Latest / The Sexology Lab / Performance Anxiety, Connection, and What Actually Works | Caitlin V | Episode 8

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Performance Anxiety, Connection, and What Actually Works | Caitlin V | Episode 8 · The Sexology Lab

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They weren't saying I want to last longer in bed.
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They were saying I want to be able to last longer in bed.
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And to me, to be able to is exactly the definition of
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confidence. Confidence is feeling that you
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will be able to, you are able to.
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It doesn't mean that you're necessarily doing it.
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It means that you don't walk around all day thinking that
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you're not able to, right? Or that you don't walk around
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wishing that you were able to. You feel settled and confident
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in that you are able to fill in the blank with whatever it is
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that you see is the thing that is getting in between you and
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the sex life that you desire. Do you ever feel pressure to
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perform during sex? What if you stopped chasing
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performance and started focusing on connection?
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Today in the lab, we're joined by Caitlin B, sex and
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relationship coach, author, and media personality whose work has
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been featured on HBO Max, TLC, Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan,
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and more. Caitlin has spent over a decade
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helping people navigate performance anxiety, erectile
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inconsistency, and confidence struggles.
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In this conversation, we breakdown what confidence in bed
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really means and why most sexual challenges are far more common
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than people think. If you've ever felt stuck in
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your head during sex or wanted a sexual confidence boost, this
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episode's for you. Welcome to Sexology Lab.
1:26
Each week, we speak with the most compelling minds in modern
1:29
sexology to ask the questions shaping the future of desire,
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connection, and human Wellness. Let's dive in.
1:37
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
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Thanks for being with us today. I want to start out with a
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summary of a review from your new book.
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This is from Doctor Justin Lamiller.
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Harder, Better, Longer, Stronger is the user manual that probably
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should have come with your body. Whether you're looking to build
1:56
up your confidence, cultivate deeper connection with a
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partner, or simply have hotter sex, Caitlin B has you covered.
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Equal parts science, skill building, and pep talk, this
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book is a bedside essential. So what do you think when you
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hear that review? I mean, I think about what an
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honor it is to have Doctor Justin Lee Millers endorsement
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on my book and that speaks to all the things that I hope that
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the book will provide. You know, when I sat down to
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write a book on the last 10 years as a sex coach,
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specifically working with men, there were so many things to say
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and so many things that I had to cut out and remove.
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And what I wanted to get it down to essentially was like the
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minimum amount of information that would make the greatest
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amount of difference in the shortest amount of time.
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It's 75,000 words. It's not like a short chunk of
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time. It actually is.
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If you really think about my 20 years career and time as a
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researcher in as a coaching, there's so much to say.
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So I do hope that it comes off as a user manual, and I do hope
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that it is a bedside table staple.
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And I love that. I think my favorite part of it
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was the phrase user manual. So if most people never got this
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user manual, what do you think they actually needed earlier?
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Was it more information, more permission, or more compassion
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for how our bodies actually work?
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Yeah, that. Well, first of all, AB and C,
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all of the above. The ironic thing is we live in a
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world where we are inundated with information.
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There's information overload happening.
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And yeah, sex is an area in which there's still truly a
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dearth of information available to most people.
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The information that is available is low quality,
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sporadic, few and far between. And it seems to me through my
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perspective is that it's actually getting harder and
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harder to get quality information.
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And so interestingly enough, I actually do think that this is
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an instance where more information makes a difference
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#1 there's a lot of areas where more information doesn't help
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people anymore. Like they've hit information,
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they're, they're tapped out, they're saturated.
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But this is not that case, especially for men, because I
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think women, CIS women in particular, get more
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information. LGBT folks also get more
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sexuality education and information.
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I think it's a CIS hat. Men get the least amount of
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information. So quality information in the
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hands of more men is better. And then yes, permission.
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The great irony of it all is when we look at heterosexual
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men's sexuality as a whole, we do think about them as the only
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group of people who are truly permitted to be sexual on one
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level, right? It's nothing to see a school bus
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full of middle schoolers drive by and they're drawn little
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penises in the window. And so there's a lot of
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permissiveness when it comes to men's sexuality.
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And yet at the same time, it's a very narrow, kind form and
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expression of sexuality that there is permission for.
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And there's very little permission to break outside of
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that and color outside of the lines.
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On the other hand, women and non binary and LGBTQIA folks have a
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lot more permission just across the board, even though the
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permission that they're granted is very broad.
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It doesn't seem so like a culturally mainstream or
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culturally relevant. So there's this sort of great
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irony, like we all have a certain degree in a certain kind
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of permission. And when we talk about male ego
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or male fragility or heterosexual male sexuality as
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being fragile, what we really are referring to is that very
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narrow sliver and that men who step outside of that sliver in
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their expression and their desires are the greater risk of
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being culturally or socially punished.
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And yet actually, when they give themselves permission to sort of
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like break out of what is quote, UN quote allowed for them, they
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quickly find that actually they were trapped inside of that and
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that the range of their desire and Eroticism is so much greater
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than that tiny little sliver that they were prescribed.
