Intimacy & How to Extend Your 'Sex Span' for a Fulfilling Life at Any Age with Susan Bratton

Welcome back, dear audience, to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast. I'm your host, Claudia von Boeselager, here to bring you the latest insights, learnings to improve your health, life, and happiness for longer. Thank you so much for being part of this tribe and wanting to be at your best every day. If you haven't already, make sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter by going to llinsider.com.

My guest today is Susan Bratton, known as the intimacy expert to millions. Millions.

This is a really fun episode with lots of important advice, so definitely want to tune in and listen to the end as well. Susan is a leading authority on sexual wellness and communication. As the co-founder of The Personal Life Media and The Twenty, she has dedicated her career to helping individuals and couples unlock their full sexual potential. Susan teaches that passion knows no age. We also dig into concepts like sex span, super important, and shares how to biohack our way to better intimacy. Susan believes that everyone deserves a fulfilling sex life regardless of age or circumstances. Through her work, she encourages individuals to embrace their desires and foster intimate connections that last a lifetime. With 44 published books and programs, including her acclaimed title Sexual Soulmates, Susan Bratton continues to inspire millions around the world to embrace their sexuality fully and authentically. Please enjoy. Susan, welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have you with us today.

Claudia, I've been so looking forward to getting together with you. Girl, you and I are like two little blonde peas in a pod. Here we go.

I realize I'm even matching for those of you watching, watching your background. I love it. It's like totally coordinated. Love it. Susan, can you explain how you came to have one of probably the best jobs in the world and for my audience what you're, what you're actually doing?

I know, isn't it so funny? Well, Claudia, I made it up. I made my job up. I created my destiny. I am 63 now. When I was 42, my husband and I had been married for 12 years and we all, we almost got divorced because honestly, I had stopped wanting to have sex with him after a dozen years. It was never really good for me. But he loved it, so we kept doing it, and it kind of drove a wedge between us. And we were like, God, this is ridiculous. We should not be getting married. We're perfect for each other. I really felt like he was my lifetime partner, but we just had this problem in the bedroom. And in hindsight, it was just looking back, we, we didn't know what we were doing. We just didn't know how to have good sex. And here's the thing, nobody does because we don't get taught. We don't get taught it anywhere. And what what we, what we see today in pornography and the media and movies, it's all just old vestigial patriarchal perspectives that are not female pleasure focused. It's very, you know, penis and vagina, which— but don't get me wrong, I love that now, now that I learned how to do it. But it turns out that like cooking, playing an instrument, mastering your career, sex is also a learned skill that gets better with age and gets and comes with a mastery of experience. And so consequently, we ended up seeking therapy. But honestly, what helped us was going to sex workshops. And because I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, we have a lot of sex workshops here. It's kind of our thing up here in San Francisco. And so it was almost instantly transformational for us. We started almost immediately having good sex. We went through one of a few of the renaissances we've had in our marriage in 33 years and counting.

Congratulations.

You can just keep having renaissance in your relationship with your partner. There's never a time when it's too late to fix it. I mean, there are some endemic issues, of course. And so what happened was we were like, holy cow, it's so easy to learn how to have hot sex. We need to teach people how to do it. We were both tech startup founders, and we had sold our companies that got acquired or what have you. And we said, let's start a company together where we bring the stuff that we're learning into workshops, in workshops online, so anyone anywhere in the world can access this vital information. And that begat Personal Life Media. And then we launched the Better Lover brand and the Steamy Sex Ed brand and things like that, where people could see what heart-connected, passionate, conscious lovemaking looks like. The kind of sex techniques where sex keeps getting better and better over time. You keep having more fun, more comfort, more satisfaction, more pleasure, more joy, more health, more connection with your partner or partners. And it's been 18 years. We just celebrated our 18th year of our company. We have a team of about 20 people, and we've published 44 books and programs, the bulk of which have been mine. But I've also published the work of a number of my mentors.

Wow.

I have been very lucky. I'm a mentor believer. I just believe in sitting at the feet of people who've come before you and learning all of the things that they know, and then taking that to the next level. As we plow through into our future. And that's really what I have done is I've come up with a lot of my own strategies, including how to extend your sex span, orgasmic activation, orgasmic cross-training. And one of the things that I really, really know well, because most people are in monogamous relationships, most people are pair bonded, and they are in a long-term relationship. And what I know best is how to keep having your sex get hotter and better over time, that upward pleasure spiral, instead of swirling down the toilet like all the people who think, well, sex is just this and that's all it is, and I'm getting old and I'm gonna give up on it. I believe that your lust for life lasts because it is fueled by the passion of passion. And so I teach these long-term techniques. I make it easy for people to get through the things, the obstacles that are holding them back, and feel really good about having lots of hot sex that keeps getting better.

