Today we’re celebrating our 500th episode of Foreplay Sex Therapy! Join our hosts, Laurie and George as they look back on their favorite episodes so far, how their professional journey began and what they have learned from each other over the years. We are thrilled that our listeners are learning how to have healthy conversations around sex and reducing the stigma and shame around something that everyone does!
Share with us your favorite episodes or key things you’ve learned over on our instagram page or leave us a review wherever you stream episodes. Whether it’s how to be more intentional around these conversations, or how to spice things up in the bedroom we’d love to hear from our listeners. And thank you to all of you for your listens, downloads, shares and reviews. This wouldn’t be possible without our amazing audience. Stay tuned as we have so much more to share and as we continually work to strengthen connections in love relationships. Keep it hot y’all!
Congratulations! Huge accomplishment!
Check out this episode’s sponsor (and help the pod!):
Uberlube.com — Laurie’s favorite personal lubricant!
Transcript
Laurie Watson, PhD (00:02.606)
Happy anniversary baby! Episode 500! Woo! New episodes! We might be a little different on the numbers because we’re doing some replays these days. But wow! Foreplay has done 500 episodes.
George (00:04.458)
Whoo, 500 episodes.
George (00:21.442)
That’s pretty wild. That is pretty wild.
Laurie Watson, PhD (00:24.472)
So listen up, we’re gonna talk about what we’ve learned and how we’ve been impacted and we just wanna share that with you.
George (00:33.602)
Yeah, it’s time flies. And I saw the numbers, like 500. I think I’ve been around for like 300 of them, but that’s some accomplishment, right? I mean, 300 is pretty amazing, but that Laurie’s really had this vision, created this podcast and 500 episodes. mean, you’re thinking in 58 years, that’s what, 10 years? 10 years of talking about sex, maybe.
Laurie Watson, PhD (00:39.374)
You have,
George (01:06.312)
You got a little bit more than 10. Yeah, I think that’s just nice to take a moment to just say, wow, thank you to our listeners for continuing to give us feedback and different ideas. It does feel like this is a conversation and we’re just scratching the surface. There’s so much to know and to be talked about and it’s kind of cool.
Laurie Watson, PhD (01:29.706)
such an important place in our relationships and I hope that that’s what we’ve given people is a way to talk to each other. That’s the letters we get. It’s like that people say, you know, never been able to talk to my partner about this, but you guys have normalized that conversation and we’re having conversations about sex now that we’ve never been able to. That makes me happy. That makes it worthwhile. And I want to thank to our patrons, people who have supported us financially
George (01:54.123)
Mm-hmm.
Laurie Watson, PhD (01:59.552)
financially. was calculating the other day and it’s like, I don’t know, $70,000 to produce this podcast a year, you know, between all the things that we pay for and do and manage and it’s a lot. so anyway, we thank you. We know some of you have been with us since the very beginning and bless you. Thank you for helping us get this word out there.
George (02:25.378)
always looking for new patrons. All right, so please join us. I do think we want this message to get out there. It’s there is 500 podcasts, people can go into this archive and find the topic on pretty much everything and kind of I do think we there’s a lack of good information in the world today. You know, there’s so much polarization and, you know, just
I just, I do think this is a beautiful mission to want to help people love better and to talk about difficult topics. for me, I think that’s what I’m proud of. I mean, I came into this hundreds of episodes ago, not really knowing how to talk about sex. And I really wanted to get better as a therapist, but also as a partner and as a father. And, you know, I’ve had decades of training not to talk about sex.
So I feel like I’ve had some years here now where we’ve been very intentional. We’ve talked about hard topics and the interesting thing is I’ve gone from apprehension and caution and even fear a lot of the time in these conversations that data has shifted towards excitement and now when I don’t know something, I’m like, that’s cool. That’s an area I could know more about me and something else. it’s been a nice shift.
Laurie Watson, PhD (03:48.214)
Yeah, I’m glad to hear that. You grew up in a way that this was not something talked about or shared about, right? Yeah, and I grew up in a way I, you know, my mother talked a lot about sex in appropriate ways, but it was definitely between she and I a conversation. I wouldn’t say that it was a family conversation, but…
George (04:24.61)
Yeah, I think for a lot of men it’s a predicament that you are a, I’m a sexual pursuer.
but I don’t have words for what that’s like when it’s not working. And so it’s a dilemma you find yourself in. There’s like this force that’s wanting something and you keep getting shut down and there’s a lot of first where you don’t have the emotional words to really express it. before you know, you’re just walking away or huffing and puffing and we need help just listening to the wisdom of our own emotional signals. There’s such important information they’re giving us.
