Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Are you someone who struggles with unwanted sexual fantasies? Are you a survivor of sexual abuse and struggling to regain your sexual power? Or maybe you're just curious about how the field of sex therapy has evolved in the last 40 years. Well, I cover all of that and more in today's episode of Love and Libido. I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with one of my favorite sex therapist, Wendy Maltz, whose career has spanned four decades. No matter how many times I clean out my bookshelf, her books remain as a resource to myself and my clients. Lets meet our guest. Wendy Maltz is an internationally recognized author, psychotherapist, and certified diplomat of sex therapy. With more than 40 years in the field. Her books include the Sexual Healing Journey, a Guide for survivors of sexual abuse, the Porn Trap, the essential guide to overcoming problems caused by pornography, private thoughts exploring the power of women's sexual fantasies, intimate kisses, the poetry of sexual pleasure and passionate hearts, the poetry of sexual love. Wendy is the producer of relearning touch healing techniques for couples, an acclaimed video demonstrating sexual healing exercises. Presently retired from counseling, Wendy continues to provide a rich array of free sex education materials, discussions and healing resources at her popular website, www.healthysex.com.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Let'S dive in.
Wendy Maltz, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you here today with me.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: Yes, it's wonderful to be here, Emily.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: I was so excited when I got your email about joining me for the podcast because you have been practicing for 30 to 40 years and have written numerous books and I have followed your work, you know, really since before I got into the field because it's, well, before I started practicing, rather, because it's, you're just prolific. You've written so many books and you're such a huge important influence to all the sex therapists out there, especially when I was entering into the field and we were talking initially about what to focus on today. Because you've done so much work, it's hard to narrow down a topic. And you had the idea, and I love it, about what things were like for you as a sex therapist coming into practice in the eighties versus what I'm experiencing as a sex therapist this day and age. Because while there are a lot of things that might be similar, there are some really big differences as well. So before we get into all of that, tell people a little bit about yourself and how you got into the field.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Well, I know we're talking old time here, but back in the 1970s, I think you need to think sexual revolution, hippies, flower children, I was in Berkeley, California. It was, you know, the height of all that. And there was a lot an explosion in information in terms of therapy and personal growth. So it was free love, and it was. It was drugs and everything, and things were really opening up. And I got interested in the psychology field. And I was working in, initially after college and after graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, I started working with kids in adolescents who were troubled. They were high risk teens. And I noticed that it wasn't until we did a section, we were trying everything with them. And it wasn't until we did a section on sexuality that their negative behaviors started to clear up.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: And I got training at the Planned parenthood, and that sort of started me off in the sexuality field. And there were wonderful people there who were at that time who were offering trainings, like Lonnie Barbach, Bernie Zilberg Guild, and David Schnart and Jho Low Piccolo, who had been here at the University of Oregon for a while.
So I got married. I moved up to Eugene, and I started training as a sex therapist and then began running sexual enrichment groups for women who wanted to learn how to become orgasmic. And they were either having difficulty having orgasms on their own or with a partner. And that was very eye opening. And I got in with the medical community here in Eugene, and that launched my practice in sex therapy. And I continued doing training and working with men. Now, one of the things I noticed was that a lot of this standard sex therapy techniques, which I was really impressed with, things like sensate focus, where you take turns massaging each other, then you move into adding sexual parts to touch. And those worked really well with a lot of clients in a short period of time. And the exercises before learning to become orgasmic or overcome premature ejaculation, that those were really effective and in a short period of time. But I noticed that there was a population of people, lo and behold, they were sexual abuse survivors, who had a lot of difficulty with standard sex therapy practice.
They needed a different approach. I'm a survivor myself, so it triggered all my memories and issues. And so it was a learning process. I wanted to develop techniques for survivors where they could overcome problems that were caused by past sexual abuse. And I developed the relearning touch exercises and wrote several books. Incest and sexuality was the first. And then the sexual healing journey, which, of course, it's still very popular. It's amazing how old it is.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: I know. And I'll tell you, I have moved offices several times, and every time I move. I pack up some books to move into storage, and then I select which ones I want to keep on my bookshelf. And your book has never left my bookshelf. Both of those, because they are resources I pull from all the time.
