← You Are Not Broken
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Welcome to the you are Not Broken podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kelly Casperson, a
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board certified urologist, thought leader and conversation starter on midlife living, hormones and sexuality.
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Enjoy the show.
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Hey everybody. Welcome back to the you are not broken podcast. Super excited to have Caitlin V. Neal here today. She's a sexologist and researcher who helps people gain confidence and improve sexual performance. Women, welcome. Thanks for coming on.
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Caitlin V. Neal
Thank you so much for having me.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
So tell me, tell us your journey of like, how you got here. Not like how you got on my podcast, but like how you got to the platforms where you're comfortable talking about sex as far as sex education, because adult sex education is so needed. It's, you know, the title of my TED talk of like adults need accurate knowledge. How'd you get here?
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Caitlin V. Neal
So I was a very strange case. And I knew from the age of 14 that I was going to be working in sex and sexuality. I have never wanted to do anything else since I discovered that that was even an option. I didn't know exactly how I was going to go about doing it and I was a little bit afraid to get like right in there. So I decided to do an empirical science degree. I went and got a bachelor's in conflict studies of all things. But I did my thesis on sexual health as a human right. And then I went on to get a master's in public health and was involved in studies on bacterial vaginosis and corgasm, people who reach orgasm while they're exercising. And then went on to get my doc also in public health. And I found myself very like successful in the ivory tower. I was working doing policy analysis for the Texas State Congress. I had a placement working with the office of the dean and I had, you know, the corner office with the coffee machine and it looking over the garden like literally was winning at grad school and so unhappy. And what I was doing at night was I would go to nonprofits or youth centers or the LGBTQIA center in Houston, Texas and I would host groups where I was teaching second said or just hosting conversations or I was the in house educator for a non monogamous polyamorous meetup group. And I found so much joy working with youth and LGBTQIA folks and non monogamous folks and helping them like in a one on one capacity, like eye to eye. Here's something that can influence your relationship with sex and pleasure for the better. And I was also getting increasingly frustrated because you know, so much of what we were allowed to do and share in graduate school and in these more formal academic settings needs to be and is appropriately evidence based, peer reviewed, like, needs to meet the golden standard. But when I was in a group with somebody using something like the chakra system to explain like maybe, you know, a concept of like balancing their fifth chakra so that they could communicate a little bit better with their lover or something like that, I found that these were very beneficial in a one on one setting. And I felt like as an educator, as an academic, I was doing a disservice by not being able to pull from everything. Even those things that you know, again, aren't not, not evidence based, but not necessarily harmful either, right? Like talking about like Reiki or energy medicine or your emotional body to me didn't come with a high level of high risk, but it came with a high level of reward. And so I dropped out of my graduate program and I ended up calling myself a coach. I didn't want to go back to do more education at that time. I had already been studying sex for what, 10 years now? 20 at the, in my mid-30s, I can say I've been studying sex and sexuality for 20 years now. So I decided to start my coaching practice and then I ended up on YouTube. I just happened to do a video on squirting and female ejaculation with a well known YouTuber. At that time, I had no idea how much that would take off. In 2015, it just skyrocketed. It got millions of views overnight. And then boom, I had a coaching practice. Now I thought that I was going to work with bisexual and pansexual cisgender women because that's how I identify. And what ended up happening is because I got kind of Internet famous for talking about squirting orgasms. I attracted a highly male audience and the men that were coming to view my content were mostly dealing with performance anxiety. Right? Because that's why they wanted to learn
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
about squirting with the theory that I want to become a better lover, I want to serve better. Right?
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Caitlin V. Neal
And I want to make up for what I perceive to be my inadequacy. Primarily, the men that were coming to me had premature or early ejaculation, so they weren't able to last as long as they want or control their ejaculation. And they wanted to learn about squirting almost as a way of compensating.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Right? So maybe I can't last long, but I can make you squirt.
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Caitlin V. Neal
Exactly right. So my coaching practice started with. I had, I mean, even as a researcher, I Had never worked with men. You know, I had plenty of male lovers, but I hadn't, you know, specifically dedicated a ton of time and focus, especially to cisgender and heterosexual men. And my coaching career really started by serving men who were dealing with premature ejaculation. And that was seven, eight years ago now. And I. They have become kind of my central focus. I also, I have a television show called Good Sex that's on HBO Max or Discovery in which I work with couples. And we actually have cameras inside of their bedrooms and they use their bedroom footage inside of my coaching sessions to help them to improve their sex and intimacy as well.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
That's intense. They're like, dude, we need so much help. We are fine with this being on HBO because they're like, we want to help other people too, right?
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Caitlin V. Neal
Yes. And they did. There's six couples and then there's some one off sessions we follow over the course of our six episodes. And, and you know, whether you're dealing with mismatched libido, erectile dysfunction, pain with sex, like they cover so many of the most common subjects that people are dealing with, you will see yourself in every single couple. But the coolest thing about that was as a coach, I had not worked with cameras in the bedroom before. That was something that we came up with for that show. And I didn't realize at first. I thought, well, I've been a coach for many years and I've succeeded with helping people. I've never needed this kind of footage to help people. Day one, session one. I'm watching this tape. I was like, oh my God, I am getting so much information that someone can't just like share eloquently and correctly and like, how do you even describe the sex that you're having? Especially when there's something that's going on. That's the reason that you're in coaching to begin with is because you can't figure out how to get the results that you want. So how are you going to describe what you're doing, quote unquote wrong to a coach in session? So as soon as I had that footage, I was able to actually get in and make a difference and have an impact a lot faster than just with traditional speech based coaching.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Yeah. Give me your interpretation of what happens in this black box. You put a video in the black box?