Absolutely amazing. So thank you for doing this amazing work. And I think probably everyone listening is like, I want that. I want more of that. I hope everyone's like, ears are open, eyes are open, and everyone's listening, watching. And you talked about a term called extending sex span. Can you explain and elaborate what is that exactly?

Yeah. So you've seen a lot of the research out there that, that shows that people who have sex later and longer through their lives, they actually extend their, their health span by extending their sex span. They, they look younger, which if you look at the PACE Dunedin long-term study, it says there are 4 quadrants that kind of portend longevity. One is balance, one is cognition, one is, um, let's see, they're standing on one leg, there's grip, overall grip strength, there's cognition, and then there's how do you look? Do you look old or young compared to your cohorts? And then there's studies that show that people who have intimacy 1, 2, 3 times a week, and they call it sex, and I want to define that. So let's parking lot that. Yeah, that they look 10 years younger than their peers.

I mean, you look amazing.

It's all those orgasms, Claudia.

Yeah, amazing.

They really do a good deal for you. And then, and I do a lot of other longevity things too, believe me. I'm exercising every day. I'm doing Senolytics. I'm drinking green juice right now. You know, I do it all. But I sleep well. I do, I do the things, but I also have really, really hot orgasmic sex. And so the notion of sex ban is that if you can continue to have great sex, you will live a longer, healthier, happier life. Same thing with the Harvard Longitudinal Study, which is the people who had great relationships lived longer. Well, great relationships with hot sex put you in the top 1%, and it's totally doable if, if you do the things we're going to talk about on the show today, because then a lot of people are like, I don't know, I'm already having a hard time getting my partner to have sex with me, or I'm too busy, or we just Netflix and chill and we never really do the, you know, sex part of Netflix and chill. We just do the Netflix part of it.

Yeah.

And so that's really what I, what I want to address. But I think it's important to acknowledge two things. Number one, that when I say the word sex, I don't mean intercourse. I mean, that's included in it. But it's not what sex is. Sex is— let's define that in this show today.

Sure.

Sex is you hold me, you tell me things you love about me, we kiss, we give each other massages, we do yoni and lingam massage, genital pleasuring, we use toys and tools to pleasure ourselves, we We have oral pleasuring. We have intercourse. We have all of the kinds of things that allow us to create this cascade of health benefits. So intercourse is one of them. And I teach intercourse skills. Most people are therapists or sexologists, and they're, they're, they're handling problems. They're dealing with issues. They're not plussing up and teaching you actually how to specifically, step by step, have hot orgasmic pleasure. And that's my area of— my zone of genius is teaching people exactly how to have hot sex. And so one of the core things that a pair bonded couple needs to learn is how to have mutually multi-orgasmic intercourse and oral and genital massage. Those 3 things and all the other things that go around it— holding and appreciation, verbal, especially for women. And so I think I'll just drop a link here for that. OrgasmicIntercourse.com has a link to my 10 techniques that'll get you started, including probably one of my most popular things, which is called Thrust in Time. Which is a technique that helps men last longer and women achieve orgasms from intercourse through this. It's a Taoist practice that is an intercourse stroking technique that leverages the female operating system and the male sexual operating system in the ways that each of them need while still giving you simultaneous mutual pleasure. It's very interesting. So orgasmic intercourse is a really good start to that. So, sex is—

for everybody listening or watching as well.

Yeah, thank you. So, sex is all those things. So, when I say sex, I don't want you to think intercourse. I want you to think all those things because they all count toward— and this is answering your question— what is sex span and how— what are the benefits, physical, emotional, spiritual benefits of having good sex? Because I can come on the show and I can say you should have sex for the rest of your life. But until you realize the incredible impact that it has on your health, you're like, oh, I never actually thought about all this stuff. So let's just pop through the list.

Let's dig into it. Yeah.

Okay, so you've had John on, John Gray, and he talked all about the hormones and the neurotransmitters that are created from having intimacy. They can go listen to John talk about that. He does a fantastic job. He's a good friend. So hormones and neurotransmitter cascades, you know, you're a just making good hormones and neurotransmitters, which helps. But you've got to— of course, here's my little squeezy poo. I'm holding up this little squeezy ball that is a poo squeeze, because if you're not pooing a beautiful poo or two every day, you've got to fix your gut because you won't be able to make the hormones and neurotransmitters. So yeah, sex isn't going to create them if your gut's broken.

And just to pause on that, just because I don't think everyone realizes how many hormones are actually produced in the gut. So if you're having digestive issues and constipation issues, like, already there, that source of the spectrum of, you know, cascading down is going to be impacted as well. So that's a really, really great point you're bringing up, Susan.

Yes. I mean, it's crazy that I teach hot sex techniques, but the first thing I do is I get out my squeezy poo. It was funny when I saw this at a medical conference and I saw these little, these little poo emojis, you know, squeezy balls.

