#62 Discover the Wisdom of Your Sexual Fantasies, with Artemisia Devine

Love Is Us: Exploring Relationships and How We Connect

Your sexual fantasies contain wisdom. Tune into this episode with Artemisia de Vine to learn about your sexual fantasies and how listening to their innate wisdom can help you change your life in ways you never imagined.

Artemisia is a Certified somatic sexologist, BA in anthropology and former sex worker and professional dominatrix. She’s also a sexual fantasy expert who teaches the world's leading sexperts the meaning of our sexual fantasies, and how to bring them out of our heads and into our beds. Understand how stories work and you understand why we have sexual fantasies - and how to create powerful, real-life transformative sexperiences that satisfy the real desire behind the story symbolism. Artemisia de Vine is the author of upcoming book: The Spirituality of Smut: The surprising wisdom of sexual fantasies.

Learn more about Artemisia:

Website: https://www.artemisiadevine.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artemisiadevine/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtemisiadeVine

Learn more about Karin:

Website: https://www.drcalde.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theloveandconnectioncoach/

TRANSCRIPT

Intro:

Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love Is Us.

Episode:

Karin: Hello, everybody. As you begin to listen to today's episode, I want to urge you to put aside all your judgments and tap into your curiosity if at all possible. Now, if you struggle with that and you notice a critic or judgmental part of you popping up, just notice that and see if that part of you or those parts of you can make some room for you to listen to this episode with an open mind. Because my guest today, Artemisia divine, is onto something big here. And I think there's a good chance you're going to learn something today that, for some of you at least, could be life changing. I certainly learned something from talking to her. She is so smart and insightful. This is about way more than sex and sexual fantasies. But by tapping into them and really listening to them, you just might unlock something really important for yourself. I am grateful for her and the work that she's doing. I hope that you will let me know what you think of it by visiting me on Instagram where I'm the love and connection coach. Where you can leave me a message as well. And you can also let me know what relationships and self development topics you'd like me to cover in upcoming episodes. I would love to hear from you. So thanks for being here.

[02:11] Karin: Buckle up.

[02:11] Karin: And here we go. Welcome, Artemisia.

[02:16] Artemisia: I am delighted to be here with you.

[02:19] Karin: All right, people might have already guessed, but tell us where you are in the world.

[02:25] Artemisia: My accent gave me away. Did it? I am in Australia. I'm in rural Victoria, outside of Melbourne. So right down the bottom. And I live in the future because it's already tomorrow for me. The time's over. There you go.

[02:44] Karin: And have you always lived in that region of Australia?

[02:49] Artemisia: Oh, I've lived and worked all around Australia. But probably this has been one of my main homes. This and Sydney probably feel like my homes. Oh, my goodness. I've got a croaky throat. First thing in the morning, it is early because we have different time zones. Yeah.

[03:08] Karin: And what keeps you in, Victoria? What do you like about it?

[03:15] Artemisia: I'm in a beautiful space. This is. We're going in again on the flip side of the other side of the world. We're in the opposite seasons to you. So we're just entering into autumn right now. And this is one of the most beautiful magical places with so many autumn leaves and gorgeous mists that make you believe fantasies and an awful lot of interesting fungus that grows around here.

[03:39] Karin: So tell us what you do for work.

[03:42] Artemisia: So I am a sexual fantasy coach. I am an expert that teaches the sexperts in how to understand and engage sexual fantasies. Because really, if you want to have mind blowing sex, you have to understand the role the mind plays in sex. So I am somebody who has created an entire system around understanding and being able to bring fantasies out of your head and into your bed.

[04:13] Karin: So how did you come to do that work?

[04:16] Artemisia: It's not exactly typical work, is it? Being a sexual fantasy coach, how did ask that question? A lot. And it's a good reason, I think I actually. Well, initially I started because I was afraid of sex and I had my own sexual fantasies that seemed to go against the way that I wanted to be treated in real life and the way that I wanted to treat other people in real life. And I couldn't make sense of them. To be honest. When I very first became interested in fantasies, I was trying to solve the problem about what they were about. And I actually have spent over 30 years now delving into the erotic and trying to understand the erotic. Partly because I was confused about my own thoughts, but partly because I was experiencing desire as something that was taken from me for somebody else's benefit, not something that was for my benefit. And I was experiencing. I was hurt. I wanted to understand why on earth this was happening, why did we have this disconnect between what we were fantasizing about and the actual humanity relationship that was going on. And that took me on all sorts of adventures. And I worked in sex shops and became a certified somatic sexologist. And I learned from some of the most amazing sexperts from all around the world, read everything I could get my hands on, and had a lot of sex in my personal life. And eventually I decided to become a sex worker. And the most powerful, powerful time for me to understand the erotic psyche was the twelve years that I spent as a full time sex worker and as a professional dominatrix, where I was paid to live out the sexual fantasies of thousands of people, which gives you an entirely different perspective than learning about it at university. And what made me interested in it was my client's reactions when I actually trusted their fantasies the way that they are and created a really safe consensual container to live out the essence within them. Notice I said essence within them, not literally live them out. Notice that they would start to have these really powerful experiences that were far more profound than either of us expected. So, you know, it's not like you're expecting a smutty fantasy of using strap ons and threesomes and forced bisexuality to end up in a spiritual experience with your heart expanded and your mind expanded and feeling one with the universe. But it kept happening. And I was like, what is happening here? This is. What is this? And so I set out to try and understand what sexual fantasies were, and how could we actually harness them to get the most out of them.

