Ep.74 Getting Your Groove Back - A Return to Pleasure and Intimacy

When it comes to our intimate partnerships in midlife, this can be a moment for us to get back to a more fulfilling and meaningful sex life, but in this season of change, do we want and need the same things that lit us up twenty years ago?

Emma Schmidt & Associates is a sex and relationship therapy group practice with a mission is to help make therapy more accessible, locally, nationally and globally. As a sex therapist, Emma believes you deserve to have a great sex life and relationship that fires on all cylinders. 

Emma started the practice in 2011, because she found that the sex therapy field was significantly under-served in her area. Sex and intimacy play a big part in our lives, and when it isn’t going well, it can have a huge impact on relationships and ourselves, and we know that 30-40% of men and women struggle with some sort of sexual challenge. 

What Emma sees, is that through guided conversation and exercises, clients are able to not only have a greater bond and connection but tell her that after therapy, they are happier than they have ever been in their relationship. That’s pretty impactful, and that’s why she does what she does.

Website:  https://heyemma.com/
https://www.instagram.com/heyemmatherapy/
https://www.facebook.com/emmaschmidtsextherapy

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Transcript

Asking for a Friend
Getting Your Groove Back - A Return to Pleasure and Intimacy
Michele Folan
Dr. Emma Schmidt

sex, feel, sexual health, body, partner, women, people, messages, narratives, starts, vagina, sexual, connected, therapy, desire, sleep, vulva, work, questions, emma

Speaker 1  0:00  
One word that can sum up midlife is change. This time of our lives means some transition, maybe awakenings, and much to be celebrated. I personally like the glass half full approach. And perhaps this is our moment, to not only focus on ourselves, but maybe our relationships as well. When it comes to our sexual and intimate partnerships, this can be a moment for us to get back to a more fulfilling and meaningful sex life. My guest on the last podcast stated that we are having less sex now than we were 50 years ago. And the most recent data from a survey for couples in their 50s is that 31% were having sex several times per week. 28% reported that they were having sex couple of times per month 8% of respondents said once a month, and sadly 31% of respondents said that they rarely or never have sex. The real question is, are we addressing our most basic sexual function in order to enjoy sex? And do we know ourselves well enough to ask for what we want and need in having satisfying intimate encounters.

Speaker 1  1:36  
Health, Wellness, career, relationships and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan. And this is asking for a friend. Hey, welcome, everyone. My guest today is on a mission to make sex and relationship therapy more accessible. Mr. Schmidt believes that you deserve to have a great sex life and relationships that fire on all cylinders. Emma started the practice. Hey, Emma, in 2011, and she has her PhD in Clinical sexology is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor supervisor, and a certified sex therapist through the American Association of sex educators, counselors and therapists, as well as the American Board of Christian sex therapists. Welcome to asking for a friend, Emma Schmidt,

Unknown Speaker  2:41  
thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1  2:43  
I'm so glad we were finally able to get this together. Because I think this topic is one that midlife women really want to talk about. So first of all, now that I've introduced you, I would love for you just to tell the audience a little bit more about you and your career path and how you ended up where you are today.

Speaker 2  3:04  
Yeah, well, I love hearing too that midlife women really want to hear more about this because I think that there's two. Okay, I have ADHD, so I'm going to be popping.

Unknown Speaker  3:18  
Okay, you're in good company.

Speaker 2  3:21  
But I love hearing that because I think there's a myth out there that like when you reach midlife, like you don't want to have sex, nor do you want to talk about it. And you it's just like off the table. So very, very excited to be here today. So thank you so much for having me. Sure. A little bit about what got me started in this was that I was at a conservative Christian University. And we weren't really allowed to talk about sex, to the point that if we did that we would be sent to counseling on site, and it would just highly discouraged. But what was happening was that a lot of our students there had questions. So they would come up and they would say, well, could I have this kind of sex? Or like, how do you have sex? Or what would it look like to do X, Y and Z, we had zero access to that information, because of the conservativeness of this university. Then I started volunteering at this place called Women Helping Women where I did crisis calls went to the hospital, to sit with men and women for their rape kits. I went to the courthouse to sit with men and women who have been in intimate violent situations or rape situations to walk them through a very broken system. I thought there has to be more out there. For individuals. It was very overwhelming to think about how broken the system is for trying to get your rights met and your needs met. My husband and I were really young. And because we came from a faith based background, our belief was we weren't going to have so extolling marriage, he's also from Germany. So he had only been there for a year. So we thought, okay, well, one, we want to have sex too. This seems like a good tax idea. And three, you would get a discount at the university we were at, we got married, we ended our wedding at four o'clock so that we could go have sex. So we go back to the hotel room. And we're super excited. We think, Okay, this is what we've been waiting for. Right? We ended up having sex. And I'm like, Well, that was not what I was expecting. It was painful, it hurt. And I said, Okay, you know, I had heard that it was gonna hurt. So here we are. But then what happened was for three years, it hurt. And it was sometimes impossible for sex to happen for us for penetration to happen. And I thought, we cannot be the only ones going through this. So we entered into therapy, and we went and saw different medical professionals. And what happened was, we were passed from therapist to therapist, hey, this other persons gonna know what happened, or how to help you had one therapist asked if they could hire me, which was beyond me, like, no, I need help. No. And other doctors were like, Hey, I'm looking at you. There's nothing wrong. But my pain was real. The situation we were in were real. Why can't we have penetration? It was at that point, when I decided, you know, I was going into my Master's in Counseling. And I thought with us not being able to talk about sexual health in the conservative nature of our school, with Women Helping Women in the system with feeling like there just wasn't quality, access to health, sexual health care, I then started to go to sex therapy school down in Atlanta. And that's when I found out about a pelvic floor therapist. And that actually what I was going through, was very treatable. And a lot of people actually go through this same thing, which was tension in the pelvic floor creating this thing called vaginal isthmus, Vestibular neuritis, where like you can tear the entryway of your vagina and that it can rip and bleed and feel like burning sensation afterwards. And with some pelvic floor therapy, I was totally fine. But for years, I had struggled with this sexual challenge that was very treatable. I just didn't know who to go to or where to go to or therapists that could help us work through the sexual challenge together. That's when I realized I want to be able to provide something different here in the Cincinnati area. So that's when I started on the journey of becoming a sex therapist.