[00:06:54] Speaker C: That's great. I was delighted because last year it came out in Spanish, and it was great getting to know people from Mexico and other regions around the globe who were so excited that it came out so. And it's been revised several times, of course. So that got me. All the work with sexual abuse survivors was really exciting. I then got into looking at sexual fantasies because a lot of survivors had difficulty with unwanted sexual fantasies. I called them errata mayors. Like a nightmare.
Yeah.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Erado mares. I love that. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: And so that led to working with a journalist, Susie Boss, to work on the research in writing for the book in the garden of Desire, which got a new title, private thoughts.
That was a lot of fun. I don't know if you're familiar with that book.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: That's another one that's always on my bookshelf. Like, I have all of your books friends.
I'm like a super fan. Yes. Yes. I love that one. Cause it really, I think, brought to light a lot of, you know, the nature of women's sexual fantasies and all the reasons why women fantasize. And it normalized a lot of fantasies that women have because there are the people who have unwanted sexual fantasies because it can be re traumatizing for them. But there are a lot of people who had unwanted fantasies because they thought there was something wrong with them for having that fantasy, even though now we know it's usually normal.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Right, right. I mean, they're problematic ones, but most are just this incredible, rich playground for the sexual imagination. And I developed ways for people to overcome unwanted sexual fantasies and ran groups and workshops and trainings for professionals on just that. And that was really interesting, what I saw, sexual fantasies. I know you write about it in your upcoming book, and I was really happy to see that you're writing about sexual fantasy there. But people often in the past, they were sort of identified in terms of perversions or whatever, or things that were called perversions many years ago. Was this an incest fantasy? The different kind of categories there of what was considered perverse many years ago. And I took a different. Suzy and I took a different approach in the research. We looked at where are you in your sexual fantasy? What perspective are you, like a voyeur looking at what's going on? People making love or having sex in all different ways. Are you a participant, and are you an active participant or a passive participant? And so we developed categorizations like pretty maiden victim or a wild woman and beloved. You know, is that sexual energy coming from you and your beloved, creating this dynamic together, where sexual energy builds? And I love that way of looking at it, because then you can look at sexual fantasies like you do dreams. Like, what might this mean? Where did this come from? What is it trying to tell me? And so they're just a rich resource for personal growth and self understanding. And that was just. I love that work, you know?
[00:10:42] Speaker B: And for me, I think what drew me to the field of sexuality is I view, I see asking someone questions about their sexuality as such a unique and rich window into their psyche. I think you can learn so much about a person by asking questions about their sexuality. And it sounds like you felt the same way in regards to.
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Oh, yes. I think from looking at the galleys of your book that you asked me to recently, I could tell that we share that passion about sexuality not just as a pleasurable activity that a person can experience on their own or with others, but is like a source of life energy and connection to the universe, connection to our power as individuals. And so it reverberates on so many different levels.
It's infinite in terms of its capacity to teach us and take us to wonderful places.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: So, I mean, it was great working as a sex therapist for, like, 40 years before I retired about six years ago, because I just felt so honored to work with people and help them to be able to feel more comfortable, overcome shame, overcome ignorance, and to feel empowered, to feel that they could define and determine what their sexuality means and what it looks like themselves.
So it was a way, especially for women, I think in those early years, I was so impressed. Like, when women became orgasmic, they would come back into the group and talk about things like, I'm more assertive at work. I feel more confident with myself. I don't feel like there's something wrong with me anymore.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Right, right. I view sexuality as not just something people can learn about, but sex teaches us a lot about ourselves if we know how to look at it through that lens.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah, definitely. And as a survivor, you know, I know firsthand, and I know through working with wonderful people how important it is to reclaim sexuality for yourself and not allow influences that are not under your control, that were outside of your control and past experiences to determine what sex is going to be like for you all during your life. So to reclaim it as something positive. And the healing from sexual abuse then happens at a core level, because sexual harm. Sexual abuse is harm done to our sexuality.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I always wish there was a different word for sexual abuse because I don't see it as sex. You know, it is violence, you know? And I hate even attaching the word sex into it because I just. I'm a stickler for language. And sometimes I think the language we use to describe things can completely alter the course of how it manifests in our life and the way we understand and conceptualize it. But just for anyone listening who has experienced, quote unquote, sexual abuse or been, you know, sexual abuse survivor, to me, that's not what sex is. It's sexual. It is violence, plain and simple, you know?
