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
Your Erotic Potential and Cervical Orgasms
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It’s time to unlock your erotic potential with somatic psychotherapist and sex therapist Carly Mountain. She joins me to talk about her newest book, Untamed Pleasure: Unleash Your True Erotic Nature. Learn about embodied pleasure, why women need relaxed arousal, and how the cervix can be a powerful portal of orgasmic potential.
Learn more about Carly Mountain
In this episode:
Embodiment and pleasure
Just how much does frequency matter
Keeping it hot in long term relationship
Untangling sexual shame
Women’s Anatomy of Arousal book review
Tips for multiple orgasms
ORDER my Book: Permission for Pleasure: Tending Your Sexual Garden
JOIN my Newsletter: Good Education for Good Sex
FOLLOW on Instagram @cindyscharkey
VISIT my website and blog
It becomes more of a kind of tick box sometimes on the to-do list rather than something that is an exploration, something that is more akin to making love.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to another episode of Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host. I think you all can tell that I adore speaking with guests that live and breathe eroticism and embodiment. Especially when they give me the goosebumps over and over, like this guest did. Her embodied eroticism is literally oozing out of her pores. I'm speaking with psychotherapist Carly Mountain, and she's talking about her newest book, Untamed Pleasure. Unleash your true erotic nature. She's going to share some themes from her book, and then we also discuss cervical orgasms. She shares her experience and others she's interviewed about this, and she calls it one of women's most subtle and yet powerful erotic portals. Also, when you share the podcast, these things truly do help new listeners find the show. Spotify, especially, if that's where you listen, they show me how many of you share the show. So I hope you continue to tell your friends to listen. Now, enjoy this lovely conversation with Carly Mountain. Carly, welcome to Permission for Pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thank you so much, Cindy. It's great to be with you.
SPEAKER_00Delighted to meet you and to read your book that's that's coming out. I'm not sure exactly when this episode will drop, but your book is called Untamed Pleasure. Unleash your true erotic nature.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_00And before we jumped on, I told you how much I love the cover. So before we talk about that, why don't you introduce yourself and your work in the world?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Thanks for asking. So my name is Carly. I live in the UK with my husband and two daughters. And I am an author and a psychotherapist and a sex therapist. And I specialize in embodiment. And I've been working with embodiment for over 20 years now in various forms as a breath worker, a yoga teacher. But all the threads have led back to basically helping largely women come more into an embodied presence and pleasure inside of their bodies.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. That comes through very strongly in your book. And I appreciated that. Yeah, exactly. And I think people do live in a lot of cages, some known and unknown. And you said, I'm gonna quote this because I I liked it so much. Sex does not automatically equal eroticism. A lot of the sex people have is not particularly erotic. In fact, it can become pretty perfunctor, more of a commodity we have rather than an erotic unfolding. Yeah. Tell me more.
SPEAKER_01So I feel like some people judge whether or not they're having a good sex life by the number of times a week, for example, they are having sex, quote unquote. So it becomes more of a kind of tick box sometimes on the to-do list rather than something that is an exploration, something that is more akin to making love. And so I think a lot of what I wanted this book to do was to reframe what it means to make love rather than have sex. And that idea was actually introduced to me by a um one of my dearest teachers and guides, Sage Walker, who is a real elder in this work. And my husband and I work with her monthly and have done for a couple of years or so now. And we didn't go to her because we were in a state of crisis. We went to her because we wanted to consciously deepen our relationship and have someone hold that with us and guide us more deeply into it in the places where we couldn't see, right? Because no matter who you are and how much work you've done, we all have these blind spots and we all have these loops, I think, that we can drop into both with ourselves and anyone else we're in relationship with. She's got such a poetic way with words, and it was her that said, you know, we have sex, but actually what we're doing is making love. And I just loved that, you know. I think in modern capitalist society, sex has become something that we do treat like, oh, I have to have that. And actually, what are we doing when we have sex? You know, for me it's such a sacred thing. It's coming into communion both of myself with my partner and Eros beyond that. So for me, this whole untaming process is about a return to something much more ancient and sacred that's alive within us, that actually created us in the first place, right? And that we can contact through our sexuality. And I just find that so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00So beautiful indeed. And I think you were spot on in the book, one of the cages you called out was shame. Shame being one of the most restrictive cages you said for untamed pleasure. And I find that that's a recurrent theme over all these years, you know, working with women and couples, and that that and sometimes it's so deep rooted, Carly, they're unaware that that is at the core. Yeah. I'm thinking about a conversation uh we've had on the podcast on all on sexual shame. I'm gonna reference that in the show notes if people hear that and think, hmm, I want to explore that more. You really did call out, too, that women, and I believe this wholeheartedly with you, that we often underestimate our erotic potential and potency. How do you think that happens?
