Fostering Deeper Sexual Connection with Jamie Elizabeth Thompson

Foreign.

Miss Jamie Elizabeth Thompson, welcome to the Man Talk Show. How you doing? I full named you.

Yes, thank you. I'm doing great. Connor, how are you?

I'm good. Do you have the Elizabeth in there? So it's easier to find you? I imagine there's a couple Jamie Thompsons.

There is a couple. There is a couple of us. The Elizabeth makes it a little bit more specific and unique.

Fair, fair, fair. Well, let's just dive straight in because we're going to talk about sex. We're going to talk about eroticism and arousal and connection, intimacy. Where I'd like to start is what, in a sort of general way do you think that most men need to know or could know about a woman's desire and arousal? I think sometimes there's confusion around these types of things. So let's just start there.

Yes, I love this as a place to start. And you know, one of the things is that I work specifically with women and have been working with women for about 10 years in the area of reclaiming their pleasure, relationship to their erotic nature, their orgasm, intimacy. And I also work with couples. But what I find in working with women specifically is there's often a sense of an emotional block or not feeling safe that gets in the way of them being able to fully open into the whole erotic range of their embodiment and sensuality and sexuality. And so a great place for a man to start in relationship to a woman is, is to see how he can create a space where all of her is welcome. Where if whatever sounds she's making, whatever smells are present, whatever she is feeling is welcome. Like an example of this is oftentimes when women have tears or grief or they start crying during sex or during an orgasm, men can tend to get freaked out and think they did something wrong. When actually tears are a sign that she's going even deeper. Tears are a sign that she feels safe and there's a deeper sense of intimacy present. And there's this way that society has really portrayed sex through, let's say a pornographic or media lens that has it seem like it's all this certain super hot, charged, pounding way all the time. And in actuality, women need far more presence and slowness and attunement to really open up to that full range of sexuality. So I would say one is all of you is welcome here. And a second way that you can really hold space for a woman's full arousal to come online is understanding that she may take longer than you to reach her point of full arousal and turn on it actually takes a woman's body 20 to 45 minutes to reach a point of her full erectile arousal. Now, that doesn't mean that you always have to wait that long to have sex, or this isn't a rule, but it's just something to be aware of because nobody's teaching that in sex education. Most men don't know this unless they've studied tantra or sacred sexuality or deep intimacy work. And so there's often a distinction, discrepancy of a man's expectation and what a woman's body is actually ready and capable of. So then what happens in that discrepancy is a lot of women develop a performative relationship to their pleasure, which I know men can understand what it's like to have a performative relationship to sexuality. So women also have this. And they're trying to be this, like, you know, hot media porn star. And it's actually separating them further from the depth of their hottest, wettest, most aroused, most in you, most attracted version of themselves. And so there's this way that through the discrepancy and distortion and miseducation around sexuality, there. There's this rift that has been created between men and women. And then men think that women don't want sex, or men think that. That women aren't turned on or that they can't figure out what women actually need. And so I find that these are a couple frames that can really support with creating that safe space is welcoming Oliver here. Whether that's her emotional range or whatever sounds she's making. And then to also really slow down and understand that her body needs a feeling, very different kind of presence and sensation, emotional connection and attunement, to reach a state of full arousal.

All of you is welcome here. How does a man start to create, or at least like, communicate that that is how he feels? Because I think. I think.

One of the. One of the things that I've noticed over so many years of working with men and couples is like, we're super linear and we're super steps oriented. And it's like, okay, what five things do I actually need to do? Like, give me the list and I'll do those things. And I realize that that might be actually antithetical to the process that you're talking about, but maybe just give some insight into what that can actually look like for a man. How does he start to welcome all of that in? And then I have a separate question afterwards that I've seen a ton of men deal with, which is what do I do if my partner isn't super comfortable with her own arousal or her own desire, or doesn't really know her own body, doesn't really know her own arousal? What turns her on? How do I start to navigate that? Because I see a lot of guys dealing with that where, you know, it's not that she doesn't want to engage more sexually, it's that there's maybe a limiter or a fear or an anxiety or a lack of understanding. And that can be a big barrier. So let's go with the first one. How does a man create all of the space for a woman to fully enter?

