Episode 105: How to Ask for What you Want in Bed (and Get it)

Hi, I'm Suzanne Noble, and you're listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. And this week we have a really special guest. She's a bit of a superstar, actually, and her name is Susan Bratton. She's an intimacy advisor, she's a wellness expert, she's been on a gazillion podcasts but never on this one. Been on TV as well, and seems like you have many, many hats, many hats, a bit like me. So welcome to the show, Susan.

My pleasure, Suzanne. We're the Susan and Suzanne Show today, and I was so pleased to see your booking come through to be on your show because so much of what I talk about is how sex can keep getting better your whole lifelong and the benefits of ageless sexuality and how they impact our life. And you've done over 100 episodes on that very topic. So we are soul sisters.

We are, we are. And I don't know about you, but Susans and Suzannes have a very, I feel, slightly maybe uncomfortable relationship with each other because I am very much a Suzanne Noble. I have never been a Susan ever. And anytime anyone calls me a Susan, I correct them 'cause I'm like, "Nope, my name is Suzanne." And similarly, I don't know if you ever get called a Suzanne 'cause Susans very rarely do, I suspect. Suzanne's, yeah. So welcome Susan and Suzanne.

You can call me anything, darling. Anything you want. I love it all. I don't care.

Oh, that's very sweet of you. Yeah, I am.

You got the fancy version of our name. I got the basic babe version. I know, fancy one.

I'm quite fussy about it. I have been quite fussy, although people who know me intimately sometimes call me Suz, just putting that out there. Not that there's very many people that do. But anyway, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, which I was really curious about, was this idea that you've come up with of this sexual soulmate pact. And I was really, I just love the name of that because, well, because it signifies that this is something that two people are doing collectively as opposed to one person imposing their own views on another. I love that idea. And I also thought that there's a lot of listeners, a lot of people that in later life have gotten divorced, perhaps found a new partner. And I always think it's so much easier when you're meeting somebody for the, you know, and getting to know them, to, to start building those good practices. And this sounds like one of them to me. So tell me, what is a sexual soulmate pact?

Yeah, thank you. So I've written 44 books, and one of the books that I've written is called Sexual Soulmates: The Six Essentials for Connected Sex. After a couple of decades of helping people learn hot sex techniques, bedroom communication skills, and how to, how to keep their sexual systems going strong, I realized that there were really 6 key things that if a couple had these, that it would allow them to do what I call getting on the upward pleasure spiral, where your sex life keeps getting better and better your whole life long instead of swirling down the toilet like most people's do. And I can tell you at 63, I'm having absolutely the best sex of my life, the most confidence, the most satisfaction, the most incredible orgasms, the most fun, the most experimentation. I mean, it just keeps getting better, and I asked one of my mentors who's now in her mid-70s, "Hey, is there an end to this?" and she said, "Nope, it'll just— it never ends." Your sexuality is one of those gifts like good food, good music, art, nature, that it never stops getting better and more wonderful and more awe-inspiring if you kind of think about it that way. And as I was thinking about, okay, what are the, what are the really effective things that people need to know, I came up with these 6 essentials to connected sex. And I really feel like the Sexual Soulmate Pact as one of the 6 is probably the number one thing. So you're asking me to tell you about the number one thing of the number one book of 20 years of effort of writing thousands of techniques and bedroom communication skills. So right on, Suzanne, you pick— you like, you literally plucked the gem out of the crown, and here's what it is.

Well, I can do that, you know.

You did it, you did it, you totally did it.

Thank you, thank you. Talking about getting to the heart of the matter. I'm 63 too, and I have to say I'm also having very, very good sex. So yeah, it is totally possible, but we can go on to— we can go into that after. Get back to the Sexual Soulmate Pact. What?

