Cum With KC
This Is Your Brain On Sex
Let's talk anatomy and physiology! Dr. Casey is giving a simple breakdown of what occurs within the body during the various phases of sex. As always we want to make our show not so DRY like you hear with so many other shows out there, so we're spicing it up a bit! Enjoy.....
Let's talk anatomy and physiology! Dr. Casey is giving a simple breakdown of what occurs within the body during the various phases of sex. As always we want to make our show not so DRY like you hear with so many other shows out there, so we're spicing it up a bit! Enjoy.....
all right, everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of Come With KC. Come With KC. I am your co host, Keri Sanders. And I'm Dr. Casey Sanders. And we have a really unique topic for y'all
Casey:today. We have a complex topic for you today that we're going to work our way through in the best way that we can. Well,
Kari:this season. We really wanted to focus on education. That's our key word for this season, right? Yeah. And our earlier season was like really getting to know us. Second season was like, kind of like bringing the world into the podcast, meaning like the interviews. Yeah, exactly. It was like bringing people from all over. To our viewers so y'all can hear like minded individuals similar to us This season is going to be really heavily on education if we are not informed properly Then we're just not making the best decisions for ourselves for our partner for I mean everything with our partner. Yeah with our partner and so again, you're going to notice the whole theme for this season is education and what better way to break it down into the most like, I say simplistic form, but it's not, but it's like, why do we get horny? Why do we get turned on? What happens to the body? What chemical responses are happening? And so that's just in part on what we're going to be diving into. Uh, and luckily for y'all and luckily for me, we have a doctor here. Cause there's no... Shut up. Cause there is no freaking way I would ever be able to relay this information. And you've been, you've been diving into it. You've been pulling back your old research
Casey:books. First of all, I, I, I do not look like a doctor. Uh, you don't. I do not. You don't. But I am one. Yeah. I did my ears and we're good. By, by degree I have, I have degrees in health and wellness, anatomy and physiology. Uh, As a doctor in chiropractic care so I've been through a lot. I've dissected human bodies. You cut a vagina in half,
Kari:sawed a vagina in half. That's your favorite story. Why would that not be anyone's favorite story?
Casey:See, we've talked, we talked about gross anatomy and that was my absolute favorite class in school, but Carrie doesn't ever focus on the fact that I like. Removed a human brain. He did. Or, like, removed a human heart and was able to hold it and dissect it. Same thing with every organ of the body. But you know how She goes straight to sawing a vagina in half.
Kari:Because I have heard plenty of people say that they have held a human heart. I've heard that. I have never in my life heard someone say that they got to saw a vagina in half today. Yes, that was a moment
Casey:scoop dried up coagulated blood from intestines. Yes,
Kari:and and totally random the the like hair that was in the lungs.
Casey:Oh, right. What are you talking about
Kari:when you were dissecting the in the lungs? They had that like. Hair fibers, because she was a hairdresser, right? Yes, absolutely. So fascinating. Has nothing to do with our topic, but that was so fascinating.
Casey:When you are dissecting bodies, you come across like various types of people. The first person that we had dissected and keep in mind, like all of this is done. I don't, I'm not trying to, we're not speaking ill about anybody. This process is a gift. It is an amazing opportunity and there's massive, massive amounts of. of respect and love put into every one of these cadavers. But you do run across things that are interesting to talk about. So, uh, we ran across, I mean, brain tumors. Uh huh. Uh, we ran across, yeah, like you said, there was somebody that had been a hairdresser for years and so they had still had like, Hair fibers in their lungs. That had been in the lungs. Dissected kidneys, had a professor. Burst a Cystic kidney and it got him right in the face All sorts of stuff happens. And so yes, one of the things that we did do is as we got to a certain part It was time to to dissect Like fully in a in a different plane as opposed to just looking at it and going down deep So it was take a saw and go straight up. It's so
Kari:interesting. So interesting. So yeah, so again I'm really glad that we have you for this topic and it's something that we really want to dive into and I think what's uh, This is
Casey:a heavy, heavy, heavy episode because this is all about the anatomy and physiology of sex. The people that are listening, I know that are educated that, that hear this, they know what they're talking about. We're going to try to touch on a lot of the topics that come along with sex that you would get in a human sexuality course or that you would get throughout your course of study. And we're also going to talk on a little bit of higher level stuff. Yes, you are. We
Kari:are. I'm just gonna be funny. I, no, I do legitimately have questions. For, for this full round of like the episode that we're doing. And again, there's going to be a little bit of a disclaimer. I'm definitely going to be talking less because you have so much to
Casey:say. I fucking doubt that. Okay,
Kari:it's fair, but, uh, mine won't be the educated version of anything. I'll just be the commentary
Casey:along the way. Yeah, well, you're going to put things in a perspective that allow people to go, Oh yeah, like that. I'm going to be over here talking about various structures and things, and you're going to be just like, cutting in
Kari:Yeah. Okay, so then what part of it do you want to start with