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Yeah, yeah, definitely. I totally agree with that.
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All right, next I want to jump into your origin story.
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So can you tell us your 32nd origin story?
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How did you find your way into intimate health coaching and
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when did you realize this is my specialty?
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Started as a kid exploring with myself.
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I got to school and realized that the disease and pregnancy
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prevention model was not telling the pleasure centered story that
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I think sexuality deserves. Didn't know how to make that a
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career so became an academic researcher.
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Masters in public health. Dropped out of my doctorate in
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public health in order to start coaching.
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Ended up on YouTube. Ended up on HBO Max, ended up
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writing a book. And I started coaching because I
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saw that the work that I was doing as an educator was more
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valuable and more interesting to me than the work that I was
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doing as an academic. And I wanted to have a space
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where I could work with folks one-on-one capacity or one on
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two capacity and literally see their lives change.
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Yeah. Oh, that's fabulous.
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That was a great summary. I love it. 30 seconds in a
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nutshell. All right, Caitlin, what is 1
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trend happening in intimate coaching that genuinely excites
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you? I was at.
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My yoga studio the other day and there's like a Community Board,
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you know, people post classes that they're doing or like dog
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sitting opportunities or whatever.
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And someone posted about being a erotic empowerment coach.
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There was certainly a time not that long ago, 10 years ago,
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when I started publicly calling myself a sex coach, that there
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were not many of us out there. There were sex educators, there
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were sex therapists. But like sex coach was sort of
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an unheard of category. But in that instance, what I saw
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on that board was the result of 10 years of me and 20 and 30
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years of other folks who've been in the field longer and a sort
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of like popularizing the term, the term life coaching taking
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over and having the sort of like influence that that has had the
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normalization of coaching, the normalization and proliferation
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of executive coaching, career coaching.
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I think it means something that I saw that posted on a
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billboard. And I think what it means, even
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more interesting than that is that it was someone that I'd
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never heard of. And each year it seems to me
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like I'm nominated first expert of the year.
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By the time this comes out, we'll know whether or not I
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have, but I, I'm nominated for sex part of the year from Expos.
7:47
And so anyways, it's really exciting to me.
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It's exciting to see all these folks jumping in.
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It's exciting to me see more people utilizing social media
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platforms and I kind of feel like they can't get us all.
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So it's exciting to see people posting on billboards.
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It's just exciting to see like new coaches popping up because
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listen, you talk about abundance and scarcity mentalities like
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there are enough clients and enough followers and enough
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subscribers and enough people that need help that all of us
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could have full books until the day that we die.
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I promise you this. It is just matter of making sex
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coaching feel like the most obvious solution and normalizing
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sex coaching such that it becomes a mainstream thing.
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It was not that long ago that having a therapist was really
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something that you did if you had a mental illness, right?
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It was reserved for folks who needed quote, UN quote, needed
8:32
therapy, right, and had problems in that necessitated therapy.
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But now we look at someone and we're like, you don't have a
8:38
therapist, right? You just out here processing
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with the people you love. What are you thinking?
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Like, come on. And there's apps and you can get
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therapy for like next to nothing.
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We just normalize therapy so much that it's no longer shame
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based and it's no longer reserved for a small portion of
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the population. It's a normal thing for people
8:56
to have therapist and I want to see that happen with sex coaches
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and I just want it to be a normal thing that people just do
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and everybody's going to sex and relationship coach and I think
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we're headed there and that's what I'm most excited about.
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Oh, I love that. What a great comparison because
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that's so true. Even in the movies, like we saw
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growing up, the therapist ideal was like somebody laying on a
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couch, like talking about their childhood trauma.
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Like that was what you saw and it wasn't what it is today.
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And now it's understood and accepted and needed.
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All right, now I want to know if you could teach the world one
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key insight about intimate health, something that really
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moves the needle, what would it be?
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I have a Patreon and every month I do and ask me anything.
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And this morning it ended up pulling on all of my organic
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chemistry know how from my master's degree, which I will
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tell you is not much. I was a good student.
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And one of the things that it really reminded me today is I
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was having this conversation with a group of men.
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They're here because I am a sex coach, right?
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Not because I am a health coach and certainly not because I am
9:52
an expert in supplements, but they're asking me about the
9:55
relationship between digestive issues and erectile dysfunction,
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and they're asking me about probiotics, digestive enzymes,
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serotonin, and how to heal a gut, all these things.
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And I think what I kind of took away from that conversation and
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how invested my Patreon members were in having it, what I want
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people to really get is how deeply integrated everything is,
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how the body is just a reflection of the mind, is a
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reflection of the spirit. How being able to feel and
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describe in felt sense our emotions is really as key to
10:26
giving them names. I want people to understand that
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your gut does affect your sexual health.
