Philosophy for Life
Welcome to the Philosophy for Life podcast, hosted by Darron Brown, where we explore the profound questions and timeless wisdom that shape our existence. Join us on a journey of self-discovery and intellectual exploration as we delve into the depths of philosophy, spirituality, ethics, and the human experience. Through thought-provoking discussions, engaging interviews, and insightful analysis, we seek to unravel the mysteries of life and uncover the underlying truths that guide us. Discover practical insights and philosophical perspectives that can enrich your daily life, challenge your perspectives, and inspire personal growth. Whether you're a curious seeker, a deep thinker, or simply someone passionate about understanding the complexities of our world, Philosophy for Life is your gateway to wisdom and enlightenment. Subscribe now and embark on a transformative quest to gain clarity, find purpose, and embrace the profound beauty of existence.
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Philosophy for Life
The Sex You Want with Rena Martine
The path from prosecuting sex crimes to coaching intimacy isn't one walked by many, but Reena Martin's journey is as enlightening as it is unique. Through our conversation, she opens a window into the often-unseen realities that shape the desires and relationships of modern individuals. Her insights bridge the gap between the pursuit of justice and the quest for personal joy, and she bravely shares how her career transformation led to a radical reevaluation of her own marriage and values.
Strap in as we traverse the delicate terrain of human connection, where Reena, with her background as a deputy district attorney, challenges the status quo of love, sex, and partnership. The discussion meanders through the landscape of attraction across socioeconomic classes and the reasons behind infidelity, without shying away from the sensitive topic of sexual trauma. With our guest's guidance, we peel back the layers of societal pressures and personal revelations that can often lead to seismic shifts in how we view and engage in relationships – all grounded in the wisdom and empathy that only someone with Reena's unique expertise can provide.
Our episode culminates in a reflection on the essence of trust, change, and authenticity. As Reena emphasizes the importance of self-trust, we're reminded of the sometimes painful but ultimately liberating process of aligning with one's true self. Her story – a mosaic of courage, curiosity, and compassion – serves as an invitation to reconsider what it means to live without fear or shame. It's a call to action for anyone seeking to step closer to their deepest desires and to embrace the beautifully complex tapestry of human intimacy.
just getting my notes few of the notes together. Okay, cool. Hey, what's up guys? Deron here and I have a great guest with me as reena martin. She is a intimacy coach and we're going to discuss her book and we're also going to get into her old, her previous relationship, her and why she decided to live her life in an unconventional way when it comes to relationships. I feel like, personally, this is something that I think about is I feel like a lot of people, a lot of people's unhappiness is tied to them, trying to fit into some kind of box or fit into some image that society puts them in, and I think a lot of the depression that we're seeing in our society it stems from that. But, reena, can you go ahead and just give yourself an introduction?
Speaker 2:Sure, my name is Reena Martine. I am a women's intimacy coach. I am also a former sex crimes deputy district attorney with the Los Angeles County DA's office Did that for 14 years and I am the author of the Sex. You Want A Shameless Journey to Deep Intimacy, honest Pleasure and A Life you Love.
Speaker 1:So what exactly is that? You were a DA, so does that mean that you were a lawyer or did you work directly with the police department? No, I was a lawyer, so you work directly with the police department.
Speaker 2:No, I was. I was a lawyer. So I graduated from law school, took the bar exam, all of that not very fun stuff and I was a prosecutor with the district attorney's office. So law enforcement would bring cases to our office. We would then review them to see if we thought there was sufficient evidence for us to file a case, and then I would be the one to take those cases to trial, assuming that they got that far and we had filed and not plea bargain those out.
Speaker 1:How long did you stay in that? 14 years 14 years, so from college 22 to 36 years old, you worked in this field.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I graduated from college early 20s, went straight to law school. That took three years of my life and then I got hired by the DA's office as a deputy district attorney at the age of 25. I was the youngest DA in the office at the time that I got hired and looking back I'm like who the heck gives a 25-year-old that much power over people's day day lives? But but I was in it for the right reasons and I thought it was going to be the job that I'd have forever.
Speaker 1:To be perfectly honest, Okay, why did you get out of it?
Speaker 2:Well, long story, but I'll try to. I'll try to give you the CliffsNotes version. So I was prosecuting sex crimes for the majority of that 14year career, and about 10 years into prosecuting sex crimes, child abuse and domestic violence cases, I burnt out. The system wasn't working the way that it is designed to work and so I realized that I could bust my butt and do everything I could possibly do for these survivors and their families. But if a jury did something weird, I would have to be the one to look these families in the eye and say sorry, but these people, these members of your community, just didn't believe you or didn't believe your child, and I couldn't handle that anymore.
