Locker Room Talk & Shots Podcast
Locker Room Talk & Shots Podcast
Sex with Women with ADHD: Wired for Passion
There is a surge in the number of women being diagnosed with ADHD as the medical community begins to catch up with the times and research girls' and women's health at the same rate they've studied men's. As it turns out, ADHD manifests differently in women's behavior and lives. It only makes sense that it would show up in how women experience and participate in their sex and intimate lives. In this episode, I talk to sexpert Heather Florio about how ADHD manifests in the sex lives of women with ADHD. Are we wired for passion?
In this episode you'll find out:
How ADHD manifests in women's sexuality
The ways in which it can challenge women and their sexual partners
The ways in which ADHD can show up as a sexual super power for women
Approaches to overcoming challenges
My substack: https://talksexwithannette.substack.com/
Subscribe to my e-newsletter: https://she-explores-life.ck.page/e9760c390c
Ask a question, Leave a Comment: https://www.speakpipe.com/LockerRoomTalkPodcast
Use code EXPLORES15 for 15% off all Womanizer Products at Womanizer.com.
Experience the Pheromone Advantage at 15% off with my code LRT15
Use code LRT15 at Eyeoflove.com
And you'll get 15% off pheromone powered perfumes, colognes, and more.
To find out more or book a session with me visit:
https://talksexwithannette.com/home/sex-relationship-and-intimacy-coaching/
Email: annette@talksexwithannette.com
Use code Explores15 for 15% off Womanizer, We-Vibe, & Lovehoney products. Everything from pleasure air tech toys to lingerie.
Head to https://womanizer-north-america.sjv.io/B0ORDx
or https://wevibe-north-america.sjv.io/R5Z24a
https://wevibe-north-america.sjv.io/R5Z24a
Use code Explores15
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@annettebenedetti
Connect with us
We are on all the socials:
- TikTok: @ LockerRoomTalkPodcast
- LRT's Insta: @Lockerroomtalkandshots
- Annette's Insta: @BeingBenedetti
- SEL Inst: @SheExplores_Life
- LRT's FB: @LockerRoomTalkandShots
- SEL FB: @ SheExploresLife
- Annette's YouTube: Annette Benedetti
Check Out More Sexy Content:
She Explores Life Website: sheexploreslife.com
Cheers!
Do the sex Think fun, honest and feminist as fuck, and always with the goal of fighting the patriarchy. One female orgasm at a time. Welcome to the locker room. Today's locker room talk, talk and Shots topic is Wired for Passion Understanding ADHD and Women's Sexuality.
Speaker 1:Some of you may know, if you're following me on social media, that this year, at the age of 50, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Now this has been a game changer in almost every area of my life. Just knowing, as they say, it's half the battle and I have been able to make major changes in my life without medication that have improved my income, my organization, my friendships, so on and so forth. However, I have had absolutely zero education on how ADHD, my ADHD across my life may or may have not been affecting my intimate life, my relationships and how I act in bed or when I have sex, wherever I'm having sex. So I am really excited today because I have an expert who is here to talk to us about ADHD, how it affects women in bed, in love, in intimacy. So, folks, if you have ADHD or someone you know does, this is such an important episode and I want to highlight up front, before I even introduce you to my expert. This individual is actually going to come back. We are going to do also a podcast episode on how autism affects women in bed and in their intimate life. So we've got a lot of really important information coming your way. So stay tuned and listen to this episode and then come back for the next.
Speaker 1:My guest today is Heather Florio, ceo and second generation owner of Desert Harvest. She leads the development of natural, scientifically proven super strength aloe vera supplements and sexual and pelvic health products. Named one of the top 50 women in wellness by Authority Magazine and featured in Forbes in 2022 as a top woman in business, heather has spent nearly 30 years advocating for change in women's healthcare through research and innovation, with a focus on educating and supporting those affected by chronic conditions. Welcome, heather. I would love for you to tell my listeners a little bit more about you.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, thanks for having me. So my name is Heather Florio. As she said, before, desert Harvest was started in 1993. It was made originally with a goal in mind for a bladder disorder that predominantly affects women, called interstitial cystitis. We developed our super strength aloe vera capsules and then, because our demographic was predominantly women, over the years we began to develop new and needed products that were missing in a gap for women for their pelvic and sexual health needs, that were missing in a gap for women for their pelvic and sexual health needs. And so, over the years we began to add lubricants that were necessarily needed, that were actually meant to go in a woman's biome, and we began starting to do education. And we do this all over the world, trying to educate women, and now men too, on their bodies and how to take care of them and engage with their bodies in a healthy manner.
