Pleasure Beyond Pain: Chronic Pain & Sexuality
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In This Episode
We explore the relationship between chronic pain and sexuality with Emily Royce. You’ll learn how pleasure and awareness can coexist with pain and support healing and reconnection.
Emily’s site: HealWithPleasure.com
Additional Resources:
Emily Royce is a certified Somatic Sex Educator, Sexological Bodyworker, and STREAM (Scar Tissue Remediation) practitioner who is currently President of the Association of Certified Sexological Bodyworkers and has served in this capacity for the past several years.
Emily specializes in working with foix who have chronic pain and disability, or disorders that directly affect their sexuality, helping those on the outskirts of mainstream sexuality discover the pleasures hidden in their bodies, and the language around asking for what they need and want, and receiving it.
“Letting Curiosity Lead” is a major tenet in how she heals with pleasure.
What You’ll Learn About Chronic Pain & Sexuality
How Emily’s decision to explore embodying grieving through dance, after experiences with MS since childhood – and allowing herself to feel it all, was her foray into eroticism and finding the greatest joys she has ever experienced.
How experiencing extended kundalini meditations and immersing herself in the realms of possibility became touch points into sensuality, sexuality, and erotic trance states leading to a body knowing and remembering.
How both kundalini yoga and sexological bodywork are similar in their inquiry : “what does my body need in this moment – moment by moment?”
How the methodology for everyone is the same – whether differently-abled body or not – which involves asking: “how is your body in this moment, how can we invite an intimate connection and attunement with your body’s authentic desire and knowing, and how we can make this feel even better?”
How differently-abled bodies may be used to feeling like a burden or taking up “too much space,” leading to self-apologizing due to the messaging from society of what is “normal,” – leading to feeling like you’re always behind or being too fussy.
How the amount of repeated medicalization can wear on a person and separates them from their body’s intelligence – getting further and further away from one’s innate knowing…. And how working even slower, and untangling any sense of urgency is the medicine….always inviting the process to be client and body-led.
How essential it is for all practitioners to question what “normal” is and consider how society’s conditioning has created what appears acceptable in a society where all bodies are unique and different.
How “healing with pleasure” is everything – the medicine the body needs and wants and how we need to slow down, pause, and feel, to cultivate this resource in the body.
How discovering states of neutrality in a body used to pain, can serve as a resource then leading to openings into pleasure.
→ Explore more on Somatic Sexual Healing.
This conversation is part of a deeper body of work on Somatic Sexual Healing
Related Eps on Sexual Trauma Healing & Nervous System Regulation
Pleasure as medicine and pelvic healing
Pelvic pain and scar tissue healing
Healing sexual trauma and rebuilding intimacy
The pace of trust in trauma healing
Go Deeper Into This Work
The body remembers how to heal, how to feel, and how to open again to pleasure.
If you’re ready to actively reclaim your relationship to pleasure, sensation, and aliveness:
Reclaiming Your Pleasure Online Experience
A guided pathway to reconnect with your body, restore sensitivity, and awaken your innate capacity for pleasure.
Welcome to your Body. Remembers pleasure. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. This podcast is devoted to sexual embodiment, intimacy, and the body's innate capacity to heal, feel, and remember pleasure. If something here resonates with you, you're welcome to explore more writings and resources@rahichun.com. And now let's begin.
Today I am thrilled to invite Emily Royce to the podcast, our Exploration of Embodi. And the sexual and sensual pleasures for differently abled bodies invites us to question how as a society, we've created these standards and norms about sexuality and embodied pleasure when everybody is so unique and different.
And as practitioners, we explore how the same principles apply for anybody. Of attuning for what is true and desired moment by moment. Always questioning how can this feel even better. I am very excited to welcome Emily Royce to the podcast. Emily is also a certified somatic sex educator, a sexological body worker, as well as a scar tissue remediation and management practitioner who is currently the president of our Association of certified Sexological Body Workers.
And she has been. Or past for several years now. So there's a number of things that we wanna get into. Emily specializes in working with folks who have chronic pain and or disability or disorders that directly affect their sexuality. She helps those on the outskirts of mainstream sexuality discover the hidden pleasures in their bodies and the language around asking for what they need and want and receiving it.
