Think She’s Not Into Sex? You’re Wrong—Here’s the Truth About Women’s Libido

Think women don’t want sex as much as men? Think again. In this episode, I sit down with renowned somatic sex therapist Susan Morgan Taylor to bust one of the most damaging myths about women’s sexuality: that we have a “naturally low libido.” We unpack the real reasons so many women struggle with desire—and spoiler alert—it’s not about hormones or aging. You’ll learn the top causes of low sex drive, how to reignite your partner’s pleasure (or your own), and why rewriting this narrative benefits everyone in the bedroom. Whether you’re a woman looking to reclaim your desire or a partner who wants to better understand what’s really going on—this episode is your roadmap to deeper, hotter, more connected sex. 

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Chapters

• 1:29 Busting the Myth of Women's Low Libido
• 5:58 Understanding Female Arousal Pathways
• 14:09 Spontaneous vs. Contextual Desire
• 22:16 Reconnecting with Your Sexual Body
• 31:29 Healing Sexual Trauma and Finding Voice
• 42:34 Sexual Energy as Life Force Energy
• 54:38 Libido After Menopause: The Real Story
• 1:11:49 Practical Steps to Rekindle Desire Tonight

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Do the sex Think fun, honest and feminist as fuck, and always with the goal of fighting the patriarchy. One female orgasm at a time. Welcome to the locker room. Today's Talk Sex with Annette. Topic is think she doesn't want sex.

Speaker 2: 1:31

You're wrong.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Here's what's really going on Busting the myth that women have low libido. Let's get one thing straight the idea that women just want sex less than men is not a fact. It's a story, and it's a harmful one. Today, we're calling bullshit on the low libido myth and showing you how to rewrite the narrative on women's desire, so you can stop blaming yourself or your partner and start discovering what really turns you on. And if you're a man, listening this episode is for you too, because when you understand how women's desire actually works, you stop misreading her signals, stop taking it personally and start connecting with her in a way that turns both of you on. I'm talking with Susan Morgan Taylor, a powerhouse somatic sex therapist who has been helping women and couples break free from shame and confusion around libido for over 25 years. She's the creator of the Pleasure Keys process, and she's here to show us how to shift from something's wrong with me to oh, that's how my body works. Welcome, susan. I would love to give you a moment to introduce yourself to my listeners.

Speaker 2: 2:44

Thank you so much for having me, annette. Yes, and you said that so beautifully. And one of the first things I'd love to clear up real quick is the word somatic. Not everybody understands what that is or what is a somatic sex therapist versus a regular sex therapist? And so somatic just means of or pertaining to the body, and so as a somatic sex therapist, I actually spent 10 years as sort of a regular more of a regular sex therapist and really shifted in the somatic realm, because when we include the body in our healing, the body has its own wisdom, and so we learn how to create real-time experiences where my couples or if I'm working with an individual woman where they're able to actually meet in real time the thing that's actually getting in the way of their ability to to connect, and so that could be things like shame or guilt or just going along with things to keep the other person happy there's actually ways to bring that up in a really visceral way, where then we can meet it, greet it and work with it productively, versus just sort of talking or analyzing it.

Speaker 2: 3:40

And I love today's topic because how I got into this field really my own story is that I was in a sexless marriage for 10 years. And I will tell you like exactly like what you just said in that intro, I did not want to have sex with my partner, but I longed for a deeply meaningful sexual connection. It just wasn't. We weren't having the right kind of sex that was keeping me interested, and there were a lot of other things happening in that relationship that made me really shut down sexually. But I still had this deep desire for something more and something deeper. I just didn't know how to get it or how to create it. So I'm really excited that we're going to have this conversation today and I think my story will be really relevant for your listeners today. Whether you are single or in a relationship, you're a man or a woman, I think what we're going to talk about today is going to be really relevant information for just anybody.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Right. So listeners, of course, I want you to stay to the end, because we always give takeaways are either a person who is a woman, has a vulva and is struggling with thinking you have low libido, or you just don't want sex anymore. Or you're someone who is dating with, married to or partnered to a woman, or somebody who has a vulva who is telling you that, or you're like oh, they just don't want sex. I hear this a lot from people. This is a very common problem, and so you will have takeaways that can start shifting your experience starting tonight.

Speaker 1: 5:14

So that is why you're going to want to stay to the end, and I want to remind you guys that I am over on OnlyFans. That's where I am giving you content that includes intimacy, how-tos, guided self-pleasure, meditations, stuff. That is just it's spicier, but educational and helpful as well. You can find me there at TalkSucksWithAnette. I'm also on Substack where I'm doing a lot of the same, so you can find me there and, of course, you can always scroll down and find links to wherever you want to find me below. But for now, let's dive in to this conversation and start changing the story that you're telling yourself in your intimate life. Cheers. Let's talk about sex and women's high libido. Cheers. Is it actually a myth that women have low libido or lower libido than men?

Speaker 2: 6:07

Oh, it's totally a myth that women have lower libido than men, and that's the thing is that we're really fed that story as women, and I feel that even in like what we see out there in the world, even through scientific studies, there's one study I'd like to quote from 2005. It was Yale University and Albert Einstein College that did a study on women, women's sexuality, and their conclusion was that 48, roughly 48% of the women were quote unquote sexually dysfunctional because of lack of sensei or numbness in the clitoris and lack of orgasm. And so I call bullshit on that, because what's really going on is that it's a lack of education. So, as women, we don't and men we don't actually have a genuine education on what's actually going on with our bodies and how our unique anatomy is structured. And what a lot of people don't know is that women, as women, we have the same amount of erectile tissue in our genitals as a man has in his penis. It's just spread out over a larger area. And so what studies have also shown is that women generally, on average, need about 21 or more minutes of actual warm-up time for play, getting the body ready, getting the genitals fully engorged, before they're going to be consistently orgasmic during sex, and I'm assuming they mean penetrative sex, just to clarify that. So yet the problem is that a lot of men the whole occasion is over within two to seven minutes, depending on what source you consult for that, and the ejaculation usually means the end of the sexual event for the couple. So we kind of have a bit of a problem there.

Speaker 2: 7:46

But just to go back to this thing about women, it's not that we're sexually dysfunctional and that we can't have orgasms and we're numb Sometimes. Numbness is a thing and we can talk about that and how to deal with that. Getting to the end game, like getting to the goal of climax, then we give our bodies time to actually open up and we give our sexual energy time to actually warm up and we give our bodies time to get actually engorged and aroused and the whole scene can change. But what happens is a lot of women we feel bad, or he's ready to go, so I should be ready to go.

Speaker 2: 8:55

And then we're also fed the lie through media, for example television, movies, magazines. You know, if he comes in two minutes, why can't I? There must be something wrong with my body because it's not behaving like a man's body. So we've held the standard of what tends to work best for men. We've held that to ourselves as women and we've not been helped out by society with that. But the truth is that's not what works for most women. What works for men is not the same thing that works for women.

