151 Transcript: Sex and the Brain (with Jane Ransom)
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Jen: You're listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 151. We're talking all about sex and the brain; stay tuned.
Jen: Hey, friends, welcome back to Vibrant Happy Women, I’m Jen Riday, your host and your friend, and I want to let you know I love you guys, you are amazing. Thank you for being amazing women who show up every day and do your best to be your vibrant and happy selves; that's what we want, right? So I am so glad you're here and thank you for tuning in. We have another great episode today. I’m bringing on Jane Ransom and we're going to talk about sex and the brain. There is some fascinating research about the brain body connection in regards to sexual fulfillment, the differences between men and women in that regard, and research on playfulness and mental rehearsal. We as women need to work collectively, maybe you figure this out for yourself, but collectively to get rid of the shame around sex because it can be a very fulfilling and connective component of a relationship. Before we dive into this fantastic interview, I want to give a shout out to Rihanna who wrote, “Hey, Dr. Jen, I really love your energy and outlook on life and your total ability to motivate and inspire women to be the best they can be, and at the same time, be gentle on themselves.” Oh, thank you so much for leaving that review, Rihanna, and that is the goal for sure, everyone listening, be the best you can be but be gentle on yourself. I always like to say we're not ever shooting for 100%, no one can achieve it anyway, I say 50 to 80% is good enough and that's the energy of health and happiness.
I know I took one of my kids to a psychiatrist once for a medication they needed and the psychiatrist said some of her happiest patients are the B students, and she found on average that the A students, the A+ students were stressed out of their minds trying to be perfect and they had a lot more mental health issues because of it. And I thought, you know, that's really relevant for us, why aim for 100% when we can shoot for 50 to 80%? It’s more of a type B energy, a more feminine, flowy, receptive, calm and connective energy; not an efficient, perfect, get it all done energy which leaves us feeling so drained. So thank you so much for leaving that review, Rihanna, I appreciate it. Everyone else, I am ready to read some more views; every review helps. Would you be willing to leave a review for Vibrant Happy Women today? Every review helps so much and you can do it at jenriday.com/itunes; i t u n e s. I read every single one and it would help so much; thank you.
Alright, well, let's talk a little more about the amazing Jane Ransom. So in this interview, you're going to learn a ton. Jane and I really throw back the curtain on the topic of sex and shame in a tasteful way, so you don't have to be afraid of it, but I think everything is also really helpful and then we’ll give you some new ideas. You'll learn about how letting go of shame can change your entire physiological experience of sex because we all have a brain-body loop and they are interconnected (you cannot separate those 2), why it's important culturally that we women stop shaming men for their higher sexual drive on average because sex is actually one of the easier means through which men express and show love and emotion, and we collectively have been shaming them for that; it's time to ditch that. You're going to learn the secret of using playfulness to break down sexual inhibition, how mental rehearsal of sex and orgasm can have a profound effect on your sexual fulfillment and much, much, much, much, much more. Super, super fun interview and I think you're going to love it. So let's go ahead and dive in.
My guest today is Jane Ransom and she's a coach, speaker, trainer, and master hypnotist, dedicated optimist, and a science nerd (self-proclaimed), and she recently released her book ‘Self-Intelligence: The New Science-Based Approach for Reaching Your True Potential’. So, Jane, I have to say this is one of my all-time favorite books on the brain, it is so, so well written. But it's cool, Jane let me know that personal development guru, Jack Canfield, reports having learned a lot from Jane's book (that's exactly my experience) and he said it contains some of the most fascinating information of material you will ever read; I agree, I couldn't agree more. So I’m so excited to have you on the show today, Jane.
Jane: I am thrilled, Jen, and as we were just talking about, I love your show and I’m so grateful for the community you're creating and the support that you're giving to women, including moms, and I just want to thank moms everywhere; they're wonderful. (Laughs)
Jen: Well, awesome! Before we dive into your book, tell us a little background on what you do in the world and how you got so interested in the brain and how fascinating it is.
Jane: Yeah. Okay, so in 2008, my dad died and he had had cancer, he'd been a long time smoker, he could never quit cigarettes and he had lung cancer. Before that, my mother and stepfather (also former smokers) had also each died of lung cancer.
Jen: Ooh.
Jane: Yeah, I know. Well, around then I happened to stumble… I was buying somebody else's book on poetry actually, and it was back in the day when people put up, you know, a list of all the freebies you could go download if you bought this book on Amazon. So I was looking through the freebies and I saw this reference to the nation's 1st accredited hypnosis college and I thought, “What is that?” and then I started researching the science and learned that, “Oh my gosh! Hypnosis is actually scientifically validated, including as a way to help people quit smoking.” And so I had a little graphic design business in San Francisco, I just jumped over, got my hypnosis training, opened an office in downtown San Francisco. Then what would happened, so I was helping people to quit smoking and do other things, and what happened was the problem was some clients kept coming back with other problems. (Laughs)
Jen: Ah.
Jane: And, hypnosis, it's great for so many things but it's not a magic bullet for everything. Around that time, the news was coming out, this revolution in neuroscience about brain plasticity, you know, the fact that our neurons, our thinking cells, are constantly remapping their connections with one another, meaning that you and I can literally reform our own brains through choosing better thoughts, behaviors, and experiences. And along with this discovery of course now that scientists knew, “Oh my gosh, people can change,” because this was big news, “How do they change? What techniques actually work?” So we had many new fields of science then exploring, and so all that good science was coming in and the internet was there. And so what I would do is when, you know, a client would… they'd quit smoking then they'd say, “Help me with my relationship,” and I’d be like, “Sure!” and then I’d run home and, you know, look up the science, download the articles, order the books and, you know, by next week, I could come in and say, “Well, let me tell you about the science and relationships.” Anyway I just started acquiring being a nerd and a geek, all these wonderful science based tools that then… and my clients actually got a little tired of me sort of spewing science at them, because I love this stuff, but for me, it's brain candy. And one of my clients, you know, finally said, “Could you just put this into one model, like one pretty picture I can hang on my refrigerator?” and then eventually, that also same client said, “Well, you know, maybe you should put this into a book,” I was like, “Okay!” (Laughs)
Jen: Nice. Well, you did such a great job and I… I love that you mentioned, you know, the internet being just such a great learning tool. I think your education is the education of the future, but having some background in that area myself…
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: … yeah, you've got above and beyond what most trained, you know, PhD academics know I just find your book fantastic! Everyone for sure definitely grab her book ‘Self-Intelligence: The New Science-Based Approach for Reaching Your True Potential’ and has information on all kinds of topics so we're going to pick one of those topics today to talk about relationships and sex and communication; oh my gosh. It's not often that we get to bring in brain science to this topic so I am super excited to have you with us, Jane.
Jane: Me too. And thank you so much by the way, I’m really, really happy that you like the book, really happy.
Jen: It's, you know, one of the rare books on the brain that's well written and super entertaining all at the same time, so… (Laughs)
Jane: Yay! (Laughs)
Jen: And plus science. Okay…
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: … so let's start off with your favorite quote and then dive into this relationship amazingness.
