Editing For Speed And Emotion

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Like you know, being an editor, there's a lot of decisions to make. And one of the decisions that we made was that we wanted this to be a fun, fast-moving book. My chapters are very short. There's a lot of insight and depth, but there's also a lot of fun and adventure and an emotion. And she wanted it to be like an active, quick-paced ride.

Meet The Host And Guest

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines, and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journal. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I have with me today here author Alisa Kriegel, who's also a psychologist with a thriving private practice in Manhattan working with adults and couples. She is on a mission to help people give themselves permission to seek pleasure and believe everyone deserves to experience incredible mind-blowing sex. Her memoir from Sexless Marriage to Sex Goddess is her first book. Her podcast, Let's Talk About Sex, really is on all platforms. Alright, Alisa, how are you? Thank you for joining me. Hi, Natasha. So good to meet you. Yeah, likewise. So, Alisa, your book is, you know, discusses a hot topic, which which like uh I guess couples won't talk about, which is like sexless marriages. So, and it's based on your memoir. So, um, I'm actually curious what made you write this kind of raw, might be painful memoir exposing things that probably people don't want to talk about. So, what what made you write about this?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

You know, I think that is part of the reason. I think that was part of my motivation, is so many times when we are in something like a sexless marriage, it can feel extremely lonely and we feel very alone in it. And because no one, there's so much shame around it, no one really talks about it, except maybe in jokes, you know, but no one talks authentically about it, like, oh, I've been married forever. Of course we don't have sex, right? Ha ha. But yeah, there's people who do, and it's really painful not to. So I think feeling so alone and realizing I think as I was coming when I came out the other side and started dating, I thought, well, no one's talking about it. So someone has to be the first person to talk about it. And I felt that being a psychologist and for people knowing that no matter all the training I've had and how much I can help other people, I still had my own issues, as we all do, and I'm still human. And if I could talk about this, then maybe it could help more people. So I really felt like my the work I do is one-on-one, either with an individual or a couple, and I've worked with couples now since with sexless marriages, and so I thought this is a way to help more people than I could help one-on-one in my office.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Okay. So, how

What “Sexless Marriage” Means

SPEAKER_01 3:42

would you define a sexless marriage? Is it no sex at all, or is it like a few times a year? What's the actual definition? So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

The researchers who talk about it, because I did a lot of kind of looking at the research. The researchers, when it's talked about in statistics, sexless marriage is considered sex 10 times a year or less. So anywhere from none at all to 10 times a year is the range. So 10 times a year is less than once a month, right? Okay. And that's what people are considering sexless. I've found that the majority of people I work with, and for myself included, it was far less than the 10 times a year. And many of the people I work with and I've spoken to and who've reached out to me from reading the book, it's been no sex at all for years or even decades.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Wow.

How Sex Fades And Shame Grows

SPEAKER_01 4:38

So what would make what was like the number one reason that makes marriages sexless?

SPEAKER_00 4:45

It's I don't, I don't know if anyone has a number one reason, but oftentimes it's just people stop talking about it. Okay. There's so much shame. And what I find is there's such a lack of communication, or people stop asking. You know, there's one partner who's not interested. But what I find is it's usually a lot of really complicated factors. So I was really careful in writing my book. For my story, the easy answer that I thought people can cling to this easily is after a 25-year marriage, my husband came out. Okay. He fell in love with a man. I had always had a sense that he was bisexual. So it was surprising, but not completely out of left field, but it was still a surprise. And that would be the easy answer. Oh, there's a mismatch. He's actually more interested in sex with men. Okay. But that that's not the whole truth. And so for us, like most couples, it's complicated. And what really happened is we were young. I had my own issues around sex. There's a lack, an incredible lack of sex education, not just for teenagers, but for adults as we get older. So I met him, I was young, I was 20. We were married by like 23. And I was on birth control from the time I was probably about 18 years old and didn't know that the birth control affects how wet you get as a woman when you get turned on. You're much drier. It affects your body and how you feel in your body. I had a medical condition that I didn't learn about until I was 40, which is a tilted uterus or a retroverted uterus. It can make sex intercourse painful. So my lack of knowledge about my own body and lack of sexual education on both our parts, we never thought lube was an issue, but it probably would have helped. We didn't know that I had, you know, I didn't share, except for once or twice, that intercourse was painful. And the way it came out when I said it was angry that how come you can't fix this kind of thing? You know, you should know better. You're the man. And he held on to that and made him very nervous to have sex with me, made it very uncomfortable. And then at some point, we stopped talking about it. It just became something that we did once in a while, and it was fine, but not great enough to keep doing. And I think that's what happens to most people. Sex becomes fraught and difficult, and there's challenges, and it's too much for some couples to talk about, so they stop talking. And when the talking about sex stops and the sex stops, then you're in a whole new pattern, and that's the new normal for you. And to get out of that rot takes a lot of work. So that's what I've seen happen for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