Speaker 1  7:27  
Oh my gosh. And what I love about this is it was your own personal experience and passion for something that led you down this path. And I find that so many of my guests have that epiphany in their life, which leads them to doing something that is so beneficial to other women. So thank you for sharing that. Because if we can just get that out there that pelvic floor therapists are amazing. That training that they have, and I have had them on the show before. And that really opened my eyes because I really hadn't thought about that as something that so many women could benefit from. Oh, yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 2  8:15  
So in Germany, too, I'll say after women give birth, there's like no question about pelvic floor therapy. That's just like what you do afterwards. And here, I feel like a lot of people still don't even know what it is, the more we can talk about pelvic floor therapy just on a, like your functioning body and what you need on an everyday basis is so important. So I'm glad that there's more attention being brought to it. Yeah,

Speaker 1  8:41  
and even prenatal care. Yes. Going to pelvic floor therapist just make delivery easier and recovery easier, right? We've come a long way. Haven't we feel? Yeah, I mentioned before that our audience is mostly midlife. And I say that, but I know plenty of 20 Somethings that do listen to the show. But in regard to those midlife changes, so we've got kids out of the house, there's stress, there's that menopause thing that we always talk about, you know, our bodies are morphing. We may not be totally comfortable in our bodies like we were when we were 20. You know, it can all throw some major challenges into the mix. When we look at pleasure, and intimacy, but you have kind of a different take on midlife where you think midlife could really be the awesome time?

Speaker 2  9:38  
Oh, yes, yes. I think we've been given a message and a narrative about different parts of our ages. And what that means that we just believe. Just like when we're growing up, we're told hey, this is how it's going to be. And that's a narrative that we just think like, oh, this person told me I trust them. And so I'm going to believe that and I think that's what happened. For a lot of people mid life mid age, when you get to this point, this is the narrative I need to believe about myself. And then it's almost like I become that thing. It's kind of like when you watch, I don't know if you've seen any of the skits where like when somebody is watching the show, and then they become that character in the show after a while, because there's some narratives that we become, because we've been told it our whole life. But if we can really sit down and ask ourselves, what are those narratives around my sexual health? What are the messages around? My pleasure? What are the messages around my body? What are the messages around my relationship? And what are the messages around my age? And what that means to me? Where did those come from? And how do those serve me right now? And then think about like, what would I want my life to look like? What would I want to feel? What would I want my relationship to look like? What would I want my sex life to look like? If I were to be able to take those messages and those narratives away? What would I want? And that doesn't mean that you would be there right now. But if I could strip away all the shame, and guilt and all of it, what would I actually want? And then we start to work on Okay, let's work backwards that are less work at how can we get there, then how can we get you to a place where you're actually still enjoying life where it's still pleasurable, where it's still fun and exciting, because it doesn't have to end it can be the beginning of the rest of your life, it can be the time that you say, Now I want to play, I have the kids out of the house, the stress of some things are gone, you know, it can still be stressful, because it's not like, some kids are still there, potentially, or they come back or you're worrying about them at school, or whatever that might look like. But what does it look like for me to play and have fun with my partner to have fun with myself to have fun with my girlfriends? What does it look like to start to explore my own pleasure? My new body that I have right now are the body in the way that it's changed? And what does it look like for all of that in this season of my life? And how is that different than how it used to be because you change just like your kids change or just like your appetite changes over time. So does your sexual health and the way that you feel and experience pleasure. And so being able to take note of that being able to sit down and really think through all the messages and narratives and feelings is going to help you also be able to understand well, what do I really want? And is it possible? And typically the answer is yes.

Speaker 1  12:33  
When you and I first spoke, we talked about that need for self love. Yeah. You have to love yourself in order to be able to connect really well with a partner. Is this part of that process, then?

