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Laurie Watson [00:00:57]:
Children we’re going to talk today about a sexual assessment. Last week we talked about the emotional assessment with our partners, and we’re going to, again, just talk about where you came from, what you learned about your body, what you learned about sexuality, and hopefully be able to share with your partner about this welcome to foreplay sex therapy. I’m Dr. Laurie Watson, your sex therapist.

George Faller [00:01:21]:
And I’m George Faller, your couples therapist.

Laurie Watson [00:01:24]:
We are here to talk about sex.

George Faller [00:01:26]:
Our mission is to help couples talk about sex in ways that incorporate their body, their mind, and their hearts.

Laurie Watson [00:01:34]:
And we have a little bit of fun doing it right?

George Faller [00:01:36]:
G listen and let’s change some relationships.

George Faller [00:01:39]:
Another lesson in the school of love. A lot of people never, ever do this exploration, right? They feel awkward. They don’t want people to think badly of them. They don’t want to give information to partners. This is a conversation so many couples I work with have never done with each other. And how, because just like that emotional history, this informs how we want to be touched, what works, what doesn’t work. And if we can’t actually explore it ourselves or share with our partner, like, we’re leaving a lot off the table to actually connect with.

Laurie Watson [00:02:11]:
There is, there is. And I think I always begin with couples, you know, because in the family of origin, I, you know, I have a little baby in my life right now, and one of the things that I notice is just the sweetness, the gentleness of the way his parents touch him. This is my grandchild and our grandmother’s. Sexy. I really. I don’t know if I should talk about my grandchild. Just kidding. You know, it’s so, it’s so tender, you know? And of course, when you are caring for a baby, you have to clean them.

Laurie Watson [00:02:43]:
You have to clean their genitals, you have to. All of that is like, the respect and the gentleness that you start touching them with is the very first experience they have of their body. And that appropriate touch and all of that is really the way they start to even find their body and come into touch with this is an okay place. My parents, their love for me, their care for me, the way they touch me, feed me, hold me, all of that is sort of foundational to actually our eventual sexual self, because as our physical needs are met, you know, our bodies are touched, we begin to feel safe in our bodies, and that’s kind of foundational, I believe, for our sexuality.

George Faller [00:03:29]:
So that’s the first question we’re going to ask. How did your family do touch? Was there good touch? Was there comforting touch? Was there soothing touch? Was there tickling touch? Like, was touch a healthy role model in your family, something you could depend upon, something that you look for? You know, I could think of my family like, my mother was a good toucher. She would scratch my back as I was, watch a show, and, like, I just loved the way that felt. You know, I look forward to that. And my dad didn’t say much emotional words, but he was a good huggy. Like, get over here. So my family did pretty good with touch. And no wonder why when I came into relationships, I was looking for that, you know, I want to give it.

George Faller [00:04:12]:
That’s like my main primary love life, which is touch.

Laurie Watson [00:04:14]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too. My mother was also very good at touch. And, I mean, I remember the comfort of my mother’s body for sure. You know, being held to her breast when I was hurt or upset. And, you know, and she was really good about putting me to bed at night. There was a lot of back rubbing, the same sort of things, song singing, tucking in. You know, all of that was very dependable in my, you know, early family years. And I think my dad, I remember sitting on my father’s lap and, you know, that kind of thing.

Laurie Watson [00:04:50]:
He wasn’t quite as affectionate as my mom, but it wasn’t off limits or anything like that.

George Faller [00:04:55]:
It’s not coincidence that Laurie and I can be sexual pursuers in our relationship because we got healthy roll miles of touch. And both of our partners grew up in families where touch wasn’t as expressive. Right. And when. When you don’t want that touch, you learn to self soothe and self regulate. You don’t need it as much as others because your body’s gotten used to kind of doing its own thing. And you could often get pressured when, when you’re touched because people are looking for something from you and it becomes something to do instead of something, you know, that your body, that you enjoy.

Laurie Watson [00:05:29]:
That you enjoy.

George Faller [00:05:31]:
So again, there’s no right or wrong to these answers. It is what it is, but I.

