Redefining & Reclaiming The Tease

Ever wish you had more make out sessions with your partner(s)? 

Ever wish you felt 100% allowed to just flirt or kiss and then . . . stop? 

Do you ever wish you could get physical affection without feeling like you're on the hook for getting your partner to orgasm? 

If so, this episode is for you! 

It's also for anyone who notices their partner avoiding sex. And anyone who, on reflection, notices that they take flirtation and making out as a signal that their partner wants sex, but rarely do you talk about it explicitly or actually ask. 

Get my free email newsletter with helpful tips, plus a free guide to Finding Your Deepest Turn-Ons, and learn how to work with me at https://laurajurgens.com.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Sex Help for Smart People. I'm Dr. Laura Jurgens. I'm here to help you have better sex, intimacy and relationships. So let's get at it. Hey, welcome to episode 67, everyone. So today we are talking about redefining and reclaiming the teas. And really this all goes back to a lot of. Socialized messages that we hear very early on in our lives.

[00:00:29] A lot of gender socialization in this and in the idea of being a tease and the fear of teasing. And the obligation that comes for a lot of women from this. So this is an episode that if you are a woman and were socialized as a woman, or you have become a woman and are now experiencing life as a woman, or you are having sex with women, this is a particularly useful episode.

[00:01:03] So it's really also helpful for men to understand this, who have sex with women in particular. One of the things that happens really on early on when you're a girl is you get, as people start around, you start going through puberty, you start getting the message that it is your job to quote unquote, take care.

[00:01:26] The boys, especially if you had anything to do at all with their arousal, that it's this idea. Women often feel like once they have flirted with someone or interacted with them, erotically in some way, maybe made out, maybe they got to a second base right? That they owe the person, the male person something.

[00:01:52] Sometimes you could also have this transfer to feeling like you owe other women something in sexual relationships. And I think that's not uncommon too because it happens so early on in puberty, we get this message. So what winds up happening is that women will often cross their own boundaries. They're trying to sort of appease the other person.

[00:02:16] They might even be afraid of the response of the other person if they wanna stop. And just enjoy whatever it is that they were doing, right? Like maybe we just wanna make out, but we don't really feel like having a penis or fingers or anything else inside of us. And I think men would understand this a lot more if more of you ever experienced pegging, because taking something internally into your body is a very vulnerable experience, requires a lot of warmup, and you're not always up for it.

[00:02:41] But it can still feel really delicious to make out with someone. It can still feel great to flirt with someone, but it really sucks to feel like you're on the hook to somehow give that person an orgasm every time you flirt or make out with them. And this can be if couples are not good at talking about sex and they're not good at really communicating with each other about their wants and desires and their boundaries.

[00:03:07] This can also really kind of. Slide into long-term partnerships where if someone initiates sex by not talking about it and by, that's okay, right? But, but by then expecting that if they. If their partner makes out with them that they're going to get sex, that is unconscious. That is, that's subconsciously transmitted to the partner in the sense of an expectation.

[00:03:36] The partner may also already have their gender socialization as a woman thinking, Hey, I'm on the hook anytime. I like make out with my husband. He's gonna want sex. He's gonna think I'm on the hook for it. I'm gonna think I'm on the hook for it. Now I'm in this pattern of having sex out of obligation. And years down the road, you will find that all of a sudden you have zero libido and you have no interest in sex whatsoever because you've been having it in, it's been crossing your own boundaries for so many years, and this happens so often.

[00:04:06] So this is a really profound topic. It seems simple. It seems like. This, you know, kind of like little social thing that happens when we're in puberty in middle school or something, or in early high school years where we get that sort of like teased about, you know, we hear those sort of like blue balls stories, right?

[00:04:26] Oh my God. Everybody's heard those, right? As if somehow you're going like, these boys are going to be. Like hospitalized and die, and they can't just deal with a little bit of discomfort or as if they don't have their own hand that can't take care of themselves. Right. Somehow girls are on the hook and.

