Welcome Brave Lovers! In today’s episode we are diving into the topic of communal sexual strength. Research shows that couples feel more desire when they approach sex with love and caring. This creates a positive reinforcement loop for couples. The motive for sex is love and caretaking and secure partners experienced heightened intimacy, longing and connection. Love creates the sense of “we” and this benefit is noticed in other areas of the relationship as well.
Laurie reminds listeners that “desire grows when we give pleasure, deepen intimacy with our partner and deepen our emotional connection. Follow along as Laurie and George give a great role play example of what this looks like in action.
Make sure to grab a pre-order copy of our book, Brave Love, Great Sex!
Transcript
Laurie Watson, PhD (00:07.63)
George, I’ve been researching and I am so excited because I’ve found something new that I really think will help people keep desire alive for a lifetime.
george (00:17.797)
Hey, we wanna hear it, Laurie.
Laurie Watson, PhD (00:20.555)
It’s called Communal Sexual Strength. And let’s talk about it.
Okay, our book is coming out September fifteenth, y’all. We have Barnes and Noble. I think it’s this week. If you’re listening today, you can still get the special on Barnes and Noble. And it is twenty-five percent off. So please go to Barnes and Noble right now and buy our book. That will really help us with our numbers when it comes out on September fifteenth. And we’ve got the couples retreat coming out on November fourteenth, right?
george (00:57.123)
Is there a code for the Barnes and Noble or it’s just
Laurie Watson, PhD (01:00.29)
Yes. What’s the code, George?
Laurie Watson, PhD (01:51.896)
Find the code.
george (02:08.24)
It’s only available for those who have a Barnes and Noble membership. Good luck.
Laurie Watson, PhD (02:11.446)
No no, it it’s not. It’s there’s an additional ten percent for those who have that.
george (02:17.114)
Says an important note this deal is only available to those with a Barnes and Noble membership, aka rewards membership, with an extra ten percent off for premium numbers. So that’s not really that.
george (02:38.456)
Right, but there is no code, so they get figured out when they get there.
george (02:51.13)
There you go. Pre order twenty six, twenty five. Twenty five, yep.
Laurie Watson, PhD (02:53.486)
Is it twenty-five? Yeah. I don’t know why it says twenty-five, not twenty-six, but yeah, probably so.
george (03:00.272)
Twenty five off.
Laurie Watson, PhD (03:04.96)
Okay, we are excited. Barnes and Noble is giving a sale on our pre-order with the code pre-order 25. It starts from Tuesday, June 23rd through Friday, June 26th. You do have to be a premier member of Barnes and Noble, but that’s really easy to get. And you get 25% off. And I think you get an additional 10% off if you do this pre-order. So wheo-hoo! Go to Barnes Noble for us. and we also have our
george (03:30.597)
Yeah.
Laurie Watson, PhD (03:34.914)
Or okay, George, check the date on on the couples retreat.
george (03:47.928)
Is the fourteenth of November.
Laurie Watson, PhD (03:50.893)
Okay, then we have the couples retreat, the 14th of November, and we’ve got signups on our website, Brave Love, Great Sex. come and get us. And on George’s Instagram at FowlerGeorge and at Dr. Laurie Watson, we’ll have our we’ll pin those so that you can easily find how to get this, both the book and the retreat, a day long.
george (04:16.08)
And what we’re hoping with this book is that it has long legs, right? That it’s really introducing something a bit new to the field, this integration of what happens inside the bedroom attachment wise and outside and
But it does make a big difference. That’s why we’re making a push. You know, the pre-orders, if you could kind of launch it in the category of best seller, it has a different trajectory. So as much effort as we can put in the next couple of months, and you all could help us and spread it on your Instagrams and Facebooks and just get momentum going. Like we can hit that launch, boom, then you know, good things are gonna happen. So we really appreciate your support.
Laurie Watson, PhD (04:55.832)
Thank you.
