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Video Transcript of Arousal Naked Talk:

0:02 Daka Dan: Hi and welcome to another edition of Naked Talk. Don’t know why we keep getting all the dings when we do but anyway we’re on and tonight we’re talking about, what are we talking about?

0:16 Elizabeth Wood: We’re actually talking about arousal.

0:17 Daka Dan: Arousal! Here we go!

0:18 Elizabeth: So I’m Elizabeth Wood.

0:21 Daka Dan: And I’m Dan Powers with Beyond the Bedroom.

0:23 Elizabeth: And Naked Talk is where we get naked in a conversation of sexuality, intamicy and relationship. We strip down and expose the bare facts so that you can learn what it takes for your love to thrive. So welcome to arousal!

0:41 Daka Dan: Arousing arousal talk. You know, a lot of people come to us because there is a lack of arousal. Not only in their relationship, but for themselves, they’re not quite understanding what it is. So we thought that we would try to explore it a little bit today for you and kinda see what we can come across. As always, well actually before we get to that, we are using a new tool for the first time, please bear with us as we go through some of the trials and tribulations of this new tool but we do have the opportunity for you to ask questions that will be completely anonymous. If you– in the right hand side of your monitor you will see, there’s a little chat area and you can click on that submit us questions. We won’t use your name so it will be anonymous but your name will be shown to other people who are on this live version of the Naked Talk. So if you don’t want your name to be shown you can always do private message to the admins and then we will see it and we certainly won’t use your name in the recording or anything else as well. But we will repeat your question so that everybody can get to it.

1:54 Elizabeth: Absolutely. So basically I think that we should start off by explaining what arousal is and arousal is actually very different than desire. So, I was just clicking away to get a really good definition for everybody but arousal is actually the physiological and psychological state of being awake and reactive to stimuli. So it’s our bodies response and our emotional response to stimulation. So when we talk about arousal we wanna differentiate that from desire because I could totally desire my partner or desire a sexual activity, whether on my own or in partnership, but if my body doesn’t actually respond to it in the physiological way that it was supposed to then I’m not able to actually feel and invoke that arousal response. So why it’s so important for us to talk about this, especially in women, I think, there’s–

2:58 Daka Dan: Although it’s valuable for men as well. Go ahead…

3:01 Elizabeth: Absolutely, but the physiological state of arousal for men is all the responses that are– they create the actual erection, so it’s a lot easier for us women and you men to tell whether or not you’re actually on the arousal train, shall we say, so for women it’s much more difficult to actually, physically see states of arousal and sometimes feel full states of arousal and I think that there are a lot of women out there who are engaging in sexual activity without actually being in a full state of arousal. And to me–

3:43 Daka Dan: I agree with that.

3:44 Elizabeth: And to me they’re missing, both males and females, and, you know, women partners, they’re missing the full experience.

3:52 Daka Dan: Yeah I would absolutely agree, we’ve talked about this a number of times recently. How we’ve had female clients, or females come to us about their male partners having very large penises and that it’s very painful for them to engage in intercourse with them and I would argue that there’s probably the possibility, at least, that they weren’t fully aroused and ready for the act of sexual intercourse when they started getting into it and therefore there was a lot of pain. You know, when we’re aroused, the sensitivity levels in our bodies change for both men and women and women take a lot longer than men do. As we all know, the breeze blows by and we can get an erection, especially as we’re younger and as we get a bit older that’s not quite the case. There’s an actually an issue with Viagra. A lot of men think that they don’t need or that they don’t get aroused or that they don’t have erections so they go on to get Viagra and the problem is you have to be able to get aroused even for Viagra to work. So that’s something that– a whole other story that we can talk on, about Viagra at some point in time.

5:08 Elizabeth: Well it’s actually tricking people and actually thinking that, or it’s taking over from actually what is a lack of arousal. It’s creating the physiological response but not that psychological response of feeling that state of yumminess and, you know, wanting to, if you will, deeply desire and devour or lose yourself in a sexual experience. So I think that when men are relying on Viagra there are actually deeper and more important factors to take a look at in addition to why they’re using the Viagra and for some people, Viagra works very, very well, but not as something that– that shouldn’t be their go-to every single time.

6:00 Elizabeth: A lot of times Viagra will cover up underlying states of anxiety which, when addressed, and uncovered in a really safe partnership or in a relationship with a therapist, the need for Viagra diminishes and decreases and the body’s natural arousal state comes back without the need for inter– a little blue triangle, otherwise known as intervention. So…

6:29 Daka Dan: Right. Yeah and I had heard a statistic at one point in time that really only ten percent of the Viagra prescriptions are really necessary. And the real reason for it is the physiological reasons. I guess, I guess you could argue that psychologically there might be a valid reason for it as well but I would argue also that if men got to understand what their arousal was and weren’t over-sensitized to something like, for example porn, then they would potentially be more able to get erections and maintain those erections. I’ve had a client in the past whose husband had been– she didn’t know this at first but he had been watching a lot of porn, I wouldn’t say that he was addicted to the porn but you could make an argument for that as well, and he couldn’t get an erection and couldn’t get aroused near her. Well, then one day she happened to get on his computer and he had left something open that was looking at all this porn and she started to realize that he was sitting in the basement watching porn for about eight hours a day. So, yeah I would say he’s pretty much addicted.

7:39 Elizabeth: That’s a lot.

7:41 Daka Dan: Yeah and problem was is he was so aroused by some of these really kinky, out of the world kinds of things that you really can’t emulate with your partner very well that when he was with her, he just couldn’t get aroused.

7:57 Elizabeth: It seems to have, in comparison to what he was experiencing with porn, it seemed kind of dull and boring. There’s constant stimulation, visually and, you know, I don’t know what’s happening in terms of sound but the visual stimulation is so intense and so fast and so quick that normal, everyday sexual interactions– you just can’t compare. That’s one of the disturbing facts of porn is that both– the increased stimulation and the need for something different and faster and harder is increased over time as you become more reliant on porn, so…

8:40 Daka Dan: Right and just like the vibrator, you know, men can’t compete with the vibrator around women and women really can’t compete with porn around men

8:50 Elizabeth: And nor should we.