10:31
I want people to understand that taking supplements that support
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your brain may also support your relationships and that a rising
10:38
tide raises all ships. So if you have some concerns,
10:41
you think that maybe your hormones are out of whack or
10:43
your digestion is out of whack, like you deserve to continue to
10:47
do research and seek answers and have professionals that validate
10:51
your experience and to understand that all of these
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things really are connected. And I think as long as you are
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addressing the whole from every angle, like, yeah, totally get
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your supplement, allow yourself to feeling better in your
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physical body, that will have a positive impact on your
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relationships and on your sexuality.
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Healing your gut can impact the way that you experience yourself
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erotically. We are just a singular system.
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These are not discrete systems and they do all impact the
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whole. Yeah, absolutely.
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I love that everything is interconnected.
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All right, now at Shall we train many people who are wanting to
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work in the intimate health and relationship space.
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So what's the most important thing professionals need to know
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about this space? I love this question because as
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I think you know about me, I think a lot of people love about
11:42
me. I love business.
11:43
I didn't expect that when I dropped out of my doctoral
11:46
program and became a coach, I was totally terrified to be an
11:50
entrepreneur. The first business coach that I
11:52
hired who by the way is still with me 7 plus years later, I
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hired him because I wasn't doing a good job of managing myself
11:58
because I am a creative type and I am neuro spicy and I was just
12:02
like what do I do to get myself? I need to corral myself and get
12:06
myself under control because I didn't want to form a S
12:10
corporate LLC and I didn't know that I needed to get a business
12:13
checking account and I wasn't doing all the things I like.
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I knew on one hand that I ought to be doing these things, but I
12:17
needed some external accountability because that's
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how my brain works. When someone else tells me get
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that done by Thursday, it's a lot easier than if I tell myself
12:25
to get that done by Thursday. And what happened over time is I
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developed a love for these things.
12:30
But I want everyone to know if you were an up and coming coach,
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there is nothing different about me and you.
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You think that spreadsheets are spooky and scary or that signing
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up to take credit cards or getting that business checking
12:42
account or setting up your calendar so that you can more
12:45
easily schedule your clients or whatever.
12:46
Like it was scary for me too. All of these things I had to
12:50
talk myself into doing those things.
12:52
I had to hype myself up in order to push go or sign up for that
12:55
or set up the technology. And now I have a team of people
12:58
and they support me and they, I don't have to do those things so
12:59
much anymore. But I, just like most other
13:02
entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, had to go through all of those
13:05
steps and I had to talk down the little demon on my shoulder that
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was like, you're not good enough and you can't figure this out
13:12
and you'll never be able to and yadda, yadda, yadda.
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And I had to say to myself, you know, what, if Joe Schmo can go
13:18
out there and set up an LLC or an S Corp, then I bet I can too.
13:22
And if the people down the street that own that like store
13:25
that kind of annoys you in your neighborhood, they figured it
13:28
out. You know, they have a business
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checking account, you can too. And you know what they say about
13:32
comparison, that it is the thief of joy.
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Well, I like to say that is only if you're comparing poorly, if
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you are comparing in a way that empowers you, if you're looking
13:40
at other people and you go, you know what, like if they figured
13:43
it out, I can too. Get your butt into the into the
13:46
bank. Set up your business, tricking
13:48
out, formalize your business. So that's the first thing that I
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want people to know is that like, yeah, you're scared.
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It's okay that you're scared. These things are not fun.
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If they were fun, more people would do them.
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Period. End of story.
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You can do them. There's nothing different about
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me and you. Yeah.
14:01
I've built a million subscribers on social media.
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I started with one. OK?
14:05
There's nothing different about us.
14:06
Don't compare yourself to someone who has a million
14:08
subscribers when you only have one, Right.
14:09
Like that's not compare yourself to someone who has two
14:11
subscribers, OK? Like, that's where you're going
14:12
to get better. If you have resources, they're
14:14
going to teach you how to do it. And people who can hold your
14:16
hand and support you through it. You're so far ahead of everybody
14:18
else. The second thing about that is
14:20
you will have to sell. I know I'm sounding like your
14:23
business coach auntie right now because I want every single up
14:28
and coming or established coach who listens to this to be a
14:32
multi millionaire. I want you to have a retirement
14:34
account. I want you to have a second home
14:36
or car, put your kid through college or at least have enough
14:38
money that you don't have to check the tags when you go
14:40
shopping. Like I want you to have that.
14:42
I think you deserve that. I think you're doing incredible
14:45
work. I think we're doing the Lord's
14:46
work out here. Sex coaches are doing such
14:48
incredible and important work. And I'm not saying that you
14:50
should be driven by money or materialistic, but I think you
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should be comfortable. I think you deserve to be
14:54
comfortable. I think you deserve that as much
14:56
as any other career professional out there.
14:58
And in order to do that, you have to sell yourself and you
15:00
have to sell your services. You don't have to sell your
15:02
soul, OK, but you do have to sell.
15:05
You have to make sales. You have to present what you
15:08
can. You have to create value in
15:10
other people's lives. You have to be confident in your
15:12
willingness and ability to show up and help someone to transform
15:15
what's going on in their intimate world and in their
15:17
bedroom. And if you're afraid to hear no
15:19
and get rejected, then you won't be able to do all of those
15:23
things. You won't be able to pay for
15:25
your kids college or buy yourself the car that you want.
