Pleasure, pain, and why religion and science have justified women’s suffering

Episode Summary 

Like people, ideas have histories, even when we’re not aware of them. Living in an age of uniquely advanced science and technology, we don’t always perceive how our allegedly most rational beliefs can actually be based on ancient legends and stories. That certainly appears to be the case with many Western medical and psychological beliefs about women’s health, sexuality, and pain.

From the Garden of Eden myth casting childbirth as a curse to Greek philosophers describing women as inverted men, these cultural frameworks have deeply influenced how female bodies are perceived, researched, and treated. For generations, women’s pain was normalized, their pleasure dismissed, and their experiences left out of medicine altogether.

My guest today, Suzannah Weiss, has been writing and speaking about these issues for years. In her first book Subjectified (which we discussed on Theory of Change last year), she explored how women are socialized to see their sexualities through the lens of shame and stigma. Now, in her new book Eve’s Blessing: Uncovering the Lost Pleasure Behind Female Pain, she takes on the cultural inheritance that tells women to expect suffering in their bodies, from menstruation to childbirth to sex itself.

In our conversation, we trace how myths and religious teachings became medical dogma, how centuries of ignoring women’s health needs still show up in research gaps and dismissive doctors, and why ideas like the “orgasm gap” persist. We also talk about what happens when women push back—when they reclaim pleasure in childbirth, resist the narrative of inevitable period pain, or simply insist that their symptoms deserve serious attention.

It’s a balancing act. Culture shapes the mind and how we live in our bodies. But it’s also true that how we think to our situation can affect how our bodies feel generally. Pain and suffering are real–and so is pleasure. If old ideas can teach us to expect suffering, then perhaps new ideas can help us find joy, intimacy, and freedom.

The video of this episode is available, the transcript is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

09:53 — The one-sex and two-sex models

13:36 — Medical dismissal of women’s pain

20:50 — Suzannah’s personal health journey

23:42 — Cognition as an embodied act

34:39 — Contradictions in male attitudes toward female sexuality

36:53 — Gender non-conformity and the myth of brokenness

42:44 — Trauma and its physical manifestations

50:17 — ‘Sexy but not sexual’

58:10 — Mindfulness and body awareness

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been proofed. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: And joining me now is Suzannah Weiss. Hey, Suzannah. Welcome back to Theory of Change.

SUZANNAH WEISS: Hi. Thanks so much. I’m so glad to be back.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So you’ve got another book out. The last time you were on, you were talking about your first book Subjectified, and this one is called Eve’s Blessing, which is about society and it’s particularly Western society, focusing on women’s pain and seeing it as sort of destination and inherent to women. Can you walk us through just kind of the origin of that belief in Western culture? Because that’s where you start the book off. And I think we should start off here with that.

WEISS: Yeah, so my book is called Eve’s Blessing: Uncovering the Lost Pleasure Behind Female Pain [00:04:00]. And it’s about experiences of mine and other women of having their pain normalized, including period pain, childbirth, pain during sex, and even pain associated with chronic illness, along with what I call pleasure-lessness, meaning sex without an orgasm, sex without pleasure, even painful sex, and how this ties to different ideas, particularly the curse put on Eve in the Garden of Eden, and ‘thou shalt give birth in sorrow.’ And how in some religious communities, this is considered a curse, not just on childbirth, but on menstruation, even on first time sex.

There, there’s, other parts of the Bible and I focus mainly on Judeo-Christian religions. like in Deuteronomy being, This passage about use blood on the sheets as a symbol of painful, of like virginity. the idea that sex for the first time is inherently painful and there’s a whole history behind that. The idea of the hymen, which is not actually like some medical professionals call it the vaginal corona because hymen is not.

Really a, accurate term with the association we have with it is that it’s this seal that you need to break. And that’s not true. It’s just part of the vagina that naturally stretches. And yeah, there’s all these experiences women have had, I my own was dealing with various symptoms of chronic illness and being told that a lot of it was normal.

Also, going on antidepressants and being told and having difficulty orgasming because of that. I’m being told a lot of women deal with that. Just use a vibrator. And, my book also shows how women are living the opposite life. That these ideas would suggest how women are [00:06:00] having pleasurable childbirth, pleasurable periods, pleasurable, orgasmic sex and pleasurable childbirth is a weird concept to many, but I interviewed a lot of women who indeed had this experience and, Yeah, just how we, underestimate like how good it can be to live in a female body, but thankfully women today are waking up to that.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that’s right. And the idea though of women’s bodies as being somehow destined for pain obviously that’s, as you said, clearly a, genesis type, belief.

But also, you talk about that there was that this belief was pretty common in, some, Greek cultural stories as well. in addition to the idea that, I, that women were sort of destined for pain the Eve, the Adam and Eve myth, it also is inherently blaming women for trying to get knowledge.

Also, I think that’s worth talking about as well,

WEISS: Yes, there’s actually, it’s really interesting today we have this idea that women are less sexual and more pure. And that actually arose around the 17 hundreds. And before that it was thought women are like lascivious and desirous because ate the apples.

