Episode 64: Feed Your Erotic Imagination (sponsored by Dipsea)
How do feed your erotic imagination, especially when we’re living in such unsensual times? In this one, Ev’Yan’s in the studio solo to give some tips and tell some stories about how to nourish the sexual part of your sensuality. Ev’Yan talks about visual porn (and why they stopped watching it), their quest to "up their sexual context", and how she’s using audio erotica to help remind herself that she is a sexual being—even when these wild times have her forgetting that fact.
Thank you to Dipsea Stories for sponsoring this episode!
The full transcript of this episode is below.
LINKS/MENTIONS:
Come As You Are - Emily Nagoski
Delta of Venus - Anais Nin
My Secret Garden - Nancy Friday
The Erotic Edge - Lonnie Barbach
Big thanks to Dipsea for sponsoring this episode and getting this conversation started. Feed your erotic imagination and connect to your sexual self with the help of Dipsea’s sensual, immersive stories. To give them a try (and also support the show) go to dipseastories.com/evyan.
Transcription:
This episode of Sensual Self is sponsored by Dipsea, an app designed to turn you on with sensual and immersive audio stories. For a free 30-day trial, go to dipseastories.com/evyan — or click the link in the shownotes to get started.
And if you want to hear about my personal experience with audio erotica, keep listening.
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Hey, welcome to Sensual Self. I'm Ev'Yan Whitney and this is a space for you to slow down, tune in, heal and feel the sensations and pleasures of your sensual body. Thank you for being here.
I’m happy to be here with you all again for another episode of Sensual Self. Before we get into the meat of the show today, I want to do a little check-in with you. Wherever you are, take a deep breath in and let it out slowly, seeing if you can make the exhale longer than your inhale.
OK—how are you doing, love? How’s your heart feeling in this moment? How’s your body feeling? A lot has been going on in the world, a lot of really terrible, panic-inducing things, and I wanted to prompt you with a moment to check in with yourself because, I don’t know about you but when things get like this, it’s very very hard to feel into our sensual selves. I mean, how could it not be? We’re living in some very unsensual times right now.
And the truth is that unsensuality isn’t the only thing that is right now. Like, it’s fixing to be spring over here and everywhere I turn I can smell the sweetness of pink and white flowers blooming all around me. In this moment, even as I’m recording this, I can hear birds singing these really chipper and melodic songs that are delighting my ears and bringing calm to my body.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that as the royal fuckery of the world rages on, it can be very easy to focus only on that royal fuckery, creating the illusion that that is all there is. And I get it, that royal fuckery is real. But it’s a both/and, you know? Things are both hard and scary, and also there is safety here and gentle invitations to connect to pleasure right now. We just have to bring our awareness to it.
This is something that I’ve been trying to do over the last few weeks, bringing awareness to the sensual potential around me amidst the fear and stress and anxiety, and my god, it’s so hard to do. That’s actually what’s inspiring me to come on and speak with you today. I want to talk about how to do this when we’re moving through unsensual, unsexy times, and I also want to share with you something I’ve been using to help me put my sexual self back on the map — because my sexual desire has been … MIA.
And listen, sometimes it’s like that, you know? Knowing that I’m asexual means that I am better able to give myself grace to be where I am sexually without shame or guilt for it. But I’ve actually been wanting to connect to my sexual self lately, I’ve been missing that part of me and really want to keep that connection alive in ways that are accessible and aren’t forcing. So, today I’ll be chatting about that a bit and some other fun things.
OK, so how do you nourish your sensuality during unsensual times? How do you put your sexual self on the map when things feel the absolute opposite of sexy? I’ve been thinking about this a lot and rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ve been trying to look back at the things I’ve done in the past that have helped me reconnect with myself.
And you know, there are the usual things that never fail—taking a bath and making it an entire experience with candles, bath oil, music, and a little bit of weed; leaving my phone at home while I go for a long walk in my neighborhood, feeling my feet on the ground, pausing to smell flowers, taking time to drink in all the beauty around me with my senses; turning on some music and dancing out all of the emotions that feel trapped in my body; giving myself a gentle massage on my arms and shoulders to loosen the tension and also remind me of my own softness.
All of those things are good for nourishing my sensuality. They help me come back to my body and remind me that I exist beyond my anxieties or insecurities. They connect me to the present moment and remind me that the potential for pleasure is always available to me, even when I think it’s not. I mean, there are so many other ways that help me come back to my sensual self.
But what about our sexual selves? How do you reconnect with and re-member that part of you in ways that don’t feel forced? I was talking to a client of mine a while back who is also on the Ace spectrum and she was mentioning this thing that she experiences that I also experience as an Ace person—how, because we’re Ace, and particularly, because we’re Ace folks who engage in sexual intimacy, it’s very very easy for sex to fall by the wayside for us. Like, sex is not something that we think about, it’s not something that naturally comes up as an option or a desire for us to engage in.
