Sex and Cannabis, Part 3: Is Weed a Tool for Healing Sexual Trauma?

Ellen Scanlon (00:00):

This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over. Recently we polled How To Do The Pot’s Instagram followers, and asked whether micro dosing cannabis helps with stress. Micro dosing is taking small amounts of cannabis with THC, to get the benefits of the plant without feeling intoxicated. 80% of you said yes, micro dosing cannabis does help with stress. And not only that, but our episode all about micro dosing, episode 59, was our most listened to episode of 2021. I hear you loud and clear, and I have a great microdose product for you to try. Cured Nutrition’s Serenity Gummies. I take a lot of CBD, it really helps me feel more balanced, and if you’re a CBD skeptic, I get it, but you might need more than you think to feel it. Each Serenity Gummy has 30 milligrams of CBD, which is a lot, plus about a milligram of THC, which is a really teeny amount that won’t get you high and is mostly there to activate the CBD.

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They’ve added functional mushrooms like reishi and adaptogens like ashwagandha, which all work together to help you feel calmer and more present. All the ingredients are third party tested and sustainably sourced, and they don’t contain any artificial flavors, sugars, or dyes. Low dose edibles like the Serenity Gummies are a really great way to calm your mind and body before Sex. And Cured Nutrition Serenity Gummies, ship to all 50 states, plus we have a promo code for you with 20% off. What are you waiting for? Head to curednutrition.com. That’s C-U-R-E-D Nutrition and use the code Do The Pot for 20% off. I think you will love them, and I’ll link to all the details in the show notes.

Ashley Manta (02:12):

It’s the difference between running after you’ve warmed up and stretched versus running when you’re ice-cold. Cannabis is that warmup stretch process without having to do anything except apply it, and I think that’s very helpful by increasing pleasurable sensations while also decreasing painful sensations.

Ellen Scanlon (02:34):

Welcome to How To Do the Pot, a podcast helping you feel confident about cannabis. I’m Ellen Scanlon, You just heard from California based, Ashley Manta, an author and sex and relationship coach. And welcome to the third and final episode in this series all about sex and weed. In today’s show, we’ll learn how Ashley found cannabis to support her recovery as a trauma survivor. I’ll talk about how cannabis is helping to unlock women’s sexual freedom and share some of my favorite products for better sex with weed. If you haven’t yet, check out episodes 189 and 190 for the first two parts of this series. We tackle how much weed you need for sex, less than you think, we find out whether cannabis really is an aphrodisiac, and we have some great tips for how to talk to your partner about weed in the bedroom. I hope today’s episode and this series helps you feel confident about starting a new kind of conversation about sex, one that is open and free of judgment and that inspires you to believe that more pleasure is a goal worth seeking.

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Before we get into this week’s episode, I’m so grateful to the people who’ve been asking how they can support the show. Please tell all your friends, word of mouth is a great way to help us grow our listeners. Another thing you can do and it’s free, is sign up for How to Do the Pot’s newsletter. It’s a twice a month resource that helps you feel confident about cannabis for health, wellbeing, and for fun, there are already thousands of subscribers reading and replying with comments and tips and the more the merrier. We couldn’t do this without you. Please go to dothepot.com to sign up. Thank you, and I really appreciate your support for the show.

(05:00):

I’ve learned so much from sex and relationship coach, Ashley Manta, and throughout this series I hope her smart, funny, and sexy tips have helped you feel more confident about bringing cannabis into the bedroom. There is trauma in Ashley’s history and she is a sexual assault survivor. Ashley isn’t going to share the details here, but if this is a sensitive topic for you, I want you to know that she does talk about her recovery process in this episode.

Ashley Manta (05:35):

I told my survivor story for the first time at a Take Back The Night Rally in 2005 in my freshman year of college, and I found it so cathartic to share my story and to be able to take ownership of my narrative, and it made me very interested in trauma and how does trauma impact the brain and the body, and how I am approaching sex and some of the maybe maladaptive coping mechanisms I’ve adopted as a way to normalize what had happened to me. I started focusing very heavily on trauma, I was a philosophy major and studying philosophy in my undergrad and then in grad school, but all of my electives were like gender studies, psychology, nursing, sociology. I wanted to really intellectualize trauma so that I could integrate it more into my life. I looked around the world of sexuality professionals and I was like, “There is no one really that I am aware of who is talking about sex and cannabis in a trauma informed, consent focused, queer inclusive, body positive way. This could be my thing.” And so it was.

