S2E23 with Court Vox - Intimacy Reimagined

Today’s guest is Court Vox — a Certified Sex & Intimacy Coach, Surrogate Partner, and Sacred Intimate based in Los Angeles, and the founder of The Bodyvox. Court creates an incredibly safe, transformative space for people to come home to themselves through one-on-one coaching, workshops, retreats, and a global community of erotic explorers. Don’t let the word erotic throw you  — Court’s perspective is fresh, empowering, and absolutely eye-opening.

At the heart of his work is a simple truth: true intimacy starts with loving yourself and honoring the body you live in. Court guides people at every stage of their journey — from those just beginning to explore their sensuality to seasoned seekers and some of the world’s most respected sex educators and change-makers.

Known for his compassion, curiosity, and ability to hold space, Court helps people soften, open up, and step fully into their power. He travels the globe facilitating workshops for every body, gender, and orientation, reminding us all that pleasure and connection are not luxuries — they’re our birthright. 

Court’s work isn’t just for GBTQ+ men. He’s also part of the extraordinary team behind Back to the Body, a celebrated retreat program helping women reconnect with their bodies, reclaim pleasure, and embrace the fullness of who they are.

I can’t wait for you to listen in on this episode — it’s a bold, uncensored, playful, and deeply empowering invitation to explore, feel, and celebrate yourself and a conversation that just might just change the way you feel about intimacy. So take a deep breath, settle in, and get ready… it’s going to be life changing! I know I walked away from our conversation looking at intimacy in a completely new way.

To learn more about Court, visit https://thebodyvox.com and check out all of the powerful courses and offerings he facilitates around the globe.  

To learn more about Back to the Body, visit https://backtothebody.org/about

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

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Want to learn more about our host, Eric Nicoll?  Visit:  https://ericnicoll.com

Transcript

0:05

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Just Do You Podcast. My name is Eric Nicoll, and I'm your host. If you are a first time listener, welcome to the conversation and if you're a regular, I'm honored that you've decided to join me for another episode. The Just To You Podcast is centered around a network of conversations, which are meant to connect us, to inspire us, to find our own confidence, our own voice, and to live our own truth. And who knows, we might even learn a little something new that ultimately allows us to live in the sweet spot that I like to call the Just Do You space of being. Each week, I have the privilege of sitting down for unscripted conversations with friends, family, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers that all share their own personal journeys. I hope that you enjoy our time together as much as I have. We are certainly going to laugh, and yes, we might even cry a little, but in the end, we are going to know that we're not alone during our life's journey. So are you ready? Great. Let's do this. Welcome to the conversation. All right everyone. Welcome to today's episode. I am really excited to be with you today and I'm equally excited about my guest. I have been a huge fan for many months. I follow him on Instagram and through his newsletters and through a lot of his work, and I think you're really going to enjoy today's conversation. So I'm just going to jump right in and introduce Court Vox. Hi, Court. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. This has been a long time coming for me. You've been on my top 10 list for a long time, and I'm glad we were finally able to make this happen. Thank you to you and your team. Yeah. I'm going to just briefly introduce you to our listeners today, and we're going to jump right into the conversation. There's a lot to talk about, but for our listeners today, like I said, met Court, on Instagram. I'm a huge follower and have listened to several of his podcasts. And he was recently on a podcast that is hosted by our mutual friend Nathan Serato. And through that conversation, it left me as I was driving up to Los Angeles to get to an appointment, left me with a lot of questions in my own life about myself, my body, my intimacy my relationship to intimacy, my relationship to others, my relationship to sex, and a lot of other things. And so I'm really excited to have you on court today to talk about that. For listeners, Court is a somatic wellness and embodiment coach. He's an educator. He's a founder based in Los Angeles of an incredible program, and he has been featured in a multitude of magazines and online, platforms, and it's a really interesting approach to what we're going to talk about today. But he works with people one-on-one. He has group coaching programs, he has workshops and retreats. I'm sure they are done all over the world. He is incredibly knowledgeable in helping people get connected to themselves. And so we're going to talk a lot about that today, court. So thank you for being here again. Sure. Thank you. Of course. Can you give us just a little intro, I'd love to find out a little bit before we jump into the meat of the conversation about my guests, about what young Court was like. Where were you born? Siblings, family, what was that like for you? Yeah. I was born in Las Vegas Nevada. I had a younger sister who passed a couple years ago. Okay. We were very close, we're two years apart. I remember myself as a very like, curious child. Very sexual child. I was always very erotically curious. So it, it's no surprise to me that I'm in this profession now. But, there was a period of time where I went dark, if you will. But as a kid I was so vibrant. I was, I loved to dance and sing. I was a professional singer for 15 years and bands. I went to UCLA for musical theater. So music and kind of movement and voice has always been a really big part of my life. I loved animals. I had a cat named Crystal. I have this really awesome photo with this cat who's a black cat. And, it's like such a telling photo. Like you could just see, oh, this is a gay child. I've always had really white hair. Like white I was born, came out of the womb with like just a full head of white hair. Wow. And there's a picture, I'm just I got slicked back white hair and I'm like, with my cat and I'm we all have one of those poses. Maybe not with a cat, but we all have one of those pictures. It's very Siegfried and Roy with, yeah. Yeah. I don't have a white tiger, but I have a black cat. Yeah. I was a really happy child. Like my sister and I had a very full kinda like fantasy life. We'd play a lot outside and we would dig in the dirt. My mom would kinda leave us out there together and we would make forts and. All kinds of Yeah. We had a very kind of fantastical life in our backyard. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. When you mentioned a little bit about that kind of early on, years of being sexually in tune or radically in tuned what, tell us what you mean by that. Yeah. I, my earliest kind of sexual memory with someone else was with my neighbor when I was four, and he was also four. And we used to give each other, we used to suck each other's dicks on the side of my house. And, we would say, I'm almost, I almost have a tickle. So we were having orgasm. We weren't ejaculating, but we're having orgasm in our body. Which I think is cool. And that was a memory I suppressed for a long time. But it's come back to me and it's such a fun, fun memory. But yeah, that was kinda like my, that is my earliest like erotic memory. I also have a memory of being like, I think it was about five or six and I was at a friend's house another sister and brother, and I said, you guys wanna play doctor? And they said what's doctor? And I said you're going to take all your clothes off and then I'm going to examine you. And they're like, I think I'm going to ask my dad. And I was like no, don't ask your dad. I already knew at that point it was a little precocious. And they did ask their dad and they came back and they were like, so my dad said no. And your mom is coming to pick you up. You up. Yeah. What's interesting about that is I think you're not. Unique. No, for lack of a better term in that, I think that happens a lot. I think what's interesting about that experience,'cause I had experiences like that at a very young age. I don't know that I was four or five, but at a young age, and yet we instantly fall into that conversation of shame or that internal conversation of shame. It was like, I did something wrong. Especially if the dad was called and your mom comes to pick you up. And I often have mentioned this in a multitude of podcasts, when we talk about experiences in our youth, in those very formative years, that it's when we start to make decisions about who we are in our adulthood or how we're going to live our lives. And I think, I don't know if that was your experience back then or if you can recall that kind of moment. I can remember it specifically when I was attracted to one of my schoolmates in elementary school. Very young elementary school. Kids would make fun of that or make f you would hear things. And I instantly internalized that I could never express my attraction for my friends. I could never, and at the time, it wasn't sexual, I didn't think. Yeah. Turned that later in high school, turned that completely. But in those elementary school years, I didn't understand it.'cause there was no education, there was no conversation about it. And I remember feeling that shame and guilt. So I just wondered if that was your experience or was it just moving on to the next and it transitioned? I wanna name something. So it is an internal, like it's an internalized shame that we yes. That we take on, but it comes from external sources, right? And so just understanding, we're four or five years old and we're already receiving messages about it's not okay to be affectionate with other boys. It's not okay to show love for other boys. And that's so young, right? And so imagining that messaging starts from that age. And, so much of the work that I am doing with people is not about fixing, it's actually about remembering. Sure. It's like going back to that part of yourself that's like your essence, which is like my 4-year-old that was like super curious and innocent and wanting to explore and open and joyful and experimental. Those are all really beautiful qualities to have as a human being. But they're really beautiful qualities to have as a lover, to come from a place of fluidity, experimentation, curiosity, instead of rigidity, and I'm not going there because I don't do that, or I don't like that, or I don't want that when we don't really know. And the question becomes, do you not want that? Do you not like that because somebody told you it's not cool or it's not okay? Or is it because somatically you're just a hard no in your body. And so a lot of the explorations I'm doing with clients is that it's, I'm, i'm presenting what I like to call like a smorgasbord or a buffet of so many things that are available in the erotic realms and experimenting with those and picking and choosing which ones resonate and to be able to do it, when people were working with me privately or on retreat with my team to be able to work with people who, A, know what they're doing from a skilled perspective and then b can actually hold from an emotional capacity is really huge. And, it's like I, I'm also preparing people to be that person in other relationships. Sure. It's like a reflection back of wow, I, I was able to open so much here. I feel so safe here. I feel so held. I feel so seen. I feel so met. S like, wonderful. How can you be that person for someone else? So this lineage of what you've learned here doesn't end with you. It actually keeps going. So interesting. I totally agree. It's what I find so almost backwards, is that we're having those conversations many times in our adulthood, forties, fifties, and beyond, as opposed to having them back, in our formative years when we could actually benefit from those conversations so much more. And I know that's not necessarily a reality. The reality is we're now in our adult years and we need to navigate our way through this. I think I was talking to a friend a couple weeks ago and we were talking about and we'll get into this a little bit later, but talking about intimacy between friends and how even ashamed we are or nervous we are to reach out and hold someone's hand or to embrace someone that maybe need comforting. I know several people in my life that are like, oh, I could never show that kind of affection to my male friend. It's easy to do with the girls or girls with girls. It's just interesting to find that out. So when I was look, thinking back about. Childhood experiences, excuse me. And through school and all of that and wanting so much to just, I don't know if that word was cuddle, but just be close with one of my best friends because there was such a connection there and it was this beautiful connection. And he has passed away many years ago. And I've always thought about him and wondered what that would've been like had we been free to just express that. We were both gay at the time. We weren't out. It was obviously high school. We did, kind of experiment and that was the kind of fun and exciting part together, but it was never a moment of. Just being able to be free. There was always this background conversation of, oh, our parents can't find out, or our friends can't find out, or all of