I was like, I need one.

I need a squeezy poo.

I know, but it's so important that people realize, like, you can't just— it's like looking at one issue you have. It's like you need to look at the larger picture and where are the basics to start with. So yeah, thank you so much for bringing that up. That's super important.

Yes, yes, it's gut bacteria that makes those hormones and neurotransmitters.

You know, that's, that's—

it can't— you can't do it without them. Um, the sense of connection. We get disconnected, we, um, we feel depressed, we feel anxious, um, and so intimacy helps ground you reconnect you. It helps you reboot your nervous system. It also generates oxytocin, which is basically the antidote to cortisol. And if you want to live a long life, the very best thing you can do is have an orgasm before you go to bed, whether you use your favorite toy to do it and you do mutual masturbation with your partner, or you have genital massage or oral pleasuring or intercourse or whatever, whatever you want to do. It's very, very important that The oxytocin generated from physical touch and affection, that lowers cortisol, lowers nighttime cortisol. And what that does is allow you to sleep more deeply. And when you sleep more deeply, you go into detoxification and repair. You can't go into reparation and detoxification if you don't sleep well. And so sleep is one of the three pillars of a healthy, long life. Sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Those are, those are the fundamentals. And so orgasms really help with that generally and specifically. You also have a vascular event when you have orgasms, and that means that you're just blasting oxygenated blood to your brain, especially before you go to sleep. It's so good for you to just get all that oxygen so that you can carry waste out of your brain so that you can avoid things like Alzheimer's and dementia. Yeah, you got to get your blood moving. It's the same as exercise. The other thing that I think is really important is that when you have orgasms, you have a lot of immune function support. You improve your IgA, you release T cells, you release NK cells. NK cells, natural killer cells, they are literally the senolytic. You're taking all these senolytics, you're taking your rapamycin, you know, your sirolimus, you're taking your dasatinib, you're taking your quality of life senolytics, doing your intermittent fasting and all those kinds of things.

Well, so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if an orgasm helps you with that by releasing your NK cells, girl, why not, right?

Exactly. And a lot cheaper than, than taking all these supplements the whole time. Exactly.

So yeah, well, and now, you know, I don't know if you've ever been to the A4M Longevity Conference. Have you been to that?

I haven't been to it, but I know a lot of doctors who go.

Yeah, it's really good. Come sometime if you can. I'm personally inviting you. You can pal around with me. We'll go Do some Vegas things because I saw last year one speaker talked about how he's doing transfusions with blood where they've basically cultivated NK cells and did an IV back into the body with these natural killer cells and they eat up all of the bads. They're eating up more of the bads. And I'm like, that shit is going to be our future. I mean, it's so interesting.

Think about it though, before you go into a procedure like this that likely costs thousands, just have more sex and you'll be fine. Right. So it's like, you know, do it fun, naturally, or you can be in a lab and have blood, you know, pumped back into you, et cetera. And I think this is a brilliant method. I think it's taking the stigma away from it and making it more fun. People just embracing it more, just being like, okay, this is This is really good for me. Like, I need to be doing this for my health and digging into that as well and fighting disease and feeling happy and connected and younger as well. Right. So, so many, so many benefits.

And there are many more things on my list, but there's one last one I want to say before we move on, because I could go— I could do a whole segment on the benefits of frequent intimacy. And notice I didn't say sex because it all counts. I really want to drive that point home. And I'll tell you why when we get to the second part of the show where we talk about, okay, how do you actually make, quote unquote, yourself have more sex? It's not that. It's how do you— what is it that you need to do so that you're desiring sex all the time, that you want to have sex?

And this was a big question. Yeah. For people I was asking before as well around like libido. And even if you're not partnered, like what are solutions? What can you do? So I really want to dig into that as well.

Me too, because I have answers. But I want to say one more thing, and that's because you and I share another mutual amazing girlfriend, Leslie Kenney of Oxford Healthspan. Yeah, she makes Primadone. And here's what's so interesting. I fell in love with that woman when I called her up. I met her in a cab. I was speaking at biohacking conference, Dave's conference, a couple of years ago, and we shared a cab. And she told me about how she had been studying spermidine. And I'm like, tell me, she has studied the ancient Taoist masters as well. And she is a, I don't know, like kind of like an Asian sexual historian. I don't know if you know this about Leslie.

Not to this extent. So yeah, like the historian part as well. Yeah, I know she was studying Taoist things, but I love it. Yeah, learn something new every day.

