TODAY'S GUEST: Dr. Joseph Kramer

I'm extremely happy to welcome Dr. Joseph Kramer to Hard Conversations!

Joseph Kramer, Ph.D., Emeritus is an American somatic sexologist, erotic educator, and filmmaker. He has been teaching about erotic embodiment, somatic sex education and pleasure activism for over 40 years.  In 1984 he founded The Body Electric School, where he choreographed many of the school’s courses such as Celebrating the Body Erotic and The Dear Love of Comrades.   Over the course of his career Joseph has also invited individuals committed to erotic liberation into communities of service. He is the founder of two erotic, somatic professions - Sexological Bodywork and Sacred Intimacy, and developed worldwide trainings for these professions.  He is a true pioneer in the field of erotic touch and healing.  

“Joseph invites you to try out the two core practices of Healthy Porn Watching: Stand and Move & Pendulum. Login with username: Healthy and password:Hard, then click on Core Practices."

• WEBSITEs:

  www.EroticMassage.com

  www.PornYoga.com

  www.SexologicalBodywork.com

YOU'LL LEARN

• All about better ways to masturbate to get in touch with your body, penis, and breath.  

• About Sacred Intimacy, the Body Electric, and sexological bodywork being legal in California

• What it means to be a somatic sex educator.  

• State Dependent learning and erections

• The impact of porn on erections

• About the epidemic of disembodiment in the world.  

• Different ways of improving your relationship to sexuality

• Ways of thinking about erotic meditation 

• New masturbation practices 

• And more!

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING to my male sexuality and sex therapy podcast!

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About the Show

Introducing Hard Conversations, a podcast about male sexuality, and all things erectile, from the latest natural erectile dysfunction treatment to the best ed medical treatment. Therapist Tim Norton expands the conversation about male sexuality, adds context to why we struggle as a society to have hard conversations and breaks down how in a sex-positive environment there really is no room for taboos, judgment, or shame when it comes to penises.

YOUR online sex therapy and couple’s therapy HOST:

Tim Norton is a sex positive sex therapist working in private practice. He offers online therapy, online sex therapy, online sex coaching, and therapy and coaching for somatic symptom disorder.

Tim obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California. Tim is a proud member of American Association of Sex Counselors, Educators, and Therapists (AASECT), the Los Angeles Sexological Association, and works part-time with the Pain Psychology Center in Beverly Hills.

Hard Conversations Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Tim Norton: Hello, and welcome to hard conversations. We're really excited for my next guest. Joseph Kramer PhD is an American somatic sexologist, erotic educator and filmmaker. He has been teaching about erotic embodiment, somatic sex, education, and pleasure activism for over 40 years. In 1984, he founded the body electric school where he choreographed many of the schools courses such as celebrating the body erotic and the dear love of comrades over the course of his career.

Joseph has also invited individuals committed to erotic liberation into communities of service. He is the founder of two erotic somatic professions. Sexological bodywork and sacred intimacy. And he's developed worldwide trainings for these professions. He is a true pioneer in the field of erotic touch and hailing.

Welcome to hard conversations, Joseph. 

Joseph Kramer: Hello. Thank you. Glad to be here. 

[00:01:00] Tim Norton: Likewise. So as I had mentioned in your bio that I had read just before this, you've been training professional massage therapists, erotic Bodyworkers and somatic educators since 1984. 

Joseph Kramer: Yes. Yes. I didn't start out with that in mind. I, uh, I ran a massage school.

And I was very happy teaching the stodge totally separate from sex and erotic massage. So a California certified massage therapist and in Oakland, right across from San Francisco and AIDS yet in the early eighties, there was huge amounts of fear and there was, um, Especially in the area of sex. And one thing that I knew right away was touch was not a way this was communicated, unlike the epidemic we're now dealing with right now in the world.

And [00:02:00] so I saw, I thought, I know massage. I think I should start teaching erotic massage as a safe sex type. Behavior for men and bisexual men, especially in gay men. And I started that and it ballooned, it became a huge thing in the middle of this, uh, constriction. Uh, erotic constriction of AIDS. And I was invited to teach classes in erotic massage around the United States and around the world.

And, um, very soon I'd saw that something more than safe sex was happening that are robotic massage was a place where men were learning about their bodies and their router system in a different way, being on a table and being quiet. And then being aroused where they didn't have to do anything, someone else was kind of [00:03:00] offering this arousal.

And I, the word I didn't have at the time, but since have, is they're learning erotic self regulation, learning how to be with arrows in their body and to play with it. So that was, that came out of a massage in the early eighties, chess. And then I wanted to train other people to do this. I didn't want to be the only one doing it.

So my school started upper body electric was the name of the school and body electric, uh, doing these trainings around the world. I saw we did it people to be of service in offering classes like I was. And so I try to find a profession. And I named it sacred intimacy. I saw, I pulled out the name sacred, intimate, and I even saw on your list, Tim, you you've interviewed a sacred, intimate, um, and what's sacred intimates [00:04:00] for me where we're somebody who was there for someone's highest good that included touch and arousal, something psychotherapist and other folks.

Can't. Uh, and so I trained sacred intimates and sacred intimates turned into, but there's still illegal. Touching. Genitals was still illegal in the United States, no matter how high the intention was. And so I really worked on this in 2003. I got the state department of. Of a host post-secondary education too.

Okay. A training called sexological bodywork. That was that involved touching genitals as an education that people were learning. Again, erotic self-regulation they're learning about their body. So in California, this became legal, or it became legal for people who are trained by a [00:05:00] school that they approved.

Right. 

Tim Norton: And that, that sounds, I feel like we could spend an hour talking about that lobbying effort. Sounds amazing. Yeah. Even, especially back then. And we're, you know, we're in a slightly more sex positive times these days, but I can't even imagine trying to get something like that approved. 

Joseph Kramer: The head of the school in San Francisco, the graduate school said this will never be approved.

What kinds of people? And I sat with another writer and we wrote this, not for the public, not for, we wrote it for a bureaucrat sitting in an office who approves your not approves. And we wrote this up at word for word. And, you know, I'll, I'll tell you one of the thing that I think tipped it. This is the end I wrote, because this was 2003.

I said, 20 million people worldwide have died of HIV. 30 [00:06:00] million people, according to a world health organization are now infected with this disease. This is mostly sexually transmitted. We need new ways to educate people. We need to try everything to stop this. This is w this is part of the intention of this profession, and I hope if nothing else got through that, yes, let's do this.

Tim Norton: Hmm. Okay, well, good for you. Um, that's, that's really awesome work that you've you've started doing and that you've been doing now for a very long time. So let's, let's touch on that a little. Um, again, we could spend a whole hour saying, you know, what does a sexological body worker do? Um, but I do want to get into the content of being, working with erections.

Um, But I think the average person doesn't know what a sexological bodywork. Right. And is that how you would refer to the, the crux of what you do or is it, 

Joseph Kramer: um, [00:07:00] so I'm not sure if it's, I don't know how limiting, um, how it riff, how I refer to myself or. I would say I'm a sex educator through the body that I worked through the body of somatic sex educator.

And by that, I mean that my intention is that the body, uh, learn and function at its highest possibility. Um, and the, you know, recently, not very long ago, maybe 10 years ago, I first heard of state dependent learning and this idea that when you learn something, the state that your body's in is the optimum state for that learning.

And it's, it was on college campuses, kids joked about this. Cause they thought I was, when I studied for the test, I was stoned. [00:08:00] So I had to get, I had to get stoned for the actual test. Right. But I think it's operative here and that is if sex education, sex addicts. At the core is about erections and certainly many other things, but our erection is central.

So the learning has to be in the state of erection. So I think, so I find this is the, the real importance of erections is just, it's a learning state. And how do people get to this learning state? Well, probably the major place is not sex with a partner. Now the major place is watching porn for a minute.

This is the major behavior where men are in where men have erections for. Considerable amounts of time. Ah, what an ideal situation to learn something about or [00:09:00] reactions this is and to play with it, use that state. So that's, um, that's kind of how I got involved with this and I teach this in sexological bodywork.

There's 200 seconds. 2006, logical Bodyworkers worldwide have been educated and there's six schools. Um, and not everyone does the work that I do. There's women who work only with women. There's a trans there's all kinds of different folks who have specialties, just like psychotherapy. Um, but, uh, and some of them look at, uh, porn.

Yeah, in a very negative, scary way and stay away from it. People who have taught, they just don't want to even deal with it. If people come in and talk to them about porn, they stay away from it. Uh, but I think for the most part, they have an approach where there's something that can be learned here. [00:10:00] Let's see what let's, let's explore this with their classes or individuals.

So, uh, I dunno if. So that's how I would define. That's the work I do is to go where the arousal is. And that's what I like. I'm glad to be interviewed by. Yeah, no. 

Tim Norton: Great, great. And, um, that's what you're definitely doing these days and, and I, it sounds like that's evolved over time. Um, Uh, of course as a, as every career does.

Um, but just in general, before we get into, uh, you know, obviously we're going to talk about porn and erections and all of that, but in a typical sexological bodywork session, what happens? Um, everybody, I think that the first question is, are you having sex with your, with your patients? 

Joseph Kramer: Um, so sexological body workers.

Again, this is. And approved profession. And one of the people who helped me craft this and get it [00:11:00] through was Jack. And I don't know if you've ever met him, knew him, 

Tim Norton: never met him, but he was, 

Joseph Kramer: he was, he was my supervisor also in my doctoral studies. Um, but anyway, what sexological body workers. Do is, it's the idea that the body is an important place and, and that there is actually an epidemic of disembodiment in the world.

And what I mean by that is our attention is pulled everywhere, but right here on our own body. So we have in fact, People talk openly about being an attention merchant. They pay money to grab your attention. Not only that we give it away freely on the internet to television, to a million sources. And so we're forgetting our own body.

Um, for me, this [00:12:00] is an entirely horrible situation. Our body is the place where our health is our bodies, where pleasure. When we feel pleasure. If our attention is somewhere else, we're feeling less pleasure. We make decisions on information in our body health decisions. Our body tells us what's good. First of all, it doesn't.

So if our attention is elsewhere missing out on all this, so sexological bodywork. Is a profession. Number one, to help people to bring awareness to their body. I'd say that's the foundation. And secondly, when there's some of that bringing awareness is through practices and there's myriad practices, but we are a profession based on practice, meaning.

Um, depending upon what somebody's the situation, it might be. Let's do some breathing together and pay attention to your breathing, or it might be movement, or it might be, um, uh, running it might who knows what the practice is. There's 10,000 depends, but it's decided [00:13:00] with the client what's, what's, what's going to be the best benefit for you to be in your body and feel your body.

And. Um, and often when people do a practice, there's an opening, something happens. And I like this, I like this. Um, some people call it an epiphany, but regularly when people practice things happen and as you know, then things close have to the practice it closes down. So the idea is how can we keep this.

Opening this new thing going. So it's continuing practice and coaching and working with the sucks logical bodyworker so far nothing I said need even involve touch. People can work, uh, through, uh, through the internet with this. And, but people practice in order. Too, unlike Buddhism or other spiritual practices, [00:14:00] as they say, the, the reason for practices, the practice it's theirs.

You're not doing it for health or for, well, we are doing it for that opening for learning, for growth, for whatever we're we're sex educators. We want to help people to feel their body more. And so. We and we shift the practice and add more practices and help people with resistance to practices. Um, And the practices can be in a variety of areas.

If they're with a partner, we can have a partner come in and we do exercises with partners. I personally like a type of work where people videotape themselves solo sex. I don't work much with, I don't work much with couples. I have to say, but people videotape themselves doing masturbating. And sent it to me.

They put it into my Dropbox. I can look at it. And that right before when we have a coaching session, I've just seen how much they move, [00:15:00] how much they're enjoying it, how much they're breathing, where their intention attention is. And we can talk about this and they say, okay, I'm going to try this and go off.

And they could send me another session or two sessions. So that's the type of work. One way of sexological bodywork works and not what I used to do though. And what a lot of sexological body workers do is to use erotic and such. So someone comes in and they really don't have a sense of their arousal.

They don't, um, They have a sense of looking for someone to turn them on or some situation that turns them on, but here's a situation that people don't normally fantasize where they're on a massage table. Someone who's a professional does give them a massage because getting rid of stress is key in all forms of sex.

I find. We have sex in stress, out of [00:16:00] stress. This is horrible. So in these situations, maybe there might be a 45 minutes of relaxing massage, and then there's a touching of the generals to arouse and guiding that person. And that person guides the touch, but that arousal, the goal of the arousal is a prolonged arousal, a sustained arousal, and we call it active receiving where the person receives this arousal and they're encouraged to play with their breath a little bit, and we might guide them in breathing.

They're encouraged to shape their laying on a massage table and they're aroused. And by the way, we're talking about men here, but it can be male and female. It is males, men, and women. Um, we, we encourage them to move to shake. There are certain movements, especially the work, the spine or the pelvic floor, um, that bring.

The fielding South to the extremities, to the toes and fingers. [00:17:00] So I call it a erotic massage dancing because the person's on the table and they're aroused, but they're playing with that arousal. And the idea is that we get them to a place where they're dancing that arousal they're on the table, lying there, but they're actually comfortable not going towards chasing.

Orgasm ejaculation. And then they're comfortable just bead and playing with that arousal. So that's erotic massage dancing. And that evolved from the early AIDS days and 84. And then right away, right from the beginning, I had people breathing patterns that were not their normal breath because when they're breathing a pattern.

With me or on themselves, they have to be present. As soon as they stop breathing, I can see the moments they go away and that's a big deal in sex. People go away wherever and to a million different places. So [00:18:00] breathing is very important in this. It energizes the body, of course. And it makes you feel better, but it keeps people present, you know?