Speaker 1: 9:22

Yeah, in the movies. The other thing that always gets me is when they are about to have this like incredible sexual moment and it's like a quickie and they clearly pull down the pants and he just shoves it in. I'm always like ouch, like in my mind I'm flinching for the woman. I'm like I'm like I don't care what you're trying to tell me. I know she is not lubed up well enough to take that full weather. I don't even care if it's like a four inch shaft. It's still too much that fast, right.

Speaker 2: 9:54

Totally, totally. And then he's like slumped over in about 30 seconds and you're like what was in it for her? You know, unless you get the fake orgasm.

Speaker 1: 10:03

You get the fake orgasm Like come on, come on, there's yeah, and that is sort of. And also to me now at this point in my sex life I'm like that doesn't even look like good sex. That should like, even if let's say you are wet enough and that does happen that should be like a prequel to like ongoing intimacy.

Speaker 2: 10:26

that's hot, totally agreed. Like let's ride the waves and build the waves and be with the flow and like extend the bliss. Like why just have like two seconds of pleasure?

Speaker 1: 10:35

and have it be over. And you're right. They kind of sell that as this, like gold standard for the most passionate sex you can have, and I'm like that's just disappointing.

Speaker 2: 10:46

So disappointing, so bad it is. It just gives us these programs that are not realistic. It's just not the way that it works, and why would we want it to? Also, once you discover what else is available, right, I think a lot of us, I know, you know we don't know what else is on the buffet.

Speaker 2: 11:01

Potentially we don't even have the concept of, oh, like we can actually have sex without needing to finish, for example, right, without needing to actually get to climax, like that actually is an option, or just just delay it. You can make love, you can have sex, and you can just sort of lean back from getting to climax, take a break, come back around to it later that day or even the next day, and the beauty of that, what happens? You keep building that sexual energy, you keep building the charge in the body, versus just expelling it all within a few minutes and then it's all over within a few minutes and then it's all over. So we don't realize that we have options, much less, you know, like taking a break, having a pause, just completely stopping in sex.

Speaker 1: 11:44

Right, and so that brings me to the next question. So the argument that I know a lot of my male listeners, because I know you're- out there listening right now.

Speaker 1: 11:52

You send me lots of questions about this is going to be that. Well, she just never wants it, like she's never in the mood. Or you know, another really kind of tender, heartfelt message I get from a lot of men is like she just doesn't desire me, like she'll do sex, but it's like she's not like what do I do to help her feel desire for me? And I know because I, like you, was in a sexless marriage, one where we just, I mean we cared deeply for each other as friends I mean we're still very good friends but we just like couldn't build the desire and maintain the desire. And so I'm sure at some point it looked like to my husband that at the time that I didn't have a high libido.

Speaker 1: 12:45

Now, anyone who's been listening to my podcast knows my libido is a problem in the other direction at this point, like, sometimes I like need my girl to calm down. I'm like I've got work to do today. I cannot have like a third nooner Right and, and so I know that was always there. So my question to you, first of all, again going back to dispelling, because what you're saying is oh, you can get a woman in the mood, but what about the rest of it before you're doing the work? What about that underlying libido, the fire, the embers? Are they there in women? Or are they not? Because men and they will. Some of them will die on the argument that we just don't want sex and we use it to manipulate them. And it's just from my perspective and my experience. It's not true, but can you talk about the embers of desire? Are they always there? Is there a high libido in women just waiting to be stoked?

Speaker 2: 13:50

Oh well, I mean, when I left my marriage I mean it's been almost 20 years ago now, same thing my libido went through the roof. I was like what on earth is this? Am I feeling in my body like it was life force, energy that was just flowing through me? So, yes, we have it and it's there. And I think, like there's so many things in what you just said that I could address right.

Speaker 2: 14:13

There's sort of the roommate situation where you're great friends but it's just flat, like the energy is just flat. There's no like passion or magnetism or you know what we might call polarity happening, where there's that desire to be intimate. But then there's also this just sort of she never wants to have sex with me. What's wrong? Like why doesn't she want to have sex with me and then I don't feel desired, which is really painful. Like I have worked with many couples where that's been the case, where he just felt like you know, my sex drive is too high and I've been rejected so many times that maybe I just need to learn how to tone my sex drive down Like he started to feel really guilty and bad about it and so we don't want that either, some of what's going on. So when we're talking about like mismatched libido or clinically in sex therapy we might call it desire discrepancy. It would be like sort of the clinical term for that, but out there in the world most of us just call it mismatched libido. When you have a situation like that, there's a few reasons like where that actually comes from, and one of them, one of the causes of that, is just not understanding the arousal map.

Speaker 2: 15:18

So a lot of men now not all by any means, but a lot of men have what's called spontaneous desire, and in the model of the sexual blueprints, which is a model that I use in my work with couples I teach it at my immersion retreats there is an archetype called the sexual, which really is like just direct genital touch. Explicitly sexual right Touch is what really gets them going. So spontaneous desire is similar to that. Spontaneous desire is like 75% of men have spontaneous desire, and so that's when you can just like, literally like see your wife and just be like totally turned on and like ready to go. You got like a hard-on and you're like let's go have sex. Like you just like see something attractive and like want sex right away. It's sort of instant, it's spontaneous. And then the sexual blueprint also is like let's just go straight for genitals, breasts, like the, the explicit sexual touch that that we tend to think, that that's the kind of touch that has to happen in order to get all of us turned on, because otherwise it's not sex.

Speaker 2: 16:24

But that's the myth and that's why there's this problem, because it's highly possible that your female partner maybe is not wired on the sexual blueprint or does not have spontaneous desire. In fact, I think they I don't know what percentage of it women have spontaneous but there's I think they I don't know what percentage of it women have spontaneous but there's the other type of desire called contextual. And contextual desire is really about what's happening in the environment and as women we are plugged into our environment like, evolutionarily speaking, hunter-gatherer societies. Right, that is literally what our DNA, you know, just being liberated in the 60s, does not get rid of, like the thousands of years of evolution in our DNA. And so we have, and our hormones. We are plugged into our environment as the gatherers of the hunter-gatherer.

Speaker 2: 17:12

We can feel, or I could, you know, when I had my kids at home, I knew exactly where everybody was in the house and what they were doing. I could literally feel it. My awareness was plugged into everybody around me. And that's what we do our ability to have that diffuse awareness where we're sensing our environment. It's a really beautiful skill.

Speaker 2: 17:30

However, it can sometimes become a challenge when it comes to sex, because we can become very sensitive to what's happening in our environment, such as are the kids down the hall? Might they walk in on us? Did I have a really tough day at work? Did you say something to me yesterday that I still haven't really cleared up with you? That hurt my feelings and now I'm holding some resentment against you? Am I self-conscious about my body today and I'm worried about how I look?

