Literally how to have the best S*X ever (for men) | Dr. Chris Donaghue

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What up?
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What's up, man?
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Dylan, man, living the dream.
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Okay, so it was two years ago since we spoke last, I believe.
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Maybe time is flying.
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Hopefully, hopefully, all good stuff, yeah?
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Yeah, yeah, definitely, man.
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All good developments.
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Um, where what's been going on in the world of Dr.
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Chris recently?
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Um launched a professional conference.
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We're moving into year four.
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And SJ, is that it?
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Launched that year four.
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That's going awesome.
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And through them, we started a doctoral program, which I'm uh putting have put together through them and getting all the certifications in order and starting to teach.
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So moving in this like powerful professional academic area.
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I've still got the clinical practice, but um moving away from media stuff and kind of moving academic.
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Yeah, that's really cool, man.
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Sexual health alliance, right?
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That was yeah, I think I think you're rocking with it when we spoke last, but it sounds like maybe it's grown some legs and started to expand a bit more.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, they're solid.
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I love working with them.
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I've been done for like a decade at this point.
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And still working with uh with patients one-on-one too.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That's my that's my main focus, clinical.
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Uh, one question before we hop into the topic today about the performance stuff, which I'm really excited about talking about.
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Yeah, for sure.
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Anything in your practice that you've seen crop up more often in the last couple of years in terms of working with with people individually with their relationship with their sexuality, what's new in people's sex life?
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Yeah, it's a really good question.
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I would say a lot more interest in non-monogamy, which isn't surprising.
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Um new elements of um, we don't really have a good, more neutralized term.
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So I'm gonna kind of use a historical term, but more affairs, uh, sexual indiscretions as a result of technological use and abilities.
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And the ever never-ending, ever ongoing one of the battles I will take on clinically until I leave this planet is still this idea of this expectation on the male body to perform and function a certain way that very much lives outside of what is realistic and should truly be expected.
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That is the core of the conversation I'd like to talk with you about, man.
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What's fresh on the mind in that zone?
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Yeah.
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Well, it's not so much fresh, which hurts my heart because I was reflecting on this a couple hours ago.
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I was doing an interview for something, and I was telling this anecdote about how this could have been like 15 years ago.
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It's really hard to kind of place it in time, but I was speaking at a huge conference in New York City, and it was a sexological conference, using that in a very broad term.
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So it was doctors, therapists, sex uh toy and product vendors, and there were two top billings, and it was, you know, Dr.
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So-and-so talking about sexual dysfunctions, and at the same time was Dr.
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Chris Donahue talking about the myth of sexual dysfunctions.
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And I have the image in my head of the bow bull, and I was like, that's awesome.
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Yeah, and I was like that paper, yes, pay-per-view, and I was kind of like that that image is my career.
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And and here I am 15 years later, still in some ways preaching and promoting the same piece.
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I would say another thing that I'm putting a little more focus on is the um, so historically, I was very much someone who wanted to focus on the positive aspects of porn and pornography because clinically and culturally, all people did was talk about the negatives and everyone's a sex addict.
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And I just didn't want to be a part of that because there are some positive usage, usages, and and and there's a space for porn.
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Now I am actively looking also at some of the negatives of porn as a result of seeing a rising syndrome that we don't have a name for, born out of all of that.
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And and how would you describe the syndrome?
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What is it without the name?
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Oh my god.
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I shouldn't have said that because I knew you're gonna ask.
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Um so it's kind of a culmination of a couple threads of things.
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So, on one hand, I love that porn is um, well, let me go broad.
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So the positives of porn, I'll kind of start there and then like work my way in.
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Positives of porn are it gives people sexuality.
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And we have these things in our culture called uh desirability politics and market rate.
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And every culture has what they deem to be what is necessary to be perceived as desirable as a partner, relationally and sexually.
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And those don't change much culture to culture all through time periods.
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They're pretty common.
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So porn gives people that for whatever reason don't align with that access to sexuality.
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Not everyone is able to find partnered sex because of their body shape and size and their identity and all sorts of things, disability.
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Um, so for some people, that is their sex life in totality.
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For others, it's a really safe space for them to explore that which they either can't find a partner to engage in or they don't have the confidence to really seek that out.
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And so it's a very protected area for sexual exploration because you can try something and not have to really own whatever that might mean, especially in the realm of like homophobia, where I'm working with more and more heteroidentified men that do have an interest in transsexuality or um penises.
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And that's a really interesting thing.
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They aren't secretly gay, and we can talk about what that might even be about.
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So I love that.
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Um, it's also a place for people to just kind of like really raise their general sex positivity by encountering more sexuality because they might have a limited exposure.
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But then we move into what are the dark sides of that?
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Because for individuals, even that have a partner, that's a place where some people spend more time being sexual.
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And it creates unrealistic expectations still, even though everyone will say they know that there are specific people chosen to perform in porn and usage of medications and start-stop and all sorts of things.
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And so it still very much occupies a space in the male psyche and the female psyche as to what we expect a partner to look like and how they function.
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I can see you're thinking hard.
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Tell me what's coming up for you.
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Yeah, lots of stuff, man.
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Like that's one of the things that uh I was thinking about when I was kind of looking at thinking about our conversation together, is I know you've been porn positive and share a lot of really good stuff about that.
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And for those reasons, access for people, exploration for people that are wanting to know different different things about their own sexuality.
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But it's hard, especially in the in the perspective of this conversation being about removing the pressure to perform.
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And I'm wondering about if that negative outweighs it, to where you're like, you know, porn is because it's visually uh perceived, that's how you take it in, it's gonna be optimized for that.
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Like, you know, the WWE of pornography is what it is, right?
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So it's like it's hard to really see it as like a place for education and exploration, other than just pure exposure.
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Like if you think you might be into a certain thing and kind of watch it and check it out.
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Um, but I don't know.
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It's like it there, I in my opinion, man, that on top of the it being such a super stimulus that then retrains the brain to to passively receive sexuality instead of engaging and creating sexuality, that to me seems to be like one of the key parts of it.
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And to kind of expand on the use of that word passivity, it's also very much reinforcing, um, and I might want to clarify this, but it's very much reinforcing a very objectified relationship to sexuality because it isn't a real-time person.
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And so intimacy isn't present or required.
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And so people are practicing very distal, passive, objectified sexual engagement.
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So then when a real-time person emerges, it's a very different experience.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, a hundred percent.
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Uh that's one of the things that uh I think is really fascinating, just the idea that how you masturbate, how you solo pleasure is practice for sex.
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And so if you are just sitting in a chair and just kind of like um anxiously yanking at yourself uh vigorously while you just passively take in stimulation, you know, that's not really going to translate that well when you go to and meet with a real person.
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And that's the psychological lack of translation, right?
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But there's also the physical lack of translation, which is to mimic what you just did when people with penises masturbate, they held their, they hold traditionally, of course, they hold their pelvis still and they're using their hand or perhaps a sleeve.
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When you're penetrating a partner, it's the complete inverse.
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You are needing to use your pelvis in a very fluid back and forth way.
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So you are requiring a fluidity in your pelvic area that you are not practicing.
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And that's why it's also physically not transferable.
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And if you are training your nervous system to require a certain position or style to ejaculate, a human in a different form method as well is not going to be the same.
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Yeah.
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And what's really, I think that's such an important thing for people to understand is that, like you said, when you're training your nervous system to require a certain position and or type of stimulation, and even endless type of stimulation to such an intense degree, then you you're so needy sexually.