Speaker 1:Listeners. I am excited for this conversation and I want you to stay to the end because obviously we're going to talk about a lot. We're going to give you a lot of education on ADHD and how it manifests in women, but we are specifically going to give you the tools you need to go home tonight or whenever you get done listening I always imagine y'all listening to this in the morning I'm not sure why your intimate life, your partnerships and immediately have the tools you need to communicate better with, understand better your partner and have better sex, starting tonight or this afternoon, maybe if you're doing a nooner, I don't know. Again, I always assume you're doing it at night. So, right, right, who knows, if you're listening to this first thing in the morning, you can have some morning sex afterwards. So, heather, I'm excited to dive in and let's get ready to talk about adhd, women and sex cheers.
Speaker 1:So I want to start with talking about how ADHD manifests differently in women, because we are talking specifically about women and I know for myself I would have never in a million years until this year, thought I had ADHD. I would have never guessed it. Blew my mind. People always ask it. Blew my mind. People always ask, didn't you suspect? I did not for a moment and, interestingly enough, my children did, but because they're younger and they're coming into their adulthood. With the new information that's out about how ADHD affects women, which is and shows up in women, which is very differently than men, they caught on to what was going on with me. So could you talk a little bit about that for my sake and for the listeners?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of the things that's very different for women versus men when it comes to ADHD is we, as women, tend to mask more, and this is a result of trying to. We, at a very young age, are trying to fit in, and we know men are too, but I think for women we are given a higher set of instructions, I feel like a longer list, and so, as a result, probably around middle school or so, women begin to start masking to fit in, to meet societal expectations. Adhd does not fit into societal expectations and so, as a result, women are diagnosed later than men and as a result, you know, we begin to mask more and more. We're hiding, we're getting like you know. You talk about being 50.
Speaker 2:I got diagnosed we mentioned autism earlier. I did diagnose with ADHD younger. But to be diagnosed in a later stage of your life and to go light bulb, you understand, then you can start to feel like you're going to peel away those layers of masking that you have just continually built up till you're 50 in your case, you know. And so, as a result, we lose our authenticity, our true identity, our true selves, and until we really get that diagnosis and that understanding of who we are. We really are not ourselves, we're paling. We really need to peel back those layers and that diagnosis is like an ah kind of moment.
Speaker 1:It was. It really has changed so much for me. It was like all of a sudden my whole life made sense. So can you explain to the listener what masking is?
Speaker 2:So masking is masking your true behaviors, your true self.
Speaker 2:Imagine that you're putting on a physical mask, but in reality, masking is an invisible mask in which you are creating behaviors, whether they're healthy or unhealthy, to fit into the expectations that the society around you, the culture around you, has told you that you need to be.
Speaker 2:And because you don't feel comfortable, necessarily, in your own skin, because you don't feel like especially with ADHD it's one of those things you don't feel like, especially with ADHD. It's one of those things you don't feel like you fit in and you're not exactly sure where, how you fit in. And you say, well, that looks like the person I should be behaving like. And so you start picking up on their behaviors, whether they're healthy or unhealthy, because you see, they're the popular kid, they're the ones that everybody wants to be. And so society and expectations come on to us and we just start to pick up these behaviors from other people. And that is masking. It is putting on that invisible mask to be who you think that society needs you to be, for you to fit in to the society in which you live.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm going to give a solid example of this that just recently occurred with me. So, listeners, you may know, I just recently launched a sub stack, multimedia sub stack, where I call it my desire diaries and I talk about my kind of innermost desires. And I went to launch my first article and I was going through what did I want the title to look like? Because that's going to be the first thing people see. And I had the title I wanted to use which was desire diariesaries my Hungry Snatch Then and Now. And I was like, oh, that's like that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:That was my impulse, that was like the right thing, that was authentic to me. And I was like, oh, people aren't going to like that. Here's the title that everybody else is going to want or that's going to be comfortable for them, that everybody else is going to want or that's going to be comfortable for them. And I was on a walk and I'm like this is like go with your impulse, let's get back to your authentic self. And this is what the core of you says this is about. And I did, I went with my impulse, which I usually don't do. I have this part of my brain that kicks in and corrects to what seems normal for everybody else.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so that is one way in which I'm I'm learning to undo that because, frankly, what I have realized in my own journey, especially because of the content I make, is that my ADHD actually serves me well right, you've got to transform it into your superpower.