15:27
You have to make a bridge between what you have to offer
15:30
and people giving you money for it.
15:32
Again, it's not a perfect system, but it is a system that
15:34
we're in. And instead of fighting it in
15:37
such a way that you disempower yourself, play it, play the
15:41
game, and then take it down on the other side, you can't like
15:45
both rail against it and expect to succeed in it at the same
15:48
time. And sales can be very
15:51
embarrassing. It can feel weird.
15:54
It can hurt your feelings because you'll fail at it.
15:57
People are going to say no to you.
15:59
You're going to mess stuff up, and people who you could have
16:01
helped are going to walk away because of something that you
16:03
did. It's not fun.
16:05
Again, if it was fun, more people would do it.
16:07
The thing that I see separating like successful coaches from
16:10
unsuccessful coaches, seriously, I mean, financially successful
16:12
are the successful ones are just willing to sell and they're
16:17
willing to put themselves out there.
16:19
They're willing to believe in themselves.
16:20
They're willing to hear no, and that's part of the game that
16:24
you're signing up for if you're going to be a solo entrepreneur.
16:28
So again, instead of feeling in the gnarly, icky, squeaky
16:31
feelings of like, I wish I didn't have to do this, I get
16:33
it. Feel those and then go out there
16:35
and do it anyway. Yeah, I cannot tell you how much
16:38
I love, love, love that advice because this field is full of
16:42
helping professionals, people who just want to get out there
16:45
and support other people. It doesn't always necessarily
16:49
attract people who are super corporate, businessy and salesy.
16:53
There's some out there, but for the most part, everybody just
16:55
kind of wants to be there to help other people.
16:58
But that business part is so important.
17:00
So I just love everything you said.
17:03
All right. I want to jump into some Juicy
17:05
questions for you. Are you ready?
17:07
Yeah. All right.
17:09
Is that juicy yet? OK, what else I know?
17:12
I know. I mean, it's already been pretty
17:13
juicy. OK, So we're just going to get
17:15
even more juicier. What's something people worry
17:18
about in sex that turns out to be far more normal than they
17:21
think? You know, pretty much anything
17:23
you name that you worry about turns out to be pretty normal,
17:26
especially because I work with men.
17:28
I can't tell you the number of times that I've had a male
17:30
client say this is probably the first time that you've ever
17:32
heard this and then go on to tell me a story that I've heard
17:35
a 1000 times. It's tragic because the reason
17:37
they think they're the only one that's dealing with that is
17:39
because they haven't ever seen anyone else talk about it.
17:42
None of their guy friends, none of their male family members, no
17:45
one in the culture and the media, no one in a book.
17:47
That's why this book is so important, the book that I
17:49
wrote. I think that for men, you're
17:51
dealing with premature ejaculation, erectile
17:53
dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, lack of desire, low
17:56
libido, lack of confidence, feeling like you don't know how
18:00
to be present or attuned or read your partner's desires.
18:03
I promise you, you're definitely not the only one.
18:05
And what you're dealing with is indeed very normal, very common.
18:08
And part of what you can do to be a part of your own healing
18:11
actually is to be the person who talks about it.
18:13
Because when you service it with other people, you will see that
18:16
other folks are dealing with it as well.
18:18
But it takes a lot, it takes a lot of courage to be the one who
18:20
goes first there. Are you curious about sexology?
18:23
Do you want to? Further integrate sexology into
18:26
your work or your life. Well friends, then we've got
18:30
something just for you. It's called the Sexology
18:32
Practice Guide, and it walks you through the ways this shows up
18:36
in your work in your life and guides you through working
18:39
within your scope, incorporating intimacy and sexual health into
18:43
your work without starting over. Download this short practical
18:48
guide at sexologylab.com/guide. That's Sexology lab.com/guide,
18:55
and while you're here, make sure to subscribe.
18:58
And share. And now back to the show.
19:01
OK, so do men ever have issues where they get aroused and have
19:06
erections alone, but then things get more complicated when
19:09
they're with a partner? Totally.
19:11
I write about this all throughout the book actually,
19:12
and in various capacities. One of the very first questions
19:15
that I asked sort of in my like diagnostic intake checklist,
19:18
especially for men who are dealing with any sort of
19:20
erectile inconsistency, is when does this happen?
19:23
All the time. Some of the time, none of the
19:25
time. With a partner in first thing in
19:27
the morning, you used to get erections and now you don't get
19:29
erections first thing in the morning.
19:30
Excellent. OK, great.
19:31
That's perfect information. We're going to send you
19:33
immediately to a physician who's going to get some blood work
19:35
done. We're going to do a check up.
19:36
We're going to figure out where you are in your cardiovascular
19:38
system, your endocrine system, your nervous system.
19:40
We've got to check there because if you're not getting erections
19:43
at least sometimes in the morning when you were getting
19:45
them before, that is what I call a check engine light.
19:48
And the engine that we got to check is the physical engine.