[07:20] Karin: So maybe we can go there then, at this point. What is a sexual fantasy?

[07:26] Artemisia: Well, let's just start with what it is on a practical sense first. So a sexual fantasy is anything that you think about that gets you sexually aroused. So it can be a full blown story of thinking about, you know, you're threesome or you're having sex with a girl next door or whatever it is, somebody with a particular body type. Or it can be, you know, being rescued from, by a excellent fire person, you know, or a martial artist from some villain and being swept away. It can be all sorts of different things. It can be the whole story, but it could also just be you remembering having different kind of sex than you're currently having with the same person that you're having sex with right then. So you're same lover, but you're remembering what they did last Tuesday. And that was super exciting to you, and that gets you excited now. Or you could be imagining what you might be doing together this Friday night, on date night, and you're starting to imagine that and get yourself starting to get worked up. That's also part of being a sexual fantasy. So people have more sexual fantasies than they think they do. Even people who think they don't, they really do.

[08:41] Karin: There really is a wide range of fantasies. I mean, it can run from seemingly mundane to something really exotic.

[08:50] Artemisia: Yes, yes. You can have talking parrots and everything. It's quite. There's such a richness in the human mind. I tell you what, it's wonderful, but really what I've discovered is sexual fantasies are just stories and stories, they're transformational stories, they're designed to actually overcome fear of vulnerability so that we can open to the moment, we can actually connect intimately. We can just let go into the flow and have sex. Well, you know, like dance like nobody's watching, have sex like no one's watching, except they are, because that might be exciting to you, but.

[09:34] Karin: Right, so that's one kind of fantasy, voyeuristic one. What are some common themes that you notice in people's fantasies?

[09:45] Artemisia: There is a lot of. Well, the themes actually come through because of how fantasies work to transform us. What they do is they have to include our fear of being vulnerable and resolve that fear for us so that we can let go from being standoffish and lose ourselves in the moment, lose our sense of self and connect to a bigger sense of self and just become pure experiencing in the moment. So the themes about sexual fantasies tend to be all centered on our fear of vulnerability, our natural, normal fear of vulnerability. What I do that's different is it's very common for people to immediately default to thinking, oh, fear of vulnerability. That must be about something that's about my unfairness finished childhood business or my adolescent business. I must go and get some therapy then, and fix it, and then I'll be able to have sex without fantasies. I'm having this kind of fear of vulnerability because I've had this kind of life experience. And yes, absolutely true, these things do influence our sexual fantasies 100%. But what I do that is different is non pathologising. Those ones are kind of making it a little bit wrong. It's focused on something that needs healing or changing what I'm looking at and what I'm got this piece of it that has not been talked about before, which is the sexual fantasies are actually resolving a natural double bind mechanism that's just inherently in the sexual experience. So it doesn't matter what kind of childhood you had, you could have had the perfect childhood sexual fantasies. You'll still have sexual fantasies of non consent or power dynamics, or being turned on by being dominated or doing taboo things and being naughty or having more than one lover or even cheating, even if you had the perfect childhood and you have nothing to resolve, because there are inherent psychological mechanisms that need to be overcome to move from being closed off to open to another state of consciousness. And being sexually aroused is another state of consciousness. You think about things in a different way, you experience yourself in a different way, your nerve endings respond in a different way. Meaning making is done in a different way. When you are sexually aroused, but horniness is just the beginning of the whole umbrella of erotic states of consciousness that are possible. And when you understand the story of sexual fantasies, you understand that it's giving you the perfect map. It's giving you exactly what your particular ego fears about vulnerability and the exact antidote to that particular fear so that you can resolve it the way that's a way that's going to make sense to you in particular. So there's common themes that you can recognize. Like there's a lot of people, it's really recorded now, but there's a lot of people who have big fantasies about some form of non consensual sex where they're forced to experience the pleasure that they really want to experience. Oh, poor victim. There's a lot of themes around multiple people. There's a lot of themes around being used. There's a lot of themes around using somebody else objectification. And this is not how we want to be treated in real life or how we want to treat other people in real life. So there is an art form to understanding how these poisons and antidotes create this transformation of consciousness and bringing that psychological mechanism out of our heads and into our bdsm or sexual play experiences.