SPEAKER_01So I think living in misogynistic society does not really create the conditions for our bodies to really unfold the way they might if we were more honored and felt safer in our day-to-day lives, to be honest. So I think that women learn, girls learn from quite young that actually they need to be careful how they express their sexuality, and there is still sadly a lot, a huge narrative around women not only being responsible for our own desires, but actually responsible for male desire as well, right? And I think there's many things that that contribute to this, but I think this is a really big one that I think women are still slut shamed massively. I have two teenage daughters and I see it amongst their friendship groups. And so I think, and it comes up in the book, it came up a lot in the interviews of this sense of even as our Eros is emerging through our teenage years, we're already learning to curtail it and hold it down and hold it in and express it in the ways that the culture's telling us are okay and yet not express it like this, and we end up in this bind, I think, which is a cage. It's it's a real somatic, emotional, energetic bind that I think so many women spend too much of our lives in. And so a lot of my work, a lot of the work I've done in myself and with others is about really what are the keys to releasing us from that. Shame for me is very much like a cloak that covers, and I feel it's very heavy, and yet, like you said, often can be invisible. Like I found shame incredibly hard to detect in myself. I didn't always know that the thing I was bumping into was shame. And then over time I've been able to go, oh, that's what that feeling is.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01But I totally agree with you that often it can be hiding in plain sight, and yet its impact is profound, profoundly restrictive.
SPEAKER_00You were talking about in the book, so another piece to this, how we underestimate our potential is to reframe it the way you did in the book, is we have these learned behaviors to stay safe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, totally. And so I feel like if we're constantly trying to stay safe, how can we feel our erotic potential? Because all we're doing already is squashing it down in order to be safe or not be called out or not be exiled by whoever or attacked, right?
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So I don't know that we like where do we then get to just be?
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Ding ding. I think talking about this out loud and continuing to bring these pieces forward, I what I always hope is that that they help women come down to these roots that are just so much part of. Well, we all think it's about the sex, and like you're talking about here. There's so much underneath. And I do think when we can unravel those things, and yes, you could call it out, recognize the cages and learn to unlock those. Then we can blossom into our erotic potential.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But it's a bit of undoing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01A lot of undoing. And you know, like your book Permission for Pleasure, I think we have to give ourselves that permission. I think so often we're waiting for someone else to give it to us, right? And it's like, oh, well, I think one of the keys is going, oh, hang on, this is my choice. I can choose this, I can choose to undo this. So yeah, I really, yeah, permission is a big part of this for sure.
