Jordan D’Nelle 0:01
Welcome to Vaginas, Vulvas, and Vibrators with Jordan D’Nelle. This is a safe place to learn about women’s health and sexual wellness. I’m your host Jordan D’Nelle, physician assistant, women’s sexual health educator, and intimacy coach. On today’s episode, I have Cecile joining us from Smile Makers, a pleasure positive sexual wellness company, to talk more about having pleasure-positive sex education, how to normalize masturbation, and really get into how your sexual journey is your own and how to create that. This episode is super juicy, and I hope you enjoy it.
If you recently missed Unleash Your Sexual Energy, The Orgasmic Manifestation Experience, you absolutely need to hear this. This experience was beyond anything I could have ever anticipated. It was so beautiful. Women were moving through some of the emotions that are holding them back from being the woman that they really want to be. And it was so beautiful. We had this safe space for women to share about what’s going on with them, women to cry, it was so beautiful. There were so many things that I taught these ladies to implement in their life in whatever way works best for them. And ultimately, we taught the nine steps of an orgasmic manifestation ritual, which can be used any single way that you want to use them whether you do all nine all the time, whether you do just a couple of them; It doesn’t matter. This routine and this ritual is for you to create whatever works best for your schedule, for your life, and whatever you need, right here and right now. If you are thinking, wow, I wish that I would have been a part of that, you still can. You can get the recorded version of Unleash Your Sexual Energy, The Orgasmic Manifestation Experience by going to Unleash.JordanDnelle.com. I hope that you go to check it out and see if it’s a good fit for you. The feedback, the reviews the ladies have been giving me is just amazing, absolutely amazing. And I could not have asked for a better experience to be created.
Joining me today is Cecile. She is the founder of Smile Makers, and she is talking with us about so many fun things. I just want to get right into it. Interestingly enough, before Cecile joined Smile Makers, she had never owned a vibrator, but she felt so strongly about the mission that she rallied up early on. I am so excited to chat with you today, Cecile, about your products from Smile Makers, and also a little bit about what you offer the community. I love that you have a pleasure-positive sex education program, Vulva Talks. What is this? And who is this for? Where did the idea for that come from?
Cecile 3:27
Okay, so Vulva Talks is a pleasure-positive sex education program that we have developed on the topic of sexual pleasure for people with vulvas. The context in which we ended up developing a sex education program as a vibrator brand actually came quite early on in the life of the brand. The brand was created 10 years ago in 2011, with the objective to bring vibrators to the shelves of mainstream retail and we realized that we were getting a lot of questions from our community – from customers, people on Instagram, people sending us messages through our website, about the products, the different shapes, the different features and functionalities and even about their own sex life. A lot of questions about – I can’t get an orgasm with my partner, is there something wrong with me? A lot of questions about is there something wrong with me. Also, a lot of questions about the sales of our products that actually tied back to a misunderstanding of how vibrators can be used for something else than a penetrative use. So, we realized that there was a lack of proper education when it comes to female pleasure in general. If you look at sex education the way it is taught even today, first of all, around a realistic abstinence based, but when it’s not abstinence based, it’s still going to be very fear based, it’s going to be a lot about STIs and unwanted pregnancy. And by all means those things are very important to cover, but it just completely disregards the topic of pleasure as something that is part of the experience of human sexuality. And it is such a big part of the experience of human sexuality that it is a big miss. So, over time, we realized that we were getting all those questions, and we had a whole network of sexual health experts that we work with to develop the products. So, we kind of bridged the two to develop, like we had all this knowledge that we were building to develop our products, and we were getting all those questions. So, we decided to take the questions and answer them working with sexual health experts to make sure that those were going to be science backed expert answers to real life questions that people with vulvas have about their sex lives. That’s why Vulva Talks is defined as a pleasure positive sex education program to really first de-stigmatize the topic of pleasure, as men make it, validate the fact that it is an important and normal topic to talk about when we talk about sex, and second, to educate on the topic of pleasure. That’s the background of Vulva Talks.
Jordan D’Nelle 6:26
Yeah, I love that. And it’s so important to talk about pleasure positive sex education because you’re right most of us and that’s kind of where my podcast came from, is that most of us aren’t given that information. We don’t even know proper terminology of our anatomy growing up. And it is all fear based, abstinent based, and there’s so much more to intimacy and sex and understanding our own bodies is so important, in Vulva Talks do you kind of go through a lot of different common questions that you got? What does that program really look like?
