Exploring the Wisdom of Sexual Fantasies with Artemisia de Vine
In this episode of The Better Sex Podcast, I talk with Sexual Fantasy Expert, Artemisia de Vine. Artemisia shares her personal story from her restrictive upbringing through her discovery of sexual fantasies and expanded consciousness to becoming a professional dominatrix. During this conversation, we dive into the exploration of desires rather than suppression of them in forming a healthy relationship with desire for sexual play. Atemisia brings a wealth of training and expertise in creating emotional and psychological safety during sexual play, offering listeners a unique exercise to explore sexual preferences. With insights from her upcoming book "The Spirituality of Smut: The Surprising Wisdom of Sexual Fantasies," Artemisia enlightens us on the transformative power of erotic imagination. Join us as we navigate the journey of embracing our deepest desires for a more satisfying and spiritually connected sex life through fantasy.
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Deborah [00:00:05]:
Welcome to the Better Sex podcast. My name is Deborah Katt and I am your shameless host. This is the better Sex podcast where we have unfiltered conversations about sex and relationships and the many possibilities so that you can figure out what works for you and have better sex and satisfying relationships on your training terms. I truly believe that a sexy world creates a happier and a safer world. And if you want to do your part to create a safe and sexy world, please hit like subscribe and leave a comment today we are going to dive into the world of my guest, Artemisia devine. She is a sexual fantasy expert who teaches the world's leading sexperts the meaning of our sexual fantasies. Author of an upcoming book, the Spirituality of Smut. I can't wait to hear more about that.
Deborah [00:01:07]:
The surprising wisdom of sexual fantasies. She's a certified somatic sexologist, has a BA in anthropology and a former sex worker as a professional dominatrix. On that note, I just have to say welcome and I'm so happy that you're here and just say that I'm really delighted to make this connection. It's a new and exciting connection. So I am looking forward to learning more about you along with my guests. And so tell me, how did you get here?
Artemisa [00:01:44]:
Thank you so much for the warm welcome. I've been really looking forward to having this conversation with you as well. So you've been such a warm and inviting person and you've got such a beautiful, beautiful perspective towards sex. So I'm sure you've got lots of wisdom to offer as well in this episode.
Deborah [00:02:03]:
Thank you. Thank you. So how did you start? How did you get to be a sexual fantasy expert?
Artemisa [00:02:13]:
It's a good question, isn't it? There doesn't seem to be a lot of people focusing on sexual fantasies as their area of expertise. There's lots and lots of sex educators and sexologists who are focusing on how to be more present in your body, how to be more connected with your partner, how to improve techniques, how to resolve relationship problems, how to get consent, how to do techniques of kink and various different things. But there's a lot less focused on the psychological aspects of what turns us on. And I am if you honestly, after working with thousands of clients, creating experiences in my former role as a sex worker and professional dominatrix, it is absolutely key. It's central. If you want mind blowing sex or bdsm, you have to understand the role the mind plays in sexual and honestly, it was through my client reactions that I started to become fascinated with this aspect, aspect of ourselves. And also, you know, if I take a few steps back. Even before that, I was interested in sexual fantasies because I had my own sexual fantasies, which were very confusing to me initially when I first had them, because they were the exact opposite of how I wanted to be treated in real life.
Artemisa [00:03:44]:
I was becoming actually excited by, you know, being dominated when the last thing I wanted to be dominate, dominated in real life, I wanted to get respect as a woman. And the last thing I wanted was non consent. But non consent was super exciting in my own personal fantasies. So I had to make sense of those as well. I needed to understand, why does the mind become excited by these things? Is it just something like all of the things that I got to read about to find out? Like, I'm searching everywhere, trying to find out, make sense of the erotic mind. And I discovered a book called the Erotic Mind by Jack Moran, who's known amongst sexologists as somebody who you turn to. It's sort of the Bible, really, to turn to, to understand the erotic mind. And I'm totally grateful for his book and his work, and I wouldn't be able to be where I am without him.
Artemisa [00:04:42]:
But he does reduce the source of all sexual fantasies to, in his words, unfinished childhood or adolescent business. He looks through the lens of a therapist that's pathologizing even when you're being open minding and accepting. It doesn't. It does not. It's not the right. We will get to what I think later in just a moment, but, you know, let's build your curiosity about that. But there's other people who've been offering things too. Like Michael Batter has an amazing book on arousal, and it's absolutely worth reading.
Artemisa [00:05:22]:
He's made an enormous and very positive contribution to understanding what sexual fantasies are, but he also reduces them to pathogenic beliefs from your childhood. And even though he's, again, very open minded and doesn't try and make them go away, and he's happy to engage them and is a very switched on person, I wanted to change the lens with which we're looking at these things. I'm looking at it from a sex worker lens, from lived experience of actually being paid to become the sexual fantasy of thousands of people and getting in there with the sweat and the bodily fluids and the emotional reactions moment to moment. Right. And notice how certain parts of fantasies have direct effects. I'm in there experiencing it, experimenting with it, and getting responses. And that opens up an entirely different perspective than somebody sitting behind a desk doing therapy with their clients around their sexual fantasies. Right.
Artemisa [00:06:29]:
I noticed that. They're just stories. Sexual fantasies are stories. Oh, my goodness. What if we look at them through the lens of the magic of stories? What do stories do? They transform us from one state of consciousness to another. That's what all stories do. If you go and watch a movie, you do think you're just being entertained. You just think it's fun.
Artemisa [00:06:57]:
But actually you're going there to feel. Go on a journey that will change you by watching the characters. And you're there to feel all of the feelings, not just the nice ones, as you go through, you want to, you know, you want to get angry at the villain. You want to feel triumphant when. When they get their comeuppance. You want to all of. All of the things. But every single story is about desire.