Speaker 2  12:48  
Yes, studies show that I can't remember if you and I were talking about this or not. But Dr. Emily Niguel ski and her book, come as you are. It's this more modern approach and newer research to sexual health. And all these women came up to her and said, Emily, this research and this stuff about sexual health is so good, but I'm so tired. I'm so like, what do I do with it? So then she came up and did some research with her sister, Dr. Amelia Niguel ski, and they wrote a book called burnout. And what they found was that for a majority of women that they had surveyed, there was this term that they called human giver syndrome, where when women and girls are born into society, specifically American society, we become groomed into being everything in any one for everyone. Our bodies are for everyone else, our pleasures are for everyone else, the way we look like the way we smile, the way we talk, we're groomed into, like, how do I make sure everyone else is happy, and that I please them. And what happens then is we dissociate so much from our body, and from our own thoughts, and from our own once that when we're asked, What do you want? Where do you want to go eat? You know, like, you're with a bunch of women, you're like, Okay, we've been talking about this for an hour, why can't we decide where we want to go eat? That's because it's been stripped away from us. And we've been conditioned to not know what pleasure feels like or looks like or what we would want for ourself or how we feel about ourselves. Because we've been told how we should feel and how we should look and the pleasures that we need to have or what we should give to other people. It really has to start with, Okay, going back to those narratives and those messages, how have I been groomed or conditioned as a human giver? And what would it look like to start to show up for myself? What would it look like if pleasure and touch and sexual health felt like something that was stress relieving instead of something that was stressful? And I think that's the place that some of us want to get to is how do I know my body in a way how do I do that self care, not self care in the sense of like, go get a massage and stuff like that can be good too, in terms of like waking up and like calming down your nervous system. But what messages are hanging out inside of me that aren't serving me being able to show up for myself right now? And What messages do I need to replace those with to be able to show up for myself to be able to figure out well, what do I really want? What does that look like? And if I decided, and I could say, if I take out pleasing other people, what's left on the table for me, and sometimes that takes time to figure out because we're so conditioned to not feeling that. And with that, too, it also is a part of what we feel in our body. So being able to take time to just like touch ourselves, like how often have we just like put our hands on our chest, and just felt what is it like to feel my heartbeat right now. And to notice my hands, and what my fingertips feel like on my chest, what it feels like for my heart to be beating, what it feels like to see like, Okay, I'm having a hot flash right now. You know, like, I can feel sweat, like coming off my body. So it feels sticky. What is it like to just be present with your body, and then just start to notice, like, Okay, I'm going to touch my neck. And what does that feel like, or touching my face, touching my breasts touching my nipples, touching my inner thighs, what messages come up for me, as I just start to explore my body and get present with it. And that gets you really in tune with the sensation in your nervous system in your body to get connected to it again, to notice, when I put my hands on my stomach, what messages come up for me, when we talk about showing up for yourself, and that self love piece. It's really dynamic from a cognitive, emotional, physical, spiritual, social level, that if you really break it down, in a lot of ways we're living for others and not for what works for us. And what we want.

Speaker 1  17:00  
We do talk about that on the podcast quite a bit that we are spread very thin. And some of it's by choice, right? Because that's just how we're wired. We go and do for others, whether it is our children, our partners, aging parents, whatever it might be, and just try to get maybe a little more centered with yourself. That brings up my next question, because you talk about touching yourself. I really feel like there's this stigma around self stimulation. I know you don't like to call it masturbation. So I didn't call it that. Because it seems like that would be really important to get comfortable with. So how do you help people who probably, hey, we're in a town where you've got a lot of Catholics, you know, we were told, maybe not my age, maybe people a little older. You touched yourself, you go blind? I mean, I don't know what you write. There's just all this terrible things. But if you were brought up in an environment where that was frowned upon, how do you get somebody comfortable with self exploration?

