Reclaiming Your Sexual Power After 40 with Susan Bratton

Alright, we're talking sex, and I have the best person on the planet to talk sex with, and it is my longtime buddy Susan Bratton.

Welcome. Hey, JJ Virgin, it's great to be back. Yeah, yeah, we did it. We did a show quite a few years ago, so it's nice to always see you again, and thank you for having me to talk about women's pleasure because we need it more than ever.

Yes, we do. And you know, I feel like I literally have friends that is going to make you cringe or cry. I'm not sure which one. They're like, I'm just, you know, sex is just not a thing for me anymore. Yeah. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? But there is kind of this whole thing that like, oh, we're older, like that's off the table. Where'd that come from? What's going on?

I think it comes from a couple of things. And number one, I would say the women listening or watching us on YouTube are still fighting for their sexuality. Because the women who gave up aren't even going to tune into this episode. So I always like to speak to the people who are fighting to keep their sex life alive, and they want to keep getting better and having more pleasure, and they're bought into the concept. So it's, it's good to do that because, you know, you can't save everyone, you can't fix everyone. I think that's really an important distinction. And I certainly— my heart certainly breaks for the women who give up their sexuality because it's empowering, confidence-building. But frankly, extending your sex span extends your lifespan, your healthspan. I mean, the benefits of sex are— the list is like Santa's scroll.

Well, let's go through the list, because here's the thing I will tell you. I've always heard of the benefits of sex for men. And, you know, back when I saw clients one-on-one, half my clients were men. And the way I could get them to actually do anything is I'd say, like, I'd tell them how it would impact their erection. They're like, "Okay." You know, but it's clear what the benefits of sex for men are in terms of cardiovascular health, et cetera. But you never hear it for women. I think I've heard, "Oh, it's good for your skin." I'm like, "Okay." So what are some of those benefits? And maybe those of you listening who have that friend who's checked out you can then just as a girlfriend share this with them. So, we could do it from a health perspective first if the other part doesn't get it.

Yeah, and it's interesting because the health perspective is good, but if I just— like when I speak from the stage and if I started out with why sex is good for you, a lot of people would kind of tune out because if they're struggling to have passionate intimacy, pleasurable connection, or orgasmic, you know, pleasure with a partner or even themselves. And I tell them sex is good for them. It feels so prescriptive. They're like, but— so, so I promise that what I'll do is I'll also talk about how to have great sex for the rest of your life, not just why you should do it. Because everyone can tell us to eat our vegetables, and not everybody does, right?

And then how do you make that broccoli not taste like broccoli? Okay, here we go.

Yeah, so if you think about all of the benefits— and here's another distinction too, there's a couple of distinctions I want to make, because I think these are really important level sets when you're talking to women. One is that when I say the word sex, I don't just mean intercourse. That's very— that's what men are focused on. And so this notion of there's foreplay and sex, and sex means intercourse, and so all we're doing when we get together is we're driving to intercourse— what happens is, and this is why a lot of women give up their sexuality, um, it goes too fast. They're rushed because men have such fast-acting hemodynamics. There's your erectile function and why you should exercise. And women are much slower to arousal. We're more responsive in our arousal. It takes us time. We have to be relaxed. Uh, we're very different living in a female body than a male body, and everything we see is oriented toward men. And, and so the problem is that we think there's something wrong with us, or we're broken, or we can't do it. So that's number one. What I'm really talking about is hugging and kissing and foot rubs and back rubs and yoni massages, which I'd like to talk more about. So if you'll parking lot that—

okay, well, parking lot the yoni massage.