So women are hungry and curious and sin prone. So it is really interesting no matter what, we take from that story, we take something negative about women.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and then of course there is, and she’s not in the Bible, but of course there’s the, Lilith character as well within the Judaic legends as well.

Right. You, review that for people who dunno the story. Yeah.

WEISS: Well, our friend Kaitlyn Bailey talks about that in her show, Whore’s Eye View. She says Lilith was the one who wanted to fuck [00:08:00] Adam on top, and Adam was intimidated by her. So we went with Eve then. She represents the dark feminine, so she was the witch, the bitch and the whore.

And, I think Jewish mythology and we, kind of cast out that aspect of women because we, demonize Lilith.

SHEFFIELD: Well, literally in her case. And it’s hard for cultural historians to kind of pinpoint the amount of influence that her story had because she was cut out of the Bible.

But there’s a lot of these extra-biblical characters who you see them crop up in art a fair amount over the Renaissance and even some medieval times. So these stories circulated even though they were not given canonical status.

And, I think that there’s, that there’s reasons for that because they were meaningful.

WEISS: I, I worked with a Jungian therapist last year who taught me something about Lilith because I kept telling her I was having psychedelic trips and dreams where I kept seeing a black snake. And she showed me this image, this painting of Lilith with a black snake wrapped around her, and it represented the dark feminine.

And she suggested that was what I was accessing in the symbolic realm, was this dark, feminine figure that needed to be brought into the light.

SHEFFIELD: I don’t know how much I buy into Jungian psychiatry, but that there is something there that, people do have these—there is something, I think to the idea that there, that ideas resonate because we do have common experiences as human beings and, I mean, that’s what this book is about.

The one-sex and two-sex models

But you also do talk about just the idea [00:10:00] within Greek philosophy proper that that women were not quite even the same species. It seems like, when you look at as you do, talking about, some of the, ancient, the original doctors and things like that.

Right. Tell us about that, if you would.

WEISS: Yeah, so there’s a famous book called Making Sex by Thomas Laur that tracks, and some historians have challenged it because it’s not this simple, but what he argues basically is that from the time of the ancient Greeks, until around the 17 hundreds, scientists followed what’s called the One Sex Model where male and female bodies are considered basically the same.

So the ancient Greek philosophers. Said things like, women are like, men turn inward, and women are like, women’s genitals are like mole’s eyes. They, they’re there but they don’t really have a function like mole’s. Eyes didn’t see. And so there was this idea that women were smaller men, or inferior men, or like inverted men.

And it caused this gap in research where research. Was done primarily on men, and it was assumed to apply to women also. And we see this today, we see, for instance, certain health trends like intermittent fasting or high intensity interval training don’t work as well for women. And all the research is done on men and it doesn’t factor in things like the menstrual cycle in women’s hormones.

And then on the flip side, around the 17 hundreds, due to a variety of political forces, specifically the Victorian era in England, saying that women were pure and Medford domesticity and also the, French Revolution saying, that women, [00:12:00] there was sort of a feminist movement, but then there was backlash saying women need to stay at home while the men are revolutionaries.

And so all of these sort of, these factors, and then there were scientific discoveries, like the idea that actually women did not need to orgasm to have a child, which was actually not, widely believed around, the 16 or 17 hundreds that was discovered, that used to be believed that women like needed to orgasm, to conceive, and actually the clitoris was more valued.

And so all these different factors led to what’s called the two sex model, where women and men are seen as opposites. And basically that contributes to ideas like the normalization of the orgasm gap that men can orgasm so easily and women cannot, or basically that men are made for pleasure and women are made for pain.

So right now we, we see both of. The influence of both of these ideas. We see this research gap between, male and female bodies, and we also see where like women are assumed to be exactly like men. And we also see, this idea that men and women are opposites. And like, testosterone is this hormone that causes you to be really horny and angry, and estrogen causes you to be warm and nurturing, which isn’t the case.

They both have many roles. And we also erase people outside the gender binary, intersex people, two-spirit people, et cetera. And that’s all tied in with colonialism. That’s my, like, that’s my two minute version of that whole story. Mm-hmm.

Medical dismissal of women’s pain

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and yeah, and, absolutely like within the medical context it, it did, it was also that, that, as you talk about that, women’s.

Pain was not believed to be real in some sense because, well, all the doctors were men. And so, when women were talking about, period pain or, various, [00:14:00] complications with pregnancy, they were not believed in some sense, right? Or just assumed, well, this is how it is. And, as, and as you talk about the pregnancy for at least for, for some women, not, we can’t say for everybody obviously, but for some women, they, they don’t see it as that way, as something, inherently or obviously destined to be painful.

Right.

WEISS: Yeah, there was a tension in writing this book between acknowledging women’s pain as real and also as not natural or inevitable. Because it is a reality today that many women live with period pain, that for most people giving birth, it is painful. And so I definitely don’t aim to invalidate that pain.

My goal is to explore where it comes from and for instance, period pain. There’s not a ton of research, but there is some research tying it to things like household chemicals, things like the modern American diet. Things we kind of take for granted in society. Overworking, sedentary lifestyle stress.

