Permission for Pleasure
A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
Permission for Pleasure
Toys, Fantasy and Play in the Bedroom
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Play in the bedroom is highly underrated! Psychologist and sex therapist Carolin Klein joins me to offer tips and answer questions about toys, vibrators, and fantasy. Learn about some common fantasies and less intimidating ways to share what makes your heart race. We talk through a helpful list of dos and don’ts for choosing toys and how to introduce the idea with a partner. Create memorable sexual experiences by bringing more play into the bedroom.
Visit our episode sponsor Intimate Wellbeing and use code CINDY15
Dr. Carolin Klein is a sex therapist and a Registered Psychologist. She is co-founder and co-director of the West Coast Centre for Sex Therapy in Vancouver, BC.
Learn more about these topics:
Why vibrators work for women and how to choose one
Why don’t I want sex as much as my partner?
Partner Desire Discrepancies
Want better sex? Ask these questions
Vibrators, Edging and Anal Sex
Talking about sex with a partner
When your partner wants to try something new
ORDER my Book: Permission for Pleasure: Tending Your Sexual Garden
JOIN my Newsletter: Good Education for Good Sex
FOLLOW on Instagram @cindyscharkey
VISIT my website and blog
In a world where we try and always be so productive, but not recognizing that play is one of the most productive things we can do.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host, and as always, I'm delighted that you're listening and learning here on the show. In this episode, I'm speaking to a sex therapist and registered psychologist, Dr. Carolyn Klein. She focuses on challenging common beliefs about sexuality that get in the way of a great sex life and good intimacy. Carolyn's a perfect expert to talk to about toys, fantasy, and play in the bedroom. Speaking of toys and play, this episode is sponsored by my friends at Intimate Wellbeing, the perfect online platform to explore finding a toy or a tool to enhance your pleasure and your sex life. Intimate Wellbeing is an online sexual wellness boutique and community. They're geared for midlife women, but open to all. And as a lube fairy, I want you to know that along with all the toys and tools they offer, they have a lovely water-based lube called Okanagan Joy. Joy is natural, organic, vegan, and food grade. Look for their link in the show notes and use my discount code, Cindy15, to choose something fun and pleasurable. Now, let's jump into my conversation with Dr. Klein. Carolyn, welcome to Permission for Pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. It's truly lovely to be here.
SPEAKER_00So glad to have you. I love talking to sex therapists. You have so much wisdom and insight into what people are thinking about and what they care about and what they're having issues over. So I'm looking forward to this conversation. But I wonder before we get into all of your expertise, if you might just share a little bit about who you are and your work in the world.
SPEAKER_01Sure, thank you. So I am a registered psychologist and sex therapist. I'm based out of Vancouver, Canada. I co-own and co-direct a clinic here in Vancouver called the West Coast Center for Sex Therapy with my colleague Dr. Jason Winters. We are a team of about 20 registered psychologists, registered clinical counselors, and we train graduate level PhD level practicum students in evidence-based sex therapy. So I spend four days a week from early in the morning until dinner time talking about sex and intimacy with individuals, couples, and other relationship configurations, and it is never boring.
SPEAKER_00Never boring. Tell me then, what do you think are the top two, three reasons people come to therapy for? What are they looking for?
SPEAKER_01Well, maybe I'll just start with the bigger umbrella that they're coming because they are in distress, and it's some variation of anxiety, shame, and grief or sadness. And that's gonna underlie all of the things that bring people to our office. But if we were gonna talk about the specifics of why they choose us as sex therapists, the most common reason people come into our office is for desire discrepancies. And whether that's a discrepancy between the desire they feel they have and the desire they feel their partner has, or whether that's a discrepancy between the amount of desire they have and what they think they should have. So sometimes they're coming in as individuals and they are distressed that they want sex too much, and sometimes they're coming in as individuals and they're distressed that they aren't interested in sex enough, and sometimes it's partnerships coming in where there's distress that they aren't having sex enough or that one wants it more than the other.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Very common issue. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's the most common. Then the next most common would be that people find that their bodies are not doing what they think they should be doing, whether that's talking about erections or ejaculation and orgasm, whatever it might be, their bodies don't look the way they think they should, that medically or with aging they're not responding the way they think they should. The next concern is with their bodies and feeling like their bodies are somehow betraying them or that they aren't normal.
