July 3, 2025 • 49 mins
What if the problem isn't that you don't want sex, but that the sex you're having isn't worth wanting? This revolutionary perspective from Dr. Betty Martin, creator of the Wheel of Consent framework, challenges everything we've been taught about sexual desire.
In this illuminating conversation, Betty explains why many women find themselves caught in a pattern of consenting to unwanted sex, leading to resentment and even trauma symptoms over time. She reveals how cultural conditioning teaches women "to be wanted, not to want" while simultaneously disconnecting men from their own sensuality and emotional lives. The result? A widespread sexual dynamic where "he thinks he's serving and she thinks she's allowing" - with neither partner getting what they truly desire.
Betty unpacks how our earliest experiences teach us that touch is something that happens to us without our consent, setting the stage for passive relationships with physical intimacy. She challenges the limiting "gatekeeper model" of consent and offers a more expansive framework where both partners explore what they genuinely want to give and receive.
Most powerfully, she reframes sexual dissatisfaction not as a disorder but as valuable information. If you don't want the sex available to you, "it's actually a good sign that you don't want it" - your body is telling you something important! Through her Three Minute Game and other practices, Betty shows how couples can discover new forms of pleasurable connection that move beyond our cultural scripts about sex.
Betty Martin has had her hands on people professionally for over 40 years, first as a Chiropractor and upon retiring from that practice, as a certified Surrogate Partner, Sacred Intimate, and Somatic Sex Educator. Her explorations in somatic-based therapy and practices informed her creation of the framework, The Wheel of Consent®. You can find out more at www.bettymartin.org
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, sex Therapy 101.
Friends, you notice I mighthave taken a break, but we're
back and we're excited and I'mreally passionate about this new
series that I'm going to beoffering to all of you.
I haven't disappeared.
I've been working on someprojects that are really
meaningful to me and one ofthose is a book for the public
(00:30):
about my research aboutregarding long-term outcomes of
consenting to unwanted sex, orduty sex as we sometimes call it
, and in doing that, adding tomy own research over the year,
you'll see my hair change, myface change, because these were
all recorded over the course ofa year and I wanted to talk to
(00:53):
experts about the culturalimplications or cultural beliefs
or the cultural ideas amongdifferent communities in the US
that might protect peopleagainst negative outcomes and
that might actually kind ofpromote people into some of the
more negative outcomes.
And that is the series I haveto offer you.
(01:17):
I'm really excited.
It's been really meaningful tome, it's been enlightening to me
, it's really helped me makesure that this book is what I
want it to be for all of you.
So, with no ado, here we go.
This is going to be the introfor the whole series.
I'll give you a little bit of abio for each, and then we'll
jump into the recording of theinterview.
(01:39):
This was an exciting interviewfor me with Betty Martin, who I
don't know personally.
For me with Betty Martin, who Idon't know personally, who I've
benefited personally, though,from her work.
The way she teaches what she'scome up with.
It's really helpful.
It's novel, but it's simple.
(01:59):
So I really hope you enjoy thisas much as I did.
Betty Martin has had her handson people professionally for
over 40 years, first as achiropractor and then, upon
retiring from that practice, shebecame a certified surrogate
partner, a sacred, intimate andsomatic sex educator.
Her explorations andsomatic-based therapy and
practices informed her creationof the framework, the Wheel of
(02:21):
Consent.
I hope you buy her book, I hopeyou watch her free videos on
her website and I hope you enjoythis conversation.
Thank you so much for agreeingto chat with me.
Sure, and so I was hoping today,you know, I could go through
those.
Just I think there's sevenquestions and just oh yeah,
(02:42):
about why women are not happy.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
happy, I'll just pick your brain right, it's like
we've got.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We had 1300 women.
So many reasons, so manyreasons.
Yeah, we had 1300 women saythey didn't have a history of
any sexual trauma, but they hatesex, basically, and um, this
pattern of I've agreed orconsented to sex when I didn't
want it over and over and over,yeah, and so I want your
(03:11):
thoughts of how you think aboutthis.
I'm just wanting really to starta conversation about what's
this about.
So that first question is youknow, using your clinical lens
of relationships and sexuality,what do you see happening in my
research findings?
How would you explain it tosomeone else about what's going
on?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, first, I'm a clinician.
I'm not a researcher.
I don't have a big database,but the people that I do work
with I've tended to work withquite intimately.
Um, and I would say that theprobably the reason most are of
(03:55):
the women who don't like sex.
The biggest reason is probablythat the sex is not worth
wanting.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Mm-hmm, say more.
I'm on board, yeah, and I'minterested in your thoughts,
totally agree.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Because if it's not enjoyable and sensorily pleasing
, who would want it?
So I think that's the biggestthing and the reason that
they're not getting good sex isbecause number one if they're
(04:34):
with men, men largely have beensystematically cut off from
their own sensuality by the waythat we raise boys and men, and
they and women haven't learnedhow to learn what they want and
(04:56):
ask for what they want, and havebeen also systematically cut
off not so much from their ownsensuality but from their own
lusty sexuality.
And I think this isparticularly true in
middle-class white women I don'tknow if that's quite as true of
(05:22):
other demographic groups, butdefinitely true of middle-class
white women and do you have ahypothesis of why you think
specifically that group are lessin touch with what you?
you know, you're saying desiresor ability to want.
I suspect that it's becausewe've been taught to be nice and
(05:43):
that the job of a woman and Igrew up in 1950s and 60s, so you
know this kind of dated, but Ithink it still applies the job
of a woman is to be wanted, notto want, and to be, you know,
(06:04):
pursued and not to pursue.
It's just all the same bullshitthat we've been raised with and
there's a certain squishingdown of enthusiasm about
anything.
So you're not allowed to be bigand take up space and make
(06:28):
noise and you're not.
It's just kind of frowned uponand it's not ladylike, and so
this applies to sexuality aswell.
So it means that it's not goingto be.
(06:48):
As you know, if I'm raised thisway, it's not going to be as
easy for me to find the lustypart of myself, the part that
just wants to.
Oh yeah, let's do this thing.
You know, it's just going to beharder to access that part of
myself and, I think, a lot ofthat is, is the um puritan
(07:12):
culture.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Basically, we, we, we got puritan culture and this is
one of the results of it downthe road you you see it as a
little bit geopolitical in theterms of the united states had
this unique founding andpuritanism which is going to
soak into most parts of ourculture.
(07:34):
Yeah, yeah, and you, you saidsomething interesting too of
that, uh, that men come by thishonestly as well, and how they
were conditioned.
Do you say a little?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
more.
Yeah, men are conditioned tobasically not have any feelings,
and certainly not have anyfeelings of tenderness, and so
their feelings?
This was explained to me by aman who worked in the women's,
(08:07):
within the men's movement a lot.
He said that men's culture isbasically built on the fact that
men have to go to war and killor be killed.
So that means that all yourrelationships with other men are
competitive, except you mighthave a buddy, but most
(08:28):
competitive an ally, but you'renot going to be able to give in
to your feelings of tendernessand fear.
So that means you're also notgoing to be able to give in to
your sensory enjoyment very much, because when your sensory
(08:52):
enjoyment comes on your skinyou're going to have feelings.
And if you don't want to havefeelings then don't get into
your body in that way.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Pay attention to the messages.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, yeah body in that way, attention to the
messages, yeah, yeah.
And then it also means that ifI'm a man and my job is to take
the bullets and kill or bekilled, then women are now
pushed into the role of the.
I have to protect them.
So now I'm envious of thembecause they have it easy, and
(09:26):
I'm also don't respect thembecause they're not out there
fighting.
So there's need and alsocontempt.
Yes, there's need and contempt,and since I can't have intimacy
with other men, I have to haveit with women.
They are my only source andbecause I don't know how to have
(09:49):
emotional intimacy, the onlykind left is sexual intimacy,
and so I have to fuck all thewomen that I can, but not to get
too close to them, and I don'thave much sense of my own skin.
So that doesn't make for veryenjoyable sexual experiences,
(10:11):
because now I just got tofucking get it out and get it
over with.
So all those combined do notmake for very satisfying sexual
experiences.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
A lot of the ways we've maybe pre-consciously been
conditioned is at play here.
You kind of see this as atheological interplay of
conditioning Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
There's another piece too.
There's another piece thatapplies.
I've seen it apply to men andwomen, but especially women.
