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October 16, 2020

Pleasure Mapping, Clitoral Response & Redefining Healthcare

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Dr. Uchenna “UC” Ossai is a sex-positive pelvic health physical therapist and sexuality educator. She joins Jess & Brandon to discuss all things sex, pleasure, wellness and bourbon!

• How can pleasure mapping improve sexual communication and pleasure?
• How do you deal with a hypersensitive clitoris?
• How do you assess pelvic pain and endometriosis?
• How can therapists and other helping professionals take care of their own physical and mental health?
• What is vaginal stretching?
• How can we assess racism and oppression in healthcare?
• What are Bourbon Talez and what can you learn from them?

Follow Uchenna on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter.

This podcast is brought to you by Cliovana. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Rough Transcript:

This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health or other professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.

Pleasure Mapping, Clitoral Response & Redefining Healthcare

00:00:05 – 00:05:01

You’re listening to the sex with dr. Jazz podcast sex and relationship advice you can you off tonight? Welcome to the sex with dr. Jazz podcast on your co-host Brandon. We’re here with my lovely other half a. HS. Hey, hey, how’re you feeling today? I’m okay. How are you? I’m good. I’m good. I sense there’s a lot of tension in there not just with you but just with the world. Yeah you commented before on down on hyper vigilance. And for me, it’s an intensity. That’s this overarching feeling making all my other feelings exaggerating all of my other feelings, whether it’s good or bad. Yeah, we talk about hyper vigilance in you know, in these times where everything is changing where our freedom of movement is restricted. We’re we’re walking around with a little bit of fear, or if not dead. Fear simply the unknown right walking down the street. You don’t want to walk too close to people either because you want to protect yourself and likely because you might make them uncomfortable as well. So just everything in life has gone up in intensity and I can feel it. So I just was thinking we could take a nice moment to take a couple of deep breaths and encourage people listening to also do the same just to take an inhale through your nostrils and then hold for a moment and exhale through your mouth. Are you doing it? I was doing it when you first started talking about it and then I started reflecting on how I might have physically assaulted a banana putting it into the freezer what happened I shoved it in because I was so frustrated. Yeah. He’s this breathing really helpful. So maybe a little bit more context there because you’re feeling frustrated all the little things get to you. So when I saw you earlier like the freezer was wasn’t going to close. I saw you just punch. Even the frozen fruit to get it looser true it would fit. Yeah trying to shake it up a little bit but that’s just more reflective of the overarching. Like I said frustration intensity. Yeah, so often, you know that aside at least we get a moment to sit and talk about some topics that are of interest to us because today we’re going to be talking about pleasure mapping and self-care and racial Justice jobs in healthcare. We’re going to be talking about the pelvic floor and much more with. Dr. You see from you see logic so doctor you see they host bourbon take off on Instagram where she answers all sorts of questions ranging from what do I do if my clitoris isn’t that sensitive to how do I decide if my relationship life is still worth working on and I’m really excited to learn from her. You know, that that’s an interesting question when people ask how do I decide if this is still worth investing in what? What do you think of them? And you know when it’s time to just move on stop working on a relationship. Wow. I don’t know. I don’t think I I have the answers reflecting on my own relationships in the past. I felt like there was just an internal Compass telling me that for one reason or another it wasn’t working out. Now. This was twenty plus years ago. So I think there’s been some some Evolution some internal Evolution on my end, but I think you probably I would need to start reflecting on my own behavior before I start thinking about whether or not a relationship is worth salvaging and think up my own responsibility in where that relationship was. That’s a really good point because often times when we feel unfulfilled we turn to outside sources external factors as our autistic deficits when in fact, sometimes we’re not feeling fulfilled and it has more to do with ourselves and we we look to the relationship and we say, oh, well, we’re not feeling the passion or we’re not feeling the song. Or we’re not feeling the love and sometimes sometimes it is about the relationship of course and sometimes it’s about ourselves. I always think you know, if you’ve given up on fighting if you just can’t be bothered to engage in arguing anymore. And I mean over a sustained period of time, of course, we all have days where we just were weeks where we don’t have the energy but certainly check out you see Logic on a gram and we’ll be chatting with her in just a moment before we welcome her. I’d like to thank our October podcast partner Cleo Vana for their ongoing support now Cleo Ivana is a non-invasive therapy that targets the clitoris to increase and enhance orgasm at the cellular level. So there’s no penetration. No needles know lasers no down time and you can learn math at Cleo Vana. So without further Ado, let’s get to the meat of this conversation and get chatting with our guest. Welcome.

