Heather Shannon (00:01.278)

Hello, loves. You'll notice that we had a podcast last week, and we had been doing an every other week schedule. But September is here, and I am going to go back to weekly. So today we're going to have just a little mini story, little mini topic. I'm going to tell you about the podcast survey that I just created that I'm very, excited about. And then I'm going to tell you why you should actually survey your sex life with your partner.

It just occurred to me while I was creating the survey. was like, my God, they should do this with their sex life. So hopefully you will. Okay. So the little story I want to share is a story about wildness. So as some of you may know, I have a new little kitten. He's actually like medium size now, but he was one pound and three ounces when I found him on the street and

being found on the street and being an orange boy, I've learned a lot about orange cats and the reputations for being a little spicy. He is like semi-feral. So he's very loving, but he's also a little feral. And I think what I've learned about through parenting him is that one, we want to embrace and accept all sides of our partners, right? So

the side of them that is sweet and loving and also the side of them that is more spicy. And I think that we want to do the same thing for ourselves. It's interesting with animals, pets in general, I think we're so able to accept them as they are. It can be a very unconditional kind of love on both sides. And as humans, a lot of that sort of wild energy is socialized out of us. And we can often have more of a sense of

this is what's acceptable, right? Like we're supposed to be civilized. We can just be nice and sweet. We shouldn't have a sexy, spicy, wild side, right? So just to give an example, my kitten could be literally curled up on my chest, purring for like 45 minutes straight. It is so soothing to my nervous system. On the other hand, I might wake up and he is...

Heather Shannon (02:26.732)

terrorizing my 18 year old cat, literally, it's like hard to believe he does this, literally doing like a running jump, as if he's like a flying through the air, like a wrestler or like a flying squirrel or something, flying through the air, landing on their backs in like a piggyback position. So he's like pouncing on them essentially. And he's playing and he thinks it's a great time. They do not. And so then I hear all the yelling and the swatting and all that. And then he tries to do it with me.

where he's like, great, let me bite off all your fingers. I literally had to buy animal training gloves to make sure I didn't get fully scratched up on my forearms. Because especially when they're so young, they're not the most trainable. Now he's starting to get the hint. But it took a while. And I was feeling slightly abused by a three pound cat. So the point is, we can have a lot of different sides, right? And the thing about it with this adorable kitten Felix,

He's not sitting there thinking like, oh, is this weird? Is this like weird? Is something wrong with me that I'm switching between super sweet per mode and ferocious pouncing, consuming my mom's fingers and hands? No. He's like, yeah, these are just the different sides of me. And you can tell when he's in the different modes. That's something I can tell now. So anyways, my point in bringing this up is some of the clients that I work with.

I think we have gotten very socialized, especially women, to be appropriate and that we don't share our crazy wild sexual thoughts and that that's like weird and embarrassing. Or that when we're having sex, we might like move in a weird way or just process things a little bit different. And so I'm hoping that this little story about my kitten.

can help you just like find and accept and embrace and love the wild, primal, or sensual, whatever your vibe is, sexual parts of yourself and maybe of your partner as well. Okay, so moving right along to our survey. I wanna know everything you guys think about the podcast. We're kind of in an interesting spot with podcast growth where I am

Heather Shannon (04:50.828)

very fussy and have high exacting standards of who I will allow to sponsor the show. It's not that there haven't been some opportunities. I also feel that if I'm going to go to the effort of creating some sort of content or ad for a company, one, I really want to believe in it. Two, I also want it to be worth my while. If it doesn't make sense for me to put that time and energy in financially, I'm not going to do it. So I do have a goal for the podcast.

to increase our downloads. I think it's a really, really doable goal. And I also wanted to share with you guys that even though we've been doing every other week episodes in the summer, the show growth in this past month in August, it's up 31 % over July. And this past week is up 43 % over the prior week. Wow, amazing. Thank you guys. Right? August is typically a month where people are just...

not as engaged with things. I'm wondering if the increase is back to school though. Something about back to school, there's like this magical thing where it's like, the magical thing is that the children are gone. It's not that magical, that you maybe have a little more time to yourself again. Maybe that's it, I don't know. But yeah, the download numbers per episode are up too. And so it's super encouraging. So even with just the two episodes.