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Like you have such a specific specific way you need to be engaged with in order to um have a have a climax and enjoy pleasure that there's no space for the other person.
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There's no space for you guys to engage and play and allow the moment to expand.
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You really have to default to using them uh and kind of like including them on your own personal routine instead of playing together.
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Yeah.
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And then you can even push it even further because when you are practicing sex through masturbation, you are very much focused only on stimulation and release, period.
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That is the main goal.
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And so you're rapidly going through different forms of pornography, trying to find the highest threshold of release and pleasure.
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When you are with your partner, and perhaps your partner of 10, 15, 20 years is a very different experience and it can't match the same threshold.
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And so you have to be able to respond and enjoy a lower threshold.
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And perhaps it not being about stimulation, even, but more about connection, intimacy, pleasure.
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Because sometimes when you're stimulating yourself, you're even bypassing pleasure and you're just going for a strong hit.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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The idea that there are multiple different forms of pleasure is an interesting one to consider.
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Not that kind of sharp, like uh, yeah, like edging for hours is not a good thing to do for your body's sensitivity.
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It's just not a good thing.
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A hundred percent.
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100% a bad practice.
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You're you're and and the uh and the other piece to that is um, oh man, I I forgot to write it down because you just kind of triggered another thought in my mind about that.
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Um all that to say, and unless that thought comes back to me, is that knowing all of that, for someone who still, of course, wants to include porn to masturbation, there are ways to try to utilize it differently so as to not encounter all of those problems.
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Um and I think that's some of the clinical work I do with my clients because porn is still a very uh you know popular outlet for many people in our culture.
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Yeah.
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Uh I want to touch on the the nourishing aspect of sexuality and then come back to pornography and it being a super stimulus and potentially being uh people might be vulnerable for abuse with it in a way that rounds over sexuality.
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So um one cool thing that Alex A.
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Welsh uh shared with me on the podcast we shared together.
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I'm not sure you're familiar with him.
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I would definitely recommend checking out his YouTube channel, great guy.
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Teaches a lot of uh practice on how to refresh the idea of what it means to connect sexually.
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And um he kind of puts it in two buckets.
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He's like, you know, you can have sex for pleasure and entertainment, or you can have sex for nourishment, deep emotional nourishment.
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And that to me feels like the swap you're talking about, where the solo sex stuff is really more like a like the analogy comes to mind for me is like, you know, you set up the most incredible VR headset game set thing where there's a vibrating chair and it's all this incredible stimuli, but you're by yourself, versus playing checkers with someone you really, you really love and it's fun, it's interactive, it's not nearly as stimulating, but it's interactive and it nourishes you in a different way.
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Uh I I try not to, I don't want to organize it in a hierarchy because I feel like that immediately puts shame on lower levels, but that's definitely how how I think about it is that like you have, you know, the ways you can use sexual energy is like escapism, like you're not even turned on or horny.
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It has nothing to do with sexuality, more about just chasing the dopamine release of like doom scrumm with internet pornography or sex or people, and then real pleasure, and then some type of connection with people that nourishes your heart with the people.
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But make it even scarier because okay, please, let's do it.
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What you just said and what we put together historically already was troublesome for me as a clinician who works with oh, you left.
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I looked down and I looked up and I was by myself.
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I forget his podcast.
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We just, you know, it's fluid, it's casual, it's terrible.
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Um, you know, historically, that already was of concern, right?
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Because I I do a lot of couples therapy in addition to, you know, sex therapy and individual therapy.
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And a lot of the work is around compassion, you know, concern and understanding the impact on other intimacy.
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It's already a cultural issue.
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You have to now take what we just itemized as concerning and place it in the newer context of current culture, which is relationality is dipping already as a use of people using technology as a means to stay connected.
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And for some people, that is the main method of which they maintain relationality.
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Historically, you had to sit on the phone with someone and say, How are you?
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and spend some time with them.
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You perhaps met up with them.
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And now through FaceTime and texting and DMing, that is how some people, I'm a teenager, I'm watching how that is, how a lot of teens are maintaining over the course of their weekend their friendships.
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I, as a teenager, went out and saw them.
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We didn't have phones or cell phones.
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So we're already starting to build a culture that is objectifying, that is low tolerance of intimacy.
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And then you add the sexual piece.
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Um, and I'm seeing, see, I'm seeing more and more problems of narcissism coming in my office, low tolerance of intimacy.
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Um, it's it's concerning.
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And so again, the problem isn't like get rid of porn.
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That's not gonna happen, but let's be more thoughtful about our use of it and consider impact.
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Um, and kind of as you pointed out, trying to also just develop a better relationship with sexuality because I want people to approach their partner with a new mindset as well, which is where we come back to that performance piece, because sex isn't supposed to be a performance.
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Sex isn't supposed to be something you're doing for or to someone.
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Um, that's sex, maybe not eroticism.
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And my field uses those words at times to differentiate performative is more like you're trying to do this thing, sex.
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And then eroticism is more this embodying these other nourishing elements that we kind of talked about.
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Uh can you tell me more about that?
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That's interesting.
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The idea of so I'm talking uh at a past three or four years, I've been speaking at a lot of different professional conferences and really trying to get this concept out in the world called sexual bypassing.
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And it's it's very much looking at how a lot of people are becoming more sex positive, which is more of a like a horizontal, and they're more confident exploring and talking.
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Oh, I'm not monogamy, I'm bisexual, I'm exploring transsexuality, I'm exploring kink.
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Awesome.
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But we're not going deep.
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It's very mindless, it's very passive.
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And so we're using sex as a way to bypass actual eroticism.
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Um, people are reducing themselves down to labels.
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People, again, are so focused on functioning.
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My entire field of psychotherapy is moving towards a medical model, which is about fixing.
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It's not about insight, it's not about transformation, it's not about looking at why you are so focused on performance.
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It's not looking at why you aren't differentiated or confident enough to say there's nothing wrong with the way my body's functioning.
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Erectile dysfunctions is not a real thing.
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Uh, it's erectile disappointment.
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There is no right way for your body to function.
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Porn has given people a model that isn't accurate.
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Yeah.
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Well, when you said the medical model, you said that your whole entire work is trying to push against it?
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No.
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So the field of psychotherapy and psychology has historically, a lot of it anyway, has felt the need to validate itself by using medical terms and terminology to feel legitimate.
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And psychotherapy is truly an art and it's a philosophy.
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And we're not trying to cure and fix, we're not trying to conform, right?
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We're not trying to perform normative or normal.
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It should be philosophically, who am I and what's happening for me, and what do I need and what's right for me.
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So I'm going to these conferences, including the one I put on, and everyone just wants these quick, easy magic bullets, and they want to bypass using their sexuality to learn and to grow.
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I want partners to say to their partner, I'm going to back you off of shaming my penis and how it's functioning.
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Its functioning isn't about how much love or attraction I have for you, honey.
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It's very much dependent on other forces.
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And I have a tongue and I have fingers and we have toys, and we can have a beautiful sexuality that doesn't require me performing what I and you have been taught needs to happen for us to feel like we are healthy or a real couple.
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Yeah.
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There is uh so much juice there, man, for for especially guys to use.
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Because generally, I feel like guys have a hard time with this because like I feel like it's more obvious when a guy's not off for the moment.
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When you know you don't perform, you don't have an erection, you know, the game's over.
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And uh, you know, it can really feel like the cards are stacked on you.