Parking lot the yoni massage. Um, uh, yoni massage, oral pleasuring, intercourse, playing with toys, which I call sex tools, not toys, because I'm only kind of playing around. Um, I think that those, those are good distinctions, is that what I'm really talking about is deeply relaxing, very heart-connected pleasure. So that's one thing. And number two is that sex, to me, in my perspective, needs to be orgasmic. And a lot of women struggle with orgasm. So a lot of my peers in the sexpert world, they say, hey, don't focus on orgasm. It's, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's You don't have to do it. It's just nice to be good. Your husband's gonna have an orgasm, so why shouldn't you? Because what a lot of people don't understand— this is the wisdom of being in our 60s, JJ Virgin— is that orgasms are simply learned skills. It's the same as learning how to do a particular workout or learning how to cook healthy meals or anything. They're learned skills, and every body works the same, we can all achieve over 20 kinds of orgasmic pleasure. So, yeah, Mama, you can parking lot that one too, because there, there are locations to touch, there are techniques to use, and there are tools that support your orgasmic expansion and your orgasmic cross-training. And it's the orgasm that is a big part of why extending your sex span extends your health span and why sex can keep getting better as you age. For me personally, and I'll bet you're the same, I'm having the best sex of my life in my 60s.

Yes, no question. Absolutely. Hands down. Definitely. It's like I keep going, are you— where did— where are you learning this, Tim? Like, what have you been doing?

How—

I don't care wherever you learned it, it's great because like whatever you're doing, keep Keep going.

And that's— no, that's the variety that keeps sex exciting, is learning new things for sure. So sex is good for you. And often, if you look at studies from around the world, they show that people who can continue to have— and I'm going to just call it passionate lovemaking instead of sex, um, because I just like to explain— expand that construct of your thinking around what sex is, because so much of us have just had the grab a boob and stick it in kind of sex, which is not great for us women. Compared to what we're looking for. And so, studies around the world have shown that people live 10 years longer, look 10 years younger, and die a heck of a lot happier when they keep having passionate lovemaking throughout their lifespan. So, it's good for us. Why is it good for us? Simple. There's a cascade of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, feel-good. There's a creation of oxytocin, which— one of my favorite things about oxytocin is not the bond to my partner or the love expansion that I feel or the, the skin health and the hair health and all of those things. It's that I'm actually less annoyed by people. So if you want to just like be generally less annoyed by people, up your oxytocin. It's also an antidote to cortisol. So when you're highly stressed, oxytocin is the thing that brings you back to center or even into more feelings of awe, feelings of connection, feelings of joy.

Of course, when you're highly stressed, like sex is not usually on my playbook when I'm highly stressed.

It is harder to get there but even more worth it, and it's the relaxation that happens when you begin to slow down and get out of your head and into your heart that helps generate that oxytocin. Loosen and that touch that helps. The other big thing that sex does is— and orgasms, they do— they're a major vascular event. They're pushing blood out to the edges, which is what you want to do to keep your skin good, keep your muscles strong, keep from having edema, your rings too tight, your ankles swelling, your feet swelling, you know, all of these things. It's a vascular event, especially oxygenating your brain. The more kinds of orgasms you learn to have over the years, the more locations in your brain get oxygenated. So, it's that orgasm before bed, all that nice blood flow, then you're calm, you have a really deep sleep. It's a really nice sleep supporter. In addition, it's fantastic for immune function. It even generates— it improves IGF and it releases natural killer cells. Which are the little Pac-Mans that go and eat all the dead cells and the zombie cells. It's an— it's like autophagy.

It's like—

it's like a senolytic. It's a senolytic. An orgasm is a senolytic. Who knew?

I'm just still trying to figure out what these 20 different types of orgasms are.

I'm like, let's— all right, well, let's talk about that.

So like, that completely threw me for a loop. I didn't have that. I did a bunch of research and coming into this, or what are all the things I want to know? And then you immediately dropped that, and I'm like, okay, tell me more.

Well, and being an overachiever like you are, you're going to be like, let me get my list. Tim, here's the list, let's go! I want to have all the orgasms. I've tried all but one, by the way.

He will be thrilled about this.

So, you know, so basically there is, like I said, with orgasms there are— and remember, every one of these you can learn how to do. I've, I, I started out being a sexpert because I wasn't having orgasms and it was ruining my marriage because I didn't want to have sex with my Tim. And so we were determined.