Yeah, so first of all, a pact is an agreement between two people or more, and it is a communication skill. It is the foundation communication skill for all of your bedroom conversation. And the— and bedroom communication is definitely an escalator where it stacks on. You've got to start on the bottom rung and develop the basic foundation so that you can do the other things like adoration, worship, sharing fantasies, sharing frames, moaning, all the other types of things that there are that are communication techniques for sex. And what the Sexual Soulmate Pact does is that it takes care of two big problems. The one of them is, I don't know what I want, I don't know what I want, I just know what I'm getting isn't it. It fixes that.

Yeah.

And I don't want to say anything because I don't want my partner to feel like they've done something wrong or they failed. I don't want them to emotionally disconnect. I don't want them to contract. I don't want it to be awkward. I don't want them to go, don't tell me what to do, I know what I'm doing. Most of all, I don't want that to occur. So I'll just keep my mouth shut.

Yeah.

And just accept what I get. It gets around that problem. Then, and then there are subtle nuances to it. I'm going to tell you the whole thing. I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it because I'm going to give the answer. I'm not just going to tease this, but I'm laying the groundwork.

Yeah, yeah.

For this idea. And I'll preface it by saying that everything that I'm about to say is in a downloadable PDF that just gives you the step-by-step strategy, and it's at sexualsoulmatepact.com. And I think it's best to print this out at home and have two copies and go over it with your partner and discuss it and enter into the agreement intentionally. Yeah, because there takes some training. You actually have to practice it until it becomes second nature. So the basic construct is that You, you get to say anything, anytime, during, before, during, or after intimacy, about anything that you need, want, edits, changes, requests, etc. It's a line that is always on. And there might be a time where you're like, would this be a good time to talk to you about this? That's fine. But it's always an open and ongoing discussion of your sexuality. So you open this portal of communication and it stays open. The second thing is that when you say something, especially during the throes of passionate lovemaking, you are not required to say please or thank you or oh, excuse me, or use your manners. And the reason that you don't really want to use your manners is that when you use your manners, you're in what's called the beta brainwave state, which is what you and I are in right now, which is essentially we're awake and aware and we're in our active, focused attention. But surrender to passionate lovemaking requires that you're in your theta state. Your theta state is the state of meditation, of orgasm, of prayer if you are a prayer-oriented person. And that's the flow state. That's the state of pleasure, joy, and heart connection, which is what good intimacy provides. And so if you have to break out of your theta and go into your good girl or good boy state, it kind of ruins the flow. So you are forgiven all please and thank yous in your sexual soulmate pact with each other. You can always thank them later. Hey, thanks so much. But what The receiver does is they do acknowledge your request, and they can do as simple a thing as say, "Oh, got it. Thanks. Okay. How's this? Oh, okay. What do you want to do instead?" They want to always acknowledge you, and acknowledging you with appreciation and encouragement is the best practice for the strategy to work really well. Because you're afraid to speak up, You need to be thanked and encouraged to keep doing it.

Yeah.

So one of the things that I have found, and I had a lover once who was a stubborn donkey, and you know, we have stubborn donkeys in our lives. And I started dating him and I said, okay, I want to do this soulmate pact with you, this sexual soulmate pact. Would you be willing to hear anything that I have to say during our intimate time? And would you be willing to acknowledge it and thank me. And he's like, okay, I'll try. And he did a very mediocre job at first. It was very hard for him to hear the feedback. He took it as failure until he got used to it. Resistance makes you stronger, right? I mean, it's, you know, he had to— I had to be— it's like, you know how if you've ever had a child and you have to tell them 3,479 times to do that one thing. Yeah, yeah, he was one of those kind of people. He needed you to tell him a lot. I've had other partners who I literally taught it to them and they did it exactly perfectly every single time from then on. We're different people, and so I'm using my worst-case scenario to encourage the people who are with the stubborn donkeys to have perseverance and to keep saying, remember, I need you to thank me or appreciate me after I tell you something, because if I don't, then I think I keep hurting your feelings, and that makes me stop telling you what I really want. But you really want to know what I want, don't you? Yes, I really want to know what you want. I just— and basically they can't communicate this or articulate this, but yeah, they can't fight against that feeling that they've messed up.