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Um because we don't have a comparative model through which to perceive of any other way of being.
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The only model we have is what we see in porn, which is constant erections on demand, needed as long as possible, and then nothing else.
00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:45.200
Yeah.
00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:46.720
That's the hard part, man.
00:19:46.880 --> 00:20:07.119
About what that's the hard part about porn being about using pornography in your regular life, is like, you know, even if you go into it thinking, I know this is uh show and shams, I know this is uh the WWE of sex, but like you know, you then think I'm supposed to be able to just be a I think you used this term actually last time we talked a sexual gladiator.
00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:12.480
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, be a sexual gladiator, just yeah, the LeVar.
00:20:13.599 --> 00:20:15.359
That's it's not it's not real, man.
00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:38.720
And uh I think yeah, the uh the opportunity for connection, like sharing that moment of sensuality with somebody else is beautiful, it's so much more beautiful, so much more nourishing, and also too, the body starts to your body reacts so much better to sensuality when you are able to put it on the shelf and say, like, I'm not concerned with my erection.
00:20:38.799 --> 00:20:40.559
Like it whether it comes, it goes.
00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:55.839
Um But that's what we call a paradoxical intervention in my field, and that means that you actually have a higher likelihood of getting the erection you want and think you need when you take that off the table as what's required.
00:20:56.160 --> 00:21:06.000
Because if we look at it neurophysiologically, erections are the parasympathetic system, which requires safety, security, and calmness.
00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:07.759
People assume it's the opposite, right?
00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:10.079
You're aroused, it must be sympathetic.
00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:11.519
No, it's parasympathetic.
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:12.799
You need to be safe and calm.
00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:22.880
And if you're going in nervous, anxious, performative, thinking I need to get hard, I need to stay hard, you are turning on the wrong nervous system state that is actually, in fact, required.
00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:33.119
And so by backing off and saying, I'm here to do nothing but enjoy you, I'm going to use my tongue, I'm gonna use my fingers, I'm gonna use toys, we're gonna engage in full body sexuality.
00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:34.319
Yeah, get there.
00:21:35.039 --> 00:21:49.519
And even too, like um, I'm gonna pay really close attention to how my body feels in this time together and what feels really good on my skin, even the sheets that I'm laying in, or the temperature of the room, or the sounds of your voice.
00:21:49.759 --> 00:21:51.039
And just be with that.
00:21:51.119 --> 00:21:54.240
And whatever happens as a byproduct will happen as a byproduct of that.
00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:55.039
Yes.
00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:59.599
Because what you just talked about, I think is something we need culturally anywhere.
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:05.839
Anyway, and there's this uh smaller part of the sexological field called pleasure activism.
00:22:05.920 --> 00:22:07.680
You you probably won't hear much about it.
00:22:07.839 --> 00:22:08.960
And it's what you just said.
00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:18.960
It's really trying to say, let me center pleasure not just in my sexuality, which is to back off of performance because my penis isn't needed for pleasure, uh, penetration isn't needed for pleasure.
00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:20.799
My entire body's in erogenous zone.
00:22:20.960 --> 00:22:25.759
My entire body, when touched, licked, fondled, has the capacity to give me pleasure.
00:22:25.920 --> 00:22:27.920
But it also is about how do I feel in my clothing?
00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:29.279
How do I feel in the bed sheets?
00:22:29.440 --> 00:22:30.720
What is the environment around me like?
00:22:30.799 --> 00:22:32.079
Do I need to change the music?
00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:32.880
What do I smell?
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:33.759
What do I hear?
00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:35.759
Like really just centering pleasure.
00:22:35.839 --> 00:22:38.720
And the profound impact got on me is I started dressing differently.
00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:43.839
I was like, I'm wearing fitted dress shirts that I feel awkward and tightened.
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:45.440
I'm not doing that anymore.
00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:49.279
I'm wearing pants that aren't comfortable because of the material or shoes.
00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:51.279
And I started dressing more casual, right?
00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:56.240
So it's like this generalized sense of just center pleasure in totality.
00:22:56.559 --> 00:23:02.799
But the antidote is in backing off of that idea that there's something I'm here and I need to do.
00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:15.839
But you also are going to need to educate your partners on that because women are some of the worst enforcers because of their own anxiety, thinking your erection is how much you love or are attracted to me, and it is not.
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:18.240
And they create an unsafe environment.
00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:19.200
So much.
00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:19.920
Yeah.
00:23:20.559 --> 00:23:22.079
It has nothing to do with you, honey.
00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:23.039
It's just my body.
00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:23.920
Like that's right.
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:29.279
And they're their sexual system anatomically is internal.
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:37.200
And so they aren't aware of the healthy ebbs and flows of the arousal system because they don't have an externalized indicator like a penis.
00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:39.519
And so they're not familiar with that.
00:23:39.839 --> 00:23:52.160
That's another thing that I think is so important for especially guys to hear is that sexual, like the flow of sexual energy, the flow of eroticism in a moment, there's this natural ebb and flow to it.
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:53.599
It is this natural wave.
00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:58.319
So you're going to feel this nice, strong energy and passion, and enjoyment.
00:23:58.640 --> 00:24:03.920
And then the the rest, you know, your receptivity is going to kind of close in a little bit.
00:24:04.079 --> 00:24:07.039
The constant friction is going to create kind of a numbing effect, if anything.
00:24:07.119 --> 00:24:09.519
And so you've got to pull back to refine.
00:24:09.599 --> 00:24:19.519
And that's the that's the subtlety that I feel like is really important for us to bring to our partners as lovers is when there is less pleasure and less sensation, reground it.
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:21.359
Like let's bring it back to a slow tempo.
00:24:21.599 --> 00:24:22.640
Let's settle back in.
00:24:22.720 --> 00:24:30.480
Let's pause for a bit until we feel that resensitivity come back in instead of trying to add more stimulation to try to create it.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:31.440
I love that.
00:24:31.519 --> 00:24:35.759
I think Julie, not Julie Allen, uh Sex with Emily, Emily Germasky.
00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:36.880
What's her last name?
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:37.839
Sex with Emily.
00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:40.799
Ah, Emily Morse.
00:24:41.039 --> 00:24:45.119
She uh in one of her books that she wrote, she describes pleasure as a cat.
00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:47.519
You know, you gotta let it come to you.
00:24:47.839 --> 00:24:55.279
Oh, beautifully said, and beautifully what you said, because yeah, when people are anxious and not getting the erection they think they need, you're right.
00:24:55.359 --> 00:24:57.759
They do they go for harder, faster, more.
00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:58.319
The end.
00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:00.079
And it's what you say.
00:25:00.400 --> 00:25:04.240
You need to slow down, go slower.
00:25:04.400 --> 00:25:13.440
I mean, I mean, one of the number one problems also is a lot of men aren't even aware that arousal isn't so black or white.
00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:23.359
They often attempt to engage in penetrative sex when they're not at total arousal level 10, and they're at like a six or a seven because they move so quick, they're so anxious, they want to get it in there.
00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:29.440
It's like, no, slow down, let it build more, let it build more, right?
00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:32.480
It's emotional and psychological, it's not just physical.
00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:35.359
Let those levels emerge.
00:25:35.680 --> 00:25:44.799
Also, even though we're honoring the backing off and backing down and slowing down, there's still a piece of stop being so penis-obsessed.
00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:46.400
What are your hands doing?
00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:49.839
What is your mouth doing while you're penetrating or not?
