April Pride: This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: What are the obstacles for women having a pleasurable and joyous sex life? Girl, do you have a pen and paper? What are not the obstacles for women having a pleasurable and joyous sex life? It almost feels like the world has been built to contain us to experience pleasure in the way that they see fit, not in the way that we choose to experience pleasure.

April Pride: Welcome back to How to Do the Pot. I’m your host April Pride. This episode kicks off our new series, The Best Weed for Sex. Follow along in our newsletter, you can sign up at dothepot.com and our socials, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. It’s February. So does that have you seeing hearts, pulsating vibing high full of anticipation hearts, or have you lost faith in the passion that’s possible? Keep listening because this episode kicks off a three-part series, The Best Weed for Sex. You just heard from Carlen Costa, a clinical sexologist, psychotherapist cannabis advocate, and best-selling author. Carlen and a lot of other experts are going to be our guides as we explore plant-derived sexual pleasure. We’ll cover how to use cannabis, to increase sexual sensation, how it can help you be more present by among other things, driving away distractions.

April Pride: We’ll also cover the practical, which lubes, suppositories, and strains to buy for your sex stash. If you like How to Do the Pot, please share it with someone and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show.

April Pride: Does alcohol put you in the mood? A lot of women say yes, but we hear a different story from women who have switched to weed for sex. And for those who have tried both, cannabis usually comes out on top, so to speak. Kiana Reeves is a sex educator, a doula, and the chief brand officer of California-based sexual wellness cannabis company, Foria, and she helps us out with this question.

Kiana Reeves, Foria: I think alcohol, there’s still is this, a glass of wine gets me in the mood. A glass of wine is a thing that we get these Facebook comments all the time on our ads. “Why would I need that? All I need is a glass of wine.” And from a physiological perspective, alcohol for a person who has a vagina, it can actually really dry you out. It doesn’t enhance your ability to self lubricate. It does relax the body in certain ways, but there’s not going to be the actual benefit of arousal itself. But it’s a little bit of a sedative. It allows your nervous system that kind of capacity to be in the moment. So, if I had a preference, it’s absolutely cannabis and using it in a way that doesn’t lean too much into the psycho-activity.

April Pride: Danielle Simone Brand, the author of the new book Weed Mom talks about how desire and arousal are not precisely the same thing. She breaks it down like this, “Desire is about wanting to have sex, and arousal is about the physical response to foreplay and sexual stimuli.” Today, we’re going to talk about the physical reasons that cannabis works for women sexually. And our next episode, we’ll go into more of the, “I can’t get out of my head long enough to enjoy sex,” type of questions. So stay tuned.

April Pride: First, where to start with sex and weed? Whether you get high from products for sex really depends on what they are and how to use them. So this is a part of the episode where we’re a bit of a broken record especially if you’re long time listeners, you’ll have to experiment to see what works best for you. Gee, tough homework. Cannabis products for the bedroom are up against some of the challenges that cannabis in general face. THC products must be purchased through a licensed dispensary or delivery service and products are highly regulated. CBD won’t get you high, it’s available nationally and for purchase online, but it’s not regulated, meaning testing is not mandatory and for products intended for down below, it’s important to buy from a reputable source and we’ll offer a few later in the show.

April Pride: Where you live will determine what you have access to. And we ask Kiana a question we get a lot, what is the difference between a topically applied weed lube with only CBD versus one that contains THC?

Kiana Reeves, Foria: This is probably not surprising to anyone, but there’s not a lot of studies, double blinds, scientifically validated studies that cannabinoids on the genitals are working either which way. But some of the things that we can extrapolate from the data that we do have is that both are vasodilating. THC is very vasodilating so it has sometimes a stronger or more immediate noticeable effect but both of the cannabinoids are vasodilating so they help the blood flow get into the tissues which is the primary function and basis of arousal.

Kiana Reeves, Foria: And then CBD has other qualities to it, anti-inflammatory, helps relax muscle tension. And I think that it might not have the same immediate kind of onset impact that the THC does because it’s such a noticeable difference, but there’s other support that it’s offering and working with your body that allows it, where you get to feel your own pleasure capacity more. I don’t have specifics, I wish we had studies around what it was doing and how one works better than the other or how they work differently. But at this point it’s really validated based off of user experience.

