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EP86 - The Deeper Meaning Behind Sexual Fantasies with Artemisia de Vine

aimeetakaya

Updated: Nov 13, 2024





Ever wonder if your sexual fantasies hold more meaning than just desire? Today, I dive into the connection between sexual fantasies and personal wisdom with guest Artemisia de Vine, a sex worker and dominatrix. 


We explore how fantasies can unlock deeper insights into our true selves, transforming both our relationships and our understanding of life’s beauty and joy.


In this podcast episode, Artemisia explores:

- How sexual fantasies can be a source of wisdom and deeper self-understanding

- How fantasies are symbolic stories, not meant to be taken literally

- How fantasies help resolve internal conflicts around sex and intimacy

- Fantasies often facilitate movement from separation to connection

- Three main paradoxes: self vs. self, self vs. lover, and self vs. community

- Why desire shouldn't be suppressed but understood for its insights

- Safe exploration through consensual play with a partner

- "The deVinery Method" and how it helps people understand their erotic psyche

- Integrating mind and body leads to more holistic experiences

- Desire is "genius," and how learning to interpret it accesses its wisdom safely

And so much more!


Artemisia de Vine is a sexual Fantasy expert who teaches the world's leading sexperts the meaning of our sexual fantasies, and how to bring them out of our heads and into our beds! Author of upcoming book: The Spirituality of Smut: The surprising wisdom of sexual fantasies.


Certified somatic sexologist, BA in anthropology, and former sex worker and professional dominatrix. Offering a groundbreaking new theory! Understand how stories work, and you understand why we have sexual fantasies - and how to create powerful, real-life transformative sexperiences that satisfy the real desire behind the story symbolism.


Find Artemisia on:

Celeb Swoon Technique free mini course - MyFantasyIs.com

Work with Artemisia de Vine: artemisiadevine.com


Follow Aimee Takaya on: 

IG: @aimeetakaya 

Facebook: Aimee Takaya 

Learn more about Aimee Takaya, Hanna Somatic Education, and The Radiance Program at⁠ ⁠www.freeyoursoma.com⁠⁠


LISTEN WHILE READING!

A: Hey there, welcome to the Free Year Soma podcast. Have you ever had a sexual fantasy that maybe confused you or disturbed you? Maybe you're not even sure what a sexual fantasy is. Well, today, we are going to explore how your sexual fantasies could be a source of wisdom and lead you to some deeper meaning in your life. So stay tuned. 


A: Every day, there is a forgetting, and every moment there is the possibility of remembering. Remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world, to the experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy, and here is where you free your Soma. I'm your host, Aimee Takaya. I'm here to help you move from pain to power, from tension to expansion, and ultimately from fear to love. 


A: Hi Artemisia, nice to see you again. 


AR: I'm so glad we finally got it together to have this conversation. I know last time we tried it you asked me some really interesting questions. I'm sure people are going to be fascinated. 


A: Yes, no, you were in Greece at the time and now you're back home in Australia and I'm so excited for this. I think this is going to be a very intriguing conversation. 


I'm intrigued and maybe for our listeners who don't know much about you or your work yet, when was it in your life that you came to this point where you recognized that there was a connection between our sexual fantasies and our spirituality or our inner wisdom? 


AR: Yeah, there is not an exact point. It was a slow burn, but there were certainly parts of my life that made it really crystal clear. And that was actually when I was doing work as a sex worker and a professional dominatrix. 


And clients were coming to me just because they liked blondes with big breasts. They didn't have spiritual intentions. And yet when I listened to their wisdom and listened to the underlying psychology behind their turn-ons and created a real life embodied experience based on what I heard. Extraordinarily powerful things started to happen that surprised me and my client completely. 


And they would start to have experiences that... Well, they would say things like, wow, I had no idea I could feel this way. What even is this? I feel like this is who I've always been, but I didn't know. I feel like this is the real me. 


I feel like I'm on drugs, except the opposite of drugs, because it feels the most real I've ever been. What is this? What's just happened? And both of them had to go, I don't know what just happened. That's a very good question. 


And that's when I started really taking it seriously that I wanted to understand how the sexual psyche works. How following somebody's fantasies and turn-ons that seem trivial, that seem sometimes even taboo and ridiculous. Sometimes our fantasies are crazy. But by trusting these stories and bringing them into embodied experience, something powerful was happening. 


A: Wow. Yes. And I mean, doing that work, that kind of... In that field, there is a container of safety that's just kind of a requirement for you to function and for the client to function and to be able to let down those walls in order to really get their needs met in that space. And so it makes sense in a way that given that there's this container of safety that you're holding, that other things can start to move. 


As a somatic educator, I imagine that this is obviously a very somatic experience to be in this sexual encounter with someone who's there to listen to you and respond to you, and guide you into this pleasurable experience. And in that container of safety, it makes sense to me. Why wouldn't other things start to emerge? 


Why wouldn't more authentic versions of ourselves start to arise when we're in that kind of container, and we're in that kind of relationship with a person such as yourself? That makes sense to me. 


AR: That's right. Yes, there's a safety to it. And also there is a tension that actually you don't get anywhere else normally at all, which is somebody who is focused 100% on your wiring. They're not trying to get their own needs met at the same time. They are actually curious about how you're going to get your needs met. 


And I know that most people will think that they are. No, actually, I'm very considerate lover. I absolutely prioritize the pleasure of my partner. But actually, there's all sorts of unconscious complications that happen when you're in a relationship. And there's two people's needs trying to be met at the same time, even when you're trying to be very generous and considerate and caring. 