[13:50] Karin: So, you know, you talk about these, these fantasies of things that are not allowed in society, right? And so when someone has this fantasy of, oh, I want to be overcome, I want someone to overpower me. And, you know, there might even be sexual assaults going on, something like that. What is the typical response you see in people when they have that kind of a fantasy?

[14:21] Artemisia: Well, they're probably both very excited by it and also confused by it and having no idea how to actually bring it out, out of their heads and into their beds, they have no idea how to live it out. And often the first attempts to do that with a trusting partner have gone pear shaped because they don't understand what their fantasy is really trying to say. So they might, for instance, have a fantasy about, oh, I get ravished, I get tied up, and you have lots and lots of sex with me, and there's three of you, and you have lots and lots of sex with me, and I can't help it, and it's not my fault. In their fantasy, all of those characters, those three characters are actually just another aspect of them. And they're simply. They only exist to support your own psychology. And changing a real life person has their own agenda going on. So if in the fantasy, those three people end up touching you in exactly the way you want to be touched, for as long as you want to be touched and being. Being forced to take. It relieves you of any guilt of being too big and taking too much and taking up too much space. It relieves you of any guilt of focusing on yourself rather than trying to look after everybody else in the room. It relieves you of any guilt of being a slut because it's not your fault they made you do it. So now you can be a primal lusty being. And so, in reality, in the fantasy is actually being a kind story that is literally just creating the ingredients you need to give yourself deep permission to let go. But when they try and live that out, they say, well, what's your fantasy? Well, it's. My fantasy is just being used by three people and being tied up. So they try and go, okay, well, let's just do that then, shall we? And when the real people do it, they go, okay, well, she wants to be used, so I'll use her. And they do it literally. They include the poison, which is the fear that they're using. They have not included the antidote, which is being used in exactly the way she wants to be used for as long as she wants to be used. Right.

[16:30] Karin: So there's. So I think that that's a really important thing to say, is that in the fantasy, it's really important that the person actually be the one to have the control over the situation ultimately. Would you say that?

[16:43] Artemisia: I think that we really need to set a container where they. Absolutely. The thing is, the whole event is actually created to support their psyche. Whoever's fantasy it is, you're creating the experience to support their psyche. And they absolutely have. It's so important to create a safe, solid container around that and have safe words in place so that if anything goes a little bit unexpected and wrong, you can immediately stop or slow things. But it's also simultaneously just as important to genuinely let go, because if you are the person who is trying, if you're in too much control, you don't surrender. And the only way to get to those expanded states of consciousness is to surrender. So there's a real art form in being able to hold somebody in the right level of risk and safety at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[17:39] Karin: And I want to go back to this idea about it not being literal, because I think a lot of people, they have these fantasies and they feel so guilty. They're like, but I believe in, you know, equal power for. For all genders. And yes, I want to be controlled by a man in the bedroom. What is wrong with me? Or I am someone that likes to make all these decisions and to be in control. And so why is it that in the bedroom, I want someone else to be in control and to be helpless? Okay. And then they often have these feelings of guilt or they're conflicted about it.

[18:19] Artemisia: Yes, you ask brilliant questions, by the way. This is a lovely conversation. Okay. I would actually like to ask you a question at this point. So you have some experience with deliberately creating safe spaces for people to go into expanded states of consciousness in ways that benefit them. Are you aware that there is a transition phase moving from one state to the other and that there is internal resistance that needs to be overcome to move from one state to another?

[18:47] Karin: Oh, absolutely.

[18:49] Artemisia: What's your experience around that? What have you noticed?

[18:52] Karin: Well, there are different ways to explain it or frame it, depending on what kind of tradition you come from. But you're essentially moving through these states of consciousness.

[19:02] Karin: And there are a lot of levels, ranging from being here, being fully present, being aware of who you are, and that you're in your body to a complete ego death. And not everyone goes through all of those levels. But in order to have this experience, you need to be able to let go and have some trust and safety that you will be okay if you let go. And for some, especially for those who are new to these kinds of different states of consciousness, it can be really uncomfortable and scary. And. And another way that I often talk about it is, you know, with parts, there might be parts of us that come up that get in the way of us transitioning. So it might be you have an anchors part or an analyzing part or something like that that says, you know, no, I'm not ready for this. So that's part of the work, is working with those parts and working with a person to figure out how they can trust and let go and get the most out of the experience.