Laurie Watson [00:05:35]:
Think that what you’re saying is so important. This, to me, I think, is a real primary block, especially in women, when they have not been touched enough as a child, any child who has not touched enough, we crave it. And so what do we do if we don’t get enough of it? We kind of set this boundary. I call it like an inner vow that says I just won’t need it. In order to survive, you have to not need touch. Every child that ever lived needs copious amounts of touch. And so if you kind of set this wall up that says, well, it’s not coming, I’m not going to expect it. And then we get into a romantic relationship in adulthood and it’s like, okay, now you want me to crave your body? You want me to have desire? That’s not safe.

Laurie Watson [00:06:23]:
I think men get a second chance in life because of testosterone. You know, that it often, even if they didn’t get adequate touch in childhood, they’re often pushed by their body’s needs to want sex. And then they, you know, it really is healing. You know, for many men, sexual touch is the healing of what they didn’t have in childhood.

George Faller [00:06:43]:
Well, I think with a lot of men, where it could get turned off is if you don’t get it, it’s one thing, and then your body still longs for it. But if you wind up receiving negative messages around touch, you know, maybe it’s natural to touch yourself to like that. And you get caught touching yourself and, you know, your parents says you’re going to. If you do that, like, when we start getting strong messages that our touch is bad or evil or like when we try to touch somebody, somebody doesn’t like to touch or we get molested, we get touch forced upon us. Like when we get trauma that gets attached to touch. Right. It crosses the wires and it could kind of start to block this natural process.

Laurie Watson [00:07:21]:
Yeah, exactly. And you’ve just said a thousand things there that I think people need to think about. You know, the messages they got about masturbation, you know, was it okay to touch themselves? Did their parents say, oh, you know, that feels nice, that that area is good, you know, of course you want to touch yourself there. That’s a good thing. Or, like, were they caught and then they were told, this is so bad, you’re evil. And then, you know, when evil is actually foisted upon a child with inappropriate sexual touch or molestation, or something in their body is awakened sexually well before its time, and then they can feel guilty. Like, not only were they violated, but they can feel guilty for their own sexual response. And that just messes you up in your mind.

George Faller [00:08:06]:
Yeah, yeah. Again, just to give that space, it crosses the lies. When it’s normal to like something, somebody’s giving you special attention. Like, it, part of it feels good, even in molestation, even though it feels really bad and part of you knows it shouldn’t be happening. And, like, when you get these mixed messages and you can’t talk about it, it really causes some confusion. And these are the blocks that we’re going to see later on in the romantic relationships. They get their roots kind of back in these moments.

Laurie Watson [00:08:34]:
Yeah. So we also want to ask our partners, was there any trauma around touch? And also, what were the messages that you got about masturbation and your own body? I think the next thing I want to know from people, too, is the messages they got about their body’s development, you know, because this is an awkward time as you become a sexual creature. Right. Your body develops. I mean, gosh, you know, I remember when I first started my period, George, and it was like, I thought the whole world knew. It was such a conspicuous, like, self conscious feeling. This was back in the day, maybe TMI, y’all, but I was back in the day when you wore pads, you know? You know, I was riding my bike with this big pad, and it was just like, oh, you know, I remember going up to see the boys that were my buddies, and just like, what if they could see? It was just so embarrassing to me, this whole development thing.

George Faller [00:09:32]:
Yeah, I was a little late bloomer, so I didn’t have pubic hairs. I was a little later than some of my friends, you know, I remember they’d be showing it off, and they’d pull their pants down and say, look at this. And I’d be like, you know, they’d be like, show me yours. I was like, I don’t touch. Stupid, I don’t want to do. But I remember this. The fear of being exposed, right? I mean, like, I’ll punch your face if you like, try. Like, and I have all these defenses started to be developed, you know, around something you don’t talk about.

George Faller [00:09:59]:
This is something private.

Laurie Watson [00:10:00]:
Right.

George Faller [00:10:01]:
Something, you know. So, again, it’s not always your family of origin. It could be that extended group that, you know, in this puberty phase where, you know, a lot of times it’s our peers that are kind of giving us information. It’s not so super accurate a lot.

