Performance Anxiety in the Bedroom

Performance Anxiety in the Bedroom

September 8, 2023

Returning guest Susan Bratton, sexologist to millions, comes back on the show to demystify performance anxiety in the bedroom. In this episode we dive into the biological and sociological causes including low testosterone and pornography use.

Episode Transcript:

Intro: [00:00:00] Mark Azulay is an industry leader in psychotherapy and men’s mental health. He’s helped countless guys get back on their feet, deepen their relationships, and excel in their lives. Now he’s taken all that he has learned and is sharing it with you. In each episode, Mark will interview an expert in the field of masculinity and men’s work.

We’ll cover topics such as emotional intelligence, masculine identity. Anger management, financial health, trauma, recovery, marriage, and divorce ethics and spirituality. Tune in and become a better man.

Mark: Well, go back to the men’s therapy podcast. I’m your host, Mark Azulay. And I’m here with returning guest, Susan Bratton to talk about performance anxiety in men, specifically how it shows up in the bedroom. So Susan, welcome to the show. I’m excited to have you back. 

Susan Bratton: Hey, I think this is my third visit with you, Mr.

Mauck. 

Mark: Yeah. It’s 

Susan Bratton: great to be here. I always enjoy [00:01:00] coming on your show. Thank you so much for asking me back, and especially to talk about. Male sexual performance anxiety because it is so common yet so many men think they’re like the only one. So, I have a lot of great ideas to share and some really interesting reasons why it happens and why it’s so common actually.

Mark: Yeah, I’d love to hear about that. Like, it’s not talked about at all. So I always appreciate having you as a guest because you’re able to talk about these things so confidently and so backed by research and experience, right? The way that you are coached to tons of people online with tons of programs.

It’s really great resource for the show has. So, um, let’s, let’s dive right in. I’m curious. What’s that about? How does it happen? Like, well, why is it so common? 

Susan Bratton: You know, just before I came on the show, I was thinking a lot about it today. I was joking with my husband, who’s been my business, who’s been my husband for 30 years and my business partner for 20 years, that when you’re [00:02:00] a walking encyclopedia of sexuality, sometimes you have to go back and refresh your own memory about things.

So I was reading, I was reading a bunch of the articles and books and things that I’ve written about performance anxiety, sexual performance anxiety. And there are, I think there’s this fundamental core. biologic like physiologic construct that generates a lot of performance anxiety for guys. And here’s what it is.

Men are testosterone dominant. Women are estrogen dominant. Men are when they’re healthy, very, horny on a daily basis. They get nighttime erections. They wake up with morning wood. They kind of have to be ready at the drop of a hat when she’s ready to be ready to go because they can never tell when she’s going to be ready.

And by the way, when I say he and she, I’m [00:03:00] very supportive of fluid gender expression. I’m really just trying to highlight the difference between the penis owning Homo sapien and the vulva owning homo sapien because when you compare and contrast most people are generally in heterosexual monogamous relationships and so it’s a good foundation to just kind of look at with scrutiny and then take from it what you can if you’re not that.

And so generally guys have a lot of drive but more and more what’s been happening is that the stresses of our modern day life Pornographies impact on sexuality and essentially ultra processed foods that are fake chemicals instead of natural whole foods that we end up eating because they’re fast, they’re [00:04:00] quick, they’re cheaper.

Um, and all the plastic that we eat everything in that’s creating systemic issues and hormone disruption sometimes make it where guys think they should have an erection, be ready to go, give her incredible pleasure. And what men really want is they want to do that. They want to give their partner incredible pleasure.

So many men are dinged for being like selfish bastards, you know, just trying to get sex when in reality, that’s the great minority of men. Most men, the thing they want, number one, is to give her, they will give up their own pleasure to give her pleasure. And so they’re super invested in doing a good job.

Add to the fact that in the world of men, in our culture today, it’s a [00:05:00] hierarchy, it’s a pecking order. And if you’re not on top, you’re getting pushed down. And so you feel badly about yourself. If you do anything, quote unquote, or you can’t perform or what have you. Women have it a little easier because they’re more team oriented.

And so they cut like, they kind of don’t feel failure at the rate that men do. So another thing that happens for a lot of guys is that they’ll take feedback as failure and their own problem rather than just She needs something different every single day and they don’t understand because they’re so steady state that their partners aren’t at all steady state because estrogen is like an all over the map multitasking because women are the prey and they have to be careful about themselves.

They have to [00:06:00] be careful not to be hurt or to be impregnated or what have you. And so women are much more scared of things than men are. Men aren’t actually from testosterone and more confident generally. And so when, and then there’s one more piece that I want to kind of also lay out when I lay out like what all the things are that are kind of conspiring against guys.

Another thing that that happens is that men’s men have a false sense of what sex looks like. They’re driven to the goal of intercourse. They feel like that’s the performance that they need to do. That’s how they have their orgasm when in fact they could do it. Learn how to I mean, I know you had Jim Benson on he’s my partner in male multiple orgasm and full body energy orgasms and heart gasms and brain gasms.