19:51
And I say great. It's not great that it's
19:52
happening to you, but I say great.
19:53
We know exactly what the first step needs to be and nothing.
19:56
You're not going to use coaching, you absolutely are,
19:58
but we got it. Also refer you out to a
20:00
healthcare professional. If you are getting hard in the
20:02
morning and you're getting hard alone when you go to masturbate,
20:05
but you're not getting harder. The partner also great
20:07
information. That means that we're going to
20:09
go down a mental, emotional and relational tract.
20:13
So I'm going to be doing the work with you in coaching to
20:15
figure out when this started. Under what circumstances does it
20:19
happen? Is it all the time?
20:20
Is it some of the time? Is it when you're fighting?
20:22
Is it when you're intoxicated? Is it when you're sober?
20:24
Like I want to understand what are the levers that are
20:27
impacting at the variables? And I want to understand also,
20:30
is it coming from inside of your relationship, which is like half
20:33
of the time it's like inside of the relationship.
20:35
And in my experience, and maybe half of the time it's like
20:37
outside of the relationship. And what I mean by that is like,
20:40
is the relationship itself the culprit?
20:43
Like there's a lot of built up resentment, there's a lot of
20:45
lack of communication, there's a lot of contempt inside of the
20:49
relationship that's going on. Is it more like on your side
20:52
where you're telling yourself something that's getting in the
20:54
way or you have so much tension or anxiety or concern or
20:59
emotional stuff built up around sex that is what is getting in
21:02
the way. But you have a partner that's
21:04
like very supportive and happy to to do anything that it takes
21:07
in order to have you feel comfortable.
21:08
So I feel like that's a whole million point decision tree.
21:12
OK, so is it here or you're here?
21:13
Do we ask these questions? We go here, here.
21:15
Is it yes, no here. And, you know, at the end, it
21:17
kind of spans out to like a million little options, but
21:19
then, you know, hopefully they all kind of come back down into
21:22
one and all options eventually end up with satisfying sex life.
21:27
Yes, yes, I love that. All right.
21:30
This kind of leads me into my neck question.
21:32
So I want to know about confidence.
21:34
When someone says they want more confidence in bed, what are they
21:37
really asking for? I wish I could ask that to every
21:39
single person who uses the word confidence on my coaching
21:43
application form, the millions of comments that I've received
21:47
on YouTube. It is very true that when I ask
21:50
my audience, what is it that you want more than anything else,
21:54
they say confidence. They say I want to be able to
21:57
perform and I want to be confident.
22:00
And when I first learned that when I did sort of like a word
22:02
analysis, OK, so I've been at this since well, before there
22:05
was AI. OK, yeah.
22:08
You couldn't just like pop a bunch of text into a screen and
22:11
be like analyze this for me and make a report and 30 seconds
22:14
later have that you had to like use word clouds.
22:17
I put all my application forms one time into like a word cloud.
22:20
And I said, like, what are the most common words?
22:22
And the most single most common phrase was to be able to, I want
22:25
to be able to, which if you think about that from just like
22:28
a spoken word perspective, that's a unique phrase to use.
22:31
They weren't saying I want to last longer in bed.
22:34
They were saying I want to be able to last longer in bed.
22:37
And to me, to be able to is exactly the definition of
22:41
confidence. Confidence is feeling that you
22:43
will be able to, you are able to.
22:45
It doesn't mean that you're necessarily doing it.
22:47
It means that you don't walk around all day thinking that
22:49
you're not able to, right? Or that you don't walk around
22:52
wishing that you were able to. You feel settled and confident
22:56
in that you are able to fill in the blank with whatever it is
23:00
that you see is the thing that is getting in between you and
23:03
the sex life that you desire. So I want to be able to connect
23:07
with my partner and have her know that I deeply love and
23:11
respect her. I want to be able to have my
23:15
partner reach orgasm before I do.
23:17
I want to be able to clear my mind of my fear that I'm going
23:21
to lose my erection because it happened that one time and just
23:24
be present with my partner because I know that my body is
23:27
capable of getting hard. I think all of those things,
23:30
they all point back to confidence is like, I just want
23:32
to feel confident that I will be able to do that.
23:36
Oh, those are beautiful affirmations, too.
23:38
Like for anybody listening, if that applies to you, write that
23:41
down. All right, So what changes have
23:42
you seen when people stop chasing performance and start
23:46
paying attention to sensation and connection?
23:50
I see that people have these brilliant flashbulb aha
23:55
breakthrough moments when it comes to closeness and
23:58
connection and text neuroticism. It's almost like you don't know
24:02
what you don't know. And then all of a sudden the men
24:05
that I work with have been chasing performance like full
24:07
throttle. And they've never thought to
24:08
chase connection. They've never thought to chase
24:11
presents. They've never thought to like
24:12
just chase pleasure. And so everything that they've
24:14
done was sort of the equivalent of like adding fuel to the fire.
24:17
They were like more gas, all gas, no breaks, just keep
24:20
throwing it on there like more and more, more, more, more.
24:22
When I initially we present this idea to them of not more, just
24:25
different, not more over here, not more, maybe less.