[00:14:34] Speaker C: Yes. And it's an inter. It interferes with healthy sexual development, and it creates this meaning for sex that really is about assault, trauma, harm, and interference, I guess. Yeah.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: I want to come back to something you said a minute ago about sexual fantasy. You know, there's so much interest in, like, dream analysis, and I love how you think of fantasy, kind of like a dream. What is the difference for someone who is viewing or experiencing a sexual fantasy as a spectator versus being in it themselves? I would love to hear a bit more about the different categories and what that means for someone.
[00:15:20] Speaker C: You know, it varies. Analyzing fantasies is like analyzing dreams in that it's really up to the individual to say so. It's more like, as a therapist, it's asking questions. What does this remind you of?
Is there anything that happened in your personal life where these dynamics were going on? Like, I worked with a lesbian woman who had horrible, unwanted sexual fantasies where she'd have to picture a man humiliating a woman and having. Having sex with her, which was kind of weird to have this heterosexual, you know, fantasy. And it really troubled her, and it just. And she needed it. She felt she needed it in order to climax.
And when she looked at it and what their dynamic was, what the woman said, what the man said, what happened to. And she realized this was a recreation of the fighting that she saw her parents do, and they later split up. And so it was like this unresolved trauma from her childhood of the pain of the father's cruelty in the relationship and the mother's weakness. And so once we got it came out, you could look at that and go, okay, you know, what did you never get to say to your father that you'd like to say now and your mother and all, and then, you know, no brainer. Guess what, the fantasy lost its power?
[00:17:11] Speaker B: That's what I was just going to ask. If. If, when someone's working through unwanted sexual fantasies, if ultimately, does it just change their relationship with the fantasy, or does the fantasy go away for some people, or if they've been dependent on that fantasy, let's say, to have an orgasm, then do they have to learn a new way of reaching orgasm? Like, what? Does this work around unwanted fantasies? Usually, what is the outcome?
[00:17:36] Speaker C: Typically, yeah, this fantasies shift. I mean, our fantasies are always shifting because we're getting. You might watch a movie or see, or pornography or have an experience or see a hot guy or hot gal or whatever and start thinking about what it would be like to have sex with them.
So things are always influencing and we're growing and we're changing. So maybe some of the fantasies we had when we were growing up, or the early ones might be a mimic media and things we saw or our early experiences. And they don't have to be graphic. They can be sensual, too. Like a feeling of, like one woman talked about spreading her legs and jumping into a swimming pool.
That was a great fantasy that triggered.
Or sitting in a cherry blossom tree, you know, and they're all over the place. But to know that your fantasies are constantly shifting anyway, and you can have an influence on that over time. And so they will shift. And what this, the lesbian woman I worked with was so delighted because she didn't think she'd be ever able to have a different kind of fantasy that would create orgasm. But, you know, we adapt to and we shift. And she was able to, you know, they just emerge on their own. You can change the dynamics a little. So if it's an older man, let's say with a little girl, you can have him a little younger, her a little older, and then get them the same age, even though some of the dynamics the same. Or you can take out the ugly parts, the parts you don't like if people are tied up. Okay, well, actually, it's wet noodles instead of. And, you know, so you can play with it. And I always shared with people about the concept of weaving. So you can weave in and out of a fantasy. You can stop it and brush it aside. You can shift it and change the contents a little. There's talk about this in the book, private thoughts, all these different techniques. And they work.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they really do. Which is why it's always on my shelf, because it's helped my own clients as well, deal with, you know, understanding their fantasies and also dealing with some unwanted fantasies as well.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: You have to have a lot of self compassion, and you can't be down on yourself. And if a fantasy slips in that you don't like and you have, you know, you have an orgasm, it's like, so what? You know, it's like, just go move it forward and, you know, think in terms of little bits of progress, and things will eventually shift over time. But it's being kind to yourself. It's not going to places of thinking, what's wrong with me? Or I'm awful. It's like you have that fantasy for a reason and it has served a purpose. You got to honor it and then kind of nudge it.