Artemisa [00:07:28]:
Every story is about desire. And it's about how we transform to meet our real desire, not the desire we thought we had.
Deborah [00:07:43]:
Let me explain.
Artemisa [00:07:45]:
Let me explain what I mean by that a little bit.
Deborah [00:07:47]:
Yes. Tell me more about that.
Artemisa [00:07:50]:
Let's look at a story then, shall we? Let's just imagine there is a movie, a story about Joe who's trying to get to Las Vegas in time to win his wife back before she marries someone else. He has a desire to get his wife back. Otherwise, there is no story, because there is no story. If you. If everything's nice and it stays nice and there's just some more nice and there's nothing to overcome, there's no goal to try and achieve. There's no story. So even in a subtle level, even when you think there's no desire, there is a desire. You take a closer look at the stories.
Artemisa [00:08:29]:
We're doing a really exaggerated version of one now. But even the really sophisticated fancy pants breaking the genre stories are based on this. So he's got a desire to win his wife back. On the surface, his desire is to get to Las Vegas in time to win her back. And he's lost her because he's focused on work too much and he's neglected giving her his attention. He thought, in his mind, that he was working all of that much to earn the money to support the lifestyle that she wanted. He thought he was actually doing that for her. But in reality, he was really doing it for his own social status.
Artemisa [00:09:11]:
And caught up in a whole lot of cycles of things. That entire journey to Las Vegas is going to be the bulk of the story. And we're going to become very interested in how he. Well, probably has a whole bunch of shenanigans with like, say, a sidekick who comes with him and plays the role of being the annoying antagonist who does things and gets in the way, which forces him to become aware of certain things and transform and change. Let's say the sidekick is a playboy who makes them get late because he gets caught up in a motel at sexy times with somebody and then demonstrates a way of being with her that did not see her, was taking from her, not giving her, but being in the Playboy style. Right? And that make anything selfish and that makes them late. And maybe the main character who's trying to get to Las Vegas in time doesn't even put two and two together, but unconsciously he's starting to transform, going, ah, this is what it's like to be, you know, and with somebody who's being selfish while they're saying they're doing it for you. Or like, this is, there's all sorts of things that will happen unconsciously and, and he will change.
Artemisa [00:10:30]:
And by the time he gets to the climax of the story, yes, I use that word, the climax of the story, he is, he has changed. He's been forced to change by encountering all of these challenges that he had to overcome in some way. And he is either changed enough to be able to actually win his wife back and meet her properly or to attempt and, or he hasn't changed enough and he will fail. And that's the a tragedy story rather than a, you know, a happy ending. But he's, it's all about his transformation, and that's what makes it interesting. We as an audience are not interested in watching if there is not a transformation that happens. We just don't, we're not even conscious of it, but we're not interested in watching. We get bad reviews if there's no change in the character throughout the whole story.
Deborah [00:11:34]:
You know, I'm listening to this as somebody who is not a huge movie person. Like, I'm just not, I'm more of a book person, which is, you know, the same experience. But I'm thinking, you know, as I'm hearing you, I'm like, oh, that's the piece that we're looking for, that transformational piece. And I think sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in the special effects and everything else. And you're right. If there's not a good story, if there's not a good transition, something that pulls us in, we're not going to be that interested. We're not going to be so interested in watching. And so I'm curious I'm curious how that relates to fantasy.
Deborah [00:12:28]:
Tell me more.
Artemisa [00:12:29]:
Hey, love to tell you more. Yes. Books are even. Yeah, books are delicious. Wonderful. All stories are really keep us fascinated by the obstacles that that main character, that protagonist, has to achieve in order to get his transformation and meet his desire or hers. But we just used a he, so we'll do it. I was going with he.
Artemisa [00:12:55]:
So we're actually only interested if there's obstacles in the way that have to be that force transformation. So we. We're actually fascinated by the challenging parts. If everything just goes nice and then it stays nice, and then it's just nice. There is no story. It's like a, we're on our way to Las Vegas, but this thing went wrong, and now we have to navigate this, and now we have to discover ourself in this way. And all of the comedic rubbish that probably goes down in order to get there, like, that's the bulk of the story is actually obstacles, sexual fantasies. Like, we think.
Artemisa [00:13:32]:
We think we love sex. That's just nice. If you ask most people what their favorite sex was, the most amazing peak experience in the past, they'll tell you the part where they'd already broken through. They'll go, oh, my God. We felt so connected. I just lost to myself. I could just feel nothing but pure pleasure. It was so incredible.
Artemisa [00:13:51]:
It just. I just couldn't think anymore. I was just feeling. It was just primal. We were in sync. I didn't know where I finished. And they began. It was just amazing, this sex.
Artemisa [00:14:02]:
But what they don't tell you is how they got to that open state. What made it exciting to get there, because you don't start that open. Do you start with your guards up. You don't start dancing like no one's watching. You start standing on the edge of the dance floor, working up the courage to get on the dance floor. You have to transition from closed to open. Sexual fantasies are the exact story that we need to hear so that we can open to the vulnerability of connection. They transform us, and they include all of the perfect obstacles for us to encounter and transform so that we can get to the other side.
Artemisa [00:14:51]:
We can let our guards down. We can dance like no one's watching. We can lose ourselves in the moment. And once I recognized that, I said, oh, my goodness. Sexual fantasies aren't necessarily focused on your childhood unfinished business. They are just mimicking the cycle. They're just a very normal, healthy mechanism. They are exactly what we need just to change from one state of consciousness to another.
Artemisa [00:15:19]:
There's always going to be resistance to opening up to somebody else vulnerably, intimately showing them your body, showing them what turns you on, letting them see you, like, jiggle all of your bits in complete abandonment. There's going to be. That's wonderful.