[00:04:46] Early on, boys are taught that it's okay for them to use this kind of manipulation and this guilting to try to get girls to service them. And then you wind up many years later with all this stuff has been internalized inside our minds and our bodies for years, and we have major. Challenges in our relationships.

[00:05:09] So we want to unpack that and really reclaim our right to enjoy what we want to enjoy, to stop when we want to stop and to tease in fun and playfulness, right? There is nothing wrong with flirting and making out and playing and stopping is totally okay, and in fact the more you do it. The more you let that be, okay, the more fun everybody's probably gonna have.

[00:05:41] And oftentimes the more sex couples wind up having. So it's really important. Women often have internalized this idea that it's going to hurt men's feelings to stop. And heaven forbid men ever had their feelings hurt, right? We are taught that we're supposed to take care of men's feelings and guys aren't really supposed to have to deal with disappointment in life.

[00:06:05] We are often making ourselves on the hook for somebody else's feelings, which is recipe for misery. We often also don't wanna get into a heated situation. Sometimes people will, people please or obligation sex because they're actually literally afraid, and that's a separate subject if you're physically in danger.

[00:06:27] That is, I mean, one, I hope you're all never physically in that position, but. Two. Holding your boundaries is still your right and you are still a worth doing that for, right? But most of the time what's happening is that women have just heard the message that men cannot control themselves in the face of women's sexuality.

[00:06:52] But if you are having sex with a man, presumably he is an adult, and that means it is okay for you to have expectations that he can handle, that you are a sexual being with your own autonomy and desires and free will. And it is okay for you to have that expectation of him. And it is good for the world for us to all have that expectation of our male partner.

[00:07:17] So the really big bummer about this is that. What happens over time for women is we often wind up hiding our sexuality, deciding not to flirt, shutting down, sexually, deciding not to make out, because we don't wanna give the person the quote unquote wrong impression or wrong idea, or get them to then expect something from us.

[00:07:39] And that is just so sad. It is so sad. Because flirting, making out having a lovely time with your body, that is your birthright, and no one should have to hide themselves and their sexuality and shut it down because they are so afraid of actually holding a boundary or telling someone. That's it. That's it for now.

[00:08:02] That's all I wanted. Thank you very much. Okay, so here's what you can do if you are a woman, and I'm gonna give you some tips for if this is something that happens to you, where you feel obligated to keep going past your boundaries. And then I'm gonna give you some tips for being a partner or someone who's doing that, whether you're in a heterosexual or a same sex relationship.

[00:08:28] So. And, and whether you're, and whether you're a man or a woman at partner does matter in this case because the way that your partner has internalized these gender stereotypes is going, your gender is going to influence. So it, we will distinguish a little bit between those types of partners. But first off, if you are a woman who tends to shut down.

[00:08:53] Or avoid or do or like continue past what you wanna do out of obligation or fear of saying no because you fear feel like you're gonna be at tease, or that you are somehow on the hook for taking care of your partner. And what I encourage you to just play outside the box here. So talk to your partner in advance.

[00:09:17] Let them know that this happens for you. This is one of the most important things you can do, is just enlist allies, right? Enlist your partner as an ally. Say, this is not, you don't have to like make it their fault, right? But that this is something that you have gotten into the habit of Maybe you've been able to reflect on sort of when you acquired that habit.

[00:09:40] Chances are it's well before your current partnership. Most of my listeners are not like 12, so it's probably well before your current partnership. So let them know that this is something that predates them and that you realize that it's also affecting your relationship and you don't want it to, and you want them to help you.

[00:10:00] Unpack it. So ask for help. I think that is one of the best things you can do to let them know that this is what's happening, right? Especially because you might be kind of changing the way you do things and you wanna give them a heads up. You also wanna protect yourself from getting a negative reaction from somebody who doesn't know what's going on, right?

[00:10:20] Or like springing things on them, and then expecting them to behave differently, right? So let them know what's going on and. Ask them to practice with you, which means like, Hey, I'm gonna flirt with you, and then I'm just gonna say, I had so much fun with that. That's enough for me for now. And what I really want is for you to allow yourself to have whatever your genuine feelings are, disappointment, neutral.

