Shannon Burton edit4

Shannon Burton, a certified sex coach, discusses the impact of spring on sexual issues and concerns. She mentions that spring is a time for growth and exploration in relationships and sex lives. Shannon also addresses common myths about orgasms, emphasizing that women are capable of experiencing orgasm in various ways. She describes how she helps her clients connect with their bodies and achieve orgasm. Shannon defines orgasm as the climax of sexual arousal and encourages individuals to explore and describe their own orgasmic experiences. She explains the biology of orgasm, highlighting the role of rhythmic stimulation of the clitoris or penis glands. Shannon acknowledges the orgasm gap between heterosexual men and women, attributing it to societal beliefs and stress. She suggests that reducing stress can enhance the orgasmic experience. Today on Pro-Frequency, we're celebrating spring, a season when the natural world revives chillier winter months. We see evidence of spring in New Orleans in the budding trees and blooming irises in Peggy Martin roses. Today, I'm joined by Shannon Burton, a certified sex coach based in New Orleans. Since 2007, Shannon has educated and mentored countless women to confidently embody their sexual self and experience erotic transformation. Shannon became certified as a sex coach in 2021 and last joined Pro-Frequency in chilly December. Welcome to Pro-Frequency. Thanks so much. Good to be here. So we last discussed the more common myths about sex. Today, we're going to talk more about orgasms, which seems to be a fitting topic for spring season. But before we do, what are your thoughts about spring? What sexual issues or concerns come up for your clients this time of year? I love spring. It's my favorite season, and it's not just because my birthday is in spring. It's also the season where everything's doing it, and so can we. So, you know, after that rest of winter, everything's just like really flourishing, and there's all this like creation happening in many ways, and I'm not just talking about like plant and animal reproduction out in nature, but I'm talking about us as well, like we as humans are part of the natural cycles that happen, and so they affect us whether we're aware of it or not, right? So yeah, spring is just a really great time to flourish and grow and be a part of that creative process in whatever way you want to. So when I think about my clients, right now I would say most of them spent winter kind of reflecting on themselves and what they want from their relationships, their sex lives, and their lives overall. Some of them are now we're in spring, some of them are recently single as a result of that reflection, and they're taking this opportunity to focus on themselves, get in touch with their authentic desires, and others are taking that creative energy of spring and they're using it to explore new ways to have sex with their partners and new ways to experience orgasm. Well, you just completed a six-week course on orgasm. What are some common myths about orgasms? Yeah, it's been a really, really fun six weeks. The ladies in the program and I, we've been just meeting on Zoom every other week, and we've had a WhatsApp chat, and we're just spending a little bit of time each day talking about orgasms and what we're doing to orgasm, which is a lot of fun. So we're having a good time. It's been a fun experience, and people who I've spoken with about it are excited about it, so I decided I am going to run it again in the summer. I'm happy to share info on how to sign up for that if you would like to be a part of it in the summer. But to get to the myths, I would say the most common myths that I see in my work are ones about the things women can't do when it comes to orgasm. There's all this research about, oh, women don't orgasm from penetration in general. Women don't orgasm during partnered sex, and they don't orgasm quickly or easily, and they don't orgasm as often as men. And I'm just like, okay, there's research that says women don't do those things, but that doesn't mean that they can't. There are plenty of women who do orgasm from penetration, and plenty of women who orgasm quickly and easily, and plenty of women who orgasm more often than their male partners even. And I've helped a lot of my clients get there. And I think people just sort of like, they take the don'ts from the research and they turn them into can'ts, and they accept those can'ts, and they just kind of allow that reality to play out in the bedroom. They're like, oh, well, we're not going to expect her to orgasm this way, because it's not usual for someone to do that. In my program, she even came on command for the first time, thanks to the work we were doing in the program. And it was just this really big, impressive leap that we all celebrated together, because she started the program feeling very disconnected from her body and her pussy. She's like, I feel very disconnected. I'll do this program just to try and feel reconnected. I don't know if I'll orgasm. And then to make this big leap of now she's orgasming on command, like her partner's telling her to come and she's coming. What a story, right? What a journey that was. I have to hear more about that. But before we do, how do you or your clients, for instance, define orgasm? Yeah. So I define orgasm and a lot of other professionals define orgasm as, very simply, the climax of sexual arousal. It's a very simple, very broad definition. And I tell my clients, listen, that climax feels different from person to person and even from orgasm to orgasm. So what I actually do is I'll ask my clients to describe their orgasms. Like I'll ask them to tell me how they know they've orgasmed, right, and what they experience when they orgasm. And I've never, ever gotten two of the same answer. For some, it's very physically focused on one part of the body. For others, it's a whole body experience. And there's people who find it to be really mental