24:28
And also look over here and maybe it's in a different
24:30
direction. They can often be very resistant
24:32
to that because they're like, what do you mean?
24:33
You know, that's not what good sex is made-up of.
24:36
And I'm like, OK, yeah, you know, just maybe try it.
24:39
You did hire me to tell you this, so consider trying it.
24:43
There's no downside. If I'm wrong, I'll admit that
24:46
I'm wrong. If you go and you test and you
24:47
try it out, you aim for connection instead of
24:50
performance. You change you seem for pleasure
24:52
instead of orgasms or outcomes, specific goals coming back next
24:56
week and tell me that I was wrong.
24:57
I'm, I'm over into hearing it right.
24:59
But what happens is they come back next week and they're like,
25:01
that was totally different. It was so different.
25:04
The sex that we had, it was like incredible.
25:06
Like I was even thinking about the clock.
25:08
We actually went for two hours instead of the usual 20 minutes
25:11
because I wasn't focused on how long it was taking me.
25:13
And it's counterintuitive. And that's what makes it so
25:17
pleasant to share and to teach and to help people to open their
25:21
eyes. I love working with men in
25:23
particular, and part of that is because, like, I have a lot of
25:26
sort of masculine energy about me.
25:27
You heard me yelling at you that you should just do sales like
25:30
your dad. You know, I have a lot of
25:32
masculine energy. So it makes sense to me that I
25:34
need to understand why I'm being asked to do something before
25:37
I'll do it. I need to understand how it is
25:39
that it works before I want to get on board.
25:41
And I need to have a degree of faith and even trust and even
25:44
evidence and proof that something is worth doing before
25:48
I'm going to give myself over to doing it.
25:50
And those are the things that we overcome over time with our male
25:53
clients and get them to the point where they're willing to
25:55
pursue those things. All right.
25:57
I want to go into some tools now so anybody listening can have
26:00
some like action steps and takeaways.
26:03
So what's one small shift that tends to create a surprisingly
26:07
big impact for people? Asking questions and learning
26:10
how to ask questions in a way that's intentional.
26:14
It's going to open up a portal. It's like the closet in the
26:17
line. The witch in the wardrobe, like
26:19
Narnia, is on the other side of learning how to ask a good
26:23
question. Now, the ability to ask a
26:25
question might not occur to you as a small shift because if you
26:27
have never asked a question around pleasure and intimacy and
26:30
and relationships and like, that might feel like a huge leap.
26:34
But consider that not all questions are the same size and
26:37
shape. You can ask small questions,
26:39
too. Consider that not all questions
26:41
need to be, you know, do you want to open our relationship
26:44
or, you know, things that will cause a big one.
26:47
Huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:48
And I wouldn't even phrase it that way in a million years
26:49
anyways. But the question that you asked
26:51
tonight could be like, can we try putting a pillow under your
26:54
hips? Or would you be open to turning
26:58
off these lights with lighting SIM candles?
27:00
Or can I tell you about a fantasy that I have that I think
27:04
it's a little vulnerable to share?
27:06
Or, you know, is it all right if I say something to you that I've
27:10
been holding on to? But it's like really important
27:12
for me to share and I don't really like it when you touch my
27:15
feet like that. Just little introductory
27:17
questions that begin to open up conversations that like we
27:21
wouldn't have otherwise. And maybe some one of the ones
27:24
that I gave as examples seem quite large.
27:26
But actually like, if you're in a safe relationship, you should
27:29
be able to explore questions together.
27:32
And the other skill that's necessary is being able to
27:35
listen to the answer and stay engaged, stay connected.
27:39
Don't take answers too personally.
27:41
Approach questions with curiosity.
27:42
But often when a client comes to me and they'll say, you know,
27:46
I'm dealing with this problem in my sex life and I really want to
27:48
do this, but I don't think my wife is open to it or whatever.
27:51
And I'll go like, what have you asked her?
27:52
And they're like, no, I'm like, OK, well, what's a series of
27:54
questions that we could maybe think about introducing that
27:58
would get you a perspective on what she actually thinks?
28:01
Maybe she doesn't want to do that, but maybe she would if
28:04
certain conditions were met. The only way we're going to get
28:07
there is by asking her. I love that so much.
28:10
And I think sometimes asking one small question can really open
28:13
the door because maybe, you know, you might ask your
28:16
partner, Hey, could we try a pillow under your hips tonight
28:20
or under my hips tonight, however you want to do it?
28:22
And then they're like, Oh, yeah, yeah.
28:24
Like, is there anything else? Like, you know, and it might
28:26
just open that pathway. I think that's a really great
28:29
tip. Kind of on the flip side of
28:30
this, what do people often assume will fix their sex life
28:35
but almost never does? More sex.
28:39
Yes, I. Good answer.
28:40
I get a lot of guys coming into my coaching practice, they're
28:44
planning to come and work with me and my team, and they'll say
28:47
I really want to have sex at least twice a week.
28:48
Like, they've got a number in mind.