And I’m sure you guys talked a lot about that, which is probably a really also great episode to listen to with my 

Mark: conversation. Yeah. 

Susan Bratton: Yeah. He’s such a beautiful man. Um, he’s been running those men’s circles for [00:07:00] years. I just love him so much. And he’s been my partner since 2016 in teaching men about male multiple orgasm.

I publish his work. And, um, so I think for guys, they have this, like, I’ve got to do it right. And I’ve got to be hard and I have to be ready instead of understanding that the penis can get hard and go soft and get hard and go soft and that there’s no end game. And it’s not a rush. There’s this kind of like internal drive.

That’s partially due to the testosterone raging in his system that makes him that way. And that adds even more performance anxiety on top of everything. And then there’s shame, add in shame, like, I feel ashamed of my desire. I feel ashamed for wanting sex. I feel dirty for it. You know, all of the religious repression and that piece of it.

And then of course, [00:08:00] there are many men who do not go. unscathed in abuse. There are so many, so many people who have been sexually abused, even if it’s not physical sexual abuse, it’s emotional abuse around their sexuality and their shame. So they, they have that to overcome. And then there are guys for whom, and this is most men, again, people think guys just want to go out and have sex with anything that moves.

And that’s not true either. For a lot of men, if they’re not in love with the woman, if they, if they don’t, if they’re not really turned on by her and they don’t really respect her, they have a hard time getting it up for her. On the other hand, they also sometimes feel like they’re so in love with her that they feel anxious about their own desire and they can’t get it up because it’s too big a thing for them.

Like it’s [00:09:00] overwhelming for them. It swamps them emotionally. Like what if they do a bad job? So there’s just a lot going on. There’s a lot of every 

Mark: angle. Yeah. Every angle I was furiously taking notes as you’re running. I want to dig into some of these a little bit deeper. Let’s let’s start with the biological.

Could you mentioned testosterone, right? And some of the things that you talked about the increased use of plastics processed food. I think I would also add, like, lack of physicality and most male jobs. Now, testosterone is an all time low. Right. We’re in a testosterone crisis. So many men suffer from low T, right.

And you know what that is actually from high estrogen. Yeah. What’s your take on that? 

Susan Bratton: It’s tied to the obesity crisis. Yes. The low testosterone numbers are driven by the rise in obesity and the rise in obesity is due directly to the ultra processed food in our food supply. Most people live in food deserts and food swamps.

Do you know what those are? 

Mark: Yeah, food [00:10:00] desert, right? Is no access to real, um, like whole foods. I haven’t heard the food swamp though. A food 

Susan Bratton: swamp is where all the food available is just processed fast foods. You know, like everything is a Kentucky fried chicken and a whatever, whatever curry shop and you know, all those kinds of things.

And that’s a swamp where there’s plenty of food. But none of it’s going to be, none of it has any nutrition. Yeah, it’s fake food. 

Mark: Yeah. So how does that impact guys? Right. Because that’s our main chemical. That’s what like creates the horniness for most men. And I think a lot of guys are really lacking in that.

And a lot of men are depressed because of a low testosterone as well. 

Susan Bratton: Yeah. And then also another big thing that’s happening in the world is that women’s income parity. Is getting close to men’s, you know, a few decades ago, we were 64 cents on the dollar. Now we’re creeping right up and there are more women going to college now and fewer men [00:11:00] and women no longer need to be married for the financial safety of their life.

And so they’re not getting married. So marriage, 40 year old marriage is at an all time low. Most like one in four people who are 40 years older are not married anymore. And, and that’s mostly because women are like, how early need you, dude, I can take care of myself. Right. So that also generates loneliness.

And then when you’re alone and you don’t feel wanted, or you’re not sure that you’re good enough, you’ve got issues of self worth. I mean, dating is so hard right now too. So there’s the, the men in relationship who they start to feel like, well, she never initiate. So she doesn’t want me when they don’t realize that actually She’s less culturally oriented toward [00:12:00] initiation.

She hasn’t been raised to do it at all. She’s not testosterone dominant. She doesn’t wake up with a morning erection. She doesn’t wake up at 3 a. m. with a heart on so hard it wakes her up. You know, she doesn’t. Have that like that he does and so she doesn’t initiate because she has what’s called spontaneous, um, responsive desire, not spontaneous desire.

He’s got even if he’s not as healthy as he could be, he’s got a lot more spontaneous desire than she does. So then he feels like, okay, I’ve got this victim hood. She doesn’t want me. I feel rejected like he made all that up in his head because he thinks she should be initiated as much as he does and he initiates when he does.

He offers sex. And what that means is intercourse and she’s not even turned on. She’s not even ready. And so he’s not offering her foot rubs or to hold her or a body massage or just to be held and kissed or to hear about her day, which is what she needs is to [00:13:00] be brought into relaxation so that she can begin her arousal cycle.

Plus his arousal cycle is a minute or two. Hers is 20 or 30 minutes to get where he is in a minute or two. Okay. Yet she has as much erectile tissue as he does, but it takes 30 minutes to get her hard. And so then she has sex before she’s ready. She has intercourse before she’s ready, trying to give him what he wants.