Speaker 2  18:21  
So I'll say that it's not uncommon that we see people in the office that have these religious messages that say, you need to be disconnected from your body, otherwise, you're gonna go to hell, you're gonna cause someone else to sin. You're gonna cause problems for yourself, right? I think it was. Kellogg that like said that helps you overcome like erectile dysfunction or something, if you eat their cereal or something there. With Kellogg's, you should all go look this up. So there are these messages that are ingrained in us. So first, you want to look at the messages and understand like, where is this all coming from? What was I taught? And what do I believe with this? Whatever culture you were raised in, one of the things that we want to be really curious about is, was what I taught what I believe? Or was I taught this by someone that wanted me to believe that thing? So there's a really good book out there called Sex God in the conservative church, which addresses some of this of some of the things that we were taught actually come all the way back from a patriarch of like Aristotle, and Nietzsche, and all these not poets, but these authors from really early in time that wanted us to believe a certain thing about ourselves, about the system about our bodies, that isn't necessarily of potentially like the faith that you believe in or what you value. It was just a message that someone wanted to tell you, maybe for their own bit. If it being able to understand like, Why do I believe what I believe in? What is that based in? Is it based on something that somebody just told me and that I've believed? Right? So understanding and picking some of those narratives apart are really important. Understanding where it comes from, why and how does it still serve me? And then also recognizing for sexual health purposes, it's important for me to know my body, what benefit does it have for me to be dissociated from my body and feel disconnected? There was a study that came out recently that said, it was somewhere in the 90s. For this longitudinal study that 90 something percent of women didn't know how to identify their genitals. That's frightening. That's a lot 64% didn't know where their vagina was, they couldn't label where their vagina was. So with that, when we think about, you know, I'm raised in the Catholic Church, or I'm from a faith based community, from a sexual health standpoint, I think it doesn't do us a service to not know our genitalia and where it is or what it feels like for you to think like, Oh, I've been peeing out of my vagina this whole time when really like, you have a urethra, there's a whole nother hole for that. Oh, that shows up in your sex life. Right? When we think about that there has to be room for anatomy, there has to be room for understanding that there's a clitoris there for pleasure and that there are different nerve endings within the vulva. So the vulva is the genitalia, and the vagina is the hole where penetration would happen, that internally there are nerve endings that feel good. And externally, there are nerve endings that feel good for a reason. It can feel very self conscious or guilt ridden or shame ridden and thinking about but I've been told that it's not okay to touch my body. And I've conditioned myself so much to shut that down, right. One thing that you can do to start practicing that after doing the cognitive piece is just doing what we call sensate focus for yourself, where you put your hands on your inner thighs, and you just lay there maybe in butterfly position. So that would be laying on your bed with your if you pull your knees up in your feet or on your bed and then you spread your legs apart. That would be a butterfly position, putting your hands on your inner thighs, closing your eyes and just noticing where am I feeling that in my body as I start to put my hands there, maybe I feel it in my gut. The gut has a ton of neurons in there. It's you know, a lot of people say it's our second brain so it's telling you something. So listen to that what messages are coming up for you. Okay, now if you feel comfortable, I want you to go a little bit higher closer to the vulva area, and start doing that through different parts of your vulva. So like your labia majora, which is like your outer lips area, put your hands there, the inner lips, your labia menorah, and then slowly doing that same thing, Okay, where am I feeling that in the body, what messages are coming up, doing some deep breathing, allowing yourself to really feel the emotions and messages coming up, putting your hand on your clitoris, your vagina, this is all about connecting to yourself and your body so that you're not so disconnected from it. Because when we bring in the negative messages, what happens is everything tightens up, or we want to disconnect or we're just in our head and we're like I just want to get this over with. But when we're able to fully connect to our body, that's when pleasure starts to happen. That's when we think like, oh, I kind of want to connect with myself or I want to connect with someone else. Or I feel connected to this part of me that maybe I've been shutting out for a long time. Exploring can look like just connecting with yourself and becoming one again with a part of you that is very present still there physically that we've probably just cognitively physically muscularly just shut off.

Speaker 1  24:11  
It seems like knowing this is obvious that knowing yourself, knowing where your pleasure comes from would enhance your sexual relationship with your partner. So it opens your mind to being more relaxed and more in tune. I see where this would be really helpful for people. You stayed on your website because I did some research before this interview, that when sex isn't working well for a couple. It can affect up to 80% of the relationship in a negative way. That's a huge number. So we can't minimize the importance of getting in touch with that in your relationship. Is it more about the connection and key indication rather than the act itself?

Speaker 2  25:03  
That's a great question. Is it more about the connection and communication? Yes, then the act itself, here's how I'm hearing that performance would be the act, communication. And

Unknown Speaker  25:20  
forget the other word connection.

Speaker 2  25:22  
And connection would be what I would call intimacy, potentially. That's why I'm picking it up, when we're able to talk about what we want sexually, or don't want the fears that come up for a sexually what we want to try what feels good and what doesn't feel good. That is intimacy. So intimacy is all about knowing and being known. If I go into a grocery store with my partner, and I say, I'm just going to pick out the things I think you're gonna want for dinner tonight, not even knowing you. I'm gonna get some spaghetti and some olives and some broccoli and a burrito, and I'm gonna go home, and then we're gonna make it and he's sitting there eating it, like gagging in his mouth, right? That's not gonna feel good for either. Like, I think that he's going to enjoy this. And so I'm like, Cool. We're like, we're doing this thing. But he is thinking, I've never used this before. So who knows if

Speaker 1  26:24  
that's a great analogy. You know, I'm, I'm totally getting this. I'm totally getting this. And he's