I think it's endemic to womenand that is as infants we're
touched in ways that we don'twant and don't like and are
(11:01):
powerless to prevent, and I'llthrow up through early childhood
it's just a normal part ofchildhood.
It doesn't mean thatsomething's wrong, it's just
stuff's going to happen that youdon't like picked up, yeah yeah
, yeah, have our diaper, diapers, diapers change.
We have our teeth brushed.
You know we get picked up fromhitting our little brother you
(11:25):
know, things are like done toour body.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And so we learn as pre-verbally, we learn that
touch is this thing that happensto us that we don't have?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
any choice about.
It's just something thathappens and we have to figure
out how to be okay with itsomehow.
And so that gets instilled,installed very early, very deep
Touch is something that you haveto put up with in some way.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, and it's not on its own damaging, but I can
imagine if, if another narrativeis never introduced of, and now
you get to tell me how.
I can interact with your body.
If that never then getsintroduced, we can't kind of
counteract that conditioning ofyeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Okay, and many people never have that other narrative
introduced.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, I'd never thought about that pre-verbal
how we deal with touch.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, it's very, and where this came to the fore for
me in working with clients wasthat I would ask people how do
you want me to touch?
You want me to touch you?
And they would answer with.
Well you can such and such, Iguess, which is a different
(12:50):
question.
I asked what you want and youanswered with what you don't
mind terribly much what you'dallow, what you would allow yeah
, yeah, very different question,but it showed me that those
things were getting tangled upin there.
That that I, for many people,for many women and the
(13:13):
occasional man for many women.
It never occurred to them thatthey could be touched the way
they wanted.
They never had an experience ofbeing touched the way they
wanted, wanted.
They never had an experience ofbeing touched the way they
wanted.
Number one the men didn't knowhow to ask, or, if they asked
the women, the women didn't knowhow to know what they wanted or
(13:33):
say what they wanted.
Or you know, um, it's a wonderwe make any babies, you know
something so natural, it's sodifficult for many you know yeah
okay, so let me, let me movequestion to.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
That was all really helpful.
I'm glad.
I'm glad we added that lastpart, because that was a new
idea to me and I appreciatehaving this new awareness or
thought.
But second question being Imean you are an expert in
consent.
How do you conceptualize theway you think about consent?
(14:14):
And I mean in this study, womensaid I consented to something I
didn't want, and some peopleI've talked to have said that's
not actually consent, and somepeople I to have said I mean
that's the legal definition, butyour, your concept of consent
is not allowing it's being aware.
(14:35):
Yeah yeah, talk a little bit tome about sure, how you think
about consent in a way that isnew for a lot of us.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Most people.
Well, after I'd been teachingconsent for 15 years, I decided
to go look it up in thedictionary, and I'm glad I did,
because consent in thedictionary means essentially
saying yes to something somebodyelse wants, agreeing.
(15:06):
Agreeing it means I consent toX Y Z, it means I agree to
participate or let X Y Z happen.
That's a useful place to start,but it sure is not the whole
picture.
But it sure is not the wholepicture.
(15:28):
So, but if, based on thispre-verbal growing up that well
touches this thing that happenedso I can consent to it, means
yeah, it's okay, it's not tooterrible, I'm willing to have it
happen, then that's you know,that's technically, that's
consent.
(15:49):
Um, and it's been called the.
This model has been called thegatekeeper model.
The woman has the sex, she ownsthe sex, and the man wants to
get the sex from the woman.
So he has to get consent fromher somehow so that he can get
(16:09):
the sex from her, and so all shecan do is open the gate or
close the gate.
So it's terribly unfair.
A lot of couples feel that theywouldn't have the theory name,
but they're like yeah, that'swhat we experience exactly
exactly, and it's unfortunatefor her because she doesn't get
(16:32):
to ponder what she wants.
She only gets to decide am I yesto this thing that he wants?
Um, so I think if you hearpeople use the term get consent
or give consent, they're talkingabout the gatekeeper model by
(16:56):
definition Mm, hmm.
So it's better than nothing,but it's not.
it doesn't solve the bareminimum yes, bare minimum yeah,
to prevent, yeah, to preventassault, yeah, yeah, um.
So the wheel of consent wasdeveloped from these two
(17:17):
questions how do you want me totouch you, and how do you want
to touch me, and um.
And then a conversation,negotiation about what's
actually going to happen, andthen do the thing.
And so I named it the wheel ofconsent, because it just seemed
to fit, but really it's moreaccurately called the wheel of
(17:40):
agreement, because if consentmeans the gatekeeper, then I'm
not really interested in thegatekeeper model.
I'm interested in what do youwant?
What do I want and where theyoverlap collaborative equity.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
How do we, yeah, what ?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
sounds fun to you, what sounds fun to me.
Okay, let's, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And so that's one thing.
The other thing that peopleoften think consent means
permission I want to build ashed in my yard.
(18:31):
I go get a permit from cityhall.
A permit means I am allowed todo the thing that I want to do.
So if you're giving mepermission, it's because I want
to do the thing.
Well, that applies to somesituations, but not other
situations.
If I ask you to rub my back andyou say, yes, permission
doesn't apply in that dynamic.
(18:51):
It just doesn't fit anywhere.
So permission is one kind ofconsent, but it's only one kind
out of several kinds.
So there's that complexity aswell.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I like that you just made what is often a flat word
consent dynamic where there'sdifferent kinds of consent,
instead of did you get it, didyou not get?
It Right, like you just made itgo 3d.
You know, in your mind, youknow, just popped up like a
puffer fish in my head yeah,yeah yeah yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
consent is a hard thing to talk about because you
have to define it first and evenif you define it, people often
have a difficult time changingthe definition in their minds
that they're thinking when yousay the word.
So yeah, consent, meaninggetting a yes out of someone, is
(19:57):
an important first step, andit's sure not the whole picture.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, yeah, and, and as I've read your book and
listen to things from you and Iuse your exercises, I'm so
grateful that they're free onyour website.
I use them with my time GreatGreat.
Betty's worksheet Hold on.
Um and and after.
I you know, I've had a year anda half of space for my research
(20:25):
and I'm like, what am I goingto do to it?
I came across your work in thatspace that time and so I'm was
looking at this of okay.
Another way to explain this iswhen you look at your wheel and
there's the four quadrants.
The long-term pattern for thesewomen is they were the allowers
, the husband was the takers andin your model that's not in and
(20:48):
of itself terrible, but ifthat's all we have, if that's
all you have, you're going toget bored or, and maybe even
that's why some of you know theywere all scored severe to
moderate on the ptsd, I mean ona ptsd screener.
But they were avoiding it, theywere developing aversion to it.
They were getting anxious aboutit.
(21:09):
They were crying during orafter, like.
And so I see this and I'm likeis this?
What if we don't use the wholewheel and we stay stuck in allow
and take, which sometimes ishealthy?
There was, yeah, 30 percent ofwomen who said this is fine,
this isn't a problem for me, butthe 70 percent of women who
said this over time pushed meoutside that circle that you've
(21:30):
driven yeah, right on theoutside of that exactly, is is
putting up with yeah, yeah, yeahyeah, harms one or person or it
harms the relationship.
Yeah, yeah, had you thoughtabout that, of what happens when
we're.
I mean, you drew this, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
People get stuck in one, and one problem is that,
whichever one you feel likeyou're in, you're going to
assume your partner's in theother one.
Oh you're going to assume yourpartner's in the other one.
Oh so, if you feel like you'reallowing and really you're more
kind of in the muddy edge ofputting up with, if you feel
(22:11):
like you're in allowing, you'regoing to assume your partner's
in taking.
But they may not be there.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Chances are they think they're in serving okay
because, they're trying to dothe right thing you're like
blowing my mind because I didn'tknow how to put that into words
is I'm thinking, okay, but wedon't have 1300 predatory
partners in my research thatcouldn't have happened
spontaneously yeah and a lot ofcouples I'm working with are
(22:41):
like good people, it's thedynamics.
It's really crappy.
But you're saying the woman'sgoing to perceive him as taking
and selfish and entitled.
But he may not be selfish andentitled.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
He may think he's serving.
He may think he's servingbecause he's doing what he saw
on the video that women aresupposed to like.
Yeah, but you didn't ask herwhat she wanted.