Had you never had orgasms?

I could have an orgasm from a vibrator on my clitoris, but I could never have an orgasm from intercourse. And I had intercourse with him for a dozen years and I was just like giving him mercy sex, avoiding him for sex, and he was miserable and I felt bad and guilty. And, you know, so I really understand how women feel when they feel like there's something— we figured there was something wrong with me. 'Cause I couldn't, no, there was nothing. We didn't know what we were doing. It's the blind leading the blind behind closed doors.

Well, I mean, it's not something that's really ever talked about. Like, you look at the things that we're taught in school and they're not the most useful things. Like, we need to know how to balance our budget, how to feed ourselves, exercise, great sex and relationships. We learn none of these things.

Yes, thank God I'm here and I can help. And it's my joy to do so. So let's talk about the kinds of orgasms. There are locations to touch. So you've heard of erogenous zones, and erogenous zones are all kinds of places on your body that can give you orgasmic pleasure, that can actually create an orgasmic response. Of course, there's the clitoral structure, there's the vagina, there's the G-spot, you know, there's all these places. There's breast and nipplegasms, there's kissinggasms, there's Footgasms, there's coregasms, there's a lot of erogenous locations on our body that when stimulated elicit orgasmic response. And when I talk about orgasmic cross-training, often what you can do— and this is what I did to learn how to orgasm from intercourse— I actually gave myself clitoral stimulation while in penetration and started being able to do it without even stimulating the tip of my clitoris. Because one of the things that women don't understand— let me see if I have a little thing here. Do I have a little thing here? Usually I have a banana around here somewhere. Um, but you can imagine a banana. A banana looks like a penis. And if you think about your, your partner, your male partner, if you're lucky enough to have one, if you want one, he— about half of his penis sticks out of his body. Half of it, there's like this buried shaft that goes in and down toward his testicles. If you took that whole thing out, it's basically shaped like a banana. If you peel the banana, most of the banana is fruit. That's the spongy erectile tissue that's in the penis. If I took that out and laid that banana's worth of erectile tissue on my hand and I put it on a scale and then I took the erectile tissue in all the nooks and crannies of the vulva and out and put it in the other hand, they'd weigh the same. Wow! Yes, we have a penis's worth, and it's double what you see sticking out. We have that much erectile tissue wrapped around the vaginal cavern. It comes to a point like a teardrop at the top of the clitoral structure, but that's just, as many people have said, the tip of the iceberg. It's all buried pleasure. The thing is that men have very fast-acting erectile function. They basically see a us and go, "Boink! I'm ready to go." They're very lucky with that fast hemodynamics, with those long tubes that fill up very quickly and lock off for an erection. But for us as women, we've got nooks and crannies. We've got the clitoral structures with its arms and its legs and its shaft and its glands, and we have the G-spot, which is actually like a long pool noodle, like a tube of spongy tissue that runs along the roof of the vagina. We have the perineal sponge, which is between the bottom of the vagina and the rectum. That's this big fluffy bit of tissue. The vagina is completely wrapped with the legs, the vestibular bulbs under the pubic hair. It's completely wrapped. The thing is that it takes about 20 to 30 minutes, if you're stressed, 20 if you're not, for it to get engorged, for us to create our clitoral erectile function. And so why is this so important? You know, you've heard the biggest sex organ is the brain, right? Mm-hmm. But why is it dirty talk? Is it— what is it? Is it imagining? Is it fantasy? It's not. The reason that it's the biggest sex organ is because it processes the sensation we're feeling. And so when we have a vulva that has no engorgement, no blood flow, and it's small and flaccid, it's tiny. But when it gets filled with blood, it expands and it has more surface area that when stimulated sends way more signals to our brain, our biggest sex organ. And so what happens is that we're rushed to sex. We're stressed out. We're in our estrogen monkey mind. We've got our attention on a million things. We're, we're putting ourselves last. And when we finally land in bed, it's like our husbands are, let's go. And we never even achieve full erectile function. We never even achieve our pleasure potential. Not only that, but due to shame and lack of education about our genitals and all kinds of things, We never really can feel as much pleasure initially. Often when you would touch a woman in various places on her genital systems, on her vulvo-vaginal areas, it would feel— she would say, "Oh, that doesn't feel good," or "It hurts, I don't like it," or "I feel ashamed if you touch me there," or "It's numb, I don't feel a thing when you touch me there." And that's because it's never been lovingly touched with enough attention to be able to register as pleasure in the brain. So the cross-training really is about getting enough touch and time to get to the engorgement that's sending these massive parallel processing signals to the brain that's like, whoa, that feels great! So you can have orgasms.. So, for the women who are struggling to even achieve one orgasm or feel like, "Oh, I can't use a toy. I'll be reliant on it and then I won't be able to have real sex," or all these things we tell ourselves, sex toys actually— and there's 8 different kinds that stimulate different parts of our system— using them actually activates all that tissue so that when we're with a partner, We can incorporate toys or not, and it doesn't matter because we got the signals connected to our brain and we had the time to fill it up so we get our lady boners.