So, uh, so anyway, that's what sexological body workers who touch, may touch in that circumstance, but this is a learning environment. And if I can bring up one more, one more big thing. That's sick. Um, and this, this is, we use Jack ma in our trainings for sexological body workers. We use the erotic mind check mine's book and his book starts out.

With this idea. He said, people come to me and like you, he was a psychotherapist who focused on sex. He was a sexologist psychotherapist, but he said, people come in and list their sexual problems and I'm empathetic. But then I asked, tell me about. Tell me about some great times when you've had sex [00:19:00] and, uh, people aren't as comfortably.

So doing this, but the point is, if you can analyze the best time somebody had sex, what are those elements that we could do practices to get to that very seldom. Do we, when we're working with problems, do we ever get up to that those high points of best sex? It's a long erupt. And so I like that. So sexological body workers, aren't fixing people's problems.

And in fact, a big part of our training is how to refer people to, to psychotherapists to others. Um, Who have a variety of problems and that's not what we're about. We're educators who say, let's try this. How does this work? What about this practice? Let's feel this. Um, so it's working with the body 

Tim Norton: wonderful, wonderful profession, wonderful things [00:20:00] that sexual logical Bodyworkers do.

And as you speak, um, Like you, you, you made a point a minute ago about how people go away. People lose their attention during sex. And I think about the differences between our professions, you know, the differences between, uh, a typical therapist who is either trained in one school of thought to. Learn about a client's childhood and their parents and their upbringing, their family of origin and their attachment.

And then another school of thought that's going to really have you focus on your thoughts and your feelings and your behaviors and those kinds of things. And, and I can sit there and I can talk to them about the negative thoughts that they have about their interactions. And you know, where they learned that in that early traumatic experience you had, when I heard on an interview learning early on from their religion, that masturbation is bad or wherever it came from.

[00:21:00] And. And we can resolve that and teach them. Okay, well, here's a sex positive way of looking at that and you can do the Jack Morin exercise and you can learn about your sexuality, but then I'm not going to see them masturbate. I'm not going to see them in the bedroom. I'm going to tell them about mindfulness.

I'm gonna teach them about mindfulness, but there's going to be that limit where. They, they, they could be in the room with their partner and be completely distracted, be completely out of their mind out of their body. And, and then I have to trust that they're going to report that back to me accurately.

And so I idealize. Uh, Bodyworkers and people who are sematically oriented and then sex workers and surrogates and sexological body workers is having that advantage of being able to see a person in their sexual state and really be able to, to guide them in staying in their body. [00:22:00] So that's what you do, right?

Joseph Kramer: Yes. And in fact, in the past psychotherapist, in that environment where they can't really touch. Have used the quasi legal surrogacy and, and ideally that was a three-way environment where the surrogate would report back and you'd work with surrogate and. Then you would talk to the client. And I think a lot of, not a lot, but there are psychotherapists today.

And Jack Morton was certainly one of them who made use of sexological body workers in this way, because he could use the information that he got from the sessions and it wasn't sex with clients like surrogacy, our six logical wider workers wear clothes. We don't have sex with our clients. We just offer them experiences to help them learn.

Um, but anyway, I think so my, my hope is [00:23:00] that. Um, there's a corrective going on in psychotherapy right now. And it's a major correct of like the dial is moving more towards the somatic and mindfulness, et cetera. And I remember when people said I'm a somatic psychologist, that was a far out thing, but more and more people, they don't say that they just use those.

And I would hope in the future, that's that a lot of the things that are being tried out in sexological bodywork that don't involve touch. Can be used by psychotherapists because there's millions of psychotherapists and there's a lot of need. 

Tim Norton: Yeah, definitely. And, and just to clarify for the listener out there, there, there was.

A time when therapy first came out where it was kind of the wild West and there were therapists who had sex with their clients and, and it was a big shit show. And we had to establish boundaries around things like touch and consent and, and relationships. [00:24:00] And that was for good reason because there were people who were taking advantage of that.

Um, so w we're we're still trying to navigate that through the taboo of sex and through ethics and consent and things and, and, you know, People who sit in a therapy office or in a position of power. So they have to take that very seriously. And so I'm not advocating a bunch of therapists to go and have sex with their clients and touch them, but we have to find a way to.

Bring a consciousness of the body into the room because it's, it's really important. Um, so, so let's, let's get into it. So my, the typical client that that comes into my office is a man in his thirties or forties, a penis having person in his thirties or forties, where. They've, you know, might've had some issues with erections at one point and then they were fine.

At another point when they masturbate in the morning, they're perfectly fine. If they're alone, they're massing masturbating to porn or their erections are [00:25:00] fine. Um, but then a recent partner. That they're just really struggling with. And then maybe they tried Viagra for a little while and it worked at first and then it stopped on that really scares them.

And they're coming in panicked. Don't want to lose this relationship. Um, what w and they say, w w what can I, what can I do fix me, fix my Dick. So how would you conceptualize that kind of a case and, and fix that Dick, what would you do? 

Joseph Kramer: Well, as you know, there's 25 different directions to go there. But, um, I start with the premise.

I start with the premise that most people being members of the world as Western world, as it is, are somewhat disembodied. That their attention is pulled away from their [00:26:00] body. And even if in the morning when they masturbate and they're watching porn, they can get hard. I want to know about that. How, how what's that getting hardest?

And it often is just as into somebody as anything else it's a for watching porn can be a forgetfulness of the body. Um, they totally, their body is not involved. Their attention is in the porn so I can get a card. Can 

Tim Norton: you unpack that a little? Like what, what would a guy saying, well, what do you mean I'm disembodied?

What, what would that look like? 

Joseph Kramer: Um, so a few examples are, so I have people videotape themselves. And so here's some things I learned from watching video that I never would have fought. Here's some, first of all, I have people masturbate or watch porn standing up that's the beginning. And that is [00:27:00] because when people are lying down or sitting, there's almost no movement in their body, there's nothing, uh, demanded of them.

And so their body can be full of tension. It can be, they don't have to pay attention when they stand up. They at least have to slightly move a little bit. And what happens, what I find over time, they learned to really move with what's happening in their body and in the port. So that's the first thing I would say is what, how, what position are you in when you're watching porn?

That's part of it. Um,

So when I've watched people stand, one of the first things I noticed is how many people, men, especially men and women masturbating lose their balance and fall over. They're watching porn and standing and [00:28:00] they, they, they fall against the wall or against something that shows how far away they are from their body.

This is so regular. Um, I'm, I'm it, it shocked me at first, but that's the degree of disembodiment that people can't stand without balance. And now when I watch porn, I see this especially kind of amateur porn, not real slick. So a guy starting to get a blow job. And he'll want to sit down or lie down or lean against something because when his attention goes to wherever it goes, he can't stand that it loses his balance.

We actually talk about not paying attention to our body. Um, so that's just an example, but the forgetting of one's own body. Means that there's almost nothing of that experience that that guy in the morning had his orgasm is arousal that can [00:29:00] carry over to his afternoon with this partner because he was, he didn't pick his body was forgotten.

And if his body's forgotten in the afternoon, nothing happens. That's, that's one thing. So that's why I worked with the, how one of the ways I work is with how they watch porn. And the pain attention to one somebody. So there's a whole series of things that I do. And I started tongue in cheek, calling this porn, yoga things for you to do while you're watching porn.

And this grew and people liked it. So I kind of call it porn, yoga now, but it's things that people can do. So that they're more embodied. And if they wish that behavior that embodied orgasm could carry over more to their relationship with their partner, their attention is more on their own body. And I can go through a whole series of those, [00:30:00] um, different behaviors.

Tim Norton: But yeah. Could you, could you give us a little flavor of the kinds of things? 

Joseph Kramer: Sure, sure. Well, the first thing is standing and I say, Uh, stand with your knees, slightly bent. If you're bending your knees, it's this martial arts thing. It allows you to move and, and people naturally start to move with their arousal and what's going on in the screen.

And if they're having sex with a partner, even beginning play with a partner, this is a dance. This is some kind of. To gather and he's going to have to learn to move and play into that. So it's, so it's beginning to see arousal is a dance, it's a movement of the body. And I think that's the key. One of the key things is porn is about motionless sex for the most part, except the hand.

So it's not about movement and I fixed sex is about movement. So that's one [00:31:00] thing I'm working with and I have videos of them. And I'll say, uh, I noticed that repetitive of movement is good. So if people are swaying back and forth, just that one leg to the other, they're masturbating, watching the porn, but they're doing some movement.

This gets, I think it moves the blood. It moves to our bodies in a certain way. So that even if their attention is in the porns or getting something something's happening, then I have a suggestion. This is the, probably the biggest one is that at some point, I'm going to ask you, I ask that you turn away from the porn for five breaths and for those five breaths pay attention to what's going on in your body.

You've been masturbating. You've been, what kind of pleasure, what kind of feelings are going on? Just five breaths. And when I first started doing this, I [00:32:00] make I've made this up over the last 15 years. But when I first started doing this, I didn't realize, but a lot of feedback was I can't turn away from the porn for five breaths.

I might miss something. And luckily we have the civil bar here that we can hit and it stops the corn. So that solves that problem. And I was, it was a big problem for many people. So the turn away from five breaths, and this is a skill because they're in a. The visual part of the brain watching torn, and now they're going to feel their body in a Somat a more somatic sensing and five breaths.

Isn't a long time. So this is a skill that is learned of pulling in and paying attention to the body, which is something very important steps that you're aware of your body, a body scan, so to speak you're scanning through, but I'm not telling them start at your feet and do something I'm saying. You're masturbating.

What's the [00:33:00] result of that masturbating. Do you feel pleasure? What feels good? Um, and if I can skip ahead often what happens is not at the beginning, but as people get into this, they start with the five breaths and it's true. It's true, enjoyable paying attention to their body and masturbating to go back to the porn, to pull their attention into the story or whatever's happening on the screen is less fun than feeling their own body.

And this isn't my intention. My intention is to feel your body, but they go, what's going on in their bodies. More fun. Great. You've just learned something, but then they go back to the porn where it starts to the arousal might start to wane and you get a little more arousal. So it's some people I work with too.

I call it sipping wine. Uh, some people guzzle that guzzled their alcohol, but some people are watching the tour and like [00:34:00] a sip of wine. And then they're played with their arousal and they come back and get a little more arousal and then go off and play with their body in this way. And I think. This is more like a regular sex.

You focus in on different parts of the, of the encounter that arouses you, but then you're in other realms that aren't intense arousal, which you're still functioning. So I liked this Sydney wine approach to the guzzling approach, but this is quite often than people watching porn and it, in all of this, my, my statement to people is.

You never want to lose your watching porn for a reason that porn activates an arousal in you. So you don't want to block that. Uh, if you, if you need it to do porn yoga, I remember some man sent me his first tape and he had seen my website [00:35:00] to teach us and he did twenty-five behaviors in a row. And he barely looked at the porn.

So he was performing all of these activities, but he wasn't enjoying the porn if that's his choice. But I think I'm, I'm not making porn to be something bad. It's something that people are enjoying. It's how to continue to enjoy it, but how to enjoy your own body also. Um, let me go, let me skip to a big thing.

Orgasm ejaculation. I call it, uh, thank you. Uh, rock bass, but I call it D here, now orgasm. And so my recommendation, I say this is a big deal ejaculation and the time leading up to it. What if you tried not watching the porn for the evacuation, so you can be fully present to what's going on in your body to that attack elation.

I thought I would have a lot of pushback from some [00:36:00] people, not one person ever after they've done it as complaint. It's like, wow. This is, yeah, I feel it even more. I'm not a jacket sledding with her or him on the screen. I'm a jacket relating was me. I'm here right now. So that's another that's um, again, be here now.

Uh, I have. One other realm is I believe people walk around with stress in their bodies. Emma started out as some sore. I look at bodies and so they bring stress to sex, but when you're lying in bed, watching something or are sitting that stress can be there. But when you're standing the stress. A lot of people feel stress right away cause they have to balance themselves.

And um, so I recommend shaking and I recommend the beginning of session, watch your porn, [00:37:00] but get that stress out of your body shake and jump and move. So because the less stress, the more pleasure there's going to be, the more fun you're going to have. So those are just some I've. Um, I certainly teach a lot of different strokes for the, for the cock.

Is it okay if I use the word 

Tim Norton: cock? I use it as often as you'd like cock, 

Joseph Kramer: um, and, and, um, the end I men have this bad rap or this rap that right after they come, they. Rollover and go to sleep or roll over in her loss because in that the bliss is not something that I pay attention to. So there's savoring is a big deal in this.

And for me, that it's part of pleasure. The pleasure is excitement. It's the pleasure is also this bliss part. And can you save for all of that? So those are some of the, some of the [00:38:00] realms that I, that I address when people are, uh, You know when I'm coaching people and I coach men and women both. 

Tim Norton: Yeah. Good.

Now, as you were talking about. Standing and, and the differences between masturbating and, and regular sex. And, and let me for the listener, um, Joseph is standing during this interview and, and he, he, he rocks back and forth a little bit. And you can tell he's got his knees bent in and he's very, he's, he's a very embodied speaker, if you will.

Um, and it's, it's too bad. You, you can't see it cause he, he walks the walk. But as you're talking about it, I I'm thinking about. The difference between yeah, just between masturbating and sex. And especially if you're masturbating to porn, I can imagine. People holding tension in a lot of different places while sitting in front of a computer, especially if they're there for a half an hour, I can just can [00:39:00] imagine wrists tensing up and shoulders in jaws and necks and backs and legs and, and all those things that just flew the motions of, of a physical sex wouldn't be happening nearly as much.