or even spiritual. A lot of people find it's a combination of one or more of these things. I will say it's really fun to try to put words to your own orgasm experience. So I really do recommend it for anyone listening. Use it as a journal prompt. What are your orgasms like? And try and put words to the orgasmic experience because it can be very enlightening and really kind of, it brings orgasm to the surface and can by itself make orgasm easier for some people. Oh, I love that idea. I might try that one myself. Yeah, do it. It's so fun. Well, can you briefly walk us through the biology of having an orgasm? I mean, what happens really? What are the essential body parts? Yeah. So I'm going to say this is in most cases, doesn't mean it's every case, right? Every individual is different. But in most cases, when orgasm happens, it's the result of rhythmic stimulation of the glands of either the clitoris or the penis. So both the clitoris and the penis have a gland. For clitoris owners, that's the part that is outside the body. There's a whole internal clitoris structure that is inside the body. For the penis, it's what a lot of people refer to as the head of the penis. So for most people, there's rhythmic stimulation of that glands. There are other parts of the body that you can stimulate to orgasm. These glands tend to be the most popularly used ones. And that rhythmic stimulation, it might come from your hand or it might come from a sex toy or a partner's hand or a partner's body part, or it might be some like moving object that you've turned into a sex toy for the purpose of pleasure, right? But yeah, that stimulation, it sends signals through our nervous system to the rest of our body and it builds sexual arousal. And so our bodies respond by increasing our heart rate. Usually our breathing pattern changes and our muscles tend to tense up. And when a person orgasms, all that tension is released and like our heart rate and breathing return to normal. A thing that a lot of people don't necessarily spend a lot of time thinking about is that our brain is a part of the body that's super involved in this process, is our brain is that command center that's receiving the signals from our sexy parts that are being stimulated and then interpreting those signals and then sending out messages to the rest of the body to say, hey, we're doing sex things, you know, let's let's do sex things. So your brain is this really critically important command center for your orgasm. And that means that if you are stressed or distracted or otherwise mentally occupied, you might have a hard time getting there and having orgasms. Well, a 2017 study by Chapman University found that 75 percent of heterosexual men said they orgasmed every time they had been sexually intimate within the past month, compared with just 33 percent of heterosexual women. That's pretty dreadful, in my opinion, but not all that surprising to me. What do you attribute to this discrepancy of orgasm? I mean, there's so many things, right? There's a lot of possible things there. I mean, for one, there's kind of the issue we talked about earlier, where, you know, if we accept the myth that women can't orgasm as often and we're all kind of having sex while believing that women can't orgasm as often as men, then all of us are more likely to go into sex, not expecting it to happen, and therefore it doesn't happen. So that's part of it, not all of it, but it's certainly part of it. And then there's also, I think, yeah, I mentioned stress. So I think last time we chatted, I talked about how there's research out there that shows that women tend to be more stressed out than men. And I really do think that plays a role here. So, for example, a pattern I've noticed is a lot of clients, they'll come to me and they have partners who care very much about my client's orgasm. They will go to the ends of the earth to do whatever needs to happen to make sure my client has an orgasm. And they're trying all kinds of things, you know, they're buying all the products, they're opening their minds up to kinky stuff they never considered before. They're reading all the books, like they are just doing it all. And it's just like still not really happening. And between sort of like the expectation and the effort and the disappointment, you know, pressure can build that only makes it even harder to orgasm because stress is not conducive to orgasm. It occupies the mind too much. And then there's this like limbo of, well, what's trying too much and what's trying too little? And all of it becomes just this confusing, blurry mess. And those those stressed out brains, they're just juggling too much to prioritize the orgasmic process. And so reducing stress in general really helps. A lot of my work focuses not just on helping women tune into sensuality and use their sensuality to de-stress and like relax into their body and into their body's inherent ability to experience pleasure. But some of the work I do is like helping women set some boundaries, you know, and saying no to some of their commitments. Because surprisingly for some people, orgasm is just a matter of saying, hey, I'm not being the one to put the kids to bed anymore. You're going to do that while I go take a bath. Sometimes that's all it takes. And suddenly she's orgasming. So a big part is just like relaxing, de-stressing and taking the time to free the brain up to align with the body on that orgasm journey. I think that's so interesting and really speaks to your earlier comments that while we often think about other body parts in relationship to sex, it's our brains that are probably the most important one. And it really are. Yeah. If your brain is stressed out or somewhere else. Yeah. We focus so heavily on the genitals, right? We're like, well, obviously the clitoris is where the orgasm lives, right? Let's just go crazy on the clitoris. And it's you're forgetting the whole package. Well, you've already began to give a few tips for folks who are