Laurie Watson, PhD (04:58.784)
And I remember when we began this work, I barely knew you, right? I mean, we had just decided kind of I’d gone to one of your trainings. had seen several of your videos, which was why I had said, Hey, would you be interested in this? Because you were a dynamic teacher. And I had girlfriends who had been your supervisees who said, You need George Fowler to work with you on the podcast. so, but I had no idea.
if you were a sexual pursuer or a sexual withdraw and really didn’t know what I was getting into. I remember like, do you remember this George, we were in New York, I think in White Plains, we were doing our first recordings and you were like ready to go and I like had to leave the room. I was just like so nervous. Like I’m talking to this man I barely know who’s a stranger about deep sex topics. I’m like, oh my gosh.
I just had no idea what to expect.
George (06:01.698)
Yeah, we saw our pattern right from the get go, right? I’m just focused on the mission, blocking out all feelings, not even noticing. I’m just like, come on, we gotta do this. And Lori’s taking the space and trying to express in real time what’s happening for her. I’m avoiding that, you know, so there we go.
Laurie Watson, PhD (06:21.933)
you
George (06:27.436)
And it’s, I think we’ve learned to kind of appreciate.
frustrations that we trigger for each other. I mean, I think when you’re around people that are different from you, it complements you. It helps you continue to grow. And I know I’ve gotten more patient. Thank you to you.
George (06:51.468)
What’s that? No, and that’s all areas of my life. That impatience, it can make you very effective in a lot of areas, but it also, you know, it has an impact. So trying to kind of have people in your life that can lovingly hold up a mirror so we can continue to grow.
Laurie Watson, PhD (07:19.722)
I think that I, yeah, you’ve been, you’ve given me many gifts. I was actually reflecting on that with Derek yesterday that I think certainly focus is one of your gifts and I’ve learned to not talk about 16 different subjects at once. But also,
you know, I’ve learned a lot from you professionally just in EFT. And I think personally, you being able to finally maybe believe that a woman could have kind of a sexual pursuing part.
That felt very validating. I know in the beginning you said, it’s just because you’re a sex therapist and you talk about it all day long. But I think over time, you began to trust that that was actually part of me. And being seen for that was really healing. Seen and that that was a good thing. That’s kind of the message I got. And that felt really good.
George (08:23.532)
A lot of this stuff is not super conscious, right? It just evolves through the repairs and the work. I look back on how little I actually knew about this.
And I still don’t know that much, you know, and I always admire your, I don’t think most of our listeners get how committed you are to learning about sex and relationships. You really never turn that off, you know, you’re gonna finish a podcast and read a book and then you’re gonna go talk to somebody and like, just, it’s such a passion for you. And you know, that gift, you you pass along to all of us.
Laurie Watson, PhD (09:07.96)
Thank you, yeah, I’m definitely a studier. But I mean, you know a lot now. You know, 300 episodes later. Check in with Kathy.
George (09:18.988)
Hopefully some of it stuck.
I think the biggest gift is the wanting to approach the topic. It’s wanting to learn from it. It’s trusting the space. It’s okay not to know. But if you just stay curious, you’re gonna get clearer. And it’s just so many areas here we’re just not clear about and nobody talks about. So that’s what I love that part. I love doing podcasts and we’re not sure what we’re gonna talk about.
You know, there are areas we want to get a little clearer about, but we’re not. And then before you know it towards the end of the podcast, I’m like, that’s definitely feels clearer to me.
Laurie Watson, PhD (09:57.356)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think one of the things I love about working with you is just the learning and the clarity that comes from talking. I mean, the last episode we did, you know, I felt like that sharpened a lot of my understanding of novelty and…
George (11:11.97)
I’m doing a…
training next week for a thousand firefighters. And I’m gonna talk about stress and talk about relationships, but I’m gonna bring up sex. I would have never done that five years ago to talk about sex in front of a thousand firefighters. That just would be madness. But it’s so important to avoid these conversations as just destined people to stay kind of alone where they’re not gonna talk about it. So thank you for helping.
Strengthen that courage. That’s the ripple effect.
