Transcript

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Disclaimer [00:01:26]:
The following content is not suitable for children.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:01:28]:
George we have a mail bag from a listener. This is a fun one. It’s a woman who talks about how excited she is about sex with her partner, but also that there’s a little bit of difficulty with oral sex between the two of them and especially bodily fluids. And she wants our help.

George Faller [00:01:50]:
All right. We’re here to help. We’re here to serve.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:01:56]:
Welcome to Foreplay sex therapy. I’m Dr. Laurie Watson, your sex therapist.

George Faller [00:02:00]:
And I’m George Faller, your couples therapist.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:03]:
We are here to talk about sex.

George Faller [00:02:05]:
Our mission is to help couples talk about sex in ways that incorporate their body, their mind, and their hearts.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:13]:
And we have a little bit of.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:14]:
Fun doing it right, G?

George Faller [00:02:15]:
Listen, and let’s change some relationships. I like the mail bag. The mail, it’s like a. It’s a mail drop. I mean, this is getting us into the summer of love here.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:27]:
Yeah, yeah.

George Faller [00:02:28]:
And we just have fun with fluids before we get all wet here. Laurie we want to. We want to announce we have a couple’s retreat coming up here, right?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:38]:
Yes, we do.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:39]:
October 4th. Sign up. And there’s a discount right now. So please sign up for the early bird discount on foreplayrst.com. oh, and I’m doing a Women’s Retreat in November, too, in Asheville. Please sign up for that.

George Faller [00:02:54]:
Yeah, and our Success and Vulnerability project is coming out with a episode on working with a sexual cycle where we have a guest, Dr. Laurie Watson, giving her expertise. So people, check out Success and Vulnerability.com.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:11]:
Yes.

George Faller [00:03:11]:
Exciting times. We got a book project. Moving forward. We’re doing a bunch of trainings. You know, we’re. We’re getting the word out there. And thank you all our listeners and our patrons for, For. For supporting this.

George Faller [00:03:22]:
We feel like we’re building some momentum, and these are such important times, right, Laurie? I mean, the world seems crazy. The weather’s nuts, the politics are insane. War’s everywhere. Like, we need some sanity. We need some. Some bridge makers, some people who could kind of hold multiple truths and see negative cycles and, more important, replacing them with positive cycles. So, yeah, I really feel like some of our words getting out there, and we’re just trying to do our little parts, and we so like having an army of people around us that are kind of joining our voice and just continuing to fight back against the craziness with this message of love.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:59]:
Exactly. So let’s help this couple have some good sex. So I’ll just. I want to read a little bit about what this woman writes. And she says, first of all, and we are grateful you’re listening, but thank you. Listening to your podcast, however, I feel like I’ve learned so much about our sexual relationship. And she says, you know, it became apparent to me I’m the pursuer in our relationship. I can’t remember if I was always the pursuer because things were so new and exciting in the beginning, but we probably pursued each other more equally, and we weren’t living together at the time, and it was sort of a given.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:04:37]:
But now we moved in together. There’s stressors at work, and we both took pay cuts to go into the work that we love. And we’ve had open communication. So I never hesitated to address these things with him. But I started thinking it was the frequency that I was unhappy with, because, honestly, when we do have sex, it’s great. It wasn’t, though, until I listened to your podcast, however, that I could effectively articulate how I’m feeling and what I need from him. Okay, so that’s kind of good. I approached him around the spring, and I told him that I had listened to your podcast, and I described the pursuer withdrawal dynamic and what I think we have in bed.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:05:20]:
And ever since that, our conversation and the frequency with which we have sex has Been improved, but I’m still not satisfied. Guess who she is. She’s the pursuer. During our last review though, together with her partner, I mentioned that I think it would be cool if to see if I could squirt. To which he replied, I’m not into that. When I asked him why, he said, I’m already weird about bodily fluids and things, and the pursuer in me just rattled off a bunch of thoughts at once. Something like, I know you’re weird about touching me when I’m wet. I don’t feel like you get any satisfaction from satisfying me.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:05:58]:
Do you know why you that way? I’d love for you to try to explore that. Every other partner I’ve been with has, you know, found that as a turn on and would verbally say something about it during our foreplay. Breathe, girl. I didn’t mean to come off that way, but like, I was attacking him. But I was genuinely so curious as to why he didn’t really like my wetness. I asked him if he had ever felt like that about sex before and he said if he had ever liked that about sex, and he said no. I asked him how he feels about his own cum and he said, I feel the same. And my reaction shut him down completely and makes me afraid to pry any further.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:06:40]:
I’m going to go on a little bit, but we got to help this woman, George.