00:25:50.079 --> 00:25:54.559
Add other senses to spike more psychological arousal too, or physically.
00:25:55.359 --> 00:26:00.000
And by doing that, you're gonna you're gonna really move into a place where you're feeling more.
00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:04.640
Now you're feeling with your body, you're focused on feeling instead of focusing on performing.
00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:24.960
And then what creates what creates the arousal, the feeling, the perception of the and so and and that's one thing too that I think is important is that you know, pleasure, the ability to perceive pleasure is a skill set in a way, like it's a practice of sorts, much like meditation is a practice.
00:26:25.039 --> 00:26:30.400
You can close your eyes and sit for a second and think you grasp tranquility and peace, not so much in the same way.
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:41.119
Like if when you masturbate, if when you have sex, if when you sit outside in the sun and drink a cup of coffee, if you sit calmly and say, Where does this feel good in my body?
00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:43.759
And can I really attune myself to those feelings?
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:47.680
That translates tremendously to sex because then you have this developed sense of intro.
00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:54.720
I think it's interception, anybody it's feeling fun, yes, interoception and interception, yes.
00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:58.720
Um, and that requires a lot of confidence, though.
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:09.440
Because when a lot of people are sitting with their partner, especially a new partner, you have to have that confidence to do that, to really slow down and be in the moment.
00:27:09.680 --> 00:27:15.359
And you at times are going to have to settle yourself down and back off and settle your partner down.
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:27.759
And so that's why I tell my clients sometimes the best way to approach it is perhaps what you just said, where we work on it in a safer, easier, non-sexual context, working on saying, how does that feel?
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:33.119
And being more in your body and being more in the environment and saying, like, what do I hear?
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:34.400
What do I smell?
00:27:34.559 --> 00:27:37.200
What do I, and then moving it into the sexual realm.
00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:45.119
But a lot of this work will require at times a buy-in with your partner, or not always doable in hookup culture.
00:27:45.279 --> 00:27:50.160
I have a lot of guys that come to me and they're like, Yeah, you know, I'm hooking up these girls, and I'm I just want to be able to bang them out.
00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:51.599
And I'm like, not gonna happen.
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:52.799
Just that mindset.
00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:59.279
You're bypassing pleasure and you're going for a performance route, and that will never work because you're in the wrong nervous system state.
00:27:59.440 --> 00:28:02.880
You're not allowing these psychological and emotional elements to be there.
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:04.880
Uh, can some people do that?
00:28:05.039 --> 00:28:07.279
Sure, but maybe not you.
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:09.839
And you might need more intimate relational sex.
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:15.440
And too, it doesn't respect sexuality as something like a separate entity of sorts that you're interacting with.
00:28:15.519 --> 00:28:20.640
Like your own sexuality, you have a relationship with your sexuality in some way, shape, or form.
00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:26.079
If you want to have a healthy relationship with your sexuality, you're kind of implying that it's not directly under your control.
00:28:26.319 --> 00:28:36.960
You have, you know, so like to say, I have a goal for this, I want to go out and just, you know, get hard, stay hard, and be hard with whoever I want as long as I want, uh, and perform well to get this.
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:40.240
I don't know, they're gonna applause you and you know, like tell you the greatest or something.
00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:41.839
I'm not sure what you're going for there.
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:49.519
But uh, it doesn't give you the opportunity to experience these unique experiences of sensuality that your own sensuality has to offer you.
00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:57.519
Where, you know, how much better is it to walk out of a lovemaking session and say, like, that was really that kind of blew my mind.
00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:06.960
I I didn't even really I have very few words to say what just happened and how that went for me, versus going in there and things going according to plan.
00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:07.680
That's right.
00:29:07.759 --> 00:29:08.079
That's right.
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:20.400
And that's why, and that's why the porn masturbation piece is so important because as we you kind of called it, you're practicing why don't we start to practice that which would better serve us in partnered sexuality as well?
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:34.559
And that's where the better use of porn and masturbation comes in, where slow down, see how it feels, be be in your body by acknowledging the body, by actually feeling your body and put less focus on what you're looking at.
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:37.200
Perhaps ready for this one, it's gonna blow your mind.
00:29:37.359 --> 00:29:39.680
Maybe try masturbating without porn.
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:44.880
And then you are fully in your body, you are fully in, you know.
00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:46.880
We just lost all of our listeners, Chris.
00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:47.519
I'm sorry, bro.
00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:53.680
Man, that's so part of it.
00:29:53.839 --> 00:29:54.640
Yeah, too.
00:29:54.799 --> 00:29:58.480
Like you're if your body, I mean, this is one of the most fascinating things to me.
00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:02.720
The everything you want to feel, my man, is in your body.
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:15.039
All the feelings you want to have, even to like this, might be a little bit too far out there, but like you know, what you're chasing with your eyes is kind of just a symbolic reminder of this sensual energy that you're hoping it evokes inside.
00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:22.480
So you just you're chasing down what you have lost disconnected with, and the further the harder you chase is just kind of representing your lack of connection inside.
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:24.559
So let's just go back to yourself.
00:30:24.799 --> 00:30:25.200
That's right.
00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:27.920
Yeah, you can't you can't uh that's that's another thing that Alex A.
00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:32.799
Welsh talked about that was really, really helpful uh to learn about just intensity has a dead end, man.
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:42.480
Like if you're trying to add in more tabs, more HD, more stimulation, more like harder, more intense, at some point you habituate to that, you can't get no further.
00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:46.799
100%, but that's unfortunately what our culture pushes us towards.
00:30:47.039 --> 00:31:03.200
Um, when you look at the studies, and again, forgive me for those that are in in film because this is not the right verbiage, but they're starting to use it's there's there's some word or formula to how often they need to do camera movements and shots to keep someone paying attention.
00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:05.680
They don't do a tight shot on one scene for a long period of time.
00:31:05.759 --> 00:31:07.119
It's pop, pop, pop, pop.
00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:14.720
They're amping it up more and more because people are finding it boring and slow if it's not constantly new shots.
00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:16.880
That is overloading us.
00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:22.400
That is so much pleasure seeking that I'm worried, we're going in the wrong direction.
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:29.440
And that's why I decided like I have to start talking more about pornography, and I'm putting together a course, it's for clinicians.
00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:46.480
I guess anyone would be able to attend, kind of around how to clinically start to incorporate what we're talking about and kind of reorient because again, most people's sexuality is being practiced through pornography and masturbation, and culture is just putting us in this direction of more, faster, harder, and it's horrifying.
00:31:46.799 --> 00:31:47.599
It's really hard.
00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:48.720
It's really, really hard to do that.
00:31:48.880 --> 00:32:00.640
One of my uh one of the tips that I think is really helpful for the performance anxiety stuff is uh when you're masturbating, take a break and go get a snack mid-masturbation.
00:32:00.799 --> 00:32:02.480
Go and make a cup of coffee.
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:05.359
Like uh, if the room is a little too cold, turn it down.
00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:07.279
If you want a certain blanket, go get it.
00:32:07.359 --> 00:32:12.799
Like, you know, don't feel like you're chained to this arousal that you've conjured up.
00:32:13.039 --> 00:32:16.319
Train it to not need so much constant stimulation to stay up to.
00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:16.960
100%.
00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:19.359
Use your other hand on your body.
00:32:19.599 --> 00:32:19.920
Yeah.
00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:24.000
Men men forget they have a body, men forget their whole body's around.
00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:28.400
I I do this exercise, it comes out of a sexological world.