Speaker 2: 17:54

So there's all these different things that can go on with contextual desire that can get in the way of our ability to actually be able to let go of that part. You know, that's really like part of our sympathetic nervous system where our amygdala is kind of plugged into the environment. What's going on? Who's around? Am I safe? Are my kids safe? That part of the brain needs to quiet down before somebody with contextual desire can actually then drop into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is where we experience arousal and pleasure and desire.

Speaker 2: 18:26

So, men, if you're coming at her from what works for you, you're going to grab her ass, you're going to start touching her genitals or her breasts and she's like, ew, gross, get away from me, or yuck, or I'm not in the mood. That's probably going to be her response, because you're coming at her in the way that works for you, when really the route in to someone who's wired contextually there can be different routes in potentially and that's why I really like the erotic blueprints as a lens to kind of look through it could be that you're more centrally wired or energetic, but it might be that the way in for her would be no agenda. Hey, babe, just come cuddle with me on the couch. Let me hold you. Why don't you tell me about your day? Let me rub your neck. How about a foot rub With no agenda? And that's the thing is, a lot of men are going to do this and they'll be.

Speaker 2: 19:15

It didn't work. Well, it didn't work because you had in the back of your head okay, in order to get sex tonight, I'm going to have to cuddle her and give her a foot massage and give her an okay, and then she'll give. So you've got to drop the fucking agenda and that's exceptionally hard to do, especially if you haven't, you know, gotten any cookie in a while. It's hard to just kind. You do that enough and you don't shut down. This is the other thing. You don't shut down your own desire. You let yourself stay in tune with the desire in your body, not just shutting it down or siphoning it off because you feel like it's threatening for her. I'm just supposed to give her a foot massage. If you can lean back into your own body and still let that desire for her move through your body, deepen your breathing, keep that part alive. Don't shut it off, and that's what a lot of men do too.

Speaker 2: 20:04

That then kills things and flattens it, and then you're just giving her foot massages for the next 20 years so there's kind of a lot going on, but the main takeaway here is understanding she has a different pathway into activating her turn on, and it might not be just go grab her ass and drag her to the bedroom. It's probably going to be something that's going to take a little bit more time, and allowing her to relax and letting her know there's no agenda and it's totally fine if sex doesn't happen. You've got to really mean it and over time that can help to kind of reverse the pattern. Where she actually becomes interested, she's able to contact her own desire.

Speaker 1: 20:41

Right. So first I want to tell listeners, when it comes to the sexual blueprints, I have multiple episodes on them. I also have a full guide to masturbating and self-pleasure.

Speaker 1: 20:53

to explore each blueprint, I will make sure they're linked below so that you can understand them better. I also think it's like a beautiful way to understand your own desire, how it works, and your partner's as well. But it's interesting that you talk about sort of the spontaneous desire A lot of men are said to known to have this sort of. If they see something, hear something, the turn on happens instantly. I would like to propose that it's not that women aren't capable of that or wouldn't even do that normally, but you have to remember that from birth Couldn't even do that normally.

Speaker 1: 21:38

But you have to remember that from birth women are shamed for their sexual desire, sexual appetite, thinking and saying sexual things. That is how we've been conditioned and so I feel like a lot of that has been suppressed. Because I've noticed, as I've worked on getting rid of my shame, which clearly I'm pretty shameless I experience a lot more spontaneous desire. It's not necessarily, sometimes it's visual, but I think also talking about context. Right, if I feel desired, if someone sends me a sweet, kind of sexy text, but it's more in sweetness and affection, like you're talking about that, in road to stoking woman's desire and having her want sex, like for me receiving romantic texts, loving texts, something with sweetness, but also pointing out that I'm desirable man. I'm like wet, like that. My body turns on instantly right.

Speaker 2: 22:40

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:41

And I think that. So, pointing that out, that brings me to my question what do women need to feel desire? What are you know? We talked about how, with men, like the visual they see the boobs the woman puts on a nice little outfit, walks by, wants to slap her ass, he's instantly sort of aroused and feels desire. What are the things that will take those embers? The libido that we are arguing is always there and always sort of, you know, burning, maybe on the low burner. How do we turn that burner up? What creates the desire?

Speaker 2: 23:23

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:23

So one of the routes in to accessing our desire is through what's called the direct route, the route of. There's two ways that we experience pleasure or enjoyment. There's the direct route and the indirect route. So one of the things you're speaking to with spontaneous desire is like, oh, you just see the thing or you hear the thing and you're like, wow, I'm turned on, I'm ready. That's a little bit more of the indirect route. That's through the visual cortex. Right, we're seeing something that's appealing and it gets us turned on. We're watching pornography, for example. That's the indirect route. It's coming through the visual cortex and the body. The other way is the direct route, which is all about the nerve endings on the skin, directly up to the brain, and what tends to happen.

Speaker 2: 24:07

What I see with a lot of women who maybe describe themselves as having low libido and this would have been me many years ago as well like gosh, I literally thought I was asexual for a while. Like I just maybe I'm just like asexual, or like maybe I'm a man, I'm just like a lesbian, like I don't know. But so it's that ability to receive and to notice sensation in the body, directly on the skin, and what can happen is a lot of women get over dependent on just please, the man Like I'm just going to like give into sex because it's what he wants, and then he'll leave me alone. I mean, I did that, you know, like, oh gosh, it's been six months, let me just give it to him and he'll leave me alone for a while, which is terrible, right, Because if we're doing that too, by the way, we're not getting any of the benefits of the oxytocin all the really good types of hormones that can come when we really bond with somebody through sex. So we're just sort of defaulting into obligation.

Speaker 2: 24:56

But what also is happening is we're not connecting with what our body's actually. Where is the pleasure already in my body? What already feels good in my body? What is it that I desire? It might not even initially be anything explicitly sexual. Maybe I just want to be just lovingly massaged and that feels good.

Speaker 2: 25:14

And so one of the things we're learning to do is open that direct route through learning how to notice sensation and then allowing what that does. It allows us to learn how to receive more deeply, how to actually experience deeper states of enjoyment and pleasurable sensation in our own bodies. So we're taking that awareness inward and downward instead of this external focus on the other person and trying to give to the other person because it's what they want. Meanwhile, I'm totally disconnected from what actually feels good for me. I might be even forcing myself to like the thing that's happening. That never works. You cannot tell pleasure where to go. You can only find it where it already is.

Speaker 2: 25:51

So a lot of women have to do some unwinding around that and they have to learn how to be connected to their own body, to their body sensations, and then this whole idea of being and I don't like this word, but a lot of women think well, I don't want to be selfish. We have to learn how to be selfish. We have to learn how to immerse inward and downward into our own experience, especially if our partner is more visual and kind of the one who's sort of like wanting to be in that external focus and maybe putting more attention on her and wanting to please her. That's how things flatten out. You lose the polarity if both people are just trying to give to each other. So if she can learn how to be a receiver and he's happy to be a giver based on what she actually enjoys, not just on guessing, and not just her defaulting on whatever he's doing, but really being able to clarify that space between and she's able to drop into her own sensations. She can find what's in it for her, she can find her own pleasure there and then she, hopefully, can learn how to give voice to that.

