Welcome to the Libido Lounge with Dr. Nicole Marcione

Dr. Diane Mueller: Welcome to the Libido Lounge, where we focus on all things love, lust, and libido. We believe that fabulous sex is as important to health as exercise and good food. Hey everybody, Dr. Diane, your libido expert here. Welcome to another episode on the Libido Lounge. I am so excited to introduce you to Dr. Nicole Marcione. She is the founder, she is the CEO of Sexy Smart Aging. So welcome to the show, Dr. Nicole. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Nicole Marcione: Thank you for having me. I just—I love that name, Libido Lounge. I feel like we should have our cosmos or apple spritzes in hand as we discuss all of these fabulous topics.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Believe me, that is the vision. That’s where I’m going with this. Eventually, this will be done in a studio with apple spritzes, and we can all get together in person and talk about these really, really cool topics. But for today, this is what we’re doing. So I love it. Let’s start off right away with talking a little bit about your work and founding Sexy Smart Aging—what is that, why are you so passionate about that? And we want to tie in today’s episode—really want to tie for everybody together the aging process, how that is related to libido, and the concept of why anti-aging is BS, right? So we’re going to talk about all of that, but let’s just start by talking about the Sexy Smart Aging—what you do, why you’re so passionate about the aging and libido topic.

The Vision Behind Sexy Smart Aging

Dr. Nicole Marcione: Yeah, I guess it really came about from, you know, so much of aging and longevity and the voices and rhetoric we hear about it are either negative or are all about how to, like, resist it, deny it, you know, go against—anti—all of these things. And I really wanted to introduce not just the smart way—because you and I both have “doctor” in front of our names, right? We’re smart in the common sense of the word, and there’s a lot of people out there that don’t have that sense of expertise, you may say—but what I found is we can’t just always be talking about the science of things and always talking about exercise and diet, like, those are ad nauseum being talked about. And what I found in working with clients is bringing in the sensuality piece, bringing in the getting back into your body and connecting with yourself piece, bringing in our sexuality—which, let’s face it, goes by the wayside once you hit 40, and then forget about it if you’re in your 60s and 70s, like, no one’s talking about it.

Blending Science and Sensuality

Dr. Nicole Marcione: But people want to still be having sex. They might be too tired, which—that brings in the libido part and how to, like, rev that up. But I was like, how do I bring these two things together—the science of longevity and the art of sensual living? And that’s why I came up with Sexy Smart Aging—because we want both, right? We don’t want to, like, throw the baby out with the bathwater and leave one and focus on just the other, but really, how do these two things intersect, and how do we bring them both and blend them into our life every day? And so this is where that came up from. And it took a while to finally kind of settle into it—like, it’s always been there, but I really was very science-forward for a long time. With a PhD, you’re just—I’m sure with an MD, like, that’s constantly forced into you—like, science first, evidence first, who you citing, when was the study done, how sophisticated was it? And those are all important things, but we gotta, like, live a little and have fun and play and make things enjoyable—because that’s how we make this lifestyle sustainable and how we, you know, for the long run. If we’re talking about longevity, we might have another 40, 50 years in front of us—how are we going to make this fun, connect to ourselves, feel alive, and live a healthy life as we’re doing it?

Dr. Diane Mueller: I want to touch on something you said because I think all of this is so, so important. And what you brought up around talking about exercise and some of these things ad nauseum, I think, is a really, really good point, right? Because all of those things—all the basics and the foundations—are essential, and people are—this is a common topic, people are hearing about that. So I’m going to pick out something you said, which was, like, being inside of one’s body and really feeling that, like, that sensual piece. And let’s go a little bit deeper into, like, what you mean by that—how does somebody really know if they’re in their body or not, why is that valuable, and can you, like, even talk about why that’s valuable from a sexual health perspective?

Understanding Sensuality and Being in the Body

Dr. Nicole Marcione: Yeah, yeah. So we live in a society which is all about productivity, to-do list-taking, and women especially—I mean, this applies to every human being on the Earth, but women especially, and in particular—I’m not a mom, but for women who are moms, usually they’re moms, they’re running the household, they have work, maybe they even own their own business or are at a C-suite level, and there is just too many things pulling at this woman. And so what gets thrown aside is completely all of her own needs. On top of that, we have a society telling us if we are thinking about our own needs—especially when it’s beyond food and shelter, but it’s things like feeling good in our bodies, having a pleasurable experience, buying ourselves roses, having a bubble bath—are you kidding me? What is wrong with you? That’s so selfish. Who has time for that? Must be nice—must be nice, right? So this is all what we’re bombarded with.