It’s kind of a, society-wide problem that is contributing to certain forms of pain, women experience, and of course un undiagnosed illnesses, misdiagnosed illnesses, lack of research on women, and, even childbirth. There is a lot of pain that is connected to childbirth, trauma to deprivation of choice, to unnecessary interventions, and to a medical system that prioritizes doctors’ interests that wants you to give birth as quickly as possible so the doctor can leave their shift, et cetera.

And so, we need to both take women’s pain more seriously and also question where it comes from and whether it’s natural and whether we can do something so that it is not so common.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. Well, and you do talk about, in that regard about how many doctors will push for women to [00:16:00] have, cesarean sections.

Much more than they used to. And that, that, that does seem to be driven not necessarily by medical needs of the women, right? Or the people. Mm-hmm.

WEISS: Yeah. Not just cesarean sections, but a lot of, inducing labor, for instance, Pitocin, which actually makes contractions more painful. episiotomies where there’s a cut made between the vagina and the anus are still sometimes done without consent, though less so now there are a lot of interventions that are done, like to prioritize the hospital’s interests or even they might, may not see it that way.

It may be to be very careful. And, just, but the thing is, there is some research showing if a hospital has more than a 15% C-section rate, like there’s actually more maternal deaths and more complications. So there is this. Almost this patronizing view, like that women can’t give birth on their own or that they can’t give birth with just the amount of interventions that they decide on.

And that actually backfires because like our bodies do have an innate wisdom and there is a lot of overprotection, excessive interventions that it can actually lead to more pain.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I mean it, but it is a balancing act as you’re saying earlier, that that pain is real. but, it doesn’t perhaps always necessarily have to be something that happens.

Sometimes people cause it. And yeah, I mean, so there, there’s, now you, talk about, some of your own experiences in other women in regards to pain that, that. had been sort of forced on you and, others. So maybe talk about one of the [00:18:00] experiences of your own first, if you would please.

And then maybe we can talk about some of the other ones.

WEISS: So, I have not had. The experience specifically of having pain normalized. Thankfully, I never had super painful periods. I haven’t given birth. I did not have painful sex ever. What I did have, as I said, was the normalization of Lessness. It started off that my first sexual experiences I was on, Zoloft and then No Prozac, and then Zoloft. And I had like a lot of trouble orgasming, especially with a partner. And I was, convinced because of magazine articles and whatnot that the female orgasm is elusive. my college nurse just said like, have you tried a vibrator?

Which yes, like vibrators are great, but if it’s necessary there could be something else going on. And I just, Realized it, it wasn’t just the medication, but it was also just this culture where we prioritize men’s sexual desires where it’s not normalized for women to speak up and communicate in the bedroom.

There are a lot of societal factors that make it seem normal if women do not orgasm. And and I realized that’s not the case at all. It doesn’t have to be the case. Like if a woman is empowered, if she is healthy and is empowered, then she should be orgasming like just as much and as easily as any male partner that she has.

And there, yeah, and my experience, also my health journey, didn’t quite line up with the ideas about menstrual pain being normal because it wasn’t specifically reproductive, but I have a complicated array of issues due to chronic Lyme disease and was told a lot. If you have symptoms that [00:20:00] a, a shit ton of things were attributed to anxiety that like happens to a lot of women. Like, especially if you have symptoms like anxiety, heart, or not anxiety, like insomnia, heart palpitations, muscle twitches, like things that can be symptoms of anxiety. I was just told, like again and again, I don’t know what it is, must be anxiety, maybe like go on psychiatric medication.

And then, I was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease and there’s like a lot of, there’s a lot of conditions that women get told are anxiety or depression and, that’s sort of a separate but related issue that we’re, well yeah. we’re not really being helped. We’re just, we’re still, it’s not necessarily normalized, but it’s also not really looked into or taken seriously.

Suzannah’s personal health journey

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and I mean, I would say that. That, is a normalization of pain, but more of a, psychological pain that’s saying, well, you just, you, have anxiety. Like there’s get over it. That chill out or whatever like that. That’s what I mean in the sense that, people, it, it’s too easy I think for a lot of, I mean, it is naturally easy for a lot of doctors to kind of go for something like that instead of trying to explore something from a either medical or psychological standpoint that they may not be as familiar with.

Especially in regards to if it’s things that, that women are, that, because it’s harder for them to understand it because even, even now I think within the, a lot of the medical schools and the literature, there’s just not as much focus. and with the Trump administration, they’re, they now put in a formal rule, With the NNIH, that research proposals that have the word women in them are going to get extra scrutiny because we can’t have [00:22:00] that.

WEISS: Yeah. Like even if someone is experiencing anxiety or depression, then it should be looked into why, like, do you have trauma? Is something hurting you? Like it shouldn’t just be brushed off either way.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and I mean, thinking about, some of these other things that are often associated with anxiety or whatever, you, also do talk about the, this idea that is, is super common and really destructive, that, women are more emotionally or hormonally driven than men.

When in fact, as you note. A lot of the times when women are accused of being more emotional or hormonal driven is actually, when, when there is less, more, there are fewer hormones, especially estrogen. Right?

WEISS: Yeah. There was a famous quote by Glorias that like, it’s around women’s periods when they’re considered to be most hormonal, that they actually have the ma most testosterone.

