Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 759: Reclaiming Our Sexual Wellness with Court Vox

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Episode 759: Reclaiming Our Sexual Wellness with Court Vox · The Trauma Therapist

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Or Welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible cells, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
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who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
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authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
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about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist project dot com. Let's get started. Are you ready?
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I'm ready? All right? Go alight five or three, two and
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one, our folks, Welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have
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as my guest today. Court Vox Qurt welcome. Thank you so much for
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having me. You are welcome. So Court vides personal guidance and expertise in
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the unique and often ignored areas of sex. He's trained sex and Intimacy consultant,
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surrogate, partner, intern and sacred intimate. His approach is personal and
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necessary. Founder of his practice, The Body Vox, he brings professional opportunities
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for his clients to learn about and embrace their bodies and those of others.
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Sex the Thing, the world is now acknowledging and so important for our general
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wellness, mental health, and indeed our lives is on the agenda. While
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much progress has been made, it's still too often a taboo subject. Court
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serves as a counselor of our times, breaking down the walls of shame and
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anxiety around intimacy and sex. All right, welcome to the podcast. So
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before we get go in here, show with these listeners where you're from originally
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and where you are currently. I grew up in Las Vegas and I currently
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reside in Los Angeles, and yeah, I've been here twenty two years,
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so I consider myself a native at this point. So I want to comment
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comment before on your bio, which is really well written, and it's very
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and it is it's very intentional. There's a couple of things in here I
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want to just bring up before we go in here. It says your approach
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is personal and necessary. Obviously what we understand. What does necessary mean to
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you? You know, I don't know that this work is necessary for everyone,
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but I think what is necessary is this sort of collective acknowledgement that we
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do have a connection to our entire bodies, not just from the waistop or
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from our thighs down, or simply just our genitals, right, we tend
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to like isolate our genitals or isolate our sexuality in sexual situations from the rest
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of our body, and then oftentimes when we're in non sexual situations, we
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completely forget that we have them, and sort of like how we compartmentalize sexuality
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or eroticism. And I think, you know, if we are to move
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forward in a way that really is enlivened and embodied, it is recognizing that
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our body is in its entirety. And so when I talk about a holistic
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body, what I'm really talking about is first of our entire physical body,
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including the genitals, including our brain, and our mental capacities, as well
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as our connection to spirit, which you know, our connection to spirit is
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not just God, but it's the things around us and what our specific connection
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to Spirit is. And it's sort of this mystery that humans we're never going
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to be able to figure out, but we'll always be seeking for. And
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I think that's one of the beauties of being human, is feeling a connection
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to the divine, whatever that means to you, and not fully understanding it.
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In the Western world, we seek so often to figure hear things out
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when intuitively we already know it to be so. And yeah, So that's
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my approach, and I think it's necessary, specifically from a cultural perspective,
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to look at things in this way. So, how the heck did you
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get into this? So? What is this we're talking about? What are
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we talking about? Yeah, I'm a I'm a somatic sex and intimacy coach.
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Thematic means of the body. So unlike a traditional coach or a therapist
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that just speaks and uses language as a tool for learning and processing, I
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use body based exercises and experiential learning and touch as a way to help clients
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really find the answers and connect the dots between their mental capacity, their spiritual
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being, and their entire body. And a lot of times that does include
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their sexuality because they've pushed it down or to the side. And when I'm
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speaking about the erotic body, I'm not necessarily speaking about sex itself. You
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know, eroticism can be found laying in the sun or walking down the street
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and smelling flowers. It's really alive in our senses, and we are often
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so busy that we don't find time to connect with it, and so that's
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what I mean by erotic body. How I got into this, but that
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was a second question, right, How I got into this was I worked
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in corporate for maybe fifteen years. I worked for Yahoo, and then I
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worked for a company called Maker Studios that got acquired by Disney, and I
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really, you know, in my thirties had a kind of sex sexual sexual
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movement of self. Really, it was a perfect storm of Truvada being introduced
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to the market, as well as online data apps and things like that.