those things. And we carry that with us. And I believe and correct me if I'm wrong, but that really then ripples through so many parts of your life, not just your relationships, but with, intimate relationships, but your relationships at work and how you relate to other people. So in what you're saying, it really does though, the work begins with the individual, getting connected to themselves, getting connected to their bodies, loving themselves. Is that correct? Or does it different for every one of your clients? So I wanna put a circle around that and come back to it. Yeah. The self, the starting with self. But I wanna Okay. Kind of address something you've spoken about, which Uhhuh I would name as erotic friendship or erotic brotherhood. Which I named so much on my retreats, and it's such a, it's like a surprise byproduct that people don't expect is they come for self-exploration and they leave feeling really immense connection with the other men that they've been in process with, in a way that's not just heart-centered, right?'Cause so much of self help work and whatever you wanna call it, is very much from the chest up or from the throat up, right? It's very heady or it's very heart-centered, but there's so many practitioners that afraid to include sexuality or to include the genitals as part of a holistic body because of the the risk that's involved. And there's shadow there. There's shadow in that. And really what I'm doing with my work is saying, I recognize the shadow and we're bringing that into a light space. And the body is holistic, right? The body is the heart. It is the spirit, it is the mind. It is also the sexual, erotic parts of ourselves. So that's a whole body. And that's what we work on in my personal work and also on my retreats. What there, I'm going to tell a little story. On a retreat, I had this man come to me and it was like the second to last day, and he said, I'm feeling so young. I have a huge crush on this other man. And I don't wanna ruin my friendship because it's just I just love him so much and I, and and I find myself avoiding him when he walks in the room and I'm like, I don't even know what to do with it. It feels like this really young part of myself. And he was he, the way he had approached it is he wanted to get rid of it. And I said, no. I said, what a gift. What a gift that at this age you have a crush. Can you allow yourself to have a crush? And maybe just tell him I have a crush on you. And, I don't want or need it to go any further than that, but I just, I love you so much. I respect you. I think you're funny. I think you're sexy. And I just wanna be around you. And I was like, could you say that? And imagine if he said that to you would you wanna hear that? And he was like, yeah. There's this piece of, we, we've become so afraid of attachment. Yeah. Attachments become like a dirty word. I talk about this a lot with. People were asking me questions about all this, and they're like, are you afraid if people get attached to you? What if they don't attach to me? Then what? What if they don't love me? Or what if they don't fall in love with the other men at the retreat? What if we never love or attach to anybody else? And are we having a human experience? For me, it's no. Like those are human necessities to and gifts of humanity to be able to attach to one another, to be able to feel love for and from another human. So those are really big gifts. And I actually encourage people sometimes, right? They're like, I haven't fallen in love, or I haven't had a crush on somebody for a long time. And I said in this seven day arc or in this three day arc, you're allowed to have a crush on me. If you want, if it comes for you, and at the end of it, we can say goodbye and we can close it. What if you could allow yourself that? And I think this is a question, an inquiry that I had for myself last year, early last year and continue to ask myself, can I allow myself to fall in love again? Really fall in love. Like in a place that kind of feels like my feet could come out from under me. And, it's been a process and what a gift I have given myself to actually do that. And I won't get into to all of that, but it is a process of stepping into what I'd call yellow spaces, which feel scratchy and crunchy and uncomfortable and unknown. But the piece that's on the other side of that is I want that. I wanna know what that feels like. And so I'm going to stay here for a little bit until it's not so yellow. It becomes a little more green, and then I step further into yellow places and feel into how I can trust the spaces and the people that I am in relationship with to step in even more. Or I have to step back. The piece that you're talking about starting with yourself, so I'm going to say yes and I, there's this kind of misnomer that you have to have your shit figured out as yourself before you move into relationship with others. And I actually think that's not completely true. There's so much that you learn about yourself by being in relationship with others, whether it's a platonic relationship, whether it's a lover ship, whether it's a full on partnership or marriage. That person is a fucking mirror for you. And if you are paying attention, yeah. If you are paying attention and. Looking at that relationship as a source for your growth. You will find richness there. And so to say I'm going to work on myself until I'm baked enough to be in a relationship, I just don't believe in. It's no. When you find that person that you feel you are willing to risk falling in love for, do it. The biggest loss that you could have is that you didn't fall in love. Yeah. Or that you got hurt. And I think that piece of feeling like I, I could get hurt here and I'm not going to step in because of that. But you're also risking something greater, which is you're keeping yourself from feeling immense love and affection and, yeah. For me, like I'm in a place in my life where that's a bigger risk. Yeah. That's a bigger risk if I don't allow myself to fall in love, if I don't allow myself to love others and also allow people to love me. And that's, that's been a big part of my work too, is being a public person. Being a person that's standing at the front of the room. And, there's a lot of admiration and a lot of compliments that also come with the other stuff, other side of it, I'm sure. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of admiration and love come my way and it, it has, taken me the years that I've been doing this to be like, okay, yeah I deserve that. I'm going to allow more of that instead of pushing it away and denying people. The gift of Loving Me. I think people will find that really fascinating and a little bit triggering maybe is to Good. Get into a conversa. Exactly. Which is why we're having this conversation today. No, seriously. I just, in the last three minutes, my head's spinning about my own life, but I think people start to have conversations about themselves, right? We have this inner dialogue, and I think we sometimes are afraid to even speak out loud to our closest friends or confidant. That's why I really believe in coaches and coaching and all the work that you do, because sometimes it takes somebody else to have us speak our truth or to speak truthfully. One of the things that you said that I think was really interesting is I find in granting yourself the space to be loved is. Coupled for me at least with the Yeah. But or the, yes. And a lot of times, and it's in the work that I've been doing is catching myself in that. Yeah. But, I would I'm allowing myself to be loved, but, and then the conditions that follow after that, and it's gotta be the right guy. It can't be hurt, this, that and the other. All of those things that just throw up all these roadblocks, which I'm sure you hear a lot of, and I think many of us, if not all of us, have those internal conversations until we start to really work with someone on getting us through. And I'm not saying that not everybody can do it on their own. Yeah. But I believe that it is much more impactful and I think sticks when you work with someone that allows you to see it. When you said that the relationship is a mirror to you. I just got the chills because it's so true. It's so true. And we were sharing before we jumped on the podcast about I recently shared about my divorce and I had someone ask me after they listened to the episode, they're like, how can you be so positive? How could you be so forgiving? And I said, because I don't regret a minute of that relationship and a minute of that marriage. Not exactly thrilled with the divorce, but I learned so much about myself through that relationship. It was beautiful. Memories were amazing and I wanna carry that with me and carry those memories with me. Was I hurt? Yeah. Am I sad? Yeah. Do I miss the intimacy and the sex and the relationship? Absolutely. But where I turned the corner after listening to not only you and Nathan, but also with one of your other podcasts, was I had to turn that corner and say, yeah, but I need to allow people to love me. And that was super powerful. So when you said it again on this episode I got the chills because it was something that I really heard loud and clear. Could you do me a favor or do us a favor and'cause I'm sure a lot of people are listening, don't know what somatic is, but could you give a little bit of description about somatic coaching and the difference between that and maybe traditional therapy and yeah. Kinda the work that you do. Yeah. So somatic means of the body and it's not just the corporal body, but it's talking about the holistic body of mind, spirit, umhmm mind, spirit, body. So much of the western world has compartmentalized and separated the, psycho, the psychology of the brain with this, the corporal body and the emotional body. And this work is acknowledging that they are the same. They are in relationship with each other. And a lot of my clients have done a ton of psychological work. We've been in therapy for a lot of years. They've done all kinds of stuff. And so by the time they come to me, they're like, I'm really tired of just talking about this. And, the work that I'm doing we still do talk, it's like we're processing things through verbal processing, but we're also processing things through movement, through breath, through sound, through touch through placement of awareness. So it's very experiential learning. It's experience mixed with Okay, we're going to talk about the experience and what was the experience? How are you integrating it? How are you metabolizing this? It's if you've ever seen somebody public speak and they're in like a, have you ever taken like a public speaking class and somebody stands up and they start to speak and they're like, and I wanna tell you about my story and this, and they have no idea that they are just rolling over their words. And as a onlooker, you go, let's take a pause for a minute. Should we take a breath together? Are you aware that you are speeding through what you're saying? And are you aware that your leg is shaking? Are you aware that your hand has this tick? And it's like sometimes people are not, they're not aware of their own patterns and, when I'm working with people, it's in three day containers. I don't do hour sessions. I don't do three hour sessions. It's three days. And what's possible in that a is intimacy. When people are like, I want to explore intimacy, and I'm like, great. I do three days. And they're like what about a session? And I'm like, what are we going to do in an hour? Yeah. We're going to create intimacy in an hour. Maybe there's like a form of intimacy, but, intimacy takes on a lot of different aspects. And it takes time to build that, what was I getting at? I was talking about something I'll transition a little bit of a question. No, because it's a perfect transition to my question because I and you can correct me on my terminology, but, I often feel just for myself, and I see this sometimes in others, that we exist outside of our body a lot of times. And so for me, I find that quite often that I'm up here outside of my physical self. And it's two completely different spaces. And so Yeah, it can be. Yeah. Yeah. But, and so when you talk about the awareness for me, what that triggers is, am I aware that I have that tick? Am I aware that I'm rambling? I think the practice of that is what really makes the impact, is becoming aware. Yeah. It's becoming aware and also making different choices. Okay. And also say more about that and also having different choices. I could say to you're running over your words. You have this tick in your foot and your hand, you're aware of it. Now, the, that's step one. You have an awareness of it. And then the second piece is, okay, I'm going to consciously slow down. I'm going to take a breath. I'm going to, do something with my hand. I'm going to center myself. So my nervous system is in a a grounded place instead of frazzled, right? And what do I need to, in order for me to be in a grounded place as opposed to dysregulated? Is it breath? Is it noticing my spatial awareness? Is it just taking a minute to notice the sensations in my body to presence myself? Is it asking for connection in a space? Even just like here with you of saying I'm a little nervous this morning. Can we take a, will you take a breath with me? I would love to just ground with you. So that I can speak from a place that feels a little more centered than, fishing around. Those are tools, right? And again, being able to make different choices involves having different choices. And that's where a lot of my coaching comes in, is like offering choices. Can you, do you mind just explain that just a little bit more? What give