What’s Going on With Her Libido: Jean Franzblau

“What’s Going on With Her Libido: Jean Franzblau”

a Girl Boner podcast transcript

Jean: My beloved was in my pandemic bubble. And so I was able to continue to relate with him and began to, with the libido issues I was dealing with, have to come face to face with him loving me, even though I couldn’t deliver sex. I couldn’t deliver a wet pussy… For a while, it was confusing.

August/narration:

“Experts struggle too.” That’s a line from a message I received from a listener the other day. She said hearing about sex-related challenges that even experts in the field face here on the show helps her feel “super normal and less alone.” I really get what she means. No matter how much knowledge anyone has about sexual health or intimacy, we’re all still  human. I actually think the challenges help us become better advocates.

Jean Franzblau, an intimacy professional for TV, film and theater, among other hats she wears, is a prime example.

Her path to her multifaceted career and expertise – it was all…a mixed bag. When we spoke, she had just talked to her therapist about her “first awareness of eroticism.” [flamenco music]

Jean: I was at an event where I was small enough to be a kid that toddles up to the front. And it was flamenco. All’s I know is I was tuning into what these two dancers were doing, which was incredibly intense, and I just felt something unfamiliar and wonderful in my body.

August/narration:

Years later, during her freshman year of high school, she experienced what she recognized as turn on.

Jean:

I was watching a high school wrestling match and watching two men wearing very little, wrestle each other. And I was surprised with the sensations going on in my body. What came right along – I didn’t know what was happening, but I wanted what I was seeing – came this deep fear. that I was exposed because I was in the bleachers and not many other people were. And the first thought I had once I became aware of myself is, can people tell what I’m feeling? And if so, it needs to be shut down.

August/narration:

That shame came from cultural conditioning, those dang societal messages. She said factors at home played a role, too – tied into messages that all-things-sex were bad.

Jean: My sister was going for it, enjoying the blossoming of this part of her. And there was anger in the household, parents not knowing how to handle, some door slamming. And I knew that whatever was going on in that part of the over there was something I didn’t want to, I don’t want to participate in something that makes my parents angry.

August/narration:

Still, Jean started to blossom into her sexuality. At 16, she had a huge crush on an older teen at summer camp. One night, they made out after everyone else was asleep.

Jean: I remember the darkness of the night in North Carolina and the smells of nature and for the first time feeling my pelvis flooded with blood.

I noticed like the arousal was high and it’s the first time where I connected arousal with smell. I liked how this man smelled. He was wearing a flannel shirt. I was just all up in it.

It was the coolest thing because I certainly had been touching myself. I had had orgasm since I was 14 from self pleasure. This is the first time where it was me and my arousal and another person at the same time. And I was just like, like fireworks. Oh, this is how it works.

When I entered college, as a freshman, I met somebody at student health and that person became somebody I dated and we had inflammatory chemistry.

What an amazing time. I was not choosing to have PIV, penis in vagina type of sexual interactions. I hadn’t had that before and it wasn’t ready to. But we had smokin’ sexual experiences.

August/narration:

One of them reminded her of a scene from the movie, “Titanic.”

Jean: Where two get together in a car that’s being stored on the boat, and you see a hand steamy and then dragged down. Sexiest cinematography ever. That happened one time. We were in a car and it was like steam on the inside. That was so amazing.

August/narration:

Around the same time, Jean saw a pattern with her sexual experiences. Before sex she’d basically:

Jean: Drink a lot. Then I’d give myself permission. There was that lover that I had, but there was also this thing where I needed alcohol to overcome and give myself permission to be a horny young woman.

I remember there was a TV show where this single woman spoke about needing sex, that it was an issue in her life that deserved attention and that she needed to figure it out. And that blew my mind. Wait a minute. This is something that I have a need for. Like, it’s just all these pieces came together that I’m allowed to pursue sexual well being.

That it’s not something that happens by happenstance. That it’s something I can craft and create.

August/narration:

Later in her 20s, Jean noticed another pattern: seeking sex in order to get the affection she craved.

Jean: I would travel and then I would pick somebody up, so to speak. And I would initiate a sexual experience because I really needed some hugs. I really wanted somebody to spoon me. And I would create really sad experiences for myself. I joined a recovery program and stayed for six years because I was feeling deeply upset with the situations I found myself in. But I was making choices based on parts of myself that were really lonely and also had self esteem, which is a recipe for unsatisfactory sexual experiences and deep heartbreak. I was so heartbroken a lot of the time relating to the sexual experiences I was having.