00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:34.240
It's called body mapping, and it's in service of looking at where body shame exists and sex shame and trauma.
00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:37.119
And they basically draw a body, a stick figure.
00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:42.960
And I'll say, circle the parts of your body that you're comfortable having looked at and engaged sexually.
00:32:43.279 --> 00:32:47.759
What do you think it is that the bulk of men circle the penis area?
00:32:47.839 --> 00:32:51.599
And you're like, don't look up my penis.
00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:59.119
Notice the entire vast geography of your body that goes unengaged, but has the capacity.
00:32:59.359 --> 00:33:04.720
Why do we have such a reduced down space of comfort?
00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:14.480
Homophobia, toxic masculinity, masculinity, femme phobia, heterocentricity, all these norms that can strict us down to the penis area, which again works against us.
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:16.640
So when you're masturbating, touch other parts of your body.
00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:18.319
I'll tell them use a vibrator on yourself.
00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:19.599
They're like, what do you mean, anal?
00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:30.720
No, using a vibrator on your shaft, using a vibrator on your balls, using a vibrator, rubbing your thigh while you're masturbating, incorporating different sensations and feelings, expanding.
00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:34.000
And bruh, too, here so like why?
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:47.279
Because if you so like, if you are a guy having sex with women, that's their bodies, their bodies are like alive and and have so much more nerve endings.
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:55.200
So if you want to be a good lover, bruh, you gotta be versatile, you have to be able to luxuriate in sensations of the body.
00:33:55.359 --> 00:33:57.359
Your skin needs to be sensitive to the point of raw.
00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:01.440
So the lover luxuriate, yes, luxuriate, my fan.
00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:04.960
So, like you gotta while you're out there, man, drag your fingers, dog.
00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:05.759
You know what I'm saying?
00:34:05.839 --> 00:34:06.880
Don't jump right to the disc.
00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:08.639
Nah, it's not that yet.
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:09.440
It's not that yet.
00:34:09.599 --> 00:34:09.920
I agree.
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:12.800
You're training yourself to be at a different pace than the lovers.
00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:16.559
If you're having sex with women, you're training yourself to be a different pace than the lovers you're acting with.
00:34:17.119 --> 00:34:21.039
And uh it's a disservice, it is, yeah.
00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:24.880
Um and and and like we said, it's it's it's getting worse.
00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:41.760
Um, and I sometimes, when I'm at these conferences or I lecture a lot and I teach at some different schools at times, and like when I say some of this, you should see the looks you get because it's so it sounds so traditional or outdated, and I do want us to go backwards in that way.
00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:47.039
The fact that you're being called traditional and outdated is blowing my mind right now, but it's so true because you're like listening to the case.
00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:49.599
Never would have thought in my life, right?
00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:56.239
Um the punk rock 19-year-old in me pushing on all the boundaries, his mind is blown.
00:34:56.480 --> 00:34:58.320
Um, but you were gonna take us somewhere.
00:34:58.400 --> 00:34:59.280
Where did your thinking go?
00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:08.880
You're about to just I just like the the whole conversation we're having around this today centers around the idea of entertainment versus connection, because I think that's really, really important.
00:35:09.039 --> 00:35:19.360
And I think it's nice to know that, like, you know, there's nothing wrong with um sexual entertainment, you know, there's nothing wrong with using the WWE to watch it and be like, that's just crazy.
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:24.639
Like that's right, but it's it's just about being able to play from both sides of the fence.
00:35:24.800 --> 00:35:26.239
Can you swap gears?
00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:27.679
That's exactly it.
00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:30.639
Have a full range of skill set, right?
00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:35.039
Because if we only have one option, you don't have choice, you're limited.
00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:46.639
Have all the abilities, and then you're actively choosing because there is a world in which using sex as a coping mechanism because you had a hard day is very positive and okay if you have other resources, right?
00:35:46.800 --> 00:35:55.280
It's okay to use the signs of self-soothe, it's okay to use the signs for needed ego enhancement, but I don't want that to always be the process, and I don't want you to be that limited.
00:35:55.360 --> 00:35:56.559
And so that's what I say to my clients.
00:35:56.639 --> 00:36:02.480
I say to them, I just want you to have a full range of skills and capacities, and then you're truly able to go in and out.
00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:09.280
Because through the stages of our lives or the stages of our lives with a partner and sexuality, we're going to need that.
00:36:09.519 --> 00:36:22.639
Um, our bodies are gonna change, we're gonna take medications and they're gonna limit our erectile functioning, they're gonna limit the use of certain parts of our body, they're gonna limit the positions we can be in because our knees get bad, our backs get bad, our partners' backs get bad.
00:36:22.800 --> 00:36:25.039
Like we need that through the lifespan.
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:26.800
You have to think long haul.
00:36:26.960 --> 00:36:47.519
And one of the one of the stats I heard early on in my career, probably 20 years ago, 15 years ago, was through a urologist who I respect at UCLA, and he was saying, and it still remains true, every decade, like when we're in our 30s to 40s to 50s, expect for a healthy penis another 10% increase in disappointments with your erections.
00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:50.639
So when you're in your 50s, half the time it's not gonna do what you want.
00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:51.199
That's healthy.
00:36:51.280 --> 00:36:53.679
That is not erectile dysfunction, like the commercials tell you.
00:36:53.840 --> 00:36:57.280
In your 60s, 60% of the time that bad boy's not gonna work the way you want.
00:36:57.440 --> 00:36:59.599
Even with meds, listen to this one.
00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:00.880
I don't know if everyone knows this.
00:37:01.039 --> 00:37:07.360
Even with meds, if the psychological emotional that we're talking about isn't robust or in play, it will override the pill you're taking.
00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:13.519
Those pills, the viagras, and they're gonna start expanding, are not bulletproof.
00:37:13.679 --> 00:37:16.239
Number one, you still need to get aroused.
00:37:16.320 --> 00:37:18.079
They maintain the blood.
00:37:18.239 --> 00:37:21.440
You have to get aroused, they help you stay aroused once to round once aroused.
00:37:21.519 --> 00:37:22.880
You still have to get yourself aroused.
00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:23.519
Number one.
00:37:23.760 --> 00:37:27.920
Number two, the emotional psychological can override them at any time.
00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:30.480
And number three, you're shaming your body.
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:34.239
It's body negative, it's sex negative, and through the duration of your life, expect more of that.
00:37:34.400 --> 00:37:34.880
Normalize that.
00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:38.400
I tell the younger guys that get familiar, having more fluidity.
00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:40.800
You are going, your penis is gonna let you down, it's supposed to.
00:37:41.039 --> 00:37:44.480
Yeah, and I know we're hanging out a lot on the um erectile disappointment stuff.
00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:54.639
And I guess it's a good thing for the conversation because, like uh, two, bro, the moment don't stop because you because your wreck is kind of you know deflating a bit.
00:37:54.719 --> 00:38:00.400
Like, and I just I've noticed in my own personal life, the more I'm okay with that, the easier it is to get back.
00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:03.280
The more I don't get impressed, it's just luxuriate.
00:38:05.440 --> 00:38:08.079
Luxuriate, man, and enjoy the time.
00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:11.760
You get to a point, man, where you're so gangster, you let that shit go on purpose, you know what I'm saying?
00:38:11.840 --> 00:38:13.280
Because you're not worried about it.
00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:14.559
That's your goal.
00:38:15.199 --> 00:38:17.440
You let it go on purpose.