SPEAKER_00That not normal narrative. The shoulds and the not normals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that it really is the bulk of our work. I always love what Dr. Marty Klein says, who I have no relationship to, even though we shared the last name, but also a sex therapist based out of Palo Alto, California, and he always says a good sex therapist is a therapist who's not distracted by sex. And I love that because truly, again, we're dealing with the emotions, the shame, the anxiety, the grief. Those really at the end of the day are what bring people to our office.
SPEAKER_00I really resonate with that with the women I meet with who often think sex is the problem when indeed there's these underlying issues that you're mentioning here, which tend to be the real issue, and then they affect your sex life.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's right. I totally agree with you on that.
SPEAKER_00Let's circle back to desire discrepancy, just because if I have some new listeners here and they haven't heard earlier episodes about this topic, and it's such an important educational piece, I think, to sexual wellness. What would be the few things that we could share together that might alleviate some of this fear and anxiety around the expectation that partners want to have sex at the same time all the time? Which we know is not the case, not the truth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I always say to my clients, I want them to know that there is no part of the brain that's the sexual part of the brain. There's no part that's specific to sex. The parts of our brain that are involved in sexuality are the same parts of our brain that are involved in everything else, going out for dinner, movies, the our thinking, our feeling. And so we don't have expectations that we'd be on the same page with anything else. We don't expect that our partner wants to go to bed at the exact same time and with the exact same temperature and the, you know, like the cold temperature with the big fluffy sheet, or the vice versa, or the same amount of spice in our foods. So why do we have the expectation that we should want sex at the same time in the same way? And and that is unfortunately one of these myths out there that if we love each other, we should want to have sex all the time. And as soon as my partner initiates, I should be ready to go. And that's a ridiculous notion when you think that the brain is treating sex like everything else. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I was just talking to today on socials about new relationship energy as well. And I think if people understood, especially early relationships, that new relationship energy, that spark and sizzle that's just oxytocin and dopamine just flooding our brains, doesn't last forever. Our brain can't really even function with that long term and survive.
SPEAKER_01Totally, totally. And it brings up for me one of the things that, you know, I it's gonna be a slow change because we're we live still in a society that it really struggles to talk about sex openly. But one of the things I'm constantly seeing in the couples who come in where there's a large discrepancy is that they never talked about how important sex was to them and how sexual they felt they were early in the relationship. So we'll have one partner, let's say it's partner A, and partner A says, I don't understand. Early on in dating, partner B, you wanted to have sex all the time. And partner B says, actually, I was never that sexual. And partner A says, What do you mean you were not that sexual? We were going at it all the time. And partner B says, Yeah, that's because it was new, and we were only seeing each other once or twice a week, and then I wouldn't see you for a couple of weeks. And now partner A says, But I kind of feel duped. I didn't know. And partner B says, Well, I didn't know you'd want sex so much. I thought it was just the new relationship energy. And so I often say, you know, we're not talking about these things. Early on, people will talk about do we both want kids and do we both want to stay living in this town? And you know, what when do we hope to retire? But people don't talk openly about, you know what? How much sex do I define as a sexless marriage? At what point would I be distressed if we're not having sex? What does sex mean to me? And what does the absence of sex mean to me? All of these conversations I think are so important. And then the other one that I'll quickly throw in is the value around do people value more the idea of bodily autonomy and that if one person doesn't want to, that that's okay, that should be kind of trumping everything. Or do they value more? Hang on, if it's good for the relationship, we do it. Because I see these couples in opposition where one person says, but I shouldn't have to do this if I don't want to. Why would you want me to have sex if I'm not in the mood? And the other partner says, but you're never in the mood, and it's good for the relationship. You should sometimes not just wait till you want to, do it for the relationship. And if couples don't have those conversations, later on it haunts them.
