In this episode of The Self-Confidence Project, host Kimberly is joined by renowned somatic sex therapist Susan Morgan Taylor to challenge your views on sex, pleasure, and connection. Whether you’re in a relationship, dating after divorce, or seeking deeper connections, this conversation is for you. Susan shares her journey and how her personal experiences led her to become a leading voice in somatic sex therapy. With 25 years of experience, she provides insights on reigniting intimacy and overcoming internal blocks. Learn about the Pleasure Keys Process, communication techniques, and how to connect with your own sexuality. Discover the significance of self-responsibility in pleasure and practical tips for both men and women to enhance their intimate lives. Join us for an eye-opening discussion on achieving true pleasure and lasting connection.
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See you next week,
Kimberly
Here’s the transcript:
Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of The Self-Confidence Project. I’m your host, Kimberly, and today’s episode is gonna challenge how you are thinking about sex, how you’re thinking about pleasure, how you’re thinking about connection. So whether you’re in a relationship you’re dating again after divorce, or you’re simply craving deeper connection with women in your life, especially if you’ve gotten out of a relationship where you lacked physical intimacy and physical connection.
Then this conversation is for you. I’m joined today by Susan Morgan Taylor. She’s a renowned somatic sex therapist. She’s got 25 years of experience helping couples reignite intimacy, heal, emotional, and physical disconnection. She’s also the creator of the Pleasure Keys Process, and she has transformed the lives of countless couples through her retreats, her podcast, and her somatic work.
Now, today we’re gonna dive into what it really takes to have a fulfilling sex life. How you can connect with a partner on a deeper level and why men and women, uh, of all ages can really [00:01:00] experience true pleasure and lasting connection once you remove the internal blocks that stand in your way.
Perfect. Okay. Well, Susan, welcome to the show and of course for those that are going to be new to your work, um, can you share a little bit about your journey and how your prior marriage led you to become one of the leading voices in somatic sex therapy? Oh wow. Well, yes, I mean there’s, there’s a lot in that question, so I’m gonna try to keep it brief and to the point, fearless listeners, since we know that’s how we like to keep it nice and direct, there is some good story in there.
Um, yes, I was in a marriage that essentially could qualify as sexless, you know, which I think is, I. Clinically, maybe once every six months, I think is the definition of that. I, I’d have to check my notes on that. But essentially we never had sex. Okay. And, and I, you know, strangely enough, I was the one that was not interested.
Mm. And you know, look at me now, I’m like somatic sex therapist and doing all this awesome sex work. [00:02:00] Um, but long story short, there was just this part of me that really, I wanted something more and I didn’t know how to get it. Okay. And even though I was so disinterested in sex, like I actually still really long, I wanted a deep sexual spiritual relationship.
With my husband, I just didn’t know how to create it. And there was a lot of other things going on in the marriage that kind of contributed to that sort of shutdown, total loss of interest, like could have cared less. And what I ended up doing was just kind of blamed him. Right. Well, I guess yeah.
Naturally what any smart one would do, just blame the man. Right. Anyway, um, just kind of blamed him for maybe not really being a good lover, not knowing how to rock my world. Mm-hmm. Long story short, the marriage came to an end for a number of factors, not just the sexist. Yeah. Years later, I find myself in another relationship with a man who has all this training in sexuality.
He promises me, oh, I’m gonna make your body do all these things. I’m gonna give you full body orgasms. And I’m thinking, wow, this is great. This is what I’ve wanted for so long. Finally, like someone that knows, right? Yeah. [00:03:00] Dude did not deliver. Ah. So here I am, kind of left looking at my life going, wow. Like sort of the same pattern is sort of following me.
And the realization I had was that I had never really taken responsibility for my own pleasure and my own sexuality. That always made the man responsible for it. Yeah. And I just didn’t wanna recreate my past moving forward into my, my new life, right? And while he really, really wanted something different, and so I made this declaration to undergo the study of my own sexuality.
Soon as I did that, crazy stuff happened. Books jumped off the shelf. I had a chance encounter with a somatic sex therapist that changed my life, and I started making regular dates with my own body once a week to learn. Yeah, my sexuality learned, my sexual energy. I’m like, I know there’s some pathway to these orga, like full body orgasms.
Mm-hmm. For example, I’d always heard about that. I’d never, I didn’t know, is that even possible? I’m sure it is. And so one day I am engaging in my self pleasure practice. Mm-hmm. [00:04:00] Touching myself, engaging with myself intimately. And I have this moment where all this pleasure rushes up from the bottoms of my feet.
All the love shoots out my heart. My hands are tingling. My. Face is numb and tears just running down my face and I suddenly realize I’m having this full body orgasmic experience where I just feel like pure love and pure pleasure, and I have this realization that, wow, nobody gives this to me. This exists inside my own body.
Naturally. Love is what I am. Pleasure is mine already. Orgasm is a. State that I have access to. Mm-hmm. When I’ve removed some of the debris. That’s in the way of my ability to feel that. And that was my declaration to get on this path. And at the time I wanted to help other women. Mm-hmm. Be able to experience what I had.
So I mostly work with couples now, but at the. I thought, wow, if more women knew this, the world would be a better place. Women would be having pleasure. We don’t have to grab onto relationships to try to get love because we are love. And men would be happier too. ’cause now the women actually want to fuck them.
You know, like, so to me I’m like, this is a great thing and I want to [00:05:00] help the world. It was in graduate school at the time getting my, uh, degree in professional counseling. So. So I ended up knowing right away I was gonna go into sex therapy and the somatic piece came in for me very, very early on because I’d had that experience working directly with my body.
Mm-hmm. Working with that somatic sex therapist and really realizing like, wow, we have to include the body in what we do, especially when it comes to sex. Yeah. ’cause you can only, right. You can only talk about it so much. So you can talk it to death, can’t you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And sex happens in the body, right?
