Making Love: A Podcast with Sarah Rose Bright

My guest is Professor Rob Brooks, evolutionary biologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and author of Artificial Intimacy. Rob spent years studying mating and sexual conflict in the animal kingdom before turning his attention to humans. He comes from a very different world to mine, and it was fascinating to explore love, sex and connection through his evolutionary lens.Artificial intimacy, the impact of AI on intimacy and sex, is something I’ve been tracking for a while. It’s changing far faster than we can digest as a society, with few ethical guardrails or discussion, and I believe it has the potential to transform sex, intimacy and relationships in a very short space of time.We discuss the evolutionary biology of intimacy, the rise of AI companions, and how machine selection could shape our social lives. We explore the impact of these technologies on loneliness and grief, and what the future of intimacy might look like in a tech-driven world.This is a fascinating, essential and thought-provoking conversation that’s made me even more committed to human relationships and organic life. I feel we only scratched the surface. So let’s dive in with Rob Brooks.In this episode we explore:Rob's "non-mystical" view of love and how evolution uses a cocktail of hormones and sensations to convince us that partnership is a good dealSexual conflict, from guppies and praying mantises to humansHow a dinner with a roboticist shifted Rob’s focus from sex robots to intimacy with machines.Intimacy as an algorithmWhat escalating self-disclosure isWhy language is AI's “secret sauce”How chatbots learn to build intimacy, even when they weren’t designed to.Grief, digital children and simulated loved ones, and what the history of photographing the dead can teach us"Cruel companionship” - do AI companions exploit loneliness and commodify intimacy?Rob's experiment with Replika, the AI companion appSarah’s own experience creating an AI boyfriend, and the very strange moment of being invited to "birth him together"Machine selection - how AI could shape who forms relationships, who has children and how humans evolveDunbar’s number, and what we lose when machines eat into our time for human connectionThe fear that intimacy could become a high-priced luxury goodWhy balancing online and real-world connection takes commitmentWhat the history of road safety can teach us about regulating AIHow we might "domesticate" machines the way our ancestors domesticated dogsResources mentioned:Artificial Intimacy: Virtual Friends, Digital Lovers, and Algorithmic Matchmakers by Rob BrooksArthur and Elaine Aron’s research on escalating self-disclosure (the “36 questions” studies)Robin Dunbar’s work on friendship circles (Dunbar’s number)Silent Spring by Rachel CarsonFlesh and Code (Wondery / The Guardian): the podcast series about Replika users and their chatbot relationshipsRob Brooks is an evolutionary biologist who spent the first part of his career studying animal behaviour, including the tensions between cooperation and conflict that make sex, reproduction and family life so complex. Having discovered that these ideas have much to offer in understanding the interpersonal and societal complexities of human behaviour, he gradually moved toward studying and writing about humans and the fast-moving technologies that interact with evolved human psychology.His first book, Sex, Genes & Rock ’n’ Roll: How Evolution has Shaped the Modern World (2011, NewSouth), won the 2012 Queensland Literary Award for Science Writing. His second, Artificial Intimacy: Visual Friends, Digital Lovers and Algorithmic Matchmakers considered the impact of new developments in robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence on human social and sexual behaviour. Recently, he has turned much of his energy to writing a Substack called Natural History of the Future.RESOURCES FROM ROBrobbrooks.substack.comwww.robbrooks.net@Brooks_Rob (Twitter)https://www.facebook.com/RobBrooks.writingRESOURCES FROM SARAHSarah has two gifts for you 🥰Awakening Sensuality Through Breast Massage — a practice for womenArriving Slowly — a connection practice for couplesSign up to receive both at www.sarahrosebright.comTo explore more of Sarah's work, including her courses, retreats, and her podcast, Making Love, visit www.sarahrosebright.comABOUT YOUR HOSTSarah Rose Bright is an Erotic Embodiment and Intimacy Guide, authorised teacher of The Making Love Retreat®, and host of Making Love, a podcast on the evolution of love, sex, and relationships. She guides women and committed couples who feel stuck and unfulfilled in their intimate lives - and know this is the missing piece. Women come home to their bodies, awaken their desire, and reclaim their power. Couples create an erotic life of depth, passion, and love. Find out more: https://sarahrosebright.com/MUSIC: Trust and Surrender by Ayla Schafer. You can explore more of her beautiful music here - https://www.aylaschafer.co.uk/