SPEAKER_00Boy, big issues there and common, common scenarios. I appreciate you really fleshing that out because those are things we hear often. And I think that's key. I think you're right. I think if we did talk about frequency, you know, and also why we want to have sex and what sex does mean to us, like you said. We talked about this on a previous episode with Cindy Darnell, these questions we should be asking ourselves and our partners. And not just once, but ongoing questions and conversations to keep having. Yes.
SPEAKER_01If I can share a quick story for the listeners, they might be interested. So I always remember this and I reference this couple often. This is now a number of years ago, but I had this couple come into my office, desire discrepancy, heterosexual couple. He was distressed that they weren't being sexual more often. She was feeling burnt out. They had three young children under the age of 12, lots of soccer games and all sorts of things. And she was like, When do we have time? And he said, But we have to have time. This is sex, this is important, this is how we're not roommates. And so we started therapy, but we were only a few sessions in. We'd done assessment and we were just getting started, and they come into a session, and the first thing they say is, Carolyn, we just want you to know we're not coming back after today. And my first thought was, Oh my gosh, what have I done wrong? Why are they not coming back after today? But then as he started to share, he said, you know what? From our few sessions, I realized that I thought we had to be having a sex a certain amount, or it meant that something was wrong in our relationship and we didn't love each other. But when yes, you started to challenge us of like, where is it gonna fit in? I was like, I don't want to miss my son's soccer game. I don't want to get a babysitter and miss my daughter's recital. I don't want to. And so I've realized that actually, in you know, maybe another seven, eight years when they're teenagers, if we're still not getting our sex life on track, we might be back in your office. But maybe we don't have to have sex as much as I thought we did because we truly don't have time for it. And that was lovely to see that the distress came down, even though their amount of sex didn't change at all, and they haven't made it back to my office yet.
SPEAKER_00That's a great story, and I'm thinking of one to add with a little different skew, is a client that I've been meeting with and talking through quality versus quantity. And this piece that people don't seem to really take hold of is if you are more worried about the quantity and not focus on quality. Often when the quality is superb, you're not too worried about the quantity, it takes care of itself. And she was saying, Wow, my partner said like the quality is so much better with this shift we've been making that I'm fine with the quantity now. So these kinds of conversations just make such a big difference for couples.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the problem is the push and pull, right? Because we often will have one person, the one who's in more distress, who then starts to push for sex. And and that pushing can sometimes be overt, saying, come on, like we should, and when are we gonna do it? Or sometimes it can be subtle, as in the person gets really cranky if it doesn't happen. You know, the other partner pays a price, and the other partner becomes more avoidant. They go to bed earlier to avoid it, etc. And the problem is that both of those lead to sometimes having sex, but it's really crummy sex, and desire goes down, down, down. So I'm often having to push partner A. Now I'm in the role of pushing, and I say, Stop doing this. I'm on your side, I want to help you to have more sex, but you're not gonna have more sex by having crummy sex, and you're gonna make it worse. So we always have that saying in therapy: before we can make it better, we have to stop making it worse. And we watch a lot of people who, because we don't talk about sex openly enough, because we don't talk about responsive desire, because we don't talk about how desire works. People are going about it the wrong way, and they are just trying to barrel through and tick off that they had sex. And as one person said to me just the other day, but if I don't push, then we'll never have sex at all. So the grief creeps in, and it's like, but that's a mistaken belief that if you stop pushing, you need to go about it more effectively. So that's I think a big, big part of our work in this field is how do we help people to have better sex? Not more sex, but if they have better sex, they probably will start having more sex.