trying to have more orgasms. But do you have others that you specifically tell your clients? Absolutely. Yeah. So the tip everyone hears, because every expert out there seems to give this tip first, is to first let go of the expectation to orgasm. And it's great advice because that does remove a layer of stress that might be there. If you're stressed about having to orgasm, then you're stressed and it's not going to happen. So like step one is usually let go of the expectation of orgasm. And so to take that a step further, I would say that the next tip that I'll often give is letting go of orgasm. And then in addition to that, practice capturing moments of pleasure. And these can be sexual moments of pleasure, but they don't have to be. They can be non-sexual. You can take a moment to appreciate the pleasure of a shower that's at the perfect temperature. Like you can just stand in the shower for a moment and just really be like, wow, this feels amazing. I'm just going to take a moment to appreciate this pleasure. You know, the pleasure of like fresh sheets on the bed, like getting into your bed with those fresh sheets, like right out of the dryers. That feels so good on my body. Or like the pleasure of your partner resting their hand on your waist while you're at an event. And you're like, that feels nice. Partners got their hand on my waist. So just like tuning into those moments and capturing them is almost a mindfulness practice. It's sort of practicing and acclimating your mind and body to paying attention to pleasure when it happens. And that practice will translate into sex. It'll carry over. And so while you're having sex, your mind will be sort of pre programmed to look for pleasure and to find it and to enjoy it. And more likely to stick with it all the way through so that arousal can build and so that orgasm can happen rather than letting the distractions of whatever else you usually think about in the shower come in and affect that process. That's really fascinating. Do you find that most people are disconnected from the pleasures of life, the beauties that we might experience around us? Yeah, it's a mix. I would say I think most people are pretty tuned into the forms of pleasure that they are already tuned into. So if you're someone who enjoys painting, for example, you're pretty tuned into the pleasure of painting. Right. And you can appreciate it and you can make time for it. But if you aren't necessarily someone who has taken the time to tune into the pleasure of a lovely shower or the clean sheets or the partner's hand on your waist, then maybe you just aren't necessarily tuned into that pleasure. Right. And so noticing just opportunities for more pleasure and taking the time to allow yourself or giving yourself permission to spend time appreciating it is kind of a big thing because we move through I think in any given moment there's opportunity even in painful moments, there's opportunity to be like there is pleasure here, even though the overall situation may be painful. But we're sort of our minds are very focused on keeping us alive. And so they'll really spend a lot of time and energy focusing on dangers, sources of stress, threats to us and our loved ones. So we have to sort of be very intentional about taking a moment to say, hey, brain, give me give me a second here. I know there's a lot going on that we're perceiving as things that need attention right now. But for just a moment, I'd like to pay attention to these flowers that are blooming and I want to smell them and I want to touch them. I want to feel how lovely those petals feel on my skin. Just give me a moment here, brain. Thank you. Because for a lot of people, when I talk specifically with clients who are struggling with orgasm, they do tend to have minds that lean toward looking for problems to solve. They're great problem solvers. A lot of my very, very wonderful, powerful, most intelligent women in my life who struggle with orgasm. It's almost like their fast track brain that's problem solving constantly kind of works against their orgasm because their brain's constantly trying to solve a problem rather than just being there and enjoying the pleasure in the moment. So, yeah, it's not an everyone thing for sure. It does show up in my work with my my big, powerful problem solvers. So I imagine by tuning into the pleasure around you, you're not only de-stressing to some degree, but you're sort of setting the stage for a romantic encounter. Absolutely. It's one of those practices where it has exponential results. You just have to try it a little bit. And if you allow that snowball to gain speed and pack more snow onto it, it can grow very, very fast. I had one client who we had one session to start things off and we kind of talked through what pleasure she was enjoying in her life and what pleasures maybe she could stand to enjoy a little more or ones that she used to enjoy before she had kids and now maybe were harder to enjoy. We came to the agreement that she could maybe stand to get back into her evening stretch routine that she used to do and she no longer had been doing. And it's just a stretch routine. This isn't sexy yoga or anything. It's really just a basic stretch routine to stretch her body because that's something she remembered that she was like, that feels good. I like stretching. And she spoke with her husband. They agreed that she would get 20 minutes in their bedroom on her own where he would be in charge of watching the kids and she would stretch. And after just like less than a week of weekly stretching, she had come to me initially because of low libido. After less than a week, she initiated sex with her husband for the first time in years because just having 20 minutes a night to herself to stretch and be with her body and herself just gave her the relaxation she needed and allowed her to tune into the pleasure of her body enough for her to be like, oh, I do. I do want to make love to my husband. Well, we've talked a lot