When was the last time someone asked you, and really wanted to know, "what's it like to be you?”Not "how are you?" followed by "fine." I mean a real genuine desire to know what your world us like, whatever your answer.In this episode, Sarah Rose is joined by David Bedrick, a counsellor, teacher and author who has spent more than 40 years exploring one of the most common and most hidden human experiences - shame.David shares how growing up with a violent father and a mother who couldn't see what was happening shaped his life's work. For David, shame isn't simply a feeling - it’s an internalised witness, the voice that looks at our experience and asks, "what's wrong with you?"What touched Sarah most were his stories. David shows what happens when we meet symptoms with curiosity rather than judgement. He describes a woman whose stutter hid a fierce, powerful voice, a woman who hadn't left her home in ten years and the client who insisted her childhood was "fine" but carried a lifetime of feeling that she didn't matter.He also explains why we can't cure ourselves of ourselves, and why love begins with truly seeing another person.In this episode we explore:Why shame is an internalised witness rather than just a strong emotionHow most shame stays invisible, even to the person carrying itWhat "unshaming" means, and how it differs from denial, gaslighting and pathologisingWhy symptoms can carry intelligence and medicine and are not just problems to “fix”The danger of comparing your pain ("it wasn't that bad")How untold stories pass down through generations, including the storytellers of Hiroshima and NagasakiThe single most powerful question: *What's it like to be you?*A simple daily practice to begin unshaming your inner criticDavid's beautiful definition of love as seeing, feeling and believingContent note: This episode touches on tender and sensitive themes, including childhood trauma.David Bedrick, J.D., Dipl. PW, is the founder of the UnShaming Way — a depth-psychology approach built on one conviction: your symptoms, struggles, and survival strategies carry intelligence, not pathology. He is the author of five books, including The Unshaming Way (North Atlantic Books), endorsed by Gabor Maté, MD. He has trained hundreds of clinicians and taught thousands of individuals. Before psychology, he practiced law; before law, he survived the home that taught him everything the books later confirmed. That is his deepest credential: he knows both harms — the violence, and the denial of it — from the inside. His work has appeared in Psychology Today and reaches hundreds of thousands of readers through his essays on trauma, shame, and the witness.RESOURCES FROM DAVIDwww.davidbedrick.com https://www.instagram.com/david.bedrick/ Free course: Masterclass on Unshaming EssentialsRESOURCES FROM SARAHSarah has two gifts for you 🥰Awakening Sensuality Through Breast Massage — a practice for womenArriving Slowly — a connection practice for couplesSign up to receive both at www.sarahrosebright.comTo explore more of Sarah's work, including her courses, retreats, and her podcast, Making Love, visit www.sarahrosebright.comABOUT YOUR HOSTSarah Rose Bright is an Erotic Embodiment and Intimacy Guide, authorised teacher of The Making Love Retreat®, and host of Making Love, a podcast on the evolution of love, sex, and relationships. She guides women and committed couples who feel stuck and unfulfilled in their intimate lives - and know this is the missing piece. Women come home to their bodies, awaken their desire, and reclaim their power. Couples create an erotic life of depth, passion, and love. Find out more: https://sarahrosebright.com/MUSIC: Trust and Surrender by Ayla Schafer. You can explore more of her beautiful music here - https://www.aylaschafer.co.uk/

In this episode, Graeme and I talk about penetration, specifically penis-vagina penetration with all its cultural and personal histories.When we think of improving penetration, we think of trying new positions. We never consider other ways to explore. We go deep into what becomes possible when we bring real, embodied presence to penetration instead of rushing towards a goal.In this episode we explore:How most of us learned penetration as a mechanical act, not an intimate oneWhy letting go of the script and be uncomfortable and how to navigate those momentsChecking in before penetration, and why this simple practice can be so healingHow childhood wounding and old conditioning can show up in intimacy and how we've learned to navigate that togetherThe Taoist concept of "the way" - learning to listen and move with what's actually happening, rather than following a scriptHow to practice presence in the everydayConscious penetration as a healing pathway through peri / menopauseWhy arousal doesn't have to come first and how willingness and openness can be a doorway into intimacyThe Making Love scissors positionHow to play with subtletyHow penetration can be a practiceWhy women not orgasming through penetration says more about the style of sex we've learned than anything being ‘wrong’ with themPassion as fire and how it becomes a life-giving forceCheckout two other podcast episodes mentioned in this one:Episode 61 on sex and menopauseEpisode 68 on the pleasure of planned intimacyIf