[00:10:48] Like they might just be like, great, that was fun for me too. Thanks. Let's do that again. Right? Or they might be disappointed. And that's okay. They can have whatever feelings. It's actually helpful for you to practice having some, letting somebody else have some disappointment and just allow them to be disappointed.

[00:11:06] It's okay. It doesn't mean that you, your relationship is like in a, some sort of crisis for them to just be like, oh, I would've kind of liked to have kept doing that or something. Right? Like, that's okay. Totally. Okay. I was disappointed about probably 12 things today, and it was fine. I'm okay. All right. So practicing allowing them to have whatever their feelings are, thanking them for the experience and just saying, that was enough for me.

[00:11:35] And then do it with some, a little bit more escalation with make out session. All right. That was enough for me and you might wanna like check in and really have a conversation about it. How do you feel about me stopping? Are you okay with that? Let them know how you feel about it. Thank them. Really give them some appreciation and gratitude for allowing you to practice with them, for receiving your no and being okay with it.

[00:12:03] Whether they're having to, you know, manage their own disappointment or not. Right? So celebrating your sexiness, your flirtatiousness, how lovely it is to interact with you, how lovely it is to make out with you. Allowing that to be wonderful and not feeling like you have to be on the hook for something.

[00:12:22] This is one of the types of practices that I often do with couples in my practice, and it is just so game changing for people. It just takes so much pressure out of the system and instead of like guessing and trying to do this thing, I mean poor like boys are also socialized to think that they're somehow supposed to read women's cues.

[00:12:45] To decide whether they wanna have sex with you or not, instead of actually asking. Right. It's totally ridiculous. You're supposed to somehow read their minds and a lot of times people read wrong and you're afraid of reading wrong, so that makes you all trepidatious, which isn't usually very attractive or sexy.

[00:13:01] So, I mean, gosh, like y'all get a heap of socialized shit too, and I know, right? So men, in this situation, this can be so nice for you because it really allows. Your partners to open up and start using their voices about what they do and don't want. And you to also start having to not try to, you know, instead of talking about it, having to try to quote unquote, read them to figure out and then make assumptions based on that.

[00:13:31] And then be sitting there wondering why your partner doesn't wanna have sex with you anymore. Right? And it's because they've been crossing their own boundaries and you never got to choose. Right. You never got to choose whether they were crossing their own boundaries or not, and that's not fair to you either.

[00:13:46] So that happens for a lot of of people socialized as men. Okay. So if you are the partner of a person who has been sort of continuing past their own boundaries out of obligation, a couple things I want you to know. First off. You were not given the choice, and so this is not your fault. You don't have to feel guilty.

[00:14:10] You don't have to feel like a predator or anything. This is something that totally predates you. It's nobody's fault. It's not their fault that they were socialized in this sit situation, in this culture, that that was what they were, they, they learned how to do. It's not your fault that you were also socialized in a culture that doesn't help train people on how to actually.

[00:14:32] Really make sure there's consent the whole time, right? And enthusiasm the whole time and expects us to somehow, you know, read the ether or whatever about our partners. So this is not your fault. Please don't just like stew in guilt, it's not helping you or your partner or other relationship. So put the guilt aside.

[00:14:53] The most helpful thing you can do is just be incredibly encouraging. Enjoy whatever interaction your partner wants to practice with you and offer to P Hey, do you wanna just make out for five minutes? We don't have to do anything else. And that is the key thing. Let them know over and over and over again that they are not on the hook for anything else, right?

[00:15:18] Let them know. I really want you to only do what you want to with me. Right. And you, if you have a people pleaser that you are with, you may have to say this multiple times and they may not believe you at first. And it's okay to be frustrated by that. I promise. In fact, it's actually sometimes kind of good to be frustrated by it.