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Caitlin V. Neal
Yes. Yeah.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Stinking brilliant. I mean, it's like you think about like, you know, sex is biopsychosocial, but certainly there is like just a very physical act to it. And you're not gonna be a tennis coach and not watch a swing over and over and over again. You're not gonna watch. Tell somebody how to have a better golf drive if you don't freaking watch the video.
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Caitlin V. Neal
Exactly right.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
So what did you learn?
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Caitlin V. Neal
My best example that I could give you of that concept in particular is this amazing couple, Thomas and Erica. I think we meet them in the second episode, and she's not reaching orgasm during sex. They find out essentially that she's been, like, faking orgasm. And so they come to see me because he's really dedicated to her pleasure, and she wants to have a better relationship with her pleasure as well. And we uncover sort of many of the obstacles and reasons that she doesn't have a great relationship with pleasure over the course of coaching. But the video that I get from them, like, camera one session, one minute that they get into intercourse, like penis and vagina intercourse, or what most people consider sex but we know isn't part of sex, is not all of sex. They go from zero to a hundred. So, like, the minute that there is penetration, they're pounding away and she's moaning and he's pounding, and he's like, giving it his all. And what I said to them is like, hey, look, you know, let's think about this as a journey where we. We move from 0 to 100 over the course of time. And we make stops along the way at 10, at 17, at 35. Maybe we go back to 17 after 35. And we think about sex as something that builds up. When you start at a hundred out of a hundred, there is nowhere to go. Right. That is where you already are. He's physically exhausting himself. She's not having enough time to build up the sensation. Right. Like, for so many of us, when we experience that kind of level of sensation right out of the gate, our body actually becomes a little desensitized because that is so much information to be taking in on our clitorises and on our internal pleasure centers of the body. So once we had that in place, they were able make sex into a journey that touched on a lot of different sensations and flavors and intensities over time. And overnight, we saw an improvement. I would not have in just the three sessions. Unfortunately, the show only has. I only got to meet with the couples three times. But I would not have gotten there, I don't think, in just three sessions if it was up to them to be describing their sex to me. Because who even knows has the presence of awareness or the comparison?
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
There's no objectivity in me describing my sex life.
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Caitlin V. Neal
And we're also, you know, we're comparing it to porn, you know, because that's mostly what we're seeing as alternatives to how other people have sex. And porn really typically goes from zero to a hundred. So, you know, as far as he's considered, he's doing it the quote unquote right way because this is the way that he's always seen it displayed in adult material. So it gave us a whole world of language. And then once we had those in place, we're able to like really get into the nuances and give them the specifics that change everything.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
I see that so much in my practice. It's either with pain with sex because you haven't given the body any time to be aroused, to expand, to bring in blood flow. Right. So either pain with sex or inability to have an orgasm. Again, you've done no, like, heads up that this is gonna be, this is supposed to be sexy time. I always tell people, it's like it doesn't know if it's a tampon or a penis if you just put it in. Right. Like, you've gotta create the context.
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Caitlin V. Neal
So true. Yeah. And especially when, yeah, I think here I will be using this.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
But yeah, I mean, have you heard of the website Make Love not porn? Yes, probably have. Yeah. And I think that's really what, you know, Cindy Gallup, in creating that website wanted to do is like, listen, if you want to learn sex, porn does not teach you sex, it teaches you entertainment. Because nobody has that privilege of looking in that black box. So I think that's what that website tries to do. If people wanted a resource, you know, your show would be 1. Make love not Porn would be another one to be like, I don't know,
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Caitlin V. Neal
ogs.com is also really specifically for vulva and female bodied pleasure. But what I find over and over again in my work is that the more that CIS het men are educated on female pleasure, in addition to people who have vulvas and clitorises and their familiarity with their own body and their own pleasure, we all get a better outcome, all of us get a better outcome, and we get to enjoy sex more.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
What would you say is like some of the common myths that CIS heterosexual men have about their female partners bodies or their sexual preferences?
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Caitlin V. Neal
I think that the probably the number one most common one and one that I see proliferated frequently is the idea that female bodies and people with vulvas are like a combination lock that you've got to figure out how to unlock. You got to give them the orgasm. And it's always really complicated and really difficult and we need to have an appreciation for nuance. But actually it's not that complicated or difficult. Number one, just give attention and consideration to the clitoris. And like a lot of what would be, you know, a lot of pleasure can stem just from like having a better relationship with incorporating the clitoris into foreplay, into sex, into intercourse. Right. This is, that's not mysterious. Right. And then the clitoris is no more mysterious than the penis in terms of giving it a variety of touches, strokes, intensities, pressures and speeds, sorting out what is going to be the most pleasurable for that person in that moment. And yes, our bodies change over the course of the month, over the course of our life. Absolutely. But, but we're actually discounting male bodies and people with penises to say that they don't. Right. And one of the issues is that we have just this like tremendous lack of, I would say creativity, but really it's just possibility of all of the different ways in which a body can be touched and stroked. You know, I mentioned that I teach a system for my mentor Jaya called the Erotic Blueprints. And really what the Erotic Blueprints is about is saying, you know, just like there are the five love languages, like gift giving, Words of affirmation, Acts of service, like we all appreciate receiving and giving love and different ways, Words of Affirmation. Oh yeah, okay. I love that. I'm very fluent in all the love languages at this point. I'm like, just give it to me. Like, I'll make it work.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Like.
