Does it ever directly correlate to the kind of fantasy that someone's having? Is there a type of fantasy that is more likely to be rooted in childhood trauma or in trauma in general? I don't know

if I have the answer to that.

I remember reading a book, and let's see if I can think of the name of it right now.

It's been too many years.

But she was giving the fantasies of different women that she interviewed.

And it was true in her research that women who had experienced more trauma had sort of darker fantasies as part of what they were relaying.

But I know plenty of people who've had no trauma that still can play with ideas that on the surface seem dark, I suppose.

Their conscious story is that they're becoming alarmed in service of their partner, but the deeper layer may very well be that this is more a reflection of their discomfort with sexuality or exploring things that are outside of their realm of

You know, a lot of us just

carry a lot of these ideas intuitively, perhaps because we had a parent that operated like a martyr or, you know, kind of gave these messages that a little bit of misery is a signal of your goodness.

So I think that...

It means growing into a view of a God that really wants us to do what is good because doing what is good creates strength in us and in our relationships.

And it literally creates more capacity for joy.

Not that the world is without suffering and evil and dark and difficulty because we live in that reality.

Right.

Can you describe what are some more of the reliable routes or methods for a woman to be able to have an orgasm?

Yeah.

I'm gonna do that.

[laughs] You know, I think, first of all, not to pathologize it.

I think we're really quick to pathologize ourselves around this.

Intimacy is a tough business.

I mean, it really is.

It's...

Um, but please share with us, Jennifer, what, what should a m- mother's advice be, not maybe just on that girl's wedding day, but all through that young girl's developmental years?

When is a time that you experienced some adversity and how did it shape you?

Well, one of the things that I did as a young person was try to establish myself as legitimate through success.

And I married into a family that's very academically successful.

And I was always a hard worker, but I didn't feel like I was necessarily academically gifted or just, you know, so I had a little bit of insecurity about that.

And so, you know, I think what the adversity was, is that my first child was diagnosed with autism.

She was on the autism spectrum.

And for me, it really kind of brought right to the surface a kind of an unarticulated value that I was not going to be able to maintain, which is that your children will prove that you're capable.

So I was wondering how identity relates to sexual activity in marriage or

Well, how can couples address that guilt and work towards more understanding and even creating more fulfillment in the bedroom?

So I talked about this a bit on the podcast you were referencing, which is just around the person who has come out of some traumatic experience really has a decision to make because it's very easy to either resist or capitulate.

And neither one of those is going to help a marriage.

When you capitulate and have sex that you don't really want to have, That sense of self-betrayal comes up.

But when you resist, you may feel more like I'm behind the wall and I belong to myself, but I'm worried about are we going to make it? Like, are we going to be okay as a couple? And so both of those are very normal responses, but they don't help you move forward.

The thing that helps you move forward is if you decide not for yourself that you want to address your sexuality and you want to create a better sexual relationship even though you have some roadblocks in front of you around it but you want that for yourself you want that for your marriage because in my experience the sexual self wants to feel free if you feel like you're doing it because your spouse wants you to do it your therapist wants you to do it you're going to be in cross purposes and it's not going to work The part of you that wants to be free, connected to your sexuality, is feeling bullied by the meanings that you're giving it.

The truth is, you don't have to do it.

That's not as easy as it sounds though, right? Do you have any other suggestions on how to start advocating for yourself if you're not accustomed to it?

Would you advise some older unmarried couples, whether never married or previously married, to experiment with sexual involvement before committing to marriage?

I think that...

First of all, I do think there's something about...

Two things I would say about it.

I think that there is a... something that's valuable in the dating years, whether a younger single or an older single, is enjoying the energy of desire for the other person.

And that this is really important, even in marriage, that you're not just rushing to intercourse, for example, but that you've learned how to be in that erotic energy.

You know how to cultivate it.

So let me ask you, what could the church do as an institution to help older singles handle these situations better?

right? This is one of the things we've said before in the history of SMR, this idea of I don't want to make this choice because I want to hold someone else responsible because if it goes badly, I want to be able to blame somebody other than me.

Yes.

That's right.

And we don't want the exposure of choosing.

Choosing, deciding, desiring are exposing realities.

And so, our natural, kind of our early developmental selves wants the cover of folding into someone else's desire or getting others to validate our desires.

So to just claim and take ownership of who we are is developmentally a further step along, and a lot of us resist that step.