So then like, what does that say about men? it’s just illogical. And we could also say about men. there’s a sperm si genesis cycle that takes, I forget the exact number, like a few months I think. So their hormones shift. There’s also a sort of day-to-day shifts in hormones that men’s testosterone often rises in the morning.

So are we going to say, man, men can’t serve office? because they may need to make morning meetings when their testosterone’s high and they’re angry. Like, we could make the argument for men just as much as we could for women, but we don’t do that.

Cognition as an embodied act

SHEFFIELD: and then also you talk about post-menopausal women as well, having having less estrogen than men their age.

Right. Which I thought that part, when I read that, I thought that was, I, hadn’t heard that one before, but it’s, kind of funny. But, very true. obviously,

WEISS: yeah, that was [00:24:00] from the podcast. You’re Not Broken by Dr. Kelly Casperson. She and I communicated about that. Yeah, there’s a lot of illogical assumptions about hormones.

because hormones are so complex. Each hormone has many different roles depending on a lot of things, where it is in the body, what receptors it’s targeting, et cetera. And so it’s just really hard to make any argument. I also talked to, one researcher who was saying basically. It’s not even that clear that hormones are what causes PMS.

She was actually saying that, it’s more likely inflammation and inflammation can be influenced by things like diet, lifestyle, hou household chemicals, all the problems that I brought up as causes of period pain. So I think that’s really interesting. There are also certain countries, like in Asia where women don’t report PMS, so that’s another thing we think of as natural that might not actually be.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. Well, and, yeah, just the, the idea of it becoming, as a kind of a psychosomatic cultural product. you do talk about that as well, that, as, because I mean, the idea of PMS, that was a pretty recent invention term. And so as knowledge of that term became more common.

People saying, oh, well she has PMS or I have PMS. That obviously, probably is going to increase a aware, the, diagnosis of that, if you will, or the, self-diagnosis.

WEISS: And again, it’s not to gaslight women, like a lot of people do have that experience, and I’m sure there always is a physical reason, whether it is a hormonal thing, whether it is inflammation, whether it is another factor can be an underlying condition that’s undiagnosed mental or physical that is being exacerbated at that time.

It’s [00:26:00] important. We don’t gaslight women about it. And it’s also actually the way women are treated. It’s if women are discriminated against because of their periods taught to dread their periods, that is also another factor. So it’s like important to simultaneously hold, yes, it’s happening. And also the reasons why it may not be so inevitable, it may be something preventable.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. Well, and that, yeah, trying to make sure to keep these, a series of ideas that are in some sense conflicting. I mean, that is a. A theme in the book that you are, you do develop repeatedly that, people have to stop assuming that only one thing is always true one thing or the other.

That in fact, we’re complex beings and we shouldn’t reduce people to such deterministic categories.

WEISS: I just think we need to find a way to get back to the Garden of Eden where just everyone’s happy in their bodies. I think psychedelics are the way.

SHEFFIELD: Well, okay. Well, tell, us more what you mean by that.

Go ahead. Go for it.

WEISS: I’m speaking mostly from personal experience. I had no idea my body’s capability for pleasure until I started working with plant medicine and having all these experiences like touch free orgasm and vaginal orgasm and breast orgasm and that I like didn’t think were actually possible.

There’s something about them that just restores your body to its natural state or opens your body up to pleasure. I’m not sure what it was I, what it is. I would love to see more research. I think it almost just like makes us more open and receptive and definitely heals the body at the core level. And I also noticed a difference in things like I mean in my physical health through my work with plant medicine.

So I just think that’s something I’m half joking, but I think it’s something worth researching.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. [00:28:00] Well, yeah, I think it is because, I mean, from my view in my view consciousness is, sort of the constant amalgamation of our, neurons in our body, in our brains. because we have, many millions of neurons in our bodies that are outside of our brains.

And how our self model is constructed and our, and what that means in terms of pleasure that’s people in a lot of ways it’s happenstance that people, may not be aware of a pleasurable sensation because they just never experienced it through whatever circumstance they had developed a model of pleasure.

And so in some sense psychedelics can help you experience those other that other variety of sensation that you may not have gone for it. But, obviously they can be harmful for people as well, and I think we should, make sure to say that because especially if you have family members with schizophrenia or something like that, there can be severe damage that people have from those things as well.

All right. So, so, but you just keeping in this general theme though, like the, idea of the going back to the, elusive female orgasm, that’s I mean, for a long time people didn’t even believe that it existed. So, and, and, we can kind of see that, for instance, looking at the Bible that within the Hebrew Bible, there’s no prohibition on, women.

En engaging in sexual activity with women. because they didn’t even think that was possible. Wow. And so, but it, I think it goes back to the idea of what you were saying that, women were not believed historically, at least in the, Western canon, so much of it to have any sort of sexual nature.

And [00:30:00] that really did that idea propagated even as medical science, detached itself from religious belief and tried to develop its own ontology of the body.

WEISS: I do sometimes wonder if, people didn’t believe in women’s capacity for pleasure or if they’re just in denial. One of my interview subjects, I really liked her quote, her name was Ayelet.