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Caitlin V. Neal
But it's really acts of service if I'm honest. Like, you know, do something around the house for me. I'm. My heart beats out of my chest. You want to make. Make me a meal? I'm in love. Like, you made this food just for me. Yes. This is true love. But the erotic blueprints, maybe I'll just give, like, a real quick overview of them, because I think they're really beneficial for this dem. So there are five of them. We'll start with the energetic blueprint. These are people who are turned on by tease and anticipation and almost the space between touch more than touch itself. They're very sensitive. They're like an antenna. And if you give them too much, too fast, go straight for the genitals, Start at the nipples, tongue all the way down your throat. They're gonna short circuit, and then they can't receive a lot of pleasure or stimulation after that. So they need a very slow, very spacious build. These are people who can get aroused just by the energy, just eye contact across the room from each other. They also kind of, like I said, they're sort of like shadow, or the difficulty with having a highly energetic blueprint, the shadow side to it is that, like, intense sensitivity because they can short circuit so easily. And they really need to learn how to create boundaries and spaciousness so that they can get to a point of arousal. Second blueprint is the sensual blueprint. These are people who are aroused, either turned on or turned off by things that occur in their five senses. So how things look and smell, taste and touch and sound. They can be very turned on with, like, the right music, the right lighting, long massages, baths. They have a very high tolerance for pleasure. Often they really like cuddling. Not every single person, but a lot of them, like, very high tolerance for touch and pleasure. But they can easily get turned off if, like, the pillows are arranged in the wrong way. They can get turned off because there's a dirty, you know, sock in the corner of the room or they didn't get to take a shower before they had sex, and now that's all they can think about. They're also the type that gets stuck in their head. So if you've ever, like, almost had an orgasm, you were, like, right there, and then, like, a thought crossed your mind, and then the orgasm just disappeared, was completely gone. You might have some sensual blueprint Next is the sexual blueprint. So this is what we've been talking about. This is what my clients, Thomas and Erica, were engaging in on footage from their bedroom camera. This is what we typically are. Are educated in what qualifies as sex and eroticism. It is genitals, it is naked bodies, it is porn, it is the strip club. It is a characterization of sex. Now, the beautiful thing about it is that people who have the sexual blueprint are typically very, like, straightforward in their arousal and their turn on. They don't really need, like, a lot of the bells and whistles and the perfect touch and the space and the correct lighting. They can just be like, naked body in front of me. Genitals. This is great. They tend to be a little focused on orgasm and genital performance. A lot of men in particular are socialized in the sexual blueprint. We all are, but men especially, right? You should just get turned on with naked bodies. You should just be ready to have sex at any given time. Your body should function exactly as it's meant to, quote, unquote, and you should be able to get off and et cetera. And the truth is, a lot of men are not sexual blueprint dominant. They might have some sexual blueprint, but we do everyone a disservice when we. When we just make sex about penetration and bodies instead of incorporating the other things that we're discussing here. And then the fourth blueprint is the kinky blueprint. And this is not, you know, when I say kinky, a lot of people start thinking like, dungeons and ball gags and whips and chains. And yes, certainly that is a part of it, but kink is also just generally what we consider to be taboo. So it could be psychologically taboo, like calling each other names. Role playing is very kinky, certainly things that are physically taboo, but like having a fantasy about the, you know, your dog walker that you get off to is also quite kinky. It's taboo. You're not supposed to be fantasy quote unquote, right? Unless, I mean, certainly there's a couple on the show who they were dog, she walked his dog, and now they're married. But so that might not be kinky, but what's kinky for you? Might not be kinky for me, right? Feet might be very kinky to somebody, and for someone else, they're just like part of an erotic play. It's nothing really that taboo about them. Their shadow side is that sometimes they can need increasing levels of intensity for, like, what gets them off. They need more and more and more. But their superpower is erotic creativity. Because once. Once you tap into what's taboo and what's kinky, and you can alchemize where we experience shame, you know, where your. Where your pleasure, your desires, your past, your history, your future, where you experience shame when you can alchemize that into pleasure, that is a superpower, and that is a superpower of the kinky blueprint. And then the fifth blueprint is the shapeshifter. And the shapeshifter has all four. And they really need to be expressed in all four of the other blueprints. Energetic, sensual, sexual, and kinky. And these people often are told that they're too much, they need too much, their demands are too much, their libidos, their drive, their desire is too much. And so they go hungry. They also shapeshift to match the person who's in front of them. So because they can speak in all four of these languages, if they're with a highly energetic partner, they'll just do energetic. If they're a sensual partner, they'll just meet them in central. And this was me when I discovered the erotic blueprints. I am a shapeshifter. I can speak in all the love languages and speak in all the erotic languages. That's just how I came. You know, again, I knew I was going to do sex at the age of 14. Is it any wonder that I came with this sort of, like, erotic capacity? But all of my lovers and partners had been, you know, even in the sexual blueprint, or they were in the kinky blueprint. And so I was absolutely starving, and I didn't have the language to describe exactly what I was starving for. And if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, my gosh, I think I'm that sensual blueprint, but I've been doing the sexual blueprint sex, then there is a whole world of erotic creativity that you have access to, that you can get access to, that you can play with, that is going to open up your capacity to enjoy your sexual life. And by that I mean not just the penetration and the physical aspects, but the erotic aspects and the part of sex that, like, makes us feel very alive. I love it.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Is there a book on this that people can go to if they. If they want to read about it?