Casey:first? Uh, my favorite part, absolutely. So if you've ever followed any work of any of the famous sex researchers, Kinsey or Masters and Johnson, those are the most, like the most well known names, is that Masters and Johnson came up with their model of the, uh, the phases of sex. So that's namely the excitement phase, plateau phase, orgasm phase, and resolution phase. My fa Thing to talk about and all that is the excitement phase, because it's all about like where pleasure comes from, which where does pleasure come from, Carrie? The brain. That's exactly where it begins. That's where it starts. That's where it, pleasure always starts in the brain. You know, you have so many people that talk and, and they sit back and say, Oh, you know, pleasure is going to begin whenever we have foreplay. Or we're flirting with each other. And what it's actually going on is it's your brain interpreting these things. And there's a number of structures that, that take place, or that take a major role. And we're going to talk about probably, I think are my, a few of my favorite. The first one is going to be, you all know this, uh, you've probably heard of the amygdala. We've talked about it on an episode before. I've heard you say that word. Most people know it as, as you're, you're the fear center is what a lot of people do. Like the fight or flight or whatever. That's something different. Oh, and we'll get, we will get to the autonomic nervous system, I promise. It has an effect on the autonomic nervous system. Okay, but it's not the... The amygdala is going to be a place where, in terms of sexuality, it actually, it's an appraisal process. So it takes incoming stimuli from everywhere. So what you're seeing, what you're hearing, what you're smelling, all of your senses. Everything about it. And it appraises it and it evaluates it, uh, for sexual excitement. So this is, this is what I like talking about the amygdala so much because it does have such a big role in fear. So whenever we talk about people that have been through maybe sexual traumas and then they develop kinks later on in life and they're like. And they start shaming themselves because they're like, I don't know why I am now into this whenever I experienced something so traumatizing when the reality is, is that your brain is wired it and this is not a bad thing. Please keep in mind because now you're entering into a world where you're doing something consensually for your pleasure or your amygdala started is being those signals. Arousing as a sexual, it's saying like, it's like it being like, Hey, it's cool. It's cool. This is sexually stimulating passes onto the next guy. So we can let you know that this is arousing and we can start to initiate the processes around this, like lubricating of the vagina or erection of the penis or increased breathing and heart rate and all those things start to happen. I mean,
Kari:that's super interesting actually, because I, I love that you say it comes. With kind of like diminishing that shame that you have like someone like me for an example And if you've heard of other episodes you understand that I do have a passive sexual trauma But that's a huge turn on for me now And so I love that you say that because it did take me a while to and honestly through you helping me Is realizing that that is okay and that there is a reason why you're not like it's not some sick psychological thing in your head like no, there's a reason and it's completely okay and acceptable. Yeah.
Casey:And that's part of taking the power back, right? Empowering yourself to be like, look, something happened. We separate that out entirely. I have this thing that I'm into that's arousing to me. And if I explore it and I consensual way control of that. Yeah, it's now yours. You own that shit now and you're able to do
Kari:something big. Yeah, we actually had an episode on reclaiming your sexuality.
Casey:We did, didn't we? Yeah, go back and listen to the episode with Leona Cure. Yes. Uh, she talks about all about regaining sexuality post trauma. Uh, she did an amazing job on that episode and we definitely are going to want to have her back on to dive deeper into some of that stuff. Because as much as we love to talk about it, there are people that are more qualified to talk about some... Oh, for sure. to talk about some of these things. So that's one of the big ones, uh, big... Structures I want to talk about in the brain. I also want to talk about your hypothalamus that is really like the Almost the deepest part of the brain is where your hypothalamus is. It sits just below where, where part of your limbic or emotional system is, it is this really tiny little guy. I remember dissecting a brain and looking at it being like, that thing's fucking tiny and it's so important. It does so much. It's a tiny little thing. It's like, I mean, it helps to regulate everything in the body. It helps to keep the entire body in homeostasis or in that what your hormones go through? Well, it's, in part, it can. hormone release. Okay. So like you have your, your pituitary gland, which is all about stimulating to activate a lot of hormone release and your hypothalamus actually does the sends the signal. So those hormones can be released from various places. Okay. Some from the hypothalamus itself, some from various structures, like your adrenal glands on top of your kidneys, but your hypothalamus, it, it maintains homeostasis within the body. Cool thing about it is that it also regulates, uh, autonomic function. Okay. During arousal, so we can talk about that for a second. Uh, it, we've, we've mentioned before that your autonomic nervous system, this is your automatic, don't have to think about it, portion of your nervous system at all. Uh, the autonomic automatic, it's broken into a few different pieces. That namely being your sympathetics and your parasympathetics. Yeah. You've heard this before. Oh yeah. Everyone's heard sympathetic response. Everyone's heard stress and anxiety and all that. Your sympathetic is your fight or flight or what I was saying earlier. Yeah. Yeah. It's that big holy shit, a bear's coming after me. I better fucking run. So blood starts going to various places to help you engage in those running activities while your parasympathetic size, uh, side is known as your rest or digest state. That's like that calm down. That's what we engage whenever everybody's like, Hey, sit down and take a minute, take these big, deep breaths and blow it out. Do all that. You're engaging your parasympathetic system.
Kari:To say, Hey, we're okay
Casey:to say everything's cool. Like you're not, you're not being attacked and it's so crazy because this is all an evolutionary thing. So there's a very relatively speaking to human civilization, various civilization, just human existence as a whole. There's been a lot of evolution, but it's been a very short period of time. That we have not needed to prepare for things like running from bears or saber toothed tigers. So now we still have those responses, but they're in response to the environment around us of things like work stress, relationship stress, all these small little fucking things that just have an effect on us. So that. Actual autonomic system is what gets your heart. It's it's involuntary. So surprisingly enough that rest and digest is what gives an erection in the first place. I mean, that makes sense. So you have from the brain, you have all this stimuli coming in. You have the smells that you have, you have sites that you see. And you start to get excited. It goes through those processing centers, including structures like the amygdala and the hypothalamus. So are we
Kari:like aware of this as it's happening?
Casey:You can be. Okay. But the, the truth is, the, the major truth of it is a lot of it's no. So if you ever have times around the day, you're like, why am I
Kari:horny? Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Does this have to do with me being like at work? And all of a sudden I'm like, I'm fucking horny as shit.
