Sex Therapy 101 with Cami Hurst
Welcome to Sex Therapy 101 with your host Cami Hurst. This is the sexiest podcast in the west for all the right reasons. Cami sits down with amazing experts in the field of sexual health and counseling to learn, converse and add her own expert voice to the conversation. Cuddle up with your partner and get ready to have your love life feel more complete.
Sex Therapy 101 with Cami Hurst
Beyond "Duty Sex": Betty Martin's Revolutionary Framework
What if the problem isn't that you don't want sex, but that the sex you're having isn't worth wanting? This revolutionary perspective from Dr. Betty Martin, creator of the Wheel of Consent framework, challenges everything we've been taught about sexual desire.
In this illuminating conversation, Betty explains why many women find themselves caught in a pattern of consenting to unwanted sex, leading to resentment and even trauma symptoms over time. She reveals how cultural conditioning teaches women "to be wanted, not to want" while simultaneously disconnecting men from their own sensuality and emotional lives. The result? A widespread sexual dynamic where "he thinks he's serving and she thinks she's allowing" - with neither partner getting what they truly desire.
Betty unpacks how our earliest experiences teach us that touch is something that happens to us without our consent, setting the stage for passive relationships with physical intimacy. She challenges the limiting "gatekeeper model" of consent and offers a more expansive framework where both partners explore what they genuinely want to give and receive.
Most powerfully, she reframes sexual dissatisfaction not as a disorder but as valuable information. If you don't want the sex available to you, "it's actually a good sign that you don't want it" - your body is telling you something important! Through her Three Minute Game and other practices, Betty shows how couples can discover new forms of pleasurable connection that move beyond our cultural scripts about sex.
Betty Martin has had her hands on people professionally for over 40 years, first as a Chiropractor and upon retiring from that practice, as a certified Surrogate Partner, Sacred Intimate, and Somatic Sex Educator. Her explorations in somatic-based therapy and practices informed her creation of the framework, The Wheel of Consent®. You can find out more at www.bettymartin.org
Hello, sex Therapy 101. Friends, you notice I might have taken a break, but we're back and we're excited and I'm really passionate about this new series that I'm going to be offering to all of you. I haven't disappeared. I've been working on some projects that are really meaningful to me and one of those is a book for the public about my research about regarding long-term outcomes of consenting to unwanted sex, or duty sex as we sometimes call it, and in doing that, adding to my own research over the year, you'll see my hair change, my face change, because these were all recorded over the course of a year and I wanted to talk to experts about the cultural implications or cultural beliefs or the cultural ideas among different communities in the US that might protect people against negative outcomes and that might actually kind of promote people into some of the more negative outcomes. And that is the series I have to offer you. I'm really excited. It's been really meaningful to me, it's been enlightening to me, it's really helped me make sure that this book is what I want it to be for all of you. So, with no ado, here we go. This is going to be the intro for the whole series. I'll give you a little bit of a bio for each, and then we'll jump into the recording of the interview.
Speaker 1:This was an exciting interview for me with Betty Martin, who I don't know personally. For me with Betty Martin, who I don't know personally, who I've benefited personally, though, from her work. The way she teaches what she's come up with. It's really helpful. It's novel, but it's simple. So I really hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Betty Martin has had her hands on people professionally for over 40 years, first as a chiropractor and then, upon retiring from that practice, she became a certified surrogate partner, a sacred, intimate and somatic sex educator. Her explorations and somatic-based therapy and practices informed her creation of the framework, the Wheel of Consent. I hope you buy her book, I hope you watch her free videos on her website and I hope you enjoy this conversation. Thank you so much for agreeing to chat with me.
Speaker 1:Sure, and so I was hoping today, you know, I could go through those. Just I think there's seven questions and just oh yeah, about why women are not happy.
Speaker 3:happy, I'll just pick your brain right, it's like we've got.