Is that kind of the, the breakthrough there is, is that what you see? 

Joseph Kramer: Yeah. So what's interesting to me is Fitbit watches and Apple watches and other exercise watches have a function where every hour they beep and say, you should get up and move. If you've been sitting, this is speaking to that. And the phrase that really gets to muse sitting is the new smoking.

So it is, it is actually saying this isn't just sitting. This is really bad for you to continuously sit and what Fitbit, and, uh, says even a minute of standing and moving has beneficial. And I [00:40:00] think. A minute is hardly enough for if so. I, I, I try in my office with people, I work 10 minutes in an hour, we set the alarm and we might do some things for 10 minutes, but the idea is to get into more movement.

And I D and I, if I can go one step further here, I find as a, as a somatic, a body-based. Person who really likes masturbation and watches people masturbate what I've found. Is that when men and women masturbate, whether you're working on your clit or holding a vibrator are masturbating with your hand. It involves a tension that comes up to the upper chest and the shoulder and the, usually the whole shoulder, but sometimes the upper part of the body, especially as people go get to into more arousal, but even from the beginning, Just the [00:41:00] movement is not, there's always a tension in the upper chest.

This is the area of breath. And often there's a holding of breath that people have learned very early on habits that people learned when they were 12 learning to masturbate. Um, anyway, I find this really horrible for sex alone and sex with partners. And what I mean by that is. If, if someone's masturbated 3000 times before they're 20 or 5,000 times before they're 20 and they've masturbated with attention in their chest and holding these muscles, this is a habit that's curious with them that orgasm involves tension in the upper chest.

And I'm not very big on tantra, but. But, uh, up here is also the heart chakra, but for me, it's the lungs that the lungs are constricted in. This, the breathing is constricted. So I [00:42:00] consider masturbation normal masturbation where they're standing or sitting or whatever the way people do it, there's this tension in the upper part of the body.

And so I certainly noticing this, watching the videos of my clients. So then I said, can we do. I call it hands-free arousal. Can we get aroused? Can we masturbate without using our hands? So this tension doesn't happen. And certainly, um, the toy manufacturers I find Fleshlight is the ideal. A vehicle to anchor this, for example, on a table at the height of one's penis and you have your hands free and you can thrust.

And the thrusting here is not a fantasizing necessarily of you're thrusting into someone. This is your way of masturbating, that is using your hips and your thrusting muscles, but not your hands, not your upper part of your body. [00:43:00] I have videos. Many of the first time people have done this the first time they've ever done it.

It's like this physical liberation. A lot of people raise their hands almost in the air. It's like, Oh my God. And the, the normal constriction, the habitual muscle constructions that they've had. Aren't I aren't active. It's breaking a habit right there by doing this. Not only that, but the backup is I think most men thrust really poorly.

And so this thrusting exercise and I think people need to learn to thrust. And I would hope men would learn to thrust, not in somebody, but learn to thrust bef that, to do their practice in their fumbling in somebody. Work on it and then bring it to love making. But anyway, I find 'em. So I call by the way, I have the big category for this as orgasmic [00:44:00] yoga, all kinds of practices that involve orgasm are going toward orgasm.

But I think, um, I I'm, I've really looked into. Fleshlight and their online forums and all this, and really only a small percentage of people. I think use this. Um, thrusting and they've gotten better vehicles. They have holders for their flashlights now, uh, et cetera. And on my websites, I have all different ways to anchor for women.

It would be a vibrator, so large vibrator that they can push into as they wish and play with. But they're, you're getting you're masturbating. You here, you are a mess when you're stimulating yourself, but your hands are free. And this goes back to my original professionism sewer. I think this is the time when you're aroused to give yourself a massage.

You have, I have people start right in the belly and start in [00:45:00] the front of the body and their face in their head. And so people are masturbating and they're giving themselves a massage. How great is this? And there's. And they can, they can up the speed or down the speed based upon their hips. 

Tim Norton: Wonderful.

As you're talking about that, I'm thinking about how typically when people masturbate, especially men, they're probably not thrusting at all. They're not doing one of the most basic aspects of intercourse. 

Joseph Kramer: It's well, I don't think they're doing a lot. They're they're going up and down. And I, um, so I live near UC Berkeley, university of California at Berkeley, and it's quite a big campus and not recently, but 10 years ago, I was involved with educating peer counselors.

So students who would go out and do pure sex education [00:46:00] in the dorms and different places. And what I stories I heard over and over. Where of boys or students there who wanted their girlfriends to suck them while they watch porn or to check them off while they watch porn. And what this said to me is they've learned to behavior on their, the, the nerve endings on their penis.

Once something, this is the way they've learned to have sex. So they could, they could have other, they could do other things with her, but it's more effort. Can you just suck me while I watch porn? I go, wow. So this is, uh, that was, um, and I think, so I think that's where habits come in. Your, your porn watching habits can be limiting.

What I'm hoping is that people can use porn to let go of habits and create. Uh, behaviors that carry [00:47:00] over to their, to their play with their partners. 

Tim Norton: Hmm. Definitely, you know, and while you're mentioning that, I, I do have an avid listener out there who is a bit of a public service announcement opportunity.

There I've put an article out on PornHub at Bay, been interviewed in their, their sex education series. Porn porn hub is. Bringing a lot of sex and ideas into the world and, and there's, there's good sides to PornHub, but sometimes they do a terrible job of not screening nonconsensual videos that end up on their sites and underage sex that's going on on their site.

And yeah. They've got to do a much better job of that. People, people are having videos put up there, but that they didn't want there in the first place. And so by us talking about the upside of porn, where no way could doning that they could do a better job and still function as an organization now. But to the extent that we're talking about, um, ethically consensual, [00:48:00] Porn and, um, and all that good stuff.

That's, that's what you're saying. And that, that's what you're seeing. And then people are watching just, just wanted to put that right there, um, for the 

Joseph Kramer: listeners. So I hope this is true. What I have decided, I, I think early on, I realized that most people are embarrassed about what turns them on. They don't like to talk about the specifics of what turns them on.

So you could have a hundred men who identify as gay in the same room, and they're all turned on by different things and some so particular that they would rather not speak about it. But one of the things that I realized is I'm not into I'm interested. In helping people with the state of arousal. So what they're watching, I never know.

I, my videos, I want them to turn their screen away. Cause I do not want to know what they're watching. I don't want to know whether they're gay or straight or are anything that [00:49:00] they're watching a big come up in the coaching about their partner, but I don't ever ask them about the porn. They're watching you become accepted.

When I'm noticed they're having trouble with arousal. I say, you know, it looks like you're not finding arousing porn. And what happens with some people is free porn and searching for it. Isn't enough. And I suggest you, if you really have some realm that turns you on, and this is, this is fun for you. Why not try purchasing?

Of on a website and people do, and their arousal goes up because they're watching something. They like, it's like watching regular TV, you know, the regular stations or Netflix, or, you know, get, get to premium here. So I find it important that people watch things that turn them on. I, [00:50:00] um, as you know, Some psychotherapy could go into a couple of years about what people have of therapy, about why people are watching a certain thing.

And I'm, I certainly, um, it has never come up. Anything about bondage are unconsensual, not just bondage, unconsensual stuff, or ch child pornography, all this. And certainly that's I'm. I, uh, I hope they're not doing this, but I'm not policing what people are watching and I'm glad that I'm not, I'm here to help them with the arousal that comes from that.

Tim Norton: Okay. Um, so there's, there's a specific question of do guys come in to you saying they struggle with their erections? 

Joseph Kramer: Um,

[00:51:00] So, this is interesting. I feel there's millions and millions. There's hundreds of millions of people, men, even in the West. I deal with, I teach and I'm in Europe, Australia, um, lots of North America. Um, When we say, come in a lot of times it's virtual. So if someone says I'm a sex addict, I really have a problem.

Let me let's start there, which is rather than just my erection. I say, you know, I'm not a therapist. And if someone's self identifying this problem, they really want to work on this problem. I go, I can. Give you some practices you can try. And I've only worked with two people who really wanted to go into this from a place of saying I'm a sex addict and, um,

they both [00:52:00] have, well, one, both of them wanted to work on that. That was their focal point. And that's that thing of sex addiction is, is. A thing in the culture and this thing about moving while you're masturbating, this isn't a thing. They didn't value this at all. They valued how I deal with my compulsiveness.

Um, and so what I often, how I advertise is I would like to work with people who love porn and want to enjoy it even more. So, uh, I just know a population that this really works for. So. People who say I'm no fat, I've been 88 days. I haven't had, I haven't touched myself for 88 days in my mind. I do think this, that, what if for 88 days you were practicing alternative eroticism, not just know about arousal, but practicing other ways.

You'd [00:53:00] be learning skills. Now you're really quiet in the neurological pathways. Of course, through this. Uh, uh, abstinence, but you still have to learn at some time, uh, new ways. So I, and I do think breaks you important for some people, but I'm not a therapist, as I say, and I'm not a, uh, I don't deal with problems.

Eye problems can be helped by. Be hit by these, by exercises that I do, but I don't have to deal with the same thing you do with someone coming in saying, I have trouble with erection, but where I, where I would go right away is, uh, are there any times you are fine with reduction is, and usually it's with porn and masturbation.

So it's a really enclosed place. I mean, a really a contained place. And the way I would approach it is to start with that. Arousal is start making that place bigger stand and be aroused [00:54:00] move would be aroused, a wreath and exercise all of this so that that arousal can carry over. And what all that is is bringing them into their body more.

There's a supposition that they're just not in their body in my way of approaching it. Um, but I don't have people since I don't advertise for, since I don't advertise that I fix people, I don't say erection problems and all this isn't listed is mine. It does. I do say I can help with habits, bad habits.

That's masturbation is almost 99% happened for most people. I know. 

Tim Norton: Yeah. I bet you can offer some pretty keen insights, like one of the ways that this shows up and, and just this morning, I was listening to this interview that you gave on. Um, [00:55:00] uh, what was the show called? Uh, it was a podcast, um, the pleasure mechanics and.

And you, you, you know, if anybody out there wants to hear more of, of, uh, Joseph's, uh, origin story of, of his early sexual development and how that led to this work, it's, it's a, it's a fantastic interview. Um, but one of the things that you talked about was. Having those religious messages early on, uh, about impure touch and, and I, that was the way that it was put, you know, that there's a lot of sex negativity and in all the religions, you know, it was, we were talking about Catholicism, but I don't know of any major religion out there.

That's super sex positive and giving regular messages of, of, um, sexual openness. So when I'm working with clients who had that. Early on in their sexual development. They, [00:56:00] it's one thing to just say, okay, well, we're going to stop feeling guilty about your sexual thoughts. We're going to stop having sexual shame because that's, you know, and they can logically grasp that.

They, they can get, okay, it's wrong to think of sex as dirty or whatever, but it's, it's a whole different process to actually embody. That now absence of guilt or embody lust and joy and bliss and, and all the things that you want to embody when in a sexual place, rather than, you know, now we're naked. Now you feel shame.

Now you feel guilt. Now it's reminding you of, of some early Christian message. So you had to go through that process of undoing. Those negative sexual messages. Um, what do you think helps people the most along the way of, of shedding sex, negativity and early, um, sexual messages that are counter to, [00:57:00] to less than neurotic joy?

Joseph Kramer: Thank you for asking that question, by the way, the interview with sex mechanics, weight pleasure. Mechanics was quite extensive. I, and I liked it. Um, so as a kid, I was very strongly. I Irish Catholic and I grew up with, went to Catholic schools and I believed everything. And sex was a sin outside of marriage.

And masturbation was a mortal sin. Meaning that if you died after masturbating, before going to confession, you went to help. So I believe this. So after masturbating, I was in terror, sometimes here's a 15 year old or 14 year old in bed. At night thinking if I die, it's all I, I go to hell it was terror. And I I've, I have a quote I'd like to read from Kinsey because [00:58:00] I think that this upbringing has not been named.

And I think we're big on trauma today. I think this is actual trauma and traumatizing of the system that is. Yeah, it's so ubiquitous. We just call it normal. We call it sex negative, but, but even Kinsey and his day, and this is from his 1948 book. He said, millions of boys have lived in continual mental conflict over this for that matter.

Many of boys still does many boys pass through a period. Periodic succession of attempts to stop the habit. Inevitable failures in those attempts, consequent periods of remorse, the making of new resolutions and a new start on a whole cycle. It's difficult to imagine anything better, calculated to do permanent damage to the personnel.

[00:59:00] It's hard to, I think. So we're talking about hard cock. I think how society treats this with young people is, um,

We just call it , but it is horrible. It is traumatic and it has lifelong consequences in. And if I might say it keeps half of psychotherapists busy for the rest of their life with these people. So how do you deal with this? For me, it was like this closed system and I have to say. My own masturbation, which was a mortal sin cracked open that egg.

It was the crack in that egg. Finally, there was aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. It was the only way I got out of that system and it was the [01:00:00] pleasure and the understanding. Um, I think the values in a lot of religion are, are, um, Utility and connection and union. So for many people it's not masturbation, but it's whether they're gay or straight, um, behaviors that are not approved of by religion, but they know they're wonderful.

They love this person they're connected to this person. I think that is one area, but for me, it was the celebration of my body. And it didn't really resonate with my whole upbringing. And right now I don't go there a lot, but I have one person right now who's I'm working with with this. And there are Christian approaches, meaning focusing on this is a gift of God.

And it's a repeating of it over, this is, this is, uh, [01:01:00] this, this pleasure, this body, this is, this is God's creation. He grateful for its capacity. And yes, this is a different message, but it's at least parallel, but it's not quick. It's not a quick process. It's changing a whole belief system. Um, And I don't do therapy, but this comes up you're right.

