Permission for Pleasure
A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
Permission for Pleasure
Confidence is Sexy
"Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have." Dana B. Myers, self-described as a sensually empowered voice for women, joins me to talk about how to embrace your sensuality and sexuality to boost your confidence. Dana and I get practical with tips for sexy talk, sexy texting, and how to communicate your desires. This episode will help you feel more turned on, assertive and engaged with your sensuality for a sexier YOU!
Learn more about Dana B. Myers
More on these topics:
Foreplay using your senses
Ten ways to explore being a sexual person
Make some noise during sex
Get out of your foreplay rut
Talking about sex with a partner
Scheduling sex
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I find all these topics of pleasure, sensuality, relationships, love, sex, confidence, identity very interesting.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host. I'm truly delighted you're listening today and I sort of want to say buckle up, buttercup, because this episode is fire is a conversation with Dana B Myers, who describes herself as the sensually empowered voice for women. Her vibrant energy is undeniable. You won't miss it. And if Dana's right and confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have, this episode, I hope, will offer you some practical ways to build your confidence and feel more sexy. Dana B Myers is an award-winning entrepreneur, product developer, author and media personality in the sexual wellness and empowerment space. She's the founder of the sexy beauty brand Booty Parlor. So let's jump in with Dana. Great Dana, welcome to Permission for Pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for having me, cindy. It's really a joy to be having this chat with you. I admire your work and it's nice to finally you know connect in person.
Speaker 2:Well, I feel the same about you. I reached out to you because I love your energy. I love what you're doing. I think it's such a beautiful thing for women everywhere, and I would love for you to just tell my listeners a little bit about yourself and your work in the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. Well, I'm Dana B Myers and I am the founder of a central beauty brand called Booty Parlor that I started, oh my gosh, I think almost 19 years ago now, when the sexual wellness industry as we know it was still very much triple X. I've authored two books the Mojo Makeover and then, after I had two kids, I wrote the Mommy Mojo Makeover, because I wrote what I needed to hear and do myself. I've been married for as long as I've had my business for 19 years. I have two beautiful children and being a mother is very important to me.
Speaker 1:I'm living in Miami and juggling all that life has to bring me in this, you know, interesting phase of midlife. I'm almost 48. And I love that. I love getting older, but you know, midlife is real and so it's just interesting to work in the realm of sensuality, sensual products and sensual inspiration and information kind of through every stage of my life, before I hit kids as I had kids. Now that my kids are getting older and I'm almost 20 years married, how relationships change. So I find all these topics of pleasure, sensuality, relationships, love, sex, confidence, identity very interesting and I love to experiment with it and share with other women what I'm doing through my products and my books and other information that I share.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wish you all could see her face. This is some of the time when I wish I did video because she you know, dana, you're so vibrant and you are self-described as essentially empowered voice for women.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I feel that every day. I was privileged to grow up with a very sensually empowered mother Babs, if you're listening, thank you. I got to give her props. My mother was a very and still is she's 77, a very sensual woman who was a makeup artist, and I watched her empower other women in her makeup studio with makeovers and conversation. As a little girl, I would go and sit in her room after school because she always had appointments and I would watch women sit in her chair and immediately start pointing out what they felt was wrong about them and it was the same with every woman and then, with conversation and lip gloss and sort of like secret sharing and relationship talk, they would look up in the mirror at themselves after working with my mom and they would be transformed. They would see their inner beauty come out and also their outer beauty emerge, and so I was raised in this very empowering beauty salon environment. At the same time, my mom was super sexy and she used it. She used her sensuality. I watched. Of course, I didn't understand it in these terms as a young child, but now that I'm older I do. She kind of led with her sensuality in the world and I watched how it magnetized people and experiences to her.
