurable moments along the way, so go forth and give yourself permission to explore without the pressure of achieving a face-melting climax. Cadyn is a professor and clinical psychologist with a focus on transgender and gender non-conforming patients, who is full of well-researched sex positivity and knowledge, as well as MàM’s first guest whose pronouns are he, his, and him, and what a great first he is!

Ménage à Moi’s guest this week went from watching age-inappropriate movies as a child beside her parents, to making perfectly pitched indie movies that capture the complexities of women and the evolving nature of identity and sexuality. Yes, art springs forth from trying to unravel the tangled up dingleberry of what one is taught verses how one feels. Ain’t life grand?! Jenée’s forthcoming movie, ‘The Feels,’ is a comedy about the female orgasm that features a great cast and a very relatable bachelorette weekend getaway, with some unexpected—but, oh so real—elements.

With Suzanne Santo's 2017 debut solo album 'Ruby Red' receiving many accolades and her accompanying North American tour now in full swing, Ménage à Moi was lucky enough to get some face time with the Honey Honey songstress while she made a brief pit stop in LA. Nestled among all the golden nuggets of sexual wisdom and experience Suzanne serves up are these piquant morsels: how she forces herself to remain a 'sexual woman' while on long, punishing tours as the only female in a crowded SUV, and why getting it on with adoring fans is not actually as fun as Mötley Crü’s autobiography makes it sound. Good to know! Suzanne's music and her conversational charm is a feast for your ears. Enjoy!

Pleasure and sex are not always synonymous, and for young women this is especially true. Despite Phoebe’s early and creative forays into the world of self-pleasure, it was not until she had a ‘feminist awakening’ that she began to prioritize her own desires outside of an unfulfilling heteronormative script. Copious amounts of nudity, the vernacular of cunt, orgies, art wives, road trips, and an impressive sexual bucket list awaited her. But it takes an adventurous spirit with no tolerance for misogyny to get there.

Bianca’s lust for life shines bright, whether it’s embodied in the artwork she makes at her creative business called Chaparral Studio or heard in her voice while describing the indispensability of a detachable shower head. She is a true adventurer who seeks—and finds— as much authenticity and pleasure from within herself as she does from the world around her.

Nikki is a jack-of-all-trades: a writer, performer, and artist who, through her work, challenges widespread, culturally ingrained misogyny. Nikki is all about letting her freak flag fly and spreading the gospel of why it’s important for everyone to feel safe and empowered letting theirs fly freely as well. That means everything from getting the government out of our bedrooms and bathrooms, to our right to self-love and broadening the idea of beauty far beyond the fantasies of white cishet men. Yes, we’ve got a lot of work to do, but the orgasms will be worth it!

Sexperts have never really been my thing, but this conversation has me reconsidering my position. Glamazon Tyomi tells me that most men are probably masturbating wrong by simply producing “meaningless emissions” (which is also my new band’s name). And she's emphatic that we are all too anxious about trying to orgasm: Stop clenching and start breathing! Stop judging and start loving! Plus, Tyomi has five "P"s that we need to smudge-stick out of our junk pronto: Peers, Porn, Professionals, Publications, and Parents. Fearless in embracing her desires head on, Tyomi is proactively educating the world about pleasure so she doesn’t have to wait as long for it to catch up with her. 

Have you ever thought about putting your deepest darkest sexual experiences into a book? Most people wouldn’t dare, let alone publish it under their real name! Well, Erica, my guest this week has done just that in a remarkably authentic and straightforward account. Getting Off: One Woman’s Journey through Sex and Porn Addiction is not a preachy recovery story—at its core it is a story about a girl whose new found pleasure quickly curdles to shame and a woman’s gradual reckoning with the roots of that shame. Spoiler alert: she still watches porn and she’s still sexually adventurous, but without all the baggage. I highly recommend this book and I highly recommend tuning into our conversation!

Only the funniest, most down-to-earth midwife would compare her sexual outlook while ovulating to that of a party-going frat boy. Well, say hello to Christian of Fertile Moon Midwifery! Of course she knows her own body really well, but she also encourages her clients to get to know theirs by offering a plethora of information, choices, and support not typically offered to those seeking treatment within the medical-industrial-complex. The most challenging part of Christian’s work is getting her clients to release their culturally ingrained fear of birth and to see it as the potentially empowering, deeply spiritual, and even sexy event that it can be.

The pickles-and-ice-cream cravings of a desperate pregnant woman and the agonized screams of an unprepared body in labor are well-worn Hollywood tropes, and for many of us, they are the first things we see and hear about birth. What we don’t see and hear are the stories that my guest Jennifer shares, like how she had the best sex of her life during the second trimester of her pregnancy, or how even though she has less sex now that she’s a mom, the feeling of release it brings her is more necessary now than ever. A freelance writer, Jennifer is thoughtful and outspoken about the vast discrepancies between the realities of sex and motherhood versus all the other shit you hear.

If you’ve ever given yourself the old “I don’t have time” or “I’m too tired” excuse as a reason not to masturbate, then this is the episode for you. Amy has a lot going on in her life, probably more than you, and yet she makes time to connect with her sexual desires almost every goddamn day. How, you ask? Well, it’s not that sexy, but it works: multitasking. Newly single, with two young kids, and a business to run, Amy is laser-focused on the things she cares about, with her daily “prix fixe menu” of fantasies to chose from, getting off is one of them, that also includes dessert and gratuity.

Lindsay is a goddess. She is a spiritually and sexually enlightened being with special physical abilities that put her in a divine class of life forms whose experience of orgasm is heightened by releasing an ecstatic fountain of fluid from her vagina. As a practicing nurse, Lindsay is frustrated that the medical community has yet to properly analyze or acknowledge this biological phenomenon by which she has been beguiled since 1983, long before you could purchase hip t-shirts that advocate for the practice. (As I have!)

Hi! I'm writing to share some exciting news. While Ménage à Moi has been on hiatus, I've been working on a podcast project for Season 4 of SFMOMA's Raw Material. It's called Luvvers. Luvvers is a six part series that considers the relationship between art and sex, how one can inform the other and become a catalyst for creative thinking and being. Luvvers launches October 15th! Listen to the trailer.