April Pride: We always bring some science into our episodes. So you can really understand the mind-body connecting that occurs with cannabis. Carlen explains the physiology and how topicals in particular can help.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: There’s this wonderful thing called the endocannabinoid system, right? The endocannabinoid system, the series of receptors that are in our bodies help modulate, help bring our bodies back to balance, back to homeostasis. The ECS really does work with balancing things like our appetite, our energy, and our metabolism, as well as our stress response, anxiety, and our immune function, as well as there has been some preliminary science that is showing how the ECS actually has an impact on our fertility and everything that is going on within our pelvic regions.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: So there’s really two really big spaces in our bodies that have the most number of receptors, right? So in our upper first quadrant, we have a lot so which means shoulders, neck, head, even upper chest. There’s a lot of ECS receptors in there but the second part is also in our pelvic areas. We have a ton of these receptors. So when we can activate them, when we can feed them with cannabis, right, through THC or CBD, what we are actually doing is activating endocannabinoids that are already in our body called anandamide and 2-ag, that are mimetic of THC and CBD. So all cannabis really does is it helps amp up what your body already does and produces and allows you to activate it or to access it better.

April Pride: Quick question, are you on Clubhouse? Come hang with us on the audio app Fridays at 1:00 PM Pacific time, join us to share your funniest weed stories in four minutes and 20 seconds or less. Think of this as our live show, 30 minutes to laugh at the end of a long week and mark the beginning of your weekend. I’m anxious to connect with you IRL so please check us out on Clubhouse, Fridays at 1:00 PM Pacific, 4:00 PM eastern.

April Pride: Cannabis suppositories are a favorite for women experiencing menstrual cramps, but suppositories also work for sex, especially if you have pain with penetration. Kiana talks about the difference between a weed lube and a suppository for sex.

Kiana Reeves, Foria: When you’re applying the cannabinoids with an arousal oil, you’re applying it locally to the clitoris, the labia, and you’re getting a little bit intra-vaginally. But we have so much musculature, so much happening in the pelvic floor, both intra-vaginally and anally that impacts the quality of our experience with penetration. So the suppositories help internal muscle structures get a high dose of cannabinoids that will help the muscles relax, soften, allow for more blood flow, receive those kinds of vasodilating benefits and they both enhance pleasure. And the more blood-flow you get into the region, the softer those muscles are, the better everything feels to touch, to penetration, to any type of movement. It really allows you to be much more in the experience of pleasure. And if they do experience pain, it’s helping diminish that as well.

April Pride: The question most men ask about weed lube, “What’s in it for me?” naturally. Mathew Gerson, co-founder of Foria shares his experience.

Mathew Gerson, Foria: What’s in it for me? That’s been such a common theme. And I hate to be cheeky, but what’s in it for you if you’re in a heterosexual relationship with a woman is you have a likelihood of a more satisfied, more relaxed, more at ease partner that’s experiencing deeper pleasure and less pain in the context of her intimate pursuits with herself or with you. Those are all really great wins and extraordinarily important in my sense of pleasure. Now that’s what my partner is experiencing.

Mathew Gerson, Foria: What’s in it for me physiologically or physically, not much.

April Pride: Mathew also cautions men against consuming too much THC before sex.

Mathew Gerson, Foria: In my almost decade now, which is not a long time in the big scheme of things in this industry, I feel stronger and stronger that the arms race of creating more and more potent forms of THC extraction and presenting of THC into the body through dabbing and other means is suboptimal for the majority of people. And in terms of intimacy, extraordinarily so. If you go a little bit overboard as a male, you can instantly get couch lock, and disassociation, and impotency, and loss of sex drive. So you really have to be able to finetune it. It’s hard to finetune something with… It’s hard to play a cello with boxing gloves on, right? So you really don’t have a feel for things. And if you onboard too much THC too quickly, that sensitivity is lost.

April Pride: And he shares one of our favorite tricks if you feel too high.

Mathew Gerson, Foria: I’ll onboard CBD before smoking THC, or if I overshoot my happy place with THC, I can take some more CBD orally and can help bring you back down a little bit. But yeah, I think that’s a good takeaway is, a little bit more CBD if not a lot more is probably good in the bedroom.

April Pride: Still not sure you’re ready to introduce cannabis with a partner? Carlen says, start with yourself.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: If you have never self-pleasured before, the best place to start is by breaking it down into smaller kinds of exercises or experiences that allow you to experience pleasure in your body before you even reach your genitals. So if you can give yourself a hand massage for 10 to 20 minutes. If you can rub yourself or massage your chest for a little bit. If you can touch your belly and just love it for a little bit with beautiful oils or lotions, put on some music, create an experience for yourself, right? Get the kids out of the house, do that kind of thing. I like to call it sensate focus skill-building. And the idea is to learn and to focus on the different sensations that your body can feel, whether that’s behind your neck, or behind your knees, or in your breasts, or even just as simple as being able to massage your hands for 10 minutes, and starting there, and then building on, right? Pleasure is a building thing.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: We take steps to get to the peak. It’s a gradual thing. It’s not like, “And here we’re aroused. Boom!” Start by learning how to just have a relationship with your body where you’re touching it and experiencing different variations of touch. And whether that’s with your hand, whether that’s with a toy, a vibrating toy of some kind, whether that’s even with just different textures like silk, or a hairbrush, or beads, or if you have a really nice long pearl necklace, and just allowing it to fall along your body so that you can feel sensuality. So you can feel sensation and then start moving to your genitals. When you start moving to your genitals and massaging your genitals, what you want to do is not focus on this attainment of an orgasm. You want to slow it down and listen to your breath, and be breathing, and be really feeling what you are feeling, and experience the sensation of building up, and touch your genitals, and around your genitals and your pelvic area, slowly massaging, and lovingly like you would your face.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: When you put on oils and you massage your face and you rub it all in, and you’re very intentional about it, the same thing goes to your self pleasure.

April Pride: And I think to add on to that, if that’s even possible, that was amazing. Massage your hand for 10 minutes when you are not consuming cannabis, and then whether it’s 10 minutes in the same session, or you revisit it another day, get high and then massage your hand, and then you’ll have an idea of what will change if you choose to invite cannabis into the bedroom.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: That shift in thinking is where women really need to go about experiencing sensuality and their pleasure. Nobody gives you an orgasm. You accept your pleasure for yourself and you gift that experience unto others who are with you. And that is a privilege.

April Pride: Antuanette Gomez, founder of sexual wellness company, Pleasure Peaks frames at this way.

Antuanette Gomez, Pleasure Peaks: Orgasm is never really the goal, right? The goal is pleasure. Don’t forget. The goal is always pleasure. And I find that building that excitement with those beautiful plant botanicals are so incredibly helpful. We don’t talk about that healing. It’s always about pleasure, orgasm, cum. But we need a lot of healing because we’ve been through a lot of trauma. Just all humans, I don’t care where you’ve come from, what you look like, we all have trauma. We love to say, pleasure is your birthright. All races, all genders deserve pleasure.

April Pride: Please make sure that part of your pleasure includes using products that are clean and safe for sex. Dr. Jessica Knox, a Harvard-educated MD and co-founder of the American Cannabinoid Clinics has some tips. And you can check out our website, dothepot.com for specifics.

Dr. Jessica Knox, The American Cannabinoid Clinics: If you’re using any cannabis product, but certainly anything that you would put in or near your vagina or your urethra, which again are those mucosal membranes that are very absorptive, make sure you’re looking at COAs, the certificates of analysis. Make sure that there’s no contaminants in there. Just check the ingredients and make sure that they’re good and safe and clean.

April Pride: Matthew from Foria shares a story that reminds us why we love their company which is setting the standard for cannabis sexual wellness products.

Mathew Gerson, Foria: We only make products that are made out of plants. And so there’s no fragrances, there’s no chemicals, there’s no parabens, there’s nothing that can be a known harm or an unknown harm. And that feels really good to us because we are prolific users of our own products, and we share them widely with our friends and our family members. And there’s so many risks with these chemicals that are known and unknown. We just chose to make cleaner products and really take it to heart.

April Pride: Carlen makes the clean product conversation even more personal

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: Your pussy is like a Polly pocket, okay? So anything you put into it, it’s going to absorb it, it’s going to take it on. So whether that’s people, whether that’s even energy of places, and whether that’s food or products, right? People, places, or products, your body will absorb it in your pussy. And that’s just the reality of it, right? And even though your vagina’s like a self-cleaning oven, she goes through, she sheds, she cleans herself, that’s what vaginal lubrication is. It’s about helping cleanse and clear out your vagina to be healthier.

April Pride: For today’s high five, cannabis for great sex. Number one, Antuanette recommends taking a bath with cannabis-infused bath salts.

Antuanette Gomez, Pleasure Peaks: People love to take baths before sex because we find it’s actually incredibly effective at throwing your workday away, right? You always have to make sure that you settle, you get grounded so you can be completely present for these beautiful experiences, and healing experiences with your partner. This sometimes is difficult after a really hard shift or a long day of work. So a lot of people before they go into those shared spaces with their partners, they would have a cannabis bath salt. So they get you turned on in that little bath and they relax all of your muscles and worries away so you can finally feel into your body, where you need more love, where you need more pleasure. You can finally communicate those needs to your partner for the ultimate sexual experience.