Yeah, or being judged, you know, which is a difficult thing for people to take. I mean, it's hard, right?

It's hard until you realize how much better it is when your partner tells you what they need, want, desire, etc. And then you're like, oh, that old comfort— this feeling of discomfort has completely been supplanted by a feeling of powerful— being empowered and being appreciated and being talked to in a mature way. And so the old way of being like, "You're not the boss of me," or, "I know, you don't have to tell me," or all of that kind of egoic deflection is an immature state of emotional behavior that can, through this consistent application of your request and then request for acknowledgement, be transformed into a feeling of empowerment. So you have to be willing to walk through the fire, and you yourself also have to be willing to do the following, and that is taking care of the 'I don't know what I want, I just know what I'm getting isn't it, so I'll keep my mouth shut.' And here's how you do that. Should I continue?

Yes, oh please do. I'm enjoying this. One thing though, if I can just interject just slightly. Yeah, you are in the flow, and I hate doing that. Is that, you know, one of the things that I've always found is that if I just— if I get— and if, if I say what I enjoy, either during the act or afterwards, like, you know, when you did that, I really loved it. God, that felt so good. I love it when you do that. Or, you know, oh, you know, I was thinking, I was really wish that during that part when you did that, that you could have just done that as well. Oh my God, that would have felt so amazing, right? Rather than, oh, I was kind of, oh, hoping that you might do that, but then you didn't.

Right.

And then that, right. And then that, and then there's that deflated feeling of, oh, I failed her. I didn't do that.

Right.

I always think there are ways of framing what you would really like. Of course, the, the other part, which I'm sure you're going to get to is that, you know, a lot of people don't have a bloody clue what they like. So, so, you know, that's the other part, of course, isn't it? It's like you have to take— you have to know your own body. Well, there's—

yeah, and you, you fed me right into exactly where I was going with this, as, as you would, because you're an expert. And that is that instead of waiting until after, when you're thinking of this other thing, you'd like, oh, well, it feels really good when you're going down on me, but could you also stretch your arms up and play with my nipples at the same time. Asking in the moment when you're thinking of it and having them go, "Sure, baby, how about this?" is exactly what the Sexual Soulmate Pact is all about. It's not waiting until after, it's just saying everything you're thinking. Yeah, people have such quiet intimacy, and the louder it is, especially as you age and your hearing goes— I had another boyfriend who had bad hearing and he said, "I really need you to be loud. I love to hear your moans and I want you to talk to me during sex." But I'm a little hard of hearing, so I want you to speak loudly. And I could never remember which ear it was, so I just had to talk loud the whole time. And he really broke me of my quietude during sex and made me realize what an incredible moaner I am and how much it turns me on to moan and to ask for more and to tell him it feels great and all of that. It was a transformational experience as well. So this whole, I don't know what I want, is bullshit. Yeah, for lack of a better word. You, you actually do know what you want, and here's how you find this out. My girlfriend, Dr. Deborah Kagan, she has written many wonderful books on sexuality, and one time she explained to me, she said to me, isn't it interesting how the vaginal labia, the vulval labia, and the vagina they actually look very similar to the larynx, your voice box. And she said, I often think about how the lips on my head must speak for the lips on my torso, that they would talk if they could. They just aren't evolved there yet. So they speak through my mind and heart to me, and they tell me what my, my top lips should say. And I think that's a really interesting way to think about how you're feeling in your body. Your body is constantly talking to you. It's actually one of your senses. It's called interoception. And it's, oh, I've got a fart, or, oh, I'm going to cough, or, oh man, I stubbed my big toe and it really friggin hurts 2 days later, or whatever it is. You know, you can feel what's going on in your body. So if there's a hair on the bottom of the shaft of his penis while you're going down on him and it's bothering you, you stop and you say, hey, would you do me a favor and run to the bathroom and shave that hair off? It's going back and forth on my lip and it's driving me nuts and I can't get it off. Or, you know, your beard is too scratchy, will you shave before you come to bed? Or whatever. The sheets, I need to change the sheets before we get in them. "Let's get a stack of soft towels and throw down the fascinator," or "Can you rub my feet before we do anything and can we just lie here and talk and connect because I've been stressed out today and I wore those sexy shoes and I shouldn't have and my toe hurts?" Whatever it is, if you can just say whatever it is that you're feeling, then, and your partner says, "Yeah, sure, of course, whatever you need, let me go, let's rip these sheets off and let me go grab some out of the linen closet, or yeah, I'll be right back, you know, let me get that hair. Jesus, thanks for letting me know. It's on the bottom and I can never see the damn thing without my glasses on in the shower, you know.