SPEAKER_00Good, good stuff there, boy. We could probably talk about that the whole episode. But let's pivot a little bit to I had several listeners write in, knowing that we were gonna meet and talk, asking questions about in a partnership, bringing up the idea of toys or vibrators. And if it's they even asked, is it okay? They asked, is it something I could introduce? How would I do that? And I'm sure you deal with this over and over in your practice. I'd love to hear your tips for people on how to go about that conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Before I give my tip, I'll just be really blunt about my standpoint on this. And I see it as part of my role as a professional in the field to talk openly about these things because I think again, there's still so much shame around it. The idea of why should we need that? What does it say? Shouldn't we just only need each other? And again, going back to the idea that our brain treats sex like everything else, it's just society that doesn't treat it like everything else. You know, I kind of give the analogy that if you set up this beautiful table for dinner and you had the nice tablecloth and the candles and the music, and then your partner comes home and says, Well, we don't need any of this stuff, and you know, shoves everything to the side and says we should just stare at each other and eat the meal in dead silence. You'd be like, What? You know, it creates the atmosphere. And you know, you and I are on the same page as this. We, I think, both tell our clients that sex is how adults play. It's one way that adults play. You know, I have a daughter, she's about to turn nine, she's eight right now. Well, she does not have her friends come over and just say, No, no, we shouldn't play with any toys. We should just sit here and just entertain each other, you know, all the time. It's like, what do we want to play with? How do we bring in novelty? How do we experience something together? So whether it's fantasy, whether it's toys, whether it's the music in the background or the sensory experience, you know, the rose petals on the bed, every one of those is about sharing in an experience. And I can't tell you how many times when I ask couples to tell me about their last few experiences, they're completely non-memorable because there's not anything differentiating them. It's not like this time we did it to candlelight, and then the next time we tried blindfolding ourselves just to see what it would be like if we took the sense of sight away. You know, so there's nothing memorable, and yet they want to call that intimacy. And I think intimacy is all about sharing experiences. Sometimes laughing because it was just funny and not hot, and sometimes it's so hot, and sometimes it's so loving and tender. So, to get back to your question, if people want to think about sex toys or sexual aids or enhancers, as I call them, I want people to use things that enhance the experience. So we're using technology all the time to enhance experiences. Why wouldn't we use it sexually as well? And I think if we can talk about it then in that way, say I want to share in these experiences, I want to evolve our sexual relationship, and we might try something and it might be ridiculous and we throw it away and we don't like it. But I want to have memories with you. So I want to try something. Will you let me, you know, be the person who gets to try new things, just like we try new foods and we try traveling to India. You know, this here should not be a thing of you're not enough. This should be a thing of I want to do this with you. Will you be with me as I try these different things out?
SPEAKER_00That's such good language. I often say adding to that is an addition, not a substitution. And if we think of it in that way, even for some people, the word and idea of toys is so difficult. And you said enhancer, I love that. And also sometimes I just say it's a tool. Think of it as a tool, a pleasure tool, you know. That idea that you brought up, I think, about that we should be enough, that we shouldn't, all these shoulds, we shouldn't need anything else. Or I'm not enough. Often that comes up.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, absolutely, and you know, I don't mind if people have preference of whether they call it an enhancer or a tool or a toy, but it is interesting to me when people have a pushback to the word toy, because it shows to me that in some ways there's still the idea that sex is this frivolous thing that you know they haven't equated it with play, and play being actually a way that we connect, that that as a social species, whether it's dolphins playing, whether it's dogs playing, we are a social species, and that is how we learn and connect is through play. We would never take play away from a child. Why do we want to take it away from adults? But I see a lot of adults in this conundrum where they're saying, well, sex must be important, it's how I know you're not my roommate, and at the same time, well, I have to get all the other important stuff done as though connecting is not important. You know, it's kind of like sex is this frivolous thing, and then yet they don't want it to be a toy. There's all these discrepancies in their thought patterns, and I would say, Yeah, let's have a toy in the bedroom because this is supposed to be fun, and this is supposed to be adults playing in a way that connects them.