Speaker 1:It is my superpower, right, exactly. Let's now drill down into the specifics of how ADHD manifests differently in women than men. I feel like it's important to point this out because some of these differences are part of why people have overlooked what's going on with women, or why women get labeled the way they do when they act a certain way.
Speaker 2:One of the things that you know you could use as a prime example is that you would normally see, you can see hyperactivity. You know craziness in these boys. You can see them jumping off the walls, and for men it seems more external, it seems more internal. For women, we have this internal mental struggle going on. We're internalizing and we're going this way and that way. And as you take it into sex this is a prime example is porn.
Speaker 2:When we talk about societal expectations and we go into sex, our view, especially at this young age, is what we're seeing on the screen, what we're being fed, what we're being taught by mass culture and, as a result, again, we try to mask, even in our sexual activities, because we're like, okay, we need to be this way and we need to do this and we need to do it this way, and we're lost in our head, do this and we need to do it this way, and we're lost in our head and you know, whereas a guy, he just might be very hypersexual and very hyperactive, but again he might also be masking in the sense that he's all like I watched this porn last night and this is how you do it and this is the way in which you have sex and so, as a result, we're again, whether it's gender-based, it's more external for men, more internal for women and then, as a result, when we're coming together, it's creating this disconnect as a result and we're not coming together to create pleasure together.
Speaker 2:And as women, we're trying to fit that societal expectation of what sex should be in our minds and not what our bodies are telling us.
Speaker 1:So what you're saying is our hyperactivity tends to be more internal and in our thoughts. That resonates with me. I often have said to people it gets really loud in my head and sometimes I have to turn off all the sound in a room because what's going on in my head actually feels loud. And in bed, how that manifests for me is I am in my head. There's so many things going off Like what does my body look like right now? What is this supposed to be like? What's that supposed to be like? Oh, did I make the sound so much so that I can't actually enjoy what's happening with my body, because I'm trying to move my body and have my body look like what look sound, feel like what I think it's supposed to. So it sounds like that is one of the manifestations of ADHD. But then with men with ADHD, it just comes out in this kind of more physically aggressive kind of manner, because the way in which they experience ADHD is very much more on the outside, in the physicality of it.
Speaker 2:Yes, much more physical. Imagine, like a kid, that you've just given too much sugar and they're bouncing off the walls and you're like okay, that's the male version, where it's much more external in that sense.
Speaker 1:With women. I'm curious because this just occurred to me can this manifestation of ADHD being so internal and in the head, can that make it difficult for women with ADHD to orgasm?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, because if you're lost in your head and you're not focused on the activity at hand and you're not focused on your pleasure, your pleasure can can get stymied, it can get blocked. You can, your mind, is it? When we talk about, like I always think of, like this, like, think about mind, gut, pelvic floor, and and engaging, you know, along the vagus nerve, all of these pieces that, and even in um Eastern, you know, Hindu Buddhist practices, the idea of the, the alignment of the chakras, the chakras are aligned with um, our vagus nerve. And so, as a result, you know, if we're not clearing that super highway, in a sense, then we're creating a block right here to our super highway and, as a result, we're not going to necessarily have that orgasmic pleasure because our own minds are blocking themselves.
