The Multi-Orgasmic Couple with Doug and Rachel Abrams

Welcome to Mama Goddess. I'm your host, Alexandra J. Johnson. This podcast is all about rocking your goddess life, creating vibrant health and celebrating motherhood and family life. It's about living an authentically awesome life. Let's have. And today we have some gorgeous guests. We have Rachel Carlton Abrams and Doug Abrams. And Rachel is a board certified in family practice and integrative medicine. And Doug is a writer, author, literary agent, and also they are the authors, co authors of the Multi Orgasmic Man, Woman and Couple. So welcome Orgasmic Couple.

Do I look happy?

So good to be with you, Alexander.

Yeah, I'm thrilled. I love you guys personally and I love that you guys created the books I'd actually love to start off with. What inspired you guys to create the Multi Orgasmic series?

That's amazing.

Well, that's a great question. I think I can feel that question because it's kind of a funny story. So I was actually studying in Jerusalem at an Orthodox yeshiva when Rachel came to visit. And I was studying all day long. I was working at a shelter for battered women. I was working and we were trying to be romantic at night.

I was wearing it out.

And I was just totally exhausted. And I came across this book on Taoist sexuality. And it said that if men learned to become multi orgasmic or actually if they didn't ejaculate, that they would have more energy. And I said, wow, this sounds wild. And so I tried it and it was kind of a revelation and kind of amazing. And so I went and came back to the States and found everything I could about Taoist sexuality and found the things that were found. That Montak Chia was the guy who had the real goods. He was. His work was the. Had the most integrity and the most practicality. And so I researched and studied it and gave all of his books to my friends and they were all like, sounds great, but I don't know how to do this. And so I said, okay, guys, I'll write you a book that even you can understand. And that's how we got started.

Fantastic.

That was a long time ago.

Yeah. Sorry about the phone ringing in the background. Do you want us to shut it up? Try to shut it down or.

They were totally cool.

I mean, we're cool.

Okay.

Great life happen. So I'm curious on the Multi Orgasmic man, just to dive into that a little bit that you cannot orgasm or ejaculation. Can you just talk a little bit about that? Because I know people do hear it and it's like, what is that? That sounds weird. Why would I ever want to do that?

Well, so as one friend described it, it's like having Christmas every day. It's basically you are able to experience orgasm without ejaculating or before you ejaculate, you can experience orgasm multiple times. So it's not that. What I think most of people don't understand is that orgasm and ejaculation are actually two different things for men and for women. And they happen so close together for most men after they reach puberty and start ejaculating that they assume that they're the same thing, but in fact they're actually two different things. And what you can learn to do is to experience the crescendo of orgasm multiple times before or even without ejaculating. And that's multiple areas. So it's kind of a revelation to a lot of men that that's even possible.

That's great. And I love that you wrote these books too, because who's the, what's his name?

Men.

Right.

So we co authored these books with the leading teacher of Taoist sexuality, whose name is Mantak Chia. Incredibly profound sexual teacher and also teacher of the Taoist arts in general. And so the amazing thing about Mantak Chia is that. And the amazing thing about Taoist sexuality is that sexuality is considered a part of the health system of Chinese medicine and the system of spiritual development. So it's not like it is in the west where sexuality is this thing that's kind of lewd or prairie and off in the closet. It's actually seen as a fundamental part of taking that pleasure. Since I know this is a pleasure conference and taking that pleasure from our sexuality and using it for our physical health and even our spiritual development.

I love that.

So what inspired you? What's inspiring for you about this multi orgasmic and this Taoist approach?

So I mean, first thing I want to say is that when a guy does the practice, it makes his rhythm of pleasure very similar to a woman's. So it goes from being different. So orgasm is poorly understood. And it's described in this very kind of reductive way as this build up, mountain, crescendo, drop off, done. Right. We refer to that as the terminal orgasm.

That's awesome, not fun. That's it.

But you know, the point being that that's the idea is you have one and you're all done.

That's it.

Rollover, time to snore. Right. And women, most women don't orgasm that way. So it's not that women can't have an orgasm like that. They absolutely can. But most women have what we call an orgasmic fingerprint or like a mountain range of orgasms. So like everything else, it's not singular and defined in that way. It's actually a much more unfolding process. So women, many women don't think they're having an orgasm, they're having an orgasm. But what it may look like to them is they're having increasing pleasure, and then the pleasure just unfolds and unfolds and unfolds, and there may be contractions and pleasure, but it's this plateau, up and down experience rather than this big mountain crash, back down experience.

Right, Interesting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say Taoist sexuality is a really beautiful way to understand that sexual energy is moving through your body. I mean, literally all the time. But the ability to feel it, harness it, move it allows you to have control over it in a way that's different and kind of spectacular because then you can multiply it, you can play with it, you can match your partner. So it just puts you in a realm. We first sort of discovered this practice. You're like, look, how do you know when to stop? Why would you. Right. It seems like you're falling over dead. But there is that.

We're children. You have children.

But, you know, I mean, there is this thing about it. It's now a natural unfolding experience that really feels a lot more like play meets spiritual practice.

Well, it's the same question, like, when do you stop meditating or when do you stop exercising? It's like. Well, it's not like you kind of have a climax at meditation or a climax with exercising. And so it just becomes a much more rhythmic experience. And you just decide, wow. And you actually, often. You don't feel like you're spent in the same way, at least for a guy that they do after they ejaculate or after they don't have a multiple orgasm.

