Luke Storey: [00:00:02] I'm Luke Storey. For the past 22 years, I've been relentlessly committed to my deepest passion, designing the ultimate lifestyle based on the most powerful principles of spirituality, health, psychology, and personal development. The Life Stylist podcast is a show dedicated to sharing my discoveries and the experts behind them with you.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:00:25] People love to call me Mama Gena. They love to call me Mama.

Luke Storey: [00:00:30] Well-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:00:31] It's really cute, like people that are like my friends, they're like, "Mama, get over here, Mama".

Luke Storey: [00:00:36] It's funny, I often refer to women as like, hey, Mama, and I don't—young women, older women, whatever, my wife, and sometimes, when I say it, I'm like, do they like that? So far, no woman has ever been like, "Don't call me that". I didn't know if it's somehow derogatory or something, like, what's up, Mama? 

Regena Thomashauer: [00:00:56] I kind of like it. I have a friend who's from the DR, and she and her husband call the little ones, "Mommy, come over here, Mami", I guess it's like M-A-M-I, but it's such a cute thing. There's something really primal about the Ma thing that it just brings us home. It makes us feel loved or connection. I think that's what it is. It's some kind of like longing for connection to that beautiful, feminine space of love and depth.

Luke Storey: [00:01:35] Well, I'm so happy you're here to share that with us.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:01:41] I am here.

Luke Storey: [00:01:41] When did you start using the name Mama Gena?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:01:46] I know, it's funny, okay, it was so by accident, because when I was first teaching my classes, like whenever we start, I'm sure this was the case with you and probably with all your listeners, who are creative people diving into their own expressions in the world, but when I was first starting, I was writing all kinds of classes, and then when I had my daughter, Maggie, I was nursing her and I was—which is painful at first, you guys will learn that.

Luke Storey: [00:02:17] That's what I hear.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:02:17] And I'm trying to distract myself, so I'm watching something, a movie, and it turns out that it's a movie about courtesans. It's called Dangerous Beauty.

Luke Storey: [00:02:28] Right. You talked about that a lot in your book.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:02:29] Yeah. And so, the mother is saying to the daughter, if you want to give pleasure, you must know pleasure, and for me, that was like a lightbulb moment, and I was like, whoa, that's what women need. We're so used to taking care of our husbands, our kids, our bosses, all of our friends, making sure everybody is okay, but we don't ever explore and study pleasure ourselves, so I'm going to open a courtesan academy in New York City and I am going to call myself Mama Gena.

I'm going to be Mama Gena, because I just had a baby, so Mama makes sense, but I had no idea that it was going to stick, because I was writing courses, and they'd come, and they'd go, but Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts, and I started with 10 women in my living room, and that thing just took on a life of its own. And within like a year, I was on the front page of the style section of the New York Times.

I got like 10 or 12 book offers. I was on Conan, the Today show, 2020, like it had legs, which when you're creative, you don't know exactly which thing that you create is going to be your destiny. You just keep creating, and then somehow, it reveals itself to you. So, it was kind of tongue in cheek, the mama thing, because I wasn't really an experienced mama. I was just starting. It wasn't really-

Luke Storey: [00:04:00] You're like, I'm just learning how to breastfeed, I qualify.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:04:02] Yeah, exactly. But I felt such a strong sense of responsibility when my daughter was born to the girls of today, the women of tomorrow. I felt so much gratitude to my ancestors, because it made me feel like part of this lineage, which I hadn't felt so profoundly until I had my baby girl, that of all the women on whose shoulders I rest, that I am able to do the work that's mine to do. And I felt so much responsibility to think about how can I make a world that can handle who and what a woman is, because the world does not have any idea who and what a woman is. And so, I thought, I've got to do my part because I have a girl.

Luke Storey: [00:04:46] Yeah. Well, it's funny—I'm going to fix your mic real quick here. I relate to that in terms of having this platform. Over the years, and I think also just moving closer into being a parent, hopefully, working on it, and also just being in love with an incredible woman. I'm just so curious about learning about women. I've done a lot of shows about, you know, birth practices and all of this stuff.

And being a man, sometimes, I ask myself like, why am I leaning into this so much? And I think a lot of it, aside from just my personal desire to just learn and expand who I am as a man, it's really connecting to the future of our species, right? It's like it's so important for women to understand themselves and for men to understand women, because the kids are coming out of the women, right?

And that initial bond and knowing what a positive impact my own mom had on me, I was mostly raised by my mom, and so many of the positive attributes in my character were directly from her, just in terms of—I mean, a lot of things really, but primarily the way I relate to people, and just empathy, and compassion, and kindness, and just those really beautiful, nurturing feminine energy aspects. And I think that's the only way I've survived this world, is having an ability to be in touch with that, and then to find balance, which I know is like a lot of what your work is about also, is not kind of polarizing the male and female against one another, but rather like identifying these energies within us and learning how to be complementary.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:06:36] Yeah. And I think that right now, where we are in terms of an evolving culture, is the voice of the masculine is super loud right now and the voice of the feminine is a little too soft for there to be balance. And so, my work is really about like pumping up. Because I look at women, I feel like women are the greatest untapped natural resource on this planet, so I wanted to invest in the voices of women just to bring it into balance somewhat. Because when it's out of balance, I have a friend named Lynne Twist, and she tells this story, which is about the the bird of happiness, and that right now, the masculine wing of the bird is very powerful and strong, and the feminine wing is very weak and tiny. And so, what happens is the bird flies around in circles, because both its wings aren't equal.

Luke Storey: [00:07:43] That's a great analogy.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:07:45] Isn't it?

Luke Storey: [00:07:45] Yeah.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:07:46] And so, I feel like my task is to really deliver women a reflection of their own magnificence, their own power, their own voice, their own sensual brilliance, so that the kind of the cosmic part of happiness can fly in balance, and then we can take each other higher, which is always the goal.

Luke Storey: [00:08:10] Well, you're doing a great job of it, and I read your—no, I listened to your book this week.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:08:15] Oh, thank you.

Luke Storey: [00:08:16] Yeah. And, A, you're an incredible writer. I've been in the process of writing a book for a year while trying to finish this house, so there's more house going than there is book, but I sit down, and work on a chapter, and I'm like, wow, I have a greater appreciation for writers. And one thing I noticed about your writing that is something that I struggle with, but I guess because I've not started editing the things I'm writing, I'm just like-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:08:43] Don't edit.

Luke Storey: [00:08:43] Yeah, I don't. No, I don't.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:08:45] Just like let it dump.

Luke Storey: [00:08:45] Annie Lamott, Bird by Bird, yeah, totally. But when you read or hear the finished product of a great writer, there's such an economy of words, and I'm a very wordy speaker and writer, so yeah, it's been a great instruction with your book to see like, oh, it's like only what really matters ends up on the page, or the kind of books where you can take almost any sentence or a part of a paragraph and be like, boom, that's a teaching. 

Regena Thomashauer: [00:09:15] Yeah, but know this, Luke, like the book was three times as long.

Luke Storey: [00:09:19] Okay. Good.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:09:21] So, just keep going, keep doing what you're doing, and then eventually, between you and your editor, it starts to come together.

Luke Storey: [00:09:27] Yeah. I have a writing coach, and she turned me on to the book, Bird by Bird, and I also interviewed Steven Pressfield, who's wrote a book called The War of Art, and both of them have a similar sort of tactic in that way that you just like get everything out, then later on, you come back and fine-tune it. So, I've managed to do that. As irresistible as it is sometimes to go in and start tweaking on something, it's like, no, I just want to get everything out. But anyway, the book is incredible, and listening to it as a male, too, was so interesting, because it's like I was able to reflect on all of the women that I've known in my life, and, ah, it's really-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:10:16] Yeah. That's good. Tell me.

Luke Storey: [00:10:23] Just to see how many of them have been robbed of the experience of their full expression.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:10:30] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:10:31] And many of them because of me, you know what I mean? I mean, I didn't think about it in those terms, but just more broadly, like thinking about my mom, and my wife, and women that I've dated and worked with, and women that have worked for me, that I've worked for, just all of those interactions, and just seeing kind of how you are in touch with that spirit and with the word that you use, so liberally pussy, I'll be the first one to drop it in this conversation, I'm sure it's going to be used a lot, but just thinking about those women, and going, oh, my God, most women have no idea that this realm even exists, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:11:04] Exactly.

Luke Storey: [00:11:04] And so, it's probably something I'm going to read or listen to again, really, and of course-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:11:10] Especially when you have your daughters.

Luke Storey: [00:11:12] Yeah. So, it's been a powerful experience, just digging into that. I mean, I've spent a lot of time with it this week and been hopefully very thoughtful about kind of preparing what I wanted to talk about, but yeah, it gave me a whole new appreciation. It's been very, very educational.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:11:27] I'm so glad.

Luke Storey: [00:11:28] Yeah. So, I think this conversation and your work for any men that saw the title of whatever this podcast is, and was like, ah, that one's for the ladies, I mean, I think this is really important work for men, too, to really have a deeper understanding.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:11:42] Like when I first started my work, I was teaching classes for men and for women, and then I chose to focus on women, because since the culture is patriarchal, and so women are deprioritized and disparaged, and it's #MeToo in this generation, and women are paid $0.79 on the dollar that men make, and all of those things are truths. But I also recognized it through my own journey that it was up to women, right?