00:05:01 – 00:10:11

Welcome doctor. You see thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Now. You’ve got a wealth of title. So you are a pelvic health physical therapist. You’re a sexuality educator you are in a sect certified sexuality counselor. You’re an assistant professor at the University of Texas Dell medical school. You’re a program manager here on the faculty at U of M. So tell me how you got into this field. Tell us about you your story. Wow, you know, it’s funny. I I got here because of my my mother I my I’m first-generation American my parents are from Nigeria and I grew up I grew up in Dallas, Texas and born and raised and I told my mom I said Mom, you know, I I want to go to school out of state. I don’t want to go to UT. No offense, even though I now employed by you may want to go to any of the state schools. It wasn’t because they weren’t great. I just wanted an experience that made me uncomfortable and and helped me gravel and I was I think fourteen at the time and she said well, we can’t afford that so you’re going to have to you know, get scholarships internships. And so I got two internships. I got my freshman year in high school. I got an internship to work with the Dallas Cowboys working with their CFO three days a week and in the summer and then I got an internship with a physical therapist that I thought was a sports PT and she ended up being a pelvic PT and birth. No idea what that was. I just remember looking at the patient was that morning and I was like, oh penis pain, you know people in apartments with intercourse and I’m just like, oh just a roll with it and I fell in love and I I think ever since then I this is just always been my passion to work with people who was Paul before disorders. See I might have gone the other way and worked off and football are you know, it was actually really cool job and I learned a time it was it was really a great experience. And are you a Cowboys fan off? I am I haven’t I’ve been boycotting the NFL for a while. So I I really don’t even know who plays on what team anymore but I but I am historically a Catholic. Okay, I think Brandon’s on a NFL boycott as well. It’s my it’s a difficult boycott, but it’s worth. It’s it’s worth it. All that is going on. Yeah, I do miss it though, because the Athletic Club From there is just phenomenal. So I agree I hear about it. I hear about it. Yeah, I grew up in Texas man. So football is like in my blood and but you know, it was a worthy sacrifice. Exactly. Yeah. Well, you know that brings us to some of the work you’re doing around race and power specifically in your field in healthcare and you teach a course and it’s it’s coming up available again the intersection of race and not our Healthcare redefined. I’d love to hear about this course and also why it is so important to be talking about race and power dynamics in healthcare training in health care delivery jobs in healthcare administration in the United States. Absolutely. So, you know I thought about I thought about this, you know, I thought I’ve been teaching for years after almost a decade. I’ve been lecturing. I’ve been speaking at conferences and I kind of fell apply. I’m talking about diversity and equity and inclusion and transgender health and racism not because I felt it was like this Niche Niche, you know area but I felt it was necessary. You can’t talk about health care and not talk about racism and not talk about all of these to be frank and you know, when George void happened off everyone started to you know, try to Showcase how woke they were everything started to people started to get called out in ways that you know in the ways that I’ve been doing for years, but I had it in such a gentle way because I didn’t have an audience that was really really ready to hear it. Like they they said they wanted to hear it, you know, and it was house was like I don’t think you’re ready, but I can tell you anyway, you know birth. And that was me for years. So now people were open and ready and and I’m so used to lowering everyone. It’s a bath water about their nonsense and wage and and for me, you know, if you look at my social media, I always talk about this stuff. But I think that when I saw, you know around the world as people saying this this this this and this but in reality when I go back to work, no one was talking about it, you know, I’m in a multidisciplinary setting with gynecologists, you know, all the specialist and no one was talking about it at all. You know, what was changing how they were practicing at all? And so it became this performative thing right? Like people put a black square up or they posted black lives matters, but the way it’s getting integrated into into practice in I think every field but Health Care off color the outcomes and the costs of racism are are life-and-death.