Let's face it, this guy, you know, knows, like, this is all leading to the good stuff, right? You're not— I mean, at the— ultimately, as long as what you're saying is, I ultimately want to be intimate with you, but right now I need this to happen. And then you can get that great blowjob, or, you know, I'll sit on your face or whatever.

Yeah.

Then, then, then I think most men are in, in there. They're like, yeah, what else do I need to do?

You just want to know how to make us happy.

Yeah, exactly.

But men grow up in a pecking order. This is the work of Dr. Terry Real. He talks about how men are either winning or losing, and it's very black and white. They're different than the feminine, which is very team-oriented. Yeah. And so for them, what they want is to be respected and to do a good job. So when they get back into bed and they've, you know, whisk that— nick that whisker off that shaft, you're like, God, I just love how well-groomed you are. Thank you for your attention to detail. I am going to enjoy this so much more now. I love to go down on You're so sexy and your cock is so nice. I feel so lucky to be with a lover like you. I really hit the jackpot. You're the best. Thank you. I mean, what guy wouldn't be happy to go shave a hair off for that accolade? And shoot you train, you know. So the Sexual Soulmate Pact, what it really does is it says, girlfriend, you know what's going on inside. You just got to listen to her. She's talking to you all the time, your little yoni. And then you have to speak her into existence for your pleasure. Because if you don't, you're denying not only yourself but your partner the pleasure of your happiness and your feeling settled and not being annoyed by something or trying to avoid or overlook something that's bothering you. Like, just fix this stuff and then relax or ask for what you want. Oh, you know what would be really fun to do right now? And one of the things that I also think is really nice is that when a lot of women say, I don't, I don't really know what I want. I think that you get better and better over time at learning what might be appealing to you. And one of the things that I put together recently— I've written hundreds and hundreds of hot sex techniques. I'm not a therapist. I'm an author of hot sex techniques. That's what I do. So one day I said, I think what I'm going to do is I realize that people like techniques, you know, like Wrap your fingers around his testicles and the base of his shaft and lick the top and his balls and go back and forth, you know, like that kind of thing is a Lord of the Rings is what that technique is, by the way. And I actually learned that from my girlfriend, Jaya. And the— those are great, but what people really want are erotic playdates. Because your sex life can keep getting better if you keep learning together. And because sex never runs out of fun things for you to do, I put together 48 erotic playdates that you can actually— if you go to sexlifebucketlist.com, you get a PDF, an 8-page PDF. You can print it out double-sided. It's not too bad. And I have a video for you that's your first erotic playdate. This is free.

Yeah, yeah.