But when there is a clear container, it's kind of like going to see a therapist. That therapist is not trying to get their needs met in the conversation. They're trying to have a deeper meaningful conversation with you about your stuff. And that is an entirely different kind of fish. So when they go home and have a deeper meaningful conversation with their partner, when they're trying to also get their own needs met, like that's a different, they're both real in their own ways, but they've got a different focus. 


And that is actually key to unpacking why sexual fantasies are so wise is when you actually do get to follow somebody's unique erotic wiring, the story, the narrative that is hidden in it all the way to the end, you get to find out where it was trying to take you all along. 


A: Wow. Okay, so let's unpack that a little bit. Like what exactly is what qualifies as a sexual fantasy? Because I think the first thing that I think of is like, I don't know, something from like a porno movie where there's like the mailman comes to the door or something and like Bouncing, wow, wow. But like, there's, I'm sure, like a really broad spectrum of what we could define as a sexual fantasy. So maybe you can give us some examples. 


AR: Now, that's a beautiful question. Lots of people get very confused around this and think initially that they don't have fantasies, but take a closer look, and they do. It's kind of like dreams. People think that they don't have dreams, but actually they do. 


So sexual fantasies are when you draw on something mental to become sexually aroused. Sometimes you can actually focus entirely 100 percent on your senses to become aroused. And this is actually one of the predominant ways that the embodiment community at the moment is experimenting with and talking about because it's been a missing piece. 


And it's but sometimes there's a mistake that happens when we then cut off the mind. We think the only way to get aroused is to go through the sensations of our sights, our smells, our taste, our feelings and really notice our somatic responses to those things. 


But actually, we also can tap into our emotions as a doorway to become aroused and the quality of interaction with our partner, partner engaged focused arousal, which can be romantic and loving, and you're drawing on that feeling of love to get excited. But it could also equally be your nemesis because your nemesis. Your nemesis gives you absolute quality attention like no one gives you as much a ninja as you as your enemies. 


But people can draw on that in order to those are the kind of people who get excited by sort of flipping things on its head and being a bit of a troll and getting excited by that. That can come through as well. But sexual fantasies is this other doorway where you're actually focusing on a mental image, and it could be. 


It could be like the porno with the male man coming to the door. It could be also why you're just with the person that is your partner, and you're romantically attached to them, and you're loving them, and they're currently not in the body language that turns you on. 


And it's completely unconscious, but you just remembered how they stood and how they held you last week, and you've now tapped into the narrative, your unconscious psychological, psychological narrative, to be able to become turned on in that moment by remembering what they did when you were first together or when you were at that romantic dinner or what they did last week when they experimented with handcuffs. 


Or it could be you imagining what might be going to happen with a real life person this Friday night and getting excited thinking about it and getting all turned on. So it doesn't have to be completely unrealistic. It can be about real people. It could be about, you know, just imagining what that person is that you just saw in the bus, what they look like naked. 


It could be imagining what it would be like when you watch some, some really fit people walk past you on the beach and imagining what it would be like if they came over and flirted with you and started playing with you and starting to get yourself excited from there or what it would be like if they hugged you even. But they can also be incredibly taboo. Sexual fantasies can be elaborate as well. 


They can go into entire stories and scenarios where you might, you know, there's so many different ones, but the common, really common ones are group sex, threesomes, domination, and submission, things of being exposed or used, romantic being adored by the entire village, you know, being a stripper and having everybody throw money at you. Like, it's all sorts of different things that can make you swoon and get excited. And people are drawn to different kinds of fantasies. Not all fantasies are going to be exciting for all people. 


And yet there are recognizable themes. So when I was working as a sex worker, and I talked to my other sex worker colleagues, we knew there's certain types of people be like, oh, that person's a foot fetishist. Well, that person's an inter-humiliation or that person's into cross-dressing. 


Oh, here comes another sissy slut. It's recognizable themes come through, and there's a reason why we keep being drawn to, like, right around the getting drawn to same things again and again and again because they are performing for us particular psychological functions. 


A: Interesting. So somebody who's having, like, you know, okay, let's take a really tame one and then, like, maybe let's take one that's a little more spicy. 


So that image of, like, oh, I see this, like, very attractive, like, fit person walking on the beach, and I'm now imagining, you know, what it would be like if they grabbed me in their arms and I was, like, you know, pressing my face against, like, their big muscles or something. What function is that particular fantasy, perhaps? 


Like, if you could give us an example of how that might be giving us a certain kind of psychological function? 


A: Did you know that your muscles are holding on to thoughts, memories, and feelings? If you have a tight neck or back, you're not just getting old. You're experiencing a buildup of tension from the life you've lived. Most people don't know this, but there is a part of your brain that can reverse and prevent chronic tension. 


When you relax your muscles, you not only move better and regulate your nervous system, but you also free yourself from the grip the past has over your body so you can live with freedom, confidence and enjoy your life now. How does that sound? Join me, Aimee Takaya, and discover what my clients are raving about at youcanfreeyoursoma.com


AR: I will very briefly, but then I'm going to give you a bit more context otherwise, it's not going to make sense. You'll notice very quickly that you might say to your lover, I just love it when you grab me and hug me and sweet me into your arms, and you'll notice that when they try and do it, they didn't quite get it right. They didn't know exactly what you said, and you're like, what's missing there? They did what I said, but something wasn't, the itch wasn't scratched. Why? 


And most of us then don't know what to do, what to ask for, and we don't want to offend them, we certainly don't want to hurt them, they did the thing we asked, and we kind of leave it there, and we think, oh well that person just doesn't have it. They ain't got it, maybe I have to find it somewhere else. 