Emily, thanks so much for joining us today. So happy to be here. Yeah. Excited to have this conversation. Awesome. Me too. Me too. I, like oftentimes when I have guests on the podcast, I feel like a natural jumping off point is inquiring about like how your life experiences shaped or influenced your path.
To holding space as a sexological body worker with the audience that you do, and what has been really instrumental in your personal jo journey of your own sexual embodiment? Okay. The focal point of my work comes from, I, I developed chronic pain as a child, probably about six if I'm like trying to track it where it originated.
And then just, as this stuff does, it just compounds and but it's, a lot of it is. It wasn't so much the pain and other things that developed it's the loaded stuff around it of not trying to be a burden, trying to be, I'm one of seven children, and so Oh wow. Trying to Yeah. Not be too much, too extra, too this, too that and the kind of holding and gripping and things we do around what we're experiencing.
So that, that led into the path. It was all that holding and gripping. And I had this, pivotal point. I must have been, oh gosh, 34 I think it was where I decided I was gonna go on a dancing journey to be with grief, like finally consent to grieving. I think I was resourced enough.
Felt supported enough by the universe. I'm like, okay, I can do this thing now. And not at all. Imagining that as I consented to grieving that within that was gonna be greater joy than I had ever experienced. I and I think that's true. Once we have this experience of, allowing ourselves to feel it all, and not trying to compartmentalize and say, I'll take this, but not that.
Like once we get to see, oh yes, of course there might be more grief, there might be more sadness, there might be more longing. But there's all the other things to a much richer degree. So my foray into eroticism like really began there. Because that was like a somatic way to enter ecstasy Pleasure, but maybe in a different way.
And it was during that, that this dancing journey was meditating heavily. And I'm a Kundalini yoga instructor, so it's like really wild meditations for a long time. And started this tremor that would just carry with me. And that led me to be like, I wonder. And then I went to tantra training, like a month long intensive, so it was just, it was letting curiosity lead.
It was like, okay, now I'm resourced enough to face the sexuality that with, the loaded Catholic shame and the sexual dysfunction. Really problematic sexuality I'd had since I started, so at that point, co. Almost two decades, it was like, okay, now I can face the thing. So that's what led me to the sexuality world.
And then once I had a lot of dysregulating. Experiences in the tantra world of not having space holding where they really knew how to be with trauma. That's what led me into sexological body work. It's something else has to exist. Yeah. Where we get to experience ecstasy, but it's not oh, we're all having a good time and it's amazing what happens when it's not?
And that's what led me into, then during sexological body work, I got super fascinated with the scar work. So that's what led me to that further. Wow, that's really fascinating. I'm curious at 34 when you made the intentional choice of. I'm curious which came first.
Did you choose dancing and as your body was getting engaged you came a across areas in your body of grief or was it like the conscious embracing of the grief that led to your body wanting to move and express itself? Or maybe it was like concurrent. Gosh. Yeah. It might, concurrent sounds about right.
Because at that point, I had already been diagnosed with ms. I had already gone through some real difficult years. In the beginning of that diagnosis, I had gotten a divorce related to becoming ill. And then it was like, oh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do yoga training. I'm gonna deeply immerse with spirit.
I'm gonna I became, this, the yoga instructor and then I was working at a yoga studio. So I was just around this. I was going to chanting events. I was like just really immersed in the realm of. Possibility. That's what that world is. Like when you meditate and you can go to this ecstatic place, that might not make sense.
That you can't explain, that you can't, try to create a code for someone else to duplicate. You just having this experience that felt like the first touch point into sexuality and sexuality, I didn't have a lot of reference points at that time.
For good positive, like erotic trance or anything like that. I think about, there's something to be said right about body knowing and a remembering. Even if we feel like, oh, I've, it's never been good for me. I was able to remember at some point. No, when I was six, I was precocious, I was mischievous.
I was, I took off all the tutu's to my belly outfits and would swing around the pole in my basement like. Stripping, wow, as a homeschooler, like, how did I even know how to do that? It's there's some remembrance there. Even maybe if it's not even my lifetime, the body is this is freeing, this is fun, this is liberating, Uhhuh until it's not, and when someone else discovers, but that doesn't mean that impulse wasn't there.