This, and one of the things I liked about Kinsey reports in the middle of the 20th century is he said the single most negative factor. In sexual functioning and sexual pleasure, et cetera, is how religious someone else. And he said, uh, Hasidic Jews and very fundamentalist Christians in fundamentalist Catholics have the poorest sexual lives and relationships.

And that was across the board. What he, what he found. And that was 80 here of 70 years ago. [01:02:00] Um, And I think religion has softened a bit, but. Um, when I was in grad school, one of the other people studying for a PhD in human sexuality was a Mormon Bishop. Uh, and he was a liberated Mormon. He grew up in Hawaii and, and if you grew up in Hawaii, it's hard to have the same view of the body as if you grew up in Utah, you can imagine.

And so he was working on his PhD, but he works on, on masturbation and his. Studies at the university at, uh, of college aged kids in Utah was how many had thought of suicide as teenagers because they masturbated. And he said the difference between Catholicism Mormonism, should you go to confession in Catholicism and Mormonism?

You're impure, you're impure and, and [01:03:00] the same compulsion. And so there's a huge, it's still a problem, uh, suicides among young people because of heterosexuality and homosexuality and masturbation. And I go, people do not religion. Does it even change? When they see some of their best killing themselves over this religion is so it's what we value.

It's, it's closest to our core and to change those behaviors is often a communal environment is important. As you know, it's not just therapy one-on-one is hardly the best vehicle that, but I think relationships, but what I've come to is. I tell people who are anywhere in that struggle, that when they're in a high erotic state, if they're watching porn and they turn away from these five breasts, just to say, I'm [01:04:00] so thankful for this body, God, thank you that I can feel this.

Or when they orgasm, they say, thank you. This was amazing. Bless it. Be God, I'm not kidding. This is it's crucial. It's life giving. They have to say that because otherwise it's the devil, it's the negative what's happening. They have to say that. And that is awkward conditioning. That's a really good thing to say when you're orgasming blessed, be God I'm grateful for this.

So, um, but, but I F I. Recommend people. There's one in Berkeley spiritual guide that I sent people to there's I, this isn't my realm, but if somebody is really into that, I check more Warren used to be pretty good with this, but, um, anyway, I usually refer people it's not, but it's always there. [01:05:00] It's with everybody.

And it's still with me. It's still with me. I've I'm 73 years old and I still ha it's there's these imprints that are within me and, uh, this habits, habitual ways of thinking that come up. Um, not, not a lot. Cause you could tell it's great. I'm very grateful. It's an arrows. 

Tim Norton: Okay. But you mentioned too. Uh, yeah, very, um, Psychologically proven techniques, but just that idea, I really liked how you mentioned community, how maybe it'd be a good idea to be around sex positive Christians or whoever is going to be able to communicate to you.

Yes, yes. The body is good for joy. So just how therapeutic that can be. That's like a, you know, a group, a community and, uh, at the micro level, that's more of a Metso macro level, but at the micro level, Uh, when you, [01:06:00] when you orgasm adopting a new narrative adopting, uh, something positive, something that you say instead of I'm going to burn in hell great after you ejaculate.

Um, but something, uh, more sex positive it, and it can be found in, in the Bible or in a religious text that there the, you are made in the image of God. I've had other clients talk about that. Being a way of getting them out of, um, Thoughts of low self worth. Like you, you can't be all that bad if you're and made in the image of God.

Um, it'd been finding those unintentional sex, positive messages, um, yet they, there they are. And, and then it is definitely, um, we'll talk very, very, um, spiritually about orgasm itself. Um, As being a way to connect to the great divine, um, and so plenty of room in there to retrain your brain, rewire [01:07:00] your brain, we wire your physiology to have a, a positive spiritual expense, one being sexual, uh, masturbating.

Hmm. And it sounds like you had to do that. It sounds like you had to do you sounds like you had a lot of undoing and I imagine there was a period in your teens and twenties or whenever where there, there had to be a major transition. 

Joseph Kramer: And I think, um, I go so far as to encourage is to, for some people to put the idea of masturbating into the category of spiritual practice.

Okay. This is a spiritual practice that you do. And this really became big for me. About 10 years ago, when I was, this came through Daniel Siegel. At UCLA, a neuroscientist child psychiatry, child psychiatrist, but he was in one of his books. He was talking of. Buddhist monks meditating and how it benefits the [01:08:00] prefrontal cortex, the front of the brain through which we are, it's our executive function and how we function in the world and how, how beneficial over times.

And it was bigger in these monks and then the studies and he went on with that. This was that other types of practice, not just in the Buddhist monastery, but physical practices. Yoga. And he, he defined mindful practices, mindfulness practices. And this was for this benefit of the brain as having being clear on one's intention and being clear that you're placing your attention.

And that was the, that was kind of simple. And I realized that in my erotic Dave's in the eighties and nineties, I did thousands of erotic massages. And I in medicine, when I would sit and [01:09:00] try to do something like the pasta, now I get all kinds of distractions. When I was doing those sessions, I had an intention was so amazing to touch findings from the, and uh, almost all of those erotic insertions.

I did. The first half was a deep massage to relax the body. Before I went into the erotic, I did thousands of sessions. I should have a really big prefrontal cortex or something. And in a sense, I think that's, there is, there is a result here. I was a B student in high school and in college, I wasn't, I didn't see myself as exceptional, but I think through practice somehow I got to a place where.

Practice that also pulled me into my body and I could make better decisions. I think that's the key. I've made very good decisions in my adult life and I think it's because of practice. So I now encourage people to [01:10:00] practice orotic practice and. Uh, those people who carry a strong religious upbringing, et cetera, or trauma.

And I call that traumatic, strong religious or other trauma have trouble even getting to it. There's all kinds of resistance and I can't do it. And so that's where I think psychotherapy or something comes in because, um, Uh, the profession of sexological bodywork, we give people practice, but helping them get to the practice is another realm.

And some people are better at that helping people than others. So there's communal ways of doing it right now. For example, one of my favorite ways of guiding people. And this is within our profession, we have meetings and outside the profession, I'm teaching a class in the UK right now. And. I have it's a two hour class zoom class.

They'll come [01:11:00] and we'll talk, but I've sent them an email about a practice and erotic practice we're going to do so this week it was, uh, that there would stand for the practice and. The goal would be stimulation of the genitals with the idea of bringing the feeling up to the heart. So a conduction of the heart and genitals and being aware of those people and things that they're connected to.

So it's heart genital connection. That's the practice. And in this, what I would do is we talk about it, talk about intentions, all of this. Then we turn off zoom, go and do it for a half hour. And come back and then we talk about the practice. This really helps people. Uh, some people have to go away and still can't do it, but this is I found is the best.

There's a communal support and it's all set up and they hear people beforehand and they hear people afterwards [01:12:00] of what happened during this practice. By the way I've just did the first UK. I did my first UK, a couple of weeks ago, half of the class, half of these people who are 30, 40, 50 studying. These are people studying to be sexological body workers had extraordinary experiences because they never stood up.

Before there was just amaze standing up. So they'd had a thousand thousands of sessions sitting down. So there's habit when they stand up, habits are broken. I call it a leverage practice because if you stand up watching porn or just masturbating. For that very little effort of steadying up. There's huge benefits, the leverage.

So I recommend people if parents asked me, so how should we give permission to our children to [01:13:00] masturbate? And I, I have my, my rap, but I say and tell them half the time to masturbate standing half the time. And that will benefit their whole life. I think we need to give that message right from the beginning to kids so that they move and don't get into this motion.

The sex sex should not be motions. Sex 

Tim Norton: should not be motionless. No, I had one last little question because I can, we've been talking for a while and I feel like actually I have about 25 more questions, but you just mentioned they're setting an intention. And as a therapist, I'm a kind of a goal oriented therapist.

I like people to, to set intentions and establish goals and to pursue them. What could be an intention when you're masturbating? They, what, what would you have a person say as an intention? 

Joseph Kramer: Um, so somebody might say, I want more movement in my session period. And [01:14:00] at the end, there's an evaluation of that intention.

Another might say I'd like to be more aware of my breath or another. I like to bring as much awareness possible to my ballot, or I'd like to shake summer behaviors. Like I'm just saying others are, I would like to. Be aware of any wisdom that comes to the surface that's in my body. I want to pay attention to my own body wisdom.

I want to, um, a big thing is that I push in similar to intention. I want to remember what's important for me that just that I think that's the grounding. Uh, it's usually very physical and. Uh, attainable, meaning that afterwards they look at it and see, how did that influence that? Um, uh, the other thing I do at the end of sessions and [01:15:00] all sessions, even in sexological bodywork is we look at distractions, what distractions and people are taught to, to check out distractions, because these are interruptions of.

Of, uh, of your experience. And in fact, I come from a tradition, Sylvan Tompkins, where distractions are, um, shame. This is a shame episode, distractions take you out of the present moment into somewhere else. And so this is the beginning of a shame episode, so to speak. So we're. Constantly or if distractions here's, by the way, here's what I found.

Here's the important thing in masturbation and a lot of things that distractions recur in a general category and cry again and again, and again, people have the same distractions. They may meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. [01:16:00] Don't get fools again. Here it is another distraction. So without paying attention, it seems like.

Oh, it just, this told me this morning, but really there's a couple of categories. And usually I call it the core or erotic distraction. I got this from Jack moron, cause he has core erotic theme that people have the core of their arousal or the core of their, uh, sexuality. I think people have core erotic distractions and if they become aware of that, they can manage 

Tim Norton: wonderful.

Yeah. You alluded earlier to the attention merchants out there. It's I picture like a cartoon of there being the, you know, hidden, uh, uh, troops with guns, like. Ready to assassinate your attention and really to, to enslave it. And, and we've gotta be aware of the ones that are out there and, and that's, that's [01:17:00] your own.

Self-reflection, it's different for everybody. And then to start to change those. Relationships change that relationship to eliminate them or, or to, you know, sometimes we just can't and you know, and you just have to notice them, but be able to refocus on your sexual experience. 

Joseph Kramer: You know, this time of Corona virus right now that we're in, people are all over the world are in their homes.

This seems like a time when they're less could be less. Bombarded if they wish from attention merchants, but also I think it's a time of pain, attention to one's own self one's own body. And we all have lists of things. I should exercise more. I should meditate or I should eat this way or that way. Wow.

What a perfect time. Or I should connect with my family or fuck. Friends. You've got, [01:18:00] you know, these are times when we can. Make choices and make decisions. And I think we're right at the beginning, but I think this is months. Maybe we're right now, when we're talking in California, we're two weeks into this, but I think this is an ideal time and I have this background religious background, but I, I liked the idea of monasteries and I wished there were sex monasteries and, and Ostrom's where people go just to masturbate.

For the whole world, you know, are, have sex for the whole world. And, uh, we don't have that. We we've had a few attempts in the history of the world, but, uh, they were all killed as heretics and whatever, but I, but I, um, but I do think this is an important time and some amazing things can come out of these permitted churches that people are in.

We're in Hermitage right now. 

Tim Norton: Hmm, [01:19:00] I'm saying we could talk about this for days. Um, you mentioned that you would like to, to mention to the world, to, to our audience, like some of the online resources that are available to them, that, that you've been working on and putting out there, can you tell us, like, get more 

Joseph Kramer: information?

So I have a website called orgasmic yoga.com. And this is a website of erotic practices that you can watch and do some solo and there's men's women's and couples. So you can do touch as a practice and, uh, and it's there's 80 or a hundred, I would say practice sessions that one can do. And they're created just for that orgasmic yoga.com in terms of watching porn.

Um, porn, yoga.com. And these are [01:20:00] all practices that it shows men and women doing the very various practices. Uh, and so that's, I think that's very helpful. And, uh, for a Radic massage, which I find is a place of great learning, erotic massage.com, and there's all kinds of techniques and approaches and strokes.

That one can use. And certainly we didn't talk about this, but different. Places on the penis and different places on the vulva have different feelings States. Then we get used to just one place or two places or one way of doing it. So there's a lot of variety that one can learn from. And I learned half of what I learned from very early on watching videos on massage sports and such Swedish.

I did the eighties and nineties when they were first coming out. I got some of the videos from great from. The great teachers and there's so much [01:21:00] available now, and it can be quite expensive to go to a class, but right now online, you can get there's a lot. But anyway, our guests book, yoga.com erotic massage.com, porn, yoga.com.

Tim Norton: Okay, wonderful. And do you, do you tweet, do you, are you an Instagram kind of person? Are you a social media person at all? 

Joseph Kramer: I. Seldom tweet. And I do I a little bit on Facebook, but I don't think it's a place to really make connections. Um, No, so, 

Tim Norton: okay. So mainly those videos website it's that we mentioned and great.

Yeah. And you know, you just started to talk about, one of my questions was going to be that the genital mapping, but that sounds like something they can learn about the different parts of their penis on, on the site that you mentioned. And that could be a very eye [01:22:00] opening for some of the things that were, that the listeners of this show.

Are trying to learn about. So, um, any, any last thoughts before we go, you've said so much, and this has been such a wonderful 

Joseph Kramer: interview. I, I, I would just like to say that the core of all this for me is how a basing our bodies are. And. We forget ourselves. We forget our bodies so often and it's set up.

Society is set up and even porn is set up to grab our attention. This is why people make porn to grab our attention, to make us aroused. But that arousal is often our attention is in the porn. So I think. I would just to, as often as possible, bring your awareness back to right here. What's the pleasure of being alive, a liveliness, feel your own a liveliness.

Hmm. 

Tim Norton: Okay. And [01:23:00] let's end it right there. Feel your own alumnus. Thank you so much, Joseph. 

Joseph Kramer: Thank you, Tim.

Doug Braun-Harvey: appearing, Tim. It's great to hear about your background.

I don't often. Do podcasts or interviews of this kind of nature with people who've had their own professional direct work in, in providing sex addiction treatment and then, you know, moving into the sexual health model. So this is a rare opportunity. Thank you for letting me know that. I didn't know that.

[00:03:00] Tim Norton: Okay. Yeah, no. Fantastic. So let's, let's jump right into it. You developed a model for the treatment of out of control sexual behavior. He wrote a book,  

Doug Braun-Harvey: Michael Figueiredo and I co-wrote a book. Yes, 

Tim Norton: yes. The two of you. Yeah, a really important book in, in my world and in the world of, of sex therapy and sex therapy treatment.

So can you just tell us,  tell us a bit about 

Doug Braun-Harvey: that? Well, I think I would start with. Why there needed to be a book written like this,  and that, that th this, this human behavior. Which I'm going to call from a general perspective for this interview, sexual dysregulation, for whatever reason, somebody is not feeling like they're regulating their sexual behavior very well.

And there has been a significant controversy since the eighties about what exactly we call this. And for the most part. Everybody has been trying to figure out what to call this. And I'm going to emphasize this word [00:04:00] disease. The idea is, is that this human behavior is some sort of a disease, a psychiatric disorder, addictive disorder.

This has been the story since the eighties, that, that that's how people have been wanting to understand it. So is it compulsive sexual behavior? Is it a sexual addiction? Is it a hypersexual disorder? Is that,  impulsive compulsive sexual behavior disorder. I mean, these, these have all been sort of bandied about, but the, the, the, the one thing they have in common, As they've all viewed this behavior as a form of mental illness, a kind of disorder.

 and, and what people have been, you know, really kind of debating is what, what kind of disorder it is, but they've all believed it's a disorder. The one thing that stands out. In the sexual health model that Michael and I have developed without a control sexual behavior is that we do not believe this human behavior is a mental illness or a psychiatric disorder or an addictive disorder.

That is the most significant kind of [00:05:00] cleave here that we're going to be talking about today.  is that everything we're talking about in our model is we're not saying that somebody has a disorder.  and that's, that's really why this book was written. And that's why Michael and I spent so much time elucidating, a model that I eventually, you know, grew out of my work.

I started my first group for men and how to control sexual behavior. I didn't even use that term. Then the term out of control sexual behavior, didn't come come about until a journal article for John Bancroft and.    in 2004, where they recommended that until we have a better idea of this behavior, we call it out of control sexual behavior.

Before that I called it a variety of things, but I never believed in a sex addiction model. So since 93 I've been providing outpatient group and individual therapy without a disease model. Hmm. And, and having to kind of figure out, well, what is this? And so eventually, Michael and I really, really put together this model and built this book.

So [00:06:00] I think that's the most important thing. We're not talking about somebody who has a disease, and that's why the book is written. It's a sexual health model rather than a disease model. 

Tim Norton: Right. Absolutely. And, and I, I remember when I was first learning about the, the sex addiction model was one thing that I really didn't like about it was, it, it kind of felt like we threw the baby out with the bath water.

We threw out. Everything, you know, if we had a client who came in, nobody was asking, well, is this client depressed, bipolar and anxiety disorder, like that suddenly became secondary. And a lot of personality disorders, a lot of narcissism,  and borderline, and, and, and, and that was such a distant thing to talk about, but.

It's really different to work with bipolar than it is, you know,  just depression without mania or, or just anxiety and, and, and the clients would present much differently. And there was just [00:07:00] so many things that were getting lost. And, and I like not thinking of this as a disorder. It's, it's really. It's an aspect of something else that's going on.

Wouldn't you say? Or it's, 

Doug Braun-Harvey: it's a coping, it's a, it's a problem out of control. Sexual behavior is a problem, but many people can have problems and also have disorders. But that, that co-worker th th th th th that are happening at the same time, or ha or inter it affect each other interact together. What you're seem to be commenting on is that at least in your experience in a sex addiction treatment program, the, the, the psychiatric conditions that might be present,  we're, we're, we're not given as much prominence in the overall case conceptualization, but it sounds like you thought they needed to have.

And it, it seemed like a kind of an omission of priorities that, that,   that, that this wasn't somehow really looked at [00:08:00] in a more critically thought out way,  that the sex addiction model was really the model in which their behavior was viewed.  and,  that this is what can happen with disease conceptualizations or disorder conceptualizations.

It all has to kind of, every patient is supposed to fit within that sort of. You know, kind of narrative that's been designed around the particular disease.  and it sounds like you saw all that in your experience. 

Tim Norton: I did. And if somebody, I remember a couple of times where somebody might,   present.

With suicidality and I'd have to chime in and say, look, we're not that kind of clinic. We don't, we don't treat highly suicidal people here. We're not that that's a whole system that there's a whole way of handling that. And we, you know, we, we're dealing more with,  Long-term married people in an affluent neighborhood.

And the guy had acted out four years at a time. And there was a sudden,  a [00:09:00] fare that was revealed and which is tough work in its own. Right. But it's very different than somebody who is actively suicidal. And I'm just saying like, we have to work with this first and we probably are going to have to refer this person out to somebody who's accustomed to dealing with suicidality on a regular basis.

And those kinds of things.  yeah, it's, it's tricky in those settings. And I've seen that in a couple of different,  sex addiction, focused centers. Yeah. 

Doug Braun-Harvey: You also used a word of a phrase that I really like to highlight. You use the phrase acting out. In your sentence. And I wondered about that. 

Tim Norton: Yeah, you 

Doug Braun-Harvey: may have, you may have read my work enough and Michael's, and I work at it to know that he emphasized language and we think language is very important.

And I think the language of acting out that phrase is really also comes from,  you know, disease models and mental illness models that this sort of idea that a behavior. Is representational of, you [00:10:00] know, some more deeply,  you know,  kind of underlying psychological or psychiatric conditions. And so that's just sort of acting out of an unaddressed mental illness.

And I really, I really take umbrage at the use of the word acting out when we're dealing with out of control sexual behavior.  it, I find it a kind of.  when I train therapists,  I talk about how that, that you're really avoiding detailed and specific language about a person's sexual life. So whenever I'm working with a therapist or in a case, conceptualization with somebody, and they say, well, so-and-so acted out.

I didn't want to interrupt you with your podcast, but I would normally, I would normally say, wait, wait, let's want to stop you there. What do you mean by acting out? I don't know what that word means. And oftentimes a clinician or a therapist or somebody who's talking about it, or even a client, a client's is acting out well.

What do you mean? What do you, what do you want me to know about you? That you're telling me when you say acting out and let me get an idea of what are some of the common stories. Some people say when they say acting now, one of the most common is I'm not keeping my [00:11:00] relationship agreements. I've agreed to a certain kind of boundaries or certain agreements of how we're going to conduct our sexual life in this relationship.

And I'm not doing that. I'm not keeping those agreements. And I have unilaterally changed the agreement and I've not told the person I have the agreement with that. I've unilaterally changed the agreement. Now that's a lot to say. So what people will just say, they'll say they're acting out because who wants to say all that that's painful.

That's taking a lot of responsibility for decisions that are injured and hurt people and exploit people. You know, these are hard things to say, so. Acting out is often a shortcut way for people to avoid saying detailed and specific descriptions of their behaviors that are painful and difficult to acknowledge and be accountable for.

Yeah, 

Tim Norton: that that is a painful sentence. I've I like how you said that too. I unilaterally have changed our relationship agreement [00:12:00] and not 

Doug Braun-Harvey: told you. Yeah. And I told you here's the exploitive part. I'm going to keep acting like I have kept the agreement. Yeah. Now I've called that, you know, failure to keep our sexual health relationship agreements is one of the most common,  you know, behaviors as, as to why somebody says their behavior sexually on our control.

Hmm. 

Tim Norton: What would you say is the most. Typical or what your, your, did you just stop doing private practice work? 

Doug Braun-Harvey: I'm I'm PR Tim I'm actually in December. I will be ending all of my work as a psychotherapist after 40 years of mental health work.  I ended my individual psychotherapy work a year ago, and I've been doing my groups now for 27 years, but I'll be Andy and my outpatient group leader work.

The end of December. And my work now [00:13:00] is it's about generativity training and teaching other people,  sort of returning all the knowledge I've been given and passing it on and letting other people do more with the knowledge we have and writing books. So I'm going to be teaching training, writing books,  training other therapists in how to work with sexual health and those CSP, but I'm not going to be providing direct client services anymore.

 and they actually have five weeks. Oh,  five weeks. Wow. Okay. Well,  December 17th is my last day. 

Tim Norton: Alright. And I'd want to save this for the end of the interview, but in case we get so mired in this conversation, but thank you for the work that you've done.  and that's you, you've made an incredible and really important contribution to the field.

Thank you.  yeah. So in the, in the, in the individual work and group work that you have done in these last 40 years, and once you. Kind of, I don't know, developed a reputation as the CSP guy.  what would be the more, a typical two or three [00:14:00] different case presentations that would come through your door?

Yeah, I think 

Doug Braun-Harvey: we've already covered one of them there. Somebody in a,   a coupled relationship. They have agreements as to how their, what their boundaries are within their relationship agreement. And, and I've, I've only worked with man. This is the CSB model is really specifically developed for men of all sexual orientations.

  and I'm going to say cis-gendered men, we've not had a trans,  male client who's presented for therapy. So a cisgendered men of all sexual orientations is really what we're speaking of here.  And, and, and adults 18 or older, the youngest client I ever had was 23. The oldest was 78. So, you know, quite a wide age range.

 and what we're really speaking of here is some people will just not keep their relationship agreement. That's very common.  another common one is their relationship with sexual imagery.  you know,  oftentimes,  [00:15:00] couples or individuals themselves,  have not figured out what is a relationship with sexual imagery that they can feel good about.

That they feel,  pleased with,  that is pleasurable,  and is aligned with their values,  and is something that they can speak openly about to new partners or to their current partner.  the, the, you know, masturbation and the solo sex life using imagery for arousal or desire. Orgasm or increased excitement or,  access to an unconventional turn on that you may not be experiencing in person, but is very rousing and pleasurable to look at.

 these are all reasons. People look at sexual imagery,  for their solo sex life or their partner in sex life. And th this is a very common conflict is, is the whole relationship with, with masturbation solo sex and use of sexual imagery.  and the last one. I would say, I'm going to put under the con the category, the [00:16:00] Michael Figaredo and I speak about in our book, and that's an erotic conflict that somebody has a, a turn on a sexual interest, a fetish unconventional kind of turn on something that might be stigmatized or judged.

If it were to be known that this really turns me on, or I need this particular thing in order to have an orgasm,  People have a lot of conflicts about these,  unconventional turn-ons. They may have hidden them, keep them a secret.  and I'll mention here. One other aspect of the LCSP model is,  we only work with consensual sexual behavior.

So it if I'm talking about an erotic conflict in somebody,  has minor attractions,  or somebody is exhibitionistic, a voyeuristic or fraud or derision is in other words, they. In order to gauge and have this turn on, they have to non consensually engage with another person. And that person hasn't agreed to be part of this.

Uh that's non-consent [00:17:00] and this model is not a nonconsensual model. So, so those are the three would be not keeping agreements,  one's relationship with sexual imagery and solo sex,  and having,  an unconventional or unresolved conflict about how one gets aroused erotically in a very kind of unusual way.

Tim Norton: Okay. Wonderful. So let's unpack those with not keeping the relationship agreement.  what would the, the, the spectrum look like? So the guy who had,  one long-term affair, one short term affair, and what would be on the other end of that 

Doug Braun-Harvey: split? Well, you know, I tend not to use the word affair, so here's what I would say.

A guy. Maybe had a sexual relationship with somebody else. And it was not in the agreement of the relationship. The key factor there is. Did they fall in love with that person or not?  and you know, we, I think we have to reserve a fairs for the line, which a falling in love. Then somebody actually [00:18:00] not only broke the monogamy agreement of the relationship.

They had sex with somebody other than their partner, but they also broke the emotional. Monogamy relationship agreement, which is you're not going to fall in love with somebody else. Other than me, those are two different agreements and relationships that often get merged as if they're one in the same thing.

 so,  you know, I th so I think the bigger issue. Is,  you know, if they're having sex outside of their relational agreement, are they falling in love or not? That's a big, big issue right there.   how frequently her, how often are they having,  sex with other partners that are not within the agreement?

 you know, how frequency, how frequently it is and more importantly, what are the consequences?  you know, are people losing their job? Are they going to lose the ability to raise their children? Are they going to have a divorce?  you know, are they going to,   you know, have a high [00:19:00] conflict divorce?

Are they going to pass a B, maybe have to no longer be part of their religious community?  there, there are just so many consequences that people get concerned about,  and the amount of shame and embarrassment and humiliation that might bring to them.  So I think what, what, what really separates the, the, the spectrum of that first one, the relationship agreements is not so much the behavior they're engaged in it's.

What are the consequences? How severe are the consequences?  that's usually what gets people to come in for help is they've experienced a terrible consequence, or they are really scared, a terrible consequences going to happen. And, and. It's so interesting for one person, the terrible consequence might be my partner will find out for the other person, the terrible consequences isn't that the partner will find out it's that I might not get to raise my children in an intact family.

And they're really not concerned about injuring their partner. I mean, It's hard for therapists to hear this, but they may not really care that their partners that injured, [00:20:00] they think they're going to get away with it. They just don't want to be raising their kids in a divorced family. And that's why they that's what they're worried about.

So sometimes we have to be prepared to hear a consequence from a client that in our moral system, we're going, Oh man, those are crummy morals.  but you know, that's their conflict, right? No, 

Tim Norton: that's a really good point. What I was thinking about. With regard to the other end of that spectrum is in, in the media.