00:38:17.679 --> 00:38:18.239
That's funny.
00:38:18.320 --> 00:38:19.039
I like that.
00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:19.760
That's good.
00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.960
Then you got then you then you have a ride, you know, when you're like, you know, so that might be an intentional practice, something like it.
00:38:25.039 --> 00:39:01.199
Really just swap it up, maybe go to a place where you're giving that person pleasure, you're not focusing on yourself, and you let it go, and then you might give that person a really nice moment when they're like, you know, like, oh, like you still want to whatever, and you're like, I'm good, you know, like I and I think another part of that too is is, and I think a lot of people when you hear this, is that the enjoyment of sex is not just the ejaculation at the end, it's like, and the more you move all of your focus to just that sharp pleasure ejaculation, or like David Data calls it, the sneeze of the genitals, like you you lose all the pleasure and all the enjoyment that happens all throughout.
00:39:01.360 --> 00:39:12.800
And I think that I mean, this might be the most uh challenging thing we might pose to guys in this conversation, but like have sex where you don't ejaculate one time, just try that, or you just go like I just enjoy this.
00:39:12.880 --> 00:39:18.000
And the the analogy comes to mind to me is like it'd be like rushing through a delicious meal just to feel full.
00:39:18.159 --> 00:39:19.599
You missed all the flavors, fam.
00:39:19.760 --> 00:39:20.320
The whole experience.
00:39:20.719 --> 00:39:34.480
Yeah, some of the interventions we use in sex therapy are taking orgasm off the table or taking penetration off the table so as to enhance confidence and uh find the joy and pleasure in not having to utilize those things, right?
00:39:34.559 --> 00:39:36.960
Because that's the bypassing when you're going in there, right?
00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:42.159
For and there's other psychological pieces that show up in that.
00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:54.719
Because I'm first and foremost a psychotherapist, I'm always thinking in terms of psychological growth and transformation and um levels of differentiation, intimacy tolerance, narcissism.
00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:57.039
Do you perceive your partners to be objects?
00:39:57.199 --> 00:40:04.800
If they're working on making them more of a subject and more of a person, then we definitely want to slow down and be in our body and take in that there's a person there.
00:40:04.960 --> 00:40:12.719
So there's like all these interesting peripheral psychotherapeutic resources that are also at play in this moment.
00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:25.280
Um, and it's kind of outside the scope of what we're talking about, but yes to everything we're talking about, all to say that there's more going on than just the erotic in what we're talking about, possibly having people do more of.
00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:27.039
There's so much more growth in that.
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:27.920
What's that?
00:40:28.239 --> 00:40:29.679
What are you bringing up right now?
00:40:31.119 --> 00:40:36.320
Well, one of the things I do a lot of couples' work, like I said.
00:40:36.639 --> 00:40:46.079
And when I'm watching uh healthy communication and couples conflict, one of the number one stances that people take is they turn on each other.
00:40:46.239 --> 00:40:51.199
And they they go from Martin Buber is this, I think he's German, a German philosopher.
00:40:51.360 --> 00:40:58.239
And a lot of psychoanalytic theory is born out of some of his work on this concept called I it versus I thou relationships.
00:40:58.400 --> 00:41:06.159
And really the simplicity of it all is just do you move through the world perceiving others as having a subjectivity or do you objectify them?
00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:15.840
And in a lot of couples conflict, they turn their partner into an enemy and they lose contact with the fact that they have feelings and how you approach what you're trying to say matters.
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:20.880
Um, and understanding that they have an entire inner world that might not be aligned with what you need.
00:41:21.039 --> 00:41:32.400
And I see that mirrored in sexuality when they're focused on penetration and and their self-esteem is tied to that, and they're not taking in the fact that there's a person.
00:41:32.559 --> 00:41:38.960
And so there's just like this deeper work on other levels that comes into how someone has sex with someone.
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:55.920
And that's why we look at a lot of times as to like, for instance, if we look at like mindful masturbation, which is one of the things I work with clients on so as to have a healthy relationship to all this, I'll say to them, before you have masturbation or sex with someone, ask yourself why.
00:41:56.320 --> 00:41:58.239
Why am I about to have sex with my partner?
00:41:58.480 --> 00:42:03.280
Please don't think that because it's your girlfriend or wife that it's inherently healthy or coming from a healthy place.
00:42:03.519 --> 00:42:06.239
Are you having sex because that's the only way you know how to stay connected?
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:09.920
Because you're not connected on any other levels, that's interesting and good to know.
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:17.199
Are you having sex out of anxiety because you feel compelled to because your partner's self-worth is tied to the fact that you want to fuck them all the time?
00:42:17.440 --> 00:42:19.199
That's important to work on and to know.
00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:21.360
Are you masturbating because you're lonely?
00:42:21.519 --> 00:42:22.559
Maybe connect with a person.
00:42:22.639 --> 00:42:24.239
Are you masturbating because you're bored?
00:42:24.320 --> 00:42:26.480
Maybe let's work on finding joy in other areas of your life.
00:42:26.639 --> 00:42:32.480
There's deeper psychological things in there that I don't want to just bypass by saying, let's get hard, stay hard, and fuck her, right?
00:42:32.559 --> 00:42:32.800
Yeah.
00:42:33.039 --> 00:42:39.039
And so, like, there's I just want to um grab on to bypassing because that's the concept you bring up.
00:42:39.119 --> 00:42:49.440
And I feel like I'm half understanding it when you talk about like uh move around all the beautiful stuff that's coming up out of the soul that has to do with your own eroticism, jump into the outcome.
00:42:49.519 --> 00:42:50.320
Is that what we're talking about here?
00:42:50.800 --> 00:43:10.719
Yes, beautifully said, beautifully said, beautifully said, because what it's piggybacking on is there's um so when I was like 16, 17, 18, it was a long time ago, I fell into Eastern philosophy and it became a really powerful compass and anchor for me at this very rebellious punk rock time of my life.
00:43:10.960 --> 00:43:31.199
Like yeah, yeah, Buddhism, and then it bumped into a little bit of Hinduism, but Buddhism, um, this is back in like, you know, 1995, 1996, and I was thankful for it because my life was gonna go in one of two directions when I was living in the East Village in Manhattan at this point in my life, and it went in the it went for good.
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:38.880
Um, so there's this concept in that world a little bit called spiritual bypassing.
00:43:39.039 --> 00:43:54.320
And it's really looking at how, especially in LA where I live, that some people will use spiritual concepts not as a way to actually transform and become a better person, but as a way to bypass that and to instead reinforce and become a horrible person, right?
00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:57.119
In service of ego versus soul work, right?
00:43:57.199 --> 00:43:58.320
You're like, you get it.
00:43:58.480 --> 00:43:59.679
This is the sexual version of.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:08.400
That bypassing is to not use your sexuality to really drop into self and pleasure, but using it as a technology to subvert.
00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:18.559
And to like just having the warm curiosity towards yourself to be interested in what comes up.
00:44:18.800 --> 00:44:33.280
And like you know, you mentioned earlier with psychotherapy, we're not trying to, I'm not a psychotherapist, but the idea we're not trying to cure anything, like Thomas, Thomas More in the book The Care of the Soul, like it's just psyche therapy, care for the soul in a way that you're not gonna solve anything.
00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:38.719
In that book, you talked about caring for the soul in a way that you care for someone who has a terminal illness.
00:44:38.800 --> 00:44:41.920
Like you don't wish to solve it, you're just there to be with it as it moves through.