Speaker 2  26:30  
sitting there eating it. He's not enjoying it. There is a total missed there. So if we're able to talk through before we go to the grocery store and say, Hey, what do you like? What are you feeling tonight? What kind of food do you enjoy? He might say, hey, I really love lasagna. I like it when you make it with like real noodles and not that gluten crap. I want the real deal on what the meat I want it to, you know, hurt my arteries. If I know that, then I think, okay, that's intimacy, I know you, I'm going to go and I'm going to get that thing that you want. I'm going to say, I want some ice cream afterwards, because I like something sweet. And I want it to have Oreos in there. And maybe we'll bring some whipped cream too. So then I'm letting him know what I want as well. And we're able to say like, cool, we have our dinner, we have some dessert, it sounds like it's gonna be a fun time in our mouth, it's gonna be great. When we think about sex, we have to think about it in a similar way. If we go into a sexual situation, and we don't actually know what our partner wants, specifically, that time, we might know in general, like, I might know, my husband likes Italian food. But if he's not feeling pizza that night, but I get him some pizza, I still might be missing what he's wanting, and vice versa, if I like ice cream, but he gets me peanut butter, but I'm really wanting some Oreos. He might be missing like the craving that I'm having during that meal. When we're able to communicate specifically about each interaction and talk about why we might be when it you don't even have to talk about the why. But like, hey, I really want to spend a long session with you today, just exploring your body, and really slowing down and really setting the scene or, Hey, tonight, will you just come and like attack, make make it very passionate, you know, whatever that might be. I know that like we're communicating. And that's what's going to work. If instead we have what I call it more routine sex, that is a plus b equals c, what that looks like in a heteronormative way is penis gets going in the vagina, somebody orgasms, and then we're done. We might be missing a connection, like a moment for like a bit for connection. And you might be having sex like that. And it might just feel really mindless. And it doesn't feel like a connection. It just feels like we're serving a purpose here for an ejaculatory experience. Talking about what do we want from sex? What do we want that to look like? What does sex mean to us? How do we want to create somewhat of a, an agreement on how we want to talk about sex and how we want to communicate about that how we want to connect together, then that creates way more quality sex for both people, then something that you might have been having for 20 years that you don't look forward to? And actually you try and avoid?

Speaker 1  29:14  
And then there's always going to maybe be the one spouse? That's a little uncomfortable talking about it? Yes. How do you coach that person that like, oh, I want to talk about my spouse, he gets all uncomfortable.

Speaker 2  29:30  
So to have a sex conversation, where you are bringing in questions like, what's my favorite thing that we've done before? What's something that I want to try that we haven't tried before? What am I scared about with sex? What holds me back from sex? What is something that I fantasize about? So this one might be a little bit juicy here and a little bit more vulnerable for some people? What something that I want to bring into our interaction that We haven't done before. So it doesn't have to be toy necessarily. It could be whipped cream, or it could be a candle. But it can also be hot and cold play where you bring ice in and you rub it around their body. Or there's this really cool candle from mod mod is this luxury, sexual health brand. If you want to discount 10%, you can do Emma s 10. And get 10% if you want to try it, but there's a candle there, where you light it and then the wax from it becomes an oil and a lube that you can then pour on the body, oh tea and do like a sensual massage, and then also be used as lube. What's something that you might want to experiment with and bring into the relationship? What is something that we do that you think I enjoy, but I don't enjoy? Being able to have some really specific questions can help take the overwhelm away from I want to talk about this, when we're not fighting or when it's not in the middle of it or in the middle of sex? And how do we have this conversation that's really productive. So if you would like a more structured worksheet with that, I can feel free to email me at Emma at Emma detriment.com. And I will send that to you so that you will can have that. But know that it's going to be uncomfortable. For many people, this isn't something that is really comfortable, even sometimes for me and my husband, and being open about something that is really showing up emotionally naked with your partner.

Speaker 1  31:27  
Okay, I love that. And I will put all that in the show notes. Perfect, so that people will know where to find you. I know this question is going to be kind of broad, but how often are couples really having sex? Is there a normal?

Speaker 2  31:45  
Yes, I don't like to answer this question. If I'm honest. Do get asked? Yeah. In what people are asking is, am I normal? So one of the things that I'll do if someone's asking that is what is normal for you? What do you want? How frequently do you want sex? Because what we do is we do this compare game because we weren't taught most of us around, like what does sexual health look like? And we're comparing it either to porn, or what we're seeing on Instagram, or Tiktok, or from our friends and what we hear the movies we are confused at, are we unhealthy or not? And what I like to do is bring it back to the couple or the individual and ask what does that look like for you? What is healthy and normal for you? And so if you can talk to your partner about what do I want? What do we want together? How can we create that together, that's what's going to be best for you. We have clients who will say, normal for me is once a year normal for what we like and what feels good for us is once a month. Other people might say, I really want sex, three to four times a week, like that feels good for me. It has to be about stripping back the narrative of what you think should be, and really talking to your partner about what do you all want together? And how do you create that together? Now, statistically, what we see in the research is couples in there between 30 and 50 are having sex around once a week. But again, that is based on certain population sample that they got, and they interviewed. And that number really doesn't mean anything outside of it being a number of what other people are doing and that what works for you. And your relationship. Even though that number does exist for us to understand the data. What's most important is what do you want? And what is going to work for your relationship?