this piques your curiosity, join us for our Making Love Retreat for couples in Devon in October - a full week dedicated to exactly what we talk about in this episode, through embodiment practices, teaching, and practice time. There is space left for two couples.You can find out more here: https://sarahrosebright.com/making-love-retreats/Graeme Waterfield is a men’s coach who guides men into deeper presence, embodiment, and self-awareness. His sexual energy mastery training, blends meditation, Taoist principles, and nervous system awareness to transform sexual energy into love, vitality, and consciousness. Moving away from performance and intensity, his work emphasises relaxation, heart connection, and integrating sexuality into everyday life, helping men deepen intimacy, authenticity, and inner ease.Graeme and Sarah teach The Making Love Retreat®. Together they guide couples into deeper dimensions of intimacy, lovemaking, and conscious connection.RESOURCES FROM GRAEMETo explore Graeme's work in meditation, embodiment and sexual energy mastery for men, including courses, coaching, retreats and teachings, visit: https://www.graemewaterfield.comGraeme’s Sexual Energy Mastery Training for men - a training for men exploring meditation, embodied awareness and the deeper potential of sexual energy as a pathway into embodiment. This course starts April 14th, 2026 (though you can join up to April 21st).You can also find Graeme on Facebook.RESOURCES FROM SARAHThe Making Love Retreat for Couples, 12th - 18th October, 2026For free gifts for women and couples and to explore Sarah's work - including private coaching, group programmes, courses, retreats and her podcast - visit www.sarahrosebright.comABOUT YOUR HOSTSarah Rose Bright is an Erotic Embodiment and Intimacy Guide, authorised teacher of The Making Love Retreat®, and host of Making Love, a podcast on the evolution of love, sex, and relationships. She guides women and committed couples who feel stuck and unfulfilled in their intimate lives - and know this is the missing piece. Women come home to their bodies, awaken their desire, and reclaim their power. Couples create an erotic life of depth, passion, and love. Find out more: https://sarahrosebright.com/MUSIC: Trust and Surrender by Ayla Schafer. You can explore more of her beautiful music here - https://www.aylaschafer.co.uk/

Carly Mountain, psychotherapist, sex therapist, and author of Descent & Rising, joined Sarah to talk about her new book, Untamed Pleasure: Unleash Your True Erotic Nature.She shares that we weren't born tamed - we get trained into cages, that keep us from our own erotic nature. Carly's book offers twelve keys to find our way back out.In this conversation, Carly joins Sarah to explore what it really means to untame, they talk about the twelve keys and cages framework at the heart of her new book, what emerged from interviewing over sixty people aged 23 to 71 about their erotic lives, why creative transgression was the hardest chapter to write, and what midlife opens for women reclaiming Eros.Carly shares the "pleasure paradox," rewilding orgasm and what it looks like for couples to untame together, including taking penetration off the table as a gateway to deeper intimacy.What you’ll hear:Defining "untamed pleasure" - why not "wild," and the difference between returning to something innate versus learning something newThe twelve keys and cages framework: physical, mental, emotional, energetic, relational, soulfulCommunication as a "skeleton key" for every cageWhat over 60 interviews (ages 23–71) revealedWhat untaming brings up: grief, fear of family rejection and moreMidlife as a threshold for reclaiming ErosThe chapter she found hardest to write, and whyWhy midlife is such a specific threshold for reclaiming ErosThe "pleasure paradox" — why the road to pleasure isn't always pleasurableRewilding orgasm beyond quick and genital-onlyWhat it looks like for a couple to untame togetherIf you've ever felt like there's more available to you, more pleasure, more aliveness, more permission - this conversation is for you.Carly Mountain is a somatic psychotherapist, sex therapist, sacred space holder, breathworker and author of Descent & Rising: Women’s Stories & the Embodiment of the Inanna Myth and Untamed Pleasure: Unleash Your True Erotic Nature. She is passionate about facilitating people to reconnect with their inherent erotic aliveness, power and pleasure. She lives in Sheffield, England with her husband and two daughters.RESOURCES FROM CARLYhttps://carlymountain.com/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/carly_mountainFacebook Carly MountainSubstack https://substack.com/@carlymountainRESOURCES FROM SARAHThe Making Love Retreat for Couples, 12th - 18th October, 2026Visit www.sarahrosebright.comABOUT YOUR HOSTSarah Rose Bright is an Erotic Embodiment and Intimacy Guide, authorised teacher of The Making Love Retreat®, and host of Making Love, a podcast on the evolution of love, sex, and relationships. She guides women and committed couples who feel stuck and unfulfilled in their intimate lives - and know this is the missing piece. Women come home to their bodies, awaken their desire, and reclaim their power. Couples create an erotic life of depth, passion, and love. Find out more: https://sarahrosebright.com/MUSIC: Trust and Surrender by Ayla Schafer. You can explore more of her beautiful music here - https://www.aylaschafer.co.uk/