[20:08] Artemisia: Yeah. And one of the ways that has been in the psychedelic assisted therapy community has that transition. That resistance has been described as ego resistance, or as a part, at least the part of you that creates and defends your sense of self, your sense of identity, self identity, self worth and social status, they can get in the way of this surrendering and the natural mechanism of moving from one state or another. It means that those things, the social status, the self worth and the self identity, need to be addressed and released so that you can move through. So a sexual fantasy is the exact story that includes your natural fear of your threats to your social status and your self worth. And your self identity, and it resolves them for you so that you can then let go of your normal sense of self and expand into this bigger sense of self. Once your ego mechanisms are in the backseat of the car or sometimes even right out of the car, and with these expanded states of consciousness, you're right. Sometimes you can go so far beyond that, you don't even have a body anymore. But sometimes you can go so deep into having a body that every little touch is an exquisite ripple through every cell in your being. You can be really fully present in here, but you're a bigger, expanded sense of self. Okay, so if you think, okay, if my psyche was going to come up with the exact story, pretend you are the part of the psyche that's trying to come up with the exact story to convince your ego to stand, it's safe to stand down for a minute. You're going to have to include a story that includes both its fears and the antidotes, and you're going to have to include their fear of surrendering, because egos are always against all forms of vulnerability. That's what egos do. They defend against vulnerability because they think it's a threat and that's a healthy ego. I'm not against egos at all. We need them. They're important. But it's still in the way. If you're trying to get to this period, if you're trying to move from I to we, if you're trying to merge with somebody else with and even go even deeper into those merging with life itself and having one of those oneness experiences, you have to let go of self, you have to lose yourself, you have to surrender. And we have natural fear of that. So if you're going to tell a story that creates that, you're going to bring in characters who are in control when you're not, and forcing you to surrender, you're going to bring in them being characteristics that you fear. But somehow it's resolved and you have the exact opposite end result to the thing you fear. You have actually safety and pleasure and a connection and intimacy and opening up. So this is the part that I'm focusing on rather than your childhood wounds, which is quite a radical difference.

[23:24] Karin: And so in order to do that, you really do need to have a lot of trust. And like you said, safety with the person with whom you're having or enacting.

[23:34] Artemisia: This fantasy you do. And most people think that that means that you need a really long relationship with somebody in order to build that trust. But as a sex worker in a professional dominatrix. I ended up having these expanded states of consciousness on a semi regular basis, like fairly regularly pretty with my clients, and I just met an hour or two ago. And so if you have the right skills and the right container, you can actually create the real safety that you need to be able to let go. And one of the ways that I do that is I trust their fantasies. I don't try and change them into something that is politically correct or how I think the world should operate or how I want to be treated in gender wise, you know, or for whatever reason, I don't try and change it. I listen to the story and I hear how it's achieving that. Sit them down on my red velvet couch and ask them all sorts of questions about how it works for them. And they give away all sorts of things they don't realize they're giving away. Then we create this wonderful consent container so I have freedom to be able to explore that. And they don't necessarily know exactly what's going to happen, but it's the right sweet spot of risk and safety so that they can still let go. And they absolutely can veto anything if they need to with their safe words, but they need to be able to surrender or it doesn't work. So I'd ask them all about body language and attitude. Discover their emotional aphrodisiacs, notice what their poisons and their antidotes are. Notice any inherent paradoxes within the story that they've come up with. Then I would create an experience that actually brings those aspects to life. I'm not trying to look like their ideal fantasy person. I'm not trying to even necessarily live out the thing that they're fantasizing about. What I'm doing is creating a lived play experience, an embodied, here and now present, connected experience that creates the same psychological mechanisms so they can let go. And that's when the magic happens right there.

[25:47] Karin: It sounds like it can be a very powerful healing approach for people.

[25:52] Artemisia: Yes, absolutely. Suddenly you're not afraid of yourself anymore. You don't feel shame and guilt about being turned on by some, you know, you think, oh, my God, I'm a sophisticated thinker. I'm not so, you know, base as that, but I was totally turned on by 50 shades of Grey. Who am I? Why am I so excited by the, you know, sociopathic billionaire who wants to dominate me? That what's so exciting about that? And we don't want that in real life. But as far as a character that's going to support our own internal transformation. That's an ideal character. Right. And it's as long as it's in support of our transformation from one state to another. But if you think about it, all of those beautiful expanded states of consciousness require surrendering and ego dissolution. As we said before, there's two different ways to make your ego let go. One is to make it so small that it disappears. So you become the submissive, somebody else is taking over, and it lets go. The other way is to make it so big, it's as big as the sun, and you're so invincible that there is no threat anymore. And then you let it go and you can go into the flow. So the fantasy of being the dominant also can get you there. Okay.