Speaker 1:I was very aware of my parents having a passionate relationship. They fought a lot but they also loved really, really hard. You know, they would say we're closing the door, it's locked, don't come in. My brother and I quickly realized what was going on in there and of course we were rolling our eyes when we were kids. But it was really this kind of bold way of showing us how important sex and passion were to a long-term marriage and to herself as essentially empowered women. And so I just grew up with these great influences and my parents also talked to me about sex in a very open way and about pleasure in a very open way. And I know it's such a rare experience, especially, you know, with women of my generation. I'm turning 48. Not all of our parents were so open or sex positive back then. I hope now it's starting to change.
Speaker 1:But I remember my mom saying to me you know, sex with yourself is just as pleasurable as sex with someone else. And I was like, yeah, you know, I know I was already masturbating at 13, younger, but she said this to me at 13. And then my father also sat me down and said you know, dana, I know that you are a sexual being. I just want to make sure that you're safe. And you know we could talk about values and boundaries, and so I just never felt stigma around sex and pleasure.
Speaker 1:I felt that it was an aspect of my life as a human that I could learn lessons from and learn about myself from and learn about my own power from, and I felt powerful. You know, when I experienced my first orgasm, I felt powerful. I felt that innate feminine power that I had access to, and I was like to all my friends, like guys, do you know? Do you know what can happen? Do you know the secret? Like oh my God. And then it was off to the races. You know, I started buying my own vibrators. I started buying vibrators for my friends, sneaking into the growth stores under the train tracks.
Speaker 1:So sex, pleasure and beauty, and that girlfriend to girlfriend experience of beauty and playing with makeup and talking those were always my passions and always a very core part of why I felt confident as a woman. And so, as I grew up, I pursued a career in the music business. But these two passions of mine always held so fast and so at the forefront of my personal life that when I kind of got tired of the music business and met my now husband, charlie, who was also an entrepreneur, I said I've got this idea like I'm always buying my friend's sex toys and it's gross. You know why is it so gross? I want to buy toys and massage oils and things to make us feel sexy in the same way as I feel when I go buy my beauty products. And I said this idea is called booty parlor and it's like the beauty parlor for your love life.
Speaker 1:Because of that experience of where I grew up in the beauty parlor and we were driving down from San Francisco to LA on a road trip. We were newly dating and by the time we got to LA we thought let's quit our jobs and do this thing. It was a real, yeah, it was a white space. And so three months after we started dating, we started a business together and we got married a year and a half later or so. And at our wedding we're just about to launch booty parlor.
Speaker 1:And at our wedding our wedding gifts for everyone were pocket rocket and our lubricant, which was called add magic add a little magic to your life and a lip gloss, because I'm always like I want to feel good, I want to put my lip gloss on, I want my lips to tingle, I want the senses to be ignited. I'm always looking for central inputs and that's really everyone's like well, do you need a vibrator? I'm like do you need a lip gloss? All these things just make me feel good. I'm like a glutton for yummy central inputs that make me feel good, and these pillars of pleasure and sensuality and beauty are so important in my life and what my influences were.
Speaker 2:Your story matters, dana, and thank you, I'm delighted to hear it. I actually didn't know all of that and that makes me really, you know, sit up and smile, because so many of us did not grow up that way and in that way of pleasure and sensuality and sex being open and talked about and Embraced, and so so many people, as you know, just struggle the even Acknowledge pleasure to embrace their sensuality, and so it's a beautiful thing to watch someone who does and to hear you Explain it in that way. I have heard you say that Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have yes, and I believe that, and I believe that Confidence has to be practiced.
