Episode 104: Understanding your Sexual Birthright

Hi, I'm Suzanne Noble, and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. And today I'm with Galen Fuss, who's a sex therapist, a sex educator, an author. He's got a whole long list of titles. We'd be here all day if I was to read them all out, but I'm super excited to, to speak with him primarily— well, for a number of reasons. Welcome, Galen. To the show. Really, really happy to have you. You're probably—

Pleasure to be here.

You may be the oldest man that we've had on the show, and I suspect this gives you a unique perspective into the mind of an older person, you know, with a man with a penis, as they know— I think they, they now call you these days in in, in understanding how sex is different or can be different in, in later life. So yeah, welcome. If you want to just kind of— you were sharing some of your own background and about some of the stuff you get up to. So yeah, just—

yeah, sure. Well, I'm happy to be here and happy to engage with you and, and your audience in particular. I think this is gonna bring in a perspective, I hope, engenders hope and excitement and enthusiasm for your sex life. I'm heading into the realm of 75 years old, coming around the corner here. And I still maintain a very active sex life. I have a partner that I'm with, and I'm a kink-oriented man. So to say. So in Kink, you're dealing with the realm of Eros that has this mythic quality to it of these different archetypal figures and polarity together, dominant and submissive. So this is a realm that is useful at this stage of life because it's about the erotic imagery and, you know, these authentic fantasies that are part of your erotic heritage as a human being, you know, each, each person has their own, what I call a personal erotic myth. And this describes the types that one is attracted to, the frequency, the elements of dialogue and attire and props and setting and, and all the things that might be in any movie, you know, the story that's being unfolding. So this is something people can access for themselves. And most people don't because they've totally shut that part of themselves off. This is forbidden territory. Oh, you don't think about that or talk about that. But now at this stage of life, one of the main problems with, I think, people engaging in sex is the belief that you have to have friction sex, penis-in-vagina sex, you know, this is what sex is. And many men lose capacity for having an erection after the age of 60. There's a diminishing capacity there. And so their belief is, oh, I'm done. I can't have sex anymore. That's it. I can't please my wife or partner. And it's embarrassing to try. It's just too stressful. And everything goes like that. So people give it up. And this is a terrible gratuity because, as I said, at 75, I'm still having sex at least 3 times a week. And I'm talking about sex that is in the range of 3 to 5 hours per session. And this is— and I have erectile dysfunction too. I can still do some penetration sex and it's pleasurable, but it's not the focus, you know, that it is the focus is engagement with your partner. It's on erotic touch and feeling. First, get close to each other through non-erotic touch, just to help the body calm down and get connected to each other. Feel, you know, just the body's touching, just enlivening the whole spirit of each other. You know, you're just, oh, it feels good. It's my partner holding me, and I like that. And So that helps you bring yourselves together and get easy. Then you can move into— we probably don't have time here to go deeply into the territory of that, but this is just something I want to encourage people to explore, what I call their erotic wilderness area. And this is the part of the sexual psyche, the human psyche, that has been built a wall. We don't— you don't go out there. That's where the boogeyman is and the terrible things happen, and you'll be ruined if you go out there. You'll go to hell.

You'll be disgraced.

And so people are terrified. You know, as we're young, this is an indoctrination that occurs. And so people are really terrified to open up about to this vast territory that's available to each and every one. Each person, I believe, has an innate inherent sexuality, their authentic sexuality. And this is your sexual birthright. You have 100%— it is your right to claim that part of yourself and to share that part of yourself. And actually, it's a gift to yourself and your partners with the right partner. And this is something that is, I think, territory that is too much, is not offered enough, is not encouraged enough for our senior, our elders to be able to— this is the time when you're retired, you got time in your hands. Go for it, you know, you could— and if you're not instinctively ready to go there, I mean, there's all kinds of books, classes, webinars, workshops. There's a lot of sex positive movement has been going on for about 50 years now. And it is people stepping forward to offer this sex positive view of how people can engage sexually. And there's a deeper part that's also about healing. By stepping onto the path to claim your authentic sexuality, you're also stepping on the path to heal the ways it's been wounded or denigrated or violated or terrorized or traumatized. And that is, nobody needs to remain a victim. You know, you've been victimized, but you don't have to remain a victim. You can take your power from whatever might have traumatized you or push your sexuality down. And that's an incredible liberating thing to do. And it's possible as a therapist, I work with people to help them reintegrate their sexuality into their everyday life and develop this whole therapeutic model. I'm a sex researcher also, and I publish in peer-reviewed journals about such things. And one of the areas I've developed is called Sexual Integration Therapy.