Speaker 1:We had 1300 women. So many reasons, so many reasons. Yeah, we had 1300 women say they didn't have a history of any sexual trauma, but they hate sex, basically, and um, this pattern of I've agreed or consented to sex when I didn't want it over and over and over, yeah, and so I want your thoughts of how you think about this.
Speaker 1:I'm just wanting really to start a conversation about what's this about. So that first question is you know, using your clinical lens of relationships and sexuality, what do you see happening in my research findings? How would you explain it to someone else about what's going on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, first, I'm a clinician. I'm not a researcher. I don't have a big database, but the people that I do work with I've tended to work with quite intimately. Um, and I would say that the probably the reason most are of the women who don't like sex. The biggest reason is probably that the sex is not worth wanting.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, say more. I'm on board, yeah, and I'm interested in your thoughts, totally agree.
Speaker 3:Because if it's not enjoyable and sensorily pleasing, who would want it? So I think that's the biggest thing and the reason that they're not getting good sex is because number one if they're with men, men largely have been systematically cut off from their own sensuality by the way that we raise boys and men, and they and women haven't learned how to learn what they want and ask for what they want, and have been also systematically cut off not so much from their own sensuality but from their own lusty sexuality. And I think this is particularly true in middle-class white women I don't know if that's quite as true of other demographic groups, but definitely true of middle-class white women and do you have a hypothesis of why you think specifically that group are less in touch with what you?
Speaker 3:you know, you're saying desires or ability to want. I suspect that it's because we've been taught to be nice and that the job of a woman and I grew up in 1950s and 60s, so you know this kind of dated, but I think it still applies the job of a woman is to be wanted, not to want, and to be, you know, pursued and not to pursue. It's just all the same bullshit that we've been raised with and there's a certain squishing down of enthusiasm about anything. So you're not allowed to be big and take up space and make noise and you're not. It's just kind of frowned upon and it's not ladylike, and so this applies to sexuality as well. So it means that it's not going to be. As you know, if I'm raised this way, it's not going to be as easy for me to find the lusty part of myself, the part that just wants to. Oh yeah, let's do this thing. You know, it's just going to be harder to access that part of myself and, I think, a lot of that is, is the um puritan culture.
Speaker 1:Basically, we, we, we got puritan culture and this is one of the results of it down the road you you see it as a little bit geopolitical in the terms of the united states had this unique founding and puritanism which is going to soak into most parts of our culture. Yeah, yeah, and you, you said something interesting too of that, uh, that men come by this honestly as well, and how they were conditioned. Do you say a little?
Speaker 3:more. Yeah, men are conditioned to basically not have any feelings, and certainly not have any feelings of tenderness, and so their feelings? This was explained to me by a man who worked in the women's, within the men's movement a lot. He said that men's culture is basically built on the fact that men have to go to war and kill or be killed. So that means that all your relationships with other men are competitive, except you might have a buddy, but most competitive an ally, but you're not going to be able to give in to your feelings of tenderness and fear. So that means you're also not going to be able to give in to your sensory enjoyment very much, because when your sensory enjoyment comes on your skin you're going to have feelings. And if you don't want to have feelings then don't get into your body in that way.
Speaker 1:Pay attention to the messages.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah body in that way, attention to the messages, yeah, yeah. And then it also means that if I'm a man and my job is to take the bullets and kill or be killed, then women are now pushed into the role of the. I have to protect them. So now I'm envious of them because they have it easy, and I'm also don't respect them because they're not out there fighting. So there's need and also contempt. Yes, there's need and contempt, and since I can't have intimacy with other men, I have to have it with women. They are my only source and because I don't know how to have emotional intimacy, the only kind left is sexual intimacy, and so I have to fuck all the women that I can, but not to get too close to them, and I don't have much sense of my own skin. So that doesn't make for very enjoyable sexual experiences, because now I just got to fucking get it out and get it over with. So all those combined do not make for very satisfying sexual experiences.