She was talking about ecstatic childbirth, and I asked her something about the medical system and whether, the way in which childbirth is forced into this controlling healthcare system that sort of deprives women of decision making, whether that reflects an overall distrust of women, the same distrust that leads to restrictive abortion laws.

And she said, I don’t know if people, if men in charge distrust women or if they actually trust women too much. Like if they’re afraid of how trustworthy women are when it comes to their own bodies and how powerful women are. And I, really like that idea because I don’t think it’s that people don’t see women’s sexuality or women’s power, or women’s beauty or women’s light.

I think it’s that it is impossible not to see, and that’s why we have all these restrictions against women standing in their power. And I, just think that’s a more empowering stance to take that like women have always had power that’s just been undeniable, especially in the childbirth process and in sex and like, and that is why we have these, opposing myths.

It’s, like to, like I said about Eve, there was this idea of women as super sexual, so we needed to create all these beliefs to restrict that. There, there’s always been an understanding of women’s potential. It’s just like something we’re afraid of for some reason. I’m not sure why. Maybe because of paternity anxiety and this idea that we could, have babies with different men and can’t track who our [00:32:00] children belong to.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and you do I was actually, I’m glad you, mentioned that because I was going to ask you about that, that, you do talk about the idea of, that perhaps monogamy arose, or at least female monogamy arose from that imperative because people didn’t want to raise somebody else’s child, or men didn’t want to raise somebody else’s child.

and, when we look at our, closest animal relatives the, where they have a, the, that have a more sort of democratic social structure, the Bonobos, they, this idea doesn’t really exist for them. And, I don’t know. it’s interesting to think about it and I’m, glad you do talk about it.

So, but can you, expand on that a little bit here if you would please.

WEISS: Yeah, so one theory about why we restrict women’s sexuality and reproduction so much is that there has been since agricultural times this effort to track who the father of every child is so that we, they know how to pass down property.

And that is something that you see in the Bible, like this whole line of father so and so, we got so and so. We got so and so. And it also became, a way to track who belonged to which tribe. And so there’s another book that I recommend Sex Ed Dawn, that talks about how this fucked us up as a species and how in the hunter gatherer days the theory put forth in that book is that actually women’s sexuality was not restricted and it didn’t matter so much who, like there’s evidence of sperm competition, meaning that there is in semen, a chemical that kills other sperm, and there’s also the shape of a penis like scoops out other men’s sperm, which suggests actually women were having multiple partners.[00:34:00]

At like very close together. And there are also some tribes where it’s normal for a baby to have multiple men taking care of them. because they actually don’t even know who the father is. And that just sounds like a much healthier, happier society where there isn’t this obsession with controlling women’s sexuality with, is the bride a virgin?

And it’s more, just about allowing the sperm competition to take place. And like, everyone’s kind of non-monogamous and kind of slutty and, we just, everyone, takes care of the kids.

Contradictions in male attitudes toward female sexuality

SHEFFIELD: Well, and, it is an interesting thing to think about, I think in our current moment as well, because, there’s I mean, as people are surely aware, by now there’s a lot of angry, men out there who are straight.

Who are well or straight presenting, we’ll say that are, wanting to have more sex with women, but then at the same time also are condemning women who are not monogamous. And it’s like, well, you can’t really do that guys. That if you’re saying that you don’t want women to have sex, but then you complain that they’re having, or that you don’t have sex, it’s like, it’s not really how that works.

There is this contradiction, I think, and it’s, and as, but as, women, have, and, which is something you talk about in your first book, that as women have taken more power over their bodies and and sexualities that.

Men haven’t adjusted to that. And obviously non-monogamy for women seems to be a pretty readily a ready solution for that. But people are still against, it seems side.

WEISS: There is a view, something I’ve encountered a lot is there’s a view of women who are open about their sexuality as [00:36:00] indiscriminating as, having low self-worth.

And it is an interesting contradiction that it’s like men want women to be sexually liberated in the sense of sexually available, but they don’t, and by men I mean like unevolved men, like red pillar men. I think that like manosphere men, like they, they want women, to be sexually available, but they don’t really, when confronted with a woman who’s really sexually empowered, they’re afraid and they feel intimidated and they feel like she, if she is very sexually empowered, but she is discriminating then and she is like, I am super sexual, but I don’t want to have sex with you, then it’s considered the ultimate insult and it’s like a lot of men want a sexually liberated woman until they’re confronted with what that actually is.

Gender non-conformity and the myth of brokenness

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, they, want a woman to be liberated, but only for them. Not for herself and, not for somebody else that she chooses to be involved with. Yeah. And, there, but there’s also, this tendency also does kind of wrap around on the other side, that for people who don’t conform to gender binaries that, there’s this, and which a sense which you talk about in the book is, people that they’re broken, that there’s something wrong with them.

even though historically we can see, like from within the. the Hindu tradition of Hera, and, two spirits, like this, the idea that heteronormativity is ingrained in humanity is just obviously not true from a scientific standpoint or, an anthropology standpoint. But this myth really does persist.