Jane: Okay. So many, but today, I’ll choose Walt Whitman writing in the 1800s in a poem called ‘Song of Myself’, he says, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am a large, I contain multitudes!” And why I love that, Jen, is because it gives us permission to change our minds and to change our lives and to change ourselves, you know, to let go of being right, you know, to let go of that sense that, “However I am today should dictate how I am tomorrow.”
Jen: Mm, and really, that's kind of what the show was all about…
Jane: Yes.
Jen: … changing ourselves.
Jane: Yes.
Jen: So I love that quote, I’ve never heard that one before, thank you.
Jane: You're welcome.
Jen: Okay, tell us everything, you know, about relationships and the brain; go for it, Jane.
[Laughter]
Jane: Well, that it might take us a really long time. So to focus in, you know, on this on sex, so… and I’ll tell you why we were talking a little bit before you hit record, but why I wanted to share some info with your listeners is that I’ve had a lot of clients contact me for help with their sex lives, and the difference between the genders has been quite clear. The women have come in because they've been having trouble reaching orgasm. One woman was happily married to wonderful husband who really cares about her pleasure had never or in her life had an orgasm, and that was pretty much trouble. Having, experiencing pleasure was what the women were contacting me for. The men were contacting me for the opposite problem…
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: … you know, too much pleasure too quickly. I want to make clear here by the way, Jen, that I don't touch anyone, I’m not that kind of therapist, I only work with people's brains. And the amazing thing about us humans and our sexuality that makes us different from any other animal on the planet it is that, for us, sex is largely a brain event. We are the only species on the planet that can get excited, for example, by thinking certain thoughts or by having a certain conversation. And that's a wonderful gift but it can also work in the opposite direction; it can shut people down or give them performance anxiety. And what I found is that we need to both honor the differences between the sexes, and at the same time, there's a sort of shared pair of problems that involve shame, right, when we think that we're not however we think Hollywood says we're supposed to be.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: And also performance anxiety.
Jen: Okay.
Jane: And, you know, sadly, the more important it is to someone to be good at sex, sometimes the more difficult it becomes. So…
Jen: Ah, interesting.
Jane: Yeah, yeah. So to talk a little bit about that, there are so many roads to Rome, so many ways to address this issue, but I would just say for people on your call, if the women on your call are in a relationship, just to take a moment and to ask yourself, “Is your sex life fabulously wonderful?” you know, “Is your partner happy? Are you happy?” and if so, just give yourself a big pat on the back and do a happy dance. But if there's anything about it that you're not thrilled with, know that it's a gift to your partner as well as to yourself to begin addressing that. Does that make sense?
Jen: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Jane: Okay.
Jen: Well, let's say there's a woman out there who will address the woman who maybe has never had an orgasm…
Jane: Mm-hmm.
Jen: … because they exist in a bigger number than I ever knew.
Jane: Yes!
Jen: So, my goodness, where do they even start?
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: Maybe they don’t even want to start at this point.
Jane: Oh yeah, I know, that just… it breaks my heart. So one of the places to start is to let go of shame, and here's the funny thing is that it's important to let go of shame even about being ashamed. (Laughs)
Jen: Ah, yes.
Jane: Yeah, yeah, because, you know, we see these depictions of sex in Hollywood movies where, you know, the woman just… you know, the man in the woman, they get together, the woman has an orgasm, “Wee!” just, you know, like right on time every time.
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: It's like… it is just so…
Jen: It’s so true.
Jane: Yeah
Jen: It’s so… yeah, yeah. Then why do they do that? Because these were directed by men and they wanted to… oh, I’m kidding, I don't know why. (Laughs)
Jane: You know, I don't know why either but we're all different. And what some big scientific studies have shown is that less than half of women actually can experience orgasm just through intercourse alone…
Jen: Okay.
Jane: … less than half; that means most women need additional, you know, stimulation of some kind. And every woman's different, right? So I’m not going to talk about specific techniques that anyone can do, but the point is that whatever a woman needs, it's okay, but… and that message isn't always out there. So what inhibits pleasure a lot of time is this sense of shame. And, you know, when I was younger, I didn't know how to experience sexual pleasure with a partner, and I just thought that something was wrong with me until… you know, until things changed and then I was like, “Oh, I guess, you know, there isn't anything wrong with me.” But it can feel as though there is something wrong with you if you're not experiencing enough pleasure. And so one of the things to do is just to, you know, wrap your arms around yourself and just do the best you can in a big blanket up self-forgiveness and say, “Wherever I am now, it's okay.”
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: So overcoming the shame.
Jane: Letting go of the shame, yeah, because it will sort of dig in. You know, when we self-shame ourselves, it triggers the opposite brain reaction than what we want. There's something called the… I’m going to use a little swear word here because it's part of a scientific term.
Jen: Okay.
Jane: It's called the ‘What the hell’ effect.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: Have you heard of that?
Jen: I haven't.
Jane: Okay, it's real (Laughs). And those goofy scientists made up that name, but when we shame ourselves, we actually demotivate ourselves, it makes us dig in deeper to whatever the bad behavior or the bad sort of thing that we’re trying to get rid of, the brain digs in deeper. And what psychologists have hypothesized is that, when we shame ourselves, it feels so bad that the subconscious sort of says, “Oh, well, all is lost, I might as well just give up. What the hell,” and so it's like we're being bullied, you know? And so that's why letting go of shame actually can change your entire physiology. When we're talking about the brain, your… neuroscientists on the cutting edge of this research now no longer differentiate between the brain and the body, it's the brain-body loop. And if we think about this, it makes sense because neural plasticity is about how the connections among our neurons are constantly remapping and changing; those are basically what we consider to be our thinking cells in the brain.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: Yeah, but remember, we've got neurons, those neurons extending throughout our entire bodies. And your neurons are unlike any other cell in your body, they're very strange; they're stringy, they've got this long stringiness to them. And so you've got a single cells by the way going from the base of your spine, down to the tip of your big toe; to the tips of all your toes–single cells!
Jen: Wow.
Jane: I know!
Jen: Wow, I didn't know that.
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: I didn’t know it was a single cell, wow.
Jane: Yeah! I know! I don't know how those cells, like the physics of it, how do they hold together? I don't know; but they do. And so on, in other words, neuroplasticity isn't just talking about how we are constantly rewiring what's up there in what we think of as the brain, we’re constantly rewiring all those neural connections throughout the entire body. That's why when we can use our thoughts to affect our entire physiology. So when you practice letting go of shame… and, you know, one good way to do this is just to put… you know, I do this sometimes, I just put my arms around myself and I say, “I love myself in all my beautiful imperfection,” and I just sort of imagine a nice blanket of self-forgiveness wrapped around me. When you do that with your thoughts, it can actually trigger changes throughout your entire physiology and it begins to give the body permission. Now, I also recommend playfulness and letting go of any… and part of letting go of shame is realizing that, hey, we could all lighten up about this, right? And so because there's no bigger turn-off than being grim. (Laughs)
Jen: Yeah, true.
Jane: Yeah. And so most women will discover that their partner really wants to please them, and their partner would probably going to enjoy exploring how that’s done. So if one can view that as a playfulness… and I’m all for sex toys and bringing anything in that sort of lowers the performance anxiety, you know, gets rid of the grimness, opens it up to fun; if you were exploring. And each person's path is different because each person's physiology is different, what pleases one woman won't please the next. But once one opens that door, like “Wee! Let's just go have fun, let's play, let's make it safe for our partner,” oh my gosh, then you'll discover things. And I can't tell each listener what they're going to discover because it's going to be so personal and precious and unique.
