Introducing the "Arousal Principle"
To Ignite Your Sexuality, Unleash Your Creativity and Fire Up Your Life Without Burning Down The House
Are you a midlife woman? Read this.
It's a manifesto about the importance of your Arousal.
The Arousal Principle is a groundbreaking concept to flipping the switch on the mid life woman’s erotic engine. It’s the powerhouse motor, fueled by sexual energy, that propels every aspect of a woman’s life--sexual pleasure, relationships (from mother-daughter to lover to her own body), education and even success in business.
The Arousal Principle explains how women can charge themselves up for their own emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. It’s the first and only holistic wellness offering that teaches the secrets of arousal for self-transformation. The Arousal Principle (TAP) is not about achieving the biggest mind-blowing orgasm ever -- although don’t be surprised if that happens. Yes, even after 50.
What I’m talking about is supporting women to connect to their vulva (and yes, I mean all of the parts) to produce dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for sexual arousal. When women are in an aroused state:
Our senses are heightened
We are more focused
We are flush with creative energy and self- confidence
We are highly motivated
And, let’s face it…we are just plain sexy
This becomes essential for mid-life women who are at the cross roads in their relationship to their own sexuality. It's a time in their lives when many of them develop “Menopause Brain”.
When a woman calls me for sexuality coaching she is often somewhere in midlife.This is the time in a woman's life when she stops making eggs and literally becomes the egg! She is ready for a stage of creation and exploration that she has never encountered before and she may be locked in a place of a cross roads. She wants more than guidance.
She wants a sherpa.
There is a willingness in a woman in midlife to finally let go of the myths that may have haunted her for her entire life. She may be finally ready to let go of long held body image issues, trauma and wounds from past heart aches or failed relationships, and even abuse. She may find she finally has the time and the means to discover herself as a sexual being, and this exploration has now become a priority in her life. She simply cannot tolerate missing out on what is possible for her, and often sets out on an incredible journey of sensual self discovery.
For many midlife women if there are children, they are mostly independent. Their career and financial security are more certain. Women in midlife are no longer fighting to establish a marriage, a career or a family. They are ready to do something different and their focus has suddenly begun to center on their relationship to their own sexuality.
Sure, I help women in their fabulous forties and younger, and while the sexuality wake-up call can happen at any time, for many women, turning 50 triggers their sexuality alarm clock in a big way. And I love it - because this emerging interest in their sex life often results in the best sex they have ever had. It all starts with the vagina and a little basic science.
Walk with me into the land of the controversial and understudied.
When we stimulate the erotic tissue of our genitals, we stimulate the production of dopamine. Dopamine is the monoamine neurotransmitter responsible for sexual arousal. In an aroused state our senses are heightened, we are more focused, flushed with creative energy, self- confidence, highly motivated and just plain sexy. Arousal is the foundation of orgasm; but it is also a stand-alone that goes unappreciated.
Unfortunately, we race past arousal in hot pursuit of climax. The “Big O” is something that we’ve been brainwashed to think is the only successful outcome every time we go near our genitals. In the mad dash to get there, we get gypped of a free, organic state that doesn’t require anything other than giving your vagina attention.
Learning to access and use arousal is the beginning of becoming whole. Throughout history, women have been severed, often violently, from their sexual energy, preventing them from using it for anything other than the service of men.
On a physical level, woman who have regular sex keep their hormones and neurotransmitters flowing optimally; meaning, your brain releases all sorts of feel-good chemicals that make life’s challenges seem much easier to conquer. Most women don't know that we have an inner pharmacy!
The ascent to orgasm our arousal releases dopamine: the cocaine high. This motivates you to achieve in the world and induces feelings of strength and confidence. We are flooded with oxytocin at orgasm, which helps you to feel more sociable and strengthens not only your bond with your partner, but opens you to forging deeper relationships with the other people in your life. Plus, oxytocin reduces cortisol, the major stress hormone.
When you are sexually alive, you radiate higher levels of pheromones, that not only will enrich your own creativity, but also makes you even more attractive to the opposite sex. It’s my favorite kind of perfume.
Best-selling author, pundit and social activist, Naomi Wolf has taken on the subject of the vagina-heart-brain circuit in her inevitably controversial treatise, “Vagina: A New Biography.” Though it’s met wild adulation and bitter criticism, the message is compelling. When the circuit is disrupted, severed, shamed or abused, women numb out.
Dr. Meredith Chivers, a noted psychology professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario who specializes in female sexuality, has recently conducted a study of physical and psychological responses to visual sexual stimuli. Chivers found that men’s minds and genitals were in agreement, but with the women, “[the] mind and genitals scarcely seemed to belong to the same person.” In other words, the women’s brains turned off while their vaginas registered arousal. “Women are apparently disassociated from their bodies and have greater difficulty than men in connecting their own erotic responses to what they are actually feeling or desiring,” deep hunger for integration.
The uniquely female life force, turned back on itself shorts out the vagina-heart-brain circuit. With the wires fried, women often find themselves confused and invisible, consoling themselves with addictions (shopping, food, alcohol), or tumbling into depression and anxiety. Hysteria! That’s what afflicted us overwrought gals. We were hysterical! Fainting couches, bouts of unexplained sobbing, aches, pains and flammable tempers that could only be relieved by a vibrator-wielding doctor or in Ancient Greece, a midwife with good hands.