Speaker 2:And so I started prosecuting other types of cases within the DA's office and I didn't love what I was doing. It felt like a job instead of a calling to me. I just was checking in, collecting my paycheck kind of vibe, and at the same time I was going through my own journey, as you kind of hinted to earlier, of dropping a bomb in my life, getting divorced, choosing to live my life very differently. And I thought to myself if I could help other women do what my own therapist had helped me do, but in a much shorter period of time I could perhaps get the same level of fulfillment that I was seeking in my career as a prosecutor, with better results and more joy right and less pain for people. So that's when I opted to get certified as a coach, started working with clients one-on-one and then eventually transitioned out of the legal world entirely. And now I coach, I educate, I write, I speak and I talk about sex in a much more joyful way than I used to when I was a prosecutor.
Speaker 1:You know, human nature is a funny thing. I worked for the police department for six years and most of my career it was very good. Until we had our lieutenant retired. We brought in some new guys from a whole different um, I guess they're from a whole different city and he brought his guys in and, um, it changed the culture. You know, they were firing people who were who, who are close to retirement and they only needed like two more years to get their retirement. That is like up, you know, got rid of them.
Speaker 1:And then also it was a case where a woman at the university of utah she and she and her parents had been communicating harassment. They called I want to say they called dispatch, I want to say about six to eight months, Nothing happened. The girl ended up getting killed. So it just let me know that now that I'm working, now that I'm out of that I'm into technology, software engineering, Now that I've been outside of that and just different areas I see that just, you know human nature, not everything is as righteous as you thought it was going to be as a kid. You know people don't work that way. You know we're wired and we all have our own traumas that impact the way we handle, we make our day-to-day decisions. But that's enough of that. I want to know your husband why did you marry this guy in the first place?
Speaker 2:Good question, good question. So I don't want to and this is my former husband, because we're not still married but at the time I met him I had really started to come to terms with the fact that I am not wired for conventional monogamy. Unfortunately, at the time I wasn't meeting anyone who was like me in that way. I signed up for the mainstream dating ads and this is like a long time ago, before it was swiping and it was like you had to press the buttons kind of thing you were doing on your desktop. But I went out on dates with 30 different people and on every first date I went on, even if it was somebody who I knew I didn't want to see. Again, I would ask them the same question, which was hey, just you know, curious, what are your views on monogamy? And not a single person out of those 30 said anything other than, and not a single person out of those 30 said anything other than no. I'm kind of a one woman, kind of guy type response, and so the message that that sent to me at the time was you're going to end up alone unless you conform, or like there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 2:Reena and my former husband really decent, solid guy. We had fun together and I thought, well, I guess this is, you know, if I can't beat him, I'll join them. And that's really what it was. And really all of that came to a head about six years into our relationship when I realized this isn't something I can change about myself, much like in the same way that, you know, if I were gay and I chose a man and married a man, and I was like, well, maybe I'll just wish this out of me, like that's just not how, how this works, and um, and ultimately I'm not wired for this thing, and um, and ultimately I'm not wired for this thing.
Speaker 1:He is um, and, and that's why we split up. What was it about him that separate him from other guys? Did he have like, uh well, how old were you when you met this guy?
Speaker 2:oh, let's see, I met him right before my 30th birthday no, no, sorry, right before my 31st birthday.
Speaker 1:So I was 30. Like, oh, what does this guy's career look like? What does his family look like? Does he look good on paper? Does he smile correctly? Can they put him in some man's health magazine? You know something? The stereotypes. What was it about this dude that made you say okay, I'll settle with you and marry you?
Speaker 2:Well, and I don't know if you can relate to this, but what I found is that every time a significant relationship ends, you kind of look in the next partner, or, like when you're dating again, you're looking for the thing that you felt was most missing in the relationship you just got out of.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense? And and the this the longest term relationship I had had before my husband, one of the deficiencies he was a very, very nice guy, really sweet guy, probably the sweetest partner I've ever had, but we didn't have really deep intellectual conversations and I realized, you know, if I'm going to grow old with this person, I don't know what we're going to talk about. Like, I really don't know what we're going to talk about. And my, my husband, the person who I ended up marrying, um, is very, very, very smart and we.
Speaker 2:That was never the issue. I mean up until the day he and I decided to no longer be married. We could have just discussions for hours on end and I really liked that about him, that he challenged me. I always felt very safe with him, pretty stable dude, but then, on the other hand, there was a bit too much stability and I then came to realize like, well, there's not much surprise or spontaneity here, there's not as much adventure here, and so I definitely have a lot more of that in my life now. But hopefully that answers your question as to what initially attracted me about to him.
Speaker 1:He was safe. He was a safe partner, but he wasn't exciting. You know, it's funny because I had a poll on my IG about two weeks ago well, within the last two weeks and I asked the question why do women choose a man? Is it because of looks? Is it because of money, slash education, or is it because of popularity? The guys known in their group Overwhelmingly 70% or higher people chose for money.