28:51
And they'll say, you know, we were having sex every day when
28:53
we started dating. And then we have kids, and now
28:55
we're kind of down to like once a month or two times a month.
28:58
And I think if we just had sex twice a week, we'd be happy.
29:00
I'm not here to tell anybody that is right or wrong.
29:02
Right. I'll just go, OK, like, great.
29:03
Thank you so much for naming. That is your goal.
29:05
Let's talk about what it would look like for the two of you to
29:08
have more sex. But more importantly, let's talk
29:10
about what you think that having more frequent sex would provide
29:14
you. And when we interrogate that
29:16
desire a little bit further, usually what we find underneath
29:19
is I want to feel more connected.
29:21
I want to feel more close. I feel like we're drifting.
29:23
I feel like all we are is parents.
29:25
I feel like what we talk about as a kid, there's a lot kind of
29:28
riding on having sex twice a week.
29:30
And often what we can do is we can get to the stuff that we
29:33
think having more sex is going to solve, right without having
29:36
to just go straight for like more sex.
29:38
Because often there's a very good reason that their sex life
29:40
has the cadence that it does, right?
29:43
It's not that both people don't want to often, you know, often
29:46
they actually do want to. Often they would really like to,
29:48
but you know, it's just it's difficult to schedule or feels a
29:50
little awkward to talk about or we don't like asking for it,
29:52
etcetera. So their cadence developed
29:54
organically, but that's why I got to the way that it is.
29:56
I have had plenty of clients who got there who said, like, I want
30:00
to have more sex and then work to create conditions in which
30:04
they had more frequent sex in their relationship and then came
30:08
back to me and said it was quality that I wanted, not
30:13
quantity. Turns out that more is actually
30:16
not better. And I'll say, yeah, I think for
30:18
the most part, what we really want is high quality sex at a
30:23
frequency that feels manageable, if just a little bit of a
30:26
stretch, like a little difficult to maintain, but not very
30:29
difficult to maintain, right. We want it to be quality that's
30:32
more likely to have us feel connected, loved, appreciated,
30:36
like we have our spouse back after having children.
30:38
It's really going to, it's going to live in the quality.
30:41
Yeah. Oh, that's great.
30:43
Is sex a learnable skill, or is it a talent that you either have
30:47
or you don't? It is.
30:48
A skill, absolutely, and is also something that some people are
30:52
born with more capacity for and more intelligence and others.
30:55
We know that there is more than just the way that we think about
30:59
intelligence, right? Like standard, like mental
31:01
intelligence, what they measure on an IQ test, right?
31:03
We know that there's also emotional intelligence and
31:06
kinesthetic intelligence, and I think there's also erotic
31:09
intelligence. I earnestly think that there are
31:10
some people who would just come to planet Earth and kind of
31:14
understand touch and pleasure and orgasm and they just were
31:19
born for it. Just the same way that some
31:21
people were born to do math and some people were born to be
31:25
athletes because they understand where their body is in space and
31:28
they can move it or they dance the way that you know.
31:30
And then there are those of us who had to learn.
31:33
I was very low on kinesthetic intelligence.
31:35
I could not tell you where my limbs were until I was like in
31:37
my 30s. I had to train to learn that.
31:40
So it is something that is a little bit innate.
31:43
We are born with it too, but no one is fully born understanding
31:47
like calculus, even if you have an aptitude for it, you still
31:50
need to be trained on it, right? So you might have the founder
31:53
foundational pieces that come really easy to you and you still
31:56
learn, you still develop when you have the foundational
31:58
pieces. The thing about developing
32:00
skills that it's a lot easier because you never tell yourself
32:02
that you're bad at it, that you're doing it wrong, that
32:04
you'll never get it. For me, for example, I'm partner
32:07
dance, low kinesthetic intelligence.
32:08
OK, didn't know where my limbs were.
32:10
And so I tried to learn partner dance and I was already feeling
32:13
pretty insecure about learning it because I don't know where my
32:15
limbs are. So keeping track and counting
32:18
and one through 8 and where foot goes here and arms go here is a
32:21
lot. It wasn't until I decided to
32:23
give myself permission to just suck at it, just like be a total
32:26
beginner and just be bad at it. I was just like, what if I was
32:30
just allowed to be bad? What if bad was all I was trying
32:34
to be? And then inevitably I got pretty
32:37
good at it because I didn't beat myself up for not just like
32:41
knowing it right out the gate. And once I understood like, oh,
32:44
I just have low kinesthetic intelligence.
32:46
I've got more to make up for than someone who was born with
32:49
high kinesthetic intelligence. That's all.
32:51
I think we could look at Eroticism in the same way.
32:54
You might be born with low erotic intelligence.
32:56
It's not a bad thing. You can learn it.
32:58
I'm a pretty good partner dancer now.
33:00
You would see me swing dancing and you would be like, she knows
33:03
what she's doing. Well, yeah.
33:04
It took me years to get here, but I got here, right.
33:07
And it was worth it. It was worth it.
33:09
It was worth every step along the way.