So I think it was just remembering that like wave length at a much. A much, much older age by doing other practices, other somatic things. That made me receptive to receiving, made me receptive to remembering oh yeah. Oh yeah. I have this narrative that I was always a really serious person and things have always been hard.
And then you remember a tiny little bit, you are like, wait a second. That's not the whole truth. And then it's possible. Yeah. So it was leaning into the realm of possibility and that maybe, I don't know all the things I think I know. That opens the door to oh wow, this is something I didn't have any context for, and here it is happening.
But you know what, something that really stands out for me is that as a child, as a young child, you were dancing in your basement, so you were like that. That somatic memory of the joy and the energy of expressing yourself in that way was in your body, and it sounds like it got. I don't know, reawakened or remembered or tapped into at 34 when you chose to dance.
And then, as you shared the trance states that a lot of Kundalini meditations can invite opens up these portals of like different possibilities, almost like. I would love your in input on this, Emily, because, as Kundalini yoga is very much about angles and like putting your body into different angular positions, invoking the breath and the sound.
But I feel like Kundalini offers access to, anyone who can really. Meditate and engage in their breath and sound. I How was it for you having MS being a teacher, and did you find it limiting? It sounds like it was liberating for you. It's both like I think, because I'm an oppositional person. Like when they were like, you have to wear all white, I'm like, wore every color. I came to the first class, so funny, every possible color combination and I, but then I had surrender and then I was folded, bought in, and then I was doing two and a half hour practices starting at 4:00 AM after a cold shower and like to just play and not feel like we have to be.
We embedded in whatever the thing, uhhuh, to take the techno, the thing that really stayed with me in K yoga. And this, this is a lineage with abuse. This is a lineage that got all twisted up, but there's, there are things that are like, it works. If you just do the technology.
Totally. And the thing that really stayed with me in that practice was what some teachers would say, which is. And if you can't do the practice like it's prescribed this day, just envision it. Just imagine it. And your neurons are going to fire the same as if it were happening. Which is true.
It's the same as I was just talking to someone about Joe Dispenza, this author who, yeah. This is very much if you believe it, you can achieve. But just imagine yourself playing piano. And. That will still like fire this for your brain as well, right? Yeah. I experienced that.
It felt oh, I just did this whole set, even if half the time I was sitting here and I was doing breath work along with it and I had my eyes closed. And that really helps work on, ego. And ableism in general. This was probably my first foray into. Oh, I'm less than, I can't do the thing.
Oh, I must look funny compared to the rest of the class. Oh, this, oh that. It helps in Kundalini yoga that everyone's eyes are closed. It's not maybe as competitive seeming as some other yoga studios, for example. But it was having to bump up against the edge and confront it lovingly a little bit and then back away from it. And then the other part of Kundalini, which is like seeing what you're capable of, which is a beautiful thing to experience for the self. So at a time where I felt really limited I can't do this. I can't do that. Sure. Envision it half the time. And then try what if?
What if that's what, sometimes I'd find my arms being up in this wild pose. Suck crea for, we did it for over an hour and I kept my arms up the whole time, 'cause it's amazing. It's not that different than like the, the somatic sexuality work we do of it's not, it's just every single moment. What does my body need and want in this moment? Am I capable of keeping 'em up in this moment? I don't have to think about the next moment. I don't have to think about, and I don't have to push. It's not about, yeah. I wanna feel accomplished, like it's about can I, and how will, how do I feel every moment that I keep saying yes. And it's actually a genuine Yes. And I'm not coming from a place of, I have to. Or the person next to me still has their arms up, so I also have to, it's just, me, myself, and I spirit.
Yeah. What are we capable of doing together? Yes. Yeah. This is really. A wonderful segue because I wanted to ask how you incorporate what's been really instrumental in your journey with your clients? And it sounds I love what underscored around when you can imagine it your neurons are firing, because your imagination is so powerful and just being present with what is and what your body needs moment to moment.
Are these principles that you bring to your practice with your clients and yeah. I guess a broader question would be like what have, what do you find yourself bringing into the session space for your clients who may have chronic illnesses or physical disabilities that has been really instrumental for your journey of reclaiming your body?