August: Oh, yes, I can feel that. And this ache of wanting to feel less alone. Were you able to parse out the difference between like, did you have a sense of your libido at that time? Or did you think that these desires you had for affection were your libido?

Jean: No, no, I didn’t think, you know what, I would maybe tell myself I’m horny. I would just like label it because there has no other label for me. I wasn’t trained on kindness, compassion and non-sexual affectionate touch. I just had no language for it.

You know, one thing I’m happy to say is that I have adventures and I’m really happy for that. Like, I really do. I’m 53 and if I ever were a grandparent, which I won’t be, I don’t have kids, but Grandma has stories. And I’m happy for that, proud of that, thrilled about that. Adventures and misadventures, but I do not wish on anyone the feelings of feeling, these are the two words I would use for it when I was going for one thing, but really needing kindness and tender loving care: bereft and shipwrecked. Like the walking dead.

August/narration:

Finally, Jean had an epiphany about all of that. One that would, in some ways, change the trajectory of her life.

Jean: I was on a business trip, and there was a magazine that I was paging through, and I saw images of adults wearing pajamas, laying around, hugging each other. And something in my spirit said, what is that? How do I get me some of that?  I began searching in Los Angeles for some kind of event like that.

August/narration:

Then she landed on something: a MeetUp group called Sex-Positive Los Angeles.

Jean: They had an orientation at the time that included cuddling, and I’m like, oh, this is gonna happen.

August/narration:

She arrived at the intro session.

Jean: I was given guidelines, what the cuddling was and wasn’t. It was a non sexual, platonic touch. And found myself sandwiched in a spoon with me as the center, with somebody in front of me and behind me. An experience I’d never had in my life before.

And the conversations that happen when one is horizontal with other human beings is not small talk.

It was wonderful conversations. I left the experience feeling calm and blissed out, comforted. I had no idea that oxytocin was a thing. I didn’t know what that was, but it was running in my veins.

August/narration:

Scientists call oxytocin the cuddle hormone, because physical touch – like hugs, prompts the brain to release it. The morning after the event, Jean felt the effects of that.

Jean: I woke up with no anxiety about the day. I just woke up happy.

August/narration:

Straight away, she wanted to reverse engineer the experience and start leading events of her own – drawing on her background as a corporate trainer.

Jean: So I’m like, let’s do this. I was confident and started to tinker with events. And sometimes people would come to me and say, this is why it wasn’t comfortable for me, or here’s what I need. And I would keep tinker, tinker, tinker, tinkering to, to this point now where I’m able to put on these events and bring people who consider themselves strangers in the beginning into feeling confident enough to be their best selves, to let their hair down, to be authentic.

August/narration:

All under her company’s name, Cuddle Sanctuary. She’s been at that work for nearly a decade.

Jean: I’m celebrating my 10th Cuddle Sanctuary birthday in the fall of 2024.

August/narration:

A few years into her decade with Cuddle Sanctuary, Jean met her partner, Danny. That relationship has expanded her intimate self-discovery even more.

Jean: I feel incredibly lucky to have partnered with a man who loves to cuddle and who also loves me. With the intimacy in that relationship, I’ve grown to understand what love actually is. I was confused. I understand it now. And how much a steady, beloved who loves me no matter what healed some parts in me that I didn’t even have words for. And loves me no matter what’s going on with our sex lives, and what’s going on with my libido.

*****

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*****

August/narration:

What’s going on with her libido. That mystery was at the center of some of Jean’s latest adventures, which felt a lot like misadventures at first.

But let’s go back for a second because when the relationship started, Jean’s libido and their sex life? They were really strong.

Jean: We would see each other just about once a week…. We had a saying. I feel like this is something that middle aged people would say: Fuck first. What that means is, let’s fuck before we have dinner. So that we don’t get full.

August: I am a fan. I mean, I think I’m built this way, with, I do feel like it’s, I’m much more comfortable being like, this is what I prefer, but also we have more responsibilities in our lives. So it’s like, Oh, I want to be able to sleep and wake up and do work and we’re Yeah.