Jen: Yeah. Well, when you say the word ‘play’, it reminds me of a book called ‘Slow Sex’ by Nicole Daedone (I don't know how to say her name) but in that book, she just recommends we remove that need to perform, remove that pressure for orgasm and simply play, but not play in the sense of, I don't know, toys or whatever, but just play with the art of touch. Touching each other, maybe you start with your arm, and then maybe slowly move down to the genital region and see what feels good with no pressure. In fact, she even says, for the first few times, you're not even allowed to think about having full-on sex that would lead to an orgasm, it's just learning and touching. And kind of goes well with what you're saying, I feel like…
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: … if women out there haven't had an orgasm, maybe that is a pressure filled… or pressure free way to experiment and start to open up to what feels good to them. Maybe it could be amazing, I don’t know.
Jane: Yeah, I think that's true. And that's a classic way, by the way, of approaching this issue. Something that therapists have been doing for a long time is having couples just touch and, yeah, the sex is forbidden, and then if the couple cheats and accidently, oops, has sex and has fun, that's great, you know?
Jen: Right.
Jane: But one thing I would say about that though is that orgasm is important, it's really important to enjoy the… you know, to get the full pleasure of sex and the full intimacy, because ultimately, what's sacred about sex with your partner is that it's this deep vulnerability going in both directions.
Jen: Yes.
Jane: And orgasm is, you know, moment of deep vulnerability, and that's why this is so precious. So it's fine, yeah, to do this kind of exercises and to take off the momentary pressure, but you never want to give up because every woman can experience sexual pleasure. There's… you know, we were talking about self-hypnosis a little bit before you hit record, and hypnosis is a great way to boost one's pleasure in sex or to dial… or to increase one's performance for men to sort of dial down the pleasure and make it slower sex. And there's a self-hypnosis course on my website as I mentioned to you that anyone… it’s free, anyone can go. But so one thing to do is to get in touch with one's mind body-connection and to practice, you know, using both your mind and body together when you're with your partner to really get in that groove, like to let go of the shame, to focus on the touch, to really notice what feels good, and to keep exploring new avenues until you kind of get with what you want. I’d like to shift a little bit here though because I know we were talking about communication, and I’ve seen sometimes, because of this shame, some women become afraid to have this conversation.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: And I’ve met young women who’ve admitted to me that they just fake it, and it just breaks my heart.
Jen: Right.
Jane: And women who've been long married who really aren't that thrilled, like they maybe are harboring some memory of something better from the past in their… you know, but they don't know how to talk about it. And I’d like to just mention that… because those talks can go wrong and then people give up and they just retreat to their corners and nobody's happy.
Jen: Yes.
Jane: Okay. So men and women tend to have different communication styles. And this isn't… in a sense, this isn't big news because Deborah Tannen made this, you know, very popular years ago. I don't know if you remember that book that she came out with called ‘You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation’.
Jen: I didn't read that one, but I remember ‘Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus’.
Jane: So, yeah, and nothing against John Gray, but he took her science. Deborah Tannen is the real scientist.
Jen: Oh, and she's his ex-wife, isn’t it? Is that right? I think so. No?
Jane: No, no, no.
Jen: No? Okay.
Jane: She's more of a scientist, I think his ex-wife is more of a self-help public speaker type.
Jen: Oh, okay.
Jane: But no, Deborah Tannen is more of a serious, you know, scientist.
Jen: Okay.
Jane: And she's the one who did all this research. And so her book is actually, to me, more vigorous and a bit more helpful. But what she found out…
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: Yeah, and so what she found out is that due to whether it's biology or environment or social, whatever this combination we don't even need to know, but these differences arise and they start very, very young. If we take 4 year old, you know, kids, if you put girls together, they will aim for connection and sameness, they want to be like each other.
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: Yeah. If one little girl says, “My favorite color is pink,” then the other little girls, even though, you know, their favorite color 5 minutes ago might have been green or blue, they'll be like, “Yeah, my favorite colors pink too,” you know, they're always aiming for that sameness.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: And among little girls, overt competition is usually not rewarded or encouraged, right, just kind of all this, “We're all one,” in little boys, you take little boys… and they've done these studies just by videotaping kids left to themselves by the way.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: So the little boys have a totally different kind of interaction, they go for a one-upmanship, competition, who can best the other. And so one little boy will be like, “I can throw, you know, this bottle as high as the ceiling,” and the next one will go, “I can throw this bottle over the house!” and the next one, “I can throw this to the moon!” And it doesn't matter that it's not true. (Laughs)
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: This is just boys ritual way of one-upmanship. Okay, and so in Tannen’s famous example, she explains this is why men often don't like asking for directions when they're lost.
Jen: Ah.
Jane: Yeah, it’s hard for women to understand, because when we ask for directions, as long as we feel safe, we actually might even enjoy it because it's connection, right?
Jen: Yes.
Jane: And it's sharing, yeah.
Jen: Right.
Jane: But for men, they risk feeling like they're in a one down position, they literally may feel like a loser because it's putting… they're putting themselves in this one down position, asking someone else as the greater authority for directions. And none of this is conscious, by the way, so this is all just subconscious. Okay, move that over into the sexual territory, women sometimes think, “Okay, let's just be able to talk about this and share and same and kind of connect and agree that, you know, we have the same goals and so on,” and that might be true, but the thing is that men can be suffering… they can often… their pride, you know…
Jen: Yes.
Jane: … is there, and they want to please their partner, believe me, they really, really, do that's also the good news. But if they're approached on this topic in a way that feels like they're being criticized…
Jen: Ooh, yeah; oh boy.
Jane: … then it will shut them down immediately, yeah. And so they're naturally inclined to feel like they're being one upped if they're told they're doing something wrong or they could do something better or, “Here's how to do it,” and so that's where this gets really very tricky. So one of the things is if say a woman decides she needs to address this issue with her partner and that she can, right, and she wants to, don't have the conversation during the sexual moment because the…
Jen: (Laughs) Yeah.
Jane: Yeah, right.
[Laughter]
Jen: Well, you could to some extent by maybe saying, “Oh, that feels good,” and guide them that way.
Jane: Yes!
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: Oh, absolutely, yes, yes. But I’ve had, for example, there's a client, I think I talk about her in the chapter on gender that, you know, she had tried to say, “I would like it better this way or that way,” and her boyfriend had not reacted well because, again, to him it was like…
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: … yeah, he felt one-upped…
Jen: Right.