about partner sex, but what if you are without a partner or between partners? How should women think about or prepare for masturbation? I would say even if you are partnered, you should be masturbating. Touche. Everyone should masturbate. And why do you think that is? Why do you say that? You are in a marriage or a relationship. Most people agree that it's important to maintain this is like outside of sex. Just you as a person. It's important to have some level of being an individual person outside of the relationship, outside of the marriage, like having your own hobbies, having your own things that you do that have nothing to do with being a wife or a girlfriend or a partner or whatever. And the same goes for our sexual selves. Masturbation is your chance to be a person apart, to be a sexual person apart from your partner and to maintain that apartness. I think it's mating in captivity by Esther Perel, where she sort of says that for a lot of couples, the loss of spark in the bedroom is due to the two partners becoming like too enmeshed and losing a sense of individuality between the two of them. And so it's like if you feel like you and your partner really are one, truly are, have like combined as one, then where's where's the interesting thing to rub up against, right? If you've become one, it's hard to rub up against someone, isn't it? And so maintaining just like the little bit of individuality each of you is important. And that goes for for sex and masturbation as well. Spending time with your individual body, experiencing pleasure means that you're having a little bit of sex with yourself that your partner is not there for. And that's a little frisky, right? Your partner's like, hey, you're in there having sex without me. It can be a great warm up. You can play with that. But yeah, masturbation is great when there's no one else in the room. That's like the epitome of a stress free, pressure free sexual situation. You don't have to worry about anybody else's needs. You don't have to worry about whether you orgasm or not. You get to do whatever you want to do, whatever feels good to you. And, you know, that's that's what I encourage my clients to do. I'm like, listen, take 20 minutes a day or every other day to just be like, this is my time. This is this is me time. And I encourage you to masturbate, but you don't have to if you don't want to. It's not sexy if you don't want to. So don't do it if you don't want to. But if you want to do it and like just just have fun, just let it feel good. Just figure out what feels good and just keep doing what feels good. And it's the same practice of taking moments to, like, capture pleasure throughout your day. Take a little time to capture that sexual pleasure, you know, without worry about what it's going to turn into, without worry about whether it's going to result in orgasm or not. So just practice tuning into that pleasure. And honestly, if you think about it, most people when I ask about most people who have masturbated and experienced an orgasm from masturbation, I'll ask the first time you orgasmed from masturbation, were you trying to orgasm from masturbation? And most people will say no. They were just exploring this part of their body that feels good and maybe rubbing it or rubbing up against something. And they were just enjoying themselves. And then surprise, an orgasm happened. And most people were kind of like, it really was a surprise. Like, I didn't know what that was. It was almost a little worried for a second. And so you kind of have to, especially if orgasm is a barrier that you're trying to breach, you kind of have to allow yourself to just enjoy yourself, to let orgasm come to you and surprise you. Another thing I'll do for those who enjoy mindfulness or meditation, or even for those who don't, because this is the way that I spice it up that helps a lot of people who don't like mindfulness and meditation kind of crossover, I'll tell people to sit on your vibrator while you meditate and just let that be a part of the relaxing meditation experience. Or masturbate while listening to a guided mindfulness recording on YouTube or Spotify, right? And just go ahead and let yourself enjoy pleasure and let that be a part of the relaxation and the pleasure experience. And a lot of my clients have a lot of fun with that. And they're like, Oh, I actually like meditating now. Well, I think I love the direction in which this conversation is going in that it just feels very spring-like, you know, that it's all about slowing down a little, experiencing your surroundings, spending time with yourself or with your partner. Yeah, be one with nature. You are nature. You know, you're a natural being. You're part of it. Well, if you're just joining me, I've been talking with Shannon Burton, a certified sex coach and educator based in New Orleans. Since 2007, Shannon has educated and mentored countless women to confidently embody their sexual selves and experience erotic transformation. Shannon, I want to switch gears a bit and talk about a New York Times article I read recently called Nine Ways to Improve Your Relationships. It's a surprisingly simple list in that the advice primarily focuses on what I would consider good manners. For instance, the authors advise against thubbing, the all too common occurrence of looking at your phone when someone is talking to you or when the conversation stalls. We have all been schooled on the importance of communication in relationships. How does technology, particularly our phones, both hinder and enhance romance? Oh, man. I got to say, when I read the article, I felt a little bit called out by something. I don't, I don't, I don't think that I am, I don't think I initiate, I don't think I'm the first one to pick up a phone. But if I see my partner pick up their phone, then I'll just kind of do the same thing. Even if a part of me was like, you know, I wish they hadn't picked up their phone. Maybe I should say, hey, can you put your phone