And, I mean, there are plenty of people who know this practice well and teach it who have a different relationship than we do. Right. So there are people who are single, there are people who are dating. There's all kinds of people practicing Taoisexuality. Our particular experience is having dao sexuality embedded in a committed relationship. We've been together for almost 25 years. So, you know, what we talk about is specific to our relationship. But, I mean, one of the things I was thinking about as you were talking is that I now don't think about sexuality as really separate from anything else. We do together. So it's not just that there's no defined, you know, here's the up and the down and the terminal orgasm and you're all done part of sex. But there's something like that in our being together. And sexuality is not necessarily a separate piece of being together. It's just an aspect of how we relate to one another. How we play together, how we laugh, how we have fun and how we experience pleasure, you know, but that melds into the rest of our life together.

Yeah, that's really well said.

Yeah, I love that too. And I love that it's the healing too, like you were talking about. Just it's part of your wellness practice. Like the sexuality is a component of being healthy.

I love that. Well, it's actually huge if you look at, and this is what I do for a living. But if you look at the data on what keeps people healthy, touch and pleasure is enormous. I mean, it's more powerful than smoking. It's more powerful than your diet. It actually has a preferred profound impact on whether people die or not. It has an impact on mortality. So sexuality and touch. And I say, I would say sexuality, pleasure and touch. Because there are plenty of people who have really beautiful, related, pleasurable, sensual relationships that aren't necessarily having intercourse.

Right?

Or not even necessarily lesbian sex or non penis sex who still have the same benefits. So it's not just that you have to have Taoist sex or you have.

To have heterosexual sex.

Right?

You can have a close, committed, pleasurable, physical touch relationship, but those relationships have profound impacts on your well being. And we think it's because a whole bunch of everyone is, you know, hello, the body wants to do this. We were made for this.

Come on.

You know, of course it's good for you. I mean, I love that something that feels good is good for you. It's like learning that chocolate's good for you. You know, isn't that good news? We like that. That's so much more fun. But when you are sexually, you get more oxytocin, which is a hormone that nursing moms get in spades, which makes you way more patient than you would otherwise be.

You become like super mom. But that's a whole different topic.

It's unbelievable, right? Lots of oxytocin. So it makes you more patient with each other. So you're a much better spouse if you're sexually active because you're nicer than you otherwise would be nicer. Yes. And then you get bursts of estrogen and testosterone and DHEA and all of those. Those help with sex drive. They help with focus and concentration. They're antidepressants. And then you get all these wonderful prostaglandins that are healing for the body. So you get a sort of shower of chemicals that decrease stress, that improve cell growth, that do all these good things for the body. And that's why we think touch and pleasure in relationship has such a profound healing impact on that.

And how about human growth hormone?

Oh, and human growth hormone.

Yeah.

Instead of going to your weird holistic doctor and getting a sh of it, you could just have sex.

That is awesome. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so then we know the benefits. Right? But I was reading some ridiculous statistic that there's so many married couples are not even having sex, but there's sex everywhere. Sex in the movies, sex in the magazines and the media, but people aren't doing it. So what do you think stops us? And how do we cultivate that desire and that sexual energy?

Well, great question.

I mean, the married couple question is a little different than the rest of it. I mean, the married couple question really comes back to question of relationship. And that what we were just talking about. You can't separate sex from everything else.

Right?

So anybody who says, look, whatever, let's just have sex and forget about our argument, forget it. I mean, some guys can do that, mind you. A lot of guys can't do it when they get older, but they can do it when they're younger, get older. They get something called, we call the wisdom of the penis. And they start to not get an erection when things are not right.

Oh, that's great.

I know, but that happens in about 85.

Yeah, 80. Not when they're young. But where was I?

You were talking about how the whole intimacy of the relationship.

So we better look like that from the Gap, Right? It's like, oh, you want her to be sexy and available and excited? Well, you know, they often say you have to open up. You have to open a woman's heart before you can open her legs. In Taoism. And in Taoism, just like they see the whole body represented on the hand or represented on the ear for acupuncture. Right. It's also represented on the genitals. And the heart is actually the opening to the vagina. Is the heart really?

Yeah.

So. And in a woman, the heart is supposed to be the most powerful energy center. So the energy has to open in the heart and then flow down to the genitals for her to be aroused. So, and I'm not saying you can't have, you know, women can't have crazy, raunchy, give it to me sex. Of course they can, but it's in a context in which they feel safe. And if she doesn't feel emotionally safe or she doesn't feel physically safe, it's impossible for her to have sexual pleasure because her sympathetic nervous system goes off and the blood flow goes away from the labyrinth clitoris, and she loses her kind of female erection and lucidation. And sex is now painful. So with a female, you can't even get close unless there's some sort of alignment. And we spend, you know, I spend a bit of time in my practice talking to couples about how to get aligned with each other so they can be physically intimate. Because this is all a big feedback loop, right?

Yeah.

You get mad at each other, and then you're not physically intimate and you don't have those helpful hormones, and then you're more sex separate from each other, and then you don't touch them more. And, you know, it's the negative feedback loop. Right, Right. And we're trying to get them started back on the positive feedback loop.

And it's really. It's also, you know, it's the kind of use it or lose it dimension of, you know, if you, as Rachel's saying, if you don't actually make the effort to be intimate with each other, to be flirting and sensual and sexual with each other, even during the day, you know, kind of, whether you're sending a text or a call or being loving to each other, you know, a lot of people think that, you know, they can fin the to do list, fall into bed, and suddenly they're going to want to have sex.