It's the thing is with all clients, it's like the methodology is the same with everyone. With everyone, yeah. In a way, 'cause I think we compartmentalize, differently abled bodies, but the technology is not really different. It's. How is your body in this moment?
Let's do some body focusing. Let's get you connected and in a relationship with your body so that you all can be having a conversation. It's less important about me understanding exactly what to do with you. Let's figure out where you system is leading you today. The simple invitation of what would make this even better ends up sometimes taking 20 minutes, 30 minutes. People who are not. Used to being comfortable. And not used to taking time and space. So this is a little bit more with differently abled bodies where I do see this with everyone though, that folks we generally feel like a burden. We generally feel like we're too much or not enough somehow.
The same time. Yep. Yep. So there's a lot of self apologizing. So that sometimes can take longer with differently abled bodies or differently abled minds. Just difference. Because the messaging from greater society of what the norm is, the pace that's normal, like that you need to be keeping up, like that's a little bit stronger and more felt maybe in a somatic way of like always feeling behind or always feeling like your needs are fussy and like you should just accept wherever is good enough, basically. So that can be really instrumental in initial sessions and really every session. Nobody saying that. People wanna be like, it's fine. We can go ahead and start with the meditation. I'm like, yeah, but with something, make this even better.
And when that prompt keeps coming and then it's oh yeah, you're, yes, I do actually need something behind my knees. Okay. Actually the light is irritating. Yes, we just get closer and closer. And then what is getting it Feel that in the body of how is it to sense what I need to speak it out to receive it, and now be able to like savor and bask in that. That is like every step of the somatic sexology work that we do, compiled into one, into the. Precursor to get into a exercise when really that's its own exercise, I find. Yeah. Yeah. That, that working with differently abled folks just comes with some more, there's, I think the sensibility for folks who may work with this population is to understand or to gather resources or get exposed to.
The amount of medicalization that folks who have been through the medical world that really wears on a person and their body and it really separates you from your body. Intelligence, it's by design. So if you go to many doctor's visits and you've had many procedures, surgeries, et cetera, et cetera, you're getting further and further away from your innate.
Knowing of what's best for you. Yeah. Because you're constantly being told, we uhhuh the establishment know what is best for you, and it's always another procedure or medication or something else. That is not about getting into your body. It's usually about getting further away.
So it's also with folks in this, these populations. I already move slow and this work moves slow, but I move even slower. So I think for anyone working with these populations to question your, it's always good to be untangling your own tenets of white supremacy, specifically urgency. Or have an idea of okay, here's a differently abled person.
I'm gonna assume that their ideal is to get back to quote normal. Presume that they wanna have sexuality that looks like what's going on in the movies. So to really we don't wanna do this with any clients. Again, that's why I'm trying to generalize pan out. Yeah. Because hopefully, yeah, we bring the same sensibility of slow.
Don't presume. Let it be client led. Yeah. Let it be client body led. But I think we do need to work on our own. Stuff around what Ableism for sure. Around what we think is normal or ideal. And have that be happening at the same time so that we can celebrate the trium someone's having.
That might look really small, that might seem insignificant to us. Because we're comparing it to what another client was able to get to. Or we're comparing it. To, oh, I wanna get these people to have a really enjoyable sex life. And then they might have one micro movement that made self-pleasure more accessible to them and not feel like a victories to, to really celebrate that.
Yeah. And least totally, savor or pause. The integration is where most of the. Neuroplasticity happens anyways. So yeah, to move slower, basically. Yeah. What I think what you're speaking to Emily is so important. Here I was like preparing for our interview, like wondering, you know what awareness as practitioners, should consider, but it's really.
It's really the fundamentals, it's making sure it's client led, client empowered, attuning to the client's body. N no, no matter, how, like where the client's body is on the spectrum of ability and 'cause that's when the body is really reclaiming its own agency. And what I'm hearing is what the difference that I hear and is that because some folks who go through the kind of western medical system have been so disempowered and been told like what procedure, like so many procedures are imposed onto them that it that to just really attune to, even more so what it is that is true for the client's body and let that lead.
