Interview with Sheri Winston and Carl Frankel

Succulent SexCraft – Hands-Off Self-Arousal Skills

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Meet Sheri Winston and Carl Frankel.  Beyond the Bedroom wants you to know who our presenters are. With that in mind we attempt to interview each presenter so you get a sense of who they are and what they will be talking about at the Beyond the Bedroom conference in October or future. If you should happen to be interested in attending you can register for Beyond the Bedroom at any time.

Dan:                       Welcome to Beyond the Bedroom and another interview, another segment with two presenters this time. We have Sheri Winston and Carl Frankel. Sheri is going to be our keynote presenter as well as doing a presentation as well as doing a follow-up weekend just after Beyond the Bedroom so we’ll talk about all of that and Carl is also going to be speaking as well, as a presenter and he’s here with his partner, Sheri. Thank you guys for being here, I appreciate it.

Carl:                       It’s a pleasure.

Sheri:                    Thanks for having us.

Dan:                       Let’s just go and start off with, you’re going to be doing a keynote presentation, Sheri so tell us a little bit about what that’s going to look like.

Sheri:                    Well I’m going to be talking about how everyone has the ability and pride themselves to access ecstasy. It’s our birthright. My background before I was a wholistic sexuality teacher is that I was a midwife and so I’ve seen babies get born and I know when we get born we’re template for ecstasy. Most of us didn’t have that experience but it’s there inside us and so everything I teach is really about connection. How do we connect first to ourselves and what things and then how can we connect amazingly with other people but it begins with this connection to ourselves and understanding that we have pathways in here that we can access that can connect us to our pleasure, our bliss and our ecstasy and that’s what I’m going to be talking about and we’re actually going to play with it a little, when we’re breathing and making sounds and seeing how easy it is once the path is illuminated. You’re like “oh there’s the path right there. I can just go down anytime I want and get to that state” that’s what the keynote’s going to be about and that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Dan:                       And you mentioned that you’re a former midwife. Tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Sheri:                    Well now I’m a wholistic sexuality teacher and author and I ran the Center for the Intimate Arts and I founded that about 14 years ago but before that I spent 20 something years in the world of birth. I like to think of it as kneeling at the altar of birth because that’s where I learned a lot of the foundational ideas that I bring to my wholistic sexuality teaching. I’m actually a certified nurse-midwife, gynecology practitioner, registered nurse, license professional childbirth educator and I did work for what I thought was going to be…I actually thought it was going to be for the rest of my life so I was kind of surprised when that calling shifted and now I realized that I went deeper into the same mystery, basically. I now think that the birth process was the first place I started learning about how to have really amazing sex.

Dan:                       It’s interesting; I’ve come across a number of gynecologists through my career if you call it that and it’s amazing how little some of those people actually know about women’s bodies. They know of the vaginal area, they know the birth canal, they know the fallopian tubes and things like that but pleasure and sexuality they know very little about.

Sheri:                    Well unfortunately that’s true and that doesn’t surprise me. It’s just like when I tell people I used to be a midwife and now I’m a sex teacher. Most people go “huh? What’s birth got to do with sex?” I know, right? We know that sex gets the baby started but the truth is that labor and arousal are almost the exact same altered state of consciousness and all of the things I was going through years to help women have better labors and in fact perhaps even ecstatic orgasmic work experiences for things that I was discovering or helping me have better sex. It’s really understanding that all are completely intricate, none of that is separate. It’s part of the same process and one of the reasons we actually do such a disastrous job in this country with birth is because we don’t understand it is a sexual process.

Dan:                       So you’ve got a class that you’ll be teaching called Succulent Sexcraft and I believe that’s also a book that you’ve got coming out as well. Can you tell us about that?