00:44:42.159 --> 00:44:51.360
Like you're not gonna, you're not gonna be, you're not gonna contort yourself into the perfect performance person that you would give yourself an A plus rating that you want to be.
00:44:51.519 --> 00:44:55.440
You are multifaceted with so much texture, so many dimensions.
00:44:55.599 --> 00:45:04.880
And the pleasure to really be had is in that of discovering who you are and all of its uniqueness, not in trying to get yourself to be who you want yourself to be.
00:45:05.119 --> 00:45:05.519
Yes.
00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:16.480
And I believe it's him, and I believe it might be him in that book who uses these terms to make a distinguished to distinguish between those two positions of sex versus eroticism.
00:45:16.559 --> 00:45:21.679
That sex is that performative, functional, get it up, get it in, you know, job to do.
00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:29.280
Is that erotic is that soul to use your word, warm, luxuriating?
00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:34.960
I have nothing, I'm not here to do anything but to be with and to connect and to find pleasure, and there's no right way.
00:45:35.119 --> 00:45:40.239
And that those two words really speak to sex is the bypassing of the eroticism.
00:45:40.400 --> 00:45:42.159
But why are we afraid of eroticism?
00:45:42.239 --> 00:45:43.840
Because that's the psychotherapy again.
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:48.639
What is hard for you in imagining all the things that we're talking about doing?
00:45:48.800 --> 00:45:50.000
What does that say?
00:45:50.239 --> 00:45:50.480
Right?
00:45:50.639 --> 00:45:52.800
And let's make meaning out of that.
00:45:53.119 --> 00:46:01.039
Almost like to use this word again, bypassing is also when we get hung up on labels like I'm a dom, I'm a sub.
00:46:01.519 --> 00:46:02.239
No, you're not.
00:46:02.320 --> 00:46:05.039
You're most comfortable with one of those positions.
00:46:05.280 --> 00:46:08.719
You might have the habit of so believe that that's who you are.
00:46:08.880 --> 00:46:11.519
That's a bypass in the fact that you have all the abilities.
00:46:11.679 --> 00:46:15.840
What makes you so afraid of being more passive with your female partner?
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:19.840
What makes you afraid of being more dominant with your male partner as a female?
00:46:20.239 --> 00:46:22.000
Like, what is that anxiety about?
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:26.239
Let's look at that, let's heal that, let's work through that because we're all all of these things.
00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:27.840
We all can give, we all can receive.
00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:31.199
I want men to be more receiving at times, more passive at times.
00:46:31.360 --> 00:46:34.159
I want women to be willing to be more dominant, right?
00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:35.840
That's all we all have all that in us.
00:46:35.920 --> 00:46:38.239
So I think he makes that distinction perhaps too.
00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:41.039
That's such a wonderful thing, Chris.
00:46:41.280 --> 00:47:02.159
Like you want to give yourself the permission and the luxury of experiencing all different wonderful forms of sensuality and sexuality without attaching it to the sense of I'm supposed to be the one in control here, I'm supposed to be one who's, you know, leading the moment, I'm supposed to be one who's doing any type of uh doing.
00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:04.000
Instead, what if you relaxed a bit?
00:47:04.079 --> 00:47:08.000
What if you allowed your partner to take the lead, especially for guys that could be really challenging?
00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:18.639
But there's a different kind of like, do you think you're not giving your partner, if you're the one who's being uh kind of the dominant, do you think you're not giving your partner a really wonderful experience?
00:47:18.800 --> 00:47:22.000
If you think it's so wonderful, why don't you swap sides and receive it?
00:47:22.159 --> 00:47:31.840
Because if you think you're really giving it, it feels nice to be able to let loose and to open your heart and to allow someone to really care for you and to lead the moment and to direct the moment, then get on the other side of that.
00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:35.679
And that's only going to make you a better lover, too, because you'll be able to see from both sides of the coin.
00:47:35.840 --> 00:47:49.679
And if you're when you when you were when you were physically demonstrating that, oh, you know, I'm a dude and I have to the what I feel in my body when I'm also thinking that way is I feel like tight and tense.
00:47:49.760 --> 00:47:56.719
And that again is the wrong nervous system state that we need to be in in order to even get erect, because erections are parasympathetic.
00:47:56.800 --> 00:48:00.800
We need to actually be soft and calm and connected.
00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:02.719
That is the antithesis of this.
00:48:02.800 --> 00:48:04.159
I'm gonna fuck you.
00:48:04.320 --> 00:48:14.320
Like that is the wrong nervous system that works for some people, but for the people that are struggling with penetrative sex and staying hard and getting hard, you're in the wrong nervous system state.
00:48:14.559 --> 00:48:18.320
Try taking your time, letting your arousal go to a 10.
00:48:18.400 --> 00:48:20.800
Just because you're hard and erect doesn't mean you're at a 10.
00:48:20.960 --> 00:48:22.000
Go slower.
00:48:22.159 --> 00:48:22.480
Yeah.
00:48:22.719 --> 00:48:24.480
And try to make sure you feel safe.
00:48:24.559 --> 00:48:28.639
In a lot of hookup culture, there isn't safety because I don't know you.
00:48:28.800 --> 00:48:30.239
We're here for one thing.
00:48:30.480 --> 00:48:33.280
I want to impress you, and that is tense.
00:48:33.519 --> 00:48:35.440
That is constricting.
00:48:35.599 --> 00:48:38.000
That is not the state we want to start from.
00:48:38.400 --> 00:48:54.559
So interesting that it's just so interesting that you know, there is a degree of uh like some people may have that in hookups, some people have that immediate sense of dropping into the body, feel really comfortable, feeling really confident, and then some other people need that to need in a relationship to feel that sense of safety and security.
00:48:54.960 --> 00:48:58.559
Uh, it just gives another coin in the jar of like having a really great partner to be with.
00:48:58.719 --> 00:49:06.800
Uh, I think I think I'm starting to understand something I was gonna ask you about, which is um a couple like two things you mentioned.
00:49:06.960 --> 00:49:11.679
One, sex is for some people, sex is guided by their by their anxiety management.
00:49:12.079 --> 00:49:15.440
And you also mentioned that we have sex up until our level of development.
00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:16.559
Development, yes.
00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:31.840
Are you referring to the idea that like you know you're having sex within the constraints of what you're comfortable with doing, not in the sense of like uh it's a real embodied no, where you're like, I tried that and it just was a no for me, but you're just like that ain't me, bro.
00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:32.559
I ain't trying to do that.
00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:35.920
I'm gonna stay in this box, yes.
00:49:36.480 --> 00:49:40.480
Because it makes me anxious to be in anything but that box.
00:49:41.199 --> 00:49:41.840
I think so.
00:49:42.800 --> 00:49:47.760
It's not a good decision, you'll have a choice, like you said, and that's that bypassing again.
00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:49.920
You're not being in your authentic true self.
00:49:50.079 --> 00:49:55.199
Most so the the soundbite is for those that aren't with me and you, because we've sat before.
00:49:55.440 --> 00:50:05.199
Um most people having sex up their level development means they're having a sex that they can tolerate because anything other than what they're doing would make them a little too anxious.
00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:08.880
And so they're just doing what's within the realm of what they're confident in.
00:50:09.039 --> 00:50:09.920
That's horrible.
00:50:10.079 --> 00:50:12.159
That's limiting, that's rigid.
00:50:12.320 --> 00:50:16.880
That's that's not great mentally, but that's also just not great performatively.
