Female Pleasure & the Path to Embodied Sexuality – A Conversation with Jenny Braxton

Reclaiming the Word “Pussy” and Its Power in Female Pleasure

Dr. Diane: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode on the Libido Lounge. I’m your host, board certified sexologist, Dr. Diane, and we have an amazing guest today. We’re going to dispel some myths and we’re going to really break down something that a lot of people are kind of scared of, which is the word pussy. So, we’re going to break this down today and we’re going to talk about why this word is not what we say it is. Meaning, why this doesn’t mean, hey, you’re weak, or all these other different like ways that that this word is framed. And we’re really going to start to hopefully change your mind and the way you look at this word to actually realize that there’s a huge problem in many ways with the way we’re using our terms of feminine anatomy. Vagina, for example, doesn’t really cover everything that the female has, right? It’s just one part of her genitalia. And so when we use a word like pussy it encompasses so much more. And we’re really looking to reclaim this word. We’re really looking to allow ourselves to sink deeper into the beauty of this word. And we’re really looking to form as women new relationships with this part of our body that oftentimes we have so much disconnect in. So all of that and more with our guest Jenny today. And remember, we’re doing this in two parts like always. So, if you want that exclusive content, make sure you go into the show notes, go to our Modern Libido Club where you can sign up to get the exclusive conversation part two. But for now, welcome to the lounge, Jenny. It’s so great to have you.

Jenny Braxton: Thank you so much for having me. I am full of pleasure to be here.

Dr. Diane: Ditto. Same here.

How One Word Grounded Divine Feminine Work into Somatic Sexuality

Dr. Diane: And let’s jump right in. You know, I think, you know, some people that have listened to this may know Mama Gena’s work and her book on pussy reclamation, but I think for a lot of people, this whole concept of like, oh my goodness, what are we saying? What are we saying online? What are we saying on this podcast? Turn it down. It’s like it can be a big deal to hear the word pussy out loud. So, tell us about your relationship with how did you begin this work? How did you actually start to reframe this word? And why do you think this is so important for both women as well as for couples?

Jenny Braxton: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the best way to answer the question particularly of like why do I use this word? Why do I think it’s so important is to tell a little bit of my own journey which is that I got called into bringing this work. I wasn’t a sex and relationship intimacy coach when I began. I actually started as an empowered birth coach supporting women in having empowered birth, not like a doula but like doing the psychological emotional healing to prepare for it. And that kind of started me off into the world of pleasure because I started to bring pleasure into my work as a way of supporting women and birth. And so we could use the whole segment just to talk about the story of like how I got here. So I’m giving you the real short version. But it was actually a program that I was in to be an ecstatic birth practitioner. So really helping women have birth where pleasure is at the forefront. And it was in that program where I was actually introduced to Mama Gena and to her book Pussy: A Reclamation. And so before that point I mean obviously I was already in my own journey. I had been doing my own kind of like sexual healing work and I was really reclaiming pleasure as something for myself through the way I was learning to bring that into birth. And I had done a lot of healing around kind of my pelvic bowl and my feminine nature and being and like all of this stuff. But then when I heard Mama Gena speak and I read her book, I was just like it’s pussy. And so when people asked me like why do you use that word? The truest answer I can give you is like that’s what she wants to be called. Like once that word pussy came to me, it took this work that I was already doing that felt like this very beautiful divine feminine work like reclaiming all this stuff and then the word pussy like ground all that power and reclamation like into my body so that it wasn’t only just the beautiful side of the feminine, it also encompasses the fullness of the feminine, right? Like the grit and the raw and like the full spectrum. And it just I felt differently in my body. It just honestly it just turned me on. And so it was like once pussy came in there was no going back. And so it took me down the road of you know shifting my practice from focusing on birth to focusing on sexuality in general and really in reclaiming this word because as you said not only do we not have great references for our anatomy like yeah vagina is incomplete. You know people aren’t generally saying vulva and to be honest those words like I can honor them and respect them but they don’t actually turn me on but like the word pussy is just like it’s powerful and it’s seductive and it’s just like that this is the word.

Dr. Diane: Yeah I love it and we’re going to link everybody we’re going to link Mama Gena’s book in the show notes for you so you guys can check that out if you haven’t. One of my favorite like parts of that book I’ve read it a few times because it’s just genius I think one of my favorite parts is when she talks that GPS and like the the GPS she it’s an acronym she renames for great pussy in the sky right and it’s like it’s really like exactly you’re saying it’s so much more than just this part of our body it’s like the orientation to our intuition to our knowing to this is right way this is wrong way like our guide our compass all of these things.