Jane: … on a subconscious level and so he just kind of, you know, ignored it. And then it was only when she felt much safer in the relationship that she really got honest with him that she was having orgasms only about half the time. And this is by the way, a least a nationwide problem, big, big surveys have shown that men tend to think they're pleasing their partner all the time, women tend to not be pleased all the time and not be telling their partners. But when this client finally told her partner, then it was like, you know, oh my gosh, he felt punched in the gut, I mean, it was like, “After all this time, I thought I was this great lover and you're…”
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: “… telling me that I’m not; oh my gosh!” And so… any way, they were at the point of break up when I was dealing with his client. So the thing is to ease into that converse and to bring it up in a way of be vulnerable yourself and to recognize that your partner has a different communication style. So we never want to think, “Oh, he should respond like this and he should respond like that,” but if you assume your partner would love a better sex life… (Laughs)
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: … and you have faith that your partner wants to please you, then start a gentle conversation, you might even schedule it if you think it's going to be, you know, really tricky, schedule it and say, “Hey, I have something to talk about, it might be a little bit, you know, uncomfortable so can we do this on Sunday over coffee when we have alone time?” or whatever it is so that… give your partner a little heads up here. And then open the topic in a venerable way, “I would like to please you more and I would like to, and I…” you know, blah-blah-blah, put lots of positives in there and then just open that door and invite your partner to… invite him even in a sense to take the lead once you kind of lay out the situation like, “Hey, we could do better but, you know, what are you up for?” Does that make sense?
Jen: Yeah, I like that, it's positive then.
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: That’s great, that’s great.
Jane: Keep it positive…
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: … and playful, you know? But no relationship can survive on an intimate level unless there's play involved. I need to pull back on myself here because there's all kinds of science on play to go into there, but basically, when we play together, our brains get in sync and we experience attunement, and when couples stop playing together, they lose that sense of joy together.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: You can tell this when couples when they stop laughing at each other's jokes for example or they stop… like they stop responding to each other's invitations to play.
Jen: Ooh.
Jane: And, yeah, invitation to play can be just like a little flirtatious eye contact or a nudge, you know, with the elbow.
Jen: Right.
Jane: Yeah, so just important to kind of be aware like, “Are you being playful about this?” And if your partner has pulled back, then probably he's feeling a little bit wounded, a little bit defensive. And the solution isn't to call him on that and to chew them out ever because that just creates more shame.
Jen: Yes.
Jane: And, again, that's the thing we share that gets in the way. So always, you're looking to un-shame yourself and to un-shame your partner.
Jen: So how does body image tie into the topic of shame and sex? I’ve heard a lot of women say they hate their bodies therefore they hate sex; so silly, right.
Jane: Yeah. In every culture throughout history of humankind that we've ever studied, women care about their looks.
Jen: Mm-hmm.
Jane: Makeup for example, cosmetics, go back as far into history as we can see, so it is absolutely natural to care about your looks. It doesn't make you superficial, and so there's no shame in that, you know? One of the things that we find though is often a man, if your partner enjoys sex with you, then you can assume your partner finds you attractive. Now, that doesn't mean they might not agree that if a woman is obese for example or, you know, suffering from some skin condition or something, her partner might, “Yeah, you know, there have been moments when you're more attractive or you could be more attractive.” But if your partner desires you, of course it means you're attractive. So what I would suggest in those situations is, again, as gently as possible, not to put the onus on your partner, but invite your partner to see some of your vulnerability. Now, it's not the partner's responsibility to make a woman feel beautiful, but darn, they can sure help. And when they realize, “Oh my gosh, this is going to help my partner to experience desire…”
Jen: (Laughs) Yeah.
Jane: … you know, they’ll jump in there. The other thing is, for example, using self-hypnosis of course, we know that there are women that we might say, “Oh, they're not very pretty, but they feel gorgeous,” right?
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: Yeah, and they therefore become gorgeous, so you can use self-hypnosis for that. I’ll tell you about a friend of mine, unfortunately, she's no longer with us on this planet, but Lucy Grealy, have you ever heard of Lucy Greely? She had a book called ‘Autobiography of a Face’…
Jen: I have not.
Jane: … years ago.
Jen: ‘Autobiography of a Face’.
Jane: Okay.
Jen: Okay.
Jane: Yeah, yeah, she was on Oprah, she was an international bestseller, just a amazing woman. But she… at 11 years old, she had cancer in her jaw.
Jen: Ooh.
Jane: Yeah, and she lost half her face. And what I mean is she still had the eyes, she still had the nose, the mouth, but it was as though that half of her face had just caved in, had just sunk. And she was so monstrous looking as a child that packs of kids, literally, would follow her around calling her a monster and throwing stuff at her.
Jen: Oh.
Jane: Yeah. Now, when I met her, we were at an artist's retreat and we're both in our like 20s, she had had many, many surgeries, dozens of surgeries, and so she looked a little bit better, but she was still a Frankenstein figure. I mean, you know, her face was clearly patched together, 1 patch sewn here on to another patch sewn there so that was very clear. Also, she still had no bottom teeth, that side of her face still sagged in quite a bit, even though it was not monstrous anymore, she was clearly deformed, alright?
Jen: Right.
Jane: Okay. So you might think that a woman who is clearly deformed like that could not be attractive to the opposite sex, but boy would you be wrong.
Jen: Oh.
Jane: Because yes Lucy was a man magnet.
Jen: Really?
Jane: Yeah. And I remember at one point, she had 4 attractive successful men vying for her attention. And at one point, she invited either 3 or maybe all 4 of them to go out to dinner with her because she was having such a good time with it. She had so much courage to just own her beauty. She knew she was gorgeous inside, you know?
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: And she just decided, “Look, if you don't see it, you are lost,” even she… this was back in the days before internet dating, she put an ad in the New York review of books and called herself fetching, okay?
Jen: Yes, that's a good word. (Laughs)
Jane: Yes. She had beautiful eyes and just this amazing, you know, personality. She actually had a date (this is true) with George Stephanopoulos.
Jen: Oh.
Jane: Yeah, who didn't ask her out again and she was, you know, annoyed by that, but I mean, that's how brave she was. So part of the retreating into not liking how you look is okay. Even before you change the way you look, if you can, I mean, that's another route, right? Like, you know, get in shape or whatever that may be…
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: … but before then, take the responsibility of feeling gorgeous about yourself. Because it's really true, if you do, others will see you that way, maybe not everybody, but others will. And men love that confidence, I mean, they just swooned over Lucy, it was amazing!
Jen: Ah, that’s such a good story, take the responsibility of feeling gorgeous; ooh, love that.
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: So we could change how we feel about ourselves, maybe we could even change the shame we might have attached to the sexual act or to orgasm, but how would hypnosis help us with those things? You mentioned your self-hypnosis course that you have on your website, where’s that again?
Jane: People can find that easily if they go to self-intelligence, self-intelligence(that's with the hyphen; self, hyphen, intelligence).com. And it's free, it's up in the right hand corner.
Jen: Okay, okay.
Jane: Yeah. And so how that can help is that hypnosis can be used to influence how our bodies and mind communicate with each other. Again, it's really all one loop, the brain-body loop. So in that course, it gives people enough instructions, and it’s just a short sweet course, but pretty powerful and pretty good, I must say. But so it makes suggestions of certain feelings that you can generate in yourself, for example, confidence I think is one of them. One way to use hypnosis is, if you've ever experienced sexual excitement, you can practice experiencing it…
Jen: Ah.
