Pleasure Pot: Merging Cannabis and Sensual Exploration ft. Ashley Manta

Hi, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. I'm Crystal, i'm Murph. We're just two rad fatties sitting around chewing the fat. Twice a month. We'll be chatting about current events, hot topics, sex, sex toys, about politics, about community, cannabis, cvd, you name it. We're going to talk about it. We are very excited to have you a part of our community. Welcome and enjoy. Hey there, welcome to Big Sexy Chat. I'm Crystal, i'm Murph, and we have the lovely guest Ashley Manta. Ashley, do you say Manta or Manta Manta? Yeah, ashley Manta. I know Ashley to be an expert in cannabis and sex. She's expanded her horizons recently, so we want to learn all about the different ways that we can expand our mind before we have sex. And welcome to the show, ashley. We're so happy to have you.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Hot topic, important topic, right, because thankfully cannabis has become illegal in more states. Still, not still, what do they call it when it's on the federal? what's that list? they're on Schedule.

Oh, it's schedule one.

I'm on already. I know I wonder how Joe Biden feels about cannabis.

I think Biden was trying to get it removed from the schedule. I don't know where that ended up landing, though, but that was like a couple months ago. They had mentioned that Do you know, Ashley.

So I don't stay as up on the politics and the ins and outs, but my understanding is we're a ways off from federal legalization.

Everything else that has been kind of reverting back to the days of old. It seems like makes sense.

Back when America was great for old white men. You know totally off topic, but London breed, the mayor of San Francisco, is trying to create a red black district for sex workers in San Francisco.

That would be amazing.

And then everybody else could model the model that they use in San Francisco and add it to other more cosmopolitan, metropolitan I don't know what you call it cities that we can. Let's get sex workers taken care of. Sex work's not going away. Let's just open up our minds, people. We know that it's been around since the beginning of time. That's right. Murph and I are both big fans of yours, ashley. Thank you so much for joining us. We love what you're up to.

Oh, I'm so grateful to be here, So tell us your elevator speech. you know, if somebody was brand new to your line of work, what would you say to them?

I would say hi, i'm Ashley Manta. I'm an award winning sex and relationship coach. I won ex biz sex bird of the year in 2020. I'm the author of the book the CBD solution sex, which was also published in 2020. I created Oh, and you have it, lovely love that. I created the word can of sexual. I made it up and then I trademarked it and it refers to mindfully and deliberately combining sex and cannabis to deepen intimacy and enhance pleasure, whether you're solo or partnered, and in the last several years I've expanded that to include other forms of altered states, including psychedelics and entheogens like DMT and MDMA and LSD and psilocybin, and how to navigate consent and safety practices while still enjoying the experience.

So sex and cannabis. How long have you been using sex and cannabis?

I have been combining the two since around 2014. I found a company shortly after I moved to California that was making a THC infused oil. The original demographic was folks who were experiencing perimenopausal symptoms, but they quickly realized that anyone with a vulva could benefit from using THC infused oil on their vulvas, and I personally had struggled with pain with penetration my entire adult life, and that was the first thing that allowed me to have penetrative sex without pain. That was sort of a watershed moment for me, when I looked around the landscape of sexuality professionals and realized that I didn't know anyone else who was talking about sex and cannabis from a consent focused, body positive, queer, inclusive lens, and so it became my niche.

Merf, yeah, so, excuse me, i had been told that cannabis was terrible my entire life, as most of us have, and I had not used any sort of cannabis until I was like 34, 35. And, wow, did it change my life? But did it change my sex life Like? I mean, i've always enjoyed sex. That's been, you know, a wonderful part of my life, but introducing cannabis into my sex life really changed my orgasms. It changed my sexual response time. It just I could have orgasms without touching myself. I could have orgasms for like 10, 20 minutes, you know like it would go on and on and on. So I was just like, holy, how did this? how did I get lied to my entire life, you know, and just having these incredible experiences and really trying to kind of navigate cannabis on my own. And then, luckily, the book Sex Came Out that you were involved in and wrote and really enjoyed going through that and sharing that with other people, and so that's just been like I've wanted to dive into, you know, having this conversation with you, because it's just been this thing. That's like, yes, this is amazing, everybody needs to hear about it, you know. That kind of thing. So, yeah, so please to have you here and be able to talk about it.