George Faller [00:06:43]:
It just strikes me even as you’re reading it. And so many pursuers, they just, you know, they get caught up in the good intent of the curiosity because it does. They just want answers because they know if they get answers, they’re going to make progress. And it just, they just become blind to the impact and the timing of those questions and, you know, how it predictably lands to somebody who’s sensitive to criticism. Right? And then it just leads to the negative cycle. This moment that’s about beauty and connection starts to lead to disconnection and loneliness and it’s, you know, it’s predictable.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:07:17]:
Exactly.

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Dr. Laurie Watson [00:09:56]:
So then she goes a little further and asks, do you know why a man wouldn’t find this attractive? He understands the purpose for it. He always makes sure I’m ready. He doesn’t noticeably relish in it. Like, and I’m praying maybe he isn’t secretly gay. I don’t know how to tactfully ask him about that, honestly. Could this be the result of childhood trauma? And then of course, she goes on with his history. And I would just say I think this is one of the pitfalls of being a pursuer is that the anxiety that you begin to feel kind of catastrophizes. And suddenly this small thing that he says, well, I’m really not that into squirting becomes, you know, maybe he’s gay.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:10:42]:
We’re incompatible. And this is due to his childhood trauma. And it’s like end of the world kind of thinking. And I think that you can do that as a pursuer very easily. You can just go from one moment to a really bad place and get super anxious. And that anxiety is going to feed the dynamic between us and our partner in a way that dysregulates us, because it can’t go.

George Faller [00:11:08]:
When you’re the withdrawer, how does it go from I don’t like squirting to I’m gay now? I mean, they don’t understand how they make the leap to pursuers. Like, and this why question that seems harmless. Like, they pursuers got to get better at how their partners see that as criticisms. Like, why don’t you like it? Implies there’s something wrong, that you don’t like it. Like, I like it. Why don’t you like it? You’re doing something wrong. So I do think kind of change in a language is really important for pursuers to practice. And I try to get pursuers to really, instead of talk about what they’re getting or not getting, to try to stay more focused on the longings that drive it.

George Faller [00:11:46]:
Right. It’s like, I might. I get turned on by, you know, new things, by kind of trying things out. Like, that’s what I get excited about. They try to invite their partner into getting excited instead of saying, why don’t you like this? Which is a lot harder to kind of come alongside that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:12:07]:
Yeah, exactly. And I think the. The other thing that pursuers can do sometimes accidentally, is they can kind of obliterate the otherness of their partner. Like, just because you’re different, you know, oh, you feel this way. We. We. We can’t. We don’t do that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:12:25]:
Somehow or another, we make them wrong for feeling something different. You know, people think all kinds of things about sex and sexual acts, and, you know, maybe they have reasons, maybe it’s a problem, maybe it’s not. And about anything, you know, we can just be different and not be wrong, not be bad. And I think that her catastrophizing here, like you said, kind of makes him wrong in some way versus just, okay, he’s different. You know, he’s not that into it. And she hasn’t quite given enough room here either for what he feels about her wetness. I mean, maybe. I mean, she’s making an assumption.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:13:09]:
I think you don’t like it. He’s not saying, I don’t like it. He’s saying, I don’t want to see you squirt. That’s not important to me. Yeah, you know, bodily fluids are. I’m a little ick about that. But he hasn’t really said, and I don’t like your lubrication either. You know, she’s just saying, I’ve noticed this.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:13:28]:
And suddenly her little mind is putting it together in this, you know, huge package.

George Faller [00:13:33]:
Yeah. And let’s face it, some people, fluids are a turn off. Right. They don’t have a lot of success in their own relationships. I mean, they grow up masturbating, needing to be clean and neat and tidy, and there’s not a lot of fluids around and that, you know, neural pathways that fire together, wire together. We get used to things over time and, you know, so I think that’s. We shift a mission. Like, how do we.

George Faller [00:14:00]:
How do we help him become a little bit more open to fluids? I mean, she’s trying to do something good. She’s trying to be more engaged, she’s trying to be more playful. She’s bringing in different things. You know, we all have a line somewhere, but can we stretch our lines? That means you don’t like sex during a period. Like, okay, well, maybe when it’s super heavy and light, you can try something like, this is so many aspects, aspects to this conversation that we’re just trying to get people to talk about. And maybe they can stretch a little bit because that’s where they find that more common ground.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:14:33]:
And I think it’s hard to stretch and tell somebody what you feel about bodily fluids in this conversation when you’re already kind of back to the wall like, you know, and I have. This is a conversation that’s pretty common in my room, in my consulting room about bodily fluids and how people feel about them. And many times, you know, we kind of work it through. Why don’t we come back after the break and talk about that some more? And also advise her about how to slow down here, how to calm herself down so that it doesn’t go into this catastrophe and opens up a little more space between the two of them.

