Michelle Dovey spent twenty years as the painter of oak trees. Then, sketching classical statues in Florence, she looked down and found she had drawn an entire male figure except for one region, left blank without meaning to. The next afternoon she drew nothing but the genitals of Michelangelo's David. Within a year she had drawn more than seventy naked men, in a project she designed as an act of permission.

In this episode, the internationally exhibiting artist and author talks with existential sex therapist Dr. Emma Smith about what that year taught her about shame, and about the skill at the center of her work now, the shameless ask: sensing what you want, trusting it, and naming it clearly.

The conversation starts with the blind spot, the thing in plain sight that your conditioning won't let you see. From there it moves to the friends and family who begged her to stop, and to the men who told her it was the first time they had ever felt seen. Its hinge is a question the models kept asking her: how would you like us to pose? Michelle found that asking made her feel fantastic whether or not she got what she asked for, and that not asking left her irritated and tired. Dr. Emma brings it home to long-term couples, for whom asking is harder precisely because their partner knows them, and to the men in her practice who want, more than they can say, to feel desired. They also talk about the female gaze, a tantric gazing practice, and Michelle's retreat in Venice this November.

If the person you love asked you tonight how you would like them to be, would you have an answer, or would you hand the pencil back?

Full show notes

Michelle's Venice retreat, November 4–8: https://venice.michelledovey.com/unedited

More from Michelle: https://invitation.michelledovey.com

Support for the show: Nine to Kind Planners, the planner Dr. Emma actually uses. Code EMMA20 for 20% off → https://ninetokind.com/

If this one stirred something up, tell Dr. Emma: http://forms.gle/sS7z5AFH1DohJjAU6