Corey Allan: Welcome back to another episode of Sexy Marriage Radio alongside my wife, Pam.

Pam Allan: Hey, it's good to be here with you.

Corey Allan: Always great to get behind the microphones with my wife each and every week.

Pam Allan: I love this time.

Corey Allan: Spend some time talking about what's going on in the SMR nation and where they want to go, which is what we're doing today, with shows that are... this shows just all steered by the nation, emails and calls that have come in. And if you want to be someone that helps steer this ship, (214) 702-9565 is how you jump to the front of the line with your question, that's our voicemail line. Or you can email us at feedback@sexymarriageradio.com, where all the emails are red, some are answered directly, some become shows in the queue, and we want to speak to what is going on in your world to help you make all that marriage can be even better.

Pam Allan: That's right.

Corey Allan: And speaking of that, as we are recording this, even though this airs is a few days after we record this, happy anniversary to my wife.

Pam Allan: Aw, right back at you.

Corey Allan: We are celebrating 27 years as of May 29th. And most of them have been really good.

Pam Allan: Most of them have, and the ones that have not, at least we've learned something right. That's made the other years even better.

Corey Allan: Absolutely, we have.

Pam Allan: So we'll take it.

Corey Allan: But I have loved this journey with you, off the air and on the air.

Pam Allan: And on the air. So richly blessed to have you by my side, baby.

Corey Allan: This feeling is mutual honey. So to the SMR Nation also thank you for being a part of this whole thing, that's been going on for eight and a half years now and helping shape this. And one of the ways you help us most is when you jump on iTunes and rate and review, subscribe the show, leave comments or Spotify, Google play, however you choose to listen, help spread the word. With summer coming up, maybe you'll be seeing family, grab their phones, subscribe them to SMR, just do it for them, and all of a sudden they'd be like, what's this? And then they'll thank you for it later.

Pam Allan: They will.

Corey Allan: So coming up on today's regular free version of Sexy Marriage Radio is your questions and our answers. We've got some really good topic ones that we'll be covering today that have come in via the voicemail line and the email inbox. And then coming up on the extended version of Sexy Marriage Radio, which is deeper longer and there is no ads, you can subscribe at smr.fm/smracademy. We're going to continue a conversation that took place two weeks ago, based on the episode entitled, My Wife is Not Sexually Attracted To Me, that a couple of members in the Academy asked for us to expand on some of the ideas of how do I handle me better and what if that's not enough? And then we also had a member of the SMR Nation email in pointing out some of the differences between alpha and beta and her experiences. And so where we want to land with this in the extended content is a conversation about how securely attached is your penis fellas? Because when it is, the world's better. So all that's coming up on today's show.

Speaker 5: Hello there. I want to start off by telling you how much I enjoy and how beneficial and helpful Sexy Marriage Radio has been for me. I've been binge listening for a while now. I do have a question though that's really frustrating me. My introduction to sex was pornography at the tender age of 13, and that led to decades of masturbation, fantasies, all that stuff. Well I got married, it was very difficult to have sex with a person. And I had trained my body to respond in certain ways. And the father has just shown me the error of pornography and he is in the process of renewing my mind, so I can actually enjoy physical pleasure without fantasies and stuff. However, I'm having a hard time with arousal in different activities, different methods of foreplay, role play, just whatever.
My body is still so accustomed to getting aroused in just one way that it's very difficult to overcome that. And also I noticed my only erogenous zone that's activated, so to speak, is between my legs. My breasts, and no other parts of my body are erogenous zones yet. And I'm curious, how does one develop new erogenous zone and how does one develop the ability to get aroused doing different activities during a sexual session? So that's my big question and I sure would love to have an answer for this because I sometimes feel like throwing in the towel, but I've come so far that I just can't. And I don't want to, I want to have an active, vibrant sex life with my husband who has been very patient throughout this whole thing. So thank you for your show and you guys are doing so much good in our world. Have a wonderful day, bye-bye.

Corey Allan: I want her to have a vibrant sex life with her husband too.

Pam Allan: I do too. I do too. What a great journey. Thank you for sharing that, number one. But what a great journey to be going down.

