Sex Therapy, and Building Intimacy

What if the greatest barrier to intimacy isn't sex itself—but the shame, fear, and unhealed wounds we carry into our relationships?

In this deeply honest episode of Finding Your Voice, host Jason Carrasco, LMFT, sits down with Maren Jorgensen, LMFT, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and trauma specialist, for a compassionate conversation about the intersection of trauma, intimacy, relationships, and healing.

Together, they explore why so many people struggle to talk openly about sex, how childhood experiences, religious messages, and unresolved trauma can shape our intimate lives, and why healing often begins with vulnerability rather than performance. Maren explains how Internal Family Systems (IFS) helps people understand the different "parts" of themselves, release shame, and build healthier, more authentic relationships.

They also discuss:

• The most common reasons individuals and couples seek sex therapy
• How trauma can quietly influence desire, arousal, and emotional connection
• Why communication is one of the strongest predictors of intimacy
• The role of pornography, stigma, and unrealistic expectations
• Common struggles experienced by both men and women
• The importance of emotional safety, curiosity, and self-compassion in long-term relationships
• How healing our emotional wounds can transform not only our relationshipsbut our relationship with ourselves

Whether you're in a relationship, healing from past experiences, or simply curious about what healthy intimacy truly looks like, this conversation offers practical wisdom, hope, and a reminder that vulnerability is not weakness—it is one of the greatest pathways to connection.

Because finding your voice also means finding the courage to have the conversations we've been taught to avoid.

Maren Jorgensen Website 

https://www.marenjtherapy.com/

Email address: marenjtherapy@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, I'm Jason Carrasco, and welcome to Finding Your Voice. I'm a licensed marriage family and child therapist and a lifelong student of human resilience. For years, I've sat with people and some of their hardest moments. Moments that have challenged their identity, their spirit, and sometimes their will to keep going. One thing I've learned is that human beings can survive the unthinkable. And with support, a person's pain can become great purpose. This podcast is a home for stories about mental health, human rights, and the courage it takes to move through darkness and toward healing. In these episodes, you'll hear from survivors, clinicians, and everyday people who are brave enough to speak honestly and bold enough to use their voice. You deserve hope, you deserve healing, and you deserve to be heard. Welcome to Finding Your Voice. Let's get started. All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Finding Your Voice. I'm your host, Jason Carrasco, licensed marriage family and child therapist, and very grateful that you're here with us today. And I'm extremely excited about the guests that we have today. We have Marin Jorgensen. She's also a licensed marriage and family and child therapist. She's also an ASEC certified sex therapist and trauma specialist whose work centers on helping people build deeper, more authentic connections with themselves and the people that they love. Marin specializes in sex therapy, trauma therapy, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, polyamory, and consensual non-monogamy and gender-affirming care. Her approach is rooted in compassion, curiosity, and the belief that healing happens when people feel safe enough to explore every part of who they are. She integrates Internal Family Systems, IFS, and Emotionally Focused Therapy, EFT, into her work, and she helps clients heal from trauma while strengthening intimacy, communication, and emotional connection. Before entering private practice, she worked extensively with children and families that were impacted by severe trauma, and she later served in San Diego County's psychiatric urgent care, providing emergency mental health services to individuals experiencing severe mental illness. Marin earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Southern California, FI On, I'm also an SC alumni, before completing her master's degree in marriage and family therapy at the University of San Diego. She holds specialized certification in consensual non-monogamy through the Sexual Health Alliance, bringing both clinical expertise and cultural humility to conversations that are often misunderstood or surrounded by stigma. So today on this episode, we're going to be talking about sex therapy, trauma, relationships, intimacy, and what it means to create relationships built on honesty, trust, and emotional safety. So whether these topics are familiar to you or completely new, I hope you'll approach this conversation with an open mind and a willingness to learn. So, Maren, thank you so much for being here. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

I'm doing great. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Excited to be here, excited to chat more.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Excellent. Excellent. All right. So let's go back a little bit, right? Obviously, you've had some years of experience now. What first drew you one to become a therapist? And then how did the track go for you where you became inspired to specialize in working, you know, with trauma, sexuality, and relationships?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

I would say like my best story or best explanation for becoming a therapist is just probably a combination of a few different things. But I grew up in a household where my mom had some narcissistic qualities and traits. And so I think just kind of being surrounded by that maybe led me to kind of, for whatever reason or not, the way the kind of trauma formed around itself, like having a lot of empathy, but also wanting to overly kind of support and be helpful to the people around me, or like give people all the time and all the space to kind of have their feelings and express them and me like hold space for that. Maybe because I had to kind of do that with mom or just be very vigilant and be very aware. So I think back to like elementary school, middle school, just people that were struggling or having issues or wanting to vent or gossip or having relationship little flings or things as kids, even I remember just wanting to listen and be supportive and try to help them figure it out or try to help them find find ways around it. So I think maybe just naturally it became something that made sense to me to be a therapist, to be in that role of a listener and of a supporter. I always kind of had interest in relationships in general. And then I think when I got to like college and grad school, I also grew up Catholic as well, too. So I think that played a role in my interest in intimacy specifically because it was something that was so lots of shame around it, lots of like restriction around it or rules around it. Being Catholic, can't get can't have sex before you get married, like all these things that were kind of embedded into growing up and going to church a lot, and even with that Italian Catholic too. So it was very strong. So yeah, when I got to college and grad school, I became more interested in my own intimacy and blocks showing up there. Also, really, really interested in and wanting to question monogamy a lot too, because it felt like a structure that wasn't really working for me. So I just became really interested in researching and just finding and learning and finding sex therapists online or YouTube or like different media places and learning a lot more than I had ever learned growing up because I really didn't get any education. And most of us don't get a lot of extensive sex education. And so I also went to USD for grad school, which is also a Catholic university as well. So even being in my cohort, I mean one other girl were the only people there that kind of raised our hands and said, like, oh, we might want to do sex therapy. And it was a little caboo to even say that. So even that layer of just realizing that a lot of people don't want to do that or don't want to go into that field or are too uncomfortable maybe with it, or don't feel confident in it, or feel like they'll have trouble having those conversations with their clients. I think that deterred a lot of people, but I it like very much excited me and felt like something like, oh, like I don't want to be afraid of this thing. Like I want to know as much as I can about it and help people talk about something that is really taboo and is difficult for a lot of people to talk about. So yeah, I would say that's kind of how I got into it.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah, that's that's pretty amazing. So then it was in your grad school that you determined this is something that you wanted to explore more, to understand better, like you said, I assume to also help other people, right, that have these types of questions, that have these types of concerns as well, too. Was it, and we're gonna get into a lot more specific questions, but I'm curious was it what you expected when you started doing individual therapy with people were the kinds of questions and the kinds of things that were coming up what you what you anticipated?