Speaker 1:And then I was thinking to myself, like these women, I know some of these women and I'm thinking, like I knew you when we were younger. You don't, you're not going to get what. Now they're in like survival mode. They're dating guys based off of like is he a doctor? Is he nice? Is he nice to me? You know? Um, it's kind of like what you said. They didn't have something in their early on relationships. They're like, ok, I'm getting older, you know, screw this, I need to make sure the next guy is actually stable.
Speaker 1:But I've had experiences where women want to say, when I was in my 20s, where women were divorced in their 30s, divorced in their 40s and they will come on strong to me, and I was thinking like, oh, you could have had the black guy when you were younger, but mommy and daddy didn't approve. Now you're like, hey, I want to live my life and have some fun. You know, that's what I kind of see. You know, sometimes it's like that.
Speaker 1:Sometimes people are afraid of disappointing their parents, their friends, people who really don't even care about them, who aren't even going to matter 10 years from now. They care about that when they're young and then it's like you do hit this stage in your life where you, you, you cleaned up with somebody before you knew yourself, and then now you're, you know, you just feel dead inside when you hit, like in your thirties or something you know. That's, that's the only way I can see that. Um, like in your 30s or something you know. That's the only way I can see that. I have an awkward question for you. You mentioned in your book. You said that you're talking about being at a sex party with your ex-husband and you were getting aroused by, like, the stories or something that somebody was telling you and your husband was, like you know, going along with the laughing at the right times. Was he never, like open to this type of spontaneity within the relationship?
Speaker 2:Okay, so so just to be clear, I was not at a sex party with my ex-husband, so I was uh, no, no, no, no, just to be clear.
Speaker 2:But, but, um, so a friend of mine had gone to a sex party and she came over and we were hanging out at my place with my ex and we're all sitting in the backyard and she was telling us all about it, and so this is a part of the book where I talk about how her describing this to me. I just felt pure unadulterated envy because of the party she describes sounded awful, like she was, like it was terrible she. It was her first time going, but I just wanted the option of being able to go to a party, even if it was a bad party, and I knew within the confines of my marriage and my relationship, that was never going to happen.
Speaker 2:That's just not the kind of person that that he was or maybe still is. I'm not sure I had had conversations with him, you know, many times throughout the course of our relationship Like would you ever have a threesome? Like, how do you feel about that? He's like nope.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, he's like it just complicates things, and so I knew that that was completely like I would either have to do it behind his back or it would have to be something that I would do if the marriage ended, and so when it did, that was one of the first things on my bucket list was I want to go to a play party. I want to do that.
Speaker 1:My guess is the sex was dull when you guys were together, or it got dull. Am I correct? Is in that?
Speaker 2:I think that our well, I won't, I don't think our sex life definitely definitely started tapering down and our relationship became a lot more companionate and um yeah okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So, um yeah, okay, okay. So what was it? You mentioned in your book also that you said that somebody pulled out a big black dildo. Do you, are you into black guys?
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember what part of the book.
Speaker 1:It was literally. I have what part of the book. It was literally right at the beginning of the book you say something like there was a I think it's when you just started sleeping with a woman and then the woman pulled out a big black dildo. You guys had a good time. And then you mentioned like you refer to yourself as like him, or something like that. You did it was. It was pretty descriptive yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:I think what you're talking about is the prologue of the book, which the book opens with me going to visit a dominatrix, so a sex worker yes and I think what you're talking about is a large black vibrating wand, which is not a dildo.
Speaker 1:We emphasize the black. So that's all I was like. You know, you can say it was a big toy, you know oh but it's not.
Speaker 2:it's not, it's. It doesn't look like a penis, it's a wand, so it's like a vibrator.
Speaker 1:Okay, no, no, no no, yeah, no, no, no, um, no, it's, it's like it's like a magic wand, like a Hitachi magic wand, which is kind of like the brand name, but it's not Hitachi, it's a different brand and it's a large vibrating wand.
Speaker 2:It's it does not go inside, it's external. Only Um got you. And then, as far as the hymn part, I don't even know. I I'm trying to think of what what you're referring to.
Speaker 1:It got my attention because it because that was like really one of the opening paragraphs to your book and it got my, it really got my attention. But but anyways, we don't have to get into that part you mentioned. Did you cheat on your husband? I think you said that like a few minutes ago. Is that true? Is that correct?
Speaker 2:I don't think I said it a few minutes ago, but I allude to it in the book for sure that there was definitely unethical non monogamy happening on my part and that was ultimately what led me into therapy, like, hey, I, I can't stop cheating on my husband and you need to fix me. There's something wrong with me, like I'm supposed to want this life that I have because everything's good on paper and what. What's the deal here that I can't just be happy with what I have?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, how did the people? How were the people compared to your husband, the people you chose to sleep with, Like, how did they look?