But she can’t do that forever, so she no longer wants sex from him. Now he’s angry. rejected. He, he, he makes her all these offers and it doesn’t go well. She, she just, she says no. And then, and then he gets hard, but he gets hard and then she’s not ready. And then he goes soft and then he has trouble getting hard again because now he’s all up in his head.

So, you know, the good news is that I’m, I’m telling you all the problems, but I’m bringing solutions. So don’t worry. I am bringing, solutions. But I, I, you gotta let guys know what all the problems are because all of a [00:14:00] sudden, somebody listening to us right now is thinking to themselves, Jesus, I have like seven of those 15 things that I’ve, I’ve had experience with.

And I really thought it was just me, but what I’m hearing is that this is like generally how it’s going for everybody. Okay. All right. Well, that’s, it’s good to know you’re not alone. I think it is. That’s the first step in understanding what you can do about your problems is identifying them, you know, and, and how you got here and that it’s actually pretty fricking normal to have performance anxiety.

Mark: Right. Yeah. And like what you’re saying, it’s like the culture also plays a huge role that there isn’t great education out there. And in fact, it’s really mixed messages. You know, you mentioned pornography is one of the issues and we’ve talked before about how that For better. Well, not for reference for worse is like the sexual education that most men are exposed to.

Yeah. Right. And I was looking at, you know, porn site the other day. Right. Um, and most of the stories in that the woman is turned on immediately. Right. The woman does initiate, right. It’s like these like sex hungry [00:15:00] vixens, right. That in some cases, like take advantage of the men. Right. Like it’s, it’s a completely 180 narrative fantasy, right.

Of like what sex actually looks like. 

Susan Bratton: It’s a, it’s a fantasy for men to masturbate to, because men are biologically wired to want to masturbate every day. I can’t tell you how many men email me and say, God, I really want to masturbate, but I know I shouldn’t. I’m like, Oh, no, dude, you, you, you should masturbate every day.

But try to masturbate to your own fantasies because everything sexually. Can come from within you. You don’t need someone else’s agenda that’s showing fake sex that’s degrading to women as your baseline for what turns you on. Don’t get caught in that wheel. But so many men are caught in that wheel now because The pornography industry preys on men.

Mark: Yeah. And it works right. Like it does plug into that biological drive. And I think it showcases women as having male sexuality, which is, that’s not the case. And it really eliminates female [00:16:00] sexuality almost entirely from the conversation. 

Susan Bratton: Yeah. Yeah. I just like to help people learn how to have. Heart connected, passionate, conscious, love making.

Um, did Jim talk about heartgasms on your episode with him? Connecting your heart and your penis. Man, that is, I was, I was in Ibiza at a rave with my daughter and my husband and she had to go to the bathroom so I went with her and I was waiting outside sitting on this little, little platform and there was an Indian guy there and He said, Oh, you know what?

We were talking and he was like, what do you do? And I said, I’m a sexpert. And he goes, can I ask you a question? And I’m like, of course, this is, this is like when you’re, when you’re a doctor and you go out to a party and everybody’s like, can I, I have this pain, you know, it’s like, of course, this is how we get good at what we [00:17:00] do.

We hear everybody’s stories. And he said, I’m like 27 years old and I’ve never really felt like sex was any good. I, I just feel empty inside. When I have sex, it’s just like no woman has ever been really great. It’s not ever been good. Is sex really good? Is it really? And I said, I know exactly what this guy’s issue is.

He’s just. using friction. He has no connection. He’s not, he hasn’t connected his man cannon to his love muscle. He is his life. He’s not a love muscle disconnection between the one in the South and the one in the North and his body. He doesn’t have his heart. He’s not bringing his heart to his lovemaking.

And I think in many ways, The solutions I’m about to tell you for all these different performance anxieties, some of them are physiologic, and some of them are things that will help mentally, [00:18:00] and others are just concepts like, hey, the reason it’s not satisfying to you, and the reason you’re disillusioned with your sex is that It’s no, yeah, you’re right.

You’ve had no, you’ve never had good sex because you’ve never brought your heart to it. That’s what good sex is. It’s not friction. It’s connection. And that. Little nugget right there is the single most important piece in solving performance anxiety. 

Mark: Love that. So we’re going to go to our first commercial break.

We come back. We’ll talk more about that because those are some of the questions I have is exactly right. That guy that never felt connected. And if you’re listening to the guy that’s in a long term relationship that has felt now disconnected. Right. That thinks that sex is conquering, right. Or as winning and when you, you know, have a wife and a kid and you have your family, you don’t have to do that anymore.

So, when we come back, we’ll hear some solutions from Susan about how to overcome performance anxiety and work on it in the bedroom.[00:19:00] 

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Intro: You are listening to the Men’s Therapy Podcast with Mark Azulay. To reach the show today, please call 1 888 346 9141. That’s 1 888 346 9141. Or send an email to podcast at menstherapy. online or visit www. menstherapypodcast. com. Now. Now back to the men’s therapy podcast, welcome back to the show. 