Jane: … by using self hypnosis and you can learn to be able to access that much more easily. This is all brain plasticity, the more… that’s why habits are so powerful. The more we do something, the more we experience something, the stronger those neural pathways and the easier it is to re-access them when we want to. So if you practice getting into that state of desire and, you know, often I’ll, you know, with my clients on this issue, if they've ever had an orgasm, again, I don't touch anyone and I like people to, you know, have their privacy, but they can actually practice in hypnosis even going through a whole experience of sexual pleasure and it just strengthens those brain maps. Now, outside of self-hypnosis by the way, you can also (Laughs)… I should create a course on this sometimes, but partners also can learn to hypnotize each other.
Jen: Ooh. (Laughs)
Jane: Yeah! And then, you know, just kind of to dial up the pleasure a little bit, and that's amazingly wonderful as well. But remember, so much of sex is in our brains and hypnosis is really just about brain programming, so you can kind of do anything you want there.
Jen: It's kind of fascinating. Maybe it would be going too far to say that people who don't easily orgasm, they just haven't built those neural pathways to be strong enough, they haven't, you know, made them into super highways yet or…
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: …. Is that too simplistic?
Jane: No, no, I think that's a great way of putting it; and they can achieve orgasm. So one of the things a person needs to let go of is if they've been telling them… themselves, “I can't do this,” that will enforce that neural pathway, right, and so to let go of that. But, yeah, and then create (Laughs)… I love the way you put it, create those superhighways to pleasure, totally.
Jen: So practicing even visualizing it, even if you're not doing hypnosis, but just to visualize it try to feel it?
Jane: Yes. So there's a chapter in my book on visualization and, you know, hypnosis plus visualization, by the way, is what a lot of top athletes and performers use, but visualization to work can't be just fantasizing, alright. It… in fact, fantasizing can backfire because it can reduce a person's motivation to go out and, you know, do the stuff they need to realize their goal. So visualizing is really a form of practice so it takes real focus. So, yes, if a person wants to really take some time to go deep into their imagination and kind of rehearse sex, including the sexual pleasure, that will strengthen those neural pathways, but…
Jen: Wow.
Jane: … and I just want to say, this is a very different from just imagining. If you just imagine, “Oh, that's nice that if would happen,” it's like imagining collecting an Emmy or something, that's not going to help make it happen. The way that visualization works… and it's tested by the way in science. One of these experiences (this is kind of an old classic) was a dart throwing experiment and they taught everybody to throw darts and then they had 3 groups all of the same, you know, ability. And one group, they had practice throwing darts every day for 2 weeks, the next group, they had not practiced in any way, and then the third, group they had practice 1 day throwing darts and then on alternate days, just practice in their minds, but really practice, right? Get in there, really visually see it, you know, in their mind, be imagining what it felt like to move their bodies, to pick up the dart, to throw the dart in the way, to feel it and see the dart hitting the dart board and so on. Well, after 2 weeks, can you get who improved the most?
Jen: I’m guessing visualizers. (Laughs)
Jane: Yeah! The ones who did half visualization and half physical practice improved the most. And that's why I say Michael Phelps, the swimmer, he used visualization all the time because what it does is it allows you to have a perfect practice. And I have… you know, I combine it with hypnosis for my clients, but I don't golf, but I’ve helped a lot of clients improve their golf game because what we do is we go in using hypnosis just to kind of supercharge it and they visualize making that perfect shot because they already know how to do it. Here's the thing though, you have to already know how to do that skill.
Jen: Oh.
Jane: So if you already know how to play the guitar really well, you can visualize practicing. And the famous pianist, Glenn Gould, one of the greatest classical pianist of all time, did most of his practicing just in his head because you can have the perfect practice. But you can't if you've never played the guitar, it won't help you to visualize playing the guitar because you've got to actually have that skill set to be able to go in and kind of a focused in a disciplined way actually practice in your mind. So it's really different from fantasizing, but if you have had a good sexual experience, then yes, you can go in and practice it and you can sort of practice, lead your mind through your body in terms of, “What would it feel like here and what would it feel like there?” And it won't be like hallucinating, it's not like that, but the more you are in touch with kind of calling up the experience and remembering what it felt like to move your body this way and to move your body that way and so on, yeah, then you can lay down those superhighways you mentioned.
Jen: Wow, that's amazing. As you were talking, I was imagining if someone felt shame even for the thought of being naked in the presence of their partner, maybe they start by imagining being naked and being comfortable and that just progressing through everything. Maybe their partner’s asked them to try something new and they feel shame around it because there's so much shame wired into this, just imagining it first and creating a pathway that becomes a highway then superhighway, I don't know, what do you think?
Jane: Yeah!
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: I think that's a wonderful idea. And I wanted to say something about you saying if they felt shame about their partner asking them to do something or whatever. A couple of other gender differences that I want to honor because, you know, we're really different. And there's lots of crossover, so there's no right way to be a woman or right way to be a man.
Jen: Right.
Jane: But there are some real differences in whether they're… you will never know how much biological and how much cultural. But so one of the differences (and this one shows up in the brain, so I tend to think it's, you know, probably biological) is that men are more visually stimulated, right?
Jen: Ah.
Jane: They also respond more to novelty.
Jen: Oh, interesting.
Jane: Yeah, men have a bigger kind of novelty drive than women in general. And in fact, there's an old story about this, was it the Coolidge effect? I won't go into it, but anyway, sorry, I need to look up that story. But there's a funny story about a president, and it's apocryphal, it's not true, but going to a farm with his wife and there's a bunch of chickens and rooster and the farmers. And the president says, “How do those chickens, you know, all have eggs with 1 rooster?” and the farmer says, “Oh, that rooster has sex many, many times a day.”
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: And the wife kind of nudges her husband like, “Well, hey, did you hear that?” you know? And so then the president says, “Well, but is it with the same partner every day, you know, many times a day?”
Jen: Ooh. (Laughs)
Jane: And the farmer says, “No,” you know?
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: But it's actually been proven in science when… among other mammals too, when a male partner is just utterly sated and has, you know, sexually satisfied with a female partner, if you introduce a new female who's ready for sex, suddenly that male partner gets interest. And it's not because men are evil, it's because men are wired to respond to novelty. And so…
Jen: Ah, that makes sense, yeah.
Jane: Yeah, yeah. So here's the thing, so you never want to shame men for, A, being turned on by what they see because their visual cortex is far more involved in sexual arousal than it is for women.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: So, you know, we don't want to men of being superficial just because what they see matters to them or excites them, but here's the thing. So ask your man what would excite him, and if he says, “Red lingerie,” trust that red lingerie would be a nice thing to do for your man, you know…
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: … and that it's not demeaning to you and it's in that sacred space, right? So…
Jen: I’m laughing, I have to interject a story. (Laughs)
Jane: Yes, yes.
Jen: I have a friend, they have 5 children and they're super energetic, amazing couple, and she randomly she had a story one day… I’m not sure you name…
Jane: Okay.
Jen: … if anyone guesses who it is.
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: She said, he bought her some lingerie…
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: … but it wasn't just any lingerie, it was pink and yellow, and we all just laughed and laughed and laughed.
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: But now it makes sense, he was looking for something new and exciting, but pink and yellow lingerie?
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: I mean… I asked her, “Did you wear it?” she said, “Well, of course.”
Jane: Good girl.
