Sexual Health Is Whole Health: Desire, Aging & Connection with Dr. Juliana Hauser | HFYH #140

**Dr. Juliana Hauser** (0:00)
Why is sexuality or sex important? Why is it even worthy? What's it gonna do for us? What's the good of it? What does it change? How does it change our life? If I have 10 other things I need to choose from, how do I know to position that? Especially if you've never had sex that most people consider good sex or pleasure-filled sex.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:18)
You have to understand that you are worth the exploration of what you want.

**Dr. Juliana Hauser** (0:25)
Yeah, you have to believe that you're worth it.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:28)
Hi, I'm Dr. Vonda Wright, and this is HOT For Your Health. Join us for conversations on the bleeding edge of science, health, and culture, as we bring you tech innovators, thought leaders, and the movers and shakers who are transforming science fiction into your new health reality.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:51)
Hi, everybody, welcome back to HOT For Your Health. I'm Dr. Vonda Wright, and every week, I get to talk to fascinating people, movers and shakers, and sometimes my friends. And this is a week that I get to talk to someone who's not only my friend, but an expert in her field. Dr. Juliana Hauser is a licensed couples and family therapist, licensed professional counselor, and bonafide sexpert. And I have found her approach, whether talking to her, whether listening to her in her Ted Talk, in the media that she does, or now in her new book, The New Position on Sex, not only an expert, but completely and totally approachable. And I think that's why you help so many people. Dr. Juliana, thank you so much for coming with me today.

**Dr. Juliana Hauser** (1:40)
Oh, it's so good to see you.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (1:42)
You know, this book has been in your heart and soul for years, and I watched you go through the travail that takes years off of an author's life to bring what you knew, to bring all the feelings into the covers. And I have to tell you, I also watched the travail of naming it. But how clever are you, a new position on sex? But this book is so much, not just about positions about sex. It's so not that, right? Because I know you are so holistic in your approach. What is at the core of this book?

**Dr. Juliana Hauser** (2:33)
I think the core of it is we have to look at what the concept of sexuality is really different. If we want to change our sexual culture to a culture that isn't so toxic and negative, and actually is the roots of what we've known as humans for thousands of years and have gotten away from. And so that would be like the ultimate, like we just have to start looking at it differently. And we've seen the problems that have occurred when we haven't looked at it differently. So there's that. And the second part of it is I want to give people the framework of once you buy into there needs to be a different way of looking at this. Yes.
And we hear in the media, we hear everywhere about sex is so important, sex is so important in our relationships, and we are given sex tips on how to do the functionality of things. But what we're not given is the framework in which to understand who we are as a sexual being and what we really are wanting for ourselves and if we're partnered with anyone else, with our partner. And so I find a lot of people at this crossroads of, I agree, this needs to change, I want more than sex tips, I want something deeper than that, but I have no idea where to start and what you're even talking about. I believe you, but also what are you talking about? And so this book is the, what I'm talking about.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (4:06)
So I think that sometimes, especially because we receive virtually zero sex education in this country, we are talking about a performative physical act, but I know that where you come from, it starts with our brain and our attitudes and identifying meaning, and can culminate in an act or multiple acts, but that's not the heart and soul of it, is it?

**Dr. Juliana Hauser** (4:35)
Correct. Yeah, it isn't. It is, to me, I use the phrase that sexuality is our final frontier of self-development.
It is, in my view and through the work that I've been doing on this, it is, sexuality holistically is the best expression of who we are, like the truest form of the essence and the core of us, and sexuality is one of the most powerful pathways to learn who you are. So it's a both and, it's an expression of and it's a pathway towards, and we just aren't taught that. If you are hearing that and only thinking like sex acts, then of course that's what you're thinking because that's what we've been taught. But I'm saying, no, no, no, that statement makes a whole lot more sense. Like after you've gone through the framework, after you've listened to me talk, after you've read the book, you realize I'm talking about like the nine pillars of sexuality that I believe in are really a way of looking at yourself from a 360 point of view. It's all of you.