Mark: That’s [00:21:00] every podcast we’re sitting here with Susan Bratton and you left us with a great kind of hook for the next time.

This idea of men needing to bring their heart and need to bring connection into the bedroom. Um, and you talked about, you know, just speaking to younger men who never really enjoyed sex. And I’m really interested in that archetype because I see that a lot in the clients that I work with too. And like you said, there’s this stereotype that like men are sex driven.

All we think about is sex and we’re horny or we’re perverts or predators or whatever, you know, especially in my generation. Yeah. Like in the millennial generation, we were, I feel like we were beaten over the head with that. A lot of the millennial men of like, do not be this like, you know, guy. Right. So then to hear that a lot of Young guys feel that way is makes a lot of sense, right?

Because I think we’re really lost and confused. So yeah, take it away 

Susan Bratton: Yeah, 

Mark: tell us more about that. Let’s talk about 

Susan Bratton: the love muscle. 

Mark: Yeah, 

Susan Bratton: and how it works and I don’t mean the one in your pants I mean the one in your chest really [00:22:00] Because if until you get that love muscle working the one in your pants isn’t gonna work well for you either And here’s the way the heart works.

Think about it like a door that swings open and shut, made out of the same muscle tissue that’s in your bicep or your quad. It’s muscle tissue. And it takes muscle to swing it open and swing it closed. And it takes the same amount of muscle to open it as it does to either prevent it from closing or keep it closed.

And Learning how to love. You don’t automatically know how to love. You, it is a practice. And when you love, when you are actively giving love, you are strengthening that muscle, and you actually feel [00:23:00] like you’re, you have more love in your life. When you’re giving, then when you’re receiving, if all you got was someone who was just loving you, loving you, loving you, and you were just taking it in, you would not feel like there was as much love in your life as when you give love.

It’s a very tricky little thing, that heart. And when you love fiercely, and you put everything into it, and then it gets taken away by betrayal or death or any kind of loss, It hurts really badly, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it does if you never use the muscle. You have to keep loving and giving love and you’ll start getting it back and you’ll start feeling it.

You’ll start feeling more and you’ll start being able to connect it. to your penis. You’ll be able to connect your [00:24:00] heart to your penis and you’ll feel like sex becomes less of a performance, less friction, and more connection. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is that anxiety. The anxiety is you wanting to do such a good job and to be respected that you are too hard on yourself and you have this expectation that there’s some perfect way of being during sex.

You have to show up, turn her on, give her orgasms, have this massive heart on, uh, have sex with her so that she comes and comes and comes, and then you’ve done a good job. And that is not at all what she’s actually looking for. It’s a little piece of what she wants, of course. But it’s not really what she’s looking for.

What she’s looking for, and I bet Jim told you this too, Jim Benson, was your presence. Because when you’re [00:25:00] all caught up in your head, thinking about, are you going to do a good job? Or, oh God, this thing happened before, I hope it doesn’t happen again. Jim calls it catastrophizing. You’re thinking about the future or the past, you’re not in the present.

And so, one of the most common techniques that psychologists and therapists, sex therapists will do, is they’ll use a technique called Sensate Focus. And that is paying attention to what’s happening right in the moment. And staying with what is happening in the moment and going back to the first thing that I mentioned, heart connection, when you open your heart to the person, and you can look them in the eyes, and you can laugh and feel good with them.

And it’s less about this. goal. Your testosterone is trying to get you to the [00:26:00] goal. There’s this bullseye ahead of you and the bullseye is her vagina and you’ve got to get in there with a hard penis and you’ve got to give her an orgasm so you can have an orgasm because isn’t that what sex is? No, it’s not.

Sex is holding, caressing, massaging, touching, stroking, loving, looking in each other’s eyes, noticing what’s happening in the room, taking breaks, relaxing, chitty chatting, having a glass of water, it’s it’s It’s all of that plus, kissing her, playing with her breasts, touching her belly, squeezing her buns, stroking her thighs, enjoying her vulva in a million different ways.

It’s all that stuff. And so, when you get out of this default, mode of full speed ahead. I’ve got to have a heart on. I’ve got to make her [00:27:00] calm. And you relax into the moment of joy and pleasure and love and heart connection. Things, the performance tends to wane. That being said, there are a couple of physiologic coping mechanisms that you can also do.

One is taking St. John’s wort. I know that sounds like an odd thing, but St. John’s wort Now, there are a lot of people who are already on antidepressants and anxiolytics, which are anti anxiety medicines. Don’t combine St. John’s Wort if you’re already on a pharmaceutical medication. But if you’re not, and you just feel a little like edgy and stressed out, St.

John’s Wort is the number one prescribed natural supplement in Europe. They’re not all on pharmaceuticals over there. But when they feel stressed out, they take St. John’s wort, and it tends to really calm them down. [00:28:00] Do your research, read the contraindications, talk to your doctor about it. I am not a doctor, so I can’t tell you what would be right for you.

