Everyone gets excited about sex, but no one really wants to talk about the intimacies of it. In this episode, sociologist and intimacy coach, Jennifer Gunsaullus, PhD, gets right down and personal about the challenges people are struggling to confront—the need to reinvent your sex life. Shedding light about the struggles women face when it comes to sex, Jennifer first shares her story growing up in a Catholic community where society raises women with negative messages around their bodies and sex. She talks about finding our self-worth and the value of self-nurturing and for women to find their voice. Leading up to relationships, Jennifer dives into how change in sexual attraction and passion between partners is normal. She then lends some advice that calls for normalizing talk about sexual relationships, feeling more comfortable in opening up about this issue.
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Reinvent Your Sex Life With Jennifer Gunsaullus, PhD
I am back with my most favorite topic and yours because this brings in my numbers and they go off the charts. Every time I talk about sex, everyone gets excited, including me. It’s my favorite topic of all. I can’t even tell you. I’m so flipping excited for this woman and I stalked her, I’ve got to be honest. Dr. Jenn Gunsaullus is a sexologist and intimacy coach. She has a PhD, a national speaker on couple’s intimacy, sexual consent, women’s empowerment, gender communication, erotic play and mindful sex. She has presented two TEDx Talks. She is the co-host of the podcast, Sex Talk with Clint and the Doc. Her first book, From Madness to Mindfulness: Reinventing Sex for Women was published. Dr. Jenn has over 1.5 million hits and it’s called In the Den with Dr. Jenn and she is an expert in the documentary on masturbation, Sticky: A (Self) Love Story. Dr. Jenn, welcome.
Thank you so much for having me.
I can’t take it. I don’t even know where to start. I have to be quiet and let you talk because you bring so much to the table. We’re going to talk about lots of stuff and we’re going to talk about your book. We cannot forget about your book that came out, congratulations.
Thank you so much.
Tell us a little bit about you.
I live in San Diego and I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I’m an East Coast girl. I grew up a Catholic and getting lots of what it needs to be a good girl messages, which are not so great for us as women necessarily in terms of being empowered around our sexuality, loving our bodies, having a voice or expressing, asking for needs or feeling like we can. I was definitely steeped in those messages in our society. I got my PhD in Sociology and I got involved with the Vagina Monologues. I was doing activism around women’s sexual empowerment literally from the stage. I moved to San Diego years ago and started getting into holistic health, mind, body, spirit, mindfulness, meditation and yoga. I realized how much, especially for women, our sexual health and sexual well-being is much tied to the big picture of our willingness to nurture and take care of ourselves and know that we’re worthy of that. It’s tied to self-worth, self-nurturing and finding our voice within that. We get opposite messages in our society around that. We’re not taught to take care of ourselves in that way.