We can't be awakened by a man. The awakening has to happen sister to sister, pussy to pussy, woman to woman. It has to be that within a circle of women, a woman can not only find her own magnificence, but cultivate it. And then, she brings that, like once she knows she's queen, once she knows that she's divine, once she knows she's sacred, then that transmits. If a woman walks into a room, and she's filled with self-doubt, self-deprecation, self-hatred, she's like spreading this virulent condition of self-doubt, self-hatred, self-deprecation to her daughters, who might be in the same room, to her her sisters.

Like we're learning this unspoken language that women are victimized right now, but once a woman changes that dialogue within herself, she connects to her pussy, she connects to she who bleeds but does not die and gives life, she connects to her sacred feminine, she connects to her wild, to her just incandescent, that eternal radiance that is the feminine. Once she knows and owns that, when she walks into a room and she knows she's divine, she knows she's magnificent, she spreads the virulent condition of we are all divine, we are all magnificent, we are sisters, and that's a way of elevating the world by doing nothing but being wonderful.

Luke Storey: [00:14:01] Totally. Well, there are like ten offshoots in what you just said that I think of like, okay, remember, let the guest talk, Luke. There are so many things in there, but something that I've been working with my wife, Alyson, since we moved here, she just wrote a book, it's right here., it's called Animal Power, I always have it up here to help promote. I would have had your book, but I only had the digital copy. But she just birthed this book, right?

Took a year or just maybe two years, actually, this whole thing, which I was privy to the process, and now, we want her to just kind of bask in that success and to just relax, and I'm out being very proactive and kind of handling business. And she lived in Brooklyn for 15 years, and just really made a career for herself and a name for herself, and accomplished so much, but was in a very yang energy in so doing, right?

And so, it's been really a great teaching for us as a couple to help her to understand that the reverence, and the love and approval from me for and to her is not based on any metric of performance. It's like the more she is what you just described, the more I want to be in service of that. It's about who she is and the radiance of that entity in its entirety that motivates me to hold space, and work, and produce, and do the things I'm doing, like my love is not based on her production or anything that she does..

Regena Thomashauer: [00:15:35] Right. But she's living inside a world that values her for her production, that values her for all of those masculine qualities, and undervalues the feminine qualities like, one student at my work, that she got her—she's a lawyer, she passed the bar, but she didn't want to practice. She didn't have to. She was married to a guy that wanted to take care of her, but because of the cultural pressure, she got a job, because she couldn't handle the pressure of people not viewing her as worthy because of what she was doing, as opposed to who she was being or the other places she could have used her time, and attention, and her life, but we're making progress.

Luke Storey: [00:16:36] Yeah. It's a lot of conditioning to break through.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:16:38] It's so much.

Luke Storey: [00:16:39] I look at something I notice in this realm is, I'm 51 now, and over the course of my lifetime, I mean, there were years when I was young when I wasn't that socially aware, but as I've kind of looked back, how the idea, for example, of being a homemaker for a woman is like so devalued, right? And now that we're building a home and looking into having a family, and I know so many women here that have kids, some of them have careers and are doing things in the world as well, but I would say most of the mothers that I know have prioritized being a mom, creating that, and it's like many of them have to fight against this conditioning that there's somehow no honor in that or something that I'm like, that's maybe the most honorable thing you could do, is to really commit yourself to that.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:17:29] My daughter who watched me work, because I was a single parent, and so I raised her on one knee, had my laptop, and running my school on the other. And so, she saw the complexity of what I was managing, and she's like, "I'm not doing that, Mom. I am not. I am going to like get married, and I want to have a family, and I don't want to be using my entire life working like you did". So, the pendulum swings, and I hope that she has that opportunity to really just like give herself to cultivating a home, and having kids, and all the things she longs for.

Luke Storey: [00:18:07] Yeah, me too. And that radiance that you speak of from a woman who's truly embodied like that, as a man, I don't know that many women understand how motivating that is.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:18:21] It's irresistible, isn't it?

Luke Storey: [00:18:23] Yeah. It's like especially in the context of a romantic relationship, when it's devoid of competition, it's so much juicier, and it's just—there's no-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:18:35] Yeah. And we, as women, we don't know that we have access to that portal, because it's really like a woman who owns her pussy, owns her life. And if she doesn't, she doesn't. And it cuts that way. And we don't understand that. Well, if you think about it, we're encouraged to build these careers or work really hard, we don't spend the time to really investigate how to connect with our sacred sensual power, how to even explore what pleasures us, what turns us on, what lights us up. We don't live in a culture that encourages that with women.

And this culture actually disconnects us from our sexuality, which is like home base for a woman to build her confidence, and kind of learn about her own body and her own sensual evolution. And it's crucial, but we don't get a lot of time or space to even connect with that, which is what all of my work is about. My school is literally like boot camp for a woman's pleasure, and a woman's sensuality, and a woman to really relax in the exploration of her desires in a community of sisterhood, which is such a beautiful greenhouse for all those things to grow.

Luke Storey: [00:20:05] That sisterhood thing you touched on earlier, since there's such a tightknit community of like minded folks here in Austin, there's this just incredibly powerful, amazing women here that are just abundant, as I'm sure there are in many places, but for some reason, a lot of them are-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:20:22] It seems especially going on here, I agree with you.

Luke Storey: [00:20:23] But they'll be times like when my wife is just moving through something, and I can give all of the time attention, space, listening, holding, whatever is-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:20:37] By the way, congratulations, because most men cannot do that, most men want to fix us, and it is-

Luke Storey: [00:20:44] Horrible idea.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:20:46] ... a really horrible idea. So, keep on with your space holding. It's beautiful.

Luke Storey: [00:20:50] But what I was getting at was, sometimes, what I arrive at in terms of like how I can offer support is with throwing out the idea, hey, honey, maybe it would be great to go sit in ceremony with some of your sisters, like go connect with some ladies, not because I want her out of the house or I can't handle it, but I just know there's something that I can't give her, and it's what you describe, right? And then, she comes back, and she's totally grounded again and everything's cool.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:21:21] Yeah. Kind of what makes a woman flourish breaks out into three values and our culture skews it. Okay. Let me ask you, what do you think is the most important thing for women, let's say, is it the options being like food and shelter, stuff, attention? What do you think would be the most important?

Luke Storey: [00:21:53] For a woman in her feminine?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:21:56] Or just like any woman, like what would feed her the most?

Luke Storey: [00:21:59] I would say having her feelings and emotions honored, and cherished, and heard.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:22:09] Yeah, you're right. It's more important than food.

Luke Storey: [00:22:12] Huh, I just immediately discounted food and shelter. I mean, I'm thinking about like-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:22:16] We do not give a shit about it. Like the most important value for women is the category of sex/attention. That's what we long for the most. Like we would sell our soul for like a hot like eternal night of passionate lovemaking in a lean-to shack on a beach somewhere. We'd rather have that than $1,000,000 in our bank account. That's what where a woman comes to life, is in the space of sex/attention. And then, her second most important value, of course, is food and shelter, and then the third is stuff.

Luke Storey: [00:22:59] In that context, do love languages play into that and how much diversity of preference is there? For example, I kind of know what my love language is, and various women that I've dated in my life, some of them really love gifts and just feel so-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:23:18] Mm-hmm. But let's say somebody whose love language was gifts, that still falls into the category of sex/attention, because like let's say you send her flowers, then she's turned on by that, and then it's like a way of keeping that channel open between the two of you that would lead to some beautiful deeper connection.

Luke Storey: [00:23:42] Got it. So, maybe the preferences in which those portals are opened vary with people, but ultimately, at the core-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:23:50] We want great sex. We want mindblowing sex. We want you to figure out how to like have us forget who we are, because the sex is so crazy and good. That's what we want.

Luke Storey: [00:24:04] Wow.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:24:04] And we want so much more sex than we are given credit for, because it's usually like, well, my husband went sick, so I had to—no. It's like women long for that depth of deep, profound, sensual connection so much. And the difficulty has been we don't know how to teach or guide men to what it is that really lights us up, and make us happy, and guides, sometimes-

Luke Storey: [00:24:38] That's so true.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:24:39] Yeah. Actually, it's so interesting, we're so chatty at dinner, going and doing something with chatty, chatty, and then when we get in bed, we just clam up, and we want you to be able to read our minds rather than us really doing the work of putting the key in our own ignition, turning that baby on, taking her down the highway, so we could learn what lights us up, makes us happy, and then we can invite passengers. But we don't have a lot of fluency around our sensuality, because we've been so cut off from it. And we aren't even given language for that, which is most essentially feminine about ourselves. Most women grow up without a word for down there.

Luke Storey: [00:25:26] You were saying like 50% of the women in your workshops don't even have a name—were never given a name for it?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:25:32] It's so scary. And like when you were growing up, you was a penis, right? Your mom would be like-

Luke Storey: [00:25:36] Probably, yeah.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:25:38] ... relate to—but with women, it's this wacky head trip. It's like so many different crazy words, like pee-pee, hoo-hoo, pancake, Walter Winchell, knish, like it's just like a mind-blowing list, and then the half of women who don't even have a name. And what happens there, it seems like, what's the problem, it's just a bunch of cute little nicknames or nothing? But as Jesus said in the beginning, there was the word.

You can't begin anything until you have the language to communicate about it. I mean, how would you describe the Internet to somebody that had no idea? Like it would take you hours. You'll be like, well, these waves, or I don't know if it's waves, or it's signals that connect us, like it would be so hard. And then, we're talking about the heart of a woman's sex and sensuality, and she isn't given the language for it.