it, could you give an example of what that would be? When you say, what are our choices? What does that mean? Yeah. So when I, my work is predominantly in the erotic realms and also in intimacy, but it has a lot to do with, erotic relationships. Intimate interpersonal relationships. And what that looks like is arming people with a really hefty toy box. And this is not like sex toys. This is like a sort of dashboard, if you will. Sure. These are all the things that I really love. These are my communication skills. These are my this is my curiosity tool belt. These are little frameworks of play and fantasy explorations that I could pull in that I know really turn me on. So when I'm in an erotic situation, or even just in a, and when I say erotic, I'm not always talking about sex. I could be having a really erotic conversation with my partner at dinner that feels very alive, very turned on. And, we might be fully clothed in a restaurant, touching each other and talking, but having this very full erotic experience. And it's because I have toys in my toybox tools, in my tool belt to go, I know little things that turn him on. And I know how to turn him on a way that allows for a pleasure loop to come back to me. And he knows what pleasures me and what turns me on. And so it's like this pleasure loop that takes place. And it's the practice. It's the practice. But this is where the, this is where the rubber hits the road for me though, because, and I'm so glad you said that because we don't know necessarily that we can have an erotic conversation and not have it turn into a full blown sex act. That's something the partnership that I'm in, now's something that's so beautiful and sexy is we can have a really hot makeout session. Yeah. And just be like, we're going to leave it with that. And just like stewing that. Yeah. Or he'll be like washing the dishes and we'll have a little, what I call like a little snack A moment erotic snack. A moment. Yeah. And then we have to go somewhere and it's we're going to put that away. But we're, there's a turn on there. There's a point of connection that happened in 10 minutes. Yeah. And, maybe our Cox didn't come out at all. But there's a full body aliveness Yeah. In, our mind, spirit and body Yeah. And a point of connection and intimacy that we shared that, like it carries us through the day in a way. Sure. It's I think about that and it was like, oof. And Yeah. Does that, yeah, just go ahead. No, go ahead. Even in like texts and and talking about like how to incorporate like modern technology texts and video chats and, sending sexy photos and videos and I travel a lot and it's like, how do we keep it alive while I'm traveling? And so it's it's have to make it a practice, right? You could just be like, I'm tired, I'm not I'm not ready for this, or it's late here, but how to keep that erotic connection alive even when you're not in the same room. Again, takes effort. It takes some effort. And I work with a lot of couples that have been married for, 10, 15, 20, 30 years and they're like trying to figure out how to get that spark back. And it does take effort. It does take effort. It's not something that's just going to, you can expect like it's going to, and it's not going to be the same as when you met some hot thing on the street. Sure.'cause there's a level of novelty. Novelty in that new person that it's just so unknown. And there are ways to create that in your partnership of 20 and 30 years. Sure. And also, yeah, also acknowledge that. You are not the same person Yeah. As you were when you got married. Sure. And I think even in relationships that aren't 20 years I'll use my own. It's you a couple years in, you've got to take the time and have the ability to communicate about those things. And I, when you were talking about those erotic moments together before you had to go somewhere, that was missing a lot. And I think back about my own relationships. And so it does take work, but it also takes a willingness, I think, to be open and to communicate and to play a little. And I've seen a lot of people, lose that playfulness inside of that relationship and lose that ability to be curious about exploring new things with a partner. Do you find that's, I've often asked this question, and I ask this of Michelle, do you find that it's mostly are Americans just kind of pent up and in this kind of inner dialogue about sexuality and freedom and exploring and all of that? Or is it a human being kind of nature? Do you see that with your international work? I'm just curious. It, it's a human being thing. Okay. There's certain communities and certain pockets of the world that are more sex positive and more open to different types of relationships and, San Francisco being a hub, Berlin being another hub. And even within those communities, there's still these kind of core themes that kind of people struggle with. Sure. Even if you're like the kint person ever and you're in a, like a Poly Q relationship and you've got, three partners and there's still a lot of effort that goes into holding those relationships and managing everyone's needs and emotions. It's, it actually takes a very mature person to be, have, to have those types of relationships to have a full handle on your emotional capabilities, also, your time. I'm very polyamorous in my heart and I also I don't have a lot of time on my hands. And so it's like when I am meeting someone other than my primary partner, I'm like, look I just don't have time. Would love to cultivate something that's heart centered with you, but I, it's just probably not going to happen. I'm just being realistic with you Sure. About what my availability is. For sure. I would say that's a big. Like thing to think about, but it's also, but it's also being adult and it's being responsible. You're being responsible not only for you, but you're also being responsible for that other person by being honest and being transparent as opposed to let's just say ghosting or let's just say, not communicating. I think that's really important. I find current circumstances very difficult to navigate with the lack of communication and connection. When you're trying to date, you're trying to meet people, you're trying to have, build that first, couple moments of intimacy with someone. It's very difficult these days. I struggle with it and in this dating world and I've used, a dating coach and I have my people that are there to guide me and to give me great coaching to navigate through life. But it's hard sometimes. It really is hard because I'm a people person. This online dating thing and the disconnection of all that is super difficult. I don't live in a part of town that's, frequented. I have to get in the car and drive down to Hillcrest to be able to be in that environment. So it's not always easy. But I'm forcing myself to do that in order to build those