SPEAKER_00I think that idea of play is so important. Oh gosh, I hear the Gottmans talk about it, the relationship experts, all of us trying to remind people that play is it sparks so much good energy. And like you said, maybe you try something and you just laugh your heads off and you're like, we're never doing that again. Okay, but you laughed, you had a good time, you connected over that, and it was fun. It will be a memory that you look back on with humor and you know, winking at each other like never again, or what have you. You know, you guys can't see y'all can't see me winking. But I think if we did think about play as a good and necessary part of our intimacy, I would go a long way for couples.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, I agree completely. And in a world where we again try and always be so productive, but not recognizing that play is one of the most productive things we can do. Hmm.
SPEAKER_00And if you're listening and thinking, well, how do I even pick something? How do I go about even choosing something? Especially people ask about vibrators, and I always say, you know, think about asking yourself some questions ahead, like, how do I want to use this? What do I want to use it for? Is it gonna be for both partners? Is it just gonna be for one partner? What do I want it to look like? What do I want it to sound like? Those types of things. I know you have some tips about that too, about choosing, you know, a vibrator, a toy. You want to share some of those?
SPEAKER_01Sure, and I think it's gonna piggyback right on what you said, just to also say then, yeah, it's also like what do you want to feel? If a person is thinking of bringing a toy because they want to feel like we are creating a memory, then pick a wild and crazy toy. If it is that you're wanting specifically to feel a bit more physical pleasure, then you're gonna really pick a toy that is designed for the parts of your body where you experience the most pleasure. Or if you're wanting, again, something that's about mutual pleasure, like you said, then you're gonna pick a toy that's meant for both partners. I'll say it quickly because I think you just said it perfectly, but I always say that I kind of think of vibrators a bit like diamond shopping, where you've got the four C's of cut, clarity, color, and carrot. The cut is kind of the idea of how is it shaped? What parts of the body is it designed to stimulate? The carrot is how heavy does it punch, so to speak? How much are you gonna get for it? Is it really strong? Do you like strong stimulation? Or actually, are you very sensitive? Do you want less strong stimulation? Then pick one for that. The clarity is, and this one's kind of dear to my heart because a lot of people don't know this, vibrators are not regulated. So a lot of them are made with very harmful chemicals in them that seep into the body and cause a lot of damage. So you want to make sure you're picking good vibrators. So I'm just gonna plug, even though I make no money off this site, the website dangerouslily.com, where pretty much every vibrator on the sun has been tested to see which ones are safe to put on your body. Color, I always say, yes, if you're gonna have a bunch of toys, you don't want to be saying to your partner, can you get bring the black one? But you've got five black ones. So you want to make sure you have ones of different color. But then my last piece to say it is I always say we all know there's not just four C's, it's the seven C's. So the other three C's are cost. You know, some vibrators can be incredibly expensive. You're gonna want to be within your budget. Concealability, what's the size, and what do you want it for? And do you have young children where you're worried they're going to find it in the bedside table drawer? And comfort. Do you want it ribbed? Do you want it more soft? Do you want it more firm? What's the material? So I think all of those go into picking one. But looping back the most is what kind of an experience do you want to have? Do you want something really memorable? Then go for something that's quite different and memorable. If you want something that's really focused on pleasure, then think about what parts of your body you want a pleasure and what would achieve that, etc.
SPEAKER_00Good, good ideas. That's great. And I think a wonderful idea for couples is to shop together. It opens the conversation around these questions that you're posing. And if you shop together, you can talk back and forth and do that. You know, intimate well-being is a wonderful site to do that. It's very aesthetically pleasing. They have so many options in there. They have a whole section dedicated to couples toys, which you could look at together and pick and choose and talk about. Hey, what about that? Well, I like this little moral. Why? Tell me, and all that conversation is going to serve you. So that's a great option. I think the other point I was thinking of is that sometimes people get caught up if they choose one thing and it's not great. And then they think, Oh, well, then toys aren't for me. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01Back to kids. If there's one toy that they don't play with, there's gonna be seven others they love, you know?
