Bridging Desire Gaps: How to Reignite Intimacy After 50

This week's episode has been sponsored by Oh My Bod, shifting the evolution of pleasure. Hi, this is Suzanne Noble, and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. And today, coming all the way from Western North Carolina, which sounds beautiful, and I know is beautiful because my brother lives in North Carolina, is Suzanne Morgan Taylor, who's a somatic sex therapist. And we have a whole bunch of stuff that we're going to talk about today. But I don't know, for— I suspect for a lot of you, if you've never listened to my podcast before, you might not know what a somatic sex therapist was. Or you might have seen recently Sex, Love and Goop with Gwyneth Paltrow and a somatic sex therapist taking a couple through— I don't know, what would you call it, Suzanne? Like some sort of practice?

It's been a while since I've watched that series because she had several people on that are somatic sexologists and somatic sex therapists. And I want to just say that there's sort of— the word somatic is kind of an umbrella term. So under that you have sort of different flavors of practitioners, and each one might work a little bit differently. I want to say she had a somatic or a sexological bodyworker on one of those episodes. Sexological bodyworkers will do hands-on work with clients for the purpose of education, or in a somatic sex education. That's a little bit different than how I work as a somatic sex therapist. My training actually is in mental health therapy. I have a master's degree in licensed professional counseling, and my specialty is sex therapy. And, um, however, my background is in somatics, which just means that we're using the body and information from the body rather than just being up in the head and talking about it and analyzing and being theoretical. We're actually using information from the body. And so the practices, the things that I incorporate in my sessions will call my couples and my clients to actually pay attention to the sensations, for example, that they're noticing. And in a lot of times, that's really at the root of what's happening. A lot of times when there's, let's say, a difference in sexual desire, which is one of my main areas of expertise, How do we bridge that gap? How do we get back on the same page? I know we're going to dive into that today, but we're really using experience gleaned from our own body responses that then inform the work that we're doing in terms of the therapy. So that's what I do as a somatic sex therapist, which I know sounds a little vague. I'll be happy to give a little more, like, concrete stuff for your audience today on that. But yeah, somatic is a big broad term. And again, it's a great series, I think. And there's several different people she has under that somatic umbrella that come in and do the episodes with her.

Yeah, it's kind of confusing, isn't it, using that word? Because in this, in a similar way to the way tantra, yeah, become this kind of catch-all term to represent so many different interpretations of what tantra is. And sometimes I feel, and I don't know if you get this as well with somatic, sometimes I feel that the meaning of it has been diluted because so many people are using the term that it's like, oh, well, you need to sort of explain a bit more how you use it. Whereas there are other types of practices which are far more just understandable.

Yeah, it's a good point.

I don't—

yeah, it's tough because I don't want to get caught up in what is somatic. It just means soma, just means of or pertaining to the body. Anyone who's using that term in front of their title, so somatic sex therapy, just means that they're incorporating, somehow involving the responses of the body. For some therapists, that might mean touching the body, and it might mean sexual touch. Sexological bodyworkers, somatic sex educators. For someone like myself, a somatic sex therapist, doesn't necessarily involve sexual touch, but it might involve me coaching my couples in how to touch and navigating the domain of touch and how we actually do that. And then getting— it's experiential. I think more than anything, when you hear the word somatic, Just think experiential. And that doesn't mean that I'm having my clients have sex in session. That's not necessarily what I'm doing as a somatic sex therapist, but it means that you're having a real lived experience of the thing that actually is the problem.

Sure.

Sexlessness is the problem. We're going to find the root of it. And many times it can be different things. But let's just say it's related to, I don't know what I want. I don't know what feels good in my body, or, or I have a lot of guilt around allowing myself to ask for what I want. So we're gonna actually poke at that during session and bring that up so that we can start to work with it constructively and in a way where you can learn, choose to have new responses. But the information is coming really from your own, um, your body, so to speak, rather than let me just think about it. Let me think about what I want. Instead, let's access desire. Let's open that pathway to how do we actually do that in an embodied way and in an experiential way. It's different than let's just think about what I might like. Very different aspects of our being that we're working with.