Speaker 1:You know, again, it's interesting my two kids one has this innate sense of confidence and the other needs more nurturing of her confidence. My son is just like wildly confident and I'm like awesome, you're gonna be great, you can get through anything in life because you believe in yourself and you're confident in yourself. And the other one needs more nurturing. And I think that you know, confidence does take practice and Again, I was given that gift of confidence by my parents, but I do. I think that Confidence is the sexiest thing that you have. I think that the way you hold yourself, the way you can feel entitled to pleasure, can boost your confidence. The way you can feel entitled to speak your mind, to speak your truth, can give you confidence. I think, as women, we receive so many F'd up messages About our sexuality, about our weight, about speaking our truth, about people pleasing. It can really mess with us, mm-hmm. So it's a practice. I think confidence is a real practice.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful, because I think what people Assume so often is that confidence is Natural or just to just happen. They feel that way about pleasure, they feel that way about sex. You know, yes, that it's well. It's not a skill You're supposed to learn and in fact it is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And I always say, like, look for the evidence. When people are like, well, how do you build confidence, I say look for the evidence. Look for the evidence where you wanted to do something, try something could be something super simple and you did it. That's evidence that you can do what you set your mind to. That should build your confidence. And so if you're looking for evidence in all the different ways and all the different areas of your life Again, and you're practicing it and you're aware of it and you're conscious of it Maybe you're writing about it or recording voice notes about it it will raise your confidence. It just will.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you encourage women along those lines to ask the question what is sexy for me right now? Let's pivot to that, because I love that question and I think often, dana, women don't ask themselves this question.
Speaker 1:Well, totally, because we're taught that all of our turn-ons are external. You know, oh, he's cute, he turns me on, or that movie star that turns me on, or you see a clip at a movie that turns me on. So of course there's these external Inputs and we need those to write these external sensual inputs. I always say like I can make anything essential input. When my babies were young and I was in Brooklyn, I was so tired but I was like really holding on. So I was really holding on to my libido and my sex drive. I was really trying to keep this baseline going. I remember I was at this grocery store in Brooklyn and I was in the produce section and I was by the carrots and there was so much variety to them. Some were short, some were long, some were thick, some were, you know, different shapes, some had curves, some were straight, and then the misters came on and so they all started glistening and I was like, oh my god, I can turn. You know the fact that I have to puree carrots for my baby, who's gonna be up all night, you know, spitting up the carrots on me. I can turn that into essential input. It made me think. You know the different sizes and shapes of men, and so that to me was a big turn-on.
Speaker 1:But so often women aren't taught these skills to look into their daily lives and look for sensual inputs.
Speaker 1:We're taught to be good girls, we're taught to please people, we're taught to put everyone else first before ourselves, and those are some pretty insidious messages that we learn, and no one's really taught to put their sexuality first in In the same way that we prioritize our health, our wellness, our fitness, our family, and yet it's our life force.
Speaker 1:So if you spend even a little bit of time Every day or once a week thinking what does sexy feel like to me? Is it putting lotion on my body and pausing and tuning in to the different sensations on my skin? Is it fantasizing about an amazing kiss that I had that like Once just completely swept me off my feet? Is it a racier fantasy? Is it textures, is it sound? You know, there's so many ways to tune in and activate our senses and feel our sensuality and kind of identify what's sexy to us. And Also I don't think that women are taught that our preferences can change, like what we once thought was sexy as a teenager college Can change and adapt, and as we grow, the world is like our oyster for sensual inputs and Allowing ourselves, like you know, the word permission. I mean.
Speaker 1:Come on, that's your jam right To give ourselves the permission to change and flow and allow our sexuality to change and flow as well. And it's not always gonna be up here, you know, there's gonna be ebbs and flows to it. But if we allow ourselves to know that the ebbs and flows are normal and to know that our choices and our preferences can change and that Variety is the spice of life and that they should change, we're just gonna be happier, more whole and satisfied women.
Speaker 2:And I do think along those lines I mean, it's a mantra on this show but communicating the changes. If you're with a partner, communicating the changes even out loud to yourself, like, hey, cindy, I realize now that I started dancing in the mornings I've talked about it on the show before but like this is what is Really feeding my sensuality. To really, in the morning, like get into my body and listen to some music and move, yes, and just acknowledging that to my own self and for me. I'm partnered with a long-term partner. So I tell my husband, okay, well, the door is closed, I'm having my sensual dancing time. He's like I really like to join you and I'm like, um, no, I'll let you know, but it's right, it doesn't have to always be for another. I think this is some of your really big mantra of just being our own sexual cells and having our own Sensual relationship with ourselves. Is it's really vital?