So in the beginning of your marriage, so the the difficulty started from the early years of marriage and continued, or did it happen later in life?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

It happened, you know. I think when we're in those early stages, there's so much hormones flowing, and so much of those right in those first six months of a relationship. And when that slows down, things change with sex. I think for us, it really started pretty early on. And I think for a for myself, and I've seen this with a lot of couples, we make choices in our couples. And for me, I chose someone who was a best friend and an intellectual partner. And we shared a lot of the same cultural interests and activities. So he was a great companion, he was great to talk to, he was wonderful, he was very, we were both very affectionate with each other, but we never grew together as lovers. We never really explored that part. And so I think a lot of people choose comfort or security or friendship and don't always have those that sexual part that's developed.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And

Staying For Comfort Versus Leaving

SPEAKER_01 9:16

what if a couple are happy with this arrangement? Like, you know, we're, you know, it's like it's not a big part of who we are. We're still affectionate, we're still best friends, we're still kind to each other. What why break the marriage over this?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah, I think a lot of people stay for exactly that reason, right? And I think I was on that path. Okay. We'd been together 25 years, and I had, you know, approached at one point, I think in my 40s, early, you know, as we were, you know, right before I was getting pregnant and all of that, sex was becoming a little bit more comfortable, but we were still so much in this rut that it was uncomfortable emotionally. And I've said oftentimes that had he not fallen in love with someone else and sort of was the catalyst that blew up the marriage, I don't know if I would have had the courage to leave it for the same reasons you're saying. It was comfortable and it was good enough and it was loving enough. And that's a really scary thing to change. So I think a lot of people stay. And a lot of people also push down their regret or resentment. I I definitely did, like, oh, you don't get everything, right? We hear that all the time in marriage. Well, you don't get everything you want. Okay, so I didn't get romance and sex.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

But it was painful, and I definitely missed that sort of attention and missed that connection. But having met so young, I had never had really great sex in my life. So I also didn't know what I was missing.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

And you only found this out in later in life in your 40s and 50s, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah. So I didn't start dating until I was about we 47, 48 is when the around when the marriage when I was ready after that we had set, you know, after things had separated and after he was already dating, obviously he had fallen in love with someone, but I wasn't ready to date for a little while. And so yeah, in my late 40s is when I was like, oh, this is great, you know, this is really great. And I had to get in touch with myself. And I also now knew what this condition was and how I was affected by it. And I talk very blunt in the book. I talk about size, you know, genital size, I talk about fit. Because what I learned is that like certain size penises fit better than others for me, you know. Um, so this idea everyone wants a big dick, you know, I didn't. I was like, no, nope, that's too much for me. So it was like all these things I had not really explored. And in the exploration, I realized, oh, there's this whole part of myself I really cut off.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