Sheri:                    It goes from what I was just saying about how I started learning when I was working with women how to help them use things like breath and sounds and affirmations and intention and imagery and keep your heart tilted and not be afraid and all of these things that I was using to help them in their labor. I actually first unconsciously was looking for myself to have better sex and when I became that that’s what I was doing and I started studying the various sexuality disciplines, the ancient ones like the balance sexuality and American in contract and started creating what’s really intricate understanding that everybody has focus and we’re born with it and we just have to learn how to use it. It’s like learning how to play an instrument or speak another language. Most of us we’ve been kind of felt locked or confused or inhibited about using those tools but once we start realizing “oh they’re really simple. They’re right here and this is how I can play with them” then we can start to develop what I think of it as a becoming a master of your erotic energy or also called erotic virtuosity. Everyone can develop it. That’s what I do, helping people discover the tools they already have and getting them some ideas about how they can use them to have really amazing arousal, splendid orgasm and all kinds of outrageous forms of pleasure.

Dan:                       Great, so the class is going to be kind of an intro to what the book is covering as well?

Sheri:                    Yeah the class is an intro to the book and then the following weekend when we’re doing the workshop there’s going to be a whole day and talk about that.

Dan:                       And people can find out about that on the Beyond the Bedroom website as well. It is calendared in there the following weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we’re looking forward to that as well. Carl, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Carl:                       Well my background is as a writer and entrepreneur. I’ve been doing it for a long time. My focus historically was on social responsible business and about 8 years ago, this lady and I got together and my life got turned upside down and the change I started working with her in her business and I also got exposed to this extraordinary world that she inhabit, the sexuality teaching and there’s a whole community of interest around it, fascinating it, fascinating life so as a writer that’s got me thinking more about sexual relationship and less about social responsible business although I just published a book by that. I just finished a short book called The Paradise Project and it’s being published probably first only at Kindle but ultimately before our topic this September so right before the conference and I’m really excited to be at the conference and talking about it. Of course I’m excited about it but I think it’s a really exciting and innovative model of relationship that’s really going to help people on get insight into the challenges of relationship and how significant if we all know.

Sheri:                    It does

Carl:                       Yeah it does

Dan:                       Interestingly enough the class you’re teaching is also called The Paradise Project. Tell us a little bit about that; is that an introduction to the book as well?

Carl:                       It is, it’s sort of a short course or an overview of what is in fact a short book and the reality is that when we get together we fall madly in love and we think we’re just going to float away on angel wings forever. That’s what we aspired to. The reality of relationship is much more complicated. We don’t only want to be cuddling and cuddling and connecting if we wanted to and should be doing. We also want to express our autonomy, our life vitality and then beings and the challenge is to marry these two so we can be loving and intimate and safe and passionate and also support our partner to be free and powerful in their own autonomy and individuality as they can.

Dan:                       That really is important. I talked to a number of people all the time. They’re looking “how do I extend my relationship? We were so in love for the first 3-4 years and now we’re not in love anymore” and I think they’re confusing what ‘in love’ really means so it sounds great. Take your class and understand a little bit how to extend that. Take Sheri’s class to be much more orgasmic and excited in life; sounds really good, sounds like a great combination.

Carl:                       I hope it is and certainly it’s been a great combination for us, I tell you.

Sheri:                    It really works for us.

Carl:                       Yeah, definitely work for us.

Dan:                       Is there anything that you guys would like to throw out there?

Carl:                       I was going to say something and I’m sure you can do it.

Sheri:                    I love to let people know that after the conference we’re doing a free workshop the following weekend so there’s lots more yumminess of people who want more.

Carl:                       And it’s always fun going to gatherings of like-minded, curious people and I’m sure Sheri too, I’m really looking forward to being there and it’s not just about the money. It’s about connecting, it’s about learning and I’m really looking forward to being part of that experience. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Dan:                       Yeah and it is a lot of fun. Don’t forget the masquerade party on Friday night, the 18^th. Bring your costumes. It’s a blast. It’s amazing how people really become completely different people when they put a mask on. Their inhibitions drop, I’m not sure exactly what it is but I like it. It’s a lot of fun and then you’re teaching…one of you I think is teaching on Saturday, one is teaching on Sunday. I don’t remember which one and then the following weekend as well. That will be a much more intensive; that following weekend where it really gets some hands on discovery of what it is that’s going on. I know the Friday night class is based on your book Sheri, is it The Anatomy of Women’s Arousal?