Yeah. It’s not just this thing that we, that happens in our heads. It’s a body thing that we do with our. Bodies. Right? It’s a body orgasm, not a brain orga braingasm. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that was really the beginning of it for me. And so when I, when I finished my graduate studies, I went into the field of sex therapy.
However, I was always sort of on the edge of. Things because of the somatics. And I was so interested in continuing my passion for these different body-based approaches to healing. Mm-hmm. And to therapy and [00:06:00] specifically when it comes to sexuality. So I studied with various teachers, different, um, uh, practices and different perspectives on how, how you bring the body in.
Yeah. And started really working with couples because what happened, I thought it was gonna be individual women. It was their. Like dragging their wives and going, can you fix her? She doesn’t wanna have sex with me. What’s wrong with her? Fix her. And that was my specialty. Like low desire women that don’t wanna have sex with her husbands, I can solve that problem ’cause I was that woman.
Okay. So he, all of my life force came back online when I left the marriage and then I had this big awakening. Mm-hmm. And so that’s what happened. And I ended up really just focusing my work on couples. And then the somatic piece is really just about including the body and including experiential learning into the actual coaching or therapy.
So it’s not just the neck up where we’re analyzing or talking about problems, we’re actually sometimes bringing the problem up through, through intimacy practices with the couple where they get to actually meet and greet the thing that’s causing the problem or the lack of interest or lack of, [00:07:00] uh, desire discrepancy, sort of that difference in sexual, yeah.
Libido. It’s a, that’s an issue I help couples with. So the couples then, because your work is focused on the couples, they had to be willing to come together and then I presume, be engaged enough in the relationship to go home and try these things. Yes. Okay. Yeah, that’s really a, a really a big part of it, you know, I think where the rubber meets the road Yeah.
Especially with somatic approaches, is yes, we have to go and we have to implement. Mm-hmm. Um, right now I work a lot in immersion experiences, so I do stuff where I, I work with couples over like the three day Yeah. Deep dive immersion called the pleasure keys. I do a retreat or immersion. I do it. Groups as well as private coaching, and it’s really how we go deep and and build the skills of connection.
The skill pleasure actually has a structure to it that we can, we can access when we know it and we learn it. You can apply logic to pleasure. Yes. You actually can we [00:08:00] have a structure? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, okay, so one of the things, if they’re couples are willing to immerse themselves in it and go practice at home, that tells me that they at least have this.
Ability and desire to explore it together. What about people that you, that are couples that you work with that like in theory wanna explore it, but then they get home and they’re still. A block still something stopping them. Like do you work with that bit too? I, I, absolutely. Yeah. Yes. Because often why I love working with sexuality is whatever that thing is gonna show up.
Yeah. So it’s less about when I do these immersion ex, that’s one of the reasons I do the immersion experiences as well. I still do sort of like the let’s meet every week kind of thing. Yeah. In terms of coaching. But when you take people really deep into an experience, they’ll meet that very thing. Like what’s the thing that’s actually preventing them from wanting to move?
Through the issue. Shame, guilt. Yeah. Trauma, all of, yeah, exactly. And all of that is [00:09:00] brought up. And then they’re resourced with a way to move through it. They’re given the skills, the common framework and the common language. That’s what happens a lot is couples don’t have a pathway, they don’t have a framework to see the problem.
And if you can’t see what’s happening, you obviously don’t know how to move through it. Okay. And once you see it, you have the skills to understand what’s going on. You’ll know how to move through it. It’s actually very. It’s very simple. I mean, it’s not, mm-hmm. It can be hard at times, but the solution is actually very simple and that’s largely what it’s about.
And so that resistance is gonna come up when we’re working together. Yes. We’re gonna see, I’m gonna see that already. Yeah. Okay. So because they’re there, you’re gonna notice, um, or they’re at least gonna be able to speak to why they’re stuck or they, they’re struggling to connect with each other. What do you think is the one of the biggest blockers to kind of sexual happiness in a couple’s relationship?
Oh man. I mean that’s, that your, the most, let’s say, most common one that you notice, that I notice. Well, [00:10:00] I mean, the most common issue that I help couples with is that difference in sexual desire or mismatched libido, we might call it, particularly where it’s heterosexual relationship and it’s the female partner who’s experiencing the, she’s the labeled low desire women.
She’s the one more commonly that you see is less desirous than the the partner. Yes. No. Yeah, that dynamic obviously can go either ways. Yeah. And I’ve worked with it in reverse, but my specialty tends to be that, and so that’s kind of what tends to show up. Yeah. And a lot of times what it is, it’s real. I mean, there’s so many things, but yeah, one of the things is not having, again, having a framework to understand the problems.
Once we know that, then we can identify it. Some of the problems are. Here’s a big one. Not understanding, especially a lot of women are disconnected from this, more so than men, not really understanding your map or your pathway to your own pleasure or your own arousal. Yeah. Not being in touch with your own body and your own sexuality.
To the extent that you can use your voice and say, I want this, I need that. I like this. I don’t like that. Mm-hmm. [00:11:00] Being able to give your body the time that it needs. Women’s bodies need way more time usually to warm up sexually before they’re really ready and interested in sex. Mm-hmm. And typically what’s happening, as you probably know and maybe your listeners do or not, um, you know, most men are done with a sexual event in two to seven minutes because of ejaculation happening.
Yeah. And so. Most women need 21 or more minutes of actual warmup time before they’re really gonna be consistently orgasmic during sex. Mm-hmm. So a lot of times what’s happening is penetration, if it’s penetrative, sex is happening too quickly for her body. Mm-hmm. She’s kind of doing it for him to please him.
Yeah. And there’s not a lot in it for her. And over time what’s gonna happen, she’s gonna lose interest in that, right? Because it’s, there’s not, she’s not really being opened into her fullness of pleasure for that reason. Often alone. There’s other reasons as well that we can talk about why and like what a man can do to help that.