But actually, once you start understanding what it is that you need, you can ask for it, and you can get it, but it needs to be the right sweet spot of risk and safety. It has to actually create all of the right psychological conditions for you to let go. And here's the crux. Here is my theory, which is a groundbreaking theory. This is not anywhere else. 


And I want you to know that even though there's some brilliant contributions to what sexual fantasies are coming from all sorts of different fields like psychology and the embodiment field and all sorts of different things, this one comes from sex work. It just kind of comes from my direct experience of living, being the sexual fantasy of thousands of people, and this is why it comes from a different angle or a different framework. 


Sexual fantasies are the exact story that our egos need to hear in order to let go so we can lose ourselves in the moment and change our state of consciousness from one state to another. 


They are consciousness-changing stories, they're stories of transformation that change us from one state to another by addressing exactly what our ego fears about being vulnerable and creating the perfect story that includes the fear, the poison, plus the exact antidote to that fear and allows our ego to stand down and even dissolve temporarily so we can access a bigger part of ourselves and just lose ourselves in the moment. 


And these stories affect us psychologically, yes, if you're just going to masturbate to one in life and stay still, you're still going to notice that it actually changed your body, didn't it? It excited your body, your body responded, your effect that they have on us, it's very real, and when we learn how they do that, we can create consensual play that we can share with somebody else that takes us to these incredible spaces of where our defenses are down, where we've lost ourselves in the moment, where we can move from I to we and sometimes even to feeling connected with all that is, those oneness experiences that are classic ego dissolution experiences. 


A: So the first word that kind of came to mind almost is like recipe. Like it's almost like this is like the exact ingredients that your brain needs at this moment, that your consciousness needs at this moment to, like you said, relax or dissolve into full presence in our physical body, but also into this state of elation or bliss. And it's probably also based on the person's individual constitution going to be kind of a mixed bag because we all have different things that feel good to us. 


We all have different sensory awareness in our body, you know, the touch that feels good to one person might feel ticklish or uncomfortable to another person, right? And so that's why each one of us is there, we're going to have these different things that excite or rouse or titillate us that are unique to our individual, like, I guess, soma, right, our body and our mind and our spirit. Mm-hmm. 


AR: Yeah, absolutely. We are all different, but there were, our turn-ons are as unique as our fingerprints, even though there are recognizable patterns. Each time somebody came through the door and said, I'm excited by cuckolding or threesome or being dominated by mistress, you cannot assume that it was the same as the last person who came through and told you a very similar fantasy. 


What I perfected was this art form of asking the right questions to understand what the skeleton of the story was. What was the important poison and antidote for them? What was the important way that they got through the paradox as inherent to sex? 


A: Right! 


AR: What are we talking about? 


A: Well, yeah, and I was just actually thinking about that, you know, like, is this, you know, when you talk about the paradox of sex, is this like the way that we might have a sexual fantasy that we at the same time kind of find revolting or kind of find disturbing or maybe are like a little bit like freaked out, like, why do I like that or why am I interested in that? You know, is that what you kind of mean when you say the poison? 


AR: That's the poison. The poison and the antidote is whatever it is that your ego fears. And let me make this clear. Ego, as an organ of the psyche, if you like, I like to call it that, has a very specific job. Its job is to create a sense of self and protect that sense of self very vigilantly. And its job is to protect your self-identity, your self-worth, and your social status. 


And in order to let all of you dance like no one's watching, you have to convince those gods that it is safe to do so, or they're not going to stand down. So imagine that you're inside of your ego structure, which is like a castle wall, and the castle is protecting you. And you know that you're an I versus a we, it's somebody else over there, is another person, they're not the same as me. I'm not merged with them at the moment, right? 


I'm being me, I'm separate. But I might want to connect with them. In order to connect with them, I have to get outside of the castle walls, otherwise, the walls are going to get in between us. How am I going to get these walls down? 


So you're walking out the walls, and you're going down the bridge, and there's three guards standing on the road, and they're saying, I'm not going to let you pass, unless you can convince me that your self-worth is safe. That your self-identity as a good person is safe. That your social status is safe. Otherwise, if you can't convince me, I won't let you pass because it's my entire job as an organ of the psyche to keep you safe. And to an ego, all vulnerability is dangerous. 


Vulnerability means somebody else could have power over you, and there's a possibility they could abuse it if they have power over you. So let's imagine that there's another organ of the psyche, and that's the one that creates desires and sends you sexual fantasies. And imagine that desire is just whispering little love letters in these guards' ears, going, oh, you're afraid. You're afraid you're going to lose face. You're afraid you're going to be a bad girl if you do those things. You're afraid you're going to somehow have people not going to respect you anymore if you're a sexual being. 


Fine. I'm going to include those fears in the fantasy, and I'm going to then also include the exact antidote to those fears. Because you cannot transform something if you do not include it. It has to be an alchemical reaction of including the thing that you fear in the story, plus the resolution to it in a way that makes sense to ego gods. 


And when I understood that, and we could create consensual play around that, people, it was often people's very first time of having all three guards stand down and then being able to walk out right out beyond the bridge, out into the open fields and mountains and oceans, and in infinite starry sky and experience the hugeness of who they are when those guards are not there, and the connection that is possible when those guards are temporarily let down. 


And then, of course, you have to go back into the castle afterwards, after your orgasm, after you, and remember that you are a separate sense of self, or you can't operate in the world. So it's not about permanently losing your ego, but it is about temporarily going into a state where it is still down, so that you can connect with the whole of yourself, with somebody else, with some, and life itself. 