SPEAKER_00Right. So if you buy one, it doesn't mean it's gonna be your lifetime toy, maybe, but very possibly you'll shift and change, and then your toy choice will shift and change as well.
SPEAKER_01Oh absolutely. Really agree with that.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Let's pivot a little bit because several listeners asked about fantasy, and you mentioned it earlier with the variety and toys, is uh this idea of people have so much trepidation about sharing fantasies. And because talking about sex is so difficult, the thought of sharing fantasies is overwhelming for many. And so they were asking as for couples, how do we go about this? I had one listener say, How do I even start the conversation? You know, or is it okay to do so? So why don't you share what you tell clients that talk about this topic with you in therapy?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I mean, uh I'll go into a tip in a moment, but I think it is this idea that you know, we celebrate creativity in so many aspects of our lives, but not in the bedroom. There again, we should only be thinking about our partner right in that moment. Even though we might have our eyes closed, we should be picturing them as they are. And I sort of think, you know what? We celebrate creativity, we celebrate the Cohen brothers and all these other people, you know, making crazy movies about things that we don't want our day-to-day lives to be because we know that's entertainment. And what people often forget is that fantasy is entertainment that facilitates sympathetic nervous system activation, i.e., sexual arousal and orgasm and desire. We want our hearts racing during sex. And early on in dating, you get that naturally. You don't have to do fantasy because you're still learning about the person. They are still mysterious. You don't have to get creative because every moment is kind of like watching a great movie. You're kind of seeing, do they like me? Do they want to kiss me? Do we want to go all the way? There's so much excitement getting your heart racing. But if you've been with the same partner for one year, ten years, thirty years, and you start doing things always at the end of the day after you've brushed your teeth, washed your face, gotten your pajamas, lined your bed, you know, that's kind of like I always say it's sort of like me eating cucumber rolls every single day for the rest of my life. It's not very exciting, and I'm not gonna be super excited for it. Fantasy is a way for us to again allow play and creativity. It's a way to get our heart racing. And so the final thing I'll say about that is I already know that people's fantasies are going to be what their day-to-day lives are not. So, for example, whenever I have a mother in my office with one or more young children who still are hanging off of her, I know she's not going to get really turned on and have her heart racing if her husband touches her with soft fingers like the way her children touch her. She's gonna need them to throw her on the bed and rip her clothes off because she needs high contrast with her everyday life. And so in fantasy, many times what's gonna get our heart racing is the stuff that's high contrast. If we're really assertive in our day-to-day life, we might get really aroused with things where we're more passive and someone else is more assertive. And the other piece is just because we have it in fantasy doesn't mean we want it in reality. Just like we watch so much stuff on TikTok and on Instagram and on Netflix, most of the stuff we watch is not people mopping the floor. We watch people blowing things up, you know, doing illegal things, and we know it's just entertainment. Our fantasies are entertainment that serve a really important purpose. So I really celebrate people saying, you know what, I'm gonna stop buying into this idea that my fantasy means anything crazy about me, or that it means I want to do this. It means that when I think about this, my heart starts racing a bit more, and I get even more turned on. And if I can do that with you, then great. So the final analogy I'll say my daughter again, when she plays with her friends, she never plays that she is an eight-year-old daughter of a psychologist. She always plays that she is a warrior princess or a mother of, you know, 20 children, 10 of whom are really bratty and she gets to be really bossy. You know, she's always something else. So in sexuality, we want to celebrate creativity, want to celebrate being able to play out things that maybe you don't, but that you know are either just being played out in your mind and you'd never want them in reality, or if played out in reality, are really hot for both partners. So back to your question of what's my tip. My tip is to first talk about it in these ways. Before you get into the specifics of a fantasy, talk about the idea of like, hey, how do you feel about fantasies? Do you feel like they say a lot about us? Are you worried that if I shared something with you that it would mean that I'm not happy with the sex we're having, or that it means I would want to do it in real life? And I just want you to know I don't feel that way about you. I hope we can be really creative together. I hope you know I will be okay. That whatever you share, I might be curious, I might be amazed, and be like, really? You you like that idea, or it makes your heart race a bit. But we first give permission to the other and check with them. And then we, of course, might start small. We might not, you know, pull out the craziest, most elaborate fantasy. But the research is really clear that couples who can share more detailed fantasies and then feel like they are not shamed for those have way better sex and way better intimacy and connection, even if they never act on the fantasy, if it's just shared, then couples who are really vague in their fantasies don't say a lot, or who share their fantasies and then feel like their partner is shocked in a negative way.