’cause I know a lot of your listeners are men. Yeah. But that’s a lot of it. And so she shut. Down and loses interest in sex over [00:12:00] time. And now there’s this so-called mismatched libido. Mm-hmm. She doesn’t want it, and he does. And she thinks there’s something wrong with her, and that’s never a way to. Yeah, to go about finding a solution, right?
Because now somebody feels broken and that just doesn’t lend itself well to healing. Yeah. It’s just recognizing that like, you know, men, women, typically different timeframes, different pathway to their own expression of pleasure, orgasm, intimacy, and figuring out how to speak the language with each other.
Yes, there’s that part as well. Like how are you actually each uniquely wired towards your own arousal? So like the arousal maps. Exactly. How do you learn what your language is, what your partner’s language is, and how you work that together. And then there’s also just the basic education in the difference between male men, male and female sexuality, and how our nervous systems are wired sexually.
Okay. So walk me through an example, like you can use an example of a prior client [00:13:00] or Sure. Let’s go through the woman’s journey. First they come to you because they’re a little disconnected, right? But they wanna figure out how to find each other. Let’s go with the stereotypes because the man, he’s two to seven minutes, he’s done.
She’s like, I get there. I’m losing interest. I’m not sure what my. Pleasure language is, so how are you helping her unlock what that is? Is it, is it about what sensations feel good, what she needs to visualize? What’s an example of Yeah, a woman going, oh my God, this is the thing for me. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think to answer that question and that scenario is a real common one, and it largely first starts with a little bit of just education, like understanding literally the.
Physiological differences. So in a woman’s body, we have the same amount of erectile tissue in our genitals as a man has in his penis. But the difference in the female body, it’s spread over a larger number, like a larger area and different organs. It’s not all like combined into one spot like it is in a penis.
Right? We’ve got multiple structures with a erectile tissues kind of spread all over the [00:14:00] place. So it takes little bit more finessing and a little bit more time. Mm-hmm. To get those structures to really warm up. The other piece that’s hard for a lot of women, and this is what I will work on a lot mm-hmm.
In a, in a couple relationship, is helping her also learn how to relax and to be in the receiving role. It can feel extremely, a lot of women are afraid of being, feeling selfish because like, Hey, he’s ready, he’s got an erection, we better get this going, or he’s gonna lose his erection and then I’ll feel bad and he won’t be happy, and then we’re not gonna get along.
I mean, there’s all this stuff going on in her head a lot of times, right? Yeah. So, so some of it is, can. The couple needs to understand, she needs, absolutely needs to be able to drop into that space to get out of her head and into her body, and that’s gonna take some time. So what he can do to support that are things like, take all the time you need.
She might, depending on how she’s wired, she might need just to have some non-sexual touching, like don’t go straight for kissing. Mm-hmm. Express and genitals. Maybe it’s cuddling, maybe it’s words [00:15:00] of affection. Maybe it’s gentle eye contact or breath or soothing massage. Mm-hmm. Or lighting candles are putting on music, holding her, letting her feel safe.
Her body and nervous system need to feel safe in order for her to really begin to open. That’s own pleasure. Get out of the. Like tense, tight. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. ’cause we’re in the wrong part of the brain when we’re in that state. We’re in the prefrontal cortex. Uh, you know, that’s sort of the, it’s the thinking, planning, logical.
Is everyone else taking care of? Where are the kids? What do I gotta do tomorrow? What’s on the grocery list? That’s the wrong part of the brain. For pleasure. We wanna be no kidding. Cream egg. Hey, I dunno. That could be someone’s kink Kimberly, like mm-hmm. Don’t diss it. Don’t ylk someone else’s y Okay.
Don’t. Yeah. Uh, so to help her and uniquely as well with women and what will be helpful for your male listeners to understand is our. Our brains are wired differently. We’re literally connected to everything all the time. Like we don’t have compartments that we put stuff. Everything is happening all at once in [00:16:00] our brains, including that we’re also plugged into our surroundings.
Yeah. So for us to kind of unplug psychically, I. From and energetically from everything around us, that is usually not a small feat for a lot of women. Yeah. Especially if you are in a job and working outside the home and you’re sort of in that part of, you’re being more of the time that planning, thinking, worrying about everyone else.
Mm-hmm. So for her to be able to turn that part of her brain off, there might be things that need to be in place. And so what I would offer is, wait. You can do as a man is ask her, what do you need? What would you need right now? So that you could relax just a tiny little bit more. Mm-hmm. And that might literally just be like, turn off the lights or turn on a space heater.
It’s kind of cold in here. Mm-hmm. Um, her job is to get. As good as she can at identifying her wants. Knowing. Yeah. Because of the guy saying, what do you need? And she goes, I don’t know. Well then you’re back to square one of, okay, you need to go self examine. So it’s like, move that goddamn pillow because it’s bothering me.
I don’t know what it is with the pillow, but if you [00:17:00] move it close the blind. Yeah. One more inch. Yeah. Okay. Everything will be better. Yeah. Right. No, and that’s, you know, that’s the other piece. So. We have to, and this is true for men as well, ’cause men can be in such a giving role too. I have worked with that a lot where it’s, and that’s a lot of times where you’ll see the erectile dysfunction or the premature ejaculation can come into play, um, because there’s just too much there.
There. Disconnected a sense from the, what’s called the direct route of pleasure in the body. Mm-hmm. Which is direct sensation through the nerve needs on the skin up to the brain. Right. Indirect is like, oh, I really wanna see her. Anticipation. Pleasure. Yeah. Being able to, through the visual cortex. Mm-hmm.
I wanna see her have a good time. How do I make her body move and her body do these things so there’s such an external. Focus that over time. Sometimes that can lead to a disconnection from his own ability to actually feel his own body, right, which can result in things like the erectile dysfunction. So direct pleasure route is a way that we.
Can A, resolve [00:18:00] challenges with erectile dysfunction. Mm-hmm. And B, for B come into what are my need? What am I feeling? What am I a yes to or a no to? Or a maybe is it my desire that we’re following or is it my partner’s desire? Like that’s another thing. It’s the one question I say every couple should know how to answer when there’s challenges.
