Pressure Around Sex + a Love Story: Dr. Alison Ash

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“Pressure Around Sex + a Love Story: Dr. Alison Ash”

a Girl Boner podcast transcript

Dr. Aly: I think especially in long term relationships, there can be a lot of pressure that develops because when we’re in newer relationship dynamics, we don’t need in depth escalation patterns.

We have that new relationship energy that just gets you horny like you’re 16 again, and it doesn’t require the level of intentionality around transitioning from work brain or parent brain or whatever other role you may be identifying with and embodying and reconnecting with your sexual self, getting into your body, making space for your turn on to develop. 

But if we feel like we need to be turned on to have an experience, that’s an enormous amount of pressure to feel something other than what you’re feeling. And I think that’s like what a lot of pressure boils down to is this belief that you should be having an experience different than what you are having.

[encouraging, acoustic music]

August narration: 

Dr. Alison Ash, also known as Dr. Aly, is a sex and intimacy coach and educator and founder of TurnON.love. A couple of decades before she set her sights on helping folks cultivate more fulfilling sex lives — including navigating sex-related pressure — she was growing up in a pretty sex-positive household.

Dr. Aly: The big sex talk I had with my dad, we were shopping. I was 16. I was about to visit my boyfriend, who was a freshman in college at that point, and he started to do the talk and I said, “Dad, Dad, I know all about condoms and birth control.”

And then he said, “It’s not what I was gonna tell you. I just want you to know that you can only lose your virginity once, and I hope that you make it special and that you make it memorable.” And I mean, I think that there are some problematic elements in these days that we could pick apart with that statement as well, but just the fact that he was supportive of me exploring pleasure and wanting it to feel good and be positive for my wellbeing was a really special thing to have templated, especially from your father. It was really, just so helpful to have a feminist dad. I think not many of us can say that we do. 

 August narration: 

Indeed. At the same time though, she said healthy intimacy wasn’t really modeled for her. 

Dr. Aly: I wouldn’t say that my parents had a very outwardly intimate relationship, so I was very much left to my own devices. And I think how so many of us learn is through trial and error and a lot of fumbling around and figuring out what doesn’t feel good on the way to figuring out what does. 

August narration: 

Her education helped fill in those gaps. As a Stanford-taught, PhD sociologist, she understands the complex societal challenges that often lead to unsatisfying and disempowering sexual experiences – experiences she knew well from that fumbling around to figure things out on her own. 

She wanted to learn not just about sex, but about the “detailed nuances of relating and being vulnerable,” she said, “and the emotional intelligence that all requires.

Dr. Aly: That was something that I really didn’t get to learn and master until my early to mid twenties. 

And I think that that’s what inspired me to do this work was realizing the water that I was swimming in without access to these skills and how much suffering I was experiencing without even knowing that there was an alternative.

One thing that was really powerful for me was having that experience in high school where that popular, good looking guy takes his hands and puts them on your head and pushes you down. 

And I think when I think back about the memories for me, that feel the most gross, even to this day in my body, there’s something about that memory because I let him and I gave him oral sex and then there was no connection, no reciprocity, no anything. I felt very used and very disempowered, and I remember thinking never again. Mm. I would rather not have a sexual interaction than have something like that. 

And I think it lit a fire under me of, in part anger, but also in part determination and grit to figure out another way of feeling empowered in my sexual interactions. And I think my journey was not necessarily simple after that.

I definitely became the, the air quotes, not that girl, which for me meant a girl that could be sexually empowered and didn’t need emotional connection and can do it on my terms and my way, but it wasn’t vulnerable. And it wasn’t really acknowledging the fact that I did want emotional connection and love and affection.

And I think that process was a whole other journey that took several years. But it really started with realizing that sex could be either disempowering or empowering. And even though I didn’t know what would make it empowering, I was determined to figure it out. 