down? But instead, I'm like, oh, I'll just join them. I'll just pick up my phone, too. And now we're sharing space, but both on our phones. I was like, oh, OK, so maybe I, maybe I, from now on, we'll say, hey, do you mind? Yeah, communication. Right. It's so hard. Even, even sex coaches can struggle with communicating their needs in a moment. Right. Being in the moment can be tricky. So in terms of technology, actually, one way that I think technology has helped a lot with communication is because it can be hard to say the words out loud in the physical presence, like with a partner. I have encouraged a lot of my clients to download messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal, where you can enable, you know, disappearing messages. They don't stay there forever and they're encrypted, so you don't have to worry about anyone, like, accessing your phone and seeing these messages. I just feel like this is your space to text out, to type out whatever it is that's too hard to say in person, whatever it is that you're just like saying this out loud is like really uncomfortable. And it was a tip that I gave one couple and they used it and they have so much success with it. And they just made big, big strides in their relationship because they were finally saying the things via this messaging app that they hadn't been able to say in person to each other. But I've now shared that tip with other people and they're experiencing success with it as well. Of course, having like strong conversational skills and knowing how to deal with any emotions that arise from hearing these things from a partner are important, right? So having a support network is important and having sort of ground rules for like, here's how we handle things. If emotions get high, that's going to be important as well. But for getting over the hump of I really want to do this sexy thing and I'm pretty sure you're going to be really excited about it. But it is like really hard to say out loud that I want to do it. Right. It's an exciting thing that's probably going to go well. Those apps are really good for that. I've also had some clients have come up with like an emoji signal system so they can send each other emojis that mean like, hey, this emoji means that if you're interested tonight, like I'm interested tonight and this emoji means let me let you know when you get home. They're just like sending each other emojis throughout the day to kind of check in and see where they're at. And it's messaging throughout the day. It's fun because it keeps the energy alive from morning all the way to evening. And then if you get home and you're doing dinner and tidying and putting the kids to bed in the back of your mind, you're like, oh, like we're finally going to get to go to bed and you're finally excited to go to the bedroom rather than dreading it, you know? But yeah, yes, yes. I'm using this tip myself. Yeah, it works. Positives and negatives for sure. Right. So try to I would say like with the like with the subbing thing, the hard communication is having to say out loud like, hey, I noticed that sometimes we're on our phones when we're spending time together and I'd rather us spend that time together, not with our phones. Can we agree at X time each day we put our phones down for 30 minutes or an hour or two hours, whatever it may be. Right. So that's a conversation to have for sure. Well, and that leads to another tip in the article that's related to phones and addresses the sense of loneliness that people have sometimes is that when the phone rings, you should pick it up. We oftentimes will if you don't prefer or if you prefer to text and would rather or talk later in the day, we tend to ignore phone calls. But the point is, is that you want to connect with people. I was really intrigued by that tip as well, is that when people are reaching out to you, really prioritize in that moment to pick the phone up. Yeah. And I'll say the caveat I'll add to that is when the phone rings, pick it up. And if you're finding yourself not wanting to pick it up, whether you're just super busy, overwhelmed, or just it's not a good time or whatever, like I encourage people to pause and take a moment to ask yourself, why am I hesitating to pick this up? Is it because I'm genuinely too busy? Am I actually too busy? Because maybe you are. And for a lot of women, yeah, they are. A lot of us are working with very packed schedules and we're juggling the house's social calendar. And like we're in charge of so many things and to-do lists, we're keeping it all up in our heads. Sometimes the phone ringing is like the last thing you want to see. So if you are just too busy and that's what we're thinking about, is there anything I can do to be a little less busy? Or is it, you know, you're seeing someone is calling and something about like that person, right? Now, hopefully it's not your partner. Hopefully you're not seeing your partner call and you're like, oh, I don't want to pick that up. And if that is the case, that's a different situation. But sometimes you do see a person pop up and you're just like, oh, I just know if I pick this up that I'm going to be having a conversation I don't want to have or I'm going to be like stuck on the phone for a long time and I don't have a lot of time. And so if you can be aware of that and then decide for yourself what steps you want to take based on that information, you know, do you want to pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm picking up, but I've only got two minutes. I'm going to hang up in two minutes. I have to. And just laying that boundary right up, right up front. Or whether you want to think for yourself about like, how do you want to change your relationship with this person? You know, how do you let this person know? My sister won't mind me sharing this. A few years ago, my sister was in the habit of she would only ever call me in an emergency. If I saw her name on the phone, I was like, oh, no, this is going to be