And so, what takes its place is shame, because she feels like, wow, if there's a part of her that can't even be named, it must be shameful and she must be wrong. So, that early experience of feeling shame about her body and feeling wrong, it just only expands over her lifetime. And then, maybe she goes out on a date with a really well-meaning guy, and he's like, well, what do you like? And she's like, oh, God, why would you even want to touch me there? It's so shameful and wrong. So, it's a problem. It's a very deep and wide problem.

Luke Storey: [00:27:27] Well, your book has this very bold title, and by the way, we'll link to all this at lukestorey.com/mamagena, G-E-N-A. So, your book is called Pussy—I can't even say the word. Pussy: A Reclamation. And I have to admit, in listening to the book, and reading some of your stuff, and listening to podcasts you've been on. It's really interesting. I have this, I don't know, like viscerally awkward relationship myself with that word. And so, I'm kind of inquiring, well, what other word would one use? Like vagina, that sounds so clinical.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:28:03] Well, see, here's a problem with vagina, because like the vagina people, they think they're so like evolved, because they can say vagina, but vagina, actually, it's not visible. Like if I pulled my panties down right now, you cannot see my vagina unless you get out your speculum, which you don't have, because you're not a gynecologist, or maybe you're kind of kinky at home, but whatever, because it's like your vagina is the internal part of your sexual apparatus, but the word means sheath in Latin, which makes sense. But the exterior genitalia is the vulva and no one says vulva, but I think that's the word that you want to teach your daughter when you have her.

Luke Storey: [00:28:48] I was going to ask you about that.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:28:49] Yeah, teach her vulva, because it's the correct terminology, and it contains the outer lips, and the inner lips, and the clitoris.

Luke Storey: [00:28:55] Oh, interesting.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:28:56] So, it would be the same thing like if you taught-

Luke Storey: [00:28:59] Note to self.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:28:59] Yeah, vulva. Yeah. It would be the same thing like if you taught a boy that his penis was called a scrotum. It's just wrong. It's just called the wrong thing. So, I like the word vulva. It's clear and it's true.

Luke Storey: [00:29:18] With the word, pussy, going back to that, it's like I've been so curious just with myself, like why do I kind of bristle at that? And I haven't arrived at an answer, but I guess it has something to do with the derogatory associations to which it's been applied. So, I've tried to think of substitutes, other ones out there, and none of them do the job. So, I'm like, that must be why she arrived at that title in her book. Like some people call it a yoni, when I hear that word, I just go like, ew.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:29:46] Me, too.

Luke Storey: [00:29:46] It just feels corny. 

Regena Thomashauer: [00:29:48] It feels weird.

Luke Storey: [00:29:48] No offense to women that use that, but-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:29:51] But I don't speak Sanskrit or whatever it is.

Luke Storey: [00:29:54] I've never identified with that word. 

Regena Thomashauer: [00:29:57] I'll tell you why I use pussy, because it makes women laugh. Like what I started in my living room with 10 women grew literally thousands like Javits Center, two or 3,000 women I would be teaching to. And whenever a woman—women have resistance to pussy, it's a fucking pejorative, nasty ass word. Like when you call a guy a pussy, you're basically emasculating him.

Luke Storey: [00:30:29] Well, it's maybe the worst thing you can call a guy.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:30:31] Exactly. And if you call a woman a pussy, you're objectifying her, and sexually, verbally assaulting her, but what happens is when a woman reclaims that word, and she owns it, and she's like, my neck, my back, lick my pussy and my crack, there's a way in which she's taking her power back. She's saying, okay, you want to call me a pussy? I am a pussy. Like I am standing. And for some reason, it cracks women up. It puts them in a happy mood. They smile. I do not know why.

I cannot explain the chemistry of it, but it just ignites a woman. It is like taking her power back. And I notice the same thing happens with my actual book, Pussy, like women love to give pussy to people. They want to be the person that gives pussy to their girlfriend, or their husband, or their parents, like because it's a little bit outrageous, it's a little bit radical, and it's owning the power of the feminine in a way that's taking possession rather than being objectified or deified for being the holder of the sacred ground called pussy. So, it's a little bit of badassery. That's what I thought.

Luke Storey: [00:31:52] Yeah. And as I said, I just can't find a better substitute, so we're just going to stick with that for the purposes of this conversation and-. 

Regena Thomashauer: [00:32:00] Let me hear you say pussy.

Luke Storey: [00:32:01] Pussy.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:32:02] Oh, see, you're saying it, you're owning it. And I asked you, because you can tell.

Luke Storey: [00:32:07] The first time I said it, that was like-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:32:10] Yeah, you did. It was a little rough.

Luke Storey: [00:32:11] I had a practice run.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:32:14] Yeah. And you can tell how much a guy actually loves pussy by the way he says pussy. It's just litmus. I'm not going out with men who can't say pussy well, not dating anyone that doesn't say pussy like he means it.

Luke Storey: [00:32:29] Well, to the anatomical, going back to that, how the vagina is not really a complete description or correct description. I was thinking about the first night I met you here in Austin with a group of men.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:32:45] With the dudes.

Luke Storey: [00:32:45] Yeah. And it must have been 45 minutes into this work that we were doing with you, where you had a female volunteer on the table facing the men, and you are exploring her pussy and giving us a tutorial. And I remember sitting there and I had this second where I was like, I want to be able to see and I was off to the side. And then, I mean, it was a momentary thing, I worked through it, but I was like, I don't want to be that guy that like goes up, I want a front row seat.

And then, I was like, no, I actually do, so I moved and I could see as well as I could see with my glasses. But I just think of how many, I mean, obviously, women, but how many men just have, myself included, I mean, to this day, I think I've learned something over the years from inquiry and just open communication, but I think the vast majority of heterosexual men know relatively nothing about a pussy and what pleases it. And there is this-

Regena Thomashauer: [00:33:43] I think we should say her instead of it.

Luke Storey: [00:33:45] Her. Okay. Yeah. Not it, like that thing, okay. Okay. But also, as a man, it's exceedingly difficult at times to get a woman out of that condition to tell us, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:33:58] Oh, dude. So hard.

Luke Storey: [00:33:58] And you also have to have a certain degree of humility, I think, and openness to take direction and not be emasculated from a woman like, do this, don't do that, this is what I like, this is what I don't like. That can be confronting as a man, too, for women that are fully owning that, so it's like both sides sort of need to have this, I don't know, some kind of an agreement, where the end goal and intention of it is to enrich that experience and/or that relationship.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:34:28] Yeah. Well, I have to tell you a really cute story. A student of mine, she was from Texas, and she had this five-year-old son, and I think they'd been married six or seven years, and the marriage was tanking, like blowing up, and she was about to divorce him. I think she'd hired the divorce attorney, and they'd already started the paperwork, and then she started my course. And the first weekend of the course is really an immersion in just looking at how do we just begin to celebrate our bodies, celebrate these pussies that bleed, ovulate, give us orgasms, push a baby, like how do we start to celebrate this aspect of our body?

And then, there's a deeper investigation into the anatomy. And then, she started to realize like, I know nothing about my pussy. I know nothing, nothing, nothing, so how would I expect that I can have a great sex life with my husband if I know nothing, and I'm too ashamed to ever let him see my pussy, or ever even explore myself, or even let him explore? So, basically, I think they were having like missionary sex with no foreplay, because of her Catholic upbringing that would have her not connect with her sex.

So, she went home from the weekend feeling empowered. She told him everything that she sees that this was missing on her part, that she never opened up to him, so they decided to have a date, where he's going to be able to look at her pussy for the first time. So, this is how cute her husband is, he gets out of his camping equipment, a little headlamp up.

Luke Storey: [00:36:19] Oh, that's so good.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:36:20] Isn't that cute? So, it's all dark in their bedroom, and she does like this little fun, sexy dance for him, and then he puts on his headlamp, and spreads her legs, and is able to see her, and like he's literally weeping with relief, joy, and the beauty of her, and she is allowing it. But once again, tagging on to our sisterhood conversation, that couldn't have happened without her finding herself in a circle of sisterhood without realizing like, oh, wow, I'm not the only one who's disconnected. The first step of connection is happening in the safe circle of sisterhood, and then I can bring my man into this world. And then, the story has a happy ending, they ended up not getting a divorce, because they started having intimacy, like real connection and real intimacy that had been missing.

Luke Storey: [00:37:13] Wow. What are some practical ways that—I mean, I guess you lay out, like there was a PDF that came with your audio book, and I looked at that, and there was a clear diagram of all parts pussy. It was like, okay, I see the outside, not so much the inside. I mean, in terms of getting to know that, like I've told you before, I've done the orgasmic meditation, the OM, and that's a different kind of energetic thing, not so much an exploration like the demo that you did. What are ways in which a woman could get to know that to the point where she could help instruct, and inform, and bring her partner, whether they'd be male or female, into that experience with them?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:38:02] Well, I think the easiest thing is just getting a copy of pussy, and then doing the exercises simple. But let's say you wanted to start right now.

Luke Storey: [00:38:12] While you're listening to the podcast, folks.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:38:13] While you're listening to the podcast, and you're like, okay, I'm on it. So, I would say the first thing that a woman would do is get home, or you could do this in the office restroom if you have a hand mirror, but it's about connecting, like actually looking at your pussy, because I would say probably about half the women that take my courses don't ever look at their pussy.

It's like maybe their gynecologist does, but they don't, because there's so much negativity, and shame, and misinformation, and thinking that that part of our body, like why does it look that way or Is it supposed to look that way? So, if she looks—and I have found, Luke, there are five stages that a woman has to make her way through to get to actually love her pussy.

