In today’s episode we talk about intimacy, arousal, and desire with Susan Bratton, intimacy expert.
In my practice, I talk to so many men and women who are struggling with all aspects of intimacy, and in particular women who are experiencing vaginal pain and fear after menopause and after dealing with HPV-related procedures, so I asked Susan if I could interview her on How Humans Heal.
A lifelong entrepreneur, Susan is CEO of two companies. The 20, founded in 2019, is a supplement company specializing in libido support for sexual vitality. Personal Life Media, founded in 2006, under which Susan has authored and published 34 books and programs about sex life and intimacy. A frequent and riveting speaker from the stage, on television, on podcasts, summits, in online video, and through her thousands of magazine and website articles, Susan invites lovers to embrace giving and receiving pleasure as a vital element of being alive.
I knew she would be the perfect person to help my patients and listeners to learn about what they can do to address intimacy in their lives, because, as I wrote in my book – Master Your Health Reset Your Health – sex (with consent) is a stress recovery activity. But it’s not always easy and automatic, especially in long-term relationships and after trauma, childbirth, menopause, and health issues, such as HPV.
Susan believes that shame-free, frequent sexual pleasure is every man and woman’s birthright. She is dedicated to help people with intimacy skills, sexual problems, bedroom communication, regenerative therapies for libido, and techniques to ignite connection and pleasure between partners. And she describes sex as a “learned skill.”
Susan’s work focuses on 3 key areas:
-Sex advice – intimacy tips, orgasm skills, pleasuring skills and techniques.
-Bedroom communication skills – understanding what you want and how to ask for it.
-Sexual wellness – safe sex, STIs, and reversing problems that come with aging genitals.
A lot of times we think it’s not ok to talk about intimacy or sexual issues but in fact it is ok to talk about this and it’s even important to talk about this because it is part of our human nature.
In the interview I asked Susan if what she teaches can help someone who has a history of sexual abuse, and she said yes. She finds that trauma related to sex is very common, either from our culture, our religion, relationships, shame, lack of knowledge, and our own frustrations. By understanding our bodies and starting with a connection with ourselves, we can heal and still experience intimacy in our lives.
Libido, desire and arousal for women
Libido is our body-based desire, and when you have any kind of illness (physical or emotional), your libido or “horniness” gets affected. So, libido is directly related to your health.
Desire is the emotional game or “head game.” It relates to how do you feel about yourself and your partner. If you are constantly focused on not feeling attractive, your desire will also get affected. The ability to be with the sensations, out of your head and in your body, which you can learn how to do, all love-making becomes more pleasurable.
Arousal is the time it takes for blood to flow to the genitals (approximately 20 min for women) so that it has more surface area and, when it’s stimulated, it has more pleasure signals sent to the brain, which is what makes orgasm possible. You can teach your body how to have an orgasm.
Sex, and orgasm, is also a stress recovery activity because it increases oxytocin levels, an anti-stress hormone. There are studies that show that people that have orgasms regularly have a decreased death rate even.
What prevents women from enjoying sex and how to fix it
For women, the most common situations that occur as we age are:
-Loss of lubrication
-Decreasing sensation
-Difficulty achieving orgasms
-Painful intercourse
-Urinary incontinence
-Sagging labia
Now, how do we fix all those things? We talk about something called sexual biohacking which is taking what you have and making it better through treatments similar to those used to take care of our faces and our bodies.
There are also supplements such as nitric oxide that help with blood flow and lubrication issues. And there are devices, such as an intra-vaginal device called vFit Gold, which can help with incontinence, vaginal laxity (which comes from thinning tissue) and lubrication. You can order this approved device to use at home.
Another thing that helps with these issues is FemiWave, which is a procedure in a practitioner’s office that uses pulse waves to repair blood vessels, improving blood flow to the vagina. It helps with increased sensitivity and lubrication, as well as strengthening, tightening and improved physical appearance, so it helps enhance sexual fulfillment and function.
The last thing that can help with all this is the Orgasm Shot. The O-shot is a non-invasive, procedure performed by specially trained practitioners. First blood is drawn from the patient. A centrifuge is used to isolate the platelets, containing the body’s natural growth factors, from the patient’s own blood. This nutrient-rich, PRP solution is then injected back into the clitoris and upper vagina, to the area that generates a sexual response, commonly known as the “Orgasm-Spot” or “G-spot.” This shot can help with sexual desire, natural lubrication, urinary incontinence, frequency and intensity of orgasms and arousal from G-spot stimulation.
These are non-invasive regenerative treatments that turn back the clock on aging and can give you wonderful and youthful sexual function.
-Orgasmic cross-training for women
-The notion with orgasmic cross-training is that you can have orgasms from direct clitoral gland stimulation, from G-spot stimulation and from intra-vaginal stimulation.
-Different types of self-stimulation are going to teach you how to have orgasms more easily from partnered stimulation. They also help to tonify muscles and improve lubrication.
For this you can use self-pleasuring tools at home. These toys don’t make you addicted to them, they make it easier to have orgasms with partners and they don’t ruin your ability to orgasm they enhance it.
And remember, sex is a mindfulness practice.
To learn more, be sure to listen in to the full episode for even more tips.
If you want to reach out to Susan and learn how she can help you, please check out her website or her Instagram @susanbratton.
You can also check out arousalsecrets.com or betterlover.com. In this episode, Susan also mentions: https://personallifemedia.com, Expandherorgasmtonight.com, buyflownow.com and VaginalDevice.com.
If you want to learn more about my approach for helping you recover from trauma, rebalance hormones (or use hormone replacement), address libido and infections (HPV, BV, yeast, or frequent UTIs), and help you get back to feeling your best so you can enjoy intimacy in your life, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In the book, I share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take the Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues, it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
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