Speaker 1  33:41  
I guess there is that feeling that maybe you are having sex out of obligation? At times, you want to make sure that you're taking care of your partner. That I mean, that can't be fun. Right? Right. It would be hard to enjoy it if you're just doing it because you got to check off a box. And I'm sure you have clients that are in that camp. How do you get them to want it and want to enjoy it?

Speaker 2  34:09  
This is an incredibly common question. No one likes to receive obligatory sex. And no one wants to provide obligatory sex, right? I think at the end of the day, we want there to be a connection. And some people say yeah, like, I'm good to be able to evacuate or have an orgasm or whatever that looks like. But when we ask the question, but do you want there to be a connection? That's where we see like, yeah, that would be really nice for us to be able to have that and I would rather have quality over quantity at the end of the day. Again, I think it comes back to when it feels obligate Tory to be able to understand what is the narrative coming up, so I feel like I have to or that it's important for me to please my partner. Where does that message come from? And how do you You also find a way to show up for yourself in that situation, how do you all do it together. So I'm not saying that when you are in a relationship, you shouldn't ever do anything that's not for your partner. What I'm saying is, if you continue to do something out of obligation, you're going to start resenting it. And it's not going to feel like we're connecting, it's going to feel like something that not only I don't enjoy, but I start to avoid, and I start to put in what we call stress, avoidant behaviors around it. So we create stressful experiences to avoid this thing that I don't want to do. And which then becomes more taxing on you and your system in your body. We want to be able to sit down with our partner and say, Hey, I've noticed that I do this out of obligation, and I don't think that's fair to you, or to myself. So I wonder if there's something that we can create together that works for both of us. So it might be looking at the time of day that we're having sex, it might be the frequency that we're having sex or the type of sex that we're having. It could be that your desire, it looks different than your partners. For instance, for a lot of us, we're under the notion and understanding that if our partner shows up and says, Hey, do you want to have sex, that we should also be willing and able and have a desire to have sex, but for most women or vulva owners, that's not the case. The desire actually, for most women doesn't come until after arousal. What that means is desire is the cognitive thought I want to have sex. arousal is your body saying and having a physical expression of a sexual experience? An example would be my nipples get hard, I had lubrication would be an arousal. Some people interchange arousal and desire, but they're different for women of owners, mostly, you have to have someone touch you. And you'd be in the experience before your mind says like, oh, I want this. Right. So how many times have you been having sex? And you're like, Well, I don't really want to do this. And then once you're into it, and you've been touched, you're like, Oh, okay. I think you'd go with this, like, that's fine. We have to recognize our types of desires to do I have spontaneous desire, or do I have responsive desire? Spontaneous would be that person showing up saying, like, Hey, I could have sex right now, responsive, is I'm responding to something in my environment. With that a lot of us or a lot of people in our community, women, just if I don't have the same desire as my husband, there must be something wrong with me. And it's really that my desire looks different than my partners. And so how do I know myself get to know my desire the way I like to be initiated? So that my partner knows how to interact with me differently to and vice versa? How does my partner what would they want? Maybe we've just been doing the same thing, and neither of us actually like it. When we talk about desire, an obligatory sex, there can be a lot of things at play, of course, there's hormones, there's stress. So if there's stress in the brain, it actually shuts off our desire for wanting sex. So if you think about being in the woods, and you're trying to run away from a bear, that's what we think about with like fight or flight or trying to run, you're not going to then say like, Oh, I think I'm going to masturbate or self pleasure by the tree while the bear is tracing me, right. Like, your brain is designed to shut that down. What we want is to know like, Okay, how much stress do I have going on right now? Where am I? Have I just gone through chemo? Am I pre menopausal? Am I menopausal? Am I on a medication that's impacting my desire. So I want to know, all of that. And also, there are still ways for us to increase our desire at the same time, and knowing it's okay, if you don't want to have sex. Like, that's also okay. We don't need to be in a world where we have to want to want sex, it's okay to not want to 162 and then we have a different conversation about so then what do I do with my partner in that situation? Anyways, obligatory sex, trying to find a way like how can that work for both of us and not be create a space where it starts to become resentful and that there's something I have to do? How do we partner up do this together? It's a partnership, not a one side, make sure the other side gets all their needs met.

Speaker 1  39:31  
When do you recommend that? Hey, might want to consider some hormone therapy or maybe even a pharmaceutical,

Speaker 2  39:39  
if there's pain, there's a newer word for this, but the word that I know for it is atrophy. So if there's dryness in the vaginal canal, it's starting to feel like sandpaper. So we'll see that post chemo will see this when estrogen is decreasing from the body, or postpartum. So what happens when the estrogen starts to do decrease is your vaginal canal becomes less of a rubber band, so it becomes less elastic and becomes harder. So you'll experience pain there, bleeding will start to happen to if you're feeling like I don't really have any feeling in my vulva or genital area anymore. If again, there starts to become pain externally, that's where I would start to look at going and reaching out to a sex medicine doctor. So here locally, there's her MD, that's a sex medicine doctor, it can be very hard to find someone who's a sex medicine doctor who you want to find someone who really knows the hormones and who really knows sexual medicine. And not all gynecologists actually do. When we think of gynecology, I think a lot of us think like, oh, they would be able to help me with my sexual health challenges, when in reality, when ecologist go to school, they either get an option to take a sexual health class or they actually don't get any. And that's not a disservice to gynecologist, that's just how the system is built. So you need to look for someone who's really trained in sexual medicine to make sure you're getting the proper help for your hormone replacement therapy pieces.