Speaker 2: 27:52

I think that's a really important piece that you have to find that first, I believe, before you can like just give that up, we want to be able to have that clarity of what do I feel, what do I want or what do I need or what would I need right now so that I could be sexual with you. Like maybe there's something that I need to receive first that would help me move closer to being with you in that way. So a lot of it is just that clarity. And that's largely when you know, when I work with couples at the immersion retreats and the pleasure keys retreats, that's a lot of what we're doing is learning how to actually create that clarity in the relational space. But first it starts with each person individually how we find that within ourselves. It's through accessing that direct route and opening that direct route and getting rid of the debris that's in the way of our ability to access that, which is a topic for a whole other podcast, perhaps because I could talk about it forever.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Right. Well, what are some of the top barriers to, or what are the top causes of, low sex drive in women?

Speaker 2: 28:56

Yeah Well, usually most of the time it's not physiological. Now there are certainly times where there are physiological sources for low libido. We can have the changes of hormones, and then that is definitely a thing, but that also is kind of a myth. There's this idea that as soon as women go into menopause, they don't want sex anymore. Not fucking true. I mean, come on, look at us.

Speaker 1: 29:19

We're going to get to talking about that, yeah, but before we get to, because we want I want to address this sex drive in women who are in or have gone through menopause and the myth that we don't want sex, because I definitely do. But let's nail down what are those causes of low sex drive in just women generally In general.

Speaker 2: 29:45

Yeah Well, so it's not usually physiological Like a lot of people think. I mean, I had a client I worked with when I was very first starting out in my sex therapy practice who was 25 years old, didn't feel like having sex with her partner. It was becoming a big problem. Went to the doctor. Doctor put her on testosterone she's 25 years old and first she said for about two or three weeks it was great. And now I'm back to where I was.

Speaker 2: 30:06

Well, come to find out her partner was like shaming her during sex, like why do you want that? That's weird. Who's going to want to engage in their most vulnerable place when that's what you're getting? Of course you're going to shut down to sex. So it's not always like just give it a pill or give it a hormone, and it is really not, and most of the time it's more related to psychological and emotional roots.

Speaker 2: 30:29

So for women, we need to be able to feel like we're safe emotionally and physically in our relationship. We need to trust the person that we're with and we also need to have the ability to trust our body and trust our own, the flow of emotions that can happen when we're really allowing, when we're able to breathe and to relax and to say yes to the sensations and the everything that comes with it. It's not always going to necessarily be positive. There might be deep grief or anger or frustration that comes out, in addition to, maybe, pleasure and joy. But if we can embrace that, then we break down some of that tension that's being held in the body that's literally keeping us from being able to be in contact with the life force energy, which is the sexual energy, the libido.

Speaker 2: 31:11

The word libido just means life force energy. That's literally what that word is. Yeah, it means just like life force, and so our sexuality is life force energy. And if we are in a place where it doesn't feel safe to speak up or we're afraid of being angry because we were raised in a family where you were told don't be angry, just be happy it's not okay. As a little girl to be angry you learn to tamp down and only show what's socially acceptable or what feels safe, and we're going to take those patterns with us into our intimate relationship. So there's a lot of breaking down of that alone, just allowing ourselves to feel all of ourselves, not just physically but also emotionally, because that literally can lead to loss of interest in sex and low libido.

Speaker 1: 31:56

Right. I want to go back to what you said about the libido being our life force energy. This resonates and on this podcast I have talked a lot about. I get asked constantly, annette, why does everything have to be about sex? Why is everything about sex? And I'm like, because everything is about sex. Our sexual energy isn't a compartmentalized energy. It is an energy that stokes the rest of our life and infiltrates, if you will, or is integrated into everything that we do. And when it's shamed, as it has been in women, that is our life force energy being shamed and being pushed down and made small, which makes us small and weaker, in my opinion. So I love that you brought that up, that our sexual energy is so important. It is our life force energy which brings me to wanting to talk about you mentioned.

Speaker 1: 33:03

Women will say that they feel numb down there and that could be clitoris, that could be vaginal. Now, in honor of sexual assault awareness, I think it's important for us to speak to. One of the causes of it can be low libido. Sometimes it's hyperactive libido. Trauma in your history as I've been very open about my history with sexual assault and rape can actually be one of the barriers to feeling desire, or it can be one of the reasons why women report having no sexual desire or libido, and so I just want you to speak to that for a moment, because I also think it's important for women out there and their partners, who are aware of their trauma, to understand that it doesn't have to be that way. There are ways to reconnect with your life force, energy, your libido. Can you speak to that?

Speaker 2: 34:08

Yes, absolutely. I love that you brought up the trauma piece, because there is sort of trauma with a capital T which is kind of like what you're describing. It sounds like you've been through some of that, whether it's explicit sexual abuse or sexual assault, and, however, we also tend to discount trauma with a small t that we all. I think there's not a single woman out there that hasn't probably said yes when she meant no or had a sexual interaction that maybe she really wasn't a full yes to but kind of did it anyway. So there's that that happens a lot. There's also the sticking of things up there in our vaginas, just sort of shoving in tampons. Going to the doctor, shoving in dildos or toys before our bodies are really kind of like a full yes to that experience. So those small things like that can also create little micro traumas over time, as can things like religious programming, all the shame that can come, where we're just literally disconnecting from that part of our body for reasons of like religious shame or social condition, slut shaming You're supposed to be a good girl and don't be too sexy and everyone's going to think you're easy if you're, you know, having sex too early. There's all these programs as well. So all of that can get lodged in our bodies as a disconnect from that part of our body. So if there has been trauma with a big T, like explicit sexual assault, for example, out of safety, we pull our awareness and our attention out of that part of our body as a way to stay safe and to not feel the impact of that experience.

Speaker 2: 35:51

The thing with trauma is that it requires us, if we want to heal it and unwind it, the requirement is actually to fully process that experience and to do it through the body. That's why going to therapy is great and has its place, but often it's very limited in dealing with trauma because it stays kind of up here it's from the neck up and we're talking about it and in some ways can be more painful because you might end up rehashing it and you're not really going to where you need to go so that that trauma can complete itself. That's all that trauma really is. It's a very intense experience that just didn't get completed, and so anytime we're tensing up around an experience, we're potentially creating fertile ground for either physical pain in that part of the body or lack of sensation and just numbness in that part of the body down and to get present and to begin to learn again. It's this direct pleasure pathway, to learn how to notice sensation in the body and just begin to learn how to embrace what's there so that it can actually move through us.