an emergency. And that sounds very stressful right now. I'm doing something. I can't change where my attention is. And so I finally asked her one day, I said, hey, before you call me, can you shoot me a text that says, hey, do you have time for a phone call right now? I'm going through something. And she was like, yeah, I can do that. And so she would text me, hey, can you get on the phone right now? And I would text back. Sometimes it was yes. I was like, yeah, I can get on the phone. Other times I said, no, I'm at work. How about after 5 p.m.? And she'd say, OK, you know, I'll text again after five and then five would come and go and I'd get no text from her. So I'd check in and she'd go, oh, I forgot that I was going to call you because her emergency was something that was passing. You know, she just needed to vent about it to someone. But she moved on with her day. So sometimes just letting people know, hey, I need a heads up is a great boundary to have there. All that to say with your partner, do make sure that you're connecting. Be there for them. I think the when the phone rings pick up isn't just about phones. I think it's also when your partner expresses a need for connection, turn toward that and ask, how can we connect right now? Right. Yes. I also really appreciate the advice to be open to different types of desire, which seems important to women's pleasure. Can you explain the difference between spontaneous and responsive desire? Yeah, I know we talked a little last time about how spontaneous desire is someone who can get aroused simply by the idea of like sex being on the table and available. And sometimes it's not even something inherently sexual. I read something the other day about someone saying they ate some chorizo that got them hard, like the food got them aroused because it was just so good. And whereas responsive desire is something that's more that more specific things need to be in line in the environment and going on for a person in order for desire to come up. So these are people who do not get aroused by eating food for the most part, unless that's their specific thing. What tends to happen, and this is a concept that was really kind of widely shared and popularized by the book Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski, great read, it's changed a lot of lives, including a lot of my clients' lives, is that they have found that on average, and again, this is an average, there are always exceptions, but on average, men tend to have spontaneous desire. Sorry. Yeah, men tend to have spontaneous desire and women tend to have responsive desire. And what responsive desire looks like for a lot of women, the analogy that gets made in the book that I think is really helpful for a lot of people, is that the responsiveness is a system that has both accelerators and brakes. So imagine you're in a car and you push the accelerator on the car, the car is going to move forward. Great. That means desire is going to happen, arousal is going to happen, orgasm will probably happen. If you get in that car and push the brakes, it's not going anywhere. If you're in the car and you push the brakes and you push the accelerator, the car is also not going anywhere. And so with responsive desire, it's encouraging people to, if someone has responsive desire, not just be like, OK, so this person has responsive desire, therefore I need to make sure that I get them roses and that I wear that cologne they really like and that I wear that suit that she compliments me in and I just gotta look my best and be my best and she will respond and feel sexy. And that is like you can do all those things. However, if she gets home and the house is a disaster and that's a break for her, it's not going to happen. You could be decked out and smell delicious and be freshly shaven and fresh haircut. You could be pulling all the stops and doing all the things that you think turn her on. And those might be turn ons if the house were clean. And so that's a thing to keep in mind, is especially if you're someone who has responsive desire, take some time. And I think you can find these worksheets online for free, actually, if you look for come as you are worksheets where you if you can sit down and figure out your own accelerators and breaks and if you can figure out your breaks and share those breaks with your partners and be like, listen, these are my breaks. If these things are happening, it's just I'm not going to be aroused. I'm not going to be desirous. I probably won't orgasm. And then here are my accelerators. So once these breaks have been released, we can play with these accelerators and probably have a really great time. Well, I'm not surprised that women tend to be more in the line of responsive desire, given how busy our lives are. And it seems to me that the responsive desire types have to plan a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of it's interesting because I have the sort of theory that I don't have any research for, but just based on my observations, I almost feel like in some ways, responsive desire is in itself simply a response to the way women are often holding so much in their minds where we don't realize we're doing it because we're superheroes. We have superpowers. Most of the women I interact with have very impressive data storage systems inside their heads. They don't even realize how much work they're doing mentally. And I almost feel like responsive desire being something that more women tend to experience is actually more the result of women just sort of carrying like heavier mental loads. And if most of the breaks that a lot of women will describe are breaks that's just like that's more mental load. And if we could just take those those loads out, then it'll be freed up. And so while the spontaneous and responsive desire are an excellent framing that have helped a lot of people, and I highly recommend them if desire is something you are thinking about and wanting to change in your life, I always