We geeked out in the cab and she was talking to me about spermidine. And I had heard from— I read a book from another friend of mine, Dr. Lindsey Devaki Berkson. You might know her. She's a hormone scholar. She'd be great for your show. And her book, Sexy Brain, talks about more benefits of having intimacy. I don't want to say sex because people always think it's intercourse. She talked about the benefits of semen in that book. And that was the first time that I'd heard about spermidine. Spermine and putrescine. And there are over 20 benefits of semen. So if you're— if you happen to be a woman in partnership with a man, and or whatever your gender expression is, if you have a penis and a vagina situation going, which I support all— I'm a rainbow pony, rainbow sparkle pony— that when he ejaculates inside you, and there's no studies on whether in what place it counts, so I can't answer that question. No one's done studies, but specifically there are 20 things that are good for you in his semen, and one of them is— well, 3 of them are spermine, spermidine, and putrescine, as well as luteinizing hormone to keep you, you know, you regulated in your, your menstrual cycles if you're still menstruating, which by the way, I'm 63 and I am still menstruating because I am using that as a longevity strategy. I've been taking hormone replacement for decades. And I— at the Buck Institute, they talk about— it's just a little tiny diversion, but at the Buck Institute, they talk about how once you stop menstruating, you basically are— you got planned obsolescence. And I'm like, well, screw that. I'm not— I'm not having any planned obsolescence I don't have to have.

So I like to segue because I've had Jennifer Garrison, Professor Jennifer Garrison, who's a dear friend, several times actually as well. And we were hanging out recently at a conference. Explain to me, just because you're 63 and a huge congratulations because of the detrimental health effects of menopause when estrogen falls off a cliff if women are not taking body identical or bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Can you just explain what exactly you were doing that you're still menstruating at 63? Because I think a lot of women—

if you introduce me to Dr. Jen, Sure. I'm dying to meet her. I've been such a devotee. I just, I just do— I've done hormone replacement. I've done estrogen, progesterone, and I also use testosterone. I take estrogen intravaginally. I take Bi-Est, so I take estriol and estradiol, and I take progesterone, and I take it in the morning and the night. It's very, very protective and balancing the estrogen that I take. And then I also put testosterone on my clitoral structure And the testosterone gives me libido. It also helps me build muscle. For podcast listeners, you can't see, but I got big fat biceps and quads and you're living a long time. I'm a muscle slabbed glamazon. I mean, I just work out constantly on in many different modalities, including the latest technologies like Vasper, ARX, Carol Bike, etc. I run stairs, I do tons of stuff, swim in the ocean and all those kinds of things. But the testosterone, one of the things I I also like is that it gives me confidence. I have— I just feel like a— honestly, Claudia, I feel like a badass bitch. I'm a badass bitch, and I love myself. That is who I am, and it makes me feel like the person I really am. When I see men having testosterone decline, I see them turning into grannies, and a lot of times I'll say to them, you know, maybe you want to consider testosterone replacement, and they are so far gone that they're like, oh no, I don't think I want to. I don't think I want to even approach my doctor about that. They've even lost the will to fight for themselves, which is so sad. Testosterone gives me the will to fight for my life, for my lust for life, for my accomplishments and my goals. It, it makes me driven in a really positive way because my mission is passion. Like, I mean, I got the best mission in the world. So you do. Yeah, it's, it's really, it's really incredible. So going back to spermidine—

yes, ejaculate—

I take primidine because I'm a gluten-intolerant person. I don't have any gluten in my life. I can't. And I love that Oxford Healthspan makes their primidine in a gluten-free chlorella version, and I take that morning and night. And, and I also love my husband's semen. Good for me. I will take testosterone in any form. Like, I just— like, that's my heroin. I just love it. It makes me feel so vital. So for women who are like— it's just ridiculous that, that it's like off-label to prescribe it to women. That's got to change, along with a lot of things about hormone replacement. But that's why I do it, to stay young. And I like I like to have my menstrual cycle and it's regular and I'm happy with it and I'm healthy and I'm under fantastic doctor care and everything is good and I have no problems.

You're such a role model. Um, super, super exciting to hear this. So definitely, um, so happy that we're connecting as well. And I'm delighted to introduce you to Jennifer. And I think also testosterone replacement therapy, I started that too because my levels were all like at zero. They were super low. And I was like, why not do it? And it made such a difference. I completely agree. You have then that life force energy to get through the day, etc. Obviously, libido, it's great as well. And so for women also, I think many think, oh, I don't need testosterone, like I'm suffering here and perimenopause symptoms and menopause symptoms. It's like, stop suffering. Like there is research on this. And, you know, to actually put in the work and do it. And yeah, so you're, you're a huge testimony to the power of what, what can be done. So amazing.

Thank you.

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I want to touch on a point, um, a lot of people are like, you know, I've been in a relationship so long. You mentioned this at the beginning, we just don't have time, we have kids, there's stress, in-laws, whatever the case may be, whatever the excuses. What do you tell people who are using the excuse of, you know, I just don't have time to have sex anymore, or intimacy?