Not so much, right?

Not so much. So the metaphor they use in Taoism is it's like a boiling pot. You've got to keep the pot boiling all the time, and through that kind of intimacy and energetic cultivation in your own life. So part of the issue is that people are so energetically depleted. So they're so busy taking care of their kids. And we have three kids and we have twins, and we know energetic depletion.

I'll save time.

And so a lot of it is just being able to give your relationship a little bit of energy and a little bit of attention over the course of a day or course of the week, so that you can actually come to each other with energy and not totally depleted. And that's part of, I think, what's really useful about this understanding of bodily energy, you know, sexual energy, physical energy, and spiritual energy all being connected is that they all feed each other. So when we're taking good care of our bodies and we're exercising and we're, you know, taking care of our souls and really, you know, meditating and taking care of us, all of that feeds our sexual life as well. And our sexual life deals. Feeds all of those parts of our lives as well. They're not. We want to. In the West. We want to kind of cut it all up and separate it all. And frankly, it's all connected.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was just thinking about the. There is Taoist theory that when you're born that there are various kinds of chi, or life force. And when you're born, you're getting given a certain kind of bank account of qi, original Qi, or principal qi. And then throughout your lifetime, you deplete that. When it's all gone well, then you die. Right. And different things depleted and, like, overdoing things. Not that I'm at all familiar with that. A little beyond your means. Working a little too much, not enough sleep too much doing not enough being.

Being on call as a doctor or something like that.

Yeah. Totally unfamiliar. However, I can talk about it, because sexuality in the Taoist system is really the only way you can actually restore principle Qi. So you can add to your sort of checking account, you know, the Qi that you get on a daily basis with good food and exercise and love and all those good things. But nothing can really restore the basic qi you were born with besides sexuality. And that makes sense because it is sexuality from which we are born. Right. It is the thing that is the creative energy that causes the new life that we are. And so when you are sexually active with your partner, and especially when you're consciously storing the energy like we talk about in the book, you increase your principal chi. So it is the case, I mean, I know, you know, couples who are in their 70s or in their 80s who are sexually active, right. They go, oh, my God, they look so young. It looks so young. Well, I think it works. I mean, I really do think it helps people stay young. All those hormones we talked about and all the endorphins.

Yeah. I just read in a book about. I think they did a study with people and they. Women, maybe 3,500 women, and they wanted to see what people thought their age was. And they ended up thinking the people who had the Most sex looked 7 to 12 years younger.

Oh, great.

Than their actual age.

Right, Exactly.

Hotness.

So you can just tell who's getting it and who's not.

Yeah.

Based on how young they look.

That's awesome. I love that, too. And I love the vision for all of us, too. You know, as we get older, too, that it doesn't. You don't have to, like, once you hit 60, 70, whatever, that your sexuality just stops. So I love that you're bringing this to the world.

Well, the Taoist idea is basically, you should make love until the day you die. And that's a good way to go.

Yeah.

I mean, pleasure to the day you die. There's no, like, brittle old, like, cranky. You know, you're gonna be like an ecstasy.

Yeah. You're not gonna be cranky. The cranky old person. If you're still getting some.

I have lots of couples in my practice in their 80s who are very sexually active. There's no reason you can't be.

It's awesome.

And I do just want to put out because I'm a doctor and I can't help it that lots of women are not having sex after menopause because it's painful. And that is a completely easily reversible, safely reversible thing. And it's just from the tissues getting a little thinner. But a little bit of topical estrogen, which does not cause breast cancer, isn't. Hormone replacement therapy can make a huge difference. And I help lots of women who have been unable to have sex be able to have sex again, and through a couple of means. So using hormones, but also stretching themselves. The jade egg practice, which is in the book, is really helpful too. I've done that with a couple of women and helped them kind of come into their sexuality in their 60s. That is great.

I haven't tried the jade egg yet, but I'm very curious.

Did you want to hear about it?

So these are practices, Taoist practices, that women can use to strengthen their sexuality.

Actually, it's all the rage these days because there are. I mean, the jade egg goes back thousands of years, so it's an ancient Taoist practice. I should have brought one. I could show it on camera. But basically, it's a little stone egg. It's about this big, right? And you learn how to move it within the vagina, up and down, back and forth, to maintain the muscular strength, to strengthen the PC muscle, but also to bring qi, or energy and blood flow to those tissues. So it's very healing. And then there are even cleansing practices you can do for sexual trauma, which were developed by our friend Saida, who's a brilliant daoist teacher, teaches all over the world.

Oh, yeah, she's going to be part of this. She says she loves you.

She's great. Actually, we're working with Saida and her partner Saul on creating an online course for the Multi Orgasmic series because so many people have asked to take it beyond the books and actually have video courses that can teach them these practices. So those actually are going to be ready, I think, in about a month or two. So those should be available when. Actually, by the time this gets broadcast in October, they should be available October 2013.

Cowling soon to a computer near you.

Yeah.

That's so great, because I was talking to her and she was saying she was doing this program and I didn't know it was you guys that she was doing it. That is awesome.

She's awesome. But she developed a practice that she may talk about, which I use a lot in my workshops, because you can't talk about sexuality with women without talking about trauma, because it's so common. And thank God, not in everybody, but it's pretty darn common in one way or another. And even if there wasn't severe trauma, there usually was a time when I didn't have sex. When I had sex, I didn't want to, but I didn't agree to it. So I think that those things stay within the tissues of the body. And so when we're sexual again, it can bring those feelings up and that blocks pleasure, which is our point here.