Yeah. And do you find that for couples that are older and perhaps have been in a relationship where the sex is gone, that this particular way of working with couples is really beneficial?

I think extremely beneficial. And most of the clients, couples that I work with are older, are over the age of 50, usually between 35 to 55 and upwards from there. But a lot of my clients are actually in their older years. I think it's a time of life where you have a little more time. You know, if you've had kids, they're grown, perhaps you're in a better spot financially. So, you're not necessarily having to put nose to the grindstone and bring home the bacon. You have more freedom, more opportunity to travel, and more time for sex. And, you know, as women, we don't have that risk of pregnancy anymore if we're postmenopausal. So, I find that it's a wonderful time of life to begin to really dive in. You have the time now and the means and the desire is there. And I think what can be sad is like what you said is sometimes that The patterns have been there for so long that there's really a loss of how do we undo this? And is it even possible to undo it? And what happens when your body changes, your hormones change, maybe you've lost interest in sex? There, there is a solution to this. And I do believe absolutely that going the route of somatic work, learning how to access desire through the body, learning how to find arousal again, really is one of the best pathways. There's absolutely like a psychological aspect. As well that comes into the work that I do, because my background is in psychotherapy. And sometimes the issues are psychological. So, you know, erection challenges with erection, for example, that isn't really necessarily a hormonal thing. That's a blood flow thing. 9 times out of 10, it's usually because of low blood flow. As we get older and we age, what happens is the blood vessels shrink, the nerve endings shrink, everything kind of flattens and shrinks away from the surface of the skin, which is where we experience that direct sensation. And when the blood vessels shrink, there's less blood flow, and therefore you have erection challenges. So it's physiological in that regard, but it can also be psychological. So if there's been a lot of constant rejection, if a man's been repeatedly rejected by his partner over many years, there can sometimes be a fear of initiating or reluctance to initiate, or just forget it, I'm just not going to initiate at all. So we have to look at it holistically. And that, however, even the psychological aspects are embedded in our, in our body, that shutdown, that pulling away, the fear of reaching out and initiating. Those are things that actually exist in the body and that can be accessed in that way and worked with in an experiential way rather than let's just talk about it and go in, in circles about it, like tends to happen in a lot of talk therapy, which is great and it has its place, but it absolutely has its limits. And I think that's where the somatic work really comes in and bridges that gap.

Yeah, and I think what's so interesting about it as well is the fact that often when we think about the erogenous zones, we just think really about the more obvious ones.

Yeah.

And as we age, we can start to expand that buffet beyond those, you know, our nipples and our clit and our penis and all those sorts of places and go where else can we experience pleasure? And I think, you know, one of the reasons why I bought up that Goop segment that I watched, because I just watched a little trailer, was because I think the, the woman in the couple was stroking her partner somewhere along his chest or something.

That one.

Yeah, I remember that went on and he just had this like spontaneous kind of like orgasm and just freaked out. And just went, what the hell was that, right? And I think, I know that there have been some men that, that I'm familiar with who have been seeing, like, somatic body workers and people like that who do hands-on work with them, and have been incredibly surprised and shocked by, by all the places in their body where they can feel sensations, where they can get aroused. And I think that's one of the things that's so exciting exceptional, I think, about the work that people like yourselves do is expanding that repertoire of arousal beyond just what we— well, don't even— let's face it, we don't even learn it.