Cecile 6:57
Vulva Talks is an online course that people can take online and also run workshops, and then there’s a whole bunch of content that is related to Vulva Talks developed with experts on our blog. But really, the core of the program starts with an invitation to expand our definition when it comes to sex, where we really invite people to start the course by reflecting on what is pleasure to them, and the fact that sex is not just about chasing orgasms. First, it’s bigger than that, it’s broader than that, and pleasure is a huge part of it. But we actually don’t reflect that much about pleasure. We also explain a bit more about what happens to the body when you engage in sexual activities, so, the whole sexual response cycle, the different phases of it, to kind of give a scientific explanation to what we experience, and then we really dive into the topic of the pleasure anatomy. We explain the vulva, the vagina, the different pleasure spots on the vulva, the different pleasure spots in the vagina, we explain the anatomy of the clitoris, the full anatomy of the clitoris. We explain the anatomy of the anal and perianal region to explain how that can also lead to pleasure. We explain more about erogenous zones and to really encourage people to get curious about pleasure beyond the genital area. Then there’s a whole part which is about solo sex and vaginal sex or masturbation and couples’ sex or vaginal sex. And in this, first we give tips, for example, for people who’ve never masturbated, how they can get started, how they can get curious about exploring their own body on their own. And the part which is about partner sex is a lot about first giving language elements to really shake off a limiting belief we have about partner sex, that partner sex should be this very, you know, scripted thing that happens where you have to do only a limited number of things and in a certain order to give new words to see things differently. For example, instead of talking about foreplay, we don’t use the word foreplay, we talk about outercourse, to designate all the sexual acts that are not penetrative. And that really gets rid of the assumption that there is a hierarchy between sexual acts, because if you say foreplay, you can assume that some things have to go before the main course and you’re creating this hierarchy in your mind. So, it’s really to invite people to look at partner sex in a very new and refresh way and also invite them at making it much more personal take on partner sex, what do you want to do, what is enticing for you, and what could you share with your partner if they consent to it? And that brings me to the last part, which is about communication. So obviously, the notion of consent, reminding people that consent is not something that is assumed and it’s something that can be taken away. So, if you engage in a sexual act, and at some point you want to stop your partner is not entitled to the whole sex act, it stops whenever you need it to stop. But then there’s also a whole part, which is about pleasure communication: how can you find it, find ways to communicate to your partner, what brings you pleasure and ask your partner what would bring their pleasure. So those are really the milestones of the program. And we keep on expanding it to tap on more, to explore more important topics, gender identity, sexual identity, and think that basically really equip people to write their own story when it comes to their sex life instead of just navigating their sex life with this limited script that we’ve been given to live our sex life, if that makes sense.
Jordan D’Nelle 10:45
Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. And what comes to mind is like stigma based, you know, so many of us, our sexual experiences are based in stigma, and really learning like, what is important for you, what do you want. I help a lot of women with that as well, and it’s really important to create what you want, create the sex life that you want, the intimacy that you want. But the first part to that is learning what you want, and if you don’t take time to explore and learn your own body, you’re not going to know what you want, and know what brings you pleasure to communicate that with your partner. So, I love that.
Cecile 11:18
You also work a lot with women on their sex life, do you hear that question a lot – is this normal? Or is that normal? Because I feel that’s a question that we ask ourselves a lot when it comes to our sex lives.
Jordan D’Nelle 11:33
Yes, that is probably the most common question that I get. Is this normal? Is this my discharge? Normal? Is the way my body responds normal like everything, am I normal? And what I find is that a lot of women just need validation, because we aren’t talking about how there’s a variety of responses for all of us. Our anatomy all looks different in that they are all normal and okay. But we’re not talking about that. So, everybody thinks that they’re not normal. But for the most part we’re all normal.
Cecile 12:03
Yeah, I think that it’s normal in the sense that, I am normal, as if there was a very normative approach that we should just fit into, and it doesn’t actually work like that, so, everybody kind of feels inadequate in the way that they are experiencing their sex life, because it doesn’t just fall into this norm. And that’s normal that people are talking about.
Jordan D’Nelle 12:29
Absolutely. I was checking out your program before our call today, and I love that this is free. This is a free thing that you put together for your consumers, which is so awesome. I can’t wait to share that with a lot of ladies that I know. Is there an age restriction on this? Do you have to be over 18? Or can parents share it with their teenagers?