I've seen this.

Yeah. And this is to help people reunite and integrate, you know, bring into wholeness, including include their sexuality into their, the rest of their personality. And that's usually been something that's been shut off, kept behind the curtain at the back of the wagon train and the military caravans or in the red light district or in the seedy part of town. That's where we allowed sex to go. And it went there, you know, it was, it will go wherever it's, it's gonna find a way, you know, to come forth. So this exploration of your sexual wilderness, this unexplored territory is an adventure. And as a senior, you know, you're, this is the great time of life, you know, this is your time to be, have the freedom to pursue what interests you and what excites you and, sex can certainly be a big part of that. Plus, not only the sexual pleasure, but that also creates incredible intimacy with your partner to be engaging so authentically and achieving ecstasy with each other. And so I— it's a yes, you know, go for it.

Yeah, and I suspect, you know, I'm listening to you and thinking, God, 3 to 5 hours, that's You know, well, I do my Sunday afternoons. That's my Sunday afternoon activity usually is my, is my pleasure time. So I know that a lot of this is about making time to— and I always say to people that at this age, you know, especially as PIV sex is not necessarily the be-all and end-all for us, then it's really about being more intentional And I think part of the great thing about exploring this wilderness, as you call it, is, is about the ability to really feel quite liberated now at this stage of life as to what sex can look like. And to actually just go, well, actually, I had all these ideas, I never tried them out. You may hate them, you may love them, you know, you may think, God, that was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be, or let's keep that one in my mind, because actually, it's not much fun in real life, but it's great sitting up in my brain somewhere where I can just kind of, you know, access it. So I do think that one of the benefits of being older is about the time that we all have or can have to devote to sexual pleasure and, you know, ritual, as you say. I always think the difficulty is though, whenever I speak to somebody like you, I think Yeah, you know, I had very vanilla sex when I was married. I didn't talk to my husband about sex for a decade, and it wasn't until the end of our relationship that we had a bit of a discussion about it, which, to be honest, was fraught because it was, it was, it was, it came with a lot of just anger and, and, and, and pain. So it wasn't, it wasn't particularly pleasant. And I, and I, and I know I know that for a lot of couples in long-term relationships, when friction sex becomes more challenging and ED sets in— and I, and I've spoken to quite a number of people that are— I'm close to recently about this— is that it's really hard for men to deal with, with loss of ability to maintain an erection, right? And how do you How do you encourage people to think beyond the erection, which has been such a vital part of their masculinity and of being a man for so long? How do you move from that place to that place where you're tapping into their wilderness?

Well, to be honest, it's a very complicated— at this stage, when we have decades of indoctrination and programming and beliefs and stories and judgments and experience, painful experiences. And all those things now have— are a big— those are all tangled up with your authentic sexual expression.

Totally.

When you try, even if the part of you that wants to get it on and engage is up against all these other parts, oh, but he didn't do this, and he, you know, all this judgment and fear, and trauma, you know, so the work is to start to untangle those parts that aren't about your sexuality, that are tangled up with them, that are interfering with your pleasure. That's pointing to, oh, they need some work, you know, you need to, you know, go to a therapist, read some books, learn about how to differentiate between— oh wait, no, what do I— what's Here's the thing. Start with an intention.

Yeah.