Exactly.
[00:21:03] Speaker D: I just launched tons, tons of awesome bonuses on my website. People who purchased just one copy of my new book, Anatomy of Desire get things like the intimacy discussion deck, a deck of 52 cards with questions designed to deepen connection. And the 30 day Intimacy challenge, a calendar with daily exercises designed to deepen connection and expand your erotic horizons. You get access to my masterclass and so much more. By purchasing Anatomy of desire, you get access to nearly $300 worth of bonuses. I've got a pleasure playlist. I've got a desire summit. I've got an unlocking masculine and feminine desires webinar. I mean, the list goes on and on. Visit emilyjamia.com for all the details.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: And I love. You know, I'm such a proponent of practicing self compassion in all areas of life, but it so important as it relates to sexuality, because there are going to. There are inevitably going to be things that happen that we don't necessarily love or wish wouldn't happen again. Whether it's experiencing a sexual difficulty or having an unwanted fantasy or sex maybe just not working out the way that we anticipated it would. And if we let that get the best of us, then it come. It becomes harder to overcome and move forward. You know, at the end of the day, humans are complex. Sex is complex. It is multifaceted. And when things don't go according to plan, I think practicing self compassion makes it a lot easier to move on.
[00:22:34] Speaker C: Definitely.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: So you mentioned sensate focus earlier, and I just did an interview with Linda Weiner, who wrote the book on Sensate focus and has done so much incredible work on sensate. But you said you noticed something earlier in your career that there were some things missing from it that sexual abuse or trauma survivors needed. So I would love for you to talk about that a little bit because I think it could expand on the interview I just did with her. For people who are maybe still struggling despite trying some of those techniques of.
[00:23:08] Speaker C: Realizing sexual abuse, a person dominates and has power over another person through sexual activity or suggestion. And so sexual healing involves reclaiming your power and the way this was originally developed by masters and Johnson, prescriptive, and the therapist was like, do these things. And here's your assignment for this week. And too much, too soon, too sexual for survivors. They, you know, I would suggest an exercise and give a printout on how to do it, and they would come back. And I remember this one time a woman said, well, his belt buckle got in the way. And I was thinking, his belt buckle? You know, it was an assignment to do this without clothes on. And I said, yeah, well, she just spaced out on the whole part about being naked, because that was nothing, a safe place for her to go. So she. The exercises, and it made me go, ah, there's something going on here. And so in my therapy work, I relied a lot on client centered therapy, where the client is in control. I always said to my clients, I am your service worker. You know, I mean, you've hired me to help you. You're in the driver's seat.
I can offer education, information, ideas, but you create this. This is your path, and this is your process. And so I work closely with clients so that in control and how they could change things. You know, there, is there a way you could think of doing that exercise where it would feel more comfortable to you? And I remember this one couple told me that they, the survivor, wanted the partner to just take off one item of clothing each time they did an exercise.
And they were laughing because it got down to where the partner was wearing socks and she felt safe as long as the partner was wearing socks.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: It reminds me of that study that came out not too long ago where they put people in an MRI machine and they were looking at something related to orgasms, and they found that people were more likely to have orgasms if they were wearing socks. And I think it's because they were warm, they weren't getting cold in the MRI machine. But now everyone I hear leaves their socks on during sex. So she wasn't ahead of the curve.
[00:26:09] Speaker C: It's great.