Cecile 12:51
Absolutely, I would say parents can share it with their teenagers. There’s nothing that is offensive in the program, but I would say that depends. Are parents okay with their teenagers learning about their sexual anatomy? I hope they are. I still think that these additions fall under the parent’s decisions, but on the question of is there an age limit? It’s a very interesting question, because now we are starting to work a lot on the topic of sex education for children, for example, what do you talk about when you talk about sex or your body or the body when you’re talking to children, and very interestingly, we had a conversation the other day with someone who works with the W.H.O. on questions like that, and what she was saying was that there is a way that you can gradually bring the conversation in a way that is very normal. Because those stigmas that we have around our body and around sex, they are social construct, we are not born with them. Kids are going to think that something is inappropriate, because they’re seeing us react in a way that signals this is embarrassing, there’s something a bit wrong with this, and they’re just going to mimic our behavior and what we show them. So, for example, something very interesting that she was saying is that if you don’t talk to children about the body parts by their true name or make it a taboo to talk about some body parts when they’re even younger than three, they’re going to understand that there is a taboo around this, that this is something that is not really meant to be talked about. So, it starts very early on and doesn’t mean that you have to explain . . . I don’t know how to engage in oral sex obviously to a child but it’s more like helping a child understand their body parts. And then once they start exploring their own body, which they might even when they’re quite young, to help them understand the context in which that is okay. The fact is it is a private and personal thing so that you don’t do those things in public. But that there basically is a way to address what you’re saying to children and then teenagers, based on their age, but not going from I don’t say anything to here’s the whole story, and like basically jumping everything on their lap after not having talked about it at all, until they are, I don’t know, 15 years old. So, it’s really a matter about giving them the information that they need at the age that they’re at the same way that something that is going to be about pleasure when you’re undergoing perimenopause and menopause may not feel relevant when you are in your early 20s, but it’s still sex education that is going to be relevant and interesting at some point of your life. And you might want to learn about it, maybe 10 years before you undergo those changes, so that you feel more equipped to understand what’s going to happen. So, that’s what we found. And very interesting learning that we found as we were developing our educational content is that sex education is something that is to be done throughout our lives, from a very early age when it comes, especially to naming the body parts, and having a way to talk about the body that doesn’t create shame or taboo, and that still allows people to feel good about their body and not having taboos that they don’t understand. And then really like addressing and keeping on educating ourselves on our body and sex as we grow older. That was a very long answer.
Jordan D’Nelle 16:39
No, but that’s a perfect answer. And you’re right, like the sex education starts early, and it goes through your whole lifetime, it changes. And even as we get into menopause, post menopause, talking about STIs, you may not be able to get pregnant at that point. But you still can get an infection. And these are things that we just need to have more conversations about so that more people are aware. And the only way to do that is things like your program or other things out there to help share the education. And I have a lady coming on to talk about education for children, and what that looks like. And it’s so important to start talking about anatomy, because you’re right, you don’t want to just start with nothing and then all of a sudden, they get to puberty and you’re like this is sex you “can get pregnant and die.” That’s how so many of us are taught.
Unknown Speaker 17:31
Yes, yeah, absolutely. We do a lot of workshops with students with Vulva Talks. And it’s always very interesting, because even though they’re already sexually active, they will always have a lot of questions and say like, Oh, I wish I had known that about my own body. Because something that I found very interesting talking with sexologists as well is that especially for people with vulvas, we have the expectation that our first-time having sex is going to be painful, and in there there’s a lot of misconceptions that are packed into just one concept. First, this notion that first time having sex, when you say it’s going to be painful, the assumption is that it assumes that the first time having sex is the first time having penetrative sex. So, then you’re already equating sex with penetrative sex. So, it’s a very limiting understanding of what sex is, that means you consider that everything else that you might have done even before that, where sexual activities, do not come as sex. And the second thing that is a problematic misconception is that question is that you assume that it is going to be painful, so you kind of set your expectations there. And that’s a very depressing way to start your sex life by thinking that it’s going to hurt and that’s normal. And when I was talking to a sexologist about that she was like, That is the biggest misconception that I’ve heard about sex offenders that I really wish our society could get rid of, because it really has a negative impact on sex expectations for people with vulvas that we start off thinking that we shouldn’t have too high expectations when it comes to pleasure because we’re actually going to be mostly focused on how not to make it too painful. And when we engage with students and we invite them to look at sex very differently in a broader way, we like to say that first sex is not just penetrative sex, sex is not just genital stimulation. Sex is not only a physical activity, it can be a mental activity. Fantasizing, sexting and all those things, they are sexual activities. Those things count as you are being a sexual being and you having sexual experiences and second, equipping them with a better understanding of their pleasure anatomy and how like clitoral orgasm is an orgasm is like is it “normal orgasm” and that they are actually their bodies are actually super well equipped when it comes to pleasure. But we’re just giving a very limited understanding of what sex is, once we had them that shut those things off, it really gives them a very emotional, exciting, and refreshed take on what their sex life can be. And that’s why many say, Oh, that’s really cool, and I wish I had known that earlier, because I would probably have had very different experiences, because I would have had a different understanding of what my sex life can be, and I would have had different expectations as well.