Laurie Watson [00:10:16]:
Of the time, especially when boys are a little bit later to bloom and girls are a little bit early to bloom. You know, it’s like our mind and our emotions haven’t caught up with our body, or maybe they’ve exceeded our body, and, you know, and our peers may be in a different place. It’s really confusing. There’s a lot of comparison that’s happening. Am I normal? I think that’s the biggest question I get from people, is, am I normal? And people start to have experiences about that age with opposite sex and same sex. I would say the number one secret I have heard from people throughout the years of my work as a therapist is, well, you know, I played with my same sex friends, and we had sexual encounters, and they’ve never told anybody that, and they feel ashamed of that. Like, maybe they’re straight, but, you know, they had experiences with the boys in the neighborhood or they had experiences with their girlfriends. And it’s like, you know, it turns out people who are developing and they’re having all these flooding of sexual feelings and stuff, they often just kind of experiment with whoever’s available.

Laurie Watson [00:11:19]:
It really doesn’t have anything to do with your sexual orientation. It’s just kind of experimentation. And so this is a confusing time in life when we’re developing and we’re first starting to have sexual experiences, and.

George Faller [00:11:32]:
Then we do want to know about that first sexual experience that’s so important. Right. It’s. It might just be a crush the first time you felt strong feelings for somebody else, and maybe they didn’t respond back, or, you know, maybe it was. That person responded back, and it was your first love. You know, I’m always surprised at how often the first sexual experience is a negative one for people because they don’t know what they’re doing and something hurts or something goes bad or they wind up breaking up afterwards. I mean, if your body’s first taste of this intimate moment is negative, like, what is the body? Keep score. It holds on to that.

George Faller [00:12:11]:
So we really do want to know more about that first moment.

Laurie Watson [00:12:14]:
Oh, yeah, exactly. Tommy Amaterio, he was, like, the guy at the church group who I just was madly in love with, and I don’t think he even knew I existed, but I just thought he was so cute. I thought he was so cute for years, and his family was lovely and all of this, and I just. I remember that, like, again, that feeling of every time I saw him at church, just how exciting it was and what a thrill it was. You know, for all I know, I was having fantasies, and I can’t quite remember having fantasies about him, but I’m sure I did, you know? Cause he was everything but didn’t know I existed.

George Faller [00:12:56]:
But you can see the enjoyment you still get back now as you reflect upon that good feeling, you know, that fantasy, that wonder that what if he was interested? I would love. Like, that’s. That’s healthy longing, right? When that’s able to be expressed, you can see how the body wants to hold on to that. If that first kiss was magical. It’s like you’re always looking for something like that the rest of your life. That feeling of being connected and feeling the passion and not really knowing. And just like, these are the highlight reel moments, right. You want to kind of recognize those highlight real moments, like they’re still with us.

Laurie Watson [00:13:42]:
Yep. Exactly. And also the, you know, the first breakup. Right. You know, if you’ve been sexually involved with somebody and then they break up with you, it can just kind of break your heart. Or maybe you’re breaking somebody else’s heart, and that can be really painful, too, especially how they react to it.

George Faller [00:14:01]:
Exactly. I think this is an area we’ll come back and talk about gas pedals and breaks and romantic relationships that are so important for our current relationship.

Laurie Watson [00:14:11]:
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George Faller [00:17:52]:
This one is, to me, the heart of it. Early touch is critical, but also our past sexual romantic relationships you know, this is where we learn a lot of our good habits and we learn a lot of our bad habits. So really taking the time to go through a couple of these, you know, relationships. So we start with the first one and what worked about it? What were the things? What were you responded to? You know, was it a crush where the other person wasn’t so into you? Then it’s going to have a lot more. The rejection and the hurt attached to it. It. But when the partner is responsive to us back, like, and we really feel like this is the only person that gets me. This is the first person in the planet who’s really gotten me.

George Faller [00:18:38]:
My family kind of likes me. They really don’t know me. I mean, if you think about that.

Laurie Watson [00:18:43]:
They have to like me. They have to like me. This is the first new person who likes me and, like, exciting our families.