Speaker 1  41:11  
And I really appreciate you bringing that up. This topic is coming up more and more. And I'm on a mission to continue to bring those types of resources to the listeners, because I get a lot of feedback saying I can't find anybody that understands what I need. Yes, thank you for bringing that up. I do appreciate that. One thing that I hear about in midlife is that people are starting to even sleep in separate bedrooms, kind of what I'm hearing you say is that if that works for you, if that works for your relationship, then that's okay, that should be acceptable, as long as both are in agreement that that is what they want.

Speaker 2  41:58  
Yes, I wrote an article about this in Shonda land a few months ago, we have this idea that if we sleep in different bedrooms, that that's a negative. But actually, you can create a lot of excitement around that. And honestly, so right now, I was sick this week, my husband slept on our third floor and I was loving life, I spread eagle on that bed, I was enjoying the space. I loved it. But if you think about it, like do I get quality sleep with my partner and the bed would enhance my life? My stress my quality of sleep? We know that's very important. If we don't sleep in the same room, is there snoring? Are there CPAP machines like what in the environment is potentially increasing my stress? If that's the case? How can we still make this really exciting and playful? So maybe your partner comes over for date night in the evening, and you will have an experience where you cuddle together? And then they leave? Could you still create moments in the bedrooms, where there's still playfulness and excitement? And to make it erotic in your own way? And what would that look like? Could you have just like some finesse where you like hang a sock on the door and so that they know like you're ready for them whatever that might be, you can have a lot of fun. And honestly, some of my clients who sleep in separate bedrooms say that their intimacy increased because they had some separation. And then they were able to like have some fun, almost becomes like a roleplay situation of one us being able to get quality sleep, but also that we are being really playful together too. Now for some people, there's a lot of fear that comes up in sleeping in separate rooms. Will this create more disconnection? Will they be doing their own thing? I already don't see them. So you want to be able to talk about what nerves you have going into it with fears that are coming up for you. How do you mitigate that? Or how do you problem solve for those fears to so that you're you have a very clear understanding of how this could work and even like a trial period and what that could be like to

Speaker 1  44:03  
when you were talking about you know, the role playing? I was thinking of that Modern Family episode where yes, a couple they meet like clandestine meeting at a bar and because the like transcoder show I think she's naked under the trench coat. Yeah. He's like in exporting or something like it was very, it was a great episode, by

Speaker 2  44:26  
the way. Yes. But I think that's a really important piece to all of this is that sometimes when we're in midlife, we think like, oh, it's like, mundane and boring. I think this is actually for a lot of people, not just midlife, we have to get to a place of how can I play? What does play look like for me and for my partner together? And I think we've, as a society become so stressed and anxious, that our nervous systems kind of always going that we forget how to like slow it down and just be playful. and fun together and silly. And what would that look like? So those role playing experiences, like that I think are really funny. And also like, how do we make more space for the silly?

Speaker 1  45:13  
Yeah, I agree with you. One of the things that many of us complain about is that elusive great night of sleep. There was a sleep survey that you had, I don't know if it was on Instagram or your website about having sex increases your sleep quality. Yeah, so I'm in. I'm in can you talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 2  45:41  
I did that with Liz bonus. And with channel 12. Sex can enhance your sleep quality in terms of the if we think about having sex, we are releasing certain hormones we're releasing certain feel good. So like oxytocin is a hormone that gets released, after we have an orgasm, or after we have had some kind of sexual connection together where it is called the cuddling hormone. So you want to cuddle afterwards. And what happens is it actually gives you an experience of wanting to go to sleep, if you think about those times that you've potentially had sex with your partner. And after somebody has an orgasm, we'll say and then all of a sudden, you hear snoring happening, right? It's because all of this is designed in this way to release this really relaxing experience and euphoria after the brain and the body are really interesting in the way that it's designed. And if I'm really honest, right now, there are certain hormones and chemicals that get released, I just can't think of them right now. I want to sound really smart, but like, I'm just gonna be very vulnerable with you. But if you want to go read that I sounded very smart.

Speaker 1  46:59  
I guess that's what it was. It was an interview that you had had with Liz bonus. So I do kind of remember that. But those feel good hormones, that oxytocin and all that does that last into the next day.