[27:21] Karin: I love that.

[27:21] Karin: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me.

[27:23] Artemisia: Yeah. Yeah.

[27:25] Karin: And so, you know, I think this is coming out as you're explaining this, but maybe you can address it directly. You say there's wisdom in fantasies. So what do you mean by that?

[27:40] Artemisia: Well, initially I didn't trust the fantasy. I just. It sounds like smut. Okay. You know, the name of my upcoming book is the spirituality of Smut, which I think is so fun, but it's about trusting their fantasies. When clients came to me, I often had peers who had gone and learnt sexological bodywork. They'd gone and learnt tantra. They'd gone and learned conscious sexuality. And they were trying to solve the confusion around people's turn ons, patterns of turn ons and sexual fantasies by making their fantasies holy. So, for instance, if somebody was really excited by being embarrassed and humiliated, and then they might say, okay, I'm willing to do that because it's your fantasy. But then they would also include within the play reassurance that they're not actually humiliated, and that they'd be like, you know, good boy. Oh, you've really done well. They've tried to impose their own holy version of what should happen on the play itself, and they haven't trusted the fantasy. And what happens then is they've experienced the poison and the practitioner believes they've given the antidote, but they haven't because they haven't trusted the way in which that client's fantasy came up with their own antidote. They've imposed their own on it. So I want to believe in the wisdom. I believe deeply in the wisdom of their own psyche. Their own mind came up with this story. It is the perfect story for them. How did their mind resolve this problem for them? And how can I trust the wisdom of that? And create that experience for them, rather than trying to use the wrong organ of the psyche and figure out a way that I think would therapize it and make it nice for them.

[29:43] Karin: And so related to that, you mentioned earlier about the essence of fantasies and how you're able to kind of extract that and then play that out. So can you give us an example of the fantasy someone might bring to you and then how you've taken the essence of that and what that actually looks like?

[30:05] Artemisia: Sure. So let's say that somebody has got a fantasy. Let's say it's a heterosexual male who's actually not romantically or generally sexually attracted to men, but they've got a sexual fantasy which confuses them an awful lot about being forced by a mistress to go and be used in a glory hole where men can come along and use them. And they are thinking, well, am I really gay or am I bisexual? They might not be worried about being gay, but they're confused about whether or not they are and not necessarily right. Where's the essence in this? What is the role that the men are playing in here? So remember how we've got three guards we've got to get past in order to be able to let our egos go so we can experience the bigger sense of self, social status, self identity and self worth. What does that, the other men being used by other men signify when you look at it through those three lenses? What are they? What do they symbolize to you? And the example might be, okay, this client might have the belief that they need to be manly. Their identity is, I'm a manly man. And if I am going to be vulnerable enough to open and surrender to anal play, which is, you know, everybody likes anal play, no matter what your. Well, once you learn how to do it properly, it's a pleasurable part of your body, men's bodies. That's their g spot. And lots of people feel deep shame about touching their own. It's like the equivalent of a g spot. Imagine being shamed to touch your own g spot because you would lose your own status in your role in life if you touched a certain part of your genitals. He has to come up with a story that enables him to be able to be vulnerable enough, let go of his identity as a manly man, lose his social status as one of the boys, to be able to be vulnerable enough to experience this wonderful anal pleasure that he's. That is naturally available to him. So this story has created this scenario where you're living out his fear of vulnerability. If I touch this part of myself, I I'm going to be girly. I'm going to just be used. I'll be like, treated like a whore. I won't be a manly man anymore. I'll be beneath them. The pack will just use me and disregard me. You know, liking this stuff is gay. That's part of my fear as well. All of this, this, all of these fears are there. So there's your poison, but they need to be transformed. So a mistress comes along, a heterosexual woman comes along and forces him to feel this pleasure that he wants to feel so that he can surrender and let go and just disappear into the pleasure of it. And she is not. She is accepting him, not disapproving of him. So she's getting excited seeing him do that. So it's the opposite of rejection. She's becoming sexually excited. Okay, let this client's come to see me. I don't have a glory hole or, you know, a whole bunch of men I can bring out of my cupboard suddenly, nor do I want to. That's not the point of this fantasy. Indeed. So the essence, the essence is I'm going to need to include his fear of being vulnerable, of him losing his manliness if he's vulnerable, of what could happen if he's vulnerable. He's not protected anymore. He's completely, everybody can just use him. He's not going to have any status anymore. He's going to be on his hands and knees and just used right. And also include the right body language and the right attitude towards him and the right kind of dirty talk while he's having that. So I would then create the essence by creating an experience where he does gently, even though he's fantasized about being forcefully. I'll say forceful words, but I'll use gentle technique to open his anus gently and look after him and keep him safe and help him access this pleasure while running the story. And just in the ways, like, I'm training you right now, and I might even. I might even in future use you in the glory hole. Glory hole. But I'm going to. But I will be using the, the right ingredients, saying the right things that I know, his ego in particular fears, and listening to the way that his is resolved. So I'm not being rough like his fantasy is. I'm not including real men. I'm not using. He's not actually being used, but the essence of it has come to life. All of the mechanisms that he needs to completely let go and end up in throws of full body orgasms from anal play.