Yeah, and I really understand and, and can appreciate the linear process of wanting all the steps and how challenging it can be for men when the linear process that worked in business or in health or in all these other areas of life somehow turns into these tangled, chaotic Christmas lights in relationship with the feminine. Because the feminine is just a very different orientation.

And so, or even if it's just like what worked a few months ago, you know, it's like. Or what worked at the beginning of the relationship doesn't work, you know, six months later, I think for a lot of guys that, that can also be a little frustrating. I just wanted to pop that in there.

Yes, absolutely. What worked one minute ago may not be what works right now. I mean, it's like, this is. So what I, what I want to invite is a context, contextual shift. And the contextual shift is how can the approach shift from sex being about stress relief or obligation or only pleasure, to being a place where you can explore and share the depths of yourselves with one another, or explore and share your devotion to creation or God, or explore and share healing and creativity and accessing deep flow states that are connected to the truth and intimacy from each of you. So I feel like what I want to do is open the aperture of what sex is about. And because the physical act of sex is often not fulfilling for people in the long term, like, when they come to me, it's like, okay, the physical act is working, but like.

It doesn't have the same effect as it used to. Or like you said, what worked six months ago doesn't work now. Or there's something that's shifting in the relational dynamic, often post honeymoon phase, where there's a deeper connection that is desired. And I believe that sexuality, that sex is the deepest experience that we can have as humans. Maybe childbirth, which is also connected to sex, is, is another deepest. But like, this is like one of the Deepest aspects of life that we can share together. And so understanding in your contextual shift and approach that it's a hologram that can bring everything up. So this means the context is like, how can you welcome and include whatever comes up as a part of the erotic experience instead of as separate from it? So that means if security or insecurity or shame comes up, or tears or anger, all of that is actually a part of the energy that emotions are included, that that confusion is included, that all of this is a part of the erotic experience. And that when we can approach sex and intimacy as a dojo, like a dojo space, as a ritual space, instead of as this, as like a place where there's an expectation or goal, but actually if there is a goal, it's to connect more deeply. And through this, there's a foundational shift that can happen and actually act as a.

Space for healing, creativity, awakening, transformation that has effects in our 3D life. So sexuality is this, like, deep, potent, sometimes triggery place that we can go right into and create these, like, foundational shifts in the source code of who we are in life. And so when you can, like, open it and look at it through a greater lens of what's possible and.

Have the awareness that the deepest experience of turn on is going to arise from being with the truth of that moment, being present with the truth of that moment, finding the yes to whatever the energy that is present and allowing that to move through, whether that is grief, anger, ecstasy, confusion, whatever that is, finding that place of intimacy that is so vulnerable and intimate to be in a space together where you're like, even if you're crying, even if you're angry, even if you have shame, even if you're confused, like, I'm still here. Like, a personal example of this is so one of the ways that I learned how to let go of control in life. Like, how to actually just be in the free flow of life and trust life and have faith that life is holding me and that I don't have to exert control in order to be okay. Was in sexuality. I could not crack that code in my everyday life. The pattern just ran. But in sexuality, I, like in intimacy is where I received an imprint of what it's like to let go of control completely and surrender completely and have full trust that my partner at the time was going to hold me through that. And surrendering into him in this taught me, gave me an imprint. Not, not a mental idea, but an actual physical, visceral experience of being safe without having control. That then I was able to carry out into my life.