Jordan D’Nelle 20:44
Absolutely, I love that. And so many times we focus on a sexual engagement between a heterosexual couple, as ending with ejaculation for the male partner, and it doesn’t have to end with that A, B, there’s just so much more, and it just goes back to if we start talking about it at a younger age and giving them the proper information so that they understand our course, and how pleasurable that experience can be, and that there’s just so much more to sex than penetration.
Cecile 21:17
Yes, and if you count masturbation and say that masturbation is sex, it is a sexual act, then you help people bridging what they do when they on their own, and they’re masturbating and what they can do with a partner instead of seeing those two things as completely different experiences. And then you turn masturbation into an experience that can actually improve your partner sex life as well, because you understand that in both cases it’s you and your body, and you know your body well enough because you’re engaged in masturbation, and you can share all this with your partner to guide them for pleasure. But having a definition that makes sex only about vaginal sex creates like this wall separation between those two things, as if they had nothing to do with each other.
Jordan D’Nelle 22:16
Absolutely. Speaking of masturbation, I know that you are kind of working to normalize masturbation, and you are getting your sexual wellness products into mainstream retailers, like Urban Outfitters, I believe. I would love to talk more about things like, how do you normalize masturbation?
Cecile 22:35
It has been an uphill battle, because it’s such a stigmatized topic, and especially female masturbation, because then you’re talking about female pleasure, which, for whatever reason, is even more stigmatized than male pleasure. And the reason I say that it’s not just a bold statement that has no foundation, but I’m sure you’ve heard about those male sexual wellness company that are allowed to promote their products and big online social media company. Whereas sexual wellness companies that are addressing for example, say vaginal dryness are not allowed to advertise on those same platforms. There’s really a double standard when it comes to sexual wellness, if you’re talking about men’s sexual wellness or female sexual wellness and when we started out Smile Makers 10 years ago, it was really about how do we normalize the perception of human sexual tension or pleasure, and therefore, how do we bring vibrators in mainstream spaces. And we decided to focus our distribution and our communication just on mainstream spaces, to basically bring the vibrators on the shelves of mainstream retail and the intention behind that was that if you see a vibrator, next to your hair conditioner, conditioning products, or next to a pair of jeans that you want to buy or next to a yoga mat or next to your favorite skincare product, it’s makes a statement that it is an everyday life product. It belongs in an everyday life store. There’s no need to always put it in a specialty store. You can find it in a specialty store the same way you can find. . . You can go to a wine cellar to buy wine, but you can also buy wine at your grocery store, you know what I mean? It should be the same for vibrators. You can go to a specialty store that is doing only that, but you should be able to find them in everyday life environments where you shop for your other wellness products. So that’s why we really focused on distribution on mainstream retail. We developed vibrators as wellness products, we look at them as wellness products. There’s a lot of science research studies that have proven that sexual pleasure has mental and physical health benefits, so there are all the reasons in the world to look at vibrators as wellness products. So, the way we develop them is exactly the way you would develop a wellness product. We use scientific research to design and develop the products, we apply very strict quality and safety standards when it comes to the manufacturing process. And then we bring them to places where you would find your other wellness products. And then we really work on bringing the conversation about masturbation, about female pleasure in mainstream spaces as well. Meaning that we talk with leading female publications, we talk with lifestyle influencers, we work with all retail partners who have those massive platforms to talk about whatever they want; we encouraged them to speak about the new category of sexual wellness and to engage their audience on that topic. So, to give you an example, this one is going to be in Europe. It’s a very recent one. We’ve launched this summer at Sephora in Europe, and we have been talking to them for a very long time. And we’ve really worked with them to craft a communication where they would make a statement on why as a leading beauty store worldwide, they are launching the sexual wellness category and explaining the different product. And that has really worked to create massive support from their community, their audience, around the fact that people saw their favorite beauty retailers suddenly selling vibrators and they were like, yes, that’s a really great initiative. So, that’s how we normalize masturbation by bringing it to spaces where you are hanging out on a daily basis, be it in stores, on social media, in mainstream media, so that it reframes the topic of masturbation as something normal. And that’s it.