Ah, that’s powerful. So between that and your current relationship, you’ve done so much work and study and growth in your life, could you speak about feeling those improvements, like feeling shifts because you do have this understanding? I think that intimacy requires deep self-awareness as well as a lot of courage to be able to self reveal yourself. And it took me a long time of doing a lot of introspection and self-growth work and therapy and a lot of trainings because when you do experiential therapeutic and coaching trainings, you’re also deeply examining your own core material.

But I really got to be able to understand myself, my core wounds, my needs, my desires, my fantasies. What turns me on. What turns me off. And I think that understanding yourself is part of it. And then accepting yourself is the other part. 

I think adulting is really learning who you are, radically accepting it, and then bringing other people in on your experience and giving them your user manual so that they know how to be close to you and how to love you well, and I think for me, that was what the game changer between my relationships in my twenties to my relationships in my thirties was being able to be more discerning because I know myself better and what I’m looking for better, and I’m not shy to name it and share it and see if somebody is compatible with me or not. 

August narration: 

Today, Dr. Aly is in a relationship that has huge compatibility. Before we get to managing pressure around sex, I think you’ll love their love story. 

She met Sebatian – aka “Seb” – just before the pandemic.

[music: “Wings of Desire”]

Dr. Aly: 

So we first connected online before shutdown and then lockdown happened and there was like maybe a week or two of radio silence as we were navigating the intensity of everything else that was happening in the world.

And then we picked things back up and we had one of those classic virtual video dates that people were doing in the pandemic. And then had a really sweet hiking date. [birds chirping]

August narration: 

They hiked in the Berkeley hills, overlooking the bay. Beforehand, they’d decided to close the 6-foot social distancing gap – and she had giddy butterflies about holding his hand because [quote] “there was anticipation and intentionality around something that could have otherwise seemed so mundane.”

Sebastian brought a pretty impressive picnic spread and they found a grassy area off the trail and put down a blanket to enjoy it – meanwhile they dropped into connection over snacks, taking in the incredible view. And their conversation went deep.

Dr. Aly: I mean, we were talking about attachment styles and non-monogamy preferences and our past relationships and what we were wanting for our future, and there was no holding back in terms of our exploration.

And I think what we realized pretty early on was two things: one, this felt really different, that we felt the potential to feel met in ways that we hadn’t felt met before, in ways that maybe we had both been wondering if it was still possible, if we were wanting too much or dreaming too big if our standards were too high and that was really, really exciting. 

August narration: 

They also realized that they wanted to cultivate that relationship very intentionally.

Dr. Aly: And even though the pandemic created this interesting opportunity where there was so much spaciousness, and for me, my lifestyle before the pandemic was anything but spacious, and even though there was all this excitement of feeling this aliveness in our connection, we took it slow.

And we were really intentional about the ways that we spent time together and the boundaries that we needed and the ways that we could create safety and build a foundation of trust. 

August narration: 

This was before many people were discussing the idea of podding together, but they decided to do just that. After their second date, they decided to live together– which made for an especially intimate way to get to know someone. 

And while they had both been non-monogamous in past relationships, they wanted to be safe virus-wise — so they stayed monogamous at first, out of necessity. She said that that, along with the solace of lockdowns,“cut out so much of the noise.”

Dr. Aly: Neither one of us were dating other people at the time. And I was working from home. He didn’t live with anybody at the time, and so it was very easy to make this decision to pod up and to do it with a lot of communication and discussion around how we were spending our time and who we were interacting with.

And I mean, an amazing way to discover somebody else’s ability to navigate things like consent and boundaries and questions of emotional safety and being able to negotiate agreements. And it was really wonderful to get to see how amazingly skilled he is through our discussions of what potting up would look like.

August narration: 

That inevitably paved the way for what their partnership would look like, she said. It also highlighted their personalities.

Dr. Aly: I think we’re similar in a lot of ways. We’re both relational nerds. We really enjoy going deep and exploring the ins and outs of love and life and philosophy. And we like to geek out with each other, but we’re also both very silly and playful and really enjoy being kind of wild and extroverted and adventurous and explorative. 

One of the things that’s really special about him is just how much freedom he gives me to be me, how much he fully welcomes all of me, and the ways in which I can be very different.