If he did, she didn't know howto say yeah, and so she's
silently putting up with whatshe thinks he wants when he's
(23:13):
trying to do what he thinks shewants.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I'm giggling because I'm remembering a couple and she
said oh, but he's so generous,he'll go down on me for like 30
minutes.
And I said do you like oral sex?
And she said no, I don't.
Oh, then how is he so generous?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
he's doing.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, he thinks he's doing this for her and she knows
it's not for her.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, but it doesn't have to be nefarious or
predatory that's right selfish,or yeah, in most cases it's not,
I think yeah yeah, I mean, ofcourse, you know some people can
be jerks, we can all be jerks,but for the most part I think
it's just a misunderstanding anda trying trying to figure out
(23:58):
how to do the right thing yeahand going back to men who, if
your access to intimacy,affirmation, play, connection,
(24:25):
um recognition, sensuality, ifyou don't have any way to access
those except for sex, which isthe case for most men, then your
sex isn't really about sexeither.
It's about all those otherthings.
But you have to get sex becauseit's your only route to a
(24:49):
feeling of connection.
You have to get it Because youdon't know and you haven't
developed any other routes toexperience connection or
intimacy or play or affirmationor anything else, and so I think
that's one reason why men tendto be so focused on sex, to the
(25:13):
exclusion of other forms ofphysical intimacy.
It's partly testosterone too,but I it's largely um just in
culture that there's no otherway to get those things but sex,
and so you got to get it.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I'm sure you could talk for hours.
Maybe, I mean might be assuming.
I probably could and I wouldlisten for hours.
Do you think?
Is it too simplistic for me tosay to think about like, okay,
consenting to unwanted sex?
That's similar to gatekeepingsex.
That's similar to staying stuckin the allow, take position.
(25:56):
Are we using a lot of differentterms for the same thing?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I think people are sufficiently different and their
situations are sufficientlydifferent that it's fair to say
with one person, here's the maindynamic, and with another
person this is slightly maybesimilar dynamic, but this is the
other thing that's going on.
(26:19):
Or for one person, the husbandis just desperate for some kind
of connection at all and thewife resents that because he
didn't pick up his socks and soyou know now there's.
Or in another instance, um, heis very generous, but she grew
(26:40):
up with some shame and doesn'tknow how to enjoy something or
let herself enjoy it, and so shegets tense, and then he's going
to get tense, kind of liketemplates that these dynamics
(27:07):
underscore a lot of other things.
But each individual couple isgoing to have different things
that are more or less importantand I think they're slightly
different.
Things Like the aloud dynamicis a really important and a lot
of people can't find it and it'smissing.
(27:30):
Most people can't find it andmost men have a lot of trouble
finding and experiencing thetake quadrant, because it
requires a certain degree ofsensual sensory skill.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And if you can't tell me, more about that, because
I'm like, I'm thinking oh,that's the most common dynamic
is the man isn't making and thewoman's in the allowing.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
So tell me more about that.
The most common dynamic is thathe thinks he's serving and she
thinks she's allowing.
Okay that's the more commondynamic.
So neither of them arereceiving what they want the
take quadrant.
If I'm going to feel you up,then my hands have to be
(28:18):
actually able to take in thedata of what your skin feels
like.
If I can't take in the data ofwhat your skin feels like, I'm
not going to be able to feel youup.
I'm going to be doing things toyou but it's not landing
anywhere.
I'm always thinking is thisgood for her?
(28:41):
Is this good for her?
Is this good for her?
I can't actually drink you upthe way I, the way taking would
have me do.
So most men have a hard timeaccessing the take quadrant and
it takes a little bit oftraining.
Interesting, yeah, yeah.
(29:07):
And when it does click, it'susually a huge aha.
It's very often emotionalresponse to it and it totally
changes their sensualrelationship because then they
both are able to have fun.
Women usually learn to takepretty quick because their hands
are more likely to be awake.
Yeah, In any given heterosexualcouple, the woman will almost
(29:32):
always click first.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Does sexual entitlement live in take?
It lives in the shadow of take,that shadow of take, yeah, yeah
and so it's so common that weassign intentions to other
people I'm hearing you say oneof the things that have to
happen is getting really clearand open to my partner's
(29:55):
intentions might be verydifferent than the one I've
assigned to them, because Imight be absolutely taking and
they're just struggling andstruggling to try to serve or to
find the thing that'll yeah,yeah yeah, um, that is.
That opens up a lot more roomfor men in this conversation
(30:16):
that I think rightly so.
We need to vilify sexual harm,but I don't know if you I'm not
being very eloquent at allyou're I see your brain.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
You did it just opened up so much more um
non-judgment for the male inthis situation that in these
conversations there's it's oftenloaded with judgment for them
sure, yeah, yeah, um, andunderstandably so, because if
(30:53):
men are conditioned todesperately need this, some kind
of connection, and also tobelieve that they deserve it,
and they get to have it becausewomen owe it to them, so it's a
setup for entitlement.
And then you combine that withnot really having the skill to
(31:16):
know or to help your womanfigure out what she likes.
That's another setup.
Woman figure out what she likes?
That's another setup.
And then another setup is thatthe woman is trained to not want
anything or to have or toexpect that he will know.
He will know how to do theright thing miraculously because
(31:40):
she doesn't know.
And so he, when he doesn't know, then she gives up, yeah, and
so the whole thing is a setupreally, um, and it's easy to see
how each of them can blame theother yeah, and the gridlock
sets in and yeah, and then itthen it's really hard, but I've
(32:03):
been there I do not recommend itjust like.
Oh, here we go again.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
You know it's really hard to to come at it with fresh
eyes when you're working with acouple who's stuck in, what you
see is really common the allow,serve and it's not going well,
it's not producing desiredresults for either party.
What's your treatment plan?
(32:29):
Where do you start?
Where do you go?
Three minute game.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
The three minute game is where we start.
It's pretty much the treatmentplan for everybody.
Okay, Because every well, Ifirst start with waking up the
hands and then the three minutegame, or or some you know
variation of it.
Mm-hmm it, because everyrelationship dynamic will show
(33:02):
up in one of those quadrants, inthose three minutes, in those.
Yeah, because, okay, now as partof the game, I'm asking you,
how do you want me to touch you?
And then all your stuff comesup about oh well, I don't
deserve this, or am I asking fortoo much, or I don't know, or
all that stuff.
It's going to show up rightthere.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
This is what he wants .
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, right, maybe I can guess the right thing so
that he wants it, even thoughit's supposed to be for me.
You know it's all going to showup right there for me.
You know it's all going to showup right there.
And same thing when I ask howyou want to touch me now, oh,
it's going to come up for me isoh shit, now what do I have?
To say yes to everything?
(33:42):
And what if I don't like it?
And what?
What then?
What should I do?
And uh, you know, and ifsomeone asks me how I want to
touch them, like, do I get toadmit that I actually want to?
I don't know how to actuallytouch them for me.
I only know how to do thestrokes, and not you know so.
(34:03):
Or I don't know how to respectthe limits that they've set.
Yeah, it's all going to show upin one of those quadrants or
the other.
Yeah, so it's pretty much.
The three minute game is thesolution to everything.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, what's the solution to preventing this Like
that's, that's when people havealready gotten here from the
socialization that we'veestablished as a country.
What?
What's the answer to preventingthe dynamic from settling in,
do you think?
Speaker 3 (34:43):
in the first place?
A lot of things.
A three-minute game you woulddo it as a parent with kids.
Uh, yeah, you can do it withkids as long as you're asking
them what they want and theydon't ask you what you want.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, what do you want to?
Speaker 3 (34:56):
do to me.
I want to pull your hair, Iwant to climb all over you, you
know, you know, imagine ifpeople who were just starting to
date were playing this likethey'd learn pretty quick that
they have a boundary and theybetter respect the other
person's boundary.
And you know that there's funthings to do that don't involve
sex.
And yeah, one of the benefitsof the three-minute game for a
(35:21):
couple is that if you, if youtake sex off the table, take
genital contact off the table,for the first 50 times you play
it, you discover that there's alot of fun things to do to each
other that don't involve thegenitals, and so your repertoire
just grows like oh my gosh, Ididn't know.
(35:43):
I like to have my, my legsmassaged, and now it's my
favorite thing.
You know, all these, theseoptions arise that you didn't
see before yeah, and we get tohave this, yeah, a whole list of
pleasure, that isn't focused onorgasm oh my body.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So some of the prevention wouldbe we need to learn as a
culture how to respect people'slimits when they set them.