Speaker 2:It wasn't really a looks thing, it was more like the way that I felt with them. Like the way that I felt with them, um, because our relationship had become really companionate. I didn't feel like a sexual being, I felt like a roommate, I felt like a travel buddy, I felt like a best friends. And then, you know, I would meet people and these weren't like affairs that were going on for a long time, it was like a short thing, like I'd be at a work conference or you know that kind of thing. But but I got to feel something in myself that I hadn't felt in a long time, which was desired, which was sexy, which was really feeling like a woman Right, and the research about infidelity and kind of women who cheat is really fascinating. I won't go too far into like me nerding out on that, but I love, you know, I love the statistics and stuff.
Speaker 1:Let's get into it. That's why we're here.
Speaker 2:That that for so many not all, but for so many women who commit acts of infidelity, it's not that they are necessarily attracted to that person. They're attracted to that feeling in themselves that they get when they're with that person, and so for me, it wasn't okay. These are guys who look a certain way or they look vastly different than my husband, or they're way more attractive, anything like that. It was wow, I feel like a sexual being when I'm around these people, and that is such a good feeling. I feel I feel like a sexual being when I'm around these people, and that is such a good feeling, cause I don't feel that on a daily basis anymore.
Speaker 1:How did you feel when you were cheating on your husband? How'd you feel about it?
Speaker 2:You know, I'm going to be totally honest, at the time that it was happening, I didn't feel bad about it. I didn't, and I think that was what really led to my shame. Was that like, what's wrong with me? That I don't feel bad about this Because I consider myself to be somebody who has a lot of integrity in what I do.
Speaker 2:I was a lawyer at the time. I had a really good reputation amongst judges, amongst defense attorneys, amongst other prosecutors, for doing the right thing defense attorneys, amongst other prosecutors, for doing the right thing, and so I felt like this kind of fraud, that I could do the wrong thing you know what what society would call the wrong thing cheating in my personal life, and that in my day to day, I would never even think of doing the wrong thing in my job. So so, no, I I didn't actually feel bad. I was like, hey, there's something missing in my life and I'm going out and I'm getting it, and um, I didn't actually feel bad. I was like, hey, there's something missing in my life and I'm going out and I'm getting it, and um, and so the lack of shame caused me more shame, kind of paradoxically there.
Speaker 1:Got you. Um, what is I want to say? The women do, Okay. What are your opinions when it comes to monogamy?
Speaker 2:My opinions.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I want to know your belief around monogamy. You know, monogamy is a relatively recent invention and construct their entire books about how we're not wired for it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but there are reasons, valid reasons, why people choose to practice it. It makes sense for a lot of folks. What I think, though, is that, based on our infidelity rates which it's hard to pinpoint an exact number, but some studies are saying it's as high as 60% of men will cheat on their spouses and 50% of women, and whatever study you look at it, the one thing they have in common is that is that women, year by year, we're catching up to men, so the infidelity gap is closing. Wow.
Speaker 2:Because more and more of us have our own money, more and more of us have, you know, jobs outside the home. We have more opportunities to do the thing that men haven't struggled to find the opportunities to do. So the question isn't what do I think about monogamy? We're really bad at it. That's the thing we are really bad at, monogamy. Yet for folks, for a lot of folks, it's easier to pretend, and to keep up this facade, that, like we're good at this thing that we all kind of suck at, then to have an open and honest conversation about what it would look like to do something ethically. And I'm not saying everyone has to go out and be polyamorous or you know, find a third and move in with that. I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2:But to you know, I'll paraphrase Dan Savage here, um, because he he put it so beautifully. He says you know, on the one hand, sex is so unimportant that if you put too much emphasis on sexual compatibility when determining whether you want to be with someone, you're labeled some sort of pervert or sex addict. Yet it is so important that if you happen to do it with anyone else outside of your partner, that's the end of your relationship. So we have these contradictory messages when it comes to the importance of sex, when it comes to fidelity and cheating, you know, a lot of people are either doing it or they have done it, and cheating creates so much shame. You're the one cheating on another person. There's shame in doing that. You find out you've been cheated on. There's shame in that it's the one thing that we're all doing or we're surrounded by. That's causing so much shame that we all just want to pretend isn't happening.
Speaker 2:So my views on monogamy is that the system is broken. Okay, like that is my ultimate view. And so what are we going to do about it? I know what I'm doing about it for me, but what I urge other folks to do is really examine well, is it just because monogamy is the default setting that you're choosing that, or can you articulate why it is you want to do that? Because, luckily, that where we live in a different time than we did, you know, 15 years ago, when I was on the apps trying to find people like me and they didn't exist.
Speaker 2:Now I hear the opposite, like from women, especially in major metropolitan cities. They complain, like, especially in major metropolitan cities. They complain, like, why are all the men poly on these apps? Like I just want you know, to find a monogamous guy. But you know it's now. It's a time where we can start having these more frank discussions out in the open and I'm happy for that. If monogamy is your thing and you are choosing it mindfully, awesome. But if you're choosing it because you feel like you should be doing that or there's something wrong with you, right, that's a whole different thing. In the same way, like, if you're straight, awesome. But if you're remaining in the closet because of shame, right. That's a totally different thing. So I'm here not to convince everyone to not be monogamous. I'm here just to challenge everyone to take a real hard look at their choices and determine whether they chose those or whether those were messages and directives that society implanted into them.