 I’m a really emotional person. I have really high highs and really low lows, and I view my feelings very intensely, and he is more mellow and laid back and easygoing. And, at the same time, he was the first person in my life that made me feel like my big feelings were a gift and not a burden.

He says my big emotionality helps him feel alive and feel in touch with the intensity of life. And his easygoingness really helps me feel like the ways in which I’m particular…that I’m not too much.

August narration: 

Of course, all of that influenced their early sexual connection, too — which she described it as somewhat of a roller coaster, one that was fueled by longing. [music: “Sexy Nights”]

Dr. Aly: Based on my attachment style, if he was up for it, I would’ve U-Hauled and moved in and spent 24/7 with this human, and he was a lot more practical and needing more alone time and spaciousness and slowness. And so that created a lot of anticipation and longing. I think that the first few months, certainly for me, were very much a rollercoaster.

It’s really intense, falling in love with somebody and the highs of that NRE, the new relationship and energy, the dopamine and oxytocin and the norepinephrine. I mean, all of that is so intoxicating and enlivening and also really difficult to be with. And scary and vulnerable. 

You know, I was in my late thirties when we met and I had been single for a really long time, and it was a lot to be with the longing and the hope and the reality of the fact that I had been in so many relationships that hadn’t worked out. So all of that, I would have to say, I think, really fueled our sexual connection in certain ways, because that intensity in that longing also made it hot and made the sex reassuring and, affirming of our bond and helped pave the way for our love. And so there was so much involved in that. And I mean, we were like teenagers. There was so much sex and it ranged from hot quickies to really long, spacious, explorative sex. 

And I think one of the things that really stood out for the two of us how much we both took steps to make it feel safe, comfortable, to alleviate pressure where we could and to make it fun to explore what he liked, what I liked, what we both liked together, that we really honored the intelligence of each other’s self-awareness and embodiment, and wanted to learn from the other, but also realize that there was this new thing we were co-creating and fun that we could explore that neither one of us had experienced before. 

August: Mm. Wow. At what point did you start thinking about marriage and was, was marriage something that was even kind of on your radar going into the relationship? 

Dr. Aly: Yes. It’s really funny because I have been a feminist for as long as I can remember and queer and kinky, and non-monogamous and just really alternative with how I relate to sex and my own sexuality.

And yet marriage has always been something that I’ve fantasized about. And I think as somebody with an anxious attachment style, somebody who grew up in a dynamic that wasn’t necessarily having the intimacy modeled for me that I always wanted, I fantasized about the security and the family structure and the level of attachment and belonging that marriage would signify.

August narration: 

Sebastian had been married before; that was one of the many topics that came up on their 2nd date. A couple of months into the relationship, she asked him if was open to getting married again.

Dr. Aly: I know many people after they get married, they’re like, been there done that, don’t wanna do it again. He shared that he was very much open to being remarried. And so that was maybe the first seed that we talked about. 

August narration:

By then they had already talked at length about non-monogamy and decisions around having kids.

August: The non-monogamy conversations, did you feel like you were in sync with that right away? 

Dr. Aly: Yeah, so he had been non- monogamous in his previous marriage, on and off and other relationships, but he had done the kind of non- monogamy where you’re dating other people, maybe having other relationships tangentially while you’re in your primary partnership.

And I’ve done all sorts of forms of non- monogamy throughout my life and, have really come to the realization that what works best for me is to have more emotional monogamy and more sexual non-monogamy, that I prefer to share in the experiences more often than not with my partner, that it creates more intimacy and closeness with my partner when it’s something that we can share together rather than when it’s something that’s happening independently and separately. And that’s very different than how he had ever done non-monogamy before. And so it was a lot of exploration around would that work for him? And also what were we comfortable leaving on the table rather than taking off the table together. Acknowledging that the depth of intimacy and security that we can create together means that I don’t actually know what I will feel comfortable with in the future, but that I needed to know that if nothing changed for me, would that be enough for him? 