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, I think in terms of doing sex therapy and intimacy thing, I I I feel like I didn't get too many, maybe like surprises around it. I think maybe going into it, yeah, maybe I didn't realize how much despite, and maybe it's because I was in my own bubble, being so interested in sex and intimacy and challenging things and debunking things and all of that. I don't think I realized like how much the stigma of stuff is very much like alive and well and still pervasive. And people that aren't therapists that have regular jobs go about their lives and have intimacy, but still have very ingrained kind of ideas about what intimacy is supposed to look like, or still carry trauma from religions that they're a part of, restrictions around intimacy from religious backgrounds that they don't really sit down and question, right? Because they have other, you know, things going on in their life. So they come to me, and sometimes that stuff is very new just to kind of challenge some of those ideas in a way I didn't realize, like, oh, this is still a thing that it lives, no matter how maybe advanced the technology gets. And information is spreading like crazy, and it's definitely been positive in the sense of spread spreading a lot of good knowledge to a lot of people. Now I have clients that are like, oh yeah, I already read that book. I already know that that author and that sex therapist. And I'm like, cool. You probably wouldn't back in the day, but now because of the internet, like they have access to that, which is so good. But still, yeah, there's still so much kind of stigma and shame around it, regardless. But in general, I would say it was pretty much what I was expecting with the training that I got too. Nothing really out of the ordinary, I would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

What are, and I know there's probably a lot of reasons, but what are some of the main reasons that either individuals or couples are seeking out sex therapy for? What are some of their main like presenting problems, right? As we say as clinicians, or things that they're coming to you for in that area?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Uh the biggest one that I get is some sort of desire discrepancy, which I think a lot of therap sex therapists experience also. Any form of it, any gender, any partner where like one person just has a lot less interest and intimacy than the other, or not even a lot less, but something about the level of interest is imbalanced in some way between the partners. So one person is just unsatisfied because the other partner is not wanting to have it as often. And then that partner feels guilty because they don't want to, they're not really matching the other partner, right? So I feel like that's the biggest thing that comes up for me a lot. And then the other pieces that I get, because I specialize in non-monogamy, it's still intimacy related, but we kind of focus more on like communication and many, many clients that are just in polyamorous relationships and needing help kind of navigating that, or even just having a therapist that's supportive and understanding of that. And so then helping with communication stuff around that or expectations around that boundaries. And then here and there I'll get a good chunk of men that are having like premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, any kind of performance issue, or any kind of feeling that the way that they're showing up in the bedroom is below the the level at which they should be performing or should be kind of showing up, or how parts should be working. So yeah, I would say those are like the big, the big ones.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

That takes, I'm thinking for somebody to come into a session, that takes a lot of courage and a lot of vulnerability, you know, to be able to come in and talk to a stranger right at first about these types of issues, like you're saying, whether it's premature ejaculation for men, whether it's like you said, for the man or the woman, or or polyamorous desire, discrepancy, those those types of things. It takes a lot of, I think, vulnerability for people to come in and being willing to to talk about this. So one, I think that's pretty amazing that people can do it. How do you if when people come into your sessions and let's say they do feel very uncomfortable talking about sex and some of the things that are that are happening? Why why do you think that well, like I think we can kind of assume what this answer is, but one, why do you think they feel so uncomfortable talking about sex? And then how do you help them feel comfortable to be able to open up about it?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Yeah. I think there's certainly a lot of different reasons, and everybody's experiences are different, generally, kind of what I already mentioned around like religion for whatever reason, right, tends to be a big component in there, but not even religion sometimes, just growing up in an environment that was maybe a little bit more conservative, or people just did not talk about it, or if somebody did talk about it, it was met with some sort of shameful or negative reaction. And so you kind of learned instantly to not talk about it or discuss it. So, yeah, anything kind of in that realm, I feel like I see that a lot in terms of reasons why it would feel uncomfortable. And and just generally, I don't think in our culture, right, like it's not normal for us to just kind of go out and share anything like super openly about intimacy because it's so vulnerable and you're in a vulnerable experience and a vulnerable space while you're having that intimacy. But when I think even about that, it's because there is so much stigma around it, shame or nervousness around if I share this thing about myself, am I maybe like doing the wrong thing, or am I going to be judged for saying that this is how I have intimacy with somebody? And a lot of people compare, oh, my friend said this, but I don't do it that way. So I must be wrong, or I must be doing it wrong. There's a lot that goes unprocessed, I guess. So then there's just all this shame that kind of builds around it and then further closes us in to even talking about it. But yeah, I'm trying to think if there's more, but I feel like those are kind of main things that I see just in the history of people that feel a little bit more reserved about talking about it. And then in order to make them feel more comfortable, I definitely go at their pace and just kind of feel out what feels most comfortable for them. If they're not seeing me, maybe specifically for sex therapy, but they start to talk about something intimacy related. I might joke and be like, hey, remember I'm a sex therapist. Like, you could tell me everything in it. I like I've heard it all to try to make them a little, you know, ease their worries a little bit. And same if people are coming to me for sex therapy specifically, but they do feel nervous about it, that can be just a place to explore, right? Or just more information. What's coming up for you now as you're talking about it? And if you feel nervous about it, let's explore what makes you nervous about expressing this stuff or what makes it hard for you to kind of talk about this even with me. And some of it's understandable, right? Like a stranger. So I like to go at their pace as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