So my intention is to not have all of these parts of my history interfere with my engagement with my partner. Okay. That's just a statement that doesn't do anything, but at least it gives you some sort of anchor in what you want. You know, you're clear. Okay. You know, this is a challenge. This is hard. These other parts are really upset and unresolved. But If you start there, you can start to make progress because your intention is I want to enjoy the pleasure of sex with my partner. So get clear in your mind. Yeah, no, I really do want that. Okay, good. That's your truth then. Now you can start working towards that and unpacking the things that are interfering with that and examine first, well, what is interfering with that? And well, I've, I was shamed when I was a boy. I was masturbating, my mom came in, don't you ever do that, disgusting and whore, you know. And so every time you get turned on, that actually is activating also that other part. So the sex capacity, what I affectionately call the sex creature, you know, this is a very distinct persona that we carry that has a different body language, tone of voice, way it looks at you, way it wants to dress or wants another to dress. Body language, all of these elements are part of embodying this part of you that is part of your psyche. You know, what you fantasize about, what you dream, you know, dream sex is like, that's your authentic sexuality alive in you, but it needs to embody. And it will, to embody it needs to be able to overcome the embodiment of these other parts of you that saying, no, I'll have to shut down, that can't operate. So that's a physical embodiment. Each of these personas have embodiments as well. So part of the work can be just to get at ease in your body, get present in your body, do some routines and practices, because this will help you bring you down into the state of just presence and awareness. What do I want? Oh, I want to engage in my pleasure. Oh, I have these other things. Yeah, but I'm going to— those have been with me for decades. So I'm going to set aside 2 hours now to just allow this part of me that never gets any time at all to have its own space to be— to make it special because it is special. It should be treated with reverence. It's a sacred part of your being and it deserves that respect and that care and that attention. And it will repay you in kind by going, oh, thank you. I've been waiting, you know. This is so exciting. And so this is, you know, as I said, it's a complicated and difficult journey, but it's an empowering journey and it's a healing journey and it's an ecstatically pleasurable journey if you take it. So it's worth the effort. You deserve to heal. First of all, you know, you should be working on the parts of you that are not resolved yet, that are still hurting you, that are still holding you back from claiming any empowered state that you want to be in, not only sexual. And so I think this is— and again, just like for the sexual territory, all of that healing territory and empowering territory, well, you know, you got free time, you're retired, you maybe have the funds, you can take some workshops, go to get a good therapist or start working on these things. And this is also going to re— force and reignite your relationship because you're both working and, you know, you're not pointing the finger at each other. You're looking at yourself and go, oh, what's my side of this? Because I do want my relationship, you know, that's another thing to get clear on, right? You know, are you ready to fight for this relationship? Is this important? You know, is it really important? Then you got to fight for it. Don't, you know, you can't be lazy about these things. If you really want to have a great connection with your partner, that means, well, I got work to do.

Yeah, and, and, you know, when I think about so many of the people that comment on my social media, or, or, you know, I just meet, is for a lot of people, they really haven't explored their sexuality at all. They just— they're— for me, when I speak to people, it's clear that they've had very limited sex education, as I suspect most people our age have, right? Most of the people I speak to have had no sex education education whatsoever. So for them, sometimes when I have these conversations, I think this is so beyond the realms of, of people's imagination, because they are so shut down and so naive in terms of what their experience, their sexual experience, full embodiment, whatever you want to call it, could actually look like. I think there's— it's really, sometimes I think this is the sort of stuff I want my kids to know who are now in their early 30s, right? I don't want them to get to 65 and 70 and finally decide that they want to explore their wilderness. I want them to have the ability to integrate their wilderness into their relationships right now, right? But I know that thanks to pornography and thanks to you know, all the messages that we get in society. I mean, honestly, I— when I look at most of the stuff that I see, I don't see too many people that are expressing how you can be a fully embodied sexual person in, in this way. I just, I just think We all— I feel always like when I'm speaking to people like you and others that, that we're in this secret little— we're in this secret little coven of people who have—