I love that you had such a powerful journey with cannabis. That's wonderful.

Nerv at the time. Was that smoking or edibles or something else?

Edibles. I can only do edibles. I have pretty bad asthma, so edibles seems to be the way to go. But, I did have somebody reach out and ask a question that kind of exactly falls in line with that crystal. When you have multiple types of THC, you know if the a vape pin smoking straight flower using edibles, is there one in particular that really tends to bring out the, the sexual drive for you Or that you've noticed with other people?

So what I find, and what the science tells us, is that arousal and desire are really multifaceted processes. So, you know, to say one method impacts drive would be massive oversimplification. What I like to kind of frame it as is, cannabis can help address the things that get in the way of pleasure and turn on and arousal, and so things like feeling disconnected from your body, being stuck in your head, pain, self consciousness, and so, depending on which of those is getting in the way, it is useful to use that as sort of a tool to sort out which one is going to be the most effective for you. If you're someone who has pain with penetration, putting a topical on it's going to be much more effective than smoking. If you're someone who's stuck in their head, a non intoxicating method like a topical may not do quite as much, so you may need to search for something that is either ingested or inhaled.

That's great Thanks. Are there lubricants that can help people with desire or pleasure?

No, not too high, but definitely tingly. There was a lot of sensation, but it was a lot, so it was distracting. Almost Was it a loop It was Ashley.

What do you? what can you educate us about moves with THC and CBD? also? I really want to understand better. You know there's a lot of different kinds of CBD. Understand what's what. Should we really be looking?

Yeah, absolutely Okay. So I'm gonna take those one at a time. One is Loops it's a little bit of a misnomer. It's more like a pre lube, because when I think of lube, i think of something that I apply to deal with friction, and it's kind of an instant gratification situation. With cannabis infused Topicals, especially those designed for volvas or genitals broadly, but mostly volvas, it's something that you really need to let sit for like 20 minutes. So it's it's not a lube as such, but it's for sure, verbal shorthand for what it is. In terms of the different types of Topicals on the market, i like to have plenty of THC alongside my CBD. Cbd does not work as well in isolation. What the science tells us is that the more the cannabinoids are able to work together in concert They call it the entourage effect the more effective they are, especially because CBD doesn't fit directly into The CB1 and CB2 receptors in our bodies as part of our endocannabinoid system, so they need to latch on to something else to kind of fit in the lock. In Terms of types of CBD, if you can buy it at a gas station or a drugstore, i would probably not. You want to look for companies that are using whole plant. So that's full spectrum CBD. You don't want isolate. Broad spectrum is okay, but not great. You want the whole plant. So if people are like, oh, isolates, distillates, these are the best, like no, they're not. They're absolutely not. You're just taking like one little chemical compound. And so you do have to be careful with CBD, because there's so much snake oil on the market and so little federal oversight that there's a lot of Companies that will say, you know, with CBD, and what they mean is we put hemp seed oil in our product, which is not the same thing. Hemp seed oil does not do what CBD does. It's just from the same plant. So it's it's. It's important to be a savvy consumer and You know, read my book, do your research and and make sure that you're getting good things that are tested, that have something called a COA, a Certificate of analysis, which will make sure that there are no residual solvents, pesticides, molds, things like that in your products. So it's a lot of legwork.