Okay, so back to communal sexual strength. George, I know you’re gonna be excited about this because it’s really about how sex and the caretaking cycle interact. You know, sexual connection, emotional connection, and caretaking are always interacting with each other. These three cycles impact each other at all times. And so it’s hard for us to just segment out one and say, this is the secret. But for desire, we
Sustain it in relationship not just by being wanted, but it’s really sustained when we care about our partner’s well-being and pleasure. If we come to the sexual moment, let’s say you know the primary problem in relationship, in long-term relationship, is usually a desire discrepancy. So one person wants sex more than the other person. Yep.
george (05:49.242)
So let’s use Joey Maria, right? Just just to keep it so we can talk about this throughout. Because I love the the research nerd in Laurie as she has these concepts and we’re you know, trying to apply these concepts so it they become clear and so we’re all gonna kind of, you know.
value add from from Lori’s kind of grinding work that she does with this. So, you know, with Joey and Maria, where because Joey’s more the sexual pursuer, we got a negative cycle that puts pressure on both of them. But Maria with pressure starts to become a sexual withdrawal, right? And it’d be easy to identify her as the low libido, even though that might not be accurate, it’s what happens in the next in the sexual cycle.
Laurie Watson, PhD (06:33.088)
Right. I mean, there is usually a sense in many couples where one person wants it more and the other wants it less. And there’s reasons for that. Certainly the pressure cycle, like George, you’re talking about, is one of the primary reasons and one the negative cycle that we work on with EFT. There’s also physiological reasons for that. But
But when our caretaking is online and we say, you know what, it’s important to me that our relationship has priority in my heart. I’m not necessarily always self-sacrificing, but I’m thinking about you. I’m thinking about us.
I’m thinking about what would be good for us. And sometimes on a night where your partner has a higher desire and they ask for sex and you think, you know, I don’t have any negative reason not to, like, you know, sure. And I want to because I know in the end I’ll feel stress relief. I know in the end that we’ll feel better together, and it makes my partner happy. Those are really fine motives to have sex, not necessarily born in individual desire.
But here’s the kicker.
When we come into it with caregiving and we say, I’m gonna make love to my partner for all of those good reasons, we’re not doing it because we’re pressured, we’re not doing it because there’s a negative consequence if we don’t do it. My partner will pout, my partner will be angry with me. Those are negative consequences. But when we come into it with an approach saying, I want to because this is love, this is us, this is how I make us happy, the payback, George, is we’ve
Laurie Watson, PhD (08:12.462)
feel more desire ourselves. I mean, I am so excited about this. It’s like it’s set up. The system is set up is that when we give love, we get back desire. I mean how cool is that?
george (08:28.057)
So where are you getting this from?
Laurie Watson, PhD (08:30.104)
This is from Amy Mew’s research on sexual communal strength. And this is this is done on a huge group of people, and they’ve basically shown that, and sexual communal strength is people who have secure attachment, right? They care about the partnership as much as they care about themselves.
And when they give sex out of a love motive, they actually have internal sexual desire as a reward.
I I just can’t get over this that the system is the system is set up in secure couples. This is how we we get more desire and how it keeps funding itself over time. Yeah, one person initiates more, they have more desire. And if the other person who has less desire says, I can do it though. I don’t feel like there would be a bad thing if I don’t do it. And for me personally, you know, I
george (09:04.751)
That is pretty awesome.
Laurie Watson, PhD (09:31.671)
Meh, you know, it’s a it’s an okay night. We’re not talking about do it when you don’t want to it to do we’re not talking about do it when you don’t want to do it. We’re not talking about laying down and thinking of England because otherwise your partner will be mad. You know, we’re thinking about like I’m gonna do this because I love you. And that our body feels more desire over time. Like then during that week, George
george (09:37.241)
Mm-hmm.
george (09:49.621)
Laurie Watson, PhD (09:57.123)
We actually feel more excited, aroused, and having desire. I I just can’t get over how beautiful this is.
george (10:02.735)
I love your excitement. And it is really cool. And it, I mean, we know this in the emotional cycle, right? If if you give caregiven, not just the person who receives it wins, but you win, right? You experience the power of connection, which makes it easier for you to then be vulnerable with your own emotions, right? So this is the the the opposite of that in the sexual cycle, right? If you’re able to do it.