Speaker 1:Oh God. So that's a game changer again for me. My understanding is another way in which women experience ADHD is we tend to be more impulsive, our impulsivity and I've always been very sexual, I've been very impulsive in my sexuality. But I've found it confusing that I'm so sexual and so impulsive in my sexuality. But I've found it confusing that I'm so sexual and so impulsive, but then I get into the bedroom and I get into like yummy sexual situations and it's so fucking hard to come.
Speaker 2:Hypersexuality and our actual pleasure. Sex and pleasure become almost mutually exclusive in that sense because we can be very hypersexual. With ADHD we can be more apt to take risks and explore high-risk behaviors that others might not and be much more adventurous. But it doesn't necessarily mean we're claiming our full pleasure of our bodies because we're blocking that pleasure. So sex pleasure mutually exclusive for a lot of people with ADHD. And it's how do you bring it together?
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to make sure my listeners caught this, because this is such a big piece and really pulls my whole sexual self together. Some of the ways in which ADHD manifest in women are a hypersexuality, and can you explain what that means?
Speaker 2:So that means that you're it's almost, in a sense, that you are more apt to want to have sex and engage than maybe your peers. The societal norm or what you normally see is an average, normal sex drive, whereas you're like, oh yeah, my best friend she has it once a week, that's great enough, and I'm like once a day isn't enough, and so, really, hypersexuality is a definition in which we have a higher need, a higher rate to have sex and want to have sex and engage in sexual behaviors. Right.
Speaker 1:So there's that aspect of it. Then there's the impulsivity sexual impulsivity, obviously, I'm very sexual adventurous and, I would say, definitely more apt to engage in what would be considered more high risk behavior, which would be, in the past, different BDSM experiences, you know, going to sex clubs. I mean, there's a list of things that might might fall under that heading, and so people would assume, listening to my podcast, what I talk about the fact that I like to weave sexuality, sensuality, into the aspect of almost every aspect of my day, the fact that I like sexual adventures. They would assume oh, she's out there having sex and orgasming all of the time. However, comma, that's not true. The time, however, comma, that's not true. Then I actually struggle very much with orgasming in sexual situations.
Speaker 1:Even when it came to in 2022, I did a 365 days of orgasms challenge where I challenged myself to have an orgasm every day, because it was so hard for me to orgasm. It started out taking me 45 minutes masturbating. I've gotten it down, folks. I've gotten it down. I can have a nice little five minute quickie, and probably some of that exercise I did of learning to have an orgasm was overcoming some of the barriers between my hypersexuality and then actually quieting my mind, getting into my body and feeling the pleasure I mean, that's what you're kind of saying, right, like. Look, women with ADHD may be like the sexiest, seeming like sexually active nympho quote, maniac type people I hate that term, but I do think the outside world likes to shine that light, but when it actually comes to getting to experience the pleasure fully, we struggle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really, really do, and I think part of it is engaging and the societal expectation too that we need orgasm every time.
Speaker 2:You know you'd mentioned meditating, and meditating and kind of calming the mind before you engage in sexual practice is huge, just to put you in the right mindset to calm down that constant chatter and so that really you can engage with your body instead of your mind.
Speaker 2:You know, with Tantra women, there are 12 different types of orgasms we can have, and within our body and within our realm. And we are not engaging enough with our bodies to fully understand that and fully understand because the orgasmic power, the ultimate power of our orgasm, and what it can do for our pelvic floors, it's health, it's what it can do for our entire bodies. But again, just like overuse or over engaging in that much stimulation all the time can be detrimental. It can be detrimental to our bodies, detrimental to our minds. And so finding that balance of that true orgasmic power and then learning other ways in which your body can experience pleasure at the same time gives you a way to really understand your body and connect with your body and dampen that mind during the sexual process, which is key for anybody who has ADHD.
Speaker 1:So what are some other ways? We've now mentioned the symptoms, the really big symptoms we've gone over that manifest in women who have ADHD and what that looks like in bed. Are there additional symptoms that people might be recognizing that pop up in their relations with women in?