And there's this big missingpiece of the sensory wisdom of
being connected to our ownbodies, yeah, and I would say a
lot of, what a lot of.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
I I think I don't have data for this, but I think
that for most people who showedup to my studio to get sex
coaching, the sex wasn'tactually the problem, and I
write about this in the booksomewhere how to be comfortable
(36:46):
in your skin, that's the problem.
Or how to be comfortable withwanting, that's the problem.
Or how to be comfortable withwanting, that's the problem.
Or how to be able tocommunicate what you want,
that's the problem.
And it's just that those thingsdidn't show up until sex was
(37:06):
around.
But those are actually theproblem.
They're not about sex.
They're about being human andliving in your skin and learning
to be comfortable with your ownemotions and your own
discomfort, and beingcomfortable with the fact that
(37:27):
there's something you want andbeing comfortable with the fact
that your partner may wantsomething different than you,
and being comfortable with thefact that your partner may want
something different than you,and being comfortable with the
the fact that there's thingsthat your partner's not
available for and being havingthe skill to converse about
those things.
Those things are not about sex,but they show up around sex.
(37:49):
So people think the problem issex Right, and I think I tend to
think the the problem that'sunderneath.
That is, how to be a sensual,decent human being and
communicate with other humanbeings and learn how to be
honest about what you want andlearn how to respect what the
(38:11):
other person wants, and learnyou know, know.
Learn how to let the otherperson feel what they feel
without trying to fix it all thetime, or learn how to feel what
you feel without trying toblame it on the other person all
the time.
Those things are relationshipskills, right, which are not not
(38:31):
so much about sex, but I can'timagine how you're going to have
good sex without them.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
That's, that's my own bias, yeah and that leads us to
this question.
You answered a little bit butyou know your thoughts on the
dsm having a diagnosis forhypoactive desire disorder.
Oh.
God, tell me more.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
You know there may be such a thing, but in my working
with clients, I don't thinkthere is.
I think, okay, if you say, well, this person doesn't desire sex
, so therefore they're broken.
Well, first of all, what is sex?
And it may be that you don'tdesire this kind of sex.
(39:23):
Well, good for you, becausethat kind of sex is lousy, it's
not worth wanting, it's notworth wanting I think Schnarch
came up with that too.
It's not worth wanting.
It's not worth wanting.
I think schnarch came up withthat too.
It's not worth wanting.
But because you don't know thatthis whole other realm of
really fun sex exists, so youdon't know that it's there that
(39:47):
could be wanted.
So that's one part of it isthat, yeah, the you don't want
sex because the sex you werehaving worth wasn't worth
wanting.
And then there's this otherthings that could be considered
sex that never occurred to you.
So yeah, I I think that's aridiculous thing.
(40:08):
The other thing is another wayto look at it is there's
something that you want.
It may not be sex the way youhave always had it, but there's
something that you want.
And what is that something?
That's a much more interestingquestion.
Maybe you want some cuddlesthat are not sex.
(40:32):
Maybe you want a foot rub.
Maybe you want help getting thekids to bed.
Maybe you want someone to readyou a story so you can you put
your head in their lap and havethem read you a story.
Maybe you want someone to singa song for you.
Maybe you, you know, there'ssomething that you want and we
(40:55):
are describing it as if the onlything that counts is if you
want penetrative intercourse.
I mean, it's so.
That's just so ridiculouslynarrow.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And we'll use the word intimacy as like a code
word, like for sex.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, that's ridiculous, right, yeah, like
let's.
We're grownups, you know.
Let's use the word.
That means what it means.
And the other approach to thequestion is if, if the sex that
you were having is not worthwanting, then it's actually a
good sign that you don't want.
It's actually a good sign thatyou don't want it.
It's a good sign that you don'twant it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, instead of a diagnosis, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
So what you need to do is yeah, what you need to do
is experiment and discoverthings that are enjoyable,
whether they're sex or not.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
And that makes sense to me, but say a little bit more
because, like a reader orlistener might be like what do
you mean, betty?
That it's a good thing?
I don't want this.
It's causing so it's causingdecades of conflict you know,
yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Well, it's causing conflict because it's the
conflict is an opportunity tolook a little deeper, and look a
little deeper at what actuallymight you enjoy maybe it's
taking a walk, you know.
(42:27):
Or to what other ways might youmeet those needs for closeness?
Or what other ways might youmeet the needs for touch, maybe
give each other a massage orread each other naughty stories.
(42:47):
There's lots of things that canbe sexual, that are enjoyable,
that are not intercourse, andthere are lots of things that
are not sexual that areenjoyable and build closeness,
intimacy, connection, pleasureyeah and instead of sending the
(43:13):
message of, you're broken you'resaying this could.
Everything going right.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
This is your body and your mind telling you.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I mean, imagine if you had a.
I never thought of this before,but imagine if you had a
diagnosis that said there'ssomething wrong with you.
You don't like acid poured onyour skin.
You get blister.
Yeah, like what's wrong withyou, you know, yeah, like you,
would you.
You would say if you don't likeacid pouring your skin, good
(43:45):
for you good for you.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
That's a good sign.
Everything's working exactlyhow it should.
Exactly, yeah, but but it's notconducive to skin.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
But I think that conflict is true.
It's a hard hard place for acouple to be and some couples
are willing to do the work andsome aren't.
That's just the way someindividuals are willing to do
the work in some art.
That's just the way it is.
But it's an opportunity to lookdeeper into what actually might
(44:27):
we like, what actually mightmeet the need for closeness,
connection, fun, play lots ofways to meet those needs.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Did you have any additional thoughts?
That I didn't necessarily askyou directly.
After you know, sent you thisvideo and I'm like we found this
thing.
You know these women arescoring really high in all these
ptsd areas based on thispattern and ask you to help me
make sense of it, did you?
Have any other like kind ofop-ed thoughts that I.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
I didn't think to ask you that um came up for you
yeah, just that I feel sad forall those women because I I've
been there, I know how it is andyeah, yeah, it's easy for for
me to say, well, here's somethings you can try and stuff,
(45:25):
but I there's.
I know that anytime you youpull a thread in a relationship,
it's going to pull down to allkinds of other things that you
may or may not want to deal with.
And so you know, saying thathere's an opportunity to go
(45:46):
deeper is shit.
You know, not everybody wantsto do that and every thread that
you pull is going to.
You know not everybody wants todo that and every thread that
you pull is going to you knowit's going to go, it's going to
connect to some other threadthat goes down in there and um,
yeah, I don't know any solutionto that I kind of hear you
(46:07):
saying you're recognizing thisisn't simple this is not simple.
It is that even though the threeminute game is a simple game
the whole process of turningthis around is going to be
complex yeah, yeah, yeah, and,and it's going to bring up all
your stuff and you're going toend up in therapy and you you
(46:28):
know you're going to end up.
You know, what was reallyhelpful for me and I think it is
for a lot of people is variousworkshops on things like you
know.
Radical honesty was reallyhelpful.
I spent 40 years co-counselingand lots of workshops in there,
and body electric workshopsdealing with specifically with
(46:52):
eroticism and body electricworkshops dealing specifically
with eroticism, and you knowthere's all kinds of workshops
and things that one can do toincrease their self-awareness.
Thankfully, as well as personaltherapy, body work was a big
(47:16):
one for me and becoming embodiedin terms of movement and
learning how to listen to whatmy body was telling me All those
things were factors that I, atthis point, I can't imagine not
(47:37):
having, not having that.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
They were foundational.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
They were foundational yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Are some of these workshops open to
non-practitioners?
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Oh, yeah, most of them are yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Okay, because I'm like lot, you know a lot of
somatic stuff.
Training it's like licensedtherapist only oh, these kinds
of workshops you're mentioningyeah, anybody could access.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah , yeah and I'm sure there are
lots more of them now, even thanwhen I was in the workshop
scene, maybe, so yeah, I'm surethere are a lot more now.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
I want.
When we release podcast, I, toowant people to know how to find
you.
You've got a book.
You've got a website.
You're talking to a lot ofpeople right now.
Since your book came out, I'veseen you pop up on my.
You've got a lot of freeprintables, too, right.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
I mean yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
And all your videos really walk people through the
book, if they are wanting toread it.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
I found that really helpful yeah there's eight hours
of free video on eddiemartinorg.