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Caitlin V. Neal
Actually, I think there's a book coming out of it. So Jaya is the creator of the erotic blueprints and was my mentor for many years before she retired. She also did a show, Sex, Love and Goofy, on Netflix. So she's featured as one of those experts on that show, but she does a good demonstration of the erotic blueprints. That's another place. And then, yes, I think she has a book forthcoming, but I don't want to guess on what the date is.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Fair enough.
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Caitlin V. Neal
And I have a YouTube series of videos on those. So if you want deeper ideas and recommendations, check those out on my YouTube channel.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Oh, perfect. Yeah, we'll put your YouTube in the links. Let's talk about what you're hearing from men with premature ejaculation, what their concerns are, what do they want to fix? How do you help them? Because I think as far as, like, the triad of male sexual dysfunction, premature ejaculation doesn't get talked about nearly as much as erectile dysfunction does. And they can go hand in hand.
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Right.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
You can get erectile dysfunction and then develop premature ejaculation because you're anxious about the erectile dysfunction, so you don't last as long. So give us a primer on your expertise with male premature ejaculation, please, if you would.
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Caitlin V. Neal
Absolutely. So. So. Well, let me just normalize it by sharing a couple statistics first. In their lifetime, one in three men will deal with premature ejaculation. Now, that doesn't mean that every single time that they go to have sex, they're not able to control when they ejaculate or it happens before they're ready. But it is very common, and unfortunately, it doesn't get the same kind of airtime as, say, erectile dysfunction. I think some of that has to do with the fact that there's not a prescription drug readily available to treat premature ejaculation. In my experience, the data shows that for about 98% of men, they can make massive improvements in their ability to last and to prolong their time without ejaculating, experiencing sexual pleasure. There are a percentage of men for whom this is. It seems to be like a purely physiological reaction of their body. And let's not forget that it was evolutionarily advantageous to men over the course of the 300,000 years of Homo sapiens sapiens to pass on their DNA. So if you ejaculated early, you actually had an advantage. So I just say that because I want to decrease the stigma and decrease the shame, because that is what lot of men come to me with, is like, there's something deeply wrong with me. And it's like, no, you're so not alone. This is so common. And your ancestors dealt with it too. In fact, they handed it down to you.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Yeah. Thanks, Grandpa.
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Caitlin V. Neal
Yeah, exactly. And when's the last time that you ever talked to your grandma about how long grandpa lasted in bed? Like, if you never had that conversation, then how do you know that this is just one of, you know, it's just like your blue eyes or your big toe, you know, it's just something else you caught from family. Family. But a lot of it causes a significant amount of distress for men. So let's also just identify what premature ejaculation is. There's no set definition in the research, or at least not one that I've found that I see consistently across the research. So the way that I like to define it for the people come to me is if you regularly are ejaculating before you and your partner are both ready, that is enough to qualify as early ejaculation. Sometimes, just like other bodies, just like female bodies, just like vulva bodies, like sometimes circumstances dictate that you had a super stressful day or something is going on with your parents, your kids, or something along those lines. And your body is reacting to that. And so there is going to be variety. Right. Sometimes you're going to be able to ejaculate early or late or get hard or not get hard. So you do want to leave some space for just like the human experience. But again, if you are regularly not able to last as long as you want, or your partner's not able to last as long as he wants, let's just call that early ejaculation, premature ejaculation and move on from there. Because we don't need to pathologize this. This is just a very normal thing that happens a lot of the time. It's caused by early in life masturbation habits. Not always. But, you know, a lot of young boys and men are masturbating as quickly, as furiously as possible. Often especially today in the 40 and undercrowd to Internet porn. Especially in like the 20 men that are like 30 and under, like their access to porn is unprecedented.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Yeah. And for people to realize we didn't have access like we have now. This is brand new, massive access.
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Caitlin V. Neal
It is changing the way that we work in sex and sexuality. And I don't think we've actually even seen the results of that influence yet. I think we're just starting to see that now with, you know, people in their early 20s. But a lot of men grew up masturbating quickly regardless. Even if it was like a hustler magazine or the Sears catalog lingerie section, you Know they were trying to reach as possible.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Oh yeah.
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Caitlin V. Neal
Yes. Yeah. No wonder lingerie is still so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness. So they masturbated as quickly as possible. They tried to get themselves to orgasm as fast as possible. And they trained their body that whenever sexual stimulation or sexually relevant touch occurs, that we need to get to ejaculate as quickly as humanly possible to avoid getting walked in on. But this ingrains their body to respond to that kind of stimulation because again, the human body is very, very adept at getting genetic material out, out so that we can mate. And if it discovers that there is like a very quick and short route from A to B, it is going to take it. Especially if that is a very well rode groove in our brain. And then what happens? They end up in bed with a partner and their body goes straight to ejaculate as quickly as possible. And it brings up a lot of shame. It brings up a lot of, you know, unreal. It exposes a lot of the unrealistic expectations, expectations that we have for men, that their bodies should just perform exactly right. That sex issues and problems, problems are for women. And that men should just get hard, stay hard and get off at the, you know, the exact right time.