Jean: That’s right, there’s a sensitive…we have a short window, he and I, so if we want to, if it’s a high priority, let’s prioritize our high priorities! And I think there’s something wonderful about that. and frankly, something and the cult, You know, the cult of busyness has us And also has us so fast, so severely that we can’t lounge around and ease into and instead it becomes scheduled and prioritized. However, that’s when I knew…At the beginning we would sext. We would fantasize about stuff in between time seeing each other.

August/narration:

Some of that was NRE, new relationship energy, she said. The natural punch-drunk brain chemical swirl that makes the beginnings of relationships extra exciting. But before then, her libido was naturally robust regardless. For example, she used to take strolls.

Jean: And I would walk, and I would see somebody with a beautiful physique, and I would just have thoughts in my if there were no social no social mores, I would like to jump on his back um, or just touch his chest and his arms, because I live near the beach, so I see people’s

August/narration:

But at some point she noticed those thoughts and desires were gone. Completely.

Jean: I missed it. I missed those thoughts.

A friend of mine said that when her libido crashed, she would look out or on something in a movie and she would just look at it like they were insects, just completely detached, going, huh. This is what two people do. They are rubbing on each other without any familiarity or desire. And I identified with that.

August/narration:

For most people, sexual desire becomes more responsive with age — meaning turn on often starts after you intentionally turn yourself on or feel the touch of a partner, etc. But Jean’s shift seemed to involve more than that.

August: It sounds like you’ve had pretty spontaneous desire for a lot of your life. I’m curious as the libido challenges set in, did it also affect once sex started? Did your desire become more responsive? Or was it the libido had dropped so that even you’re making out and the blood’s flowing and you’re doing all the things that you, you have such a toolbox and you know all these things that work for you. Were they working for you anymore?

Jean: First I’ll mention that I have taken Jaya’s erotic blueprints test.

August/narration:

Find a link to an episode about that if you’re curious in the show notes.

Jean: And my two top sexual archetypes or erotic archetypes are kinky and sexual, which means genitally focused. And so I might say to my partner, “Can you just touch me?” But what’s important is that I don’t initiate sex, like I had mentioned earlier, as if it was coming from a desire.

In this case, I would say, this is not the sexiest thing to say, but I’m like, this is true. I feel Nothing right now. But here’s a nice window of time for us to be sexual. Would you please touch me? Can we get some lube? Can you touch me? and sometimes there would be an ignite. And the ignite would turn into fantasy stories.

And then arousal would come. And then I’m in! It’s like a track that I would have to get on. But it would start from, I would say, “I’m at zero.” And sometimes he would be like, “All right, I have to get myself in the mindset.” Because it’s just not a sexy thing to hear from a woman: I have zero arousal for you.Will you touch my pussy?

August: Right! Like I just made you this wonderful meal and you’re like, yeah, not hungry. Make me hungry, please.

Jean: Right. Oh, my God. The discussions we would have to have and the honesty that just raw honesty that’s required to navigate libido stuff deserves a trophy.

August/narration:

Those conversations, tough as they were, were really Jean’s first step toward finding solutions for her libido woes.

Jean: For a while, The problem was I’m trying to say I don’t desire anyone, but I think it might be hard to understand. So the question became, is it us? Is there a problem with us? But I really tried to explain it’s not you, it’s me, in that scenario.

August/narration:

Jean knew she needed support. So a few years ago, just before the pandemic, she met with Susanna Brisk, a sexual intuitive, coach and author you may recall from a past episode.

Jean: And I wanted to talk to her about my libido. Should I start using hormone replacement therapy and what’s wrong with me, kind of stuff. And she really didn’t wanna talk about that. She wanted to talk about trauma. She said, “What happened to you?”

August/narration:

Susanna said, “The birds have come home to roost.” Meaning:

Jean: Now is your time to work on trauma. You have been overriding it. You have been sidestepping it. And that meeting was a couple days before we all and the country shut down and everything became quiet. And my beloved was in my pandemic bubble. And so I was able to continue to relate with him and began to, with the libido issues I was dealing with, have to come face to face with him loving me, even though I couldn’t deliver sex. I couldn’t deliver a wet pussy.

I know that probably sounds obvious. Of course you’re lovable without that. But I needed to again and again have him looking me in the eyes and saying he loves me. And that he likes spending time with me. Because for a while, it was confusing. Is it that I have low libido or am I just not into him? So that was a painful passage for us to parse out. But I kept trying to explain to people in my life and the best way I could explain it to men is you wake up in the morning and you do not have morning wood ever. Can you fucking comprehend it?