It's like how the Lou industry used to be right, kind of like the wild, wild west. Anybody could put anything They wanted to in a lubricant and a sex toy and nobody was checking on it. Thankfully that's improved as far as just moves, i don't really know a lot about the ones with CBD or THC, but when you said about buying your lubrication, i always tell people if they use about your doctor's office to go along with your exam. That's probably not it. No, there's so many more lubricants out there at a hospital They're probably trying to buy any that's super cheap. It's gonna be lubricated for 30 seconds and it has a bunch of crap in it and it's just water. You know. So there's way better lubricants out there than you want. Oh girl, you don't even know so many better ones.

Is there one, a brand or a couple of brands that you would suggest or recommend?

So they are typically location Specific, unless they happen to be an MSO or what's called a multi-state operator. Because you can't, because they're not federally legal. Thc containing products are not federally legal. You can't ship them across state lines. So I can make recommendations for California, which may be the majority of your listeners, but it may not. And if you're sitting there in Idaho I'm like really sorry, this is not gonna help you at all. But my favorite THC infused oil in California is either quimrock, which is a women-owned brand That's Q I am rock and then also Papa and Barkley is a really fantastic brand and they have a massage oil that it's not just THC and CBD and oil. They also have some like Peppermint and lavender and other like essential oils in it. So if you're sensitive, this may not be a good choice for you, for you, but if you're not, or if you like that sensation, i love Papa and Barkley's massage oil for that as well. And then there's a suppository company called hello again That is also based in California and I am a suppository evangelist. That has completely changed my relationship with my cervix, with menstrual cramps, with next-day soreness, it with anal for sure, like it's. It's a game changer.

Say more.

So suppositories are when you have the THC and CBD in in sort of a capsule form. If anyone's ever seen like preparation-h suppositories for hemorrhoids, right like not the best mental picture. But this, this is what they do, and They are solid. They're made out of an oil that is Solid when it's it's cold, so something like coconut oil or cocoa butter or things like that. So you want to keep them in the freezer or the fridge to make sure that they're solid, because at room temperature they're a little squishy. And, just like with topicals, you put them inside either the vagina or the ass 20 minutes before sexy fun times and it increases pleasure, decreases discomfort without Numbing, which is crucial, especially for anal.

Yes, please, everybody, throw away that crap. If you have it, that's called anal ease. Do not use it. If there's gonna be pain there, you need to be aware of it. You don't want to be disconnected completely. If you're trying or are having an instance, would you?

agree, ashley, i would completely agree. Pain exists for a reason. It's your body telling you that something's wrong. Hello and they're really especially good for people with chronic pelvic pain like endometriosis or really really intense cramps. My dear friend and colleague, dr Shannon Chavez, is obsessed with the hello against suppositories for her endometriosis.

Yeah no, that sounds amazing and I haven't seen them up here. So I'm in the Sacramento area, so I will. I'll hit up the dispensaries and be like what's going on here? Why is this not available?

Great Ashley Murph. Murph told me about these cannabis stores that are the high times ground, yes, and that you can like. You can see the flower, or touch it, or smell it, or be aware of which thought which buds are buying. How does that work, murph?

It's like an open market. So when you go to the high time stores that are, you know, one that I went to was in Koolinga You walk in, it's an open market, you can pick up the item, you can look at it. It's not stand, it's not behind glass with a budtender having to be the person to like go get it, and so it just gives you a sense of like not feeling rushed, like I always feel rushed when I have to go to a dispensary because there's always a huge line And you know I want to ask a gazillion questions and it's not somebody who's, you know well aware of whatever the product is, and so I'm just like, okay, yeah, i'll just take that. You know that kind of thing. But going through the high time store in Koolinga, i was so surprised because you can just, yeah, they were like where's an open market? and just feel free And if you need us, let us know. And wow, that totally changed the experience for me And you can touch the leaf and the bud and stuff. You know they're in like little plastic things, but you can like get up close and like actually like move it around so you can actually look at it. You know it's not just like squinting far away to try to see it. That's really cool I love that you had that experience. Yeah, and so different from the majority of dispensaries that are out there. I was just like, hey, why don't we have a high time in Sacramento?