Laurie Watson, PhD (11:50.104)
is beautiful. And you just think about first responders, firefighters who carry so much stress and tension in their body because they’re going into dangerous places all the time and how sex is a place that they might one still carry defensive sort of tension into but maybe you can help them learn like this is a place of renewal and joy and
a way to let down that kind of protection so that they can be vulnerable again, which is maybe what their partners need. Yeah. I wanna see the recording on this. This is good news.
George (12:33.886)
Yeah, I had one a couple of months ago with the military and that is a lot of, you know, soldiers and Marines, which one I was talking to. And, you know, I talked about the emotional cycle and the fight of a negative cycle and me walking away. And I would have ended it there, but now I was like, you know what? And then I came back to my wife a couple hours later, because I wanted to repair and make up.
You know, so I put my moose on her. Can you believe she didn’t want to have sex with me? Why the heck wouldn’t she want to have sex with me? So just introducing the topic and the confusion, it just normalizing what so many people feel, right? When you got these emotional and sexual systems interacting and going back and forth, it’s easy to get confused and not know what the heck we’re talking
Laurie Watson, PhD (13:17.066)
I see. the milk story evolved into the bedroom story. that right? That’s good. Evolution. Nice. Thank you. That’s lovely.
George (13:20.628)
Yes.
George (13:25.986)
So let’s come back and talk more about evolution.
Laurie Watson, PhD (13:42.702)
Whoa, now what are we gonna talk about? So I’ll ask you some questions and then you can ask me. So I wanna know, when I first met you in Charlotte, North Carolina, I had come down to see your teaching, to see what you were like and…
I’d only I saw you on break and so I’d only listened to half of it and I thought, yeah, he’s as good as my girlfriends had said. And so I was like, yeah, he’d be great on the podcast. And you said, were you that woman who put it out on the listserv that you were looking for a podcast partner? And you said, I’ve been thinking of doing that with you. Really? I didn’t know that.
George (14:29.484)
being a withdraw, you kind of forget about the past. And it’s now I’m a trauma rejection button and me and Laurie are gonna fall into a cycle. No, I mean, I, at the time was talking to Sue Johnson, my mentor, our mentor, and she was getting more focused on sex and seeing the importance and how the kind of couples therapy fields was not talking about it.
Laurie Watson, PhD (14:31.084)
You can’t remember. No.
George (14:54.582)
You know, and I started a group with Esther Perel who’s has a different take on sex and differentiation and novelty. So I was really searching. I knew in my own personal relationship how important this was. And I didn’t feel like I had skills to really approach it. All the skills I had around emotional connection and helping that.
didn’t always fix the sexual piece. So there was a lot I was missing. So I knew I needed help. And I also, my own faith, I believe God sends things at the right time when it’s supposed to. And that was the timing. was like, here’s this person doing a podcast. I listened to one of them. was like, wow, she has a ton of information. I don’t know half the things she just said.
You know, this would be fun to learn more about the sexual cycle. I know I bring a lot of expertise around the emotional cycle. You know, and I think together that would be a really nice. Little did I know, like we would develop this emotional and sexual system and different cycles and a map and the overlap and all this stuff came because, you know, we were coming into this relationship really strengthened in one area and needing help in the other. And like, that’s what I think we found in each other.
Laurie Watson, PhD (16:05.998)
Yeah, I think, you for me, I was just interested in podcasting with somebody who could carry a conversation and had some enthusiasm. I didn’t really need somebody who knew that much about sex yet, but I was interested in somebody who knew attachment and could think that way. So that was what was important to me and certainly found you very lively. And that was fun.
And the development of this into teaching was really something I wouldn’t have predicted and have.
Laurie Watson, PhD (17:05.23)
I know I’m doing a developmental course in Arizona in the fall for a therapist, EFT therapists, and we’re going to just look at it from a developmental slant. And I’m hoping that that, we’ll have to talk about that on the podcast to get me ready for those kinds of things too. But I mean, it’s just growing and we’ve really taught in Egypt, you’ve taught in Israel, although I got to come to that.
George (17:20.738)
Mm-hmm.
George (17:46.806)
there isn’t a place we go to that we don’t talk about sex. So you could throw in Thailand, Brazil, Russia, England, France, Germany. We’ve been everywhere talking about, can’t talk, if you’re a couples therapist, you are a sex therapist. I mean, that’s one of the big takeaways I’ve taken from our podcasting together. You could not talk about it and you’re just leaving it out, but this is…
Our client is always the emotional bond. Two people come together to become part of something bigger than themselves and they do that emotionally, sexually, right? So like, you gotta deal with that.