The first stage is she's going to grab that hand mirror, she's going to look at her pussy, and she's going to be like, oh, whoa, no, yuck, no, I can't handle it, bo, it's too much. Like, what? Look at all those colors, the pubic hair or the bikini line. Like I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, because she's so unfamiliar. So, that's phase one is upset, disgust. Phase two is she becomes the researcher, where she's simply looking and reporting out.

So, the next day, she'll look again, and instead of—she'll have worn off her initial charge, and then she'll just research, and she'll be like, oh, isn't that interesting? My right lip is a tiny bit larger than my left lip. My inner lips protrude somewhat from my outer lips. Oh, look, there's my clitoris. It has a clitoral hood on it. Isn't that interesting? So, she becomes a researcher.

Then, there's the affectionate researcher by day three, where she's like, oh, wow, I'm noticing that as I'm looking at my pussy, because, remember, women love attention, pussies love attention, just looking at a woman's pussy will cause it to engorge, even if she's the one looking. So, she'll be looking at her pussy, and then she'll notice, oh, the coloration is deepening somewhat. I can see my outer lips swelling a little bit. My clit is getting a tiny bit bigger. That is amazing.

Then, day four, she becomes the enthusiastic researcher, and she's looking at her pussy again, and then she's saying, you are beautiful, look at those cute little lips, your clit is so adorable. And so, she's recognizing that with her approval, her pussy starts to respond, and engorge, and she's enjoying it more and more. And then, some women will actually get to the fifth stage, which is rapture, where you recognize, this is the portal to life.

This is the place where the divine and the human join in both the act of creation, and recreation, and birth, where this is this, I am holding the source of life itself. And even if a woman never pushes a baby out of her pussy, she creates, and she creates when she's connected to her sensuality, and her sacredness, and her divinity. So, it's a little bit of a process, but it's very possible.

Luke Storey: [00:41:56] I like that. It's practical. My male brain is like there are steps. There's structure there. There's a way to do it. And there's kind of an end goal, which makes sense to me. Let me see. Oh, man, I have copious notes, we could be here for many, many hours. Oh, I know what it is. So, generally speaking, in spiritual teachings for people that are seeking to kind of become more embodied in that way and awaken in that way, most traditions indicate that you want to get out of your head, right?

Like get out of overthinking, speaking of trying to learn meditation or something, and that the goal is to kind of move from your head into your heart and be heart-centered. And then, in my male journey, I think what's served me is getting out of my head when appropriate to do so and to really be centered in my heart, and there were times in my life where I was out of balance and so much of my energy was in my cock. I mean, it was just, I was so sexually driven and motivated, which periodically caused problems in my life.

And I started doing Kundalini yoga a number of years ago for many years and I didn't even have the intention, but that energy started to move up kind of out of my sacral zone and I just became much more open-hearted and vulnerable. And I find now my power center is really in my heart. I would never go into the world like, yeah, I'm going to be in my cock energy to—it's just like it doesn't feel motivating in that sense. But in your teachings, it seems rather than encouraging a female aspirant at awakening to be in their heart but rather their pussy, I find that to be, maybe break down that. 

Regena Thomashauer: [00:43:40] Why?

Luke Storey: [00:43:40] Yeah. And also, why that might not be the most effective way for a man to awaken and be empowered, to be stuck down there and perform in their life from that energy?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:43:52] Alright. Probably can't speak as deeply to the guy thing, but it's a really good question. I find that like, let's say when women move from their hearts, it's good, but very often, it's out of balance, because it's a give energy. It's like looking after another person. It's like how can I almost like not connect with the wholeness of who I am, but just be a giver. And why I like teaching women that they could also include their pussy, because when you move from your pussy, you're including your heart.

It's like a full body move. And pussy, when a woman connects with her pussy, she's connecting with her deepest truth, with her intuition, with that part of her that can also almost be psychic. It's like she is super, super intuitive when she's plugging into her pussy. It's kind of like she's activating a gut response that takes care of the whole body woman, and by doing so, takes care of everyone around her.

So, I'm walking home in Brooklyn, and thinking like, do I take the subway? Do I take a taxi? And then, I'm like, okay, let me just clock my pussy, and my pussy is like, you know what, it's 11:00, get on that subway. It's going to be—and then I'll get on the subway. I'll go right down. The train will be there. I'll be home in 15 minutes, which maybe I would have been like stuck on the Williamsburg Bridge or something for 20 minutes if I took the Uber.

So, it's like it's this sort of tapping into a divine connection that includes her heart, it includes her intuition, it includes her sex. It's sort of a full body green light when you include your pussy as well. I think it's probably equivalent for a man. I think that it sounds like when you activated your heart, you're kind of combining cock heart energy, because there are times when we really want our guys to be super cocky. We love that.

Luke Storey: [00:46:27] Yeah. Well, I think it was interesting to observe within myself that I became increasingly less able to have gratuitous, no strings attached sex. Like I would find myself getting feelings for women that I didn't have before. I was really able to divorce myself emotionally. And there was a period in which that was appropriate and there were willing participants that were on board for that as well, but that was when I started to notice like, huh, something weird is happening to me here, where I'm becoming just a much more—my empathy is getting higher and I'm just becoming more of a caring person.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:47:04] And I think it also runs the other way, which is I think you're getting more depth and connection in the experiences you were creating for yourself. It sounds like instead of it just being like getting off, it was actually connecting deeply on many levels with your sexual partner, which is a more fun ride.

Luke Storey: [00:47:30] Yeah, agreed. And I've continued to allowed that to kind of unfold, but I just thought that was interesting about your work, because I thought, well, if I transposed your pussy-centric teaching on myself, I feel like I would be very limited, and I would probably be behaving totally differently in the world. So yeah, I guess it's a matter of, perhaps, for men, learning how to find the balance of what energy is needed and what's appropriate in any given decision or situation, but I don't think I would find myself ever walking around, making like intuitive decisions based on cock energy, you know what I mean?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:48:07] I wonder about that. I don't know. You and I are going to have to have a glass of wine and go deeper on this, because like with the women that I've worked with over the years, which is literally thousands and thousands, like they will literally use their pussies as an oracle, as a guide like to make decisions about really crucial things in their life. Like for example, taking a job, a woman gets a job offer, and it's like great on paper, and it's a company that really would be a great career move, but the office is fluorescent cube farm, and her pussy is screaming, no, don't, please, I cannot work in that environment, no, but her head is going, we have to take this job, it's the next thing in our career development advancement.

But if she listens to her pussy and declines that job, something even better will like land right in her lap. It's almost like your pussy is sort of the awakening for your evolution. And once like that divine feminine wants to open doors for you, that will open when you pay attention and listen. And I'm sure you felt that yourself in your life.

Like when you're the most surrendered, there are opportunities that come that you could not have created for yourself even if you had tried. Like it would have been impossible, because they were just so remarkable that you met the right person at the right time. And so, I look at that as the divine feminine just coming in there, and because when a woman is plugged in, then she gets these—she's in flow and life gets to happen in ways that she might not have been open to before.

Luke Storey: [00:50:06] Yeah, that makes perfect sense, just thinking about being in sort of like a systemic mode of surrender, which is kind of where I'm always striving to arrive, you know what I mean? That sense of trust, and allowing, and having that inform the impetus to start something or to make a decision on something, and then bringing in a more yang energy to actually do the thing, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:50:37] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:50:37] But I find that it's like surrendered action is kind of the way that I find myself navigating life most successfully.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:50:44] Yeah. And really, the whole design of that structure, which is built on orgasm, right? Because female orgasm is interesting and beautiful. She has the capability with every single stroke to go higher, and higher, and higher, whether it's a down stroke or an up stroke, whether it's a light delicate stroke, or sometimes, it's pleasurable to have an even more intense stroke. Like there's a range that becomes available to a woman the more attuned she gets, the more she learns her body, that her range gets bigger and bigger.

And the structure of especially female orgasm, because it's different for male, you guys have this, your cock gets hard, and then there's this venous plexus at the base of the cock that contains the blood flow, which is why you get to be hard, and then you ejaculate, and then there's a refractory period, but we don't have a venous plexus. So, we have this ability to kind of like orgasm, and orgasm, and orgasm, and go higher and higher, and peak, and peak, and peak. It's almost limitless. When I did my training at what was then called More University, now it's called Lafayette Morehouse, and also with Dr. Steven Bodansky. I learned a technique called extended mass of orgasm, where I learned how to come for one hour.

Luke Storey: [00:52:22] Now, you talked about that in your book, I felt so inadequate. At points reading your book, I was like, I'd never done that. Not because I can't do it, but I don't think I've produced that kind of experience for partners, and I was like, oh, shit.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:52:34] Well, yeah, you wouldn't unless you were like you had a lot of time, bandwidth, and interest in like figuring out like, wow, how long can we keep this going? And the design of that is it's not just the architecture of orgasm, but also, it has to do with, let's say as a woman, when we can learn to love each stroke, not just of our pussy, but of life, and to feel the gratitude for each opportunity in life, even the ones that are sometimes difficult, or challenging, or come with a lot of loss or grief, when we can find gratitude in each of the gifts that were given, then life continues to expand, and expand, and expand, and opportunities continue.

And you stay in this flow state of connection with your divinity or your goddess. And so, it becomes both a physical thing for orgasm, and then it becomes a spiritual practice as well that can be strengthened over time. And then, a woman has this kind of navigational certainty, because she can begin to trust her body, because she knows her orgasm, she knows how to come, and then she can begin to locate herself as that that divine feminine spirit, that life isn't working against her, it's actually for her that each even roadblock or challenge is for her growth, not to diminish her or to stop her.