So that whole myth out there that you shouldn't use those things because you're gonna get reliant on them and then you won't be—

that's the opposite, actually. They expand your orgasmic potential. They activate the tissue. They help with engorgement. And the other thing that's important too is that a lot of women think, oh, it's my hormones. Hormones. And yeah, for sure, when you lose estrogen, your, your tissue thins. And when your tissue thins— like, your vagina is not a gland, it's not self-lubricating, it's actually lubricating from blood flow. So when the tissue thins, it can't hold as much moisture. And when your nitric oxide function declines as you age, if you're not topping it up with a nitric oxide supplement, you're not eating a lot of leafy greens, you're not getting in your beetroot, uh, you're using antibacterial mouthwashes, you're taking acid blockers, you're killing off your nitric oxide production, which is what pumps the blood down into your pelvic bowl so all that tissue can fill with blood so that it has all that sensation going to your brain. So when that system is broken and your vagina's tissue is thin and your clitoris is atrophying and your labia are disappearing and, and, and you're being rushed for sex, no wonder probably 40% of the women who normally listen to an episode of your show didn't tune in today. Because they literally think there's something wrong with them because they didn't know, oh, I could take a nitric oxide booster, do some estrogen replacement, make my husband take a lot longer, try a few sex toys, and I'd start liking sex again. Yes, mama!

I think just the 20 to 30 minute thing is kind of mind-blowing. Yeah, it's like, why did they make this? Like, like, why did the universe make us this way? It's like such a disconnect.

So we can conceive when we're Oh, it's evolutionary. We— and you know, here's another interesting thing that you, you said it about how your partner continues to bring you new ideas in the bedroom, and that's very good because that keeps it exciting and you trust him. So your sex life keeps getting better because desire is actually— it requires— and I go back to my scales again. It goes back to having an equal amount of trust and safety with variety and novelty to get your desire going. You can— I mean, yes, of course, sometimes when you first, you know, you have a wild romance with someone or it's new relationship energy and you don't need as much time or it's all novel. That's, that's novelty taking over right there, right?

That, that lasts, what, 3 months and then that's done?

Yeah, 4 months to 4 years before the love chemicals dissipate. And you better be working on your sex life bucket list, which of course I'm sure you have.

Well, now I will. I've never even thought of a sex life bucket list before this. You know, I would love to go back to stress because I do think this is a big one for every woman ever who's like like having sex with their partners, doing her to-do list at the same time. Yeah, not that I've ever done it, but I'm speaking for a friend. Um, like, I, I think there is that transition. Like, you think of men, and I think they do a really good job of transitioning from I'm in work mode to I'm home mode. And especially, like, you know, I work out of the house, but I've never— like, even if you're not working out of the house you know, in the house, you're working, you know, somewhere else, you still come home into your second job. So there's always stuff. And I think it's a challenge for women to go from that place of all the things you have to do to this that men seem to do a far better job at. Any, any tips there?