August/narration:

Jean knew she needed more guidance. Something was missing. When a friend told her that estrogen therapy helped her with similar issues, she thought, a ha! This could be it. Sadly, the doctor she reached out dashed her hopes at first.

Jean: I contacted a gynecologist to say, “I need help with this.” And she’s like, “We’ve got nothing for you.” And I’m like, “My friend on Facebook says that she takes estrogen patches and it helped.” And there was hemming and there was hawing and there was resistance. I’m getting really confused.

I’m like, “But this has been known to help. Why aren’t you letting me have this thing? And why am I having to tell you the product I want?”

We’re getting along in this conversation and she goes, “Well, if you’re having hot flashes, that’s something that I could prescribe.” I’m like, bitch, I am having hot flashes. It’s just not as upsetting as the low libido. Yes, I’m having hot flashes. I sweat every night. I mean, I guess I should have mentioned it.” And then I got prescribed. I’m fucking pissed.

Because the word libido, saying low libido, just the glazing over. Like, can’t help you with that, or don’t give a shit. I don’t know what to say.

August: And I have nothing for you. I mean, I could see someone saying. I don’t know how to help you. That would be a much more compassionate thing to say. It was like your problem is not important enough and or it’s impossible to address.

Jean: That’s right.

She sent me a list of 20 to 30 references about relationships. And I’m like, “My relationship is excellent. Let me explain to you in a little more detail. When I wake up in the morning, I want to rub on my pillow because I have a tingling between my legs. This is a motor that has been running my body since I was a young person. It is gone. It is a physiological problem.”

August: And there’s grief and there’s well being…

Jean: Identity.

August: Identity! Identity. Identity That’s what it is.

August/narration:

Still, since Jean had confirmed experiencing hot flashes, she got her path. And at first, months went by with no change. She got a stronger prescription. And THEN…one night:

Jean: I was watching Bridgerton, and there was a man seated in his bed, bare chested, and I’m like, oh my god, I want to touch that. I mean, I hadn’t had a thought like that in so long. I was under the mistaken belief that my desire to touch and my desire for sex was part of my identity. And I’ve learned that it’s like a privilege, not a right. It’s a privilege of hormonal balance and well being. I thought I got to expect to have that.

When women would say they had libido issues before I had them myself, I thought to myself, patriarchy. Your partner probably isn’t spending enough time with your pussy. You’re probably overworked and stressed out.

August/narration:

All of those things impact desire for countless folks. As I like to say, women women rise, so do Girl Boners. And Jean totally realizes how much those factors matter.

Jean: But there’s also hormones. And now I know the difference.

August/narration:

The hormone balance shifted sex with Danny, too. But not quite in the ways she expected.

Jean: As soon as I started having sexual thoughts, I would just immediately reach out to my partner like, I’m awake, you know, I’m having thoughts. It’s so exciting. What I wanted was to be back to the me that I used to have. And there’s some grief because I think I have a more muted version.

I think because of ageism, I’ve been trained by the culture to want to be as effective and strong and have the same faculties as my 20-something-year-old self. And that anything less than that is a failure. And so if I think of things that way, I’m going to be kind of miserable.

What Danny has said is, “Why don’t we learn who this new Jean is? What does she like? What’s her pace?” I would just want to swipe that away and go, “No! I want my sexuality the way it was. It’s not finished yet. I’m not back yet.” kind of thing.

When I’m in a really good headspace, I’ll be like, oh, there’s a whole world of sexuality I can explore, just as it is right now. And human beings who would love to be there with me for that. But I still lament a loss.

August: That is more than fair. Especially when you said it was identity. Even if or when people embrace the new adventure or try to apply the curiosity to who, who am I now and what is my libido now? I think it’s so important to feel those feelings. How do you manage the grief?

Jean: I think it’s really helpful for me to have loving friends, to be able to speak these things out loud. It saddens me that these things have been unsayable between my mom and I, over the years, it’s gotten much better. We talk about these things a lot more.

But why didn’t I know about how things were going to happen with my menopause? Why weren’t we talking all about it all along? Why was it secret? Why was I experiencing my, my body and my vulva in a silo for so long? But now, I do have people and words for it, and journal writing, and I have access to my tears.