And so, that's why the research on pleasure or the path of discovering what pleasures you is so crucial, because it not doesn't just expand your ecstasy, but it expands you spiritually, and it kind of grounds you in a sense of like, oh, I'm actually up to the task of this life. I can triumph no matter what's in front of me. And that gives women a kind of confidence that she doesn't have without that connection to her body and her pussy.

Luke Storey: [00:54:50] That's so interesting. As you described some of this, I think about kinesiology, and how especially the work of David Hawkins who used kinesiology for non-local phenomenon, meaning like, is this vitamin good for you? You're strong or not strong, but is this thing true or is it in the highest good for me? Right? But thinking about the body's nervous system as this tuning fork for yes or not yes, right? This embodied physicality of intuition, I guess you could say, right? 

Regena Thomashauer: [00:55:22] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:55:22] I'm thinking about the, what, 8,000 nerve endings in a pussy, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:55:27] You're so good.

Luke Storey: [00:55:28] It makes a lot of sense, right? Because if there are 8,000 of those nerves, why are they there of all places? Right?

Regena Thomashauer: [00:55:33] Exactly.

Luke Storey: [00:55:33] Like how come it's not under your arm or something? But I'm just getting an idea here of perhaps by opening up one's relationship to that center, specifically, in all of that,  centralization of your nervous system right there, perhaps, that's part of the whole body and whole being kind of antenna system, right? You're kind of a walking muscle test in a sense, for lack of a better term.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:56:00] Exactly.

Luke Storey: [00:56:02] It's really interesting.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:56:03] Yeah, it's so cool. And if you think about it, like 8,000 nerve endings dedicated to pleasure, and there's no disease of the clit, and the clit will never atrophy, she will always be there for you, and you can continue to expand and expand. It's not like you have great sex in your 20s or 30s. Each decade can continue to not just expand you essentially, but attune you in a deeper way to your intuition, your spiritual growth and development, because you start to learn to be able to be like really ninja with your life, because you're never disconnected with that God/Goddess place that pleasure brings you back to.

It used to be that the sacred and the sensual were one. It was just in the last 5,000 years of patriarchy that those two things were pulled apart. And it was pulled apart to give power to the church, so that would be—which it's a mass great power and wealth, because it took the God out of the feminine and put it in the church, but when we bring it back to the feminine, then she is the holy, then she's always home. She never loses her way and she doesn't need to like ask for atonement on Yom Kippur, do a bunch of Hail Marys. She's like observing her own life through her own integrity and finding the rightness within all of that.

Luke Storey: [00:57:56] In your book, you do a bit of a historical reference in terms of some older teachings in which the Divine Feminine was included, celebrated.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:58:09] Oh, my God. Aren't those stories unbelievable?

Luke Storey: [00:58:12] Yeah, it's wild. I mean, as a man listening to that, I'm like, wait, what? I never heard about this, but I'm not a religious person. But just thinking about the context of that, I think about little nuns that are kind of subordinate to the right on hierarchy, and I'm like, well, that's weird.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:58:28] I know. It's so crazy. It's such a misuse of all that beautiful feminine energy. One of my favorite ones is that I describe this yoni puja where like it could be either a vessel or an actual body of a woman, where when you want that transmission, this is a Hindu ceremony, you would put on a woman's pussy or on a vessel shaped like a pussy, you would pour honey, oil, yogurt, milk, and water, standing for earth, air, fire, ether, and water, I guess.

And then, you make this liquid, pour it on the woman's pussy or this vessel to receive enlightenment, or to, let's say, help to pray for the healing of somebody. And then, the fluid was ingested, because it was this kind of like a really feminine communion. We have communion now, but it's not including the pussy of a woman, which is, of course, like the seed of life itself. It would make sense that that's where holiness would occur. So, I loved learning about all of those.

Luke Storey: [00:59:46] Yeah, that was really fascinating.

Regena Thomashauer: [00:59:48] Craziness, or even flashing your pussy at the ocean to calm it down so that your husband would return from his fishing trip, or flashing your pussy at the crops so they'll grow, like women were just like these little kind of, I don't know, holy beings blessing everything wherever they went.

Luke Storey: [01:00:09] Something else I find interesting about your work, I think you, sometimes, describe yourself as a feminist. Would you say that's-. 

Regena Thomashauer: [01:00:17] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:00:18] ... appropriate? I'm curious of your thoughts on, like how your work is framed to me is what I would perceive to be a truer approach to feminism, in that it's actually celebrating femininity, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:00:38] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:00:39] And I don't know if it was the CIA that moved in and like corrupted kind of the women's movement in the '50s. I mean, there's a lot of theories. Gloria Steinem was like basically a CIA operative. I mean, it's kind of known on historical record. And I've found it interesting and I've not gone that deeply into this stuff.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:00:58] After we're done, you need to tell me about Gloria Steinem and the CIA.

Luke Storey: [01:01:02] No, for real. And not to discount what progress she made, but it's like there seem to be different waves of feminism, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:01:12] Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Luke Storey: [01:01:12] And some of them, I think, to us men kind of make us bristle, because they're inherently creating this competition or promoting this idea that we are the same, rather than we're equal. We're equal, duh, anyone with half a brain knows that there's no—you know what I mean? Like you don't value another human being over another human being based on anything, right? We all have a divine right to life and everything that includes.

But what you're bringing forth seems to be kind of unearthing what I perceive to be a more powerful strategy for creating equality in the celebration of the things that make women unique and amazing. And that will, in fact, and, I'm sure, are motivating men like me and hopefully men listening to this to be in service of that and to support that, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:02:06] Yeah. I consider myself to be like fourth wave feminism, because feminism, I mean, had to start with a lot of anger, right?

Luke Storey: [01:02:14] Okay.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:02:15] We needed the right to vote. We still don't have the Equal Rights Amendment, still isn't passed, so women aren't equal in this country, but it had to start with a lot of anger because of disparity in inability to vote, and wages, et cetera. But this wave that I feel like I am part of is a wave of feminism, which is women celebrating what it means to be a woman and bringing men into that vision, and into that world, and into that celebration, so that we, together, can co-create and rise, that it's about—because in the last waves, women were angry at men. And I'm sure you've experienced that a lot in your life, in your dating life before you met your wife, women are so pissed at men now for reasons that aren't personal. It's things like you guys get a $15 haircut, we have to pay $300.

Luke Storey: [01:03:27] Mine's 40, to be fair.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:03:29] Okay. Fine.

Luke Storey: [01:03:31] I get your point. I get your point.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:03:33] So, it's like we have different opportunity now to actually invite men into a world that they have never seen or experienced, kind of like my student who had her guy with his headlamp. It's like let's bring him, once we fall in love with ourselves, then it's easier to bring a guy into the magic and the beauty of exploring, what is this feminine body? What are her values? What is it that she sees and holds? Like what are her priorities? And how can we, together, kind of like—there are so many differences between us, but like a knife and a fork work perfectly together to eat a meal, i would be so awkward with one or the other.

Luke Storey: [01:04:32] That's good. I like that one. Yeah, that makes sense. It's almost like you have this collective pain body of the feminine or of women through eternity, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:04:43] Mm-hmm.

Luke Storey: [01:04:44] And so, in order to break out of a certain systemic oppression, you actually maybe needed, collectively needed that energy of anger, right? Because anger, it's a lower emotion, but it is motivating and it's better than apathy or shame, where you just are a victim and you never move out of that victimhood. So, it's empowering, but at a certain point, it also has limitations, right?

And so, perhaps, what we're seeing with work like yours is a maturation of something that was needed, whose time has come and can be presented in a way that is unifying. Truly, right? Because I mean, I grew up with a mom who was born in the '40s in Berkeley, and was an adult through the '60s, and was a feminist, and a lot of those ideas were shared with me when I was young, and I'm sure I am who I am partially because of that, but there was also a heavy dose of like men are fucked, like men hating.

And as I become a more, hopefully, conscious and awake man, that doesn't feel good. Like I'm on your side, like I'm not trying to oppress anyone. Like go girl. Like the more huge my wife is, the more big, successful, like I don't find that threatening at all. I'm just in awe at Her Majesty. And the more that I'm able to be privy to that experience of her being her fullest self, it's like the more I love her and the more I want to support her. You know what I mean?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:06:15] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:06:15] I don't take it as an affront to my manhood or something, because she doesn't hate men. Well, at least this man, she loves, and we have this really great synergy. So, I don't know, I just think about these things culturally, sometimes. It's like, sometimes, ideas get sort of waylaid through their different stages, and then arrive at something that's ultimately more productive.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:06:38] Right. And it's important to recognize the history, right? Like I'm always studying the courtesans, I love them, but one of the reasons the courtesans were what gave rise to the women's movement, because women, back a century or two ago, they weren't able to own property, they weren't able to own their own money, like they were completely powerless to their husbands.

Luke Storey: [01:07:05] That's not that long ago either. We're not talking about 10,000 years ago.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:07:10] No, or inheritance went to the son, not the daughter. But the courtesans were the only free women. There were just a handful of them, the women that were able to be free, and own their own money, own their own property, et cetera. So, the women saw that, and they also wanted that freedom and that education, so they were angry and wanted equality, so they broke through and made so much progress.

But of course, in so doing, feminism killed the courtesan, meaning the practices of exploring your sensuality, exploring pleasure. Those things went by the wayside, because we were trying to imitate what had men succeed. So, I think that we're have an opportunity now to have both have insane success, and also really explore the majesty and beauty of the feminine, and what lights us up, what turns us on, what our bodies long for, and have that be a huge part of intimate conversations, especially, because what other reason is there for partnership now, except that your life can get more and more pleasurable, because your wife is in it, and that her life gets more and more pleasurable, because you're in it?