George Faller [00:18:51]:
And how bad they are and how clueless they are, and they don’t really get the world the way we do. I mean, it really is this person that’s kind of all into you and that feeling, like the levels of engagement are off the charts. I mean, you can talk about anything. You’re holding each other’s hands is pretty awesome. I mean, you like the way people look at you when you’re together. I mean, it’s just, like, supercharged on so many levels.

Laurie Watson [00:19:19]:
I like to think back and I ask people to do this. Like, especially, I asked sexual withdrawers to do this. Think about the first touch. Maybe it isn’t the first sex, but it’s like they took your hand in the movie and, I mean, remember, it’s so electric when somebody you like touches you, it’s just absolutely electric. I can still think about it, like, going through my whole body, you know, just that wonderful feeling of the person that you like, the guy, you know, and he touches you for the first time. Not even kisses you, just touches you. It’s like, wow, it’s amazing. Do you remember your first touch? Or maybe you were the one who touched because you were the boy, so probably you were the one who had to grab her hand or kiss her or something.

George Faller [00:20:05]:
Yeah. My first kiss wasn’t so magical. It was, you know, a kind of, like, pushed kind of, you know, spin the bottle and just kiss the strange person just to kind of do it kind of thing. And I didn’t know I was doing. She didn’t know what she was doing. It was awkward and. But you could advance. And I can remember my first girlfriend that I really had strong feelings for and, like, just sitting at the mailbox for, like, hours.

George Faller [00:20:35]:
Like, I don’t know what we talked about. And every once in a while, you throw a kiss in there. It’s like, that’s all you care about, right?

Laurie Watson [00:20:43]:
The world stops. Yeah.

George Faller [00:20:47]:
Notice what you’re getting, right. That we want to look at our current relationship, those levels of engagement, the interest, the amount. You always say this, like, people were very intentional. They were investing so much into this, these moments with each other. They weren’t taking it for granted. Like, they were so present that we’re trying to look, how can we get that more in our current relationship? And the best way of doing that is let your body remember moments when it has felt this, to be able to tap it. It’s not a foreign language. It’s not like something you’ve lost and can’t get back.

George Faller [00:21:19]:
It’s there. If your body remembers it, that’s a good thing.

Laurie Watson [00:21:22]:
Yeah, exactly.

George Faller [00:21:24]:
The flip side is, though, I also remember that first girlfriend. You know, for whatever reason, we were great for, like, a month. That seemed like forever back then. And then almost done one day, she was like, yeah, no, you know, I don’t want to go out anymore. I was like, what? And I had to pretend I didn’t carry it. Like, yeah, I didn’t care, but on the inside, I was, like, devastated. But that. I didn’t talk about that feeling.

George Faller [00:21:48]:
Right. I didn’t want people to evaluate me. So I learned right. At that early age, when you feel that, hide it, don’t share it. It’ll be used against you. No big deal. You’re cool. Go on to the next one.

George Faller [00:21:59]:
And, like, that’s what I did. It wind up working pretty well for me. But, you know, look at what that does for me, moving into relationships.

Laurie Watson [00:22:07]:
Right. It trains you. It trains your body to not feel, to not talk about it, to not get any comfort. You’re all alone. There’s, you know. Yeah, that’s. That’s a painful thing. It’s a painful training.

George Faller [00:22:20]:
Yeah.

Laurie Watson [00:22:20]:
But I think not only maybe your family of origin, but as a male, I think there’s a lot of pressure in our culture for men not to show when they have a heartbreak, you know, more than for women. Yeah.

George Faller [00:22:35]:
I think it’s changing a little bit. I can see with my sons, they’re a little bit more open, the boys talking to each other about these things than it was for me. I mean, I would be teased. It’d be like, who cares? It was a totally different responsibility.

Laurie Watson [00:22:48]:
Right, right. Different generation. Yeah, I agree. My sons, too, talk to their friends about things like that as well, which is so beautiful. I’m so grateful for my sons having their friend group. You know, it’s just, it’s a group of young men who are the coolest guys, and they actually talk about their relationships and all kinds of things. So that’s beautiful.