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Totally.
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
Do you work with them by like, first of all, just educating them, normalizing it, kind of seeing it. Sometimes just education takes away like fear and anxiety and it can just help itself so much.
- [26:07]
Caitlin V. Neal
And so we start my method that I developed and like, like I said earlier, I came from sexual health research on, you know, behaviorally bisexual women, women who had sex with men and women. So when I started coaching, I had very limited personal or professional experience with premature ejaculation. Fortunately, I was again just fresh out of graduate school and a professional researcher. And so I started running what I would consider the least scientific tests ever on my clients that were coming to me. And I just started throwing things at the wall and seeing what stick with each of them. And I was very blessed to have a lot of clients. And I just charged them like nothing, like $25 an hour. Because I was just like, let's just do this for cheap. You're gonna be my little study and you're gonna be a control group for this other guy, and he's a control group for you. And he was not very scientific, but it got the job done. And over the course of seven years, developed a methodology. So it starts with the body and the way that we make love to ourselves so much, I think, of quality sexual re education for Adults should start with how we relate to our own sexuality, our own body, the way that we interact with our genitals. That's where it always starts for me. And, you know, even it was just very simply at first. Having men masturbate for, like, 15, 20, 25 minutes, having them masturbate without completing with an ejaculation. Like, again, I like to think about that as rewiring the brain by changing the stimul, changing the response. So if you're used to every time you masturbate, you end up ejaculating. Let's have you masturbate for 15 minutes. And then after you've done that for a couple months, let's have you only ejaculate like, two thirds of the time. And again, we're giving the body a chance to sort of rewire those default neural pathways that have been etched over many years at that time. And then, you know, I used to experiment with this a lot. I'd have them masturbate in different, like, bodily positions. So if you always sit down at your desk, try laying down in your bed. If you always use a dry hand, try using lube. If you always use your hand, try using a masturbation sleeve. Sex toys are not just for women. They make incredible masturbation devices for men. And the nice thing about them is you can stuff it into a bookshelf or into a shoe so that you can practice masturbating while standing as if you were, you know, in doggy style or in missionary, you put it, like, in a shoe or between couch cushions. And so it gives the body a chance to actually practice how it's going to play in these positions you're going to be in with your lover. And then I incorporate a lot of, like, bodily awareness techniques, arousal spectrum, like learning how close we are to orgasm. Because if we've always gone, you know, zero to a hundred right away, how nuanced is our appreciation? If we pause at any given Moment in those 15 moments, on a scale from 1 to 10, how close are you to ejaculating? Are you like a three or are you a nine? Because you can change how you move and the amount of stimulation that you give to the body based on how close you are to orgasming. And then I use breathing techniques, techniques that are designed really to get them into that parasympathetic nervous system so that, again, we know about ejaculation. The body needs to be in parasympathetic, switch to sympathetic and switch back to parasympathetic, right? The point and shoot. So if you are tense and you are in a excited state in your nervous system, in your fight or flight nervous system, just to make it simple, then it is going to be harder for you to have ejaculatory control. And again this comes from the way that we evolved. It wasn't very useful for you to be aroused and hard and ejaculating if you were under threat of your survival. Right. And so with as with so much pleasure, and this is true for all of our bodies, getting us into a relaxed state of being helps us to maintain a awareness and a relationship to where we are in our orgasm and in our arousal so that we have additional control over it. But so much of us are operating just with really high levels of stress and we're not actually doing the things to prepare our body like you said, like it doesn't know if it's a tampon or a penis. Penis. Unless you are taking the time to, to prepare your body and your mind for sexually relevant touch and arousal and pleasure. And so, you know, my system kind of incorporates all of this. Then we also took a look at the relationship. You have a very high stress relationship, high stress marriage. You feel resentment towards your partner, you feel underappreciated by them. Like all of these things also impact our sexual response. So we, we kind of start with the body and then we, we move out from the there.
- [30:33]
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Dr. Kelly Casperson
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Caitlin V. Neal
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on July 31, 2024. We have to talk about female squirting. Please.
- [32:48]
Caitlin V. Neal
Yeah, please.
- [32:50]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
The myth, the myth and the. So my journey of, like, studying this, because there's data, there's not great data. I'm a urologist. I do surgery in the pelvis. I've cut out prostates. I hold prostates in my hand. I put slings around the female urethra, AKA female prostate, for bladder leakage, right? Like, as a surgeon, I'm very. I know the anatomy. Anatomy. And I know people's bias about pee. And so people are like, oh, yeah, well, wording's not urine, and it can be a cupful, right? And like, I'm like, have you ever talked to a surgeon who, like, knows the organs? Like, a prostate is the size of a walnut and we know how much fluid that produces. Where's the cup full thing? That's not the bladder. And so I kind. I like, really come into it from, like, an anatomic wanting to explain. And a lot of people don't even want to know that. Like, some people are like, is it normal if it happens? Yes, it's normal. Can everybody do it? No. Like, I don't think we should tell everybody they should squirt, right? But if you want to, there are techniques to learn how to. So now I've set you up to give you all of my biases and all of my background. And now I want you to give me your perception, if you will, about squirting.