Usually it’s because we don’t know actually who’s. Whose desire are we following in that moment? And there’s so many train wrecks that can happen from that when you know the answer and how to answer it. Right? Um, so having that clarity is a lot of what I do as well when I work with couples. Okay, so this is for women.
Removing the blocks to actually experience pleasure is understanding even just from a physical surrounding what can take you out of your body. So it could be objects in the room or, or a room’s too warm or too cold or too windy or too something. And then how does a woman get out of the. I’m still thinking about all of the lists.
[00:19:00] Eventually she’s gonna start thinking about the sensations she’s experiencing. So it’s that for women, that could be like a minute, it could be like 20 minutes, but easily. It could take a long time. So all the list, I guess. Yeah. I’m a really big proponent of having a like a. Self, you could call it self pleasure, but sometimes people get triggered by the word pleasure even.
So we could call it like a sensation noticing practice. And men can do this as well. This is great for men for learning how to last longer in bed, right? If they wanna overcome premature decoration or you wanna get past that two to seven minute threshold. Mm-hmm. And be able to last really as long as you want.
Um, self pleasure taking time to train your awareness to be in. The body actually training your attention. And one of the quickest way to do that, how you get outta your head and into your body, the fastest way to do that is through, um, noticing physical sensation. Okay. It’s just a shift. It feels cold on the skin.
It feels mm-hmm. I feel my knee right [00:20:00] now, I feel my thigh. I feel Okay. Exactly. Just learning how to strengthen that muscle of noticing. Mm-hmm. Noticing what is happening and the quickest way out of the head and into the present moment is just, okay, can I just notice physical sensation to start? Mm-hmm.
Because emotions are a slightly more refined Yeah. Aspect as is energy. We have that ability as well. Mm-hmm. But that’s a very refined level. So we start with kind of the most obvious thing of what’s the physical sensation. Yeah. Even if it’s numbness, a lot of times you’ll, I’ll get the answer like, well, I feel nothing.
Are you feeling feeling numbness? Yeah. Okay. So sensate focus in a sense. Okay. Yeah, it is. Yeah, exactly. There’s different terms for that. Sensate focus is one of them really learning how to train our awareness to notice sensation. And what that will do over time is we will begin to become more embodied and more present in our body.
And from there is we just begin to notice what’s already there, not trying to make something happen that that can be the case a lot as [00:21:00] well. Take away the. Outcome. Well, right, because now you’re trying, so I’ll, you know, I’ll give a personal example on that. When I was talking about my big sexual awakening that I had mm-hmm.
Back in 2011, you know, part of what happened when I would, I slowed way down. When I would touch myself, I’d have these like intimacy dates, pleasure to dates with my own body and I’d slow way down. And what was really interesting is I didn’t, I noticed that I had a lot of numbness actually in my genitals and my clitoris.
I couldn’t really actually feel a lot of sensation now. I didn’t have any problem. It was weird. I never had problems with orgasm when I would have sex. Mm-hmm. But, but, but when I really slowed down and got in there, there wasn’t a lot of sensitivity happening. When I would touch it, it was very numb and my initial reaction was.
I got really frustrated. I should feel something. Mm. I need to feel something. Right. And so then I’d revert into maybe trying to use fantasy to make myself feel Mm. But part of the practice of somatic work, if we’re really learning how to get out of the head and, and open up that pathway for direct pleasure in the body, we want to have the ability to kind of set that habit aside, to [00:22:00] set our need to go into mental fantasy.
Just to set it over here. We can always pick it back up later because that’s the indirect route. Fantasy, using fantasy or watching porn. Right. Yeah. What we’re trying to do is external stimulus to get me to feel Exactly. Versus feeling from kind of the inside out. Okay. Exactly. Mm-hmm. The direct route is what you just said.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. That feeling from the inside out and so I had to first Okay. I, no, I noticed that. Let me set that aside. Let me just come back to what I’m feeling and then, you know, that sort of tendency to have to have it go somewhere, right? Oh, this, I should be feeling more that. Always, it’s gonna work against us.
Yeah. We can never tell pleasure where to go. Hmm. Right. It just does not work. You have to find pleasure or just find sensation where it’s at without needing it to be anything other than what it is. And through that practice of total embrace with what’s there. So this is kind of what happened for me. I just said yes to the feeling of numbness.
Okay, I’m going to be fully in a yes with this and an embrace of this and what. Else is there. And suddenly all this sadness and grief [00:23:00] just began to pour out of my heart. And I was crying and just releasing. And what was so interesting was after that happened and I had a few more self-pleasure sessions where that was really the case, a lot of old stuff just coming out.
Um, I started to have more sensitivity. I could feel more. Mm-hmm. And from there I could start some your traumas or something. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we just, we hold stuff in our bodies. Any, any emotion that you didn’t feel safe to feel it’s gotta go somewhere. Mm-hmm. It’s not being processed through your nervous system.
A lot of times we will store that in our, it’ll show up in our sexual energy because mm-hmm. Sexuality is our life force energy. Yeah. So we’re gonna constrict around that and it’s gonna show up when we contact ourselves deeply, you know, in an in intimate way, that material’s eventually gonna come up. It has to be felt somehow or another.
Yeah. Otherwise it turns into things like numbness. Yeah. So, so that was really a game changer. And so for women that are, you know, or even men. That we need access to that direct route, because from there now [00:24:00] what I was able to do eventually, I could then know how I wanted to be touched, what I liked, what didn’t feel good, and then I learned how to actually use my voice with that.
So. That’s sort of part of the process and, and the pleasure Keys is a process I developed. There’s what are called the three ends noticing, which I just talked about. Okay. And then the skill of naming, learning how to actually give voice to that thing to name I want, I need, I feel. I see. Right. And then the last piece is the negotiating of how do I negotiate for that need.