Why Sensuality Matters

Dr. Nicole Marcione: And yet, really being able to tap into our bodies—our physical bodies—actually allows us to slow down enough so that we can understand where we’re at right now. And that actually can catapult us forward—it’s almost like a slingshot. Like, you pull back, you slow down, you pull back, you figure out where you want to aim, and then you let that slingshot go, and you go much further than if you were to just maybe throw the rock or the ball or whatever. And so being in our bodies—one, can be scary, right? Maybe we have religious conditioning that our body’s pleasure was bad. Maybe it’s been through trauma—a lot of women, I think, is it one in four women have some sort of sexual trauma that they’ve experienced? A lot of us are going through perimenopause or menopause where our bodies are, like, “betraying,” quote-unquote, us, and we don’t even know who this person is or what this body—who this body belongs to—because this isn’t what it used to do, and now it’s doing all kinds of crazy things. And so it can be easy to just cut ourselves off at the neck.

Connecting Through the Senses

Dr. Nicole Marcione: So when we bring that sensuality piece—and it doesn’t necessarily mean sexuality; they can be similar, but we can definitely separate them—when we bring in the sensuality piece, it’s really, how do we use our senses in our everyday life, right? Sight, touch, sound, taste, smell, and then I like the sixth—intuition, which is our sixth sense, which is intuition or our gut feeling. And when we do that, it can be really simple—just taking three deep breaths is going to connect us back into our body. Just seeing, like, where am I feeling tight? What is feeling good? What isn’t feeling good? How can I make everyday mundane experiences—like drinking a cup of coffee or putting my lotion on my body—feel good and make me feel like a human and make me feel alive? And so that is where we start connecting on a deeper level to our bodies. And then that’s where pleasure—we can kind of, step-by-step, get a little bit higher and higher, and then eventually that pleasure can end up looking at our sexuality, looking at our libido, and not feel so overwhelming.

Dr. Nicole Marcione: Because I don’t know about you, but I know a lot of clients I work with—it’s like, I can barely even have time to pee, let alone get to orgasm, right? Which, we all know, women—it’s, you need at least 20 minutes, and I mean, if you’re solo, a little bit less, but if you’re with a partner, usually that’s what it takes. And who has the patience or the time? And then it might not even be that great—let’s get real, right? So there’s an effort, and a lot of times thinking about the effort just becomes overwhelming. And so it’s so much easier to just, like, shove it down—I don’t need this, my life is okay, I don’t need to have an extraordinary, you know, pleasurable life. But then something hits us, and it’s usually around midlife, and we’re like, wait a minute—I just got sold a list of goods that I don’t really like, and now I’m ready for something new. So, in that way, for me, in my opinion, that is the connection between sensuality and libido and aging and the society we live in.

Sensuality as a Bridge to Sexuality

Dr. Diane Mueller: Yeah, there’s so much good stuff there. I appreciate the—just, like, the framing around things that we hear so commonly in life, like, that’d be nice—like, that’d be nice if I had the time, you know, those kind of things that we hear as women, as humans, as men—just as humans in general, I think this comes up a lot, right? And so I really appreciate that—it’s so palpable. And the list, you know, that we do that you’re talking about—I think the list goes on. Sometimes it’s, like, all the things we have to do that take us out of the body that happens during the day, like you’re talking about, but then sometimes it actually happens when we’re trying to be intimate, right? When we’re not in our body, and all of a sudden it’s, like, the brain is, like, don’t forget to buy the milk, or make sure you take the—you know, get the shoes for the kids, or God, forgot to do that at work. And trying to be intimate in one’s body, and all of a sudden the brain’s thinking about all the things that are not about the pleasure.

Dr. Diane Mueller: So do you find in your work, then—because what some of what I hear is, like, the connection even between sensuality and sexuality—so are you finding sometimes in your work that if people are having, say, a hard time creating the time for a sex life, doing the things like you’re talking about—pushing it away, just, like, I don’t need this, just kind of ignoring it—do you find sometimes that tuning into the sensual component that you’re describing, you know, putting the lotion on, feeling that—is that sometimes, like, a bridge for, if sexuality’s been lost, almost, like, a bridge kind of back into it?

Dr. Nicole Marcione: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. Because we’re doing these things every day anyways, right? We get out of the shower, we put on our moisturizer on our face or our body—so why not make this a sensual experience? Being, like, what does it smell like? What is the texture of the lotion or oil? What does my skin feel like? Oh, that feels really nice to rub my legs or my back or my breasts—whatever it may be. And so then it doesn’t feel so scary or shameful, perhaps, or overwhelming—it’s just something you do every day. We’re just shifting how we think about it. And instead of it being something to go through and just cross off the list—or we don’t even have it on our list because it’s so natural—like, oh, this actually feels good. I am a human. I am a woman, and I feel alive right now because of my senses.