George Faller [00:15:17]:
Nice.

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George Faller [00:16:53]:
All right, Lori. I always get excited when you start to talk about what you tell your couples in your office. So I want to hear about this conversation around fluids that starts to kind of lead to more openness.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:17:07]:
Well, I first have to understand what the resistance is. And so I ask a lot of curious questions, kind of trying to assess where the person is on it. And, you know, and I try to understand where it comes from first so that I can validate for them, like, how that might make sense. And I think if we’re all seen in ways that, you know, how we’ve put together the world, it gives us enough room to potentially grow and change a little bit. And I think in the sexual experience, most of us do need to grow and stretch a little bit, you know?

George Faller [00:17:46]:
Amen.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:17:47]:
Even if. Even if you love sex, there’s probably things that, you know, feel weird to you about what your partner might like or what you’ve heard about or. And I’m not saying anything, and everything goes. I’m not talking about that. I’m just saying, you know, within your moral frame and your relationship, there’s. There’s probably ways to grow. I. I have challenged myself over the years.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:18:09]:
I’ve told the foreplay fam this in the past that, you know, for me, sometimes I’m with people who are less inhibited than me, and I’m like, dang. You know, just the way they are, the way they talk. I’m like, you know, I have a ways to grow here. You know, whether it’s like this person, I can’t even think. But, you know, maybe they walk around naked all day long, and, you know, they. They tease their partner that way, and they feel really good about themselves. And it’s like, oh, that. That’s something I could maybe Do.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:18:40]:
And I just haven’t thought to do. And why haven’t I thought to do? Because maybe I have inhibitions, and so I’m always challenging myself. And so maybe I would start with this man to ask, first of all.

George Faller [00:18:53]:
Do you want me to be this man?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:18:55]:
Yes, I want you to be this man. Okay, I’ll ask you.

George Faller [00:18:58]:
Okay, let’s.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:18:59]:
Okay, so we’re role playing. I’m the therapist. You’re just a guy. So, I mean, your wife has told us all this, and I realize there’s a lot here that you are kind of up against, but let’s pretend that we’ve done enough therapy over the cycle so that now I can actually talk to him about what he feels about bodily fluids.

George Faller [00:19:20]:
Yeah.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:19:20]:
So one of the things your wife mentioned was that she thinks you also don’t like touching her vaginal fluid like that. That kind of icks you out or that you don’t relish in it. And I don’t know if that’s true or if, like, what that’s like for you or.

George Faller [00:19:40]:
I mean, I don’t think. It’s just. It’s not my thing. I don’t. It’s not something I’m not into.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:19:52]:
And you said that about your own come. That’s. That’s not something you would be into. But you feel the same sort of stuff.

George Faller [00:20:02]:
Yeah, there’s something about it. Just dirt. I don’t know, something I don’t really like about it. It’s just I find myself more kind of in my own mind and kind of with images and fantasies, and I have a lot of fun there. It’s something about all that stuff that’s a little, I don’t know. Gross.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:20:19]:
Yeah. And you almost said dirty.

George Faller [00:20:24]:
It is dirty. It’s like, you got to clean up, take a shower. It does smell. It just.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:20:28]:
It’s.

George Faller [00:20:29]:
Well, I could have great sex without that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:20:31]:
Yeah, it’s like. It feels a little gross. Feels a little dirty to you. You gotta do a cleanup. And when you kind of get that feeling. You made a bit of a face there for a second. Do you feel something when you think about it? Like, ooh. Like, does that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:20:50]:
Do you feel that not just in your fingers, but in your whole body? Like some sort of, like, revulsion.

George Faller [00:20:56]:
It’s just like. It’s like my stomach’s just, like, a little. Just disgust. Like, it’s just like, ugh.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:21:01]:
Yeah. Kind of, like, disgust. Yeah. And I’m just a little bit curious if you would humor me. Do you have any other earlier experience? In life where you felt disgusted by a fluid or a food or something, a procedure or something that kind of. This. You remember, it’s like. Yeah, I’ve always felt disgusted by these things, too.

George Faller [00:21:28]:
I don’t know. I just always been somebody who likes things kind of neat and organized. Like, when I ate food, I didn’t like my peas touching my potatoes. Like, I just. I don’t know, is something, like, control a bowl that I just like when things are in their categories and kind of neat. And this stuff feels like it’s just, like, out of control a bit.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:21:52]:
Yeah. Don’t know, maybe. I think that’s. That’s really interesting, what you’re saying. It feels a little out of control. And you’ve always had things in categories. Your peas don’t touch the potatoes and.