August: Mmm. Ah, what an important conversation. 

Dr. Aly: Yeah. And scary. 

August: Yeah. Yeah. I can feel that. Very vulnerable for sure. 

Dr. Aly: Mm-hmm. 

August narration: 

Those talks paid off. And about a year into their relationship, they knew they were headed toward marriage. About six months after that, Sebastian proposed.

Dr. Aly: The proposal itself wasn’t a surprise. We designed my engagement ring together and we had actually picked out our venue before the proposal and I kept saying to him “Seb, you have to propose because we can’t send out the save-the-date until you propose.”

And I really did not know how this human was gonna make it a surprise. And he planned the most elaborate and special daylong scavenger hunt that took me throughout the city meeting a bunch of my close friends doing really silly love-filled missions. And it all culminated with me meeting him at this beautiful park called the Albany Bowl, where I had to follow a trail of flowers to find him in the middle of a labyrinth. And he proposed to me in the middle of the labyrinth. 

And then all of my friends came out from hiding and we had the most amazing party with one of my friends started DJ-ing at sunset. Oh my God, it was so spectacular and it was so full of surprises all day long, even though I knew it was coming, it was really special. 

August: That is incredible. Oh my gosh. And the labyrinth seems so you two, like this discovery and this mystery. That gave me chills. 

Dr. Aly: That’s right. And the moving towards, but then moving away and, you know, Cause when you’re coming in a labyrinth, it’s not a linear line.

 And I think that that was so representative of our relationship, but also intimacy, sex. None of this is linear and we need space for the elasticity of relationships of intimacy of our libidos, you know that, that it can hold the coming and the going. 

 [Music]

August narration: 

Earlier this fall, it was time for their wedding.

Dr. Aly: Our ceremony was elaborate. We had an hour-long ceremony. We really let ourselves indulge and we had our families participate in this beautiful spice ceremony. That was really a beautiful visual representation of our blending families. And we wrote our eight pillars of partnerships.

 Our eight core values that really are at the foundation of our intimacy. And we had our close friends read these and, and share them and share how these core values show up in our lives. And then we wrote really lengthy vows that we managed to keep a surprise. And it was so powerful to feel so fully known and accepted.

I mean, just like this depth of belonging and that I think my soul had just always craved and never knew if it would really be possible for me, and to have that expression be witnessed by all of our community and loved ones. I mean, ceremony is very much a co-created, collaborative experience and the presence and the love that was infused in that container and wow. It’s a really powerful experience to have.

[acoustic, encouraging music]

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[acoustic, encouraging music]

August narration:

With a love story like that, and the expertise Dr. Aly has, you might think that pressure around sex is not a thing. She’s probably figured it all out, right? And all-things-sex must come easily, pun embraced. 

Well yes, she does know how to navigate challenges — but that does not mean she and her partner don’t have them. Being human and all. She also works with many folks who experience pressure around sex, whether self-imposed or from a partner.

August: One thing that came up around pressure around sex, because we’re talking about marriage. I was thinking how there’s like this wedding honeymoon period.

It’s supposed to be big sex festival, and also sometimes you’re exhausted. Like that can be a thing. But has pressure around sex come up for you at all in this relationship? 

Dr. Aly: Sure. Yeah. I think pressure is something that creeps into almost every relationship in some way at some point in time.

And pressure for us has looked different over the course of our relationship. I think earlier on, pressure was more around performance. I know for him, pressure around performing and I felt well, to be honest, I think I didn’t feel as much pressure earlier on. I think that was more something that he was experiencing and something I was more actively working with so that I could create safety and deconstruct the pressure.

So that meant making sex not goal oriented. It didn’t have to be penetrative. Sex was about exchanging sexual energy, non-linear sex, that it doesn’t have to look like kissing to fingering, to oral, to penetration, that it can look any which way, which is so permission-granting. And if somebody’s body isn’t performing in the way that we might want it to perform, that we have a whole menu of options of other things that we can do to explore and create pleasure and take pressure off our bodies so that we can actually just be with the rightness of the moment.

