Dr. Kayte Seuss and Susan Bratton, hot sex advisor to millions, talk primarily about libido and sexual vitality on Kayte’s show Mind Body Spirit. Susan speaks about the motivation that led her to become a sexual expert. She also delves deeper into the testosterone-estrogen dynamics in a relationship and how to make the two work together.
Mind Body Spirit with Dr. Kayte Seuss & Susan Bratton
[Kayte] Welcome to another episode of Mind Body Spirit. I’m Dr. Kayte, and today’s guest is a trusted hot sex adviser to millions of people. She is an aspiring woman here today to talk primarily about libido and sexual vitality.
We talked about the 50 ways to Women’s Wellness, which we are both a part of, and you were my absolute favorite. I was promoting you the most because I love everything you do. It gets people’s attention. You’re so brave, and you don’t care about what anyone thinks about taboo topics. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about who you are?
MY STORY
[Susan] I am a sexpert. I started 15 years ago, almost losing my marriage because I had lost my libido and desire. My husband was distraught with me, and we weren’t having much sex. It took a significant toll on our marriage to the point where we considered getting divorced. I said, “I could replace you, but I could never find a man better than you. Why don’t we try and fix our sex life.” Everything else about our marriage was great, but our sex life wasn’t right.
We decided to read books and attend personal growth work. I don’t know about you, but getting naked in a sex workshop is very edgy. We did it because we were trying to save our marriage and not ruin our daughter’s life and childhood.
I came from a divorced set of parents, and I didn’t want that for my child. Over time, we learned about passionate connection and how to co-create pleasure. I thought to myself, “Why don’t we teach this to everybody.”
My husband and I were in love again after being together for a decade and having almost gotten divorced. We rekindled the passion and had a great connection. We decided to start a publishing company that brought programs, advanced orgasm skills, and bedroom communication techniques to people who stand for their sexuality and want to have great sex but have hit a wall. My marriage went wrong because I got bored.
The masculine is testosterone-dominant and in a very steady-state and goal-oriented. He’s a heat-seeking moisture missile and can have the same sex every time and be satisfied, whereas women, being estrogen-dominant, are in our heads. We’re thinking about a million things. We have a hard time settling into our bodies, and we need variety. We have a massive pleasure potential that often stays unmet because the masculine thinks if it’s great for him, it must be great for her.
EXTRACURRICULAR RELATIONSHIPS
[Kayte] I want to point out that we traditionally think about men wanting to have many partners, variety, and novelty. Can you speak about how that works in an honest relationship?
[Susan] Generally, 60% of people across the gender spectrum have extracurricular relationships, according to Dr. Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist who studies masculine and feminine relationships.
[Kayte] When you say extracurricular, does it include pornography?
[Susan] Affairs and physical cheating by both men and women. As I said, is it only men who cheat? Women, too, want variety, novelty, and experience. They are choosier about partners.
Everything is a spectrum, but men generally want a wider variety of partners. Dr. Helen Hillocks said we raise our women in our society to be afraid of men. Don’t go out. Be careful. Don’t get hurt. Then, we expect them to surrender in the bedroom when they’ve been taught to fear men. I thought, “That’s such a good point,” because, in reality, one of the most challenging things for women is to surrender to our pleasure potential.
Estrogen makes us anxious, worried, and we grow up in a society where we don’t learn to trust. We learn to fear. We have a lot against us, but our love of variety and sexual adventure works.
MONOGAMY
[Kayte] Let’s talk about a monogamous relationship. Can you elaborate on that?
[Susan] Many women in long-term relationships say, “I want to want him, but I don’t,” and they feel very guilty. I go back to testosterone and estrogen when there’s a difficulty in the sex life of a monogamous couple. He thinks it’s her problem. Maybe she’s got a low libido, and she says, “It’s my it’s my fault.” They both think it’s her.
I surveyed over 400 people who follow me. Hundreds and thousands of people follow me, but 400 people responded to my questions about holding back from sexual passion. Many women said, “I’m bored. My partner doesn’t transport me on erotic adventures.”
I teach men that women want a good variety. You have to mix it up and learn skills to take her to her pleasure potential. As women, we’re estrogen-forward. We’re more anxious. We worry about things, whereas men say, “I know what I’m doing,” because testosterone makes them like that. That’s the problem.
Regarding libido, many women think, “If my libido is down, it’s my hormones.” They think that’s their problem and not that they’re bored to death. But it’s not necessarily about hormones.
EROTIC PLAYDATES
I ask struggling couples to go on erotic playdates. When you learn together, it gets him out of his “I already know everything” mindset. It makes him overly confident, and it makes her excessively worried. He has to know that she needs to be loved in a very safe space, but he has to bring the fun and variety. It’s not his natural inclination. He’s not worried about anything. He doesn’t feel unsafe, so he doesn’t understand how unsafe she feels, letting go, exposing her vulnerabilities, and worrying about her body image issues.
Estrogen is to blame. So, a guy needs to understand, “How do I make this fun?” A couple that plays together stays together, especially in the bedroom, and this is different from roleplay.
You could learn pleasuring techniques, new positions, new locations, roleplay costumes, and toys. There are different ways you can expand the facets of your sexual pleasure and connection, especially learning how to be present with each other and being deeply heart-connected.
HEART-CONNECTED LOVEMAKING
Help a guy connect his genitals to his heart because they don’t always come connected. It’s a learned skill. Nothing operates on its own without a heart-connection. I’m sure people remember times when they felt more connected with their partners.
[Kayte] Do you think it’s important to connect that way every time you have sex?
[Susan] I do. I don’t think there should be lovemaking unless it’s heart-connected and passionate. Once you hit that level of connection, the two can become one, and you can spiral up to pleasure together.