Yeah, exactly. There has to, the wheel of consent is a beautiful tool for, again, for everybody. And this hopefully is a part of all of our practice. This can be really instrumental and empowering for people who've, been so out of consent. A lot of things yes, have been done to them. And even, I think it's really important, if we probably see, I see some big improvements when people. See me for session prior to a surgery and after, particularly prior to do body practices and listening in something like a body poem of how does the body feel about going into this procedure.
And reframing it in a way, this is not my ideal, but I want you to hear this body like I am choosing this and what do we need to be on board with this can really. Feel more like a team approach of going into something. When working with folks who've often had things done to them, it might take way more prac, way more time, way more consistent practice with the wheel of consent.
'cause again, what I find is people do this apologizing burden I'm taking too long. It's good enough. I think I get it. Without no, we're really gonna stay here. What would you want me to do to your, how do you want me to touch your arm? If we're just practicing. And I was like, I don't know.
Okay we'll just stay with you. I don't know until you get a sense, and you don't have to have a clear answer. You can just have, I think it might be this thing, and then we'll try a little bit and then we'll pause and we'll wait. Was that what you had in mind or is it a little bit more, we'll get it just.
That can be so big for people to have an experience of oh my gosh, like I totally ran the show in that. Like in this touch experience for once in my life. Yeah. And then that gives a touch point for the rest. Then we know, like when people are like, how do you teach consent? It's like when you have an embodied experience of oh, that felt different.
That becomes your compass or your guiding star of for the next things, then that's how you know when you are in consent and then choice, it might give you tools to be in more consent and choice for further procedures and things like that too. Yeah. Yeah.
Awesome. Emily, I'm curious. I wanted to ask you the role that Healing with Pleasure played. In your own. Reinhabiting or reclaiming of your body's agency and the role that plays. 'cause I think I, I feel like on your website somewhere I saw something about like you sharing about how, it can awaken new neural pathways that have been dormant and the emphasis of healing with pleasure.
And I remember a conversation we had before, you sharing about the wonders of having, of discovering orgasm through el, touch at your elbow and so and I'm really curious about the role that, that pleasure and client, your body led curiosity and inquiries about your own pleasure led to your own resource and agency and the kind of role that plays in your work with clients.
Okay. It's everything. It's everything. It really is everything. It is the medicine. It, yeah. And far more effective than a lot of other medicines that we're trying to throw at ourselves. Sure. And I want to, for people hearing this, and especially for differently abled bodies, like when I say pleasure, I don't.
Mean it maybe the way that a lot of people see it, when I even say sexual pleasure or sensual pleasure, it's not like it, there's, this incense that's like wafting into my face right now is highly pleasurable. So it's not it's recognizing that pleasure that we have resource in our body and it was helpful to have.
My first encounters with guided, like pleasurable based meditations that invited just to find neutral, because when I first got into this stuff, every, all the pain, everything was so loud, I wasn't trained enough to even. Know how to navigate to find places I certainly couldn't access. Pleasure.
And it, it exacerbated it when other people were signing. Get into your pelvis, this juicy, enjoyable, I'm like, it's not, it's very right. Painful and loud and hot and fiery. Like don't tell me what it is. But as soon as someone put neutral and allowed me and my body to decide.
Okay, can I find neutral? And then I was able to feel, oh, neutral is pleasurable. Wow. To be able to find a neutral, not loud, painful spot. Yeah. That is pleasurable. Yeah. And then I could lean into that as a resource. And then that could expand on its own instead of trying to. Tinker and create or have pleasure look a certain way, or totally go through the motions and so that, for, I think for anybody you know, like pleasure is a resource for bodies that have chronic pain and things of this nature. And I think a lot of us have chronic pain. So when I. Say that. I think a lot of folks are hesitant to claim that for themselves. I often hear people be like, oh, I don't have a disability.
It's just my knee hurts all the time. It's that's technically disabling. You don't have to use the term sure. And whatever the title's loaded. But if we're honest and acknowledge, oh, this is, we're all aging. Like we all have the totally and the creeks and the whatever, the banks.
Pleasure is going to add an extra layer of resourcefulness, and that's, this might lean into Deb Dana's, like glimmer list with the polyvagal theory of just like compiling things, which is why I have the incense right here. Compiling things that we know send us to this place of okayness where we're like, okay, I'm a little bit regulated.