33:11
It was worth the awkwardness. It was worth having to develop
33:13
the skills. In fact, I would argue that it
33:15
was more fun for me than someone who is foundationally just
33:18
talented at it, because I got to have the experience of improving
33:22
week over week. I got to watch myself.
33:24
I got to go. Yes, I learned that thing.
33:27
I got it now, right? It was a joyous experience
33:30
because I allowed it to be. We're all born with the various
33:33
degree of erotic intelligence, and every single one of us has
33:37
to build skills on top of that in order to be a great lover,
33:40
Period. Non negotiable.
33:41
That's just how it is and some people have a wider skill gap to
33:45
make up for than others. But the thing to celebrate there
33:47
is that you are going to have more moments of high fives, joy,
33:52
celebration. I did it if you allow yourself
33:55
to not be perfect at it right out the gate.
33:58
That is so great. What a good example.
34:00
So when you were saying that, it reminded me the other day, I
34:03
asked my daughter. I was like, hey, do you want to
34:05
play softball this year? And she's like, well, I don't
34:08
think I want to play because I'm not good at it.
34:10
And I was like, well, it's just a rec league.
34:12
Like you go there and you learn how to play and you become
34:15
better. I so deeply resonate with your
34:17
daughter on that one, though, because our team sports were
34:20
just brutal for me. And then, you know, I like
34:23
eventually learned how to wear my, I took Pilates long enough
34:26
to learn where my body was. And now I can catch and throw
34:29
things and move kind of with ease.
34:31
But it took literally years. I didn't have the guts to do it
34:35
until I was older because I I just told myself I wasn't
34:38
athletic. So find your way in, Don't
34:40
discount just because softball is not your thing or volleyball
34:43
is not your thing in my case. All right, now I want to do a
34:45
lightning round with you. OK, so lightning round, I'm
34:49
going to ask you a quick question and I just want you to
34:51
tell me the first thing that comes to mind.
34:52
Number one most underrated skill for better sex.
34:56
Very first thing that I thought of is like breath work, but
34:58
actually that is true. Most underrated skill is having
35:01
a relationship with your breath. That you breathe deep, feel
35:03
things, take deep breaths even during moments of high
35:06
intensity, even being able to hold your breath for long
35:09
periods of time. All of that can come in handy,
35:11
so breathing. Yep, breathing.
35:13
I love that one thing people worry about in bed that does not
35:17
deserve the stress. Stretch marks.
35:19
Everybody's got them. Yep.
35:22
You mean my like the things that make me look like a zebra?
35:25
Yeah. Yeah, My like my little animal
35:27
marks. Yeah, those are my stripes.
35:30
A belief about sex you would love to retire for good.
35:34
You have to have had it to be good at it.
35:37
I talked to a lot of guys who identify as sort of like
35:39
sexually inexperienced. This is a message that's very
35:41
common for men. It's like you should have a lot
35:43
of sexual experience, right? So then they feel insecure or
35:46
self-conscious. But like I was saying earlier,
35:48
some people are born pretty good at sex.
35:49
They just learn some skills and then they're really good at it.
35:52
It's not strictly about practice.
35:53
It can sometimes be about what you've learned, your skills,
35:56
your innate intelligence. Quit beating yourself up for
35:59
having experience or not having experience.
36:01
Experience and skill are not necessarily A1 to 1 correlation.
36:05
Yeah, but a great answer. All right.
36:07
My last one for the lightning round.
36:08
What helps arousal more than people might expect?
36:13
Fantasy in the days, hours, the time ahead.
36:17
Just giving yourself permission to fantasize generally, or
36:21
setting some time aside to fantasize or engage in
36:25
remembering some sexy memories or putting together some sexy
36:28
plot lines or listening to some sexy or erotic or reading
36:30
something. But like having a little bit of,
36:33
I would even call it sort of daydreamy.
36:36
Sexual time is really beneficial for arousal.
36:39
Great one. Love that.
36:41
All right. Now my last one before we go.
36:43
You presented with Shaw in the past at our business Summit.
36:47
So I want to know what did you think about presenting with us?
36:50
Oh, it was so much fun. I'm sure it was clear to all
36:54
everyone listening. I do love business.
36:56
And it was so fun to get to talk to an audience of folks that was
37:01
very eager and they were paying attention and they were asking
37:04
amazing questions. I remember wishing that I had
37:06
left more time for questions because it was just so rich.
37:09
Yeah, it was really, really, really pleasure able to get to
37:11
share that with folks. And the feedback was that it was
37:13
helpful. So that that feels that's what
37:15
we're here to do is help each other.
37:17
It was rewarding. I love that.
37:19
Thank you so much. All right, everyone, if you are
37:22
interested in learning more from experts like Caitlin V, check
37:26
out our upcoming events on our website at Sexual Health
37:29
alliance.com. Thank you so much, Caitlin.
37:32
Thanks for having me. All right, bye everyone.
37:36
Don't forget to subscribe. On YouTube, Spotify, Apple.
37:40
Or wherever you listen. Links are in the description
37:44
below.