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And in my twenties I was really I was in two long term monogamous relationships,
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and when I came out of the second one, I was like,
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you know what if I'm gonna really experiment and you know, be the sexual
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being that I've always wanted to be. This is the time I am no
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longer afraid of getting HIV and I am feeling freer in my body and feeling
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more alive in my body than ever, and there's all this accessibility available to
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me and why not. So you know, for most of my thirties I
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was sort of in my own sexual sexual exploration, and then, you know,
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working for corporate just felt more and more dead to me as I moved
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up in the ranks. During that time, I was also a musician.
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I was in a lead singer in a band and that sort of kind of
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came to a clothes and when I was thirty seven, and that's around the
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time when I started studying Shabari rope bondage and had a practice partner who was
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a therapist, and I said, I really would like to get out of
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corporate and I would like to be a sex therapist, but not one that
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just talks to people. And I said, I don't think that exists,
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and she said, check out sexological bodywork, and so I did, and
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then I enrolled for a certification course and sematic sex education that took me around
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two years to finish. I also studied surrogate partner training during that time.
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I've been and continue to be a student of TANTRA and b DSM practices.
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I'm studying with RESUMMENTICAM to study social justice and also going to the Netherlands here
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in August to study more about shadow work and how I'm really excited to start
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to bring that into the work that I do with eroticism. So there's a
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lot of different tools and a lot of different trainings that sort of like bring
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into focus the work that I bring to clients. So a lot here I
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want to touch upon. First of all, what was it about? I
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guess why did you want to become a sexual therapist or a sex therapist?
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Well, first of all, I love sex. I feel most alive in
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sexual and erotic connections with people I practice, and I go into trans states,
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and I have been going into trans states just naturally and have been really
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practicing and honing skill to stay in them for longer periods of time. And
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I would describe that as feeling so intentionally focused and aware and present that I'm
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not here and I'm not there, I'm not really anywhere. I'm sort of
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in an altered state of consciousness with the person that I'm with, or even
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with myself and my own pleasure practice. And these are really really rich experiences
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that feed me on such a cellular level that I feel a sense of aliveness
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for days afterwards. And you know, if any if everybody, could have
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this sort of medicine, which I really view it as as medicine that we
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curate on our own, we create on our by ourselves, Like what a
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gift to be able to give that to people. And so really my journey
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and becoming a teacher was learning how to teach what I've really known in my
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body for a long time, because there's a difference between having that right and
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being able to teach it. There are two different things, and it's great
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to be able to have it, but just to say I have this capacity
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and not know how to translate it to people is sort of an asshole move,
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right, So you know, I've spent quite a bit of time learning
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how to translate in kind of palpable ways, how to experience what I experienced
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in my body, and that comes through practical exercises, embodiment exercises, and
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if people really set about the practices and really commit, they get there.
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And some of my students have really met me in the place that I'm at,
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or they've they've surpassed me, to be honest, in ways that they're
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bringing all of their learning and all of their gifts that they've had from other
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trainings or other experiences and bringing it to this And what a gift that's been
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to see them come alive in that way. So it seems to me as
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though, you know, when we're talking about people who maybe have experienced trauma.
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I mean, obviously they're they're not even at a baseline state, right,
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Maybe they're just trying to get to a baseline state, let alone get
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into this brand state. How do you work with someone who maybe is you
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know, my god, I was sexually abused when I was a kid.
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I don't know what the hell is going on. I can't even get there.
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I can't even I don't even feel comfortable talking about this. Yeah,
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yes, So you know, by the time people have come to me,
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they have they have talked quite a bit about it. Most of my clients
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have done quite a bit of psychotherapy, and I do get a lot of
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referrals from psychotherapists who are basically like, I've taken my client as far as
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I can go and speaking about this, and now they need to have the
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actual experience of receiving touch and being with somebody in person and body. And
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it's just so scary to go out in the world and just take someone at
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hawk who's not familiar with who's not trauma informed and not doesn't have the patience
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enough to sit with this person and you know, go through all the t
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and tribulations that it's going to take for them to literally rewire their nervous system
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and pathways in their nervous system to comprehend touch and affection and attention with nurturing,
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caring, loving ideals, because a lot of their experience, specifically with
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trauma survivors, is that those types of touch and those types of attention and
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those types of energetic pull are associated with taking and shadow taking energy that was
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not wanted or consented to. It has to do with rape and violence and
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molestation, and those are really ugly things to associate touch with. And so
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it's literally me being with this person and assuring them step by step, slowly
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and consciously and consistently. I'm going to put my hand on your hand.