A: This is so fascinating. What you're saying, I think, is bringing up the ways in which we have kind of created these boundaries of what I am and what you are, and we have labels for that, we have these different ways that we operate as people, and then when you kind of recognize another person as also human, meaning also essential being, meaning also someone who feels and experiences, that sort of is one of the first ways that we can break through that barrier of separateness when we both recognize each other as experiential living beings who feel pain and pleasure. 


And so that makes sense that in order to even access more of ourselves, we'd have to start being able to see ourselves as human. And I can see how a sexual fantasy, especially one that makes us uncomfortable, would start to hold up that mirror to our own, like you said, our vulnerabilities to the things that we're sensitive about or fearful of, and that that would also give us an opportunity to create, at least in an ideal situation, create more safety with those aspects of ourselves that we turn away from, that we're uncomfortable with. 


And in a way, you're pointing to a way for us to experience ourselves as more fully human when we're able to have all those ingredients and kind of that scenario that feels safe, where we can explore that. So what would you say about someone who is having these sexual fantasies but they're not accepting themselves as having them, but then the fantasies are persisting? What kind of environment does that person need to kind of work that out? 


Could they be like, I mean, obviously, some people are probably using pornography for that? Some people might be writing it out or fantasizing, or some people might just be living with it as this clenching in their body of something that they can't seem to work out. How do people move through this kind of stuff if they don't have like a dominatrix like you or someone like that? 


AR: Well, that's what I've actually done is I've gone and created a whole method, which is called the divinely method, so that people can learn how to do this else in their relationship, they don't have to be in a paid situation for this to happen. Because I wanted to, I learned about it in the in that ideal scenario of safety and that container where, but now I'm like, how everyone should know how to do this. 


So I created an entire method and trained some of the world's leading experts. And I train a lot of psychologists actually in how this works, so that they can share it with their clients as well. But it is the very first thing that I address in that method is, how do you form an embodied relationship with desire. 


Because what you're talking about there is a fear of desire. What do we do with this force that if we let it loose, it's going to make us spend all of our money on hats instead of paying tax? It's going to, we're going to eat all of the chocolate, we're going to eat all of the sweets in the whole bakery, we're going to and not worry and just cop the consequence and feel sick later. It's just we can't trust this force, can we? 


Like it's not making sense. It's not on our side, isn't it? And this is something that is dangerous. It's dangerous to ourself. It could harm somebody else that could harm, in fact, the fabric of society if we let it loose. So I can't let myself listen to the wisdom of this organ of the psyche. I'm going to push it away entirely and suppress it, which by the way, spoiler alert never works. Like, have you heard of the forbidden apple? 


Come on. So it doesn't work to suppress something. You know, as soon as you're not allowed to have those cookies, all you're going to think about is those cookies. Or you and you might suppress it so much that it disappears and you become, like your life becomes flat. You've lost all motivation and meaning because desire gives you your motivation and meaning, which becomes clearer later. But it also, how do I say this? 


You might also, you might suppress it, or you might give into it and cop the consequence, hang over later. But there's a third way. And the very first thing that I teach people is the desire compass. It's hard to have an embodied relationship with this particular organ of the psyche inside of you because there's lots of different voices going on inside. And each one of them has their wisdom, and each one of them has their blind spots, just like ego has its wisdom in creating a sense of self, also has its blind spot in being, you know, very vigilant about protecting that sense of self and not letting you connect. 


Each one of them has their advantages and their disadvantages. But when you know how to be in relationship with them, you can actively access their wisdom without harming yourself or anyone else, or the fabric of society. So what I learned from sexual fantasies themselves was how to get past that fear of harming, harming everything. 


I mean, I took a closer look because, on the surface, it just looks like, you know, if somebody's having a fantasy of being used and blackmailed into doing all of these sexy things with people that they don't even like, that doesn't seem healthy, does it? That seems like that's not how we want to behave in real life. What if you're being blackmailed into having sex with a chauvinist pig when you're a feminist? 


And yet these fantasies, that's super common and super exciting to people. And I wanted to understand why, why on earth would that be, where's the poison and the antidote in that? What do we get out of it? How did that actually give us, and we have to what feelings we got from it? 


We have to start from the somatics. Like, what did we get to feel? What advantage did this story bring us? 


What did it resolve for us? And I started asking these questions and well, let me give you an example, for instance. One of the paradoxes of sex, there's three paradoxes of sex that sexual fantasies overcome. The first one is self versus self. It's your own ego versus your own desire. Both desire wants, ego wants you to be eye and separate. 


Desire wants you to become we and just, it's the urge to merge, and they're both right, and they're both in contradiction with each other, and you can't resolve that. And it's the friction between the two that makes us sexually excited. The second paradox of sex is self versus lover. 


Like, what my ego needs to hear in order to let its guard down is going to be different to what your ego needs to hear to let your guard down. And who's do we focus on right now? Do we focus on mine or yours? 


If I focus on mine, I'm being selfish. Do you really want to be here? Have you been giving me oral sex for too long are you bored? Like, I can't let go. 


What's going on? I don't want to be a selfish person. I can't do that. I can't reconcile that. 


My identity is a good person. I can't get past that guard without that. I want you to be here with me. Otherwise, I can't let go. But at the same time, if I focus on their desire so they can get to where they're trying to go, how am I getting my needs met? 


I've sacrificed myself. Hang on, weren't we doing this so that we could be in the zone together? Our turn-ons are different and yet we want to be in this moment experiencing it deeply together. That's the whole point. How do we deal with this paradox is impossible contradiction of two rights being up against each other. 


A sexual fantasy will resolve that with the fantasy example I just gave before of being used in blackmail. If you're lying there receiving oral sex and you're worried that they're not really into it or maybe you've taken up too much time and maybe you should stop now and give them oral sex, if your fantasy says, oh no, they're going to blackmail you and use you, and they're going to give you oral sex until you're usually done. But they're using you, and they're blackmailing you, so clearly, they're doing it to meet their needs. 