We gotta be regulated to really be able to feel pleasure at its. Totally full potential. Like otherwise we can't even take it in. It's just gonna yeah. Which is what I think a lot of the sexuality world unfortunately is like more faster, harder throw, just like throwing things at ourselves to feel more.
Yeah. When the curiosity in me is, can we feel more with less? Yeah. Can we start with neutral love, love that and feel into that and, so this informs. My practice because it is, it takes away the expectation or like that, that pleasure or progress is going to present in a certain way. It's, it's, it might be undefinable like, of course we're gonna move slow. But even, with my practice, even with clients, like the natural world can be a brilliant resource or. I had a client who was like, I just really wanna get into my second chakra, and was like really obsessed about this being only related to the genitals.
And I was like, this is the, watery seat of emotion. I'm like, how do you feel about the world right now? I try not to think about it. I was like, maybe res, maybe actually. Think about Gaza, think about it, feel it. And then see if that activates your second chakra, right? Like it's not, it's a leaning into life to feel more but doing this in tiny, right?
Yeah. All this work is small. Small, because we can get overwhelmed with good too. So it's not about. Doing a practice so much that we get into an ecstatic elevation state and we can't even ground ourselves back into integrating what we have just done. It is doing it, and that's also an accessibility thing is doing it at a pace where we can actually take in the but I feel like I just went all around and I'm not No, it's great. It's great. No, like what I'm distilling from what you're sharing and actually the thing that really. Strikes me is. This, there's this thing, and it's a cultural normative idea of what sex and pleasure and intimacy is supposed to look like.
And it really gets in the way of the client led the body led experience and exploration of what's authentic. For the body in the moment by moment. And that's what I'm taking away because I think it's so fascinating that, in your own journey you shared how, you went from pain and getting to, you found the pleasure in the neutral, which is, which I love.
It's so fascinating. And then from there you could like, inquire further, into neutrality and into pleasure. And what I'm hearing is, like I think this applies to anyone. I have so many clients who come in and they say, I think my pussy is broken. And it's just based on all these Cosmo articles or what's in the media.
They think they should be, having these squirting orgasms or whatever their idea is. But it sounds to me like. A lot of what you, the space that you hold is to have an authentic inquiry for the client to really discover what is honest and truthful in their body moment to moment, rather than letting like these external ideas get in the way.
Yeah. Yeah. Those external ideas don't seem fun for anyone. Like I don't even Exactly. The people who technically meet those criteria, whatever that is, you probably don't even feel like we're all, those things are designed to make us feel less than Exactly. That's what Exactly. Designed for, sure. Buy another thing, get surgery. Yes. Get like this. Do this Uhhuh. Yeah. Like you're broken. But Exactly. We don't need to be fixed. But also. Yeah, be being more oriented to, the client. What are your desires and wishes? It's early that I'll do an I wants list, with clients of which is usually very edgy for people.
Again, because folks are coming in. Around, again, feeling like they need to get fixed. So it's more about, or I have people who are in a couple, or they come together as a couple and one of them feels like they need to get fixed for the other, oh I just need to feel okay with this other thing that this person wants, or I just need to get myself, I don't know why I have all these hangups.
I, I just need to it's geared towards. If I can just fix myself or sometimes if I can fix a partner or something else then everything will be okay. And it all comes back to somatic practices of yeah. What are you noticing in your body? And that leads to everything else.
Where we get to discover oftentimes much. Higher highs than people could have imagined when they were sticking to the script. So like you were saying okay, like tons of squirting orgasms. Okay, great. Like maybe a lot of people want that. But what we discover when we meet in authenticity of what do you actually want, because you might not even want that.
And then we let your body do what's honest and true and follow that thread. This is you've casually mentioned the elbow chasm. It's so your listeners are probably like what this is from this place. How I discovered that it was, like first it was the knee and that was just a friend, like touching my knee and in a point of like, where I was already in a trance.
And that sent, full body orgasm. And then I was like. I wonder if my elbow, and then I just started experimenting. If we can be in this space, and that came from a place of decentralizing. Genitals of things that were inaccessible to me, or I kept trying to perform sex, kept trying to perform pleasure.