And essentially what it does is it walks you through— I walk you through these 48, this list on paper of these 48 playdates, and you mark them A, B, or C. A is, oh, this is definitely going on my bucket list. We talked about doing that, but we never did it, or we did it once and it was fun. We never did it again. These are, well, it wouldn't be something that would be on my bucket list. I don't even have a prostate to find, but if it's on your list, I'm down to find it. And C's are, it's not for me right now, because never say never. As you mature sexually until the day you die with an open mind, an open beginner's mind, you're gonna find things you used to think, oh, why would anyone do that, that are now the stuff of your fantasies. Fantasies. And once you have those playdates, then you know what you want to do and how you want to do it. And that fuels your imagination. Because frankly, the only examples of sex that we have seen have been corporate media, which has its own agenda for us.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's repressed by the church, which doesn't want you to have sacred sexuality, because then you would you wouldn't come to church anymore because you'd find God in another direction. And pornography, which is there for primarily the male masturbatory gaze, and it's very degrading to women and is not the kind of female-centric sexuality that honestly we all crave, not just women. So if you have— I'll just finish up by saying that if you have this bucket list, then you can say, hey, I, you know what I'd like to do today is I'd like to find my G-spot. I'd I want to explore that and try different pressure and maybe try this toy and try this lube and try these things. And when you have this list, then you can begin to know what you think you might want and try new things. And that gives you the ability to begin as a beginner with your partner where you're trying something new. So you're on a level playing field. There's no, he should know what he's doing, because neither of you know what you're doing. You didn't do it before, so you're trying it together. So it's a lot easier to say what you need because you're experimenting rather than this thing where he thinks he's supposed to know what he's doing and so he's gonna get his feelings hurt if he thinks he does it wrong. Like, you just have— you've completely opted out of that whole paradigm and you put yourself into a whole new way to use the Sexual Soulmate Pact. So in many ways, combining your sex life bucket list with this number one thing that could be on your list is, I want to learn how to do the Sexual Soulmate Pact together. Yeah, it's a perfect combination of trying new things and working it out.

And, and the thing about it as well that strikes me is that we've talked before about the fact that in older age, well, hopefully we have a bit more time, we have a bit more freedom to explore, to experiment. And, you know, if some of us— not me, but some other people out there are retired, then, you know, you've got all this free time. And what better way to use that time than to actually explore your, you know, your sex life, experiment, find out new things. And the other thing I love about it, and I, and I say this to my friends, and, and I know that they struggle with it because I don't know about you, but I, I did struggle with my libido through my menopause. And I've come out the other end and kind of reengage with sex in a much more intentional way, which aligns for me with what you're saying about kind of scheduling playdates, you know, scheduling in this bucket list and going, let's use every Sunday to decide to pick one of these things off and play around and not feel that and understand that maybe that spontaneous, that spontaneity that we experienced as younger people when we just saw someone and all the lights and the fireworks went off and everything went mad. Maybe now it's the time to just go, okay, I'm going to be more thoughtful about this. I'm going to look at the bucket list and, and that's okay. The sparks are going to go off. They will. It will happen. Trust yourself that they will happen, but just perhaps in a slightly different way than they did when you were, you know, 30 years younger, for example. So I do— I look, I know that, you know, one of the things that everybody struggles with is when you say be creative, be original. Why is it our sex life is so monotonous? It's because, you know what, sometimes people need a guidebook, right? They need a bucket list. It's like, Here's 48 things. You have no excuse now. Just, just get on with it.

Yeah, one of the things I would say as well, and this is something I learned from Dossie Easton, was she wrote The Ethical Slut. Dossie explained to me— Dossie and Deborah Annapol, one of my mentors, explained to me that desire is a combination of safety and security safety plus novelty and variety. So when you have that monogamy— monotony of monogamy, it's because you've got too much of the safety and not enough of the novelty and variety. And what the Sex Life Bucket List does is it brings in the novelty and variety such that you feel that excitement and that new relationship energy again. Exactly. It's literally the antidote to the monotony of monogamy is the Sex Life Bucket List. List.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, it's— people, like I said, people need that. They need to have a guidebook. They need— and also, I suspect it helps them with expanding their sexual vernacular and just being able to talk about sex in far more expansive ways than perhaps they were used to previously. It gives them— it gives them words and a lexicon that perhaps it was is new to them, which just shows that even at our old age of 63, we can speak for yourself, girlfriend.