Yeah, well, if you have kids, I understand. They, they really wreck your sex life for like 20 years, you know. You got to sneak it when you can. It does make it hard, and I feel for you. I really do. But generally, it's like I said, I just went through 10 reasons why having intimacy is going to make you live longer, and that's not going to make you change. At all because there is so much heavy lifting that comes from actually having sex that it's daunting. It's just one more thing. And if you're not having easy, tons of easy orgasms, oh, what bother, you know? And if you're pissed at your partner or they've let themselves go or you've let yourself go or what have you, that's also daunting. If you don't feel good, if you have health issues, that's going to drag you down.

Yeah.

I mean, there's just a lot of reasons why you don't want to. And so how do you, how do you like literally just turn that switch off and, and pop up the turn on switch? There's a couple of things. So I would say in the grand scheme of things, one of the very first things that I said was sex isn't intercourse is very important. And I got— how many times have I come back to that point in this conversation?

Yeah.

And I know, and I'm going to talk from the most common scenario, which is there's a, there's a man and a woman. Let's just figure they're husband and wife. They've been married, they've been married for a decade, and they've had busy careers and they've been raising children. This is the most common paradigm. So let's just start with the big bell curve. You know, there's everybody that are edge cases, but let's just start start with your basic dude and his lady, is what I like to call them. And intercourse always feels good to him. He, if he's healthy, he has a series of nighttime erections. He wakes up with a morning hard-on. He'd like nothing more than you to just jump on there and ride him, have an orgasm, he'll have an orgasm, you can, he can hop in the shower and you get on with your day. That really never happens for most people. And then you get home at night and you gotta make meal, you got to deal with your kids, you're gonna deal with all, you just want to lie down, you just want to glass of wine, then you just want to go to bed. And so I understand it. And that's because of a couple of things. Number one, most people are thinking about sex as intercourse. And for a guy, that's a really easy thing. He's not the one being penetrated. Number one, that's Claudia, that's huge. Yeah, like when someone's literally coming into your body, you have to be ready for that, be able to receive it, right? And you, you want to want him to be, to come into, to come into you, not just do it. And every time you just do that so he's not grumpy, you've put another brick in the wall of your future sexless marriage. It's— you can't do mercy sex. It doesn't scale.

They're really the point. Yeah.

But the problem is that every visual we ever see is he rips her— he rips off her pants, he has an instant erection, he throws her down on the bed, he penetrates her, they have one wild orgasm. She's still wearing a bra. He never touched her boobs. He never did any foreplay. They have one wild orgasm and then they're just happily satisfied. That is such a crock. It does not work that way. I mean, it works that way when you very first meet, you're super hot for each other, you got all that new relationship energy, but that, that does not scale. And we're talking about 100 years of sex together, like, or maybe like 80 years of sex together in a 100-year lifespan. That's kind of what I'm going for. And my boyfriend wants to have sex until the day he dies, and I I want to have sex till I'm— I mean, he— what? I'm sorry, I didn't even say that right. My boyfriend wants to surf till he's 100. I want to have sex till I'm 100. That we have very similar longevity goals. I think it's really cute. But if you start thinking about, okay, we have to compensate for the female libido and arousal system, So our job now is we know it's a good idea to have sex, we understand it's good for us, but we have to join together to work with the female arousal system. That's what's making all of this patriarchal sex that we see not work for women. So they're opting out and they're like, I'd rather not, it's just not good enough for me. I don't want to make the effort. I'd rather watch a show and go to sleep than have sex with you. That's really what we're talking about here.

Yeah.

So what is the female arousal system and how do you deal with it? Let's fix that. That's the kink in the hose for all the hot sex that could come pouring out the other end. So how do we unkink the hose? So the, the male body, it's testosterone dominant, which is why testosterone helps with libido when you replace it for women. He gets those nighttime erections, he wakes up with a boner, he is pretty much ready to go. He'll drop trout. If you're like, hey, do you want to have sex right now? He'll be like, hell yeah. Like, you can just be ready. He needs to be ready because we're so inscrutable and we never know when it's going to hit us, and it hardly ever does. And we're like, oh, thank God, I want to have sex right now. Like, thanking God that you want it, right? So every woman in the world is like, aha, yes, mommy, I thought it was my libido. But it's not. Libido is literally— let's do it this way. Libido, desire, and arousal. Libido, very simply, is your health. If you're not healthy, you're not horny. You'll know you're getting better when you start feeling horny, whether or not you have someone you want to have sex with or whatever. That's what you'll know.

That's a great analogy.