 August narration: 

That, she said, is how pressure was manifesting for them early on – and how they worked through the pressure. Then, as the New Relationship Energy, NRE, wore off, it shifted into another common form.

Dr. Aly: As the hustle and bustle of life started to pick up again and stress and exhaustion and just life changes started to happen, I think we started to develop a different kind of pressure.

And I would say that for us, our pressure has been self-imposed, right? Like we’re not pressuring the other person. And that does happen in relationship dynamics, but for us it’s more like, you know, a pressure when our libidos were different. And maybe I was experiencing a lot of stress or exhaustion, and he was hornier than I was, and I just felt guilty for not being able to meet him in certain ways or for being stuck in my head and not being able to feel as much pleasure or be as connected to giving pleasure. And I also went through a period where, and just people with vulvas out there, I cannot believe as a sex educator, I did not know this. And so I, I want you all to know , that if you’re experiencing a lot of painful penetration and you’re on birth control pill and you’re in your late thirties, it can really dry you out.

And I did not know this, and I was experiencing painful penetration for maybe six months. And that created all sorts of pressure around sex. And is it gonna feel good? And what’s gonna happen if it doesn’t feel good? 

Another one I can think of for sure is special occasions. Wedding, birthday, anniversaries. All of that can create so much pressure. 

August: Yeah, it’s so true and so much of it, I think in a relationship where there’s mutual respect, pretty much the pressure does come from ourselves. So much of it involves expectations and wanting to measure up and all of these things.

When you mentioned that he maybe felt some pressure, some like performance type pressure wanting to measure up, Was anything around that because you’re this complete sex expert? Was he like “See knows everything, this has to be hot. I need to read every book. I need to make sure I know it all.”

Dr. Aly: I’m sure there was some of that for him. And I mean, to his credit, he did a good job masking that. You know, it’s never fun to be pedestaled and it was really hard dating doing this job because it is very intimidating to most people.

And I think part of what was really helpful was to take agency over my own pleasure so that I didn’t make him feel like he needed to know what got me off, or he needed to be this expert that could come in and just know all of my buttons and how to push them. This was gonna be something that we were gonna learn. That he had that humility to wanna come in and discover what turned me on, but also deeply attuned and intuitive and embodied himself.

And so that just allowed for a lot of chemistry and fluidity and comfort and ease. And so, Yes, he definitely felt performance pleasure around being with this sex educator and all of that. But also just as a man, it’s so vulnerable having a penis. And I think most people who don’t have penises don’t get that.

You have this part of your body that you don’t always have control over. Sometimes it’s hard when you don’t want it to be. Sometimes it’s not hard when you do want it to be, and sometimes you’re coming when you don’t wanna come and not coming when you do wanna come. 

Beyond that, we have all culturally imbued the significance in the penis that it is an indication of turn-on and desire and masculinity and all of this stuff that’s just utter crap. And it takes us so away from our ability to just feel pleasure. 

And so I think really him knowing that I got that on a deep level and that I didn’t need his body to perform in a certain way for me to be into him and turned on, and that we could explore pleasure in a wide range of ways.

It doesn’t require his penis was so empowering and permission granting, and when you take the pressure off the cock, the cock will perform. But when the pressure is on the cock, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. And people with vulvas can experience that in our own way as well.

But these self-fulfilling prophecies around pressure can be deeply, deeply, deeply, entrapping. And so to be able to name that, to be able to look at it and to deconstruct it is so helpful. 

August narration: 

In addition to pressure around performance and holidays and “honeymoon periods,” when it comes to sex, Dr. Aly sees a lot of challenges involving sexual pressure in long term relationships. 

Dr. Aly: There can be a lot of pressure that develops because when we’re in newer relationship dynamics, we don’t need in depth escalation patterns.

We have that new relationship energy that just gets you horny like you’re 16 again, and it doesn’t require the level of intentionality around transitioning from work brain or parent brain or whatever other role you may be identifying with and embodying and reconnecting with your sexual self, getting into your body, making space for your turn on to develop. 