It's very generous, just walksyou right through it and of
course there's a book and at thebook website there's a.
You can download the firstchapter for free and there's
some there's.
You can download a chart of thewheel of consent nice, nice.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I really value your time.
I really appreciate you beingwilling to talk to me.
You are so if I'm beingradically honest.
I was like thanks it's.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
It's fun to be able to talk about all this
relationship and sexuality stuffand kind of take it apart,
because it's not very often thatI get a chance to talk about it
all at once.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
So it's been fun Good .
Thank you so much Okay.
All right Thanks so much, GreatCammie.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Nice to see you again .
Yep, yep, bye-bye, bye-bye,bye-bye.
Hello, sex Therapy 101.
Friends, you notice I mighthave taken a break, but we're
back and we're excited and I'mreally passionate about this new
series that I'm going to beoffering to all of you.
I haven't disappeared.
I've been working on someprojects that are really
meaningful to me and one ofthose is a book for the public
(00:30):
about my research aboutregarding long-term outcomes of
consenting to unwanted sex, orduty sex as we sometimes call it
, and in doing that, adding tomy own research over the year,
you'll see my hair change, myface change, because these were
all recorded over the course ofa year and I wanted to talk to
(00:53):
experts about the culturalimplications or cultural beliefs
or the cultural ideas amongdifferent communities in the US
that might protect peopleagainst negative outcomes and
that might actually kind ofpromote people into some of the
more negative outcomes.
And that is the series I haveto offer you.
(01:17):
I'm really excited.
It's been really meaningful tome, it's been enlightening to me
, it's really helped me makesure that this book is what I
want it to be for all of you.
So, with no ado, here we go.
This is going to be the introfor the whole series.
I'll give you a little bit of abio for each, and then we'll
jump into the recording of theinterview.
(01:39):
This was an exciting interviewfor me with Betty Martin, who I
don't know personally.
For me with Betty Martin, who Idon't know personally, who I've
benefited personally, though,from her work.
The way she teaches what she'scome up with.
It's really helpful.
It's novel, but it's simple.
(01:59):
So I really hope you enjoy thisas much as I did.
Betty Martin has had her handson people professionally for
over 40 years, first as achiropractor and then, upon
retiring from that practice, shebecame a certified surrogate
partner, a sacred, intimate andsomatic sex educator.
Her explorations andsomatic-based therapy and
practices informed her creationof the framework, the Wheel of
(02:21):
Consent.
I hope you buy her book, I hopeyou watch her free videos on
her website and I hope you enjoythis conversation.
Thank you so much for agreeingto chat with me.
Sure, and so I was hoping today,you know, I could go through
those.
Just I think there's sevenquestions and just oh yeah,
(02:42):
about why women are not happy.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
happy, I'll just pick your brain right, it's like
we've got.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
We had 1300 women.
So many reasons, so manyreasons.
Yeah, we had 1300 women saythey didn't have a history of
any sexual trauma, but they hatesex, basically, and um, this
pattern of I've agreed orconsented to sex when I didn't
want it over and over and over,yeah, and so I want your
(03:11):
thoughts of how you think aboutthis.
I'm just wanting really to starta conversation about what's
this about.
So that first question is youknow, using your clinical lens
of relationships and sexuality,what do you see happening in my
research findings?
How would you explain it tosomeone else about what's going
on?
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, first, I'm a clinician.
I'm not a researcher.
I don't have a big database,but the people that I do work
with I've tended to work withquite intimately.
Um, and I would say that theprobably the reason most are of
(03:55):
the women who don't like sex.
The biggest reason is probablythat the sex is not worth
wanting.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Mm-hmm, say more.
I'm on board, yeah, and I'minterested in your thoughts,
totally agree.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Because if it's not enjoyable and sensorily pleasing
, who would want it?
So I think that's the biggestthing and the reason that
they're not getting good sex isbecause number one if they're
(04:34):
with men, men largely have beensystematically cut off from
their own sensuality by the waythat we raise boys and men, and
they and women haven't learnedhow to learn what they want and
(04:56):
ask for what they want, and havebeen also systematically cut
off not so much from their ownsensuality but from their own
lusty sexuality.
And I think this isparticularly true in
middle-class white women I don'tknow if that's quite as true of
(05:22):
other demographic groups, butdefinitely true of middle-class
white women and do you have ahypothesis of why you think
specifically that group are lessin touch with what you?
you know, you're saying desiresor ability to want.
I suspect that it's becausewe've been taught to be nice and
(05:43):
that the job of a woman and Igrew up in 1950s and 60s, so you
know this kind of dated, but Ithink it still applies the job
of a woman is to be wanted, notto want, and to be, you know,
(06:04):
pursued and not to pursue.
It's just all the same bullshitthat we've been raised with and
there's a certain squishingdown of enthusiasm about
anything.
So you're not allowed to be bigand take up space and make
(06:28):
noise and you're not.
It's just kind of frowned uponand it's not ladylike, and so
this applies to sexuality aswell.
So it means that it's not goingto be.
(06:48):
As you know, if I'm raised thisway, it's not going to be as
easy for me to find the lustypart of myself, the part that
just wants to.
Oh yeah, let's do this thing.
You know, it's just going to beharder to access that part of
myself and, I think, a lot ofthat is, is the um puritan
(07:12):
culture.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Basically, we, we, we got puritan culture and this is
one of the results of it downthe road you you see it as a
little bit geopolitical in theterms of the united states had
this unique founding andpuritanism which is going to
soak into most parts of ourculture.
(07:34):
Yeah, yeah, and you, you saidsomething interesting too of
that, uh, that men come by thishonestly as well, and how they
were conditioned.
Do you say a little?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
more.
Yeah, men are conditioned tobasically not have any feelings,
and certainly not have anyfeelings of tenderness, and so
their feelings?
This was explained to me by aman who worked in the women's,
(08:07):
within the men's movement a lot.
He said that men's culture isbasically built on the fact that
men have to go to war and killor be killed.
So that means that all yourrelationships with other men are
competitive, except you mighthave a buddy, but most
(08:28):
competitive an ally, but you'renot going to be able to give in
to your feelings of tendernessand fear.
So that means you're also notgoing to be able to give in to
your sensory enjoyment very much, because when your sensory
(08:52):
enjoyment comes on your skinyou're going to have feelings.
And if you don't want to havefeelings then don't get into
your body in that way.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Pay attention to the messages.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Yeah, yeah body in that way, attention to the
messages, yeah, yeah.
And then it also means that ifI'm a man and my job is to take
the bullets and kill or bekilled, then women are now
pushed into the role of the.
I have to protect them.
So now I'm envious of thembecause they have it easy, and
(09:26):
I'm also don't respect thembecause they're not out there
fighting.
So there's need and alsocontempt.
Yes, there's need and contempt,and since I can't have intimacy
with other men, I have to haveit with women.
They are my only source andbecause I don't know how to have
(09:49):
emotional intimacy, the onlykind left is sexual intimacy,
and so I have to fuck all thewomen that I can, but not to get
too close to them, and I don'thave much sense of my own skin.
So that doesn't make for veryenjoyable sexual experiences,
(10:11):
because now I just got tofucking get it out and get it
over with.
So all those combined do notmake for very satisfying sexual
experiences.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
A lot of the ways we've maybe pre-consciously been
conditioned is at play here.
You kind of see this as atheological interplay of
conditioning Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
There's another piece too.
There's another piece thatapplies.
I've seen it apply to men andwomen, but especially women.
I think it's endemic to womenand that is as infants we're
touched in ways that we don'twant and don't like and are
(11:01):
powerless to prevent, and I'llthrow up through early childhood
it's just a normal part ofchildhood.
It doesn't mean thatsomething's wrong, it's just
stuff's going to happen that youdon't like picked up, yeah yeah
, yeah, have our diaper, diapers, diapers change.
We have our teeth brushed.
You know we get picked up fromhitting our little brother you
(11:25):
know, things are like done toour body.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
And so we learn as pre-verbally, we learn that
touch is this thing that happensto us that we don't have?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
any choice about.
It's just something thathappens and we have to figure
out how to be okay with itsomehow.
And so that gets instilled,installed very early, very deep
Touch is something that you haveto put up with in some way.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, and it's not on its own damaging, but I can
imagine if, if another narrativeis never introduced of, and now
you get to tell me how.