But it’s an interesting thing to use something that’s a, that is a calming mechanism. The other thing that I think is really very interesting is CBD. It works on the endocannabinoid system. It has no THC in it. It comes from the cannabis or hemp plant. And it tends to be mildly soporific. Not, not tiring necessarily, but calming.

And sometimes just a little bit of CBD. Just a couple of drops. You have to titrate it, which means you have to start low. And slowly work your way up to your level of comfort. It works better when you take it consistently, just like St. John’s wort, than when you just try to do a whole bunch of it to calm yourself down.

That’s, that’s not the way to do these kinds of things. Plant medicines are mild. And [00:29:00] effective for many, many people, and they are not the worst thing in the world to do. They are natural ingredients, and that might be something that can help kind of like quell the stress mechanisms, the cortisol, the adrenaline, same word, same hormone, two different words for it, depending on what you’ve heard.

Nothing wrong. With doing that. So you get a little relief from that. The 3rd thing that I’d recommend. Do you need to get a word in edgewise here? Mark? I can wait. No, 

Mark: no, no. Keep keep going. I have some questions I can follow up with, but I think like, these are great solutions. 

Susan Bratton: The 3rd thing. Is getting your lover to tell you what they’re in the mood for.

So remember I said you kind of have this construct in your head of what you think sex should be, what you’ve come to believe sex looks like, and I can tell you that it’s probably not that at all. And, especially if you have a female partner. They’re not steady state at all. [00:30:00] Every minute of every day, women want something a little bit different.

What worked last time is not going to work this time. The single best thing you can do is a technique that I have called the Sexual Soulmate PACT. P A C T, like an agreement. And what it basically does is it teaches you how to get your lover to tell you how they feel, what they want, what would feel good, is what you’re doing good, does it need adjustments?

So that you can begin to have a running dialogue with your partner. All through your lovemaking dates. When you have that, you’ve got the information you need to do the good job that quells that testosterone desire to be perfect. It is very comforting to know that you’re doing a good job. During the event, because your partner’s like, Oh yeah, that feels really good.

Oh, you know what? I’d really like now I’d like to do [00:31:00] this. Oh, could you do it up there a little bit more? Oh God, that feels great right there. Oh, I love that. Nobody’s ever done that to me before. Oh, you feel so good in me right now. This is fantastic. When you can start. When you can be the man who creates the condition during lovemaking for your lover to say anything and everything and it doesn’t rock you at all because you’re getting the feedback you need to do the great job you want to do.

Now you know you’re going to be able to do the great job. You know your partner’s happy or not because they’re telling you. It just really lowers that performance anxiety. And it makes your partner love to have sex with you because you’re the person they can have a great bedroom communication relationship with.

So the Sexual Soulmate Pact is at sexualsoulmatepact. com. It’s a free download. Read it and train your partners [00:32:00] to do this pact, this agreement, this communication technique with you. And there’s a two word phrase that really ignites the passionate lovemaking. And that two word phrase is thank you. When your partner gives you feedback, and you don’t cave, collapse, take it personally, or think you did anything wrong, when you look at that as it’s not failure, it’s just feedback.

When you say to your partner, thank you, or how’s this baby? Got it. Is this better? Good job. Keep it coming. That puts you in a place where you feel much more in control and powerful. You’re creating more masculine polarity. You’re creating the safe space for the, if it’s a woman, She’s prey, you’re creating relaxation for her that you’re the guy that can handle anything that comes up for her.

[00:33:00] So she can relax, then you can relax, then when you take your time, you stay present and you connect your heart to hers, you’re just going to have the most beautiful lovemaking. 

Mark: That’s very well said, you know, I, I think it really demystifies the whole process and I think the communication is critical and like you said, men’s desire to do a good job.

I would say men’s desire for like mastery and growth and improvement. Right, all get brought up through this, right? Because you got to talk about if you don’t talk about it, then it’s just as a weird black box, you know? Um, so I wanted to bring you back to, yeah, we talked about what sex is or what could be right of, like, spending time, intentional presence, more play, right?

More relaxation. Um, why do you get a guy to open up to that? Right? Because we’re, I think we’re conditioned that it is the sec, you know, porn thing or that it is about conquering or that it is fast. [00:34:00] Right, and and I think many men, when I talked about this, they’re really uncomfortable in those emotionally intimate spaces.

Right? Like, when we think about love, we think about providing where we think about doing things or or money. Right? And we think about sex. I think it’s very difficult for men, not impossible, but difficult to understand this more emotional framework that you’re talking about. So I’m curious. What would you say to a guy like that?

Susan Bratton: Yeah, men have been so short changed in our society around emotional spectrum that the emotional spectrum of feeling all the fields and a female partner especially can be such great guidance around how to begin to feel connected and to feel emotion and to feel love and to practice love. Um, and they really do respond very beautifully to that.

It’s a learned skill, these feelings things. It’s a process of discovering yourself. It’s a process of maturation. [00:35:00] It’s a process of providing structured safety for another human being that makes you feel powerful and in control. It’s a process of exploring your vulnerabilities and finding the words. I love the emotion wheel.