8:51 Daka Dan: Right. There’s so much stimulation and the actors, you know, they take breaks in between, they may be having sex for an hour or two, but the fact of it is, they’re goin’ for a little bit and then they do a cut and they are re-positioned and then they do some other things and, you know–

9:10 Elizabeth: It’s Hollywood people!

9:12 Daka Dan: Yeah.

9:12 Elizabeth: It’s just no– it’s actually really not– if anybody watches the amateur films of couples, I mean there are so many sex tapes that are out there, you compare the act of real world, every day, what people compare normal sex, it by no means should ever be compared to what is choreographed, directed and produced and actually scripted in porn. So, you know, enough about porn. Let’s get back to arousal.

9:38 Daka Dan: Arousal

9:39 Elizabeth: So, again, the physiological state of responding to stimuli. So, as we were talking about, it’s a state of, you know, the beginning state of erection, full erection, you know, soft cock but feeling a lot of stimulation, feeling your body react to it. Also, with men, the nipples actually do contract and start to protrude…

10:08 Daka Dan: There’s a flushness in our body as the blood moves

10:09 Elizabeth: Quickening of the breath

10:12 Daka Dan: Yeah, right, quickening, blood moves to the surface of the skin which causes that reddening sensation or reddening visual in our bodies as well. So there’s a lot of different things that can indicate we’re aroused.

10:27 Elizabeth: Mmhmm. Warmth, heat, chills as your body tries to cool down after that heat. These are physiological and emotional responses, actually, a deeper and deeper connection. Feeling closer to your partner, feeling more connected to you partner or yourself if this is actually occurring with self-stimulation. And for women, as I said earlier, it’s harder for all of us to visualize the physiological response because so much of our arousal tissue, or erectile tissue, is hidden within our bodies. Upon–

11:01 Daka Dan: So it’s not as easy to see as men but we still can see it. So we’ll talk about that too, right?

11:07 Elizabeth: Oh, absolutely. If trained and taught, hmmm, maybe there’s a class on that soon– October 11th and 12th in Boulder, Colorado. Anyway, you will see the same responses that we talked about with the men. You can hear the breath quickening, with increased states of arousal our nipples will change and become tighter and more contracted and protrude a little bit, that also happens with a cold breeze. You know, that’s an actual body’s response that doesn’t necessarily well, but cold breeze can be arousing too. But we will become flushed with the height of arousal, if we go into a state of a peak climax. You’ll see and you can feel the contractions in the body, but most of our arousal tissue, as we said, is hidden. If you pay attention and actually, I think it’s a great exercise for us women and women and their partners, is to watch the physiological responses in the vulva. You will see the colors change, you will feel the lubrication and for men as arousal states increase, there will be the point where there’ll be a little bit of pre-cum. So that’s there–

12:22 Daka Dan: Not always.

12:23 Elizabeth: No, not always, right.

12:23 Daka Dan: And so I wanted to emphasize that point as well. For women, just because a woman’s not wet doesn’t necessarily meant that she’s not aroused. If she’s wet, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s aroused. Did I say that right? If she’s wet, doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s aroused. If she’s not wet, doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s not aroused.

12:43 Elizabeth: Yeah, it’s– there’s– it’s a case by case situation. So, typically, with increased states of arousal, the women will start– the body will start to respond and begin to secrete lubricant. That’s the pre-cum with men is basically lubricant because they’re thinking, the penis is thinking, “Ooh I’m gonna have some penetration.” So it’s the body’s response to prepare the penis and then of course the vagina for penetration. So if, as women age, as we age–

13:16 Daka Dan: That also neutralizes the acidity inside a woman as well so I think it helps to allow sperm to reach inside of her.

13:27 Elizabeth: Yeah, it’s really important for, you know, procreation purposes. But, if we’re just talking about, strictly recreational use…

13:37 Daka Dan: Right, right but I’m just talking about how the physiological response is for a reason, not just because we like it. There’s a procreational reason behind it

13:49 Elizabeth: Oh, the body and the mysteries of the body. Absolutely. Well it’s readying both the penis and the vagina for insertion. So, we all know that lubricant is our friend because it makes it feel so much better. Slick, sometimes cool, slippery environment can make the act of penetrative intercourse a lot more fun. So as I was saying–

14:14 Daka Dan: Pleasurable.

14:15 Elizabeth: A lot more pleasurable. For women, as we age our bodies natural ability to respond to arousal with lubrication tends to diminish. Our hormones are up and down and all kinds of flux, hot flashes, whatever. Our bodies actually tend to need more lubricant and whether that’s with a little bit of our own secretion, like a little bit of spit, or whether you choose, carefully chooses an appropriate lubricant, that’s something that’s your friend. Have that by your bedside and Dan and I actually made recommendations against two of the most popular lubricants out there– Astroglide and KY Jelly because there’s glycerin and there’s actually, if you read the ingredients– I won’t go into them all, but a lot of those ingredients are actually drying agents. So why on earth would you wanna put anything that might be drying to the tissue on the tissue that we want slippery and wet? So..

15:16 Daka Dan: Or glycerin is a sugar and if women are prone to yeast infections then glycerin is going to, potentially cause extra problems.

15:26 Elizabeth: And it does that by changing, as you were just talking about, the whole pH balance in our system.

15:30 Daka Dan: Right

15:31 Elizabeth: You know we’re amazingly well-designed and when we add things that don’t belong in our pussies– sugar?!