I don't know what step two is until you take step one.

Possibly.

Exactly.

So you're referencing some of the work I do in the Women's Art of Desire course.

Is that what you're saying right now that you were saying? Yes.

So I'm talking to women about this, a lot about this reality that they have learned to devalue their desires as a function of goodness.

I'm the selfless one.

I'm the accommodating one.

Now you're meddling.

But it's so funny because we get caught up in what I say I want actually scares me to death when I actually start to pursue it.

A hundred percent.

We all, many of us say we want intimacy and we want to be known and so on.

But if we're really honest, very few of us in fact want that because we want someone to just see the good parts and tell us how great we are and then go blind to the lesser parts of us.

Very few of us really want to let somebody in on who we are because as soon as you do, you, you wake up to yourself.

You see your own limitations in the ability to love your humanity.

And so I, it really asks us to grow in our ability to have compassion for ourselves, for another, to also grow up the lesser parts of ourselves, to become better, to become kinder.

But there's something still being missed in it because both of them can use the other for why they don't face themselves.

Mmm, como una sensación de asombro.

Sí, ese asombro, esa fascinación, porque por quién es la otra persona.

La ves como alguien distinto a ti, pero Caemos en una actitud de exigencia.

Se supone que debes hacer eso porque eres mi esposo o porque eres mi esposa.

O ¿qué has hecho por mí últimamente? A menudes, a menudo surge nuestro deseo de obtener lo que queremos en lugar de hacer espacio realmente para una persona diferente a nosotros.

Y pasamos a una dinámica de control y predictibilidad que nos impide percibir la maravilla y el asombro que nos inspi, que nos inspira la otra persona.

Es comprensible que queremos lo que queremos.

¿Qué ocurre entonces cua-- con ese patrón en los matrimonios donde el sexo se convierte en una especie de tarea donde se utiliza para demostrar algo sobre quién eres, como si estuviera ligado a tu propio valor? ¿De qué manera eso hace que deje de ser hacer el amor, por así decirlo, que pierda esa vitalidad y que se transforme más bien en una transacción?

You've mentioned things that we can say to each other that help with those conversations about sex, but what are the questions we should be asking ourselves that help us expand and grow?

Well, let me just kinda speak to the challenge a little bit.

I think that, you know, for a lot of people, they're like, "What do you mean? How could sexuality and spirituality have anything to do with each other?" Because when we're at a low, what I would consider a younger level of development of both spirituality and of sexuality, we think of them in terms of spirituality as everything that's good and obedient and proper and contained, and sexuality is what's indulgent and pleasure and disobedience in a way, like denying the rules of propriety.

And when we're young, that's kinda true.

Like, our parents are saying, "Take your hands out of your pants.

You gotta keep your clothes on because guests are coming over." [laughs] And you know, there's a lot of containing of our impulses, and that's important.

That's important for being able to be not just a responsible citizen, but being trustworthy in a marriage relationship.

But would you very briefly just tell how do you know if you're in, like, Kegan's first level of sexual development versus second level versus third level? A- a- and I'm not so worried a- about specifically what number is what, but just the progressiveness of it.

In your work, have you seen hope for couples that have been through infidelity, that one partner has been unfaithful to the other and created all that pain and suffering? Do they come out on the other side if they're willing to lean in? They

can.

They certainly can, which is not to say that they always do.

I've certainly seen marriages end over it.

but it had more to do with how the infidelity was handled than the infidelity itself.

I'm not minimizing infidelity.

I mean, if anything's been a protector for me of doing something like that, it's watching what people go through because it is utter hell to go through that devastating blow to a marriage.

Is that how you would phrase it or put it?

Can you share a bit more about how this role of partnerships with human development?

Well, you know, I would say when I was a young person, you know, I really valued marriage.

I really wanted to get married.

And I also saw that a lot of people around me did not seem very happily married.

Like, Maybe they were when they fell in love, but I could see resentment and I could see distance in couples.

And I was like, I want to get married, but I don't want to be that.

I don't want that experience.

Yeah, they're not being intimate.

So I

would say if I were to put it into three categories, the first idea is just a kind of fundamental as possible, but probably the hardest thing.

Is for the parents themselves to be at peace with sexuality.

Now, we often want to give our children something we haven't yet figured out.

And I totally get it.

Many parents want their kids to do better than they did.

And many times kids do.