I can interact with your body.
If that never then getsintroduced, we can't kind of
counteract that conditioning ofyeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Okay, and many people never have that other narrative
introduced.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Yeah, I'd never thought about that pre-verbal
how we deal with touch.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, it's very, and where this came to the fore for
me in working with clients wasthat I would ask people how do
you want me to touch?
You want me to touch you?
And they would answer with.
Well you can such and such, Iguess, which is a different
(12:50):
question.
I asked what you want and youanswered with what you don't
mind terribly much what you'dallow, what you would allow yeah
, yeah, very different question,but it showed me that those
things were getting tangled upin there.
That that I, for many people,for many women and the
(13:13):
occasional man for many women.
It never occurred to them thatthey could be touched the way
they wanted.
They never had an experience ofbeing touched the way they
wanted, wanted.
They never had an experience ofbeing touched the way they
wanted.
Number one the men didn't knowhow to ask, or, if they asked
the women, the women didn't knowhow to know what they wanted or
(13:33):
say what they wanted.
Or you know, um, it's a wonderwe make any babies, you know
something so natural, it's sodifficult for many you know yeah
okay, so let me, let me movequestion to.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
That was all really helpful.
I'm glad.
I'm glad we added that lastpart, because that was a new
idea to me and I appreciatehaving this new awareness or
thought.
But second question being Imean you are an expert in
consent.
How do you conceptualize theway you think about consent?
(14:14):
And I mean in this study, womensaid I consented to something I
didn't want, and some peopleI've talked to have said that's
not actually consent, and somepeople I to have said I mean
that's the legal definition, butyour, your concept of consent
is not allowing it's being aware.
(14:35):
Yeah yeah, talk a little bit tome about sure, how you think
about consent in a way that isnew for a lot of us.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Most people.
Well, after I'd been teachingconsent for 15 years, I decided
to go look it up in thedictionary, and I'm glad I did,
because consent in thedictionary means essentially
saying yes to something somebodyelse wants, agreeing.
(15:06):
Agreeing it means I consent toX Y Z, it means I agree to
participate or let X Y Z happen.
That's a useful place to start,but it sure is not the whole
picture.
But it sure is not the wholepicture.
(15:28):
So, but if, based on thispre-verbal growing up that well
touches this thing that happenedso I can consent to it, means
yeah, it's okay, it's not tooterrible, I'm willing to have it
happen, then that's you know,that's technically, that's
consent.
(15:49):
Um, and it's been called the.
This model has been called thegatekeeper model.
The woman has the sex, she ownsthe sex, and the man wants to
get the sex from the woman.
So he has to get consent fromher somehow so that he can get
(16:09):
the sex from her, and so all shecan do is open the gate or
close the gate.
So it's terribly unfair.
A lot of couples feel that theywouldn't have the theory name,
but they're like yeah, that'swhat we experience exactly
exactly, and it's unfortunatefor her because she doesn't get
(16:32):
to ponder what she wants.
She only gets to decide am I yesto this thing that he wants?
Um, so I think if you hearpeople use the term get consent
or give consent, they're talkingabout the gatekeeper model by
(16:56):
definition Mm, hmm.
So it's better than nothing,but it's not.
it doesn't solve the bareminimum yes, bare minimum yeah,
to prevent, yeah, to preventassault, yeah, yeah, um.
So the wheel of consent wasdeveloped from these two
(17:17):
questions how do you want me totouch you, and how do you want
to touch me, and um.
And then a conversation,negotiation about what's
actually going to happen, andthen do the thing.
And so I named it the wheel ofconsent, because it just seemed
to fit, but really it's moreaccurately called the wheel of
(17:40):
agreement, because if consentmeans the gatekeeper, then I'm
not really interested in thegatekeeper model.
I'm interested in what do youwant?
What do I want and where theyoverlap collaborative equity.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
How do we, yeah, what ?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
sounds fun to you, what sounds fun to me.
Okay, let's, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And so that's one thing.
The other thing that peopleoften think consent means
permission I want to build ashed in my yard.
(18:31):
I go get a permit from cityhall.
A permit means I am allowed todo the thing that I want to do.
So if you're giving mepermission, it's because I want
to do the thing.
Well, that applies to somesituations, but not other
situations.
If I ask you to rub my back andyou say, yes, permission
doesn't apply in that dynamic.
(18:51):
It just doesn't fit anywhere.
So permission is one kind ofconsent, but it's only one kind
out of several kinds.
So there's that complexity aswell.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I like that you just made what is often a flat word
consent dynamic where there'sdifferent kinds of consent,
instead of did you get it, didyou not get?
It Right, like you just made itgo 3d.
You know, in your mind, youknow, just popped up like a
puffer fish in my head yeah,yeah yeah yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
consent is a hard thing to talk about because you
have to define it first and evenif you define it, people often
have a difficult time changingthe definition in their minds
that they're thinking when yousay the word.
So yeah, consent, meaninggetting a yes out of someone, is
(19:57):
an important first step, andit's sure not the whole picture.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, yeah, and, and as I've read your book and
listen to things from you and Iuse your exercises, I'm so
grateful that they're free onyour website.
I use them with my time GreatGreat.
Betty's worksheet Hold on.
Um and and after.
I you know, I've had a year anda half of space for my research
(20:25):
and I'm like, what am I goingto do to it?
I came across your work in thatspace that time and so I'm was
looking at this of okay.
Another way to explain this iswhen you look at your wheel and
there's the four quadrants.
The long-term pattern for thesewomen is they were the allowers
, the husband was the takers andin your model that's not in and
(20:48):
of itself terrible, but ifthat's all we have, if that's
all you have, you're going toget bored or, and maybe even
that's why some of you know theywere all scored severe to
moderate on the ptsd, I mean ona ptsd screener.
But they were avoiding it, theywere developing aversion to it.
They were getting anxious aboutit.
(21:09):
They were crying during orafter, like.
And so I see this and I'm likeis this?
What if we don't use the wholewheel and we stay stuck in allow
and take, which sometimes ishealthy?
There was, yeah, 30 percent ofwomen who said this is fine,
this isn't a problem for me, butthe 70 percent of women who
said this over time pushed meoutside that circle that you've
(21:30):
driven yeah, right on theoutside of that exactly, is is
putting up with yeah, yeah, yeahyeah, harms one or person or it
harms the relationship.
Yeah, yeah, had you thoughtabout that, of what happens when
we're.
I mean, you drew this, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
People get stuck in one, and one problem is that,
whichever one you feel likeyou're in, you're going to
assume your partner's in theother one.
Oh you're going to assume yourpartner's in the other one.
Oh so, if you feel like you'reallowing and really you're more
kind of in the muddy edge ofputting up with, if you feel
(22:11):
like you're in allowing, you'regoing to assume your partner's
in taking.
But they may not be there.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Chances are they think they're in serving okay
because, they're trying to dothe right thing you're like
blowing my mind because I didn'tknow how to put that into words
is I'm thinking, okay, but wedon't have 1300 predatory
partners in my research thatcouldn't have happened
spontaneously yeah and a lot ofcouples I'm working with are
(22:41):
like good people, it's thedynamics.
It's really crappy.
But you're saying the woman'sgoing to perceive him as taking
and selfish and entitled.
But he may not be selfish andentitled.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
He may think he's serving.
He may think he's servingbecause he's doing what he saw
on the video that women aresupposed to like.
Yeah, but you didn't ask herwhat she wanted.
If he did, she didn't know howto say yeah, and so she's
silently putting up with whatshe thinks he wants when he's
(23:13):
trying to do what he thinks shewants.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I'm giggling because I'm remembering a couple and she
said oh, but he's so generous,he'll go down on me for like 30
minutes.
And I said do you like oral sex?
And she said no, I don't.
Oh, then how is he so generous?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
he's doing.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Yeah, he thinks he's doing this for her and she knows
it's not for her.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, but it doesn't have to be nefarious or
predatory that's right selfish,or yeah, in most cases it's not,
I think yeah yeah, I mean, ofcourse, you know some people can
be jerks, we can all be jerks,but for the most part I think
it's just a misunderstanding anda trying trying to figure out
(23:58):
how to do the right thing yeahand going back to men who, if
your access to intimacy,affirmation, play, connection,
(24:25):
um recognition, sensuality, ifyou don't have any way to access
those except for sex, which isthe case for most men, then your
sex isn't really about sexeither.