Speaker 2: 37:01

And I can, I can share I'll. I'll pause here so you can respond to that, but I can share an example just from my own story of how that showed up, where I haven't, you know, I've had little traumas from with a little t like like we all have not capital T, but I can give a good example of kind of what that looks like and how I worked through it. That might be helpful for our listeners today. If you'd like, I'll be happy to share that.

Speaker 1: 38:30

I would absolutely like you to share that and I love that you point out. Obviously, when I've spoken to my own experience, it's a more. You know you call it a trauma with a big T, but I just want to say whatever trauma you've had around sex and intimacy, whether you have gritted your teeth and gotten through it because I've certainly done that and it deserves recognition and it deserves this moment of saying I'm so sorry that's what you had to go through and also for the men who are on the other side of it, not realizing. You know, because we live in a society that has traumatized us all. Right, it's taught us to do this. So men also, in their own way, are traumatized.

Speaker 1: 39:20

Knowing that she gritted her teeth and got me through, me having sex with her and like the way that men who are self-aware enough to recognize what's happened, what's happening like it's traumatic for them too. I put my body into someone who didn't want it there and hated every second of it. That's a terrible fucking feeling. That's a terrible feeling and it's like I think that taking a moment and saying God, I'm so sorry this has all happened, and then giving ourselves, our bodies and our hearts time to trust us again and know that we won't be put, we won't put ourselves in that position again.

Speaker 1: 40:00

And as for the big T, which is a choice taken away, you know like I, I didn't choose to to to grip my teeth and get through that. That is like you know. That has happened to so many women, and I do want to have you talk about how you re-engaged with your body, because I think women who have been through trauma where their choice was taken away might feel like A I can't ever enjoy it again. How could I? And B like why would I want to? Right?

Speaker 2: 40:33

Yeah, well, that's a big part of you know, in somatic work we call that voice and choice. And so you're right, in big T trauma like that, it's like we didn't have the choice. So part of what we're doing is learning how to slow down enough to notice. So the three N's of the pleasure keys process that I use I'll just share, that is, notice, name, negotiate. But the very first fundamental thing is the ability to notice what's happening in the body, because so often, and especially when there's been trauma, we're pushing past those feelings. We're just kind of saying yes really quickly or we're saying no really quickly and there's no real space in between those two things. We're kind of defaulting and breezing past what our bodies are telling us or we're going into that freeze-response avoidance, just never going to go there again. And we don't want either of those. It's not ideal. What we want is the ability to really notice what is happening in my body and I notice when I start to go into the shutdown or the pulling away and then I can name that, I can learn how to name that right. So that's the naming, I name, I notice this is happening in my body and I'm feeling this in my body Notice and name, and the next piece might be the negotiate, and so that might look like, for example, in the case of trauma, what I would need right now. So I just need to slow way down. I need way more time because I don't really know. I don't know what I want or need right now. I'm just noticing I'm feeling overwhelmed or afraid, and so we learn how to kind of stay at the edge of that, how to stay right there with just the feelings in the body and breathing into them, relaxing and not needing anything to happen, not rushing into some kind of a doing like touching or trying to be sexual, but also not sort of going to the knee, jerk reaction of avoidance and just shutting down completely and running away, and so that can be just working in that space of noticing and naming some many times if there's been a lot of trauma. That's the place that we work with for as long as we need to, and then the negotiating is just okay. What would I need, maybe, so that I could? Okay, that feels more comfortable now. What would I need so that maybe I could move a little bit more closely in that direction? Okay, maybe just put your hand on my knee. Just let's try that. Just rest your hand on my body and there might be some activation just around that. And so we just sit with that and knowing that at any time you have access to the voice to be able to say that's too much. I need you to stop. I want you to stop. So that empowerment of voice is such an important piece for trauma especially, but we also need it in general.

Speaker 2: 42:57

All of us and we don't realize how hard it can be to say no. There's all kinds of reasons of why we don't say no, and then there's things that we do instead of say no. So we don't say no because we don't want to hurt feelings, we don't want to appear selfish, and then maybe what we do instead is we just, you know, we go along with it, we tolerate it, and all of that just creates more of those little mini violations on our bodies. Whether you've had the sexual assault experience or not, those are little ways that we're violating ourselves. So my story so I can share that with you real quick and how this showed up for me was when I left my marriage.

Speaker 2: 43:38

I ended up in another relationship a couple years later with a man who said I'm going to help your body experience all kinds of things, and I'd always wanted to have this full-body orgasm. I'd heard about it but I didn't know how does that even work? And I don't even know how you do that. And maybe it's just for other people and not for me. So this man's like oh, you want that experience, I can make you have a full body orgasm. Well, long story short, he did not deliver and that relationship ended as quickly as it began. But where it left me was this realization of oh my gosh, like. Here I am again sort of repeating the same pattern that I had in my marriage, where I was just waiting for the man to like step up and like deliver this incredible experience sexual experience to me Meanwhile, up and like deliver this incredible experience, sexual experience to me, meanwhile, totally oblivious to my participation into that, to how my body actually might work or respond into even that pathway in my own body. So I had this moment of wow, you know, if that guy said he could like give me all these experiences, well then those experiences exist within me, like it's not, it's something that I should be able to find the pathway. If I really want to find it. I should be able to figure that out.

Speaker 2: 44:47

So I made a declaration to undergo the study of my own sexuality, and I actually was in graduate school at the time getting my master's degree in professional counseling. I didn't know yet that I was going to be a sex therapist, but it was this experience that happened that defined that moment for me, and so I had a date with myself Every week. I set aside a couple of hours and I just put on music and candles and I got naked, laid on my bed and I connected with myself sexually, and this was really different than a masturbation session. So in the past I would have just masturbated and probably gotten off literally in one minute. And you use a lot of fantasy and you know, maybe a dildo or some kind of, or my hand or whatever, and just kind of like get the orgasm and get the tension off.

Speaker 2: 45:31

But I was really determined to do something different, and so I had read about an approach where you just slow things down and you focus on sensation. This is a lot of the Taoist sexuality, taoist approaches to sex. There was this book that had jumped off the shelf at me and I thought I'm going to try some of this and not making orgasm the goal, like getting rid of orgasm or, let's say, climax as the goal, and just learning how to be present in the body and how you can start to drop into these subtle flows of energy. There's a whole different realm and I thought this sounds really cool. So I'm like I really want to try this. So I started doing that and something really funny happened when I slowed down, I got really present in my body.

Speaker 2: 46:12

As I was touching myself sexually, genitally, I noticed that I did not have a lot of sensation. Actually, it was quite numb. Now I had never had problems with climax. I could have lots of orgasms, but at this moment I didn't have a lot of feeling in my genitals. There was a lot of numbness, a lack of sensation, and there was a moment where I was really frustrated by that and my default was like, well, I can just go up into a fantasy and then I'll be able to like get off. And then I was like, wait a minute, I'm trying to learn something new. I'm trying to not use mental fantasy and just be present in the body right now. It's just a skill I was trying to cultivate.