Speaker 2:bed, it might be hard. Just an overall connection, creating that connection with your partner that is a Volvo owner, like that, can be very, very difficult in a sense, because the connecting piece is hard for someone with ADHD just because you, you know, your mind is not necessarily connected to that point. So you might be connected one minute and then overhear the next and then overhear the next. So when someone is, especially when we come into that sexual power again, the idea of the man you know wanting to engage, maybe multiple times or have multiple experiences, foreplay might not necessarily be your thing because you're like, okay, let's get this done, let's move, let's make this happen. So foreplay could be a little bit difficult to engage in because you might start getting ramped up and you're like, okay, let's go do this, it's time.
Speaker 2:Again, that whole idea of needing to slow down but also creating a connection with your partner, whoever that might be, and even even if it's yourself, creating that connection with yourself and masturbation is, is, is key to that orgasmic power that we have and and to be able to engage in that, we definitely again back to that dampening of the mind, back to taking out outward distractions, whatever that might be. The music. For me, music really helps me to redirect my mind and calm. So, like every time before you know we're going to engage in some type of sexual practice my husband and I he knows I'm going to first thing I'm going to do is go turn on the music and then I'm like, okay, I'm ready, we can do this and. And so I think connecting with people, connecting with yourself and then dampening that mind are all key to successful sexual experiences for those with ADHD.
Speaker 1:Right, have a problem connecting with their body to experience the orgasm. They can have difficulty feeling connected to their partner during sex. That resonates definitely and I think I definitely experience in foreplay. You know my partner will maybe be going down on me doing stuff to try and, you know, get me ramped up and ready to go and I'll start feeling anxious, like, okay, you've been doing this for five minutes, Are you going to get bored? Do I need to move it on? Because I get hyper focused on the orgasm. Even though that's not the fun part of sex for me. It's great, Orgasms are great, but the actual sex itself and that getting to exist in the erotic space with someone is the best part of the experience which can last forever. But if in your mind you're worried about what if I don't come and I need to get to that orgasm, so they feel like I orgasmed, right, it's so hard to connect with them and then to be in the moment.
Speaker 2:Oral sex is definitely a problem for me. Yeah, which sucks because I love it. I love receiving it. Yes, I love receiving it, I love giving it to my husband, but at the same time, like you're talking about, it's like that anxiety really does ramp up, in the sense that it's all like, okay, well, yeah, we're good, like can we move on to like the sex part now? Like that felt great. Or like you know how long can I stay focused on, on pleasuring him, before I'm like, okay, I need to, I need to, you know, dial it back and focus, you know, on engaging in different ways. So it's very much, there's nothing wrong with changing it up.
Speaker 2:I think communication is one of the biggest keys in all of this. Your mind is all over the place and that is okay, and it's okay to communicate that you want to move on to something else. Communication is key to an amazing sexual partnership with yourself, with others, and communicating honestly when you want to engage in something. When you're done engaging in something, that's perfectly okay. But again, if you start maybe with that meditation practice or something like that, you might be more apt to get a little bit more out of your head, not have the anxiety rise and go. Okay, when are we getting to the good part?
Speaker 1:Let's talk about some of the biggest problems that arise in a relationship or a sexual situation for women with ADHD. Some of the ones I can rattle off my own situation are having to do with being a super sexually charged person. I also struggle with the term hypersexual because in the way it's defined is as though it's problematic, like it's a problem. Like it's problematic. Like it's a problem, like it's someone who's over sexual or has a sex addiction, which I don't like. I think that's a bunch of bullshit to shame people who are connecting with their sexuality. So just to be clear with listeners like I don't accept that definition of hypersexuality. I am using it in the sense of someone who is very sexual, enjoys sex and puts that and believes that's part of their daily life.