Speaker 1:A lot of the ways we've maybe pre-consciously been conditioned is at play here. You kind of see this as a theological interplay of conditioning Absolutely.
Speaker 3:There's another piece too. There's another piece that applies. I've seen it apply to men and women, but especially women. I think it's endemic to women and that is as infants we're touched in ways that we don't want and don't like and are powerless to prevent, and I'll throw up through early childhood it's just a normal part of childhood. It doesn't mean that something's wrong, it's just stuff's going to happen that you don't like picked up, yeah yeah, yeah, have our diaper, diapers, diapers change.
Speaker 3:We have our teeth brushed. You know we get picked up from hitting our little brother you know, things are like done to our body.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And so we learn as pre-verbally, we learn that touch is this thing that happens to us that we don't have?
Speaker 3:any choice about. It's just something that happens and we have to figure out how to be okay with it somehow. And so that gets instilled, installed very early, very deep Touch is something that you have to put up with in some way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's not on its own damaging, but I can imagine if, if another narrative is never introduced of, and now you get to tell me how. I can interact with your body. If that never then gets introduced, we can't kind of counteract that conditioning of yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:Okay, and many people never have that other narrative introduced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd never thought about that pre-verbal how we deal with touch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very, and where this came to the fore for me in working with clients was that I would ask people how do you want me to touch? You want me to touch you? And they would answer with. Well you can such and such, I guess, which is a different question. I asked what you want and you answered with what you don't mind terribly much what you'd allow, what you would allow yeah, yeah, very different question, but it showed me that those things were getting tangled up in there.
Speaker 3:That that I, for many people, for many women and the occasional man for many women. It never occurred to them that they could be touched the way they wanted. They never had an experience of being touched the way they wanted, wanted. They never had an experience of being touched the way they wanted. Number one the men didn't know how to ask, or, if they asked the women, the women didn't know how to know what they wanted or say what they wanted. Or you know, um, it's a wonder we make any babies, you know something so natural, it's so difficult for many you know yeah okay, so let me, let me move question to.
Speaker 1:That was all really helpful. I'm glad. I'm glad we added that last part, because that was a new idea to me and I appreciate having this new awareness or thought. But second question being I mean you are an expert in consent. How do you conceptualize the way you think about consent? And I mean in this study, women said I consented to something I didn't want, and some people I've talked to have said that's not actually consent, and some people I to have said I mean that's the legal definition, but your, your concept of consent is not allowing it's being aware.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, talk a little bit to me about sure, how you think about consent in a way that is new for a lot of us.
Speaker 3:Most people. Well, after I'd been teaching consent for 15 years, I decided to go look it up in the dictionary, and I'm glad I did, because consent in the dictionary means essentially saying yes to something somebody else wants, agreeing. Agreeing it means I consent to X Y Z, it means I agree to participate or let X Y Z happen. That's a useful place to start, but it sure is not the whole picture. But it sure is not the whole picture. So, but if, based on this pre-verbal growing up that well touches this thing that happened so I can consent to it, means yeah, it's okay, it's not too terrible, I'm willing to have it happen, then that's you know, that's technically, that's consent.
Speaker 3:Um, and it's been called the. This model has been called the gatekeeper model. The woman has the sex, she owns the sex, and the man wants to get the sex from the woman. So he has to get consent from her somehow so that he can get the sex from her, and so all she can do is open the gate or close the gate. So it's terribly unfair. A lot of couples feel that they wouldn't have the theory name, but they're like yeah, that's what we experience exactly exactly, and it's unfortunate for her because she doesn't get to ponder what she wants.
Speaker 3:She only gets to decide am I yes to this thing that he wants? Um, so I think if you hear people use the term get consent or give consent, they're talking about the gatekeeper model by definition Mm, hmm. So it's better than nothing, but it's not.