who have been threatened by censorship, morality, everything that doesn't apply to the individual, but it's enforced. Yeah. And enforced morality, we'll say. And It is, like I said, sex has been the bastard of human personality for thousands of years. It's never been welcome to the table as an integral part of the human psyche, along with, uh, into imagination, creativity, spirit, intellect. Uh, these are all revered, and oh, we study them, and then, you know, where the famous people who said amazing things about them discovered things and sex has been, you know, marginalized, totally put to the back of the line and not supposed to be, oh, sex is, that's not important. You should be more on love and your heart and all this stuff. And that's very sweet and nice. And yeah, you should be focused on your heart and love, but not at the cost of your sexuality. You know, this is, that's to be included in this. And sexuality for some people doesn't look like love. It's more primal, it's fierce. It's like, I want, you know, this intensity in this power dynamic where, you know, you are activating— these are ancient parts of ourselves that are coming alive through Eros of hungry, ravenous, you know, engagement. And that's, you know, the sex— I mean, the body is programmed for these, like that gesture of ecstasy, of surrender, you know, giving the vulnerable parts up, you know, these— and we're wired for such things. And why they've gotten into eros, I think nobody knows exactly. It's kind of a mystery, but it's a truth. I think it's, it's evident that it's there. So this is— and also, so that was a big barrier right there that I spoke about. A lot of people would, oh, I can't grab her by the hair and throw her on the bed. That would be— oh my God, I'd be a sexist. And, you know, these kinds of things. But the truth is, I mean, I've met so many men therapist, so many women who come and say, sometimes I wish he would just grab me and take me and, you know, and, but, oh, but I even, they struggle because, well, I shouldn't encourage misogyny in doing this. But this is where we've gotten, sex has gotten railroaded off into all these different, coded with all of these different notions that really are preventing the authentic truth to come up because some people like their sex that way. They're meant to have sex that way. It can be sweet and loving and tender and nice and all that. But other people know, I just get fierce, you know, and wild and the beast come out. And that's how you learn to do that is in ritual, where you can take this and negotiate for, okay, how do you know, can I grab your hair? Can I put you over my knee and spank you? Can I call you dirty names? You know, and people are either going to say, oh no, I have a boundary there, but others go, oh God, that'd be hot. You know, if you can get to that conversation, allow yourself to just talk honestly about your sexuality, you can uncover this, this treasure trove of erotic riches available to you that are in your imagination. This is important to open to your imagination, because so many people are in their head, I can't do this, that'd make me nervous. If I want to do that, I couldn't, you know, take a breath and just drop down into the body here. And being in the head is going to distract you from what— you know, sex is from the body, you know, life is from the body. Being embodied and present is something to practice doing, whether you're having sex or just reading a book or whatever, cooking dinner. This is practices that again, that this is a perfect time of life to get in touch with these deeper parts of ourself and this sense of embodiment, this sense of presence, this sense of not having to worry about the future or the past constantly or having anxiety, you know, regret about the past, anxiety about the future. Just, you've got moments in life. That's all you have are moments in life. And they go by one by one by one by one until you don't have any more. And anyone that's wasted, uh, what a tragedy to waste moments when, you know, you could be enjoying the pleasure of life instead of being worried and anxious. And yeah, I mean, you have reasons why you are, and those who worked, you can, through works, through practice, and through intention, you can learn to be present and and start and healed, you know, as you take that journey, you can take your power back from what's taken away. And so through that, you can't do that, you can't take your power back, while also healing what's harmed and weakened and took your power away. So it's both are going to go on at the same time.

Yeah. And similarly, you know, there are many women that are now on, you know, on the flip side, we've been speaking about the male experience. But on the flip side, you know, there's a lot of women that complain about pain during course, and all the body changes that happen, and feeling very, again, uncomfortable, maybe in a body that's not the same as it was when they were younger. And, you know, so there's a lot that goes on with women too. And I think that a lot of this about, about actually becoming and understanding who our true sexual self is, is about releasing both genders from the response, from the feeling that it all has to be penis and vagina driven, because I hear a lot of pushback from women predominantly who say, I just don't want to do that anymore, you know, I'm, I'm over that. And it feels like as soon as they've said that, for a lot of men, what they hear is the door is shut. The door to intimacy is now shut. And what I hear you saying is that's such a tiny part of what intimacy represents. There is so much more to know and to learn and to understand about each other that in a way, if you remove that, it almost frees you to explore everything else that's out there. It's almost like that in itself is— limits the capacity for us to explore all the greatness that is, you know, what I call the sexual buffet. And I, and I, and I think that, that, that, you know, what I'm hearing is that there's, you know, there's so much more of an opportunity at this period of life to go, okay, fine, you don't want to do that anymore. That's cool. Let's look at what else we can do.

So friction sex is like, getting off on the first exit of a 1,000-mile journey. So it's great. It was a great 7 minutes or so. And man, I was— came my brains out. Hallelujah. If you can still do that. But you're missing the whole amazing journey ahead if you get off on that first exit. So the idea would be even to not have purpose. If So let's say if you still have the capacity to have friction sex, put it at the end of the trail, you know, don't put it on the first, you know, it's just like, that's great to get to that point. But there's so much territory along the way that you can explore and experiment with and enjoy, learn to enjoy. And it has nothing to do with having direction, you can move forward. But this is why most of the work in this regard is in the conversations to have with your partner too. If you can have the courage, if one of each of you, if there's a couple listening here, if one of you can have just a little bit of courage despite all the trepidation and just ask Would you be open to having a conversation about sexuality with me? I am terrified to speak of it. But there's some parts of me that I've carried my whole life I've never gotten to speak to, and I'd love to share that. And I'd love to hear your side too. And do it vulnerable, you know, if you open vulnerably to your partner, assuming you guys have enough, you know, connection that, oh, I do love this person, I want to hear them, I want to talk start there. Some people I know are so polarized, maybe at this point, that, that's a— there's some other things I want to have before they could start there. But they still could get there if they chose to do that together. And it— what a fun thing to do for your relationship together. Oh, let's explore our sexuality. Oh, let's take some workshops. I got some books. And wow, I want to try this. And I want to do— this is an enlivened opportunity for couples at this stage of life to really bring some excitement and play and the pleasure they deserve. Like I said, this is a— everyone has a sexual birthright. We are born who we are sexually. That's already a part of us, just like it's inherent and innate, just like blue eyes or left-handedness or something. It's, it's a natural integral part of you. And this is important to claim your birthright, you know, get over the fact— no, you have a right to that. Most people feel like, oh, I shouldn't say that, I shouldn't want that. Oh, it's not important. And no, it's very important. It is sacred. You know, it is a gift. And it's something you can share. And it's a wonderful gift to share with your partner.