Jordan D’Nelle 26:57
I love it. I love it. Now you brought up that sexual pleasure has mental and health benefits. I would love for you to expand on that a little bit more and tell me, what are some of the benefits of sexual pleasure?
Cecile 27:10
Okay, so when your body experiences sexual pleasure, it really sees a whole bunch of cocktails of hormones that have benefits on your health, both mental and physical. So, it helps for example, fostering better sleep, it helps reduce stress, it helps alleviate pain. I’m sure you’ve heard that orgasm can help with menstrual. It also counteracts the effects of cortisol, which are the stress hormones, and so you can help by balancing out some negative effects that cortisone has, and therefore it can help decrease the risk of some cancers and some types of diabetes. And another aspect that it has more on mental health is because some of the hormones that get released in our body, when we experience sexual pleasure, happy hormones, it has mood boosting effects, and it also has a positive impact on our self-confidence because we are engaging in it in a very positive way. Especially when it’s masturbation, you are basically like being very autonomous in your pleasure, and you’re giving yourself pleasure, it has a positive impact on self-confidence.
Jordan D’Nelle 28:26
I love that. And yes, those are so important to be talking about the benefits of sexual pleasure, because there’s so many reasons why you should go masturbate. And again, talking about getting it into the mainstream. When you look at all of those benefits, why are we not having it in the mainstream? Why is this not something that you can get at Target, wherever you go . . . Sephora, all of that. I love that. If the listeners take one thing away from today’s conversation, what would you want it to be?
Unknown Speaker 28:58
I would like to leave it the same way that we end our workshop on Vulva Talks, which is a message that says that your sexual journey is your own. To navigate it, get curious about your body, your anatomy, your test, your desires, because we have been given this very limiting and standardized scripts to navigate our sex lives, and it leaves most of us feeling inadequate, so, get rid of that script; write your own, as long as this builds on consent, you can decide for yourself what you want for your sex life. If you decide that today you want your partner to lick your elbow, just go for it and enjoy it, but really design the sex life that you want for yourself. And one more thing, something that has come up the more we’ve engaged with people in those workshops is that I really would love to inspire, that’s Smile Makers inspire more people to set their own standards when it comes to good sex. Instead of deciding that good sex is always having an orgasm, or good sex is this, or good sex is that because that’s what we see in movies, or that’s what we hear, and that what our friends are saying, but what is good sex for you today? And to basically engage in your sex life based on what matters to you today.
Jordan D’Nelle 30:27
Yes, that is phenomenal. And it’s interesting that you bring up what is good sex for you, because I’ve done some polls on Instagram and talked with a handful of my followers, and what I find is that a lot of people don’t know what good sex is for them. And that’s one of the things that I help a lot of clients work through is what does that look like for you? Because unless you think about it, a lot of times that’s not on the forefront of what comes up when you think about sex. So, I love that.
Cecile 30:59
Maybe that’s the reason why a lot of us don’t have an answer to that question because we’ve never even been asked that question or encouraged to ask ourselves that question. It was like, well, good sex is what you see, again, in the movies or in like pop culture, but because sex education does not cover the topic of pleasure. And the topic of pleasure in itself is so stigmatizing that the question about what good sex is for one person is just not asked. So that’s probably why people don’t have an answer because we’ve never asked ourselves that question.
Jordan D’Nelle 31:36
Absolutely. Absolutely. Where can the listeners find you?
Cecile 31:39
On Instagram and TikTok you can find us at @SmileMakersCollection and our website is SmileMakersCollection.com.
Jordan D’Nelle 31:49
Beautiful, I will make sure to put all that in the show notes so that the listeners can find you easily. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. And is there anything else you want to add?
Cecile 32:01
No, it’s been a very enjoyable conversation. And I think it’s great that there is more and more conversation today about the topic of pleasure for people with vulvas because, again, it’s been so stigmatized for so long that we’re just not properly equipped to have the great sex life that we ultimately can have.
Jordan D’Nelle 32:22
Yes, absolutely.
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Jordan D'Nelle 