Speaker 3:it doesn't solve the bare minimum yes, bare minimum yeah, to prevent, yeah, to prevent assault, yeah, yeah, um. So the wheel of consent was developed from these two questions how do you want me to touch you, and how do you want to touch me, and um. And then a conversation, negotiation about what's actually going to happen, and then do the thing. And so I named it the wheel of consent, because it just seemed to fit, but really it's more accurately called the wheel of agreement, because if consent means the gatekeeper, then I'm not really interested in the gatekeeper model.
Speaker 3:I'm interested in what do you want? What do I want and where they overlap collaborative equity.
Speaker 1:How do we, yeah, what?
Speaker 3:sounds fun to you, what sounds fun to me. Okay, let's, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And so that's one thing. The other thing that people often think consent means permission I want to build a shed in my yard. I go get a permit from city hall. A permit means I am allowed to do the thing that I want to do. So if you're giving me permission, it's because I want to do the thing. Well, that applies to some situations, but not other situations. If I ask you to rub my back and you say, yes, permission doesn't apply in that dynamic. It just doesn't fit anywhere. So permission is one kind of consent, but it's only one kind out of several kinds. So there's that complexity as well.
Speaker 1:I like that you just made what is often a flat word consent dynamic where there's different kinds of consent, instead of did you get it, did you not get? It Right, like you just made it go 3d. You know, in your mind, you know, just popped up like a puffer fish in my head yeah, yeah yeah yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 3:consent is a hard thing to talk about because you have to define it first and even if you define it, people often have a difficult time changing the definition in their minds that they're thinking when you say the word. So yeah, consent, meaning getting a yes out of someone, is an important first step, and it's sure not the whole picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and, and as I've read your book and listen to things from you and I use your exercises, I'm so grateful that they're free on your website. I use them with my time Great Great. Betty's worksheet Hold on.
Speaker 1:Um and and after. I you know, I've had a year and a half of space for my research and I'm like, what am I going to do to it? I came across your work in that space that time and so I'm was looking at this of okay. Another way to explain this is when you look at your wheel and there's the four quadrants. The long-term pattern for these women is they were the allowers, the husband was the takers and in your model that's not in and of itself terrible, but if that's all we have, if that's all you have, you're going to get bored or, and maybe even that's why some of you know they were all scored severe to moderate on the ptsd, I mean on a ptsd screener.
Speaker 1:But they were avoiding it, they were developing aversion to it.
Speaker 1:They were getting anxious about it. They were crying during or after, like. And so I see this and I'm like is this? What if we don't use the whole wheel and we stay stuck in allow and take, which sometimes is healthy? There was, yeah, 30 percent of women who said this is fine, this isn't a problem for me, but the 70 percent of women who said this over time pushed me outside that circle that you've driven yeah, right on the outside of that exactly, is is putting up with yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, harms one or person or it harms the relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, had you thought about that, of what happens when we're. I mean, you drew this, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:People get stuck in one, and one problem is that, whichever one you feel like you're in, you're going to assume your partner's in the other one. Oh you're going to assume your partner's in the other one. Oh so, if you feel like you're allowing and really you're more kind of in the muddy edge of putting up with, if you feel like you're in allowing, you're going to assume your partner's in taking. But they may not be there.
Speaker 1:Chances are they think they're in serving okay because, they're trying to do the right thing you're like blowing my mind because I didn't know how to put that into words is I'm thinking, okay, but we don't have 1300 predatory partners in my research that couldn't have happened spontaneously yeah and a lot of couples I'm working with are like good people, it's the dynamics. It's really crappy. But you're saying the woman's going to perceive him as taking and selfish and entitled. But he may not be selfish and entitled.
Speaker 3:He may think he's serving. He may think he's serving because he's doing what he saw on the video that women are supposed to like. Yeah, but you didn't ask her what she wanted. If he did, she didn't know how to say yeah, and so she's silently putting up with what she thinks he wants when he's trying to do what he thinks she wants.