Speaker 1:You know you made some good points. You made a few good points. I like what you mentioned at the beginning. You said that a lot of women are making their own money now and if you look at American history, just the way we've handled relationships, we've always put men in the power position. Well, specifically white men. White men were in the power position. They kind of had kind of had to live up to that.
Speaker 1:That image of like hair. You know hair is completely perfect. It could be a tornado. The hair doesn't move. You know you dress clean. Yeah, the white picket fits. Yeah, the wife, she does everything you need her to do.
Speaker 1:And, um, it's so weird having this conversation cause I'm just having flashbacks. I remember seeing this image a lot as a kid and I thought that that was normal. I thought that was how women wanted to be in a relationship. But now that I can reflect, I can see that women didn't have the freedoms that they wanted to do, so they had to cling on to a guy they wouldn't have. Or a guy for just because guy for just because, oh, he's a, he's a lawyer, he's a doctor. You know my mom said that I should date this guy. Now is kind of well, how do you? Well, how do you think we do need to have kids? So how do you think women because historically women were were choosing a partner for survival. So now that they have the freedom to date who they want to date, like, how do you think women really go when it comes to actually selecting a man and deciding that they're going to have a child with this man? Like, what do you think is more natural to a woman's instincts?
Speaker 2:Oh, what's more? Not. It's hard to parse apart instincts versus societal conditioning.
Speaker 1:Throw that out, throw that completely away. What do you think Like now that that's kind of falling apart. Like what do you think women typically like really are designed to to? What kind of men do you think they're really designed to mate with that they do?
Speaker 2:I, I don't, I don't have an opinion on that actually, and it's very rare that I can say that I don't and I don't have a well-informed understanding of that either, necessarily because I don't think the research has been done, because we've never been in a position necessarily where we've had the luxury of saying all right, women, you don't have to depend on men for survival, so let's see who you pick, although there is really interesting research about what women are attracted to when it comes to, like sexual mating and stuff. So we looked there's a bunch of studies that was done with the bonobos apes, who are our closest living relatives, so we share 99% of our DNA with them and this was a study to look at female sex drive and they noticed that these, these female bonobos, were losing interest in having sex in these enclosures, and so they thought, okay, well, this just kind of confirms the fact that over time, women lose interest. Well, what they did is they took the male apes out of the enclosure and put in some new ones, some new male apes in there, and all of a sudden, the desire for sex went up. So this is another conversation we're not really having that. There's one thing for certain is that women, we are actually wired for novelty, and if anyone wants to go down this rabbit hole as far as the research about women and infidelity and why we cheat, great book called untrue by dr wednesday martin, so I'll just plug that.
Speaker 2:I get no kickback for plugging that, I just think it's a great book that I can't stop talking about. But, um, yeah, you raise a good question and I hope that that I will have an informed opinion on this someday, which is you know, now that you know, now that you know, given all other things, what do we want in a partner? I feel like it's been a very short period of time where women can just do things because they make us happy, that we don't have enough data to show us like, okay, well, all other things being equal, what's going to make you happy and what are you attracted to? I don't know, duran, I don't actually know.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm just I'm. I'm curious because, uh, for me growing up, you know, this is, this is from what I've, what I've noticed for me growing up. I didn't grow up with the most money. I grew up in a pretty um, low income community. You know, I really didn't know that growing up.
Speaker 1:But in that community the way women vetted men was like whoever was, whoever had, was in the best shape. Whoever uh wasn't a coward, you didn't necessarily have to win the fight, but as long as you weren't a coward and you were brave enough to talk to them, that kind of puts you at the top. But as I climbed the society, you know, I realized that there was a section of women who were looking at guys. Oh, his dad owns, like in high school, which is really fancy high school. And I remember I overheard a group of women talking about, uh, this guy, how his father owns about seven mcdonald's, and they were just like, oh, my god, you know, and I was thinking like what the fuck? Like he doesn't own those mcdonald's, they're not his, those are his fathers. So I do know that there's a group of women who are looking at a man's I guess, family history, bloodline their money, you know.
Speaker 1:And then I think that my community was more primal. And as we climb in society, people try to fit into these box. We try to speak a certain way, try to carry ourself a certain way, and as we climb in society, people try to fit into these box. We try to speak a certain way, try to carry ourself a certain way, and then we try to date a part person who actually fits that image. But I think, on a primal level, I think that women are just want a strong, attractive person. But I know that you're seeing a woman now. Do you guys ever mix it up?
Speaker 2:and you know, uh, have a guy involved uh, so so my primary partner is actually, uh, he's a man, cisgender man. We've been together five and a half years, um, and and we are polyamorous. So I I have other female partners who I date, um, yeah, but uh, there's a lot of sex in your book.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of sex in your book. There's a lot of sex in your book. I'm not confused, it's okay.