So their needs are met. Oh, I'm not selfish. Oh, I'm not taking up too much space. Oh, poor me. Swoon, swoon. 


I'll just have to take a little bit more oral sex then, won't I? It creates this permission, this deep permission to be able to let go and receive. So this is actually, that's the second paradox and the third paradox is self versus community because there is always an inherent conflict between what is good for the individual versus what is good for the collective. 


And we really have to wrestle with that one in every day of our lives. I mean, you might want to sleep in today because you need more sleep, but you have to go to work because you committed to the team to get this project done, so you must sacrifice yourself for the greater good. 


And there is, there's not a society that I know about that does not have moral stories that tell you that what a good person is, is somebody who sacrifices themselves for the greater good. Because we cannot survive as a species without each other. So we do in fact have to prioritize at times the collective over ourselves and at other times ourselves over the collective. And this friction is there constantly in every day of our life. 


A: And can you give me an example of how that might show up in a sexual fantasy, the collective versus self? 


AR: Right. So this is an example of, they come out in so many different ways. I'm trying to find one that's not too shocking for a podcast. Going through the Rolodex here. Okay. So there's an example here of to be a good girl, you shouldn't have sex with everybody else all the time because good girls don't do that. Right. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a good example of what the community should want from you. 


A: Or maybe could it be like a woman who is sleeping with married man or something? Right. We could argue that that's not good for the collective. 


AR: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So we could argue that somebody who is sleeping with married men is not considering the institution of marriage. They're not considering how actually the entire society, politically and economically, is set up for heteronormative families of family units. Right. It's not if we start breaking this down, this is a threat to what we consider our system of how we make things work. And we attach morality to that. We say, oh no, you're going to be a threat to the way the system is. That must be immoral. 


You can't do that thing. And at the same time, it's also going to be a threat to somebody, the partnership of the person who is cheating. Right. It's going to actually have an impact, a very real impact emotionally and psychologically on that other person. So what if this woman who sleeps with these men didn't make a commitment at all to any of these people to be monogamous? And it's not her relationship that she has to be responsible for. What if she's actually just following her own desire in that moment? 


It's actually best for her individually to be able to express her needs and get them met. Right. But it's going to be a problem, isn't it? If it's going to be, like it's going to create real-life effect, just like eating all of the, 


A: all of the bakery goods in the bakery will create a real-life effect. Yes. 


AR: So I didn't think of this as a sexual fantasy, I guess you just brought up a scenario rather than... 


A: Well, I mean, it could be a fantasy that somebody's having that they don't know whether they can... Because like, I guess the question that I maybe this brings us into like another talking point here that would be interesting to explore. You know, I think sometimes people are afraid of their sexual fantasies because they feel like they're being asked to act something out that they don't want to act out. Or that they're afraid to act out or that they feel like there will be consequences for acting out. 


Right. Versus, you know, allowing something to be simply a fantasy that titillates you. What is that difference between like there being a fantasy and being, you know, driven to do something because of the thoughts that in the feelings that you're having? 


For the example of like sleeping with married men or someone at your office who, you know, your boss or something that would have a real-life consequence. And yet you're, you know, in this position of like, oh, I'm having this fantasy. Is that, is that because I'm supposed to do something with these feelings and intentions? What is this? Right? 


AR: Great questions. Okay. So cheating fantasies are super, super common even when people have no interest in cheating whatsoever. But some people do get very confused and think that, oh, maybe I need to cheat in order to get my real needs met, which is not true. Fantasies is, cheating fantasies are definitely around that whole friction of, you know, I need to get a part of myself met.


But somehow if I, you know, I can't get my needs met and also meet your needs. So if I go off here sneakily and go over here and get the met, then then I can get the met. That's like this whole story about the fear of if I focus on myself, I'm going to create harm. I can't possibly do that in a, in a way that's going to be, you know, above board for everybody involved. I've got this part of myself that if I touch it, if I honor it, if I own it, it's going to harm somebody. 


Right. And so cheating fantasies creates this scenario where, oh, I've got this safe little cubby house that no one knows about that I can have. Let this part out of myself. 


I can now access this part of myself. I'm cheating. So nobody knows about it. So nobody's really going to be harmed. We've got this. 


Oh, the fear that it's going to harm people, but nobody really knows. And that becomes this really, um, in a fantasy that works beautifully. But if you take your sexual fantasies literally, well, you're not going to be satisfied for a start because you're not going to feel the feelings you thought you were going to feel. It's not a good idea people to take your sexual fantasies literally. 


I mean, you can't actually fit that bus in that orifice. They're not, they're not literal stories. They're symbolic stories. Where did it get to take you? What part of yourself did you get to feel that you didn't have permission to feel before? 


What part of yourself did you could come forward? Oh, that's what this, this story is pointing towards. That's what it's trying to get for you. 


The feeling, not an actual affair, but the feeling you would get if you imagined having that affair. Okay. How do we bring this into real life, then? Let's go consensually with a somebody who's willing to play with you in this way and hit the same psychological buttons so that we can now access this part of ourselves. 


A: Right. So again, opening that container of safety with a person where you can, like you said, play or let down your guard enough to allow these parts of yourself to be like recognized and met by yourself, but then also witnessed or potentially interacted with in this scenario with another person, with a partner. Right. 


AR: And when you, as the Buddhists would say, well, I have some different ideas about desire than Buddhist traditional ideas, but this part we agree with. I think even the Pope agrees on this part. So there's an interesting thing. 