Speaker 1:But I think with partners who aren't that way, aren't hypersexual or even as interested in sex, or even if they are, it can intimidate them. It can make them worry about my fidelity to them, judging me, feeling judged by them and maybe them feeling some judgment because they're like you know you're so sexual and you know everybody knows it X, y, z. So that's an issue. I am very sexually adventurous and obviously in partnership that can be challenging if your partner's like you know I want to have sex like three times a week. We get in bed, we do like, and with sexual adventurousness, can again come from mainstream people a lot of judgment, uh, you know, about it being dirty or that making you a quote slut or whore, all of those things. Yeah, and then some other things we've talked about are sort of the orgasm issue. But what are some other challenges? Just to list off for my listeners that they may be confronted with when in relationship with a woman who has ADHD.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that we've definitely bulleted some of the biggest barriers and you probably just went over most of them. When you talk about hypo or hyper sexuality, there's nothing wrong with that. Those are descriptor terms and that is to describe. There's an ISO, which means kind of a normal sex drive. There's hyper, which means a more elevated sex drive, and hypo, which means a lower sex drive. Now, when you're in the lower sex drive, there could be something hormonally related to that and that's always a good time to check with a doctor. But when you're at hypersexuality, there's nothing wrong with that. You mentioned nympho. You know nymphomaniac before. I almost feel like that's a slut shaming term because we use that for women. Where's our term for a hypersexual male? And so I really feel that hypersexuality really defines the fact that you might be, or feel that you're, more sexual than others. And that leads back to that communication piece where I mentioned communication is key.
Speaker 2:My husband, I feel like I have, I am hypersexual than most women I know. Um, my husband is more than me, he is more hypersexual. I can't meet his level of hypersexuality. So it becomes a question you know, when you have that imbalance one way or another, it's communicating, and communication is really key. I'm going to tell my husband now, necessarily. You know when we were younger we didn't communicate. You know we've been together. My husband and I have been together married 25 years. We've been together since we were 19. And so most of our, our most profound sexual experiences have been with each other and growing sexually with each other. But when we were younger, you know, we didn't really communicate and to meet his need he would masturbate all the time and hide that from me, keep that from me, because he didn't want me to feel bad that I didn't meet his sexual needs in totality. But now that we're older, we're both sex educators and in a completely different realm of space of feeling comfortable with ourselves and who we are. You know his hypersexuality is a conversation that we have. He's going to be like do I want to masturbate or do I want to wait so that my orgasm is this much more explosive? And and really kind of that goes into edging, which is a kind of you know something, that that men it's actually good to practice, not for long periods of time, but but to be able to ramp up to that ultimate orgasm, especially if you're in a relationship with a partner, you have a steady partner. Um, because that that orgasmic piece can be something completely different If you lessen the amount of masturbation that is occurring on the back end, whether male or female. So that's kind of really important and really communicating that with your partner.
Speaker 2:Kinks you know we talked about the incidents in which we're more apt to take risks. Be much more adventurous sexually, understand and know what you're headed into before you're headed into BDSM. You might think, okay, I've seen it on TV, it's great, I'm going to totally do this. And then you get in there and you're like where's my safe word? Like I need out of this, this isn't going to work for me. So so doing your research before you, you know, experience those kinks is very important Understanding what you're going into in those situations and making sure it is something, then explore it.
Speaker 2:I always say for kinks, if you're not hurting yourself and you're not hurting anybody else, there's nothing wrong with your kinks. And to think that there is something wrong with your kinks, it's society telling you that, creating those taboos around those experiences. And because, as people with ADHD, we're going to be more apt to experience those kinks and explore whatever your kinks might be, don't feel shamed by them. Society has created that shame and just know what you're getting into, because we might be apt to jump in before we know what we're jumping into. And that's probably my biggest takeaways in this situation as far as owning your sexual power, someone with ADHD is communication, education and understanding of your own bodies and how you connect with those that you are experiencing sexual relationships with.
Speaker 1:I like how you bring up safety too sexual relationships with. I like how you bring up safety too. I think that something that's been important for me across my life is to understand that I am impulsive. In situations I will run towards an opportunity that's like ooh, what's going to happen if I do that? Like what's going to happen if I do that. But it's so important and I have been, by and large, lucky in my life.