Laurie Watson, PhD (10:09.71)
Right.
Laurie Watson, PhD (10:22.027)
Exactly.
george (10:27.233)
from a caregiving place that says, hey, you know, I trust that my body will do what it does in a space. I might not be in the mood the same way as my partner, but like I love when responding to my partner. I love when my partner’s feeling good. That in that process of giving, you actually access more of your own desire, which is pretty awesome.
Laurie Watson, PhD (10:47.028)
It is so awesome because I think, you know, we sometimes think, Okay, I’m just beginning from a place of no desire. My body isn’t turned on, but I go ahead and give it. And I just think that throughout the week to get a payback that says your body is gonna feel more desire naturally. I’ve I’ve kind of known this in the back of my mind for for many, many years. Like women talk about
If I’m not having sex frequently, it becomes harder and harder to take off my clothes. You know, there’s like this barrier internally of like, to get so vulnerable, to get naked. There there’s just a barrier. And so frequent sex lowers that barrier. I n I know that.
george (11:34.17)
Right. But the adding the piece of it increases their own desire. Really, that explicitly is super cool. So and this is this is the fine line in the caregiving system. You know, if you’re doing it out of obligation or pressure or you don’t want to, you know, hurt your partner, that’s actually coming from your own anxiety.
So like a caregiving system is is empathetic and focused on the other. It wants to give. It’s not coming from a place of anxiety. It’s com and and I I would imagine a lot of sexual withdrawers, you know, this is they might not be sure exactly where is it coming from caregiving, which is altruistic, or is it coming from pressure and anxiety, which is really your emotional system? And how do we help sexual withdrawers put words to which one that’s gonna lead to desire, which one’s gonna lead to actually probably less desires?
Does that make sense?
Laurie Watson, PhD (12:27.97)
Yes, and I think that we have some answers for them. How do we do that? Love creates a sense of a we that it is not just you. It is not just your it is it is okay, let me start over. It is not just me. It is not just you, like me against you. It is us. What makes us feel good?
I mean think about this in almost any realm, right? Saving money. Okay, you know, I’d rather spend money and have great furnishings and spend money on summer camps for the kids because it’s the now and my partner wants to save money. What is better for us?
Like they make those decisions born out of the we place. What do we want? What is good for us? And they come to it like with agreement and support for the the other’s ideas. Financial harmony happens. And same in sex.
If it’s transactional, where well I’ll give you sex if you give me, you know, help with the children, or I’ll give you sex if you become more involved with this h household work. That transactional place makes like kills sex. In fact, if we give sex under those means because it’s transactional, we do not get the reward of desire. In fact, we get a negative, we get a deficit.
if we give sex because we’re hoping to get something, or if we give sex because our partner isn’t going to be angry, either one of those, either one of those kills our own personal desire. It’s only when it comes from the heart that we get the reward of desire back.
george (13:59.248)
Yeah.
george (14:12.461)
Like it ’cause again that
You’re talking about longings, right? You’re doing it for the us. Your heart wants something. It trusts in giving. You know, you become part of something bigger than yourself. I mean, we all want to do this. It sounds cliche almost, but we’re trying to break down the science behind it that if you can get your body to focus on, hey, this action is gonna be good for us, and I wanna do this for us, like you what’s happening to a want, something that you want in given, caregiving, which allows your body afterwards to actually have more access to your
own sexual energy and desire. And that is pretty, pretty we don’t have a slide like this. We gotta make a slide like that in our next training. Yeah.