Do you have any insight for parents as they're having these conversations?

And I'm like, no, I have

to say what I mean.

You know, I can't do that euphemistic stuff.

But on the other hand, so what I would say is that just as sex is not necessarily about intimacy, I would also say conversation about your day is not necessarily about intimacy, right? Because it really depends on how honest and open-hearted it is.

That's the measure of intimacy, is how much it's about letting yourself be known and knowing your spouse.

And sex is one of the many important languages of knowing and being known.

So what couples really struggle with, couples actually have a hard time being intimate.

And if you have any thoughts or tips for, for the husband or the couple in general about how to approach that?

Pero me gustaría que hablaras sobre lo que consideras que puede ser perjudicial o problemático en la formación de enseñar los principios de la modestia.

Bueno, una de las cosas, ah, saben, que en primer lugar creo que como saben, hablo mucho sobre la idea de que tenemos una especie de tradiciones falsas en nuestra cultura, haciendo referencia al Libro de Mormón, pero, ah, que tenemos muchas de estas ideas que se transmiten como si fueran doctrina, que en realidad son culturales.

Y una de las realidades culturales que a menudo confundimos, en mi opinión, con la, es la doctrina, es la, es la de, de la sexualidad, que están muy ligadas al género, así que seré más breve posible.

Pero básicamente la idea de que los hombres son más sexuales que las mujeres, que los hombres desean y las mujeres deben de ser deseables.

La sexualidad de las mujeres existe principalmente como una especie de ofrenda.

Su castidad es una ofrenda a un hombre cuando se casan.

Así que hay muchas de esas ideas de que los hombres son realmente los que actúan y toman la iniciativa, y son ellos quienes experimentan el deseo sexual.

¿Qué opina sobre la obediencia? Y de nuevo, ¿cómo reflexiona sobre ella de una manera espiritualmente más madura?

Mm

... and you can really accept them, and I think that it's very connected to a sense of joy, that, you know, like, there's always gonna be friction in an honest marriage, but also bliss.

Friction in that, like, that we are different, but it also opens us up, allows us to take deeper pleasure in one another, in the differences, and in the ways that we are a couple.

[air whooshing] [gentle music] Hey, everyone.

As you may have noticed, I never do endorsements other than my own products.

We've often had people reach out asking if we'd be willing to promote their products, and I always say no, because I don't wanna ever endorse anything that I don't truly love.

Well, Cozy Earth reached out to us recently, and because Christie had heard me go on and on about Cozy Earth pajamas, she actually forwarded it to me to see if I might want to take up this opportunity, and I do.

Yeah.

... that's something I could see on any level.

A- absolutely.

Um, and so what often, often the person I may challenge first is the one that's over-functioning, that's in the kind of idea that if everybody does it the way I think they should, this'll all go the right way to win.

But if you actually want...

Do you want a partner in this, or do you just want another person to kind of do your bidding, basically? Okay, because I'm not saying that the over-functioner is the problem.

It's a co-created problem.

But you have to see the pattern and break it.

[laughs]

are down their pants and so

on.

And what a child is really learning is how to manage a body that feels comfortable In some ways, like it's more in control than you are.

If you ever see like preschoolers and how much they're moving around and they're lifting up their dress and they're adorable, but they're learning self-regulation, right? And the consistency and environment helps that.

Well, most people, yes, I guess it's fair to say most people around age eight or nine grow into the social stage, which is you're not being run around by your impulses so much.

And now you're more able to think about how your behavior impacts others.

You're also really downloading the values of whatever group you belong to, whether it's a religious group, your family, your society, you're learning how to operate within this society.

No,

Welcome to Conversations with Dr. Jennifer, a collection of interviews on the topics of relationships, sexuality, spirituality, and more, all featuring Dr. Finlayson-Fife.

Hey, everyone.

We just returned from a couples tour in Portugal that was absolutely amazing.

There were just 10 couples, and the smallness of the group made it particularly wonderful because there was more time for conversation and interaction, and for the couples to get to know each other and really support one another in the growth that they did over those 10 amazing days.

The great news is we have another trip this year going from Zurich, Switzerland, to Austria, and we would love to have you join us.

We still have room for two more couples, [chuckles] and it promises to be a small group.

And the cutoff date for registering is May 2nd.

... dwell on that for a second? Like, let's talk about why it's okay to see the carnal side or the physical side of very good sex.