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What does this feel like? Can you stay with me for a minute,
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noticing the sensations in your hand. And so we start there, you know,
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and then we start to increase the landscape of the body, and that
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can take time. It's a great deal of trust that is built. And
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for those those people that we're starting in a baseline, you know, that's
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not a one and done. This isn't like a recreational time that they're coming
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with me and they're not just looking to expand they're really looking to like build
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foundation, which is a totally different place than a client who's like, I
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love my sex life and I want to learn how to be in transtates right
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and you know there's those are both beautiful places to begin with, and yet
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they're really different. I take really different approaches to those types of clients,
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and that's where my training in surrogacy really comes in handy. And also semantic
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sex therapy or a semantic effects education in that both of those modalities are the
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kind of philosophy is you meet the client where they are. I'm not pushing
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any sort of agenda. I'm always giving a choice for them to choose from
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what about this exercise, this exercise or this one I'm feeling I'm feeling like
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this could track to your learning goal today. What do you feel about this?
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How does that feel? You know? And they might say that feels
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really too edgy for me right now. And also the things that I'm suggesting
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to someone who is who is starting to build a foundation as opposed to the
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person who has a foundation is just looking to expand further, we're starting with
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different processes. We're starting with different exercises with different approaches, and somebody that
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has experienced trauma and is still living having that lived experience in their body.
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There's a lot of slowness that happens, and there's a lot of non erotic
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touch that happens in the beginning because we are we are again. I am
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trying to introduce touched to them in a way where they can associate it with
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loving, nurturing care instead of the opposite, which is what they've received in
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the past, and that takes time. Just remind everyone that I'm speaking with
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Court of Box. I want to break in here for just one moment to
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think our sponsors. Okay, so you know, it's it's interesting as you're
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as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself. First of all, you are
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the first person who's come on here and talked about this to this degree,
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which is really interesting. The other thing is in the therapy world, just
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touch alone, yeah, is so charged. But here we're talking about Yes,
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you're talking about you know, just initially maybe touching someone's hand and then
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moving forward. I think I've said this before to you. There's something so
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sacred and obviously intimate about this. How have you been able to grow into
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this ability or has it just were you're worn like this? You know,
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I both. I was born a very sexual human into a family with a
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mother who was very, very open and honest about sex, and we always
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had books around sexuality and the body, and you know, are the genitals
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were explained to us, and nudity in our house was really celebrated. We
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had open door policy in our house, which you know, as children was
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great because we would just yell good night. We didn't I would sort of
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resonate in the house. But then as teenagers, you know, we obviously
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started to shut our doors and more privacy. But you know, I had
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my first sort of like erotic or sexual experience when I was four with my
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neighbor who was also four, and we used to give each other, you
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know, blow jobs in the side of my house and we would have orgasm.
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We wouldn't ejaculate, but we'd have orgasm. We would say, oh,
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hold on, I've almost got a tickle, you know, And so
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I remember this. I remember this experience, and then, you know,
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when I started to realize that I was different, that I was queer,
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I sort of went into a space of hiding myself for a while and didn't
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quite come out of that really until I think I was twenty seven when I
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came out. When I was nineteen, that had a little bit of a
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resurgence, but you know, there was still so much fear around HIV and
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AIDS at that time that it, you know, it made it hard to
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to be intimate with people in a sexual way without having some kind of knowing
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of you know, all the things and being really overly protective, and you
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know, it took a lot of the joy out of it. And so
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with the advent of Truvada in the early twenty tens, you know, it
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really reintroduced a level of freedom and joy to to our community and sex.
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But to answer the question, I've done a lot, a lot of work
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in my on myself, and I continue to. I have great mentors,
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I have great peer support, which is really important when doing this work because
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it is it can be isolating and lonely, because as you said, I'm
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the first person that you've had on here that this and there's really not that
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many people that work in the same way that I work in the world.
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I know most of them. I can say them all on my hands,
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and so it's a really specialized thing. It's a really unique offering and it's
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not something everyone can do. And so I am really conscious in my practice.
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I get a lot of support. My mentor Pamela Madsen has been an
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incredible resource for me. She's been doing this work for twelve years with women,
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and I work with her back to the body and work with women there.