It sounds wonderful And it smells great in there. Oh man, well, i love the smell of all cannabis. I just can't smoke it because I'm not masked. But I do enjoy edible. But I ordered some. Actually, do you know Marina Hayes? I don't believe so. So I don't know how everybody I know knows Marina. I don't even know why or how I know Marina, but I love her. Anyway, she put a big note out around tax time or whatever it was. So my friend is such a such she's she has this great edible. You should buy some, so I did. She was having a buy three, get one free. She's in Southern California, so I get them and they're like 260 milligrams per. My book is a personal. Please don't touch those. Leave those for me. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of THC for me Because I do five to 10 milligrams, not 260. They're beautiful, they're like flat and just they smell great, but it's not for me. I'm not ready for that. Most people are not.

That's one of my questions to does body size, fat cells, those kind of things make a difference? because the reason I ask as my partner significantly weighs less than I do And 10 milligrams now he's up to 20 because we've been doing it for a couple of years But 10 milligrams, you know, and he's lit And it's great for him. I have to do upwards of, you know, depending on how often I've done it, like 70 milligrams. So I have like, yeah, the range is so different, and my friends, his wife, same thing, she's a larger lady, like I am, and he's a big, big guy, but he still is just that 10, 20, like my husband. So I'm just like this is so strange, like I don't understand, and if you can shed some light on that, that'd be awesome.

Yeah, absolutely, i think, because our primary lens for intoxicants is alcohol. we want to try to superimpose how alcohol works on bodies with cannabis. So when you look at alcohol like the higher the proof, the more drunk you get, right And like if you're a small person, a little bit of alcohol will affect you more than a big person. That's not the case with cannabis at all. The higher THC percentage is not going to get you higher And it doesn't matter how big or small your body is. it depends entirely on your own personal tolerance and metabolism and body composition in terms of like how your endocannabinoid system works with the plant, not not how much you weigh or anything like that.

Good to know I was thinking for our fat folks. You know that that question does come up a lot of like. Well, it's absorbed in the fat cell. You know like you hear all the things of like how your liver takes it, and so I'm just like, well, i wonder if it has something to do with it.

But yeah, thc is fat soluble, So it does like it is stored in fat cells, but that's that's the long and the short of how cannabis and fat work together. I'm the heaviest I've been in a while and my tolerance is the lowest it's ever been. So there's there's no correlation.

Interesting. Yeah, because I always think you stay longer high longer because no, thank you for that.

Yeah, absolutely, i'm happy to dispel myths.

Yes, your website is AshleyMantacom, but if somebody typed in the words can a sexual, you probably should write up and Google right.

I also own can a sexualcom. But yes, can a sexual is fully Googleable and SEO heavy for me.

So, ashley, i keep hearing about these sex toys that might be somehow related to cannabis products, or what do you know about that particular genre?

Absolutely. I think a couple of companies a few more and more, i would say, as cannabis becomes more popular, starting to kind of jump on the cannabis train and get a piece of the green rush. So I know Maya toys has a line of cannabis themed sex toys. Either Doc Johnson or Pipe Dream came out with the the Peter Piper that, like you can, it's a glass dildo that you can smoke out of And then for as distributed by Doc Johnson and for as CBD infused line of products. They have arousal oils, they have massage oils And I believe they also make suppositories. So everybody wants a piece of the pie, for Rhea makes the suppositories as well. Yes, they make CBD only.

Oh yeah, because I see I see a lot of cross pollination of these. I like a lot of power with my toys. So I don't I don't know what they, how they get powered, but I'm like, i like a lot of power, so I'm not sure if anything that is going to be mixed that I don't ever be powerful enough for me. It might be right for some people, but I'm going to imagine that they might have like nine volt batteries and they're not going to plug into the wall. A hookah with a vibrator and a yeah, yeah. I mean I don't know, do I want to put something in my mouth that's been in my vagina, or somebody else's mouth and vagina? I don't know. That's also what I wondered about.