And that wasn't the setup. That's not why our parents or grandparents got married. They got married to put a roof over our heads and put food on the table, but it's a whole different world now. And we don't have a lot of education in how to explore one another's pleasure or even how to explore our own pleasure, so it's like this whole new world.

Luke Storey: [01:09:08] So cool. Okay. There's a lot more I want to cover here. Let's see here. Oh, I know what I want to ask you about. I've heard you touched on this briefly, but not really dive into it, so dive into whatever degree you want, but it is the circumcision of men, which is so prevalent in the United States.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:09:31] Isn't it crazy?

Luke Storey: [01:09:33] Yeah. And as a circumcised man, I never thought about it my whole life up until I started doing this podcast and interviewing people about it, and I realized, wow, we have modern-day genital mutilation going on here.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:09:46] Yeah, we do.

Luke Storey: [01:09:46] And it's the norm. And I've looked at my, I'm sorry, listeners, I talk about myself so much on the podcast, but it's my only point of reference, is subjectivity, sometimes. And this goes for many men that I know, some of us are more tapped into it, but it's a massive, massive injury to the psyche of a man. And I know this because as I've become more intimate with myself and in my relationships, and looking at my past, not only relationships in the nature of sexual relationships, but just relationships with everything and everyone in the world, and it's this desensitization because of that trauma that prevents men from having the male version of the experience you described with the pussy with our cocks, right?

Like a huge part of our experience is missing, in our ability to have that finer level of sensitivity, not just in our genitals, but as beings, right? And so, I consider myself kind of in recovery of that experience and something I've had to do a bit of grieving about in some pretty deep ways, and to kind of really just accept and acknowledge that that unfortunately happened to me. What's your take on how that might be affecting men, and their psyche, and their ability to to understand women, and coexist, and co-create?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:11:20] Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's so traumatizing to the bodies of those little baby boys and to our men. And there's actually 350 million women who've experienced female genital mutilation, which is far more radical and damaging than circumcision. But nevertheless, both are in effort to control the sexuality, and subjugate, and subdue, and diminish that primal drive, which is where the sacred enters the body. And so, I think it's amazing that you've been able to do that kind of recovery on yourself. I think that every man requires it, and it's still continuing today. It's just part of the call. I think it's shocking and terrible. And if I had had a son, I would have grabbed him and fled before anyone got near his-

Luke Storey: [01:12:30] No doubt. Well, I think about it like a complaint that the world often has, or women, let's say, is men are so insensitive. Like they're not tapped in to how we feel and they're just brutes, right? They're just clumsy brutes going through our lives, and aren't caring and aware. And I think, God, if you want men to be more sensitive, like maybe stop lobbing their cocks in half, it's like, dude, it's brutal, you're getting cut off from part of that experience.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:13:02] Yeah, totally.

Luke Storey: [01:13:03] And speaking to and I've watched some videos and met men who are what they call intact or just God-given, the way it was designed, men who are intact, it's very common for them to have extended orgasms, multiple orgasms, different types of orgasms. It's a whole different sexual experience, about which I will never know, unfortunately. But when I hear men talk about what sex is like for them, I'm like, oh, I know nothing about that, because there are parts missing that would facilitate that more rich, deep experience. A circumcised guy in America, you grow up maybe looking at dirty magazines, watching pornography, and your purview of sex is like just pummeling a pussy, right? And the finer nuances of that experience, I think, are less attainable for a man who has had that happen.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:13:54] Let me think about that. Is it less attainable?

Luke Storey: [01:13:58] Not that it's impossible, but-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:14:00] I think that one of the most difficult parts is overcoming all of the predispositions of our culture to attune men to pornography. And I think that there are so many things, you can study tantra and breathing, which I'm sure you and your wife have done things like that or that's on the agenda. Like we have to, it's not just women that have to—I call my book Pussy: A Reclamation, it's not just women who have to reclaim, it's men as well.

Like all of us have to like reclaim our relationship with pleasure and our own sensuality, and find our way to like attune ourselves to even those like little delicate nuances of connection with our own bodies, and then with our partners' bodies. It's like this infinite exploration that's in front of us, like the pleasure of research never has to end. There's always something more you can learn, I'm sure.

Luke Storey: [01:15:15] Yeah, that's a good point. Thinking about, I think it's called a morphogenic field, where say someone loses a limb, but they still are able to feel as though they have one, right? There's got to be some sort of morphogenesis field of a circumcised cock in a sense, where like there are other—just because some nerves are gone, there are ways to perhaps access a more full and rich experience.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:15:39] Yeah. And also, like let's say what we know about pain, there's a limit to the amount of pain you can have, and then you'll die, you'll max out, but there's no limit to pleasure. There's no upper limit. Like you can continually explore more, and more, and more, and get more intense, longer duration, like there's limitlessness there. So, I feel like that the odds are in your favor.

Luke Storey: [01:16:09] That's really interesting. 

Regena Thomashauer: [01:16:10] You got this, kid.

Luke Storey: [01:16:11] I actually never—and not to say that I haven't enjoyed sex and continue to, it's one of those things you look back on your life or introspect, and you think, man, if anything could have been done differently or if I could have done anything differently, and I think for for many men, that's one, about which they had no choice, right? So, you just kind of slough it off, and, oh, wow, this is the way it is. But I think it's helpful to acknowledge, if that's your story, maybe not all men feel it, I'm sure many don't care. But if that is your story, I think there's a core wound there that would be best served to at least get to know.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:16:47] And speaking of core wounds, I mean, I've had students in my class who have had female genital mutilation where their clitorises have been removed or their exterior genitalia or interior genitalia, and there are surgeries that can provide a tremendous amount of recovery.

Luke Storey: [01:17:07] Really?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:17:07] Yeah. But additionally, you can also sensitize, so that even if the clitoris is missing, there's the root of the clitoris that extends into the body, and with practice, you can sensitize what remains so that you can just expand. I've had women who have become orgasmic, who had female genital mutilation, because they have put in the work to like really sensitize their bodies, they overcame their shame, they began a practice of self-pleasuring, so they could relearn their instrument. And there are so many nerve endings. There are 8,000 nerve endings. There are so many nerve endings in the exterior genitalia in the vulva that you can create a tremendous amount of pleasure.

Luke Storey: [01:18:08] I wonder how many nerve endings there are in an intact male.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:18:12] I wonder, intact versus—I heard it's 4,000 in the head of a cock, but I wonder what that is if the guy is intact, I wonder if it's different. We need to find that out.

Luke Storey: [01:18:22] Yeah, I should have researched that when I was making my notes. But thank you for kind of going there with me. I've talked to a few people about it on the podcast. As I said, my awareness around it has grown and I feel a duty to put it out there for parents to be no shame to any parents that have elected to do it, no shame for those that do, but it's something that I think could be-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:18:46] You should just be aware of.

Luke Storey: [01:18:47] Yeah, I agree. Let's see here. Okay. I just want to make sure I don't miss anything on my notes here. I took a lot of them. A I love when I sit down with someone, and with us, it was totally this way, I had a feeling it would be, that like the notes become irrelevant, and so you just flow with it, and it's way better than if I followed some linear plan. But the times I do that, and then the guest leaves, and I look at my notes, I'm like, duh, I forgot I really wanted to talk about that thing, so I think that's why I had this particular one.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:19:21] Thank you for taking such good notes, I appreciate it.

Luke Storey: [01:19:23] Yeah. So, I know where I want to go with this next. In a woman getting in touch with her pussy, and this feminine energy, and the radiation that starts to be created in that relationship, you talk a lot about flirting and how healthy flirting is. And then, at one point in your book, you, I think, used these words, the difference between flirting and hustling. And that kind of led me into an inquiry around, I don't know if I'd call it like toxic feminine energy or what I could categorize it as, but like the manipulative seductress with like a taker energy versus a woman in her full expression of just that radiance. What do you mean by hustling and flirting, and the difference therein?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:20:14] When I teach women about flirtation, really, flirtation is really nothing more, nothing less than enjoying yourself in the presence of another person. That's flirting and it elevates everyone when a woman is willing to flirt, because she's alive, and she's radiant, she's plugged into her—she's turned on. And it doesn't mean anything, because she could be flirting with the doorman or flirting with the guy who's selling MetroCards in the subway.

Luke Storey: [01:20:51] She's feeling herself.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:20:52] She's feeling herself and everybody's grooving to her feeling herself beat. So, that's the purity of flirtation, and flirtation's in our DNA as women. We flirt with puppies on the street, oh, my God, you cute little puppy. We flirt with babies. And it's a wonderful practice because a world filled with turned on flirtatious women is a far better, more fun world than a world filled with turned off angry women that aren't connected to their source energy. So, that's the purity of flirtation.

And women often resist flirtation, because they don't want to be like, oh, wow, I don't want my friend to think that I want to steal her husband or I don't want to just like think that he has to buy me a drink or something. But of course, women who are very aware of their sexual power and who, maybe they go out hoping someone will buy them drinks that night or maybe they are a woman seeking arrangements with a gentleman and exchanging sexual favors for cash or whatever, your sexual energy is that powerful, but it's not a commerce. It's simply to elevate the woman, and when she's elevated, she elevates the world.

Luke Storey: [01:22:33] Right. Because in that commerce-based interaction, it becomes transactional.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:22:40] It does.