Speaker 2:It's okay, no no, no, my person is a man, and then I tend to pretty much only date women outside of our relationship, so my secondary partners are, for the most part. Up until now, I've all been women.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a good Okay. I'm glad you made that point because for me, on monogamy, I don't believe the monogamy the way we see it. I don't think it's normal. I think it's normal for people to find somebody that they're attracted to, that they connect with, that, they bond with, that, they love and then build that union with that person. But just because they did that with one person doesn't mean they can't do it with another person. Or maybe that relationship is only supposed to last for X amount of years and then you move on to the next. I mean that just sounds normal to me.
Speaker 1:But with that being said, I'd know for a fact if I was intimate with I was. I'm selfish, so I think I'm just going to put it out there I'm selfish. So it doesn't make sense for me to have a wife and then to sleep with a bunch of women on the side. That's like a waste of my time. It makes more sense to me to have a wife, another wife and build a huge family and have a bunch of kids. That makes more sense to me. But as a man I don't know if I would feel comfortable with a woman having that same privilege, like dating another woman is, I can care less, but like being with another man while I'm with her, that's a problem. Does your partner have a similar belief system?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's definitely, it's my choice, Like I've got the best dude at home, Like if I were in a position where I wanted to date dudes outside of the relationship. That's a conversation that he and I would need to have and it hasn't happened since. But um, why don't?
Speaker 2:you. I just, I just don't. The desire isn't there, just like I haven't craved. I don't know what's a food that I haven't eaten in five years. He is the best partner and best lover I've ever been with, and so, yeah, I'll meet guys every once in a while out there, but no one who I'm like. Eh, it's just not worth it to me.
Speaker 1:One second. Let me fix this. I don't know what happened. Okay, I don't know what happened. Let me fix this. I don't know what.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:I can, I can fix it, I can take that out.
Speaker 2:Give me one second. Yeah, no problem.
Speaker 1:God, it looks good too. Hey, thank you, oh man. Why did it do? That but it is what it is.
Speaker 2:It is what it is. We're back.
Speaker 1:But anyways, I was wondering. So now it's getting interesting. So you're only seeing one man, that's your main man, and you only see women on the side. You're certainly telling me that your ex-husband was not down with threesomes and two women at one time, correct? Oh wow, come on now, man. Come on, dude, step your game up.
Speaker 2:He's pretty. You know he's a pretty sexually conservative guy. I think a lot of that had to do with his upbringing. To wait, did I lose you again?
Speaker 1:No, keep going.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you know I don't want to talk too much on his behalf here. But but no, like some people are, like I, just I don't see. I don't see what the point in it is and it can just complicate things. That was really his position, like to me, it's not worth the possible complication that this could cause in our relationship.
Speaker 1:It was kind of pretty. It was probably pretty taboo at that time anyways. So I want to get into, like some of your um, your clients, what is the most cause? Honestly, one of your chapters actually bothered me a lot. It was it had to do with like a sexual trauma that women experience in their childhood. I have a little daughter and it just I had. I couldn't listen to that whole, that whole section of the book. I was like, okay, I'm gonna skip this one. This was like, yeah, it started bothering me too much uncles, cousins doing all kinds of you know, and it was, I mean, you didn't hold back. So I want to know what is the? We don't necessarily have to talk about the trauma, but what is the, the common issue that women deal with when it comes to intimacy within their, their relationships, or even, I guess, things that are preventing them from even having that kind of relationship?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean trauma can be one of them, and I I don't. I share things in that chapter only to the extent that I think that they're helpful to people so that they can see okay, if this happened to me, then how can I start reclaiming pleasure in my life. So trauma is one way that that we can not feel safe either having sex or being intimate at all. Or I can see this work in the other direction, where people are having a lot of sex but there's really no intimacy involved in it whatsoever. So they're going through the motions but there's no actual emotional connection. So there isn't one kind of textbook way that trauma survivors will react when it comes to sex.
Speaker 2:But what are some other issues that come in? Will react when it comes to sex, but what are some other issues that come in? Shame, that's the big one. Whether that be I grew up in a religion that told me that women's pleasure is a bad thing, that told me that masturbation is a sin, or I grew up in a culture that told me that being anything other than heterosexual isn't normal, it could be that folks women have been rewarded for being really hard and strong in their day-to-day lives, right? So all the things that allow us to succeed as go-getters in the outside world can make it hard for us to then be vulnerable in our relationships, to to actually form deep human connections with people. So that's another thing I see coming in the way too.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about. Let's talk about your background. You said that people grow up in culture. These women are growing up in cultures that are basically telling them there's. The way that they feel about certain things is not correct, like how was it for you growing up? What culture did you grow up in and what? How was your family household look? How did your family household look?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, I am a white woman, grew up in a white household, middle-class here in Los Angeles. Actually, um grew up really without any religion in my family. My mom is of Jewish descent refugee family but we grew up without any religion so we didn't have any of that coming our way. And, if anything, my family they joked a lot about sex. So some parents never talk to their kids about sex or clients I work with are like nope, I never got a conversation about it. My family, we talked about sex all the time, but as a joke, and it was never a serious sit-down conversation.