George Faller [00:23:11]:
And as we get into these relationships, we want to get more into, specifically around the sex. What was the sex? A lot of times, because we’re young and new, we can take more risks. We have less inhibitions. So a lot of times, the sex can be the most amazing sex we’ve ever had at this early age. And for others, it’s the opposite. It’s like, because we don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know our body. We have so many inhibitions and hang ups.

George Faller [00:23:38]:
Like the sex, really bad, right? And, you know, we can’t have an orgasm. It hurts. The other person doesn’t know what they’re doing. And you can see how good early sex is, is going to influence how our body responds to sex.

Laurie Watson [00:23:52]:
Yeah. I really think that first full sexual experience is kind of like a bit of a template, you know, and it almost has to be overcome or something, you know? And I asked this question on my assessment forms for everybody who comes through my center. So we have thousands of examples of people’s first sex experience. And I, again, I think that a lot of women do not have positive first sex experiences. You know, it hurts. They’re virgins. They don’t know how to make sex comfortable because they don’t have enough knowledge. And it actually turns out, just for the record, y’all, that virgin sex for a woman can be comfortable, but they don’t know how to do that.

Laurie Watson [00:24:36]:
They don’t speak up. They don’t ask. I think many young people don’t say what they like. Maybe they don’t know what they like. Maybe they’ve never masturbated or, God forbid, that they would tell somebody that. But I think the men that I see often do experience, like, a joyful, exciting moment. Maybe they don’t know what they were doing, but they still find it joyful. And usually they do have orgasms.

George Faller [00:24:59]:
Well, I’ve read a lot of men, though, that first encounter, they’ve had really premature ejaculation. That was very.

Laurie Watson [00:25:09]:
50%, George. I think of men, their first sexual experience have premature ejaculation. But, I mean, you think about it like it makes so much sense. It’s like, I mean, they’re so excited like, of course they’re gonna come like that. That’s so natural.

George Faller [00:25:24]:
If the partner was okay, no big deal. If the partner was shaming. Right. Then that becomes a very different reality.

Laurie Watson [00:25:32]:
Yeah. Different experience. Yeah.

George Faller [00:25:34]:
You know, and this is in the break department, we do want to understand, unfortunately, there is a lot of rape, abuse, molestation that happened, date rape. And what is that? Right. What does that teach you?

Laurie Watson [00:25:51]:
Right.

George Faller [00:25:52]:
Or no infidelity, when it feels like this one person you’ve given your heart to and you found this amazing thing, and then you find out they’re with somebody else and you’re not that special. Right. So some of the worst hurts we’re ever going to experience are going to happen exactly in this area.

Laurie Watson [00:26:10]:
Right. Right. When we’re fresh and new. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, and I think, again, the stats are obscene about how many young women before the age of 18 will experience molestation, rape, date rape, coercive sexual experiences. And we know now, because it’s beginning to be talked about, that boys, too, experience quite a bit of molestation and coercion about sex. And generally for boys, it is a man who is molesting them.

Laurie Watson [00:26:43]:
And so that can, if they’re straight, it can be really confusing in terms of their sexual orientation because their body has been touched and formed sort of a pattern. So, I mean, a lot of men feel a lot of shame over having been molested because it was also same sex and they consider themselves straight. So they don’t talk about it. They don’t get over that. I mean, it, you know, gosh, especially now with all the, you know, the church revelations of kids being molested in the schools and sports and, you know, you know, everything, every organization, kids, boy scouts, kids are vulnerable.

George Faller [00:27:20]:
Yeah.

Laurie Watson [00:27:21]:
Yeah. It’s really awful.

George Faller [00:27:24]:
Those three levels, you know, you got the early family, how did they do, touch? You got the early adolescent, young adult. First romantic relationships, how we learn our bodies. And then you got that third phase, like, you know, college and afterwards, what are a lot of people do have patterns you doing in their romantic relationships, you know, around sex or how they start or how they break up. I was working with one guy, he’s like, I don’t understand why, you know, girls always wind up leaving. Right. And, like, when that happens a lot, you can see how you’re going to carry that insecurity into this present relationship.

Laurie Watson [00:28:02]:
Yeah.