[Kayte] Do you feel that passion you’re tapping into is always available, or do you have to fake it until you get there?
[Susan] Arousal starts with relaxation. You need to toggle the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. Take up a little and give her a break. Men, because they are full of testosterone, say, “I’m going to trickle and push these buttons and blow the dust off. That’s their orientation.
They need to learn that the clitoris is not an elevator button. You don’t go higher when you keep pressing it.
LIBIDO ISSUES
[Kayte] Let’s go back to talking about the hidden causes of libido issues. There are your hidden libido depressants. People aren’t aware of them. They think it’s their hormones.
[Susan] There are two things. One is your gut, and the other is detoxification. We could talk about the availability of hormone receptors, but that’s blaming hormones again. We’re layering different concepts here, the psychological, environmental, and physiological, which is not the issue for most women.
Most women wonder what makes their hormones diminish. They don’t understand that all the antibiotics, glyphosate, and toxins in our environment ruin our gut and alimentary system. The gut microbiome is attached to our vaginal microbiome. If you’re having difficulties with urinary tract infections, bacterial vaginosis, or/and candida overgrowth, it is a signal that the biome is off.
DETOX
Step one is to get it moving. If you want your hormones in peak production, you’ve got to poo every day. If you’re not pooping every day, your sex life won’t be great. It’s funny how everything always ends up back to the gut. It’s hard to have a healthy functioning gut when you are overburdened with chemical toxicity.
It always goes back to the chemical exposures, which are genetic the way you process these things. It’s methylation, mitochondrial, and enzyme function. That’s number two. If you’re toxic, you can’t deal with the toxins until you get the gut moving.
Detox everything out, and we can focus on male performance when it comes to chemical toxicity and how their erections change over their lifetime. They might not be making enough testosterone because chemicals block the receptors and turn testosterone into estrogen. That will create a vicious cycle.
[Kayte] I want to go back to these adventures. For example, a couple used to have more passion earlier in the relationship and hit a wall. The man feels that perhaps the woman is bored, or the man may be bored, rejected, and angry.
Where does that couple start, and what steps can they take to go in the right direction?
SMALL OFFERS
[Susan] That takes you to seduction. There’s a little seduction trick for monogamous relationships, although it works in dating too. Often, because men are goal-oriented, they say, “Would you like to make love or have sex?.” Or they get an erection in the morning and say, “Let’s go.” The woman has to be relaxed and aroused. The best way to seduce a woman in a long-term relationship is to make her a series of small offers that, over time, become slightly bigger.
Even then, you wouldn’t expect to make your wife an offer for sex. You will say, “Sweetheart, would you like to go in the hot tub? Would you like me to get a glass of wine? Are you hungry? Should we get a couple of whites cheeses? Would you like me to sit on the couch and give you a neck rub?”
Then she says, “Yes, I’d like a neck rub. Can I also have a foot rub?” Of course, and she’s saying yes to him. Then he can tell his confidence is building, but it’s her on that express train in connection. She doesn’t want an offer for sex. She likes small incremental recommendations that lead her toward pleasure. Not a big bite, but little tiny baby bites into the bedroom. All of a sudden, she’s like, “I do you find you quite alluring.”
“NOBODY TAUGHT ME ABOUT SEX!”
[Kayte] That’s a great tip. Can you talk about other facets of the sexual dynamic you’ve worked with before?
[Susan] Almost everybody says to me, “My parents never talk to me about sex. I never got a sexual education.” They hold a victim grudge against their parents. I say to them, “Nobody’s parents talk to them about sex. It was a different era. They didn’t have that much information. They didn’t even have the internet. Remember that, and you’re not alone.”
It’s your job. Your sexual growth is your personal growth. Your job is to take yourself up to pleasure and connection levels because sexual development and maturity last your whole life if you nurture it.
We’re born sexual; we die sexual, but along the way, things happen to us. An ex-partner may have shamed us, our family may be very stoic, or we may have had no positive models for good sex.
You have to stand for your sexual life with your partner, rewrite your libido story, let go of shame, work through trauma because life is a series of unfortunate incidents peppered with wonders. It’s how we handle what happened to us and grow and expand who we are that makes a difference.
PORNOGRAPHY & LIBIDO
It’s our job, not our parents. It’s not necessarily our partner’s job either, although they’re certainly co-creating with you. I’ve spoken with experts about pornography. We’re not in the era of saying, “Porn is terrible and taboo,” but what is it doing to the younger boys and girls?
How is it affecting the way we interact? I categorically stand against it, and the reason is that you have everything within you to develop your sexual potential.
Time magazine had an article about a year ago where they quoted a study that said in a random sampling of 300 pornography clips, 96% were degrading to women. If something is 1% degrading to women, I categorically don’t like it, so 96% is firmly in the “I don’t like it” category.
Porn is someone else’s plan. It’s a multi-billion dollar business to entertain men. Young women have been culturally desensitized to pornography. They act like porn stars because that’s the model they have consumed. I’m trying to put out as much information about how you can co-create passionate connections and pleasure without following someone else’s script for your life.
[Kayte] Susan, this has been so enlightening, fun, and exciting. Where can people find you if they want to get involved and learn more?
In the most recent one, I was dressed up as a policewoman. I have a good time being silly because people get a little confronted about sexuality. The more I can disarm and charm, the more I can send my passionate lovemaking message to them.
[Kayte] One of my favorites was the penis pump. It works! Thank you so much. You’re very brave for not being uptight, and I’m sure many people benefit from everything you’re sharing and teaching. We’ll get more into the health behind better sex next time.
Thank you, guys. This has been another episode of Mind Body Spirit with Dr. Kayte. You can binge-watch all these episodes on Apple TV under the Other Talk TV app and Roku. Have a great day.