Speaker 1:It's so vital. I just got goosebumps as you sort of reflected that back to me. Because, again, we're taught that our sexuality is really for the pleasure of others and, yeah, you'll have your orgasm, but like it's really to turn on your partner, catch a man or catch a partner, and, yeah, taking your own time creating your own rituals I mean, rituals are huge for me. I turn everything I can into a central ritual putting on my lip gloss, you know. Again, I think about kisses. Putting on my blush, I think about the natural flush I get after I have an orgasm. Like you, I dance a lot. I feel into my body and I try to express and move emotions through my body in that way.
Speaker 1:I Consistently masturbate. I have always masturbated. I masturbate when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm frustrated, when I'm angry, when I'm celebrating, and I claim that as my own. And so many people are like, well, I only have enough libido for sex, you know, once a week with my husband, I don't want to waste it on myself. That means I gotta like get it up twice.
Speaker 1:I'm like, okay, I hear you and like, long-term marriages are hard and kids are hard and you know, motivating for sex is hard, but Cultivating your own pleasure, your own orgasm, your own relationship with yourself, your pussy, your pleasure, your orgasm, that's the rocket fuel that's gonna power you through all the hard stuff and also work to organically raise your desire to be with your partner. It's like the more you Pleasure yourself, the more you know yourself, the more you can take yourself on a journey, you know, bringing yourself up, backing up, bringing yourself up, backing off, until you really create this peak Pleasure journey with yourself. Then you're like, oh well, that felt really good. And then when your partner invites you to sex, then you it's like muscle memory, yeah, that feels good, I'm gonna say yes, or I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna initiate, because you have that muscle memory when you're practicing pleasure with yourself. It's muscle memory that can then be brought into your relationship, to nurture that aspect of your relationship, to I Appreciate you bringing in the both ways, you know, initiating and being invited.
Speaker 2:Because, yeah, you know, I often hear from women I don't feel comfortable initiating or I never initiate. Everybody wants to feel desired and we have permission To initiate what we want. You know, we also have to be able to accept a no and learn how to accept no. I think that's one of the keys, is kind of a side note, but I mean I need a whole podcast just on this, of just if we could learn how to accept a no with grace, you know, with out our feelings hurt and without it being a major Bummer. I really think then our yeses, we would embrace our yeses more.
Speaker 1:I love that and that also sort of spurs the thought of having a conversation with your partner where it's like, hey, we're each allowed our nose, but could we call it a rain check? Could we create different language around it to soften my experience of rejection? I also think that a lot of those feelings of rejection for either party can be solved by. I'm a huge proponent of Scheduled sex. I love putting sex in my calendar. It makes it an event. For me, an event feels like a party.
Speaker 1:I want to show up to a party. I want to know what am I wearing to the party, what's happening at the party, what's the vibe of the party, what's the energy. So for me Saying to my husband, I'm gonna get the kids out of the house on Sunday for four hours. We've got this window of time. It's for us. We both know it's happening. I make sure it's not when his football game is on. I make sure you know that. I've got the coverage.
Speaker 1:And for me, then, I have the time and the space To shift towards that moment, to make sure that I'm not overworked, over tired, exhausted, to make sure that I have time to dance and move, to go through my lingerie drawer and think what vibe do I want? What do I want to bring for myself? What do I want to express for myself? It gives him time as well. What do I want to give? What do I want to ask for? What energy can I bring to her? And I have found that planning sex Certainly incredibly helpful on a practical level During when the kids were very young, but even before and after. It's always been like a core Practice for me to put it in the calendar and I find that it creates incredibly high quality sex.
Speaker 2:Love to hear that because, wow, I preach the scheduled sex and people get so.
Speaker 1:Mad.
Speaker 2:Always I try to relate it to. You know. It's almost like why hotel sex is so great or vacation sex. You're looking forward to it. It's anticipation and it's not to be looked at as like obligation, because obligation is a desire killer.
Speaker 2:Totally but that idea of looking forward, like you said, planning for even being able to also have that sense of if something major comes up and you have to cancel, like you said, saying wow, I was really looking forward to that. Could I ask for a rain check, because this happened, or I sprained my ankle, or whatever, I'm just not feeling it. Yes, or I'm just, I don't know, I'm just in a funk. So, yeah, that's part of that yes and no, and the dance of that and the communication piece that's so big, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes yeah and also coming to a place in your relationship where it is comfortable to say I just want to give today, because sometimes I kick it out of my head or I'm really riled up about something. I just can't relax. I could try I know I could try, and he might give me a massage or I could really work on it. But sometimes I'm like you know what? I still want to connect with you, but I just want to give. Can you just receive? And my husband loves to give right. So that's kind of hard for him to be like, well, I really get.
Speaker 1:He's like I get, so turned on by giving, I said, well, that's cool, like I'm always ready to receive another time, but today, can it be one-sided? Can it be one-sided? And also there are times when I just want it one-sided for me too. And that's an interesting Conversation to have as well and a real intimacy builder, because most people think, okay, well, if you come, I gotta come, or if I come, you gotta come. But it doesn't always have to be that way either. It's like allowing more flexibility in all the things. I find it very freeing to be able to have those conversations.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful language and you know we don't talk about that piece very often. So I appreciate you bringing that up and I do think it does bring a lot of freedom and intimacy to have those kinds of conversations and ongoing.
Speaker 1:Yes, sets. Conversations are not a one and done. They must be ongoing, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Well, since we're on the conversation, you know peace, which is huge for me. You had some amazing Ideas in your book. I just read the first one. I need to read your second one, but I read the original booty parlor. I loved it. Practical if you're looking for like step-by-step, like really Nitty-gritty thing. Sometimes people just want their hands held, like give me some tools, and you do that.
Speaker 1:Really I do, I write tools, I write tools.
Speaker 2:You do science writer.
Speaker 1:I just write tools.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's beautiful. We need that, and one of your tools is sexy talk 101. Oh my god, yeah, okay thanks back to when you wrote that and a lot of what you're describing here. It goes into that of say what you're feeling.
Speaker 1:You said oh my god, yeah, let's get practical Dana Okay okay, okay, I love it.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, look as far as like sexy talk, like the practical aspect of having sexual conversations with your partner. And I always say that the best way to do that is with three questions. Sit down, make a date, have a glass of whatever and Open that conversation with three questions. One what's great about our sex life already? Right, you always start with the positive question. Number two what could be better? Not what really irritates me is, but like what could be better. And the third question is what Do we want to co-create?
Speaker 1:What kind of sexual energy do we want to co-create together? And so it becomes this collaborative brainstorm, this kind of open-ended brainstorm to have with your partner. Well, I'm thinking, you know, I'd like to try this energy, because people can be very nervous to share their fantasies in a very specific way. But you can talk energy, right, I want to explore an energy around power. I want to explore an energy around using toys and notions, so talking about what kind of sexual energies you want to explore and co-create together. So there's that sort of like very practical sexual conversations you can have with your partner. If we're talking about like the art of talking dirty.
Speaker 2:Before you go into it, because I went off your SexyTalk 101, because what I find is when women come in a consult and they're like I don't know how to talk, dirty and I don't like that term, because dirty has often been associated with pleasure for them, and so that's why I'm pausing in here, because you can call it whatever you want to call it, but can you use your voice during sex? Can you use your voice for SexyTalk? So bring it, dana.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, these are very practical tools for a beginner who feels a little bit timid. So say what you're feeling, right, express. If your partner's touching you in a specific way, say how that's feeling. When you touch my breath, it feels so exciting. That's a very basic way. I love the way you're kissing my neck. It's lighting me up in my pussy If you're not comfortable saying the word pussy, I love the way you're kissing my neck. I can feel some tingles down below. It's really getting me excited.
Speaker 1:You can ask for more. Right, simple, one word, one word. The word more, more, please Don't stop. That's almost enough to build like a really exciting erotic energy. So more, please, don't stop. Harder, faster, softer, slower, go in circles. Just asking for more of what feels really pleasurable, like, look, I'm getting all flushed. You guys can't see me, but my skin's turning red, I'm turning myself on, and it's just a Thursday at three. And then you can also describe what you're about to do. I'm going to touch your thighs so slowly. I want you to wait. I want you to imagine me putting my mouth on you. I'm just gonna go so slow. I'm gonna scratch your thighs with my nails. Are you getting excited? Right? So, just simple. It doesn't have to be dirty, filthy, vulgar words, just saying what you're gonna do, building that anticipation.
Speaker 1:I think also women feel a lot of pressure from porn and other media sources to have that porn voice and that can feel really foreign to a lot of women and not all men want that either. That can feel really fake or phony. So the practice of discovering what your sensual tone of voice is, that can be a really good exercise. You might feel really silly, but to stand in front of the mirror and vocalize when you're outside of a sexual situation, stand in front of the mirror and vocalize how does it sound when I moan? How does it sound when I really activate my breathing? How does it sound when I hum with pleasure?
Speaker 1:And just giving yourself the permission to explore your voice and vocalize the different aspects of pleasure. And then when you're in bed you can just use those moans and those mm you can yum. You know, sometimes I like to purr. You know, sometimes I like, feel like a kitty cat and I wanna purr during sex. So I think just giving yourself the permission that quote unquote. Talking dirty doesn't have to be dirty. You can be creative, you can find a style that works for you. So, to recap, describe what you're about to do, ask for more of what feels good and describe why it feels good, and then practice your tone. Give yourself that fun experience of moaning in the mirror Like I think you'll surprise and delight yourself when you hear how you sound.
Speaker 2:Great tips the way you describe things. It makes it fun and you know sex and it's fun. It's supposed to be our playground, you know. I think people forget to just jump in that way and get in the sandbox and create something. Get curious. What's in there? What do you wanna bring? It's beautiful. Now you also have a section about sexy texting.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. I mean, I have not read your book, I have not looked at my book in a long time I'm like the computer of my brain is like scrolling back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so tell me. Tell me about the chapter. Cindy, I'm like I gotta go prep the books, poor Dana.
Speaker 2:I didn't really prefer about anything. I'm like oh she's like oh great, yeah. You said be bold but breathe. I think people think they have to overdo it and you don't, yeah yeah, you don't have to overdo it.
Speaker 1:You know I'm thinking about kissing you is a really nice text. Meet me at home at eight in your underwear Is a really nice text. I think that listen, I met my husband on matchcom 21 years ago now and the apps have changed. I have friends who are divorced, a friend who's widowed, and I'm hearing all kinds of stories about the apps now and how quickly things move from a swipe and a high nice to meet you to very sexual texting, very quickly. You know, for someone like me who's so open and empowered, it was almost alarming like, oh my God, you gotta go so fast. But that seems to be the current, you know, sexting culture. I find that quite alarming, and I think if I were dating, I would find that very intimidating to jump into that kind of intimate texting with someone so quickly, before even knowing them.
Speaker 1:But in your own relationship, I think it's a great way to build anticipation, excitement. I think that you kind of have to be a little careful, though, because if you send a sexy text that says you know, meet me at eight in your underwear, your partner's gonna meet you at eight in your underwear and like you gotta be there, you know they will have been thinking about that all day. And if you are running your household and doing your work outside the home and booking appointments and helping your you know ill mother and all the other things that you're doing and you're really tired when it comes to eight, there's gonna be a let down for your partner, right? So it is. You know, if you're gonna plant the seed, motivate yourself, make that transition into your sensuality, show up knowing that you deserve pleasure and that you're gonna create a moment of intimacy, Don't send the text unless you're ready to have a game on face.
Speaker 2:I think I agree with that, and I'm thinking. There's times, though, where I just wanna encourage people to. If you're thinking of your partner, if you're thinking something flirty or sexy about them, how often do you share it Like, how often do you lean into that and communicate? I think it's really important to do that, and it doesn't have to be an invitation if you don't wanna offer an invitation, but you can certainly offer up that. I'm thinking about you. I just saw this, or I just I remember the time you and I were here. I just passed that spot, and I have goosebumps because I just thought of something, but I just I thought of it immediately, and I wanted to let you know. Those kinds of things are sexy too.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and how sexy when you throw that out there for it to be reciprocated back to you, you know, and that's like a volley in a relationship. And if your partner, if you throw that out there I was thinking about this time it really lit me up and they don't volley back, let them know. Hey, when I send something like that, I would love it if you would volley back with a memory. Or if I throw a compliment out to you. I would really be so turned on if you would throw one back to me. And then women say, well, why do I have to ask for that? And I'm like, can we just get beyond the? Why do I have to ask for it? If you want what you want, then ask for it.
Speaker 1:And you know I'm always asking and my husband's very intuitive with what I need and what I want. But he also, you know, we all forget, right, we all forget if we get stressed, press this, that, whatever, sometimes I'll just be like babe, I need more compliments today, I just need that, you know. And oh, okay, sure, and then it's like it's not that he was not doing it on purpose, but he had other things on his mind and so I don't mind asking. I think that's really important to get over yourself and to ask for what you want. And I do wanna clarify I agree with you 100%, like when I say if you make an invitation to show up, then you should show up. But all sexy texts don't have to be an invitation, it can just be. You know a way to nurture intimacy. So I wanna make sure women don't think like, oh, I gotta show up every time I text. No, you don't. Ha, ha ha.
Speaker 2:Well and I think you're bringing it home there in your words of your nurturing intimacy. So what you and I are talking about is the many ways you can nurture intimacy, build erotic energy, and not just in the bedroom yeah, it's outside the bedroom too.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, yes yes, and it's both, and I never get tired of talking about that piece, so I think I reposted this quote. I think it was on Women's Day, dana, and you said when a woman learns to celebrate her body and acknowledge how deserving she is of true love, pleasure and passion, then she becomes the most self-confident, radiant, magnetic version of herself. I wrote it down, oh, thank you. I think I resheared it because I thought, you know, dana, women have such a maybe men do too, but I work with women mostly. So it's like we struggle to celebrate our body and acknowledge like you're talking about what we deserve, and that inhibits our self-confidence and our pleasure.
Speaker 1:It's all linked. If we hate our bodies, we subconsciously don't feel we're deserving of pleasure. And if we don't feel we're deserving of pleasure, we are not radiating that deservingness, that delicious entitlement, that radiance that exists in all of us. And so it's very interesting. My daughter is 10, all of her friends are 10 and 11, they're starting their journeys into puberty. Their bodies are changing. Me and all my mom friends are talking about you know how do we talk to them about this. And as their bodies are changing, some girls are bigger, some girls are smaller.
Speaker 1:And you know, I was talking to a friend the other day and I just said my mother never said one negative thing to me about my body. Not one, not one negative thing about being too big or too small, or you could lose five pounds, or those jeans don't fit you. Not one negative thing. And it was just you're beautiful, you're smart, you've got charisma. It was just all like, you're awesome.
Speaker 1:And now that I have a daughter, I know how conscious my mother had to be of that. You know how conscious, right? And I just think that so many women have received so many messages of being too big, too small too. This too, that you know. The list goes on and on. So from a very young age we're like oh, something's wrong with us, I don't feel good about my body, I don't look good in those jeans like she does, and it just crushes you.
Speaker 1:And I think it makes little girls learn to hate themselves at a very young age, to try to change themselves at a very young age, and so they don't. Because there's so much focus put on external validation of our looks and our weight and our size. There's so much emphasis on the external validation that women are not taught to love and accept their bodies just as they are and then discover the capacity for pleasure that those bodies have just as they are. And if we were all taught that our bodies are this like amazing, incredible living, you know, wonderland of pleasure, then we'd feel a whole lot different about ourselves. But we're taught we just have to look one way or another, and so they're two very different messages. But if we were taught about our capacity for pleasure and that our capacity for pleasure exists no matter how we look, then we would be a radically different individual and, I think, a radically different society.
Speaker 2:Well, let's wrap up with that, because I mean, that says it all and I'm delighted to hear you passionately say it out loud and also, I'm sure you're very aware with your daughter and I think we can change the narrative. I think we can do that with our own children. In the way we talk about ourselves, our own bodies, the way we talk about other people and their bodies, and our own family, our children and their bodies start right now.
Speaker 1:Absolutely start right now and start talking about pleasure in all its forms Pleasure in food, pleasure in nature, pleasure in conversation, pleasure as a holistic part of our lives, not just sexual pleasure. That's like cornered off into this, like back burner behind the door. It's like a 360 look at pleasure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, love it. Give yourself permission for that. Well, dana, it was a joy to talk to you. I love your energy. I love your practical tips and the way you care for your community. It's a beautiful thing to watch, especially online, so thanks for being with me.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Can I give one little exciting announcement oh?
Speaker 2:100%.
Speaker 1:Great. I don't know when this is gonna air, but we are launching a very exciting new product that I think is really gonna help women tap into all the things we've been talking about this confidence, this sense of body love, this sense of entitlement to pleasure and personal exploration. I'm very proud of it. It's called Glamour Puss and it's a hydrating vulva balm and it's a balm to oil. It melts in your fingers and it is a daily use product to really nourish and hydrate your vulva and whether you have dryness from breastfeeding or dryness from or irritation in hormonal changes or post waxing or shaving, it's really designed to help a woman not just soothe those irritations but deeply connect with herself every day, give her body, give her, like source of pleasure, just a little bit of love every single day.
Speaker 1:I'm super excited to bring it out into the world and on the box there's a QR code that you can go to and we're talking about rituals earlier. Go to a page that has a ton of different rituals to do so. There's like a pussy pledge that you do in the mirror every day and affirmation. There's journaling, questions for pussy journaling, pussy gazing. There's all kinds of wonderful ways to really get in touch with your vulva and really start to honor yourself and honor your pleasure in a daily way, which I think is like a revolutionary act for women, and I'm really excited to be a part of this pussy revolution that's happening.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. How can people find you, dana?
Speaker 1:People can find me and our products at bootyparlorcom, and you can find me personally and sort of the window into more of my personal life at Dana Myers XOXO on Instagram.
Speaker 2:Lovely. On this podcast, we like to share something that's delighting us day to day, like something that's bringing us pleasure in our daily life. Is there something you might share that comes to mind?
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely, my spiritual practice brings me a lot of pleasure and creativity. I work with candles and crystals and all kinds of witchy things to express myself and I build really beautiful altars and I write spells and I work on these altars for like a month at a time, in conjunction with the moon cycle, and then I light them on fire and have sort of an ecstatic experience while I'm doing it and it's like a practice of impermanence. You create something beautiful and then it melts down and then you start anew and it's a wonderful, beautiful, delightful practice. That is a consistent part of my life which really helps me learn about myself and process any of the hard things I'm going through and really helps me always return to my joy. So that is what is delighting me.
Speaker 2:Thanks for sharing that and thanks for being with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. This was epic.
Speaker 2:Epic. There you go. So listeners, wow, I hope you came away feeling like we are cheering you on to boost your confidence and your sexiness and give yourself more permission for pleasure, Mm-hmm.
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