Oh, this person wants to do this thing to me and they wanna elicit a specific response from touching my, this specific part of my body. And that's gonna make them feel a specific kind of way, but like and it's not for everyone, but I've gotten people to circle my elbow, and then they've been like thrilled that its. This other response and they don't have to. Amazing. It's much more useful for everybody. Yeah. A lot more accessible. Sure. You can do it in public, you can do it at a restaurant. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so I want that for clients.
This kind of magical but very science-based neuro plus, it's yes, they study the states of right, like psychedelics and that erotic trance is similar Yes. To these states where we bend reality and we bend what's possible. And I see it as fact, as truth again. And again, so Totally.
It's what e what even is the reality that we're bending, like who's to say that's even the starting point, like Exactly. Exactly. Is that. The one that's reality or is it reality that like maybe our entire body could be a potential pleasurable opportunity, just like waiting to happen.
If we bring in curiosity. Absolutely. I fully believe that. And going back to your point about psychedelic journeys and erotic trances, there's so much similarity. I feel like both the medicine world and our own kind of erotic medicine world opens up portals for touching into past traumas and deep wounds and metabolizing them in a really profound way.
I feel like erotic energy. Like I feel like sex the way, most mainstream, culture sees it, is just missing the point almost. Pleasure is wonderful. I love pleasure, but to your point, a lot of it's about ego and identity and feeling like, you are accomplished as a sexual person.
And when you really go into erotic states, I think you can touch into realms of consciousness that, that, that aren't accessible otherwise. Okay. Before we wrap, as I have you now as the sitting president, co-president of the Association of Certified Sexological Body Workers and you've been either serving as president or co-president or I remember a couple years ago as secretary like way back when.
So you've been on the board, for quite a number of years. Like what compelled you to play such a leadership role for our community? And where do you see our field evolving into in the future? I wanted, yeah, I just felt the call. I think I felt the call from spirit and I answered, it's like this is what I was told to do, so I'm gonna show up and do it dutifully.
But I wanted to be a part of. Shaping change from baby Butler, like feeling sensing. I was super, I think I joined the board and I had only been practicing six months maybe. Wow. Wow. So feeling yeah, I don't know all the things, but I wanna be part of shaping where we're going.
And yeah, it's that's where. The Bipoc scholarship got created, which is just it's just meant to be an initial something to bring some awareness, some change to the field as far as who gets to practice and how that led in, like you're leading. It, the Bipoc mentorship.
There's about, there's a creation of an accessibility fund that's gonna be happening this month. Oh, cool. Uhhuh. Wonderful. And then for both practitioners who might have to be outta work based on disability or injury to something you need in your office to try to make it more accessible for your clients to additional training you wanna do so that you're more equipped to be able to take on complex bodies and existences, for example. So those are, those are some things, it never feels like enough. This is part of my, probably personality, but it feels like there's a lot of things that I wanna see happen, and it feels like the future of sexological body work.
I feel the tide's changing. Like it's interesting. It is a very, it's like we can go in one of. Two directions. And it feels at this point all the school heads are white folks the majority of certified sexological body workers in the world, 'cause there's still not very many of us, but the, no, they're not, majority are majority white folks.
And so it. As much as I've tried to get the schools unified around commonality of mission and purpose there is resistance to that. Because there's a hyper individ visualization yes. Within sexological body work as kinda like rogue folks who are like, don't tell me what to do. I'm gonna do whatever.
Totally. That is also though, a. That's white culture, this hyper individualization. So we don't quite know how to do the community resource gathering. Bring people into the fold. Be humble, step back, learn from others. There's just so many aspects there that I think is going to involve the heads of schools getting trained, getting curious.
What am I missing? Where are my blind spots? Huh? I wonder what this is or this is, I wonder if I talked to another school ahead how we might do something that's difficult for us, but do it together. Like it's just, it feels and I hear the beginnings of that, with the schools, because I'm on the board because I'm on grievance council ethics committee and some of these folks are on there. I know it's starting. So it's up to the folks who are already in the field, which are the people in power are predominantly or all white to decide. Where the field is going and what matters.
And I do think it's gonna start with our own education our own getting, just same as we were saying all this time with clients, getting curious, about what is here, what wants to be worked with noticing. Where we need resources and to share with each other because we're missing a lot.