Do you know? I’m sure you use that in your practice all the time. I think emotion wheels are such a nice thing. You can Google it. Emotion wheel. It’s like 300 words for your different feelings for all of the different feelings you might have. Um, those emotion wheels can be very, very helpful for men initially to be like, Oh, yeah, these are the things I’m feeling.

And it can help you pinpoint how you feel. Um, women are very comfortable comparatively in this space. And so you can say to a woman, I’m really learning how to slow down, be present, connect my heart. And speak. To my own emotions, and [00:36:00] I’d like your help with that, and I want to know what you’re working on and how I can help you and support you.

I’ll leave you with this 1 last piece. And that is that a lot of guys. come to me and they think what they want to learn or techniques. I want to learn how to go down on her. I want to learn how to give her orgasms from intercourse. I want to learn how to give her breast massages or Yoni massages. I want to be a better kisser.

And I teach all of those things in great and specific details, step by step, most of it for free because I want people to have all of those things. The things that I charge for advanced orgasm techniques. When you really get to mastery level. female ejaculation, expanded orgasm, male multiple orgasm. Those are the kinds of things that are like second and third level.

But one of the things that people really want and need help with are ideas for fun things to do in the bedroom. If you, if you’re going to break that belief system that this [00:37:00] is what sex looks like, and you want to expand into more pleasure and fun. I created a, a download that is a, a list of 48 erotic play dates.

It’s called the Sex Life Bucket List. It’s at sexlifebucketlist. com. I give you a 40 minute video where I walk you through all 48 of these fun, erotic playdate ideas. And then you can give them to, you can suggest ideas to your partner. Hey, I’ve got five ideas that might be fun. Do any of these sound like things we could do together?

When you move it into play and you find things she wants to do or they want to do with you, it takes it away from sex and performance and into learning as beginners together. And that makes it really fun. 

Mark: Yeah, yeah, I think, yes, we could learn how to play, right? So that it doesn’t feel like a job interview, which I think it does for a lot of guys.

Um, we’re going to move to our next commercial, right? When we come back, let’s talk about some of those specifics, right? Just like how to do breathing [00:38:00] techniques, how to focus in the moment, how to really, um, build that confidence so that guys can go into the bedroom and be able to experience some of these deeper levels.

Um, so if you’re listening, hang on in there and we’ll see you on the other side.

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Intro: You are listening to the Men’s Therapy Podcast with Mark Ale. To reach the show today, please call 1-888-346-NINE 1 4 1. That’s 1 8 8 8 3 4 6 91 41, or send an email through podcast at men’s therapy.online [00:40:00] or visit www dot men’s therapy podcast.com. Now back to the men’s therapy podcast, 

Mark: welcome back to the show.

In this segment, we talk directly to you, the listener with some tips and techniques for how to just improve your life, right? I get over this performance anxiety, make a better experience in the bedroom. And we were talking during the break, Susan, and let’s talk about setting up the lover space, right?

Because what I hear from a lot of my guys, especially the older ones that have been married for a long time, they have kids, they have a job, right? They have a very busy life. Sex falls off the wagon, right? It just, it just falls down and tumbles down and then they’re surprised that their relationship starts to fall apart, right?

Because the sexual foundation is gone. Um, so how can a couple that’s in that situation start to build back that place of love and play? 

Susan Bratton: Yeah. Uh, I always think about guys who end up being deer in the headlights, where all of a sudden their wife is [00:41:00] like, I’m leaving you. 

Ad: Yeah. 

Susan Bratton: Sometimes for another woman, that’s super common these days.

Um, midlife women are like the biggest neo lesbian cohort, and they’re like, My wife left me for another woman, you know, um, they’re like the last to know they don’t see the signals and she feels like I’ve been telling you for a decade I’m gonna leave and he’s like, I didn’t hear her ever say that one time.

That’s very, very common that the masculine cannot read the feminine signals. That happens in dating too and flirting. The woman is like, I was flirting. flirting my brains out with that guy. And he just like was completely clueless. So we’re just dealing with that. You know, the Mars, Venus, good old John Gray stuff, right?

We speak a different language. So one of the things to understand about women is that, and I said this earlier, we’re not. Oriented toward initiating sex and we don’t have [00:42:00] spontaneous desire. We have responsive desire it and it takes us 20 to 30 minutes to get turned on once we’re calmed down because we’re always our reticular activation system is always on high alert because we’re prey.

Even when we’ve been totally taken care of by her husband for 30 years. It’s just wired into us. Like you waking up horny and wanting to have sex is it’s just, that’s how we’re different. And so when you would begin to acknowledge that and you stop offering her sex, that she’s going to turn down and then you’re going to feel rejected and you get out of that loop and you realize it, she’s not rejecting you.

She’s just not. In your same body, she doesn’t have those same feelings. You can start to make her smaller offers. And when you make her smaller offers that help get her into her relaxation state and get her connected back to you, then she can begin to climb her arousal ladder. And remember that she really does like to have sex with you.