Or that desire that might look like, well, I need to give something to myself, or maybe I need to breathe more deeply. Mm-hmm. Maybe I need to close my eyes, or maybe that’s something I need to ask my partner for. Hmm. I need to hear these words right now. Right? What would I need so I could feel safer, so I could relax more?
So that’s one way of like, of working with that dynamic in the relational space. You know, if we have a male listeners here and it’s their [00:25:00] female partner who’s got this low desire so, so called, one of the things you can do is you can do this in a partnered way as well. If you just give her full permission just to totally relax and you’re touching her in a way where you are not trying to get something from it.
This is very hard for a lot of men because a lot of times, yeah. Yeah. To focus on something else. Yeah. Should focus something else and to not try to get something from the moment in terms of sex. So a lot of times men will come at this from like, well, okay, if I just give her this foot massage, then she’ll wanna, then she’ll give me what I want, kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Transaction. And she is gonna smell that from a mile away on some level of her being. Mm-hmm. She’ll feel the agenda attached to the touch. So, mm-hmm. This is a bit of a skill for men, many men, to learn how to do, just to touch her that her without attachment. And in a way that she would love to be touched.
Right. How would you, what would you like, or let me just, you know, would you allow me just to do this really for a few minutes [00:26:00] without it needing to lead anywhere? Just relax and the practice of receiving is the thing that will open us into our own pleasure and open us into our desire more readily and getting more comfortable too with.
What could be initially non-sexual touch and then sexual touch, but both of those without expectation or pressure. It’s not about how quickly I can get here or he can get here. It’s just actually mindfulness of enjoying the journey It sounds like. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And not everyone’s wired that way.
Some people, their, their pathway to arousal is through just go straight for the genitals. Like, don’t do all that other stuff that’s not gonna, you know. Right. So we have those arousal maps, like what you, we were talking about a minute ago. Yeah. Um, including no touch at all. There’s a pathway to arousal, just sexual arousal without even being the energetic path.
Right? Yeah. Where there’s just more eye contact and breath and energy and there’s a whole realm to play in, in that realm where it’s not about genitals or even physical contact at all. Yeah, potentially. It’s pretty hot. Yeah. Getting more in tune with the, the energy [00:27:00] and things like that. What are. What are some signs that a man is feeling quite disconnected from his own sexuality?
So we talked a little bit about the food now side, but Well, absolutely. I mean like erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation are two, two signs of that. Yeah. But I’ll give a really, this is actually a really good example. It even answers sort of the first question, but I’ll tell it from the man side.
I had a couple that reached out to me a few years ago, and what was happening for them was he had a really. Quote unquote, high sex drive. Mm-hmm. Um, they were soulmates. They had two beautiful kids. They’d been married. I mean, they just were so in love with each other, like it’s this beautiful couple. But they were really struggling sexually because what would happen is that he was so tired of being.
Turned down for sex, he would approach her and yeah, she’d kinda like, oh, not, not noun or in the mood or, yeah, but she really, and she really, really loved him. So a lot of times what she would do is she would like, well, okay, you know, well, I’ll just give in. ’cause I, you know, I love moral obligation. Yeah.
Yeah. Which of course he could feel that. Yeah. Men can [00:28:00] feel that lady. Yeah. If there’s ladies listening, oh man, I feel for you. I know y’all feel that if that’s happening in your realm, and it’s the last thing any man wants is for his woman to be giving him sex out of obligation. Yeah. He wants her to be into it.
He could not figure out It’s very disconnected. Yeah. Emotionally. Yeah. Hey, it’s this, it’s sort of the opposite problem of what I just described, where she doesn’t, you know, but she’s just kind of giving it to him. So what he was doing is he started to shut down his desire. Because he felt like it was too much for her.
Right, right. So he started to not express it. He tried to tamp it down. He tried to control, you know, control it and maybe not approach her when he really wanted to be intimate. Sounds like shame and. Yeah. Well, and it was creating shame and I think there’s a lot of men, I’m sure a lot of men out here listening right now have experienced this, where men do get shamed in their sexuality in a different way than women.
Men often, often get the shame for, you know, being too sexual or getting hard on at the wrong time. And I mean, come on, this is just biology people. We don’t need to be like [00:29:00] terrified. Hmm. Often erection, you know, like it’s a pretty natural response a lot of times. Mm-hmm. For a lot of men in certain settings.
Yeah. Um, so men have been very shamed around that as well. And men can carry a lot of shame around being too much. Mm-hmm. Or being their sexuality somehow dirty or pathologized. You see that a lot as well. Uh, that their desires are pathologized for, you know, being dirty or shameful or mm-hmm. Um, you know, not accepted.
And so men can also really shut down and disconnect and it shows up a lot of times is the erectile dysfunction is a big symptom of. Of that shutdown that I seen, so they’re shutting. That could be the trigger for them to shut down, or there could have been a different trigger for men to shut down their sexuality.
And often it manifests in Ed does it? Okay. Yeah. I mean, there can be lots of triggers. Mm-hmm. Just like for women, why we shut down. I mean, we have all kinds of societal influences, religious influences, things that happen in the relationship, things that maybe she said to him about the last time when he didn’t get, you know, women really [00:30:00] screw this up a lot.
Like if your man loses his erection. Like I, I mean, I’m. If a fan of, just don’t say anything about it. Just keep going. Like do other things like don’t make a thing out of it. Yeah. What a lot of women will do is bring attention. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah. Oh no. You lost your erection. Do you need a therapist? Maybe you should talk to somebody.
Oh yeah, definitely don’t say that. Like, I’m like, don’t do that. Please don’t do that. Oh, the plants in the room just died as well. Listening to that one. Yeah, everything just went down with that comment. Um. So that can happen to the extent where now it becomes a thing in his head. Now he has anxiety about it happening again because it’s gonna upset her and you know, she now thinks something’s wrong with him and he needs a therapist.