connections with my community. It's so important. But I think what's also really interesting is, you mentioned this, that we have gone into this space where there are so many different opportunities for relationship. There's your monogamy, your ethical non-monogamy, your polyamorous relationship, so navigating that. I remember back in college you were gay or straight. That's what it was. It was, there wasn't this dynamic of all of these opportunities and it took me a while to get to a place where I could be a little less judgemental about those relationships that didn't fall into that spot of what I am looking for, which is this ethical, monogamous relationship. That comes with it, its own set of challenges. So do you find that interesting to navigate in when people come to work with you that they're just lost in this, where do I fit in and how do I navigate this new space? Yeah, some people are very consciously trying to open the relationships and dealing with obstacles and, some of it, specifically within, primary couples, there's often there's power dynamics at play and a lot of times they're not conscious power dynamics. And again, this is like where my kind of background in shadow work comes in really real handy of shadow work is basically our unconscious making choices for us because of a need that we have of feeling safe or feeling secure or. Whatever it is. And we have a behavior or something that's triggering us that's happening over and over again, and we're not really, we're not really that aware of that it's happening. And sometimes, again, when I'm with people for these long periods of time, I'm like, are you aware that you keep saying this over again? Are you aware that this relationship there's a pattern in this relationship? And if you are going to have a different kind of relationship, not better, but different because you're telling me you want a different kind of relationship, you're going to have to make different choices. And here's this awareness of this pattern that you've, that I'm, it's here. It's right here. Can you see it? Oh, wow. I see it. Wow. And again, working with, we have so many patterns, not just in relationship, but Sure. The habits that we have and the things that really trigger us. And to be able to know what they are. Again, step number one. Number two is okay, how do I make different choices and what are my choices? Yeah. And you talked about the yellow space earlier and that kind of uncomfortable kind of crunchy space. Do you find that most people just simply want to avoid that? Or do they come with a willingness to get in that crunchy space and have those conversations? Yeah. I think, if you're coming to work with me, that's what we're doing. I'm very, you have no choice to be in the crunchy space with you. No, I think people are they're already in the crunchy space by stepping in to do the work, right? It's that, it's interesting'cause I, I did my, I, last summer, I went and worked with somebody for three days in Seattle. And, it was this question mark of how is it for people to come to work with me in Los Angeles and, I made this long Trek, I took a, a plane and a bus and, I walked to this space every day and just like the nervousness and excitement about showing up to learn something new, to learn a new skillset, to be really present with, who I am and how I show up. It was a really good practice for me to understand like, oh, this is good. This is fun. I'd love this. This is i'm so glad I'm offering this to people of, to be able to come as a student and understand I'm going to learn shit that I have no idea what I'm going to learn. Because I could tell you all the things that we're going to do and it still wouldn't make sense to you. Sure. I could explain to you what we do in retreat and what we do. Yeah. What we do in retreat and you'd just be like, I don't get it. That's why I'm not asking you. Yeah. And that's why I don't share, I actually don't share with people like the details because it's too challenging. There's some things that you cannot explain or put into words and, words sometimes fail us as we're explaining experience. Linear words. That's why we have poetry. That's why we have music. That's why we have dance, is because these are artistic expressions of feeling and emotion. And sometimes the linear story is not it's not as conducive or as meaningful as the art that we're able to create. And if we think about sex as an artistic expression. As a piece of art that we're creating with each other. It could be fucking anything. Art is subjective. I could throw some paint on the wall and be like, that's my painting. Yeah. It doesn't have to be literal. And, to be able to come in that space is so different than we're, rigid and are mapping out or something. Yeah. Seriously, that's, yeah. So many people I know talk about that rigidity of sex and it's they've got a plan, it's scheduled, it's this, the other, there's process and it's never spontaneous and it's never, and, but if you've look at it like that perspective of it's a piece of art or artistic expression, how cool could that be to just be able to create with each other and to spend that time? Spontaneity, I think is overrated. Specifically. I think it's overrated in general. Okay. I. Specifically with couples with busy lives and schedules, even as an artist, the artist has a practice of stepping into the studio with their canvas and their paints and their smocks and covering the room like they have prepared. That is not spontaneous. What happens with all your tools in that space is spontaneous. Okay. Makes sense. But you have to create space and you have to create the space that you want to create in. And if you're not doing that, the chances of it happen get slimmer and slimmer. People are like I used to have spontaneous sex when I was young. And I said, tell me about that. When I would go out Thursday night and I would go out and I'd meet somebody and we'd go home and I was like, great. Did you, how did you prepare for that? I got my hair cut and I cleaned out and like I put perfume on and I put my fancy clothes on. I'm like, okay. So you prepared? You prepared for spontaneity, which is not that spontaneous. You went to a space where you knew there was a chance you would meet someone uhhuh, so you planned uhhuh. You planned friend. Yeah. So it's just acknowledging that spontaneity happens when a specific spontaneity that we want to happen if we want to co-create something special. It does take planning. It does take effort. It does take yeah, it takes a little schedule. Takes a little schedule. It's interesting. I in, in one of, nathan's podcast, he talked to somebody who talked about scheduling time to converse about conflict. And when I first heard that, I was like, what? And I was like, oh my God, I love that. Like she was talking about giving yourself 30 minutes to resolve the