We actually had more downloads in August than we did, I think, in like March this year, which was a full month with weekly episodes. anyways, we can get there. So especially with going back to weekly episodes, I really, really believe we can get there. But I want to make it, this is a win-win because basically in order to get there, need you guys to love the podcast even more. So if you are someone who has listened to a few episodes, at least if you're someone who's listened to all the episodes especially,

I would love to hear from you. I'm putting the survey at askasextherapistpodcast.com. There is a redirect happening there. So if you're listening to this like Monday morning, the redirect might be wonky. I will also put a direct link in the show notes. So can just click there. And if you do take the time to fill the survey out, I'm going to give everybody who fills it out a $10 Amazon gift card. I hate when you do surveys and they're like,

Heather Shannon (07:09.3)

one person will win $250 of Amazon. I'm like, it's never me though. It's never me. So everyone's getting 10 bucks, okay? So thank you guys for taking the time to do it. I'm really excited to just like learn more about what resonates about the show, what doesn't, what your podcast habits are, what you're into in general. And yeah, you'll get an Amazon gift card for doing it. So thank you for that in advance.

And then, yeah, while I was creating the survey, I was like, this is so great. I'm going to get to know them more. Right? Because for me, not surprisingly, given my line of work, it's all about a relationship. And podcasting is so weird, you guys, because it's so one-sided. And I've joked with some of my friends from growing up who listen to the show. And they're like, well, I feel like we are keeping in touch. I'm like,

no, you're listening to my podcast, but I don't know anything about what's going on with you. We have to actually talk. So the survey is also a way to do that. It's like a little mini way to build intimacy between me and my audience. So thank you guys. But some of the questions, I'll give you a little sneak peek. So it's asking you guys about some of your favorite things, what works for you, what doesn't. How many episodes have you listened to?

How did you discover this? So the way we can take this and apply it to our actual sex life is asking our partner, if we could never have sex again, what would be the thing you would miss most? I think that would be such an interesting question. If you guys do this, let me know. And you can always email me as well at askasextherapistpodcast at gmail.com with any comments. Or you can comment on the YouTube channel as well.

Um, is how else do you interact with it? So in your sex life, could be, what else does it for you? What else do you think might do it for you? Sensual things, toys. Let's take the erotic blueprint quiz. Let's, uh, let's take the, should try it.com quiz, right? Let's figure out what do we like? Um, so one of the questions I'm asking is, what do you usually do when you're listening? What if you asked, what are you usually thinking about during sex? Oh, you have to be prepared for the answer for that one.

Heather Shannon (09:27.34)

But it could give you really good insight as to where is your partner's mind going? Is it easy for them to stay present? Are they someone who's easily distracted? Are they feeling pressure and anxiety and urgency about all the other things they need to get done in life? Maybe, yeah. But find out. That's part of intimacy is sharing our inner world, right? It could be what's your favorite sexual experience we've ever had together?

and why, like what did you love about it? And what I like about these questions too is a lot of them are so positive, you know, to really figure out what floats your boat and what's the why. I think that's where the insights are gonna come. So anyways, I hope that this does encourage you guys to ask each other a few questions, do a little sex survey with each other. Do my survey first, please. But then as your homework, do a sex survey with your partner.

So I hope this little mini episode was helpful and we will be back with full length episodes next week. I already have a couple guest episodes in the hopper, so I'm excited about that. And I will keep you guys posted on how we're doing with our downloads goals. I'm very optimistic.

We also have a couple guest episodes in the hopper that are gonna be fun. I am preparing some fun solo episode ideas. And I also have a summit coming up in October. So definitely stay tuned, make sure you're following the show, take that survey and get that $10 Amazon gift card and we'll check you out next week my friends, bye.