So that sense of being in control, that's what I call self determination or self determine. And this is what also when my husband Larry, who is also a therapist, and I practicing, when the Internet came in and when pornography started showing up and being readily available, and we were hearing from people that they were having difficulties that had been problems that had been caused by pornography of it. And this lack, this outside product was influencing people and making it so their sexuality no longer felt in control by themselves. So, again, empowerment. You know, I always work towards empowerment. And that feeling of having this outside influence taking over a person's life, where it was leading them in a direction that they didn't want to go and felt powerless in terms of helpless in terms of being able to pull out of it. And that led to all the research and the techniques for overcoming problems caused by pornography. From our book, the porn trap.
Oh, that's a big thing that went on. And it's probably because when I started out as a sex therapist, that's when feminism was coming in. It was all about women's rights, women's power, and it turned into a humanism and that people take for granted now that they have access to lots of resources and information about sexuality. But when I started out, it did not exist. You know, and sharing information, people were in the dark about their sexual parts. Now you can go, what is a clitoris?
And you'll get all these diagrams.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Power comes into play with sex in pretty much any capacity. And, you know, you've mentioned a few times for sexual abuse survivors how, you know, the real key to healing is getting back a sense of power and empowerment. What. What would you say is what are one or two people can do to help them get back their power sexually when they have felt disempowered because of their abuse?
[00:29:02] Speaker C: Well, the whole series of relearning touch exercise was developed as ways to learn power on a life. Sensei, focus is experiential. The relearning touch exercises help people to develop that sense of being able to relax.
Basic things, breathe, communicate, communicate needs or what you need to change, just communicate and tune into the exchange of positive feelings and relationship and play. And it's called the magic pen. Here's a pen.
Tell your partner to hold on. Okay, Emily, you can hold on.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: I'll hold my pen here on the other side.
[00:30:05] Speaker C: I move the pen. Let's say I'm a survivor. I move the pen around, and you track. Follow me. It looks like a very simple exercise, right? And then I tell you, you can let go now. So let go. And so the survivor has an exercise saying, hold on. Let go. Tracks it, and then, you know, and they can tell. They can say to the partner, you're pulling or relax. So I can move. Let me move you, or you're rushing me or this or that. And that's a very safe. That's not in sexual interaction yet, but it's a developmental skill to be able to speak up, identify what you need, speak up to decline sex, sexual or any kind of interactive activity, as well as to initiate it.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: I love that. So I want to, you know, most people listening to this podcast will just be listening to the audio, but, you know, what we just did is Wendy held the pen up. I held my pen up, and I started following her as she was tracking it. And I think it teaches that mirroring, which is something else I write about in the book. I don't know if you've gotten to that section yet, but if you think about what's happening during sexual abuse or violence, there's no, obviously, reciprocity, there's no mirroring happening because it's a violent act. And one of the keys that makes sex great is high level of synchrony and attunement. And so it's funny, as I started tracking her pen along with her, it was a little bumpy at first, but then within seconds, we got really fluid in our tracking. I think that's such a great exercise for couples to do to build that trust that you can respond to each other's. In this case, it was a nonverbal cue because we're just tracking with the pen. That's awesome.
[00:32:10] Speaker C: Who's listening? My website, healthysex.com, i put like, as an arcade, an archive of all my work. And with all these different areas, sexual abuse, healing, fantasy. I have sexual love, poetry, and recovery. You can go there, but I also put my video relearning touch on there for free so you can access it and see the exercises demonstrated. And, you know, I always encouraged people to choose from things, what fits for you, what doesn't, what exercises you feel ready for, and to work in conjunction with a therapist, ideally, because then you can process the feelings you have. And like in the magic pen exercises we were doing, you would then Emily, as my partner, get a chance to be the initiator. So if I'm the survivor, then I'm learning how to follow you and be able to say, could you go a little slower?
