Love Me: How Exploring Intimacy Transformed Marianne's Life

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. You know, we've had so many people on the program that are teachers of Tantra, teachers of somatic sexology, bodywork, all sorts of people like that. But very, very rarely, if ever, do we get to hear from the client side of what actually goes on at any of these workshops. Because I know that lots of listeners are always thinking, well, it all sounds great. But what actually happens when you get there? Because it all also always sounds very mysterious. I think there is a certain mystery about all of this. Well, Marianne Power is somebody who's experienced lots of these types of workshops and different practitioners. And she wrote a book called Love Me about her whole journey really exploring her own sexuality, her relationship with sex and relationships. And I'm so, so, so happy to have you on Sex Advice for Seniors. So welcome, Marianne.

Thanks, Suzanne Noble. I'm a fan, as you know.

Yes, thank you. That's always nice to meet a fan. I'm curious to know what actually What actually motivated you to write this book?

So it actually started with a mutual friend, um, Rose Rouse, who does the PR for Jan Day, who's, you know, one of the most respected tantra teachers. And I'm a writer and a journalist, and Rose emailed me to say, I look after, you know, Jan Day, she's amazing. Tantra's, you know, known for being connected with Sting and his 8-hour shagging sessions, but it's way more than that. Would you like to come along to a retreat and write about it? And my response was an instant hard no. Like, the idea of it just made me want to be sick, honestly. And, and then I kind of realized, you know, like, when you have that kind of a reaction, this is probably a sign that I needed to go. And so my background at that point, I was 40, um, single most of my life. And while I, I didn't really want to be partnered, I did want to have great sex. And I hadn't— I, you know, I'd had nice sex and I hadn't had bad experiences, but I did get the feeling with sex there was just this whole world that I had not, you know, that I had just not explored. And, and I come from Irish Catholic background. I was in convent school from 3 and a half to 17, so I had so many hang-ups around it, you know, like the Catholic hang-ups, but also because I'd been single a I had this idea that everyone else was really good at sex and they knew what they were doing, and I was a bit of a weirdo who didn't. And so when that invitation came in, it was like horrifying, the thought of it. And I said no first of all, but then quite quickly I was like, oh, actually, okay, can I? And then I went on that first Tantra retreat with Jan Day, and it was horrifying. But one of the really— and I've done so many weird and wonderful things for work, um, one of the most scary things I've ever done. I spent most week on the loo, literally crapping myself. But I came out half a stone lighter, and I had some of the most beautiful experiences of my whole life. And after that, you know, I was sort of hooked on it, and I wanted to do more. Um, so I've done, you know, a lot of work with Jan Day. I now assist on her training. Wow. Yeah, I know, not bad for the Irish Catholic schoolgirl who's like really scared of men and sex. And, you know, when I went to the first Tantra retreat and people kept talking about their sexuality, and I couldn't even believe people using the words. So I'm—

so I do— I interviewed Jan on Sex Advice for Seniors, and I've met her a few times. So, but it's, it's really useful to hear from somebody who's never— and obviously I'm very good friends with Rose, so I, I know what— but it's always interesting to hear because I think any of these experiences are super scary when you first go into them. And a lot of people come across as being super confident. Like, now you seem very confident about all of this, but you know, what was like— what was your first, like, what was the initiation like? Like, just, like, just run me through day one. What happens?