It's— yeah, we don't learn it. Yeah. Or it's just about genitals. We think of sex just being about genitals, arousal being about genitals. So we're gonna go have sex, we're gonna go straight for the genitals. And that can really be extremely limiting, especially for folks who are wired differently. Number one, you know, we have the different archetypes or blueprints of how our pathway in to turn on our pathway into arousal. They're like arousal maps or pleasure maps. Some people are wired such that if you go straight for the genitals, they shut down. Right? They need more spaciousness or more, you know, the peripheral touch, if touch at all. Some of us are wired in a way where we can become really aroused and orgasmic through no touch at all, through breath, through eye gazing. That's very much what you find a lot of the tantric paths tend to be very wired well for folks who are, you know, more akin to being turned on energetically, for example, or sensually, versus direct sexual touch. So sometimes we make that mistake and just think it's all about go straight for the genitals. You know, there's another piece of this too. So I developed a process called the Pleasure Keys. And this, there's 3 triads, and each triad has sort of a different principle that you work with, which is very practical and very experiential. Second triad of the Pleasure Keys process, the very first part of that is the ability to notice sensation. Can I start to notice what I— what am I able to notice? What's available to me right now in my body? And a lot of times people will have a very hard time with this. They might think, I feel nothing, or I feel numb. I don't feel anything. I'm like, that's awesome, because I know anytime I hear that, there's just a mountain of sensation that's under that numbness. Is almost always a protective mechanism. There's a reason why we have disconnected from our capacity to feel. So noticing when we're able to start to just notice what is, we're not trying to make something happen. So if I'm wanting to expand my potential for pleasure, arousal, orgasm, by let's say, I don't know, say I want my throat to become an orgasmic zone. I'm not starting out going, okay, why am I not having an orgasm? I'm stroking my throat, right? What I'm doing is I'm starting to— let's just start to notice, what am I able to notice as I touch my throat? Can I become really sensitive in this part of my body? Can I just start to pay attention to what sensations are available to me now? And when we do that and we're able to just let it be without it needing to be anything more or anything less than what it is, what the beautiful thing that happens is from there we begin to have the capacity to notice more.

Yeah.

And to notice more subtle sensations. So in the, the episode you spoke about where he was sort of having his orgasm from being touched on his chest, like barely touched. I think there was a lot of energetic touch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really just a function of— he's probably wired energetically, number one. And number two, it's the capacity just to begin to notice. There's the physical thing happening, but under that there's also an energetic sensation often that's happening. And that's just a matter of that skill of being able to pay attention and then to, to surrender into that and to allow that to be, as we say, yes, to that, then more and more and more can come online all the way up to, you know, full-body orgasmic experiences.

And I think one of the interesting things about that episode, but also what I've noticed with— I've experienced all different types of massage, and many years ago, I went to see someone who did incredibly light touches along— very long touches along my body, right? They were just incredibly long strokes. Incredibly light. And it went on for about 90 minutes, right? It was really long. And it was just— it was, um, I'm not sure if it's a Brazilian— it's a bit like Lomi Lomi massage, a bit like where you get that, those long strokes. But this one was incredibly, incredibly light, like barely touching my skin, right? And I remember after, you know, maybe about half an hour or so, my all my skin started to like light up, you know, it was like all the nerve endings and everything just got really alive. And I felt every single stroke of this hand along my body, you know, it was this and it was just a normal massage, not a sexy massage. But it reminded me that we often are used to perhaps quite masculine energy, which can be quite forceful. It can feel quite intense. And when we let in that feminine energy and we do that incredible lightness of touch, it can be so much more exciting, you know. Yeah, we don't give ourselves the time, right?

Well, you're right. Yes, because it takes about, they say, about 11 minutes before we can really drop in and shut off the mental brain. And so if you're like I'm not feeling anything. And it's been like 90 seconds. Well, of course you're not because you're up in your head all the time.

Yeah.

It's going to take some time for that to shut down and go into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is where we experience pleasure, arousal, orgasm, and then those deep states of pleasure, like what you're speaking about, that very light touch. Um, there was something else I was going to say about this. Oh, also, right. And we don't also sometimes know what's on the buffet, like what's even on the menu as far as touch goes. We resort to a lot of times we'll go straight, like I said before, for sexual touch. Let's go straight for genitals or boobs or butt or lips. Or we go straight for sensual touch, which is lovely. You know, your traditional massage, like a Swedish massage, which is that real deli— I love it— that really delicious, sensual kind of touch where there's just no space at all, smooth strokes, or Lomi Lomi massage. I was a massage therapist for 25 years, by the way, so I know all kinds of massage out there. But we tend to forget that there's other types of touch. And so one of the things that I teach my couples in private coaching and at my couples retreats called the Pleasure Keys Retreats, is the 5 types of touch. There's actually 5 styles of touch, and one of them is what you're speaking to, that really light, gentle stroking, that in which is called like energetic touch, or the, the element of air, which is just that soft, like a breeze blowing over the body. Um, and we also have more of the sensual kind of touch, which is what I just said, you know, if you get a massage at on your spine, you're getting a Swedish massage. It's that really lovely, delicious, you know, full contact, no space between. And you can also have touch that's no touch at all— hovering. We don't ever think about that as an option, but man, that can be some of the most orgasmic type of— just to stop, to pause, and just to hold your hand over a body part or over the genitals without even touching.

