So what, what do people come in, when they come to see you, are they generally already aware of the shame and stigma, and it's like, "I need to move this," or is it, are they, is it sort of invisible to them unso- until you start asking these questions?

That's a great question.

I think for most people, maybe surface level shame, like if they have some sort of, um, kind of a, a ruminating thought or obsessive thought that is getting in the way of being able to relax into partnered sex.

Um, but I don't think they've done the deep dive into the deeper shame of it.

Um, so for example, you know, I had referenced this idea of first gen Americans.

Um, you know, a client who came in as a self-described porn and sex addict said to me, "Well, I was not allowed to date.

It was all about my education, so pleasure wasn't really part of my expectation for myself, so it was always taboo."

Yeah.

I

always say you have to use their body as an example for them to truly get it.

So in other words, if you said to a male partner, can you imagine that you were losing your erections every time you wanted to have sex? How would you feel about that? Hopefully, if the man is being honest with himself, he would say, my body's betraying me and I'd feel totally embarrassed.

Correct.

That is the experience I'm having because my hormones are actually crashing.

I'm going through an estrogen withdrawal.

That's what menopause is.

So can you just, for those who don't know what swinging is, can you explain what that is? Sure.

So give me some kind of classics examples, even if it's an amalgamation of clients that you feel... would be helpful for the listener and for me to hear and kind of understand the work that you do and the things that we could benefit from knowing.

Yeah.

So I conduct what I call a bio, psycho, social, sexual, spiritual assessment.

And we see both individuals and couples, but we do this assessment for both.

And when we're working with a couple, They'll come in together.

We'll see them together for a couple of sessions.

But then I will see them individually.

I could be wrong, but that would be my guess.