So yeah, you arrive, um, and it's in a beautiful sort of retreat center. And on it, like, really, it's very hard to overstate how scared I was and how far from normal this was for me. And I remember arriving and just like just scanning the room for perverts, and I decided that any bloke wearing— who had a necklace was a pervert, and I was going to stay away from them. And, and then I did imagine that everyone else was confident and cool in ways that I wasn't, and they were probably all like people with really exotic sex lives. And, you know, and that might have been the case for some of them, and it really wasn't for most of them. And also just, I've now realized that even if you have an exotic sex life in lots of ways, it does not mean that you don't have your share of insecurities and hangups. And so the very first night you check in and have your first dinner, which I couldn't eat because I was so scared. And then I think we went into the room and there was an exercise where the men would go to one side of the room and the women the other, and you just walked towards each other. Such a simple exercise., and I was petrified again. Just even, um, look, getting men's eye contact for a long time, um, just, yeah, that kind of— I felt very exposed and, and, yeah, very self-conscious and embarrassed. And, and then, so it was— it is— in some ways it's a gentle start, but actually it's not. It's still an exercise that's really quite— it brings up a lot of your feelings. And quite often on these kinds of retreats you actually don't even know the feelings you've repressed or that you have in you until you're put into some sort of weird exercise. And then, you know, having memories of being 13. And, um, yeah, so it starts gently, a lot of sober dancing, when itself— which in itself is a challenge. And, and then just different sort of opportunities to talk in a circle, which is cringy in some ways. That very first time that you're speaking into a circle about yourself is, you know, even that's heart pounding. And it's also really relieving when you hear, you know, hear what's going on for different people, because as soon as you really start hearing the issues that people have, you know, whether they're in marriages, whether they're single, whether there's been trauma in their background, it's, it's really, it, it really can— you get bonded and connected quite easily. And then it progresses into exercises where there's an opportunity to touch, but you absolutely never have to. For, so for some people really the most important thing for them would be to say no to touch, you know, for some people that have really overgiven and overdone that. And for others, including me, who'd been quite horribly repressed and quite ashamed of my sexuality, you know, there was then the opportunity to say yes. And like, even just such small things like someone stroking your arm, and I was— moment of like, what am I doing with this? Bloke I don't know stroking my arm, and why do I like it? And that was the worst thing, you know, like, oh my God, why do I like it? Um, and then lots of exercises around saying yes and no, which again sounds so simple, but it is absolutely fraught. Most of us, especially women of my generation anyway, you're brought up to say yes, to be nice, to always do what the other person wants. And a lot of the training in Tantra is around getting to know what you actually truly want or don't want. And I had never really thought about any of that before. So yeah, it's a rich experience and it can be sexual. And actually, for a lot of people, it almost doesn't go that way. It's much more of an experience of understanding yourself, getting back in touch with your body, understanding what you do and don't want to do. Yeah, so it's, it's amazing and terrifying.

Yeah, I know also that, you know, in speaking to other people about these, because she gets— the other thing worth mentioning is that these can be very large groups. Yeah, which I was surprised about. You know, I'd heard that it's not uncommon to have like 50 people in the room. So this is not like a small intimate experience. You're in, you're in essentially a crowd of people. This is You know, this can be for me, even thinking about that, like that level of vulnerability in front of so many people can be quite scary. But where I wanted to go was the fact that she does attract a very wide age group.

Yeah.

And often because there's a lot of single people there, I've heard that it can become a bit clear that the younger women are— the, the men tend to be more drawn to the younger women. And it can be quite difficult being the older woman in that stage of life where you're, you know, you're not 25 years old anymore with, with your super hot body, if you ever have that. And, and how, how was that for you?

That wasn't what I experienced when I went there at 40, so I, I'm not on the older end because, yeah, yeah, I think Jan has had— I think her oldest, um, person was in her, in their 80s.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's a— and I, I would say that on average it starts from 30s, so there are some 20-somethings, but it's, that's quite unusual. They, but they do go, so I would say it kind of skews at the majority of 40s and 50s, and so I would have been on the slightly younger end of that, and so that wouldn't be your experience. Yeah, it would— it wasn't my experience. Um, and of course I believe people if that's, you know, if that's how it feels for them when they were at a different age.

Yeah, yeah. And so what, what were the, you know, what role did confidence and self-acceptance play in this journey towards sexual empowerment? I mean, you did other things as well, didn't you, aside from Yes, Suzanne Noble was a lot of it, and, or, and Jan's work.

And I read a lot of books. I read The Ethical Slut and realized that if you read that in a London park, you are going to get some attention. So that became like, that became one of my tricks for the summer, sit in cafes and parks reading The Ethical Slut. And I loved it. I like, again, for an Irish Catholic schoolgirl, I think part of the, the, the thing I was trying to figure out was that in lots of ways I'm quite conservative and traditional. In my upbringing, but I think in other ways I'm really not. And so a lot of this was about sort of letting go of this idea that I had to be normal and do life a certain way. And, and so reading books like The Ethical Slut was such a revelation to me because, you know, it's, it's whether you've, whether you've got 100 lovers or no lovers, it's, it's like the way you think about the world, that love is good and sex is good and It has this gorgeous description about how we live in a society where there's nothing between a one-night stand and let's get married. And, you know, and they're like, there's a whole world of joy and connections and love that can happen in between that space. And that's where I sort of live now, um, with— I, you know, have a life of friends and lovers is how I describe it. And they're deep, intimate connections that don't follow the traditional, and now we're moving in, and now we're doing this. Um, so that's been— that was the liberation. And the confidence, I don't know that I've ever felt Confident. I get little moments of confidence and, and then moments of not confidence. But that's— and I, yeah, it's— I suppose I think one of the things that Tantra helped me do is that because you're talking to people a lot about life and love and sex, and you're really getting to hear the truth of people's experiences, it's helped me let go of this idea that some people are all sorted in this area. And so that in itself is kind of a confidence boost. It's like, oh, it's fine, you know. One of the sentences in the book that was like the most embarrassing sentence I could think of writing, um, was something I said in a workshop. And I was about to do an exercise, I was like, I don't know what to do with a penis, you know. And I would have been, I would have been like in my 40s at that point, and that felt like such a shameful thing. And, and then since the book has come out, you know, I've heard from a lot of people who don't know what to do with a penis, and a lot of men that don't know what to do with us. And it's so normal because no one ever taught us.

Yeah, yeah.

If you're, if you're lucky to have found the right partners along the way and you learn together, that's gorgeous. And that wasn't really what happened to me because I was quite shy. And so, you know, I went and learned it later. I'm really glad to have had the opportunity to.

And so, because I, I'm in a very similar kind of lifestyle now as you are, do you, how open are you with the people like your friends and family about who this new Marianne, as opposed to the Marianne that you once were.

But they wrote— I wrote a bloody book about it, actually, and, and I was terrified about Mum reading it. I really was. There's a lot of sex in this book, and, um, me looking at my genitals in the mirror, because that's what a book called Pussy: A Reclamation tells you you need to do in order to, you know, feel sexually empowered. And there's— and I was writing this book, and the whole time had my mum and my Irish aunties in my head. You know, they'd wake me up at 3 in the morning and I'd have that feeling of like, what are you doing? And they've all been utterly amazing, really so amazing. And my mum in particular, it's quite a big ask to read, but I didn't want her to read it, but she, she snuck it and read it anyway. But you know, to read your daughter writing like that, but she's been so supportive. And she said that you know, she never talked to us about sex growing up because no one had ever talked to her about it except to say, don't get pregnant and don't, you know, don't do it. And she said, you know, everything she ever heard about sex was around fear. And she said, this book isn't about fear, it's about pleasure. And that's very important. So writing the book meant I've kind of outed myself. You know, colleagues have read it. My sex life was on the front page of the Daily Mail, as something I know that you've experienced. You know, it's, it's done. It's out there.

Yeah, I have to say my parents didn't read my books, and I'm glad about that. And they tend to avoid reading about me just generally because, um, yeah, I mean, they're very supportive of everything that I've done, but they just don't want to—

they just don't, you know.

I think everybody's parents deals with— especially if you've got a very public persona like you have and I have, then, you know, you kind of make the decision, don't you, is, is Yes, you can go right ahead, or no, I'd rather not. I just, you know, and I have, and I definitely have friends that are just not interested in reading any of it, frankly.

Yeah, but that's fine, isn't it? I'm just like, that's really— so, because I also had a couple of friends who said they didn't want to read it. I think not so much because they didn't want to read about me, but it was, you know, it's a really, it's a really triggering, sensitive subject. You know, we all have our stuff around this and reading a whole book about it is a lot. And so for some people, that is not what they want to do. And like, I fully, fully respect that. And yeah, yeah.

And I think it speaks a lot. It was a question I was going to ask about, you know, how do you think, um, this happily ever after model of partnership, which I'm constantly kind of rebelling against, why is it still so ingrained in society even though we know that, you know, there's apps like Field now and other kind of, you know, there's your communities and all sorts of things that you can do. But it still feels to me as if— and I know, you know, part of the reason why people get books like yours published and you get big articles in the Daily Mail is because it's still not, it's still not the, the way we assume people are meant to— meant.

Yeah, exactly. Right.

And so how do you, um, you know How do you feel about all of that, about this sort of happily ever after thing? Have you kind of let it go?

Oh, I really have, like truly. And that's been the biggest gift of the book is I was reading old notes. I'm working on a screenplay version of the book now. And so I was reading old notes from when I— before I started Tantra and just realizing how much I've changed and mostly in letting go of this idea that I have somehow done life wrong because I didn't get married and have children. Um, and it's— I think it's just, it's a pretty persistent— maybe we're slow to change a lot of our, um, our tax laws. Our society is still built around the nuclear family. Yeah, it's, it's going to take time for it to change, and I'm okay with it, actually. Funnily enough, once, once I let go of that idea in my own head, it doesn't bother me too much what other people, um, say or do. And I also, I have friends that are really happily married and adore being parents, and they're living really good lives. So like, whatever, truly whatever works for you. And I feel quite grateful that even though often I thought I was failing, I actually wasn't. I've always, one way or another, ended up on the path that was suiting me. And so, you know, I feel grateful for that and would love it if more people realized that was an option, you know, that you have beautiful sex and connections that don't have to come with trips to IKEA and all the other things. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it just wasn't ever what I wanted, just to know that's an option.

Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, I think for me, domesticity— as soon as domesticity kicks in, I just— my, my sexy brain just, just goes somewhere else and just says, uh, this is not very, you know, it's not very erotic going to IKEA, is it? Or even sitting in front of the telly, I don't find particularly exciting or mysterious.

Or I had a lover and I woke up one morning and he was doing the washing up, so I did find that actually very erotic. I feel very bad for anyone who wants to do my washing up.

Yeah, I think if a man takes over the chores without being asked and without expecting to be thanked, that's always quite sexy, right?

Yes.

I tend to favor handy guys who just like fixing things for me without exactly, you know, just, you know, expecting sexual favors in return, which I'm fine with. And, but yeah, I think it is, it is really hard for society to shift this notion. I mean, I wrote today on Substack Jack, about the number of women that I've seen recently, people that I know who have gotten married. And I, and I always ask them, is this for love or for some sort of legal reasons? Because I always assume it must be for legal reasons, because otherwise, why would you do it? And they go, no, no, for love. It's for love. And I think, oh, you know, there are still people out there who really desire to be in those very traditional monogamous kind of relationships, and that's great. But it, you know, it's just like you say, it's just not for any, you know, for, for everyone.

Because I also have spoken to friends, or one friend in particular, who she says she almost feels embarrassed that she wants just one partner because she, from her perspective, you know, we've got feels now and we're much more open about polyamory. And she says she feels like a square because she doesn't want to do that. But she isn't a square. Like, it just really is about understanding ourselves enough to know what suits us and not really getting too concerned with what other people think we should be doing.

Yeah, yeah, but it's tough. I mean, you know, we do depend a lot on other people for our validation.

It's true.

So, you know, when somebody's like, well, when are you going to settle down, or when are you going to start doing this, or whatever, you think, well, what is that? What is that? Where's that coming from? I'd love to know, are there any sort of anecdotes or specific stories in your book that really resonated with your readers?

It's actually— it was actually— there was a moment where I go to a woman's circle, and I had gone to convent school, girls' school, as one of three sisters. And I didn't realize it, but I was actually— I was quite a misogynist. I think, you know, I'd been brought up in a time where women— yeah, I didn't value myself as a woman, and I didn't value other women. I didn't realize that's what was happening but I didn't. And I was at this women's circle, and I went in, and I was really judgy of other people in that circle. And I was assessing them based on their looks, what they were wearing, how boring I thought their comments were. I was being really so, so judgmental. And then one, one woman starts talking about what was happening in her life, and it's, you know, the whole room went silent. And I won't go into the details, but it was a sort of an abusive situation she was in, and it It really, it really impacted me. And it was not how it was. Her situation was not what I imagined when I saw her walking in. And that seems to be a moment that a lot of people, including men, cry at. It's a really powerful moment. And I think it also speaks to how wonderful it is to get to be in these rooms where people are telling the truth about their life. Men, women, everyone in between. Just to be— for us humans to be honest about our life. Always makes things better.

Yeah, completely. And I think especially when it comes to our sexuality, I was speaking to a doctor just before this call that I'm going to do a little talk to some junior GPs about talking about intimacy issues with aging adults, older adults. And we were just saying that for so many people, there's— they don't have the vernacular to talk about sex, right? They don't have the vernacular to understand consent, really. Last week, I spoke to somebody about the wheel of consent. You probably did some work around that, I suspect.

Yeah.

And so for a lot of people, just being able to articulate their desire, what they want, what they're interested in, to be able to say yes or no is like massive.

It's huge to have the language, to have the courage to use the language, even if it doesn't come out very well at the beginning. And no, it's a massive learning curve because Esther Perel talks about this, that for generations, sex was something that was not talked about. Then the '60s came along, and in theory, we were all suddenly supposed to be loose and free and easy. And she said, you cannot be relaxed about something that for centuries beforehand was not talked about. And it actually really fucked us up, because then you start to think, oh, I'm a prude. And yet no one in people's houses very rarely would have been talking about sex. We are not educated in a way where we learn to talk about our bodies and our feelings. So of course we're stumbling over words. And A lot of the workshops I've done, that's sort of what it is. It's practice in talking. One of the friends I've made on a workshop, she said, we're changing our life one awkward sentence at a time. You know, you're just, you're learning to say, I didn't like it when you touched my knee and I should have said no when I didn't want to. And you know, it seems, but these things are massive to say. They're really huge when you practice.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think the good thing about workshops like Jan's and other types of work, similar workshops is not— you're practicing in a fairly risk-free situation, right? So you— this isn't somebody you've been involved in with, or, you know, know, in most cases for decades. I find, you know, the biggest and hardest conversations are often to change or learn the vernacular when you've been in a long-term relationship, and you've never spoken about anything. And then suddenly, you decide, you know what, we got to switch this up, or I'm out. Right? And getting that to change can be big. But in these sorts of environments, even though they are super scary, I think they're super scary, and I hate anything to do with circles, frankly.

Yeah, and I love them now. I would have been the same, and now I love them.

I know, right?

Yeah.

So yeah, it's practice. You get practice with these circles. Yeah, you're right.

And the stakes are lower because it's somebody that you might never see again. Um, what tends to happen with Jan is that you get, um, one member of a couple coming because, you know, they've reached some sort of impasse. And, and, you know, very much like you were saying, often when kids go to university or when you're getting to, you know, 60s and you're like, is this it? And, and things that you've been tolerating for a really long time actually sort of get to the end of the line. And so what tends to happen is that one of the couple will go And then very often the other member will come— go a year or so later because I think they see the change in their partner and they benefit from the fact this partner is starting to say things and communicate in a way that wasn't there before. Yeah, yeah, it is possible. And that's not my situation, you know, I can't really speak to how it is to have been sleeping with the same person and committed for 20, 30 years. It must be such a huge thing to really to changing your sex life and your lives together after all that time. It's huge, really courageous.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, I couldn't manage it in my marriage. Anybody— I spoke to somebody the other week and she just, yeah, she went on a big journey and then she came back to her husband and, and, and started making this, taking those little steps, those little baby steps. And now they have a really strong relationship having had literally not any physical touch for ages. You know, and she is— I, I won't, because this one will come after her, so people will have heard of it. She said that the first step that she took with her husband was literally the only thing she could deal with was just letting her touch, letting him touch her feet. She said, I can't. And she said even that was really like a big deal because they hadn't touched each other in so long. Yeah, so physical, we, you know, we underestimate the importance of physical touch, I think. And that's, you know, that's coming back to the beginning. That's what you said, right? Somebody touching your arm, especially if you're a single person and you don't get a lot of physical touch, sometimes just somebody touching your arm, you're like, oh my God.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. We're touch-starved, I think, you know, in, in most of Western society and how we live and Yeah, we need touch. You know, I felt that very much in lockdown, living alone, just the absolute absence of touch. We need it. And we also live in a world that associates a lot of touch with sex, but it doesn't have to be that, you know. It's touch, it's intimacy. And I remember on my first Tantra retreat, there was a man, and it broke my heart. He said the only time he gets touched is when he goes to the hairdresser, you know, and he made a joke that he's running out of hair because it was receding. But you know, that was the truth. And that was awful because I think as a woman I hugged my friends a lot. So I think I was able to access some touch. But yeah, there's people, we need it.

It's really sad. So I get the feeling, um, are you, are you on, are you still on this pathway journey? And are you, are you moving towards teaching yourself? What's next for you?

It's funny, a few people have asked me about teaching lately. No, I feel like I'm a long way from being equipped to do that. So Jan, you know, I think she was studying for 20 years before she ever started her own workshop. So I think I've still got so much to learn, and I'm really lucky that I'm now in this world where I know a lot of people. So I'm sort of— it's now part of my life, um, going to different festivals or having these kinds of conversations with people. And, and I do have friends that are teaching in this field area now, so I'll go and It's, um, yes, it's not— I'm not sort of actively, um, trying to figure things out in the way I was, but this is now my normal, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's amazing. And so what's next for you? I'm curious to know what's next, Marianne.

I was just saying at the start of the call, so my first book was called Help Me, and I spent a year living by self-help books. My second book was called Love Me, which is the one we're talking about. The next one that I'm working on will be called Pay Me, and it's about money because I am shit with money. And I'm living, you know, as a freelance journalist, it's living at a time where the rates are going down and down, down, cost of living is going up and up and up. I wish I'd saved more money when I was earning more money, but I didn't. All that stuff. So the next one will be money. What is it? Why do we behave differently with it? Why have I been so irresponsible? What is the future for us with AI? Yeah, yeah, that'll be my next learning adventure.

So Pay Me and Love Me.

Yep, that's the trilogy. I'm sorted. Then I, then I go and retire to the Bahamas with my younger lovers.

Or Love Me and Pay Me or something like that. I think there's probably a combo book in there somewhere.

That's true, the follow-up, the PL. Yeah, yeah.

Hey me, love me, help me, or something. Yeah, thanks. Anyway, it's been so lovely to chat with you, and we'll be putting links to the book in the biography and in the summary. And yeah, it sounds like you've been on quite a journey, and but it's been amazing and ongoing. And I, I never see you on field, Marianne, because you see I don't— I'm not seeking other women, so otherwise I'd probably bump into you.

But I love the work you do, Suzanne, I really do. I think you're changing the world.

Thank you very much, and have a lovely, lovely day.

You too. Bye.