I feel so young and vital.

I mean, look, I don't like to use the old versus young thing because I feel the age. I mean, you know, I'm just, I'm not young. I've lived 63 years and I've slept with a lot of people. I don't know about you.

And plenty, tons, as many as possible. Safely.

Exactly. And so that's informed, you know, it's informed how I approach sex, but it's also, you know, it has— things have changed. And I've realized that some of the craziness that I did when I was younger, I don't really want to do that anymore, to be honest. But I do enjoy being with somebody and, and exploring together in, you know, in a fairly not monogamous way. Let's lose monogamy light, let's call it that. Then, then going crazy like every weekend. So, so yeah. And, and is there anything else in that soulmate pact that, that we're— that we've left out?

I think it's what you'll find in the download is that talk more about what I call reporting in from your animal. And I think that I put more color on it and in, inside the little PDF that'll give you ideas. I also give some stories from different couples and their different approaches to it because different people have different personalities and how they like to do things and how they like to learn things and how they like to try things and reinforce good behaviors. So that's in there. But no, I mean, I think it's very simple. It's just beginning to listen to yourself and feeling confident and comfortable that your partner is is open, not only open to hearing what you have to say and what you need and what you want in the moment, but also encourages you to do that. That, I think, is the most important thing, probably, of all of it. It's, it's really the encouragement. And I would say finally that the, the piece that's so fun in all of this is that when you land on that bed together on that Sunday afternoon whether you've decided what you're gonna do or not, being able to say, I know we were gonna do, you know, find my G-spot today, but actually I'm not sure if I feel like doing that. I think I'd like to do this or this or this right now. I think this is where I want to start. What I found is that when I am so centered in myself and feeling into my body, my energy level, my desire for my partner, the experience I'm looking for in the moment. What do I really need right now? What I've found is that it's exciting for my partner. I tend to be the driver of it. Often, though, we'll sit in bed and we'll throw out ideas. What do you feel like doing? Well, I think this would be fun. I would like to do this. Like, one of the things that I've been doing with my boyfriend right now is we've been trying trying this new scissoring position. Oh yeah, Dick has a little curve that works really well in a certain way I rotate my hips around. It hits some really great spots, and so we've been doing this scissoring position. We've been doing doggy, which was really fun for a long time in the mirror, and we loved it. But lately we've been doing the scissoring thing and adding that on, and it's been a lot of fun, and he's been getting better and better at it too, because I actually can't move as much. I'm kind of more stationary in that position. And, you know, a few, like maybe 6 months ago, what I was really into was cowgirl on top. I wanted to be on top and I was really getting good at getting myself off. And then he was like, oh, you know what would be really hot is I would like to do reverse cowgirl. Reverse cowgirl sounds really fun. I want to see you from behind. And I was like, and he likes his penis kind of pressed toward his feet. It feels good to him. And so what I think you find is that in every, every moment that you've set aside for intimacy. There's the opportunity to do the thing you said, but there's the opportunity to also do 23 other things that sound even better in the moment. And so I, I just wanted to end our conversation around the Sexual Soulmate Pact with a nod to behavioral flexibility.

I think that's a great way to end, and I just want to end by something that I read Yesterday, the day before, which was that sexually confident women and women that are able to communicate what they want and their desire and be able to articulate that are confident women, generally confident women. Like, yeah, it breeds confidence. Like, learning all this stuff in the bedroom manifests into a person who's confident outside the bedroom. So there's no better reason to improve your communication skills in the bedroom than knowing that you're going to become generally more confident outside the bedroom. Aho!

There's our mic drop.

Anyway, it's been so lovely, lovely to chat with you, and you've provided so many great free resources that we're gonna put in the summary because this goes out in addition to all the usual podcast places, it goes out via Substack as well. So my subscribers will get all the links within their weekly podcast.

Fantastic. I love your Substack. That's great.

Thank you so much and have a lovely day.