- [34:08]
Caitlin V. Neal
So, yes, just to speak to that. Very normal. A lot of bodies squirt regularly with orgasm, without orgasm, with turn on spontaneously with various other things going on. Like, as I have explored this personally, there are now a whole number of things that will trigger me to squirt that are not directly related to any parts of my vulva, which is one of the wildest things that has ever occurred for me. It's like I can now trigger this with other parts of my body. Body. It's just, just ridiculous and kind of cool. And I'm going to continue learning about that for myself. I'll refer back to you in the future on how that really goes because it's a more recent thing. Like I can trigger that with other parts. I think that a lot of people are actually capable of squirting probably more than do it organically. Like you said, there are techniques. My most popular video on YouTube is all about squirting. I have a course also. So if you watch that video and you're like, that didn't work, then I have a five module course that addresses like many of the major obstacles and gives like a little bit of a deeper framework than what I can give on YouTube and certainly a lot more visual demonstration on dolls. On dolls. Just want to be clear on that. So my favorite author on squirting and I think the best book that I have seen on it is Sherry Winston's Women's Anatomy of Arousal. It is a phenomenal book. Addresses a lot of actually like very practical female pleasure and anatomy and describes, I think in the best detail that I've seen. And I' curious about your thoughts on it and how medically accurate it is. But in terms of like a layman's description of how that entire arousal system works and the real bio, physiology and chemistry of it, I think she does the best job. Oh yeah, there it is right there. It's a phenomenal book. It's very easy to read. There's tons of graphics and diagrams and little short pithy stories and anecdotes. It's so easy. It's so enjoyable.
- [35:59]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Women's Anatomy of Arousal by Sherry Winston. Very good.
- [36:02]
Caitlin V. Neal
There's a section on squirting in there and in it she describes the Skenes gland, which is closely associated with the G spot. It's not. Again, it depends on kind of like who you're talking to. People do think that's the G spot. It's not the G spot, people. There's scientific debate still today whether or not there's a G spot. Just from my personal anecdotal experience, I very much have a very sensitive lump of flesh right where G zone. Yeah. And some of the sex coaches that I've worked with kind of describe it as like the backside of the clitoris. So we don't need to get, like, too intense on whether or not exists or doesn't exist. Like, if you have a little spot of additional pleasure and sensitivity, that's about 1 to 2 inches on the inside wall of the vagina. That is great. Like, I don't. I don't need a researcher or any amount of science to tell me, like, it feels good when someone touches there when I. When I stimulate it by myself.
- [36:51]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Like, that is enough.
- [36:52]
Caitlin V. Neal
Like, I'm here for pleasure. Specificity is second in my values after feeling good. So theoretically, and Sherry Winston gets into this in her book, we have a Skene's gland. It's just analogous to the prostate in some ways. And she postulates that the liquid is actually coming from our blood and that it is not coming from our bladder, even though it is released through the urethra. And I have, in my. In my personal experiences, teaching myself and learning how to squirt, I have associated it very closely with the sensation of needing to pee. And that has led to me peeing when I was attempting to squirt. One very notable coffee pee on a leather couch one time. And you know coffee pee, right? And I know you're a big coffee fan, so you know, the coffee that was not squirt, that was urine. No question about that. But I have had plenty of experiences of squirting where it was very clearly not urine. I'd say 99% of my experiences, it's not urine. It's, like, very clear. It's got a little bit of, like, a silky viscosity to it. And in that, she posits that it's from our blood with the red blood cells and majority of the white blood cells removed. And she describes the process that she believes that it happens in that book, but I haven't. I'd have to refer directly to it to give you more information. Now, should most people feel pressure to squirt, Is it a parlor trick? Is it truly, like, the best orgasm of all time? You can squirt without having an orgasm. You can have an orgasm that emanates from your G spot without squirting when those two things do happen together. For me, anyways, it's a very pleasurable sensation. I don't know if it's like, the apex of all or orgasms. I've had some great orga. But again, some of the best orgasms I've ever had were, like, with very minimal touch and just, like, energy and, like, you know, someone like, stroking my hair can make me orgasm and have really epic experiences. So I don't want to put orgasms on some sort of spectrum and say, like, this one is the best one. I think a lot of heterosexual men appreciate the squirting orgasm or squirting itself because it looks like their own ejaculation. So for them, there's sort of. For many men, there is a sort of like, ongoing unresolved fear that their female partner is faking orgasm or faking pleasure. And I think that they kind of erroneously believe that the squirting orgasm is. Is an orgasm. They're like, yes, she didn't fake it. But of course it can happen without an orgasm. So it's really not a good indication. I think the best indication is, you know, a verbal confirmation.
- [39:19]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Why don't you ask your partner and trust that they're telling you the truth.
- [39:22]
Caitlin V. Neal
Right. And if you have reason not to trust them in that, there's probably other things going on in the relationship that are unrelated.
- [39:27]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Right.