It's very simple. Libido and health are the two sides of the same Desire is how do you feel about yourself and how do you feel about your partner, if you're lucky enough to have one. And if you don't feel good about yourself— I'm fat, I'm ugly, my boobs are saggy, my belly looks ugly, I would never have sex without the lights on— blah blah blah, you know, all this self-worth issues, negative self-talk, because estrogen does that for us because it's a judgy hormone. It's made to help us keep ourselves safe because we're the prey, not the predators, but it also makes us tough on ourselves and everyone else. We're super judgy. And so we have to override those mechanisms and get into self-love, appreciation, self-worth, loving ourselves for who we are in every moment. That takes practice. It's a mindfulness practice. Sex is a mindfulness practice. Yeah, but it's really the arousal that's the, that's the tough nut to crack. And it's because he's ready to go. And so we think we are broken because we're not ready to go. We think there's something wrong with us because we don't act like men. And he thinks there's something wrong with us. You better get— you better check your hormones because you're not, you know, wanting to have sex as I am. It's not— that's not how it works with women.

It's different.

So the thing that is most important is to understand that it takes a woman 20 to 30 minutes to achieve the full arousal that a man gets in 2 to 3 minutes.

Wow.

Which is, in some ways, it could feel like frustrating, unjust, lopsided. But actually, what's wonderful about it is that when you go at the woman's pace, it's a lot more fun. It's more heart connection. It's more holding. It's more words of appreciation. It's more presence. It's more connection. And remember when I talked about the benefits of sex and I I said it's mind, body, and spirit. I talked a lot about the body-based benefits, but I didn't talk as much about the mind and spirit. But that 20 to 30 minutes is the mind and spirit connection.

Beautiful.

That's the heart-connected, conscious, passionate lovemaking. That is what I teach. If you don't have time to connect your hearts and all you're doing is having connection of genitals, You need to transform friction, rubbing two nubs together, into connection. And that's what makes sex actually fulfilling and pleasurable anyway. So why not do that? And when people say a half an hour until we have— like, I'd be done and he'd be having a sandwich and I'd be, you know, scrolling Instagram. Well, those things aren't really going to help your longevity. And the people who follow you, Claudia, they are fighting for longevity. They want health. And so they're like, all right, I'm open to hearing this. I understand that maybe my, my current dopamine habit could potentially be replaced with some intimate pleasure. Keep going, Suze. Tell me what I need to do. And here's the answer. Okay, I'm open to it. I'm not broken. It's just the timing. Okay, I need to slow down, but I need a half All right, it sounds like a long time, but I'll give it a try. What do I need to do? Here's what you need to do. You have— and I'm gonna hold up, so if you're listening to the podcast, the YouTube is a nice, nice, nice place to see us beauties. I'm holding up a banana, and if you think about a penis, it's very easy to imagine a penis as a banana. And what's interesting about a penis is that half of the banana sticks out of his body and half of it goes down and in toward his testicles. Testicles. So his penis is twice as large, basically, as what you see because there's this buried shaft that goes down into his testicles. And it takes a while for that whole thing to get filled with blood, but not that long, a couple of minutes, because he has fast-acting hemodynamics. They fill this tube, the tubes in his penis, these erectile tissue tubes, up very quickly. She has— if I open this banana and I took out out the fruit, if I peeled the banana and I took out the fruit and I turned it into a teardrop, that's what's inside our vulva. So if I laid all that fruit of that banana in your hand and said, this is everything, this is all the erectile tissue in your penis, and then I said, hold out your other hand, put another teardrop-shaped banana fruit in your other hand and said, this is all the erectile tissue in your vulva. You'd be like, are you kidding me? I've got as much erectile tissue as my male body partner. And okay, so the problem is that it's in like nooks and crannies. There's the clitoral tip, the shaft, the crural arms, the legs, vestibular bulbs. There's the urethral sponge, G-spot. There's the perineal sponge, doesn't even have a name because nobody's paying attention to women's pleasure. And that's all completely wrapped around the vaginal canal. Canal. All of it. Oh, and by the way, the vaginal canal is completely misunderstood. It's not a canal. It's a giant muscle that's shaped like a balloon that expands, and it has a little crooked neck, and then it opens to a big cave. And men are having intercourse with us like it's a sheath, which is what the word for vagina is, because man named it incorrectly, like every other part of our anatomy that was named by a man. A guy is like going in and out, in and out, in and out, like a, like a sword in a sheath, when that's not what actually feels good to a vagina. A vagina wants different things.

That's—

we'll save that for another episode because I can't do everything in one at one time.

Unfortunately, we definitely have to do a round 2.

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack, you know.

Exactly. But once you unpack it, vital information, Susan. So much vital information.

Good, Claudia, I'm glad. I know people are always surprised surprised by this. But what's great about sex is the minute you hear it, you're like, that totally makes sense. And yeah, now I know what to do. Thank you. So I'll finish off on this because this is what I really want to deliver on my promise, which is what do you need to know? And I'm getting there and it's coming really close. I'm so close to coming.

Yeah, exactly. You must have so much fun.