It's about all those otherthings.
But you have to get sex becauseit's your only route to a
(24:49):
feeling of connection.
You have to get it Because youdon't know and you haven't
developed any other routes toexperience connection or
intimacy or play or affirmationor anything else, and so I think
that's one reason why men tendto be so focused on sex, to the
(25:13):
exclusion of other forms ofphysical intimacy.
It's partly testosterone too,but I it's largely um just in
culture that there's no otherway to get those things but sex,
and so you got to get it.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
I'm sure you could talk for hours.
Maybe, I mean might be assuming.
I probably could and I wouldlisten for hours.
Do you think?
Is it too simplistic for me tosay to think about like, okay,
consenting to unwanted sex?
That's similar to gatekeepingsex.
That's similar to staying stuckin the allow, take position.
(25:56):
Are we using a lot of differentterms for the same thing?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I think people are sufficiently different and their
situations are sufficientlydifferent that it's fair to say
with one person, here's the maindynamic, and with another
person this is slightly maybesimilar dynamic, but this is the
other thing that's going on.
(26:19):
Or for one person, the husbandis just desperate for some kind
of connection at all and thewife resents that because he
didn't pick up his socks and soyou know now there's.
Or in another instance, um, heis very generous, but she grew
(26:40):
up with some shame and doesn'tknow how to enjoy something or
let herself enjoy it, and so shegets tense, and then he's going
to get tense, kind of liketemplates that these dynamics
(27:07):
underscore a lot of other things.
But each individual couple isgoing to have different things
that are more or less importantand I think they're slightly
different.
Things Like the aloud dynamicis a really important and a lot
of people can't find it and it'smissing.
(27:30):
Most people can't find it andmost men have a lot of trouble
finding and experiencing thetake quadrant, because it
requires a certain degree ofsensual sensory skill.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And if you can't tell me, more about that, because
I'm like, I'm thinking oh,that's the most common dynamic
is the man isn't making and thewoman's in the allowing.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
So tell me more about that.
The most common dynamic is thathe thinks he's serving and she
thinks she's allowing.
Okay that's the more commondynamic.
So neither of them arereceiving what they want the
take quadrant.
If I'm going to feel you up,then my hands have to be
(28:18):
actually able to take in thedata of what your skin feels
like.
If I can't take in the data ofwhat your skin feels like, I'm
not going to be able to feel youup.
I'm going to be doing things toyou but it's not landing
anywhere.
I'm always thinking is thisgood for her?
(28:41):
Is this good for her?
Is this good for her?
I can't actually drink you upthe way I, the way taking would
have me do.
So most men have a hard timeaccessing the take quadrant and
it takes a little bit oftraining.
Interesting, yeah, yeah.
(29:07):
And when it does click, it'susually a huge aha.
It's very often emotionalresponse to it and it totally
changes their sensualrelationship because then they
both are able to have fun.
Women usually learn to takepretty quick because their hands
are more likely to be awake.
Yeah, In any given heterosexualcouple, the woman will almost
(29:32):
always click first.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Does sexual entitlement live in take?
It lives in the shadow of take,that shadow of take, yeah, yeah
and so it's so common that weassign intentions to other
people I'm hearing you say oneof the things that have to
happen is getting really clearand open to my partner's
(29:55):
intentions might be verydifferent than the one I've
assigned to them, because Imight be absolutely taking and
they're just struggling andstruggling to try to serve or to
find the thing that'll yeah,yeah yeah, um, that is.
That opens up a lot more roomfor men in this conversation
(30:16):
that I think rightly so.
We need to vilify sexual harm,but I don't know if you I'm not
being very eloquent at allyou're I see your brain.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
You did it just opened up so much more um
non-judgment for the male inthis situation that in these
conversations there's it's oftenloaded with judgment for them
sure, yeah, yeah, um, andunderstandably so, because if
(30:53):
men are conditioned todesperately need this, some kind
of connection, and also tobelieve that they deserve it,
and they get to have it becausewomen owe it to them, so it's a
setup for entitlement.
And then you combine that withnot really having the skill to
(31:16):
know or to help your womanfigure out what she likes.
That's another setup.
Woman figure out what she likes?
That's another setup.
And then another setup is thatthe woman is trained to not want
anything or to have or toexpect that he will know.
He will know how to do theright thing miraculously because
(31:40):
she doesn't know.
And so he, when he doesn't know, then she gives up, yeah, and
so the whole thing is a setupreally, um, and it's easy to see
how each of them can blame theother yeah, and the gridlock
sets in and yeah, and then itthen it's really hard, but I've
(32:03):
been there I do not recommend itjust like.
Oh, here we go again.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
You know it's really hard to to come at it with fresh
eyes when you're working with acouple who's stuck in, what you
see is really common the allow,serve and it's not going well,
it's not producing desiredresults for either party.
What's your treatment plan?
(32:29):
Where do you start?
Where do you go?
Three minute game.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
The three minute game is where we start.
It's pretty much the treatmentplan for everybody.
Okay, Because every well, Ifirst start with waking up the
hands and then the three minutegame, or or some you know
variation of it.
Mm-hmm it, because everyrelationship dynamic will show
(33:02):
up in one of those quadrants, inthose three minutes, in those.
Yeah, because, okay, now as partof the game, I'm asking you,
how do you want me to touch you?
And then all your stuff comesup about oh well, I don't
deserve this, or am I asking fortoo much, or I don't know, or
all that stuff.
It's going to show up rightthere.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
This is what he wants .
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, right, maybe I can guess the right thing so
that he wants it, even thoughit's supposed to be for me.
You know it's all going to showup right there for me.
You know it's all going to showup right there.
And same thing when I ask howyou want to touch me now, oh,
it's going to come up for me isoh shit, now what do I have?
To say yes to everything?
(33:42):
And what if I don't like it?
And what?
What then?
What should I do?
And uh, you know, and ifsomeone asks me how I want to
touch them, like, do I get toadmit that I actually want to?
I don't know how to actuallytouch them for me.
I only know how to do thestrokes, and not you know so.
(34:03):
Or I don't know how to respectthe limits that they've set.
Yeah, it's all going to show upin one of those quadrants or
the other.
Yeah, so it's pretty much.
The three minute game is thesolution to everything.
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, what's the solution to preventing this Like
that's, that's when people havealready gotten here from the
socialization that we'veestablished as a country.
What?
What's the answer to preventingthe dynamic from settling in,
do you think?
Speaker 3 (34:43):
in the first place?
A lot of things.
A three-minute game you woulddo it as a parent with kids.
Uh, yeah, you can do it withkids as long as you're asking
them what they want and theydon't ask you what you want.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, what do you want to?
Speaker 3 (34:56):
do to me.
I want to pull your hair, Iwant to climb all over you, you
know, you know, imagine ifpeople who were just starting to
date were playing this likethey'd learn pretty quick that
they have a boundary and theybetter respect the other
person's boundary.
And you know that there's funthings to do that don't involve
sex.
And yeah, one of the benefitsof the three-minute game for a
(35:21):
couple is that if you, if youtake sex off the table, take
genital contact off the table,for the first 50 times you play
it, you discover that there's alot of fun things to do to each
other that don't involve thegenitals, and so your repertoire
just grows like oh my gosh, Ididn't know.
(35:43):
I like to have my, my legsmassaged, and now it's my
favorite thing.
You know, all these, theseoptions arise that you didn't
see before yeah, and we get tohave this, yeah, a whole list of
pleasure, that isn't focused onorgasm oh my body.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So some of the prevention wouldbe we need to learn as a
culture how to respect people'slimits when they set them.
And there's this big missingpiece of the sensory wisdom of
being connected to our ownbodies, yeah, and I would say a
lot of, what a lot of.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
I I think I don't have data for this, but I think
that for most people who showedup to my studio to get sex
coaching, the sex wasn'tactually the problem, and I
write about this in the booksomewhere how to be comfortable
(36:46):
in your skin, that's the problem.
Or how to be comfortable withwanting, that's the problem.
Or how to be comfortable withwanting, that's the problem.
Or how to be able tocommunicate what you want,
that's the problem.
And it's just that those thingsdidn't show up until sex was
(37:06):
around.
But those are actually theproblem.
They're not about sex.