And it’s, and I think in the many ways, the modern reactionary movement has organized itself around this in so many ways. like they, they are obsessed with hunting down trans people who exist in public [00:38:00] and, try to participate in society where whether it’s, I mean, even in the case of like sports the president of the NCAA had said that out of more than 550,000 athletes, there were fewer than 10 trans athletes in his entire organization.

So here we were having this national panic. around pe fewer people than could fit on the, on your fingers if you’re counting like obviously this is not a national concern. It doesn’t affect hardly anyone. But they want, but they, really psychologically want to believe in this idea that, you must conform to the, heterosexual gender norm.

WEISS: Yeah, that was important to point out. because I talk a lot about women feeling broken for very, for being women basically. And there’s also this feeling of brokenness. I think a lot of trans, non-binary, two-spirit gen, gender non-conforming, et cetera, people can relate to, especially I talk about intersex people whose bodies don’t fit the typical definition of male or female and how they’re.

Sometimes surgically operated on without consent, often when it’s medically unnecessary and even medically harmful to look quote unquote normal. And so this, that there is a big movement to stop that, but they’re still felt, they’re still made to feel as if their bodies are broken or, trans people because of this, two sex model.

This idea that you have a male mind or a female mind, or a male body, or a female body, and you can’t have a mix of both or something in between. It’s as if everyone who doesn’t fit those categories has some kind of defect. And it’s actually the social stigma that’s worse than any physical problem that actually exists.

And if we remove the stigma, life will be a lot easier for all those populations.

SHEFFIELD: [00:40:00] it would, and, but it would also be easier for people who are not in those populations as well. And I think that’s something. that should be talked about more because, there’s I, just as a, cultural character since King of the Hill came back as a show, you’ve got the character of Bobby Hill, the son, and I don’t know if you ever watched it, so pardon me if you have, but you know, Bobby Hill, the son of Hank Hill he’s generally, presenting as, a boy.

And, but, and, he’s interested in girls, but at the same time, he doesn’t have all the same stereotypical, male traits. So like, he likes a purse. He has a purse and other things like that. And, people can, people have the right to like stuff, like, there’s nothing wrong with you if you are liking things that you know, you are as socially assigned.

Gender says that you shouldn’t like. whether it’s, a boy who likes pink, or just, or girls who like to play with, army figures or whatever. Like we sh people have the right to be however they want to be, and, experiencing life in the way that, that feels good.

Like, that’s who you shouldn’t be against that. I think even if you are not in, in the, in the, a gender or a sexual minority,

WEISS: I agree. Like nobody, nobody perfectly fits in. I also talk about research showing most people have what’s called mosaic brains, that some parts of their brain are more typical of what’s considered male, or some are more typical of what’s considered female.

Like most of our brains are a mix, and so nobody is really, like, if we’re going by social stereotypes, nobody is 100% masculine or feminine. So it’s just important to normalize that for everybody.

SHEFFIELD: Absolutely. And I think, one of the [00:42:00] other I don’t know, just like, one of these other basic things that, that should be talked about more and I’m glad that you do talk about it in the book, but also you, and is that, that everybody has, inner traumas or past trauma experiences and that also does impact a lot of how they see themselves and how they see, the world and that, and in a lot of ways, these unresolved traumas especially are kind of at the root of, Of issues that people have that may manifest in medical or psychological ways. And that and that’s something that you talk about pretty much at length and, also you do outside of, the, of your book as well. You want to talk about that if you would?

Trauma and its physical manifestations

WEISS: Yeah. So when we talk about what is actually contributing to many women’s pain, there is a connection between emotional trauma and physical pain.

There are many different connections. anxiety and depression are related to physical symptoms like headaches. They can affect the immune system trauma. The book, the Body Keeps the Score explains this. That trauma can actually weaken your immune system or cause a autoimmune condition where your body is essentially attacking Its.

Self and there is some research showing, different reproductive health issues are related to sexual trauma. The connection, it’s not exactly clear why. Some of it could be, if you have trauma around your genitals, your womb, your pelvis, you may not seek care as much because it is triggering to go to the doctors.

Some of it could actually be physical trauma. Some of it could be just emotions get stored in the body. I interviewed one woman named Josephina Bashau, who talked about her journey with Prec cervical cancer, and, she believes it’s related to having been molested as a child and that it had to do with the [00:44:00] shame and trauma she experienced from that.

And it’s not clear exactly like how those two things are related, but there is a. Research showing those who have been sexually abused are more likely to develop cervical cancer. And she talks about actually how studying sacred sexuality, and this is where it gets really woo. But for, her, that was a real thing that a big part of her healing process was healing her relationship to her body.

And I do believe when we love our bodies, we take better care of them. And that does promote health. When we, when we believe that our bodies are valuable, that they, valuable is a strange word, giving my last book, like deconstructed that idea of a woman having quote unquote value. But when we believe, like, that our bodies are worth taking care of, that has an enormous impact on our health.

When we believe that our bodies. Are sacred or however you would put it, that they are just something to appreciate that does affect how you treat yourself and a lot of women. not just in terms of being sexually harassed or assaulted, but just being told, your body isn’t good enough, you’re too fat, your boobs aren’t big enough, et cetera.