The whore and the Buddhists, and the posts are all collaborating. Anyway. Desire is symbolic. If you are going to suddenly decide to buy a red car and you're suddenly now aware of red cars everywhere on the road like it's got your attention. 


You can feel a magnetic pull towards you. You keep seeing this. You really want this car. Maybe it's a sports car. Maybe it's unnecessarily strong in its motor. 


I don't know. It's a good midlife crisis car. Why do we want that car? Imagine having it. This is the trick. 


Go into imagine having it. Like actually open the door in the dealership. Smell the new car smell. Get into your senses with this. 


Get into your body with this. What is changing in your body as you sit in that car and behind the steering wheel and you drive it out? What is changing? Are you expanding? Are you contracting? Are you lighter? Are you heavier? Are you in your emotions changing? Is there energy moving? Do you feel butterflies? Do you feel washes? What are you noticing is changing? 


Now imagine further. Okay, you're driving the car out. You're driving really fast. You're kind of feeling really powerful because you've got control of this powerful thing. People are looking at you as you're going past, and you're feeling like they're admiring you. You're kind of imagining that they're all kind of jealous, and then your social status has gone up because you've got this symbol of, I don't know, sexual prowess and social success. What do you get to feel when they all want you? What do you get to feel when you're really powerful that you couldn't feel before? 


Yeah. What's there? Maybe it's freedom. Maybe it's self-worth. Maybe it's confidence to connect. 


Maybe it's feeling like the mystery of life. Anything could happen. You could drive this car all the way down the coast and who knows what's going to happen next. Maybe it's this vibrant aliveness that's coming there. What is it that it actually represents? Because if you go and buy the car and then stick it in the driveway and drive it around the neighborhood a few times and you don't get the feeling that you thought you were going to get, that itch is not scratched. 


You thought it was going to be scratched by buying the car, but it's not. It's about this state of consciousness that that desire is taking you to, and sexual fantasies work in the same way. 


A: Right. Yeah, I'm thinking of this idea that's not what we have. It's who we're being. It's not like even sometimes what we do, but who we are while we're doing it. And I think that's kind of what you're pointing to with a fantasy is that it can take us to a felt experienced state of ourselves that we might not access otherwise. 


That idea once again, if you go back to that idea of like, oh, this oral sex I'm taking too long, but if you put yourself in a scenario where you're being chained to the bed and they're forcing you to do this, then that gives you that full permission to meet that part of yourself that needs the time that it needs, that is willing to surrender this sense of having to control the scenario or having to create the experience for someone else and giving you that space of full surrender where you feel that sense of freedom or you feel that sense of vulnerability that maybe you wouldn't let yourself feel otherwise. 


AR: Right. And take it further and further. And when you take it to its end to grade, you keep asking and what happens then and what happens and what do I get to feel then and what do I get to feel then, and you keep following it all the way to the end. You inevitably discover that your guards have come down, and you are now able to connect to yourself to other and to life itself. It's a, it's always a bringing back to oneness state. 


Like it's always from separation to oneness. It's always always, and that's the genius of that particular organ of the psyche. So we don't want to miss out on desires wisdom in those the way in a way that no other organ does. 


And it tells these terrific stories that create all of these incredible delicious friction between the paradoxes and that's what creates the excitement. And that's what helps us change states of consciousness. So we don't want to skip it. We don't want to jump from closed to, oh, now we're just in love and completely are barriers down, and who goes to the movies and watches a story like that? 


A: That's not interesting. I'm thinking of layers here. I'm thinking of kind of different layers that we have to kind of unwrap. You know, I work with people's muscular system, and like people have stories and memories and experiences that they're holding in the tissues of their body. And we can't just go from some, well, some people can't just go from, you know, a state of tension to just like complete relaxation. There's like layers that we have to work through on a physical level. 


And so I'm almost thinking about how this might be, you know, in the state of a fantasy where it's like, this is where we're starting. But then, as we, like you said, keep asking questions and inquiring, there's something underneath of this, and there's something underneath of this, and there's another layer of experience underneath of this. And then once we kind of get down underneath those deeper layers, we find kind of what we find when I work with people somatically is that there's this sense of peace and calm and being at ease and being at like rest. 


And then there's this like ocean of possibility that is sort of like the deeper essence of who we are, right, that we can get to. But we have to go through those different layers of conditioning. We have to go through those different stories or fears, or I use the word poison. I'm sure there's like, you know, these uncomfortable things that have to be moved through in order to get to those deeper layers. Is that land? 


AR: Yeah, that's gorgeous. Yeah, absolutely. And it is an except that sexual fantasies can take you to a really peaceful place, or they can take you to an ecstatic place, which is a more euphoric feeling, which you can also feel in peace. But this is a nervous system thing is an up-regulated or down-regulated right on this right. 


So this is often it can take you to a deeply, deeply surrendered up regulated state, which is a very interesting place to be as well. Because I mean, I can I can now do it because I can do it on my own now, just tapping into my fantasies in my own self-pleasuring time, knowing how to follow where it's trying to take me knowing how to follow my own inner desire compass and end up in full with the kindling awakening ecstatic heart as big as the sun and crying as insights are coming into my mind that I couldn't think if my ego is in the way and just absolutely unable to even speak words because it's so blissful and beautiful and it feels like love. And I do this alone. I didn't need somebody else to take me there. This was inside of me. 


And now I can choose to share it with someone if I want to. And that's an entirely different place than going into sex with this hungry ghost trying to get trying to get them to be something that they're not in order to fulfill us. But I love that you were talking about how you don't that there's layers in the semantics with your your work and we don't just go from from close to open. In this particular scenario, it's beneficial not to go from close to open because there's so much pleasure in the journey. There's so much pleasure in the friction between the oh no, I can't do that. 


Oh yes, I really will. Oh, I can't show you myself naked. That's terrifying. Oh, but I'm going to anyway. Oh, I feel so exposed. 


Oh my God. Like this friction is what makes it exciting. Yeah. Right. So there's a whole lot of benefit of enjoying that process together and that is a super bonding experience to have together a journey together and bring that to life for each other. 


A: I love that. I think that's really great, and just kind of looking at it the way it can be the word I love to use because I do I do invite people not everybody's ready for it, but with the somatic work I do, I invite people into what I call like an adventure. 


Meaning we're going to be peeling back layers, and some of them are going to be uncomfortable, and some of them are going to be weird, and there may even be physical pain that shows up at different times when working through the tension that's been accumulating in your body for an example. But like it's an adventure and it's going to come with insights and treasures beyond like anything that you've ever imagined. You're going to see like how all these beautiful pieces of your life like sit together, you know, and inviting someone into like that exploration. 


And so I love that you're sort of like, you know, framing especially with sexuality, and when it comes to this realm that it really can be that same kind of adventure to right like that great pleasure is going to come with a little bit of edginess and some discomfort and some you know pushing of ourselves into a space where our ego doesn't really want to go you know all the time. 


AR: That's right, that's right. People make the mistake, and it's a really common one they think oh I should be able to just relax and just connect immediately without going through any of these. Transitions of moving from I to we I should just be able to move to we what's wrong with me I must have trauma or something wrong with my childhood. 


But it is absolutely a normal healthy important part of the process to create an experience of moving from one to the other. It's absolutely, in fact, even you think of sexual fantasies as stories because they are stories, and you think of them through the lens of what makes a great story. Nobody is interested in the story where everything was nice and stayed nice, and it was nice. 


A: True true, that is not that is not the kind of book that I'm reading for sure and I think that there is something that as a human being. We require there to be some kind of struggle in order for it to have a meaning or in order for it to really take form and be memorable if we don't have some kind of conflict or. 


Some kind of like you use the word friction then it doesn't really have the same meaning it becomes something that our brain just kind of glosses over and passes through it's just the wallpaper around us versus when there's some kind of something to overcome something to face that then it becomes an interesting worthwhile memorable experience to have. 


AR: That's right. Absolutely. There's mystery to it. We want to find out what the mystery is but desperate to find out and yet there's some sort of. Oh it's done now when you know what the mystery is actually a lots of the fun was figuring it out. 


A: Treasure hunt like you're talking about before. Yeah. 


A: I can see how this goes very well with you know. Yeah, the work that I do and just the somatic approach that you're taking to, you know, and you mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast I think it might be an interesting thing to just like reiterate and explore. 


Because people are in the embodiment kind of world, very focused on sensation and physical touch and the physical sensations right and sensuousness through our senses, and you spoke of the mind or visualizations right and imagining things are imagination and I'm at this point with the work that I'm doing where you know. 


At first, it was like, oh somatics versus mindset or mind versus body and I'm like wait wait wait wait wait they're actually the same meaning that when I went and you pointed to this earlier when I'm imagining something and I'm imagining it thoroughly meaning I'm paying attention and I'm focused on the visuals in my head and you know the thoughts that I'm having that are creating an image of something. 


I'm having a physical response to this right we have physical responses to our thoughts our thoughts are an expression of our physical body. They're just they're just one layer of it, but they're a very powerful layer of it because when we imagine something, and this is true neuro physiologically right when we imagine doing something, our brain actually fires motor patterns to those areas in our body that actually. 


Signal to our muscles that this is happening. That's right, that's like for example, if you like look at you know. I don't know someone on the in the movie gets like hit you might actually move and flinch a little bit in that direction that their body moves when they got hit because, as you visually saw that, your brain registered what that would be like, and had a physical response to it. 


So it's it's this, it's this thing where I'm trying to help you know educator informer like let people know like your mind is your body your mind is an expression of your body, and it's this very powerful one, and so you know as you were saying like. Don't discount like the fantasy or don't discount like the imagining or the thought that you're having and try to skip to just the body thing they're connected they always are. 


AR: Absolutely, and even that hug at the beginning when you just imagine like you're hugging your partner, but you're remembering how they hugged you last week that it has a different power dynamic to it had a different, but it had a touch of possessiveness you felt owned you felt wanted you felt desired with the body language that was ever so slightly different and now you're having a different physiological response. 


But you're absolutely right people do make the mistake of, well, like, you know, it's very understandable the very first time you have this embodied experience, you come out of your head, and you're you're fully present, and you're connected with your senses and the moment, and you're really present with your partner. 


It's mind-blowing, and you've just discovered the most alive euphoric amazement and wonder of being alive, and you did it by getting out of your head. So what do you mean we have to now include the head to bring? But to be whole, you have to bring the whole of yourself if you want to bring the whole connect with the whole of yourself, you have to bring the whole of yourself. 


A: It's how it is. Yeah, I love that, and I think it's I was actually just talking with this about somebody when we realize that one way hasn't been working, we kind of run in the other direction at first, and then we have to figure out how to find the middle ground again because it doesn't really work to be on either end of extremeness right and so if we find like you said that oh my God I you know get out getting out of my head and into my body and then now we're like running. We're running away from our mind, we're running away from our head which is not really possible right in the long run we have to learn how to integrate that we have to learn how to connect with our mental our mental body to right. 