Speaker 2  47:12  
It depends on the person and their cortisol levels, and where they're at in their cycle of stress, or being present, or whatever that might look like. So for instance, my partner might be really stressed out feeling like on edge, we have an encounter where we're able to have sex, and then he's not as on edge. The next day like that releases some stress for him. The oxytocin might be carrying on to the next day is feeling a little bit more engaged or connected to me, where some it's this like refractory period of, okay, now I'm thinking about the kids, I'm thinking about all the stuff I need to do my cortisol level is, has overridden my oxytocin. And I do not feel that the next day, right? It really depends on where you're at in your life and what you are bringing into your system to see like, how long is that oxytocin going to stay there? how connected do you still feel after that moment? And oxytocin gets released, but it's also like the intention of how do we choose and plan to stay connected afterwards? Or do we go our separate ways and we don't see each other again, you know, there's like some intentionality to that can still ride the wave of these different hormones and chemicals that are released.

Speaker 1  48:38  
Okay. And I was asking that just more from a personal question. I just throw that out there. And my daughters are gonna listen to this and go, Oh, Mom.

Speaker 2  48:51  
Yeah, my mom is coming to are you going to wellbeing? No, I'm not. My mom's coming to it. And so I'm a prisoner there, but she's gonna come as a big vulva. And we're gonna do

Unknown Speaker  49:04  
she's gonna dress up like a vulva.

Speaker 2  49:06  
Oh, yeah. She comes to our Christmas parties in the vulva outfit and wears a Christmas hat. And then, anytime we have an open house, she's there and she has velcros all over the vulva so that people can guess what part it is?

Speaker 1  49:18  
Oh, my God, I gotta meet your mother. Yes, she sounds awesome.

Speaker 2  49:22  
She just retired and people ask like, Oh, I'm sure it's so nice. You can be with your daughters and like, help out more. And she says you have no idea.

Speaker 1  49:30  
That is great. I gotta meet this woman. I do want to start to wrap this up. But I know that you have a very strong local reach here in town. And like you talked about you're doing this event at matterI. You and I are going to be at the Kroger wellness Fest on the American greeting stage. I'm looking forward to that. Yes, but you also have an impact nationally and globally.

Speaker 2  49:57  
Yes, one of our missions. is not only to provide sexual health care locally, but nationally globally, we do that through starting to expand our sites. So we have four different locations, we're trying to be able to provide quality sexual health care in areas where it's just not accessible. One of the places that we've been able to do that is in Nepal, and there is a home there where these girls get rescued out of sex trafficking. So the home that we work with is called mukti. And this team there, identifies and knows that they were not in a culture being in Nepal and India, where you get sex education, and so they're helping rescue these girls, and they have this aftercare home. But they also are limited in their understanding of sexual health. So what we have done is we've partnered with this home mukti, where when they rescue these girls, and they're young, like 1011 12, who have been rescued from sex trafficking, where our team comes in, and we help train the staff there, who then are working with these girls, so we provide them, we have an in house school, sex therapy school, so anybody who comes and works on our team, they get all sex therapy, or free, sex therapy, education for free, and they're able to get certified within our company. So we're able to provide all of that education to these trainers in Nepal for free, we give them free supervision, free consultation, so that they're able to have free access to sexual health care to be able to work with these girls. And they're able to then really enhance the understanding of their own body. So some of these girls would come and they would say, Yeah, I've had a lot of surgeries, because of a lump or something within my body. And what was happening is that they were actually pregnant, but they had no idea they were pregnant, and they were getting these babies removed over and over again, not realizing they were babies, they just thought that they were lumps somewhere. These trainers were able to help these trainers help these girls and understand their own body, how to own their own body, how to have intimacy, what does sexual health look like what healthy relationships look like. And then nationally, we partner with different sex medicine, doctors and companies, sexual health companies around the world, specifically nationally to still provide sexual health care on a bigger level as well. And then locally, we're kind of all over, trying to give people more access to sexual health care for free when you either can't make it to therapy, you don't have access to therapy, whatever that looks like. We really want people to know their body and to know how to not only own it, but to know their rights for their body. And the more informed you can be than the more you know how to then advocate for yourself.

Speaker 1  52:47  
You are doing really wonderful things, Emma, I am so impressed and amazed at the reach that you have out there. And it's really not just about improving sexual relationships, but it's really about sex education. Thank you for doing that. And empowering women, thank you to be able to make those decisions for themselves. I would love for you to tell the listeners where they can find you.

Speaker 2  53:17  
So we just rebranded from enrichment associates to hate Emma so we wanted to make it more conversational having one conversation at a time for sexual health care and really helping you become the sex and relationship expert in your life. So we meet you where you are, and we help train you to become that advocate and that expert in your own life by guiding you through the situation. You can find this at Hey emma.com You can find us on Instagram at hate Emma therapy and on Tik Tok at Hey Emma sex therapy.

Speaker 1  53:51  
Wonderful. Emma, thank you for being here. And actually I'll see in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2  53:57  
Yes, thank you so much for providing the space for this not a lot of people still feel comfortable doing this. So you are an advocate and a platform for these women to be able to get sex education and to be able to have a space to grow and to feel empowered. Thank you for providing that space for these women to feel that.

Unknown Speaker  54:19  
Thank you am I really appreciate that. Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 1  54:29  
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai