Episode 153: Rediscovering Pleasure: Sexual Authenticity and Kink in Later Life

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 I just want to start by doing a little shout out to a couple of sponsors, the lovely Oh My Bod started by the lovely Suki Dunham and her partner, who are a wonderful shop that sells pleasure projects— products, products— and Higher Nature, who produce really great supplements made out of real food, really wonderful supplements, some of which I'm taking. And I'm here today with Gaylen Foo, who I actually met in real life in London. Last year, and we got to go out for a drink in Islington, which is such a pleasure because I hardly meet anyone that I ever speak to in real life. And we had such a fascinating talk, and he's back on today. So welcome, Galen. Welcome.

Uh, thank you, Suzanne. It's a pleasure. It was a pleasure to meet you too. Uh, you know, I was just vagabonding in London by myself doing some things, and oh, lo and behold, this is this can happen, and it did. And you were so gracious to come. Yeah, I know you took a long-ass train ride to get there, so I appreciated, uh, your hospitality and, and getting to see you, uh, in person and share more, uh, of what's going on in our lives. Uh, and I was— I didn't know all of your background, so it was nice to get a chance to sit and talk and hear more about how you got to this place on your wild adventure.

Yeah, it's been a pretty crazy roller coaster of life. So I think the last time we spoke, you were in your, well, you were in your 70s, but now, as you told me just now, you've literally just passed your 75th birthday. So happy birthday.

Yes, thank you.

You're one.

A diamond celebration.

Yeah, so I'm, I'm really curious to know, because for those of you who don't know and didn't, didn't listen to our previous episode, just a little bit of context as to who Galen is and what, what he does. So he's been a sex therapist for ages, an author, an educator. And the thing that we discovered that we discussed before, and then I really want to dive more deeply into is you wrote a book called Decoding the Kink. And I, since I've spoken to you, I suppose what I've recognized is really how kink can play such a powerful role in an older person's life, especially if they have any sort of issues around sexual function. And, you know, especially for men where so much of their early sexual life tends to be performance-based and around, you know, penetrative sex, and how kink can kind of sort of step in, if you like, and provide a different type of intimacy in later life. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that and your experience.

Well, it's a very, I think, important and relevant understanding to bring forth for people because kink is much maligned, much misunderstood, and people are afraid of it. People are afraid of others who want to talk about it or might be interested in it. So there's a lot of education, I guess I would say, reeducation to do to destigmatize kink because that's what it is. It's been stigmatized. It's not been looked at or understood because it's a very incredibly wonderful dimension of Eros, that's natural to us. Millions of people, tens of millions of people are already engaging or participating and finding, discovering for themselves their own kink. And that's an important point I want to emphasize too, that the foundation of some of my research and work, I developed the concept of the personal erotic myth. And the emphasis is on the personal. You know, every person is unique. Your sexuality is unique as a fingerprint and distinct as your eye color. And it is a natural and innate part of you. But there is no normal. I wrote a paper on my Sexual Integration Therapy that I challenged this pathologization of sexuality from the negative side of the coin. If you look at the research or all of the institutional clinical models, there is no real definition of normal. Yeah, sexuality is defined by everything that's abnormal. And I guess what's left, they decide, well, that's normal. We know what normal is. We don't have to define it. I know it when I see it kind of attitude. But the truth is, from my research, and that's why I called it The Personal Erotic Myth, is it's unique to each person. Each person gets to discover and uncover and embody, bring forth this unique part of them that is a gift. And this is the mistake that's made when we stigmatize kink and our sexuality, our bodies, this whole sex-negative immersion that most of us have been raised in, that we miss out on the incredible gift that our sexuality is, both to ourselves but especially to our partners. And this is back to some of the— or where we started the thread here is, well, what's this about for seniors? What is this? How is this useful? Or is it useful? Or what's it about? And you had mentioned, you know, this is the stage of life where, you know, things don't function as well as in our prime. And so, if you can't, or you have difficulty having it— for a man, if you have difficulty having, creating an erection or maintaining an erection, and you fail to have penetrative sex with your partner, because we're so uneducated sexually, most people say, well, that's it. I'm done. Yeah, I can't do this any— it's over. Goodbye. I'll move on. I'll read books now or something. Plant in the garden. And, but that's a, that's a terrible misuse or terrible loss of this, this gift of our sexuality, which in terms of kink, kink brings you into, I have an expression, I say, sex is friction, eros is myth. And this is the stage of life, particularly when friction sex might not be as possible or as satisfying or as anxiety-ridden and such about this performance idea. When you go into kink, kink is based in the imaginal realm versus the cognitive rational realm. And then in the imaginal realm, this is basically in the unconscious. This personal erotic myth resides in it is an archetypal power exchange, symbolic, uh, mythic fantasy story that is yours. You, you have that. I can't say every single person does, but my— there's a lot of people definitely that have sexual fantasies. This is where your sexual fantasies come from. They don't come from external, uh, they get stimulated by external material. But what's happening is it's activating or resonating this internal part that, yeah, that is your fantasy, you know, like you like to fat, you know, you, that's your go-to. Most people will acknowledge that if they look at porn or sexually have fantasies, you know, it's much different than their everyday persona that is operating, you know, they might be fantasizing about some level of power exchange, you know, like the old classic Harlequin novels of the bare-chested beast and the woman in the throes of, you know, rapture and agony or something, you know. These are graphical images of internal stories that for whatever reason, it's a mystery. Why do we have sexual fantasies of such a range and such intensities, but many of them involve some level of power exchange. So if you're a couple now in your 60s or something, this idea of power exchange can be a very fulfilling area to explore and an alive and an awakened— and it doesn't require penetrative sex. No, no, even it can, but I mean, you know, you can find the pleasure of eros as, as fulfilling as the pleasure of friction, sex, and orgasm. Now, so that's a— let me pause there a little bit. I kind of threw out a lot of things there. But I'll close with just, I really encourage people to consider this idea of power exchange and kink where, you know, it's dominance and submission, one power, one takes control, one surrenders. I mean, it's, it's actually accessing very many levels of emotional and physical content that is going to broaden the experience.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, one of the issues, though, about some aspects around fantasies and realizing fantasies and the thoughts that we have tied to whatever desires that, that are present is around the fact that we carry— so many older adults carry decades of fear or shame, or even trauma tied to their sexuality, right? So stuff's going on in their head. But then there's also other stuff going on, which is, should I be feeling this? Is this okay?

Is this correct?

Is this good? Is this negative? So What are some of the practical first steps that they can take to embracing and healing those real desires that they have? Because I, I suspect that's what stops a lot of people from moving into this terrain is this kind of shame around it. Or as you said, there's always been this abnormal attached to it, even though we don't really know what normal looks like. We kind of think this stuff is sort of abnormal. So how can people begin to start addressing that in a positive way?

Well, it's— if you step onto this path of what I call sexual authenticity, which is to claim your birthright of who you actually are authentically, that maybe you never have revealed or shown anybody else because of those stigmas of being shamed or judged or crucified or all the the things that— the reactions that can happen. Uh, so it is a twofold path. The one is to claim your birthright, be empowered and authentic in your sexuality and embodied in it and conscious and all of those things. And the other is to untangle all of what you mentioned as the ways that one has been shamed or terrorized or traumatized, uh, usually growing up, it's where it began there. And so, and that hasn't been resolved yet for many people. So it's, it's at the same time you're getting turned on, you're also getting turned off by this fear, by this judgment, by this other part of it. There are two different parts of our consciousness. One is your authentic sexuality, which is instinctive, it's natural, you don't need to figure it out. It is what it is. If you just learn to be present and allow it, it already knows what it will do, what it will say, what it wants, what, how it will move and embody and be its body language. You know, it's, it's already there for you if you get out of the way. And the things that are in the way, uh, are the work that needs to be done. It's an opportunity to do the work to to heal those elements of shame, fear, and trauma that one has carried and which has dominated and ruled your life for many people because it keeps them from stepping into their truth, from voicing their truth, from claiming their truth.

It's scary. That's why. I mean, it's sometimes feeling that side of yourself if you've never shown it to someone, especially if you're in a long-term relationship. I suspect it's really bloody frightening. It's, it's filled with risk. It's, it's what if this person doesn't want to see that, you know, they've been, they've been going along in this very predictable fashion. And maybe part of that is the fact that they've stopped having any kind of intimacy at all, because it's just become mundane, boring, and predictable. And then the person comes along and goes, well, actually, It wouldn't be so mundane, boring and predictable if I was allowed and if I felt confident enough to be able to release this side of me that's been sitting here present all of this time, but afraid to show itself. I mean, what do you say to those people? Because I do think it's scary.

And this is why this is an opportunity to finally face that fear and overcome it. And it is capable, you are capable of overcoming these fears because it's like the Wizard of Oz, you know, that everybody felt this, oh no, intimidating voice in the, the, and then they pulled the curtain aside and it's this little old chubby guy who was, you know, nobody's afraid of that guy. And this is how most of our internal fears are. They're like the big boogeyman that we project onto, uh, this terrible thing. And, uh, but if we really step into them and choose our intention is, I want to take my power back. I'm tired of being ruled by this part of me that is afraid and is telling me this is bad. And, you know, people just— you have the power. That's an empowered voice, the way I just said that right there. This is your capability, is to take your power back, because these parts are ruling our lives if we don't face them. And so So that's scary. As scary as it is, there's no other way than to step into these fears. And the reward is so fantastic. I really encourage people to go through the process of what I call sexual integration. My Sexual Integration Therapy model is all about this, reclaiming your birthright sexually, and then addressing the trauma, the shames, the fears, the internalized harsh judgments that we carry about ourselves and thoughts, you know, voices that tell us we're bad or sinful or all the things. So this is obviously complex work. We can't cover this in a short story here, but the tools are out there to— if your intention is finally, I want to get more engaged with my sexuality, the tools, the education, the processes are out there. People can take it and they're welcome to come to my website. Website, gaylenfuss.com, and learn more about sexual integration therapy. But, uh, the place to start is always, uh, slow, you know, at the beginning. So this is in terms of like a couple, for instance. How can we begin this journey? First, you both have to agree that, yeah, we have an intention. I would like to explore this. And I, I could talk about, well, how can you introduce this idea to a partner who you don't know in a way that protects your vulnerability, but also opens up the conversation. Like, for instance, you might say, wow, I was listening to this podcast the other day, and there was a 75-year-old guy who was talking about eros versus sex. And I was curious, and I listened a little bit, and I wondered, uh, and they said about you should talk about your sexuality with your partner. And I was curious, well, what do you think of that? You know, you, you might find a way to just break the ice, because what happens, and it's a tragedy because many people take this to the grave, they never spoke it. But I've had experiences where this process occurs and the other partner goes, wow, me too, or you, you, like they discovered, oh, we're both kind of interested in that, and they had never known that, uh, before because they'd never talked, never had the ability to speak these truths so that you have to find a way. First, you have to have the intention to want to make a change, to want to embrace your sexuality. Then you have to understand, you know, get strategic. How can I introduce this to my partner? If you have no idea how they're going to take it or not, you know, find a way that's just like I said, bring it from outside of your— I was— someone else was talking about this and I was curious, you know, And what do you think? So, but people want to have sex, people want to be intimate, people want to be close together at heart, everyone does. And if this is play, also put it in the context, I want to deepen our connection and our relationship. I want to be deeper into the truth that we can speak to, you know, like, it's, it's a powerful journey to take. If you take it, it's an enlivening journey, you know, it is, it is, you're going to be living life if you do this, you know, this is how you— what you're here for is to experience this life and to enjoy the pleasure of it and to feel this closeness and intimacy with your partner. And all of those things are coming forth if you take the journey into sexual authenticity.

And I'm just curious to know, because I've never asked you, was there some sort of lightbulb moment with you, like at some age where you were like, I'm not feeling like I'm living my truest sexual self. I need to do something about this. Or is this something that you've been— what, what, what was the motivator for you to kind of go on this journey, which clearly you've been on yourself? And I know that, you know, at 75, you're still living at large, you're still, you're still out there. So what was that motivator for you?

That's a great question. I'd love to talk about that. I want to close up though, that the last part of the conversation with one thing about the pathway for a couple, say, to do things. Yeah, is start in the non-erotic path. Start with just touch. Start with just holding each other, breathing, just feeling each other. Your bodies will do so much of the work if you just let them come together because the body goes, oh yeah, that feels good. That feels good. I want— oh yeah, you know, like this. So start there. Let your— because so much tension is in the body when we are at the start of this journey because, wow, it's been 50 years I've held back. I haven't, you know, so that's a lot of tension and resistance there. But if you just start with just touch, just loving each other, just feeling, just I want to be close and intentionally make it non-sexual so you don't just let it stay in that place of connection and intimacy. And your body, your nervous system will start to kind of, you know, consciously breathe that way, but your, your body will finally relax. And then from there, then you might— then let's discuss something. So always begin with just getting connected, feeling connected and in touch. So finish that, and then So I would, to answer your question, I would say, respond to it as I was aware of my sexuality by 5 years old in a way that was way beyond my 5-year-old maturity level, which was not mature at all. But somehow this, this is what I call about the personal erotic myth. It contains a distinct persona that is your sexual persona, you know, it is this particular The body, you know, you have a particular body language, a particular tone of voice, a particular way you gaze at someone when, when the sex creature is embodied. That's my affectionate term for this archetypal sexual persona. It is a, it is a full persona. It's autonomous. It can embody and start expressing and being who it is if you untangle all the things that resisted. But so by 5, I was aware of my erotic nature, not my sexual nature so much, because I was already fantasizing. And things went from there, you know. I mean, I— but I— the key was I already knew even at 5, like, this was— you don't tell any— you know, something I had to keep secret. I could feel— I just had the instinct that Yeah, I don't let on about this part of me. I was a Catholic boy in a very conservative situation. So, so I hid it and kept it secret. It was very much alive all throughout my life. I was in secret, you know, masturbating or fantasizing or looking at porn. I was keeping that part alive. In me, but I also was in a total cover-up. And, uh, this is— I have a psychological disorder. I'm just finishing up a research paper on it. I'll call it sexual authenticity disorder. And this described what I had, which is the fear of revealing or others discovering the true nature, depth, frequency, style of my personal sexuality. Uh, so I had a very strong sexuality all my life. I didn't get to express it very much until, uh, I went through a divorce, or I decided to make a life change which included a divorce. And that was in my late 40s, and that was where I chose to come out, you know, to stop hiding, to stop, uh, pretending I was one thing and, and covering up, or feeling unsafe feeling, you know. Yeah, I was too afraid to show myself. Yeah, up to that point. And so since then, yeah, it's not been an easy journey, but it's been a fulfilling journey. You know, I've had to do a lot of personal work. I mean, it was an amazing— I'm so grateful I've had the opportunity for 25+ years now to live, be a sexually authentic man. You know, just, I am who I am, and I don't hide it. I don't brush it off. I'm present in it. You know, I'm discreet about it. I don't throw it around everywhere and put it in people's face. But if someone asks me, you know, I'm going to tell the truth. And I have no— I'm excited to tell the truth. What a great feeling to not allow myself to be intimidated by other people's fear and projection on me about what they think my sexuality is like, or what, who I am because of my sexuality. Um, so this is a big era we are in. There's an Eros is emerging in a way that I think is unprecedented in the history of civilization, really. And it's still in a very immature adolescent stage, so most people have not approached it as a mature adult part of your life. It's still kind of cute. I mean, you know, people can't really they don't take it seriously. They can't show that they take it seriously because, oh, what would that mean? I'm serious about sex? I can't. Uh, it's, you know, it's, uh, a lot of things that happen, need to happen, or are happening to, to bring about— I think Eros wants to get welcomed to the table finally, and along with intellect, creativity, spirit, and emotion, which are all revered, uh, qualities of, of the human being, but Sex has always been the bastard of human personality for thousands of years, and I think that's changing and it should change. It's a—