When we think of this idea of a sex addict, there is, there are stories of, you know, somebody who's gone to multiple sex workers and on dating apps,  while married and, and, and, and, you know, and the other partner has an agreed to that. And just going to strip clubs all the time and, and. Clinic or your treatment facilities, would you see that kind of presentation 

Doug Braun-Harvey: as well?

Absolutely. Any of these, you know, any of these sexual activities might be part of what's happening? I think what's different in some of the particularly sex addiction [00:21:00] models. Notice how, as you described the more severity of the behavior, your focus was on the sex acts. That they were engaged in, you know, and I think in particular, many people will see the severity be about how judged those sex behaviors are, how much they're stigmatized, how much they might be morally disapproved of,  how much they might be seen, you know, in a.

In a negative light. So I think in some models, the focus of severity is actually more on how judged the behavior is. The section behavior, our model focuses on consequences, not the sexual behavior itself. Any of these sexual behaviors could have these consequences. And some may not. For example, we have men in our, in our treatment program who it's on their sexual health plan.

 that,  they're single.  and they like to have erotic feelings in their body and they might go to a,  let's [00:22:00] say,   a place where people undress and are nude for entertainment and that that's part of their pleasure in their life.  and that in they're sitting in a group with another person with that exact same activity is what's torn their life apart and destroyed it.

So it's the consequences rather than the, the, the judgment of the sex act itself, that it really differentiates the sexual health model from some of the other models. Okay. 

Tim Norton: And that, that puts it in a really good perspective for someone like me and, you know, in terms of how to approach a case. But I'm also thinking about the partner, you know, who just might get really overwhelmed by, Oh my God, you did all of those things.

And you're saying at the end of the day, really the, the consequences are going to stand out, but I've, I've met those partners who. Want to just make this who want to pathologize, who want to make it a mental condition and who want to [00:23:00] send this person somewhere and say, you know, fix this and there, nobody could do all of those things if they were quote unquote normal.

Doug Braun-Harvey:  but yeah. Yeah, I think I, you know, one of the things I've, I've, I've learned over the years, it's a crisis for somebody to. To kind of question, who am I, what does this mean about me? If I love somebody like, like you, and now I know things about you that I can't unknown and what am I doing with this? How do I understand how I feel about you?

What, what does this mean about how our relationship has been over all these years? These are enormously, and I don't mean to overdramatize this, but these are existential crises in a relationship. And these are crises that happen over the, over the course of many relationships that may not be about not keeping a sexual agreement and exploiting a partner.

But I think what you're describing most important it is hurtful is how do I [00:24:00] reconcile somebody saying they may have loved me or do love me. And they've also exploited me. Hmm. This is, this is a very difficult thing for people to understand. And it's very painful. And so. That sentence is so difficult to understand, but it's, it's, it's, it's,  appealing to see it as a disease.

There's, there's something soothing about, there's something hopeful about seeing it as a disease rather than we have to talk about the fact, but you have explained it to me and I have been exploited by you. Where do we have conversations like that?

And it, 

Tim Norton: would you use the word traumatizing 

Doug Braun-Harvey: if the client needs to use that word? We have to assess it. I think we move a little fast. If we put that narrative on that experience [00:25:00] as a generalized story for clients. You know, we know from the child sexual abuse field, we know people who've engaged in non-con.

Who've been the target of non-consensual sex as minors. That some people that's an enormously, terribly traumatizing experience. And for other people, it is not a traumatizing experience. But they've had the same human experience and I'm very concerned about models that impose those narratives of trauma,  without a good assessment of trauma, you know, w what I, what I think is the word that I hear missing too often is hurt.

Hmm, this is what some people look like when they've been terribly hurt or in shock, or are,  you know, again, existentially they're completely disoriented, right. You know, [00:26:00] you know, you know, those are real time experiences for some people. Those experiences may activate historical trauma. And it may, and this experience may actually maybe be a trauma for them.

It may be the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to them in their lives. But we w I think the dilemma is we, we place this narrative in a general way to describe the experience of two people in a relationship where exploitation has been a solution to a problem, and it's injured somebody deeply.

Yeah, 

Tim Norton: I really appreciate you saying that,  regarding the assessment of trauma. And so maybe for the listeners who don't know how to assess for trauma, could you, could you highlight a couple of trauma symptoms that you'd like to see before actually, you know, using that word? Well, you 

Doug Braun-Harvey: know, you know, I can speak to this for many years of working with men with those CSB who have their own trauma histories, right.

I'm not going to [00:27:00] speak to the partners because I'm not treated the partners, but you know, trauma is when you have. Intrusive thoughts about past experiences in your current everyday life, that something something has happened in, in your environment something's happened in your own emotional state something's happening in your relational experience, where all of a sudden your body biophysiological is having an experience that is in some way, a component of some historical event that was highly traumatic.

You know, somebody might have a body memory that was, that had to do when they were, you know, physically assaulted and beaten on a street, you know, and, and, and, and they're sitting in a group talking about something and all of a sudden, they're, they're flooded with a memory of that. And their body's actually having sensations that are similar to that expense.

And it's terrifying for them because they don't, they don't know how to understand this. How can I be feeling this way? City here. And if they don't know that that's a trauma recall experience, they're going to think something in the room is [00:28:00] highly dangerous and this attribute what's going on and get terrified that somehow they're in danger.

Yeah. 

Tim Norton: Okay. Perfect. And that's, that's such an important point. I mean, not that you know, I don't want to get into semantics when, you know, people use words differently than clinicians do, but it, it, it can be hyper pathologizing if somebody is not dissociating or having flashbacks or nightmares and things like that, like they, like you said, there was a ton of it.

Doug Braun-Harvey: Yes. Yes. Pain. They're having pain. They're remembering something painful. When we remember something painful, that's not trauma. That's remembering pain. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't mean to minimize people who experienced trauma, but I also don't want to dilute the intensity of people who do experience trauma by, by overgeneralizing that word to people who are in a different spectrum of pain than trauma.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Tim Norton: And so [00:29:00] just to clarify before, I want to, I want to get into the, the imagery stuff, but I also just want this to be clear to the listeners that you know, everything that you talked about with the, the, the man who's not keeping.  his relationship agreement. It's w regardless of the details of that, regardless, even of the consequences of that, there's not, I don't want to think that there's somebody out here you're saying, well, that doesn't really apply to me.

No, I'm just an addict. Like you're talking about this and an all encompassing way that this is, there's not somebody, there's not some level of pathology that somebody gets to where, where you're calling them a sex addict ever 

Doug Braun-Harvey: me. Yeah, well, we don't have any science yet that establishes a kind of clear, agreed upon consensus, among many different people who understand this behavior.

We have no [00:30:00] agreement as to when this might be actually a disease or a disorder. I mean, there are people who believe it is. There are people who treat it as it's a disorder, but we still have no agreement,  as a mental health field to say, here's this here's the standards. Here's where you cross a threshold.

Here's where you've now really in the arrange of having a disease. Each attempt to do that,  in the psychiatric manual,  has been now eventually completely rejected. It's just been rejected because the science isn't there. Now we have the international diagnostic manual, which is called the ICD it's the international classification of diseases.

It's actually what every other country in the world uses to classify their diseases except the United States for their psychiatric diseases.  and that has just now come out with an actual disease idea. Of compulsive sexual behavior is what they call it, compulsive sexual behavior. And they [00:31:00] think it's a part of people who have impulse control problems.

There's a psychiatric disorder classification called impulse control disorders.  and,  they think some people might have compulsive sexual behavior who have difficulty controlling their impulses,  in, in, and the difficulty is reflected in their sexual behavior parents. Now, this is an idea it's in the classification.

We don't have it. Studies, we don't have anything. They actually say, yep, we've now studied this. And we've determined. There is a condition called compulsive sexual behavior, but the reason they included it in the classification was let's check it out. Let's, let's call it what it is. Describe what we think it is.

And now let's do some research to see if there's anything to support it. So that that's the closest thing we have. 

Tim Norton: Okay. And the distinctions, I suppose, have to do with, you know, when we're talking about,  drug addiction, when we're talking about withdrawal and we're talking about [00:32:00] tolerance and we're talking about consequences and all that good stuff.

So, and when you say the research hasn't been. Great on that, that it's, it's really hard for them to establish an actual physical withdrawal like you would get from a hair. Well, the, the 

Doug Braun-Harvey: sex addiction field has moved away from tolerance and withdrawal as their defining characteristic for the disease.

They've really put much more emphasis as well as many other, you know, addictive disorders have on the brain.  component of a deduct disorder and looking at changes in brain functioning and neuro-biological changes in the brain. We've looked at this with drugs, of course, and the changes in brain with different drugs, you put in your body how to fix the brain.

But this is a very important area of study.  and those brain studies, neurobiology and key neuro-biological studies,  neuropsychiatric and psychological studies around how the brain functions in the state. Of different aspects of sexual arousal and changes in the way the [00:33:00] brain functions in sexual arousal based on a kind of addictive process developing is really what the sex addiction field is invested a great deal in.

Now the dilemma with as most of the studies that I, and this is a perspective, I find credible as a critique. Is most of the studies that have been done, the FMR eye and the brain imaging studies on how the brain functions in States of sexual arousal,    have been done primarily by people looking at sexual imagery on a computer, you know, these sorts of situations, and then measuring the brains of people who.

Identify as sex addicts and measuring the brains of people who don't identify as sex addicts and see if their brains are wired differently. Based on the fact that they've now entered into an addictive process, that's the idea. And they have seen some differences and based on where the brains light up, however,  none of these studies have been done while people are having sex.

Right. So [00:34:00] the dilemma with all of these studies is it's based on how the brain functions while having sexual imagery or sexual activity being activated by viewing. But we know the brain functions enormously differently while we're having sex. We don't have any measurements of what somebody who's been diagnosed with sex addiction, what their brain looks like while they're having sex.

Yeah, 

Tim Norton: no. I had a Dr. Nicole Prouse on this show,  some months ago and she was very eloquent about that point and speaking from experience cause she actually does do research with people. It's it? 

Doug Braun-Harvey: It's Dr. Process research that I really rely on to make that statement. And I was going to say her name in a minute.

So thank you for saying that because it is Dr. Price who has taught me,  through her studies that, you know, we have to really look at the science. Yeah. And I'll just say one more thing about FMI studies. FMRI studies are where you look at the brain and where it lights up in these, in these [00:35:00] kinds of the technology, Rory Reed, who's a brain neuro-psych researcher as well told me this story, where they were doing some FMRI studies on fish.

And they were seeing if fish's brains lit up differently under these FMR machines, if they showed the fish different colors, so they would show Brad or Baloo and see if the brains lit up differently. And they did. But here's the most important thing about that study? All of the fish in the study were dead.

Oh my God. Now think about that. All of the fish were dead, but they did get some dip. Maybe get reactions on the machine. Huh? What this teaches us is the machines are not infallible. We think when we do research with machines, that the machine is so infallible, the only reason for any data to be a significance is the human subject that's being measured.

We have to remind ourselves these machines have their own fallibility. And so it's an interaction of the [00:36:00] technology limitation and the limitations of the scientific design that I think leads to some of these conclusions that I think are inaccurate. 

Tim Norton: Yeah, then I don't know if I've ever soap boxed about this on this podcast. I could probably fill an hour with the very large conclusions that a lot of people draw from those, those FMRI studies and, and. They're they're very compelling and you know, and I, I love, I would love it if the sex addiction camp would speak in those terms, like there's some compelling information that we've found where there's some similarities between these two brains, we're still going to research it.

We still I'd like to see a thousand subjects in just one of these studies. I'd like to see, like you're saying people while they're having sex, they that's really hard research to get funded. By the way, Dr. 

Doug Braun-Harvey: He probably told you on her program that she had to leave the campus. Have you sail to conductor studies because the university was uncomfortable with people in research labs, on campus, having [00:37:00] sexual activity and orgasm.

Totally. 

Tim Norton: Totally. So there are only a handful of places around the world that are doing that kind of research on a regular basis and incredible basis. So we're a long way from speaking definitively about that. Right. And while there. At the same time you speak, you spoke earlier about the hope that people receive when, when they, they, they have this medical diagnosis or a disease disease diagnosis.

And then there are places that will charge you $30,000 a month, based on that hope that you have telling you they're going to cure this. Yeah. Well, that's another 

Doug Braun-Harvey: thing they're going to cure, but they certainly saying they can help you and they can give you hope. But I, you know, I. I think we have to bring this to a human level.

All of us go to the doctor when we're, when something's wrong. And we want them to tell us what's wrong, right? I mean, that's human, right? This is, this is just something we want. And so to [00:38:00] have the kind of. Pain and, and, and, and fear and shame and,  threat of all sorts of consequences in front of you. And you walk into an office with somebody who's going to help you understand this sexual behavior.

It's enormously relieving to be told you have a disease. And here's exactly what we're going to do. Whether it's, whether it's a useful or accurate or pertinent to that client, clients feel relieved when a medical practitioner is sitting across from them, says, this is the story. And we've got an answer.

Damn. But 

Tim Norton: I've, I've seen this process on you. You have to, I'm sure at still there's two things happening there. There's one, there's the doctor. Who'd probably get sick of saying, I really don't know what to do with this. And once he starts saying, and you're a sex addict, you're a sex addict, sex addict. He gets [00:39:00] rewarder.

She gets rewarded for. For saying that and gets a thriving practice as a result. But two, I've seen that couple experience that relief and no, thank God. It's just this he's, he's got the sex addiction thing and we're going to go, we're going to, and you've got the answers 

Doug Braun-Harvey: for us. You've got tasks to do.