00:10:11 – 00:15:03

Yeah and and, you know to be fair it wasn’t being implemented because people just didn’t know what to do with okay, and they didn’t know how they didn’t have the skills. They didn’t have you made it feel safe. They you know, and I also, you know, I’m the only black person practising in my clinic. Which I don’t know 15 providers. Mhm. that you know, if that’s that’s just how life is for me, you know, and I’m used to that but then when something like this happens and you know, I’m I’m functioning in my black skin off as a citizen but then also as a healthcare provider, it’s very it’s very It’s very difficult. And so I I was sad for about 14 minutes and then I said okay, you know, I I’m going to I’m going to do something about this and I’m not Captain Save A Hoe. I always tell people that that’s not my job. But this is the skill that I have. I’m a very good educator. So let me just create this course and offer it to the world and if people want to participate grass if they don’t that’s their choice that has to be I mean exhausting on you. First of all, thank you. And you know, I want to send appreciation your way for doing this work because yes, it’s a labor of love and yes, it’s a birthday or business but it’s also you know individually it has to be a drain on you to be the only black person in the setting to always be speaking up to feeling like you have to lower people into bath water as you put it and so I’m I’m curious on the kind of separate note. How do you how do you take care of yourself? How do you make sure that like you’re taking care of while you’re changing the system and tearing down oppressive structures and and fighting a dog. Everyday, even when you didn’t opt in now. I’m not I’m not great at that. I’ll be frank with you. I it’s a it’s something that I’ve been working on the past year but in particular over the past six months, it’s been it’s been a challenge. I will say that I do have a therapist that I talk to on a very regular basis. I am trying to exercise more and not necessarily to lose weight or anything. But just to kind of feel better life and to manage my stress and anxiety and that’s really that’s really been my primary self care and I have to say my sister who is older than me and she’s I have to sneak up on her for just for a little bit. You know, she’s Cornell grad brilliant attorney badass and my sisters always been the introvert in our family and I my mom and I bought a load Africans and my sisters not but we’ve been we’ve we’ve always been close with this past six months has made us even closer because there are things that wage. We we see right we say black women. We see things that people don’t. Like two years before they even know that know that it’s effect. And that that is that in and of itself is stressful. You know, and so I think that Sisterhood, you know, really getting closer with my black colleagues has really been helpful. Well, you know what when I asked that question, you said I’m not great at it. But then you listed three really important things. I was going to I was going to ask you, you know, what would you tell a client? What would you tell a client and it sounds like you already wage, you know talking about therapy exercise and looking for that Sisterhood or the the common support So to go back to this course for people who are interested. I’m in I’m certainly interested. So the intersection of race and power Healthcare defined is it open to like doctors nurses Health Care practitioners sexologists administrators? Who is a 41 everyone. I I said geared toward health care because I wanted to kind of talk about how and why we’re seeing such discrepancies in the house of people of color and black people and and I’m not really for anyone even though it scared to talk about, you know, chronic illness and stressors that really impact our ability to thrive as humans. And but it’s it’s for everyone I start from a very much a historical base because a lot of us when we talk about race, we don’t understand the history of race from the beginning and I spend half the class going over history and how that informs how we Define professionalism and health standards. And so that’s a really important piece that I think a lot of juice and when I’m anti-racist training ten ten minutes that sounds so important especially in this space that we call Wellness which is so white-washed and often focused on specific outcomes for only specific people so long.