Casey:And all of a sudden I'm sorry. super wet and I don't know why. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That's, there are so many, like what people need to understand is that there's so much, so many signals, so many stimuli coming into the, to the brain at any given moment that the brain tries to process as much as that as it can. Uh, and you don't even recognize whenever things are happening. So there might be. Uh, song playing in the background that you're not really hearing is there that do listen
Kari:to DevTones a lot at the salon and it
Casey:triggers an emotional response. Your emotional centers become activated and then your, your nervous system becomes more activated and in an arousal way. And then you're going, why the fuck am I horny? What's going on all of a sudden? And this happens all the time. You might be driving and pass by a fucking red car and you had Sex in the backseat of a red car in high school and you don't even realize that your brain is just gets triggered that you have these these memories that so now your hippocampus is becoming activated and so you're all of this stuff comes in all of it starts to be just processed and then you find yourself going why the fuck am I horny?
Kari:There's a lot of chemical stuff going on to our emotional feelings.
Casey:Yes. So what? That's what gets activated, right? Your reward center. So you're now your brain's going like, I'm going to, like, it feels this reward coming on in the same way when I go shopping. Yeah. And you get that like, that like dopamine kick. Yeah. I mean, two of the major hormones that two only just two out of the many that are activated, but some of the major ones in sexuality, uh, dopamine is activated. Serotonin is activated. Oxytocin is activated. Like a lot of these hormones that are heavily tied with pleasure, with reward, all that, whenever you become sexually aroused, all of that starts getting activated. So people are like, let's go feeling good. You're feeling
Kari:up, you're feeling alert. Yes.
Casey:And then what happens is those neural structures start to activate your nervous system as a whole. Which that nervous system, remember it goes to every cell tissue and organ within the body. So all of that stuff can
become
Kari:active. So what's the link between, like you said that that happens and it goes to your nervous system. What connects those two together? What
Casey:connects the brain and nervous system? Cause brain is part of the nervous system. It
Kari:is. Yes, technically actually. Yeah, you have told me that before, I guess what I
Casey:mean is like central nervous system, brain, brainstem, spinal cord.
Kari:So this is happening. The hormonal, uh, is happening. We
Casey:start getting this fucking storm of hormones coming through. Yeah,
Kari:and then it gets into our nervous system. Yeah. How does it get into the nervous system? Those are, those are signals. Okay, those are signals. Yes. Okay. So. Are hormones signals?
Casey:Hormones are chemicals. Chemicals. That activate. Okay.
Kari:So I guess I was thinking I was like, cause they were like, dude, they pass notes and be like, all right, nervous system. Here
Casey:you go. Without showing you a diagram. I'm going to take it one little step further and tell you that all of our, our neurons, all those cells that make up the brain and the spinal cord and all that, where they connect that hormones such as serotonin, dopamine, things like that go in between where they're connected, where they're connected and they bind together. So those signals can then become stronger and they just pass down to different cells and those cells then release chemicals with inside of them. Those are like, they're, they're messengers. Okay. They're like, Hey, I'm taking this. I'm going to go here and now I'm going to send these, I'm going to help the body send these signals across.
Kari:Okay. That's what I was saying. Thank you for entertaining my question.
Casey:And all the signals travel down, they activate. So whenever we're talking about like an erectile state, whether it's an erection of the clitoris or it's an erection of the penis, those, those signals come down. And they travel through various nerves I believe most notably the pudendal nerve to help activate this thing that happens. And so people often ask me, they'll be like, okay, well, how does an erection... occur. Cause they're like, yeah, there's blood flows to it. Yeah. But then you go, well, what do you mean blood flows to it? It just blood goes go here. So what's actually happening is that you have this massive release of nitric oxide from those hormones. It comes through nitric oxide is released and penis, and then it causes more nitric oxide to be released from the cells. with in the penis itself. And that's what maintains the erection. So it's like this just continuous release of nitric oxide. So it just pulls blood and it causes what's called vasocongestion. So we've heard that we've heard of vasodilation where something dilates or gets bigger. We heard of vasoconstriction where it gets smaller. There's also vasocongestion, which is like this, this buildup in that area. So it happens to the clitoris and that's where it can grow up to what? 300%. Yeah. Three times as normal size. Uh, and it happens in the penis.
Kari:So then where does erectile dysfunction come from?