You've got a sequence of things to do. You've got people we're going to meet. Who've done the same thing. This is enormously hopeful for people who are scared and have no idea what's going to happen. Right. 

Tim Norton: And then. 30 days later, 45 days later, he gets out. And what he really has is narcissistic personality disorder.

And he has, you know, he's, he's using maybe he's just doing all kinds of things and 

Doug Braun-Harvey: that could take years, you know, 

Tim Norton: but not a lot of people will say, there's nothing you can do about that. And he's just spent a month and a half meditating and going to groups and doing all these things and in a really lovely place, but he could be years from being even slightly different.

And [00:40:00] if ever, and there's such a, almost like another level of hurt for the partner in that situation, he was like, what did we just do? You know, what did we just pay all of this money for? He's the same guy. He's actually a little worse now he's the same guy, but he has a narrative explaining. All of the things that, you know, the reasons why he's doing things and he's blaming me for stuff.

 yeah. And that that's been, that was, that was eventually what chased me away from that was just watching that several 

Doug Braun-Harvey: times in our model for treating out of control sexual behavior. We see the out of control sexual behavior as a problem, not a disorder, but that doesn't mean we're not assessing and looking at real diagnosable conditions that might contribute or actually explain why they're feeling sexually out of control.

For some of the people we look at, are they in a situation of fit they're not safe, there's violence or lack of safety in their home, or you mentioned earlier another, another aspect of physical safety. That [00:41:00] makes,  sexual behavior possibly feel less regulated or not a control is somebody who might be suicidal.

That's another form of violence, you know?  you know, I, I, I, I approach life that I could eventually just end my life as a, as a treatment plan for the distress in my life. You know, that that's, that may impact or impair somebody's motivation to change, or it may regulate their sexual behavior more effectively because they hold out the idea.

I can just end my life as things get too bad. But for some people that have medical conditions, I mean, we, there's lots of research out there that shows real medical illnesses and conditions that you are medications can cause hypersexual behavior or certain psychiatric,  medical conditions, Parkinson's disease, other things.

These actually have hypersexual disorder things. So you have to look for. Are there medical conditions that could explain this,   and then, and then we also have to look at,  medical conditions related to sexual functioning. Might somebody have an unaddressed erectile dysfunction or orgasm difficulties or, you know, or maybe they're, again, maybe you have a conflict about who they are sexually [00:42:00] and they don't, they're alone with this.

Men, oftentimes they're isolated alone with these problems. They come up with these treatment plans all on their own. And so what looks like out of control sexual behavior actually is some sort of an attempt to address a medical or physical condition related to their sexual lives.  and, and,  it's not a great treatment plan, but if they're trying to do something about it, Many people as you've alluded to have mental mental illnesses,  they may, you know, have you mentioned bipolar disorder, they might have personality disorders that might have depression, anxiety disorders, ADHD.

They might have PTSD.  there's there's so many range of the kinds of mental health issues that could be in the office when they're walking in. But yes, there are sexual behaviors out of control, but they might have an,  not significantly a well-treated enough anxiety disorder conditions. It's just not being treated well enough.

Or they've never been diagnosed for depression and they've been living with kind of, you know, depression their whole life, and it's never really been identified. And the last area we look at is their relationship [00:43:00] with drugs and alcohol, a significant number of people who have sexual dysregulation feel out of control sexually in their wives.

There. Using substances in a dependent and out of control manner, they might, they may have alcoholism that's so out of control,  you know, that there's really no hope for regulating the sexual behavior until they treat their alcoholism. A subset of men who have sex with men.  is a, is a it's called chem-sex.

This is really term. We came out of the United Kingdom, but there's a certain series of drugs on GBA, GHB, and, and other kinds of club drugs that people use. Men who have sex with men will gather together in large group settings, either in homes or in sexual venues and use these drugs have prolonged sexual experiences sometimes for days at a time.

And that's called cam sex. And so some men might who have chem sex patterns. I think that, you know, they have out of control sexual behavior or sex addiction and, and it's really this interesting Kim sex issue. So, you know, [00:44:00] all have to be looked at before you even begin to think, Oh gosh, maybe they have out of control sexual behavior.

We gotta, we gotta figure this out first to make sure we're not jumping to conclusions. Or as I like to say that our field suffers from premature evaluation. And there's help for them. 

Tim Norton: Yeah, that's really well put it is a premature evaluation and when you're kind of looking for. Yeah. The, the thing that we've been talking about this whole time, then a lot of that gets missed.

Doug Braun-Harvey: I think the idea you're talking about, and there's research for this, this is where this is a real human behavior. You're talking about confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when somebody has a particular idea of something and how they understand things to be, or they need to see or want to see a particular way.

But. They, the human brain will do this. They'll filter out information, then it contradicts,  the, the idea they, they, they think explains the situation.  this is true for, this is just a [00:45:00] human behavior. Yeah. And so the LCSP model as Michael and I, but when you have a sexual behavior, that is so little understood.

There's no consensus about exactly what exactly the nature of this is, how to best treat it. It's something we know very little about. You know, the mental health field has a terrible track record of doing well in those situations. They've they've they thought they understood something only to 20 years later have to say, no, that's not the case.

We were wrong. So.  the LCSP model is based on the ethical principle of protecting the client as best we can from us. That we need to be trying to not, you know, prematurely place ideas or narratives on,  within a client's situation of having out of control sexual behavior,   in a way that,  doesn't really, really slowly and carefully help the client understand their situation and their [00:46:00] individual situation without applying a broad brush generalization to their situation that may.

Actually be inaccurate and could actually be even harmful. And that's 

Tim Norton: so important when we're dealing with 

Doug Braun-Harvey: sex. 

Tim Norton: Yes. There's such a tendency to stigmatize, as you've mentioned earlier as stigmatized sex and so many different aspects of culture and life and society, and to down to governmental policy,  that if you tell somebody they have a thing, their sexuality may never recover.

Or may, maybe really detrimentally effective for decades. Yes. 

Doug Braun-Harvey: Yes. The, these, these ideas of a, of a diagnostic, you know, kind of label for one sexual behavior sexual activity,  is, it needs to be thought of very carefully. And so if, if at some point [00:47:00] the science actually does come through and we have a consensus yet there is a disorder, there is a disease of some factor of how to control or, you know, set.

We're going to call it dysregulate sexual behavior. There actually comes into great, but there's still going to be many people. Who do not meet that diagnostic threshold who are going to have problems with feeling out of control, not everybody who has that is going to have the disease. So our model can still help the people who don't cross that diagnostic threshold.

And they, and we are this, this sexual health model can be quite useful for them. Even if a disease gets established. 

Tim Norton: Let's shift over to the second kind of client that you said would,  come into the practice a lot at the one who's really struggling with his relationship. Yes. Sexual imagery. Yes. Sexual imagery in, and some people might.

Call that a porn addiction, 

Doug Braun-Harvey: actually 99% of the people at 0.9% of the people in the world call that porn. [00:48:00] You know, you know, I th my, our sexual health languages, we use the word sexual imagery. We describe what the media is without trying to use a pejorative or judgemental language pornography is, is not,  it really has a pejorative history to it, a judgment.

Yeah. 

Tim Norton: So tell me about working with this population. So these, when they're coming into for treatment, is it more often that it's somebody who's just worried about. His relationship to it while he's not in a relationship or is it was most of your clients actually, their partner was taking issue with what they were doing or is it a little bit 

Doug Braun-Harvey: of both?

You know, I think there's three circumstances that come to mind. One is somebody who has recently lost a relationship that they hold held. Dear. There's been a real loss,  as a re  in, in their, in their understanding of that [00:49:00] relationship ended, they lost that relationship, having something to do with their masturbation life and sexual imagery, whatever it may be.

Again, some people are single, not in a current relationship, and they're concerned that their relationship with sexual imagery is, is so out of control or is so worrisome to them. That they believe it's actually interfering with finding loss and that they believe that that they're actually going to not find a love in their lives.

They're not going to find a part or there they're, there they're dooming themselves because of their relationship with sexual imagery. Some people are very concerned about that.  and then other people are very concerned,  about,  the secretive sexual life they have with imagery,  within their partner relationship.

It's either been discovered or it's been discovered many times and they've made promises and there's, you know, to change. And those changes haven't happened.  you know, th th th those are the three most common [00:50:00] relationships with sexual imagery. Some people come in, you know, and they're, they're conflict with sexual imagery.

They could be in any of those situations, single partner, whatever.  and they're very disturbed about the images they're looking at. Hmm. You know, th th th it's like, I can't believe this turns me on, Oh my God. I, you know, they're, they're, they're just like, they're just mortified or they're thrilled that it turns them on.

They love it. And somebody else hates them because it turns them off. Or is disgusted by them because it turns them off or, you know, thinks they're perverted. I hate to use that word, but that's an allegation that'll be used.  you know, so you know that those are big deals and they, and they all come in and say, I have a sex addiction.

Right. They all say 

Tim Norton: that. Yeah. Which is,  do you have just [00:51:00] recordings that you refer that you must, must've gotten sick of having to explain that? 

Doug Braun-Harvey: No, I don't get sick of explaining it because I don't want to take this away from people for their use of the word sex addiction. First of all, that's what the culture has given them.

That is the language they know.  and then quite frankly, that phrase might be what gives them hope. You know, so I, you know, I, it doesn't bother me that a client uses that language as, you know, as part of their early relationship formation with me.  they're just not going to hear me say it.  you know, so, you know, I, I, it's really important.

You don't want to take hope away from people and, and, and certain words and certain times, so,  you know, I think there's an interesting. You know, kind of responsibility of, even if you, you know, don't think that language is accurate because this is a human behavior. We know so little about, I can't just say absolutely that that's not true.

That doesn't exist.  you [00:52:00] know, there are, cause there are heat. They could walk right down the street and meet another professional who says right on that's exactly what you have. So, you know, I can't like just hold it like with other diseases, we have agreement to what they are. And so somebody uses the word and it's inaccurate.

They could probably go to 10 other people. And they'd all say the same thing. It's not an accurate word. So we, we have to be careful with this languaging of this in our offices.  letting people come at their own pace and coming to terms with. You know, when they're exposed and learn about the sexual health model, how they eventually might possibly begin to think about different language.

Hmm. I don't think it's an emergency because somebody uses that word in my office. Yeah, no, definitely 

Tim Norton: not.  W we've kind of started to, to wander into this area to a couple of different points. This is a podcast about erectile issues. So let's just segue from what you were just talking about there, of those three typical kinds of [00:53:00] presentations.

You didn't mention the guy who comes in because all the sexual imagery that he was taking in had led to an erectile malfunctioning. 

Doug Braun-Harvey: It happens.  in other words, what I mean by it happens is people say, this is their story. That's what happens.  you know,  again, this is premature evaluation. Somebody is having difficulty with their erectile functioning and they have come to the conclusion that it's correlated or completely linked with the fact of their relationship with sexual imagery and their masturbation practices.

 the science is beginning to reveal. There's many explanations for this.   one of the least likely explanations is that they have a biophysiological erectile dysfunction that can be measured.  I did have a couple of clients that however, who came in and said I was a porn addict.  and what the situation was is they actually [00:54:00] had low blood flow.

To their penis, which was a biological condition from birth.  and they had adapted to looking at sexual imagery as a way to kind of as their own kind of erectile therapy, thinking that if they masturbated,  they could. You know, gauge their penile tumescence, or they could gain confidence in how they could have orgasms while masturbating.

So they might have more confidence during partnered sex,  you know, all of this, but they, but they began to somehow think that their erectile difficulty was because of watching sexual imagery when actually their use of sexual imagery. What's that such high frequency, because they had an existing erectile dysfunction that was biophysiological caused, right?

Yeah. So it was, the imagery had nothing to do with it. Yeah. So there's a lot of thinking anger's here. Another,   porn addiction,   kind of narrative will be that somebody has a very [00:55:00] unconventional turnout.  and the only way they see it as can turn on is through going to,  imagery online. Let's say they,  you know, they like,   they, they like,  somebody being tied up and being restrained and they imagine they're the person being restrained when we're watching this.

And that fantasy state is very highly arousing for them. And they learned that this is actually their most preferred way to have. You know,  highly pleasurable, you know,  you know, sexual fantasy and arousal and body sensations that gives them the most pleasurable orgasms. And then they're in the middle of partner and sex and they th this fantasy isn't accessible to them.

They can't have the body experience of restraint because they're in the middle of having a partner in sexual activity. And so they've been, they've learned, this is such an important arousal, and it's a secret to their partner by the way.  and all of these things are inhibitors that get in the way of sexual excitement.

And so th these inhibitors are now [00:56:00] interfering with their ability to be excited.  and so they're not sexually functioning as well, and the client will make the connection. Oh, this is because I'm looking at imagery. When actually they have a conflict about what turns them on, where do men learn? How to say I have an erotic conflict, what a men learn to say?

There's something that turns me on that I feel so ashamed of. And I, if I think about it while I'm in the middle of the partner and sex, I feel ashamed of it because I'm not present with my partner. And then I lose my erection.  and then my partner knows I just masturbated two days ago. And so it was all of us to be because you're masturbating too much.

And that's the story in the couple. Because the erotic interest can't be discussed. It's too shameful. It's too painful. So the porn addiction is the better story because then you don't have to disclose your erotic conflict. 

Tim Norton: Right? No. I love that. Where do men learn that they have an erotic conflict? What are they learning?