[00:15:39] 'cause it's like, okay, at this point I'm getting frustrated that you don't believe me. That's important for them to know. So look, if you are with a real people pleaser who has been doing this kind of thing for a while. You may need to be extremely explicit. I only want you to do what you wanna do with me.

[00:15:56] That is what feels good to me. I don't want you to be doing things that you think are gonna, you know, please me without asking me about them. That could harm our relationship and offering like play sessions that don't have to go in this sort of escalator type of way towards some sort of penetrative sex, which is a very, you know.

[00:16:19] Typical kind of way of doing things. So allow yourselves to break that pattern. Allow yourself to enjoy flirting, allow yourself to enjoy making out, allow yourself to enjoy, you know, maybe some oral sex here and there without actually having to, to continue with any sort of penetrative sex, like whatever.

[00:16:38] Allow yourselves to have a short, you know, in the, in the car, make out session, whatever. Have fun. Enjoy it and see if you can just allow them to really take the time to hear you. When you say, I only want you to do what you want to do, like don't gloss over it. Don't make it quick. Make sure that it registers in their eyes.

[00:17:03] And if you are a woman with a woman who is struggling with this, you may have some more just. Empathy. If you were socialized as a woman, you may have some more empathy and kind of like understand how they got this way right Because you may have received some of the similar messages or some of the same messages.

[00:17:24] You may also have some more frustration because you may be a person who got out of those messages already and pulled yourself out of it. And you may be frustrated with your partner that they haven't done that yet. So I wanna encourage you just to like have a little patience sometimes. It doesn't even occur to people.

[00:17:42] It doesn't. Sometimes they don't even realize they're doing it and sometimes they don't realize that it's an option not to always cross their own boundaries. So if you need support, you know, reach out for help from me or somebody who is qualified to do that. If you are a male bodied person and we're socialized as a man and don't have that sort of socialization, empathy, that you experience the same kind of thing, right?

[00:18:08] You experienced a whole different. World of gender socialization that is equally harmful in a lot of cases. And I wanna invite you, the tendency for men is to feel either kind of really guilty because it hits on your te like fear of being a predator because you've seen other men do that kind of thing, and you don't wanna be a bad person.

[00:18:35] So that can. That can be a real distraction from the issues and from solving them is if you go into a guilt spiral. The other thing that can happen is just a lack of empathy or like frustration with the person because you don't understand what is. Where this is even coming from or why they would be doing it, or why they, or you think that they should always wanna have sex with you.

[00:18:55] And there can be a frustration due to entitlement which is also a socialized thing that women are supposed to be there to take care of you in some way, shape, or form. So you wanna check that and see if that's something that's also going on for you, and that doesn't, if you notice it. It doesn't necessarily mean you're like a horrible, sexist person.

[00:19:17] It just means that you have gender socializations that you need to unpack, take responsibility for, and not like put on your partner. So neither the guilt nor the sort of like dismissive or entitled thing is helping, right? So we want to check in on those, see what's going on, and. Let those go so that the two of you can have fun free play times where everybody feels at choice the whole time and everybody celebrates the other person being at choice the whole time.

[00:19:51] And I promise you, nothing feels as good as when you actually know that the person really wants to be doing with you, what they're doing with you, that you really get to feel their joy. The freedom of enjoying whatever kind of intimacy you're having. That feels really great. Okay, so this one is all about.

[00:20:14] Redefining and reclaiming the tease. And even playing a little bit with teasing, right, can be one of the ways that we kind of rework this whole thing. We can start being intentional about our teasing. Like, Hey, I'm gonna tease you. I'm gonna flirt with you. I'm gonna get you all hot. And then I'm gonna say, that's enough for me and I'm gonna go to work.

[00:20:37] And it can be really fun and juicy. It can be lovely to be turned on. Right. It's okay to play with it too as long as you're communicating about it. So that can be one way that the, you know, you can play with a partner and unwind some of these old habits. Alright, any questions about this? Feel free to reach out.

[00:20:58] I hope this has been useful, and I will see you here next week. Hey, if you're curious about how you could have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide. Find Your Secret Turnons. It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com, and the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.