Deborah [00:15:42]:
Yeah. So I just need to pause for a second because I really. You know, what I heard you say is something that I hadn't heard before that is just so profound. And that is when we talk about the best sexual experiences, the peak experiences, as you said, they didn't start that way. Right. There was unwrapping that had to happen before we get there. There. And I think in some ways, you know, hearing you say that makes me think like some of, you know, some of the best experiences I've had have been with people in situations where I knew I was never going to see them again.
Deborah [00:16:28]:
Right. So. And, you know, maybe that's part of the fantasy piece, is it's like, you know, knowing that that's. That it's. It's this one thing, and I get to be everything all at once and safe from consequences.
Artemisa [00:16:43]:
Are you afraid to be exactly where.
Deborah [00:16:47]:
It'S like in other situations? Certainly with my partner, we've been together a very long time, and it's taken us a while to go through all of the different roller coaster rides of sex to, like, oh, now there's this way that we're together now that is so different than it was in the beginning. Partly because we've unwrapped a lot of stuff, and so, you know, partly because we know what look is going to work for each other, and partly because, you know, we're committed to, like, continuing to feed the fires of attraction and togetherness. But, you know, just again, what I really heard you say is, like, getting past that obstacle. Like, that's. That's. That's the fuel for the fire, if I'm hearing it correctly. Is that accurate?
Artemisa [00:17:40]:
Yeah, that's right. So what happened? Like, I love your story, by the way. You sound like you've got. You're so onto it with your partner. That's excellent. What I noticed that was super exciting to me is, number one, this is not about pathologizing from your childhood. It's about a. It's just a natural, normal, healthy resistance that every ego has right to being vulnerable.
Artemisa [00:18:06]:
That's just a normal, healthy thing for us. We have to shift from one state of consciousness to another. And sexual fantasies are the vehicle or a vehicle with which we can do that. They shift us from closed off and thinking in our everyday logic that is linear and knows how to do tax forms to. Oh my God, everything's now an innuendo. I know I'm horny now. I now think differently, I feel differently. I'm, you know, the hot dog is now looking very suggestive, like it's a different way of being.
Artemisa [00:18:46]:
It changes your mind, your, your emotions, your, even your nerve endings. That's an altered state of consciousness to become horny, right? You're now different. Horniness is just the first layer of where you can go. There's an incredible, like I just described before, some of those peak experience that's also a beautiful erotic state of consciousness. So sexual fantasies is the story we need to hear. Specifically our egos need to hear in order to stand down and let us be vulnerable enough to connect and to just let go and just go into pure experiencing. So this is a natural mechanism. It doesn't necessarily mean you've got childhood wounds or things that you need to go see a therapist about, although that might come through in your fantasies too.
Artemisa [00:19:35]:
I'm not saying that's not there, I'm just decentering that part. And recentering this saying, even if you had the perfect childhood, just the natural, healthy, normal psychological mechanisms of having to move from one state of consciousness to another requires us to come up against our own internal resistance. Our fear of vulnerability and sexual fantasies are genius because they include our ego's fear of vulnerability in. So many fantasies are egoic in theme and they resolve that theme for us. So they don't just include the fear, they include this antidote. So it's the. The poison plus the antidote equals this access to these expanded erotic states of consciousness, these beautiful places, these feelings we're trying to feel together. And when you recognize that when I sat my clients down on the red velvet couch in the divinery and I asked them all about their peak experiences and their sexual fantasies, I didn't try and live out their sexual fantasies as a sex worker.
Artemisa [00:20:48]:
I listened instead. How did their mind make it safe for them to open up and drop deep into those states? And then I brought that part to life in our real life play. And that's when really, really interesting things started to happen. That's when people would. That's when they would. Somebody I just met 2 hours ago was, wow, I had no idea I could feel this way. I've had so much experience with sex or with BDsm for years and I thought I'd felt everything because I'd felt subspace and I'd gotten really horny and had all these sexy times. But what is this feeling? This is new.
Artemisa [00:21:34]:
This feels. This is astonishing. What even is this? I don't even know what it is. It feels like drugs, except not drugs, because it's not escapism. It feels like being the most real me that I've ever been. This is who I always was and was trying to find. This is. This is the.
Artemisa [00:21:53]:
And I realized they're finding their biggest sense of self. When their ego gets out of the way. You have a little ego dissolution experience. Your ego is now appeased. It stands down, sits in the backseat of the car. It's not clinging to the driver's seat anymore. They've now got access to a bigger sense of self beyond their normal idea or experience of themselves. And they can share that with someone else.
Artemisa [00:22:20]:
And that, to me, is astonishing. Like, how can our wonderful little smutty stories of threesomes and, you know, golden showers and strap on play or gang bangs end up being these profound experiences that you could absolutely many people do interpret as spiritual experiences of awe and wonder and amazement and connection.
Deborah [00:22:47]:
So good just hearing you say that, like, my whole body is all lit up. And so I know that you have an amazing story of how you got here. And I'm wondering if you could share just a little bit of that, because it does lead to the red velvet couch, which I want to talk about more, and your discovery. So would you be willing to share a little bit more about. About your backstory and how you started discovering the tools of opening up?
Artemisa [00:23:24]:
Okay, so give me a clue on which part you were interested about, because I can focus on anything.
Deborah [00:23:33]:
Just your whole journey into being a dominatrix and your whole being able to figure out how to ask the right questions. What is it that where to focus in? Because, you know, you can look at somebody's fantasy and say, oh, you want black leather and high heels. I can do that. But what you're talking about and some of the process that you brought in to help create these experiences is more than just what is it going to look like.