Doug Braun-Harvey: That's right. Where do they learn to say it? And I can tell you in, in, this is one of the criticisms I have of many of the [00:57:00] treatment approaches, notch, the sex addiction, many of the treatment approaches for this behavior.  don't have really thorough and really slow methodical ways of helping men begin to  identify an erotic conflict that they have.  without that orotic interest being seen as something wrong with them. As I like to say to the men, we work with no erotic ectomies here. We're not going to remove what erotically arouses you. That is not the point of this therapy. We're going to try to help you enjoy that erotic arousal as much as it's designed for pleasure for you.

And. Keep your relationship agreements and not violate basic fundamental ideas of sexual health. There's a way to do that. Okay. 

Tim Norton: So. What about, I think the, one of the more common tropes though is [00:58:00] so that the competition, right? So guys, and 15 year marriage, two kids, and now he's watching a couple hours of porn a night after his wife goes to sleep and he's, you know, watching college gang bangs and, and you know, his wife is not 30.

College students every night, right in that comparison. And I think our, our culture says, well, like she can't compete with that. He's desensitizing himself. To, you know, being able to be turned on and then she'll never be able to turn them on again, 

Doug Braun-Harvey: there's about five different sexual narratives in that one situation that could all be part of it.

Right, right, right. But the easiest story is all of the problems this couple is having in their sexual life is because he looks at this imagery. That's the dilemma with that story. There's so many possibilities there. The biggest word that comes to my mind [00:59:00] in that story is avoidance. This is a couple who, you know, and, you know, for all sorts of reasons, they're, they, they they're busy raising kids.

I mean, who knows? There's so many things going on. I don't know what all those circumstances are, but I know that one of the most common approaches to sexual concerns in couples is they avoid them. They don't who teaches couples, how to talk about their sexual lives with each other. I mean, I ask people when they come in, what's your masturbation agreement in your relationship?

And it's like, what is that know? They don't even know what that is. He's like, what do you mean? We don't even, they wouldn't even know each other, man. They don't even know if each other masturbates no less than what their agreement is. Right? So the dilemma with all of these avoided problems in couples around their sexual lives is they get avoided until somebody hurt.

 And that's the dilemma, the injury carries too much weight [01:00:00] for understanding the big problem. You know, that there's a couple of you described that that's a 10 year arc 2015 year. I don't know what it is, but there's a whole lot of things that could have contributed to the situation they find themselves in the sexual imagery is the easiest target.

well in her book,    the state of affairs,  and mating in captivity, both,  talks about when couples lose desire,  for each other. And they've got a Arctic vitality of couples.  it, it, you know, there's a lot of reasons why, if I were erotic, vitality can be lost in couples. And then sometimes the masturbation monies is the way a person is.

Keeping alive their erotic cell, because there's no other place for it to be on life support. Now, are we going to call that a disease or are we going to call that [01:01:00] lifesaving techniques? It's all about perspective. Yeah, no, it really is. Really is, but notice how, what I'm saying is this is hard work. This is difficult work to explore and figure out why this couple is in this situation.

Whereas the porn addiction story creates a ready-made narrative that doesn't require the kind of in-depth individualized, painful exploration of two people looking at each other and trying to figure out how we got here.

And that's, 

Tim Norton: that's very daunting. It 

Doug Braun-Harvey: is. So, you know, gimme porn addiction. All right, here we go. Yeah. Go 

Tim Norton: and stop watching this for 30 days. Join, join the no-fat movement. How do you feel about those guys? The a no fat burners and the, this is your brain on porn and all these 

Doug Braun-Harvey: things. So you've got to remember, there are [01:02:00] these sorts of ideas about sex thrive in every culture.

Hmm. You know, where eliminating certain sexual behavior is the solution to complicated conditions and situations. You know, what draws somebody to those particular interventions? What draws somebody to go to a site where you learn how to stop masturbating the motives for that can be very many and very wide.

You know, I, I wanna, I want to remind viewers that there was a time in our country. When people who had same-sex attractions,  the mental health field provided a therapy that said we could make that go away. And people came to those therapy services in droves. We live in a culture that as long as somebody offers a viable solution to sever.

An erotic interest. They'll always be a commodity of people who find that very appealing. So I have no, I don't begrudge [01:03:00] those resources. They've always been there. The mental health field for crying out loud, licensed mental health professionals in this country 40 years ago were pretty much offering the same thing.

So I w who are we to cast stones? It's, it's just that they'll always be a group of people who want this solution. Yeah, 

Tim Norton: who, who, the first thing they want to point to is it's, it's the sex 

Doug Braun-Harvey: in a, in a, in a Puritan culture, which we are, it comes from our very origins,  that, you know, in our culture,  being uncomfortable with sex,  is,  a very powerful position to be in.

You know, when you're comfortable with sex, you don't have, you don't have power in our culture. The people of the power who are walking the room and say, that makes me uncomfortable. Stop it. They have the power, the people adjust to the people who are uncomfortable about sex

[01:04:00] yeah. And this happens in families and couples. If, if one person or a couple says that's disgusting, that makes me uncomfortable. I don't want that. They assume the rest of the system will adjust to them because their discomfort should be the power. They're discussed should hold forth. Right. And 

Tim Norton: were pushing back on that a little bit.

Doug Braun-Harvey: That that is that's the ebb and flow, right? That's the ebb and flow. And it's always been in all cultures and over history. We can go back through history and see, there were times this tension always exists and it ebbs and flows. It ebbs and flows in couples and ebbs and flows and cultures and ebbs and flows and families and it, and flows over time.

And so we just have to kind of put this into perspective. I 

Tim Norton: don't know if it's just because of the world that I'm in and being around sex therapists in, on, you know, seeing your emails in a, a list serve and things like that. But [01:05:00] I do feel like we're in a, a bit of a sexual explosion right 

Doug Braun-Harvey: now.  I think for me, the number one impact on the sexual lives of everybody on the planet is the internet available by a cell phone.

Hmm, these are sexual toys that we get walk around within our pocket, 24 seven, the, the access to talking about sex in privacy with other people, the access to seeing sexual imagery and sexual activity is, is. Is is literally never been unprecedented in history of the hue of humankind.  and so, you know, I like to remind people that the, when the automobile was invented, we didn't realize we had to teach people how to drive automobiles and give them licenses until the automobile had been around 30 [01:06:00] years and people were dying in car accidents everywhere.

It's so many figured out, well, maybe we better issue driver's licenses. So we have to respect that the internet and the access to these kinds of sexual imagery is very new, very new for people to understand. And so we don't have cultural norms. We don't have you, you know, established ways of relating to this as far as sexual imagery.

And so we, we, we gotta be careful to call people who don't know how to use this as well. As the ones with the problem, you know, there's a time of an adjustment. It takes a huge amount of adjustment for these kinds of changes that only happen every now and then. And then of course the history and we're in one of them right now, right now.

Tim Norton: Yeah. Now that I love that analogy. We have to teach people to drive. I actually recently did some work with PornHub and I feel very strongly about that. Like, because [01:07:00] they have such a presence that at some level we're going to have to take a real strong look at. You know, putting out sex positive instructional porn that might be seen by a lot of people that, you know, are, are watching porn and accessing porn otherwise.

Doug Braun-Harvey: Well, there's a, there's a, there's a movement that's just beginning,  to, to even be able to be spoken just even to be said and it's, and it's called porn literacy and, and that's the phrase that is being used in the, in the, in the sex ed field.   because it's a way for people to understand they're talking about, so you have to say the word porn, just like you have to say the word sex addiction.

So people know what we're talking about. So porn literacy, you know, that, you know, just like driver's license,  you know,  you know, it, it takes a while for people to understand that this is actually not a restriction on Liberty. This is not a restraint of, of [01:08:00] expression.  th this is actually a responsible thing to do with something that has major consequences when you don't have literacy on how to use it.

Right. If 

Tim Norton: we don't offer. Porn literacy courses, it would be like, well, let's put somebody in a car without taking drivers. 

Doug Braun-Harvey: Yeah. And we did that for 30 years, by the way. So it's not like we haven't really, we did not have driver's licenses for 30 years after the car was invented. The first driver's license was issued in Pennsylvania in the late 1920s.

God. Right. So cars were around for almost 30 years.

Human to, Hey, this is what human behaviors like we have to, we have to go back to history and, and get comforted by looking at history that this is just another re you know, another cycle of the same human response to significant change. Hmm. We [01:09:00] didn't, we did like people who got into car accidents, diseased.

You've got a mental illness. You got into three car accidents in the last five years. This was 1920. Hmm. Hmm. Well, that's, 

Tim Norton: that's a hopeful point. That, that was one of the last things I wanted to talk about was I didn't mean for me or us to, you know, by challenging. The sex addiction model to say that this is hopeless.

And I was hoping that you could close with, because you've worked with also with addiction, you've worked with and alcohol treatment and drugs, where there would be sexual acting out in conjunction. Can you say that differently? 

Doug Braun-Harvey: Then sexually, I want, I'm going to channel, you can tell me what, tell me what you're saying.

Tim Norton: I would be saying there would be the sexual breaking of agreements and there would be,  erotic conflicts that happened,  while in conjunction with. Taking more [01:10:00] drugs and alcohol than they had wanted to, to your point on. And I am a big fan of looking at language and I appreciate the correction. What was your question?

I 

Doug Braun-Harvey: interrupted you. Could you say so, so 

Tim Norton: the hope for the OCS B client who actually does reach that diagnosis, who might be in, you know, and also,  struggling with just impulsivity or out of control,  Behavior in life. Like what is, what 

Doug Braun-Harvey: is the, I think, I think the first thing is is you, you need to figure out who you want to talk to about it.

If there's something you've heard me say here on this podcast that sort of excites you and interests. You see, if you can find a therapist who works with,  sexual dysregulation, that's the general term I use,  from an OCM,  you know, from a sexual health perspectives. Sees it as a problem might consider it as an out of control sexual behavior, not a disease or disorder, [01:11:00] if that's important to you, if that seems like a source of hope for you, there are people that you can find in perhaps in your region.

 there not as many of them, but you might find some people who are at least willing to work or learn or have been trained in this method. If you've listened to this podcast, And I sound like a quack,  and that this is dangerous talk and that, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna endanger people's lives by not calling them a sex addict.

 the, you know, that you're a fool,  then you need to call a sex addiction therapist because that's where you're going to find help.  and, and as you, as you said, sometimes you'll find people who started at the sex addiction. Stage and found themselves in your office because for whatever reason, the hope wasn't there for them anymore in the sex addiction model, but who knows, maybe they need to just start there to get where they are now.

I don't know, but I'm, I'm more interested in [01:12:00] empowering clients, empowering people to, to walk in a door where they think they're going to find hope. And the problem was there was only a one door. Primarily, and that was sex addiction. And I'm just interested in offering more doors and ours is a sexual health floor.

Tim Norton: And you could say with confidence to that person who comes in and says, I'm worried, I'm never going to have a, you know, they'll say healthy, I'm never going to have a healthy or a normal sex life ever again. And you could say what to them, 

Doug Braun-Harvey: why did you come up with that idea? This is what I'd say to them.

How did you decide this? W where did, where did you come up with that idea? This is their idea, and I'd help them figure out where it came from. Hmm. I'm not going to give them some glib answer that Sue's their fear. I don't even, I don't know enough about them. Maybe that's an accurate assessment. I don't know.

I have no idea. [01:13:00] I got to get curious. 

Tim Norton: Yeah. Okay. Very well said. All right, Doug. Well, do you feel like there was anything else that you wanted to cover in 

Doug Braun-Harvey: this? Well, I, I guess I just want to say to you, Tim, the conversation we've had today is a little different than the conversations I've had with other people in some of the media work I've done because of your experience.

I really, I just want to applaud you for having, you had your feet in several pools. Of sexual behavior concerns and that that's, you know, I just want to applaud you for that journey because that's not an easy journey for clinicians to do.  and I'm just heartening to talk to you. And the questions you've asked, show me that you have a lot of experience in this area, this, that you really, I talked to other media people and they conceptually understand these ideas.

But it's real, it, it shows in your questions that you sat in the rooms with, with these various ways of working with this population and [01:14:00] it made for a richer conversation. So thank you for that. 

Tim Norton: Oh, absolutely. I really appreciate that. You know, that, that, that this, this is what we love. This is what we do. And this is what you have loved and done. You're you're at a, you know, this is a big changing year for you, so you are going to, you're still going to work, but you're just going to focus on training, training, teaching, and writing. Okay. Training teaching 

Doug Braun-Harvey: writing. And my clients know about this decision.

My clients know my motivation for this decision. And so I can, I can say this to you on this program and it's not anything I haven't also said to the people who I'm saying goodbye to. 

Well, I can tell from your eloquence and insight and experience that you're a wonderful trainer and I I'm really glad that you're going to continue to do this work.

Tim Norton:  where can people find you?  the website for the company?

Doug Braun-Harvey: My husband and I co founded in 2013 called the Harvey [01:15:00] Institute. It starts with the, the Harvey institute.com and then you'll find all the information about. The services of education, training consulting,  and all of the books, the three books that I've written, journal articles,  media,    interviews,  a variety of resources,  and then full information about the sexual health model here that we've spoken about today.

Tim Norton: Okay, well, fantastic. Well, thanks so much for this, Doug. This was a wonderful, I, you know, when we spoke originally, I, I think we could tell, like this would be a good conversation and I'm glad that we're offering that perspective out for, for other people. And thank you so much for your work 

Doug Braun-Harvey: and your work.

Thanks Tim. It was great to be here and, and you were a good sport. Thank you. 

Tim Norton: Thanks to all my friends and family for brainstorming this show with me. Shout outs to the sex positive community, including sex educators, sex therapists, sex coaches, and other fellow sex, podcasters, sex surrogates, academics, sexual health, medical community, sex workers, the tantric community, and everybody else involved with having hard [01:17:00] conversations. Bye-bye.