AR: Yeah yeah, I love it, I love it, and it does seem like a paradox, and then play with paradoxes a lot because paradoxes are doorways into altered states of consciousness they've been tools that Zen masters have been using for millennia to teach the disciples how to. To change the state into more expanded states to contemplate these paradoxes of the chicken and the egg. 


You know, one hand causes and one hand clapping all of these things of not being able to reconcile them actually expands our consciousness, so these this doesn't have to be necessarily something that stops us this can be a tool and a doorway in. And that's that's why I chose a paradoxical sounding name for my upcoming book which is the spirituality of smart the surprising wisdom of sexual fantasies. 


A: Yeah no I love it I think there's a movement right now, you know in the embodiment movement and you know, Tantra and just all of these kind of ancient wisdom practices that are coming to the surface more and more and getting contextualized and like our mainstream. And there's a real like weaving that I see you're doing of taking things that are taboo or, you know, uncomfortable about that and how do we merge that with looking at. 


Our consciousness and looking at the way that these things are actually part of our spiritual journey right while still including words like smut while still including like the raunchy bits and the things that that actually start to have give us that that trigger that sensation right because if we just use all the pretty flowery language around it it's not going to do that thing you just spoke of and kind of you know tease that paradox within us right. 


AR: Yeah there seems to be this move one particular school of thought that's always trying to merge with our higher self and. I think it would act well in my embodied experience it is much more powerful to integrate my higher self with my everyday self with my primal self in the same space. 


A: Yeah, or our lower self, your primal self is like our animal self, part of us that's just like, no, I'm hungry, and I want to eat now, right, and just has that that selfishness that we talked about earlier that we can vilify. You know that we should always be extending ourselves to others and that we shouldn't you know just want and desire for ourselves right like I totally agree with you on that it's. I think it's a much more powerful journey to to be looking to move through all of those different layers rather than just try to live up here in high vibes all the time. 


AR: Yeah, yeah, I think so I absolutely think so. 


A: Fantastic, so when is your book coming out, and where can people find it? 


AR: Well, you have to subscribe to my website to find out what it's going to be released because how many drafts I have to do you get I'm not quite sure that's how long is a piece of string but I'm hoping to be out earlier next year. 


But my I do have something that you can do right now if you're interested, which is a freebie. One of the things that people say is how do I start how do I even begin to analyze my sexual fantasies I'm to I'm too even embarrassed to tell my partner about my sexual fantasies what am I going to do. How can I even begin to understand this part of myself. 


And I have a little freebie called thecelebswoundtechnique where you don't even have to tell anyone your fantasies to start uncovering your own unique wiring. And you try taking a closer look at any celebrities that you find swing worthy. And if you don't find any celebrity swing where you can look updating sites and they'll have several pictures of themselves often five pictures of themselves and you can say hey I'm objectively I really find that person attractive they're beautiful. But I've got five different images of them here and I find that image much more attractive than that one. 


Why? What's going on in there what's the power dynamic what's the body language what's the attitude and I walk you through how to actually become aware of your own wiring by taking a closer look at that and you can find that at my fantasy is. 


A: Cool so you get to kind of like see how you're wired to find certain things appealing and other things not. 


AR: Right brings your attention why that hug was more exciting than that hug right. What is it about the underlying unconscious narrative you didn't think you were having a fantasy you thought you were just having a hug. 


And yet it didn't hit the right narrative it didn't hit your poison and you know why and this starts to bring that to light so that you can start going oh that's what I need to ask for. Oh now I know I don't need to actually cheat I need this and this and this oh okay. 


A: Yeah, cool. Wonderful finding that recipe that's going to bring you to that state of consciousness that that you're yearning for that your body's like calling you towards that place where you like you said can just let go and merge with one another person or merge with oneness depending on how many layers deep you go right. 


AR: Yes sometimes you don't want to go away to one this. 


A: Sometimes you just want to get off. And that's okay to if you want to get off really well this will still benefit you. 


A: Wonderful oh this is so fun it's been such a pleasure talking with you. Check out the freebie that you mentioned and then you did you say you had another course that one that we mentioned earlier. The one yes yes and people can find that on your website as well or is that somewhere else. 


AR: Yeah, my website is artemisiadevine.com which is just my name. I teach a six-month in-depth training in this in the divinery method of how to understand this, and not everybody can do that, and I can only take a handful of people that deep into their own erotic psyche at a time. So I've just started offering monthly seminars where I take a piece of the divinery method and put it under the microscope, and teach that in a group setting. 


So if you wanted to subscribe to my newsletter there then you find out when the next one is and you can and there's recorded ones of the past ones as well so you can select those if you're interested in figuring out this is you know if you like me you want to be a detective and understand the erotic psyche it's so much fun. 


A: Oh wonderful thank you thank you do you have any last words of sexual wisdom for our audience. 


AR: Your desire is a genius. It really is what it wants for you is in your best interest it always was what we need to do is learn how to hear it. We need to hear it in its own terms we need and when we can do that you can access its wisdom without harming yourself or anyone else, or the fabric of society. 


A: Oh, fantastic. Well, thank you again I think those were wonderful words of final wisdom I will be thinking about them for a while, and I look forward to yeah learning more about your work, and thank you so much for coming on the show. 


AR: Thank you so much for having me. 


A: Hey there, friends. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Follow me on Instagram @AimeeTakaya, and send me a DM about this episode. I'd like to thank you for being part of this somatic revolution. And if you'd like to support the podcast and help more people learn about somatics, consider leaving a review or a rating. 


And finally, if you'd like to have the experience of relief in your tight hips or back and learn to understand what your body is really saying to you, visit, youcanfreeyoursoma.com. I can't wait to share with you what is truly possible. Bye for now. 



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