For somebody who's never heard of sex therapy, right, or been a part of it, or maybe somebody that's thinking about sex therapy, what and I know there could obviously d depending on the issues that they have and what's going on for them, it's of course it's gonna vary. Can you at least in some kind of way give give some type of what happens actually in a sex therapy session, give give some type of, you know, kind of picture of that or what that looks like? Because I'm sure people out there have a lot of different ideas of what what maybe happens in the sex therapy session. So maybe that can eliminate some fears for people out there if it's something they want to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah. So generally in a session, depending on the issue, at least in the beginning, I definitely like to do as much history taking as possible. I'll generally kind of ask, depending on the issue, maybe, but I'll kind of go as far back as I can when they first started noticing this thing happen, but also times where maybe it wasn't happening. If we're talking, for example, about premature ejaculation or performance issues or orgasm issues or lack of desire, like all similarly, I'll kind of try to go as far back as possible, learn, understand about what it looked like when it maybe wasn't happening at a point in time in life, when it was, if there was any just unique experiences where all of a sudden, oh, I was like with this person and it wasn't an issue, but then this thing happened in this time in my life and now it has been an issue, or if it's like this has been happening since I was a kid, just trying to gather information about specific any trauma, any like history, any experiences or moments that could have been tied to it or close to their issue in any way? I like to ask about, get as much detail as possible about their history and then also with partners as well. And masturbation too. When you're alone and nobody else is there, what does that look like? Do you still have this issue? What happens? What gets in the way of you being able to be really present in your body and experience sex in the way that you're wanting to experience it? So sometimes we'll make, and usually maybe in the second or third session, we'll make I have a worksheet and we have like a list. And the question is, it's from Emily Nagoski. The question is just describe the best sexual experience you've ever had. And then underneath that, all of the elements of what was there that maybe could have added to it being really great. What was there that maybe took away from the greatness a little bit? And then same thing with like the worst sexual experience that you've ever had. Like what were the all the pieces and all the elements to that played a role in it? So we'll identify a lot of different like blocks or a lot of different things that might get in the way. So yeah, a lot of assessing, a lot of questioning, a lot of exploring the makeup. I'm not a big like medical person, but I'll refer out, you know, if it feels like that's something that also plays a role while assessed for psychiatric medicine, you know, like antidepressants, because that can impact desire and libido a lot too. So I'll try to get as much information as I can. And then we'll kind of figure out if doing behavioral strategies, so doing some like practices during masturbation, doing some different practices or switching things up a little bit with their partner. If that is helpful, if that's enough, we'll like try that. There's communication difficulties in being vulnerable with their partner, then it let's work on that. Like, what are you fearful of? What are you afraid of in conveying this to your partner? That could potentially be something that brings you together or helps uh the intimacy. But if there's hesitancy, like let's explore that. Like what's going on in the relationship that's making it hard to connect in that way? And then could that be a block to intimacy because we're kind of missing this connection there? Yes. And then if it gets deeper, is when I start to use maybe like specific trauma therapy. So I use internal family systems a lot, or that's just my main trauma modality as a therapist. So if they're open to it, I will introduce, especially because it's very somatic and very body focused, also, which is really helpful for intimacy. So if there's some deep and like very specific like sex trauma too, I always turn to that as something that can be really useful for them. So we'll get into parts work, internal family systems work to help with that trauma. So then sometimes that is another element or another piece that helps make their intimacy better, if that can find some healing.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah, I like how you brought up the trauma piece as well, too, because and those are some follow-up questions I have for you. What do you think some of the main signs are, if if any, that you can identify that is showing that unresolved trauma may be affecting intimacy for people? What do you think some of those signs can be?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah, so I like to look at trauma as like a spectrum or like flavors or different levels of intensity. So whatever we want to kind of call it, if we want to call it trauma, whatever the client is comfortable with. But even if something doesn't feel like an intense, traumatic incident to the client, there can even be like really little things, but they're kind of built around a specific experience. In high school, my ex-boyfriend, as soon as we were done having sex, he joked about something. And that specific moment has like stuck without realizing it, maybe like sub subconsciously, it's kind of stuck in my mind and my body. And so now when I'm having intimacy, I don't even understand why, or I can't even make that connection, but my body is just kind of shutting down. So even something as quick as that, that maybe most people won't think of as trauma, that's something where if we talk through it and do some talk therapy, maybe it gets, you know, it gets kind of resolved. If not, if it feels like the body is really kind of stuck in that, then I'll kind of go to, yeah, let's do some somatic work around that, really kind of get into the body and be kind of in that moment to see if we can understand it a little bit differently and maybe make like a new narrative to that experience so that it isn't something that their body is kind of holding on to anymore. So anything that looks like that, so it can look like that. It can, it can literally be the client coming in and say, Ha, hey, I had a sexual assault as a kid, as a teenager, this family member was doing something. So like it can be an array of and them just kind of knowing exactly their specific trauma and saying, okay, I want to work on this or I want to spend time healing that as much as I can. It can look brief and small too. So that's also another indicator where I might say, like, you know, we could try doing some trauma work around that and see if it actually helps you relax in the moment when you're intimates with somebody.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah. So I'm sure some clients may be surprised when they think they're coming in mainly for a sex issue, and then they're in sessions. And then, like you said, you're you're gathering information, you're exploring the relationship is getting stronger between the therapist and the clinician where they feel more open in expressing things, and then they're able to connect some dots, you know, and realize and understand that this trauma is one of the underlying causes of, like you said, maybe some of the sexual issues. And then they're again, they're learning that they have these traumas. Are there some clients that come in when they understand that they have this trauma that can be an underlying factor that a lot of times do they seem willing to maybe work through some of that with you? Or do you notice that they get kind of like resistant and they're like, I don't want to go there? How do they usually kind of respond at that point? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Yeah. Yeah, no, that definitely happens a lot. I have a lot of clients that do, even if they come in and say, like, I know I have this trauma and I know it's impacting my relationship because my desire is just kind of like cut off in some way, right? Or it could be the opposite, not always that you lose desire because of trauma, but as an example, they come in directly with that. What I really like about the parts work is the whole mantra of it is all parts of you are welcome no matter what. And we go at your system's pace. We don't skip past, we don't say, like, okay, you want to work on this trauma, let's go directly to that young child or younger part of you and just try to heal it. That's like rarely, rarely ever happens. So even people that are like on board and want to heal that will start doing the parts work and then we'll absolutely find many parts of them that are not ready to go to that place yet. But part of the parts work is working with those parts that are not ready yet. So we'll spend all the time with those parts first before even touching, because the only in parts work lane language, right? Like the the way that that trauma is gonna actually heal is with all of your parts being on board or your whole system totally being okay and feeling safe enough for you to go in there and be with that trauma and safe enough in the in the room with me as well. So it's a lot of time spent on building safety, building trust between the client, their parts, all the ones that are trying to protect them, which is so natural for trauma. I don't think I've ever met anybody that has sexual trauma and doesn't have also an array of like protective parts around them that don't want it to be, you know, don't want us to get close to it.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yeah. So with the, I want to go backwards a little bit real quick. So you're talking about the different parts of ourselves while you're working with them through the trauma. So you're working, you're talking about one of your main focuses of what you practice, internal family systems, the the IFS piece. So for someone hearing about IFS for the first time, how would you explain it? And then what do you mean when you talk about these parts of ourselves?