As far, I still think that sexological body work is a beautiful field. We're missing a lot as far as how to be with all bodies. And what those bodies might bring, right? So if we loop it back to accessibility and just working with differently abled bodies, then we are in the same, it's oh, why are, why does our field have a harder time?
Approaching that or venturing into that. And Shauna Farba does great work with this around accessibility, in our field. But she has said there needs to be more of us. Why am out, why am I out here like saying the things and other people not picking that up. And I do think it's related to the racial composition of the people who are making the decisions who are deciding where we go.
And I think that yeah, like disability is linked in with that, or the awkwardness, if we're gonna be generous, like the awkwardness around disability, and and how these different bodies present is very much linked in perfectionism and other topics of white supremacy. So we get, we have, that's where I see the future is okay. Keep going as it does. And that's still good in a lot of ways. Totally. Totally. Or if they wants to be in this like next frontier of Right. Really providing healing presence to a multitude of bodies in a trauma-informed way.
Then there's this other kind of foray this other leaning into the aspect that we can do that I think will give us many fruits. Probably. Surprising, not predictable fruits. Which is the beauty of it. Yeah. And the opportunity, just in our conversation you've underscored so many like incredible insights that are applicable to, to any client that it's almost like the meditation of.
Being slow and moving at a slower pace than what we're used to. Can bring such insights and a tremendous like skillset to any practitioner who's not used to that by working with, folks who are disabled. Everything that you mentioned, just exploring the whole terrain of the body as a healing potential and the new neural pathways.
These are all applicable to any client, but I think it's almost like. If we can open up as a field to be more inclusive then it's just gonna. Enrich all of us as practitioners and enrich, our society just in general, to be a liberated, like group of souls.
So for listeners who are not sexological body workers, there are currently, I believe seven trainings all around the world. Portugal, uk, Australia. Berlin obviously North America and each has its own identity. And Emily speaking to the desire to really work as a community so that we can bring, the pot potential, realize the potential of sexual empowerment and embodiment to all bodies.
Emily, thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate everything that you shared, and I am excited for our audiences to, to yeah, to learn from our discussion today. Yay. Thank you so much for having me. And Emily for people who wanna reach out to you and learn more about your work and your offerings, can you share how people can get in touch with you?
Yeah, it's heal with pleasure. Dot com. And when you go there, you can sign up for an intro meditation too that I'll just send into you automatically and then you can get a taste of the work as well. And that puts you on the mailing list, which I am not going to bombard you, but then if some kind of new offering comes up you'll.
Get, be in the know. And then I'm on Instagram at Pleasurable Healing. I work both virtually and in person. So I am in Michigan, but I work with people. I have clients all around the world. Awesome. How lucky for them. Awesome. Emily, thanks so much. Thank you.
How is this episode landing for you? In your body right now,
if your body is familiar with chronic pain states, have you ever considered consenting to feeling and dancing its grief or deeply meditating on states of neutrality? If we liberate ourselves from society's norms of what pleasure looks and feels like. What are novel ways your body may be enticed to explore itself?
Have you ever explored the orgasmic, delicious states of your elbow or your knee, or perhaps your ear lobe, either in private or at your favorite restaurant? Links to Emily's website. Heal with pleasure.com and a wide range of resources for differently abled bodies are in the show notes.
Thank you for listening to Your Body. Remembers Pleasure If this conversation supported you, the simple way to help this work reach more people is to leave a five star rating or a brief review. You'll also find more resources and teachings@rahichun.com. Until next time, take good care.
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About the Show
We explore the restoration of pleasure, the reclamation of sexual sovereignty, and the realization of our organic sexual wholeness. We engage with leading somatic therapists, sexologists & sexological bodyworkers, and holistic practitioners worldwide who provide practical wisdom from hands-on experiences of working with clients and their embodied sexuality. We invite a deep listening to the organic nature of the body, its sexual essence, and the bounty of wisdom embodied in its life force.

Rahi Chun
Creator: Somatic Sexual Wholeness
Rahi is fascinated by the intersection of sexuality, psychology, spirituality and their authentic embodiment. Based in Los Angeles, he is an avid traveler and loves exploring cultures, practices of embodiment, and healing modalities around the world.