So how did you feel in the marriage when you were in the marriage? And did you blame yourself? Did you were you jealous of your friends who were like saying, oh, my husband always wants sex, whatever? Like, what were what were your feelings during this?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Yeah, you know, interestingly, I didn't have a lot of the female friendships that are all like joking and talking openly about sex. And I had a lot of friends who were not really having a lot of sex with their husbands or was just very, you know, average, but no one was really talking about it in great detail, sort of until I started dating and bringing up sex. So for whatever reason, I just didn't have a lot of that. But I often felt, you know, I think we all grow up seeing, and as adults, I'll watch rom-coms and we, you know, read books with great romance in it. And and I felt really honestly, there was something, maybe there's something wrong with me. You know, I think it's, I don't know if that's our lot, you know, how we're raised as women to take on a lot of responsibility for things, but I certainly was. I was an oldest child, so maybe that's also part of it. But I really felt like somehow I'm not in shape enough. I need to get to the gym more. I don't, I'm not pretty enough, I'm not like energetic enough, I whatever it was, I definitely was blaming myself and not realizing that. You know, I think there was just there is a sort of chemistry that we have with people. And I think while my ex-husband and I had a wonderful friendship chemistry, and we're very deep and very caring of each other, we really didn't have a great sexual chemistry. Okay. It just wasn't there for us. And he was not expressive in the way I hoped. And I do think part of that probably was that his sexual attraction was more towards men. Towards men, yeah. Whereas his emotional connection was more towards women. So he was really in a bind. He really loved women. Do you blame him in hindsight? Do you think that's I don't blame him? I, you know, I I feel bad for a society in which had he been more comfortable, he was struggling too. I was certainly angry. Look, this is like after eight years of this happening. So I'm in a very different place. I was angry for a very long time. I don't think blame is the word. I was angry and I was really, what's often underneath anger, I think, is fear. And I was afraid. I was really afraid that I had set up this very comfortable life with this person who I knew really well. And we now had a son at the time when this happened. My son was about seven. And what now happens to our son? What happens to me? Like, how do we live apart? We really grew up together from you know, 20 until 45, 47. We we grew up together, and now this person who's the most significant person in my life is not going to be in my life in the same way. So I was terrified. By the end, it was also really sad for him that what was it in society, what was it in me that didn't allow him to be honest with himself about his feelings for so long? And it was probably the same thing I was feeling, which is this is fine enough the way it is. But for him, there was a lot of shame also around his sexuality.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

So after you you published the memoir, or even before, was he aware that you're writing a memoir? I was.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

I I told him he's not to this day, he's not happy about it. He's not like, oh yay, our sex life is going to be put out in writing. He's not read it. I gave him some chapters that were about him to show him, you know, how I was approaching it. And I was very conscious, there's a lot of chapters that I edited out because it was too much about him and his psychology and his life upbringing. And I realized it's not his story. He's the catalyst to my story and he's a part of my story. But I think as writers, we have to always

Telling A Memoir Without A Villain

SPEAKER_00 17:13

be careful of whose story are we telling.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

And for me, I wanted to make sure I'm telling my story. And so if it was what he's he thinking, what was he going on in him, I had to leave that out because he's not here in this, you know, it's not for me to tell his story. If he ever wants to write, he he used to write quite a bit, not as his profession, but he he he's written stories, short stories, things, started novels. And I've always said, well, I'm gonna write my story, and if you want to write one, you can write yours. But I'm gonna be, I'm really careful that I'm not, I was very careful to not make him the villain in the story. Did you use his real name? I did not. I I I changed I changed all the names in the book except for close, close friends who gave me permission to use their name. I for the protection of the people, because I'm talking about delicate issues, and for the protection of my husband and my son, who again didn't, my son was seven, he didn't ask to be put in a book. And there are definitely several chapters about him or my relationship with him as a mom and son. And so I changed both their names.

unknown 18:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Okay. Were you worried about being sued, defamation or stuff like that?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

You know, there's there's a point right before you publish where everyone's sort of talking about, like, oh, is there anything in the book? And I wasn't only because I I not only changed people's names, I changed identifying characteristics about them. So I changed what jobs they had. I and also because I don't think I I don't think I showed anyone in a terrible light, but there were people who were married and had permission from a spouse, but sort of a don't ask, don't tell, like, you know, who were in sexless marriages with their spouse, and their spouse did not want their wife, did not want sex, and said this is a it was fairly common and said, I know you need this, go have sex, don't do it on our house. I don't want to know the details. And so for people, you know, there there's people who I felt like it wasn't fair of me, if anyone would find them. So yes, I changed names, I changed professions so that they wouldn't be recognizable.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Okay, so what do you think people who are in sexless marriages, especially those who are not happy with the situation? Like because people are might be in sexless marriages and they're okay with it. But if they're not okay with it and they can the for you know, for the reason that you mentioned, they don't have the courage or the circumstances to get out of it. What what do you advise them to do?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

You know, the easiest thing, the first step I advise everyone, is first like know yourself and know, you know, this is what's not okay. This doesn't feel good. And the the next thing is to have the courage to at least speak up, to at least say something.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