I mean, I think your experience, though, is, is, is so interesting in that often it requires disconnecting from something that's not serving you well anymore, you know, in, in terms of ending a relationship where you're, where you feel that you can't be your authentic sexual self. Often I think it's easier to, to decide once, once you are liberated from, from something to go, okay, I'm gonna start now doing the work that I want to do to be able to feel confident and comfortable in my sexual identity and be authentic in my sexual self. Very, very difficult, I suspect, when you've been in that long-term relationship, and you might try to maneuver it into that new place that you'd like to be. And I know for myself, when I got divorced, one of the reasons for that was because I also did not feel that I could be true to my own sexual self. And I made small efforts to try to see if there was some possibility that I could. And I was very quickly rebuffed, which led me to feel that that just wasn't going to be possible. And there were other, you know, there were other factors as well. But I know for me that as soon as I was liberated from that relationship, that's when I felt like, okay, now's the time, you know. And there's never, there's never not a time, right? I mean, I think that's the thing is you were 40. I was 40 as well, actually. I suspect there's something around 40 that goes on just from an age point of view that you're still young enough to feel that you're still got some sort of, you know, sexual, you know, something going on. But I see people do it later. I see people do it in their 50s and 60s. So I know that there's no time limit when it comes to stepping into this, this part of your persona that maybe you've hidden or you feel ashamed about. Or has been, has resulted from some form of trauma, that there's never, there's never a point where you can't do it if you want to.

There is, uh, it's just simply that facing the fear of it, that has to happen. And, and, and we are wonderful, uh, we excel at avoiding fear, uh, and, uh, unfortunately to our, our detriment, because I, I think one of the things about Eros that's overlooked or missed is it's so enlivening. I mean, I think it is rejuvenating. It keeps the body, uh, alive and feeling alive. And, and movement, you know, all— yeah, there's a whole series of elements to this process as we get to this age. Besides great sex and Eros, it's also about being connected to our bodies, being embodied, uh, doing movement, uh, staying flexible and, and toned. And, you know, stop eating terrible food and, and a healthy things. I remembered to breathe, learn to listen better. All of these are the, I think, the elements of becoming an elder, you know, to move into this stage of our life. It's a whole holistic system, I would say, of becoming an elder.

Yeah, yeah. And I think, as you know, for everybody I've spoken to— I spoke to somebody yesterday— and, and we all agreed that this stage of life is absolutely wonderful, full of opportunity, as long as you're healthy, as long as you pay attention to your health, as long as you move, as long as you focus on what you eat, like you've said, as long as you do all these things that maybe are a little bit boring, but, you know, necessary if you want to be able to explore all the wonders of the— of being human, right? And and all the opportunities that are out there. That's the, that's the bottom line, really.

Yeah, I think it's— I'm glad we're having this conversation and I hope it spreads because I think too many of our elders don't have a clue about any of this stuff, want to, but don't know. They're just— they don't understand. How do I do this? And I hope it becomes a movement and can be really a thing, you know, where it's people are consciously growing into the elder years to enjoy it better, to live it, to experience it, to be mentors for the younger generations, to, you know, bring our— embrace our wisdom back. We've given up on the wise elder motif generations ago, it seems, in this culture. And we're losing a lot of that capacity of our culture of what the elders can bring forth, just in terms of blessing others or being, you know, this encouraging presence in, in the world.

So one final question for you. What advice would you give to someone over 50 who feels like they've missed the opportunity to explore their sexuality, or embrace their desires?

This is the best time to begin. You've hit the right moment of where you've gone through enough life where you, you know, can now move into the mature aspect of how you approach your sexuality, your pleasure. And it's beyond— say, I like this— we overlook this idea even pleasure is verboten. And taboo in this culture. So this, as you hit 50, it's the perfect time to start focusing on your pleasure, your partner's pleasure, be it sex or otherwise. But in terms of sex, it is, you know, if you've been married 20 years and you've never talked about it, all this resistance is there. Come talk to me, I'll help you.

And why not?

Or talk to Suzanne Noble Noble Noble. I mean, it's like, get some help.

I'm not a trained therapist. You're the trained therapist. I just, I just refer people to people like you. I'm just, I'm just a little novice who slept with quite a lot of people, that's all.

Well, that's expertise. You know, you've got elder wisdom there.

Yeah! Or something— Anyway it's so lovely to talk to you again and it's been great to see you and you look very well for your 75 years and I hope that you continue to thrive and just spread the good word about the pleasures of kink and fantasies on Eros.

Thank you Susan Nobel. You're a champion of all the good things for us out there. Elders here. So I appreciate your work.

Thank you.