Breaking Cultural Shame Around Female Pleasure and Feminine Embodiment

Dr. Diane: So I’m curious because I think to me some of the negative connotation with this word is in some ways like linked to I think so societal and cultural negative connotations just to like female sexuality. Right? So, how do you in your work does it like come up sometimes where you use this word and is like and you have people react in some sort of way and does that tell you something about hey how you can guide them to heal to open up and expand more to pleasure like where do you actually use or do you use this word from a informing you in your work?

Jenny Braxton: Yeah, I love that question. That’s a great question. And so, really the thing that’s coming up for me is like I’m not here to convince anyone of the word pussy. Like I have met plenty of people who are like, “Oh, oh no, oh no.” And in fact, when I really started using the word pussy and, you know, started shifting my business at the time, I had this like a pretty big Facebook group. It was called Sacred Birth Conscious Mama, like so beautiful. And I changed the name of the group to Pussycentered Living. And people freaked out. Not everybody, but a good number of people who freaked out. And so, you know, if someone is just like, “No, no,” with that word, I’m not here to convince them. But if they’re like, “Oh, even though I’m feeling some trigger here, even though this is bringing something up inside of me, like I want to know more, like something’s drawing me in, you know, that’s where I come in.” And wherever we have places where we feel triggered or we feel shame or we’re just like that word pussy like right that is always a sign that there is a portal into our power there available for us. And so that’s really how I approach you know anything that this word or our sexuality might bring up inside of us. It’s like, okay, if you’re feeling this and you want to move through this, like this is a portal into so much healing, so much expansion, so much power and pleasure. And I’m not going to force anybody to use that word. In fact, I mean, I have students who are in my world, who’ve been in my world for a while. They love this work. They love the reclamation of it, but pussy actually isn’t their favorite word. Like, they have other words they rather use, and that is totally fine. It’s just for me, that’s the word I use. And if you’re going to be in my world, you are going to hear it a lot.

What Pussy-Centered Living Means for Sexual Empowerment and Reclaiming Desire

Dr. Diane: Yeah, it’s fair. It’s fair. So, so then when it, you know, this conversation, right, your work on pussy centered living like what do you like what does that really mean from you like for or from your terminology like to live from your pussy? What does that mean? And with that like where do people and obviously we’re talking about women here like where do women have problems when they are say you know trying to live from their pussy where they don’t even realize they’re not living from their pussy like what does that like look like I guess is my question from a standpoint of yeah I’m disconnected from this area I’m not living from this area. How might that show up in day-to-day life?

Jenny Braxton: Yeah such great questions. So, so as you mentioned a moment ago, like when we’re using the word pussy it’s encompassing so much more than just this like, you know, physical anatomy on our body. You know, she is a connection source to this really deepest core part of ourself like our truth, our intuition, this wisdom. She’s not just a part on our physical body, like she’s an energetic portal, right? She’s actually a part of our psyche. And so we could almost say that like living pussycentered is like living in tune with the deepest part of yourself and also with pleasure as like our north star, right? Pleasure I say that pleasure is the embodiment of pussy and the language of pussy and it’s expression of pussy centered living and it’s not, you know, something that is frivolous or a luxury or that should be a reward. It’s actually one of the most like nourishing, sustainable, like powerful ways to just be who we are and to do what we do in the world. And so, you know, pussy-centered living is like living from that source. It’s not putting our power or our knowing, you know, outside of us. It’s really centering this within our own selves. And I also use the word pussy kind of as a synonym for feminine energy, right? And so when I say pussy it’s this source, it’s our pleasure, it’s our sexuality, it’s this physical anatomy. You know, it’s our ability to be in tune with our emotions and to process them in healthy ways and to be able to what I call emotional alchemy where we can meet whatever we’re feeling, whatever experience we’re having in emotions and we can actually shift that into feeling pleasure or feeling better or feeling how we want to be. Those are all kind of the realms of pussy and pussy centered living. And so it’s also, you know, it’s about putting this like inner wisdom, this pleasure that is our compass first, right? Tuning into that first, like centering ourselves around that and then showing up from there, moving through the world from there.