Right.

So the JDIC practice can be used as a way to release again, from those points in the vagina that correspond to the body. Body to release some of the trauma energetically from that area as you use the egg so that a woman can have more pleasure. Bring it on.

Yeah, that's so great.

And I love too that you brought up the sexual trauma, because that's definitely, you know, I mean, just in my life, I don't have anything major, but, you know, you said there's times where you had sex and you're like, I didn't want to have sex with that person and you want to be attractive. And there's just so much for women wrapped around sexuality that, you know, I love that you brought that up, that we need to just address those issues.

Oh, it's fundamental.

And we were joking about men and the wisdom of the penis. But the reality is that men deal with their own issues around sexuality. And as they tune into the wisdom of their own sexuality, they are able to actually feel their pleasure much more deeply. And it's just not like an honest and off switch, which is typically you know, how a lot of men experience their sexuality. And a lot of men, you know, interestingly, actually do have challenges around their own desire or around their own arousal. So it's something that is, you know, obviously talked about much more with women and probably much more common with women, but it's not. And there's a lot of shame for men because it's supposed to not be an issue for men, but it really is an issue for a lot of men as well.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I will say in my practice recently, I've had more men with significant sexual issues than women. So it's not talked about because it's just assumed that guys want it all the time. And that's not really the case. There are men with low libido. There are men with sexual trauma. There are men who, for whatever reason, aren't comfortable in their bodies. A lot of what we're talking about really is about being embodied, realizing you don't exist from here up. There's this lovely other part down here.

Here. Yes.

All these other neurons that needs a.

Little love and attention. So, you know, simple things like, gosh, you know, exercising in some way, going for a walk, being outside, all of this boost sexuality because, hello, you're inhabiting your body again.

Yes.

And it's important.

It's also like a slower pace too. Right. Like in our bodies, there's a slower. And we're. For up here, it's all in our head.

Right. I think it's really. I work with, in my literary agency, I work with some amazing neuroscientists and just learning from them that the neurons that we have in our brain, we have neurons that go throughout our entire body. So we actually, we have a skull, enclosed brain, but we also have a brain that goes throughout our entire body and that has its own intelligence, whether it's the neural net around the heart or in the intestines, or even the neurons in our hands and our feet. And so really drawing on all of our intelligence and all of our ability to learn and grow and understand and experience sensuality and pleasure in our life is absolutely vital.

So you were just talking about the body and the shame. Can you talk a little bit about the body? Like having. Really opening up to your body, being a sexual vessel for pleasure. Because for so many men and women, they have body image issues. They don't love their genitals. They don't, you know, they don't feel comfortable in their skin. So do you have any recommendations on how we can really, you know, have our bodies be the temple that they are.

Can I tell a little story here? Actually, we're working on a couple books with John and Julie Gottman, who are amazing relationship experts, probably the leading relationship scientists in the world. And John was at the Kinsey Institute leading a group. And basically he had like half a dozen men, half a dozen women come in and the first question was, talk about some part of your body. And what everybody talked about was some part of their body that they hated. And he was just shocked that men were.

And the enemies were extremely attractive young people. It was irrelevant. He thought, I don't know anything to talk about.

Right, exactly. And so I think it's just. It's really worth underscoring the point that you're making, which is that everybody has some kind. Our kind of super body focused and kind of, you know, kind of glamour focused society media has some set place where they feel shameful or weak or lessened or unattractive. I think Rachel, does a lot of this work in your practice of helping women to reclaim the power and the beauty of their bodies. But that is absolutely essential. And actually that is the number one thing for the ability to experience pleasure and desire in your life. It's not actually about your partner's attractiveness nearly as much as it is about your own sense of your own embodiment and your own ability to feel pleasure and desirability in your own body. So it's really absolutely vital what you're talking about in trying to transcend the shame that so many of us carry around. Do you want to talk about how you work on that?

Well, I mean, we live in such a completely twisted culture that it is very challenging. And you know that if you travel, because in Brazil, it's a whole different way of thinking about the body, right? Everybody's got on their deep swing. And I was on the big women, the giant breasts and the big booties, and like, everybody's got on their bikinis. And it's a little bit like that in the south of France, you know, and in Africa, you know, these are women who are living inside their bodies with, you know, with pride, however they look. And they can be really thin or they can be really large and they can be big breasted and small breasted. It doesn't seem to matter, right? Because they know that they have a sense that they're sexy, right. The way they are. We are really missing that. We have a bizarre, anorexic, kind of sexless culture. So, I mean, I was like, I have teenage Daughters, which makes this all very important to me. And we have a couple of magazines in the house right now that I don't usually have in the house. But they, you know, Glamour, I don't know, typical female magazines. So I was looking through them, and they're talking about there was an article on a model who was more full figure. She's, of course, completely thin, but full figure. And they were saying, wow, isn't that a change? And I was like, why is that a change? And I looked through the magazine, and all the models look like death. They all have this white face, and they look severely depressed, and they almost look like vampires. It's this very strange aesthetic that we consider beautiful. And I get that it's art. It's not just, you know, what you want in your bedroom. But I think it's damaging. I think it's really damaging. And it gives this completely unrealistic aesthetic. Not to mention, of course, they're all airbrushed anyway for women in this culture and for men. So it used to be mostly women, and now we have these weird, you know, superhero characters with these giant shoulders and these tiny little butts, and I just back down, really, you know, so everyone can feel bad about themselves. It's really fabulous. So I actually think that those influences matter. And I generally recommend. Like, in my house, typically, we don't have those magazines, you know, and we don't have a scale. And, you know, there are things that you can do to be gentle with yourself. And then the other thing that I really love for women, I think I have a practice in the women's book called Body Love or Body Acceptance, and is touching themselves. Because there's something about feeling pleasure in your body that allows you to reclaim it. Because really, the point of your body, your breasts, your jungles, the rest of your body is to give you pleasure, you know, I mean, to function the world, obviously, but to give you pleasure. So if I can talk women into touching themselves, and that can be sexually or not sexually, I'm a huge fan of self cultivation, as we like to call it.