To who to your partner or to your friends? Your partner.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

I mean, look, I think therapy is great. I'm obviously a big fan of therapy, but I think, yeah, I think it's a conversation with the partner. And I think too often in couples, what I've seen for myself as well is, and especially once you have children, if there's children involved, even if you have, even if you don't have children, I think we get into such well-worn patterns with our partners. And it feels really scary to say anything because, oh, this is just what we do, right? It might be anything, even from right, discussing leaving a job or changing a job and not having as much stability, or you know, wanting to pursue your writing or wanting to pursue, you know, a creative endeavor. You're rocking the boat. And so I think the first step is always conversation and seeing if there can be conversation about, you know, I'm really missing this, or I feel like this is something we need to be talking about. And if you're not comfortable talking, maybe we sh can go to a therapist to talk about it. But someone always has to have the courage to do something different. In my case, it I don't think it was a courage thing as much as a desperation thing. My husband was working away from the home and feeling very lonely, and obviously had a lot of cut off parts of himself. And so Got into these relationships and ended up falling in love. So was that courageous? It was that he told me. I mean, he's been with a, you know, I know there's a lot of men out there who I've worked with, who I've spoken to, who have affairs going on straight or gay, that are, I don't wanna, I don't want to change anything at home. I don't want to, you know, rock the boat. I'm just gonna have an affair. I think it's way more courageous to say something. I did find out by reading a text, he told me. So someone has to be courageous enough. And then at some point I had to have the courage, because at some point it really was, well, this is fine. Why can't we just go on living this way? And meaning he has a boyfriend and maybe I date. And I said, you know, when I really think about what I want, I want the whole package. I want the person who I'm with to also be my friend and my lover. And I just don't, I don't want to do it all in pieces. So someone has to have the courage to say what they really want, to first know themselves enough to know what you want, or to just know that the situation isn't feeling good, and then have the courage to speak up about it. And that's really what it takes. And so many people are afraid to do that. And sometimes it takes the person who feels like they're gonna take that step going to a therapist or going to a good friend for support to help them with that next step.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna pivot a bit and talk a bit about the publishing process and and the writing process. So you wrote the book, and what was the the trigger that made you say I wanna sit down and write the book? I coach a number of writers, and sitting down to write the book is probably one of the hardest things. Yes. That's so what made you decide, okay, I'm gonna do this, and how did you commit to that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

That is still really hard, the sitting down part. So the trigger for me to write the book was I had a my dearest friend who I was telling, starting one of some of my first dating stories. As I was dating, I was telling her them. And she knew everything. She

Writing On A Phone Then Publishing

SPEAKER_00 24:31

was the only person who knew what was going on with me and my husband, told her all my dating stories, and she said, Oh my God, this should be a book. You should write this. And I had always written in my life, I had always kept journals, poetry, short stories, and I thought, oh, and I just value her and her opinion so much that I actually went home that night and opened my phone and started writing down the first pages of it on my phone, on the note section of my phone. And I'd say the first 50 pages were probably basically written mostly while I was traveling back and forth to work every day. It was before COVID. So I had about 20 minutes on the tr on the subway, back and forth, and I would take up my notepad and I would write on the train.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

On your phone.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

On my phone. The first I would say the first 100 pages were all on my phone. I didn't even translate it to word a word document. I I was clueless. I kept changing apps. It was first on the note app, then there was some app called Matcha that was for like writing longer essays. And then once I got to 100 pages, I was like, oh, this is kind of choppy. Let me so it was probably not till after 100 pages in that I switched to any sort of normal what we would expect to write on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

So you just use if you have an iPhone and you just use the uh the notes. I have an iPhone and you use the notes.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah, so there's no excuse. There is no excuse to not write. I'm sorry to I'm sorry to ruin that for people. But like I'm a bit of spontaneous. Like, if you make me sit down with a blank computer page, I it's really I struggle. So but uh on my phone, I could just be like, uh, I'd have some inspiration and I'd start writing.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