conflict. And I was just like, that's epic. I love it. But it's so perfect about what you said about creating that space. That's an interesting transition for me to ask this question because it's something that's been on my mind quite a bit. And I'm assuming, and correct me if I'm wrong, that it comes up a lot in your practice. Our relationship to our own bodies and how we feel about our vessel, if you will. Does that play a big part in a lot of the work that you do with your clients that come with that either body shame or their uncomfortableness with their own bodies? Yeah. It's if you are always helicoptering over yourself and i'm too fat. I'm too thin, I'm too white, I'm too black, I'm too old. I'm too, I'm just i'm too, fill in the blank. We all have something that we're aware of and ashamed of whatever it is, it takes us away from presence. Takes us a place away from us being in the moment. If I'm in also, if I'm in a place of performance for you, I'm per, I'm performing sex. I'm like, I'm trying to be sexy. I'm trying to look hot. I'm trying to arch my back in a certain way or make a pose. I'm not present with what's real for me. And then we're having disconnected sex. Or at least I am. Yeah. As I am. You might be connected to your own body and having a great time with me as a play thing. Yeah. But it's, the sex that. The connection that people are desiring when they're coming to work with me is that thing of the world moves away. The issues of how I see my body in comparison to others in a hierarchy point of way, disappears. It is no longer important. My ego is gone. What you do for work and who you are in the world, it's just not important. I wanna know you on a soul level and to get to that place involves being present. What's interesting, it's an interesting thing that happens is and I'll speak from an eye place here, when I become so present in my own sensation in my body, and so present with the connective tissue of touch and breath and sound with my partner. I go into complete trans state. Which is such a mindfuck of we're going to be so present with each other. What we create is something that's completely otherworldly. And I can say that to you. And if you haven't had that experience's kind of hard to name. But that's what people, that's what people are after, because at some point, a lot of us have felt that, and they're like, I want that. And sometimes we get it as like a fluke. It happens, but we don't quite know how we got there. And so we're always like chasing that. Yeah. Because it's such a incredible feeling. To, so to be able to have tools to reach those states of consciousness with yourself and with a partner that's you have the capacity to create magic for yourself. I read in one of the spots I was reading about you I think you used the term mental intimacy. What is that? Did I use the term mental intimacy? Yes. But if you don't remember, that's okay. Yeah, I can edit that out. I, there are people that are sapiosexual, which their turn on is through the brain. That's what it was actually. I remember that, that was the article. It was, you were talking about s sexuality. Yeah. So it's remember that to be able to connect with someone who can be smart with me. Who can meet me in my banter, who can, and it's not like a smartness around like cultural things and art. Sure. Although that plays a part it's something different. It's like a. I don't have to work so hard to be in conversation with you. It's this playful dance that takes place with our wordsmithing. That also has a, I can't, like a, something that's between us that's fluid, like an energetic fluidity that takes place, starts here. Yeah. It sounds a little bit like we need to maybe rewrite the dictionary a little bit. And reeducate people on definitions of intimacy, of erotic, of a lot of those words that we've used throughout this conversation. There comes with it an assumption perhaps that's just speaking from off my mind. Yeah. Do you find that, because when you say erotic play with someone, it automatically goes to. Maybe some kink video you've seen or something, and it goes to the extreme. Maybe that's a better way of putting it. You talk about physical touch, it goes to, the extreme. You mentioned other words and people go to the end result as opposed to maybe the process of it. And I think as I look at my own kind of connection to my own body, I, the reason I asked about the body shaming the weight is I've been through that myself. I think we, a lot of us have, and when I am in shape and I'm eating I feel really good and I've got that energy and I'm not eating poorly in the things that make me ill. I feel sexier, I feel better. My I can feel my body where when I'm abusing it and not doing it correctly and the things that I know that I should do, I don't feel well. So I don't feel sexy, I don't feel desirable. I don't feel the pleasure like I would. And that's been something that I've really been paying attention to is my own relationship to my own body, to my own intimacy, to my own touch, and to feel that connection to me because like I said earlier, sometimes I don't feel that I feel like I'm over here and my body's over here. So I think what's really great about working with someone like you is being able to identify where we might be making assumptions or maybe some different definitions of the words that you use that will allow us to be more open, to be more expressive, to be more willing to be a little bit more adventurous or more curious. I think it's, I think it's really cool. I think it's really cool. Yeah. I, just to speak to that a little bit, I think there's a question around societal acceptability of certain bodies. And who gets to be sexy? And who gets to have sex and be desirable. And that's a, that's an unlearning, right? So am I only worthy of pleasure and sex when I'm fit? Or am I worthy of pleasure and sex and affection and love always as a benchmark, not because it's something I have to work for. And that's a, that is an unlearning that, that is really important and valuable because your lovability, your desirability, your your sex appeal is not dependent on your weight. And that's a tricky one to unwind. But I have definitely been with humans who are not the stereotypical beauty standard. As clients and as lovers who are so embodied. And so fucking sexy. And connected and at no point did they ever apologize for their body. At no point did I say, you are to this or to that. It was not important. It was not in the room. Because if it was in the room, it would've detracted from the connection that we were having. And so that's an unlearning that we have to process with ourselves of, am I only attracted to this body type because the world says this is an attractive body. Sure. Am I only valuable when I have a six pack and I'm at 12% body fat? I say these things and it's, these are things