00:50:17.119 --> 00:50:19.760
Let's ask ourselves, why is that what I need?
00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:22.079
What part of me needs it to be that way?
00:50:22.239 --> 00:50:24.159
Why don't I have the capacity to be other than?
00:50:24.239 --> 00:50:25.760
What would it mean if I slowed down?
00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:29.039
What would it mean if I told my partner we're not gonna have penetrative sex?
00:50:29.280 --> 00:50:32.800
What would it mean if I took a more passive role versus a more dominant role?
00:50:32.960 --> 00:50:36.880
Like that's that's the anxiety management, and that's a horrible way to approach anything.
00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:38.880
But that's also the antithesis of pleasure.
00:50:39.039 --> 00:50:41.119
Pleasure is looseness, pleasure is flow.
00:50:41.199 --> 00:50:44.800
Pleasure is I don't know where we're going or what we're doing, but here we are.
00:50:45.119 --> 00:50:45.360
Yeah.
00:50:45.599 --> 00:50:45.920
Right?
00:50:46.159 --> 00:50:46.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:50:47.039 --> 00:50:58.719
That's that's like a what a cool ideal to aim at the idea that let's see if you can have intimacy with someone where you you really don't have much idea what's about to happen next.
00:50:58.960 --> 00:50:59.280
Yes.
00:50:59.519 --> 00:51:05.360
And then you're you're being moved by this energy in your body that almost has a life of its own.
00:51:05.519 --> 00:51:21.440
That's that is such an incredible way to experience love making fucking is when you feel like you're participating with someone else in this energy that you guys have kind of summoned up together, that you're both being taken by.
00:51:22.400 --> 00:51:29.440
Versus when I hear someone say, I know what all women like, I'm like, whoa, red flag, because they're all different.
00:51:29.599 --> 00:51:35.920
They all feel more pleasure in different parts of their body with different leisures of intensity, speed.
00:51:36.079 --> 00:51:37.679
Um, that's number one.
00:51:37.840 --> 00:51:42.719
Um, number two, I also imagine they're gonna do what I jokingly call the one, two, three, four.
00:51:42.880 --> 00:51:48.719
First we're gonna kiss, then I'm gonna touch her boobs, then I'm gonna finger her, then I'm gonna penetrate her.
00:51:50.159 --> 00:51:50.559
Right?
00:51:50.719 --> 00:51:52.559
Like you are.
00:51:54.239 --> 00:52:00.719
So, like, what if we started at step number three and then went to number two and then went to number one?
00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:06.559
Because what's really great about sex, the smallest changes and tweaks have profound impacts on our pleasure.
00:52:06.719 --> 00:52:12.000
It's we don't all need to get in a monkey suit and swing from chandelier to amp up the pleasure of our sex if we're bored.
00:52:12.159 --> 00:52:15.840
Switch up where you begin, switch up where you end, switch up the expectation.
00:52:16.000 --> 00:52:18.239
And as you just said, be guided by looking.
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:19.360
The best sex is this.
00:52:19.440 --> 00:52:21.599
You walk into the room, the best sex is this.
00:52:21.760 --> 00:52:29.199
You're a virgin every time you show up to even the same partner you've been with, because I don't know what I want today, I don't know what they want today, I don't know what we're gonna do.
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:30.159
We're virgins again.
00:52:30.320 --> 00:52:32.079
I don't know what they're gonna be open for.
00:52:32.239 --> 00:52:34.320
Or we're with women that are like, hey, I had my period.
00:52:34.400 --> 00:52:37.920
My vagina right now isn't a source of pleasure, it's a source of pain and annoyance.
00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:40.159
I'd love it to be otherwise, et cetera, et cetera.
00:52:40.320 --> 00:52:46.159
The best sex is when you walk into the room and you look at your partner and you go, What would turn me on to imagine doing to them?
00:52:46.400 --> 00:52:48.480
And really being guided by that authenticity.
00:52:48.559 --> 00:52:52.480
And maybe you just want to, you know, not to be graphic, maybe you want to just bury your face between their legs.
00:52:52.559 --> 00:52:57.280
And it would just feel really good to imagine yourself doing that, to look up at them, looking down at you doing that.
00:52:57.440 --> 00:52:58.159
That's the other thing.
00:52:58.239 --> 00:53:04.159
Make eye contact, connect with them as you're going down on them, connect, have your partner connect with you as they're going down on you, right?
00:53:04.320 --> 00:53:06.320
Like bring all the senses in.
00:53:06.559 --> 00:53:12.320
Yeah, that right there is just like just to I think we'll close, I think we'll land it on that.
00:53:13.519 --> 00:53:17.280
Asking yourself, what would be really hot for me to do right now?
00:53:17.679 --> 00:53:26.719
Not in the terms of what would be perceived as really sexy and make me feel like I'm the man in their eyes, but what would really fill me with a lot of energy.
00:53:26.880 --> 00:53:30.880
How would I like to caress them, touch them, receive them?
00:53:31.119 --> 00:53:35.280
And that's where you're doing your part of bringing your sexual energy to the pot.
00:53:35.440 --> 00:53:46.400
Look, like you're actually following your own embodied turn on, and that's what then makes them feel like a permission of sorts to join the party and to then be led by their own body turn on.
00:53:46.559 --> 00:53:53.199
And that's a beautiful, that's such a beautiful place instead of reenacting what you saw on a porn to try to get them to think you're you're cool.
00:53:53.360 --> 00:53:57.039
There's so much sex people have, they leave, they don't feel connected, they feel like nothing.
00:53:58.079 --> 00:53:58.559
Yes.
00:53:58.800 --> 00:54:07.519
And and I would also identify the working to do that and the ability to do that as another demonstration of true confidence in the world.
00:54:08.159 --> 00:54:08.400
Yeah.
00:54:08.559 --> 00:54:08.800
Right.
00:54:08.960 --> 00:54:11.039
And so that's a way to work on confidence.
00:54:11.119 --> 00:54:13.920
And that's where, as a sex therapist, and we can land on this.
00:54:14.400 --> 00:54:16.480
It's not about doing therapy on sex.
00:54:16.559 --> 00:54:18.719
It's about how can we use sex therapeutically?
00:54:18.800 --> 00:54:25.039
And that would be one way for someone with low self-esteem to use sex to start to work on enhancing their self-esteem by approaching it that way.
00:54:25.280 --> 00:54:26.719
I love that about sex.
00:54:27.039 --> 00:54:27.599
100%.
00:54:28.079 --> 00:54:29.280
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
00:54:29.920 --> 00:54:32.480
Man, so many beautiful things, so many scribbles.
00:54:32.800 --> 00:54:34.079
We'll we'll hang out again.
00:54:34.239 --> 00:54:35.360
We'll do this again soon.
00:54:35.599 --> 00:54:36.639
No doubt, man.
00:54:36.800 --> 00:54:44.400
I appreciate your uh I appreciate your passion and your insights and all the wonderful things you're sharing with with myself and my audience.
00:54:44.639 --> 00:54:45.440
You're the band.
00:54:45.840 --> 00:54:46.400
Thanks, man.
00:54:46.639 --> 00:54:47.519
Where could you find Dr.
00:54:47.599 --> 00:54:48.320
Chris Donahue?
00:54:48.559 --> 00:54:49.039
Oh, yes.
00:54:49.280 --> 00:54:53.920
Website is uh drchdonahue.com and my Instagram is at drdonahue.