wind up circling back with my clients to like, listen, we need to take some things off your plate. That's the long and the short of it. We're going to take some things off your plate. Lastly, the tip of allowing people to change seems very important for sexual pleasure and overall happiness in life. I imagine this comes up for people who are experiencing major life changes like a divorce or an illness, but also for folks who are aging. How do you talk about change within relationships with your clients? Yeah, I mean, the beautiful thing and we all know this is change is inevitable, right? Every single day is different than the day before in some way. It might feel the same often, but there are differences if you look for them. And so some changes happen slowly, you know, and they seem to happen faster, like aging seems to happen slowly. And then suddenly it seems to be happening very quickly and seems very urgent for some people. Divorce is something that happens slowly for others very quickly. And so the framing of the article is like allowing people to change is something that made me giggle a little bit because I was like, allowing what they're going to change anyway, because we all do. Because guess what? You're going to change, too. So I encourage people to find the fun in the change. You know, change opens new doors. Every time I work with some clients who are over the age of 60 and they often perceive that as being a really big closed door, you know, they see it as like so many missed opportunities and they see it as, you know, years wasted. And I say, well, hold on. You're here now talking to a sex coach. You just opened like a giant door to a lot of opportunities that a lot of people your age don't ever open. So let's maybe we can take a moment to acknowledge the doors that maybe have closed. But let's take a peek into this door over here. You know, have you heard of these toys? Have you have you seen the medical advances we've had that can do all kinds of fun things to your body that maybe you think are closed doors but don't have to be? Encouraging tone when I'm talking with someone, I'm like, listen, change is inevitable. So you can you can be mad about it and that's probably not going to be very fun and sexy. You can accept it and make peace with it. And that can be sexy. But, you know, peace and whatnot tends to be kind of like relaxing and neutral. But if you want to have fun, you know, if you want to feel sexy and have a great time, we're going to spend some time finding the fun in the inevitable change and seeing change as an opportunity to do things in a new way. I agree. It's so, so, so hard. We do tend to resist change because change, it takes work to make change fun for a lot of us. Easier to just kick back, be sexually satisfied without much effort. I take the time to see change as an opportunity. You can find opportunities to find sexual satisfaction with little effort. You've just got to be open to it. Well, when I read that about allowing people to change, I read it as allowing people to change within their sexual practice or their desire or changing libido. That perhaps they are interested in exploring new toys, new positions. Certainly our lives will change, which might impact how we approach pleasure and desire. Yeah. And those things also inevitably change just like our lives. What we wanted sexually in our early 20s is going to be different than what we want sexually in our mid late 30s is going to be different than what we want sexually in our 50s is going to be, you know what I mean? So it's the same concept of change is inevitable there as well. Some people get surprised when I tell them that I know people who experiment, I shouldn't say experimented. I know people who in their 20s and 30s identified as kinky people and were engaged in kinks that they felt were a core part of their identity. It was very important to them. The kink was a requirement for them to have a happy relationship. And if you had spoken to them at the time, they would have told you this is a lifelong, solid part of my identity. I'm going to need this form of sex to be satisfied until the day I die. And a few decades later, the need changes. It can be really surprising, both for the kinky person who has really married the idea. It can be a surprise for the kinky community that has built around that person. But it does happen, right? Just like anything, someone who myself, I was monogamous for a very long time until I wasn't. Things change. I know people who were non-monogamous for a very long time and then decided they wanted to be monogamous again. So knowing that libido desire, what makes someone orgasm, just like life changes, like life changing means sex changes, too. And it's not because life is changing. It's just part of the inevitability of change. Your body will change. Your mind will change. The things that excite you sexually will probably change. The way your body responds to things will probably change. It's been, I think, one of my favorite examples of very fast transformation. Like you mentioned divorce earlier. Divorce women are some of the horniest women I've ever met. Not all of them, of course. There are, as always, exceptions. Often when I'm speaking with divorce women, they are they are ready to go. And they're almost, you know, they're seeking help with making sure they don't make rash decisions and put themselves in dangerous situations. Right. They're just like, listen, I'm so horny that I need someone to hold me back a little bit. And so that one change just ramped them up in a way that they had most of them haven't been in years. You know, a lot of them are experiencing coming out of a marriage that was maybe sexless or unsatisfying or any other number of things. Well, in the last minutes that we have together, do you want to mention any upcoming workshops that you'll be offering? Yeah, for sure. And I mentioned the six week orgasm course earlier that got I mean, every one of the women in the