Artemisa [00:24:06]:
It's more than just what it's going to look like and what physical activity you're doing this emotional and psychological aspect as well. Because we are entire beings. The best sex is obviously going to include the whole of us, not just part of us, right? Not the more. The more you include, the more amazing it's going to be. But yes, I did. I mean, I was brought up very christian in an extremist breakaway cult like, well, it wasn't officially a cult. I don't know. It's a cult like, it's got all of the hallmarks where sex and anything to do with the body was evil.
Artemisa [00:24:42]:
And we weren't even allowed to have herbs in our food because that would excite the senses too much. No drums in the music. That might make you too connected to your body. The body was pretty much evil. You had to focus on spirit only. And I was having sexual fantasies from a very young age. In fact, if you're wondering if you're normal, sexual fantasies do start from about age five. This does not mean that five year olds are ready to engage in sex with themselves or with anybody else.
Artemisa [00:25:13]:
They might be curiously exploring themselves, but it's not. Not the same thing. They're not ready for that at all. They don't want it. They don't even understand it the same way we do. But your erotic mind is forming at the same time as your muscles are forming and your personality is forming and your idea of the world is forming. So I started having fantasies that I didn't understand from a very young age, while being told that all of this stuff was terrible and from the devil, you know, the clitoris is the devil's doorbell, don't press it. And then I.
Artemisa [00:25:58]:
But I was discovering all of these interesting expanded states of consciousness. Like I would. I would through prayer and church, very fervent prayer access, these expanded states of consciousness that were ecstatic, that felt like feeling one with God, that felt like being connected with something much bigger than myself, which was open and profound. Later on, as I got older, I put different meaning on that. But at the time I only had the model that I grew up with it to interpret that. So I've been encountering these expanded states of consciousness for a long, long time. And later on I was afraid of sex. And I had to choose whether or not I was going to suppress it or whether I was going to choose to figure out what it meant.
Artemisa [00:26:50]:
I was afraid. I was experiencing other people trying to take from me because I had these giant boobs of doom from age twelve. And they were. They were desiring me in a way that was for their benefit. They weren't trying to give to me, they were trying to take from me. And that felt like using and objectifying and how that was horrible in real life. Like, I hated it, my sexual fantasies, I was turned on by it. What was going on there? How can I even make sense of that? How could I even.
Artemisa [00:27:27]:
I don't know. Then later on, like I was. I was really conflicted. And I had the choice of either shutting it down and shutting suppressing my desire altogether, which I think a lot of people do choose, or going towards it. And I chose, if I'm afraid of something, I'm going to go poke it with a stick and see how it works. I'm going to go tickle it and see, see if it has a reaction. So, long story short, I ended up doing a whole lot of different things, all sorts of different things, including working in sex shops and, and learning from some of the world's most incredible sex educators and erotic practitioners of the erotic arts and learning all sorts of things. But it wasn't until I actually decided to become a sex worker and a professional dominatrix that it really hit home that I started to really deeply understand how this works.
Artemisa [00:28:24]:
And that was some of the most enlightening and powerful experiences of my life happened through that. It was, it was profound. But when I first started sex work, I just wanted money, didn't I? I just wanted money really quickly. I had an operation to pay for and I needed a lot of money really quickly. So I was, I wanted money and they wanted boobs. All right, then I said, let's do an exchange. And I didn't try to make sex holy, I didn't try and make it clever. I just went along and asked them what they were interested in.
Artemisa [00:29:04]:
And they were all different. Every single one of them was different. It was like walking into an improv acting scene where they all knew what the script was and I didn't, and I had to just guess and I didn't know what I was doing because they had meaning, making, running in the back of their mind about what sex is, that they thought this is just the way sex is. But actually it wasn't. It's the way they need the sex to be. And I mean things like they might. I had to work out on the fly in the heat of the moment. Are they excited by someone who's going to take control and is strict and dominating? Are they going to be more excited by somebody who looks at them with big old doe eyes and, and is all innocent and non threatening so that they can feel like the manly one who's showing me the way? Or is it more exciting if I am a bit closed off but then become wild and lose control? Like, you know, cracking the, the facade of the corporate person and seeing that they're really primal, animal underneath, you know, what do they like at nurturing? Like I'm doing, doing this for their own good.
Artemisa [00:30:21]:
Did they like it when I was actually being a bit more like a schoolgirl bully? Each of them would, do they like it primal where I'm being talking dirty? Did they like it sensual and intimate? What were they trying to feel? I had to work out really quickly what they were trying to feel. They had no way of describing it to me because they thought, that's just how it is. Okay, I need to take a closer look at their turn ons. I need to understand what's happening here. Turns out I was really good at winging it. And when I trusted their turn ons and I figured it out and I actually became the thing that they needed me to become, that's when really somebody that I just met. Just, just met. We would both end up in these places where our guards were completely down and we'd sometimes even cry.
Artemisa [00:31:13]:
They came in, you know, initially on the phone call, they said, you know, you know, you know, how much. What do you look like? This is. They went very, very, very first started before I got sophisticated. It was just a newspaper ad, so they didn't even know anything, right? So they're just like, how much? What do you look like? Do you do this sex act? And they're already horny and that all they can think of. They're not even thinking of me as a person. They're just thinking, have you got the right bits? I need you as a prop in my fantasy basics. And by the end of that session, we were both astonished to the point of tears and wonder of what just happened. Wow.
Artemisa [00:31:55]:
And it felt like. It felt like, I don't know if we have life before and after this life. I have no idea. But it really felt like what I could see in their eyes and they could see in mine was the part that has always lived and always would. If there's such thing as a soul, that's what was. That was what was in the driver's seat by the end. And I was like, wow, what's happening here? What even is this? And I could feel how it felt a little bit similar or a lot similar to those awe and states that I got through prayer younger, like, wow, this is an altered state of consciousness. This is the same sort of feeling, and we've got that same sort of connectedness and that same awe and wonder and feeling, like we're both connected to something bigger than ourselves.