Speaker 1:I'm giggling because I'm remembering a couple and she said oh, but he's so generous, he'll go down on me for like 30 minutes. And I said do you like oral sex? And she said no, I don't. Oh, then how is he so generous?
Speaker 3:he's doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he thinks he's doing this for her and she knows it's not for her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it doesn't have to be nefarious or predatory that's right selfish, or yeah, in most cases it's not, I think yeah yeah, I mean, of course, you know some people can be jerks, we can all be jerks, but for the most part I think it's just a misunderstanding and a trying trying to figure out how to do the right thing yeah and going back to men who, if your access to intimacy, affirmation, play, connection, um recognition, sensuality, if you don't have any way to access those except for sex, which is the case for most men, then your sex isn't really about sex either.
Speaker 3:It's about all those other things. But you have to get sex because it's your only route to a feeling of connection. You have to get it Because you don't know and you haven't developed any other routes to experience connection or intimacy or play or affirmation or anything else, and so I think that's one reason why men tend to be so focused on sex, to the exclusion of other forms of physical intimacy. It's partly testosterone too, but I it's largely um just in culture that there's no other way to get those things but sex, and so you got to get it.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you could talk for hours. Maybe, I mean might be assuming. I probably could and I would listen for hours. Do you think? Is it too simplistic for me to say to think about like, okay, consenting to unwanted sex? That's similar to gatekeeping sex. That's similar to staying stuck in the allow, take position. Are we using a lot of different terms for the same thing?
Speaker 3:I think people are sufficiently different and their situations are sufficiently different that it's fair to say with one person, here's the main dynamic, and with another person this is slightly maybe similar dynamic, but this is the other thing that's going on.
Speaker 3:Or for one person, the husband is just desperate for some kind of connection at all and the wife resents that because he didn't pick up his socks and so you know now there's. Or in another instance, um, he is very generous, but she grew up with some shame and doesn't know how to enjoy something or let herself enjoy it, and so she gets tense, and then he's going to get tense, kind of like templates that these dynamics underscore a lot of other things. But each individual couple is going to have different things that are more or less important and I think they're slightly different. Things Like the aloud dynamic is a really important and a lot of people can't find it and it's missing. Most people can't find it and most men have a lot of trouble finding and experiencing the take quadrant, because it requires a certain degree of sensual sensory skill.
Speaker 1:And if you can't tell me, more about that, because I'm like, I'm thinking oh, that's the most common dynamic is the man isn't making and the woman's in the allowing.
Speaker 3:So tell me more about that. The most common dynamic is that he thinks he's serving and she thinks she's allowing.
Speaker 3:Okay that's the more common dynamic. So neither of them are receiving what they want the take quadrant. If I'm going to feel you up, then my hands have to be actually able to take in the data of what your skin feels like. If I can't take in the data of what your skin feels like, I'm not going to be able to feel you up. I'm going to be doing things to you but it's not landing anywhere. I'm always thinking is this good for her? Is this good for her? Is this good for her? I can't actually drink you up the way I, the way taking would have me do. So most men have a hard time accessing the take quadrant and it takes a little bit of training. Interesting, yeah, yeah. And when it does click, it's usually a huge aha. It's very often emotional response to it and it totally changes their sensual relationship because then they both are able to have fun. Women usually learn to take pretty quick because their hands are more likely to be awake. Yeah, In any given heterosexual couple, the woman will almost always click first.
Speaker 1:Does sexual entitlement live in take?
Speaker 1:It lives in the shadow of take, that shadow of take, yeah, yeah and so it's so common that we assign intentions to other people I'm hearing you say one of the things that have to happen is getting really clear and open to my partner's intentions might be very different than the one I've assigned to them, because I might be absolutely taking and they're just struggling and struggling to try to serve or to find the thing that'll yeah, yeah yeah, um, that is. That opens up a lot more room for men in this conversation that I think rightly so. We need to vilify sexual harm, but I don't know if you I'm not being very eloquent at all you're I see your brain.