- [39:28]
Caitlin V. Neal
You can trust one thing. Yeah. How you do one thing is how you do everything. And I think that one of the core components of squirting is just like, again, having a relaxed nervous system and being willing to let go. And if you're really concerned about peeing on the couch or the bed sheets or whatever, it's really hard for you to let go. So creating conditions that support that, like a waterproof sex blanket, little things like that go a long way in creating the conditions for our nervous system to be able to relax and enjoy. Enjoy pleasure.
- [39:53]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Yep. And it's okay that things are messy?
- [39:56]
Caitlin V. Neal
Yes.
- [39:57]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Yeah, totally. Somebody, I don't know this is a while ago. Somebody's like, if you don't change your sheets afterwards, it's not worth it. I don't know. I was like, thanks for allowing that.
- [40:08]
Caitlin V. Neal
That's fantastic. I love. Well, yeah, I mean, that's a. Once a week. That's like a Saturday, you know?
- [40:13]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Right, right. When the sheets.
- [40:15]
Caitlin V. Neal
Like Wednesday night, you know, if you're
- [40:17]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
gonna wash your sheets anyways.
- [40:18]
Caitlin V. Neal
Oh, go for it. Go for it. Get messy. Just get messy. Get. Get the. Get the waterproof blanket. It changes everything.
- [40:24]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Before we wrap up, I just want you to briefly chat on something I see a lot is in a heterosexual relationship, women feeling like men just want sex or need sex. And how I understand this is not communicating with your partner what sex means to you. And. And one partner just really seeing it as something to be taken from. From them. Right. Like, the man kind of takes this sex, or she gives it to him instead of understanding why he needs air quotes. Needs, but like that communication breakdown in that couple. Can you just chat briefly or give some tips about for women who might be finding themselves in that scenario?
- [41:03]
Caitlin V. Neal
Yeah. So much to say on this, but just kind of the. The bullet points a lot of the time. Again, because of the way that we're socialized, men equate sex with intimate intimacy. And so just to feel closeness, just to feel desired, just to feel like they have that bond with you and that that bond is codified in a physical relationship. Sex can be just straight up equated with intimacy, intimacy for men. And a lot of female people need intimacy first in order to get to a place where they desire sex. So again, having a conversation around nuance, what is it that you actually want to like? What is sex? If sex is more the means to an end, what is the end itself? Do you want to feel loved? Do you want to feel desire? Do you want to feel close? You want to stress relief? Like, when we can have a conversation free of shame around what it is that we actually desire and we realize that sex is just the methodology that we're choosing to get there, and we can take some of, like, the significance that we put on sex off of it and just recognize that it's like another biological function. It's a bodily function, it's a relationship function. We can take some of that, like, zing off of the conversation and just have a real honest conversation. We do a lot. Another thing about the sexual blueprint that I mentioned earlier, earlier again, which men are often conditioned in, is that they quote, unquote, need sex. So they need to know that sex is going to happen. So if, for example, like, if you are with a sexual blueprint partner and you turn them down, they go to initiate sex and you say no. That feels very significant for them because that is part of their blueprint. It's part of like they're. They're just. The way that they are organized is they need to know that sex is going to happen. So one of the greatest things that you can do for a sexual blueprint partner is say, not right now, but Saturday, we can schedule some time to be intimate and physical with each other, right? That lets them know that it's going to happen. What I equate it to is, like, when you're swimming, you need to know that you're going to be able to come up for air. Or if you're hungry, you're going to need to know that there's going to be another meal coming, right? Or else that's all you're going to be able to think about is like, when am I going to get this next meal right? And then you can't function very well. You can't be the best partner that you want to be because you're so focused on getting this thing that you associate with like survival that becomes your sole focus. And then of course, if you see that your partner is the only source of sexual satisfaction and you need it for survival, it is going to eventually, often take an air of like, need, want, grasping for, thirsting for and taking. And again, I'm not meaning to put this in the terms of like your partner needs this to survive and you're obligated to do that because you're in a monogamous relationship. That is not, not it at all. But what I want to do is characterize it so that you can, can get a little bit more of an empathetic understanding of where, what, how this exists in this person's life. Men don't get physical touch the way that a lot of women do. You know, they don't hug, they don't sit on the couch with their friends, they don't cry with as much ease, they don't have children that are like loving on them and cuddling up to them. So a lot of them are just touch starved. And what they really just need is to have some human skin to skin contact contact. And of course they've been socialized that the only way to do that or enjoy that is if it ends in penetration. And I think again coming back to the example of Thomas and Erica on the show going 1 to 100, what is a 6? Maybe a 6 is just snuggling your shirts off. Maybe a 10 is eye gazing, maybe an 11 is a makeout. Like what are the things that we can enjoy and that we can find exist in our Venn diagram for what we're both a big guess to. And once we have some shared language and some shared understanding and we understand like what this provides to one another, I think we've done a lot to get closer to looking at solutions and, and to get creativity in, back into the bedroom. Because sexual energy, erotic energy, it is creative energy. It's what creates life on earth, not just for us, but the birds and the bees and the ferns and everything in between. So when we, when we tap back into our erotic energy, we're tapping inherently back into that creative energy. And, and I think that actually once we have access to that, penetration is like not even in the top 10 most important things in Our life, in our mind, in what creates a great sexual experience, certainly it can remain a priority for us. But once we learn that there's every other color of the rainbow to paint with, like, we can find a lot of satisfaction that doesn't just look like good old fashioned porn sex.