(06:41):

Simultaneously I was experiencing pain with penetration as a result of my trauma. So I started doing the trauma work out in the world, I was a rape crisis counselor, I was a victim advocate. I went around to colleges and high schools and I talked about consent and bystander intervention and things like that. And then when I moved to California in 2013, having access to cannabis and realizing how beneficial that was for my PTSD symptoms, and then the following year, finding this company that was making THC infused lube for sex that allowed me to have penetrative sex without pain for the first time in my adult life and my brain exploded.

Ellen Scanlon (07:22):

Cannabis is showing a lot of promise for symptoms of PTSD, and in December, 2022, President Biden signed an incredibly important bill into law. It’s called the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, what it means is that at the federal level, for the first time, it will allow for study into the impact and potential of cannabis as medicine. It’s a really big deal and hopefully will be the beginning of large scale research studies on the plant.

(08:06):

You’ve probably heard people talk about PTSD and the responses it can trigger in your body. They often fall into three categories, fight, flight, or freeze. Ashley explains how cannabis became a tool for deescalating her strong reactions around sex.

Ashley Manta (08:28):

I can’t speak for everyone’s experience, so I’ll mostly focus on mine and my sort of default trauma reaction is dissociation. It’s what’s called the freeze response, where you completely disconnect from your body. And what happens with post-traumatic stress disorder is that your body doesn’t integrate and complete the stress response cycle, which is a normal thing that we all do on almost a daily basis, is like something comes up and we have a reaction and then we integrate it and then the cycle completes, and lasting trauma can kind of get you stuck in that cycle. And so I was very much stuck in dissociation and it was very easy for me to leave my body during sex and not be present and to not be able to identify what felt good in my body, much less what didn’t feel good.

(09:16):

What I found with cannabis was most helpfully, of course, soothing the pain with penetration like that was, in and of itself, if it did nothing else for me, that would be the reason to use it. But it was not just that, it was also helping me slow down and actually feel the body that I am residing in and helping my brain, instead of going on vacation during any kind of stressful or triggering situation, being able to feel the discomfort and breathe into it and slow down and honor what’s coming up, instead of feeling angry with myself for reacting that way or the kinds of guilt trips that we lay on ourselves. And cannabis was a really useful tool to have, it’s not going to fix your trauma magically, but it, I think, is a valuable tool to have, as well as other tools, to help you deescalate and ground when you get stirred up. And so being able to reach for that and know that I had that in my toolkit was invaluable to me.

Ellen Scanlon (10:22):

I really hope that with additional research, we will have more tools in the future. Scientific studies, plus the magic of the cannabis plant, feels very powerful to me. Another aspect of women’s sexuality is tied to unrealistic standards of beauty and behavior. That feeling that no matter what you do, you can’t get it right. Ashley has some thoughts.

Ashley Manta (10:50):

It is tough to be a human in a body in the society broadly. It is especially difficult to be a human in a body where you have a vulva and you were socialized feminine, where you were taught that a lot of your value lies in your purity, but simultaneously also your ability to please a partner and that there’s only a few correct ways to have a vulva or a vagina, that it’s supposed to be wet and tight and hairless and smell like spring rain and taste like honey and rainbows. And also, you’re supposed to have this very trim body that is muscular but not too muscular and flexible, but not too flexible. We could drive ourselves mad, just completely mad, trying to be all of the things that we’re supposed to be in our bodies and especially as they relate to sex and pleasure, where you’re supposed to enjoy sex, but not too much because you don’t want to be a slut, but if you’re a prude or if you’re “frigid,” quote, unquote, then that’s a problem too. You could just twist yourself in knots.

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I think the more that we can shut out those voices, all of the societal, religious, family of origin bullshit telling us how we’re supposed to be, and instead, getting real quiet and real still and looking inside and saying, “Who am I? Who do I want to be? What feels actually authentic to me?” And my pussy’s not going to taste like spring rain 98% of the time, unless I happen to be lying in spring rain maybe. But to get to a place of acceptance and knowing what your pussy tastes and smells like so that you know if something is off, because that happens, to be in touch with our bodies instead of trying to create as much space between us and our bodies as possible. And I think cannabis really helps to bridge that gap, where you’re not just racing around, you’re not just feeling so numb and disconnected. You’re actually quite present and embodied and sensual, things smell and taste better when you have cannabis coursing through your veins in various ways. So I think it’s a powerful way to start to undo the damage that we all carry from living in this world.