I'm concerned that you know if you're putting something up there that it could break or, like you know, have some kind of I don't know. I've seen vapes explode in people's pants and stuff. So I'm just like I don't want to take that chance, like it doesn't seem safe. Like seems fun, but it doesn't seem safe.

Not the kind of explosion I want to have in my pants, definitely not. So I'm also very interested in knowing about women, women of color, queer people that are in this industry. I give them some shout outs. if you have suppliers of products of any kind that are CBD or THC related, that, if you know, are women owned or black owned or trans owned, we want to hear about all that So we can you know. signal boost.

Yeah, absolutely So. Buck Angel works really closely in the cannabis space So he has some, i believe, infused drinks that he was making for a while. I'm not sure where he's at with that these days. There are a lot of really amazing black owned companies in the cannabis space. Specifically, there is Tamika Drew has a cannabis company Her name is escaping me at the moment, it turns out, but her name is Tamika Drew and she's lovely And Lizzie Jeff is an amazing sensuality and cannabis event planner speaker. She is a visionary and a rat priestess and medicine woman And she hosts event called Zen and Kush around the country and probably around the world also, and I'm actually participating with her for her 420 event in LA. So there's lots of really great BIPOC owned businesses in the cannabis space, largely due to social equity programs on the dispensary level of trying to make sure that folks who have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs, which is, you know, black and brown people, are able to have their records expunged and also get first crack at licenses, which are quite expensive, and so there are, like social equity programs that Oakland was one of the first to really put a lot of effort into those programs and do that work and create space, and there's also a networking organization called Supernova Women in the cannabis space. That is for BIPOC folks to connect with each other as business owners and support one another. So there's a lot of really great ways to support communities of color And, you know, as a white person or anyone who is not a traditionally marginalized human like supporting those communities is something that's really important to do.

So Mika is her company, maybe called Morbid.

Biko is what it's called BIKO Biko flower.

Thank you for those companies and brands. That's awesome. So where is this world going? We all hear all about ayahuasca and you know about mushrooms and how they're going to start using it. I know here people use it in therapy and a lot of people get treated for PTSD. But what's really what's going to be to take happen first or next? or what's going to get legalized or not?

I think we're going to see a lot of decrim initiatives, which is actually best, because what we've seen is that federal oversight and the government getting involved in legalization tends to fuck everything up. And big money companies and people with investors are able to come in, which is you know, let's be real largely rich white people, especially rich old white men, and they come in and they just scoop up all the market share and they leave very little room for the small operators who have been doing it for a long time. So there's a big push, especially as psychedelics are starting to take the main stage, to sort of do better than the cannabis industry did and focus on decriminalization versus legalization. There's a really amazing organization, company called Oakland Hy-Fee H-Y-P-H-A-E And Reggie is the the head of that organization and does a lot of really important activism and awareness raising around psilocybin and then like why decriminalization is so important? And you know this is something that indigenous communities and communities of color have been using for thousands of years. Like white people just kind of came along and they were like oh, we can monetize this kind of like we do. So it's really important to defer to those communities as we start to move forward into the next phase of what integrating psychedelics into the world looks like. That said, i think psilocybin is going to be the next. Psilocybin and MDMA are going to are sort of coming up together in therapeutic capacities in terms of studies that maps the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies is are doing. So we're going to see those, i think, come on the scene first. I think there's still a lot of people who are scared of LSD.

Oh, those are the good old days. Where do you see your business and you going with these things? and how do you, how do you use it with your sex life now?