I get to do funny— I got to do a lot of fun innuendos too, which I love. I do as many as I can. So she's got all this tissue in her vulva, but it's nooks and crannies. So it's like an English muffin where you have to push that thing down twice in the toaster before it finally toasts, and then you get it out. You've got cold butter and you got to put the butter and smash the two pieces together. You guys call them crumpets over in London, right? Do you call them crumpets?

Crumpets or scones?

Scones. Yeah. And then it takes a minute for the butter to melt into all the nooks and crannies, but then It's so good, right? You don't want to eat a cold English muffin with hard butter on it. But that's literally the kind of sex women have been having their whole lives, which is why they'd rather have a glass of Chardonnay and watch a show. So because they've been having cold muffin, hard butter, pleasurable.

Yeah. Because it's like a warm-up, essentially. Yeah.

So here's what men are good at. Men are really good when you give them a job. They just need to know what to do. They want to give you incredible pleasure. So when your job together becomes getting your yoni— and I like to call the vagina, the vulva, all of the genital parts, the yoni, Y-O-N-I, which is a tantric lovemaking word. It's a Sanskrit word that means portal. It's a tantric lovemaking word for her entire genital structures, the spirit of them, the pleasure of them, the aliveness of them. So it really has a lot of meaning, and I think it's a nice word. Yoni— steal it, it's yours. And the man's penis, testicles, prostate is called the lingam. And they're just nice, nice words. And when you take the 20 minutes to get her yoni filled with blood, then she has a clitoral erection, she has her lady boner, then she's ready to go. And here's the trick to into it. Once it's all plumped up full of blood and she's got her erection, it has more surface area. Everything has more surface area. She gets a better grip on his penis if they decide to have intercourse. Every stroke and touch he does, his tongue, the tools you use, the pleasure tools, they all touch more surface area which sends more signals, neural signals, to the brain which is your biggest sex organ. You feel more pleasure. It becomes more orgasmically pleasurable when you take the 20 minutes to warm up using— and let me show you a couple of tools that I really like.

Yes, please.

The two tools that I like to hand my man when he'll give me a manual yoni massage before we— usually we lie down in bed, we connect, we talk about our day, I snuggle in his arms, he kisses my face, he squeezes my butt, he strokes my hair. I want him to tell me 3 things that he loves about me, and they can never be the same 3 things every single day of my marriage for 33 years. He's told me different things that he loves and appreciates about me. And then I want a yoni massage. And when he gives me a yoni massage, I'm completely relaxed. There's pillows under me. He's very comfortable. We use my favorite Foria— I'll get some of this sent to you— my favorite Foria Pleasure Pro Protocol. That's a link I want you to put in the show notes. PleasureProtocol.com. It's an awaken arousal oil and a sex oil and some vaginal melts that work fantastically to awaken the brain to yoni connection.

Beautiful. And link that in the show notes as well.

Yes, it's so nice. I'll send it to you in Miami. And then I— he has these two tools. He has a wand and he has a lay-on vibrator. These happen to be from Womanizer, and they— this is called Wand 2. It's their number, their second, their 2.0 wand. And this is called Vibe. Literally, Vibe is its name, and it lays on the yoni and it goes back and forth because it's very important to use these kinds of tools to send this penetrating vibration stimulation tissue to stimulate the blood flow so that you can get the engorgement, so that everything else feels so incredible that you want sex all the time, and you're making dates with your husband to get it because he's done the things that get you to arousal without without you rushing or rushing yourself. And some of the non-negotiables that I recommend— you can borrow mine and make up your own— one is I don't rush my turn-on. I can go from flat, stressed out, and bitchy and pissed off to having incredible orgasms given enough time and engorgement and, you know, connection and all of those things. And so I just know I'll get there. And so if I feel like, oh God, it's taking me longer, I'm like, all right, so it's taking you longer. My husband is perfectly willing to rub that wand on me for 20 minutes if he needs to, for me to start to feel like I want to give him a blowjob, have intercourse, the stuff that's his favorite things. That's also my favorite things once I get there. Yeah, but that's so distant until I get there. Yeah, that I can't even imagine wanting it. And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I do now. All right. And it's so much fun when you finally get a woman to her point of surrendering to her pleasure, being hungry for her pleasure, taking her pleasure, having multiple orgasms. And orgasmic activation is really what I've been describing, which is bringing in that blood flow, getting that lady plump and cushiony and turned on and aroused and hot for you. And sex tools can really do that. I recommend other things as well— internal products, clitoral air stimulators, all kinds of things. There are basically 8 kinds of tools for the vulva or the yoni and 4 kinds of tools for the penis that stimulate all of these new neural pathways, sending more signals so you can become wildly and massively orgasmic as you age. That's at orgasmiccross-training.com. I'll list exactly the things I've been showing you and talking about, and I want you to incorporate tools into your partner play and have as much solo pleasure as you possibly can because because it all adds to your response, your ability to get turned on, your ability to get that blood flow, keeping your genitals engorged and juicy. And if you have atrophy, if you have difficulty getting hard, staying hard, if you have difficulty feeling pleasure, you've got sensation loss. For women, if you've got incontinence, loss of lubrication, if you have difficulty achieving orgasms like you used to, I recommend Gainswave. It is a shockwave or acoustic wave therapy. You go in for 6 treatments and it reconstitutes— it's sexual biohacking— it reconstitutes the tissue, which then grows the capillaries back that have been retracted as you've aged because you're atrophying. When the, when the capillaries grow back, then the nerves can grow in because they're innervated by the blood supply. Then all of a sudden sudden, you've got all this engorgement, you've got all this blood flow, you're feeling juicy, you're having the best orgasms of your life. You're like, at 63, I'm having way more intense, pleasurable, and numerous orgasms than I did when I was 20 or 30. 20 or 30, that's just like baby steps for what you have to look forward to. You can keep— never ends. You can have sex till the day you die with your sexual biohacking practices, your understanding of your arousal process and your patience with it, and the ministrations of your pleasure application to your body. And so that's how you end up having and wanting great sex till the day you die.