Signs of Disconnection from Feminine Embodiment in Everyday Life

Jenny Braxton: And that is not you know one of the biggest limiting beliefs that people come up against around you know claiming pleasure or pussy-centered living is this piece of like well if I put my pleasure first and I prioritize that like aren’t I going to become this just selfish person like I should be you know we are conditioned to put others first to be givers first and foremost which I mean obviously it’s beautiful to give and to take care of others but when we center that first and we prioritize that we burn out. It’s unsustainable. We get grouchy and irritated and bitter. We have really big challenges going through menopause. Like it’s a huge it causes it has a lot of repercussions. And so along those lines, the other part of your question was how can we become aware that we even are disconnected? I mean, if it’s hard for you to say the word pussy or vagina or vulva without like a little bit of a cringe, like there’s a sign right there. And all of this said with so much love. And also everything I’m saying I have experienced and also lived through. You know, one of the like so simple but kind of life-changing things that I experienced once I started paying attention like listening to my pussy living from this place is I realized how much I was running around like having to pee, having to go to the bathroom, but I was so like disconnected. It’d be like, “Oh, well, no, I have to finish all of these dishes before I can stop and go to the bathroom.” Right? So, we are literally disconnected from our body. we override pain and discomfort. It’s often about prioritizing our doing, right? Our productivity, like, oh, I’m too busy to tune in to how I feel or to what might be feeling good. And so, you know, main symptoms really are feeling stressed, feeling like we don’t have a lot of, I would I don’t know if control is the right word, but like ability to feel the way that we want to feel, right? If we wake up and I’m feeling kind of sad or blah or meh or angry or depressed and I have no way of shifting out of that, that’s actually disconnection from pussy right there and how we feel in our pleasure. You know, having blocks or resistances around our sexuality. Not being deeply connected to our sexual pleasure and being able to share that with somebody else, right? These are all symptoms of disconnection. And once again, like this is not our fault. I mean, it’s I always like to give the context of like, hey, remember we’ve been living in a misogynistic patriarchy for 5,000 years. Like, and these are the repercussions. And so, it’s not our fault. And also, no one can reclaim this for ourselves. No one can reconnect except for our own selves. And that’s the beautiful thing about it. We can decide to do it.

Intimacy Coaching Through Breath, Pleasure, and Somatic Sexuality Practices

Dr. Diane: I really like looking at stuff like this as it’s not our fault, but it is our responsibility.

Jenny Braxton: 100%. I say it all the time like we are the ones that are in charge of actually fixing this no matter how we got here. The fact is that we are here now and you know we can talk about all the reasons why and they can be interesting and helpful sometimes to learn but really in order to fix it and move on. We have to take responsibility for getting ourselves into a new state.

Dr. Diane: Have you ever do you know Dr. Nan Weiss? Have you ever met her before?

Jenny Braxton: No, I haven’t.

Dr. Diane: I’m gonna put you two in touch if you want. She’s a great researcher and studies a lot on female orgasm. She I learned the term from her healthy hedonism and I just absolutely love this term so much which I’ve repeated it many times in my work giving her credit because I think it just says so much to this concept we’re talking about here around okay pleasure like hedonism was always thought of like this bad thing like there’s so much negative connotation to the pursuit of pleasure which is what hedonism is but essentially this is one of the most fundamental ways that we can heal our body our relationships our mind our souls our spirit on and on and like you said it’s like putting ourselves first in these scenarios is something that used to be thought of as bad. And I think there’s just more and more movement now to realizing it’s like you know the obvious thing that people say sometimes it’s like oh the airplane put your mask on first before your child but that of course applies to all of life like when we are whole we’re coming from wholeness and you know on the road to wholeness I should say cuz nobody’s ever 100% there you know we’re able to give so so so much more.

Jenny Braxton: 100%

Simple Breathwork to Ignite Female Pleasure and Reclaiming Desire

Dr. Diane: You know make this actionable right because I always like making things actionable for people as much as possible. So, you know, if people are listening to your description, which was wonderful on okay, this disconnection from pussy there’s disconnection from your female anatomy or whatever word feels or words feel good to use there. And realizing that, wow, yeah, I don’t feel pleasure or I don’t follow my intuition or I’m like I’m constantly stressed out and not listening to the signs like I need to urinate like you said. What are do you find like with your work there’s like a step-by-step order? I you know I definitely know firsthand from you know from my work that everybody is slightly different of course but when it comes to action like what sort of actionable steps do you offer for people around this is a first step of actually really getting back in tune with this part of your body not just from a sexual pleasure perspective but from just a general life pleasure and intuition and attunement to one’s own you know mind body soul spirit.