[35:19] Karin: Excellent. And so in that situation, what kind of transformation might you see in the client after you've enacted this fantasy with him?

[35:30] Artemisia: Okay, there's two different levels to that. One is the immediate transformation that just transforms your state of consciousness. And, oh, my goodness, some incredibly powerful things can happen. I can't believe it. Some people, I could get clients who, you know, when you're a sex worker, a random person comes in, you don't necessarily even like their personality when they first come in the door. Like, really, you don't? Let's tell the truth here, right? Some of them are lovely. Some of them are just. They rub you the wrong way, just personality wise. But once they have transformed, their personality is not even in the door anymore. It's out of the house. This bigger sense of self. And I would go down the rabbit hole with them, this whole play process, even though I'm following their psyche, I was going down the rabbit hole with them, and we would end up both in astonished states. It felt like, and it felt like we were looking at each other's eyes and we were seeing each other's souls, not each other's personalities. It felt like we were our higher self and our primal self right here, right now. And our ordinary, everyday self was out of the way.

[36:43] Karin: Those defenses are down. Sounds like all those protectors that come in. Yeah, okay.

[36:49] Artemisia: Yeah, exactly. That's beautifully described. Yes. So it is this, that immediate thing which has its own benefits, as you know, with your work with psychedelic assisted therapy. There's deep benefits in being able to just go into that state. You can think differently. You can feel differently. You can access valuable parts of yourself you normally cannot access, and you can share that with someone else in these kinds of sexual scenes, which is one of the most intimate things you can do. So that transformation's already happened. You've moved from defensiveness, standoffishness, to open and connected and in sync and in a mate. And I could feel my heart expand sometimes. It felt huge, like I felt like I'd expanded around them. And as I said before, I didn't even necessarily like them when they first walked in the door. But that still happened. If you followed this process, which is.

[37:44] Karin: Pretty powerful because you got to connect with their essence.

[37:48] Artemisia: With their essence, they really are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then if you've had a lived experience like that, you don't come back unchanged. You come back with a sense of knowing that there is. Well, in those experiences, you feel like you're connected with something bigger than yourself. That kind of experience changes you once you know that you can connect with something bigger than yourself, that you have a bigger self at all. And you've been able to see yourself with compassion and wonder and awe. And you've been able to see each other with compassion and wonder and awe. You don't come back unchanged. This actually ripples out into your whole life. You trust your own mind better, you trust your own body better. You have a different relationship to life itself when you are in relationship with your own creative life force, because that's what sex is. It's tapping you into your own creative life force. So this does transform you in ways that ripples out into your relationships. It ripples out into your own creativity in your business work. It ripples out into just having meaning and purpose. So it's so much more than having an amazing orgasm. It's about forming a relationship with who you are, all of who you are, by trusting your own erotic psyche and creating a safe place to explore that through play.

[39:18] Karin: Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were at a place in our society where everyone did this at some point in their life?

[39:27] Artemisia: Well, I am on a mission. I am training people to do this. That's one of the things I do. Oh, I love it.

[39:34] Karin: Yeah, I think it sounds really beautiful. A couple things. One of the things that I'm thinking in, and of course, I'm looking at the work that I do with psychedelics now. And a really important part of that is follow up sessions where you do integration work where you talk about what were the insights and how can you then apply that to the rest of your life? Is that a piece of the work that you do?