Ellen Scanlon (13:15):

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, nearly 75% of women will experience pain during sex. For some women, pain is rare or happens only once, but for others, it’s persistent, whether it’s because of endometriosis, injuries, menopause, even IBS, it’s a common problem that isn’t discussed very often. Ashley explains how cannabis lube can help if you have pain with sex.

Ashley Manta (13:54):

For pain with penetration, I have found that because THC is a vasodilator, it’s going to bring more blood flow to the area and more blood means more supple tissue, it means more responsive tissue. It’s the difference between running after you’ve warmed up and stretched versus running when you’re ice-cold. Cannabis is that warmup stretch process without having to do anything except apply it. And I think that’s very helpful by increasing pleasurable sensations, while also decreasing painful sensations and allowing someone who maybe has been at the mercy of their body’s responses to feel a little bit more in the driver’s seat, which is incredibly empowering.

Ellen Scanlon (14:37):

In episode 189, Ashley shared how sex experts really wish that weed lube was called weed marinade because you need to apply it and then wait about 20 minutes to feel the effects. Don’t forget, it’s worth the wait. Ashley shares how she shops for weed lube.

Ashley Manta (14:59):

I think it’s really important to buy from ethical producers. I think as much as possible, buying from people of color, women, people who have been marginalized by the war on drugs. So just be a savvy consumer, read the labels, read the certificates of analysis, make sure that what you’re getting is what you’re supposed to be getting and do your homework. Mostly that it’s a third party lab and make sure that that’s available and that it’s free of residual solvents or pesticides or other kinds of microbials, it’s good to know that you’re ingesting clean medicine.

Ellen Scanlon (15:35):

Weed lube with THC is only available from dispensaries in legal states. The THC is going to bring more blood flow to the zones where you apply it, it increases sensation and makes orgasms feel stronger, but it won’t get you high. My favorite products for sex that have THC are all from women run companies. Remember these names and buy them when you see them. In New York, there are legal dispensaries now, and you should check out Pleasure Oil from a brand called Her Highness. You’ll really only need a few drops for longer, stronger, and more dispersive orgasms. Aside from the cannabinoids, it has an extract from a non-cannabis flower that is used in cooking, and it makes your tongue pulse and salivate, so you can imagine what it does for you during climax. Her Highness Pleasure Oil has an organic olive oil base, and it also contains kava, peppermint and a hint of vanilla. Yes, it is edible.

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In California, I have two great sex serums for you with THC. One of my longtime favorites is Quim. Quim is a self-care brand for humans with vaginas and humans without vaginas who love vaginas. Quim has two fantastic products with THC, Night Moves Intimate Oil and Oh YES, which is a latex friendly version. Also in California, look for Lavinia, a company whose mission is to open the communication around positive sexual experiences through products that enhance sexual pleasure and orgasms. Lavinia’s Cannabis Lubricant with THC is called Oh.Hi. With all these products, remember to wash any sex toys or vibrators and yourself with soap and water when you’re done. If you’re not in New York or California, Her Highness and Quim both offer CBD only versions of the products that ship to all 50 states. CBD only serums are really great if you experience any pain with sex. And remember, 75% of women feel pain with sex at some point. And as Laura Eisman, the founder of Her Highness told me, these are not just lubes, they are orgasm enhancers. Women who try them don’t look back.

(18:20):

A big reason why I created this series is because not enough women know that cannabis is great for sex. In a recent study of cannabis consumers in America by the data provider, New Frontier, only 25% of the people surveyed who are already cannabis consumers, only 25% of them are trying weed for sex. Let’s bring that number up. I hope that you share this secret with your friends, and please send them an episode from the series. Cannabis really can bring that extra sparkle to your sex life, whether it’s by enhancing your sex drive, alleviating pain, or helping you relax and feel sexy in your mind and your body. You’ve got this. Have fun, and please let me know how it goes.

(19:21):

I hope this episode has helped you answer some of your burning questions about sex. And please reach out to hi@dothepot.com or DMS at Do The Pot if you have any comments, questions, or tips to share. Thank you for listening to How to Do The Pot. For lots more information and past episodes, visit us at dothepot.com. Thanks to writer Alyssa Yeoman and producers, Madi Fair and Nick Patri. I’m Ellen Scanlon, and we’ll be back soon with more of How To Do The Pot.