I think yeah, I think the yeah, I think the computer provides some sort of a resistance. I think the idea of sitting behind the computer is a bit is a bit intimidating. Yeah. But the phone is now becoming like a third hand or like part of ourselves. Yeah. And using it to write kind of, I feel breaks that fear and breaks that resistance because you're very familiar with this device that you you have with you all the time. So that this is fascinating, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah, it's not intimidating at all because how many of us write like super long emails to people or when we're angry at someone at our partner, we write a long text and we decide whether we're gonna send it or not. But we write it all out there. So the phone is like, so it was like a great place for me to just fill my guts, really.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Marion Roach Smith, who I adore, who wrote the memoir project. As as I realized this was actually I don't know this one.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

I'm taking notes.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah. Oh, wonderful. Marion Roach Smith. And it's a little book, it's called The Memoir Project.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

And it's wonderful. And she's written several memoirs, and she writes about the first draft, she calls it the vomit draft.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Where you just wanna like vomit everything. And there's something about being on the computer that I find makes us feel like more proper. It has to look good, it has to sound good. And there's something about the phone or a scrap of paper. She keeps a little notebook with her wherever she goes to jot down ideas. That just loosens us up a little bit. So that was honestly, I had a dear friend, another dear friend who knows a lot of writers. And I remember showing it to her at 50 pages and just being like, oh my God, I can't believe I got to 50 pages. Like, how did that happen? You know? And and so with each step, it just was like becoming a little more real. I don't think I set out like on writing and publishing a book, but in the back of my head, I was like, I can do that. Okay, I'm gonna write a book. My friend said, write this. This is a good story. I'm gonna write a book.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Oh, wow. Okay, and then you finished the manuscript. What happened after you finished the manuscript?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Well, so I finished a really rough draft of the manuscripts, tried, you know, did started doing some editing and did the old send out query letters to every agent and a few publishers, and got either no response or some people saying it's really wonderful, not it's not what what I do. Had a dear friend in publishing who kind of made introductions and kind of kept hitting the typical roadblocks and never could really get enough to know, like, but is am I onto something? Is this good? Is the writing good? I was really concerned about like, do I have, like, is my voice distinctive? I wanted to make sure like it's my voice in the book. And I heard Marion, Marion also has a podcast she does called Quirty. And I would listen to that to figure out to learn more. I'm I'm novice at right at memoirs, and a lot of people she spoke to had been with the big five publishing and were starting to go to. I kept hearing this press mentioned, she writes press. Marion knew the publisher, she was a former, and I just kept hearing the name over and over. And I was like, let me look into this. It's hybrid publishing. And what I loved though is I didn't know if I would use she writes, but what I liked is they have a whole process where you submit like the first five chapters and then a summary of every single chapter in the book and book comps. Like you, you it's a big submission process. But they give you an analysis of your book and whether they would be interested, basically red, yellow, green lights. We're not interested, we don't think this is ready, it needs a lot more work. I got a yellow light with my first submission, which is we think this is really good, but there's a few issues. And they wrote, they write a really full page to two, wonderful, thoughtful summary, in which they said, like, the beginning is rocky. It feels like you've begun this book five different times, which was so true because I was so scared of what I was about to say that I kept being really hesitant. And I was like, damn, they're spot on. It's sort of like I'm starting, but I'm not. I'm starting, but I'm not, you know. So that was probably what I really needed to hear. And they said I had had an editor, but not a full edit, not a full content edit. And they said, look, we think it's really great. We think it needs a content edit, give it an edit, and then send it back to us. And so that's what I did. So I found an editor and we worked on it. We cut about 10,000 words, we moved some things around, and that was probably another year or so that I did that. And then I sent it back to SheWrites and it was approved for publishing. So it was exciting.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

What was the reaction after you published it? I, assuming there were goods and bads in, you know, I publish books, I always get good and bad feedback. So what was the feedback? Let's say, let's start with the negative feedback. Yeah. What was the thing that people did not like?