Speaker 2:My dad would read Playboy. He had his Playboys near the toilet. He had his porn cabinet that I learned how to hack into and so I was able to access and watch porn at a young age. They weren't showing it to me. I just want to make that clear. But you know, kids are curious and and so I learned a lot about sex and like the mechanics of it.
Speaker 2:But all the the information, all the images I got were that sex was like this really crass and vulgar thing. I didn't have any good examples for sex being something playful, sex being kind of fun, sex being a way that you can connect deeply with another person. It was maybe a way to get boys to like me. That was definitely. I started doing things at a pretty young age because I was like I've watched enough porn, I know how to give a blowjob and I bet the boys will like me for it. And they did. But like that wasn't the kind of like that I wanted. You know, the girls in my school didn't like me for it and I wasn't really respected by the boys in my school. So yeah, I. So even though I grew up with a lot of sex you know conversations about imagery I wouldn't say it was sex positive in like, in a healthy way, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Well, well, how did your parents feel when you actually went from? Because they're aware of, like, how you live your life now, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So are they pretty open to it? Because you know, it seems like they were pretty. They spoke to you about sex as a kid when you were a child, so are they pretty open to it.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the biggest thing was fear over me leaving a very prestigious, very stable government job. From what I used to do to doing what I do now. Um, and they're they're shockingly they're very proud of me. I mean, I had my book launch party at the beginning of February and my dad was there and he was really really proud.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I kept joking like, but please don't read the book, dad, Like that's been the joke, Like you can tell everyone how proud you are of me, but please don't read it. And I don't know if he has or not, because he is one of those people you tell you tell him not to do something. And of course he's gonna go do it, but if if he has, he has not told me, but he's also listened to a ton of podcast interviews I've done so like it's all out there and and you know, I think that they were very scared for me to make that career transition in the beginning, but now they're really proud that that I'm living my truth, even if they don't always understand me, and I'm, you know, the super woke daughter, like because I'm one of four kids and I'm definitely the most progressive. But but yeah, they deal with it.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they can live through you. You know, basically, the actions that you're taking. You're kind of. You're kind of it's like you know yourself. You're kind of just like doing what feels right to you, and a lot of times people don't do what feels right to them. So the fact that you're stepping out of your comfort zone, you're doing these different things your, your parents, can probably relate to what you're doing on some level, like man, like cause. They can think back to a time where they could have made a different decision or could have done things a certain way, and they didn't because of fear.
Speaker 2:And you're the one, Totally, Totally, and my parents have always been kind of adventurous and kind of risk takers themselves, so I think they just were more shocked than anything that that I chose to go down this route, Um, and and perhaps in in the realm of sex. But but no, we're cool now. We're pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Okay, the women that you're typically working with, like I want to say your intimacy coach, like how, what kind of intimacy is missing from their relationships? I mean, that is so broad, you know, and there's so many different things, like we've we've touched on so many different things for women feeling like they have to date a certain guy or marry a certain type of guy and then, you know, the love goes dry. Or it could be that, you know, women are, um, I don't know, for whatever reason, they're just trying to fit into this image. Like, how do you help women improve the intimacy like within their life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean in so many different ways. So I'll just show you kind of by way of example. Like I have a client right now who's married. They've been together for a very long time and she's realizing, you know, I think I really want to have like a kink component to my sex life, and I don't know that I'm actually wired for monogamy. And so she came to me like I don't know if we're going to be able to survive this. So right now and we've been working together for just shy of two months and they're now in a place where she and her husband are doing the kind of kink stuff that she wanted to do and he's enthusiastic and excited about it too they're gently starting to open up their relationship in a way that feels good for both of them.
Speaker 2:So that's one thing. Another couple I'm working with, though, on the other hand, came to me hey, we want to open up our relationship. Can you help us, reena? And I was like, okay, well, whose idea was this? Like who wants to open up the relationship? And it was actually yeah, it was the woman, the wife's. The wife's idea and the husband's.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I'm not really crazy about this idea, but so I said, okay, well, let's, yeah, I can give you tips and tricks to how to open up your relationship, but why don't we dig into why you want to open it up? And when we actually dug deeper, it was that the wife was missing emotional connection. She was missing quality time, she was missing sexual novelty. She was missing having as many orgasms as her husband. She's like you know, I'm just not really getting much out of this. So I said, okay, cool. Well, why don't we see if we can work on all the things that you're missing in this relationship first, before we even talk about opening up? Because you know, opening up should be something that the cherry on top right, not necessarily that you're. You're using that as a shortcut to try to avoid doing the underlying work in your relationship itself. So now they're at a beautiful place, they're getting along better than they ever have and they are like going to play parties together. But they haven't done anything with any other couples, but like we're doing everything at the husband's pace. So if at any point he's like I don't want to do this, she's cool with that. So that those are just two examples.
