Lindsey Doe: This episode of Sexplanations is sponsored by Coral, it's an app where you can invite your friends, partners, people, to have intimate conversations with you.  

(Voice over intro, clears throat)

Lindsey Doe:  I'm Lindsey Doe, host of the sex curious show Sexplanations for one more month! And this is my friend, and colleague Reid Mihalko who does Read About Sex .Com and a hundred other mirco-things under that umbrella.  

Reid Mihalko: I get around.

LD: You're a living encyclopedia of  sexuality, so now you do something where I open a book and I say "okay, tell me about squirting, and give me all the information", but like, you are the practicum.  

RM: [whispering] People don't use encyclopedias anymore.

LD: You're right. 

RM: It's a. . .It's a wiki?

LD: It's a. . . You are. . . Sex Wiki Live?

RM: Oh, I don't know. . . That doesn't. . .  I don't know it's a long hashtag.  

LD: (Laughs) You're a sexual savant in, in like, every topic I can think of, Reid has, application.  

RM: So, as a geek, as a clearly labeled Geek,

LD: Mhmm.

RM: And as somebody who actually has a lot of insecurities, like, I'm actually very insecure.  I'm just really secure - about how insecure I am.  And when I started, like, becoming sexually active, I wanted to really be good at sex, it was, like, so confusing.  You know, so like, the encyclopedia knowledge, or wiki, or whatever it is, is me trying to figure out, in sexual situations.  What do i need to understand, and then what skills do I need to learn, so that I can be good at sex?  And so I got good at trying to understand all of the different kinds of sex, and how they all fit together.  And I used to be a martial artist a long, long time ago, and teach martial arts.  So there was a kind of, like, "these are how bodies work", and "this is how you do a wrist throw" and "these are how you do nerve things to people to cause pain", and for me, when I became sexually active, I was like "ooh, what do you do to cause pleasure?".  "How does a wrist work" also applies to, like, knees, and legs, and hips, and all kinds of other things.

LD: Mouths.

RM: And Mouths! Exactly. And, like, Judo throws, and like, Ikedo things, and like, understanding how to move bodies through space became a lot of, like, that's how you listen to people's bodies, and tension, and movement, and then that became really useful to be like "oh, wait a minute. . . So, rather than hit you with my fist I want to  hit you with my mouth." And like, how do we dance that way? Now - I'm a horrible dancer and like, listening to people's bodies - like, have you ever kissed somebody who was a bad kisser?

LD: Yes.

RM: Did it - 

LD: He ate my face.

RM: Did it feel like they were listening to your body?

LD: No!

RM: So, one of the things in, like, learning how to be a good kisser, has to do with like, how do we listen to people's bodies.  And how do you also receive pleasure because that's a whole other thing.  Like you can be good at sex, but not good at receiving and understanding that when you receive well and you get into the moment, that's usually really hot for the person - or persons - who are playing with you.  Rather than just - 

LD: I, uh yeah, I, I'm seeing a lot of you in this. We had this conversation after dinner yesterday.  Where, part of our curiosity about being sex educators is if we're kind of teaching people how to fuck us better. So if - when you say, you're trying to help people be better receivers, maybe you - 

RM: Oh, that was something I had  to learn too.

LD: Oh.  Are you any better at receiving?

RM: Oh yeah, yeah, one of my lovers was like "You're kind of like fucking a ninja, like you make no sound.", and I was like "really?" and she was like "yeah, it would be really helpful if you let me know when things felt good." And that wsa a really big beginning for me, and this was when - this was before I became a sex geek, this was like when I was just starting to have sex with people, and then. like, all these years later, looking back "uuuuuuhhhh" lik "letting out souuuuuuuunnnnnd and mooooooaaaning", does a whole bunch of things to your vagus nerve, your ogenous tissue, there's a lot of feedback loops that happen.  You're shifting your body from it's parasym- er - or sympathetic nervous system to its parasympathetic nervous system, which is rest and relaxation., which is when your sphincters start to dilate,