15:39 Daka Dan: Or in them…

15:39 Elizabeth: Yeah, we’re gonna change the pH and that could cause problems. So arousal and that physiological response is really important to us, well to everybody but our teaching about arousal is really important because we’ve heard one of the classic complaints, issues is that a lot of women are going ahead, they want to be sexually engaged and close to their partners and they’re going ahead with penetration or with sex when they’re not quite ready. So..

16:18 Daka Dan: We often see that, you know, we all like to use the analogy of a stove; men are the gas flame that you turn it on and boom we’re ready to go right then and there whereas women are more of the boiling water, once you get them going, great, you have a lot of fun with it. You know the phrase, “the watched pot never boils”? Well, that’s kind of the same thing here. Not that we shouldn’t be watching our partners when we’re arousing them but, you know, it takes a little bit longer to do that. In fact in a book by Sherry Winston, she says it takes about forty minutes for a woman to become fully aroused.

17:01 Elizabeth: So another analogy is men are like microwaves and women are like the slow cookers because it does take more time and I think when I saw clients when I was actually in practice as a sex therapist, one of the common complaints was, “She takes so long. She’s never ready.” And that timing issue is really important for partners to understand. There are–

17:25 Daka Dan: So let me ask you real quick though, when they said, “She takes too long”, did they identify what ‘too long’ was? Or ‘so long’ was?

17:32 Elizabeth: Anything longer than he was willing to participate in. You know–

17:36 Daka Dan: Which could be like, a minute or two.

17:37 Elizabeth: Right and that’s, you know, the typical sexual response cycle for a man from, you know, a state of no arousal to beginning stimulation all the way to a peak climax, on average, yes, on average it’s 2.4 minutes. 2.4. That’s a really short period of time. Evolutionarily–

17:58 Daka Dan: So commercial TV these days, you could probably have sex during commercial breaks…for men.

18:03 Elizabeth: I think– no commercials are thirty seconds long.

18:06 Daka Dan: Yeah but they usually string multiple ones together.

18:07 Elizabeth: Oh yeah like two– uh huh. So yeah, during a commercial break.

18:10 Daka Dan: The problem is I don’t watch commercial TV anymore. I can’t stand those commercials!

18:16 Elizabeth: Well maybe you could do something else! You could test yourself and try it out. But that’s the thing, without interruption, without distraction, it really is 2.4 minutes and men you can time yourselves and ladies who are with male partners, you can do the– some research. Do some homework, do some research and actually watch your partner self-stimulate and time him– not ’cause you’re trying to beat a goal, not at all, but you might be surprised to realize that it is 2.4 minutes and evolutionarily that served a purpose because men– if men were not there spreading their seed the species wouldn’t have survived. So it serves a function but not in, you know, the long and luxurious active of love-making. If the man does wanna last, and we are talking predominantly about heterosexual couples here, where the man does wanna last a little bit longer than 2.4 minutes there are ways to slow down the arousal state, build up the arousal state and be in more active control prior to the peak climax.

19:28 Daka Dan: Now that kind of begs the question that if men are genetically predisposed to have a short, quick climax, 2.4 minutes, then why are women so much longer?

19:41 Elizabeth: Well a woman’s climax isn’t necessary for procreation. It’s a bonus, but it’s not necessary. So the ejaculation is the reason why, I mean– our eggs are sittin’, are just waitin’ around for a sperm to come along so we actually don’t have to have any action in our body where you men have to ejaculate and expel that semen in order for it to meet up with an egg inside the internal workings of a woman’s body.

20:11 Daka Dan: So there’s another theory that I’ve read somewhere, I forget where it was, I can’t attribute it to anybody, but it was more because and this is kind of a controversial topic in this day and age, but for poly-amorous-type relationships, because women take so long to get aroused what the value was is you have multiple men who are inseminating her and then by the time she gets fully aroused by, say, the fifth man, then there’s all that semen that’s combined and she’s got much more quantities of it to actually bring up because as she becomes aroused herself the cervix re-positions itself, the fallopian tubes kind of re-position themselves as well and helps to create more of a direct channel to that egg that’s in there for procreation purposes. I’d forgotten about that until we started talking about this.

21:08 Elizabeth: Hmm. So, I don’t know if there’ve ever been studies as to when a woman actually does become pregnant if more successful pregnancies happen with more foreplay and arousal. That could be something. Without a doubt, what Dan was alluding to is a woman’s– the whole positioning of her “reproductive organs” absolutely shifts with arousal. There’s swelling of the erectile tissue, Dan was just talking about the cervix actually dropping down into the canal of her body. It actually tilts and tends up, so yeah I was incorrect. It tends and tilts up, the opening of the cervix becomes more dilated which would then allow for more of the squiggly sperm to get up there. It only takes, we know, to inseminate one egg. We have twins and multiple pregnancies as more the tricky little sperm get up there. But it’s the fastest swimmer, the strongest little swimmer that gets up there and in a expulsion of– in one ejaculate there are millions, of millions and millions of sperm so it’s survival of the fittest for those little guys. And without it, as I said, it’s not necessary for a woman to reach a full state of arousal in order for her to become pregnant. It would actually be– yeah it’d actually be really cool. And I bet somebody out there, some really super cool research at some really cool university was able– might’ve been able to do that study.

22:48 Daka Dan: Yeah. I’d be interested, how would you do a study like that? Yeah, have a baseline group of women who want to get pregnant and another group of women who want to get pregnant. The baseline group you have sex the normal way and the test group you would have them get fully aroused and–

23:08 Elizabeth: And probably do some measurements to make sure that the whole internal, clitoral network is fully engorged, fully swollen and what might happen if they’re– I think that would be but I don’t know if the university would pay for it in this day and age, and our culture.

23:21 Daka Dan: I’d be happy to help with that.

23:24 Elizabeth: Well I would think that it might be done somewhere outside of the US but it could be something to look into. And then what the success rates are. If a woman’s body is in a full state of arousal, if there’s a higher correlation between increased arousal and higher states of pregnancy. I would guess that there would be, that might be a question that we could ask Sherry. Sherry Winston.