And now that’s what’s going through. And now it’s sort of, now I’m think a therapist instead of yeah. Being present. So now his laundry list is growing. Okay. Yeah. Or I’m not gonna please her. I’m inadequate, and oh no. And so then now he’s got cortisol [00:31:00] rising, which is an antithesis to pleasure and erections.
Yeah. Uh, right. So the performance anxiety, and that just perpetuates the problem. So the pathway out of that for a lot of men is, well, a, we gotta work with her a little bit on that. And you’re gonna come to me, I’ll help you. Um, but learning again, how to relax and connect back with your own pleasure and getting outta your head.
Men get up in their heads a lot too. Oh, for sure. The head of peer, you know, the head of peer, not just the head down there. The first head, yeah. Right. So this really sounds to me like really gaining mastery over one’s mindset so that you can then start to feel sensations in your body so that you can feel the confidence to start communicating that so that you can actually start receiving it.
But it sounds like it all starts with giving oneself permission to really explore what feels good without shame without. Yeah. And it sounds like with learning to trust your own intuition on what feels good versus kind of relying on the fantasy, the porn, the, the [00:32:00] external stimulus to get us going. Right.
It’s kind of, that’s what I feel like I’m really hearing here too. I’m sure that people can use whatever works for you, but it’s like also learning to turn your, your own energy on. Um, from an internal perspective, right? Absolutely. Again, what you’re speaking to is those two routes of pleasure, indirect and direct.
Yeah. And, and what can happen a lot of times is the overdependence on indirect through pornography use, for example. Mm-hmm. Over time. Why that can lead to so many problems for a lot of men, it can happen for women too. Mm-hmm. But we’ll just use men here as an example. It can lead to the erectile dysfunction because of that.
Suddenly there’s no sense desensitization, you’re, you’re desensitized. You absolutely are. And however you wanna feel about porn. I’m not gonna say porn is good or porn is bad, but I do know it absolutely can and does have very negative impacts on, um, people’s sexuality and their ability to actually be intimate with an actual live human because they just don’t feel as much.
And if you’re constantly craving excitement based sex. [00:33:00] It des does desensitize you over time. How that can show up for women is like the overuse of like a vibrator, for example. Mm-hmm. That can also over time desensitize and cause actual numbness in the tissues rather than greater range of sensitivity and, um, capacity for more expanded pleasure and expanded orgasmic states, which requires slowing down, becoming more aware and learning how to be in that direct route.
Of pleasure in the body. Fair enough. I hear, I saw this funny video the other day where like a woman wasn’t explicitly talking about the vibrator, but she was implicitly referring to it and she goes, ladies, do you ever, do you actually like the buzz, buzz buzz or the she is like, or do you just really like the, and everyone in the comments, all the women are like.
Nobody uses the other effing settings apparently. But, um, do you, uh, ever recommend a particular type of toy or type of, um, you know, anything to kind of [00:34:00] help? Women, men get into that type of pleasure? Or do you usually just say, use your hands? Yeah, I, you know, I’m not against toys and stuff like that. Yeah.
Um, because they really can do great things for some people when we’re working with that direct route. However, of pleasure in learning how to open it. Well, first of all, I start with that. It’s. Doesn’t have any genital touch included at all. We learned how to actually do it through waking up the hands and eventually we can move towards, um, working with the genitals.
But, um. Yeah. So no. Although for some people, I do feel like the vibrator, for example, it might be how she has her first. Like it might be a gateway in for her to find that pathway. Mm-hmm. I’m just not a fan of the overdependence on it. Right. Like that’s the. We, we can create these habit patterns in our sexual nervous system of like, that’s the only way that I can have an orgasm and therefore I have to have the vibrator or, or I have to use porn, or I can only orgasm in this [00:35:00] one position.
And that is really not true. We can train our bodies to experience pleasure and orgasm in all different kinds of positions. In a, like what you said a minute ago, that mindset it that is a part of it. It’s not the sum total, but it is a part of it. What we tell ourselves about ourselves. Mm-hmm. Is what becomes true.
So right there is an So we’re saying mental piece. I can’t, I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. Well, right, there you go. It’s your self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. Exactly. We have to open up space for what else is PO At this moment? I haven’t yet. So what else might be possible? Yeah, if I can allow and relax and get rid of this goal oriented.
Approach that tends to really be permeating. Yeah. Uh, most of mainstream sexuality. This idea that you have to get to the finish line through a climax Yeah. Uh, can really work against us actually. Yeah. It’s very per performative and outcome focused versus actually connecting with yourself, with your partner, being in the moment.
There’s lots of pleasure that’s taking place. Before it all [00:36:00] ends to be fair. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe it doesn’t even need to end. Yeah. I mean, that’s an option that we rarely consider. Yeah. That what if you got rid of the idea that a lovemaking session even had to come to a climax because mm-hmm. The option is also there to play with this of like, what if you had sex for a little while and then you chose not.
To reach climax on purpose. Mm-hmm. And take a break and then come back to it later, or wait a whole day. Mm-hmm. And what that does actually, it builds up the sexual energy and it builds up the orgasmic energy. So especially for women who have challenges with orgasm, um, that sometimes is a beautiful solution to start to really build that erotic energy without it kind of, yeah.
Exploding or just not getting warmed up enough. Yeah. It can get nice and warmed and then come to a boiling point. And then orgasm is really just a byproduct ultimately of relaxation. That’s right. Um, pre presence, awareness. Yeah. Those things. Do you often speak to the dynamics and a couple’s relationship that can then lead to sexual [00:37:00] disconnection?
Like this is what I’m hearing is like it’s this openness of a couple to start exploring and working together in this. Sexual component or sexual way, but I often work with men where that like the relationships are kind of like death by a thousand cuts, right? So it’s like little micro moments of disconnection and not just sexual in nature.
It’s like it could just be we’re less complimentary to our partners, or we’re really stuck in the logistics of our lives. And our kids in school programs take the focus and so. The little disconnections start to happen over time. Do you, is that part of these couples practices too, is like obviously prioritizing time to reconnect in this way, but sometimes the blocker could be, well, I’m just like not in a part of my relationship where I’m like.