And so as the man, I really recommend that you do the heavy [00:43:00] lifting in this particular part, which is what I call setting the lover scape, lover space and making small offers and setting the lover space is essentially though biologically you’re wired to be able to just drop trow and go for it at any time, anywhere.

Like that’s a gross over exaggeration, but it’s generally reasonable to say that the man will, like, if I, if I said to my, if I walked upstairs and I said to my husband, Do you want to go have sex right now? He’d be like, okay. You know, like he’d be, yes. Well, I’m never going to do it. I’m a sexpert and I’ve been married to him for 30 years, Mark.

And that is nuts. It’s never going to 

Mark: happen. But if you were to, he would be down. Yes. 

Susan Bratton: So God can relate to that. Right. And so the thing that you have to do is you have to, Give a woman what she needs to be able to enter into a situation to relax so her arousal can respond. And setting the lover space really helps because you know how [00:44:00] fussy we are about things.

The sheets aren’t clean if there’s a pile of laundry, if it’s too cold or too hot or too bright or too dark or whatever. If the conditions aren’t right for us to relax and get into our turn on, we’re not going to get there. Make the conditions just make the conditions, honey. I made the bed. I put the waterproof cover on top There’s a picture of water.

The light is exact is is the color you like I’ve got the fireplace on Um, and Your sexy favorite playlist is playing in the bedroom, and I’ve got a clean stack of towels, and your favorite lubes, and your three sex toys are on the bedside table, and there’s zero pressure to have intercourse. But I thought we could start by, I could hold you.

I could give you a foot rub. I could give you a back rub. I could rub some pain cream on your hip. Like whatever you need, you know, like what do you need, baby? [00:45:00] What do you want right now? What are you in the mood for? Is it a glass of Chardonnay and a foot rub and you tell me about your day? Let’s just go lay down together and connect and just drop in to our love bubble.

I’ve just created the bubble. It’s all ready for you. And if you don’t want to have sex, I am not going to be mad. I’ll just masturbate, right? It’s, it’s no problem. She, nine times out of ten, she’s gonna wanna have sex once you can get her in there. relaxing and she gets stuff off her chest and gets it out and gets out of her head and you get her into her body and it feels so good.

That’s what we need. So just, I always say to guys, just like you take out the, my husband’s been taking out the trash without me asking him for 31 years. Mark, 31 years. I’ve never asked the man to take a bag of trash out. If there’s a vermin or a spire or a scorpion, [00:46:00] there’s no question who’s going to be handling that.

Right, that’s what we do. It is what you do. Yes. You also initiate. the relaxation mechanism that leads to her arousal. You don’t initiate sex. Sex is too much for her. But if you initiate arousal and relax, or if you initiate relaxation, you’re going to get so much sex. She’s going to be like, Oh, all right, I’ll do it.

He never gets pissed if I don’t want to go all the way. He’s never once gotten pissed about that. He just makes me feel good every time. So I’ll do it. That’s the trick.

Mark: It’s creating safety and I think creating attunement, like you said, like having her favorite things, sex toys, music, light. That is the stuff that women really respond to is being known, right? Being known and being seen and being like, Oh yeah, he does know this about me. He does know that I like this type of music.

He does know that I like this temperature. Oh [00:47:00] yeah. I do like fire. Oh, that is my favorite wine. Right? Like all those things count. Right. They all count. I think women really want to every one of them as bonus points. Points, right, exactly. . Yeah. Yeah. Like women really wanna be known, especially by their men, right?

Yeah. Um, more the so than anyone else. Um, so once you get that going, right, I think we’re talking a lot about, um, conversation, right? And talking a lot about emotional connection and you were gonna share some verbal techniques that guys can use and implement and help their partner to get that feedback rolling.

And to just create, yeah, again, just like demystify the whole process, right? Yeah. Make it feel more comfortable and safe. 

Susan Bratton: I’ll tell you one of the things that I think it would be the next step that really, really helps women. Again, you can’t imagine how scared we are all the time. 

Mark: All the time. Yeah, it’s crazy.

Susan Bratton: It’s, um, it’s miserable for us. And so we need you to just be constantly alleviating that. That’s our estrogen keeping us safe. We are the [00:48:00] wild horse who will run away. That’s us. We’re the prey. So there is a game that I have been playing with my husband for decades now called three things I love about you.

When I am starting to relax and move into, like, just kind of let go into arousal, but I’m not quite starting, let go into relaxation, but I’m not quite starting into the arousal process. Here’s what gets my ass off arousal and on the first step of this climb up my arousal ladder. And this is not me, this is.

Ladies, the ladies, it’s tell me what you love about me in two ways, what you adore about me and what you find sexually irresistible about me with specifics. [00:49:00] I love your long, beautiful legs. Your muscles are looking gorgeous. I love how you came up with that new business strategy. It was brilliant. I can tell how wise you’ve gotten in your business acumen.

That turkey meatloaf you made last week, I swear, I didn’t think you could make it better. And it was so delicious. I haven’t stopped thinking about how good it was. Will you make that again soon? We need adoration, encouragement. Appreciation. Verbal. We need to hear it, just like you want to see us in lingerie, slutty shoes, you want to see our boobs, you want to see our butt.