[Laughter]
Jane: Nice, nice, I love that story. Yeah, so… exactly. So we’ve got to kind of honor the men and their maleness, you know? And the other thing is to find out, you know, if you don't feel like your partner is excited to see your body, which I would doubt if he's desiring you, he’s… see, once we start having a sexual relationship with someone, that lays down neural pathways in the brain (assuming that it's satisfying sex) that associates that partner with sexual satisfaction.
Jen: Ah.
Jane: So… yes, so you might look, you know, any old way, a person might… a woman might look any old way, and if her partner's associating her with that sexual pleasure, he's still going to be aroused by the female body. So if that's a case too, you want to kind of check in and believe your partner. I think men sometimes feel like, “Well, why should I have to tell her she's gorgeous?” Well, that's a female thing, like we are wired to care, and that goes back to the beginning of time and there's no shame in that. But if a man can learn that in a positive way so that he feels good about sharing the fact that he thinks she's hot…
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: … and if she learns to take that compliment also in a way that doesn't dismiss it, that doesn't say, “Oh, I don't feel hot,” but, you know, to take it in a flirtatious, “You do? You think I’m hot?”…
[Laughter]
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: … then you're both kind of good to go.
Jen: Oh, I love that, I love that. Well, let's go all the way around full circle. You mentioned orgasm is one of the most deeply vulnerable things a couple could share.
Jane: Mm-hmm.
Jen: Maybe some people are saying, “Ugh, we don't have time for sex. Who cares about orgasm? I have bigger fish to fry. Why should we care? Why should we try to improve our sexual relationships?”
Jane: Yeah. So it is because of that deep, sacred vulnerability, we humans are sexual beings. I believe in addressing the whole-self, right? So we want… and I don't mean like, “You can have it all!” and it… you know?
[Laughter]
Jane: We know that’s not true, but here's the thing. And so… and I understand that, you know, when you were young, maybe you wanted sex every night and, you know, now, you know, if you're a long standing couple, it can kind of fall by the wayside. But it is missing out to set it aside completely because many, many studies show that a healthy sex life is key to a healthy relationship. In fact, you can have a lot else going wrong, but if you're able to both connect in that sacred space, that reverberates outward to let you handle the rest of the problems as well. We could throw in as well that it's a great stress reducer (Laughs) and an intimacy strengthener, but couples who… and I know there are many couples who don't have sex at all. If that's a mutual agreement, okay, you know, I honor whatever works for everyone, but I would just ask, “Are both people really, really happy with that?” because you don't want to just, hmm, fade into the background. So what I suggest is making sex dates, you know? So even if you're too tired to have sex every night, maybe even you’re too tired now and too busy every week, well, then have one fantastic sex date every month. And if you have kids, you know, send them to the relative or the babysitter, spend, you know, at least a few hours in bed, if not… you know, if you can schedule a whole day, you know, if you're going to do that once a month thing, but it's not that hard. And when a couple rediscovers that, oh my gosh, everything rushes in. You know, often men will be more in touch with their sexual need. And for men… and, you know, this, Jen, that for men, sex is often their route to deep emotional connection. More…
Jen: Yes.
Jane: … than we women… yeah.
Jen: Oh, I have something to say about that. You know ‘The Five Love Languages’?
Jane: Yes!
Jen: Everyone talks about it.
Jane: Love it.
Jen: And…
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: … I don't know if physical touch is my husband's primary love language, but there came a day when I asked myself, “When do I feel most connected to my husband?” and I think I resisted the stereotypes, but I realized it was during sex because, I guess, you talked about that sacred connection, but it was maybe one of the only times with all of our kids and everything where he was way into me; I could feel his love for me.
Jane: Mm-hmm.
Jen: So I think it's really true for you. And so that became one of the deepest ways for us as a couple to experience emotional intimacy, which so many people think physical intimacy doesn't equal emotional intimacy; I don't understand that.
Jane: Oh, you know, well, and I think because it doesn't always, right? If casual sex might not… and I think people often become kind of sexually numb if when they're younger, they feel like they need to be more sexually active than perhaps they really want to be, you know?
Jen: Mm-hmm.
Jane: Society's sending so many mixed messages on this. But if we go back to that difference between the genders in their communication styles, so women, from an early, early age, we're connecting when we're talking and communicating. When we go with our friends…
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: … we bond.
Jen: Yes, yes.
Jane: You know, we're sharing emotions, we’re sharing the whole thing.
Jen: (Laughs)
Jane: Men, no, they're one-upping each other naturally. Now, they may have a good friend they can talk with and, yay, and that's part of maturing as we begin to share each other's gender behaviors in certain ways that are great. But in general, there's that difference that men often just do not have a route to that deep emotional connection. For them, it is going to come out through sex. And so when we're neglecting sex, we're neglecting our man's needs. And remember now, being a man, it might be impossible for him to say, “Hey, my emotional need isn't being met here.”
Jen: Wow.
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: Oh my gosh, I think you just hit the nail on the head for so many men. I’ve never had connected that before, wow.
Jane: Hmm.
Jen: Keep going. (Laughs)
Jane: Okay, okay. Well, yes, and I think once women realize that, we need to… you see, sometimes, it's so easy to think that other people should be like we are, like whatever is right for us is right for others. And the genders do this back and forth, you know? Men who criticize women for being too superficial because they spend too long putting on their makeup, well again, going back to the beginning of time, you know, it's natural for our species. In some other species, it might be the male with his peacock feathers, in our species, it's the woman, so it's natural, okay. But on the other hand, we women often expect our men to be absolutely strong and not have the same vulnerable emotional needs that we have. And the sad thing is, because they play strong (and that's what they're trying to be a good man), they're not given the room to show those needs either. So it's up to us with all our, you know, gender intelligence of being women and of understanding emotions and understanding vulnerability to reach out to our men to make them safe. Like, if… I think if a woman recognizes this need in her partner and it just… it takes away the shame and blame and the anger and it comes back to that playfulness too, right? Because, again, none of this needs to be grim, it doesn't mean shaking your finger at your men and saying (Laughs), you know, “Fess up to your emotional needs.”
Jen: Yeah.
Jane: Men need to feel… just as women want to feel desired and desirable, your man also needs to feel desired and desirable.
Jen: Yes.
Jane: So flirt, flirt! You know, make sure you flirt! Make eyes at him, you know, tell him he's gorgeous, you know, in whatever language works for the 2 of you, but give him those little touches, knowing that you're fulfilling his deep need. You're not the only one who needs to feel sexually attractive. And with a man, he might not be as in touch with it. You know, men are still struggling to get in touch with their feelings and so often… and you know this, like 90% of suicides in this country are committed by men, even though more women are treated for and report depression. And what happens is men aren’t… they still aren't… whether it's biological or cultural, men often aren't in touch with their feelings and they aren't given that permission. And so often, sadness and shame and depression may come out as anger. So that one couple I was talking about when the woman brought up like, “Hey, we could improve our sex life,” he felt angry. But under that anger was shame and hurt and fear of like, “Oh, no, I’m in, you know, danger of losing my partner.” So part of this, again, we women, we have this advantage, we're good at getting in touch with our emotions.
Jen: Yes.
Jane: Yeah. So share that generosity with your partner and don’t expect them to be good at all the things you're good at, right?
Jen: Yes.