Artemisa [00:32:46]:
We can't explain. And we are the bigger version of ourselves, and we just did it through really dirty sex by being little pervs together. What is even happening here? What even is this? And that's when I started going, okay, I've got to figure this out. And then it's the anthropology brain kicking in. I can't leave on it what's happening here? What's happening? And that's when I started that process. I set up a play space in Sydney. Became much more sophisticated about it than just having those newspaper ads and, you know, sitting down the red velvet couch, have them, you know, we had a little moroccan tea ceremony, and I would ask them all sorts of questions. And I got better and better, really honed that process of where I could find out what is their story? What is their sexual fantasy story, what's the emotional aphrodisiacs? What were the particular obstacles they needed to overcome in order to let go? What were their poisons and what were the antidotes? So, for instance, your point is amazing.
Artemisa [00:33:58]:
When you said, it's not just the black boots that is the source of excitement, it's what body language did she have? What attitude did she have when she's wearing those black boots? Was she being like a schoolgirl bully? Was she being cold and distant and disdainful? Was she being needy and desiring and begging? Was she being like, what kind of. What's the story? And lots and lots of my examples that I had available to me by just seeing other people working and reading everything I could focused on. Just like, he wants to be spanked, so let's spank him. He wants to be weed on, so just wee him. He wants anal play, so just get the strap on out. And they did not focus on what made it safe for that to work. So they get sexual excitement, but not necessarily break through to the other side. It was the magic is when I realized, oh, my goodness, you have to include the poison and the antidote.
Artemisa [00:35:08]:
That's when this works. And an example would be, no, but let's just go with, initially, the first one that I was talking about before I was, you know, I didn't want to be really dominated in real life. I hated it. I didn't want to be really used or objectified in real life. I hated it. And yet it was super exciting in sex, but. And when my lovers tried to live that out with me because I told them it was exciting for me, it didn't feel like I fantasized. It didn't quite.
Artemisa [00:35:43]:
I could get sexually excited, but it wasn't quite right. Something wasn't hitting the right spot because they weren't including both the poison and the antidote. They were just including the poison.
Deborah [00:35:54]:
So I just want to be really clear that I get what you mean by including the poison and the antidote. So, for instance, are you saying that the poison is the thing that they're doing, or is that the fantasy and the antidote is the resolution? I'm a little bit confused there, and I just really want to make sure.
Artemisa [00:36:18]:
I don't blame you. I don't blame you. Thank you for asking for clarification. Thank you. Excellent. The poison is what our ego fears about will happen if we're vulnerable. If I ask someone out on a date, they might reject me, and I might get laughed at. Do that.
Artemisa [00:36:37]:
I'll stay. I'll stay over here. Even though I really want to ask them, oh, no, I can't do it. You know, I'm scared. I'm scared of the rejection. If we're vulnerable, we. There's always. It's very like we're always afraid of vulnerability, even though we want it at the same time.
Artemisa [00:36:56]:
So the poison is what we fear would happen if we do become vulnerable. The antidote is the thing that resolves that fear for us and makes it safe for us to. Let me give you an example. In sex so that it's not so intellectual. Let me tell you about the smutty part. That's the fun part, right?
Deborah [00:37:17]:
Yes. Let's do it. Put them on the smut.
Artemisa [00:37:22]:
If you are being used in real life, that just hurts, right? If you are being used in a sexual fantasy, there is them taking on the body language as though they're being selfish and they're just doing it for their own sake. Well, how that benefits me as somebody fantasizing about it is if they're being selfish and they're just taking for their own sake, their needs are already met. I no longer have to focus on taking care of getting them off. I can now focus on myself, and I can just surrender into the moment, and I can believe that I am desirable because they're selfish. They wouldn't be taking from my body and if it wasn't desirable to them. So I'm no longer afraid of that. My body's not good enough. I'm no longer afraid that I have to hold back because I'll be too much, that it's too selfish and needy.
Artemisa [00:38:24]:
If I ask for my needs to be met, they're using me. They're doing it for themselves. If you just try and use someone for real, like, if you take that fantasy literally, you're just trying. Your partner, just trying to use you for real, and be selfish, you don't get the antidote. The antidote in the. In the fantasy version of this, as they're selfishly using you and turning you into just an object, they're also magically touching you exactly the way you want to be touched for as long as you want to be touched at the right pressure, the right stroke. They're giving you all of the right things that you've been craving to have, but you felt too selfish or unsure about or wasn't sure about taking for yourself. They're now giving you everything, and you get to experience it just, just perfectly.
Artemisa [00:39:13]:
So if you bring it to real life, you have to only role play that you are being selfish and objectifying them. While actually the scene is entirely about giving that person the touch that they've deeply yearned for for a very long time, which is the exact opposite of being selfish. You've got the poison and the antidote, and that creates the right psychological response for that person to be able to just receive for as long as they want to, as greedily as they need to, in order to open up.
Deborah [00:39:50]:
I love hearing that, and that just makes so much sense. And I want to kind of go in a little bit, like, maybe I've got a couple of questions on some of the other examples. So again, just to make sure I've got this clear, so somebody comes in to talk to you and what they say is, you know, I want to be pegged.
Artemisa [00:40:11]:
Yes.
Deborah [00:40:12]:
Right. So there are a lot of things that can go with that.
Artemisa [00:40:19]:
Right.
Deborah [00:40:20]:
But being pegged or pegging is the action. And so you're going to. So that wouldn't necessarily be the poison. The poison would be the reasoning around pegging. Is that accurate?