Speaker 1:I've put myself in situations that weren't safe many times, especially when I was younger, because I didn't know what I was doing or why I was doing. I just felt the need to do it. So I think it's really important to be safe, to understand how to set up a safe situation for yourself, whether it's educating yourself about something ahead of time or having a safety person. If you're going to meet a new person to be kinky with, like, have your person, who you give all the information to you, say here's where I'm going, who you give all the information to you, say here's where I'm going, here's who I'm meeting, this is their address. But putting all of those safety stops in place before you go, have fun, right. I think that's key for women with ADHD, and then I love that you bring up not feeling ashamed, because I have a feeling, and I'm sure you can verify, that women with ADHD carry a lot of shame around sex, I think, between being more hypersexual, being more impulsive and curious, our society is set up to make women like myself feel like something is wrong with us or that I'm dirty or that, because I've had more sex than other people, it's lowered my value, you know, and that I have to change how I express my sexuality and mask it so it looks like you know other women's sexuality who are less sexual.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of shame and that's very harmful. It's been very harmful to me throughout my life. It's made me feel less lovable, less worthy. So I've chosen relationships that weren't good for me because I thought that is what I deserved. You know I've settled so many times in my life. I've settled and that's why getting diagnosed for me has been this like light bulb going off. It's like nothing is wrong with me. In fact, I would say that my sexuality is a superpower, I think, you know it's led me to be an educator, it's led me to empower other women, but now, knowing that ADHD is part of what drives me, it also allows me to go well. Nothing's wrong with me. I'm wired differently and I do deserve love and I do deserve the relationships I want and I do deserve respect, being able to shed that shame, to hear this conversation and know nothing's wrong with you. You're wired differently and if you look's wrong with you, you're wired differently. And if you look at the ways in which you're wired differently, you can see them as superpowers.
Speaker 2:Definitely, definitely. I always say that there's no two vulvas that are the same and there's no two sexualities that are the same. And just like every vulva is beautiful, every person's sexuality and sexual experiences that are safe for all parties involved. There's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in fact they're beautiful. I love that.
Speaker 2:I like the comparison.
Speaker 1:So you've kind of gone through this blow by blow and also set up what to do like the fixes for some of the complications that come up for women in their sexual situations, especially when it comes to the struggle with orgasm piece. Because I kind of wonder, when we look at the orgasm gap in women, how much ADHD has played a role in that, because it's only been what in the last 5-10 years that we've even realized how many women have ADHD that have gone undiagnosed, and for sure that plays a role in struggling to orgasm. So what are some ways? If you are a woman like I am, with ADHD, who loves to have sex, but you're, like God, it's so hard to orgasm that you can start changing that and becoming more orgasmic.
Speaker 2:A couple of things that I've kind of already mentioned, but I'll go into deeper is definitely meditation is one of those huge things. If you start practicing it on a daily basis, it's a good way. And it's hard. It's hard for people with ADHD to meditate. I always said it's impossible. There's no way I could do this with ADHD. It is impossible. And I realized, you know, I had.
Speaker 2:I was lucky enough to have an amazing teacher, deepak Chopra, and to really learn from him how to get out of here, out of my mind and and and kind of transcend that. And essentially, orgasming is like a transcendent experience. It is in Tantra this is the so we talk about, you know, in a lot of different philosophical cultures. You know we talk about transcendence that need to make the ultimate state of attainment in meditative and consciousness and practices. And in Tantra, the clearest pathway to enlightenment, to consciousness, is orgasming. That is that period in which you know the, you know Buddhists and Hindus are that ultimate enlightenment experience that they're trying to get to. You can get to with orgasming. And so to find that enlightenment in the same way is to utilize meditative practices because it really will, because it really will calm your mind and help you get into your body and feel your body and listen to your body, and not sitting here going. Okay, I mean, it's been five minutes, what the hell? I don't feel this Like what is going on? Like your head's going, like, especially for women, you know, we're in our head, so we're all over the place going. Do I need to change positions? Do I need to do this? What's going to work? You need to be able to stop that and it's not going to happen every time. But if you just start meditation practices, like right before you go to bed two hours, you should probably have the last two hours of your night phone-free, like you know, stimulation-free, and and spend maybe 30 minutes or so before you go to bed.
Speaker 2:Pop in, there's there's apps on YouTube. There's there's tons of meditations on YouTube that you can listen to. Um, there's ones that I love from Deepak that are on there. There's Headspace, the app. The app in which you can get that can kind of slowly, incrementally, get you used to being able to meditate and once you get it, it's possible with ADHD.