Yeah, well, testosterone— they're testosterone dominant and we're estrogen dominant, and testosterone is very single-minded. It's very goal-oriented. And they have that quick turn-on. You know, a healthy, a healthy partner, he's having nighttime erections, he's waking up with morning wood, he's masturbating every day, he's thinking about and in his sexuality much more easily. It's, it's like a quick, it's like a quick easy switch. It's a, it's a fast switch for him. Where for us, we're, because we're estrogen dominant, estrogen is a molecule of safety. Estrogen as a hormone has a lot of roles in our body. More and more and more we are discovering. And one of the interesting things about estrogen is that it's why we're such good multitaskers. You know how you cannot ask your husband to do anything when he's already doing something? He's like, babe, babe, I'm concentrating. You know what I mean? It's really hard. They don't like to be interrupted because they're You know, single-minded, full speed ahead, and they've got their prow sticking out, you know. And the thing for us is that we have to keep our eye on everything because as women, frankly, we don't walk safely in this world. We have to have our reticular activation system up scanning all the time for danger because we're the prey, not the predator. And so that's built into us. And so it makes us great multitaskers, but it also makes it harder for us to settle. So because passionate lovemaking is a mindfulness practice, even for me now, JJ Virgin, I'm really comfortable in the bedroom, very experienced. I've had lots and lots of experiences. It's what I do for a living. I'm quite good at it. And even for me, I have to get in there. I need to talk to my husband, connect with him. I need a foot rub. I need a yoni massage. I just still to this day have to say to myself, oh, you're taking time today, you're stressed out. Okay, focus on sensation, bring your heart in, stay present, connect with your heart, uh, and bring myself back sometimes repeatedly because I know that my body will catch up and take over for my mind. So I, I have to practice patience, settling, and getting out of flight and fright and into calm and turn on. And it is a process. But it gets easier the more that you do it. And once you realize that it's not you and there's nothing wrong with you and that that's just how we're wired, and once our partner realizes that's how we're wired— like, my Tim, I'm so lucky because we, you know, it's funny, we— this will be 34 years this year we've been, we've been married. And when we were first married, we, we had a hashtag before there were hashtags. We called ourselves Team Sweetie. Team Sweetie. It was so cute. We have it like concrete at our houses and things. It was just this goofy little thing where we always felt like we were on the same team. And I've loved that about our relationship, and that carries into the bedroom for us, where I know that he's not going to rush me, that he knows what it takes, and that he's just not in a hurry. And He has no desired outcome, and 90% of the time when we lay down together and we relax and we let things go and we connect our hearts and we begin full-body touch or whatever we're gonna do— kissing, breast play, yoni massage— 9 times out of 10, I get to even more, wanting more. Sometimes it takes me a long time, and I just practice self-love and patience. So I think a big part of women understanding that there's nothing wrong with us and we need to be gentle with ourselves and allow our bodies what they need to get there and have the support of our partner to know that that's what's going on, and then they begin to support us in that. It is such a game changer. The other thing that I think is really important is, and this is kind of one of my, I would, I would say non-negotiables. One is that I give myself the time to get turned on. I never fake anything. I never pressure myself, and I know I'll get there. The second one is that if we're doing something and it's not feeling great to me, We stop. His feelings don't get hurt. He understands that we women live in a moon cycle body even after menopause. Just because we're not menstruating doesn't mean we still don't run with the moon. We do. We ebb and we flow even if we're not physically flowing. And so I think it's really important to understand that— for your partner to understand how different we are., and if we don't even know, how could they know? And so, once you begin that process of education of we're in this together, we're team sweetie, we're gonna do whatever my body needs to get where he wants to go, and I want to go with him because I'm always glad— you know how if you didn't want to have sex and you ended up getting going, and then at the end you're like, God, I love to have sex. How come it's so hard for me to get going? Like, why is that? You know, it's like you have to drag yourself kicking and screaming. And then when you're done, you're like, I love it.