I can’t speak for her, but I know that for me, sex is never at the top of my mind or my priority list on any given day. And it’s not that I don’t want it to be. I mean, sometimes I’m just not in the mood or the space to even think about sexy things (like I have been lately) and I always try to honor that. But then there are times when I want to want to have sex because I enjoy it or I miss sexual intimacy with my partner or I just want to have an orgasm so I can get rid of a headache. It’s just hard to get it on my radar because the general context of my day (or my emotional state or my mental health) is not remotely sexual.
One of the biggest challenges for me—and maybe you feel this too—is getting sex on my radar, and something that I’ve played with over the years is this concept called upping my sexual context, the idea that in order for sex to be put on my radar and because of the way my brain and body works with sex, like, I don’t randomly horny, I need to create environments that inspire or ignite my sexuality. This is not about increasing my libido or trying to make myself want something that I don’t want. It’s about noticing that I want to want to, and then intentionally inspiring my sexual self with sexy things to help put sex on the map for me. Does that make sense?
I feel like I heard of this concept of upping your sexual concept from Emily Nagoski in her book Come As You Are, but when I cracked open my copy I couldn’t find the chapter that referenced it. It might’ve not come from her, but if it did I want to name that here as I keep trying to find where I got this from. I’ll also note that I originally started thinking about this concept as a way to “fix” my low libido, but that’s not the intention with which I’m using it now. Again, it’s about putting sex on my map to help me find it easier because I actually want to find it.
OK, so—upping my sexual context. The first thing I tried to do this with was with porn. An idea I had back when I was first thinking about this was to watch porn once a day as a way to up my sexual context; sort of like a porn diet to keep my sexual appetite whetted. But that didn’t work, for many reasons, but I’ll list the two main ones here:
1. Because I don’t really watch porn anymore and,
2. Porn was often too big of a leap for my brain and desire to make most days.
In the years since I’ve been using a porn as a tool in my sex life, I’ve found that I don’t actually like watching porn so I’ve pretty much stopped altogether. Not because I’m anti, like I said, I think porn can be a great tool to feed your erotic imagination. But the one thing I've never really liked about it personally is that it’s too stimulating. Like, it gets me "there" too quickly. And as I’ve been doing a lot more work with somatics and body awareness, I’ve noticed that porn takes me out of my body. So porn, as a sexual context upper, isn’t my jam.
But you know what is my jam? Erotica. Erotica doesn't fire up my brain and body the way visual porn does. It’s a slow burn. It gives me space and time to feel + find my sexual rhythm with my own imagination, on my own terms. And reading it (or listening as I've been doing with the help of Dipsea) forces me to slow down and savor the feeling of arousal in my body in a space that I’ve always felt pressured to move quickly in.
Maybe you noticed that I mentioned “Dipsea” who is also the sponsor of this episode. If you’ve never heard of them, I’m really excited to tell you about them. They are an app that makes immersive, sensual stories that turn you on and, at least for me, are helping to put my sexual self at the forefront of my mind. I’ve been using Dipsea by myself and with my partner Jonathan for the last three months, and the experience has been really really interesting. Like, a good interesting and also a little surprising.
Written erotica was what helped spur my sexual liberation journey. In 2011, I discovered the diaries and erotic stories of Anaïs Nin which helped me to see what was possible in terms of pleasure and agency within my own sexuality. From Delta of Venus was a big favorite of mine and then I moved into other erotica author like Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden, Lonnie Barbach’s The Erotic Edge, and Zane. I even wrote a story of my own on literotica.com but don’t try to look for it. I can’t even remember what it was called or the name I wrote it under. Reading erotica helped me find language to name and claim my own sexual curiosities, and it was a huge catalyst in my journey of sexual healing.
I used to read erotica all the time. It helped feed my erotic imagination and it gave me hope that I wasn’t broken. And then somewhere along the way I lost it. Like, I stopped reading erotica. I think it’s because in the season of sexual liberation I was in, everybody was talking about porn, particularly ethical porn, and how people (but women in particular) need to release the shame and stigma of watching porn and own it as theirs, especially because, at the time, people just weren’t talking about or celebrating it as much as they do now. I guess I might’ve jumped on that bandwagon because erotica took a backseat and I prioritized visual stimulation instead.
And then, like I said, porn stopped doing it for me and I just kind stopped feeding my erotic imagination altogether.
I can’t remember when or where I heard of Dipsea, but I remember being really intrigued about it. I wanted to get back into erotica again and I was curious about adding in that element back into my life—both in the old way of reading it and in a new way: listening to it. Dipsea has a lot of things you can play with on their app—they’ve got guided wellness sessions to help you sleep, communicate your desires, and even some fun activities you can do with your partner. But the thing I was most excited to explore was their audio erotica.
I’ve listened to about five or six stories since I partnered with them a couple of months ago, and from the first story, I was … keen. The first story I listened to was called Passengers, I think it was part 1, and I don’t know what I was expecting when I first pressed play, maybe a dry, audiobook-style reading of a cheesy sexy story where my job was to fill in the blanks—the sounds of the voices, the exclamations of passion—all on my own. But I was pleasantly surprised.
First, the quality of the story, like literally everything about it, was insanely good, like, watching a movie with your eyes closed. The voices in my ears sounded Black, there were soundscapes of the train moving through my ears as they interacted with each other, and when it started to get hot, it was like I was there. That I was being touched by also the one doing the touching, like all of my senses were being immersed through this story. It was … intense, in a good way. And just damn good.