Right. So in the Taoist culture, solo cultivation and dual cultivation. So how great is that? You know, that's not like masturbation. It's like solo cultivation.

You're cultivating your energy, cultivating your pleasure.

Health and your creativity and your spirituality and your sexuality. How great is that?

I think touching oneself is huge. I really do. And being able to draw pleasure from your body for yourself, you know, and I say this over and over again, that, like, brushes are A good example. I mean, talk about a completely. How the culture completely takes something out of a woman's own, you know, owning it and gives it to the culture. It's either too big or it's too small or it's too jittery, you know, I mean, it's never right. Right. It doesn't matter. It's never right. Well, what a beautiful part of a woman's body that actually naturally men love and women love. I mean, really, you know, no matter what the shape or size. Sorry. They're just good, you know, everybody likes fresh. So if we can get out of the crazy portrayal of how it has to be and inside of appreciating our own bodies exactly as they are and touching our own breasts, it's usually transformative to women. One of the things that I teach is breast massage, and that is about health and well being. Because breasts are in the fifth chakra, which is the heart chakra, which is the giving. Giving. Giving, of course, is how we nurse babies if we didn't, if we have kids. But really, breasts are about giving to ourselves. With the exception of that little piece of time when you're nursing a baby. Breasts are about giving to you. It's about nurturing yourself. So I try to help women grab that back for themselves through breast massage and so forth, so that they feel ownership and pleasure.

And I would just say, I think the Taoist insight is really profound, that a woman who, who is in her body and who inhabits her pleasure is way sexier.

So true.

Because she's alive. I mean, really, what I think we lose not having an understanding of energy, physical energy in Western civilization, although it exists in so many other cultures, is that fundamental understanding of what is desire. Desire is aliveness. We desire that sense of vitality, of being alive. And so when we find, you know, if our partner has that and if we have that, that's what stokes the relationship much more than the size or shape or anything else of a physical body part.

Yeah.

It makes me think of Queen Latifah.

Right.

That woman is sexy. She is owning it. Sexy, right. She's hot and she is not hiding it, baby. She's proud, right. She's working her thing. And it is sexy, right? It's completely sexy. So that's what we're talking about. If you can be inside your body, not everyone's giving Queen Latifah, but, you know, in a way that feels comfortable for you, then that is attractive. And you're gonna draw people to you who appreciate that and you're gonna take yourself more seriously.

And then we're in the throes of sexuality. It doesn't matter what you look like.

Right.

I mean, nobody's like, oh, her ass is too big or too small. They're like, I am having an orgasm.

Oop.

You know, like, that's exactly what happens. Does it really matter?

Nobody cares. There are no cameras in the bedroom usually. Right.

I mean, really, this is about. I think it actually, when you mentioned the cameras, I mean, I think this is about separating pornography from sexuality. Right. And I think that that pornography, this is not about good, bad or otherwise about pornography, but it's just saying that real sexuality, real intimacy, real sensuality is super different than pornography. It's not about the frenzy of the physical. It's about the vitality of the energy and of the intimacy. And I think that that's something that's really easy to lose track of because we're so bombarded by these other issues, images of what sex is supposed to be supposed to look like, et cetera, et cetera.

We also, I mean, all the sex that you see portrayed as first time sex. Right. Like, we just met sex. Yeah, yeah. And that's just, you know, tiny little piece of the pie.

Right.

For most people. And, you know, in fact, if you look at who has more sex, even though there are married couples who don't have sex, that's absolutely true. But still, married people have more sex than single people.

Way more sex than single people.

A lot more.

Yeah. Because it's not surprising, doesn't take a dinner or drinks or.

That's awesome. So I'm curious on, like, I love this that you brought up the pornography, because as I've been doing research for this and just looking at sexuality, it's really. I'm like, wow, there's some interesting stuff on sexuality. And everybody can have their own flavor, you know, and they can do their own thing. But what I love that you guys bring is that you bring the spirituality, you bring the intimacy, you bring the connection. So can you talk a little bit about more of the heart and the soul and how your sexuality can actually help you evolve and grow as a human being and help your spirituality. Yes.

But can I just comment on what you just said for a second?

Absolutely.

Just because, I mean, I really think that there's all kinds of crazy shit out there around sexuality. Really crazy. And, you know, but my feeling is, you know, my very strong feeling is that different things work for different people. And I don't have a lot of judgment about people's sexuality as long as there is consensual agreement and that it's pleasurable for them and that it contributes to their well being. So those three things. And that can look like just about anything, depending on the person. I do think that Doug and I have talked a lot about this because we've been raised through teenagers and pornography is so widely available that when you expose yourself to a lot of pornography that it does change the way your brain works and it changes the way that your body experiences sensuality, stimulation and pleasure. And stimulation and pleasure. And so it does actually go against some of what we're talking about, which is more extended pleasure and touching and connection, because it gets you that quick orgasm, it gives you the terminal orgasm. Right, right.