I find that cannabis and psychedelics are both heart opening and they are really good for helping me be in my body And that embodiment allows me to access greater planes of pleasure. I am also really into Tantra and I find that my energetic capabilities are enhanced when I'm in an altered state And when I'm with a partner there's a lot deeper connection, which is why you actually need to do to go into partner space in a really intentional, thoughtful way, because it's very easy to sort of manufacture deep love and intimacy that does, And intimacy that doesn't necessarily have the foundation to support it when you're in an altered state. So I have a whole process in figuring out who to trip with and who not to Wow, and do you teach? I do, i do, i teach it to my clients. I also ran a training, a two day training, last year with Nicoleta Heidegger for the Sexual Health Alliance, training sex therapists and sex educators on kind of best practices around psychedelics, cannabis and sex. And I'm really about the kind of train the trainers and then working with my, my personal clients.

Can we get? I guess you can get too high on smoking pot and then seeing if you get too high on mushrooms and other psychedelics. Is there a way, if people get I'm just saying you're already doing this kind of thing like if you get too high, because that's where I always get freaked out What if I get too high? Is there a way to regulate back down a little bit if any of these kinds of things?

So there's different methods for different substances. With cannabis, a lot of it is just time. There was a theory for a while that if you did a lot of CBD it would bring you back down. We're seeing that that's not often reliable enough to be a thing to reach for. There is a pill that is out called the Undo UNDOO pill. You can buy it on Amazon. I have seen it work where, if you take it when you're too high from cannabis, it will actually bring you back down in about 15 to 20 minutes, at least physically. If you were already having a panic attack by that point, it's not going to turn off the panic attack, because that does happen. THC has something called a biphasic effect, which means it has opposite effects at high and low doses. So low doses and that's subjective, it's different for everyone. Low doses, you get the euphoria, the giggly, the feel good, everything is awesome, relaxed. and high doses or too high for you You get the rapid heartbeat, you get dizziness, nausea, anxiety, paranoia, all the yucky stuff. So I love Undo pills for that, but a lot of it is really just taking your time drinking some water, laying down and knowing that it will always pass, because cannabis is not deadly. You cannot overdose on cannabis. When it comes to psychedelics, most people have had a too intense trip at various points and some of that is going and knowing that that can happen. and if you're not being really mindful about dosing and mindset and setting and having a trip sitter and doing all the right things, sometimes the medicine will smack you over the head a little bit and you have to kind of ride that out too. But even under the best circumstances, sometimes things don't go the way you expect them to and in those cases, taking something to kind of calm you down, a little bit like a Benadryl to kind of make you sleepy. And now the caveat to all of this is I am not a doctor, i don't play one on TV. Psychedelics are against the law. I'm not telling you to break the law or how to fix it. This is just what I've heard. Caveat caveat.

So, out of all of the things that you've tried or practiced with, is there one that you prefer the most?

I really like MDMA a lot, both for sex and generally. I don't love the come down and the next day blues, but what I found is that if you get really good, pure, therapeutic grade stuff, you don't have nearly the same hangover. So yeah, I really appreciate MDMA. I love the way it makes me feel, I love the way it makes my body feel and the sensitivity to touch and pleasure and all of those things. And I would say behind that would probably be LSD. Actually I love mushrooms in a lot of ways, but I find that the physical impact on my body isn't always exactly what I want it to be. But LSD music is so amazing, Visuals feel so cool to witness And I've had very lengthy sex on LSD. That was pretty mind blowing. So I'm a fan. And cannabis will always have my heart, of course.

Right, yeah, that's great. I've always wanted to try MDMA. I've never had, you know, i've never taken it. When I say you know, i haven't had any marijuana until 35 years old, that means all the other drugs have never been tried. So you know, everyone says how wonderful MDMA is And I'm just like, oh, if there wasn't a fentanyl crisis. Yeah, you know, if it was just that you could get therapeutic grade, you know, and purchase it from a established place, that I don't have to worry. It's been messed with that kind of thing.

We will get there someday, but today is not that day.

I hope it's in my lifetime, i hope.

Yeah, it was like a. you felt kind of crappy for about a half an hour into it, as your body's digesting the poisons and toxins, or you know, I'm saying those with air quotes. You don't have to deal with that anymore, Like can you take a capsule or you don't have to eat it and have it digest all those shrooms, do you?