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Yeah. Yeah. So internal family systems was a theory developed by Dick Schwartz. And essentially what he came to, he was studying like family therapy and noticed that every family member in the room had their own particular role in the family system. But he somehow took that and kind of translated it inside to one person. So he kind of noticed, oh, like there's all these characters, all these family members that are making this system of the family kind of flow and work in the way that it does. What if that is something that happens individually inside of all of us? And so essentially with that kind of discovery and understanding, and now there's a lot of neuroscience to like back up, you know, different parts of the brain lighting up, he came up with this theory that sees the individual as not just one person, but multiple separate parts or pieces, separate beings, maybe. And he kind of went through and kind of named them. So essentially, he kind of said that your maybe most compassionate or most caring, most kind of present self is you is you in your present moment, adult you. And then naturally, everybody has protective parts that can be managing parts, firefighters, just like different categories of like what a protector maybe does or what it looks like. And then you have exiles, which is just the younger, more vulnerable parts of you that experienced trauma, but also hold the pain of the trauma, like hold the really, really vulnerable emotion around it and are burdened by the trauma in some way. So, yeah, that's essentially like a brief, very brief overview of internal family systems. And I was very much drawn to it in my early years, trying to figure out what kind of type of therapy I want to do because talk therapy wasn't cutting it so much for me. And it kind of was so internal family systems allowed me to be like, wow, like there's everyone has their own system inside of them, and their system has a lot of answers for them. Like I, as a therapist, don't have to have every answer. Like, I can guide my clients into answering their own questions. And it's pretty remarkable about how that happens too, just kind of listening in to those separate parts of you and hearing what they what they need, why they're protecting, why they're doing the job that they're doing to try to help them out to protect maybe those exiles from from erupting or kind of coming in. So, yeah, was there a second part of your question too?

SPEAKER_01 29:28

I missed no, no, no. You you answered it because you talked about the different parts of ourselves as well, too.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