Luke Storey: [01:22:40] Right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:22:40] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:22:41] That's interesting.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:22:42] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:22:43] Yeah. That's something I really picked up from the orgasmic meditation thing is even just in terms of a—I mean, I wouldn't even call that necessarily a sexual interaction, per se, if you follow the confines of that model, but that was something that was totally foreign to me, was like, wait, it's not a tit-for-tat thing, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:23:02] Mm-hmm.

Luke Storey: [01:23:03] It's not transactional in any way. It's a receiving on behalf of the owner of the clit, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:23:11] Exactly.

Luke Storey: [01:23:12] And that was kind of revelatory to me, because before that, I don't think I knew any other way that it could be, in terms of, I don't know, just that weird exchange, where one feels ingratiated to make sure the other one climaxes and it's just weird. Like why are we conditioned that way rather than just enjoying each other's company, and everything just feels good, and no one owes anything, anyone? Right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:23:39] Mm-hmm. And don't you love it when you're just able to give your wife pleasure? I mean, it's so fulfilling. 

Luke Storey: [01:23:39] That's the best feeling.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:23:47] And likewise, it's so fulfilling for me with—sometimes, I like to give, and sometimes, I like to receive. I would say that, definitely, I veer towards pillow princess. I just want to lie back and receive as much as I possibly can.

Luke Storey: [01:24:00] Pillow princess. That's good.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:24:04] But I love to give. It's so much fun.

Luke Storey: [01:24:07] Yeah. You talk about this idea of a radiant relationship in your book, which I really enjoyed, could you expand on that teaching a bit?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:24:14] Yeah. I'm probably not somebody that falls into the really monogamous category. I think I'm always going to be open in all of my relationships. I've been married and I've had partners, but I always love to—the reason I call it a radiant relationship is because I think it's really important when a couple is together that they choose their destiny and they choose like the level of devotion to each other. And sometimes, in a monogamous relationship, it can be fun to open a door and include another experience, should that work for both parties in the partnership. If it only works for one partner, then it is a really bad idea and you should not do it.

Luke Storey: [01:25:15] Agreed.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:25:16] But if it works for both people, I think it's liberating and fun to consider, including the possibility of conscious connections with other partners if it's pleasurable. And for some couples, monogamy is the radiant relationship. Each of us is an infinite being. There's always more we can learn about one another, and pleasure is infinite. So, you can have a radiant relationship within a monogamous partnership that continues and expands sensually over a lifetime, and you can also do that with having a partnership that includes—or in some cases, a radiant relationship is not even being part of a single partnership, but having several partners.

I think, really, we live in a world where you can make decisions that speak to honoring kind of how you operate and what serves your own aliveness. And I think that very often in relationships, women, especially, have been taught to shut down that which makes them alive. And so, my book is really about giving women and men the opportunity to be conscious about what that is that makes you feel the most alive and included in your partnership in a way that serves both of you.

Luke Storey: [01:26:56] In terms of having a relationship that is more open and not monogamous, having tried that myself and ultimately found it to not work for anyone involved, but it's like, how do I phrase this? I don't sense from your energy that you're someone who is withholding part of yourself, and is afraid of being heard, and is love-avoidant, to speak in the classical term of like love-avoidant, which I was very good at for a long time. How does one maybe determine within themselves whether they're seeking more variety in their sexual life, because it's just in their nature or stage they're in their life, or someone who perhaps is choosing that as an option, because they're afraid to get close to people, and afraid to be vulnerable and get hurt?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:27:49] Such a good question. And that's where it becomes about deepening your intimacy with your partner, because I love partnership, I think it's like, evolutionarily, the only place we can really transcend and become the people we were born to be, because I've pretty much maxed out single woman, I know how to do it really, really well, and I've had amazing partnerships in my life that I've been privileged to share, and I always feel like I'm much more on the razor's edge of myself of really growing and changing when I'm inside of a partnership.

I love that so much. But I think that there's so much that takes place, like when I was married, and I would have a flirtation or I would see somebody, and I would be turned on, and I would go back, and say to my husband like, well, I had this experience where I met this person, I felt a lot of turn on, and then we brought that into our partnership one way or another, whether we talked about it and it became part of our own lovemaking or whether my partner would say, well, what would you like to do about that? Do you want to include that? If so, in what way?

And then, we would talk about how that might be. I found that when I was in partnership and including others, there was so much more talking that had to take place than actually doing something with another person, because you really have to make sure that it's step together, step touch that we're both on the same page, we're both honoring each other. And sometimes, the fun is just even in thinking about what could happen, but bringing the turn on back home to your main squeeze.

Luke Storey: [01:29:48] That can be a very complex negotiation. I don't miss it. I'm like so happy to be monogamous. I'm just done, so at home. But I think that's interesting as, I don't know, I guess as people start to awaken to themselves, and think, I want to be polyamorous or whatever, at what point is it just a natural way that you are, and at what point are you just afraid of actually true intimacy?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:30:17] Yeah. I don't know. I think it's a good question, and one that, probably, it's important to pursue, because you want to always do the things that terrify you. And if real intimacy is terrifying, then it's definitely like a powerful direction for you to learn more, and more, and more about who you are, and what you stand for.

Luke Storey: [01:30:42] And perhaps, for some people, true intimacy is not terrifying, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:30:46] Mm-hmm.

Luke Storey: [01:30:46] And so, they're liberated.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:30:49] I don't know if I ever met anybody that wasn't scared of true intimacy.

Luke Storey: [01:30:52] Yeah.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:30:52] Did you?

Luke Storey: [01:30:54] Well, speaking for myself, definitely not, but I definitely have arrived at that place. I think, where there are no breaks, there's no holding out, it's just fully open, fully vulnerable, willing to be blown apart if that's what happens. It's just in service of the broad love that there's no price that would make it worth it to do that, to really just give oneself into something like that. How has your daughter responded to the work that you do?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:31:32] I think with a lot of eye-rolling.

Luke Storey: [01:31:34] Yeah.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:31:36] "Mom, like, oh, really? Did you have to post that on Instagram? What even is the matter with you?"

Luke Storey: [01:31:43] Yeah.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:31:44] But I think she's also very proud of me. And I think it's a healthy dance between rolling her eyes, and feeling like, oh, no, that's cool, what you did, what you made happen.

Luke Storey: [01:31:57] And what about your mom? I think at the time of your book-writing, your mom was working with you in your business?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:32:01] Oh, she totally works for me, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:32:03] Yeah.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:32:04] And she loves it. But this was a long process, right? In the beginning, everyone thought I was mad as a hatter to be teaching courses about pussy, and sensuality, and pleasure, and that it would go nowhere good and all of that. But then, I gave her a job and she became the bubbe at the workshops that I teach, and who doesn't want one of those? Like a grandma that you can like cry in their lap, and they'll stroke your hair and send you back out there to be fabulous. So, she's found a-

Luke Storey: [01:32:45] She's embraced it? 

Regena Thomashauer: [01:32:48] Completely. Completely, as if it was her idea, yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:32:50] Wow. I mean, despite the eye-rolling, that's a pretty incredible lineage healing, of like-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:32:58] Yeah, for sure.

Luke Storey: [01:33:00] That's a couple of generations of women coming into their own and opening to ideas that expand you rather than contract you. That's very cool. Yeah, I like that part of your book. I was like trying to picture your mom. How many years of age is your mom now?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:33:14] My mom is 97.

Luke Storey: [01:33:17] Yeah? That's so good.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:33:18] And she's worked with me, really, since my daughter was little, because she used to come in to babysit for my daughter when I was teaching. And then, after my daughter got older and not so needy of her, she'd be like, "Well, what am I doing here? I need a job." And then, I was like, she needs a job, hmm, what could she be? Oh, we need the ancestors.

Luke Storey: [01:33:41] Yeah.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:33:42] Like it's not just about young people finding their way, it's like we want that intergenerational community. And I've got like grandmas, granddaughters, moms from families that take my work. Sometimes, like whole extended family, the aunties, the daughters, the whole thing. So, I thought, well, I might as well give my mom a job, and she's very happy to do it.

Luke Storey: [01:34:11] Oh, that's really cool. And at this point, are you doing any teaching for men or is it all exclusively women at this point?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:34:19] Right now, it's women, but my favorite thing is teaching men, to be honest. I loved it so much. I loved working with you guys in that day.

Luke Storey: [01:34:30] That was a great night.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:34:31] It was totally amazing. It's just sort of, that's the pathway that opened for me. And then, whenever I teach, I always do like one day for men or one weekend for men. I do a small mastermind and I have a weekend for guys. So, I haven't stopped teaching men, but mostly, I'm teaching women these days.

Luke Storey: [01:34:52] Yeah, that night that we had was pretty wild. I had no expectations, and that's kind of just how I show up for things, I don't need to know about it, I just feel into it, and if it feels good, I'm going to do it. But yeah, I remember we did one exercise where we were getting in touch with our anger.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:35:09] That was wild.

Luke Storey: [01:35:10] And things like that make me feel really awkward. It's like, I don't know, I'm just not expressive in that way, generally, and I was like, well, I'm not going to be the guy that's like, I'm too cool for this or too embarrassed, so I'm like, okay, I went all in. It was incredible how much anger I had. Isn't it great? I was like, oh, my God, I am fucking pissed, because I was dealing with this house stuff. So, I was like, what am I annoyed about? Oh, it's right there, man, and I went off. But what was even more interesting was knowing when it was all out, too, because then I was like, wow, everyone else is still doing it, and I could tell when it was forced, and it wasn't real, and I thought, wow, what a beautiful practice. I mean, imagine if more men had just-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:35:52] Access to that.