Laurie Watson, PhD (18:26.338)
Right, exactly. And I suppose to end, you know, kind of the direction and message that we’d like to give our listeners, you know, I think that first of all, again, we are honored that you’ve stuck with us. Some of you I know have been with us since the very beginning. And…
George (18:37.227)
Mm-hmm.
George (19:25.538)
Another big takeaway for me is just the intentionality of communicating. Like you have to get the reps in. You gotta keep coming back and talking about your sexual life.
just like your emotional life. It’s just what, you know, strong, that’s what great lovers do, great communicators do. This is what, just like you want to get in shape, you got to work out. This is a different form of working out. And then we also emphasize it can be vulnerable. could be some intensity, there’s some hurt that’s part of the process, but it’s also fun. You know, it’s fun to talk about sex and, you know, we should laugh in some of these conversations, not all like work and duty and obligation, that there’s something,
and livening about this so we can tap into parts of ourselves in a bedroom that we can’t anywhere else on this planet. And that’s worth fighting for.
Laurie Watson, PhD (20:15.634)
I agree. I love that. I can tell the pursuing energy in you when you say this is fun to talk about this. know, I know that. Me too. I think so. And in fact, you know, I would say in the podcast throughout the years, Derek and I have had lots and lots of conversations that we probably wouldn’t have had, you know, that have helped heal us and deepen us and
George (20:24.427)
Yeah.
George (21:06.337)
Have you had him on a podcast?
George (21:12.14)
Mm.
George (21:22.742)
knows. Maybe someday we’ll get Cathy on the episode. I wouldn’t beg on it, but it’s a worthy goal, right?
George (21:38.87)
Well, what would you want?
your legacy to be of this podcast.
Laurie Watson, PhD (21:52.878)
Women have learned that it’s important to be intentional, to develop eroticism. And I hope that men have felt supported, that their drive and desire is a good thing that keeps romance alive.
George (22:16.77)
or something, I think on both sides that, you know, a negative cycle sets the women up to feel like they have a load of beat over their bodies broken and men to be pathologized as these sex hound kind of, and both of them come caricatures of their truth of who they really are. You know, so to just provide some grounding to that to say, listen, women, you have beautiful sexuality. You just gotta get the right help to.
to show up and there’s nothing wrong with kind of the way your body is operating. You know, for so many women, I wouldn’t want to have the sex I haven’t either. It’s not that, it’s the cycle that’s the blame. And same with men, we don’t have to apologize that we find connection through this doorway. That it’s a beautiful way to find connection, you know, that’s embodied and alive without the complication of words and everything else. And, you know, to do that in a way that sees the bigger picture and could express.
you know, the emotions underneath it because it’s not, they’re not separate systems. You know, they’re part of the same, the emotional and sexual. And I just think that gives us the the biggest breath to have these conversations.
George (23:57.42)
sexual male withdrawers. You have your good reasons to withdraw. And you’re probably sensitive and emotionally attuned, which is kind of why when things are not working, it compromises that sexual drive system. And for all gay and kind of different identifying listeners out there, you have the same right to connection and safety as everyone else.
you know, fall into similar patterns and the more we could unite and focus on, we have so much more in common than what we have different. We live in a world that polarizes different, that wants to demonize somebody that’s not in your camp. When, you know, I think the mission of this podcast is focusing on we all have the same needs and the same longings. And yes, differences are important. You know, we don’t all start at the same spot, that’s for sure. But really just, I think we need more messages that focus on that.
George (25:43.106)
Thank you for giving me the opportunity and who knows what plans lie in the future, but this mission is gonna continue, right? And we really need all our listeners’ support that really, I mean, we say these words, sometimes I feel like they sound cliche, to be part of something, to spread a good message, I just think it makes us all feel better.
whatever the podcast is, if it’s a message of unity and love and trying to get people to communicate better and take risks to have stronger connections, which lead to stronger families, which lead to stronger communities, which lead to stronger countries, which leads to a stronger planet. Like, we gotta invest in that. We invested so many other silly, superficial things.
Right? It’s I don’t know. I think it’s it’s awesome to have more meaning.
George (26:54.102)
you. Keep it hot.