With the clients that you've had and the ones that you've had the opportunity to see them go through some of the healing from the trauma you know, that that they experienced. Was it was this like a a huge impact on their sex life and intimacy? Did was it still, you know, work that needed to be done after that? Like what what are you seeing with the the clients that you're working with?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah, it's a good question. Because yeah, everyone is so different, but I I would say the interesting part about the the parts work is that because we don't ignore any parts, we will often find ourselves kind of trailing into other parts. They still pertain to the intimacy, but like as an example, I have a client where it's we're all focused on the intimacy, but at the moment we are on her ability to speak up for herself and like communicate with her partner. And that of course relates to the intimacy, but it's all kind of focused around parts of her easing up and needing to kind of feel a little bit more comfortable just expressing her needs in order to then reach intimacy that does feel pleasurable and good for her. And so, yeah, it feels very gradual, or it feels like we're kind of working with other parts or other pieces of their life and kind of strengthening like the confidence a lot more. So I've have clients that are I feel so much more centered and present, and I spoke up for myself and I was able to share this with my partner, and I wasn't afraid to talk about this thing. So, and then they responded really positively to me. So now I feel a different level of safety. And so now all of a sudden, last week I don't know what happened, but I was open to having sex and it didn't go so bad, kind of thing. It's hard to explain, but tackling of your somatic kind of body and your parts, this that then translates to just this openness or this freeness or a lot less tension in your body, less parts of you, those protective parts of you taking over and like shutting you down. So if that loosens up a lot, then I have clients come to me and say, I was open to having sex, we're having intimacy more regularly, that like that's not an issue anymore. Same with like performance issues with people with penises, doing some of the somatic work, relaxing the body, working through those blocks too. They're like, Oh, I was so much less in my head when I went to have sex. I was able to relax. I was able to get hard when I was with this partner that I usually can't, but it's because my mind was kind of cleared a lot more from the work that we were doing. So it kind of like indirectly kind of translates in a way to that, if that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah. And that must be, I mean, just really rewarding as a clinician when you do see some of these clients that are able to one work through some of the trauma, but then also to that they start having improvement in their sex, right? Because sex is a huge part of who we are and just our experience here, our being, our emotional, physical, spiritual well-being, whatever you want to call it. So when you have difficulties with sex, I mean, it really has a big impact on somebody. So I would just think that it would be really rewarding for you when you're able to see some of these clients make great progress.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Absolutely. Yeah. And I feel this is maybe just the style of therapy. Behavioral homework things can sometimes help for the certain specific client and facts and research, and oh, like, you know, this is what's typical. And I have a few clients that are like that, and that I'm like so happy with too and proud of. And at the same time, my brain, or at least I see that happen often, where sometimes sex therapists or just therapists in general sit down and say, okay, these are the things that you're you should do to fix it. And then they try it, and then maybe it works for a little bit, and then it goes back to where it was, right? Or like, okay, yeah, I did that for a few weeks, and then maybe like, okay, cool, I'm fixed. I don't need a sex therapist anymore. Three months go by, a year goes by, maybe they're in a different relationship, the same thing comes back again, right? And so there's something to me that's so significant and important about even if it's not a big T like trauma, but just doing this somatic parts work to really get into any kind of part that has any kind of relationship to intimacy, because even if it's not helping the intimacy, it's helping them in their relationships. And then hopefully that translates into the intimacy later on, but it feels so much more long-lasting and concrete of an intervention for them that I hope lasts, I hope carries and isn't just like a homework that I tried this thing, didn't work. So now I'm back to square one kind of thing. So that's like super important for me to see it in more of like a holistic way of like really wanting to help somebody body and mind-wise, reach any form of intimacy that feels like more pleasurable for them or more sustainable for them.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Do you feel like men are more open to some of the things and some of the practices that they do in session and then there may be a sign to do outside of session? Or do you feel like women maybe are I don't know it it varies, I'm sure, but I'm just kind of curious. And with the experience that you have, experience comparing men to women, who which population kind of feels more motivated or more eager to kind of work on, you know what I mean, whatever it is they're struggling with?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Yeah, it's like so hard because I I think about I try to separate it in my mind, and then I remember I'm like, oh yeah, I've had so many male clients that were just like so down and so open. But then I also have male clients that are like carry way, way more shame or way more stigma, or this kind of bro, whatever mentality of no, this is how, you know, these are all my friends, all my bros are like saying this thing, so it must be true or whatever, right? And so they're kind of rigid in their like expectations, or the the idea of my penis isn't working in this specific way, so I am not manly enough, or I'm not a man, or I feel a lot of shame around that because I'm not showing up as a man that like in that way that I'm supposed to. So that definitely happens a lot, but then I also have a lot of, yeah, I don't know if it's because I'm queer too, and I attract maybe polyamorous men or queer men too, but a lot of men that are super open, down to talk about it, open to talk about it, not don't have a lot of shame, just want help, just want like a safe landing space to kind of explore something that is a little, you know, taboo or they don't have a space to talk about it. So yeah, it's really hard to kind of separate or say, at least in my experience with the clients that I've had, like if one is more open than the other, because I also do have a lot of women that hold a lot of shame too. So I don't really see a huge difference in one being, even though maybe I would assume or others would assume, like women can talk about it more comfortably, maybe. It really feels like it goes across in both ways. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yeah. What are some of the with the men, what are some of the things that you've heard the most about the shame that prohibits them, you know what I mean, from from maybe speaking openly or talking? And then with the woman as well, too. What is it with them? Maybe some of the things that you've you've heard them express the most in terms of the shame?

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Yes, stuff like I thought men were supposed to last this long in bed, or I thought I was supposed to last longer. I thought that I I was immediately supposed to be hard as soon as my partner takes her clothes off. And we were in the middle of something, and then I lost my erection, and I thought I was supposed to keep it the whole time, right? So a lot of like shoulds, a lot of my penis should be performing this way that maybe I hear from friends, or I I watch in porn, or in movies. It should be performing in this specific way, it should be lasting this specific amount of time. I shouldn't be orgasming this quickly, or it takes me way too long to organize, which I understand, but a lot of it comes from an outside idea of how long we're supposed to do it. And that expectation alone is the thing that gets that I've seen gets men way more in their head than they should be. And then now that they're in their head about that, uh there's less connection with their body, and so then it's not it's continuing to do the thing that they don't want it to do even more. The first layer that we have to get through is just the expectation that your body should be performing in a different way when it's not at the moment, and being understanding that they want to get to a goal or they want to kind of get somewhere that feels different, working through that layer first so it doesn't also feel like a block for them when they're showing up, or adding excessive anxiety or worry when they are being intimate, that then now gets in the way of them being able to perform even more. Those are I would say those are the ways, main ways that they kind of talk about themselves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