23:42 Daka Dan: Yeah.

23:42 Elizabeth: ‘Cause she’s done a lot of research on full arousal states for women. So you mentioned the forty minutes. So a lot of times, I can’t see on the other side of this camera what everybody’s thinking, both men and women, to the forty minutes for a woman to reach a full state of arousal. Whether it’s, “eeek,” or, “oh my gosh, yumm, ” or, from the guys, “yay!” I don’t know what’s goin’ on back there. But forty minutes is a long time in some people’s world. Especially in our busy calendar. So what’s your response to that.

24:17 Daka Dan: Calendar from five to midnight, yeah.

24:21 Elizabeth: What’s your response when you first heard the forty minutes? Do you remember?

24:25 Daka Dan: No, it didn’t surprise me and I know from a lot of the work I do that it takes women a much longer time and I work really slowly and get them very aroused so, it’s– yeah, I mean it’s not surprising to me at all. And that’s one of the big complaints that we hear from women that we hear all the time, is, “there’s not enough foreplay, there’s never enough foreplay.” It’s, you know, a couple nipple tweaks, a little finger on the clit, thirty seconds later they’re trying to jam themselves inside of her, then she’s just too dry, then, you know, just squeeze a bunch of lube in as well and, you know, it really doesn’t do anything.

25:05 Elizabeth: Yeah so this talk, I guess, is as much for men as it is for women. Because, even me, “Forty minutes, h e’s not gonna wanna be with me that long,” or, “Oh he’s gonna get tired,” or, “I’m gonna get tired,” or I get all this monkey mind talk when it’s really, “Boy if we could give ourselves the luxury of that forty minutes.” That’s what– that’s actually what differentiates love-making from sex. And certainly love-making from fucking. Love-making actually is– it’s a treat. It’s an experience, it’s something that you create together within your partnership and that means setting aside time, attention and space to really be with each other. It’s, as we were talking Dan said– what? We start at nine and go to midnight or did you say start at five and go to midnight, I don’t know, he gets up earlier than I do.

26:01 Daka Dan: Yeah. Five in the morning, I wake up at four these days.

26:05 Elizabeth: But, you know, that’s, it’s hard to– I don’t want couples to get stuck and, “Huh! Every single session it has to be forty minutes!” No, no, no, no, no.

26:13 Daka Dan: Right.

26:14 Elizabeth: We want to make sure that you know that it’s actually part of your repertoire. By all means, treat yourself to the forty minutes when you can, schedule it, put it down in your appointment calendar; it’s really important in our really hectic, busy day, to make sure that we plan for together time. Or we plan for solo time if it’s something that you wanna– women, and men too, but women wanna explore on their own. It might be a safer space for you to try it out, for us women to try it out on our own and work ourselves up to that state of full arousal. And you may say, “Well I can do it in twenty minutes,” or, “I can do it in three minutes with a vibrator.” You know, whatever that might be, but that’s– each and every part of that is part of your sexual repertoire, and those are fine, but we’re asking and encouraging everybody, our audience, to do is take the time to explore your body. Women– take a mirror, after– it’s not forty minutes of clitoral stimulation. It’s arousing and waking up and stimulating the vulva, top to bottom and be very careful of interplay, making sure if you’re gonna include the anus in there and everything’s clean, ’cause we don’t want any cross-contamination, but, you know, arousing and massaging the whole area, not just focusing on the clit. It’s really– I wish I had my vulva puppet, but the whole area. Massaging, pulling, tugging, pressure, speed, length, all that and get a really good lubricant– we like coconut oil. It is–

27:52 Daka Dan: Except coconut oil’s not really good for condoms, latex condoms…

27:55 Elizabeth: No but if we’re– that’s true but if we’re doing the whole forty minute massage–

28:00 Daka Dan: Right.

28:01 Elizabeth: That’s a great oil to use.

28:02 Daka Dan: Yup, yup. That is a good oil to use. There are others that are out there. We’ve been testing some products as well that we like too. And I also, kind of want to go back to what you were talking about a little bit earlier. We are not saying that the “quicky” is not a great thing to do. However, if a woman has a partner who is very well endowed and there’s a lot of pain, that’s really not that good and that’s not gonna help anybody getting laid, so to speak. So, yeah I think what Elizabeth was talking about was really great advice; use a vibrator, become aroused in a more hyper-time-frame, you know–

28:45 Elizabeth: Are you talking about the “quicky” now?

28:48 Daka Dan: Yeah, well not just the “quicky” itself but, in general, if you don’t have time for forty minutes of arousal before you start actually having intercourse, and so you’re going an hour, but you have, you know, some little quick amount of time then, by all means, use a vibrator, become aroused, start ahead of time. Our good friends from Tantric PM, Mark Michaels and Patricia Johnson, talked about scheduling your sex and that’s actually better than just the impromptu which we all seem to think is the best style of sex out there when really, you can start preparing ahead of time. So if we know that we’re gonna have sex this evening, even if it’s only going to be a fifteen minute love-making session, we can start the foreplay ahead of time.

29:34 Elizabeth: Start fantasizing, start creating, you know, what the scenario might be, you know–

29:40 Daka Dan: Send little messages to each other.

29:42 Elizabeth: Excite each other, tease each other, get the mind involved. I mean we all know that our bodies, for most of us, the use of fantasy starts the physiological response and I actually wanna be very careful– there are some women who aren’t able to enjoy fantasy. It’s not they don’t have an imaginary life, it’s just some women, the use of fantasy doesn’t work. So I know a lot of women in my practice have come to me saying, “I don’t fantasize and I feel really guilty or like I’m wrong or I’m bad or I’m broken.” Well the case and fact is that not all women can employ fantasy as a means to feel excitement or increased arousal. So I just wanted to put that out there.