And it also can. I mean, the research suggests that it really changes the dopamine response and the kind of ways in which we experience. It's like a kind of drug, basically. And so, so it really people. I mean, there is some significant porn addiction challenges that exist in our culture these days. And it really does. I mean, if you think about it from the energetic way that we're talking about, it's basically, it's really, where do you put your energy and how do you channel and how do you entrain your energy? And if you entrain yourself into one kind of response, then it really does detract from your ability to have the kind of intimacy with your partner that we're talking about here. But I think you raised a really wonderful question, which is about the connection between the sexual energy and the heart energy and the spiritual energy. Do you want to fill that up?

I would say that ideally in relationship that those three things are all talking to each other at the same time and that that is kind of just naturally what happens. And we do talk quite a bit in the books about getting connected in terms of your heart energy before having sex. Because it's not easy for everybody, either by looking at each other in the eye or touching each other's hearts. Having that intentional emotional connection before trying to be sexual. Also really important to have a better sexual connection. And I just want to say that when those things are in alignment, when you're with someone with whom you feel safe and with whom there is some kind of sweet connection, that the pleasure is way more enormous than rage. It's just a whole different level of experience. It takes you out of, okay, it felt good, you know, and two like, oh my God, I've had a transformative spiritual experience. I mean, it really gets you to that level of I'm no longer just me and boundaries dissolve. And I feel a sense of, you know, I'm oxy, poetical, but I mean, it really does. And what does that. Is that connection between the heart and the sexual energy, the sexual self, the sexual energy. We talk about this a lot. Doesn't have a moral quality. It just is. And it can be expressed in many ways. So it can be expressed in a degrading and insulting and difficult way, or it can be expressed in a really heartful and kind and connecting way.

The metaphor that the Taoists use is like, sexual energy is like fire. It can cook your food or it can burn your house down. So it's like it is just what it is. And I think, you know, just.

And you gotta be a lion tamer. That's kind of what we're talking about. How do you love it, acknowledge it, allow it to be, but yet, you know, have enough boundaries around it that it serves for the good in your life.

Right, exactly. And I think just to pick up on what you were saying about the. I mean, I think like pornographic sex is kind of like this. It's like this little kind of, you know, it's wonderful and fun for. In its own way. But there's this sexual experience which is just like hugely greater and more possible. And we're not necessarily kind of just talking about gazing into each other's eyes and holding each other's hands and having candlelights and lotus flowers. It doesn't have to be some kind of touchy feely Californian experience. This can be hard sex. It can be all sorts of. Look like all sorts of things. But it's just when you put it in a container of the kind of emotional intimacy and connection that is possible when you are connecting your, you know, the way the Daoists talk about it, there are three energetic centers. You know, there's your sexual center, there's your kind of physical heart center. You know, kind of the three Tantians as they talk about them. And there's one at the genitals, one at your heart, and one kind of at your head or your crown. And when all three of those. So you could think about them as kind of body emotions as well as kind of spirituality. And when all three of those things are connecting, it's just like the intensity is much greater because the energy is much greater. So if you're connecting genital to genital, that's one thing. If you're connecting genital and heart and soul, I mean, hugely different experience, right?

And it's not a technical thing, right? I mean, we do talk about technical things in the book because really there are people who don't know how to have sex because nobody instructs us. Thank you very much. I think it's a big problem. But you know, they don't know how to touch themselves. They don't know how to touch their partner. So we do talk about that. But what we're talking about goes beyond what is physically happening in the room. It's an experience of, of how the energy is moving through you and beyond you in that experience that completely transports it to a whole other level.

Right. And I think to come back to the point you were saying before about some of this, like if you keep your kind of relationship simmering, then you are much more likely to be able to have that kind of experience relatively quickly. We talk about multi. We had twins and another child.

So it's like right after medical resume.

You know, it's like multigasmic cookies are a specialty. Right? You gotta be able to, you know, we're all busy. You know, people don't have tons of time to be spending hours and hours just gazing into each other's eyes most of the time. So. But if you have that kind of intimacy and connection and energetically, then, you know, you're basically, you can have that connection very quickly the second.

So I'm curious because as you said that you have three children, you have busy lives because this is usually, you know, people get into this and they're like, oh, I need to have, you know, a long, luxurious three hour making love session. You're like, I don't have that. I'd love to hear you talk about that a little bit more. And then also, how has this process been for you guys? You guys have been married for 25 years. And because I know a lot of people, when they get into something and they don't have, have that peak experience that they give up on it. So how long does it take for somebody to kind of get to this experience? And what are your recommendations for like a practice of developing this?

Great question. So I would say that like anything for us, it takes really kind of no time because it's completely now integrated into our lives. But in the beginning that is not going to be the case because you have to get the basics first. So I would say self cultivation or self pleasuring is hugely helpful and important and that is how you kind of get the hang of things. How do I feel my sexual energy? How do I move it in my body? Because we're really teaching a meditation practice.

Like a sexual spiritual practice.

Right.

How do you sense spiritual energy and how do you move it within your body for your own enjoyment and your own health? So that practice I teach people in the weekend, it's not really rocket science. It's something that your body already knows how to do. It's just a matter of recognizing it and then pulling that into the sexual experience is just a matter of playing around with it. And we think having a sense of humor is really important because it's going to be lots of times where it doesn't quite work, do we? And that's okay, you just try again next time. But man, that's one of those things that is a little bit like riding a bicycle.