SPEAKER_00 32:30

So the negative feedback from I had a lot of readers. Readers are much more kind, but but still, right? The biggest negative feedback was that it sort of slowed down and got sloggy, like it slogged in areas. And the other big feedback from my content editor was there was a bunch of things that just kept getting repeated. Things I kept saying, but in different ways, that she felt was like we could bring together and say stronger

Reviews, Backlash, And Sex Positivity

SPEAKER_00 33:02

wants rather than these, oh, you said, you know, and that's really boring for a reader. Oh, you said this already. I know that. So a lot of, you know, like you know, being an editor, there's a lot of decisions to make. And one of the decisions that we made was that we wanted this to be a fun, fast-moving book. My chapters are very short. There's a lot of insight and depth, but there's also a lot of fun and adventure and emotion. And she wanted it to be like an active quick-paced ride. Like, let's keep it moving. And so, what she told me is if I find myself getting slowed down or tired, or it just is like going through quicksand in any part, I'm cutting it.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Okay, so what was the feedback from the readers or the reviews?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Yeah. So, readers before I sent it for publishing, I think the big feedback positive was how vulnerable and brave the work was, which was very nice to keep me going because I was so scared of putting something so raw out there. The other feedback that was fascinating is a lot of people after reading it opened up to me about their own sexual stories, which was fascinating because I thought, oh, the book is working. It's helping people connect to their own stories. Because ultimately, when you put a book in the world, it's no longer your story. It's my book, but it's no longer mine. And I had a hard time understanding that until I started sharing it with readers and realized people are going to respond to the parts of the story that resonate for them and it becomes their story. It becomes, they see themselves in it. So people all had something, and their stories were all very different than mine, but that kept me going. And then some of the biggest criticism I got early on from several people was is this a self-help book or a memoir? Because in the beginning, I was, I think, putting on the therapist hat a little and giving too much like research or, you know, kind of self-helpy. And and and it wasn't clear. I was not intending for it to be a self-help book, but I think that's my, we all have our defenses of where we stopped being as honest in the writing. And when it was things I was scared to write about, I would put on my professional hat, my therapist hat. And I didn't realize I was doing it. But when when I got the like third or fourth person saying, Oh, is this a self-help book? And then I had one person read it who was a writer and said, you have to really decide if you want to write a memoir or you want to write a self-help book. And said, No, I want to write a memoir. So that that feedback was crucial to me doing my own edit and my editor to really make sure it is a memoir. And if it helps people, that's wonderful, but it's not meant to be self-help.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, that that's a very good feedback.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Okay. What about like angry readers who did not like this the subject matter? Like, especially the title, Sex Goddess, especially that believe that women should not be that open about their sexuality or their sexual adventures. Did you get any of those? And if yes, how did you deal with them?

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Yeah, I did not from my readers because I sort of they were hand-picked. When you are before your book publishes, I think you're aware, right? It goes on to a book bub and all the it's it's on all these places where people can get copies of the book in exchange for a review. And I had a publicist at the time who was basically sending me all these wonderful reviews. And I was like, okay, Jesse, but what are we doing with the really bad reviews? And she was like, first of all, there's not too many of those. She said, but I want you to know you have to believe in your book. Because I, you know, I think it's a really great, it's a great, well-written book. And the people who don't like it, it is not the right book for them. Exactly. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I mean, I've read books that I'm like, ugh, this I just don't, I'm not, you know. I did, one of my proudest moments was I did have a review from someone who's asexual.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

And said, and I did get a review saying, What about the people who are asexual? How come you're writing this book about sex? But what if someone's asexual? And I was like, well, then it's probably not the right book for them. But I ended up having a reader who was asexual and defined herself. She said, I'm asexual, and I was curious about your book. And she's like, while I didn't find some of the more, you know, steamy sections arousing, I did find them very interesting and I found it a really good read. And I was like, wow, see, see, an asexual person can read a book. You know, so I it's not for everyone. I think there was definitely people I had who reviewed who were upset by the, like there was one review, I think I, you know, we often sent to like Kirkist or some of these bigger reviewers. And I had a man who reviewed the book. And it was so clear he hadn't read the book because he basically just gave a summary, like he flipped delicately through the pages, like afraid to touch them, you know, and basically gave a summary of like random chapters throughout the book, but didn't say anything, and then commented on how this book is just about titillation more than depth or something like that. And I was like, oh, you didn't even read the book, because there's not that many, there's some spicy scenes in it, but there's a lot more introspection and depth and emotion. So I was like, so I think a lot of people, right? The saying you can't judge a book by its cover. I think a lot of people judge a book by its cover. I have the book with me. I don't know if you you've, I'm sure you've seen it, if you have a copy, right? So it's a pretty sexy cover. And I think there's a lot of people who, if they're uncomfortable with sex, are like, whoa, this is all just too bring, you know, oh, they're just trying to be titillating. So that definitely had gotten interestingly from men on that end, the oh, this is just and on the other end, I had a male reader who was disappointed. He was expecting sex goddess to be more like porn goddess, like his expectation. I was like, that's porn you're talking about. That's not sex. I'm about sex positivity. Like you're describing that the scenes you were hoping were in the book were scenes that he had seen in porn, and it was like, not my book. That's not my book.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