SPEAKER_00And also learning to receive, you said, and I talk about this a lot. So I just like I wrote that down. You said learning to receive is a key to untamed pleasure. I think a lot of women are so focused on the giving that we don't know how to receive well or allow ourselves to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so beautiful. But again, I think to receive pleasure requires us to be quite undefended. And again, when we've become so used to defending against a lot of different things in the realm of sexuality, it can be a really vulnerable thing, can't it? To actually go, oh, I'm gonna open to receive something here. It's like, oof, yeah. I think it's a really big deal for many women, particularly women who've experienced sexual assault or abuse. It's like, which is a lot of women, requires a lot of undoing of very old nervous system patterns, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00So yes, and you talked about the relaxed arousal. Yes. So let's bring that in here because this is a big issue for people. I'd love for you to talk about that more. Just that the that that's the optimal state, right? Yes, definitely. Tell us a little talk about this relaxed arousal, why that matters.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. So I love the poetry of these two words being together because they don't really make sense together, right? Relaxed and arousal. Because when you think of arousal, it's like we're we're up, we're awake, we're on. And when we think of relaxation, we think the opposite. We're like, oh, we're laid back, we're opening, we're chilling, we're whatever. So bringing these two together is a fine art, and I think something that our erotic body really teaches us and really knows inherently given the right circumstances. So to experience the most amount of pleasure, we need to be really relaxed into it, be able to slow to it, be able to presence with pleasure, be able to have our breathing slow down and our body feel really kind of in presence. But at the same time, we want a little bit of excitement in the body, a little bit of awaken, uh kind of we want the blood to be flowing to all the right places, you know, we want to feel really alive. So when these two come together through the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system, kind of doing this dance together, then the body enters this state of relaxed arousal. And that is the place where we can experience the most pleasure. And I feel like for women, one thing that I discovered that was so key for me was realizing that the amygdala in the brain that normally kind of scans for danger, etc., that has to go quiet for women to experience the deepest, fullest, most expansive orgasms. And I think a lot of women still don't know that amazing piece of information, right? And it's not the same for men. So, you know, there really is something about us going into a deeply relaxed open state, undefended state, in order for our arousal to really brim over into multiple beautiful orgasms. And um, you know, in order to do that, we really have to be able to use our voice and know that if we're not alone, we're with a partner or partners, that they are gonna honor us and really caretake us in that space.
SPEAKER_00So and also I think time, time, I just don't think people take enough time. 100% agree with you, or even make that a priority, I guess. I just did a workshop last weekend and I was talking about how we need more time for arousal to really build arousal, and you know, they're all looking at me saying, Who has time for that? And I'm going, wow, I mean, if you knew the potential there, I sort of have the chills right now because if you if you know the potential of what that can bring, like you're talking about brimming over and the juiciness of what slowing things down can do, yeah, not only for our brains and our nervous systems, but just every nerve end in our body, right? Yeah. I just don't think people give themselves enough time, Carly.
SPEAKER_01No, I totally agree with you. I think Sherry Winston changed my life on that one, though, because her wonderful book, Women's Anatomy of Arousal. I remember learning from her that it takes 25 to 45 minutes for women to be fully engorged and aroused. And I was just like, whoa, you just blew my mind, you know. And I just I feel like that is so permission giving to know that our anatomy takes that long. You know, for men, they can be erect really quickly, but for women, we take time, we take time, and then once we are fully aroused and engorged, we can go and go and go.
SPEAKER_00Go and go and go. I'll I'll reference the book she's talking about. I have a book review on that uh on the blog, and I'll put that in the show notes if you're interested in learning more from Sherry Winston. There was a lot of similarity in the way the language you and Sherry use that's really uh nurturing and nourishing, I think. So I appreciated that about how you wrote about things and you talk about all this potential. I got to one of your sections about cervical orgasms, and I asked a young group yesterday, actually, and they said, I've never heard of such a thing. Yeah. And I thought, I'm gonna have you talk about this because you have an expansive section in your book. We haven't talked about it on the podcast. And I mean, people may refer to this in different ways, yeah? Like the C-spot or belly orgasms, or let's just talk about this. First, if you don't know where your cervix is, it is in the back of your vagina. So I'm going into my nurse speak, right? Because the cervix is the the neck or the opening to the uterus, and this is located in the back of your vagina. So there's a lot of nerve endings there, and a lot of people, since you know, I've been an OB gen nurse, so I a lot of people equate their cervix, Carly, with pain, yeah, either due to pap smears or procedures they've had, or childbirth perhaps, or painful periods, and it like all of these kinds of things that sort of roll around. So you have a whole different way of talking about this, and I don't want to just I want to just hand it over to you here because you said the cervix is one of women's most subtle and yet powerful erotic portals. Talk to me.