Like this body hatred, I believe is related to the epidemic of women who experience chronic illness. And yeah, I think I mentioned, I wanted to plug my psychotherapy services. I like working with people with mysterious health issues and seeing if we can pinpoint the connection between physical and mental health.

because there are many ways in which they intersect.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, you also talk about PTSD being linked to, a number of other chronic dis I mean autoimmune disorders as well.

WEISS: Yeah. PTSD and, childhood. A childhood adverse events [00:46:00] such as, sexual, physical, or psychological abuse are also connected to someone’s likelihood of developing many different illnesses.

So there, there are many theories about why, but the bottom line is that like, if you’re not treated well, that is going to have an impact on your body. And that is why it’s so important that instead of normalizing women’s health problems, we create a world that treats women better and women will be healthier.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. yeah, absolutely. And I mean, and, it is really important to have that, focus. Now just to circle back to something you, you, said though, like the, idea though of, normalization of rape culture also, that does have an impact on that as well. can you tell us what you meant by that in the book?

WEISS: Yeah, a lot of women are chronically traumatized, even if a woman doesn’t experience a rape. By the standard definition, if you live within rape culture, if you see media image constantly of women being objectified, of women being dehumanized, if you are cat called on the street a lot, if you are constantly having men try to push your boundaries, that contributes to this feeling of unsafety in your body and it makes your nervous system hypervigilant.

It can actually, and when your nervous system is hypervigilant. That in of itself can lead to a whole host of health problems. because like your body needs to be in a parasympathetic state to really heal. So if you’re kind of always in fight or flight your body, your immune system is going to be suppressed.

You’re going to be more susceptible to chronic illness. Your body isn’t going to heal as easily. And I think we live in a world where a lot of women are hypervigilant and that’s also going to affect our [00:48:00] sexual experiences. It’s hard to orgasm or let go or like enjoy sex. If you are monitoring the scene, like, okay, is he going to push my boundaries?

Is everything going to be okay? and. If you, and it also impacts mental health. And I talk about, a disorder called borderline personality disorder that is more commonly diagnosed in women, though. it may actually be as common in men, but it’s basically characterized by emotional instability, anger outbursts, self-harm, suicidal ideation, difficulty, kind of push-pull dynamics in relationships.

And a lot of research shows that’s related to trauma and may actually be misdiagnosed complex, PTSD, which is when you are exposed to low grade trauma or high grade trauma, like throughout a period of time and. That I think is very, underdiagnosed complex, PTSD, and that’s something a lot of women may experience just by being criticized, growing up by living in a culture that just doesn’t take women seriously.

I think that is a big factor in women’s physical and mental health problems and sexual problems is this low grade trauma and, any oppress group that we’re constantly exposed to. Mm-hmm.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and another thing that is kind of related to that also is that while, or I guess but it’s on the opposite side, is that you, have a chapter later on in the book called Sexy But Not Sexual that examines the idea that, that sexiness or sexuality is.

It’s confined to people who have, are a certain age or a certain weight and that this is extremely damaging. And I, and this is damaging also to, men as well, obviously that, men, a lot of male sexuality, especially in pop culture, is presented as just kind of disgusting. And, you talked about that in your other book as [00:50:00] well.

But you know, like within, this context especially with age, that’s where you focus on that, that women’s bodies are, have no sexual value. And that a lot of women as they get older, become invisible and as many have said or they feel that way,

‘Sexy but not sexual’

WEISS: yeah, there, there’s a lot of bias in the medical system for women who have sexual or reproductive issues that often their sexiness is prized over their sexuality.

And what I mean by that is, for instance, There are many examples. I interviewed one woman who had endometriosis and it caused painful sex, and the doctors didn’t really take her seriously until her boyfriend attested that she couldn’t have sex. There’s also some, birth control is one example of something where I think we prioritize men’s sexual desires over women’s, women are kind of, many women think that if they want to have sex, they, need to be on birth control.

And some women experience side effects, not all. Some actually like, have positive side effects, but some have depression, lower sex drive, even painful sex, and they feel like it’s their duty to be on birth control so that they can have sex ultimately for immense pleasure, because that’s. Women having painful sex is seen as less important than just men being able to come inside you without a condom.

And there I also talk about a procedure called leaps that removes prec cervical or precancerous cervical cells. And how many women are reporting it actually interferes with their sexual function. There are horror stories like some women saying they could not orgasm afterward, and doctors, it’s still taking a while for doctors to take it seriously.

because there isn’t a ton of research yet. There is some research showing it happens, but, we just live within this larger medical system where women’s sexual complaints aren’t taken seriously. And we also [00:52:00] see that with antidepressants. I wasn’t even told that they could have sexual side effects.

And that ties into this larger culture where like if a woman can be sexy and offer pleasure to a man, that is seen as more important than the woman having pleasure herself. And that ties to aging, as you mentioned, because women’s, often older women’s sexuality and sexual complaints aren’t taken seriously.

They may be told to just use lube if they’re having sexual pain or dryness. And actually a lot of older women have a sexual awakening later in life because they realize their body may work differently. But it’s a chance to explore other forms of sexuality, to explore sexuality, outside penetration, to have a deeper connection with a partner.