George Faller [00:28:02]:
Or, you know, another guy I was working with, like, yeah, I never find the right one. Like, I’m always kind of into a girl, but then find something that I kind of don’t like. And then I just break up with them because it’s just. It’s just something missing and something I’m missing. Like, okay, well, and what are these relationships looking like sexually? You know, what. What are the things that work in those relationships? You know, I had this one relationship. We didn’t get along. We fought all the time, but the sex was great.

George Faller [00:28:30]:
And then on my next relationship, I really like this person. We had good friends, but we had really boring sex. Like, why is that? There’s information to be clean in relationships.

Laurie Watson [00:28:40]:
Right? Yeah. And hopefully, I mean, I think this is one thing, is people sometimes go through their relationship history, and they just, you know, well, that one’s over, but they don’t necessarily analyze it to learn what they can learn about it. Yeah. So, okay, so last question. Right? We want you to share, if you can, your sexual history and relational history with your partner. One caveat. You know, some people are partnered with somebody who is extremely jealous, and it wouldn’t be safe to share with them or they would become jealous of that. And so we’re not saying do something because we’ve told you to.

Laurie Watson [00:29:19]:
In a relationship that isn’t safe, you got to make sure that your partner is open to that and willing to be curious about the lessons that the two of you can learn from that. And if you can’t share with your partner, hopefully you have shared your relational history and learned what you can about it with a therapist or with another friend.

George Faller [00:29:38]:
Absolutely. That ability to reflect, to know yourself better, what turns you on, what turns you off, the more you can communicate that, the better the chances you having great sex with your partner and finding that safety. So a lot of the information does go back and your ability to be curious about yourself and your partner. Right. I joke around with my wife, and I’m like, she never had a boyfriend before me. I was her first boyfriend. I don’t want to hear about those things. Right.

George Faller [00:30:09]:
But not a good response. I know that we’re working on it. Really trying to remind yourself, like, it’s a normal thing for people to be in relationship and to like other people until they find that they found you. Right. That’s not a reflection on. Right. And I love that you’re giving people permission. If you don’t want to talk about this because you’re not in a place that your relationship’s too fragile, you want more things to think and stress about, then talk about the childhood, you know, talk about.

Laurie Watson [00:30:40]:
Right. Talk about things that are safe.

George Faller [00:30:43]:
That are safe. What the cultural messages people that you’ve seen around sex, what are the religious around sex? And there’s so much here in our history that, you know, we just don’t often think to talk to our partner about. And what a missed opportunity because there’s richness here. There’s stuff to engage with. There’s just such, such fun stuff.

Laurie Watson [00:31:04]:
We don’t have time today I wish we did, to explore all the impact of those other cultural and religious messages that we get. And maybe we need to do another podcast on that because those are important, too. Still working through that one. Okay, y’all, thanks for listening.

George Faller [00:31:20]:
Keep it hot, baby.

Laurie Watson [00:31:22]:
Okay, so tell us about your cutting edge training that you’re doing on success and vulnerability.

George Faller [00:31:28]:
Laurie.

George Faller [00:31:28]:
We just keep pushing it. Coming up with a new module on the playbook of a pursuer, playbook of a witcher, really practical moment by moment moves or what a therapist can use. And we’re so focused on what’s happening in session enough. There’s talk about theories and these global things I think most therapists are looking for. What do I do in this moment? Give me a tool, George. So that’s what we’re trying to do.

Laurie Watson [00:31:54]:
That’s awesome. I am so glad you guys are doing this work. I think it helps us be organized to see you do it. You do demos, you do explanations, teaching. It really is interactive, and I think that so many trainings that we sit through don’t give us an opportunity for that. So what you’re doing is really important.

George Faller [00:32:13]:
No, we try to emphasize the teach it, show it, do it model of learning. You need to have some ideas, so we try to teach those, and then we try to show what it looks like implementing those ideas. But most importantly, you now got to practice it. That’s how they become yours, and that’s what we want our listeners and watchers to do and become their own moves.

Laurie Watson [00:32:32]:
Find George and his [email protected] dot call.

Joe Davis – Announcer [00:32:36]:
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