« Modern Love

How to Feel Yourself

2022-09-21 | 🔗

“Everyone deserves an orgasm” is a fair way to express Diana de Vegh’s attitude toward life. Diana is a firm believer in the pursuit of pleasure — of all sorts — for all people.

As we kick off a new season of Modern Love, our host, Anna Martin, gets Diana’s advice on how people can infuse sensuality into their day-to-day lives. (Hint: a chilled beverage, a warm bath and a juicy mango.)

We also listen to Diana’s story about seeking help at a sleek sex shop in downtown Manhattan. Why should a legally blind 83-year-old woman have to struggle so much just to get a sex toy?

Modern Love is back for a new season! New episodes drop on Wednesdays. Follow the show on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Diana wrote a modern love essay with a juicy title. It's called. Why won't anyone It helped me in this sex shop and we're going to get to it. I promise, but first I want you to meet her. The way I did hello good to meet. You They had great she's legally blind, so she needed a little bit of help getting settled there sort of like a screen. Yes I'd the mike. I think I see as it were, Diana had pink. freaks in her hair and she was wearing these incredible sneakers diana you shoe game beats mine yeah you, yeah yeah? I mean down and worship. Immediately made me feel beautiful. I think your wonderful it's as simple as that diana is a psychotherapist she's had her own private practice for decades and she's. Eighty four so she's had a lifetime of experience when it comes to intimacy and to sex
lately short of made it her personal mission to talk about the stuff, to normalize our desires. I do think that everyone We should have a vibrate and it should be on her nightstand, because we want to be able to think about our own pleasure, to her sensuality isn't just about sex. She says it's about how you approach the world as a person with a body Diana dovey is one of the oldest writers to be featured in modern love and caressing is celebration of her age and the self knowledge that comes with it I say, is called. Why won't anyone help me in this section and its red? by holly balance. I didn't see what the problem was. I may be a little older than most I'm eighty three
and legally blind, but generally speaking, people are pleased to welcome into their shops and boutiques, but here in this sophisticated, so ho sex store. No one was asking if I needed help finding anything, The friend I had invited specifically to review and report on the merchandise seem, with vanished? Had she been the magic a eyes in a mist of embarrassment by the array of multi color, dildos hoops what'd, she expect in a place like this I had it in mind to purchase a couple of delightful toys, because I believe and the pursuit of happiness for people of all ages and proclivities. I was ready to buy, I buy there to be no one to sell cell so I am visually impaired. If anyone can
lady by my cane. I needed assistance. Now, more than ever, I needed my companion when I asked her. She seemed game to accompany me on this. Expedition. Why was she hiding now functioning adults shouldn't be Asheville, because there in an environment dedicated to pleasure. It would be absurd in this day and age. Wouldn't it my motto: is sex for one sex for to sex for all who desire at, and that emphatically includes those of us who are deep into old old age. I find brutishness around sec shops baffling. I grew up in the nineteen fiftys, the age of doktor freud's, pronouncements concerning virginal orgasm
back, then people thought the use of toys would diminish the primacy of the almighty male organ, but now who we really still believe that men are so fragile unless they are a woman's one and only source of sexual pleasure, they will lose their status as masters of the universe. Why would we impose such a burden on these poor things? I look at my shopping companion at last and I laid a comforting hand on hers. I said why the timidity I thought you were joking when you said it was a sec shop. She said we don't do this or I come from lord mercy. I got almost hear her blushing,
My dear, I said, total pride in all of our adventures. No shame no judgment. Was there a problem. With the idea of an old blind social worker, a sexual enhancement guru or was the problem, my clear voice, penetrating the hushed environment, I grasped her arm firmly and we sashayed together down the aisle, pink purple be blue turquoise, so many intriguing items and such delicious colors. I will not detail the equipment on offer
as I want to encourage everyone to have their own personal journeys of exploration. Imagining a bar of music floats through the window, bringing flash back memories with especial playlist to assist in adjusting the rhythms of pleasure. How convenient to have that soup song of electrical energy tucked into the night, stand drawer, instant inspiration.
A new, modern meaning for the old time out, my companion and I completed our purchases. She had gotten the swing of things and followed my good example. She chose the purple. We left the store, swinging twin shopping bags and stood at the corner laughing to friends, enjoying the snapped, the practical and part of life there should be no age limits on the sensual sexual life. Erotic energy is always age appropriate. It is a way of being in the world. A twist. We add to our mundane routines way flirt with the bus driver. Let a perfect piece of chocolate. held tantalizingly on our tongue or bodies, are our friends.
just trays to carry around our heads. We register the world through our senses and although in old age we are for, failure with diminished hearing envision. Let us use our deficits to pull closer to taste, touch and smell, or in the final act. We must send her pleasure it's how we honour the prodigious gift of being alive. Why not continue the celebration with some time measures from a sec shop. I have a long time love. We. two wrongs. Now we will lose each other one of these days, but in the meantime, my focus
his own closeness and humor in the secrets of our flesh, my partner and I find each other we delve and discover he sits on the edge of the bed, removes his glasses, folds them neatly and places them on the nightstand. He is deliberate, my love when he turns his head. I can't see his expression, but I believe I can feel it and I know what will come next. He turns off the light tucked in his arms. I match my breathing to his a touch, a word, a caress