We need to hear you tell us what you adore about us and what you find sexually irresistible in equal measure. When you tell us three or four things, I’m going to tell you three things [00:50:00] I love about you while I rub your feet. Oh my god. You’re going to get it. That’s 

Mark: it. That’s it. That’s all it takes. Yeah.

Yeah. 

Susan Bratton: That’s one. And then when you move into Arousal and she starts to get turned on, there are six different kind of what I would call sensual talk, pillow talk, or dirty talk, whatever you want to call it. Um, I’ve written these at dirty talk book. com. You can download them. I’ll tell you them right now at a top line, but I give you like verbatims that you can personalize and you can review them and kind of commit them to memory.

You don’t have to do that right now. One is to focus on the effect that your partner is having on you, because so many times men are quiet, trying to do her, make her come, give her pleasure. They’re in their strategic mind, not in their [00:51:00] heart connection. And so when you tell her what is, what’s happening for you, it relaxes her.

And makes her more turned on because she knows you’re turned on. Baby, I am so turned on by you right now. I mean, Every time I just get this close to you and I feel how soft you are and how good you smell and how pretty you are, I’m just, it makes me the happiest man in the world for you to be my woman.

Like, that’s going to do it for her. The second thing is to say what you see. Ooh, look how your nipples are getting darker. I see your lips are getting all plumped up. That’s so sexy to me. When you get turned on. I love to watch your body blossom into your pleasure. The next is to share how you’re feeling.

I’m so happy to be relaxing with you. I love our sex life together. I’ll tell you, I have really been happy [00:52:00] to be with you all these years and to just enjoy our sex life that’s gotten better and better over time. That reassures her. You can tell her a sexy story. How about if I give you a yoni massage, which is a vulva massage, you know, a woman’s genitals, massaging her genitals with some warm oil.

Um, how about if I tell you a sexy story while I give you a yoni massage? Would you just like to lie here and I’ll tell you a dirty story? What do you think you’d like to hear about? I was thinking about that guy you saw the other day when we were out grocery shopping. I saw you checking out that big, beefy guy.

Do you want me to tell you a dirty story about that? Moaning and giving her feedback. Oh, God, this feels so good. Oh, God, I love being inside you. And then after sex, any time, doing what I call sharing frames. You remember that time during sex the other day [00:53:00] when We were doing it doggy style and facing the mirror.

I was looking down your ass down your back and it got me super turned on. There’s something about the strength of your back that just like makes me extra hard. I came so hard when I was looking at you doggy style and I could see your beautiful face in the mirror. So those are just some examples of the different kinds of doggy style.

Dirty talk that really help you both connect in the moment, lower anxiety and have more pleasure. 

Mark: Yeah, those are great. And just like to reiterate what you’re saying, I think so much of it is about validating your woman, right? Like giving her feedback and noticing those things, right? Like. Women pay an unbelievable amount of time and attention to their appearance, to their smell, to their feel, and just like how we pay so much attention to our work and our job and our hobbies and all that stuff, like, we want to be acknowledged for that, and they want to be acknowledged for [00:54:00] all the effort they put into beauty, you know, and I think many women feel, especially long term relationships, feel taken for granted on that, and because they don’t get the validation, they stop doing it.

You know, and then guys get confused also about that, right? Um, the way I talk to my guys about it is, you know, men are about, um, picking the weeds and women are about watering the flowers. 

Susan Bratton: Right? 

Mark: So for a man, you want to like focus on the negatives and kill them. That’s what we do. We’re predators, right?

And for women, it’s about watering the flowers is just saying what you like, and it will grow into more of that. Susan, thanks for being on the show. If people want to find out more about you and your work, where can they go? 

Susan Bratton: Um, well, I think better lover. com is a good hub for my work. You can get on my email newsletter where I send out all these tips and all these free books and all that kind of thing.

So better lover. com is a great place to start. You can also DMS at Instagram, but if you’re on my newsletter, you can reply to any email I send [00:55:00] out. And I will personally get it and personally reply. So anything that you heard today or a question that you have, I’d be happy to answer because your questions are what make me good at what I do.

And thank you for having me, Mark. I have always enjoyed our conversations and congratulations on all of your continued growth and success too. 

Mark: Thank you. Yeah. If you’re listening, check out her stuff. A lot of stuff for free. A lot of stuff is really in detail. It’s, she really does an amazing job of demystifying all this and helping people just be better in the bedroom.

Right. And really have a sex life. It’s something that you don’t want to ignore in your life. Um, so thanks for tuning into Men’s Therapy Podcast. We’ll see you next week for another episode.

Intro: Thank you for joining your host Mark Ale on the Men’s Therapy Podcast. Be sure to tune in again live next Friday at 2:00 PM Eastern Time and 11:00 AM Pacific Time on the Voice America Empowerment channel and anywhere podcaster found To support the show, leave a review on your favorite [00:56:00] podcast platform.

For more information or to apply to be a guest, visit www.menstherapypodcast.com