- [45:29]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
I love it. You are so, like, I can't believe we've been talking for an hour and I need to have you back because, like, I can lob all the topics at you and you just strike it out of the park every time. Can I ask one more? I just want your opinion on one more thing. And this is. People will think this is totally random coming at the end of this podcast, but I just came back from the Ishwish 2024 conference and there was a talk on poly individuals and labels and all the thing. And one of the big takeaways I took from that was the invisibility of bisexual women. And that the bisexual women feel totally invisible because you're not really a lesbian, but you're not really heterosexual. And aren't you just like on your way to being one or the other? And then you're invisible again because that sounds too binary and we're not supposed to be binary anymore. And like, can you speak just quickly on the invisibility that bisexual women experience? And have you had any experience with that?
- [46:25]
Caitlin V. Neal
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the interesting things about being bi, I was married to in partnership with a man for nine years. And so you're constantly coming out because you're passing as heterosexual. So people are just making assumptions now. I present as a little on the queer spectrum, for sure. Got short, spiky blue hair right now, and so I pass. But I also present as like, more stereotypically queer already and always have. But you're constantly needing to come out. You're constantly needing to name if you want to be known as bisexual and you present as having a male partner, then you are constantly needing to bring that up inside of conversations, order not to be erased, in order not to experience yourself as invisible. And then, you know, for the longest time, I've heavily identified as queer. Even in high school, I was the president of my undergraduate LGBTQIA student organization. I started the first LGBTQIA student org at the University of Texas at the School of Public Health there. And I always felt, or most, for most of my journey, felt very inadequately queer. I wasn't queer enough because even though I was maybe having sex with women, I didn't have a female partner or I wasn't romantically interested in women or I wasn't having enough, I wasn't enough. I was, I mean, not being enough was a huge theme of my life, not just my sexual identity. I've done a lot of work on feeling like enough as a coach and as just a person and the coachee.
- [47:50]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
I get that. I get that deeply, my friend.
- [47:52]
Caitlin V. Neal
Yeah, right, for sure. Yeah. Often the most accomplished of us are we that there's some not enoughness drive in there. And you know, I'm proud of what I've created. But so I always felt invisible to my, in a lot of spaces. And maybe not feeling queer enough is what drove me to do so much advocacy and take really visible roles in queer environments. But there's. I just want to mention this in addition to the invisible bisexuality and like, again, as a researcher, we know that bisexual women tend to suffer some of the worst health outcomes related to sex and sexuality. High rates of domestic violence and sexual assault and STIs and STDs. And it's not because they are bisexual. Often it is because they are erased, unnoticed and invisible that they suffer some of these consequences. And we could talk, we could have a whole episode on that itself. But there is one more community and women and men and non binary folks inside of that community that often experience not just erasure but discrimination. And that is that non monogamous, non monogamous, polyamorous, consensual, non monogamous, ethical, non monogamous open relations, relationships, non traditional relationship structures. Because not only do they get erased, but often they represent a threat to sort of like hegemonic monogamy.
- [49:10]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Yes. Are you going to come and destroy my relationship too? Right, exactly. And also judgment by the medical profession. Why do you need to keep getting tested so much? You know, like, you know, not being accepting to what they want to do to be safe and to be tested, judging on that.
- [49:27]
Caitlin V. Neal
Yeah, that is so true. Actually, I have personally experienced some discrimination in my own healthcare journey. Now I have a great clinic here in Los Angeles. But here, this is Los Angeles. Right. And I also spent a lot of time living in the Midwest and in Texas and yeah, I've certainly had to make up a good deal of sexual assaults just to get a test. Right. Which is harrowing experience. But like you say what you need to say in order to take care of your sexual health. Right, Beautiful.
- [49:50]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Well, thank you so much for coming bringing awareness to these important topics and we've covered so much and I had
- [49:57]
Caitlin V. Neal
a pretty good time.
- [49:58]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Time to boot.
- [49:58]
So thank you. I'll put where everybody can find you
- [50:01]
Caitlin V. Neal
down in the link time. Yeah thank you. You can find me on YouTube. Search for Caitlyn V that's spelled with a C and V as in Victoria and you can find me on my website. We'll give you all of the links Caitlyn V.com and you can find my show Good Sex on HBO Max or Discovery Plus.
- [50:19]
Dr. Kelly Casperson
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of youf Are Not Broken. If you want to dig deeper with me, sign up for my Adult Sex Education Master Masterclass where you learn adult things like communication skills, anatomy lessons and desire types, and how to talk to your doctor about sexual health concerns. If you want the Adult Sex Education Masterclass for free, join my monthly membership for more in depth exclusive content, more time with yours truly. A private podcast, coaching and educational empowerment and you can watch my interviews live and get them immediately without advertising. Head over to www.kellycaspersonmd.com for the membership and Adult Sex Ed Masterclass members. Get the Masterclass for free. This podcast is presented solely for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. I am a doctor, but not your doctor in this format and all of my platforms and guests including on this podcast are not giving individual medical advice or practices medicine. See in Consult with your own care team for your individual needs and concerns. This podcast is not intended as a substitute for the care and advice of a physician, therapist or other qualified professional. This podcast does not constitute the practice of medicine, in case you were curious about that and no doctor patient relationship is formed. But I still love you. Using the information on this podcast or any of my platforms is at your own own risk. Until next time, remember you are not broken.