I think down five fathoms deep. I stretched out and gathered up. I prepared a fly. We live in old, buys this man and I, but for the moment we live strong and desire sure in the bright joy of our flight. Everything diana debate does seems infused with sensuality, and I We wanted to know how I could bring that energy into my own life after the brig. I want to show me how, typical year the mid term elections
are a referendum on the party in power, but this year things filled different and what happens in november won't just be about Joe Biden. I have very little hope for the future. The country it'll be about something bigger. Our democratic system under direct threatened demography is much more fragile than I realise, and as the politics heat up we're gonna need some cleared. Election is, I must have heard Herndon from the new york times. It's the runner, find it wherever you get your pockets. Diana, I loved your essay so much, and I was especially drawn this quota of years. I have it here, you said
Our bodies are our friends not just tree, to carry around our heads and that's an incredible image. Will we read our lives through our physicality. We live in shame based culture, theirs body, shaming, a go go and if you are an old body of course, it's horror. I mean it's not just shame it's body, horror. Also. We live in a rush and grab culture. Let's grab a drink, let's grab it So, for me, the need to fight for our pleasure. And our delight in sight and smell and touch and feel and
hearing I mean we need to be expanding this all the time that really hit me right. My heart, because I do feel like I'm a pretty ground, If the person omg I'm grabbing coffee, I'm grabbing drink, I'm grabbing five minutes for myself. You know at home before I run out to go meet some friends and I I like it because I'm super exit verdun, but this idea that you're touching on of like slowing down and really getting in touch with your embodied self something I do so were rarely, let's I had One night, you know just to myself, love for you to sort of tell me what I should do on that night to get in touch with my sensuality. Ok,
first thing is all mechanical devices are turned off. The phone is of the text is of the email is off, everything is off off off and that is to limit distraction and would assume limit distraction. We adjust the light, I mean: do we pull the curtains? Do we let down the blinds? Do we light a couple of candle we're going to create an ambience For ourselves you have to take yourself out of everyday minutes. What do I do? Next? Are you planning to have anything to eat in this evening? I would love to eat something in this night. My ideal would be some perfect mank, choosy syn
the militias and do not take it and let it run down your arm. Have a beautiful girl of something would every life whether sparkling water, weiner, champagne, maybe a piece of chocolate, now? Where do you want to sit? Do you have a lovely his velvet, sofa that you sink in it the scratchy secondhand so far, unfortunately, but I do have a wonderful swift, puffy bed who feel bad beautifully turned down, possibly with a sex toy tucked under the covers just so it's handy, then I think that it is a lovely maintain. I have some to admit you, don't love, that's my god, our entire relationship
gone in one day? I myself for one thing I just I don't think I've had a bath maybe twenty years I just can't get over the sort of like. sitting in the soup of your own fulfilled all you have. This is a key point. Ok, now you take a shower. for when you get home from work, wait you take a pre bath, shower exact. Why does not always? No one ever told me this. A shower and you're all lovely and clean? May then you put on a roll of some kind, something very, very sore So maybe now is the time for the back. I mean body, oils rum oil into every part of your body because its luscious. How do you know when the night, this kind of
sensuality or how would you bring it to an end? The obvious way, according to me Is that when we are in bed, we explore own sexuality and With a toy or without a toy now the point is not the toy. The point is: what is the pleasure yeah I mean. Maybe it turns out that it's the crook of your arm that just feels, oh, my god, so many sensations right I mean sometimes it may just be the sensuality. Just I evening of the senses and that's enough, and sometimes though we really want to see Do we want a little kind of work? as him do. We want a more intense one. What is it that we want that costs to us, and how do we here call the.
I'm thinking about this wonderful night that you ve laid out. You know I am, listen, I live alone, but if I were a parent with a kid, can a night would be impossible. I guess it would be so. Someone didn't have like the time. Where the resources for a full night of self pleasure. some small things. Someone could deal. I think it's great always to have a secret, and that could be that were wearing a neutral color dress, but then we have an outrageously colored slip. We have to understand that self appreciation. Self exploration is radical and I'm saying do something radical. What are your plans for the night?
You gonna go home mango. I will take a bath but I know about the pressure shower bath. I will take about this. One wonder in our next episode of fathers sits his young daughters down in the living. He has a confession. I told them there. something that I've known since I was a young child, but when I tell I'm still the same person, it's just that you're gonna to a secret that breaks up a family coming up and modern love Modern love is produced by julie about her own hans, beautiful, christina.
so any licit dudley. Its edited by Sarah citizen, this episode is mixed by alisha, but each tube dan Powell created our modern, lovely music and the original music throughout this episode, digital pretty by he mature bologna and they'll go locally especial thanks anna diamond at item no well franco in bianca my oki modern love. Column is edited by Daniel jones meal. Is the editor of modern lift projects? I'm Martin thanks for this. Just so you know I really did take their bath and it was as Diana would say, fabulous I.
Transcript generated on 2022-09-23.