SPEAKER_01So I feel like the cervix, like you have just said, is often treated like, you know, if we even treat it at all, it's kind of treated like something. One of the women I interviewed said, you know, it's something I think she said, like maintenance is the word she thought of in in relationship to the cervix or something like that. And she was like, that's not very sexy, is it? And I was like, no, not really. But it does feel like that in the sense of a lot of women, like you say, don't really think about it until we go for a cervical smear or um childbirth or cervical cancer. But I find it really beautiful that we are all birthed through the opening and the flowering of this cervix. And I feel like the cervix also has the capacity to rebirth us and our pleasure and our sexuality because it has more nerve connections to the brain than any other part of a woman's pleasure anatomy. And when you go there, when you go to that depth and you give it the time and you build a relationship with the cervix, it's again a little bit like that dance of relaxed arousal. It's that place where we are no longer doing, but we are being done. And what I find so beautiful about that is that it kind of transports me into another dimension, if you like, because in order to stay present with that, I have to be in the deepest, most sacred part of my body. And then it is like this dance because sometimes, and it was beautiful interviewing women about this because they described it really beautifully as well: this place of just as you're moving towards cervical orgasm, this place where it's like you want to be in active relationship with the cervix, but also if you rush or you try to dictate to it, I find that it it will impede the orgasmic waves. And so then it's this very beautiful kind of orchestration where you're being orchestrated, but you are also presencing with what's moving inside of you until it just takes over. And then for me, when I experience that, it kind of varies. It can be like a jellyfish kind of swimming in the sea and rippling through my pelvis all the way through, and then other times it kind of elicits really kind of primal sounds, almost like birthing sounds that feel really kind of deep and full and primal, and many other different things. Often find my third eye feels like it's kind of opening, and my lots of heart opening and breast opening as well. So, and I think that's the other beautiful thing. I there's so many things to say about this. In sexual reflexology, the tip of the penis and the cervix are both heart points, and again, I think when we talk about reflexology, many people think of like the feet or the ears or whatever, but actually, no, in in our genital organs, we also have these pressure points, and so when penetration is really, you know, if if whoever is penetrating when they really bring presence and when the other person really brings presence to their cervix and those points meet, there is this ripple. That can then move through, and it's an incredibly heartful experience.
SPEAKER_00She can barely just if you could see her. I wish you could see her arms moving and her whole body. This is why I wanted to talk about this with you because I think there's just so much pleasure unknown to many.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And for you and the women you interviewed in the book, this in particular was described quite differently than other orgasms for women. It seems very specific and in the research that this isn't something this deeper penetration is not something that you want to go at quickly.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00It really needs a lot of really good arousal to be wanted, so to speak. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I have a quote from Anne Nin that is in the book, and if you are open to it, I'd just love to read it because I feel like she just brings in this poetry that says it so well. At the back of the womb there lay flesh that demanded to be penetrated. It curved inwards, opening to suck. The flesh walls moved like sea anemones, seeking by suction to draw his sex in. She opened her mouth as if to reveal the openness of the womb, its hunger, and only then did he plunge to the very bottom and felt her contractions. So there's just I love this description of like the sea and the depth and the attunement, and it's just so beautiful. And I feel again what makes me so sad is that when I asked many women about penetration, a lot of the things I heard were, I don't really like it, it's been painful, I like to get it over with. And that's really not my experience, thankfully. And I don't want to shame anyone for their sexual preferences. We've had enough of that. So if someone is listening and that is your choice, then I completely honour that. And also I just love in my work to invite curiosity inside of people and the ability to, if we never want a partner to go into our bodies that way, that at least hopefully we can enter our own vaginas and actually really dive into the depths there. And if there is trauma and material there, that too can be worked with. I think that's something I really want to say to people because you know we can go and we can meet the cervix with our fingers and we can just wait, we can just feel, we can just touch in. And what's very beautiful is hearing the amount of emotion that comes for women through cervical orgasm. Often there's this huge release of emotion that's spontaneous and often doesn't even have content, but just is part of what moves. And for some women, there's huge trauma release in that, and then a beautiful freedom and softening on the other side of it. Though it's difficult to meet these places inside of ourselves sometimes, and there's good reasons why our bodies are our bodies, and I really feel that there is so much to be found when we make the choice to relate to our bodies and be with what's there and allow it to be loved, essentially, you know, and we can all do that for ourselves. We don't need another person to do it with us, we can do it for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, yes. I'm curious if someone's listening, Carly, and thinking, well, maybe they're curious, and they think, um, well, I've had someone touch my cervix and that was painful. Yeah. How would you guide them there if they want to explore further, but that's their initial feeling? Sure.