Speaker 2:It's just getting yourself and you'll still have moments where you'll be like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing and then all of a sudden, you'll be calm and don't think that, just like with sex, where you're all over the place, when you start meditating you'll be all over the place and then at some point it will kick in and you will. And that's the same thing with sex. When you can calm that mind and you can get into your body with orgasming, that's where you're going to have that ultimate orgasm, that ultimate experience. So I highly recommend meditation as like the key piece for you to be able to have the ultimate orgasm as a woman and then, at the same time, exploring your body, because it's something we're not doing, we've not been taught to do, and I think that finding that connection to ourselves, feeling and understanding our body, realizing that we have all these erogenous zones and erogenous points that we are not exploring, like even even just putting you know what we would call the G spot or the Grafenberg spot now is literally a point some and and, and it's on the front side of your abdomen and it's different for every woman.
Speaker 2:So utilize a dildo, start pushing on different points while you have a dildo. Find out where your spot is. Anally, there is a spot up there that will be an amazing erogenous zone, even if you don't want to have anal sex with your partner. Find something small. Maybe you know, have sex with your partner while having a butt plug in. You know different things like this. Find different ways to explore your own body and your own erogenous zones so that then, when you meditate and you explore those erogenous zones because you're out of your head and you're in your body, feeling it you're going to have a completely different experience.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love all that, guys, guys, if that was not a takeaway from this episode that made the whole thing worthwhile, I don't know what is. So let's wrap this up with this you are a woman with ADHD, or you're a person who just decided to be in a relationship sexual relationship or heartfelt relationship with a woman who has ADHD. What do you guys do to make sure that, as you go into your relationship, any blocks that may be caused by being in relationship with someone with ADHD don't prevent your relationship from proceeding in a healthy manner? What is the first thing these folks should do to set themselves up for success in their relationship and in bed Communicate.
Speaker 2:Communicate what they like, what they don't like. There is nothing wrong and there should be nothing shameful about what you do and you don't like, because you are not there to pleasure another person. In a sense. You're there to find mutual pleasure, but in doing that, you need to clearly communicate what equals your pleasure, because nobody is a mind reader, nobody is going to go into your brain and go oh, she likes to do that. And communication is going to be the clear key that's going to set your relationship and your sexual relationship up for success.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Thank you so much, folks. I hope that this was helpful for you. I want you to tune in. In the upcoming weeks we are going to provide you with another episode that is going to drill down into autism in women and sexual relationships and intimate relationships, how it manifests and how you can set yourself up for success in bed and in relationships when you have a relationship with a woman who has autism. You're going to want to come back for that, but until then, can you tell my listeners where they can find you, get in touch with you and find out more about you?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, definitely, so they can check me out. My Instagram is at HMFlorio, and we also have Desert Harvest itself, which is desertharvestcom. You're welcome to check out all our amazing pelvic and sexual health products that are actually meant for a woman's biome, and then, at the same time, on Instagram at Desert Harvest Aliveira as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you, folks. You know where to find me. I have my books open. If you're looking for an intimacy coach, you can find me at TalkSexWithAnettecom. If you want to join me for my desire diaries and you do then you're going to want to head over to my sub stack and you can scroll down and click on the link and check it out.
Speaker 1:If you have questions for the two of us about ADHD and sex and women after you've listened to this podcast, you can either email me at Annette at TalkSexWithAnnettecom, or, if you are on my YouTube channel which I hope you are because you want to see our beautiful faces my YouTube channel handle is at TalkSexWithAnette. You can actually just drop a comment with your question right below the video. So it's all organized. I know what topic you need answers to and I will be able to get those questions answered for you, either in a mini-sode, in an email, whatever. I will get you some answers. We'll do a whole other episode if we need to, if we get enough questions. So make sure to reach out to me. I love making sure you guys get the information that you want and need uh.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:This has been wonderful.
Speaker 1:Can't wait to do it again. Yeah, it has been wonderful and it's a. It's super helpful for my listeners, but also personally, I'm very grateful for the information you just shared. It's it's meaningful to me, uh, to my listeners, until next time I'll see you for the information you just shared.
Speaker 2:It's meaningful to me, to my listeners, until next time I'll see you in the locker room. I'll see you, Ring loop.