Right?

You waver and you waver and waver and then boom, you get it and you never lose it.

And the other thing is, it's not just about becoming multi orgasmic for men or for women. It's not super. Those are benefits and perks. But it's not, it's not about the goal, it's about the process.

Right.

It's about sharing energy.

Yeah. And so like when you say, how long does it take? I mean, you get benefits from it the minute you start it. Right. And you know, how long it takes really depends on how much you get to practice how in touch you are with your body. As Rachel's talking about. You don't have to do the solo cultivation practice as Rachel's saying. It certainly helps, but to learn it, to learn it. But ultimately the. But I think the real question is it comes back to this issue that we were talking about before, which is if you have that, you can have multi orgasmic quickies. You can have. We are all so busy. You can have high levels of intensity and pleasure if you're already connected with your sexuality and if you have a kind of trusting, connected, energetically vibrant relationship with your partner, if you don't have that, then obviously it takes time to cultivate that and develop that like it would with anything.

Sorry. And I just want to say that we have lots of friends and teachers within the community who are single and who are dating and that I think it's entirely possible to have an agreed upon sexual experience with someone with a sweet with trots and with a sweet emotional connection that is also really fulfilling. It doesn't have to be. I've been with this person for decades. It really can be. It's all about how you show up in your communication and who's with you.

I think to answer your other question, which is about longevity in a relationship. So I think we're so focused on the thrill of the new in our culture and that kind of loses period of romance and infatuation and stimulation and you know, all of that oxytocin, all sorts of fun stuff kind of. It's right, it's like it is a drug. It's a drug, right.

And it also clouds your thinking, Right, Exactly.

So, you know, that's great and that's a really powerful and wonderful part of intimacy and romance. But I think, I think what's wonderful about this practice, these practices came out of what were called pillow books that were given to couples in ancient China and the Daoist tradition to actually. It's like how to be married. It's like how to keep your marriage juicy over time and how to be married. Wouldn't that be great if we got that? Because I think what naturally happens after the first three to six months is all of those kind of infatuation hormones are going down like this.

We're starting to actually work on process, right?

So if you actually have a sexual process that is about increasing intimacy, increasing growth and connection and passion and you are able to develop a sustaining practice that do that kind of juice of those early romance constantly. So, you know, I mean, we are constantly get like, you know, people look at us like what, you guys have been married? You know, you don't look like an old haggard married couple. You know, you might be on the date, you know. But I do think that these practices really do just. That kind of connected sexual intimacy can really create a kind of vitality in a relationship that is able to sustain for a long, long time. And really, as Rachel said, couples in her practice, her medical practice, who are in their 70s and 80s and still have that glow, right? We all know the glow. But that glow, you got to feed the glow.

Listen, there's an 85 year old woman in my practice who is dating a younger man. They're both my patients. He's in his late 70s, a younger man. You know, I go to church and I just, I don't know what happens when I've always been like, this guy's just flocked me. And she's this very spiritual, very sweet, you know, 85 year old woman, but she's got that, she's, you know, she's in her body. She's in her body and she's got this great sex life. And I'm just saying it's not about the measurements of your physical being.

Right.

It's about how you are. It's about how who you are shines through your face and your eyes. That makes you attractive in that way.

I think one thing it's making me think of is one of the physicians that I work with in my literary agency is this amazing running doctor called named Mark Cucuzello. And he was just telling me that the research suggests that our physical ability actually can increase throughout our entire life until we're about 70. 70. At 70, it starts to go down a little, but it's not like this. It's like this. Right. But so many of us are under the mindset that we peak in our 20s, and then somehow it's all a kind of slippery slope to unhealthiness, lack of fitness, lowered sexual desire. And I think that that model of realizing that our pleasure and our fitness and our aliveness can increase throughout the vast majority of our life is just such a liberating and empowering understanding of how we can live our lives.

Right. And especially with sex, I would say even more so than with fitness, because in my experience, most women come into their full pleasure in their 30s, sometimes their 40s, and some of my patients in their 60s. So at least my experience of women and sexuality is that, wow, it can get a lot better later in life.

I'm in my 30s, and I feel like early on, you do it for other people. Like your sexuality, you're doing it for other people. You want to look good. Am I doing it right? You might still have orgasms and it'd be great. But then you kind of like, okay, I want to do this for me.

I'm over that. I need this right now. Right, exactly. So that's a woman in her 30s. Right. Wait a minute.

And it's also like, you were talking about the self cultivation. I love that you brought that up too, because I started that in, like my 20s. You know, I got my vibrator and all that stuff. And. But it's still. And I know a lot of people that women that I talk to and men, I don't know if had the same issue. But you're like, you kind of feel a little weird. You're like, I'm by myself doing, like, what is it? So can you talk a little bit about the self cultivation and like, how do we own it more? Yes.

So a couple of things. So one is that if you're in a partnered relationship and you self cultivate, statistics are you have more partnered sex. So one of the things that happens is partners think, oh, you're substituting for me with little. With wand of the wand. And it's not true. It's actually the case that you have more sex with your partner if you self.

As long as it's Wanda and I Wally.

So there's that. And then the other thing I would say, because I am getting women after menopause to start self cultivating or not in relation because it maintains the tissues of the pelvic area beautifully. And if you're not sexually active, they actually get thin and dry. So this is a spiritual practice.

This is a health issue.