Dr. Stephania Sciamano spent a decade practicing as a naturopathic doctor before realising that lab results alone couldn't explain why so many of her female patients weren't getting better. Underneath the hormone imbalances, she kept finding the same pattern: stuck anger, old grief, and a guarded, combative relationship to men in general — not just romantically, but with fathers, brothers, bosses, and colleagues. In this conversation, Stephania and Sarah unpack what femininity really is (hint: it's not lipstick), why a woman's cortisol rhythm can reveal exactly how safe she feels around men, and how softening that guard changes both a woman's biology and her relationships. They talk candidly about control, letting a partner love you in his own way and his own timing, why women so often have to "go first" energetically, and what's really happening beneath the surface during perimenopause and menopause. The episode closes with a short guided heart-opening practice.What We Cover- Stephania's path from 10 years in family and women's medicine, through a five-year shamanic apprenticeship, to focusing on the relational root of hormonal imbalance- Why treating hormones numerically often doesn't make a woman feel better — and what she found underneath the numbers instead- The direct link between a woman's stance toward men and her cortisol rhythm, including the classic signs of a disrupted rhythm (can't get up in the morning, second wind at night)- Defining femininity as an embodied intelligence — intuition, sensing, cyclical rather than linear energy — versus femininity as costume- The Chinese medicine frame of yin and yang as it relates to feminine and masculine energy- The difference between "nice" as a performance and real softness with a clear boundary underneath it- How a woman's presence — not her words — is what actually sets a boundary- What changes in men when women soften: standing taller, wanting to protect and provide, feeling inspired to build- A real client story: a successful business owner whose husband felt unwanted, and the humbling realisation of how much he'd already been trying to give- Why women often can't receive help, and what shifts when they can- Linking emotional openness directly back to cortisol and progesterone- What men experience when women lead with warmth instead of combat — and why "watching him chop firewood" hits differently than "watching him lift weights"- Practical starting points: noticing what spikes your adrenaline about men, and noticing the old grudge (dad, an ex, a boss) that's still running the show- Why women often have to go first energetically in a relationship — and why that isn't the same as doing all the work- The pitfall of expecting a partner's personal growth to look identical to your own, or to move at your speed- What's really happening in perimenopause and menopause beneath the physical symptoms: energy moving from "up and out" to "down and in," a return to lineage and roots, and why it can look like a midlife crisis when it's closer to a soul evolution- A guided heart practice: bringing scattered energy back into the body, expanding the heart in all directions, filling it with love, and sending that love out into the world- Stephania's definition of love: the presence of choiceDr. Stephania Sciamano (Dr S) is a naturopathic doctor and spiritual mentor to ambitious women worldwide who seek the feminine way to health, wealth, and love with men. She brings a rare synthesis of clinical experience and esoteric depth to her work, and her lifestyle is devoted to the union of men and women, with God at the helm.RESOURCES FROM DR STEPHANIADr Stephania Sciamano's free masterclass, *The Sexy Hormone Morning Routine*, available when you sign up to her Substack — https://drstephaniasciamano.substack.com/https://stephaniasciamano.com/https://www.facebook.com/stephaniasciamanoRESOURCES FROM SARAHThe Making Love Retreat for Couples, 12th - 18th October, 2026https://sarahrosebright.com/making-love-retreats/For a free e-book, How Relaxed Love Making Can Transform Your Sex Life and to explore Sarah's work - including private coaching, group programmes, courses, retreats and her podcast - visit www.sarahrosebright.comABOUT YOUR HOSTSarah Rose Bright is an Erotic Embodiment and Intimacy Guide, authorised teacher of The Making Love Retreat®, and host of Making Love, a podcast on the evolution of love, sex, and relationships. She guides women and committed couples who feel stuck and unfulfilled in their intimate lives - and know this is the missing piece. Women come home to their bodies, awaken their desire, and reclaim their power. Couples create an erotic life of depth, passion, and love. Find out more: https://sarahrosebright.com/MUSIC: Trust and Surrender by Ayla Schafer. You can explore more of her beautiful music here - https://www.aylaschafer.co.uk/