Speaker 3:You did it just opened up so much more um non-judgment for the male in this situation that in these conversations there's it's often loaded with judgment for them sure, yeah, yeah, um, and understandably so, because if men are conditioned to desperately need this, some kind of connection, and also to believe that they deserve it, and they get to have it because women owe it to them, so it's a setup for entitlement.
Speaker 3:And then you combine that with not really having the skill to know or to help your woman figure out what she likes. That's another setup. Woman figure out what she likes? That's another setup. And then another setup is that the woman is trained to not want anything or to have or to expect that he will know. He will know how to do the right thing miraculously because she doesn't know. And so he, when he doesn't know, then she gives up, yeah, and so the whole thing is a setup really, um, and it's easy to see how each of them can blame the other yeah, and the gridlock sets in and yeah, and then it then it's really hard, but I've been there I do not recommend it just like.
Speaker 3:Oh, here we go again.
Speaker 1:You know it's really hard to to come at it with fresh eyes when you're working with a couple who's stuck in, what you see is really common the allow, serve and it's not going well, it's not producing desired results for either party. What's your treatment plan? Where do you start? Where do you go? Three minute game.
Speaker 3:The three minute game is where we start. It's pretty much the treatment plan for everybody. Okay, Because every well, I first start with waking up the hands and then the three minute game, or or some you know variation of it. Mm-hmm it, because every relationship dynamic will show up in one of those quadrants, in those three minutes, in those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because, okay, now as part of the game, I'm asking you, how do you want me to touch you? And then all your stuff comes up about oh well, I don't deserve this, or am I asking for too much, or I don't know, or all that stuff. It's going to show up right there.
Speaker 1:This is what he wants.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, maybe I can guess the right thing so that he wants it, even though it's supposed to be for me. You know it's all going to show up right there for me. You know it's all going to show up right there. And same thing when I ask how you want to touch me now, oh, it's going to come up for me is oh shit, now what do I have? To say yes to everything? And what if I don't like it? And what? What then? What should I do? And uh, you know, and if someone asks me how I want to touch them, like, do I get to admit that I actually want to? I don't know how to actually touch them for me. I only know how to do the strokes, and not you know so. Or I don't know how to respect the limits that they've set. Yeah, it's all going to show up in one of those quadrants or the other. Yeah, so it's pretty much. The three minute game is the solution to everything. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the solution to preventing this Like that's, that's when people have already gotten here from the socialization that we've established as a country. What? What's the answer to preventing the dynamic from settling in, do you think?
Speaker 3:in the first place? A lot of things. A three-minute game you would do it as a parent with kids. Uh, yeah, you can do it with kids as long as you're asking them what they want and they don't ask you what you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you want to?
Speaker 3:do to me. I want to pull your hair, I want to climb all over you, you know, you know, imagine if people who were just starting to date were playing this like they'd learn pretty quick that they have a boundary and they better respect the other person's boundary. And you know that there's fun things to do that don't involve sex. And yeah, one of the benefits of the three-minute game for a couple is that if you, if you take sex off the table, take genital contact off the table, for the first 50 times you play it, you discover that there's a lot of fun things to do to each other that don't involve the genitals, and so your repertoire just grows like oh my gosh, I didn't know. I like to have my, my legs massaged, and now it's my favorite thing. You know, all these, these options arise that you didn't see before yeah, and we get to have this, yeah, a whole list of pleasure, that isn't focused on orgasm oh my body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So some of the prevention would be we need to learn as a culture how to respect people's limits when they set them. And there's this big missing piece of the sensory wisdom of being connected to our own bodies, yeah, and I would say a lot of, what a lot of.