So much I wanted to dig into, and I know that we're running short on time. Please, please, please get back on season 2 because we have so many things to dig into as well. Thank you for the work that you're doing because I think so many people are ashamed, they don't have time, they don't make time, and they're miserable. And I feel like the people that I also know in my life who are having amazing sex all the time are the like super fun, confident, shining light people like Claudia. And so yeah, I I think just taking away some of the taboo and knowing that there's nothing to be ashamed about, that many people that, oh, it's normal to be this way, but it's like, don't accept it as normal. Accept the way that you are, Susan. That's the normal, right? And what we need to be doing as well. Susan, where can people find out more? Where do you want to send them to find out more and follow you and find out about you? Where would you send them to? The website, social media?

Better Lover is my brand, so you can go to betterlover.com. And I do a newsletter 2 times a week on Fridays— on Thursdays and Saturdays. And I write about all this kind of stuff. I write about longevity, sexual longevity, sex span, orgasm skills, intercourse skills, how, you know, how to seduce your partner with integrity. So many things. I mean, I've been doing this for decades. I have so many great things Every newsletter is one totally golden technique or strategy because there's so much to learn once you dig into sexuality that you start to see how easy it is to do something and you're like, okay, what else is there? Okay, what else is there? And you can just pop, pop, pop, and I'll just keep giving you little easy things that make your sex life incredible. So that's at betterlover.com. I'm also on Instagram @SusanBratton. I'm also on Threads with my name. I'm on YouTube at Better Lover. Those are probably the best places to catch me. And if you're on my newsletter and you get any email from me and you have any question that does not have to be related to what I just sent you, but any question, you can reply to any email you get from me and it personally goes into my inbox. And I have close to 300,000 readers. And I've got, you know, another couple hundred thousand people on social who are DMing me. But it's easiest for me if you reply to my email and ask me anything. And the chances are 95 out of 100 that I'll be like, here's a video I've done that explains exactly what to do to fix that problem, or here's how to have that thing that you want, or you've given me some good food for thought and I will feature you with all privacy you know, make, make sure it's completely private. But I do— a lot of my newsletters are people who are asking me questions and how I solve their problems. And so it's not just techniques and treatments, it's also problems and solutions, which I think are some of the juiciest things out there. So yeah, I encourage you, and you're welcome to ask me anything anytime, because that's what's made me good at what I do is the interactions of literally millions of people over the last decades.

Absolutely amazing. And we'll link everything in the show notes as well. And I did download some of your guides, the great topics. There's so many different things there, Susan. So such an invaluable resource. As you said yourself, this should be taught when we're growing up, right? This is basic things you would think, but unfortunately it's taboo and people don't talk about it. So Thanks to trailblazers like you really changing the landscape and making people happier and live longer, much, you know, for more of the time and have a lot more fun in the meantime as well.

Thank you so much.

Yeah. Do you have any final ask or recommendation or parting words or message for my audience today?

I just am looking forward to being in real life with you sometime soon and just have had a fantastic time. You do such a good show. Thank you for creating platform to give me the opportunity to reach out to your fans and followers. Because what I found is that the people who are into bodybuilding, who are into longevity, and the people who are into biohacking are my best fans because they are the people who really want to go the distance in their health. And your sexuality, like I said, the libido is the other side of your health. And so I bet I found some, some new fans, and I appreciate that.

Well, I'm a huge fan, so I'm sure a lot of other people as well, Susan. I want to be exactly like you when I'm 62. So I'm really— hats off. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, dear audience, also for listening. And I would love to invite you back on for a round 2, Susan.

Sounds good, darling.

Okay, bye. Thanks so much.