So um, I feel like there's a more openness now to talk about like female sexuality, and there's I'm not sure if if you heard about this show, I forgot where. I recently found out about it. It's called Dying for Sex. If you heard of it, I did. You did.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Yeah, Michelle Williams.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

She just won for it, she just won an award. She's yes. This is how I heard about it. Yes, because she won the award. And she was in a sexless marriage because she was sick, and so she went on a kind of a sex exploration journey. Do you do you find like similar themes between the show and your book? Even though the trigger for her was completely different than the trigger for you.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

I do, and what was really interesting for her, I do find similar themes, and and it was handled really beautifully in the movie, and it was really a like it was a woman who had a significant life change, which was her cancer diagnosis, and had been in a sexless marriage for a long time and knew she was going to die. And she was like, her goal was I am not going to die without having an orgasm with a partner. Yeah. She had only had orgasms with with masturbation. Herself. Yeah, yeah. So it's really, it's really a tale, I think. All of these, it's female empowerment, it's women saying, like, this is this is my own body, and I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to figure out what gives me pleasure, and it's a healthy, normal, wonderful thing to be able to do. And I think they handled that really well in the in the movie. It was a lot more. If you watch the the, it's a beautifully done, but it's a lot more about her dying, or it's equally, if not as much, about her dying as it is about sex. And so I was like, oh, I thought I was watching something light. This is really heavy.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Yeah, it was, yeah, I haven't finished it. I just thought it was watching it.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Okay. It's really heavy, but it's beautiful because I think even that idea of a woman like never having an orgasm with a partner is not unusual, but how amazing that she sort of was like, I'm gonna go, I'm I I'm I'm gonna make this my mission before I die. So do you have any other books in mind? So I'm I've started working, so I've originally had an idea that after I do this, I would do a self-help book, but now I sort of want to get as far away from like sex as the topic necessarily. And I've actually started writing like a fantasy science fiction book, kind of more more fiction. So it's like completely different, yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if I'm gonna actually continue with it, but right now I feel like I'm sort of just doing a large over-correction for like, let me just do something completely different to keep the, you know, my creative juices flowing. And it's been really fun. It's just been really fun to write. And I think I also wanted to do something that's not so obviously about me. I think as writers, whether we write fiction or write about other people, we're always writing about something in ourselves or our experiences. And so, but it's been fun to write something that it's like it's not me. I am not, you know, I am not the main character in this book talking about myself. That's been lovely. That's been really a lovely thing to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Oh, so how can people reach you? How can they uh get your book, get in touch with you, maybe go?

SPEAKER_00 44:06

So the easiest way is probably through my website. It's okay, it's just my name, Alisa Kriegel. A I don't know if it came up on here. I put it in. Yeah. So elisakriegel.com. That's it. It's at elisakriegel.com. And on there, my book is on there, information about my book, reviews. You can message me through my through my website. There is also my podcast is on there as well. So all of my podcast episodes, which are more specifically about sex, but really very much about the title of the podcast, Let's Talk About, Let's Talk About Sex really. It's very much about communication and kind of sex education, all the things we don't talk about that we should be talking about. So the podcast is on there and the link, there's a link to buy the book from whatever whatever place you prefer to buy books.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Okay, great. This is great. So well, thank you very much, Alisa. This this has been a wonderful, enlightening discussion. Uh for anyone, and for anyone who's listening or watching, make sure to check Alisa's book. I'm gonna get the title right. Or you can tell me, or the title, what what's the title?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

I will from From Sexless Marriage to Sex Goddess, a memoir.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Great. And uh feel free to reach out to Alice Alisa on her website, as she mentioned.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Please and follow me. I have my Instagrams, follow me wherever you follow people, would be wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Ah, great. For anyone who's listening or watching, thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and until we meet again. Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Times. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time, happy reading, happy writing.