SPEAKER_01So what I think's really important is not overriding our no, particularly if the no has been overridden many times previously, because all we do is re-traumatize ourselves. So I think that what's really important is to, like you said earlier, time. We have time, so let's give ourselves time. Um studies have shown that nipples, the clitoris, and the cervix all light up the same regions of the brain. So a beautiful way into relationship with your cervix can actually be your breasts. So if it feels like too much to just go straight in through the vagina and reach in to touch the cervix, what can be really gorgeous is to work with holding the breasts or massaging the breasts, massaging the nipples, and whilst you do that, bringing your attention deeply into your pelvis, deeply into your cervix, and intentionally creating with your mind, with your imagination to begin with, if necessary, a connection between your nipples and your cervix, between your heart and your cervix. And so I give some guidance for this in the book. Um, also, I want to mention here Olivia Bryant's amazing work. She has a platform called Self-Cervix, and she has been instrumental in my own cervical awakening. She is just such a wonderful teacher. So she also is doing some great work around this. Yeah, so um, we can basically work with the breasts and tuning into the cervix, and then we can just rest a hand onto the outside of our vulva and just see, you know, eventually that no, if you give enough time, will often turn into a yeah, okay. And then, you know, the great thing about us exploring our own bodies is that we are in control of stopping and starting again. And I think kind of even that in itself is really reassuring. Um, so you know, you can go in and then touch your cervix once that you feel a yes, and you can, you know, meet with whatever you find there. Um, it's worth mentioning that the cervix moves up and down in the vaginal canal through the month. So you may find your cervix easier to touch if you're still in your bleeding years. You may find your cervix easier to touch as you come towards the bleeding part of your cycle, and it will be harder to touch, probably around ovulation because the cervix sits higher then. Um in my body, my cervix sits really high and back up inside of my pelvis. I still cannot reach it with my fingers, even at all parts of my cycle. So I have a cervical wand, and that means that I can touch my cervix and reach. So if you are like me and you're like, oh my goodness, I can't find this, that might be the reason why. And also it can sit slightly off to the left or right. So it's just like, you know, I think it takes time, but following your body, really listening, really allowing whatever emotion comes up to be there. Because I think often we think of self-touch as something that should be all pleasurable. But I say in the book, you know, the road to pleasure is rarely all pleasurable. And can we just destigmatize that and allow whatever shows up to be made love to, be that huge tears or huge joy or numbness and no feeling, right? And all of the things, so that we just give our body to be as it is and meet her there, and eventually change comes.
SPEAKER_00I wondered too about just touching the outsides, the sides of the cervix, if you can reach yours. I I know that women describe pleasure zones on the sides rather than the the tip. Sure. And and also that uh, you know, when women are pulled, I what I hear is that a lot of times they don't want a lot of thrusting, so to speak. So it's just so common for people to equate penetration with thrusting, whereas what I hear women describe is a move in and a stay still. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Do you find that true? What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_01I think that's beautiful. I think that um what is so gorgeous is that contact. And so oftentimes I find that if my partner is touching my cervix, he can reach with his fingers. Um, or if I'm being penetrated, what can be really beautiful is to just have that presence. And if we breathe into that presence, the breath moves us, and then the cervix starts to do her own thing. And what's so gorgeous is you know, often we think about the penis in a certain way as well, that it's like it's hard and it's just hard and it's got to stay hard. But actually, when the cervix starts to ripple, oftentimes the penis will start to ripple with her. It's not like a stiff erection, it's like the penis is responsive also to the ripples of the cervix and the vagina. And so, you know, rather than thinking of penetration as this like hard thing, it's like, oh no, actually, the more attuned a male becomes to his female lover's body, the more his penis will also start to be more agile and soft in its responses. And that's way more pleasurable for him, too.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Okay, there you have it. It's just beautiful to hear the way you describe that and what you found there, and the descriptions from the people that you interviewed in the book, and I think it's helpful for people to hear beautiful language around exploration, yeah, and the invitation for that.