Yeah, I think sex is usually one of those places where you can start to explore the parts of yourself, the elements of your identity that maybe don't have a place out in the world, you know, and it can also be this place where who you are in the world is exaggerated, you know, power dynamics and parts of your identity and things that you want to explore. Safety, trust, all of those pieces. And I think for men, I think the big hurdle what. What I found personally from my own journey and a lot of the men that I've worked with, it is stepping outside of this performance mentality. You know, like, I. I think that we're so conditioned to perform in life in general that when it comes to sex, that can feel doubly and triply true, right? That there's this huge, huge, huge emphasis on, well, I need to perform and it needs to look a certain way or I need to last a certain amount of time or know, whatever that, whatever that perspective is. And I think that can get in the way of taking us out of being fully present to the experience and in the connection of expression and the embodiment of the arousal that's happening, the energy that's being exchanged. And I know for myself that, you know, in especially like in my 20s, it was like all performance. It's like, it was so, you know, like. Like sometimes like watching the clock to be like, how long has it been? You know, and gotta make sure that it's like a, you know, a certain amount of time and then. And then almost like challenging myself to, you know, it was ridiculous. It was kind of ridiculous. I, like, wasn't fully present a lot of the time, and it was more about how it would look if somebody else was watching it. And I think that's the sort of like the pornification of sex, that for a lot of people it's like, well, can I replicate what I've viewed when I watch that pornography? And this isn't to like, you know, poo poo porn or anything like that, but it doesn't have an impact, you know, it really does. So anyway, I think some of the pieces that you're talking about are very important. How can a man start to support a woman that he's with who maybe isn't as fully connected to her arousal, her desire, Whether it's fear, whether it's anxiety, whether it's just a lack of understanding. Because I think from a lot of the men that I've worked with, that is a big thing. It's just like she doesn't. When I ask her what she wants to explore, what she wants to do or how she wants to feel, there's just blank stares and question marks. And I think for a lot of guys, that's very, very challenging. So I'd love to hear your take on some of that.

Yeah, I really feel for both men and women who are coming from so much conditioning, the first thing is just to recognize that just as you so beautifully outlined the performance based conditioning that men are coming from, women are coming from a particular kind of conditioning that perhaps some men can also relate with, which is a lot of good girl programming. And so there's a couple things, and I can go deeper into good girl programming, but one thing that I find is there's certain aspects of female sexuality that I have found that women feel safer to uncover and explore and realize that they are not alone and that it's okay and it's safe to be a sexual being. They do that more effectively at first in the presence of other women who are going through the same thing or are a few steps ahead or have already experienced their sexual liberation. And that there's a hurdle that sometimes can't be jumped over inside of the male female relationship because she just actually doesn't feel safe enough within herself to even bring that to him yet. And I've just seen this so many, so many times in my programs. And what, what happens is there's a sense for many women that sexuality is, is dangerous. Like if they embody their full erotic nature and they're sexually liberated and connected to their desire and, and connected to their men and that they, they're, they're like, hungry for their Eros and they like, know what they want, that that means something about them, that means something negative about them, that that's the kind of woman who's considered a whore, right? Or that's the kind of woman that you don't want to be. And many women have been conditioned to be good, to be a good girl. And a good girl is virtuous and nurturing and respectable. But it has not been conditioned to be in connection with their sexuality. Like, you almost have to rebel in order to be connected with your sexuality. As a woman who grew up with religious programming or even some of our cultural programming, there's obviously the alternative narrative of Hollywood that's like. And feminism that's like, you know, all sex all the time, which has its own shadow. But this is, this is part of the Madonna horror split. So many of you have probably heard of the Madonna horror complex. Right? Sigmund Freud identified this where men experience a sense of.

Love and deep connection and respect, that they marry, and then they experience a sense of ravenous desire for the mistress. But they had a hard time. Some men have a hard time having love and desire for the same woman. And the Jungian psychology take on this is that there's a. There's a projection of a negative mother wound that results in a split in their anima, which is their relationship to their feminine that lives in their unconscious. This creates an inability to integrate both having deep love and having sexual feelings towards the same woman. So there's like a inner child challenge that has someone not be able to experience that. So there's a separation of love and sex. Right. This is not just an individual psychological issue, though. This has also been deeply reinforced by cultural, religious and society narratives in. I mean, it's depicted in like the story of Eve and in the Virgin Mary, and there's these, like, if you are the pure woman, than. And you are without sin and, you know, immaculate conception, like Mary had Jesus without even having sex. Like there's this. It's like. It's like indoctrinated into our culture then like Mary Magdalene, no, she was a. And they won't even admit that she was actually Jesus's sex magic partner. But that's a whole nother rabbit hole that we don't need to go down. But essentially all of this is here. And female sexuality has been deeply dominated and controlled control. And so has male sexuality. But from the male perspective, to just understand that women are raised with this split of the Madonna and the whore, with this split of their virtuous, nurturing, loving self and their ravenous, hungry, carnal, erotically embodied, sexually liberated self. And it hasn't felt safe to bridge that gap. And for some women, it hasn't even felt safe to like, touch their like, sensuality and like the, like their lightness of their turn on. And so women are on, you know, various degrees of this spectrum of where they experience this split. But I know that men can relate with this split with the nice guy, bad boy thing and their relationship to their danger. Right? They're like aggression and their danger and their. And their. Their savagery and the safety around that. The equivalent of that for women is sexuality. That's the part that has felt dangerous. And so we're really in this sort of cultural conundrum together. And part of the healing of this. I'll just go back to that women can do with other Women is to feel the approval and the sisterhood and. And the community around their sexuality being celebrated and being. Being approved of, being okay, being welcome, and them not feeling broken that they haven't been connected to it until now.