30:29 Daka Dan: And I have a hard time understand that. As a guy, I fantasize all the time and I think most guys are probably in the same boat. You know, we look at our partners who don’t fantasize like, “Well, how can you NOT fantasize.” That’s just– that’s a normal part of it but…

30:42 Elizabeth: It’s a normal part for a lot of men but for those women who don’t, that thing, “How can you NOT?”…

30:48 Daka Dan: Right.

30:48 Elizabeth: Can tend to make that partner feel bad or guilty or broken or potentially ashamed so I just really wanna be careful for those women who don’t fantasize, that’s just who you are. Perhaps something else works; reading erotic novels, maybe it’s listening to something or listening to your partner’s voice tell a story, tell a fantasy, who knows but explore and try to figure out what might work for you. What is your turn-on? Don’t take what the rest of the world does in order to get their turn-on or, you know, their excitation levels up as something that you must do and if you don’t that you’re broken. Definitely want to make sure that we disseminate that information. So…

31:32 Daka Dan: As opposed to inseminate…*laughter* Sorry!

31:34 Elizabeth: Inseminate, yeah we talked about that a little bit earlier. So, you know, the full states of arousal for women are so important but I don’t want to forget the men here. Because, trust me, and–

31:46 Daka Dan: Well before we get to the men, you were starting to talk about arousing women, the playing with the lips, the pressure, things like that, and I didn’t wanna short-change that ’cause I think that’s hugely valuable to talk about to our audience. You know, it’s– when you are working with a woman– first of all, don’t go straight to the vulva.

32:11 Elizabeth: Don’t go straight for the genitals on either sex.

32:14 Daka Dan: True.

32:14 Elizabeth: Engage the whole body. Our skin is our largest sex organ and we have a lot of it so, you know, massage and engage all the different body parts. You know another really fun, if you wanna take on another sexual adventure, explore your own body first for what new erogenous zones you might uncover and then take that and teach that to your partner and then go to your partner with inquiry like, what might be– what might feel really good too. I enjoy my neck, that’s not such a turn-on for Dan so, you know, we typically go for places that we like on our own bodies. But with inquiry like, “You know this actually feels really good to me when you touch or caress or kiss or nuzzle my neck. How does that feel for you?” And if it doesn’t work, what does? So it’s really being open to that exploration of what feels good to you and it’s totally gonna be different than what feels good to me.

33:18 Daka Dan: Potentially. But yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Even people who’ve been in long-term relationships, we seem to think that we know our partners like, “OK can do this blind-folded ’cause I have done it for so many years.” But take some time to try some new things, explore something different. In a love-making session, start by caressing their back. You have your partner lay on their bed and start caressing their back, slowly taking their clothes off and re-discover if there’s something that might be more pleasing than they’ve had in the past. You know, variety is the spice of life, as they say, so the same kind of activities in love-making, I think, you know that qualifies for. So, try something new. Try the back caress and maybe they don’t like it. Maybe they didn’t like it before but they will like it sometime in the future.

34:15 Elizabeth: Yeah, the same formula repeated over and over and over and over again doesn’t work. So add different ingredients in there, try different technique, different maneuvers, different positions and I also like that you said to start out on their back which is the less sexual zone but it just can allow our partners–

34:37 Daka Dan: Start out with them on their bellies so we have access to the back–

34:40 Elizabeth: Access to backs. So yeah, I’m sorry, ask your partner to lay so you can give them a back caress. It helps the nervous system calm down so that we can begin to sort of unfold and give off the troubles and worries of the day and we can actually begin to trust that it isn’t all genitally focused. You spend twenty minutes on my back, you spend twenty minutes, you know, massaging my hair or brushing my hair or playing with my hair, my body’s gonna respond more to the sexual touch after I’ve been aroused with your sensual touch and it’s not necessarily about safety like danger, danger, but it allows that sort of– the parasympathetic nervous system, you know, kicks in, our sympathetic nervous system calms down– did I say that right? Sympathetic and parasympathetic…

35:32 Daka Dan: I always get them confused.

35:35 Elizabeth: Whichever one is the one involved in relaxation and ??? , whichever one is, I believe it’s the parasympathetic nervous system just is– it creates that state of euphoria, calmness, peace, relaxation. That’s where we actually want to get and we reach that through sensual touch then as the sensuality and sensual touch builds up we flip into that state of excitation and we can respond more appropriately to the physiological stimulation with arousal.

36:10 Daka Dan: Right and that goes both ways. Don’t just give to your partner for twenty minutes and then, “OK now we’re ready to have sex.” It’s give to your partner for twenty and then have your partner give to you for twenty minute; go back and forth, make a little game where you’re playing with it so that you’re both enjoying the arousal generation that’s moving on.

36:29 Elizabeth: Yeah and the build-up is a, you know, it’s a little for me, a little for him, a little for me, a little for him and so it’s like– it’s not like it’s a simultaneous cycle, but you’re increasing your state of arousal together, sort of piece by piece.

36:43 Daka Dan: And I know for me, that I get more aroused when my partner is more aroused as well. So watching her becoming more aroused as I’m caressing her body, that’s stimulates me as well. So you get that whole sound vibe in there too.

37:01 Elizabeth: Mmhmm. Yeah, so another thing is like making noise when, you know, feeling states. Purring or moaning or, you know, making some type of vibration letting your partner know or saying, “Ahh,” you know, your words, great. “Ahh that feels awesome, that feels wonderful.” That increases– that’s an auditory way of stimulating, you know, ourselves and our partner. It’s like, “Mmmm,” whatever it may be, use your own sounds, but verbalizing and vocalizing, we’re trying to engage all of the senses. Like, watch your partner’s arousal face, listen for your partners arousal face, feel your partner’s arousal face, smell your partner’s arousal face, you know there are different scents that are released and taste– that’s the other one we wanna encourage you to use. And then the sixth sense, the intuitive sense. And pay attention. The more senses we engage in love-making, the more heightened the experience will be.

38:03 Daka Dan: Absolutely.