Jane: And so create that safe space for them. And in sex… and another thing about this is we sometimes think, “Well, they should like this or that,” and there's no ‘shoulds’ in sex. Whatever it is, as long as, you know, it's not hurting anyone and the 2 of you are, you know, good with each other, I’m not big on like bringing other people into sex, I think that really gets into some dangerous territory, but as long as you're protecting that sacred intimacy together, and then there's no ‘shoulds;. So part of that is like not reacting in a negative way against the lingerie, but there are other things too, you know? If someone says, “Oh, I want to blindfold,” or who knows what it might,be because it's so specific.
Jen: Right.
Jane: Just be playful think of it as children having fun in a way and no ‘shoulds’ and it’s very, very private, you know, it's a sacred private space. So anything… I think I answered that question too much at length. (Laughs)
Jen: No, no, no, no this is going deep, it's almost addressing some of the cultural things.
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: For example, I have heard a story over and over again that I think we as women need to ditch, and that is this, “Men just want sex and they're so selfish. They don't even want to talk or do anything emotional first,” we're completely shaming men for the way…
Jane: Yes.
Jen: … that most of them emotionally connect.
Jane: Yes, mm-hmm.
Jen: And I love what you said about sacred intimacy. What if we as women change our story and say, “Sex is a sacred emotionally intimate opportunity as a couple,”? Like a sacrament, that word ‘sacred’…
Jane: Mm-hmm.
Jen: … leads that word ‘sacrament’. We have all these religious rituals…
Jane: Ooh.
Jen: … we have throughout the world, but sex as a sacrament between a couple, holy cow! New meaning, empowered meaning…
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: … and the shame is gone, I think it would completely change the game, but that's just one thought I had. (Laughs)
Jane: I love that! I love that; that's beautiful. And along with that, suppose you have a couple… and this is a long stereotype lines what I’m going to describe, though it doesn't always happen this way at all. But if you have a couple where the woman thinks, “Oh, my partner just wants sex,” which you’ve just, you know, point out that we’ve got to drop that story. But let's say, in a couple, the man wants sex more often, right?
Jen: Right.
Jane: So let's keep in mind, for him, that's his emotional connection, he’s meeting a deep emotional need and it's part of the emotional glue of your relationship. Well, sex doesn't always have to be the slow sex, you know, perfect for everyone experience. If you really have a partner who really would like sex say every day and you'd like it every 3rd day or whatever…
Jen: Yeah, yeah.
Jane: … my advice is, hey, give them quickies because…
Jen: Yes! (Laughs)
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: That's hilarious.
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: Well, that’s what we do. I’ll say, “Are we being slow or we’re being quick?”
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: Because I know slow means we need more time so I’m going to enjoy it, and quick means he's going to enjoy it. And I’m okay with that because sometimes I don't need it, you know? (Laughs)
Jane: Yeah. And it can even be a kind of foreplay for the next time you have the slow sex, it can kind of ignite that state of desire, leave you in a nice state of arousal.
Jen: That is so true! Sometimes I’ll say, “Nope, don't arouse me because then it's going to be longer.”
[Laughter]
Jen: You know? Anyway, I hope I’m not telling too much information; TMI! (Laughs)
Jane: Oh, but you know what? It's generous to share that information, and what you're talking about also is a form of generosity, and it's letting go of that, you know, “We're right, they're wrong.” Yeah, the negative stories about men, we just…
Jen: They have to go.
Jane: They have to go!
Jen: Men are being villainized, and when you shared that statistic…
Jane: I know.
Jen: … of 90% of suicides are men…
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: … you know, we women have had our day and we're coming around and we're recognizing our emotions, but we've got to bring our men with us, I think.
Jane: Yes!
Jen: So maybe more sex and more sacred sex is the way, I don't know.
Jane: You know, yes, and I’m going to throw one more thing here that we're all dark and light, we're all these beautifully imperfect humans. And, you know, and sometimes when I do my own little self-forgiveness blanket, I’ll give myself going a hug and just say, “I’m… you know, I love myself and my beautiful imperfection.” Well, part of that humanity is that sex often in people's minds fantasies unbidden that may seem dark, may seem ‘bad’ (to put quotes around it), people should never feel ashamed of their fantasies. And that's another thing where, you know, we don't want to go in and try to legislate people's… what's going on in people's minds.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: Do you know, for example, it's well documented that many women are aroused when they're engaged in sexual activity, they're aroused by having rape fantasies?
Jen: Yes.
Jane: Well, we know… yeah, and we know those women in no way want to go out to be raped, absolutely not. But so should they feel ashamed of that fantasy also? Absolutely not. And they've done one of these, you know, enormous sex surveys where they, you know, interview or survey, you know, 6 to 8 to 10,000 people, they found that (and this is kind of funny)… that when a longstanding partnership, a longstanding couple engage in sex, they often, in fact typically, more often than not, will include some sort of fantasy about some other person, okay?
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: Whether it's a real other person or not; and this is true of both partners by the way. But when they're apart, they will fantasize about each other. Now, this couple, the standard couple that they found typically fantasizes about others, are they treating each other wrong? No. Now, If outside of the sexual activity, they were to go around wishing their partner were different, then that, yeah, that's cheating, but sex opens us up to this beautiful humanity of dark and light, and we just need to consider that sacred as well. It's like, “Oh my gosh, look at all this wonderful complexity.”
Jen: Yes.
Jane: “And let's keep that space safe for thoughts.” Because another thing that happens can happen with the shame is if a person has thoughts that they think are like, “Oh no!” Look, whatever your thoughts are… and that… Dr. Ruth used to say that too, you know, she used to say, “Fantasize! Fantasize! Fantasize!” (Laughs)
Jen: Oh, yeah, yeah! That makes sense.
Jane: Yeah.
Jen: Yeah, I think when I said the word ‘sacred sex’, I mean treating it as this beautiful emotionally intimate thing.
Jane: Yes!
Jen: And I don't think that precludes not being able to fantasize or try fun, it could be fun; sacred sex could be fun too, you know? I don't want to attach…
Jane: Yes.
Jen: … religious meaning to it, I just mean stop looking at it as a chore or of like, “These men are selfish,” but…
Jane: Yes!
Jen: … this is an amazing gift of connection, one of the deepest you can experience if you treat it right.
Jane: Yes! And it's so precious. And so I love that term ‘sacred sex’, and it's so beautifully complex too. Just…
Jen: Right.
Jane: … like our brains, you know, our brains are the most complex structure known in the universe and sex is one of those things that really taps into so many brain areas. It's this wonderful thing that we get to experience in a way that no other species on the planet gets to experience. So, yes, I’m just saying, with the sacred, that we include all of our humanity.
Jen: Yes.
Jane: You know?
Jen: Yes.
Jane: Yes. So I’m agreeing with you and just adding on there.
Jen: Yeah, I agree, I like that. And it doesn't always have to be big and sacred, it could just be fun and quick.
Jane: True.
[Laughter]
Jen: But, you know, I’ve been a meditator for quite a while now, and something I’ve noticed lately, the better I get at meditation, the more it's a similar energy with deep sexual intimacy.
Jane: Mm.
Jen: I feel that same, I don't know, presence, higher-self….
Jane: Ooh, yes.