[40:03] Artemisia: Similar? Yes, a little bit different, because erotic is different. But I definitely would set up a. First of all, the first thing you need to do is set up aftercare, so slowly integrate them back. You do not send a client out the door before their egos back in, in the car because they have no skin. They need their protectors back in place. That's necessary. We need to ground them and bring them back. But then after, and as they do that, as they're slowly getting dressed and they're showering and I'm giving them a cup of tea and maybe a bite or something to eat to bring them back before I send them out, I'm asking them questions so that they can ground and remember the experience. Because otherwise it's like a dream. It just dissipates and you can't remember it because it's so beyond our normal way of being in our mind, then afterwards, we would have a date two or three days afterwards. Probably two is the ideal, where they've had a chance to let it settle inside of them. And they would call me for a conversation, a half an hour conversation on the phone, where we would then integrate what happened and we'd relive some of the highlights. We do this process I call panning for gold. We go through. They can talk about anything that was difficult. But what we do is we go through the experience and we like, just like you do with a pan, you bring up a whole lot of sand, and there's gold in it as well. You focus in on the gold and you go, okay, I really loved that part. When you did this, I got to feel this, and I didn't expect that at all. And, wow. And that made me start imagining, what would it be like if I did this and I felt myself craving for you to do that. And that's when we'd learn, oh, this is where we could go next time. Oh, this part of you that is speaking right now, this is not your. Your mind, your logical mind, trying to decide what to do next. It's the part that's craving, following. Oh, I really loved it when you held my wrists down for a moment and you looked at me with such a cheeky glint in your eye. I was imagining at that moment that you would bite my neck. That would be so exciting. And I felt myself just really on the edge of letting go an even deeper layer, the. At that point. And I imagine. I just started imagining and craving you giving me a slap on the. On the butt right then. And I think that would tip me over the edge. Are you up for exploring that next time?

[42:27] Karin: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So not only looking for this gold, as you say, but also looking at how you could explore this further.

[42:40] Artemisia: Yeah. Yeah. Following their own. Their own wisdom of their own desire in the moment. Because if you just ask them what they want to do next time, the wrong organ of the psyche, if you like, will answer the question. Right? So you have to follow this. Yeah. So we've got to do it this way. But also in that aftercare time, if something difficult has come up, because we didn't hit all of the poisons and antidotes, maybe we hit some of them, but not all of them. And now they've got some. Some things that are, you know. Oh, I'm feeling guilty that I was so excited by, you know, being peed on. Mistress, what's, you know, and we can talk through and work through that. And there's another piece of that as too, is if you go really deep sometimes you use up all of your happy chemicals and you can have a little bit of a drop afterwards, a day or two afterwards. And having somebody there to talk to you and work through that is a really important part of the process too. Although I've got to say, when I followed this method, quite often, that drop didn't happen anymore. Quite a different thing would happen. Even after they'd have. Some of them wanted orgasms and some of them didn't. Laws are different here in Australia, by the way. It's all completely decriminalised. I can talk about this. They may have had an orgasm and normally they might just go flat and want to sleep after an orgasm and it all just drops. But actually following this method, a different thing would happen. They'd feel like, wow, I've had an orgasm and actually I feel on top of the world. I feel incredible. I didn't know I could feel like this. I feel like I'm on drugs, except not because this is the most real I've ever been. What is this? What even is this? So, yeah, this is why I trust the wisdom of the erotic psyche and I trust people's sexual fantasies. They're actually so much wiser than we first think.

[44:35] Karin: That inner intelligence, I tell you.

[44:39] Artemisia: Right?

[44:39] Karin: Yeah. Beautiful. And so I have to ask, how can couples, like long term, committed couples, bring this into the bedroom? Are there pieces of this that they can do? And do you coach couples on how to do it?

[44:56] Artemisia: Yes, my primary people that I coach are sexperts and I have a lot of therapists. Actually, I don't officially advertise for therapists, but therapists keep finding me and seeking me out because they can see that I've got a missing piece and they want to explore it both for themselves and also be more skilled with their clients. Teach sex workers and pro doms and sexologists and sex educators, but also people who just want to have a deep self discovery journey using the lens of the erotic. And they want to be able to share this level of themselves with their long term partner. And the first thing that we need to do with long term partners is create a different source of safety for them to be able to share their turn ons, because we want our partners to be turned on by exactly the things we're turned on by, or it feels too vulnerable to share them with someone.

[45:57] Karin: Yeah, I bet that's a source of rejection for some people, right?

[46:02] Artemisia: When you don't. If you get all, you know, you work up the guts and tell them your sexual fantasy and they go, but that doesn't turn me on. I don't do that.

[46:11] Karin: That's weird, right?

[46:12] Artemisia: Yeah. Right.

[46:13] Karin: You've just rejected that.