00:15:03 – 00:20:14

Yeah. I look forward to taking this course. I think if you something something really interesting for for all of us and encourage people to check it out and do you offer see credits for professionals? I do I’m currently I am see credits for physical therapist, but I’m in the process of the applications for social work and I’m working on nursing. So hopefully by the end of the month we’ll we’ll get all of that stuff down here toward so step by step. We’re getting them see credits awesome and I hope the folks said a sacked if anyone from a sect is listening as I know some people do please please help out with this facilitate. This process is a sect is always talking about how they want to do better and you know, it’s definitely time to put their money and their actions where their mouths are and maybe he’ll help out figure out when we can get a dog. It’s for this as well. So yeah, so I found you. I don’t know how I found you it may have been through Adam hour from Moontower counseling. Are you buddy? Oh, I love him. He is a gem know. I love him so much. He’s just although we just go off together. He makes fun of me for my sports. I make fun of him for life. So I think I I think I may have found you through him. I’m a huge fan of your Instagram you thank you you deliver really like powerful stuff and dissect these complicated issues in this really digestible format. Right? So not everybody wants to pick up an academic Journal not everyone even really want to pick up a book, but you have a show every Sunday night on igtv. I called bourbon tails and you talk about so many different things and I wanted to chat with you today about some of those as well so often recently and I’m going to paraphrase here you had someone write in about a hyper-sensitive clitoris. Yeah, I’m Canadian. So it’s actually hyper-sensitive clitoris, but I love it off. Lovett teach me actually, we can’t agree like it’s not actually a Canadian thing anything I say wrong I either blame on my mother or my Canadian side. So you talk about pleasure. I talk about pleasure. We share techniques we share. Well, we don’t share toys but we talk about faith and so many of these techniques focus on the clitoris the glue like now, I can’t even say it the clitoris and the clitoris is more than just a little pea sized bump at the top but for someone who does have have a really sensitive external or head of the clitoris, how can we still derive pleasure from from touching licking from sucking from vibing from fingering from All That Jazz? Absolutely. So when I always say is cuz I get this question a lot in the clinic and I always tell people first to kind of I see this all the time and pleasure mapping is really important. And even if it’s off on the genitals backs really going to help because people always say I don’t like this touch. I’m like, okay great. We definitely know that that’s a red light right there. But what else is coming? What’s yellow? Right? Let’s let’s focus on those areas in a corporate that into this clitoral activation. And like I said, I always am a fan of using like the vulva and the clitoral hood to kind of protect the head of the clitoris usually is hypersensitive, right? Cuz that’s going to be really important. Sometimes. I always tell people to like to kind of cut your hand over that pubic symphysis. Yes, because there are a lot of nerves that come over there. Sometimes kind of guarding the bone right especially with vibration, right? Cuz a lot of people say oh vibration helps. I’m like don’t put it on that phone because it’s going to radiate all the way down and caused a lot of irritation off. Maybe get a towel use your head and put the vibration through that and so it’s adults vibration. So it’s a lot less direct and then you feel it throughout the whole vulva vagina vestibule and that’s a better way to kind of bring in sensation if you still want to incorporate that so it’s lots of ways one can be creative about it. I love that and you started with so many things. Can we can we go back to what pleasure mapping would like? I was just thinking that yeah Brandon’s like he’s like my pleasure, but that’s what I think but I think a lot of this comes down to conversations that we don’t have so you mentioned pleasure mapping and that’s what I wanted to go back to be. I think if you know if we were to take 30 minutes 60 Minutes 5 minutes, whatever that is and explore and figure out what you do what you don’t like. I mean, I’m curious as to what it is, but I feel like immediate way things are going to get better in bed. Absolutely. Absolutely. So what’s your mapping? Let’s so let’s take it into this clitoral sensitivity. Right? So let’s focus just on the Volga and so what you can say is the boss. This can be the solo activity or partner of activity and I always tell people to just start with your lower abdomen and always bring different textures. So you want something soft something warm or cold, you know, maybe something scratchy or whatever whatever texture you you’re inclined to and you kind of massage. You know that your lower abdomen down to the vulva the outset the kind of the lateral edges where the growth is and and you can do circular motions you can do up and down you can do skin rolling and just see what feels good right.