that I have to work on for myself. And. It's not to say that it's not easier for me when I'm eating the way that I, that nourishes my body better when I'm exercising. But there is a question mark for me, just from an eye place and for everyone of, can I always be worthy of pleasure and love and affection regardless of the body expression that I'm presenting to the world. Yeah. It's powerful. I have two final questions for you. Yeah. Otherwise, I could talk to you all day and I'm being very respectful of your time. Thank you. I hope you'll come. I hope you'll come back. So I'm going to ask these in order. Is there something that has surprised you the most after your completion of working with someone in particular? Was there something that surprised you about what they got about themselves or realized about themselves through their work with you? Sometimes I don't I don't get immediate feedback from people. My relationships with clients a lot of times span over two, three years. But they come in pockets. So I'll work with a client for three days and then I won't hear from them for a whole year. And then they'll show up and say, I'd love to come back and do a retreat, or, i'm feeling like I'd like to do a little more work. Can I come back and do another private or and so then I get to see their, what's changed for them and also where they're feeling a place of oh I've gotten this far, I'd like to go further, right? I'm feeling like I, I'm meeting this obstacle and I'd like to show up for it more or differently, I think on retreat. What happens in group space that is, is just so incredible and beautiful and inspiring to witness and be a part of is erotic brotherhood. To see men come together in such a vulnerable space to co-create together, to touch one another, to support each other, to be each other as cheerleaders and advocates. And that has a lineage way beyond me. It affects their relationships with their partners, with their children, with their families in their work lives. I've had men make drastic changes to their lives. Leave partnerships that are not serving them anymore. Sell homes, move across the country. Sure. And then some, sometimes it's more subtle, it's oh, your care, your body is different in terms of your shoulders are back now and you are walking with confidence in a room when you speak, it's direct and you're actually commanding presence as opposed to apologizing and asking to be seen. So sometimes the work is not so glaring. It's more subtle. And sometimes clients will be like, people have been asking me like what work I had done, and they're like, I just, I feel good. Feel different. I feel different. And it shows, I also work with women in a retreat company called Back to the Body. Yeah. And I wish we could do like a before and after photo of wi of people's faces because people's faces look different after. Sure. Sure. It's like a relaxed confidence and joy that's present, and when they show up, they're tense and confined. And then to be able to express on such a full body level is so freeing. It's Yeah. Relaxes the muscles in the face of the face. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And I haven't experienced it with your group, but I've seen it in, I do a lot of breath work and I saw it the other day. I was in a brand new sound Bath healing session here in Sanitas and never met the people in the room. And gal walked in and just, and after that session was over, she was just alive. She had just released something, whatever that was for her. And I think there's a lot of modalities that will allow people to just release that, and be aware of it. And the struggle is not walking back out onto the street, getting in your car, getting on your phone, getting back to work, getting back in your relationship, and falling back into those old traps. I'm going to say this before I ask my last question. I'm so grateful that there are people in this world. I call them angels. Who land gently on our shoulders to wake us up so that we don't miss the rest of our lives. Was a quote that I saw a long time ago, and I use it a lot. And you're one of those people court the work that you do for people and allowing people to be them true, their true selves, and to find that space is really remarkable because it's making the world the better place. And right now we need more people walking around this earth connected, committed, happy. And so I thank you for the work that you're doing. I look forward to following you more. We're going to make sure that our listeners have access to not only your site, but that the group of women that you work with so that they can explore. I encourage people to check you out, to take a look at the work that you do, and if it resonates and it fits with you take that next step and reach out and have a conversation with court because you will definitely see the benefit. So thank you for being who you are in the world. Thank you for us. You're welcome. And thank you for being here today. My last question for you is this, if you could bust one myth about sex or intimacy forever, what would it be? We need to start asking different questions that are not like solo, right? Of this is going to be a one size fits all for everybody. Sure. The questions need to be skilled in a way that ask, that allows for expansion and allows for fluidity in different expressions and different humans, because that's what makes us human. That's what makes us unique and special, is that we all have different things that turn us on, different things that allow us to be alive. So that's the myth that I would like to bust. That's exactly why I asked you the question, because I knew that was the answer I was going to get from you. I knew it was coming, so thank you for being so frank and not just forcing a, an answer to that question because I, yeah. I'd love to invite you to my my retreat that's coming up. It's called Connect. It's in December and Joshua Tree. Oh, sounds great. Yeah, it's a four day event for GBTQ men and I think you'd get a lot out of it. I think it'd be great and I look forward to speaking with you Again. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for being here and having the conversation. I'm so grateful to you, so grateful to Nathan for introducing me to you even though it was online. I feel like I've got a good friend and another soldier in this world we live in. So thank you so much for your time today. Thanks so much. Talk soon. Bye. Alright, everyone, thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just You Podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you can easily share the podcast and episode. Directly with your friends and if you would rate us and leave us a review, we'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at Just Do You pod as you go out into the world today. Remember to just do you. Alright, talk next week.