38:04 Elizabeth: So, you know, romantic music, smelly-perfumey-yummy candles, a wonderful, luxurious bath together, put in some bath salts, put in some lavender oil– any type of oil that invokes a calming– lavender I think it is…

38:20 Daka Dan: Mmhmm, lavender.

38:21 Elizabeth: Can’t use peppermint oil cause that will hurt on your genitals.

38:25 Daka Dan: Sting! Although peppermint’s an aphrodisiac.

38:29 Elizabeth: Peppermint, probably in the mouth. I would use peppermint oils in the mouth not down on the genitals. It would burn and it would feel really good, I mean not feel really good.

38:37 Daka Dan: It wouldn’t feel really good.

38:38 Elizabeth: It’s very much of a surprise.

38:40 Daka Dan: That’s like a whole different class.

38:42 Elizabeth: So you’ll look for that when you’re– and engage all this– I mean put, bring in your love-making session, like, a soft-bristled brush ’cause sometimes that can feel really good. Bring a

38:58 Daka Dan: Bunny fur rabbit.

38:58 Elizabeth: A bunny rabbit glove, all the different textures that we can use to engage the sense, you know, lotion. My hands are really dry, you can actually probably hear them, that actually probably wouldn’t feel to good ’cause this doesn’t feel too good, but engage all of the different senses. Cooler temperatures, warmer temperatures– not icy cold, unless it’s a really hot day, I mean have fun with it, be– to melt an ice cube on your partner’s body. Or a warm washcloth brushing over, all those things can certainly heighten the experience.

39:36 Daka Dan: Yeah so experiment for yourself, ’cause there are some things that aren’t gonna appeal to some people that are to others. You know, to me a warm wash cloth, that feels really good until the water starts to dry and it gets cold so I’m not really excited about that.

39:52 Elizabeth: Well then you can blow on it and make it even colder and just change things up.

39:55 Daka Dan: Yeah.

39:55 Elizabeth: But never to like trick or do something that’s unwanted but it can change the sensation. When, you know, you wave a wash cloth the heat dissipates and sometimes when we have a fever– I’m not saying that we have a fever when love-making– but, like, that nice cool wash cloth feels really good. So as a former sex therapist there’s a lot of talk around the four classified sexual dysfunctions, as defined in the DS, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, DSM. Actually when I was doing therapy it was the DSM 4, I think there’s now the DSM 5. It’s even thicker and I don’t know if I’d ever look through it. But there is such a thing as sexual arousal disorder and I need to read this, I know what it is but I wanna give you the classical definition: Sexual Arousal Disorder is characterized by a lack or absence of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity in a situation that would normally produce sexual arousal OR it’s the inability to obtain or maintain the typical responses to sexual stimulation. Oh it says right here, “This disorder is found int he DSM 4”. And it should not be confused with Desire Disorder. So we’ll go on to Desire Disorder, probably some other time but Sexual Arousal Disorder is when you can’t– your body doesn’t do what it’s normally supposed to do in reaction to stimuli and I’m gonna go back to the whole hormonal piece ’cause as I age, you know, the hormonal piece comes in there. And hormones, the rush of hormones, the flood of hormones, I mean when in our period of development are we at our most randy and horny? It’s in that surge of puberty when all of our hormones are finally being, you know they’re being released. Our body’s natural state in, you know, pre-pubescent, pubescent stages, when all of that whole chemical cocktail– young women start to experience their first moon cycles or mood cycles, all those hormones are raging through our bodies, we develop acne, that’s just a flood of hormones in our body, the young boys are waking up with a, clinical definition, “nocturnal erections”, nighttime erections, morning erections, that’s when–

42:39 Daka Dan: Morning wood. She said wood. Sorry.

42:40 Elizabeth: Morning wood. That’s my last name, too. If I became a doctor I would become Dr. Wood– that’s a whole nother lifetime. Anyway, so that’s when our hormones are most available and their flooded in the system.

42:58 Daka Dan: And that’s not to say that that’s our peak sexual prime.

43:02 Elizabeth: No it’s like, it’s the peak release of the hormones. Yeah, definitely want to differentiate with that. And that’s why, for all of us who are parents out there, understand that the body’s doing its magic and it’s responding to the normal developmental stage. So help your kids understand that, you know, we’re not gonna act every single time we have a hormonal impulse– that gets us into trouble– but let them know that it’s totally normal and totally natural because their bodies are going haywire with the release of all this testosterone and all the different androgens and all the hormones that are released and required for, you know, normal sexual responses. Anyway, so as we age those hormones, both in men and women, decrease. The testosterone levels decrease in men and women have testosterone also but our levels of hormones decrease and its hormones that are actually responsible for generating the physiological responses to the stimulation. So, bear with me women of advancing age, know that we aren’t going to response, none of us are going to respond to that same stimulation we had in our twenties like we did when we were in our twenties. It’s different. It doesn’t mean that we don’t respond and we can’t respond, we certainly can.

44:29 Daka Dan: Well and I’ve actually witnessed women who are older that have a stronger sexual response cycle than when they were in their twenties and mostly that’s because of the mental capacities. Not saying that women in their twenties didn’t have the capabilities but there’s so much information out there saying, “Keep your legs closed. Men are bad. Don’t have sex. Save it for the one you love.” I mean all that–

44:54 Elizabeth: Fear of pregnancy.

44:54 Daka Dan: Right all that shame that comes out through our various religious institutions, our government–

45:00 Elizabeth: Families.

45:01 Daka Dan: Families, etc,

45:03 Elizabeth: And society.

45:04 Daka Dan: Right, and by the time, and what I’ve seen, is women who get to their forties are starting to say, “Wait a minute– I’m now at my prime sexual peak here and I like sex. I wanna have more sex, I wanna be able to connect through sex as well but I wanna be able to enjoy it like all these men have been doing for the past twenty years or so.” And they’ve really started to throw it off. I see a lot of women in their forties and fifties going to Tantra workshops, some of the workshops that we run. You know, it’s amazing where they start coming out of the wood-work with this, I think it’s great. I think what’s sad about it is that they didn’t feel comfortable doing it earlier in their lives.