Casey:Ooh. So this is a fun topic for me because I think that there's a lot of bullshit out there. Okay. Not necessarily a hundred percent bullshit, but a lot of people trying to cling onto something outside of themselves. You know that I'm like as a holistic point of view, I think that the body has everything it needs. Yes. Uh, I think that. threshold you can hit where we do need outside intervention, but the vast majority of things can be completed by looking inward. I strongly believe that erectile dysfunction begins again in the brain. It begins with what are you, what is your mental state? What is your stressor state? What are you doing dietarily that's affecting you? That is causing decreases in certain sort of chemicals in the body. And then how are, how do those chemicals then further affect things like, what's the big one that we always hear about? testosterone, right? Oh man, you're having, you're having issues. It's because you have low T. Let's do a test and then we're going to compare it to this number that we have derived from various research. Oh, it's low. That's your problem. Whenever the reality is that testosterone, that low testosterone could be being affected by something else going on in your life. I mean,
Kari:it does sound like there's a lot of signals that have to go through
Casey:in order to get The body is so fucking complex and there is so much going on all at one time that it is, if you I remember seeing a chart in, uh, in grad school. They were like, hey, here's a layout of all the interconnected Chemical processes going on in the body at once. And I was like this, I couldn't hope ever to know this whole thing. This would need to be referenced over years to figure out like how this cycle over here affects this cycle over here and how this thing affects that thing. And I don't know why
Kari:I'm getting this like flash of like the very first computer that was ever shown. And it was like. Massive. And it took, like, I just feel like if we were to like spread the human body up on a wall and show all the things happening, all at once, yeah, everything connected, everything happening all at once, all in unison, like the human body is insanely fascinating. And I think a point that you bring up that not enough people really try to like hone in and listen to is what you said earlier is we are designed with what our body needs specifically. Absolutely. What my body's needs are are not going to be the same for my best friend, correct? We have two different bodies. Yeah, and I I think that is really interesting to hear and Understand that it's not like this like blanket one size fits all when it comes to what our internal needs are and I think it's important to fucking hear that. Yes,
Casey:honestly, that's another reason why it's so important to go through and look inward so often because you are figuring out what your body needs. Now, do we have averages and things that we can look at as reference to be like, okay, this is in quote. Normal versus abnormal and from a like a medical standpoint. Sure. We can also take a holistic approach to it and say like, let's figure out what I need in this, in this time being, see what your normal is. Yeah. But then figure it out for yourself, because if you're looking at your friend and you're doing a comparison of yourself to the person next to you, I'm like, why am I not like them maybe back off from doing a comparative thing and figure out your, your own for the time being. So trying to, I'm a very scattered person. Whenever it comes to. Uh, how things work because I just start following these various rabbit holes and go on tangents and all that kind of stuff. So we're sitting back and we're talking about just the excitement phase right now. And that is again, all of the stimuli that comes in. It's as your, your brainstem also becomes activated. So your vagus nerve or the epicenter of the vagus nerve, which is the largest nerve in the body, 13 branches going to every major organ that becomes activated as well. So now we're getting things like increased blood pressure. We're getting increased heart rate and an increased breathing rate, all sorts of stuff happens. And that helps to kind of facilitate the arousal process as well. So after we do that, we're, we're now excited, right? And we're going, Oh, this is kind of great. So then you reach this, uh, this plateau phase, right? And your plateau phase is going to be kind of, that's whenever, if you are, if you are having sex, that is whenever you're actually engaging in in sexual activity. That's whenever we have further things going on, like a further increase in heart rate, more blood flow, uh, more stimulation of nervous structures that's bringing you up as you start to approach climax. And orgasm. So let's talk for a second because we're a sex podcast about once we go through that phase one, that excitement phase, and we're as a couple, we're going to just go into you and I, that excitement phase is us becoming more flirty, that excitement phase is maybe you did your hair in a certain way that I'm looking at and going, Ooh, that's, that's arousing or glasses on, maybe you put glasses on, maybe you're wearing something that is just super attractive, a number of things, maybe a song that we love comes on and now we're starting to get aroused. And that is why we preached to so many people to don't just walk in a room, be like, but start to figure out how you can engage your partner's arousal centers and increase that excitement phase. What is it? What are some things that you can do by putting it
Kari:on throughout the day? That phase, man, it's a good phase to be in.
Casey:That's great. You know, I'm getting all sorts of happy chemicals hitting, slapping me right across the face. And then we have that, that plateau phase is whenever we're actually engaging in this sexual activity and we're we're going through and doing all these things and experiencing pleasure. We're building and we're building and we're building. So what are some of your favorite things that would fall into that phase? Like
Kari:as in things that, no, I mean, honestly, you named a good amount of them. Your daddy hoochie shorts, like, so
Casey:that's exciting phase and we want to go,
Kari:Oh, we're going to play now. Oh, actually engaging. So I'll be probably like aggressive touch is, is a, is a big thing for me. Let's do some choking Not necessarily choking. Impact play. I do love impact play. But just like the assertive, like grab, like come here. Yeah. A little, some dominance. Yes. That consensual dominance. Yes. That, that is definitely a huge turn on for me. What about you? I wanna hear some of yours.
Casey:I, well, I was just giving advice to people here, man. Oh, that's fair. That's totally fair. No, well, I mean, once we start getting super flirty, it does become, I mean, you know me, I always enjoy some dominance play like that's, that's going to be a big one. And that's, that's when you're also, you're
Kari:like like words that are used or phrases that are used.
Casey:Yes. I, I personally, I like to engage as many of my senses as possible. So hearing things like dirty talk is. Always a great one. If you're not brushed up on your dirty talk, you can check out some of our stuff that we've put out there where we can help you out, or you can check out plenty of resources online that can ramp up your dirty talk and then practice the words that you're going to say. Like hear yourself say them so you can become more comfortable. Definitely, that's such good advice. So, whenever you go to your partner and you start dirty talking, you're not doing it in like an uncomfortable way. Yeah, and you don't go silly. You like that, bitch? Dirty, poor, you suck, you're
Kari:a cock. You're with my tongue.
Casey:Practice it out, get it to where it's sounding good. So whatever you do introduce in the bedroom, you can help move along with that. So phase right there. What else do we got here? So I don't know, Dr. Casey during, during that phase as well, we want to talk about ways that we can engage some of this anatomy that we've been discussing. So let's take a break for a second to go over some of the anatomy of both the penis and the vagina. So. We'll start off outside of the vagina. We all know at this point it's the vulva, right? And that's going to become swollen. It's going to become a little engorged. It's going to be flushed. It's going to start to
Kari:change appearance,
Casey:so yeah, it opens up a little bit. So you have that, you have the labia majora and the labia minora, your lips, right? And specifically like the, the majora will get a little bit more swollen and a little bit more puffy. The minora will start to separate more. And then we have those secretions that start to come along with a lot of this arousal. And that's going through hormonal action as well. So you have those, like the Bartholins glands on either side of, uh, of the, of the vagina that starts to create in and you start to get lubricated. And so you're starting to hit that. And so as, as we get more stimulation there, whether it be through. Touch or whether it be through any other sensory stuff that you can do, stimulating it is important. You want to try to keep up the blood flow going there. So self touch or your partner touching you or the use of toys and vibrators, or even like if you are into impact play that goes straight for the genitals and you like are sitting there. Flicking it or slapping it or doing anything that you can to help just increase, keep up that increase in blood flow. Keep up that, that swollen clitoris and just doing anything you can to stimulate more towards orgasm. And
Kari:that's not even necessarily meaning like foreplay, but that's almost like the foreplay of foreplay.