Artemisa [00:40:37]:
Yes. Yes. You're onto it. So pegging is just. Is just touching a part of the body that feels good, doesn't have any meaning in, you know, inherent meaning, any meaning we put on. And for anyone who doesn't know what pegging is, that is using a strap on, a dildo on some. And often it is anally, you know, anal sex. So, yes, thank you for reminding me.
Deborah [00:41:05]:
That not everybody might know that term, but, yes, so, and, but there's. So what you're saying is there's lots of reasons or lots of fantasies that might go along, the setup around it. It could be, you know, that this is like, they're two sailors and, you know, they haven't been. They haven't seen a woman in a long time. And it's just, you know, there's sexual release there or it could be ceremonial, you know, an opening, if you will, or it could be. So the story is what you're calling the. Would the story be the poison or the antidote?
Artemisa [00:41:48]:
The story is the entire shebang. It is the vehicle with which we discover the poison and the antidote. And the poison is just like, you're a lovely sailor example. Let's go with that. Let's pretend they're a heterosexual person, and they've come and asked for pegging. And they say, and I heard this a lot, I'm not gay, but I have this fantasy. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with being gay, but I actually do believe them in this instance that they're not, that it's just not necessarily suppressed. It might be.
Artemisa [00:42:20]:
It might be suppressed homosexual desire, but very often it's not. It's just their poison is. They've been told only gay people enjoy anal sex.
Deborah [00:42:32]:
Oh.
Artemisa [00:42:33]:
They believe that if I like being touched on the bottom, if I access my internal natural pleasure, that is there, I must be gay. And so their fantasy has said, oh, you're afraid to do that in case you're gay. Okay, let's include the thing you fear. Let's make a scenario where the way that you get this touch is through another sailor and there's no access to any other women around. And somehow proximity and forced proximity will create the situation, which makes it temporarily okay for you to have this sex. Maybe it's forced on you. Maybe it's. I don't know, something happens.
Artemisa [00:43:17]:
But what will happen then is now that they. They've got permission to actually feel the thing that they wanted to feel, they will actually get touched in exactly the way they want to be touched. They will now have access to it, and there'll be something in the way that that story unfolds that doesn't just live out the fear, but actually creates a scenario where they get the exact opposite to what they feared would happen. Right. They actually get to feel. I haven't prepared. I don't have enough. Our imaginary sailor thing.
Artemisa [00:43:52]:
I need to know more about the fantasy before I could work out what the exact anti date is. But I'll tell you a really common one that's got a similar thing that I am aware of, which is I'm going to be. I can't touch my bottom. If I enjoy anal sex. That means I'm girly. Because only girls surrender. Men are never vulnerable. Right? I am a manly man, so I can't touch my bottom.
Artemisa [00:44:17]:
And yet bottoms, by the way, everybody, like, having this belief is absolutely heartbreaking to me because it's like telling a woman that she's only allowed to touch her clitoris and not allowed to touch her g spot. Like, it's like your penis is the equivalent of your clitoris while your internal prostate pleasure, your internal. That's like your g spot that's naturally pleasurable for every. All of the people who have prostates, that's naturally pleasurable. But there's all of these social pressures and there's all of these beliefs that mean that you feel as though you can't be vulnerable enough to be the one bending over and receiving and surrendering and letting go and feeling you. You think that that's only women allowed to do that? So the fantasy might be mistress. I really want you to peg me. Can you call me a sissy slut as and make me wear pink panties while you're doing it? All right, so there's the fear included.
Artemisa [00:45:20]:
There's our poison. Like, if I'm vulnerable, I'll be turned into a girl. I'll lose my social status as a boy, as a manly man if I'm vulnerable. But this fantasy has to give permission. So somehow she might, like, in his fantasy, maybe she is actually, she's calling him a sissy slut, but she might be even mocking him and making him feel humiliated. I have to listen to hear the body language that his fantasy was. I can't make it up. I have to listen and bring that on.
Artemisa [00:45:52]:
But there might also be this antidote where she's actually having the time of her life and she's turned on despite herself. Oh, I'm not rejected for being a vulnerable man. I'm being accepted by a woman in my vulnerable state. Oh, there's the antidote. I feared that I would never be loved by a woman again if I wasn't manly. But here I am being open and vulnerable, allowing myself to feel everything. I just want to let go and just feel. And I'm being desired by a woman at the same time.
Artemisa [00:46:22]:
So.
Deborah [00:46:23]:
Good.
Artemisa [00:46:25]:
The exact opposite to what you feared would happen. Poison plus antidote, right?
Deborah [00:46:30]:
Yeah. Okay, that makes that. That makes sense. So I'm curious, like, what are some of the common fantasies that you've run across? And I know what you're saying. I definitely heard that. Like, you know, each. Each one has a very specific to the person, but I'm imagining that broad strokes. There are some common fantasies that you ran across.
Artemisa [00:46:56]:
Yes. So there are genres of fantasies. Like, there's noticeable patterns. Like, we've got you know, three people wanting to be turned into maids. This week we've got, you know, two people who want to have foot fetishes. This week we've got, you know, a whole stream of people coming in now suddenly all wanting to be turned into a slave and humiliated or embarrassed or a whole bunch of people who want to receive, who want to worship a goddess and just be in central awe of her body. These are themes that are recognizable. And you can say, okay, that's that kind of genre fantasy, you know, gang bangs and.
Artemisa [00:47:44]:
And public sex and cheating. And all of these things are very, very common fantasies being. But they're always. All roads lead to Rome. They're always just ways to create the safety for your mind to surrender to vulnerability. All of them. It's all of them.
Deborah [00:48:08]:
I want to go a little bit deeper into this idea of creating safety. And what are some of the ways that you're able to create safety or that people listening can create safety in their partnerships to play at this level.