SPEAKER_00Wow, good stuff there, Carolyn. I'm telling you, I think that if people just heard you or talk about it in this way, I love the idea of what makes your heart race, because I think that takes away some of this fear people have about it means you I'm not enough, my partner's not enough, or I fantasy is like you said, just these mental pictures, and I love that idea about makes your heart race in a way that it could communicate to a partner that curiosity and creativity and excitement rather than it being a negative thing. Totally. Yeah. I'm thinking too of when to bring this up with a partner. I have heard Justin Lee Miller. Justin Lay Miller, I read his book and he said in his book that he did a whole study on fantasies that when people are sexually aroused, he said, their disgust response lessens. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Don't we all know that? And it's like the same thing when we're hungry. I mean, again, let's take a non-sexual analogy. If I look at, you know, raw beef when I'm not hungry, I'm kind of like, oh, carcass kind of an idea. But if I'm like really hungry and someone's about to throw it on the grill and I'm picturing what that's gonna turn into in a moment, I can be kind of like my mouth starts watering, right? And with sexuality, the same thing. When we're in a roused state, we forget about things of that, these are bodily secretions, we forget about things that were getting hot and sweaty. You know, normally we wouldn't want to rub ourselves against a sweaty person, but in sex we do. So arousal allows us to lower our disgust response. It allows us to play. And I think again, that's awesome. Let's celebrate that. But sometimes people do it wrong because they will bring up a fantasy in a moment that their partner is not at all aroused, and of course, in that moment, the partner isn't gonna be turned on by and it doesn't even have to be an elaborate fantasy, it can just be talking about bodily fluids and like, you know, I'd like to ejaculate in your mouth or something. But for someone else who's not turned on, that might be like, oh, I don't want that right now. So it is really relevant when do we bring these things up? Is it just a philosophical conversation about fantasies? And is the other partner saying, no, I'm really curious, I want to know, which means actually they probably are a little bit aroused already. They're kind of already primed to be like, tell me your fantasies, I want to know, versus coming to someone while they're doing the dishes, not thinking about sex, and being like, Did you know I've always wanted to do this? And then the partner's like, Whoa. So it's funny because I don't want to sound hypocritical. Some things we want to bring up in the bedroom, some things we don't. And sex therapists are often saying, don't bring up things that you think are gonna be full of friction while you're in the bedroom having sex. You know, we don't want to pair that. But on the other hand, some things we want to bring up when there's arousal, because we're gonna get an even better response then.
SPEAKER_00Fascinating. That's just fascinating. I wonder if people started thinking about, well, hmm, if we're having kind of an intimate conversation and we're being playful with each other and we're kind of turned on, but we're not in the bedroom and we're not naked. But would that be a time I could bring say, hey, have you ever had any sexual? I'm trying to roleplay this, right? Have you ever had any sexual fantasies? We've never really shared that, you know, with each other. I'm really curious. I think coming at it like that, I'm really curious if you might have some sexual fantasies. And I would love to hear them, you know. I would be delighted to hear them. Do you want to share? Yes, beautiful.