Casey:I would consider
Kari:that foreplay. I mean, I would, but I'm just thinking like the, the arousal stages of Also, I mean intercourse, I guess is not just the like, I guess when I think of foreplay I think of like more like straight genital like contact but Yeah, yes But what this is what we're kind of talking about is like before that even happens like what happens to your body Before the foreplay even like begins and it is like you're saying like the walls opening up becoming more lubricated Like before you that that's like That's happens, you know, earlier on
Casey:and without ever being
Kari:touched. That's I think that's the point I'm trying to make, like what can happen now doesn't even mean something sexual or that's what's happening in the moment that just happens to your body when you're aroused and then you can go into foreplay and then intercourse or whatever, you know, it can happen. But so would you also say that, like, what if you are an individual that really like struggles with having that like physical response, because we talk about as males. They struggle and that could be
Casey:erectile dysfunction. We talk about delayed ejaculation. We talk about all sorts of stuff that goes on in the body that can prevent you from achieving pleasure.
Kari:So then what would you say is the same to women or do we not necessarily have that? Cause I don't really hear women going in like, I'm having arousal issues or I'm having You don't hear that?
Casey:That's a, yeah, that, that, that happens a
Kari:lot. So is it the same part of the brain though for a woman as a male that would end up causing them to not go into that pre turned on stage where you're starting to get wet? And when
Casey:there's, there's a lot, so you're, you're asking a very big question, which encompasses both a mental as well as a physical and or. A physical aspect, that mental aspect can be a block that prevents, uh, the arousal phase from occurring in a woman. So you're not going to be getting like an engorged clitoris. You're not going to be getting a lot of blood flow. You're not going to be getting lubricated and people will start to wonder like, well, What's wrong with me. I must have malfunctioning hardware whenever it might just be something that's holding you back mentally, which can be a cultural thing. It might be from shame. It might be from your own self judgment. It might be from comparison. It might be worry. It can be anxiety. The number of things can put a big blocker on your pleasure. So starting to, again, like we talked about, you know, we've talked about shadow work in the past being such a productive way to look at this is that if you start to go through a lot of that, you can remove some of those mental barriers. And help you get slowly. More closer to being able to be properly aroused and be able to achieve orgasm because I mean, and seriously, an orgasmia or like inability to orgasm and women is a lot more common than, than people really think. Yeah. Uh, but in so many cases it can be linked back to a mental aspect of, you know, experience that they had growing up, things that are, might be triggering for them ways that they might think that they're different because I mean, if you've seen a vagina. Or if you've seen a vulva and you see it through, you know, a movie or you see it through pornography, you see it on Google images and you look at it and go, that's not what mine looks like. What's wrong with mine? Right? That can happen a lot. And they go, why doesn't mine look exactly like this? Well, if you're looking at pornography, the likelihood is they probably underwent like a labiaplasty and tried to make themselves look in a certain
Kari:way. Or they only hire ones that do look a certain way, but that's just
Casey:that. Yeah. So again, that, but that goes back to this mental aspect of being like thinking that there's an issue with you whenever the only issue that's happening is you're putting on yourself and so unlocking some of those boxes and like removing some of those skeletons out of the closet, removing some shame from your life can really help you build. Towards achieving orgasm, I
Kari:guess with more of my question too. And yes, you answered that and I have a lot more clarity But it does seem like sometimes in the world not in this conversation That if men can't get it up, it's a chemical imbalance there's something wrong like there's a disconnect, but if a girl can't then It's mental or something like misdemeanor.
Casey:And so, and that's longstanding outside of sex as well, right? Yeah. That's this huge fucking misconception that people have. That's like, and God, this you wanna talk about, this goes all this, this is, we can go conspiracy theories and shit, We can talk, that'll be another episode. We can talk about patriarchy, we can talk about toxic masculinity and we can talk about things because you are, people are taught that all the fucking time from whenever they're kids. There's nothing wrong with men. Men are manly. Men and men. If there's the only thing wrong with him, it must be, it must be a chemical thing. That's the only explanation. It couldn't be anything mental. It couldn't be that at all. Don't talk about your feelings. And women that always is typically has reverted back to being like, Oh no, there's something, there's something mental. That's what it is. And that can date back to I mean, as long as we've existed, but, uh, in pop culture and in terms of like the medical community with them going back to hysteria and being diagnosed with hysteria and then being, uh, being provided with a manual vaginal stimulation to achieve orgasm as a way to treat hysteria, which was a whole. Big fucking mess within itself.
Kari:So can I claim hysteria when I want you to touch me?
Casey:I'm feeling hysteria. You have no idea the
Kari:hysteria I feel.
Casey:So yeah, I like that you bring that up because that is something that we see and it's a huge myth. And it's a big misconception that if there's something wrong with the guy that it must be a chemical imbalance It needs to be fixed through some sort of drug or something and but if it's a woman then it must be mental Yeah, and it can be anything for it can be physical and or mental for yeah And I think
Kari:that's the entire gender spec that it doesn't matter what gender you are there can be a mental reason or there could be a Physical chemical reason, but there's just sit there and like blanket it out into like male, female, vulva, penis owners. Like it's just not really like that. Yeah.