August/narration:

She also has a page of written affirmations that include her erotic intentions for herself. Things like:

Jean: Permission to explore. Desires that I want to fulfill. It makes me happy to look at like, ooh, this is part of my identity. These are things I want.

One thing I want, for example, is complete healing. And complete access to the power of my pussy. It’s like having a Ferrari. In this culture, with all of the shutting down and the shaming of vulva owners’ sexuality, I have a feeling it has so much more that it can do. Community healing, personal healing, and, like, engorged goodness. Beyond helping the world, I want to go into states of trance of pleasure.

I would like to experience so much pleasure and part of it is saying that’s something I deserve to have and spend time doing.

[music]

August/narration:

Jean’s commitment to pleasure, and contributing to a more sex-positive world, shines very brightly in her latest creative venture — one that’s been years in the making.

Jean: That’s what I do best is I tell stories about my own experience and then people can see themselves in that. And that’s my gift.

August/narration:

Lately she’s been taking those stories to the stage. How that came to be — and where it’s headed — is a story in itself. One with kinky roots.

Jean: Years ago, I found myself aroused by BDSM. And I was shocked. And, I like writing – I’m a journal writer from so many years back – and I could not stop writing about what I was learning. That eventually turned into essays that I took to a dramaturg and story expert who helped me to form that into a show. I spent two years developing it, and at the time it was called “Coming Out Kinky.”

August/narration:

She performed it in 10 cities.

Jean: I mean, I really went after it. The last performance was at the University of Florida, and once I was paid well to do it, I was like, oh, it feels really good to be paid well to tell that story.

And it sort of was an ending point. I didn’t perform it anymore. Time went by. And then about 18, 24 months ago, it started to come back to me and I pulled it out and I’m like this material is too important to put in a drawer. I started to rewrite and a lot has happened in the past 10 years.

August/narration:

One of those happenings has been more like an evolution. It involves her relationship with her mom. And so…

Jean:

The show is now called “My Mother Doesn’t Know I’m Kinky.” It is a sexy story filled with drama and comedy, love and lust, and it answers this question, how does a mother react to the fact that her very good daughter is into BDSM?

August/narration:

When Jean had the idea to bring the show back, she was in a difficult emotional place.

Jean: At first, I was in the midst of what I would call my midlife transition or depression. I was not sure I had the energy and the chutzpah to bring it back myself.

I hired three performers to do the show. One of them was me, and then one actor did all of the male roles, and one actor did the feminine roles, and it worked! As time went on and my happiness grew, my strength grew, I began to come out of the shell of this growth process I was in, which took more than a year and a half, two years. And now I’m performing it.

August/narration:

She’s playing all of the roles. And yes, Jean’s mom has seen the show – and she loves it.

Jean: She was so proud that when I gestured to her at the end of the show and I said to the audience of like 60 plus people, I’m like, “My mom is here!” She stood up and everyone applauded her. Now she keeps calling me like, what’s going on with the show?

It’s so thrilling. And she is so generous because she has grown. Her character has evolved, making the end of the show so potent and hilarious and moving, because she gave me permission to share some parts of her story.

I would call my mom and say, “Mom, I have a rewrite.” And I would share a scene with her and she would say, “I’m okay with that.” And it would start conversations.

August/narration:

Those conversations shed light on a challenging part of Jean’s early learnings about sex. Remember how Jean thought her mom was mad about Jean being sexual — saw it was a bad thing? Anger, it turns out, wasn’t really the issue.

Jean:

She was afraid. And that’s when I asked her, what did she learn from her mother about sexuality, and it became this multi generational clusterfuck that we began to get real clear about.

August/narration:

Jean is taking “My Mother Doesn’t Know I’m Kinky” on tour. She already has plans to perform it here in Hollywood and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. She told me she has a dream: her mom in the audience regularly, and with her on stage afterwards for some Q&A.

Jean: And we get to talk shop about how we as a mother daughter duo can talk candidly about sex now.

August/narration:

Her mom’s sex life has benefited from all of this, too.

Jean: Her sex life is on fire.  I’ll say nothing else. But I know enough.

[music]

Learn more about Jean’s show at mymotherdoesntknow.com. There you can get tickets to her Hollywood Fringe Festival performances. There’s also a virtual option. Find links to her Instagram and YouTube content in the show notes.

And if you’re enjoying Girl Boner Radio, please share links with your friends and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thanks so much for listening.