Yeah. But just that knowing that 20 to 30 minutes.

I know.

I was like, oh, because, yeah, you're right. Like, guys are like, let's go. We're like, well, you know, you're not—

we're not ready. We're not there yet. So we— I know he can get me there. I know we're dragging me there together, you know.

What about someone who is— because you're very confident and in your body. But what about some of the women that may be a little self-conscious? They're like, "Mm." Any advice for them?

Yes. So, this is very, very common. It's a part of being feminine as well. One of the other little tricky dick things that estrogen does is it makes us judgy. We are so judgy.

And worse with ourselves. We're the worst judges of all.

Oh my butt looks fat! My boobs are sagging! How's my— you know? On and on and on all the time. Testosterone, on the other hand, has rose-colored goggles. I mean it's like "you look good to me babe!" You look hot! They picked us because they think we look great right? They just like our look. And again mindfulness practice. You have to change the radio station in your brain. To K-L-U-V, and you've just got to practice self-love. You are beautiful. You are worthy. There's nothing wrong with you. This is what the female form looks like. It isn't gonna necessarily get any better. It might get a little worse, though not terribly worse. Even in your 80s and 90s, if you've taken good care of yourself, you've kept your muscles strong, and you've eaten well and nurtured your body through your life and had good sex, you're gonna look about the same. It's not gonna be like straight down, so you'll always be beautiful. And I think that's a very important thing. The other component is, and I hear this all the time, I don't know what I want. I just know what I'm getting isn't it. Like, my sex life is not serving me, but I don't know what it is. I, I just, I sometimes I don't even know what I want. So what I'm You know, like I just do the things we do because I don't have a better idea. And that's where it's very important to— there's this one of our senses is called interoception, and that's the knowing how we're feeling inside ourselves. What's going on? Oh, I'm a little bloated or gassy, or oh, my tummy hurts, or oh, I've got a little sore throat or whatever. I stubbed, you know, I've got a blister on my foot. That's interoception. And the thing is that you're also feeling that in your yoni. And I've said yoni a few times on the show, but not all women know what that word is. It's a word that I like instead of like vagina or vulva or these more anatomical terms, because the vagina is the internal cavern, the vulva is the external face of our genital structure. But yoni is a tantric lovemaking word that means the portal, the portal to pleasure, the portal to the divine, the portal to your power, the portal to your confidence, the portal to your passion, your creativity. It resides in our yoni, and it's spelled Y-O-N-I. And the male penis and testicles, that's called the lingam, which I also like. And so when I say yoni, what I'm really talking about is all of the genital structures and the erectile tissue and all the things, plus that pleasure, that spirituality, that connection to ourself and to others, the love, all of those things that are in our yoni. And the piece that I think that we struggle with is that We're not listening to her. She has lips, by the way. They just don't talk. But she is talking to you through your interoception. So you know enough often to be like, "Ooh, it feels dry. Ooh, that's scratchy. That's too hard. That's not hard enough. I'm done. I want more." You know, she's saying things. And so the best way to really— you know, what I do for a living is I write passionate love lovemaking techniques, and I write bedroom erotic adventures and fun ideas that you can do together with your partner and solo to expand your sexual pleasure, to extend your sex span. But everything that I write sits on the foundation of bedroom communication, and there's a technique that I have called the Sexual Soulmate Pact. Like an Agreement. And you'll drop this in the notes, I know. It's at SexualSoulMatePact.com.

Yeah, we're gonna put everything at JJVirgin.com/Bratton. So we're gonna have a couple— we'll have a bunch of your stuff.