Laurie Watson, PhD (14:46.763)
Exactly.
Laurie Watson, PhD (14:51.558)
We gotta make a slide like this, right? Desire grows when we give pleasure, when we deepen intimacy with our partner, and when we connect emotionally. Desire grows for us, for the giver.
george (15:05.911)
And if you’re not able to access that caregiven system because you’re doing it out of transactional or whatever else, like it makes sense why that leads to a different outcome, which is not desire.
Laurie Watson, PhD (15:16.544)
Right. If we exactly desire does not grow if we’re avoiding conflict or pres you know, preventing our partner’s disappointment or just stopping the pressure cycle. It the the desire will not grow for us. So it’s eas go ahead. Let’s come back.
george (15:30.287)
All right, well let’s come back and and let’s practice with Joey Maria maybe both ways.
Laurie Watson, PhD (15:35.532)
Okay.
george (15:41.338)
All right, Lori, so let’s practice this. Let let’s let’s maybe we come fail and then nail. Maybe you come at it from it sounds like I’m I’m wanting sex, but you’re gonna do it in a trend a transaction way, right? And and and then we could just process where that leaves you, what it feels like is Maria, and then we’ll do take two and come from a different place.
Laurie Watson, PhD (15:53.423)
Transactional way, sure. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You go, Joey.
george (16:04.334)
Yeah.
Hey Marie, it’s you know, we’ve got a lot going on, I know, but it’s it’s been a while. It’s been a week. Maybe we could a little find a little lone time tonight.
Laurie Watson, PhD (16:18.092)
You know, I have got so much going on tomorrow. I just I really want to get a good night’s sleep. We just you know, we’ve got the party and we’ve got a bazillion things, all those people coming. I mean, I guess I I guess we could I I would be able to do it and kinda stay up a little bit later, but would you promise to help me in the morning, give me like three hours to get ready for our company?
george (16:45.519)
Yeah.
Laurie Watson, PhD (16:48.536)
So the problem with this, right, is it’s defeating, it’s deflating to the Joey who’s asking because it’s not very erotic. Right? It’s not an erotic I’ll take it anyway. Yeah.
george (16:56.409)
Yeah. No, it’s it’s feels like I’ll take it, but it’s really not what I’m looking for. I’ll take it anyway. I really don’t wanna and I don’t wanna have a long discussion around why we don’t and spend an hour talking about this, so let’s just
Laurie Watson, PhD (17:09.806)
Just wanna get to it. But but I mean I think right, the the heart and what makes sex so great is an erotic response from your partner. like, sure, let’s let’s do it. You know, I got a half an hour, I gotta get to bed afterwards, but you know, yeah, let’s do a quickie. You know, something that
george (17:29.857)
And it feeds my fear that you’re just doing it for me. You’re doing it not ’cause you want to. You’re servicing me, which is, you know, it’s really not what I’m looking for.
Laurie Watson, PhD (17:39.767)
Y it’s not for the us. It’s not how we’re going to feel afterwards. It’s just
You know, this makes Joey happy, it gets Joey off her back. And the transactional piece is I’ll do this for you if you do this for me. Which never really works in a marriage over anything for the record, because it what we want is a gift that’s freely given. Hey baby, you know, I’m gonna jump up early and I’m gonna clean up all the porch furniture and you know, I’ll take care of the decorations, you know, anything else you want me to do, right?
I mean, even if even if Joey had inserted that, George, like as soon as she started talking, say, I know you’ve got so much going on. How about if I do this, this, this, this? Like giving in his way in the caregiving cycle with her stress, she might have said, Yes, I’ve got 30 minutes. Let’s go, baby. You know. I mean, either one of them could have corrected it with generosity.
george (18:14.735)
It always
george (18:23.991)
Yeah.
george (18:36.551)
And yep. And unfortunately, when Maria does it that way, and it’s logical if you don’t have a lot of energy while you’re trying to make up on the energy the next morning, I mean, she’s just trying to conserve energy. But what she’s not recognizing is, you know, forcing herself to have sex when she’s not accessing the we, the caregiving system, is probably not going to be so great for her body.