Yeah, and the point that you've made, and And it's the most, one of the most valuable things that you've said is amongst the many valuable things you've said is that it takes courage, right? It takes vulnerability. It takes a willingness to want to do the work, to wanna do the work. I mean, one of the benefits I always think about starting new relationships is that you can start like you mean to go on. And it's so much less risky to have these conversations with somebody you've only just met and say, look, I need to tell you some stuff about myself. I wanna share with you before we go on this journey together down the motorway on this 1,000-mile ride. And, you know, let's see if we're on the same page here with this or if we're wildly different. Whereas when you're with somebody for a long period of time, it does take courage. But as you say, the rewards are that you can, you know, you can have a deepening of your relationship. You can learn more about each other than you probably ever knew before. And you can have a really wild old time. Which I—

there's no reason why anyone our age, my age, can't be enjoying the erotic pleasure with a partner. And you brought up the point also, I mean, if you're single, also know, oh, I can be dating, I can have this and What you said is very important. Have the courage, try a little courage and say on the first date, say, after you've talked about where'd you go to school, what do you do, you got a family, da da da da da, oh, what kind of sex do you, are you interested in? Yeah, you know, find your own phrasing, but I mean, bring it right up because why waste months of time and then you get down there and oh, you don't like anything I like at all. You know, This is big, but we've been pushed so back that we think it's, it's, oh, you don't say that on the first date. Oh my God. You know, but I'm, I've shifted all of that in my life 25 years ago, and now I'm, I decided, no, I'm going to lead with that. And it's right on the table. It's right. It's who I am. It's what my truth is. And I want to be with someone who wants to share that. With me, and I want to find out if they don't want to share it, rather than 4 decades later going, oh, I didn't know you meant never, you know.

Uh, oh God, yeah, tell me about it.

Because then also something you said earlier that came to mind was, uh, unfortunately some people take this to the grave. Yeah, yeah, they've never spoken the truth, never shared that. And what a tragedy over something as simple as whatever they might have liked sexually, which might have been some partners going, "Whoa, that'd be great. I wish you would have told me that." And that's a bit bigger tragedy. And I've had couples I've worked with where, you know, they've been married 25 years or something, and what the man was hiding And so therefore, this is the problem with this. When you're not honest, that means you're hiding. That means you're— because the sex creature doesn't go away, it's, it's still operating. And so people sneak and hide and lie and get out of integrity. And this is because we get in erotic mismatches, because we don't talk honestly about each other. So practice being honest. Yeah. Own that part of you. And because— oh, I was talking about the couple. Yeah. So I mean, after 25 years of fighting and this, and he got busted in some way, and she still was— she finally said, so what is it that you want? And he finally confessed to what it was, and she went, oh, that sounds hot. You know, so like 25 years ago, they could have said, oh, we could spank then. And so it's— those are the kinds of things that happen.

Yeah, I've definitely met people that have fallen into that as well, where one person was like really into spanking, was going off trying to find all sorts of women he could spank. And then he finally got busted. And, and his wife was like, I've wanted to be spanked for years. Again, very similar. So I think, you know, there is it— once you, once you have that courage, and once you have that conversation, I always think, yeah, you may be disappointed, but you may also be incredibly surprised by what you find out about your partner. And isn't it so delightful to know that there are still things that we— that are mysteries about our partner that we can— that are yet to be discovered, that we are yet to learn and, you know, we are yet to fall in love with. So that's my hopeful message. Thank you so much. We have— we've slightly overrun on my 30-minute rule here. I didn't tell you it's 30 minutes at the beginning of this, but it usually is. But thank you so much, Galen. It's been— it's been a delight to speak with you. And as per usual, I will put all of your details in the summary to this podcast. And yeah, hope we can ever catch up again. I have a feeling there's a lot to talk about.

It's a wonderful conversation. Thanks so much for— Suzanne Noble. Looking forward to more conversation.