They're about being human andliving in your skin and learning
to be comfortable with your ownemotions and your own
discomfort, and beingcomfortable with the fact that
(37:27):
there's something you want andbeing comfortable with the fact
that your partner may wantsomething different than you,
and being comfortable with thefact that your partner may want
something different than you,and being comfortable with the
the fact that there's thingsthat your partner's not
available for and being havingthe skill to converse about
those things.
Those things are not about sex,but they show up around sex.
(37:49):
So people think the problem issex Right, and I think I tend to
think the the problem that'sunderneath.
That is, how to be a sensual,decent human being and
communicate with other humanbeings and learn how to be
honest about what you want andlearn how to respect what the
(38:11):
other person wants, and learnyou know, know.
Learn how to let the otherperson feel what they feel
without trying to fix it all thetime, or learn how to feel what
you feel without trying toblame it on the other person all
the time.
Those things are relationshipskills, right, which are not not
(38:31):
so much about sex, but I can'timagine how you're going to have
good sex without them.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
That's, that's my own bias, yeah and that leads us to
this question.
You answered a little bit butyou know your thoughts on the
dsm having a diagnosis forhypoactive desire disorder.
Oh.
God, tell me more.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
You know there may be such a thing, but in my working
with clients, I don't thinkthere is.
I think, okay, if you say, well, this person doesn't desire sex
, so therefore they're broken.
Well, first of all, what is sex?
And it may be that you don'tdesire this kind of sex.
(39:23):
Well, good for you, becausethat kind of sex is lousy, it's
not worth wanting, it's notworth wanting I think Schnarch
came up with that too.
It's not worth wanting.
It's not worth wanting.
I think schnarch came up withthat too.
It's not worth wanting.
But because you don't know thatthis whole other realm of
really fun sex exists, so youdon't know that it's there that
(39:47):
could be wanted.
So that's one part of it isthat, yeah, the you don't want
sex because the sex you werehaving worth wasn't worth
wanting.
And then there's this otherthings that could be considered
sex that never occurred to you.
So yeah, I I think that's aridiculous thing.
(40:08):
The other thing is another wayto look at it is there's
something that you want.
It may not be sex the way youhave always had it, but there's
something that you want.
And what is that something?
That's a much more interestingquestion.
Maybe you want some cuddlesthat are not sex.
(40:32):
Maybe you want a foot rub.
Maybe you want help getting thekids to bed.
Maybe you want someone to readyou a story so you can you put
your head in their lap and havethem read you a story.
Maybe you want someone to singa song for you.
Maybe you, you know, there'ssomething that you want and we
(40:55):
are describing it as if the onlything that counts is if you
want penetrative intercourse.
I mean, it's so.
That's just so ridiculouslynarrow.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And we'll use the word intimacy as like a code
word, like for sex.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, that's ridiculous, right, yeah, like
let's.
We're grownups, you know.
Let's use the word.
That means what it means.
And the other approach to thequestion is if, if the sex that
you were having is not worthwanting, then it's actually a
good sign that you don't want.
It's actually a good sign thatyou don't want it.
It's a good sign that you don'twant it.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, instead of a diagnosis, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
So what you need to do is yeah, what you need to do
is experiment and discoverthings that are enjoyable,
whether they're sex or not.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
And that makes sense to me, but say a little bit more
because, like a reader orlistener might be like what do
you mean, betty?
That it's a good thing?
I don't want this.
It's causing so it's causingdecades of conflict you know,
yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Well, it's causing conflict because it's the
conflict is an opportunity tolook a little deeper, and look a
little deeper at what actuallymight you enjoy maybe it's
taking a walk, you know.
(42:27):
Or to what other ways might youmeet those needs for closeness?
Or what other ways might youmeet the needs for touch, maybe
give each other a massage orread each other naughty stories.
(42:47):
There's lots of things that canbe sexual, that are enjoyable,
that are not intercourse, andthere are lots of things that
are not sexual that areenjoyable and build closeness,
intimacy, connection, pleasureyeah and instead of sending the
(43:13):
message of, you're broken you'resaying this could.
Everything going right.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
This is your body and your mind telling you.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I mean, imagine if you had a.
I never thought of this before,but imagine if you had a
diagnosis that said there'ssomething wrong with you.
You don't like acid poured onyour skin.
You get blister.
Yeah, like what's wrong withyou, you know, yeah, like you,
would you.
You would say if you don't likeacid pouring your skin, good
(43:45):
for you good for you.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
That's a good sign.
Everything's working exactlyhow it should.
Exactly, yeah, but but it's notconducive to skin.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
But I think that conflict is true.
It's a hard hard place for acouple to be and some couples
are willing to do the work andsome aren't.
That's just the way someindividuals are willing to do
the work in some art.
That's just the way it is.
But it's an opportunity to lookdeeper into what actually might
(44:27):
we like, what actually mightmeet the need for closeness,
connection, fun, play lots ofways to meet those needs.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Did you have any additional thoughts?
That I didn't necessarily askyou directly.
After you know, sent you thisvideo and I'm like we found this
thing.
You know these women arescoring really high in all these
ptsd areas based on thispattern and ask you to help me
make sense of it, did you?
Have any other like kind ofop-ed thoughts that I.
Speaker 3 (45:04):
I didn't think to ask you that um came up for you
yeah, just that I feel sad forall those women because I I've
been there, I know how it is andyeah, yeah, it's easy for for
me to say, well, here's somethings you can try and stuff,
(45:25):
but I there's.
I know that anytime you youpull a thread in a relationship,
it's going to pull down to allkinds of other things that you
may or may not want to deal with.
And so you know, saying thathere's an opportunity to go
(45:46):
deeper is shit.
You know, not everybody wantsto do that and every thread that
you pull is going to.
You know not everybody wants todo that and every thread that
you pull is going to you knowit's going to go, it's going to
connect to some other threadthat goes down in there and um,
yeah, I don't know any solutionto that I kind of hear you
(46:07):
saying you're recognizing thisisn't simple this is not simple.
It is that even though the threeminute game is a simple game
the whole process of turningthis around is going to be
complex yeah, yeah, yeah, and,and it's going to bring up all
your stuff and you're going toend up in therapy and you you
(46:28):
know you're going to end up.
You know, what was reallyhelpful for me and I think it is
for a lot of people is variousworkshops on things like you
know.
Radical honesty was reallyhelpful.
I spent 40 years co-counselingand lots of workshops in there,
and body electric workshopsdealing with specifically with
(46:52):
eroticism and body electricworkshops dealing specifically
with eroticism, and you knowthere's all kinds of workshops
and things that one can do toincrease their self-awareness.
Thankfully, as well as personaltherapy, body work was a big
(47:16):
one for me and becoming embodiedin terms of movement and
learning how to listen to whatmy body was telling me All those
things were factors that I, atthis point, I can't imagine not
(47:37):
having, not having that.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
They were foundational.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
They were foundational yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Are some of these workshops open to
non-practitioners?
Speaker 3 (47:48):
Oh, yeah, most of them are yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Okay, because I'm like lot, you know a lot of
somatic stuff.
Training it's like licensedtherapist only oh, these kinds
of workshops you're mentioningyeah, anybody could access.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah , yeah and I'm sure there are
lots more of them now, even thanwhen I was in the workshop
scene, maybe, so yeah, I'm surethere are a lot more now.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
I want.
When we release podcast, I, toowant people to know how to find
you.
You've got a book.
You've got a website.
You're talking to a lot ofpeople right now.
Since your book came out, I'veseen you pop up on my.
You've got a lot of freeprintables, too, right.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
I mean yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
And all your videos really walk people through the
book, if they are wanting toread it.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
I found that really helpful yeah there's eight hours
of free video on eddiemartinorg.
It's very generous, just walksyou right through it and of
course there's a book and at thebook website there's a.
You can download the firstchapter for free and there's
some there's.
You can download a chart of thewheel of consent nice, nice.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
I really value your time.
I really appreciate you beingwilling to talk to me.
You are so if I'm beingradically honest.
I was like thanks it's.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
It's fun to be able to talk about all this
relationship and sexuality stuffand kind of take it apart,
because it's not very often thatI get a chance to talk about it
all at once.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
So it's been fun Good .
Thank you so much Okay.
All right Thanks so much, GreatCammie.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Nice to see you again .
Yep, yep, bye-bye, bye-bye,bye-bye.
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