But if we feel like we need to be turned on to have an experience, that’s an enormous amount of pressure to feel something other than what you’re feeling. And I think that’s like what a lot of pressure boils down to is this belief that you should be having an experience different than what you are having.

And that could be your body looking different, your turn on looking different, the pressure that your sex should look different, be more interesting, have that mutual climax during penetration, whatever your belief system is, and the ways that you feel like you’re falling short. 

August: Ah. Yes. That made me think of scheduling sex because it’s such a common tip and I understand, you know, can be very important to make sure you’re making time because of the hustle and bustle of life, and it can potentially instill this pressure because it is what you said. Oh, on Thursday at 2: 45 is what I’m supposed to be turned on. (laughs) 

Dr. Aly: That’s right. 

August: Does that come up? 

Dr. Aly: Yes, and I never recommend scheduling sex. I think that is one of the most sincere mistakes people can make. I recommend scheduling time for intimacy. And when you have your intimacy dates, I work with clients to help them come up with what I call an intimacy menu.

And on your intimacy menu are a wide range of things that can feed both emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, and sexual intimacy. Things that can take a short amount of time, things that can be really in depth, and things that can feel really vulnerable and intimate, and things that feel a little bit more accessible and maybe surface level.

And what I encourage folks to do is on your intimacy date, pick something that feels good and enticing and yummy, even if it’s something like sharing gratitudes or affirmations or gentle massage or taking a bath together. It doesn’t have to be erotic because all pleasure awakens pleasure, even if it’s non-sexual pleasure and intimacy helps pave the way for other forms of intimacy, even if it’s emotional intimacy.

And I also really recommend creating environments that are pleasurable to the senses. Not that you have to put the pressure on because you’ve created this whole big wooing situation, but to just think really practically around what kind of lighting is gonna allow you to feel at ease. What kind of music is gonna help you be in the moment?

What kind of scents or tastes or textures are going to allow you to feel sooth and relaxed and pave the way for more sensual pleasure, which can pave the way for more sexual pleasure. So I think it’s about creating the opportunity, having an opportunity rich environment with low expectations and not having it be goal oriented.

That you’re not trying to have penetrative sex, you’re just wanting to feel closer to your partner, and that any intimacy experienced is a win. I think of it as you have an account in the intimacy bank and any time that you have any kind of intimate interaction, you’re depositing intimacy in the intimacy bank and having a richer bank account is gonna make any future intimate encounters feel less pressure filled and more useful and more accessible. 

August narration: 

If you’re experiencing a sense of pressure around sex — those “shoulds” or expectations that make life not-so-sexy — Dr. Aly recommends #1, talking to your partner about it.

Dr. Aly: Because when we’re navigating pressures around sex on our own, it creates more disconnection and more stress and more shame because we’re trying to hide it because we think there’s something wrong with the fact that we’re feeling pressure, and that just it amplifies it.

And so to be able to name the elephant in the room is so helpful and you can do. When you’re not having sex, which can then make it easier to do it when you are having sex. And so for me, what that might look like is I’ll say to my partner, “Ugh, I’m feeling pressure right now.” And what he’ll do is he’ll say, “Oh, hi pressure!”

Which is our just way of making a little bit of space for it, not problematizing it. And then what he’ll often do is reassure me that it doesn’t have to look any particular way and that he’s enjoying just getting to be intimate with me. And that doesn’t mean that he has to deny desires that he may authentically have, but it’s also just connecting with this fact that he really genuinely just wants to be close with me. And wants to honor the rightness of the moment. 

And so I think the first thing to do is to get your partner buy in, that you’re both willing to reorient around your sexual pleasure in a different way, and that can make it really safe and feel like there’s that emotional intimacy which is going to make it feel easier to navigate anything that comes up sexually. 