And how about for for women?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Yeah, for women it it's a lot of it is focused on the desire, I feel like, at least in my practice. So I'm I've been with my partner for this long. Why am I not having desire for them anymore? I should be, why don't we have like a spark that we used to in the beginning? I should be having that now. What's wrong with me? Kind of thing. A lot of like what's wrong with me and my body that I can't sustain desire, or even if it comes to orgasm, like I used to be able to do this, but now I can't, or it takes me way longer to orgasm now. Like, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with my body for not being able to do that? Even like painful sex as well. There must be something wrong with me in the way that my body is built, that when I'm having sex, it's so painful. And which I get in the sense of like, ugh, like nobody wants to have painful sex, and that is hard to ignore, right? But it is the shame in like there is something wrong with me, or it's because of my body, or I did something to cause this, or something is yeah, I did something wrong when I was taking care of my body that then kind of caused this to happen. Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's more, but it definitely desire, pain, even going into the sexual trauma, right? There's a lot of, and not even maybe the client, but when we do the parts work, right? Like parts of them that believe that they maybe deserved that, or it was their fault, or that happened to me because I did this thing, and therefore I kind of deserve what happened because I put myself in that situation, a lot of self-blame.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Yeah, and you brought up, and I know this is a huge topic, but you brought up pornography. So I have to, and I know there there can be pros and cons on both sides, right? In terms of why maybe pornography can be good for some people, and then some people feel that pornography can be negative, right? And because like one of the things that you brought up for men example is comparing them themselves with what they see on pornography and different things like that. So when you talk with your clients, how do you talk about pornography? Do you do you kind of maybe suggest that and I'm not trying to get in like a you know, like a huge thing here, but what do you how do you what are your thoughts on it? How do you express your thoughts on it to your to your clients?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Yeah, yeah. It's for whatever reason, a controversial, I mean there's many reasons, but controversial topic in mental health and with sex addiction, porn addiction. I come from my training that I received through Sexual Health Alliance, and my main supervisor that I love and that I always go to for anything, any of my help for clients is David Lay. He wrote the book that's called The Myth of Sex Addiction. So he kind of it's not an effort to invalidate anybody's experience of that, but more so just the terminology. What does naming it an addiction do? And how does that kind of serve the client? And how does that serve people's wallets too, in the like the business side of it, right? So that's like kind of the education place that I kind of come from. So when I talk about it with clients, because I do get a lot of men that are like, I'm addicted to porn and porn is bad. I try my best to meet them where they're at. And then if it is useful for them, I can offer research around in and of itself, there isn't any research stating that it's and and there is a very small amount of research, but it's all like Christian white men that they researched about it. But other than that, there isn't any research to talk about or to prove maybe that porn is the issue here, or that if we keep watching it, that that will somehow like change your brain chemistry, and then you won't be able to have sex normally or whatever. So I try to like deal. Debunk some of that, but also respect their desires. Like if it feels good to pause every once in a while, do it fine. There's nothing, you know, I can't stop anybody. That's nothing wrong with that. As long as you're aware of there's a lot of pornography that I think everybody is in agreement with that there's a lot of pornography that is just like entertainment, right? Just like television, movies that portray sex in a way that is not realistic. So if there's an awareness of that, if you find yourself watching a lot of porn that has a specific fetish or kink going on that you're really interested in and brings you a lot of desire, I try to use that as like data. Just think about the kind of porn that really gets you turned on and really gets you excited. Are you doing that stuff with your partner? No? Okay, maybe use that as a tool to say there's something in my relationship that maybe isn't hitting the mark in that way. Like, can I explore that with my partner in whatever form that looks like? Can we mimic that kind of kink that I know gets me off in that realm, like in our actual relationship together? So I try to use it, I try to destigmatize it. I try not to use addiction language. I try to say nothing bad is gonna happen to your brain if you watch a lot of porn, just as if you're sitting on the couch binging Netflix shows all day. Like it's the same thing, right? It's just, it's just a different thing that you're watching. You're just watching people have sex versus versus watching people take care of a boat or whatever those um Bravo shows are. So I try to frame it in that way and then say, like, use it as information for yourself of like what feels good, what doesn't. If you want to take a few days or take a week and not consume anything sexual because maybe that helps build you up a little bit and also gets you into your imagination of what you want to do with your partner, like that makes sense. Like, go ahead and do that. But I try not to put any restrictions on it or stigmatize it or use the addiction language as to say that somebody is really trapped in that or like they are addicted to that thing. So they have a problem that they need to stop cold turkey because that usually doesn't work either.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. Yeah, I mean, that's something that we can talk about, you know, all day in terms of different sides of it. And yeah, I liked what you said about how it can be used as data in terms of people determining what they like, they're open to in terms of, you know, or what they can open up to in terms of experimentation for themselves, in terms of things to improve their sexual relationship. So I think that's yeah, I think that's really good. And I think there's a lot of for a lot of people at times, there's so much shame associated with pornography from religion or or from other, you know, kind of systems, whatever it is. I just wondered like for the men, how do you talk to them or even or even women, right? Because some obviously like on pornography, men will be going like an hour here, right? In terms of the length of time that they'll be having sex with with somebody and women will be enjoying it for this, for this whole time or or for other things. And so how do you talk about those things with clients to kind of like not have the comparisons of that?

SPEAKER_00 47:35

Yeah, I like to again kind of remind like it's not a lot of the stuff out there is not realistic. There's a lot of indie porn that's made by and directed by women and lower budget kind of porn that's still really, really amazing, like really well made. I think it's always kind and nice for people to invest in porn that is produced and made by people that really actually care, like not, you know, the big, big companies. So there's a lot of options out there for watching porn that's a little bit, and they try to make it a little bit more realistic. Speak to your like kinks and taboos, but have different body shapes too, because we only see a few different kinds of body shapes in those bigger, like production porns, too. So they try to use different body shapes, different races, like all of those things. So I would encourage if the client is interested to maybe seek those resources out too, just to have a different experience of porn that is a little bit more realistic. We talk about it, we can talk about it in detail too, of like kind of what they view, and that there really is no standard for the kind of sex you should be having, or the length of sex you should be having, or what a woman is supposed to look like or act like or sound like when she's having an orgasm, or what the guy is supposed to be doing, or how long he he's lasting, or like again, going back to like use it as fantasy, as ideas, as like something to excite you in some way. But when you're having sex with your partner, know that there's no camera crew, no script, right? They're cutting a bunch of clips, and the guy is jacking off in the corner, getting hard for like 30 minutes way before then just jumping in and doing it right, and you don't see that part trying to like remind of some of those things to keep it realistic.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Yeah, yeah. What is, if any, I'm curious, you've been doing obviously this for a while, right? With with clients. Is there or are there are there some beliefs that you maybe had earlier in your career as a sex therapist that have changed over time for you?