Really liking my partner ’cause we’re so stressed out or we just went through this trauma or our finances or, so do you find that those, that, that, [00:38:00] that work needs to be done in those areas too? Or can couples kind of compartmentalize that and Yeah, no, I think you just nailed it. Absolutely. And I’ll tell you like, why I love working with sexuality is because how I define sex.
So we, you know, we tend to hear the word sex and we think like. Something, sticking something in like penetration, it’s sticking something in a hole, you know, like in genitals, right? We think of that right away, like sex, and that’s what it means. But how I define sex, sex is really about connection. Mm-hmm.
And first and foremost is, is am I connected internally? Would what I call like the vertical alignment, am I connected with my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own sensations? Even if I’m encountering anger or pain or resentment, yeah. Can I, can I contact that in a way that’s full and complete and authentic?
So I’m actually feeling the thing that’s there. So resentment is sort of a surface that’s covering up the hurt and under as usually, you know, it’s anger that kind of went cold and got turned inwards. Uh, [00:39:00] right. So can I feel softened towards that and then soften towards the pain that I’m holding around that and now I’m in an authentic primary emotion of let’s say just.
Hurt, pain, sadness. Yeah. So that’s sort of the vertical alignment. Me being in that domain of clarity I feel I want, I need, I notice. Mm-hmm. And then the next piece is the ability to, to, um, come into connection with another person. And a lot of times what’s happening in relationship where we’re we’re.
Feeling that, all that stuff, like what you just mentioned, the stiffness that’s there and we’re trying to connect with the person before we’ve cleared the vertical alignment. Mm-hmm. We’re trying to go horizontal into the relational space before we’ve gotten that clarity and that alignment in the vertical space.
So. We do that, it’s connection. When I’m connected here, now I have the capacity then to come into connection or intimacy with another, and ideally the other is in that same kind of practice of that clarity here, and then we can connect, actually come in. The [00:40:00] space clears very easily. That’s where love actually lives is when we have clarity, we know how to create clarity, love, and pleasure live in that space automatically.
That’s kind of where it already, even when we’re in a state of. Of sorrow or hurt that is, is more connected than being in resentment. Yeah. Where there’s a wall. So there are practices that I use and that I give to couples to help them be able to cultivate that together and we have to make time for it.
That’s the thing, when life gets busy and you have kids and you’re working jobs and you know, he said something. That hurt you, but now you’re not really like clearing that up, like clear that up as quickly as you can. I kind of have a rule with myself, with my partner. If he says something that kind of rubs me or hurts me, I do my absolute best to try to like clear that up right away.
Like, Hey, you said that, and, and that kind of landed like this, you know, like. I do try to do that as quickly as possible because I know the price that I pay if I don’t do that. Yeah. Builds up. Yeah. And yeah, and so it’s really a very personal commitment [00:41:00] to mm-hmm. What I would call like love and truth.
Let’s be committed to love and truth because that’s something that keeps the relational space clear. From that place of connection, you know, the sex part of going and, and getting naked in bed and having genital stimulation, that’s just sort of a byproduct, right? When we feel connected and close. Mm-hmm.
Oftentimes the desire for that is just sort of a natural outcome. We desire to be in union and, and to. Be together in that way, but it’s not gonna happen if there’s walls of resentment in the way and you’re not making a genuine effort to, um, you know, to keep the space clear, which is naturally why, like in the beginning of a relationship when it’s new and it’s excited, there isn’t a whole lot of resentment, sadness and hurt in the beginning of a relationship can be for some people, but naturally it’s like you’re in that.
That honeymoon phase that can last up to like two years. Right? And then life puts in the way the resentments build, you stop communicating and then you, you notice like the less we communicate, the less sex we [00:42:00] have about the other things about, like you said, like the clearing the vertical. Um, and that might be just addressing that you got hurt in that moment, but are there any other particular tools that you share with your, uh, couples or clients on how to actually process the shit, is what I call it?
Yes. To process the shit? Yeah. Well, yeah, and I think that actually communicating. While there’s so much that I could respond to that it’s important, but a lot of where I see a lot of couples get stuck, they’ve had too much communication, too much over communication, therapy over, mm-hmm. Yeah. They’re stuck in communication and what can happen a lot of times with the communication around, especially more traditional approaches like couples therapy for example, which is great and it’s so good, but where it can really.
Not serve couples, in my opinion, is that all that communicating is from the neck up. Yeah. So they’ve learned to what I call, like neuter it, right? It’s very clean. They’re following the checklist of, oh, you know, the [00:43:00] protocol or the method, but it’s disconnected from. The actual desire in the body, which is part of our sexual life force energy, but it’s disconnected from sort of the deeper thing that’s part of that communicating.
So you have to have that union and have that be part of the communicating in order for communication to really. Really get us somewhere over the long term. Um, so I see a lot of pain happen there. So talking less, so there’s practice. To answer your question, yes, there’s practices that I bring in that have no, no talking at all.
Hmm. We can come into connections sometimes much more easily by not going into all the talking or very little, just learning how, for example, just to see the other. Mm-hmm. Um, or learning, for example, how to go into, uh, I. I feel X and I need Y. Mm-hmm. So I have a practice called Feels and Needs, the Feels and needs dialogue that I’ll use with couples where it’s literally learning how to cultivate that vertical alignment with I feel, [00:44:00] or I, or I notice.
And what I need right now is, so we’re learning just the skill of identifying the need and using the voice. And that’s a partnered practice. And then the other person can reflect that back, I see that you feel this and I hear that you need that, and what else do you feel or notice without rolling their eyes at each other.
Right. Because that’s where this Exactly, yeah. And that’s the thing, right? Like we need to have str what? Mm-hmm. What, where structures are really useful, is it depersonalizes it? Mm. A structure or a framework can hold the intensity. And where a lot of couples get stuck is they don’t have that framework or structure.