April Pride: Number two, we think every woman should have weed lube in her bedside table. Cannabis lubes are vasodilating, which means more blood-flow is going wherever you put it. If you have any pain with sex, CBD lube will provide relief and increase your pleasure. Carlen and Antuanette explain why they love weed lubes.

Carlen Costa, Sexologist & Psychologist: It’s a really great place to start if you are new kind of to the cannabis world. Because when we are using cannabis topically, all it does is that it stimulates the area that you put it on. It stays on the upper level of your epithelial cells, of your skin, and it impacts where you put it. That’s where you feel it.

Antuanette Gomez, Pleasure Peaks: It really allows the pelvic floor to relax so we can have stronger orgasms, so you can only imagine when you add CBD into the bedroom, that it adds a whole another layer of protection, comfort to have those pleasurable experiences. I’m taking advantage of all this solo play in quarantine. But after I started using the cannabis lubes and CBD lubes, oh my gosh! It’s like night and day, it’s so much more effective.

April Pride: Most sexual wellness companies have a CBD line that is available online, like Foria and Pleasure Peaks. Other brands that we love that offer CBD products online and THC products in legal states. Foria is available in California and Colorado, Her Highness is available in Nevada and California, 1906 is out of Colorado, and Quim is also in California. Number three, suppositories.

Kiana Reeves, Foria: Suppositories are so incredibly effective for so many reasons. Whether is it because you have menstrual cramps, is it because you just want to feel like up in your libido. There’s so many reasons to use suppositories and to always have a pack in your bathroom. When it comes to vasodilators, Viagra is the most well-known, right? But when you think of smoking cannabis, when you smoke cannabis and your eyes get a little red, they get red because your blood vessels are dilating, right? They’re getting bigger. So imagine if our pussy was getting a little bit more blood-flow, maybe there’d be stronger orgasms. But I promise you, you’ll enjoy it, you’ll love it, and it’s incredible how effective it can be. So enjoy those suppositories for menstrual cramps, for pleasure, and yeah, they’re definitely a game changer.

April Pride: Number four, patches. Women love transdermal patches for pain and stress because they’re effective, deliver a consistent experience, and they’re long-lasting. Place it on a part of your body that has a lot of veins like your inner forearm, and it can stay there for up to 12 hours. The sticky squares usually come in a single-use packet so you can try one without a big investment. Our friends at Fleur Marche have a new CBD patch called Sex Plz, that’s P-L-Z, formulated with her pleasure in mind. It’s intended to increase blood-flow and contain special natural botanical herbs to lower inhibitions and increase pleasure. For this patch, I would recommend placing it on the inside of your left or right hip bone so that it is close to the source that you are looking to have optimal effects.

April Pride: Number five smoking. Strains for Sex is coming to you in a few weeks, but for today’s strain picks, we’re giving you a sneak peek into our experts’ favorite cannabis strains for sex.

Dr. Jessica Knox, The American Cannabinoid Clinics:  I love Tangerine Dream, it’s a winner for me.

Kiana Reeves, Foria: Super Silver Haze. Write it down, ladies. Super Silver Haze. This is one of the strains that I didn’t fall in love with, it fell in love with me. Okay? I felt like the first time I smoked this, I was being enchanted by a man.

April Pride: And for today’s podcast picks, I like Speaking of Sex hosted by The Pleasure Mechanics. It’s a weekly podcast with candid conversations about sexuality and all that’s possible in bed. Ellen likes Dirty Diana, starring and executive produced by Demi Moore. This fictional podcast is the story of a woman escaping her carefully curated life and secretly running an erotic website where women reveal their intimate sexual fantasies. And To Do the Pot, D is for Desire hosted by Noah Michelson. Can Weed Spark Your Sex Life? with sex educator, Ashley Manta. Please subscribe to How to Do the Pot so you don’t miss more of The Best Weed for Sex coming to you next week. Thank you for listening to How to Do the Pot. Let us know what you think, find us on Instagram @dothepot, and you can follow me @aprilpride, and for lots more information about cannabis and women, visit dothepot.com.

April Pride: Thanks to my co-founder Ellen Scanlon, Madi Fair, our brand manager, and our producer, Nick Patri. I’m April Pride and we’ll be back soon with more of How to Do the Pot.