Corey Allan: Absolutely. And she's on the right track already in the sense of how she's framing this and what I'm hearing her say is that, because of her experience and use of pornography and masturbation and those two typically always go together. There's a lot of brain training that went on in that. And so therefore you can have those experiences where that's completely accurate where she says it's just difficult to have sex with another person because they just get in the way and all of a sudden what they want is not in rhythm with what I want and it throws me off.

Pam Allan: Yeah. I'm expecting a certain feel or a certain sensation. And when that doesn't get there, it's hard to stay on track.

Corey Allan: Because now all of a sudden, I've got to accommodate to someone else too. And that's a different way of thinking about this because a lot of times people's exposure to sex and their sexuality is through masturbation and it's not ever talked about and there's all kinds of guilt. And so that it does become this brain training that the erogenous zone is just between her legs. So she's asking how do I expand that? Because the one thing I don't really like is the idea of how does someone discover new erogenous zones? Because I think they're hard wired in. So instead it's how do I get back in touch with these erogenous zones? How do I ex explore? And that's really what this whole conversation will end up being is this is an exploration that you get to invite your patient husband to come along with. And if the way she's framing it is, he likely will be a willing participant in this. And a lot of it is then how do we move our sessions into the sensual, not just the sexual. So it's almost like full body massage.

Pam Allan: Well, okay. I'm glad you said that because the immediate thing I thought was oils and some things like that for him to help in the caressing of the breast and some things like that that make it a more sensual touch. Because sometimes when it's just skin on skin and it kind of gets bumpy or whatever, it can be where it's not quite as sensual as what some things like that help with.

Corey Allan: And this is helping her brain rewire some of those connections from different fields and sensations from body parts to then, if you've got it to where, okay, you could do some massage sessions, some touch sessions, and these are just kind of go where you want to go with it. It's generally most couples, I hope, whenever it becomes a massage session, they don't just start right with the genitalia. You warm them up, that's the best way for this whole thing to go. Even men enjoy the warmup, right, because it enhances what can come later.

Pam Allan: Okay. So did they enjoy the warmup even on the back or does it all got to be on the front?

Corey Allan: The front usually is where we want to land, but yes, because there's muscles on the back and there's sensations that can be felt in there soothing and calming that can happen from this. And a lot of times our transition to get into the sexual arena is I have to have a margin in a moment to move into it. So start with that. And while that's going on, just kind of follow the hand, follow the touch and see what feels good and soothing because that's the beginning of this thing, right? There's a good touch of like, oh yeah, I like that.
It's maybe not sexually arousing, that's fine. But you're closer to it, once you start to recognize, I really like it when you brush by my shoulder, it creates this good feeling. Well that's in line with, and go in the same direction as the tingling that happens with the erogenous zones. So it's almost like this progression. You want to look at it as in your own mind, you're searching for, and you're feeling out as these experiences, unfold of massage and touch, you're searching for what are the things that feel good? Then, what are the things that could feel a little sensual? And then what are the things that start to become sexual? Because it really does follow that progression.
And that's how you make it to where some of the different hardwired areas of our body can then become and steered towards sexual pleasure and arousal. And so that's just kind of a... it's a laboratory of working towards it together. We did an episode several months ago, it was episode 438 called, Sensate Focus, which was done by Masters and Johnson. And it's the same kind of concept where you want him to spend time massaging and working towards pleasure with you, you follow his hand, you could put your hand on his that helps the brain rewire some too, but you follow it with your mind.
You just kind of follow the touch and be in tune with what does that create for me? What does that invoke from me? And realize this takes some time, because it's likely if she was exposed to pornography at 13 and got into the masturbation part of it shortly thereafter and had that going on for a while, brain's pretty hard wired in there. So some of the ruts in the neuro pathways, they need to be worked at a little more to jump up over those. It can be done.

Pam Allan: I've got a question here. She had brought up the point of, like you said, started very early with masturbation and fantasy, and it sounds like she's tried to squash fantasy because that takes her, in her mind, to whatever pornographic images.

Corey Allan: Okay, because fantasy is equated to the pornography side of it.

Pam Allan: But fantasy can be something that helps you get into that spot, so I'm curious on the thoughts of how to work in fantasy that is in what she wants within the marriage bed, right? Within the two of them and not fantasy about the pornographic...