program achieved an orgasmic goal. So for some, that was orgasming during partnered sex. For some, it was being able to speak up during sex about what she needed in order to orgasm and even came on command. You know, her partners had come for me and she did. And that was really awesome and amazing. I am going to run that program again this summer. We're going to start June 13. It's going to run for six weeks and includes Zoom calls. And you can go to sexcoachshannon.com and just scroll down past the banner and you'll see Come Like a Queen is the program that's being built on the site right now. Right now, it's early bird registration. So it's priced at the same price as the group that just went. But that price is going to go up for regular registration after May 1st. So try and get on there before May 1st to lock in that price. And then if you're not really sure you want to do a group program, you're not sure you want to be on a Zoom call with other women talking about orgasm, you can definitely reach out to me about one-on-one coaching or you can check out my resources page at sexcoachshannon.com slash resources. I have a number of free e-books and activity books about everything from orgasm to communication to activating your sensuality, getting back in touch with your mind and body in a sensual way so that you can experience the arousal and the orgasm more easily. So there's a bunch of free stuff on my resources page. And if you want to start there, it's an excellent place to start. That's terrific. Well, I want to thank you so much, Shanna, for joining us again on Pro Frequency. And for listeners, I think you've gotten a few tips that can spice up your spring. So hopefully you'll check out those free resources or a few books that Shanna has mentioned in this interview. So if you're just joining me, I've been talking with Shanna Burton, a certified sex coach and educator based in New Orleans. She has educated and mentored countless women and confidently embody their sexual selves and experience erotic transformation. Thank you again, Shanna. Thank you. It's always a good time. All right. Scott, you're such a pro at this. Oh, thank you. I'm a talker. That's what I am. I'm a talker. I know there's nothing worse than to be interviewing someone that I have to just pull the information out. Yeah. Yeah. It's a thing that I realized when I first made the coaching thing, like my primary business, I think I had to be pulled out a little more only because I was just so unsure. I was like, what do what do I know for sure? What can I kind of like go on record as saying? And I had all these blocks in my head about what if I say something and it's not true? Well, thank you for sharing all those resources, the free resources, as well as tapings. I think that's really good to have that kind of mix and some good tips. Honestly, it's powerful. I'm a writer, so I really I responded to that, you know, writing it down. Keep confidence to actually save them. If you want to get really spicy with it, you know, you write down, you know, here's what it feels like when I experience orgasm. And then your next one could be like, here's what I want to experience when I have an orgasm. I'm like, you can like, because words, words have power. They can get your brain in fun ways and change the way things feel for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let's think about doing another one maybe later in the summer. I don't know. We'll think of a theme. But I like this that we're both, you know, have a topic and then also reference some sort of resource. So I think last time you mentioned a book and I never even, you know, read it. I mentioned it again. It's the same book that was about responsive versus spontaneous desire. Come as you are. Yeah, it really like it's I think it's what they call it, the new science that'll change your sex life. It's like the subtitle or whatever. It's it really is. Like the vast majority of my clients and a whole lot of other women and men, too, are just like, this is changing everything. Yeah. Well, perhaps I'll get brave and take one of your courses and then we can talk about that. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. That'd be funny. The come program like that I've just done is so I didn't it's virtual so you can join from anywhere. But it just so happened that all the women who joined our mothers who live in the South, they're not all in Louisiana, but they're in like Texas and Louisiana and like I think Mississippi or maybe. Yeah. Anyway, but like I was like, oh, we just got a bunch of Southern moms in here. This is fun, you know. Well, that's right. Talk about what we do with our pussies and how we come. It's going to be great. You can finish with a gin and tonic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the first call was so it was so funny because it's like we all get on the Zoom call and everyone's in the Zoom call and it's like, yep, we're all here going to talk about orgasm. Yep. Well, you know what it occurred to me and we can talk about this another time, but it's kind of like it's full circle, like back to the 70s, you know, the our bodies, ourselves and exploring our bodies. Very much so. Very much so. Yeah. It feels like a it feels like a response in so many ways to the increasing effort to control our bodies. It's like there's this like, no, no, no. Thank you. Let's talk about that. Yes. We got to bring that up. So that's a big source of stress for sure. Yes. Sexy when you feel like you don't own your own body. Right. Exactly. All right. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'll let you know there might be a chance that this runs this week because the scheduled interview is struggling to actually occur. So I'll let you know and I'll definitely tag you in the post. Yeah. Let me know when I'll actually remember to post it this time. I was so busy last time. I think that you did. So I appreciate it. OK. All right. Thank you. Have a great evening. Bye. Bye.