George Faller [00:22:03]:
Yeah.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:22:04]:
And all of that. And were your parents kind of like that, too? Like, things were orderly and controlled and.

George Faller [00:22:09]:
Yeah, I think so.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:22:12]:
Yeah. And was it important, you know, in your family to be neat and clean and did you have baths every night, or was there any kind of emphasis on staying clean, keeping your clothes clean?

George Faller [00:22:26]:
Yeah, I think the house. You know, my dad was in the military. I think things were in their proper place. And I don’t know, it just. It seems like the world just makes more sense when everything is clean and organized.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:22:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. And you also said, you know, so it makes sense when things are clean and organized. And this, like, when you can fantasize about sex or something, it’s. It’s neat and tidy. Right. There’s no fluids in that. In that fantasy.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:22:58]:
But then when there are, it feels potentially, or maybe a little out of control.

George Faller [00:23:07]:
Yeah, it just feels like you could have sex without that, so why not? Why introduce something that makes it more messy?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:18]:
You could have sex without, like, squirting, certainly.

George Faller [00:23:22]:
Yeah. I actually like wearing a rubber. I like. You know, it’s like everything’s contained, and I just throw it in the garbage afterwards, and there’s no cleanup and no fuss, no muss. No fuss, no muss.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:36]:
Yeah.

George Faller [00:23:37]:
It’s always been that way. I mean, I remember as a little boy, if I would, you know, masturbate, I’d have a little towel and a little. Everything was just clean. And she starts talking to me about squirting and sex on a period and, like, coming on each other, and it’s like. It’s. It’s like, what the heck? That feels so big.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:59]:
Yeah, it feels big. And. And maybe, like you said, out of control. And even as a little boy, you had a towel Next to you when you were masturbating. And what would have happened when you were a little boy if you didn’t have that towel?

George Faller [00:24:14]:
I might have got in trouble. It would have got on the sheets or something. My mom would have said something to me. You know, it’s. Nothing good would have happened if.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:24:25]:
Yeah. So early on you learned not really good to have come on the sheets. Your mom might have noticed. It would have seemed dirty to your mom. Not good. So you learned really early to be very tidy about sex.

George Faller [00:24:41]:
Yep.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:24:42]:
Yeah. Any remembrance of being caught masturbating?

George Faller [00:24:50]:
No. I mean, my mom was pretty religious, so I didn’t. We didn’t talk about those things. And I was very careful.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:25:03]:
Always very careful. Very contained. Kind of contained. The whole mess with the child.

George Faller [00:25:09]:
I had to be in control. It was. Again, wanted to make sure it followed a routine and everything was straightforward.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:25:21]:
Yeah. And sometimes routines and all of that really do help children and feel safer and more secure. And sometimes they also, you know, I’m going to do a little aside here. This is where I would start trying to wonder with this person about the downside of this.

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Dr. Laurie Watson [00:26:09]:
So I would say, you know. Yeah. You know, routines make kids feel safe. They know what to expect. And every once in a while, sometimes routines get so tight, parents maybe demand so much order that it can stifle some creativity, maybe some exuberance, things like that. What does that feel like when I say that to you?

George Faller [00:26:46]:
You know, I am. I never made the connection that there is. The word control keeps coming up to me. There’s something about losing control or things getting messy that, you know, might make me a bit uptight in a way that I hear what you’re saying, that there’s some kind of freedom I might lose with that.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:27:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. And. And certainly you learned early on whether there was actually an event or not. You. You knew that sex mess was not something that you wanted your mother to know about and needed to be contained and that, you know, this part right. This often for a young boy, kind of a Joyful experience, experiencing their body, climaxing it. It can be a really wonderful moment and excitement.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:27:45]:
But it was like there was something that. A very secondary, strong message. But keep it tidy. Yeah. So probably what I would do. Right. We’ve. We’ve been able to spend seven or eight minutes on this, but we’ve already made the connection for him that there is something about the controlled childhood that he believed made things safe.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:28:13]:
Order is the way you keep chaos at bay. We also know that there’s a connection sexually, that his masturbation habit included keeping the containment of his semen in the towel. And so I think probably couldn’t heal this guy in eight minutes. But I would want to start working with him about the good parts about what he learned in childhood and also the ways in adulthood that control and all of that helps him. But also the ways, the losses that he has, and certainly the losses that he has right now sexually. Because he can’t probably let go in many ways.

George Faller [00:28:59]:
Exactly.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:29:00]:
And he wants to use a condom, which diminishes his pleasure. Right.