So not everyone has intense GI upset from consuming them. If you do, i find that making them into a tea tends to be easier on the stomach, especially if you steep it with a little bit of ginger and peppermint, like to kind of help soothe your belly. There are capsules these days, especially microdose capsules, that are just 100 milligrams of psilocybin and they don't actually have the fruit body of the mushrooms. So you don't, because your body doesn't digest the fruit body very well. So that's why you get the, the nausea and the GI upset, because your body's like what the fuck is this? But, yeah, there are lots of ways. There are people that make tinctures now. There are gummies, there are chocolates. There are lots and lots of ways of consuming psilocybin at this point to make it easier on your digestive system.

I only have one last question. It's about another drug, ayahuasca. I'm not sure if Merth has other questions, but I just want to know have you ever tried it? What was it?

like if you have. Yes, I have sat for three ayahuasca ceremonies with a shaman and it was transformative. I got very in touch with myself. I saw God and felt the connection to divine source consciousness. I learned so much about the world and myself and it was very powerful. It's a long, long, long trip. You're looking at like nine to 12 hours of being in medicine space and that is more than a lot of people can handle, I think, And it can bring up some really intense traumatic like. I had very gentle journeys in my ceremonies. I watched people have very difficult experiences in their journey and it looks real scary when it's not going particularly pleasantly. So the last time I was in ceremony the medicine was like it's fine that you're here, but you're done, This is your last, And I was like thank you very much, I'm complete.

I have so many questions about ayahuasca I can't even. that's a whole nother episode, i'm sure. But in that experience did you have any of the bad side effects like the vomiting or any of that?

Oh, yes, yes, I vomited two of the three ceremonies and the one ceremony that I didn't. I really wish I had, because I would have felt better, because I was just nauseous for several hours instead, and there was definitely a fair bit of what we like to call root chakra purging. The very first time I vomited in my first ceremony, it went out instead of down and it got all over the blanket and the carpet and it was a big old mess. So, yeah, you were for sure signing up to puke in the presence of other people and watch other people as well, and that is part of the process. The purging is part of it. There's gratitude for it, because it does like rid your body of a lot of different things, but if that's something that turns you off, it's very hard to avoid that.

Yeah, that's what I've heard. is that pretty much? even if you have a good experience, you're going to vomit, and I just Yes, i feel that way. I hear this and I just start like the back of my throat. Yeah.

That's horrible. Now I have a lot of I do electrolysis now for my day job And I talk to a lot of clients and some of them go up to Marin to do ayahuasca with Shaman or how do they do it, And I like the term trip sitter. But can some people just do it alone with the trip sitter or Shaman or whoever it's done?

For Aya. you almost always do it in a group because there's something called the current and there's something quite magical about being in that medicine space together with other people. It's not to say that it's impossible to do it one-on-one I'm sure that they do, or one-on-one or two-on-one or in a small group, but all three ceremonies that I did there were 20 plus people there.

Wow. So the people that go up to Marin to do this. They're telling me it's like a $5,000 weekend. I'm assuming that because they stay with those people and stuff like that, but most people pay for it to go do ayahuasca.

Oh, yes, yes, it's expensive.

It is expensive. Okay, i've only seen it on television. When you have people to, you know detox or maybe they're having serious addiction issues or PTSD.

Yeah, it can be really helpful for that, and there are other psychedelics that are helpful for addictions, and MDMA is probably the most effective that's currently available for PTSD. But yeah, there's options. You could do ayahuasca ceremonies in the United States. A lot of people go to South America to do their ceremonies, or Costa Rica, so there's there's lots of different ways you can access it, but there's almost always a financial barrier to entry.

Yeah, $5,000 a month, But again I think it's mine did not cost that much Yeah. I also. I want to hear more about how people can work with you and how they can find you. I want to make sure that. Make sure that doesn't have any other questions.