When the story finished, my entire body felt like it was buzzing. I don’t know if I was sexually aroused per se, but my sexuality was definitely awakened and it was really nice to have had the story stir up my sexual self. It was only a 9 minute long story, but it was enough to remind me, like, Yes, that’s right, I am a sexual being and oh yes, sexual energy is something that I can also feel in my body amidst all these other feelings I’m having. It was really nice.
I was so keen on Dipsea that I suggested that I listen to a story with Jonathan which was a fun time. We’ve watched porn together but that always felt clunky and awkward for me. Listening to a sexy story has not only been a fun way to connect to each other, it’s also been a chill way for us to be intimate with each other without pressure. Like, sometimes it brings actual sex onto the table and other times it’s just nice to cuddle and listen enjoy a sensual story together without any expectation for it to turn into more.
There are so many reasons why I’m loving Dipsea right now, and I’ll just name a quick few:
I love how easy the app is to use and navigate; it’s also really beautiful
I love that I can find stories that tailor to my needs, from queer stories to Black voices to intensely erotic vignettes to soft and romantic ones
I love that their stories are ethically and consensually made, and I also love that the stories are modern and relatable
I really really love how their stories help stoke the sensuality in my sexuality; I’m able to stay a lot more present with my body and the sensations it’s experiencing while I’m listening, and it’s helping me make space to slow down and tune into myself
I also really love how accessible their stories are, like, I’m usually listening to something while I’m taking a walk or cooking dinner in the evening, and it’s been nice to switch it up from listening to a news podcast that’s keeping me tuned into the current horrors of the world to turning on a sexy story and allowing my mind wander there instead.
I could literally go on and on about how much I love Dipsea and I honestly think you’ll love them too. If you’d like to try it out for yourself, I’m excited to be able to give you a special something as I partner with them. Just go to dipseastories.com/evyan and get a free 30-day trial to Dipsea’s stories and other sensual goodies.
I actually recommend exploring their entire website because they give a lot of information about how they record thet select their stories, how the voice actors record them, and how the stories end up getting mastered. They do it with a lot of intention and it really shows.
Oh, and I should note that if you’re not able to listen for any reason, they also offer text stories for you to page through on the app.
Y’all know me—or at least I hope you know this about me—I only partner with brands and people that I really care about and that I think you’ll really love too, so please know that I would be talking about Dipsea with you anyways and I’ve actually recommended them to clients of mine in the past. I’m just happy that this time, I’m getting paid to do so.
As for me, I’m going to continue playing with upping my sexual context to help me stay connected to my sensual, sexual self during these maddening times. I think I’m also going to revisit Delta of Venus and see what it’s like to read it again. I have a feeling it doesn’t age very well being that it was written in the 1940s, but it’s a classic.
And if this is something that you’ve been thinking about, if you’ve been struggling with putting your sexuality and/or sensuality on your radar because of busyness or anxiety or stress or maybe because you’re an Ace like me where sex is the furthest thing from your mind, let me know. I would love to hear how you cope and also if you’ve ever tried to up the sexual context in your life or if this is a concept I’ve created.
Before I go, I want to share with you this week’s sensual practice. It’s going to be short and sweet and it is this: I want to encourage you to do something this week that reminds you of your capacity to feel good in your body. It doesn’t have to be from an erotic place or maybe it does because that’s the way you roll. From whatever intention you decide to come to it with, give yourself some pleasure this week. Do something that connects you back to your senses. You’re welcome to steal one of the ideas I named at the top of this episode or choose your own sensual adventure.
I’m asking you to do this not just because I want you to feel good—I always always want you to feel good. I’m specifically making this the sensual practice this week because as you’ve heard me say many many times during this episode, we are living in and through some seriously unsensual times right now, and it’s really easy to forget to nourish ourselves, to give ourselves sweetness and gentleness. Something that I’ve been thinking about a lot in my work right now is how the cultivation of our sensual selves is not just an act of pleasure, it is an act of resistance amongst all of the fuckshit that is trying to disconnect us from our sensuality.
So, please do something in honor of your sensual self this week knowing that as you do, you are using your body and senses to resist the powers that be that are made more powerful when you are scared and dissociated. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be scared or override any emotions that these times are bringing. I just want us to remember that we are more than our stress, more than our suffering and sorrow. Let’s make sure we prioritize our pleasure as a balm for fear.
And thanks again to Dipsea for helping me do just that in my own practice.
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Sensual Self is created and hosted by me, Ev’Yan Whitney. It is edited by myself and Tribble. Music is by Melodiesinfonie from his song called ‘Just Healing.’
For show notes, transcripts, and resources for your sensuality, go to evyanwhitney.com/podcast. You can also follow the show on Instagram @sensual.self.
As for me, I’m on Instagram at @evyan.whitney, and you can check out evyanwhitney.com to find out more about me and my work.
Also check out my book Sensual Self: Prompts and Practices For Getting in Touch With Your Body. You can find that wherever you find books.
Thanks so much for being here and I’ll see you in the next one.