Corey Allan: Let's follow this progression then. So they have some of these laboratory experiences. She finds that there's some elements of a particular breast that particular time starts to produce a little bit of a tingle. And then it's very possible because of the nature of us as people that the next time he goes there, it may not produce the same result. So give yourself grace because they're not push button mechanical things of, oh, that will produce the same result, no, not always. But when you can lodge into your memory bank of, okay, that was enticing.

Pam Allan: That turned me on.

Corey Allan: Or that was a sensual feeling, or that was a comforting feeling or whatever it might be. Now, as she goes forward in these episodes or in sexual encounters with him, a fantasy can be, I remember that, and put yourself back in that moment because when you get into the fantasy access parts of your brain, there's not a timestamp on it. And that's where you're using real time stuff in the fantasy of what's going on now to help steer what you want to happen now. And then it becomes that, how do you straddle the fence of still stay connected with what's going on, don't just be disconnected unless you need to say, hey, I need to get my mind right, give me a moment, keep doing what you're doing, give me a moment, and I'll be right back.

Pam Allan: Full intention to be connected.

Corey Allan: Absolutely, that's much more awareness, which to me starts to create the scenarios where you get the opportunities of following the connections. You get the opportunities of building off of things and it truly is, okay, let's try that again. And maybe it didn't go as well, but I'm learning some things, because this is just going down the route of combining the idea of healthy sexual touch, steered towards my marriage, that expands who am in my marriage. You can also add to it, if she's willing and interested, you can add, you can add elements of healthy masturbation. Get rid of the external things of the pornography because I think that's where we start to get into the cloudy, that gets dark and slippery slope from our value structure that we've talked about on the show.
But get into just the feelings of your own body. Get back in tune with your own body, and don't just explore your genitalia, warm yourself up, treat yourself well, right? Ease into it. Create an evening.

Pam Allan: Treat yourself. Well, I love that phraseology.

Corey Allan: Why not?

Pam Allan: Great phraseology.

Corey Allan: Sometimes masturbation truly is a, just get the job done, because you're just trying to reach orgasm because you just want release. But go into it for the whole exploratory search of how do these things feel? How do the different parts of my body feel, depending on where I am in my cycle, what's going on in my world? All that. I think there's tremendous benefit and value that can be learned there. And so the more you just kind of use these things as laboratories, I think you start to rewire the brain back in touch with the erogenous zones that are in existence.
And then you start to find out what works the best, and then you get better at just being flexible about, you know what, normally I kind of grown to where my breasts were a really good thing on getting me going. Not right now, they're not, but that's okay because something else will come along. Or I always got the fail safe of the genitalia. That does work and good on you to keep, keep on the path and see it as, don't throw in the towel, because the best is still yet to come likely.
So an email came in that says, Dear Dr. Allan, the only sex my husband wants is spontaneous. Morning, noon night, middle of the night, it's when he wants to. He's not demanding or forceful, but he's irritatingly slow. Foreplay for him takes an hour and any communication about sex is not allowed, no talking, he gets defensive. I don't have time for two hours of sex at one in the morning. And I can't get turned on when he starts touching me just whenever. I hate it. He only touches me when he wants to have sex, which makes it harder for me to relax. I'm almost jumpy afraid to let him touch me. If I do get the chance to orgasm after I'm more sexually frustrated than before and I can't sleep. Weird. So he's snoring and I'm up till four or five. Seriously, what's wrong with me?

Pam Allan: Well, there's nothing wrong with you.

Corey Allan: Not at all.

Pam Allan: Nothing wrong with you, I'd be frustrated too. And the waking up thing, totally get it. At night time, Corey fall right to sleep, I'm wide awake. I come out and watch a movie or something after. Because I don't know what it is.

Corey Allan: You're talking about after, because this is a common thing. It's not just your experience too because I've had wives in my office...

Pam Allan: It is common.

Corey Allan: ... share the same sentiment in that there's often this, this belief and this experience of for men, achieving an orgasm is a easy foray into sleep easier, right? It's just the endorphin and they're like, oh, it's just this relaxing where you just get hit with, I just want to go to sleep.