Yeah.

And then there's more intense kind of touch— pinching, slapping, or very firm touch where there's a lot of pressure used. It's very slow, very firm, very grounding. That might be a type of touch we would use to ground if there's been a lot of activation in the nervous system, a lot of excitement, you want to calm your body down. That really nice firm pressing, like the earth element, that'd be like earth element touch. So there's all these different ways of touching that we just don't even know are an option because No one ever taught us. We just don't know what's on the buffet.

No, absolutely. And so, um, you mentioned that before, that one of the things that you do see quite often is people that come in with different kinds of desires or different, you know, expectations around how often they have sex, or just discrepancies in, in a couple's sexual life. How do you deal with that?

Yeah, that's my number one. Yeah, that's my number one specialty. So clinically, we call that desire discrepancy. Most of the time, how couples will say it is, he's high libido and I'm low libido. And how do we fix this problem? We just want to get back on the same page. That's why I use that term a lot. I've got a whole program actually called Back on the Same Page, like, how do we bridge that gap? And my specialty, because my background really is in women's sexuality, just because of my own journey, my awakening, how I came to even be a sex therapist. I really understand the feminine path, like, and how we get to that shutdown, how that tends to happen. However, I primarily work with couples. So, my specialty is in helping mostly heterosexual couples where it's the female partner who has the so-labeled low desire and the male partner who has the so-labeled high desire. We have to get out— how I do this is we get out of this idea of high desire, low desire, because that's where we get trapped in this binary black and white thinking. And almost always inside of that conversation, somebody feels broken. A lot of times it's the low desire, the woman. She's like, it's all my fault. And he's also like, yeah, it's her fault. Fix her. We have to get out of it. It's no one's fault. No one needs to be fixed. I've also seen where the high desire person feels like they're the problem, that they need to shut down their sexual desire because they've been rejected so many times and somehow their desire is upsetting their partner. That patterning can happen too, like where she has shamed him. Why do you always want sex?

Right?

And there's a lot of shaming around men's sexuality in our culture as well, in a different way, right? Oh, you shouldn't. I need, you know, it should just be the emotional connection. Well, no, we actually need both. We need the sex and the love. So it's not fair, I don't think, for the woman to be like, well, it should only be emotional. And we shame him for having the, the hard-on, you know? Yeah, let's not do that. Because both partners bring a gift. He's bringing the sexual energy and she's bringing the heart energy. And a beautiful thing happens and we can unify those two things. So the woman can bring that gift of the heart. The man brings the gift of sex. That is the gift. Opening her sexually is one of the most beautiful gifts a man can provide. Well, she can open his heart as he learns how to, how to love. Um, so first we get out of that binary conversation and understand that there's a number of things going on. One of them is what we just talked about, that perhaps you're wired in a way where direct sexual touch shuts you down. It doesn't turn you on. He might be wired like, just touch my cock, like just grab it, go down on it, put your mouth on me, come on, you know, like cool, he's wired sexually. She might be wired more sensually or energetically where she needs to have no agenda, no pressure. She needs to have that heart connection first. So when we can understand that we're just speaking two different languages and how do we work to feed one another in that, not shutting someone down, not making someone wrong, Not saying I'm only going to give you that if you give me this, but we learn like, okay, she needs to be fed at the heart level for a while. He needs to be fed at the sex level. How can I provide that for him in a willing way where I'm not, you know, I'm not tolerating, I'm not giving out of obligation, but what would I be willing to do for my partner knowing that he needs that? That's like, that is like food to him. Just like her, the heart connection is like nourishment and food and she's got to have that. He needs it too. But just in a different way. So we can understand that it makes it far less personal. And then we've— then I teach my couples how to do that. How do you feed one another in that way where you're not just, you know, sacrificing yourself or giving in out of obligation or doing— no one wants to do something that they hate doing. We don't want that either. But we have to understand there's a difference between having a desire and then being willing to do something, right? Desire is like, okay, that's going to be— am I doing what I want? Am I following my desire? That's very different than am I going to follow my partner's desire. If I'm following my partner's desire, I'm going to set my own desire aside for a moment, and I'm just going to do my best to provide what he's wanting within my own limits. That's another thing too. I mean, this is a whole learning that has to happen here. Uh, I see couples a lot of times default like, well, that's what he wants, I'm just going to give it to him and get it over with.