Speaker 2: 46:49

And then I got frustrated. I'm like, well, I should be feeling more. What's wrong with me, because I'm not feeling. So there was this frustration that came up, and so then I was like I'm just going to slow down and I'm just going to breathe and I'm going to say yes to this feeling, this lack of something. I'm just going to be curious about it and I'm sort of mapping my genitals, feeling around different places. What do I feel here and there? I'm going to pause right here. I'm just going to pause where this numbness is and breathe into it and say yes to it.

Speaker 2: 47:16

Well, what ended up happening was a massive wave of emotion came out. First it was frustration and then anger, and then, all of a sudden, all this grief and sorrow and sadness just came out of me and for some, of like residue of that coming up for me, just the memory of losing that. And I just said yes to all of this. I'm just going to feel whatever this is. And it just moved from my genitals up and out of my heart and I just sobbed and cried and cried.

Speaker 2: 47:52

And so that happened a number of times throughout my self-pleasure sessions. And then I had an experience a few weeks later where I was in a self-pleasure session with myself, touching myself, breathing. I'd had a lot of this emotional release kind of stuff happening. Oh, by the way, I had way more sensitivity in my genitals is what happened immediately after that. Suddenly, I could feel again, I wasn't numb anymore. And then, a few weeks later, I have this moment where, all of a sudden, there's just this wave of pleasure just rolled from the bottom of my feet all the way up through my whole body, burst out of my heart.

Speaker 2: 48:30

My hands, literally, are just like tingling and my face feels numb and everything's vibrating. And all this love pours out of my heart, all this pleasure coursing through my body, and I realized I'm like, oh my God, I'm having a full body orgasm. This is it. And in that that was the moment where I'm like more women need to know this pathway, because I realized that all I had done was I had just cleared out the debris, I had just cleared away the things that were in the way of my ability to access this state, which I realized in that moment. I was like, oh my God, this is within me, I am love, I am orgasm and pleasure exists within me. It's not something some man can deliver to me on a platter, and that changed my whole entire life.

Speaker 2: 49:12

I became a sex therapist. I decided that was the route I was going to go. Several months later, I attracted a new partner into my life who was really interested in just learning and growing and trying new approaches to sex. So I got to actually incorporate what I learned into relational space, and a big part of that was that ability to use my voice to ask for what I wanted. This is what I want, so I don't want to touch me like this. And that ability was so empowering. I had never had that before and I never had that ability to slow down and, like be in the sensation. I'd always sort of defaulted to fantasy and this goal orientation during sex or just get to climax.

Speaker 1: 49:48

Yeah, I want to point out I have often said I am my best lover. I've taken a lot of time in the last five to 10 years to create a sexual relationship with myself, and it is regular and it has been profound. I've also experienced the incredible emotional release, relief and healing that can come through orgasm and I know I can imagine my past self listening to the two of us now going they're fucking crazy, right, but I can promise you, I can promise you this isn't just a bunch of woo bullshit. It really isn't, and it's hard for a lot of women and men alike to believe what they're hearing because of the way that in our society, women especially have been severed and separated from their sexuality, their libido and their life force.

Speaker 2: 50:55

I love that you used that.

Speaker 1: 50:57

And it is true that through creating a safe and consensual sexual relationship with yourself, meaning that when your body says I don't want that anymore, you stop doing that thing, that you can remove a lot of the trauma and the pain that you've experienced and restore sensation and desire, which is what I think that story really is explaining and illustrating a way to remove the debris, the barriers to desire and seeing overtly that higher libido right.

Speaker 2: 51:39

Because the more that I've done what?

Speaker 1: 51:40

you've done and I'm sure that you're going to agree, is once that debris was removed and you had that experience. Suddenly you're walking around in your daily life and you're like, oh, I got a little tingle down below. That's happening like regularly now. Right, I've got a little. I've got an extra strut in my step when I walk down the sidewalk.

Speaker 2: 51:58

You know people are taking notice, yeah well, and I think that's a lot of women are afraid of that piece and they think that if I get in touch with myself sexually then I'm going to get more of that kind of attention that I don't want from men and I'll be honest with you, I've had the opposite experience. I don't get the negative type of attention, that's kind of that gross grabby. You get sort of this more like oh my gosh, there's this goddess like walking down the road right now, like this awe and reverence. That is not the same as when we're, because if we are disconnected something else is going to get in and that's where those sort of tentacles of the slimy male gaze can sometimes get in. But when we're empowered in our sexuality and we're strong and we're confident, like anything, like men run, ran away from me, like whoa okay, I can't, no, she's too much for me.

Speaker 2: 52:50

So the opposite. I think the other piece that makes it safe for us is the ability to say no. When we find our voice in our bodies and in sex and just in general, when we give ourselves the ability to say no and to speak up for ourselves, it becomes safe because suddenly now we know how to do what we either could not do because of you know, an assault or trauma, whereas before I might have gone into the default of you know. One of the trauma responses is called tend and befriend, or a way to a safety response, a survival response. Tend and befriend, where we try to be nice to the threat in order to stay safe.

Speaker 2: 53:37

Right, and that's a very common one that a lot of women use right To stay safe in the face of threat. And so I would default to that quite a bit Like oh, let me just kind of be nice, even though I'm not really like feeling it Like I'll just be nice. I don't want to hurt their feelings and I was damaging myself and doing that. But once I had my no, then the sky was the limit and I was able to safely walk through the world and engage in sexual relationship again in a way that was just completely new.

Speaker 1: 54:04

Yes, I want to go back to what you said about once you had found that sexual energy and restoked it and cleared out some of the debris and, more importantly, found your voice through it. Right, then, the kind of men that are going to be brave enough to approach you are not going to be the ones who are the same, you know, and come into your circle and approach you. You have the voice and the look to look at them and be like you need to move away from me. You have the ability to vocalize that right, because you found your voice. And then, on top of it, you have the voice to ask for what you want from the partners that, or partner like partners, because that's where I'm in my life at this point that you have the, that you have invited to be sexual with you, you can ask, you can say here's what I want, here's what I need, and they're going to be excited about that, right. But I also want to go back to everything you've said A sexually empowered woman is a safer woman.

Speaker 1: 55:31

Yeah, and absolutely because of all of those things, you have your voice. You have the too much energy, which is great, safe energy, and the men who like the too much energy are the men you want to be with or women, whoever you're dating, but sexually empowered women are safer women.

Speaker 2: 55:50

Yeah, because also for the men listening a sexually empowered woman isn't going to sit there and grit her teeth and then you're going to find out way later that that's what was going on. That's not empowerment. It doesn't build trust. A sexually empowered woman is not going to tolerate that or allow that to happen to her. So it makes the world a better and safer place when women are empowered in their sexuality and empowered in their ability to use the voice. And then there's this whole idea of relationally, how we create that clarity. There's a whole set of skills that's really required there for creating that clarity, which it's a path of personal knowledge and self-knowledge and really can be a very much a spiritual path in some ways, but really a path of personal knowledge and growth to understand how you create that clarity with another, where maybe you feel like you're on two different pages sexually. How you get back on the same page is through that skill set of learning how to negotiate positive touch experiences.