It is a health practice. It really is. And think about all the benefits that we were talking about having sex in partnership and how it makes you more patient. I mean, it makes you happier. Right? So I'm constantly looking for ways to avoid Prozac in my practice. Not that I don't prescribe it when needed, but I'd way prefer that people exercise and eat well and sex is a piece of that. So I am not above saying you really should consider self cultivation because the hormones that are released are actually going to improve your mood regularly. So this is like, it's like a health spa experience for the body. Right? Pleasure is actually good for you. It does all kinds of good things for you. So I would say it improves your partnership and your sex with your partner if you have one. If you don't have one, it helps maintain your health and well being. And also so it's easy for some people to just cut sex out. Boom. I'm not with a partner, so I'm not going to think about sex. So that part of me is dead the moment, you know, sleeping in the cave. And that is not a very attractive way to find yourself in a new relationship that if you keep that alive in you, first of all, it feels better because it's more balanced because a sexually active person is a sexually active person whether they're with a partner or not. And then. And it also creates in you that aliveness that's going to attract to you somebody who is interested in that.

And you know, you asked about the kind of, the practical side of it. I think there's a difference between getting off, which also has its place and making love to yourself and actually kind of having some intentionality and instinct. Okay, well, the point I was going to say, which Rachel's going to disagree with is that, I mean, I think leads back to some of that kind of pornographic perspective versus the intimacy perspective, which is you can, you know that when you ask, I think about you Know, people feel weird often in terms of solo cultivation. And some of that's because it is in that kind of getting off mentality and realizing that it's actually about being intimate with yourself and whether, you know that, you know, taking that intentionality and that, you know, you're in, you know, just like you. Whether you, when you're meditating, that you're actually learning to be intimate with yourself and understanding your own experience, whether that's a sexual experience or spiritual experience or cognitive experience. All of that is about a level of self knowledge, self understanding and self exploration. So. So point, counterpoint. Yes.

I can't really disagree with that because that was so beautifully inspired.

Definitely beautiful. Inspiring.

She says.

Yes.

And I just want to say, and maybe this is female consciousness, it's slightly different from male consciousness, but that there's just nothing wrong with just getting off.

I think that sounds like male consciousness. I think I'm skewing on the feminine side of this conversation than you are all over place.

I just want to be an advocate for, you know, crazy sexy, whatever makes you spin, you know, it's okay, you know. And I think fantasy is hugely important. I mean, I think a lot of people feel bad about their sexual fantasies. And your sexual fantasies can be anything. It could be something that you completely disagree with in your conscious life, and that's okay. It's shadow material. Right. It's the things that we pull out of our unconscious that we aren't making public because we don't want them to be public, but it's all right. And I think that the more accepting people can be of those aspects of themselves and even play those out in fantasy and self cultivation or in hardened or in partnered sex, that that's fine. You know, that there's a place for that and that there's a whole huge release that comes with that kind of self acceptance that I think is important.

Yeah. Awesome.

I love that you brought the intimate. You're bringing just the intimacy to ourselves, like with the meditation you said. And then also it's great. Get your rocks off. Like, just cultivate, like for so many of us, it's like just cultivate it any way that you can. Cultivate it and just keep it going and whatever works. But I love that it's a very like a relationship with yourself. It's not this separate, which you've talked about numerous times. It's not this separate thing that you put over in the bedroom and you never ever explore it and you only do it with a partner. So I love that you're just bringing it to like it's life. It is. Life energy.

Is actually taking the judgment out of the bedroom. And, you know, we're not trying to put in, you know, with these, with the multi orgasmic books and the work, you know, a new value of how you need to make love. You know, it's not about that. It's about finding some ancient and modern tools to cultivate your sexual energy, to experience more pleasure, to have more intimacy, and to have more, you know, personal satisfaction and joy in your life. And that can look like a lot of things. However, a person, how that fits in with, you know, in an individual's life and in a couple's life. Awesome.

Fantastic. Well, I love you guys. And everyone that's watching, they can just see. You guys are glowing. You must be having a lot of sex.

No one wants to stop you.

So can you just share with our listeners where they can learn more about you and where they can buy your books and just anything that you want to share, maybe your program, whatever you want to share, just how they can connect with you more?

Sure. So the Multiorgasmic man, the Multiorgasmic Woman, and the Multiorgasmic Couple are available at any bookstore. They're online, they're in like 30 languages. So I wrote the books for. I started writing the books for my friends. And as people joke, now we have a lot of friends around the world. And then also, if people are interested in a more personal experience, they can also sign up for the Multi Orgasmic man and the Multi Orgasmic Woman online courses, which are these trainings with our dear friends and fellow teachers, Saul and Saida, who are teaching these practices in a very powerful, direct way.

And that is multiyeargasmicwoman.com, multiorgassic or multi orgasmic man.

Right, exactly.

And then I have a practice. I'm a family practice doctor who does integrative medicine. And My website is santacruzintegrativemedicine.net and I see patients privately. I actually work with people around sexuality, both individuals and couples. People are interested. And then I do teach. And any teaching idea would be up on that site.

Yeah. And Rachel is amazing healer as well. Amyla is an amazing teacher. So she's the doc that all the docs go to see.

Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't want to go to her? She's talented, she's brilliant, she's gorgeous. She talks about sex, self cultivation. I think that you are the best doctor to go to.

I love what I do, I love what I. I do.

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.

Take care. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mama Goddess. Sending you lots of love and blessings. If you'd like to connect more, go to mamagoddess.com until next time. Keep rocking it and have an awesome day.