00:20:14 – 00:25:33

Do you want deeper pleasure. If you want, excuse me deeper pressure. Do you want lighter? Right? It might say, oh, you know what? I really don’t like it when I get touched down lower by my butt cheek. Right? Right that crevice there. I don’t like that but I really do like it when my inner thighs are engaged, you know, but you know what? I don’t like it when they spread my Volvo apartment expose my vestibule, you know, I want back to be covered while we do this. Those are really like a lot of times people don’t realize that some of these little movements that we do during birth. And really trigger Us in some ways, but if we don’t know what our pleasure is. That were saying I don’t like sex. I don’t I’m not a sex person. It doesn’t feel good. It’s like is it that or is that you just don’t quite know you know, what is a green light once a red light and what’s the yellow light would like that and I like the idea of some sort of a ranking system because like you might be able to say, oh, I don’t like when you spread my inner labia and expose my vestibule but a lot of people are just going to say like, oh that feels good. That isn’t good or that’s neat role or that’s red. That’s yellow. That’s green. I really love the idea of this activity and I there’s a couple of things that you everything you’re saying is resonating with me because you know, you mentioned that Palm will if they don’t like something they’ll say I don’t like sex but sex is so many different things. It’s not one specific act and this was actually why I’m so happy you’re doing the work you’re doing not only about around race and Power about redefining Healthcare cuz I’ll tell you the first time I went to a pelvic floor therapist and they’re poking around down there, you know, there were parts that were uncomfortable and the pelvic floor therapist said, oh that’s uncomfortable or birth. Hurts and I said, yeah and they’re like well doesn’t sex hurt them and I said no, but the thing is she wasn’t asking me what my sex looked like she made assumptions that sex was just this penetrative thing for me when in fact the time that’s not the type of sex. I was particularly having and so but she kept saying sex and I kept saying no and I probably could have corrected her or like explained to her my situation. But of course not everybody has the language of the tools or even feels they have the the confidence or the right to speak up to a health care practitioner. And so that that really really resonates with me. And also I love the idea of just any any system like this or any exercise like this pleasure mapping like you do it over and over again, cuz what I’m thinking is that what feels good for them once a day four of my cycle doesn’t feel good. Yeah on day Fourteen and I love like so many things the other thing I’m going to say and this is just me speaking personally not as a sexologist is when you log Talk about putting a sheet or a blanket or a towel or something in-between. Brandon will tell you that’s what I use over my mouth. That’s what she and I just I put it right. Talking about you know, but I like that a lot. I like it through a sheet or through the underwear or something like that. I don’t have to share too much about my pleasure. I’m still kind of young or private about that stuff, but that it’s very kind of reassuring and I think too so many people when you’re saying to me that so many people are coming to you talking about a hyper-sensitive clitoris. That’s interesting cuz it’s not something that I think sexologists talk about a lot we often talk about how important the clitoris is and how you know, its function is pleasure. But the head itself like for me definitely the head isn’t something I want poked prodded. I always joke that it’s not a it’s not an elevator button or a doorbell. This isn’t a DJ set to be spinning that record exactly. Yep. Think we make such a great point because we always talk about the clitoris like clitoris is pleasure. And it’s like for a lot of my patience is not and actually, you know, they’re not going to lead with that office home. So when you talk about the interview that sexual interview for the first time I asked I don’t go straight to penetration. I say do you have any are you able to achieve orgasm in and they say yes, no, maybe and I’m like, well, what does that feel like to you? How how do you access that? Do you have pain with arousal and people say yes, one of my partner touches me and I said no no arousal. Like if you’re just thinking about sex and when you start to feel blood flow down there when you get aroused when you go. Take a trip down memory lane, you know, they’re like, oh that’s arousal and so off interview, it helps me to get gauge how much understand they have just on sexuality. And and often times when people describe something to you or tell you something you actually have to get them to describe it like like you said that physical therapist assumed that you were engaging in penetrative Sex and I would never assume that anymore right if I just don’t of course, I just don’t you know, and and and you know, if we go to like Physicians like the assumptions tend to be even more voluminous and more more rigid and yeah, I’m so glad that we’re having these are seeing these conversations and health care and folks like you are having them and you know, I definitely know some great OBGYNs who are also talking about the range of sexual experiences, but I’ll tell you and I don’t know if this is your experience, but when I hop on calls with Physicians or when I’m doing a training with a physician the Physicians off it it’s it’s often times.

00:25:33 – 00:27:10

Even wherever I take it they kind of bring it back to a heteronormative experience of a penis going into a vagina. Yep, and so so what do we what do we do? We how do we stop this? So I have to say that I’m actually in a I’m in a unicorn situation and off I am in a multidisciplinary clinic. So I work alongside in the same clinical spaces Allegiance and surgeons all of that and we have all committed to taking care of people with vaginas. It’s called The Women’s Health Institute, but we have non-binary patients. We have trans patients. So we we really focus not necessarily on the binary off but more. So when are you coming in to see me? Are you having pain in the genitals? Can you show that show me? What what would you like for me to call it? You know like, you know, we’re going to say clitoris. But is there another name you would like, you know, so we’re both very we’ve worked really hard as providers to to to make it an inclusive environment. So it’s not just about the straight white women dead. Coming in to get care and they need care to but it’s also understanding those intersections that that inform our bodies because when you thinking about how when a person I purchased sex like let’s for example, when we look at black, right? Everyone says black women are less likely to have public for disorders. I think that’s categorically untrue. I personally believe that black women suck a lot of nonsense that we deal with on The Daily and a pelvic floor disorder like urinating called.