Yeah, no, we've gone through mine, so that's great.

Okay, so cool, ashley. Tell people you know they might listen to it tomorrow. They might listen to this in a year or two. Tell people your main business and then how other ways you can work with humans And for what reasons people might come and work with you, like what we've heard from your past clients.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, i would love to work with you. I primarily do coaching, and so I either do it coaching with just me and my clients, and typically I see either women or couples. I also do concierge coaching with my colleague, dr Shannon Chavez, who is a psychologist and a licensed sex therapist, and so she I bring the coaching side, she brings the therapeutic side and the more like mental health trauma informed piece to it, And the two of us have teamed up to work with high achieving individuals and couples, people who are entrepreneurs, celebrities, otherwise have like busy, intense lives that they don't have an hour every week to spend in a traditional coaching setting. So for those folks we're able to work with them either as a full day or a weekend or even a week in a specific destination and really deep dive into whatever's going on and kind of get a lot of deep work done quickly. So that's something that Shannon and I are available for. And then I also teach a lot at retreat. So I'm going to be at hedonism in Jamaica in January for a sexual health and wellness summit doing a lot of sex and cannabis, sex and psychedelics. They actually have a cannabis and psilocybin dispensary on site at hedonism. Mushrooms are in fact, legal in Jamaica, which is pretty cool. So I host my own retreats where, like, people come to me and they say hey, I have a group of five folks, we want you to do a retreat for us, and they kind of give me their budget and I will put together like a designer retreat for them, or you can just see me for coaching via zoom, and that can happen anywhere anytime. What kind of coaching would you be doing? Yeah, i mostly work with couples on zoom and it's a lot about desire discrepancy. That tends to be the biggest reason that the couples come to me is they are feeling mismatch in libido and interest in sexual frequency, and a lot of them are in a longer term relationship. A lot of them are monogamous and either are either considering nonmonogamy or are very committed to not monogamy, but are finding places where they are diverging in their interests and want to figure out how to bring in more intimacy, more pleasure, more joy, more curiosity and how to fight better. I help couples so much with conflict resolution and communication And then when I work with women, it's a lot about body confidence, masturbation and unlearning sexual shame.

It's a big one homo sexual shame. It's too bad that so many of us have it inside of us. It detracts from so many parts of your life. You know, you realize it and you really undo it all And you're like, wow, your whole life opens up in so many ways. Well, thank you, ashley. That was so great and we're so happy to know you and we're both back as one of the big fans and love your work And I think we both follow you everywhere You can follow people. I think I'm pretty sure I'm following you everywhere. And where are you most active?

Are you most active on Instagram or Twitter, instagram for sure, and that is the place at Canis Sexual to find me. I also am pretty active on my email list, so if you go to canisexualcom, you can sign up for my email list and I send out workshops that I'm teaching and offerings with retreats, and it's just a great way to kind of keep up with me, especially because social media can be so difficult with the algorithm. I don't know if I'm officially shadow banned, even having a verified account, but, like I know that my numbers are suppressed in relation to, like, the number of followers that I have. So, yeah, my email list is the best way to keep up on what's going on.

I'm not getting your newsletter. I'll have to get on your email list. I would love to. I would love to Thanks for, yeah, for all the good you're doing out there. I know, um Riff and I are big believers, you know. if you're a consenting adult, do you have a how you want to do? I just I like people to leave kids and animals out of it, but other than that, get down with your bad self, right. If you want to use pot or shrooms, why is that my business? It's not. it's definitely not the government's business. All right, well, see you later, alligator.

After a while, crocodile, Stay sweet parakeet.

So where can you find your favorite fatties? You can find us at big sexy chatcom on all the social medias, at big sexy chat on Twitter, big sexy chat, pod and Crystal. how can they reach us?

Oh, merck, the best way to reach us is by email, which is sexy at big sexy chatcom. Remember to like, subscribe and share, please.