The Arousal Principle introduces a holistic practice that is a life enhancer. It wakes us up, it helps us focus, and stirs those precious vital creative juices in our lives. Yes, chances are you will have the best sex of your life.
The Arousal Principle will teach you how to put it all together; neuron-translators and a new perspective! This under appreciated energetic loop when accessed as unbroken energy not to seduce but to create and produce the great untapped resource of being female. It’s just sexy. It's a new way of looking at yourself and your sexuality anytime, at any age AND especially in mid life.
With outrageous honesty and humor, I’ll talk about things most people don’t even know about and I’ll give it to them straight. Are you interested in these topics?
50 As The Cross Roads of Female Sexuality
Understanding Menopause Brain
Why The Arousal Principle Can Fuel Their Entire Lives
The Anatomy of Female Arousal
Creating a Pleasure Plan
Understanding Pleasure Ceilings
Organic Orgasm
Orgasm Anxiety
Developing a 21 Day Orgasmic Yoga Practice
Using Arousal Energy in Meditations
Sex For One: The Art of Self Pleasuring
Understanding The After 50 Body
The Art of Receiving Pleasure
Erotic Trance
One-Way Touch As A Meditation
Working with A Sexual Healer
Discovering Your Desire And Learning to Speak it
Learning to Negotiate Boundaries
Exploring Power and Surrender
Sexual Boredom as a Cause for Low Libido
The Link Between Diminished Sexual Activity and Depression
Monogamy, Polyamory, Open Marriage and Dating In Mid-Life
I know how painful the body-less life can be because I spent so many years as a head. The ultimate goal of TAP taught at Back to The Body retreats is to reconnect the body and the brain. We teach women to recognize arousal, help them look at it without shame and take progressive steps to begin the work of self-acceptance and embodiment. We encourage women to tune into their bodies and sensations and I’ll show women through my own adventures that it’s a fun trip worth taking.
TAP leaves the breadcrumbs for women to follow on their own road to sexual wholeness.
I’ve spent thousands of dollars on unconventional sex ed--from countless sacred sexuality workshops to private sessions with sexual healers. My underground education ignited such liberating changes in the rest of my life, I wanted to responsibly show other women what is possible when they let go and look at their sexuality in a brand new light. Since then I have been running sold out retreats for eight years around the world with an incredible team team of sex educators. ~Pamela Madsen, Author of Shameless and Found of Back to the Body
At Back to the Body, we want to give women the insight and skills to love themselves just as they are. It will help them shed the fear of their own desire and to be open to pleasure, things we’re not conditioned to do.
The arousal principal teaches that there are no quid pro quo's, no have-to's, no 365 positions to memorize to please your partner and get off. It's the antithesis of the Orgasm Olympics book. This is a one of a kind work devoted to the concept of sensual pleasure as a healing tool to transform one's self
I know that denying desire comes at a cost not just to ourselves, but to everyone in our lives - our partners, our families, even our career paths. I also know that losing the shackles of sexual shame, unabashedly grabbing erotic pleasure with both hands and integrating the sexual self can make any woman happier in the body she’s in. No raw foods, fiber drinks, exercise programs or cleanses. And who in their right mind doesn’t want to be a happier woman? Or be around one? Just ask my husband.
The Arousal Principal taught at Back to the Body safely shepherds women into the wilds of desire and throws open the door on the vast universe of diverse pleasures. With empathy and a wink that can only come from someone who’s walked in their Birkenstocks (and traded them in for thigh-high leather boots), I show each woman how to befriend her body, unearth her erotic self and welcome her in. It’s possible to have true pleasure in all spheres of their lives.
People are starving for my particular brand of good-nature, open sexual commentary. Right now, it’s hard to find information that goes past the superficial without plunging right into scary. Women excited by the idea of sensual spanking, for instance, may find a beginner’s piece or two. But further investigation often takes them on a hair-pin turn directly to a dungeon and a flogging post. Too much, too fast and too alarming for a novice. By contrast, I offer them ways to express their desires one safe step at a time. I gleefully and sensibly fill the yawning information gap.
It’s all about standing at the sexual crossroads of life.
The Arousal Principal leads women on an exploration of their own true natures and helps them use sensual pleasure to heal the typical array of issues that afflict most of us. I mean everything from body dysmorphia, eating disorders, erratic sexual desire and general crankiness. I want each woman to know that she is not alone and I want her to smile a lot. I want her to feel the comfort of my company, because there’s a better than even chance we’re more alike than not.
Dark hungers and darker fantasies? Got ‘em. Feeling weird even admitting them? Been there. Worried about feeling like a freak? Well, I survived those moments, too, and I’m here to tell readers there’s nothing freakish about it. Scared of making the leap from thinking to doing? I’m experienced in that and can show them how to ease into open and integrated sexuality without life-threatening injuries.
So how does she get started? First she needs to let go of the idea that women in midlife have a diminishing or lower libido after menopause. That simply does not have to be true. What may be more to the point is the need to let go of her own perceptions of what sexuality is all about.
Midlife women need a compass to embrace their precious inner wildness
Sex can be better in midlife than at any other time in a woman's life. It can involve new adventures, brand new experiences, and the fresh freedom of erotic autonomy ready and ripe for exploration.
Are you ready to learn about The Arousal Principle? Join us at our next event.