Laurie Watson, PhD (19:04.3)
Right. I mean, she might have an orgasm, right? Because women often start from responsiveness. They start from not desire, but from a place of saying, I’m willing to get there. I remember that my body has pleasure. So, but I think that in sexual communal strength, what we really wanna say is your pleasure gives me pleasure.
I mean this is maturity. This is the part I often say that, you know, when people get hung up about certain acts that they don’t wanna do, like let’s say oral sex. They’re they think it’s icky or they they don’t really wanna try it.
But when they learn to give and they say, you know, this is such a turn-on for you. Your pleasure gives me pleasure. They don’t necessarily feel arousal in their body, but they have excitement that builds sexually because they learn to take the excitement of their partner’s body and feel it.
in their heart, maybe not in their genitals, but they feel it in their heart and it’s like, Whew, this I’m powerful. I made you, you know, come. I made you have so much pleasure. This is so exciting to me. So erotic
george (20:18.595)
Your excitement keeps taking us to the to the positive side, which we’re gonna do next. But I just wanna make I wanna make room for yeah, you might have an orgasm, but the math is against you when you are
Laurie Watson, PhD (20:23.318)
Okay.
george (20:31.641)
having sex that you don’t really want to have. If you’re not accessing something that you want in that act, there’s a good chance you don’t orgasm or you know, you you can feel like what’s wrong with my body, some kind of pressure, some kind of shame. It’s like, it’s these, it’s these encounters that, you know, sexual withdrawers are not ready for. They don’t really want. They push themselves past that. They don’t communicate what’s happening for them. That starts to feed, you know, the pressure that makes it harder for the next time.
Laurie Watson, PhD (20:41.762)
Right.
george (21:01.585)
It’s just this slow wall that gets built up between them and their own erotic energy.
Laurie Watson, PhD (21:07.094)
Right. We don’t get that reward of desire when we’re having sex to just avoid conflict, prevent disappointment, or you know, stop the pressure cycle. Yeah. Okay. Let’s do the d the positive way with Joey and Maria, where she responds and let’s see how we can do this again. And we’ll see if Joey jumps in with generosity or like how we can demonstrate communal strength.
george (21:33.928)
I’m hoping I wanna see what I wanna see what Maria does with you know coming at it in a different way. So I’m gonna come at it the same way.
And I do hear what what what Laurie’s saying as far as Joey, how he presents this, you know, his awareness of the big picture, you know, it can make a big difference in how this lands. And that’s another conversation. But let’s say we’re coming at it the same way. We’re just gonna see what Maria can do differently if she’s coming from a caregiving system instead of her emotional system. So, hey Maria, you know, I know we’re both crazy busy, you know, but it’s you know, it’s been a while since we’ve had sex, and I’m hoping, you know, we could find a little time, a little
Yeah.
Laurie Watson, PhD (22:15.662)
You’re right. It’s you know, we haven’t had sex since probably last weekend. I mean, I think why don’t we kinda I was thinking, how about this? If we go to bed a little bit earlier
george (22:19.684)
Yeah.
Laurie Watson, PhD (22:27.582)
have sex and then then I’ll get some sleep that I need for tomorrow morning because I gotta get up early. But if we just like leave the kids watching television early, I think if you know that would give me enough time to kind of get into it and and be there for it. Would you be okay with going to bed like closer to eight thirty rather than nine thirty? Okay, baby.
george (22:47.457)
I’ll go to bed at 7 30 if you like. All right. But and again, maybe I could I I you know I got stuff to do, so maybe you can just crash and then I can take care of the things, you know, with the kids and put them down and straighten everything up.