It's interesting as. As I'm listening to you talk about some of this. You know, I think for a lot of guys, they're like. They get that. I think every. I think most men will probably get the majority of what you're saying, especially around the Madonna horror complex. I've talked about it on the show before, and I think for a lot of guys, there's an apprehension, we'll call it, towards bringing their more primal sexual self into the relationship, you know, and being more dominant or aggressive. Maybe aggressive is not the right word, but, like, being more dominant, being more direct with their sexual energy. I think there's a lot of hesitation around that now. And I even remember. I can't remember what her name was, like Ayala or something like that. And she did, like, a poll through her Twitter feed. She has, like, a couple million followers. She's a former sex worker turned researcher, and she did this poll asking about how. How dominant and how assertive and how, quote, unquote, aggressive women actually wanted men to be and how dominant and assertive and aggressive men thought women wanted them to be. And there was a really big discrepancy, which was women wanted men to be more dominant and assertive and aggressive than men thought. And so I think we're. It's interesting because there's. There's a lot of narratives telling men, don't be direct, don't be dominant, don't be these things. And then I think, you know, when you play that in with some of the stuff that women are hearing as well, don't want those things, you know, that's wanted for that. Or if you're connected with your sexual energy, you know, you're. You're a slut or you're a. And. And so I think it, you know, I think it's complicated, to say the least. But I also think that, coming back to my original question, like, I do think that men, we're like, okay, what can we do to help our woman that is in that space? You know, because I think where a lot of guys go is, like, do I just tell her that I want her to be my. Like, do I just say, like, I want you to act more slutty in the bedroom? I, you know, I want you to, like, pretend that, you know, for a little while and can we Explore that. Like, how do you broach that conversation? And how can a man sort of strategically or practically support his woman? I mean, he can, you know, encourage her to go and be with other women and do that. But what does that look like between the two of them?

Yeah. Great.

And I want to just clarify that going and being with other men, women doesn't mean in like a sexual exploration directly kind of context. It's. It's more about find, you know, women's groups or a support or a course or something where other women are talking about. I just want to clarify that, that I'm not saying like clarification, feminine orgies with a bunch of women and learn.

I listened to the man talk show and they said that you should go and sleep with some other women. Let's, let's go.

Because I've seen men do this and be like, I think you need to, you know, explore, you know, you're being a lesbian. And just really that generally, that, that approach doesn't work generally. Okay, so I.

There's.

A conversation that.

Needs to happen when, when, when you're not clear, like if you are a man right now and you are not clear about what your woman wants, like, you don't know if she, if she wants you to.