Jenny Braxton: Yeah. Yeah, I love this. And this is so important, right? Like we have to be able to take action because that’s how we actually like put all this like healing and reclamation into practice. And so I’m a mama of three. They’re not that little anymore. I’ve got a 16-year-old, 14-year-old, and nine-year-old, but you know, I’m a busy mama. And so I really like things to be you know, simple yet effective and also things I can be doing as I’m moving through my life. Like it’s rare that I do, you know, like some hour-long pleasure practice, unless I’m making love to my husband, right? But like I like things to be really accessible to us. And that’s one of those things that I love about connecting back to pussy and connecting to our pleasure is it does not have to be like an extra thing on your to-do list. You don’t have to go take like time out of your life to focus on it. Although that obviously is very helpful as well and there’s definitely a time and place for that, right? But we can start connecting literally in a moment. And one of the first ways I like to do it is more through an energetic type of connection where you’re literally just maybe you’re closing your eyes or softening your gaze and you are just taking a breath imagining that you’re drawing that breath all the way down into your pussy. And if you feel comfortable, you could even like put your hands like cup your hands over your pussy even just over your clothes if it’s helpful to kind of, you know, bring your breath down to that area and just breathe. Just feel like just take a moment to be present in that part of you. Even just literally for one breath. Obviously, if we can do more than that, great. But even just one breath done consistently over time can make a huge difference. And so that can be just like a starting point and then starting to really notice how we feel. Like as I started to do that, that’s when I was like, “Wow, I have to pee like all of the time and I’m making myself hold it instead of just taking care of my needs.” And so we just start to notice and one of the things that we may notice is like, “Wow, I don’t really feel anything.” Like, gosh, there’s not a lot here. And maybe it does feel just kind of numb or disconnected or just like I don’t like I don’t know if I’m doing it right. I can’t feel anything. And that’s fine. Like that just is a symptom of the disconnection. And what happens when we are disconnected is there’s literally a disconnect in the neural pathways between our brain and our body. And so we just we might not have a lot of sensation there because we just get to really strengthen those pathways. And we can do that by just breathing into our pussy and being willing to feel what’s there. And if it is numbness, if it is a sense of kind of disconnection, like being curious about that. And so really I think the first piece that we get to do is just to like forgive ourselves for not listening to our bodies in the past, for having numbness, for feeling shame or whatever might come up is like it’s okay. You know there’s a reason that we’re here and like you like we’re both saying it’s it is our responsibility to reclaim this but we don’t have to you know make this something that we’re like oh have done a bad job on or failed like no no and we can shift this. So that’s the first way I love to start right with just using that breath.

Pussy Sensing Meditations and Self-Pleasure for Somatic Sexuality

Jenny Braxton: I also really like to do what I call pussy sensing meditations with people where you’re now starting to not just breathe into just her in general, but start to notice like, can I even bring my awareness to different parts of my pussy? Like, can I breathe into my clit? Can I breathe into my labia? Like, can I start to bring more awareness to this area? And once again, those are things that we can do very simply. And it’s, you know, our pussy is I love to say, right, she’s a source of our power. But it’s like, okay, well, what does that really mean? Can mean many different things, but part of that is she is an energetic source. She is a powerful source of energy. And when we are disconnected from her, we do not have access to that energy. But when we start to connect, even if it’s just as simply as breathing into her and feeling her, we start to awaken that energy source. And then of course we can go you know much deeper into healing and reclamation right this is a starting practice there are many many more things we can do but the more we do it the more we liberate that energy and I mean just as a real simple real life example you know three kids we also live out in the country so I do a lot of driving of my children around to all their activities and that used to be such a stressful experience for me you know I’m just like ah these kids in the car and they’re fighting or crying or like whatever is happening and I would we would get to the place and I’d just be kind of like irritated and I started doing this very thing we’re talking about where as I’m driving all I’m doing is just like breathing with presence like in and out of my pussy and I get we get I like I feel amazing and like maybe the kids are still crying and fighting but I’m like and actually what happens is people because we are all you know energetically connected when I do that it’s amazing I can have kids who are like screaming and crying in the car I like breathe into my pussy and focus on that and then the next thing I know I’m like wow everybody’s like really quiet and happy and content back there and I’m feeling alive and full of energy. And so that’s a beautiful way we can start. I do also love to start with like hands-on practices of connecting and connecting with our pleasure. That could be like a self-pleasure practice, aka masturbation, but I don’t love the word masturbation, so I call it self-pleasure, right? Where we’re not where there’s no goal. We’re not trying to give ourselves an orgasm. We’re just there for the point of connecting and finding our pleasure and awakening to sensation. Obviously that does require, we can’t always do that right in the moment. Like that does require a little bit of time set aside, but it’s worth it. But then one last thing that is you know such a something that we can really focus on that’s so accessible is attuning to our pleasure and pleasure as an activation of our senses right so pleasure is an experience in our body and it comes through our senses and so and once again as I said like pleasure is the language and the embodiment and the expression of pussy so when we’re activating our pleasure we are connecting to that part of us as well and we could do that as in like, you know, I’m sitting here teaching and talking and I have this like smooth rock on my desk that I love to just like touch and stroke and there’s so much pleasure in that touch, right? Or we can look out the window at some.