Speaker 1: 56:45

Right. So I feel like through our conversation today we've talked about, our argument is our belief is the truth is? I'm just going to say we're right. Women don't have lower libido. Our embers are there, just like men's are there. They're stoked by different things. They're also suppressed by different things. Some of the things that they're suppressed by are well, society telling us that if we have sex drive, that means we're all sorts of things, we're sluts, we're whores, we're devalued in whatever way. Shame has suppressed our embers, but also some of the barriers that you have mentioned. The pathway to our desire is different, right, a lot of us experience numbness for a lot of different reasons, including trauma, whether that is trauma with a big T or trauma with a small T, and we have to learn how to clear the debris from the trauma, the barriers from the trauma, out of our body right and reconnect with the nerve endings down there and wake them up and say it's safe to come out and play. It's safe, you know to, to wake up to what the world has to offer you.

Speaker 2: 58:11

Absolutely. Yes, that was beautifully said and I agree and we're right.

Speaker 1: 58:16

We are right. Our final topic that we have to cover is libido and women 50, let's say mid forties and beyond. Let's talk about women's libido in midlife, 45, 50 up post menopause. You and I also argue that that doesn't cause us to have no libido. Because I can tell you right now, I've been on fire since my mid 40s and it is not faltered since my mid forties and it is not faltered.

Speaker 2: 58:50

Yeah, no, totally agreed. I think what I've noticed is that things do change, the body changes and sex is different, but it's it's just different and there's some more of a depth as well to my orgasm and my orgasmic states. I also have access much easier access to the deeper types of orgasm, like G-spot and cervical, and there's just an easier access to that for me at this stage of life.

Speaker 1: 59:13

Do you know why? Why is that? Because in my 30s and 20s I never had a G-spot orgasm, certainly never an A-spot orgasm and never like blended orgasms, and I'm having the best orgasms, like I wish 20 year olds knew.

Speaker 2: 59:29

I knew what was possible. Yeah, I, you know, I think some of it is our sexual nervous system is more mature, like we're actually able to handle more of the energy that runs when not to get too woo out there. But if you understand how kundalini energy works, for example in yoga, I mean, that's just, it's a life force energy, it's our sexual energy, it's just another name for it. And one of the things that the yogis would say it's not till after the age of 40, actually, that you really would practice some of the sexual yogas for that very reason, just because our nervous systems can't hold the amount of intensity that can come with some of those experiences. So, whether or not that's true, I think there, you know, I think that there is an aspect of truth to that. Just because our bodies are more mature, we can drop into those spaces and then we can actually hold those experiences better than maybe we could if we were in our 20s. Let's say we're not going to burn our nervous systems out. Those channels are more open to. As we get into this stage of life, the channels of energy in our body start to become more available for that energy to flow through it. So I think that's part of it, and then also just the sexual maturity. I mean, things are supposed to get better, you know, as we become more knowledgeable and more wise and more comfortable in our bodies. That's a huge part of it too. I mean, Annette, you've done a lot of work on your sexuality, as have I, and so I think that's a big part of it as well. It's never too late, but it doesn't hurt to get started and to really make a commitment to that. So I think there's a lot of that going on too, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:00:56

The other piece here is that there's some research on this, and I can't remember whose research. It might be in the height report, the Sherry height, or it might be somewhere else where I remember reading this, but it was a study about menopausal women where. Think of the sample they studied. Now, we always have to keep that in mind, because who are they asking, who are they talking to? But of the sample they studied, I think 50% of the women said their sex drive decreased after menopause, but the other 50% a good portion of those women said their sex drive actually increased or stayed the same. So that's a really good and encouraging statistic there to understand that it does not have to be the case that your sex drive just goes offline after you go through menopause. Yes, we go through hormonal changes. Yes, that can impact the libido, but that's not the sum total of it.

Speaker 2: 1:01:46

One thing that's helped me immensely is doing pelvic floor. I do a practice called Pompor, which is a really awesome pelvic floor exercise, which is referred to as vaginal gymnastics, because what you're really doing is learning how to refine the muscles of the vagina so that during sex you can massage and squeeze and twist and milk the penis, like literally that level of refinement in the vagina. So, whether or not you want to like go to that extreme and study, pump or just start with some pelvic floor exercises, even just kegels or working with a yoni egg that's what a lot more people are more familiar with, those paths than pump or it has made such a difference Like my sex drive is still through the roof and I'm having insane orgasms and there's this real sense of connection to my sexuality and my power as a woman, instead of drying up, developing pelvic pain and then just losing interest in sex altogether. If we keep those muscles toned, it literally keeps us wet, lubricated, juicy, and it must have some effect also. It has an effect, for sure, on our energy or sexual energy, but it probably has some effect also on the hormones.

Speaker 2: 1:02:58

I don't know, I don't have the data on that, but it's a wonderful way as a tip for your female listeners out there. Get some stuff going on down there like start exercising the vagina just like you would any other muscle at the gym, because if you don't use it you lose it and we can easily lose elasticity and, um, you know, the nerve endings kind of pull away from the surface of the skin as we get older. So do the vessels, the blood vessels, so the blood flow can decrease and all of that leads to decrease in sensitivity. But if we're actually exercising that area intentionally, we can reverse some of that, continue with good blood flow and have way more ability to experience pleasure all throughout the vagina, much less being able to milk or twist a penis. How cool. Cool is that you know if you have a male partner.

Speaker 1: 1:03:48

Right. And not to mention there happened studies. Women also reported having better sex after their 50s or after menopause because certain barriers to the desire were removed. We don't worry about getting pregnant, like that's gone. We don't worry about bleeding, there's no period coming. We have also hit this stage where I guess one of the highlights of society wanting to disregard us is we're like, we're disregarded, so now we can do all the kinky stuff we want to do. Women in their 40s and above are more experimental in bed. They're more likely to experiment with kink and try different things that they wouldn't have when they were younger.

Speaker 1: 1:04:35

And he's sort of having this expectation of marriage and motherhood and and all those things stressed upon us, and I want my listeners to remember too, that it is only currently that people have truly started to study menopause and women, our age. We were left by the wayside. The information on menopause in our bodies at this age is minimal. It was done quickly, it is not accurate and the messages that we've been given are probably the biggest harmful factor to our libido at 50. Because if you're constantly told by society, well, when you're 40, the incels like to say, oh, we've hit the wall at 40. At 40, you're crusty, you're dry, blah, blah, blah. If that is what you are hearing your whole life, then you're going to go that way. But more and more women you have two here are here to say that isn't true and in fact you can be more of a sexual goddess in and at our age, then in your entire life, you can be more powerful in your life and in your relationships than ever before. Right, Wouldn't you say? That's your experience.