And no, look, there's been, you know, enough books written about that aspect that, oh, you know, sometimes a woman just really needs to just do it, right? Yeah, I've seen these books where it's just like, that's nice, just, just do it because, you know, that's just going to save your relationship if you just do it from time to time when you don't want to do it, then, which I've never thought was a particularly healthy way of looking at it.

I don't think so either. I don't— it's like, I have never met a man who's like, I loved it when my wife had sex with me out of obligation. I loved it. No man ever, right? Like, that's not hot for him either. So what is hot is when we help her find the pathway to her own pleasure. That's why the name of my business is Pathway to Pleasure. In my own story, that was what happened for me. I had this discovery of, you know, just through solo practice, learning my own body, Got out of my sexless marriage, had another relationship a couple of years later that kind of repeated the pattern that ended as quickly as it began. But it left me realizing, like, I have got to do something different if I want to feel this full body orgasm thing that I've heard about. I'm going to have to find that pathway within my own body. And what happened was this happened very, very quickly. In fact, I made this declaration to undergo the study of my own sexuality, and I started to work with my body. Once a week I sat down and I got intimate with myself. I touched myself sexually, intimately. And I had, you know, by working with relaxation, keeping my awareness in my body, focusing on sensation, not defaulting into mental fantasy. What happened was, first of all, I started having very big emotional releases where there was just stuff held in my body and in my genitals and in my sexuality that was causing numbness. To be honest, I didn't have a lot of feeling. All that started to clear out, you know, crying, letting— just letting it out. An amazing thing happened a few weeks into that exploration, I had this experience where I had a full-body orgasm. I had a wave of pleasure that started in my feet, rolled up through my legs. My hands were tingling. My face felt like it was 10 times as big as it was. It was all numb and tingling. And this wave of pleasure and love just poured out of my heart. And I had this moment of realizing, like, wow, you know, nobody gives this to us. This actually exists inside of my body. The pleasure, the orgasm, and the love. They're already there when I just get rid of all that junk that's in the way. Yeah, the emotional debris, all that stuff I hadn't wanted to feel for so long, um, by being up in the head and defaulting to physical, uh, mental fantasy, taking me away from the body. All that took me away from this orgasm that was already right there within me. And I realized, like, when women can have, you know, this pathway to our pleasure, it literally is just, it's just a pathway. That's all we're doing in the work that I do with my couples. And when I work with a woman individually as well, I like to put it this way. It's just a pathway that we're, we're helping to open. We're just starting to remove some of the debris. We're not actually trying to get to any particular outcome because that's where couples will get stuck as well.

Yeah.

Yeah. Like, how do we get to that thing? Or how do I make myself have an orgasm? And they're trying now, they're creating more tension, which is the biggest killer of pleasure, by the way, one of the biggest obstacles to There's tension trying to create an outcome. And why isn't it working? I'm trying to have this experience instead of slow down, relax, have the experience you're having, surrender to what is, breathe and just notice.

Yeah.

It's just the easiest thing in the world and the simplest thing in the world that as you do more and more and more of that, you're starting to then open up that pathway, will begin to open, the debris will start to clear out. There will be emotional releases most likely, but that's the opening. And when she can start to open in that way, and when her partner can help her do that, then her sex can come online.

Yeah, yeah.

Now he can get in there and, and help her open in that way when she feels safe enough to open. But usually for most women, it's going to start with the heart piece, with the emotional opening emotionally and feeling safe enough to open to herself and then to open in the presence of her partner.