Speaker 3:I I think I don't have data for this, but I think that for most people who showed up to my studio to get sex coaching, the sex wasn't actually the problem, and I write about this in the book somewhere how to be comfortable in your skin, that's the problem. Or how to be comfortable with wanting, that's the problem. Or how to be comfortable with wanting, that's the problem. Or how to be able to communicate what you want, that's the problem. And it's just that those things didn't show up until sex was around. But those are actually the problem. They're not about sex. They're about being human and living in your skin and learning to be comfortable with your own emotions and your own discomfort, and being comfortable with the fact that there's something you want and being comfortable with the fact that your partner may want something different than you, and being comfortable with the fact that your partner may want something different than you, and being comfortable with the the fact that there's things that your partner's not available for and being having the skill to converse about those things. Those things are not about sex, but they show up around sex.
Speaker 3:So people think the problem is sex Right, and I think I tend to think the the problem that's underneath. That is, how to be a sensual, decent human being and communicate with other human beings and learn how to be honest about what you want and learn how to respect what the other person wants, and learn you know, know. Learn how to let the other person feel what they feel without trying to fix it all the time, or learn how to feel what you feel without trying to blame it on the other person all the time. Those things are relationship skills, right, which are not not so much about sex, but I can't imagine how you're going to have good sex without them.
Speaker 1:That's, that's my own bias, yeah and that leads us to this question. You answered a little bit but you know your thoughts on the dsm having a diagnosis for hypoactive desire disorder. Oh. God, tell me more.
Speaker 3:You know there may be such a thing, but in my working with clients, I don't think there is. I think, okay, if you say, well, this person doesn't desire sex, so therefore they're broken. Well, first of all, what is sex? And it may be that you don't desire this kind of sex. Well, good for you, because that kind of sex is lousy, it's not worth wanting, it's not worth wanting I think Schnarch came up with that too.
Speaker 3:It's not worth wanting. It's not worth wanting. I think schnarch came up with that too. It's not worth wanting. But because you don't know that this whole other realm of really fun sex exists, so you don't know that it's there that could be wanted. So that's one part of it is that, yeah, the you don't want sex because the sex you were having worth wasn't worth wanting. And then there's this other things that could be considered sex that never occurred to you. So yeah, I I think that's a ridiculous thing. The other thing is another way to look at it is there's something that you want. It may not be sex the way you have always had it, but there's something that you want. And what is that something? That's a much more interesting question. Maybe you want some cuddles that are not sex.
Speaker 3:Maybe you want a foot rub. Maybe you want help getting the kids to bed. Maybe you want someone to read you a story so you can you put your head in their lap and have them read you a story. Maybe you want someone to sing a song for you. Maybe you, you know, there's something that you want and we are describing it as if the only thing that counts is if you want penetrative intercourse. I mean, it's so. That's just so ridiculously narrow.
Speaker 1:And we'll use the word intimacy as like a code word, like for sex.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's ridiculous, right, yeah, like let's. We're grownups, you know. Let's use the word. That means what it means. And the other approach to the question is if, if the sex that you were having is not worth wanting, then it's actually a good sign that you don't want. It's actually a good sign that you don't want it. It's a good sign that you don't want it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, instead of a diagnosis, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So what you need to do is yeah, what you need to do is experiment and discover things that are enjoyable, whether they're sex or not.
Speaker 1:And that makes sense to me, but say a little bit more because, like a reader or listener might be like what do you mean, betty? That it's a good thing? I don't want this. It's causing so it's causing decades of conflict you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, it's causing conflict because it's the conflict is an opportunity to look a little deeper, and look a little deeper at what actually might you enjoy maybe it's taking a walk, you know. Or to what other ways might you meet those needs for closeness? Or what other ways might you meet the needs for touch, maybe give each other a massage or read each other naughty stories. There's lots of things that can be sexual, that are enjoyable, that are not intercourse, and there are lots of things that are not sexual that are enjoyable and build closeness, intimacy, connection, pleasure yeah and instead of sending the message of, you're broken you're saying this could.
Speaker 3:Everything going right.
Speaker 1:This is your body and your mind telling you.