Casey:My biggest suggestion for anyone that is uh, experiencing difficulties in the bedroom is to get a 30 and write day. What?
Kari:Journal? Journal. Journal. There's a general and I was like a 30 general journal What the fuck is that?
Casey:I know. A 30 day journal for yourself. Okay. Blank. And just literally write out your day as it's occurring. So if you're somebody that's like, all right, you woke up at this time ate this, went to work at this time, did this start to look, once you get to the, about day 15 or so for patterns and your, and your behavior. And if you do engage in sex on a day, make sure you mark that. If you're aroused during the day,
Kari:throughout the day market, and maybe even mark, if you can like consciously know why you are
Casey:absolutely. And then whenever you. Take, take a look retrospectively at those days, you can start to make patterns and a lot of people start to realize, Oh not only did I eat really shitty on this day. I was also drinking alcohol on this day. Uh, and then I noticed that I had sexual dysfunction either that night or maybe a day or two leading after that. Yeah. So we'll, you'll start to get this nice picture of sexual health is a representation of your overall health as well. So if you're taking care of yourself and you're, you know, yeah. limiting your alcohol or drug intake, and you're limiting your shitty food intake, you'll see a big bounce in how you're doing sexually. No, I think that's a
Kari:good idea, especially if you're like trying to figure out the why. 30 day journal, like you said, make notes of it along the way.
Casey:Ready to move on? We can always move on. Let's move on. Because we're going to orgasm now. Yeah, I was about
Kari:to say, I want to move on to the next one.
Casey:What's your biggest question about orgasm, Carrie?
Kari:I think in all, in all of this, my biggest question, but I think the best way for me to ask it is actually through orgasm. How do you go from an a mental emotion to a physical output? Like you have an emotions, these emotions create your aroused, but also the, the, uh, hormones like the serotonin, the, all of that. I'm curious how the emotion of what I like, what I'm feeling, and then how that translates into what an orgasm feel to an emotion. Like I feel that orgasm because my whole body feels it, but it's so mental. That is my biggest question.
Casey:Is how do we What's the connection between the mental and physical? Yes. Okay. Yes. Largely, that's a chemical reaction. It's just
Kari:so interesting because I like something because my personality likes it, but that gets my vagina, like,
Casey:wet. Your emotional centers read those and cause these releases of neurochemicals, which... Elicit actions of other centers, which elicit the release of certain hormones, which then have an effect on your nervous system, which then cause this arousal state in which you have this increased blood flow and nervous activity. So then we begin to stimulate those areas. The most sensitive areas being our genitals. Oftentimes. Also, you can add in other areas that are erogenous zones, such as like nipples or even like skin on the neck. Everybody's different, right? But as those start to build up and as you continue to stimulate those nerves, uh, You begin to... Get closer to what we call threshold. And so it's more stimulation, more stimulation, more chemical release, and more chemical release. And it builds up. That's
Kari:basically what the body's doing, right? It's like, we have stimulation, chemical release to that area. Go, go, go
Casey:all systems. Go it's stimulation. And remember all those signals. Happening all of them are traveling to the brain. This isn't like stimulating the penis. So it just stays in the penis No, you're stimulating nerves, which then travel all the way up and into the brain and then the brain interprets those signals as pleasurable Where do feel
Kari:good centers go to in the brain? Where are they directed to? There's
Casey:there's a lot of structures within the brain that can
Kari:That receives those like signals
Casey:Yes. So those, those sensory, those, those you have efferents, right? You're going to get me. I'm so sorry. You're going to get me a little bit more in depth. We probably should. Efferents are signals that come into the brain and efferents are signals that go out of the brain. Okay. So you're getting this, this afferent sensory coming in and it might be from a part of the body that goes to, uh, the cortex of the brain, that big outer layer or those two hemispheric, our outer layers that we have, which then send signals to the inner portion of the brain, which are going to interpret them and release appropriate chemicals to do whatever the body needs to do. As you become stimulated sexually and we're doing things like it might be penetrative sex or it might be oral or fingering and you're getting stimulation because remember during that time. You are also getting stimulation through sight. If you're somebody that loves to have sex to the lights on, if you have sex to the lights off, we would encourage you to have sex to the lights off, but you're getting those stimuli coming in through the eyes. You're getting audio noises like through the, through the ears, especially if, if you're like receiving oral and there's a lot of like slurping noises and stuff like that that could be very stimulating. So now those are getting further release. It's like your whole goddamn body. It is. Which is why we're so big on saying, whenever sex, whenever you're engaging in sexual activity, engage the entire body in any way that you can find zones that feel good, find things that feel good, look good, smell good, like
Kari:your five senses. Every single time we have an entire episode on the five senses in a bedroom.
Casey:Exactly. Yeah. But so to kind of return to your question about how do we link that mental and physical and what actually occurs during orgasm, right? So we're, it's continued stimulation of those nerves, continued blood flow. So, continue until we hit this threshold. Once we hit this threshold of orgasm, there's a really unique thing that happens in the body and it's a complete involuntary contraction of your pelvic floor muscles. So, we've, everybody knows pelvic floor at this point. We talked about Kegels, which women do them. I encourage guys to do them too because it can help with prolonging your erection as well as helping with things like delayed or even premature ejaculation. So work on your pelvic floor, but you start to get these involuntary spasms. And the whole purpose of that, like in the male is to propel semen through the urethra and out it's against to help to move things along. And women, you also get that pelvic floor contraction. And so we're getting all of these contraction of the muscles, which is further stimulating the nerves. And so you're getting further signals in the brain and you get this massive release of reward chemicals, massive release of pleasure chemicals that just caused the entire body to become. Lit up. Yeah. Uh, the coolest thing about all of that is the difference in experience of orgasm between men and women Men typically they'll describe their orgasm. They'll talk about it and it's almost always limited to Like genitalia, I mean you'll get like some feels throughout the body, but they're always like wow, you know Oh my god, it feels so good. Like my penis feels so good and I feel like great inside my mind For a woman, whenever they talk about it, it's always like my whole body is electric and whole body orgasms are, are fairly common in women. And so they talk about like how amazing their entire body feels. And so they go through that. And then after a woman has an orgasm. She is able to, because of the continued blood flow and continued release of things like nitric oxide and continue, uh, ability for these muscles to spasm is that, uh, you'll be able to achieve multiple orgasms. You don't have to have a resting period or anything like that. There's no latency. There's, it's just like, wow, I had an orgasm. And then you can almost immediately just keep going again and have subsequent orgasms. If you're practiced on it again, the biggest, big reasons to do things like. Kegel exercises to do things like preparing yourself mentally and physically for sex is to achieve more pleasure and have more orgasms Yeah
Kari:side note for anyone engaging in a vulva if you make them come first time through penetration Give the penetration zone some time and then move to the clit, you know Just a little side a little bit just a little side note Because case you make me have multiple orgasms all the time and that's one of the things that you do is you don't like You don't make me come clitoral and then try to make me come again clitoral and just keep hitting the click. No, you've got to move to another zone. We got a few areas down there. Not
Casey:unless the moment calls for it and that's where uh, active listening comes into play and reading
Kari:body language. Well, and that's where you would do that and I'm like, no, no, hold on here. That's my communication in the bedroom.
Casey:And there's times when everyone's like, okay. I can actually keep going with this and we can test it out a little bit more. So then we shift over to, to penis owners and we talk about whatever orgasm occurs there. You typically have to have a refractory period after that. So that is the, that final phase that we're talking about. That is the resolution phase. Once orgasm occurs and that's where the refractory period comes into play. And for guys, it very, like it is super high fucking variable. There can be some guys that have a refractory period of seconds. Others can have refractory periods of minutes. And then others can have hours or even days depending on so many factors and age is included in that. Typically there is a, uh, like a linear progression that we can see that as this, as a male gets older, it does, the refractory period tends to become, uh, more spaced. Mm hmm.
Kari:I mean, you've had multiple
Casey:orgasms before. Yes, that's because I practice a lot of stuff. What do you do to practice that? So my biggest three things... That you can do to help reduce your refractory period in a male is going to be number one edging. So if you don't know what edging is, that's whenever you build either yourself or your partner builds you right to the edge of orgasm and then stops. And just lets everything kind of calm down. It's my favorite thing to do. And then it's so much fun. It is like, it's, you want to talk about a good way of doing games?
Kari:Like, Oh, are you close to coming? But
Casey:you do that. You built, you build them up and then you back off and then build them up and back off and do that. Uh, three, four, five, however many times you want to do it, you want to make it last all day. Go fucking go for it. But you can do that and that can help build up, uh, your, your stamina that can help build you towards being able to achieve a S a small refractory period as well. Number two for me is going to be. Whenever you are going to orgasm, stay off the glands. So the glands, the head of the penis, right? Yeah, that is going to be, it's, that would be like rubbing the head of the client, like right on it. Yeah. So if you're going, if you want to be like, man, I want to have enough energy and I want to have a reduced refractory period so I can get to around two and three then make sure that. You're staying off the head of the penis as you orgasm. Stay on the shaft. You can go up below it. You can go right up near to it, or you can massage the balls while you're doing this too. But stay off the glands. That's my personal preference. You know how
Kari:confusing it was for me the other day to give you head and then you like came and then you're like, No, keep going. No, keep going. And I'm like, you came and you're like, yeah, I can do it again. I'm like, the fuck?
Casey:That was one. Let's
Kari:keep going. Warn someone. It's like. I was ready to pack up. I was ready to go. Oh, oh, you're still going. Okay. My bad.
Casey:So that's like now confused. Cause I'm going, wait, what was my number three? Uh, sorry. My number three is going to be pelvic floor exercises. Uh, again, remember what part of that, that refractory period is, is because you're having such intense involuntary spasms of these. Uh, muscles of the pelvic floor and the small involuntary what's called smooth muscle those have to relax. They become fatigued and so they need a little bit of time. So if you strengthen them through exercises and ways that you can, uh, I often get asked like, well, how does a
Kari:male, how does a male, cause I know how to Kegel, it's
Casey:easy. How does a male do Kegel? It's the same concept.
Kari:You're just trying to squish your balls up, you know, like trying to like squeeze your balls closer to your
Casey:body. Anyway. The way that we like to talk about it, the way that we like to instruct on it is to be like, if you were to, I don't recommend doing this, but if you were to try to stop yourself peeing midstream. But don't do that because it hurts but if you're trying to stop yourself, you, you know, without feeling like, okay, I could do this or I could hold it in, then you sit. That's what you do. You do that. You can also like kind of clench your anus in with it, with it too, and kind of pull everything together and you can hold tight for like two, three seconds. Although it's like five and then squeeze really
Kari:tight and then let loose. Squeeze really tight.
Casey:You can pull all that together and hold it and relax it. You can do this when you're fucking sitting at your office desk. Or you're... I'm giggling right now. We're both sitting here just giggling all day long.
Kari:Can you see it in my face?
Casey:So, but that, those are like probably my top three things if you're trying to build towards, uh, on a physical. Level you can also talk about on a mental level and this is where we, where we get, what's that a mental orgasm? So, no, I have not had a mental orgasm at
Kari:all. Guys, real quick We have a fucking cat in here and he is playing with all of our toys and he won't stop
Casey:Sorry for the distraction.
Kari:I have like a collar over here like my size collar and he's like smacking at
Casey:it. Mental wise Mental wise You can always start practicing things like meditation, deep breathing exercises, all the way into like tantra. There's a lot you can do to help prepare your mind to achieve multiple orgasms. Uh, but I mean, those are the, those are the four phases. So
Kari:let's go back through the four phases just to like recap. Yeah. We have the... Excitatory phase. Excitatory.
Casey:Yeah, excitatory phase. That's that initial stages of arousal where you're being, uh, all this bombarding stimuli, whether that be Engage from any of the senses or even from just memories. You can do this without engaging anything at all and just think about a memory and you become aroused because those emotional centers then talk to the other areas and they start to release these pleasure chemicals. Up after that would be the plateau phase. That plateau phase is like that next where we start to continue through and now if you're with a partner, it's likely resulting in actual sexual activity. So the plateau
Kari:phase could be like where the girl starts to get wet.
Casey:No, that's the, that would be, that would be in the excitement phase. Okay. Occurs during the site. Plateau phase is everything. from where you're about to reach orgasm. So you're excited, you're aroused, everything in between that arousal phase and then orgasm, that is that plateau phase. That's in the plateau. Yeah, so now, I mean, you might see that as now we're actually engaging in sex.
Kari:Okay, so excitement is when you start to get wet. Plateau is now... So don't
Casey:oversimplify it now. Okay. No, because you're gonna start having people, Oh, I'm not wet, what's wrong with my excitement? No, it's not just getting wet. It encompasses all of arousal. Yes, okay. Excitement phase is all about arousal. Okay. So can you get wet during the arousal phase? Absolutely. Mm-hmm. yes. But it's, it's all of that arousal time and the plateau is everything. Lead everything between that and leading up to orgasm. In the orgasm phase where an actual orgasm occurs, where we have all that, the muscle contractions. Mm-hmm. and a heavily increased heart rate and breathing rate. Did we
Kari:talk about what's all like released when you have an orgasm? Like what chemicals are released?
Casey:You have, uh, I mean, oxytocin is released. Serotonin is is released, dopamine is released. Uh, all
Kari:of them just dish everything out. There's,
Casey:there's a vast number of chemicals or at least those are probably some of the biggest ones that we get. So massive pleasure reward. And again, the oxytocin has a lot to do with smooth muscle contraction as well. So a lot of chemicals get released and you just feel a massive amount of pleasure. And that's one of the reasons why, because it's a big dump. So, and then you have that last one. Resolution. Yeah, resolution phase. And that's once the orgasm is achieved and everything starts to return to homeostasis, your breathing slows down, your heart rate slows down, your blood pressure decreases the blood that was engorging your genitals and all that nitric oxide that was released starts to return to normal and you're able to have a little bit of rest before you start to build. And then a sleepy
Kari:hormone is released.
Casey:And all of a sudden we're tired. But yeah, there's, I mean, that's. To me as a basic breakdown of what happens for the, uh, anatomical.
Kari:I mean, even being the most basic form of a breakdown, it still took us an hour to talk about it. Like it's complex. It really is. Yeah, it is. There's a lot that goes into it. I mean, you, like I said, you've been like diving into this topic aggressively recently, not just for this, but for your own, you know, reasons with doing your Uh, sexual health alliance and all the stuff that you're doing to become a sex educator and so I, I'm glad that we're doing this. I think that we have a lot more to come as far as like, this season goes again, the season's really based upon education. Keyword
Casey:is education for this. Yes.
Kari:So yeah, today I think we hope you enjoyed it a lot. Yeah. It's the same. And also I hope you enjoyed listening to that. I don't feel like there's always as much of a breakdown unless you're like sitting in a sexual class and not all of us are sitting in and just like learning this type of information. We're not
Casey:sitting back talking about like. Pre and post ganglionic.
Kari:And, and if we did, that shit was back in like health class in like high school, you know? No, it wasn't.
Casey:No, actually it probably wasn't. That's fair. You're learning that, you're learning
Kari:that in college. I mean, I took sex ed, but no, yeah, I guess that was more. You took human sexuality. Yeah, I did. In college. Yeah. That's,
Casey:that's true. So, you know, you learn some stuff there, but a lot of that, but
Kari:even then, yeah, that was like 16,
Casey:17. That wasn't, that's what happens. These classes are designed whenever you're 16. That's right. You did college. I was about to say,
Kari:I went to college early before people were like, she wasn't foot. I wasn't 16. I was 17. But. Yes. I was in college
Casey:early, but that's how those classes are designed is here's your introduction where we're going to have to give you a basic umbrella overview of all this stuff. And then as you go further in your years, you get more specific on what you're discussing. So that stuff that I'm talking about, there is just
Kari:be a sex educator to Casey. Get your ass, yeah, no, like a, like a professor.
Casey:Oh, I'll be one of those
Kari:guys. When you're like, but you gotta be like much older. Like you need to do this when you're like 70 and then you're like, I'm going to be a professor now.
Casey:Oh, I'm just going to change careers at that point. Why not?
Kari:Why not? I'm a chiropractor, sex coach, therapist, professor. Do it all. And I do hair.
Casey:All right. Well, for another episode of come with Casey, if you have any questions. Uh, about any of this stuff, or you want a deeper dive into it, reach out to us, come with Casey at gmail. com for now. Instagram, uh, CW Casey official is our current handle that we're working with as we rebuild our page. So reach out to us, DM us, shoot us an email, get in touch with us any way you can. If you have questions and as always, I'm Dr. Casey Sanders and I'm Carrie
Kari:Sanders. Bye.