SPEAKER_00 49:57

I think probably I like a big one. I think it's yeah, it's just like a lot of little like pockets of knowledge, maybe. Just this thing we're talking about about like the porn addiction and just like how normal maybe a lot of different things are, or the stigmas kind of being debunked a little bit. There's I've had a client too even like be concerned about not being able to have an orgasm in a specific way, or like being penetrated, but having an orgasm that way. And the statistic for that of the amount of women that can do that is super low, right? So there's all these women that are like concerned they're not having an orgasm in a certain way, but then you see the the research, and it's most people are not doing it that way. So little things like that, I think, have helped me with general knowledge for myself, but also for my clients. And I really think my program where I got all my schooling from for that, because they're really up to date on all of the research. They have their own Instagram and they're constantly posting, like, hey, did you know about 20% of men do this? Right? Like they constantly posting these little like blurbs, and I feel like I learn something new every day. But yeah, I can't I'm not thinking of anything very specific, but I think just so many different destigmatizing things that I've learned over the years have changed just the way that I think about sex and intimacy. And I continue to think about that or continue to have that experience of things being destigmatized. Emily Nagoski is one of my favorite sex researchers, and her whole book like opened my mind about sexual desire in people and how it's not just you don't just have a sex thrive that's just on or off, right? There's more complexity to it, and it can, it's more like a the pedal on a car where it can be accelerated a little bit and then a brake can get can kind of be put on and then you can accelerate. So it's not like this thing that you're doomed into that you just don't have desire anymore and it's shut off, right? So yeah, lots of little things I feel like I've learned.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

Yeah. What if anything do you feel has been the most challenging for you as a therapist that focuses on on sex and intimate relationships?

SPEAKER_00 52:24

The most challenging I would probably say maybe like in general when it comes to I mean, everyone's so different, so it really depends on the client, but like I will turn to my supervisor, maybe more so for like men's sexual issues, just as a non-penis holder and like having more experience on this other side. I go to him when I'm like, hey, this person tried this technique of squeezing the tip of your penis so that they don't orgasm like as quickly and it didn't work. Help me because I've never tested that out. I don't actually know like if there's a better way to do it. So I feel like I'll go to him for that a lot, or that feels like the more challenging stuff. I have had experiences, knock on wood, only a few experiences where I have had male clients that don't particularly actually want to have talk therapy or sex therapy. They want something else to happen during our Zoom call. And it's really tricky and confusing to navigate, especially because we're on Zoom. So there's an ability to like hide anything going on down there. I've had that happen a few times, and that's certainly been a challenge just as a female therapist.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

And absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Yeah. And and figuring out like the best way to navigate that and to not, you know, to be able to work through it and have support, like my supervisor there to like chat with after the fact so he can kind of like calm me down a little bit and reassure me, you know, that I did everything that I could have to try to navigate it the best way, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Yeah, yeah. I imagine that that would be really, you know, bring up a lot of feelings for you. And I'm sorry that that's happened to you. I know I shouldn't be apologizing, but I could apologize anyway. You know, I'm sorry that you've you've had to experience that, you know, because it's, I mean, it's it's also disrespectful, you know what I mean? Like you're trying to provide a professional, you know, service. It's it's apparent to me you have a lot of integrity, you know what I mean, you and all of that. So yeah, it's there's I think there's always gonna be people out there, unfortunately, that yeah, have that have their agendas.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

For sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Let's see. I know we're we're getting close to time here. What is one thing you wish everybody? And I know this is a really big question, but what is one thing you wish everybody knew about a healthy sexual relationship?

SPEAKER_00 55:17

I feel like the thing that comes to mind maybe at the forefront when you ask that is that I just want everybody to know that like when you're in a long-term relationship, for whatever reason that question sparks like the long-term relationship, health and like intimacy health. When you're in a long-term relationship, do not expect intimacy to just continue as it started uh at until the end. I feel like a lot of people have that expectation, and then they get really disappointed when that doesn't happen, and then they have a lot of shame around that, and then they're struggling to try to get back to this thing that was, but it happened. This spark or whatever, or whatever sexual chemistry happened at such a specific initial time in that relationship with all of these other factors at play that just don't exist in a long-term relationship, or usually don't exist in a long-term relationship where you're cohabitating and you're domestic doing domestic chores all of a sudden, right? Like the environments are so different to when you're like dating, flirting, not living together, taking space from each other, texting, like all of these different elements. So not to be what's the word, contrary about it or hopeless about it. But if you don't have such a strong expectation around that being the case, then it does allow, I think, a little bit more room, more acceptance of yourself and your relationship and your partner and what is, and like more flexibility in like how can we make our intimacy now that we're in this different phase or this longer phase, like how can we make our intimacy look good or look pleasurable or look a way that feels good for both of us, but we don't have such a pressure on it for it to be this crazy, sexy, wild thing. And not to say that it can't be that, because that could always be, you know, like a goal or that, you know, we don't want to discount that because that can always happen and be fun, but take a lot of the pressure, I would say, off of that. And then as you do that, I think it does open up doors for being a little bit more creative and and maybe bringing that stuff back and know that there's like a lot of layers to work through, because the more comfortable you become with somebody, the more tension there is, or conflict there is, there's wounding there that happens. And so if that stuff doesn't get properly kind of processed and worked through, that can live in you in some way without realizing it. And then that can impact your intimacies. Take the opportunities to really work through as much stuff as you can. So you free up some space to come back to creativity and excitement and all that.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

Yeah, that was so well said. Yeah, thank you for that. That was so well said. Yeah, and I think the importance of, you know, the emotional intimacy as people continue in relationships, that's the most important, important factor. Like you said, yeah, the physical will still be there, but if you're able to be truly emotionally intimate and vulnerable and transparent with who you're with or or the you know, the couple that you're with, whatever it is, then you're able to express your needs and your wants, and the physical part will be there as well, too. So we have to strengthen, I think the most like you're like you were talking about and alluding to, the most important thing to to strengthen is that emotional component. And then that ties back to is there anything that is uh is challenging us emotionally? Is there a trauma that we need to work through? Is you know, are there certain other things that we need to work through to be able to be in a place where we can be open and vulnerable emotionally? So yeah, it all it all ties together everything that you've you know that you've spoken about and everything that you've kind of alluded to. Let me ask, what do you how do you hope for the projection of of your career, right? And I know this is a big question, like what do you hope to do? Do you hope to stay in this area to as a clinician? Do you is there do you want to evolve into another area? What are you what are you looking at for your your own goals?