Speaker 3:I mean, imagine if you had a. I never thought of this before, but imagine if you had a diagnosis that said there's something wrong with you. You don't like acid poured on your skin. You get blister. Yeah, like what's wrong with you, you know, yeah, like you, would you. You would say if you don't like acid pouring your skin, good for you good for you.
Speaker 1:That's a good sign. Everything's working exactly how it should. Exactly, yeah, but but it's not conducive to skin. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I think that conflict is true. It's a hard hard place for a couple to be and some couples are willing to do the work and some aren't. That's just the way some individuals are willing to do the work in some art. That's just the way it is. But it's an opportunity to look deeper into what actually might we like, what actually might meet the need for closeness, connection, fun, play lots of ways to meet those needs.
Speaker 1:Did you have any additional thoughts? That I didn't necessarily ask you directly. After you know, sent you this video and I'm like we found this thing. You know these women are scoring really high in all these ptsd areas based on this pattern and ask you to help me make sense of it, did you? Have any other like kind of op-ed thoughts that I.
Speaker 3:I didn't think to ask you that um came up for you yeah, just that I feel sad for all those women because I I've been there, I know how it is and yeah, yeah, it's easy for for me to say, well, here's some things you can try and stuff, but I there's. I know that anytime you you pull a thread in a relationship, it's going to pull down to all kinds of other things that you may or may not want to deal with. And so you know, saying that here's an opportunity to go deeper is shit. You know, not everybody wants to do that and every thread that you pull is going to. You know not everybody wants to do that and every thread that you pull is going to you know it's going to go, it's going to connect to some other thread that goes down in there and um, yeah, I don't know any solution to that I kind of hear you saying you're recognizing this isn't simple this is not simple.
Speaker 3:It is that even though the three minute game is a simple game the whole process of turning this around is going to be complex yeah, yeah, yeah, and, and it's going to bring up all your stuff and you're going to end up in therapy and you you know you're going to end up.
Speaker 3:You know, what was really helpful for me and I think it is for a lot of people is various workshops on things like you know. Radical honesty was really helpful. I spent 40 years co-counseling and lots of workshops in there, and body electric workshops dealing with specifically with eroticism and body electric workshops dealing specifically with eroticism, and you know there's all kinds of workshops and things that one can do to increase their self-awareness. Thankfully, as well as personal therapy, body work was a big one for me and becoming embodied in terms of movement and learning how to listen to what my body was telling me All those things were factors that I, at this point, I can't imagine not having, not having that.
Speaker 1:They were foundational.
Speaker 3:They were foundational yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Are some of these workshops open to non-practitioners?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, most of them are yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, because I'm like lot, you know a lot of somatic stuff. Training it's like licensed therapist only oh, these kinds of workshops you're mentioning yeah, anybody could access.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah and I'm sure there are lots more of them now, even than when I was in the workshop scene, maybe, so yeah, I'm sure there are a lot more now.
Speaker 1:I want. When we release podcast, I, too want people to know how to find you. You've got a book. You've got a website. You're talking to a lot of people right now. Since your book came out, I've seen you pop up on my. You've got a lot of free printables, too, right.
Speaker 3:I mean yeah.
Speaker 1:And all your videos really walk people through the book, if they are wanting to read it.
Speaker 3:I found that really helpful yeah there's eight hours of free video on eddie martinorg. It's very generous, just walks you right through it and of course there's a book and at the book website there's a. You can download the first chapter for free and there's some there's. You can download a chart of the wheel of consent nice, nice.
Speaker 1:I really value your time. I really appreciate you being willing to talk to me. You are so if I'm being radically honest. I was like thanks it's.
Speaker 3:It's fun to be able to talk about all this relationship and sexuality stuff and kind of take it apart, because it's not very often that I get a chance to talk about it all at once.
Speaker 2:So it's been fun Good. Thank you so much Okay. All right Thanks so much, Great Cammie.
Speaker 3:Nice to see you again. Yep, yep, bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye.