Episode 145: Non-Verbal and Creative Approaches to Intimacy

Suzanne Noble: I'm very excited to welcome our new sponsor, Higher Nature, who have created Rekindle, which I'm currently trying out and is working a treat. A 100% natural libido-enhancing supplement for women, which contains clinically backed ingredients to give your sex life a boost. And who doesn't want that? 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 before we get started, because I am not very good at promoting other stuff that I do, I just thought I would shout out my new booklet Sex Toys and Supplements for Thriving in Later Life, which I'm giving as a gift to any of my paid subscribers that subscribe to my Substack, which is on sexadviceforseniors.com. It's taken me a huge amount of time to put all of this together, not least text, you know, testing all of these toys and choosing which ones are the best, and not just for me, but also for men as well, along with supplements, because once I started going down the rabbit hole of toys, eventually got to, oh, but what about all the good supplements that I've tried out and, or my partner's tried out? Why, why don't I share those with people as well? And then of course, I had to get a designer because I had to make it look beautiful for all of you guys. And all of that has taken a considerable amount of time. And I would welcome you going over to sexadviceforseniors.com and checking it out because I think it's a very useful guide, especially if you're an older person and you've never been in a sex toy shop before, or you haven't gotten a whole Holy shit, there's so much stuff here. How am I ever gonna choose something to buy? I don't know what all of this stuff does. I've taken all of that worry away, you see, all of that anxiety. I've just taken it all away. Anyway, enough of that. I am today with somebody I spoke to last July. God, it feels like ages ago. Austin Cressap, who's a sex therapist and is based in the lovely city of Seattle. I'm so jealous, but it's sunny here today in London, so that's good. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. It is typical Seattle today. It is gray and a little drizzly.

Oh, but I'm feeling quite positive because actually it's usually gray and drizzly here, but actually it's not. It's actually really sunny and nice.

Lovely.

Yeah, so, uh, I've been watching a bit of your TikTok videos actually. Let's start with some of the fun stuff. Okay.

Okay.

Austin's got a really fun TikTok channel where she shares short videos with very, very practical tips on how to either reclaim the intimacy in your life, or just how to give people— one of the little series that I'm really enjoying at the moment is the nonverbal cues for how to tell your partner you're up for it. Do you want to explain a little bit more about that?

Yeah, so I started that series because it is something that comes up a lot is, you know, who initiates or the pressure around initiating. And also how to deal with rejection.

Yeah.

It— for some people, it can be really hard to like, just say, hey, I'm horny. Hey, I want— I want to be with you. And so I started to get kind of creative with some of my clients and also pulled, you know, the one you talked about before about the coffee cup from a show, New Girl. It was inspired from there, but where you, you pick something, you pick some kind of figurine. In the show, they use a coffee cup, and you both mutually agree that this is something that if you see it out, that means your partner is interested in some type of intimacy later. And this really helps with reducing the pressure of reentry into initiation. Yeah, if it's been a long time, or there's been some ruptures And so if you see the Figurine Out, you can either just like put in your mind, okay, what do I need to do to get myself in that headspace if I want to? Or if I'm not into it, I'm just going to put it away. And it can be fun. It could be cheeky. It could be exciting to walk into the room and you see it. Maybe you have other people in the house or kids. They have no idea. And so you have this little clue. And I've noticed that it really helps people feel less rejection. Yeah, because they're not putting themselves out there face to face and then hearing the no.

Yeah.

Beyond that, I try to have people, if they are doing it verbally, kind of the opposite of improv, instead of yes and, I say no but, one T, not two. And that's saying like no to penetration, but I am open to cuddling, I am open to this. And so you're still saying, I see your bid for connection. I still am open to doing something. And this is what feels safe and comfy for me.

Oh, right. I like that. And what if you take the coffee cup, you put it out, and then somebody puts it away, and then the other person puts it back out again?

I mean, I guess I could— that could definitely happen. I think that'd be a discussion about, you know, boundaries. You know, how much time do we want to wait before we try that again? Or maybe that's an invitation for a deeper conversation of, hey, I really want this. Let's, let's talk about this.

Yeah, yeah. And I think also there is, you know, look, it's, there's always a bit of rejection, isn't there? When you say, no matter whether you're signaling nonverbally or verbally saying, I'm feeling horny tonight, how about you? And I think that's, you know, rejection is a part, unfortunately, it does, it does sometimes. But I think, you know, I noticed that one of the other things you do, you, you suggest was just removing the shame and the blame from some of those conversations, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it really ties to the different arousal types of spontaneous or responsive. And there's you know, often you have both in a relationship, and the spontaneous person is like, now, how about now, how about now? And the responsive person is like, okay, I have to be ready this instant. And that's where they say no, because they are doing the dishes and all of a sudden they're like, I can't switch to that.

Yeah, yeah.

And so having a little nonverbal cue can help the responsive person think about what kind of context they need, or they would like to get into that headspace. And they don't have to be ready right in that moment.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really, really good point. I mean, I'm very much about prepping. And prepping is part of the getting into the headspace, you know, whether it's putting on something that makes me feel more sexual, or just like all the, you know, all the kind of hair, doing my hair and doing all this. Yeah, just, just makes me feel more attractive to, to the person that I'm with. And if somebody's, you know, I suspect, I'm not living with anybody, but I suspect if I was, I would welcome having that knowledge because then I could think about, oh, what do I know? How am I going to make this feel good for me tonight? How am I going to, what am I going to do to kind of get me in that space? Like, how can I be creative around that? People often laugh at my scheduling sex, but for me, it's about the creativity involved in that. And often, and I haven't spoken about it for a while, but often some of the kinkier communities, the creativity is the, is the main act, right?

Yeah.

Storytelling that often accompanies whatever you're doing. That is the thing that attracts people to that particular kink community. Whether it's role-playing or some sort of dressing up in some other way or something, or where there's a power dynamic or something that just gives it a little bit of a switch-up from just the traditional stuff. And if somebody said, oh, I want to do that, you know, the coffee cup was out, I could think about, well, what, what, what would that look like?

Yeah. I'm a huge fan of scheduling intimacy. And the analogy I found that makes— when I say that, people go, uh-uh, no way. This is the analogy that gets them. I say like a spontaneous road trip. Awesome. Hop in the car, drive down to Portland. Whoo! Like, what are we gonna do? Fun. Great. You don't know what's gonna happen. It's a good time. Scheduling a week-long trip to Australia. You're gonna go back and forth. You're going to talk about what do you want to do, what do you want to see, is this a relaxing trip, is this an adventurous trip. That's scheduling intimacy. You know it's coming up, you're getting yourself in the head— headspace, you're thinking about what you want to do, what you don't want to do, and you're building that, that exciting energy. And that's what scheduling does. Yeah, you don't get that as much when it's spontaneous.

No, I completely agree with you. I mean, of course you get in that early relationship energy, that first date energy where we first met someone, then maybe we have that desire for spontaneity because it feels appropriate when we're getting to know somebody and it's that first date energy where it's just like, I just want you so badly. But I think as we get to know somebody, scheduling it in means you're prioritizing it. That's what it means for me. It means absolutely, you know, this stuff is important. Otherwise, as you said, and the coffee cup thing is kind of around a little bit around that, isn't it? Which is it's saying this is important in our life and I'm putting the coffee cup out because I want to be with you tonight in whatever way that looks. Doesn't, you know, right? But it's prioritizing that. And for me, scheduling it is nothing more than just making it a priority. I don't know why people find it so, so challenging, but I have had numerous— I have had so much pushback to that, to that concept. It amazes me. I'm like, what's there not to get about this? Yeah.

And I mean, Why don't we schedule in life these days? We're busy.

Maybe that's part of it. Maybe it's part of it is that it should be a kind of— people's feelings around sex is that it should just be a natural human reaction, which we just, you know, rather than something that is aligned more to like work or, you know, other activities, sport, whatever that we do have to schedule. It's like, oh, shouldn't that be the one thing in our lives that's just free to just be the human beings that we are. But my reaction to that is no.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and you bring up sports. It makes me think of this, the idea of practice. And I think we only think of practice when we're learning something new, but we practice all of our habits. And if we don't practice prioritizing our intimacy, then some other habit is going to come in and We're practicing sitting on the couch side by side on our phones. And that's not, that's not what we really want.

No, no, exactly. So, um, I noticed that in 20— last year, you did some training around something that I was quite curious about called the biopsychosocial model and how it relates to female hormones and sexuality. And I was really, really curious to understand what that training involved, and also how female hormones do impact on our sexuality throughout our lives. Yeah, yeah.

Um, the training is kind of escaping me. I feel like last year I packed in so many different types of workshops around this. But it really, it all kind of focuses around the intersectionality of all of these different pieces. And I don't know if we could really look to one of them and say, this is what is impacting your hormones or your libido or energy. It really is a combination of all these things. We can, we can test hormones, but they're going to be different day to day, hour to hour, where we are in our cycle, or, or if we no longer have a cycle. Our hormones change constantly. What we ate, how much exercise. How we're socialized.

Yeah.

What are we— what is the media we're watching? Because the media that, you know, kind of speaking to, it's supposed to be free and spontaneous. That is a disservice from our media that has given us these messages. Um, bio, psycho, social. Okay, psycho is psychological. It's like, what are your beliefs? What are your values? And are we questioning that? And if we look at all of those things, and really dive into them, we get a more holistic understanding of what is impacting our bodies, and maybe what we can shift to have a little bit more access to that pleasure.

Yeah. And when we talk about some of the psychological aspects, one of the things that I haven't discussed for a while actually is how culturally, different cultures deal, especially with older age, sexuality, libido, etc. And, you know, for some cultures, women just are not sexual. You know, the granny image is not a sexy image, whereas there's other cultures where we step into our wisdom, we step into our elderliness, we step into this kind of person that delivers the education to younger people about how to, you know, how to have sex, how to be more intimate. In some cultures, it's perfectly acceptable for older people people to talk about it. And in some cultures, it's not. So was that part of it as well, looking at the cultural backgrounds of all of this?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And yes, there are so many different cultural backgrounds. And even within that, I like to really ask the individual what their relation to that is. Because they can grow up in a culture that is— that doesn't support that. But they themselves are very sex positive, or their household was. And finding where their ties are. And these cultural impacts, really, some of them can really socialize people to equate their desirability or their value to their sexual performance. And if there are changes in our body, menopause, pain, maybe we're on the asexual spectrum, or we get with a partner who is, we feel so much shame about ourselves because we are tying our value to these things that may not actually fit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how do you see this manifest in like the couples therapy that you do?

Oh, well, there's a lot of religious, religious shame and trauma that comes up. I see a lot of people that maybe have left the, their religion, or they grew up with it, and they don't ascribe to that, but they still have some deep-seated memories or messages that they got. And that is showing up in how they're able to initiate, or, you know, where they're getting their information about sex or what they see in the media. And then that doesn't match how they feel, or they're trying to replicate that, and it feels really off and not authentic. And so they look at themselves, they go, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with my partner? And it's interesting because I think so often we get like, men want sex all the time.

Yeah.

And women are— need to be convinced. And very often I see that swapped. In my sessions, and the woman feels wrong or bad because she has this high libido and she wants, wants, wants. And the man is like, I'm happy, like, to go for a walk with you. Or, you know, I don't really feel like that sexual right now. And so the shame of not matching what the larger world says is right, I don't know if that's the right word there. But yeah, it can be really contradictory and create a lot of shame around that.

And do you think that for some of these men, some of the reason why they might not be so interested is because they feel that there's a lot of emphasis on performance from, again, from social conditioning, and also on meeting some unrealistic expectations that have been delivered to them by the media and some aspect about, you know, having to be like super virile and, you know, like a monster. Gotta be all of these sorts of things. And they're just like, you know what, I'm just stepping back from that because it feels like a lot of pressure.

Yes, it is so much pressure. And that is such a mood killer. And that's gonna make it so hard to really lean in. You know, we want to get rid of the pressure and lean into pleasure. And find what that means for you, not what it means for your brother or your friends or whatever you learned in high school. Now you get to define that. And we live in such a performance culture around sex still, that it makes it— it removes the point of, of sex, of that pleasure and that connection. And it's more just like, what's your number? How many people can you please, you know, or that, you know, texting your ex, do I still have it? You know, even though you have a loving partner, you just still need that because that is what is a marker of, of a good person. And that's just not true.

Yeah. And when it comes to older people, do you see that there's also— there's this kind of stereotype of the older woman? I mean, I, I get it all the time on social media, either Shut up. Somebody write me recently, that was quite funny. Like, shut up and retire, Granny, or something like that. I don't know, with some something derogatory. And then, you know, and people writing to me and saying genuinely, my wife just has absolutely no interest. So do you think that's— is that something that you see come up often? Or do you think that's again, one of those things that we've just been told? And it's not necessarily reflected in the people that you've met?

I don't think it's reflective as much. I think that, I mean, we definitely— there's still a lot of stigma around older bodies and aging and intimacy for some reason. And anytime I get pushback, I'm like, well, do you still want to be having sex and pleasure when you're whatever age?

Yeah, yeah.

So that comes up. I do hear my wife or myself, you know, no, no more libido. I have zero interest in sex.

Yeah.

And I asked, what does sex mean to you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, like, Joan Price wrote Naked at Our Age. One of her things is let's expand the menu.

Yeah.

And if we're looking at sex as just penetration, and your body doesn't support that anymore, okay, yeah, then of course you don't like sex. But if we're opening that up to other ways of connecting physically, then maybe you do want that. And that can be really nice to like give yourself permission to call more things sex and lean into what else might feel good as your body has changed.

Yeah, I mean, I think you know what, it recently was like today or yesterday or something, there was a guy that commented in my chat on Substack about the fact he was 80 years old that PIV, you know, penis and vagina sex, was just off the menu, not, not happening. And he was really enjoying the other types of sex that you can have— oral sex and masturbation and all of that. And he's like, you know, it hasn't gone. I still enjoy pleasuring my partner, being pleasured. Like, I'm, you know, I'm an older man and I no longer am tied down to this whole idea of PIV sex, and it's so liberating. And I'm just having a great old time. I thought that was a really brave statement and bold statement for him to make, but also so great for other men that I know have struggled with, you know, unreliable erections, as I like to call them, to hear, because I know that for some men is that when, when the, the erectile the erections become unreliable. They just, they just, they just can't even imagine what sex can look like without that, right?

Yes, it's—

and we have almost no role models. I mean, and I think that's the other thing is that when I reflect upon it, people like Joan Price, who I've interviewed a couple of times, people like Cindy Gallup, who I've interviewed, who talks about sex with younger men, all the talk that we're now hearing about the menopause, testosterone for women, which I've recently started taking, like, there's quite a lot of conversation going on now about how women can keep being sexual. Okay. Because there's this assumption that we're not. So there seems quite a lot of conversation around that. But when men start experiencing physical decline that leads to performance issues. There's nobody, nobody dealing with that in the public eye, right? Like, no, nobody. George Clooney isn't talking about the fact he's not able to— I, you know, I don't know if he is or not, but, but frankly, he should be. There's not men talking about it. That's, that's— yeah, it— and it makes it, it hard. I think it must be very lonely Yes, absolutely.

I think the only representation we see of it is the Viagra commercials or Cialis commercials, where they talk about, you know, just what to do if you're not getting, you know, reliable erections. And sometimes it isn't physical. A lot of it is mental. And like you said, like, it doesn't have to— you don't need an erection to have pleasure. There are so many other ways to have pleasure. And I don't think that that is talked about enough or accepted.

No. And of course, the thing with Viagra and Cialis is it's not like the miracle drug, right? It's, it's normally an indication of some other condition. So at some point, it's gonna stop working. Like, it almost inevitably is going to stop working at some point. Um, because whatever's sitting underneath all of that is good. Unless you, you suddenly take control of your health in a really significant way and start dealing with the underlying issues, whether it's obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular issues, prostate issues, you know, whatever is happening, unless you deal with those, that pill isn't going to cure everything. That is, yeah. So at some point, that unreliable erection is going to become completely unreliable. And yeah, you know, and so I don't think that necessarily promoting all of these pills as being like, wow, you're just gonna take a pill, it's gonna be amazing, right? Because, yeah, in the short term, it might be.