Thank you. Okay, that is a great download. It's a little PDF, it's free, it's a little PDF, and it comes out of one of my best-selling books, Sexual Soulmates: The Six Essentials for Connected Sex. For decades, people have been coming to me, what do I do about this? What do I do about that? Try this. I say, try this, try that. And these are my six 6 things that make sex transform from just having sex into making love. And the foundational one to me is the Sexual Soulmate Pact, which gets over the problems of, I don't know what I want, I just know what I'm getting, isn't it? If I give my partner feedback, they emotionally collapse, they take it personally, they think they did something wrong, so I just keep my mouth shut. Um, it really gets over that and it moves into What men want and what women want. What men want is to feel like winners. They do not like to be losers. They want to win and they need your respect. And what the Sexual Soulmate Pact does for women is that it helps her feel encouraged, appreciated, and adored. And we're different in And so when you use this technique of the pact, which is you enter into this agreement, there's some rules of engagement, and it helps you and your partner open up those lines of communication. Because once the lines of communication are open, you can say anything you need to say and they can hear it and appreciate that you said it, that now all of a sudden they're winning because they're getting the information that they need instead of feeling like they're losing because they're doing something wrong. That all of a sudden really ignites the passion because now they understand, oh, she's different every day. Ain't no way I could even figure out what she wants every day. She gotta tell me because I don't know. She doesn't even know till it's happening. And I think that's very, very important. Is one of the techniques in that book is reporting in from your animal. We live in an animal body. How much crap did we eat? How was our sleep? Did we have a glass of wine? Did, did we have a stressful day? You know, it's all nutrition, sleep, exercise, all all the pillars of everything that you teach so many people so beautifully. And if that stuff's wonky, it makes it hard and it impacts your body. So, your partner can't know what you need because you don't even know until it's happening in the moment. So, when you can just say whatever you want, "Babe, I'm done. I need to take a break," or "That feels really good," lighter still, "Can you try that, that yoni massage tool on me?" "Can we switch positions?" "Can I take a break? I need some water." "Will you play with my boobs too?" That's all of a sudden he's like, "Yes, baby. Thank you. Fantastic.

Yeah.

How is it now?" Oh, and he's just feeling like he's winning, and then he starts telling you what he wants so you can feel confident that you're the lover that's making him happy too. And it becomes less you're performing or you're just faking it, and it becomes more that you're in deep collaborative connection of ecstatic bliss.

Well, what I'm hearing too is it gets out of— it's so easy in everything we do in our life to get into a rut, from, you know, what you eat to your exercise to your clothes, like everything. We just tend to just do the same thing over and over again. So it sounds like that's the way to break out of that.

Well, I think the Sex Life Bucket List is a really good way to break out of that, and that you can put that link on Sex Life Bucket List. Yeah, the Sex Life Bucket List is 48 erotic playdates that are things you can learn together sexually. I always joke that if sex were a brand, its tagline would be "Sex: There's always something more," because I have not run out of ideas of things that are fun to do, JJ. And my Tim is up for anything. He will try anything. And I'm still like, "Babe, I want to try this thing. I want to do this thing. I have another idea." And I try everything I can hear and do all kinds of stuff to have the experiences. And my husband loves it. And we have so much variety and novelty that we just— we don't— we have our go-tos, don't get me wrong. We've got our— I mean, like, I like to start every lovemaking date with a yoni massage. But the Sex Life Bucket List gives you 48 ideas. You can go through them and mark them A, B, and C. A is, "Oh yeah, that's going on my bucket list. I've always wanted to do that. We talked about doing that, but we didn't, or we tried that once, but I want to do it again and get good at it." B's are, "Well, I wouldn't be on my list, but if you want to do it, I would do it for you or with you." And C's are, "It's not for me." right now. Never say never because you mature and become more confident as you try new things. You expand, you cross-train, you become more orgasmic, you become more confident, you become more patient with yourself, you become a better communicator, and you have more experiences that you can build on. And so the Sex Life Bucket List is a way you too can create your own sex life bucket list so that you can have your A's and you can— now you're like, I can't wait till Thursday, baby, I want to find my G-spot.

So we were just at an event and they had a relationship expert there who was sharing like just things you would do every day, you know, to, to, to have more intimacy and ultimately more connection, etc. One of them was which we haven't done because I was like, ah, anyway, it was like to put a journal on the toilet so that every day you wrote something in there for them and they wrote something. I was like, okay, well, that's— I don't know, for some reason that just didn't like, didn't ring my bell.