Artemisa [00:48:28]:
It is an art form. So this is why I actually train some of the world's leading sex workers and dominated, and I also train sexologists. And a whole lot of therapists come to see me that I don't necessarily advertise directly to therapists, but therapists are recognizing that I have something very important, and they want to learn it for themselves, for their own sex lives. But they also want to be able to use these tools with their own clients to be able to understand these psychological parts of our sexual fantasies, how to bring them out of our heads and into our beds safely. And we don't have the. It is absolutely important to be able to start recognizing these things and that. And I have to teach people how to do them. Like, if it's not something, I can go just do this and it'll all be safe.
Artemisa [00:49:20]:
Actually, it really does take learning some skills. And I also teach people who are. Who really want a rich sex life, who they want to. They're self discovery people, and they want to use the lens of the erotic to make a really rich self discovery and share this part of themselves as well. So the very first thing that I teach people is how to form a new relationship with desire itself, to understand how desire works, to form a new relationship with this part of ourselves. We haven't known how to trust because you don't trust a force of yourself that makes you seem to desire things you don't want to do, like cheating when you don't want to cheat. Right. How do you even make sense of that.
Artemisa [00:50:04]:
How do you understand what it's trying to do? And then I teach people how to break down the map so that they're including the right parts. And then I teach people the skill of how to ask for the right things for each other so that their psychological and emotional safety is included in their play. So those. Those three skills are part of the training that I. That I offer. But what there are things you can start doing straight away. There are. You can start revealing your unique patterning because yours will be different to your partner's.
Artemisa [00:50:41]:
The things your ego needs to hear in order to become safe, to become turned on and vulnerable, will be different to your partners because they have a different ego. Their ego needs to hear a different story in order to be a piece. They have different fears. Right? So one of the things we're always trying to do is we're trying to create safety for ourselves by having the other person be turned on by exactly the same thing we're turned on by. It's like, I can't show you my fantasy about pegging unless you're into pegging too. Like, if you're. If you're not fantasizing it, you're not into it. I can't share this part of myself with you.
Artemisa [00:51:21]:
It's too vulnerable. If you don't naturally want to take on the body language that creates the poison and the antidote for me, then it's not real. You're faking it, and it's not safe for me. And we've got this attitude of, I have to find someone who's naturally got exactly the same erotic narrative story as me. We have to. First of all, the very first thing in order to make ourselves safe is to let that go. We have to allow ourselves to be who we are. We have to allow ourselves to be different.
Artemisa [00:51:53]:
We have to shift our source of safety from. I need you to be turned on by what I'm turned on by, to. I'm here because I want to be here doing this with you. And we go into play zone together. It is a privilege for me to be in play with you and allowing ourselves to be different. If you do not allow yourselves to be different, you cannot be safe to even begin to have the real conversation about what turns you on.
Deborah [00:52:24]:
I just have to pause you there because I really want to underline. What I'm hearing is that safety begins with oneself and not searching outside for that person's approval or that person's to match exactly. But to show up and really allowing yourself to be seen and what that actually means is allowing oneself to be vulnerable.
Artemisa [00:52:59]:
Yes.
Deborah [00:53:00]:
You know, so I just. I. It's so often that I hear, you know, they're looking, somebody's looking for a safe space, or the space isn't safe, or this person isn't safe. And it's like, there are certainly places where that's true. And more often than not, what I see is people not being willing to actually come back to themselves and say, this is who I am. This is what I want to play with. And I invite you in to come and join me, and I want to do it with you. Like, I loved hearing that piece there.
Artemisa [00:53:43]:
Yes. Yeah, you've got it. You nailed it. Beautiful. And I think one of the first things you can do, though, to be able to do this is to create the safety to go, I'm different to you is this. I've put together a little freebie exercise you can go and do just to get this started, where you can reveal to each other just a little bit of your own wiring without having to reveal your whole fantasies. You can do this by simply Google searching celebrity images of people that you find hot and go look at several different images of the same person and go, okay, I'm a trap. And it's obviously, they're physically attractive, but we're not focusing on the physical part here.
Artemisa [00:54:24]:
We're looking at the psychological part because they're the same physical person in each of the photos. And yet you'll find yourself drawn to some photos more than others. Why? That I'm going to walk you through how to start understanding. Oh, that one turns me on more because it represents this kind of poison and antidote for me. Oh, and by looking at the body language and the subtle differences, and you will feel it. You'll go, like, I can see they're attractive, they're beautiful in all of these pictures, yet I really feel drawn to that one and not that one. Why? So you can do that with each other and start to realize, oh, we are different in a non threatening way. And also, it's a really fun exercise, and you can feel at the same time how fun and intimate it is to share your differences and play with them together and start, like, just taking on little body language things for each other and getting a reaction for each other.
Artemisa [00:55:25]:
So you can get that one@myfantasyis.com. And that'll get you on my mailing list, too. So you can find out about all of the other sexual fantasy breakdowns that I send out to people and show you how it works. And you'll find out about the spirituality of smut book when that comes out as well.
Deborah [00:55:43]:
I'm so excited about that. So in a minute, I'm actually going to invite you to also talk a little bit about what working with you might look like. But I want to take a quick moment and just tell people how they can support the better Sex podcast. Because as we've been talking, sex is a complex subject and it can make or break a relationship. And unfortunately, most of us don't grow up in an environment where talking about sex is welcome. And that's why I offer a sexual mastery breakthrough session. It's a personalized one on one experience so that you can have more satisfying sex life. And let's face it, a podcast, even as great as this one is, is just not enough.
Deborah [00:56:35]:
You really need to personalize things. And so I invite you to check out the show notes and join me for a breakthrough session. So that's one way you can support the podcast. And I would love to hear more about what does it look like to work with you.