August narration: 

If you’re feeling a ton of pressure around a particular type of sex, Dr. Aly recommends taking that type off the table for a set amount of time. A week, two weeks, a month. So for example, if you feel pressure around having penetrative sex…

Dr. Aly: …you say to your partner, “Let’s take penetrate of sex off the table.” Or maybe it’s like “anything related to my vulva off the table,” whatever it is that you need to reduce the pressure that you are feeling with the intention of exploring other kinds of intimacy. So it’s not just let’s take sex off the table and just do our own work and barely interact for the month.

It’s “let’s have intimacy dates and explore emotional intimacy and physical intimacy and reacquainting with pleasure in other ways that can feel exciting and enlivening and I don’t have to be bracing for it going someplace that I’m not comfortable for it going yet.”

[acoustic, encouraging music]

August: What does it look like when people do this work? What are some of the signs in folks that you see that it’s helping and also the rewards that people can anticipate? Cuz I think so often it’s just like, Just wanna get rid of the pressure.

Dr. Aly: That’s true. Well, I think one of the things that is so important to develop is the ability to redirect, deescalate, and complete. So redirect. If something isn’t quite feeling right for you, it’s not the right position or it’s too hard or too fast, whatever it is, to be able to redirect verbally and non-verbally so that you’re co-creating your experiences so that it’s feeling good.

If you’re enduring something that doesn’t feel good, you’re going to get stuck in your head. You’re not gonna be in your body. And it’s related to pressure. Either you’re feeling pressure, so you’re enduring, or you’re enduring something and then pressure develops on the back end. 

So being able to redirect so it’s feeling pleasurable, being able to de-escalate if it’s going too fast or going in a direction you don’t want it to go into, to be able to feel comfortable, to be about to co-create the pacing as well, and then to be able to complete, you feel like you’re done and you’re full. Can you say that? And that doesn’t mean that your partner has to be complete.

Maybe you offer a helping hand, or sexy words, or an affirmative gaze, or you just hold them. They can complete on their terms, but that you can feel done when you need to be done.

And those three skills in combination really help couples reduce pressure because they don’t have to know where they’re heading before they begin.

They can really see what develops, what turn-on unfolds, what desire unfolds as the experience is developing, and they don’t have to endure anything that isn’t working for them. Those three scales reduce pressure, but they also immensely increase our capacity for pleasure because it allows for real, authentic, hot, yummy sex, and it also reduces sex that you’re not enjoying, which reduces resentment towards sex or maybe even towards your partner in the long run.

And I think those are the two biggest benefits is feeling like you’re having sex, you enjoy more and less sex that you’re not enjoying. 

August narration: 

I just love the sense of autonomy that has to bring, and the mutual respect. You each get to have your.own experience and one together, that you’re co-creating. No “measuring up” required. 

If you’d like to cultivate all of that or just make way for steamier, more gratifying intimacy, you can work with Dr. Aly in multiple ways. I’m especially excited about her upcoming master course.

Dr. Aly: So I work with individuals and couples who are navigating pressure in their relationships as well as a wide range of challenges that show up when we’re trying to create intimacy. And I also have a wonderful team of coaches, including my husband, who is also a sex and intimacy coach, who work with folks, to help them feel like they have more access to the kinds of relationships and pleasure that they want. 

And in addition to working with folks in a coaching dynamic, I also teach a wide range of workshops and courses and I’m really delighted that I am teaching live my Sexual and Emotional Intimacy Skills Master Course, which is a two -month class that I sometimes offer on demand, but once a year I teach live, which is a really powerful way to learn with a large cohort of other people who are also wanting to have more intimacy in their lives.

And in the course we go over things like boundaries, how to be more embodied and take care of your nervous system, things like developing more emotional depth and vulnerability and capacity for empathy, flirting, seduction, how to express desire, but also how to maximize pleasure and increase your capacity for pleasure. We talk about erotica and fantasies and unpacking shame…

August narration: 

…as well as how to navigate conflicts, repair ruptures and choose a new partner, if you’re single or non-monogamous.

To learn more or sign up for the master course, visit TurnON.love and click OFFERINGS. Find a direct link in the show notes.

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Thanks so much for listening.