[46:15] Artemisia: You've just rejected that person's internal process. That is the exact story. They need to be able to move and open up, move past their guards and open up to you and share that most intimate part of yourself. You don't have to be turned on by each other's turn ons. In fact, nobody's turned ons are the same because everybody's pattern of turn ons and their sexual fantasies are the exact story you need to hear. Your ego needs to hear, not their ego. Everybody's got different egos, everybody's got different defences. So the stories are going to have to necessarily be different. Your arousal stars are going to be different. It's going to be different. So we need to form a new sense of safety from the very first thing and say, okay, we don't want to get safety from us being turned on by the same things. We want to get creative safety from us wanting to be here playing in the flow of play state together. I want to be here doing this with you, I want to share this part of myself with you and I want to share back. And it does not mean that you have to do sex acts that you don't want to do. It absolutely does not. It just means that you need to take a deeper look at each other's fantasies and understand what they're trying to achieve and create ways that are inside both of your consent boundaries that you can actually play with those. So it's. You don't have to have threesomes, you don't have to suddenly have six pack abs, you don't have to have a boob job in order to live out somebody's fantasies. It's not around.

[47:54] Karin: Right.

[47:55] Artemisia: But the very first thing that you can do, actually, I've got a freebie I want to give to your clients, if that's all right, which is I guide people through the very first step. And I know it's a bit intimidating to actually start by confessing your fantasies. So this is a little exercise where we. I'll guide you through step by step the kinds of things to look for when you google somebody that you find attractive, find a celebrity. Right. That you find attractive. Go on Google images and see how instead of focusing on their physical appearance, though, that's fine. To start with. Let's assume you're attracted to their physical appearance. Appearance because you know they're your type. Let's look at several different pictures of the same person at the when they're about the same age, like, not when they're vastly different, but when they physically look the same. Why are you attracted to some pictures more than others? What's going on there in the body language and the power dynamic and the unconscious symbols in that moment that is making that picture more exciting to you than that picture? Let's and I will help you break that down so that you can begin to understand your particular erotic wiring. What's the story that you're making that your erotic psyche is making up to give you permission to let go? And then you'll have a couple of little steps that you can try to get just by taking on body language and attitude there together. And you can get that [e-mail]. If you're interested in getting that one.

[49:30] Karin: Wonderful. What's one thing you'd really like people to walk away with? After listening to this conversation again, I.

[49:38] Artemisia: Really want to emphasise that the wisdom of your sexual desires and your sexual fantasies is not about living it out literally, this part of you. It's about changing your internal state, not giving you instructions for how to literally behave in the outside world. And if you understand that, you can begin to trust it. You cannot follow your internal wisdom until you can trust it. So you need to be able to understand, and it takes some doing. It's actually the very first thing I teach my elite practitioners of the erotic arts is to form a new relationship with their own desire, their own inner voice on an embodied level. Because desire is wanting, and the force inside of you that makes you want things doesn't always appear to be very wise, does it? It kind of makes you want to spend all of your tax money on hats and so eat all of the chocolate and none of the Brussels sprouts. It's not known for its wisdom, but actually it's super wise when we understand that it's not. It's not a map for how to behave in the outside world. It is the exact map to change your internal state of consciousness so that you can open deeply and even have oneness experiences.

[51:15] Karin: And what role does love play in the work that you do?

[51:19] Artemisia: I think it's one of the most loving things you could possibly do to accept somebody's erotic psyche and share your own internal psychological workings with somebody else. In delicious play enthusiasts, imagine somebody want to be there for you, want to understand how your unique psyche works, want to enthusiastically play with it with you and create all of the experience of safety and the deliciousness so that you can deeply open. I think that is probably one of the most intimate, loving things that you can do for another human being.

[52:01] Karin: And how can people learn more about you and working with you and your book?

[52:06] Artemisia: Oh, thanks. Well, you can always just check out my website, which is artemisiadivine.com. But I really recommend starting back with that freebie that I mentioned earlier on and doing that exercise that will get you on my mailing list as well. So that [e-mail] and that will also make sure that you know when my book is coming out, the spirituality of smart, where I'll tell lots of stories about how I figured this stuff out with sex, work, clients and other kinds of adventures that I've had and give you lots of actual practical tips for you to be able to start integrating this into your life as well. So yes, absolutely. If you want to do that, check out my fantasyis.com.

[52:55] Karin: So wonderful to have you on. This just exceeded all my expectations. So thank you so much.

[53:04] Artemisia: It was so fun. Thank you so much for having me.

[53:09] Karin: Thanks for joining us today on Love is us. If you like the show, I would so appreciate it if you left me a review. If you have questions and would like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram where I'm the love and connection coach. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my music, Ali Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be love. The best way to be love is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.

Outro:

Karin: Thanks for joining us today on Love is us. If you like the show, I would so appreciate it if you left me a review. If you have questions and would like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram where I'm the love and connection coach. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my music, Ali Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be love. The best way to be love is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.