Yeah. And I I said to my son the other day, actually, I said, if I was to get involved in a, you know, in a serious way with somebody, I think I would go see somebody like yourself before any— before anything, really, before, you know, getting— before making any major commitment. Because I always wonder, like, what— why is it that we don't encourage more young couples and people in the early stages of their relationship to sort this stuff out before it becomes a problem, right? Because often, you know, you meet someone, everything's kind of rocking, it feels good, right? And then it's like you did in your marriage and I did in mine. You hit a brick wall and it's very difficult to come back from that, right? I mean, you have to work really, really hard if you want to move through that brick wall and try and get to a place of understanding with somebody you've been involved with for a long time, especially if you've accumulated a lot of baggage and, you know, junk along the way that doesn't feel so good anymore, right? And if we could just do all that work before—

Well, Suzanne, I think you bring up such a good point. And yes, because You're always going to run into stuff with a partner. It doesn't matter if you're new or you've been with them for, you know, 10 years, 30 years. And that's why I like to look at this as a pathway, right? It's just an orgasm is a pathway. Pleasure is a pathway. And when we understand what that pathway is, then we— then usually we can find when we're stuck. Where's the obstacle that just dropped onto the path, right? Trees are going to fall down. Rainstorms are going to come. Floods are going to happen. But if you understand the path and you know how to access it somatically within your own body, then you always kind of know the way out of it. Ideally, that's really all I'm doing is giving my couples the roadmap. What's the roadmap? Because if you don't know how to find why you're— you may know you're stuck, but you don't really know why. If you can't pinpoint why, forget about trying to get unstuck. Once that's clear and that's been illuminated, then you have the skills to get unstuck, then the only thing in the way is you, like whether you're willing or not to do the thing you know you need to do. And I agree with you, I think it is easier to learn. You know, I did— I was single, you know, I'd gone through my divorce and had the failed relationship, and I was single for a good about 6 to 8 months doing this exploration, just, just discovering this pathway in me, um, before I did finally call in another partner that I was really able to have this amazing relationship with because it was all new and I now was empowered in my body. I could ask for what I wanted. I knew what I wanted. He was more than happy, like, let me give you what you want. You're with my command. It was great. It was like match made in heaven. You know, he was open to learning and growing and it was just wonderful. But it was because I was now empowered in my own body. So it was no more about blaming my partner, which is what I did in my marriage. Like, oh, he just doesn't know how to rock my world. He just doesn't know how to take me there. That wasn't really entirely true. Maybe somewhat, What, what was true was that I didn't even know. I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know how to ask for it. I didn't know how to express what my desire was for something deeper. I didn't know how to invite that in a feminine way. Right. I just kind of blamed him and just thought if I just get another, you know, partner, that'll— everything will be different. Well, everything was different for a minute, but then it was all the same because I hadn't changed.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I think that's really important. Like one thing I'll offer to your couples here who are listening, or anyone listening, whether you're in a relationship or not, you're 100% responsible for your pleasure. So if you just ask yourself that question for a minute, if I— if it was true that I'm 100% responsible for my pleasure in the relationship, what would I be doing differently? How would I be showing up differently? How might that change things? So it's a really profound question, but it can be an absolute game changer, and it's so simple. We can all ask ourselves that, and it's free. You don't even have to pay for that advice.

No, and I think as well, you know, as you said before, as soon as you— and you know, I've heard this numerous times, so I know that it's true. I know that it's true for me as well, is that when you know yourself, when you know what you like, when you understand your own body, what gives you pleasure, and you articulate that in a way that doesn't attribute blame or shame or any of that stuff to your partner, and you just say, oh, I'd love it if you just did it like this, instead of like this, that's it, you know, they get it and they go, oh right, like this then. And you go, yes, like that.

It's great, isn't it?

And it's— that's easy to do once you overcome that fear that you might have that they're gonna think somehow they're not good enough. No, all you're doing is you're just asking for what you want and asking them to give you what you want. And yeah, and vice versa. And when someone tells me what they want, it's so horny.

It's hot, right?