SPEAKER_00 59:54

Yeah. I think I want to stay in this area and keep developing the trauma work. Like the trauma stuff is really close to my heart and sometimes even more so than the sex thing, because it does, it does kind of underlie right the intimacy stuff too. But I definitely want to kind of expand or get deeper into that trauma work. I started doing psychedelic assisted therapy as well to kind of like whether it's sex issues or just any other issues kind of coming up, psychedelics go hand in hand with the parts work too, very schatic, very kind of observing and noticing parts of you, healing trauma, healing exiles through that. So I want to get deeper and deeper into that kind of work and hopefully be able to offer that to as many people as I can. And then maybe in the future, I kind of want to expand in some way. I don't know exactly how yet, but being in private practice is definitely a solo thing. And so I definitely have a longing for more community and being outside more and not being, you know, glue or talking to people. Um, so in whatever form that looks, like I yeah, I don't know if I want to just be more involved with people in the world in a community kind of like setting or helping in some way in my like local area. So that's kind of some ideas of kind of where I might want to go. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Yeah, I remember when we initially spoke that what stood out to me about you was your was your passion about the trauma, the trauma aspect of of things. And I thought that that was really thought that was really cool. You know, I enjoy, I know as a clinician working on trauma with clients as well, too. You know, I know and it's probably like like with so many other people, I know for me as a clinician, you know, I've been I've been through my own trauma. And that's what, you know, I think made me believe in the process of therapy was because I got older, I went to therapy to address some of the traumas I went through from childhood. And then I saw the benefit for me. So now it's like I wanna, when I was especially early as a clinician, I really wanted to help others and be able to work through it. Still do, but you know, that was a big focus for me. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

Yeah. So nice to be able to offer that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Yeah. All right. So if listeners only took one thing from today's conversation, what would you want it to be?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

Don't stop being afraid to talk about sex if you can. Like really sit with what makes you afraid to talk about it, but mostly kind of in your relationships. Because I feel like that happens so much where there's so much trepidation, or you have a feeling and you're talking to your therapist about it, but your partner doesn't actually know about it. And I'm like, this is the person that needs to know, not me, in order to bring you closer together. And so just pay attention to like how honest and how vulnerable can you actually get with your partner about intimacy? There's so many missed opportunities to just be really honest and really, really detailed and really specific about things that come up for around intimacy with our partners that understandably so we're naturally afraid to go there. But take time to really think about that because the impact of actually being able to have a safe conversation about something like that with your partner just opens up this whole world of being able to enjoy sex and like enjoy pleasure and get pleasure in the way that you're hoping to get it, that feels good for you, that feels good for them, be on the same page, be very careful and knowing what things are triggers or not. There, there, I always feel like there's so much more room to really be in detail and talk about these things with the person that you love the most, but there's a lot of lack of that. So I want people to just take that as they will to just as a reminder, maybe of like pay attention to how honest you really can get with your partner about those things and question maybe why, why you can't.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:16

Nice. Excellent, excellent, excellent. I hope everybody listens to that, those words of those words of wisdom right there. Okay, so I have to wrap up, I always ask these same four questions, all right, to everybody that I talk to. So you can give, and these are just like one sentence, two sentence response, okay? Just whatever comes to your head. If someone listening feels powerless right now, meaning powerless to change whatever situation they're in right now, right? Or whatever's whatever's challenging them. If someone listening feels powerless right now, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:56

I would say Yeah, makes sense potentially, right, without knowing a lot of information, why they would feel powerless in some way and to see if they can talk to somebody that they do trust that can hold space for that feeling of powerlessness. So they don't have to be alone with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:18

Okay. What's one thing that an everyday person can do to make a real impact?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

I feel like an everyday person can just yeah, consistently maybe try to access their empathy as much as they can to connect with others and just to yeah, continue to kind of connect and just be open to other people as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:53

Nice. I like that. Yeah, I think right now in this current time, we need a lot more empathy, right? With everything that's going on out there. We've all experienced some type of pain in our life, right? Like whether it's it's trauma or other things. But who did you become because some of the pain that you've lived through?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

I think because of some of the pain that I lived through, I definitely became a therapist, but became yeah, became maybe somebody that for whatever reason enjoys holding on to or holding space for other people's pain.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:37

Nice. Nice. All right, and last question what do you want your legacy to be? And this isn't in reference to your career, but in terms of your soul's work, what do you want your legacy to be?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

Yeah, yeah, I would say healer in terms of maybe like the the work stuff, but just somebody that was kind of fun to be around, empathetic, understanding, made people feel good about themselves, better about themselves, connected people, brought people together versus separating, yeah, made people feel loved as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

I like that. All right. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to be here, for taking the time to do this today, and for you know, for holding the space that you did in our conversation. If people are interested in getting in contact with you, where would where should they go? How how do they find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

Yeah, website is probably the best spot. So it's marinytherapy.com. My email is the same, marinjtherapy at gmail.com, but usually website is the easiest.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

Thank you for your time. Thank you for everything. I hope at some point you're maybe willing to come back because there's a lot of other topics that we could talk about as well, too, with some of the work that you do that we weren't even really able to get to today. So would love it to have you back at some point. And I want to thank everybody for listening to another episode of Finding Your Voice.