And, you know, I know people who they've, they have very little sexual experience, and they're, they're ready, they're ready to get out there. And they're terrified. And the few times they tried, because they put so much pressure on the erection that they can't get one. So they're taking these medications, and it's not helping. And it's, you know, we're talking about what, what is this pressure you're putting? What is the goal? It shouldn't be just like, stick it in. What are you hoping? What's the deeper goal you are trying to get to here? Is it connection? Is it pleasure? And, you know, insurance, pretty sure, covers Cialis and Viagra. It absolutely does not cover sex therapy, because it's not seen as actual issues. And so there's, there's a lack of support in so many levels, and so many systems. That it makes it so challenging.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and it's not, like I said, the lack of education over what, how erections actually happen. Suzanne Noble doesn't make it easier because, yeah, by and large, I think, you know, the more I speak to men about all of this, the more I understand, like, they just, most of them don't really have a clue about, about any of it. And you're like, well, you know, could be going on in your head, could be something else. There's some other stuff. Yeah. But, but yeah, it's not— it's— there's just a general lack of education, isn't there? And, and the, the fact that we put so much emphasis on penetrative sex puts a lot of pressure on men. But if we remove all of that and just, and just we introduce sex education brought in more broadly as it's a whole buffet of activity.

Yes.

Then young men wouldn't feel so pressurized by all of this, and older men wouldn't feel so inadequate, I suspect. Yeah, yeah, right.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that the partners have a lot to play here too. Unfortunately, you know, they're, they're receiving the messages too, that the erection is so important. And, you know, I hear comments and conversations of, you know, oh, I had a date last night, but he couldn't get it up. And, and that ended it. It's, it's like, what? Wait, what? Like, what about the whole rest of the night? And like, all the things leading up to it? Like, was that not wonderful and lovely? And could you not still enjoy each other without that one one small piece of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I've been going down the Reddit rabbit hole. I don't know if you've ever looked at the Reddit, Reddit on erectile function, but the Reddit on erectile function is absolutely fascinating and quite horrifying as well, because it spans the whole, the whole gamut of experiences from young men watching too much porn and then saying that they're struggling with being with a person, you know, somebody that they actually fancy, right, to older men who are experiencing physical decline and talking about all of that and what's going on there. And then, and then you do get every once in a while you get a little ray of light, which is somebody that comes in and says, wait a minute, guys, It's not just about penetration. Like, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that you can do if that's not working out for you. But honestly, it's so infrequent that mainly you just get— you just feel this overwhelming sense of that this thing downstairs is, is controlling everything.

Yeah. And then like, there's also the, you know, what if you have a partner that doesn't get pleasure from sex, or has pain with penetration. So that's off the table, or has some physical difficulty that makes that just not a thing. But you still want intimacy. And so let's like get creative. What else feels good?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to write a little book that's just called Get Creative with Sex. Yeah, I agree. And it's a coloring book, right?

I love it. Let's do it. I feel like every time we talk, we come up with some really good ideas.

It's a little coloring book and every, every page is— we just color in the people doing fun things. I think that we could probably make that one up really, really quickly.

Yeah, it'll be part 2 to your, your toys and supplements. You know, you can like, maybe we can have stickers. Put this here.

Stickers! I love sticker books. That sounds really fun. But yeah, I mean, I think all, you know, going back to the very beginning, it's so important to be creative in how, in how you approach all of this. And, and for me, it's like some of the simplest things like moving the coffee cup can just be all you need to do to get from we're not doing it tonight to, oh yeah, we are. And it's gonna be really fun because now I'm gonna be able to think about it. Like, it doesn't have to be— some of the biggest and most difficult conversations are often around how do I just let somebody know that I'm up for it? And as you've explained, it can be so simple when you know how.

Yeah, little emoji, agree on something. If I send you a penguin and you send me one back, it's on.

Yeah, who doesn't love a nice penguin?

Yeah.

And yeah, anyway, it's been lovely to chat with you. And likewise, we agreed that I would send you my box of, my box of never used sex toys, never, to your—

thank you—

your participants who might want to see what some of these very unusual products that I've been given look like.

Can we?

You know what, there's another guy that I interviewed called Ralph Greco, who's been reviewing sex toys for ages, and another woman called Alex Fawkes. And we talked about what the fuck to do with all our sex toys that we can't all use. So somewhere, you know, so maybe we all get together a little, little care package for you.

Yes, I would be so grateful for all of my educational purposes.

That would be great. I'm not— I'm quite I'll write to Ralph and Alex and say, would you like to donate these to a better cause, which is not sitting in your storage container or needing dusting? So yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks so much for chatting.

Of course. Thank you.

Have a lovely day in Seattle.

Thank you.