It's hot. It is, it is hot to just ask, just say I— or just to say I love it when you do that, right? I mean, yes, that's—

give me the feedback. And I think so much— a lot of times what comes in around this is the fear like the hurt feelings, like, oh no, I wasn't doing it right and you don't like what I'm doing and you rejected me. All right, look, y'all, just get over it, okay? Come on, right? And I think the one, like you said, Suzanne Noble Noble, like the way that we share, that's a big part of it too. How we give that feedback is a really big part of it. If we're being critical, yeah, I mean, forget it. That's not a good thing. You gotta practice how you say— how do you ask what you want in a way that your partner can hear it? But partner needs to also cultivate the capacity to hear it. And a brilliant thing to do is to be proactive and learn how to ask for feedback. I would do this all the time, and one of the best ways to do it is, what would make this even better?

Yeah.

Hey babe, you're really loving this. What would make this even better right now? You know, and they might be, oh, it's great, nothing, this is perfect. Fine. But it might be, that's a really beautiful invitation to solicit feedback.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that.

Like, oh, you're hurting my feelings, you know, like, let's get over it. Come on, like, be proactive, ask for feedback, solicit feedback actively, and you can actively give feedback as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, for both people, giving feedback just improves your sex life. That's all it does. It never makes it worse, I don't think. Good, you know, feedback, good positive feedback never makes your sex life worse. Yeah, what makes it worse is shutting up and accepting things that don't make you happy, or give you pleasure, you know, that's getting all defensive when your partner speaks up about something they, they would like to experience different.

That ruins it too.

Yeah, yeah. Or the just, you know, the big assumption, which I think, you know, probably many of us had when we were younger, is that people should just know what we like.

Why don't they?

You know this one's terrible.

That is such a trap, right? Like, how are we supposed to just know? Are we reading smoke signals now?

Like, exactly.

So yeah, I am a big proponent of first learning to use your voice. So in the triad of the pleasure keys, the first level is the noticing. The second one is naming. It's about giving voice to the thing that you're noticing. And noticing is about what do I feel? What do I want? What do I need? It could be any of those three things. And then it's how do I give voice to that? I need, I need to slow down right now. I need to take a break. I need to have you look in my eyes and tell me you love me. I need to just take a breath. Or I really want, oh, I want more. Oh, I want you to go down on me. I want, I want this. I want that. I want to touch you this way. I want to go down, expressing the desire using the voice. So I'm a big proponent of we have to actually have good access to that capacity first before we give it up. Because there's certainly a domain of exploration where we're not doing that, where there's just sensing and feeling and a deep level of trust of allowing the other person to sense and intuit. That takes actually more of some skill. It really takes a lot of skill on the person who's in the allowing and the surrendered place to be really good at their limits. And a lot of people suck at that. And that's how trauma happens, right? And that's how resentment happens. And that's how sexual shutdown happens, tolerating So it's really actually a more advanced skill to get to that. It's definitely a domain to play in. But if you don't have good access to your voice first, I would never recommend someone to just go to that level first. Not how I teach. Find your voice first before you play with surrendering it on purpose, consciously giving it up.

Oh, I love that as a finale. Find— I have to remember that now. Find your voice first before surrendering it consciously on purpose. Consciously surrendering it on purpose. That is a beautiful closer. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Lots to take away there. Lots to take away. And I will be letting everyone know where they can find Suzanne Noble. And Taylor, whether— I'm assuming you do Zoom stuff as well as like—

I mostly work online. Yeah, I work with clients around the world, and I also have in-person retreats that I do as well. So I can be found online at pathwaytopleasure.com. I've got a free masterclass that I teach once a month there, so if anyone would like to jump in on that, you can sign up for that on my website. I also have an ebook on the pleasure keys called The Pleasure Keys, which everything lives on my website. So pathwaytopleasure.com is the spot.

And you've got a podcast as well.

Did you always forget to mention the podcast? I don't know why that slips my mind. But yes, Sex Talk Cafe. Come find me at the Sex Talk Cafe. We do juicy conversations just like this one on education around sexuality and just other cool stuff related to sex, intimacy, and relationships.

Brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on Sex Advice for Seniors. And maybe if I get out to North Carolina to visit my brother, I'll come and see you.

Hit me up. Come on out. It's beautiful out here. I'd love to have you. So you let me know when you're in the area.

I will do. All right. Take care.

Thanks.