And so that’s also something, that needs more attention is the needs of post-menopausal women, specifically their sexual needs that are often erased.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. I’m curious, what you think in, this regard in terms of just like cultural output. Because I, personally think that, we’re seeing more, not, enough, but we’re seeing more films and television that are, a, admitting the reality that people have sex, in their seventies and eighties and, that’s a good thing and that they shouldn’t feel ashamed for having desire or, seeing themselves as sexual.

And, we’re still not there, but you know, as much as we should be. But I think there has been some improvement, but I don’t know what you.

WEISS: I think so there’s, I interviewed a woman named Joan Price, who’s an activist, a sex educator who’s older and has written books about this topic. And she said actually, she’s talked to other women who say that after menopause and after their children leave the house is actually a time [00:54:00] when they live more for themselves.

And it’s actually not, not being like considered an ideal object can actually be a positive thing because they realize their sexuality should be for themselves. And it’s not that they can be an object to someone but there is this greater sense of agency and empowerment and living for oneself that arises.

And there, there is research showing like a lot of women’s sexuality and, men’s as well gets. Even better with age. And I, think we need more resources and education on that, but I can recommend Joan Price’s books as a good starting point for anyone who wants more information on that.

SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, and to, toward the latter part of the book, you do talk about also trying to get people to reorient how they see medical functions like Well, I don’t like how I said that. and toward the, latter part of the book, you also do talk about encouraging women to try to, get beyond, the sexuality or, the body as this painfully destined or non pleasurable thing.

To, as you put it to, to live orgasmically, what do you, mean by that?

WEISS: That’s something that I learned from my mentor, Josephina Bahr, who’s interviewed in the book. She talks a lot about living orgasmically or the orgasmic life, which, or the way she called it was life is one giant orgasm.

So she talked, she talks about things like, drinking coffee can be ecstatic or just going outside and feeling the breeze against you can be ecstatic, can even be orgasmic. And that’s a difficult concept to explain to some people [00:56:00] who haven’t done psychedelics. But it’s like, if you. I actually like to teach people an exercise.

Sometimes if you can tune into the sensation in your genitals and just kind of like breathe into that sensation, and this is woo, but often you can actually feel even without sexual stimulation, even when you’re not having sex. There’s always pleasure coursing through your body, and there’s an exercise I teach people where if you like.

Breathe into that area. You can imagine it expanding like a balloon and you can sort of feel like your whole body has lit up and you can feel like there are pleasure receptors all over your body. And there are many people who experience pleasure or even orgasms from stimulation of parts of the body.

You would not expect like the ears or the breasts more commonly, or even the lips. And the more you can develop body awareness, body attunement and just general presence, you can experience things like taking a shower as orgasmic, just the feeling of the soap and the water against your skin.

a lot of people are living in kind of a dissociated state where they’re outside their bodies and they’re not experiencing a pleasurable life on a daily basis. And I think meditation is helpful for that. I think different. I think breath work is really helpful for that. anything that cultivates presence within the body.

And yeah, a lot of us just aren’t living and, then that translates into the bedroom that every sensa sensation feels more intense and a lot of people aren’t living up to their sexual potential because they’re so crushed under their work. They’re glued to their computers. They’re not taking the time to do things that are pleasurable in their bodies.

Even if that’s, just like going outside and putting your feet on the ground or eating food that feels enjoyable. All of these things add up to a more, more orgasmic sex and a [00:58:00] more orgasmic life. And according to many women better childbirth experiences as well, because they just have greater body awareness.

Mindfulness and body awareness

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So it’s, being able to experience pleasure or it’s see it where it is more and. In your own experience is a way of deriving greater enjoyment from life. And that is a process that would also affect your sex life as well. That it would make it everything, if everything feels better than so would that, right?

WEISS: That’s always what I teach people at first who are struggling with arousal or orgasm is practice mindfulness in your daily life. Practice noticing the texture and taste of the food you eat. Practice simple things like putting on lotion and noticing how it feels on your body because that kind of awareness is going to help you in the bedroom more than any specific technique, just to actually fully feel like you could use a vibrator with a higher setting.

And that’s also valid. But there are also ways to feel more with less just by being more, body aware.

SHEFFIELD: Okay. Cool. all right, well, so, for people who want to keep up with you, Suzannah, tell us your recommendations.

WEISS: You can follow me on Twitter. Suzannah Weiss, S-U-Z-A-N-A-N-N-A-H-W-E-I-S-S. that’s also my website, susanna wise.com.

My Instagram was sadly taken down, because they’re kind of anti-sex on there, but if it comes back, you can find me, Suzannah Wise. WI, SE and, yeah, I offer sex therapy and psychotherapy now and sex coaching. So if you are interested in that, please go to my website.

SHEFFIELD: All right. Sounds good.

[01:00:00] Thanks for being here again.

WEISS: Thank you.

SHEFFIELD: Alright, so that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody joining us for the conversation, and you can always get more if you go to Theory of Change show where we have the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes. And if you are a paid subscribing member, you have unlimited access to the archives and thank you very much for your support.

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