Or let's do a simpler movement? Let's say just rocking back and forth like we're drawing a hammock, you know, and with the pen. And then you can advance the exercise to maybe wear another partner's finger, let's say, as they're moving it around. I love that all the exercises done where they eventually move up to being able to have sexual interaction, incredibly strong skill set for being able to stop if you're in the middle of something reality and approach the whole thing, take a break. And these skills, which a lot of people who've been wounded and even a lot of people who've been heavily influenced by media sex, people don't have, you know, how to, you talk about attunement, you know, communication attunement, how to really work with a partner on experience that is mutually enjoyable, where both people feel empowered.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. And I'll be sure to link everything in the show notes so it's easy for people to access. Wendy, you've been in practice for a long time. As we mentioned, you began your work as a sex therapist in the eighties. What do you think is the biggest difference from your time as a therapist then versus today? Because so much has changed.
[00:35:09] Speaker C: Like I said, there were very few resources people felt would go to shame very easily with sexual activities. Now, I think due to the influence of media and have progressed, sex education and sex therapy are out there.
Ton of shame about being able to admit you were sexually abused. I don't think people have a good sense of that. People talk about it now in interviews all over, but I went through years of just being able to say it. And I remember who was that Miss America who had been sexually abused? Marilyn Vanderburg. And she came out, I met her at a conference, and she wrote about the abuse she experienced. That was back in the eighties, and that was like groundbreaking. It was like, oh, my God. And I think Ronald Reagan's son Michael was writing. But you list of people who came out. So a lot of shame with sexuality has been overcome or is not there as much? People still feel it, of course, but it's less likely that a survivor takes on the full impact of it and stays silent. So there was more secrecy and shame, more ignorance.
And so then that shifted, and I started noticing clients come in and more, frankly, just share. Well, I'm into this sexual activity. I like hair pulling during sex, but my partner doesn't like it. It's like, I wouldn't have heard that back in the early eighties with that kind of boldness, you know?
So I think people have gotten more comfortable with sex, importance of sex or the pleasures that sex can give.
And there's less of a religious influence, it's less heterosexist. It was very much man woman marriage even back then, revolution did crack things open, but it took like 20 years, you know, and the Internet to really, you know, make that happen more fully. Yep.
People are people, right? Regardless of when you're living people want. They can feel. We can feel insecure with our sexuality, inadequate. We wonder how the other person or other people are perceiving us. We want to be attractive. We want to be special. We want to be desired, you know, and those things haven't changed.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Right. Right.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: What's your sense, though?
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Gosh, it's like, to your point, yes, those are still issues, but maybe not in the same way. It's not as secret as it was probably back then. I mean, now, I think, especially post me, too movement, people are open about their sexual trauma and abuse and are ready to heal from it and overcome it. Not to say it still doesn't happen, but it's definitely out there now compared to, I think, back in the eighties. I think the biggest issue today is our lifestyle. You know, I just think that we are busier than we've ever been. The role of, you know, technology and the Internet and social media. Yes, it has its place and can be beneficial in a lot of ways. But I fear that the dopamine we get from a sexual experience now can't compare to the dopamine people get from how many likes they got on an Instagram post. And that really worries me. I just think we're kind of dopamine addicts, and our lifestyles and the Internet are just, you know, kids are just growing up on iPads and in front of screens, and they're not forming relationships like going out for a bike ride isn't as enjoyable as a YouTube video.
And that's my biggest concern, I think, for youth today who are trying to discover their sexuality is they're just not as relational because they're in front of the tv. They're not out in the world taking the risk they need to take to believe that they are resilient and can overcome issues. We have less unsupervised play. Instead, we've got these helicopter parents. So kids aren't learning to work out problems on their own. So those are really the issues, I think, that I think are starting to creep in today. And what do you think?
[00:40:18] Speaker C: I think you're spot on with that.
I really do. And, yeah, I think the distractions are big. I've seen it because I did the research on pornography. I've thought of it in terms of a sexual hijacking of our drives and our interests and people getting kind of railroaded into certain conceptions of what sex is, which can be exciting and it's immediate, kind of a hit of pleasure.
People look for something pornography, and they can get into it really quick.
And so they develop those skills for, like, being in their body, tuning into their own creative imagination, being able to share emotionally in the sexual experience with a partner and tune into what the partner or feeling or needing.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Right. The interpersonal component is just all these aspects.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: But when you talk about dopamine, it's about dopamine. Yeah, it probably boils down to the dopamine hit, too.