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You know, the team of the Sematic Sex Education School in Canada,
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Korean Die Check and Liam Snowden and those folks are just and really incredible resources
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too. And then my mentor Don Shui in New York, who is a
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sacred intimate and has been doing similar work for the past, you know,
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fifteen twenty years, has been an incredible resource as well. So it's a
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combination of all the things, you know. And I continue to expand my
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learning and the more I learned, the more I'm able to offer clients.
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And yeah, I feel like my my own practice is rich. And the
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things that I'm teaching clients are also the things that I practice. I am
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not asking them to do anything that I don't do myself. And I my
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my my slogan is really practice makes practice practice for the sake of practice,
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not to get it perfect or to master it, because then really where we're
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going, we're going towards an end goal, and the journey is more important.
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Recently, in you know, our culture, there's been a greater awareness,
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heightened awareness of mental health, you know, across if we look at
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professional athletes and so forth. Do you think we are anywhere near that in
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terms of sex, accepting, sex, understanding tech, sex decreasing its impact
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as a taboo topic. I think yes and no. I think there's a
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collective yearning that's happening on social media and in the zeitgeist of the world around
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sex positivity and body positivity and body acceptance, and they're they're intrinsically intertwined,
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right, you can't speak about one without the other. When you're speaking about
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sexuality, you're talking about people's connection to their bodies. What's interesting is simultaneously,
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governments across the world are are really taking away rights that involve embodiment.
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You know, So when you speak about taking women's right away for abortion,
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right to choose abortion, that is taking away body autonomy from them. And
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when you take people's autonomy away, it's much easier to control them. And
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so there is sort of this juxtaposition happening within our culture, which is where
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the people are like, I want this, and the government is like,
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no, you don't, you don't get you don't get to have it.
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And it's happened, It's happened throughout history, like this is not the first
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time. I mean, the seventies were a huge time of sexual sexual exploration
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and growth. And you know, simultaneously, sexuality and sexual wellness has become
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a really hot topic and psychedelics are also on the rise of and so it'll
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be interesting to see how the government deals with both. There's a lot of
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similarities when they talk about, you know, trans states in sexuality. You
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know, there are studies and actually Pamela has done some research recently on how
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these trans states that we achieve in erotic connection are almost identical to the ones
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that people are achieving in psychedelic experiences, the trans states that are experiencing there.
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The only difference is it's much easier to access them through psychedelics, and
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you know, it takes people longer to understand the pathway to their trans state
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through erotic connection and touch and things like that, and people don't want to
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put the work in but it's available. Like our bodies are incredible resources,
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we just need to know how to play our instruments correctly. As we kind
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of wind down here, So who comes to you? Who goes to you?
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Who are your clients? Yeah? So I work with queer men,
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and I work with women. I do also work with straight couples once in
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a while, and I work with gay and queer couples also, And I've
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worked with a few straight men, but the way that I work with them
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is a little bit different just because of the nature of the work. And
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sometimes I'm not the right fit for straight men. Yeah, those are the
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main kind of groups that come to work with me. I tend to work
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with all kinds of bodies and orientations. I'm not I don't make a distinction,
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and you know, there's just some people that I'm a better fit for
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in terms of Lastly, obviously a lot of therapists, a lot of coaches
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listening to this. For those who are intrigued and maybe want to learn more,
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where would you direct them aside from your site? What are the talent
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type of resources? So I just launched an online community and a first module
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of courses, which are really embodiment courses in breath, movement, sound,
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using your voice, developing your voice as well as attunement and kind of inner
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knowing and and also locating desire. So that's the first module. There's two
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more that will be launched probably by first quarter of next year. And as
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you know, it's a great deal of work to produce these these courses and
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so little by little, but I launched that with Guideness and that's also on
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my website. And I do retreats and workshops for queer men. I have
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one coming up in September in Los Angeles, a retreat in Mexico in February
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of next year, and then I also work with Back to the Body,
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which runs retreats for women year round. Awesome, Okay, we'll have all
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those linked up the show us here at the Traumotetus podcast dot com. Quartz
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uh site is the Body vox dot com. We'll also have that linked up.
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Quart Love to Heavy Back. Believe it or not, you are so
26:11
one time. We're so incredible, man, really so inspiring. Thanks for
26:15
being I appreciate you having me. Thank you