SPEAKER_01It's so contrary to our very pornified culture, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It is, yes, it is. If you think through your book, is there one other cage that you'd like to bring to the forefront? You have quite a few in there. And I mean, I feel like I'm picking things, and then I thought, oh, I'll ask you. Sure. Perhaps that one that you'd really would want to share about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think maybe the first one and the last one, let's say, because they have resonance. So the first one is choice, and the last one is creative transgression. And I think those two really live inside each other in a way, because I think for women and men, I mean, really to realize that we have a choice about how we relate, and that even if we've had negative experiences, or even if our love making is not where we currently want it to be, that that to know that we can work with it and what it's almost like we kind of think, oh, I should just be able to know exactly what to do with sex because da da da. And it's like, I don't think any of us like we're it's always a learning curve, right? It's like I'm hoping to continue to develop in this area of my life forever. So I'm always uncovering new things. So the choice to really go there and be curious and become more intimate with yourself and your partner, and in order to do that, it takes us to the last key, which is creative transgression, which is a term that Dr. Vanya Lailani introduced to me through her beautiful book, The Flesh and the Fruit. And really, creative transgression is often associated with something negative, right? And I think that actually creative transgression is something that keeps the eroticism in our life oxygenated. It's the ability to be creative, to move beyond the things that we've known, move beyond the stories we've been given, move beyond any difficult experiences and allow those to integrate in a way that facilitates us moving forwards rather than holds us back. So, how do we get creative with the cages we bump into and use them as sort of the thing that helps lead us where we need to go next? And I find that really heartening because it means that whatever it is we're bumping into that's challenging can then become the material that actually leads us to more freedom, more pleasure, more aliveness, more orgasmic bliss. Yeah, exactly. So, really creative transgressions can be endless for some people who have only ever made love inside a bedroom. Having, you know, making love outside might be it, or making love in the kitchen or something like that. For somebody who works really hard all day long, having someone tie them up and blindfold them and just lavish lots of pleasure and attention on their bodies might be their liberation, you know. What do you want? What do you need? It's such a playground for exploration. So, can we give ourselves that permission to choose and have the permission to creatively transgress any of the cages that seem to be holding us back from our pleasure and aliveness?
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. This season on the podcast, my focus is curiosity, gorgeous, yeah. And this is what you're describing here is how can we get curious about what's there and what could be there.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00You know, I don't know how you could ever get bored. Exactly. Making it interesting is well erotic. Yeah. Thanks so much for being with me. And your work in the world, you're just a I feel it coming all off you in waves. Um so I hope my people find you. Tell people how they can find you in your book when it comes.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So you can find me at carlymountain.com. I'm also on Instagram, Carly underscore mountain. And yeah, I would love there. Will be a course to go with the book, and um, that will be happening through the summer. So I would just love, I would love you to contact me however way that you would like to.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. Thank you. Could I wrap us up with just a couple, I call them mantras from your chapter on wild bodies? Sure. This is your charge to get curious. This is from Carly's chapter on wild bodies. Trust your body, learn what you like. What satiates you? What sets you on fire? What makes you melt? Ooh, I have the chills. What makes you overflow? What brings you home to your wild, untamed pleasure? Your body is wild and wise. It will show you the way. Thank you again, Carly and friends. Here is your permission. Your permission for pleasure.