Artemisa [00:56:56]:
Well, I was just thinking about how amazing that sounds to work with you. That was fantastic. Everyone should go and work with you. That's great. They need some mastery. So I'm focused more on the advanced people. So people who've already done some self discovery, they've already done some sex workshops, learnt a few things. How I work is I'm mostly focused on the traineeship.
Artemisa [00:57:29]:
Like this is, this is an art form and I'm teaching people to be erotic artists. How do you really understand the erotic psyche and create incredible experiences that explore the depths of yourself and share that with somebody else on that, you know, how do you use play and embodiment and explore states of consciousness together? So I teach people over Zoom and I teach them over a six month period of time. They have to commit to a six month period of time. It's, yeah, I'm tuning, I'm training everybody who's going to be the ones that teach you. And as my trainees keep finishing, I'll have a list of people who are like, if you want to learn this method and you're not quite as advanced yet, these people will be the ones you go and you go and learn from. They can be your coach or your therapist or your sex worker.
Deborah [00:58:17]:
So you're training the trainers?
Artemisa [00:58:19]:
Yeah, I'm training the trainers mostly. And sometimes I'll take people who are not the trainers because, because they're just advanced and they're ready for it and they're just hungry for this kind of life. But it's six months, it's over. Zoom. It is non explicit. I don't do any explicit activities with people, but I do guide people through exercises. So it's not just talking at them, it is about taking them through guided visualizations or physical exercises so they can feel the mechanisms that work for themselves, themselves. Teaching them practical tools as well as the philosophy.
Artemisa [00:58:54]:
And the three pillars of it are that you first learn the desire compass, you first learn a deep and rewarding and rich two way relationship with this incredibly wise force inside of you, because it knows the way, it knows how to open you up. It's incredible. And the second part is understanding and mapping your unique and erotic narrative through your sexual fantasies and your peak experiences. And the third one is the journey, which is how do you actually bring this out of your head and into your bed and share it with somebody else in such a rich way? Like, how are you going to get them to get it and do it? And that's one of the things with sex coaches, is they're always teaching their partners how to do the things, because that's by nature of being a sex coach, is you geek out about this stuff and you learn more techniques, then you have to be the one to bring it to your partner who doesn't know them and they get in teacher role. This is a way of how not to do that, how to get your needs met together. Oh, my God.
Deborah [00:59:59]:
That sounds so good. So, so good. So is there anything. So what would, if somebody's listening and what was, like the one thing that you want to make sure that they did not miss along the way? If they're going to walk away with one thing, what might that be?
Artemisa [01:00:23]:
You can actually trust your desire. You can trust it. You just need to understand what its language is really trying to say. It's not designed to give you instructions for how to behave in the outside world. You know, desire is wanting. I want, and we're not used to trusting that because wanting often happens in the form of spending all of your tax money on hats or eating all of the chocolate and none of the vegetables. Right. It doesn't seem like a wise force, but that's when we're trying to take it literally.
Artemisa [01:01:02]:
But when it's not, so don't. Don't ask it to do what it's not made to do. It doesn't know. We need to tune into a different organ of the psyche to know how to behave in the outside world. What desire is a genius for how what it knows is it knows exactly how to appease your ego so that you can change from one state of consciousness to another. It knows how to take you home to yourself. It knows the way. So if you know how to form a relationship with this part of yourself and you can trust yourself, you'll be able to invite other people into that journey with you.
Artemisa [01:01:48]:
So.
Deborah [01:01:50]:
That sounds like the beginning of another incredible conversation. So I hope you'll come back and we can, can dive deeper into desire. But that is so yummy and juicy, and I'm just so delighted to have you here as my guest for, you know, please, where's the best way to find you? And we will put in the, we'll put it all in the show notes. But I just want to, you know, for those of you that are driving down the road, where's the best way for people to find you?
Artemisa [01:02:24]:
I would love to come back and talk to you again. So let's do that for sure. Okay. The best way is actually to get on my mailing list, which. So go get that freebie that I'm offering you. I'm teaching you some of the stuff that I'm teaching some of the world's leading experts. Come and learn the secrets@myfantasyis.com. That will get you on my mailing list because us people who talk about sex get kicked off social media all the time.
Artemisa [01:02:51]:
I don't focus so much on trying to build my social media platforms because it's just not worth it for us. So I make my mailing list a source of lots of generous tips for you so that you're motivated to be there. But if you're interested in working with me, you need to go to artemisiadivine.com. That's we're going to have all of the links to other podcasts and blogs and ways of actually getting coaching with me and seeing where I am because I'm going to be in the northern hemisphere. I'm in Australia at the moment. I'm going to be in Europe. And who knows, I might be, might offer some workshops. Well, I'm just waiting for some people to invite me because I don't have any of the connections.
Artemisa [01:03:40]:
So if you want to bring me.
Deborah [01:03:42]:
In, we'll have to have a longer conversation offline. Thank you so incredibly much. My guest today is Artemisia devine, and she is all of that. I'm so excited to have been able to have this conversation, this deep, rich conversation about fantasy. Please do yourself a favor, get on her mailing list. Check out her freebie, myfantasyis.com. All right, beautiful. And again, everything will be in the show notes.
Deborah [01:04:17]:
Thank you so incredibly much for coming to share your wisdom with me and with my guests or with my listeners. And yes, part two down the line. Absolutely so. And it's so, so lovely. Thank you so much.
Artemisa [01:04:36]:
Thank you.
Deborah [01:04:38]:
And if you have gotten some wisdom from this episode, I invite you to share it far and wide. If you know somebody who needs to hear what we've been talking about, please share this episode. And otherwise, I invite you to, like, subscribe, comment wherever you get your podcasts. And on that note, keep it sexy.