Jen: … both of us in our form of our higher selves.
Jane: Yes.
Jen: … through the sexual act. And I imagine I’m going to be learning more about this but, you know, I’ve heard about tantric sex, and I don’t know if you know anything about that, but like spiritual sex. (Laughs)
Jane: You know, I would like to circle back and say one thing about sex toys.
Jen: Uh-huh.
Jane: And this goes to those studies that show that most women (I think it’s about 60% compared to about 40%) need more than just sexual intercourse, they need more in order to reach orgasm. And the reason I want to talk about this is because if a man has been with that other 40% before and he may have expectations, and then the woman herself may think, from Hollywood, that she's supposed to be like that 40% as well, and she may feel all this shame that she's not having an orgasm just through intercourse. And so we know… but that's actually most women need more. So the reason I am a big fan of sex toys, well, it's twofold. One is toys, play; let's lighten up here.
Jen: Right.
Jane: And then the other very pragmatic reason is that bringing in a vibrator takes the pressure off everyone.
Jen: Right.
Jane: And there's so many designs right now that now, it's not all this pressure on the guy to touch this way or to that way or to do the other, and it can be incorporated right into sex, and also, it can add to the man's pleasure. So one thing I’ll just throw out here is that, if a man is initially defensive, which could be totally natural and you should never, never give up just initial defensiveness because remember, sex is this really hot topic and pride is involved. Yeah, but for example, bringing in some kind of vibrating massager, give your man a nice massage with it, let him discover some of that pleasure and that takes the onus away and it makes it safe and somehow it lightens things up, and now it's not a judgment on his ability; or yours.
Jen: Yeah, and maybe he wants it to be easier. (Laughs)
Jane: Yes!
Jen: Maybe he doesn’t want to do all the work. (Laughs)
Jane: Absolutely, yeah!
Jen: Right.
Jane: There's still lots of things he can do and you could let him know, but to have to deliver, yeah, everything and sometimes, you know, we want our partners to read our minds and know everything that we want exactly how and when we want it, good luck with that.
Jen: Right, right. So if someone were new to sex toys, what would you recommend? How would they even know where to go or where to start?
Jane: Okay, if they were new, and I recommended this one to many clients, is feel free… I mean, experiment because there are so many out there, but there's one developed just for female pleasure and the shape of it also is such that it can be included and incorporated into sex, into intercourse, so in other words, you can use it while you're having sexual intercourse, is the eroscillator, it's e r o s c i l l a t o r, I think.
Jen: Eroscillator, nice. (Laughs)
Jane: Yeah, eroscillator, and it was really…I think it’s the only one out there that was really based on science of what would help women achieve pleasure. Here's a funny thing, I recommended it to someone quite recently and we went online together because they have their own website, it's not cheap; this is a kind of expensive toy. There's also, I think I forget how much it cost, but you can get one plated in gold. (Laughs)
Jen: Oh my goodness!
[Laughter]
Jen: Well, okay, I have to… speaking of, I guess, vibrators, I had to share a funny story.
Jane: Yes.
Jen: We were talking about creating t-shirts for the podcast and my friend, Lisa, said we should have a hash tag #vibramazing, and then…
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: … someone else said it sounds like a vibrator.
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: So if we ever get the Vibrant Happy Women vibramazing hash tag, everyone’s going to remember this episode.
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: Oh, it’s so funny.
[Laughter]
Jen: Vibramazing, everyone, this has been a vibramazing interview.
[Laughter]
Jen: Oh my goodness. Well, you've shared so much great information, if people want to learn more about you or learn about the hypnotism you can provide to help with sexual pleasure, where can they find you?
Jane: So my website janeransom.com, that’s probably the best place; and that's Ransom without any ‘e’ on the end, just j a n e r a n s o m.com. And to get that free self-hypnosis course, just go to the book page. So you can get there either through self-intelligence.com or go to janeransom.com and then go to the book page, yeah, and that's it.
Jen: And, everyone, I know I talk about a lot of books on the show but her, book ‘Self-Intelligence: The New Science-Based Approach for Reaching Your True Potential’, anyway just think, self-intelligence, it's fantastic. We didn't even talk about half of the stuff in the book, but she has a great little chapter on dreams and how we can use them to our advantage; so awesome.
Jane: Thank you.
Jen: So grab her book and check out her website, get her self-hypnosis mini course, that's at self-intelligence.com. And, Jane, I love this, I think I’m going to have to have you on the show again.
Jane: Jen, I would love to come back, this was so fun, thank you.
Jen: Thank you. And thank you for your amazing brain, the whole time I’ve been thinking, “She has a computer brain, I’m telling you.”
Jane: (Laughs)
Jen: The way you can just pull up people's names and book titles and research, holy cow, you have a gift.
Jane: It's called nerdy, and I love it. (Laughs)
Jen: Way to go. And again…
Jane: Thank you.
Jen: This has been vibramazing, thank you.
[Laughter]
Jen: Well, there you have it, so many great nuggets of wisdom from Jane. I am so excited that she has taken the time to throw herself into the topics that light her up. She followed her heart and you heard about her path of getting to where she is now of understanding the brain-body connection, understanding the research, understanding mental rehearsal and hypnosis, and using what she knows to help couples improve their sex lives. You know, she's making a difference in the way she feels called to do it, and I want to challenge all of you to do the same. Maybe there's a friend you need to help or something special you can do for your partner tonight (Laughs); I don't know what it is for you. But anyway, I want to give you a heads up. Next week, I’m already feeling vulnerable but my best friend, Kitt Rothstein is going to come on the show and share some of her story of the ‘before Jen’, that means Jen before making all these changes. And I’ve seen some bullet points from what Kitt wants to talk about and it made me cry, it made me really sad for how much pain I used to be in. And for those of you listening who find yourselves overwhelmed or struggling or in some kind of pain, maybe it's a bad marriage like I used to have, I really do say, in the present moment, it's so much better. Is it perfect? No. Is it good? Yes. But that was a lot of pain for me, the stress and exhaustion from raising my kids, feeling not good enough, I was just in so much pain. And my best friend, Kitt Rothstein, who now lives in New Hampshire and not Wisconsin is going to come on the show and talk about what she has seen before and now after the differences. And we're doing this so that if you feel hopeless that you can have hope. We absolutely can change, we can rise up and grab onto our happiness by the horns and never let go, we can make a journey out of that deep dark pit of despair or sadness or overwhelm or stress, we can come up, and the beautiful thing is, we can slowly start to bring our families with us, our loved ones, our friends. We can be a light and then that light becomes a spark and then a flame, like Sara Bates said a few weeks ago, we can kindle that, and I want to give you that hope and that's why we're going to be sharing this next week on episode 152. I will be back later this week with a Happy Bit sharing my thoughts on sex, my experience of sex; I know, crazy, right? I promise it's mostly PG rated and nothing to be ashamed of. Remember, we're staying out of the energy of shame but I’ve had many of you write to me and hear me drop little tidbits, hints about my thoughts about sex and ask me for more, so you're getting the more later this week. Alright, so 2 big ones coming up, I can't wait, and until then, make it a vibrant and happy week, and I hope that you'll do what it takes to let go of shame and make sure your sex life is vibrant and happy too. Take care.