Laurie Watson, PhD (22:58.946)
Yeah. that that would be really great. That would be wonderful. Let’s do it. Let’s do it, honey. Okay. So that she comes at it, right? She’s thinking, how do you know, she validates the fact that yeah, you’re absolutely right. We haven’t done it for a while. And she’s thinking in her mind, click, click, click, click, click.
george (23:05.763)
Yeah. Let’s do it. Let’s let’s go. Woo!
Laurie Watson, PhD (23:24.632)
How do I do it in a way that I can enjoy it? Right. I have enough time for it. And that will give me the rest that I need for tomorrow. She’s thinking about them, the whole picture and the whole situation. And then his generosity kicks in and he says, Yeah, yeah, not only that, I’ll put the kids to bed and I got stuff to do. You know, I can get up afterwards because I don’t need to rest as much. I have I’ll do some stuff for tomorrow tonight.
george (23:52.431)
So let’s let us enter it. Right.
Laurie Watson, PhD (23:52.631)
And this is communal strength. This is communal strength. It’s when a couple says, we are more important than my needs.
george (24:00.506)
So take us into that fork in a road in Maria’s mind, where the request comes and she can go down the pressured road, which is, or like she makes this choice to say, huh, what? There’s an opportunity here. Joey’s coming to me, right? This is something that maybe fell off the radar. This is something that’s important. This is something that I want for us. This I know this is good for us. Like, how does she make that right turn instead of going left?
Laurie Watson, PhD (24:27.692)
You gave you just gave all the answers, George. What you just said are all the forks in the road, right? That she chose instead of just feeling pressure. But I think there has to be the confidence, right? My partner’s with me and I’m with my partner.
I want us to feel good tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the big party. I want us to go into it strong, you know, feeling like we’re a united couple, that we have this little sexy secret that we had sex the night before. I mean, I frankly okay, this is me, but I love going to a party, you know, having had sex right before because it is just this deep sense of, you know, the way we touch during the party, the way we connect.
The sense of being on the same page, even if we’re just working our butts off trying to get it produced, there’s that sense of connection. And I think that we can remember that. Even if we don’t have the idea for sex, the desire for sex, we can say, I love the sexy little secret at the party afterwards. You know, there’s so many ways to train your brain that says, this makes us stronger.
george (25:33.871)
Yeah.
george (25:38.925)
This is fun. This is how we keep learning. You know. Thank you, Lori. I’m learning.
From you here. And you know, we talk a lot about the sexual with your trying to find something they want for themselves to get something out of the sexual act. And now we’re expanding that. We’re saying, you know, if you could find something that you want for us, something that’s gonna be better for the couple. Like if you’re able to just think that thought, your body’s caregiving system system is probably gonna kick in and probably be like, Yeah, this is really good for us after we do this. You know, once the next morning.
and we’re gonna wake up closer to each other. I love that feeling. Like we’re stronger when we do this. If we can introduce the us to this equation too, it’s not only gonna help the us, it’s gonna help you the next day have more access to your desire. Pretty cool system.
Laurie Watson, PhD (26:27.372)
Right, right. Communal strength is saying your well-being is important to me. How you’re living in the world, that’s important to me. And sexual communal strength is saying your sexual well-being is important to me too. And I might add that there are studies that say in sexual communal strength.
We also don’t ask sometimes when we want sex, knowing that our partner might be exhausted or, you know, just gave birth to a child, or like knowing where they’re at sexually and that knowing that an ask would create pressure, we hold on. We back off. It’s really reciprocal and I I just think it’s such a beautiful concept.
george (27:12.505)
We got that sexual system needing some caregiving. Boop, right? That’s what we’re trying to line up. And when that boop happens, both sides are replenished, fill up the gas tank, they have more resources to then get back at it.
Laurie Watson, PhD (27:17.24)
That’s right. Whoop.
Laurie Watson, PhD (27:29.272)
Yep. Thanks for listening.
george (27:31.491)
Keep it hot, y’all.