Speaker 2: 1:05:54

Oh, absolutely Hands down, absolutely. And there's another interesting like physiological piece to this that I would love to throw in there. And well, number one when you're a woman at our age and that, like we just don't take shit anymore, we're like what the fuck? Like no, we just don't take it anymore. We're like we're just so done, done with that, and I'm me, and like fuck you, like this is who I am. So there's sort of that piece that comes online for women right around you know, midlife, around 50. But also what's happening hormonally.

Speaker 2: 1:06:23

As we know, the estrogen does start to to drop really around age 38 and 40 is when that shift starts to happen.

Speaker 2: 1:06:31

Then on into, you know, menopause and post-menopause. Estrogen is one of those hormones that really causes us to have a high need to be liked and accepted. It's just a way that we're wired often as younger women Like some of that is due to the estrogen. It makes us just have this need to sort of be approved of, to be liked, to fit in, and so it can feel really terrible to not be liked, right, and so we're operating under the influence of higher estrogen when we're younger and that can be part of it, and then the tendency to go along with things and you know not to mention some of the social conditioning that you talked about that are pressures for younger women and when you get older we have more testosterone.

Speaker 2: 1:07:16

As menopause potentially right Some of the fertility hormones kind of start to tone down and then we actually become much more empowered in using our voice and not caring, not like giving a flying fuck, like what other people think, and some of that is thanks to that sort of toning down of the estrogen in the body. So it's just kind of an interesting fun fact that I learned not too long ago.

Speaker 1: 1:07:40

Yeah, now we've debunked that myth too. I have so many men, especially, who will like, try to dance around like well, where are you at? Because you're in your 40s. You know, I know what they want to say. So, do you have a sex drive because of your age? And I want to be my friend, my friend. You will not be able to keep up with me. Yeah right, you won't, seriously right, but all right. So, listeners, if you don't believe it by now, I don't know how to make you believe it. But what I can do is have Susan help us out by leaving you with some takeaway tips right now. Let's talk to both partners here women, men. What can they do tonight? If they are in a relationship or they're in this place, where they're like I or my partner doesn't? I don't think they have a libido.

Speaker 2: 1:08:36

They have low libido.

Speaker 1: 1:08:38

What are some things they could whether it's sitting down and talking tonight or self-reflecting they can start doing to debunk that within their own personal self-reflection and in their relationship.

Speaker 2: 1:08:50

Yeah. So one of the things I'll give really to both, whether you're male-bodied or female-bodied is slow down. Slow the whole fucking thing down. Don't rush to stick it in. Don't rush on either side, because women can rush it too, feeling bad, like he's ready. We got to get it going because he's ready and I guess I'm ready because I'm a little bit wet. So just slow down, like take more time.

Speaker 2: 1:09:18

And the next piece is to breathe. Practice deepening your breathing. It's amazing how such a simple thing like that can make all the difference. It's really the key to men lasting longer in bed when you slow down the breath and you breathe fully into your belly, when you don't have shallow breathing and what that can do to your female partner, she can also start to feel you more. More of you is there when you're present in your body, and the breath is a wonderful way to help us get more present. And then the next piece that you can do right away tonight why don't you practice having sex tonight and just get rid of the rush towards climax, or even climax being on the table. Practice it. Just do it one time.

Speaker 2: 1:10:01

This doesn't mean you have to like take this on. You can always go back to the way you've been doing things is the thing. We have to remember that If you want to create a new pathway and have a new experience, we've got to be willing to experiment and try new things. So have sex tonight, make love tonight and put climax or orgasm. Just see what it's like. What happens if you decide not to go all the way to the finish line and what you might want to do is not get all the way worked up, so your arousal is so high that you just can't help it. Play in the in-between, play at an arousal of five, six or seven, but not an eight, nine or ten, which is over the edge. Just see what happens. Slow it down, take breaks. See what happens.

Speaker 2: 1:10:41

I mean I'm giving you like lots more than two things. You could pick any one of these things that I just said. Even just take breaks, have sex however you want, but just take a break before you go for climax, like. Take like a 15 or 20 minute break and it's fine. If you lose your erection you'll get it back. See what it does to her energy. Take just five minutes. Even I know that for me, when we do that, when my partner and I do that, we take breaks, even if it's only like five minutes. When he is back inside me, I go straight into an orgasmic state like almost within seconds. So there's really something to that taking pauses and taking breaks that can help the erotic energy in the female body start to build and build and build, and so it can be really a fun thing to play with. So, like any one of those things would be a great thing that you could try tonight and just see what's different. Play with it, play with any of them.

Speaker 1: 1:11:29

All right, there you go, folks. You've got your homework for the evening. Susan, thank you so much for this conversation. It's been wonderful. Can you tell my listeners where they can find out more about you and connect with you?

Speaker 2: 1:11:43

Yes, absolutely. The other resource that I'll offer to you for, like the tips that you know people, that might be enough for some listeners but for people that want to go a little bit deeper into what I just shared, I have a resource called the Pleasure Keys and that is a downloadable e-guide that you can get at pleasurekeyscom that will walk you through three of the most fundamental keys that you need to have in place or principles that you need to have in order to be able to access deeper orgasmic states, deeper connection and really have this kind of overcoming this issue of desire mismatch, like how you actually get there. There's some more practices that I share in that e-guide. You can get that at pleasurekeyscom.

Speaker 2: 1:12:20

Otherwise, all of my stuff lives at pathwaytopleasurecom. Otherwise, all of my stuff lives at pathway to pleasurecom. I offer private coaching and I also do the pleasure keys couples retreats, which are three day immersions where we go really deep into building the skills of the notice, name and negotiate that I talked about earlier. We have to really have good access to those pieces to be able to get back on the same page and sex and intimacy and get rid of this whole like mismatch, the desire thing for good. Those are just three of the pleasure keys. There's actually nine altogether, but those retreats are really life-changing, and so all that information lives at pathwaytopleasurecom.

Speaker 1: 1:12:57

Wonderful. Also, you have a podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:13:00

Oh, I have a podcast. Thank you for reminding me, I do. The Sex Talk Cafe. So come on over to the cafe it's on all the podcasting platforms or you can also for being here If you have questions or comments on this episode.

Speaker 1: 1:13:27

if you are on my YouTube channel, you can drop a comment below the video. If you are just listening on one of the audio platforms, you can email me at Annette at TalkSexWithAnnettecom. You can also scroll down and you're going to find a link to my speak pipe. You can leave me a voice message. Lots of you have done that and I love it. Make sure to subscribe to my e-newsletter Substack and OnlyFans. Again, you're going to find all of the links below. So until next time, I'll see y'all in the locker room. Cheers.