You know, you have the orgasm, and then you light up your phone and see who texted, you know? Exactly.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: And that's giving. That's giving people a bigger rush, I think, thandemental. Just an enjoyable interpersonal interaction, let alone a sexual interaction.
[00:41:52] Speaker C: You know, there was somebody, I interviewed, a guy, Jack Johnson, and he developed something called.
He was looking at. Looking at alternative ways for men to enhance their sexuality. And he had this whole thing, some criticism, too, as being a little woo woo and hokey or whatever. But I think he was. For me, it was like this. I tried some of the exercises he was doing, and they involved making these sound of kind of vibrating sounds and. And then thinking of your genitals and vibrating and all, like, you know, an hour to do one of these exercises. And. But I came out of that experience going, wow, that was totally.
That was totally different. You know, it's like, and I thought, you know, what did people, like? Ancestors thousands of years ago, you know, all the bowl vibrations.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: Well, now, like, sound healing, sound baths, it's all coming back.
[00:43:08] Speaker C: Yeah. And sort of sound enhanced orgasms or whatever, and relaxing the jaw and relaxing the pelvic area constantly and just picking up on subtle sensations.
And it was like, this is a whole different approach. No wonder people rejected it, too, because.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: You know, I think, like, I get a. You want sex to be a little woo woo, right? I mean, you want it to be transcendental and an opportunity to escape. I mean, that and that. And I talk about this in the book, like, rather than having to do yoga or go to a meditation class to get yourself in the right headspace for sex, like, what if sex put you in that headspace? You know, it's a reframe. I want people to feel like sex is an opportunity to escape the craziness of their life, you know, rather than another item on the to do list.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: Right. Well, think about it. One of the things I think about, Emily, is that we're an interesting species, aren't we, in that we have sex not just during the mating season, and we're not fruit flies or, you know, animals that go into heat and.
Or we do a little bit, but not like, you know, some where it's just like you're there on display.
[00:44:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:35] Speaker C: Right. And what, what is our sexuality for? Why are we, you know, I mean, I'm in my seventies. I still have a sexuality. My husband does, too. It's like, and it's one of that can be like a delight for people in the older years, not everybody, but for some.
What is it? What does it do? It goes well beyond procreation.
And I think it has to do with strengthening bonds, feeling mutual nurturance, creating strong couples, which create strong families, which creates strong communities, which creates strong societies. And there's just, I think, and it enhances self esteem. It relaxes us. It us. And it's so, so many things like this. And to honor it in that way of seeing that it's not just like another hit.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: Right.
[00:45:39] Speaker C: You know, another way to get high or momentarily or something you have to do before you can go to sleep.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: Relax enough to go to school with your body. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gosh. Well, it's always so wonderful chatting with you. I could go on and on and on, but I know you have a dance class to get you and I don't get to, and I don't want to keep you from that. So. Wendy, thank you so much for joining me. Where can people find your books and learn more about you and stay in touch?
[00:46:09] Speaker C: Well, I have information about my books is free. That's the other thing. I believe in free resources around sexuality. I don't like tying sex, even though I've written books and you have to buy them, you know, or whatever the idea of, for sexual information, you know. So it's a way of giving back for me at this stage in my career, I'm in a different state of offering all this information on my website, healthysex.com dot. There's a contact page there, too.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: Awesome. I'll be sure to link it in the show notes so it's easy to find. And Wendy, thank you again. It's always great talking with you and I hope we can reconnect again soon.
[00:46:59] Speaker C: And I love meeting you, Emily, and I wish you all the best with your new book and all your work.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
[00:47:09] Speaker D: Listening to love in libido with me, your host, doctor Emily Jamia. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe and drop me a five star review. Positive ratings help keep the show going. Don't forget to visit emilyjamia.com to see how you can access dozens of free bonuses when you purchase my new book, Anatomy of Desire, currently available everywhere books are sold. Additionally, you can follow me across all the social media channels. Dremilyjamia thank you for listening.