That's my social media time.

I don't know, I was like, I don't—

that's what I gotta like all your posts.

I know, it's like, I don't want to associate taking a crap right, with writing something intimate to you. I don't know. Okay, so I'm not crazy on that one because I was like, that just— everything else I was like, okay, but that I was like, you know, I'm not gonna do that. So what about, do you have some things that, that, that you would recommend in there? Not, not in the bathroom.

Yeah, a couple of things that I really like. One is being held. Just being held on the sofa, being held in bed, just nestling into my partner's arms. And so I love that. I love fly-by kisses. So he's walking by and I get a kiss on my cheek because I'm wearing lipstick or whatever, you know, it's just a kiss on my cheek. I like a kiss on my cheek. I like to come out in the morning before I put my clothes on and sit naked in my husband's lap. He really likes that, actually. I do that for him. I like to pet my partner. He likes to be petted like a little puppy. We don't have dogs and cats because we travel a fair amount, and so— and I suppose we could have a little one and carry her along everywhere, but—

but then she'd get petted and he wouldn't.

Exactly. But petting is very nice. And one that I particularly like because I'm a woman, that many women love, is 3 Things I Love About You. And we've been playing that game for 3 decades now. And it's, it's that encouragement and adoration, that verbal appreciation that we crave. And a part of it is, goes back to being estrogen and not walking safe in the world. We need a lot of encouragement. Um, and so it's interesting too, especially with being powerful women, which we both are, we want to be appreciated for how beautiful we are and how accomplished we are. So it's not— if, if our partner was just always saying, oh babe, your butt is hot, you look hot, you know, like that kind of stuff, it would feel like objectification. But if they never said our butt was hot, we'd be like, what, you don't like my butt?

I mean, sometimes I don't. It is so true. I literally had someone who never once told me I was pretty.

Right, you know you're pretty. Uh, but I like to hear it because I work hard to be pretty, right? So what we like is, um, babe, that turkey meatloaf was off the hook delicious. I don't know what you did this time, but it's the best you've ever made, and it's always one of my favorites. With, I love how you brought in that huge deal, that was incredibly clever and everybody won. You're an amazing rainmaker. And God, you were so sexy last night. I loved it when you put lingerie on for me because I know you do it for me. And I love you so much for always giving me what I'm looking for. Boom, you're like, I'm happy! Because we want to be appreciated and adored for everything. We don't want to just be objectified.

Yeah, that's so good. Well, you've tossed out a couple things that you're gifting us, um, and I'm going to put everything at jjvirgin.com/bratton. That's for your last name, so that's B-R-A-T-T-O-N.

Thank you.

And so what all are we putting in there Well, we talked about the Sex Life Bucket List, and we talked about the Sexual Soulmate Pact.

And then I had actually shown up to give you a book called Arousal Secrets.

We want that too.

Yeah, put that in there. Arousal Secrets. Because what I do is I go a little deeper into how you can orgasmically cross-train. I show you every part of your genitals on some illustrations so you understand what all the parts are and how to activate them, how to become confidently, massively multi-orgasmic so you can fuel all of those great benefits of sex that are available to you. So you can really just take your sex life to a whole other level by really understanding the things that no one ever taught you about.

It still blows my mind as I hear you talking about this. I'm like, why on earth were we never taught this?

I know. I, I could explain, but that's a different show. And I want to leave on a high note, not a low note.

Yeah, well, that ends now because everyone's getting all the cool stuff. Yeah, at, at, uh, jjvirgin.com/bratton.

Thank you.

And you of course did not disappoint.

Oh good.

And you just continue to, like, like the learning curve, you're just continuing to learn, expand, explore. Like, I've known you now more than 10 years and you keep, keep bringing more stuff. So how fun. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So good to see you. Thank you so much for having me on the show. You're so wonderful. It's been my pleasure and I look forward to our next meeting.