Luke Storey: [01:35:53] Right? The wherewithal to just go in your car and just scream for 5 minutes, and just get it out your body.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:35:58] But it's really important to be witnessed. That's a huge aspect of it. The thing that we're talking about is something I describe in my book, which is a practice called swamping, that you wouldn't think would stem from pussy, but it actually does, because what happens is as soon as a woman kind of connects with her sensuality and her aliveness, all of the rage at being repressed for thousands of years starts bubbling forward, or all of the places in which she was physically violenced, raped, abused, date-raped, whatever, molested on the subway, whatever those things that have happened to 99% of women in their lives.

And so, in my work, I realized like, wow, all of this emotion comes up when a woman starts to educate herself about her body and her sensuality, so we need to not push it down, but give it a container. So, I created this practice called swamping, which is you deliberately choose to connect to whatever that storyline is that's about your rage, or your grief, or your frustration, or your jealousy, or your despair, and then we put on a couple of songs, and then as a community or group, move through the fullness of the emotion, which you can move through, because you know it's a container of a song.

You can give yourself banging on the pillows, or doing karate kicks, or like banging the floor, leaping, running around the room, or in that case, wrestling each other, which the women do, too, fully, because you got this three minute container to express it all, and then it's done. And then, the grief in the container, and then it's done. And then, returning home with sensuality. Because when you can't leave all that raw emotion hanging out, you have to kind of draw it back in, bring it back into the body, and ground it through sensuality. And then, you can kind of move on with your day and create more trouble.

Luke Storey: [01:38:14] Well, can you imagine a world where people had the skill to manage their emotion in that way? Right? Just think about-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:38:22] It's my dream. I'm going to make that happen. I've got more years in me.

Luke Storey: [01:38:25] You do, of course. How many societal problems and-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:38:28] Get solved.

Luke Storey: [01:38:28] Yeah, I mean, interpersonal, but I mean, even bigger, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:38:31] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:38:31] You just go on Twitter and look at the trauma that people are acting out, it's like, God, if we just knew how to really surrender into those feelings and express them in a way that doesn't, because when they get stuck and repressed, it's like that's when shit gets really crazy.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:38:45] Yeah. And my daily practice, like I do not start a day without doing a rage, and a grief, and then a turn on.

Luke Storey: [01:38:51] Really?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:38:52] I'm like very emotional and I like it, so I just like giving myself a chance to express it. And usually, I'll grab a girlfriend, and zoom with her, and do it, because it wants to be witnessed.

Luke Storey: [01:39:05] Wow. So, you practice what you preach.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:39:07] I have to, otherwise I'd be cranky ass bitch.

Luke Storey: [01:39:09] Good. Thank you for not being that, would have had a way less fun podcast. I want to share one thing with you on that that I think might be, I don't know, helpful to maybe both, but primarily men who have a difficult time holding a woman when she's in her full expression. A number of years ago, I did a workshop by this guy, John Wineland, who's been on the podcast. He's like kind of in the School of David Deida, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:39:32] Yeah, I know John.

Luke Storey: [01:39:33] So, one of the exercises we did, it was equal men and women, and I was single at the time. I was on a celibate journey and just doing a lot of inner work. I brought a homie with me, and they needed two more guys, and there were a couple of single women, mostly couples, so equal number of males and females. And they split us on two sides of the room and put like a dividing line between, and then instructed the men to kind of stand at the line, and then instructed the women to bring as much rage as they possibly could to the surface out of their bodies. And our job was to stand there and hold space. So, 30 different women coming up and just screaming, all of that, all of that.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:40:17] Were they pounding on your chest or just screaming at you?

Luke Storey: [01:40:18] There was no touching, but I mean, it was hard to hold, right?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:40:25] Mm-hmm.

Luke Storey: [01:40:25] And I had never seen women, not one woman even go there, right? But that wall of just generational trauma, and rage, and whatever, and that single experience helped me so much in my relationships to learn how to attune my nervous system to just-. 

Regena Thomashauer: [01:40:46] To handle it.

Luke Storey: [01:40:47] To handle that, and to be there for that, and I use that all the time in my current relationship. That's how I hold space-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:40:55] Yeah, it's great.

Luke Storey: [01:40:57] ... without personalizing it, or feeling attacked or defensive, or wanting to fix it, or any of that shit. It's just like becoming this absorbent sponge of energy that's just like, give me everything, just lay it on me.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:41:09] Yeah, that's so good.

Luke Storey: [01:41:10] That was really cool.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:41:11] I want to add one more thing, which is that when she comes at you with that level of rage and frustration, that is such a compliment, because she trusts you that much, like you are the man that can hold that for her. She doesn't give that gift to anybody but you. And so, it's like such a huge act of love that she's trusting you that big and that you're holding space for her that much. It's so intimate, and so delicious, and beautiful.

Luke Storey: [01:41:42] Yeah, thank you for that insight. Yeah, but, hey, fellas out there, like you'd have a much better life and better relationships if you learn how to just be that container. It's an overused word. Everyone's like, container, container, but I don't know, there's no other way to say it. And I find another way that is really useful to get there is through the breath, too. When I find myself contracting and like, ah, feeling—and it's not like we have a very conflict-free relationship, but just in her life, just living there are just emotions that need to be processed.

And if I find myself holding my breath, I start to get fidgety. And if I can just breathe and just actually physically open my body language as well, is another really useful tool of just like really receiving it, so not like legs crossed, arms crossed, like trying to deflect, but just like, give me all that, and it's a beautiful experience. It's, really, a mutually loving experience, actually. And the net benefit is that things get moved through very quickly, too.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:42:51] That's great.

Luke Storey: [01:42:52] Yeah. So, hopefully, that's helpful, and thank you for verifying that. And also, the reflection of when two people are really able to be there for one another in that way, it does require a lot of trust from both, perhaps.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:43:06] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:43:07] Well, hot damn. Alright. Last question for you today is who are three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life and your work that you might share with us? 

Regena Thomashauer: [01:43:17] I would say, well, the work of More University, Dr. Victor Baranco, Lafayette Morehouse, that was like the cornerstone and the game-changer for me, and probably such an important building block. Maya Angelou, oh, I used to listen to her poem, And Still I Rise, like starting to create a business that was around pussy, and pleasure, and women, when I had a newborn daughter and have the courage, I thought, well, if Maya Angelou could rise and stand as if she has diamonds at the meeting of her thighs, I can do the same, so I would. I was really inspired by her, and also, the work of Audre Lorde, who is a feminist, writer, activist who wrote an essay called The Use of the Erotic as Power.

And she just was like validating so many of the things that I was learning and discovering in my own work that how the erotic is almost this sacred source of inspiration that when we can include and serve that erotic, it gives meaning to whatever it is we're doing, whether we're scrubbing a toilet or making love to our partner, that that erotic aliveness is a gift, that women have this power to connect to and to use that eroticism for our own lives, rather in service to men, or our families, or et cetera. That really guided me like I'm on the right path, I'm on the right path. So, those were two women that really helped me stay the course.

Luke Storey: [01:45:19] Awesome. Thank you for sharing. For those listening, you can find links to everything that was just mentioned in this conversation at lukestorey.com/mamagena, G-E-N-A. And we'll put links to your website, and social media, and all of those things. Is there anything you want to point people to? Do you have any courses you want to invite folks to check out right now?

Regena Thomashauer: [01:45:40] Yeah. Right now, when will this thing-

Luke Storey: [01:45:45] Probably a couple of months.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:45:46] Okay.

Luke Storey: [01:45:47] 6 to 8 weeks, something like that, usually.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:45:48] Okay. That would be amazing timing. I'm just about to kick in March, I—yes, in March, I'm doing an amazing course called Virtual Pleasure Bootcamp, which is eight weeks long, and it's like your basic primer of, how do you start to connect to your pleasure? How do you start to connect to your pussy? How do you start to connect to your power? And I teach it myself live on Zoom for eight weeks, and it's such a blast, and it creates such a great sisterhood, and such a great community.

Luke Storey: [01:46:19] God, I would love to be a fly on the wall for that. I know I can't. I'm not-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:46:23] You can't.

Luke Storey: [01:46:23] ... literally suggesting, but like, wow, that would be really interesting. Well, I'll tell you what, it should be after that, but you just keep in touch with me, and I can put this out whenever I want, basically. So, we'll make sure that that's available to the listeners when this comes out.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:46:39] Okay. Amazing.

Luke Storey: [01:46:40] So, just give me the green light and I'll put it on the calendar for that.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:46:43] Okay. Perfect.

Luke Storey: [01:46:44] Well, great to see you again. Thank you so much for making the time to come hang out. It's funny, when I met you that night and drove you back to your hotel, while we were driving, I was like, man, she'd be great on my podcast, I should ask her, and I just had so much going on that couple of days, and I didn't know what your schedule was, I think you were flying out the next day, and I was like, ah, I'll just leave it alone, maybe I'll email her someday or something like that. And then, Emily Fletcher, former guest and friend, introduced us again for this, and I was like, see, there you go, you know what I mean? It's like that the-

Regena Thomashauer: [01:47:12] Yeah, that's right. You trusted your pussy.

Luke Storey: [01:47:13] Yeah, totally. The art of allowing, because I was like she would be great for the show, I knew that. When I feel that, that's always very certain. But then, the logistics of it, sometimes, the universe has to take a minute to catch up, so I'm glad it did.

Regena Thomashauer: [01:47:27] And thanks for the ride that night. It really meant a lot to me. I appreciated it so much. 

Luke Storey: [01:47:31] Absolutely. Anytime.

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