Sheri:                    Women’s Anatomy Arousal

Dan:                       I always get that backwards.

Sheri:                    Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure which is an award winning book that I wrote which is a really integral re-visioning of female anatomy of the human body and sexuality and you will think with all the years of learning particularly about female anatomy I would have learned it all but the truth is that our cultural map, including what top medical professionals incomplete and inaccurate and I spent years on that hunt for buried pleasure, finding out what was missing, why it’s there, how it’s connected and of course how to make it very happy. It’s a class for men and women. It’s a lavishly illustrated, really fun, extremely useful talk presentation on Friday night and I just think everybody needs this information. It’s the only equipment or you like to visit and play with yourself.

Carl:                       If this were a rational world, it would be required reading for everybody on their 18^thbirthday.

Dan:                       Yeah, that is so important, so valuable. I can’t tell you how many guys that I’ve talked to as well. Speaking of guys being in these classes who think “I know everything that I need to know” and I feel so sorry for the women in their lives and how little these women are going to understand what true pleasure really is.

Sheri:                    Well I’ll just say I was just teaching this class and among my audience, I had a good number of women including a good number of young men, 16-18 years old and they were brevetted to this information. Women don’t know this information, men don’t know it. Most sex teachers, sex educators, medical professionals, including gynecologist and midwives don’t know this. I used to give excellent and specific guarantee – you come to this class and you don’t learn anything new, I’ll give you your money back. No one has ever taken me up on it in 16 years I’ve been teaching because there’s stuff that isn’t out there and when you get it, when you get it it’s amazing. For me, for women it just expands your experience in this amazing way and for men it’s like “oh okay, I finally understand why this works and how I can make things work even better” it’s useful stuff.

Dan:                       Yup, you’re pretty sure clear here but hopefully our audience will recognize the value of it as well and that’s a good point you bring up to about the younger generation. I know it’s mostly the men that I’ve been talking to have been in their 40s, 50s who think that they have to know it all. It’s kind of a cultural ideal that men pretty much how to have sex and please our woman from the age of 2 years old. It’s just inherited thing and that’s not true at all and fortunately the younger generation, the 18 year olds, 20 year olds, they are more open to learning. They recognize that they don’t know everything that’s out there and they can be much better. Kudos to that generation, we invite them to attend Beyond the Bedroom as well as the weekend following. Anybody can be there, be great.

Sheri:                    I think we’re on a lifelong learning journey and the day that I think I know it all is I think will be the day that I…I don’t think I’ll ever be at that day. There’s always more to learn, there’s always more to learn. That’s the fun, developing and learning more.

Dan:                       Yeah and the exploration, the hunt for female organism, the tide of male organism and male organism can even be better than most Americans at least understand it to be.

Sheri:                    Yeah

Carl:                       And the standard version isn’t bad.

Dan:                       Yeah, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the standard version but I know there’s a lot more that’s available to them and they hopefully will understand that and come out and learn more. Alright well thank you guys. I appreciate your time. We’ll see you in a short amount of time coming up and very much looking forward to it.

Carl:                       Likewise

Sheri:                    Delighted to be attending, really looking forward to it and feeling really excited about it.

Dan:                       Good, we’ll see you soon, bye.

Sheri:                    Thanks

Carl:                       Bye

Sheri:                    Bye

You can view Sheri’s full class description here.

You can view Carl’s full class description here.

Sheri Winston will be presenting more in depth information regarding her book Women’s Anatomy of Arousal: Secret Maps to Buried Pleasure at the Beyond the Bedroom Conference.