George Faller [00:29:04]:
Being him in the role play, you know, I appreciated the validation of how I got to where I’m at. And it’s making me explore some of the cost of that, which is that first step towards changing. You know, I find myself wanting to be more open to kind of little exceptions to my rule. Like, do I like kissing? Is that an area that some fluids are okay? Like when I’m inside my partner or I’m having an oral sex? Like, my partner’s given me, you know, a blowjob? Like, are there fluids that I do like and like, how do I start growing those parts of me? So these other areas, like squirting, seem so far away from where I’m at right now. But if. If I start connecting to. I actually do like kissing. Like, there’s something about your wet tongue in me that I do like.

George Faller [00:29:57]:
Right. Then we can start growing those erotic spaces once we can cut and kind of start grabbing a few of those.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:03]:
Yeah. All good. Really good directions. Good questions, too, George. I love that. Beautiful. We should team up and do sex therapy together.

George Faller [00:30:15]:
Sounds like a plan. Kind of do it anyway. Right? We’re doing these things.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:19]:
We’re back on each other’s couches for sure. Okay.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:24]:
So.

George Faller [00:30:25]:
But the good news here is you have good reasons for whatever is happening, whatever the blocks are. Right. And if you could start off being curious and trying to keep that as a mission and get like. I felt Lori wasn’t being judgmental. She wanted me to know myself. I don’t even know why I don’t like these things. And where do we get people to give us the space to just know ourselves better? That’s the opportunity in this. Not to be beat up or pathologized, but to be better known.

George Faller [00:30:50]:
And it’s in that space that we expand. It’s in that space that I found myself wanting to say, I don’t even know what is that about in me. And, you know, if you can get people to take that first step, everything else starts to get a bit easier.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:31:02]:
Exactly. But we want to thank our listener for writing in. We really appreciate that you trusted us enough with this scenario with you and your partner. And I think it opened up a really important topic that so many people struggle with. You’re not alone. I would say to you, you know, I doubt that this means he’s gay. I really don’t think so. I think that, you know, there’s probably a hundred other things here that it does mean.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:31:30]:
And to help him, I’m. I hope that we modeled for you, like George said, you know, a curiosity. And maybe therapy would help a little bit. The two of you just to work on it and have somebody who kind of helps you become and stay curious so he doesn’t have to feel defensive about this.

George Faller [00:31:47]:
And, George, your longings are beautiful, and they’re healthy, and we want you to have more of that in your relationship. And it’s just reframing the words that you use. How do you express what your heart really wants that makes it leap instead of what he’s not doing for you, which triggers kind of his defenses. So good luck.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:32:06]:
Good luck. And I just want to validate Sister as a fellow sexual. Female sexual pursuer. I. I love that you’re out there. I love your heart to want to grow your eroticism, you know, Keep going. Thanks for listening, you all.

George Faller [00:32:21]:
Keep it hot, y’all.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:32:22]:
So some of you are interested in our work. We want to tell you where we are, what we’re doing. First thing is our couples retreat coming up in October. Right, George?

George Faller [00:32:31]:
October 4th. Yes. Online. This is a chance to just spend a little time with your partner. We guarantee you’re going to kind of come out of that training with more things to talk about sexually.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:32:42]:
Yep. And we’ve got an early bird special right now, so take us up on it and join us for a day of talking about sex.

George Faller [00:32:49]:
And for therapists, we have two trainings coming up. We have one in September 18 to 20 in Las Vegas, where Lori and I will just be kind of brainstorming and really pushing the leading edges of kind of EFT and the sexual cycle. We’re excited about that. And then in January 23rd to 25th, we’re coming to Nashville in person to do three days of really kind of breaking down this process. And again, I think this should be mandatory for all therapists to just kind of have more confidence in knowing what to do and work with the sexual cycle.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:33:21]:
Yeah, we’ve already had lots of signups for that. By the way, George, people are also taking advantage of that early bird special. You know, we want supervisors to come. We’re giving half off to the supervisors. So please join us so that we can kind of get on the same page and understand and develop EFT further. There’s going to be two days of lecture and exercises and then a day maybe with a live and, you know, working on your tapes and your stuck places. And we’re going to go down to the honky tonk and have dinner together and have some fun.

George Faller [00:33:55]:
Have some fun.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:33:56]:
Have some fun. Yeehaw.

George Faller [00:33:58]:
Yeehaw. And for all you listeners, again, if you have a community and you want Laura and I to come out and give a specialized training on sex, and again, I think this is so important for anybody seeing couples, then reach out to us and let’s continue to spread this message. Yeehaw.

Closing Announcer [00:34:28]:
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