45:47 Elizabeth: I think also it has part to do, also, with a woman’s own awareness of her body and greater comfort, greater body-esteem, and there is such a thing– I mean body image issues plague men as well as women, but women more so because we are– our physical attributes are so tied, and I think erroneously, to status and power. So, anyway, women, I think, as we age we become way more comfortable with who we are, we become way more comfortable with our bodies and there’s a hunger and a desire that’s no longer– not plagued– it’s no longer affected or afflicted by those fears of pregnancy because we– it’s not that a woman in her forties can’t get pregnant because she can– but we’re more aware of how to take care of our bodies, our own sexual response cycle, our own stage of our menstrual cycle and when to better protect ourselves from a pregnancy that isn’t wanted. So we’re just more attuned and I think that that helps with our mental– you know, sort of the state of more openness, and a willingness to just go for it and want to explore the full range of our bodies. It’s just more body confidence as we age. More confidence and more self-awareness in general.

47:13 Daka Dan: Yup. So we had started talking about having your partner lay on their belly and then start arousing them from the back. Now, at some point in time you’re gonna wanna have them roll over so you can start stimulating their front side as well. Again, I would say stay away from the genitals right away. Bring the arousal, do a little teasing. Teasing is very arousing to a number of people. I don’t mean teasing like, “Oh, your penis is so small.”

47:40 Elizabeth: That’s shaming.

47:41 Daka Dan: Yeah that’s shaming. But, you know something where you make them think that you’re gonna touch their breasts so they want you to touch it and so you move on and touch something else. So they’re– you start to create that desire in them to help drive and increase their arousal over time.

48:01 Elizabeth: And the slow build-up is what’s so important. You know, we relax into that state of, “Ahhh, you know this feels so good.” I open myself to more and more pleasure and, as Dan was saying, not focusing on the breasts or genitals. And certainly including them, but that shouldn’t be the focus. It allows us to, you know, “Wow he’s taking pleasure on way more of my body” and, “Wow I’m taking pleasure and way more space and parts of my body”. So we definitely wanna include them but start with the sensual and then move into the more sexual and the more erotic forms of touch. So back to the full state of arousal for women, the– if we go and specifically talk about massaging the vulva, there are many different strokes involved. Again it’s not just the clitoris, the hood, the shaft, the tip of the clitoris, eight thousand nerve endings there, it’s the whole surrounding area and when I asked women and their partners to ask for the changes– the changes in color, the changes in–

49:13 Daka Dan: Plumpness

49:13 Elizabeth: Plumpness or swelling, because that erectile tissue and– did I say this? Did either one of us say this?

49:19 Daka Dan: So we haven’t talked about erectile tissue.

49:21 Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s– OK that’s good.

49:21 Daka Dan: Is that what you’re gonna– yeah, ok. So women have as much erectile tissue as men. You know, we’ve seen this from a number of different sources now, including Sherry Winston, Andrew Barnes, a number of people has started talking about this and there hasn’t been a lot of research in this area. Not exactly sure why, but doctor’s been afraid of it, who knows? But there is as much erectile tissue in women as there are, or is, in men. Problem is, it’s all internal so you can’t see it.

49:52 Elizabeth: It’s not necessarily a problem.

49:53 Daka Dan: Right, it’s not a problem but we can’t tell that it’s there necessarily unless you’re really looking for it or know to look for it.

50:00 Elizabeth: Or know to feel for it.

50:02 Daka Dan: Right, so I would challenge everybody that next time they’re with their partners that have vaginas, look and see before you start playing with each other the state of the vaginal lips and how they are right in the very beginning.

50:18 Elizabeth: The color. Their thickness.

50:23 Daka Dan: Right. And then, say twenty minutes into it, forty minutes into it, look again and we’re actually, in our class that we’re going to give next week–

50:33 Elizabeth: We’re gonna show different diagrams and descriptions of that so you’ll– there’s a clear difference and that’s why we’re encouraging couples and women to take a look at this on their own because there is a marked difference at– let’s just break it down, at the halfway point, at twenty minutes. Take that mirror out and look at how plump and how full that is. Notice that there is– what’s happening is the blood, much like the erectile tissue of the man, the erectile tissue is filling with blood, helping it become engorged and changing colors. So you’ll notice– some women will notice more pinkness, some will notice more of a purple color, but the color and tone definitely changes and I love the word plumpness or engorgement or swelling. You’ll notice that the lips get thicker. The whole area of the vulva, the area around the opening of the vagina heavily innervates with blood and so take a look, grab a mirror, you women and a mirror and a flashlight perhaps and really explore that with curiosity and wonder and note the different changes. And again, going back to that state of arousal, when there is insertion, so again for that feeling, when there is an insertion with a full state of arousal it feels so much better to us women and if when we’re with a male partner it feels so much better to the men to. Because what happens, of course, when the vaginal wall canal swells it gets more puffy and so there’s more surface area to make contact with the penis so, if you will–

52:22 Daka Dan: Well, not only that but it’s decreasing the volume of the vagina itself. So as the man is inserted into her it gets tighter. So all these people talk about, “Oh you’re pussy is too wide,” and that myth of, “Yeah you’ve had too much sex,” It’s like, that’s not true, it’s a muscle it collapses back down. But when the vagina becomes fully aroused like that, it does become a lot tighter, therefore increasing the pleasure both for the male–as the penis is more–

52:57 Elizabeth: There’s more surface area contact.