Pam Allan: Yeah. You're a big bear, go hibernate. And we're like, okay, break time, time to wake up.

Corey Allan: But for women, especially after orgasm, it doesn't have the after glow that comes down like a man to where it truly induces sleep quickly. There are a lot of women that it just activates parts of their brain and their system to where it's all of a sudden, like I was sleepy before we started this thing, but now I'm anything but.

Pam Allan: Right. Well, and then the reality here of sometimes hour long foreplay is fabulous.

Corey Allan: Timing and context matter.

Pam Allan: Timing and context matters. I go back to Seinfeld because it was just enough already, it was time to get some sleep, right?

Corey Allan: So let's go back to what she's describing in here. This, what I'm reading in this, pam, tell me with your woman eyes and ears if you hear the same thing. What I'm reading in this is sexist, determined and all that about him. There's times where she gets invited to play and achieve an orgasm, but it's not the point it's all about servicing him.

Pam Allan: That's what it sounds like from her perspective, it totally does, yeah.

Corey Allan: It's the way it's written it is, and I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that that may not be completely skewed that way, but it's close. So she's talking about a couple of different things that I can completely understand why it would be very frustrating to be sexual with him. Even though he's not demanding or forceful, it truly is, he dictates it. He's the sole determinant of it. And it's almost as if she's just a companion for that component at his disposal.
So this then starts to get into this arena of okay, if that's the dynamic, where's her power? How is she claiming what she wants in this? Because he gets defensive, I'm going to sit here and say, there's no talking. How does she frame it? Any communication about sex is not allowed, no talking, he gets defensive. Well ma'am, I'm sitting here thinking, let him get defensive.

Pam Allan: Yeah. Speak up and say what you want.

Corey Allan: And you've got something that you need to change this dynamic, you're going to have to face the fact, it's not likely he's going stand up and cheer that you're now speaking up about what you want in this dynamic.

Pam Allan: Yeah. And if you don't want to settle... I mean, if it's lousy sex and you don't want it, say no once in a while.

Corey Allan: Absolutely. But there's also this element of, in her brain, this goes back to what we just did in the first segment in her brain, his touching is all triggered as, oh, here's what he's after.

Pam Allan: Because that's the only time he touches her, right.

Corey Allan: And so to break that you have to claim power back over your own body, to be able to start to say no when you're definitely not interested, but this is the concept that we'll be talking some about in the extended content today, it'll be a little overlap in this, but there's just that element of when spouses can learn to handle no better, they hear it less.

Pam Allan: That's the truth.

Corey Allan: Because what I'm actually wanting in marriage, in sex in marriage in my mind, is I want a willing partner to choose to want to participate in that with me, not just be a receptacle or a conduit for me, because it is both sides. It's not just the male only thing here. So it's recognizing she has to start to claim, in my mind, the power that is inherent in her, over who she gets to choose to share her genitalia with. He doesn't just have access to it at his whim and disposal. And so if it truly is, it's one in the morning, he rolls over, makes the move of I'm interested in you're like, you know what, it has been a horrifically long day sorry, no rain check. Tomorrow night maybe give me a heads up ahead of time and we'll work at it. Because she's saying it only can be spontaneous according to his spontaneity schedule.

Pam Allan: And I crack up at the well, cracked up is poor wording maybe, but spontaneous to me typically is something that is potentially faster. I'm like, wow. Those two aren't necessarily equal but...

Corey Allan: But that's the thing I'm interested in because the way she's framing this with spontaneous sex, it's likely he doesn't just all of a sudden at one in the morning, that's the first time he thought about having sex with his wife.

Pam Allan: No, I'm sure he's thought about it more often.

Corey Allan: My guess is it's come on before and so this is an element about how do I bring to bear the dynamic that's already between us and be able to say, look, I want to be a participant in this, I want to be engaged in this. And I want you to bring me in on it earlier than just right when you're ready. That we need to work on our communication in the sense of how is our foreplay happening before we actually start the foreplay even. What's our vocal foreplay. What's mental foreplay.

Pam Allan: Give me something to get aroused beforehand, yeah.