SPEAKER_01And you know, again, I'm gonna piggyback on that. I love that, and I'm gonna piggyback and say, if you think your partner is gonna be terrified at the word fantasies, then give them permission by saying, Is there anything that you don't necessarily want to do in real life? But when you think about it, it kind of gets your heart racing a little bit more. That gives the person permission to be like, Phew, okay, you're not gonna think I necessarily want to do it. You know, you're giving them again, I love the title of your podcast, Permission for Pleasure, but you're giving them permission that you already know. You're saying, I already know you're gonna have some fantasies about things that you would not actually want to carry out, either because in real life it wouldn't be that hot or because it would be too logistically a nightmare or whatever. Give people permission.
SPEAKER_00So good. So a couple different ways there, then that you could bring up the topic. And I do think that this idea around play, whether it's fantasy or toys, or talking about frequency, even, it doesn't have to be so precious all the time. I think sometimes we get in that mode of thinking that and then we wonder, you know, well, what's not right here? Why can't I get aroused? You know, why don't I feel desire? And we talked about new relationship energy, and we do have to create that energy, create those connections when that wanes. So those of us who've been in relationships 35 years or more, I'm raising my hand over here. It takes a lot of intention to keep that connection and energy going.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, I completely agree. And again, I think that's where people sort of aren't being educated enough. They think love should be enough. If we love each other, and the irony again is that we don't expect that early on. You know, when sex is the hottest, we're not in love. We're just in lust, we're starting to be attracted to this person, we're feeling this passion towards them. So we know that we can have amazing sex when we're not in love. So then why do we think that love is actually the ingredients that fuels great sex? Love and sex, as Esther Perell so beautifully talks about, they have very different things going into them. And so if we can get people to know that, like you say, great love and great sex come from great intentionality. They come from a lot of intentional work that hopefully is really fun work.
SPEAKER_00I love it, the fun piece. I mean, I'm thinking of the like the last client I met with who said, Well, how come my hotel sex is so great? You know, how come we had such great sex on vacation? And I think, well, look at what you're saying there. It was novel, it was variety, it was different, it was someplace else, it wasn't in your bedroom, you know. You can bring some of that on a smaller scale, though, with intentionality by having sex in a different room in the house, if it's possible, or a different place, or outside, or the car, or I don't know. I mean, uh just getting outside of that narrow box that so many people live in and expanding that brings so much delight and joy and pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100% agree.
SPEAKER_00Well, I could talk to you probably for uh two more hours, but I I appreciate your approach. I appreciate your work with couples and for speaking with my community. I know they're gonna really appreciate this conversation. So thanks so much for being with me.
SPEAKER_01Truly, the appreciation is mine. I appreciate you inviting me to be on Permission for Pleasure. Again, I love the title of your podcast.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. And tell people how they can find you and your work in the world. Yes.
SPEAKER_01So I am on Instagram trying to challenge people's ideas about sexuality, and I am at D-R, so that's short for doctor. So D-R Carolyn Klein. And Carolyn, I don't know why my parents decided to spell my name the strange way, but it does not have an E at the end of it. So that's D-R-C-A-R-O-L-I-N-K-L-E-I-N. Or you can contact our office and contact me through our office at Westcoastsextherapy.com.
SPEAKER_00And on this podcast, we like to share something that delights us, that's just bringing us joy day to day. I wonder if there's something in your life that's delighting you right now.
SPEAKER_01You know, the first answer that comes to my mind is people, you know, having these kinds of conversations. People delight me, and that's why I'm in the field of psychology and sex therapy. So I would say the people in my life, they absolutely delight me.
SPEAKER_00Community, I will link to Carolyn's things in the show notes. You can also find the link to intimate well-being and my discount code if you want to shop for a toy together and jumpstart it with this uh podcast. Listen to it with your partner and have a conversation and then head to intimate well-being and look for something there together. Because I'm sure if you will take in some of the things Carolyn shared today and that we talked about, it will help you, it will push you towards giving yourself more permission for pleasure.