52:58 Daka Dan: Right and the other thing that happens is– and they’re called the vestibular bulbs, that’s what’s actually filling up or they’re also called the clitoral bulbs, they’re attached to the clitoral legs and one of the things we haven’t talked about is the clitoris is more than just the little nub that pops up. There’s a whole clitoral shaft and then clitoral legs that go and surround the entrance to the vagina. Well the vestibular bulbs are actually attached to that so as its being moved through intercourse, the clitoris is also being moved as well and there’s been reports that women are having climax through intercourse. Well one of the things , “Oh well women don’t have climaxes through intercourse.” And that’s really true in normal society. There’s a statistic that says something like thirty percent of women actually have a climax through just regular penetrative intercourse.

53:56 Elizabeth: And that’s actually because studies have shown– that’s actually because the clitoris is actually being stimulated during the act of penetration.

54:06 Daka Dan: Right.

54:06 Elizabeth: So, yo know, the more– what we’re trying to do is say that actually more women can experience intercourse, excuse me, climax during intercourse when the tissue is fully engorged, fully aroused, it makes it for a way more pleasurable– and our goal isn’t to have every woman out there have a climax through intercourse. Our goal, actually, is to teach couples, teach women and their partners to actually have more pleasurable and more arousing and more exciting sex. So, you know, the orgasm isn’t necessarily our goal. Again, it’s a lot of fun but however an orgasm, a climax happens, it’s not– we’re saying that there is a possibility that more women could be having climax with penetrative sex when fully engorged, aroused, you know, the internal tissue is stimulated.

55:04 Daka Dan: Yup. So I think that wraps up about the time that we have for this. We do wanna talk about some of the classes that we have upcoming.

55:14 Elizabeth: Perfect. Should I do our like, scripted close and then we can go on to that.

55:18 Daka Dan: Sure.

55:18 Elizabeth: OK. So that about wraps up tonight’s topic of the Naked Talk. We wanna thank you for being a part of this very potent conversation. We also wanna thank our sponsor Tantra Dakini. Tantra Dakini is an online resource for all materials related to sacred and sexual– sacred and spiritual sexuality. So check them out at TantraDakini.org and I will turn it over to Dan to talk about some of our upcoming classes and workshops and what we’re up to. By the way, we’re almost up to 1,000 likes on our Facebook page and apparently that is something huge Even I know it and I’m not a big Facebook-y. So please if you enjoy what you’re seeing, go to our Facebook page at Facebook.com/BedEvents or you can search in the Facebook item Bed Events and it’ll come up and we’re– I think we’re at like nine hundred …

56:28 Daka Dan: We’re close, we’re getting up there

56:30 Elizabeth: Nine hundred and ninety something so please go up there and like us on Facebook so we can hit that really important milestone.

56:38 Daka Dan: So we’ve got a lot of really fun things that are coming up. Next weekend we’ve got the workshop that we talked about a little bit, our Masters of Sex series or Master Lover series is it– why can’t I ever remember the title?

56:57 Elizabeth: It’s on the website.

56:58 Daka Dan: Yeah. Female Pleasure– Female Genital Pleasure, yes. That’s gonna be Saturday.

57:05 Elizabeth: That’s kinda clunky.

57:05 Daka Dan: Yeah. Female Genital Pleasure. And then that’s Saturday, October–

57:11 Elizabeth: October 11th

57:13 Daka Dan: And are you gonna go ahead?

57:14 Elizabeth: No. It’s your– OK, go ahead.

57:17 Daka Dan: So then on Sunday we have male genital pleasuring as well. ‘Cause talking a little bit more about the female genital pleasuring, after class we will have a live demonstration so you can actually see what it is that we do and get a sample of what’s going on. Then we’re gonna provide some of the teaching and then the class is over and then we’re going to have a lab. It’s an optional lab that people can, with their partner, or if you can find a partner that you can bring, can explore this work while Elizabeth and I help coach them through it. And then on Sunday we’re doing the same thing for men. It’s men’s genital pleasuring and there’s a whole number of different strokes that can be done on a man– not just the whole up/down up/down kind of thing so we’re gonna do a demonstration there as well and then teaching and then, again, have an optional lab that we’ll walk you through the different strokes and different kinds of pleasure and why you’d wanna do all of this stuff in the first place. Then we are bringing out Monique Darling to Colorado. We’re very excited to have her come out, we’re gonna have a panel at Naropa University Thursday, I think it’s November 20th. On Friday November 21st we’re going to have something called a Pink Poosia that’s gonna be led by Monique and the panel, by the way, is gonna have Monique, us and a number of people–

58:44 Elizabeth: Other facilitators talking about pleasure.

58:46 Daka Dan: Right, so a number of sex-positive leaders in the Boulder/Denver area, so very excited about that. And then Saturday, the 22nd we’ve got three different classes that Monique’s going to be doing so it’s an all-day affair.

59:04 Elizabeth: You can come to one or all three, they’re all independent.

59:06 Daka Dan: Yup.

59:07 Elizabeth: So the class listings and class descriptions are on the website and then Sunday, can I talk about ’cause it’s women’s only?

59:13 Daka Dan: Yup.

59:14 Elizabeth: So Sunday is women’s only where we’re going to be dropping into a space of, you know, women’s spaces, women’s practices, women’s sexuality, and that’s gonna be an all day class and then at the end, when we close the class we’re gonna have some men join us to honor the work that we’ve done that particular day. So we’re thrilled, as Dan said, to have Monique come out. She is just an exceptional being, a great teacher as well. So please look for that on the Beyond the Bedroom website.

59:50 Daka Dan: Yup. And then I think that pretty much wraps it up for us at this point.

59:56 Elizabeth: Anything else?

59:58 Daka Dan: Nope I think that’s it.

59:59 Elizabeth: So look for us in multiple places. It’s a pleasure to bring Naked Talks to you where we just get live and down about the bare facts of what it takes for us to thrive in life, love and relationship. So thank you all for joining us today, have a good one.

60:16 Daka Dan: Yup. Have a good night everybody, thank you.

60:17 Elizabeth: Bye.