To bring more of your. I like calling it benevolent dominance because I feel like it's like coming from your heart. But it's like that heart caught connection and it's bringing your primal energy connected to your heart in service of her, in service of her opening, in service of her pleasure, in service of more intimacy together. It's not actually taking something from her. It's actually in service. And so I want to just define that as the type of primal energy that I believe that we're both speaking to here. And if you're not clear if she wants that or not, there's a conversation about intimacy to have of, of like, what, what do you desire? Like, what do you want more of? I love that. You know, there's this poll, the poll was done, and so many women said that they wanted this for men, and so many men were confused about that. How do you feel about that? I mean, you could bring it up as casually as that or just as sharing that you have a value. I love leading with values of like, there's a value that you are holding of wanting to connect more deeply together and wanting to have deeper intimacy. And you, you want to know her more, you want to feel her more, you want to serve her more, you want to give her everything that she could possibly imagine and desire intimately. And you want to know how you can do that more. And opening that conversation to have her open up and see what she wants is a great way to start and get clear and just kind of feel the waters out. Women who have sexual trauma may have a trigger around primal, dominant energy, even if it's coming from your heart. And benevolence like that just may be the case. And so this can be sensitive for some women. And it's still important to talk about because she may want to heal her trauma so that she can connect with you more deeply and just need the invitation to do so. And what I find is that so many men around this topic are walking around on eggshells post MeToo movement, post third wave feminism, and they're afraid of bringing up their desire or having conversations about desire with their partner. And sometimes it's men that actually lead that, sometimes it's women. I mean, I'm always supporting women to lead that conversation. But if you're the man and you're having that awareness, one way that you can, like, really lead your woman is by opening the conversation to just share what your deepest desires are. And you can even create a context that is like, let's share things that feel edgy. Like, let's just actually create a context in a safe space to share some things that might feel edgy, putting them on the table, knowing that nothing needs to happen. Okay, A safe space where we're not saying that we're going to do all the things that we share. We're just saying that these are potential desires, that these are things that are lighting us up. These are things we're curious about. These are ways that we may want to go deeper together. And a conversation like that can create so much deeper intimacy and space for a deeper connection in sex and erotic nature. I mean, I find that there's just a lot of couples that there's a default sex that happens when you don't talk about sex. And a lot of people just don't talk about it. And so they end up having a certain default sex that is actually not the sex that either person wants to really be having. It's just kind of the default. It's kind of like we just shut the lights off and we just like go into this position and then we just fall asleep after. And it's like it's done without intentionality. It's done without, like, specific consciousness. It's done without context or ritual around it. And not like every sexual encounter needs to be an hour long ritual. And that can be a really empowering way to also start to bring some of these, some of these desires is inside of a ritual space where it's like inside of this particular space, you're creating an opportunity with a sandbox mentality where you're exploring, you're trying things, nothing has to last. You don't even have to do something again, but you're creating this safe sandbox mentality where you're not, you know, building a house out of wood, you're, you're building it out of sand and you can knock it over if you didn't like it. But it's like this playful mindset that brings a deeper exploration.

I think one of the things that I've guided men on a number of times is this notion of like getting to know one another sexually in conversation. You know, it's like, I would like for you to know me sexually. Are you interested in that? I want to know you sexually. Are you interested in that? And like, that positioning, I think sometimes is helpful to just start the conversation because, yeah, I think most of us want to be known and it's a good gateway into that. And I think it's, you know, oftentimes especially I find that with women, that's very helpful. It's like, oh, yeah, of course I want you to know me in this way and I want you to know all of me. But I think sometimes that leads to like, well, I don't really know me sexually. And it's like, great. Are you open to exploring that? And like, here's the, you know, here's the sort of like Cheesecake Factory menu. Because if you've ever been to a Cheesecake Factory, like, the menu is basically an almanac. I mean, it's massive. But like, here's the menu, right? Here's some of the things that we could explore. We don't have to do any of these things, but what of these might be valuable or exciting or enticing to you? And I like that notion of what you're saying. It's like, you know, sometimes we do have to have these conversations which are uncomfortable. And.

Usually the thing that's being avoided when sex has fallen into that, that place of, of monotony and just sort of like routine. So I think all that is very, very helpful. What about for couples that find themselves in kind of like that sexual rut, you know, where monotony has set in and, and, or, or maybe, and maybe these are two different things. So I'll let you sort of discern on that one is the sexual rut where it's just kind of monotonous and you're doing the same thing over and over again. That's just sort of the standard. And then the other one is when the relationship moves into a sexless place for whatever reason and because I've seen that actually a lot more than I would have guessed like the amount of couples that are in some type of sexless marriage whether they haven't had sex in like six months at all or they have sex once every, you know, five or six months or you know, they haven't had sex in years, it's actually a lot more couples than I would have ever guessed. So I'd love to talk on that part as well.

Yeah, great, great question and it I'm also seeing that of the the sexless relationships and.

The sexual rut and I do feel there's a word that I just want to throw in here that is what you were just saying of how can we.