Yeah. They’re flying blind. Or maybe they’ve had some couples therapy and they’ve learned some skills, but there’s not really like a cohesive method or approach mm-hmm. Or, or thing that’s really holding some of that gobbly goop that can Yeah. Get in the way where you take it personally or, you know.
Mm-hmm. So structures are really important around communication as well as, yeah. Um, cultivating, uh, pleasure and desire. Gotcha. Okay. So, [00:45:00] um, what is. What is one like somatic practice that men or women can do that isn’t necessarily with each other right now? Something that listeners that are currently single that are like, you know what?
This is something that I’m just gonna work on whether I’m a man or a woman to get into my body. Because when I’m in my next relationship, I wanna already be working on attuning to myself. Um, oh, so what’s something that people can work on that’s gonna get them closer to the. Healthy loving relationship they want, but starts with, uh, independent practice.
I love that. So for your listeners, I’ll give them a free, I’ve got a, I’ll give you the link. I’ll have to email it to you and you can put it in the show notes if you like. But I’ve got a, a practice called Sensual Awareness Practice. Okay. It’s like a 12 or 15 minute audio, which. Takes you into the first triad of the pleasure keys process, which is relaxation, presence, and awareness.
And it’s learning what we talked about earlier, that skill of training, the awareness to be in the body by noticing physical sensations. And so that is a really simple [00:46:00] practice. And once you’re practiced at it, like if you practice that sort of more formally mm-hmm. Several times, you can start to do that just throughout your day.
You know, I do it all the time. Like, oh, I can feel like, you know, I feel the weight of my body on the chair. I feel the air against my skin right now. That constant, um, growing of that muscle of noticing through physical sensation. And so I would say that is one of the most valuable and simplest places to begin.
Okay. And. You can even play with, if you are in a relationship, you can start to shift your awareness during sex, for example. Um, just noticing physical sensations in the body. Mm-hmm. But it’s usually a lot easier to do some solo cultivation Yeah. To do some practices on your own before there’s sort of the complexity of another human Yeah.
Engaging with you where you fall into all those old patterns. Right. So, yeah, I’ll, I’ll share that link to that. Um. Not practice for your listeners, something people can do to practice in their own time, to connect with themselves, to, to notice sensations. Therefore, you’re outta your head, you’re into your body and like I think we all use a lot more of that.[00:47:00]
Yeah. Yeah. We’re all very cerebral beings these days in our heads very often, so. Okay. So what is, what’s anything that you think would be helpful to kinda leave the audience with in terms of helpful? Mindsets, ways of thinking, ways of being even phrased. I don’t, I don’t know what it is, but anything that’s kind of just a helpful little tidbit towards the end of our show that I can leave people with.
Yeah. Let me think of what would be, if most, like something simple and of most value. Okay, I’ve got it. I’ve got it. Okay. You are a hundred percent responsible for your own pleasure. Mm. Nobody else is responsible for it. I think that’s a big epiphany for a lot of people. ’cause it’s, it really can be. Yeah. So I think if your listeners take that, whether you’re single or in a relationship mm-hmm.
It can really be a game changer because when we understand that that’s where the rubber meets the road, that’s where we’re empowered. That’s where we can start to learn and study and [00:48:00] grow. Or we, we take those risks and start to ask for what we really want and what we really need. Knowing that it’s, no one’s gonna just show up and automatically.
Know how to do it. It’s really in our own hands, pun. We need to teach our partners, pun intended, our instruction manual. Therefore we need to write it ourselves. Yeah. Uh, exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So we all need a standard operating procedure for our own bodies.
Fair enough. Maybe I could create a template for that for, so p like that’s a great idea. Yeah. Um, so where do you hold your immersion retreats and where can people find you if they’re curious After listening to us chat today and they wanna learn more? Absolutely. So I, I do also have a free resource called The Pleasure Keys, which talks off that first triad that I mentioned, that relaxation presence awareness.
Um, that’s at pleasure keys.com. Okay. You can download a copy of that for free@pleasurekeys.com. And then all of my other stuff lives@pathwaytopleasure.com. And if you click on up at the top in the nav bar, I think I have it under [00:49:00] Work with me, it says, mm-hmm. Retreat, couples retreats or immersions. You click on that and that’ll take you over to, I do them in different locations.
So outside across America mainly, or do you go international, ever. Right now just keeping it domestic here in the us. Eventually we’ll probably start doing some international, so I’ve got, uh, the Western mountains of North Carolina where I live. I do awesome immersion experiences out here. I work with couples online virtually as well.
And then I think I’ve got another one coming up in 2026 and immersion in, uh, we’re looking at doing it maybe in Austin, Texas or Tucson, Arizona next year. Nice. Okay. And so those are like a couple, couple day kind of immersions, or are they longer? I. There are three days. Three days, okay. Yeah. Three days where you get to really take that deep.
And what I love about it is you really pull away from that day to day. You know, we’re all so busy. And why I really created these immersions is ’cause it’s really where I saw my couples get the best. Results and really be able to embody the learning. Right. It’s one Yeah. Distraction. [00:50:00] Yeah. Otherwise, and it’s, it’s hard for couples too to make that time to do this stuff on their own ’cause they’re working and, and or they’ve got kids and there’s distraction.
And so in terms of being able to really like build these skillsets to be able to get away and go fully into it with support from there, like your body now knows it and you can take that back into your day to in an easier way because you’ve just embodied it instead of kind of trying to. Piecemeal it together over like a few months or something.
Fragmented attempts at it. Like throughout distraction. Exactly. Versus, yeah. Focused attention. Fair enough. Well, thank you so much for coming on, for spilling all your wisdom, and it was very insightful, and I’m sure the audience gonna love it and they’re gonna seek you out and they’re gonna wanna talk about your story.
Well, thank you so much, Kimberly. Yeah. It was an absolute pleasure and I look forward to getting this out to everybody.