Building Intimacy with Yourself

Dr. Nicole Marcione: And then, yeah, you’re able to step into a more intimate experience with others in a sexual way because you’ve been creating this intimacy with yourself. And so when you create this intimacy with yourself, then it opens that gap—or that bridge—to step into feeling safe and confident also in doing that with someone else.

Actionable Steps to Rekindle Libido

Dr. Diane Mueller: Amazing. So I always like to leave people with an actionable step if possible. So would you say then we could leave people with—if they’re trying to really stoke their libido and they know it’s valuable and know they’re trying to get back there, but it’s hard—would you say a good actionable step then is something like you’re saying—just starting with picking an activity, like putting on lotion, brushing the hair, some other type of activity they’re doing on a day-to-day basis anyways, and try to do it from a more, like, pleasure-filled way—would that be an actionable step you’d recommend?

Dr. Nicole Marcione: Exactly. And then you could even transfer that into giving a massage with your partner, right? Or having coffee together and drinking it and having a sensual experience in that way—without anything sexual. Like, you can leave the sex part off the table if you want. So it’s just getting more comfortable in all that. And so then that way—it actually comes down to it, it just kind of hit me—is, like, being present. Because what you were saying is, like, sometimes we’re in intimate situations, and we’re thinking about our to-do list or what the kids need or the grocery store—whatever it is—and instead of being present in that moment with yourself—not even with the other person necessarily, but with yourself.

Digging Deeper

Dr. Nicole Marcione: And a lot of times, I’ll add one more thing just to get a little bit deeper—a deeper layer—a lot of times our brains go to that because there’s something underlying that we need to look at in a bigger way. And that could be—maybe it is safety—I don’t feel safe in my body, so I’m going to dissociate and start thinking of these things. Maybe it’s, I don’t feel good in my body—like, I’m not confident, or I feel shame, or I don’t feel, you know, my body image is bad—maybe we gotta look at that. Or it could be different conditioning beliefs that we were told about sex. And so I feel that is the place where most of us don’t want to go, and yet if we actually are brave enough—because it takes a lot of courage to do that—whether it’s with a coach or a therapist or on your own or reading books, whatever it is—but exposing those underlying things, that also is a really great way to increase your libido, to enjoy your pleasure and all that. But if that’s too much, like—yes—starting with the body moisturizing, starting with the hands on your heart and breathing, starting with that body scan of just what you’re feeling—those are, like, the entry points of bringing more sensuality into your life, for sure.

Upcoming Summit and How to Connect

Dr. Diane Mueller: I love it, I love it, I love it. And I know we could talk all day, and people want to know more. And you all—this is a really exciting talk topic because in the summit that I’ve been talking about a little bit, you guys will be able to see Dr. Nicole. We’re going to go more into all these topics—into the aging process, how that’s associated with libido, sensuality, sexuality—a lot more on actionable steps. So make sure you look in the show notes for your free registration to the Sexual Health and Sexual Dysfunction Summit that’s coming up here very soon. You can register there, and you’ll see information there too about how to work with Dr. Nicole. But I want to make sure that we also kind of name how people get started with you and they learn more about your offering—so you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Dr. Nicole Marcione: Sure, quickly. And I just want to say—I am so excited about this summit, not just that I’m part of it, but all the other speakers, like—this is incredible. And for everyone listening, I hope you run to register because there is nothing like this going on online—or actually in person, as far as I know—so it’s just an incredible opportunity. But yeah, so I guess the best way is on—I’m on Instagram, DrNicoleMarcione. I also work with people one-on-one—I have a few offerings there. And I have a monthly membership that is entitled Sensuality, Sexuality, and Aging—because I feel like so many women are talking about how they don’t have a community in which these topics can be discussed freely, without judgment, in a, you know, supportive way. And so I was, like, you know, there really isn’t a lot of these communities, so why not create one? Because I know I’m going to love that as well. So I would say all of those are different ways to work together or to connect. And so, yeah, I just look forward to connecting in a much deeper level with all of you.

Conclusion and Call to Action

Dr. Diane Mueller: Oh, thank you so much. And I hope you guys all take this to heart, and if you’re not doing any sensual practice, really look at starting with some of these actionable steps. You’ll find information about Dr. Nicole, like I said, in the show notes. And this is just your reminder to stay classy, feel sexy, and always remember to be a little badassy. See you in the next one. Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge. Please don’t keep me a secret—please share this with your friends. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as the Modern Libido Club—for so much more!