Corey Allan: And the more I can start to do that, the more you can start to then move into the arena of, okay, every time he touches you, you're going to know the code of that's a signal for the short term of he's interested. But when you have claimed your own voice in your own genitalia and who you share it with when, then you start to give your brain the ability to understand, just because he touched me in that way does not mean I have to revolt from it. I can just be, no, I'm not there. And I don't overreact just like he overreacts with the defensiveness when she brings up what she wants to talk about.

Pam Allan: Yeah. Because that's this vicious, circular reference, right? If that's her feeling, when he touches, if he gets defensive, well getting defensive on something like that is not an attractive feature, that's going to just create a bigger snowball effect for him.

Corey Allan: And so this is truly about, as Esther Perel describes, this is about creating the space between you by claiming you. And a lot of times a partner's not going to necessarily initially be excited about that because it's going to feel like you're withdrawing and withholding. But if you still are wanting to be engaged in a sex life and be involved in it for your own benefit and your marriage, and you want to be a part of it for your partner, which I totally get there's a part of that component in marriage, the more you can start to then still act in that light while also speaking up about what is congruent in you.
The more you start to create the scenarios of, if he wants something from you, he's going to have to work for it some on your timeframe too. Because I really do believe a good wife in the long term makes a husband work for it a little bit too. I just think there's a power in that, I mean, that's where Schnarch made the comment of, might've been a whole lot easier if God would've made women with two vaginas and then she could have given one to her husband and kept one for herself and you wouldn't be fighting over the same single organ. So there's a component of, you know what, I want to share this with you, but you've got to work for it too. Just like the reverse is true.

Pam Allan: All right, he's got a man up, she's got a woman up, right? Take charge of your own territory,

Corey Allan: Owning who you are and being willing to speak up and handle the frustration, the defensiveness, the whatever it is, because otherwise you're faced with he's defensive or I'm sitting here completely frustrated, wondering what's wrong with me. Well, nothing's wrong with you, it's a system dynamic. Make it better about the system and play your part and then see where that goes and let us know. So before we transition into the extended content to actually answer this message. This was left in the Academy and I just want to let the nation hear it beforehand. So they're asking based off of the episode, that was my wife isn't sexually attracted to me. This was a message that was left. Can you go deeper on the idea at the end of this episode? And this is a quote from something I was saying at the end of that content.
"Am I living a life that's worth wanting? Would I want to be married to me? Would I want to have sex with me? Would I think I'm alpha enough? Would I be drawn to that? Because I know that I can answer those questions. And most of the time there's going to be elements of a no in there. When I can honestly own that no, I put tremendous pressure on my spouse to up their own game and make a choice. That's where married life gets really good. That's where the erotic comes in. That's where the power and energy between us comes in because I'm no longer trying to carry my spouse's weight. I'm just trying to live my own and share it with you. So why does that pressure on a spouse bring in the erotic power and energy? What happens if a spouse is not carrying their weight? What if it's a medical issue that they're doing their best, but not capable of carrying their weight.?"
So they want to know how do I do that better? And what is it? What happens if I don't, if it doesn't change things. So if you want to know that, stay with us in the extended. It was kind of fun to sit and talk about just the state of us and what goes on as people, if you will.

Pam Allan: If this is so common, right? This happens in just every household. It's just so real.

Corey Allan: And I guess let's end this episode with this message that with what you're facing in your marriage and what you're facing in your sex life, and those will have an overlap, yes, but if you're sitting there and you got this dynamic of, it's just not what you hoped it would be, or it's just not what you thought, or it seems one sided or you seem powerless and you can easily in your own brain to try to make sense of it and start to wonder. And is there something wrong with me? Am I broken?
I want to just end with this being able to say, you're not broken. You might be stuck. There might be something just off a little, but you're not broken. Because all of us are incredibly capable. That's the human experience. It's the resilience of the humans. And so recognize your normal.

Pam Allan: Welcome to normalness.

Corey Allan: And I got great things ahead of me, if I can look at it and have the courage to make moves towards it. This has been Sexy Marriage Radio. If we left something I'd done with these today, let us know (214) 702-9565 or as always feedback@sexymarriageradio.com. Well, thanks again for taking some time out of your week to spend it with us. We'll see you next time.