Speaker 2:But in terms of you know other people, if we're talking about trauma survivors, and okay, how do I start to enjoy sex, either again or perhaps for the first time? It's figuring out. Okay, what are the things that are triggering you during sex and I give a whole host of examples of what that could look like in that chapter of my book and how do we start rewriting the trauma and send new data to your brain, letting you know that sex is safe and that it's? Anything that happens now is your decision, because before it wasn't right. But this is different and this is your decision. So that could be. Hey, I take my own clothes off. Hey, I'm the one who requests certain things instead of the other person making the decisions. And this doesn't have to be from now until the end of time it can be.
Speaker 2:I'm working through this. I'm trying to not go into a trauma response when we have sex. So for the time being, can I be the one to make some of these decisions so that my brain will now associate sex with pleasure instead of sex with danger and threat? So I could go, I mean we could talk for eight hours about all the examples of how intimacy problems show up in people's lives and I talk about tons of them in my book too, because I believe in showing by example and storytelling. But intimacy can and intimacy struggles show up in so many different ways and no two women are alike and so, as such, the recipe and the prescription for how to tackle those is going to be unique person to person. But hopefully, with those few examples that I gave you, it can give you a bit of a general idea of how I work with people.
Speaker 1:I know that for your story you're talking about, you were basically trying to fit into the image. That wasn't you. And in your book you have a chapter or a section that says get familiar with your 80 year old or 70 year old self. Like, why, why, why is that important? Cause I feel like like, um, like I said, I feel like a lot of us are in that, a lot of us are being brainwashed, you know. So how do you help women with that? Or why is it important?
Speaker 2:Sure, so yeah, there's a lesson in my book, a chapter called harness your 80 year old badass. Sure, so yeah, there's a lesson in my book, a chapter called Harness your 80-Year-Old Badass. And it's essentially this that people are always looking for inner wisdom. They're looking for somebody to tell them the answers, tell them what to do. And I give folks a hack to try to find what that voice, your inner wisdom, and what your inner knowing is saying, and I can't do the whole thing here during the podcast, but walking them through an eyes closed exercise that we do. You get in touch with certain parts of your body and we start doing some subconscious work, and what this is designed to do is to tap into what the 80 year old badass version of you would tell you to do about this. So say, you're in an unhappy relationship and you're sticking around for whatever reason. Well, maybe when the kids are old enough, then I'll deserve to be happy and then I can move out.
Speaker 2:Whatever, the case may be channeling that 80-year-old, sage-wise, badass version of you and asking you know what would she tell you to do in this situation? Because that is actually your inner knowing, and a lot of folks in conventional talk therapy will do what's known as inner child work, where you're kind of like reparenting the little version of you, and my perspective is that the person we are today is still a little version of us compared to the person we're going to be, you know, a few decades from now, and so we can essentially do inner child or like inner adult work on ourselves at any time. So I'll have clients sometimes shoot me a text. Hey, you know what do I do? You know this thing happened.
Speaker 2:What do I do? Say what would your 80 year old badass tell you to do? Cause she's your inner knowing. It's not me, it's not you, it's not a podcast, it's not a book that is harnessing your. The wisest version of you and and that is what I encourage folks to do, and it's the easiest hack I can give you as as things are coming up in your life is to ask what would the 80 year old, most sage, wise, bad-ass version of me do?
Speaker 1:How do you get to that stage? How do you get to the stage where you trust yourself when you're going to um cause, trusting yourself is scary. And it's scary because as you evolve and you change, you're not just changing what the people around you change. There's going to be people who want to actually keep you the way that you currently are, and then it's even worse if it's your lover, you know. So how do you get people, how does a person actually learn to trust themselves, trust themselves, and then how do they handle that big social change that comes with the self change?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's really two parts there with the self-change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's really two parts to how do you learn to trust yourself? By doing small things that are somewhat outside of your comfort zone and knowing that you've got you by doing things by yourself. If you're not, somebody is comfortable, like going out and doing things on your own, whether that be you know taking yourself out to a meal by yourself, things on your own, whether that be you know taking yourself out to a meal by yourself, going on a trip alone. How do you learn to trust yourself? By giving yourself opportunities to show that you can trust yourself.
Speaker 2:And as far as losing people and people who are in your network, it's kind of like what they say about boundaries, like the people who get upset when you lay down boundaries are the same people who benefited by you not having them in the first place. If they are your people, they will want to celebrate you finding your true, authentic self, and if they are not your people, they're not going to be sticking around for that, and so, in a way, they're giving you a gift by self-selecting themselves out of your life. I definitely lost a few people after my divorce, people who I'd been friends with for a very long time, and that broke my heart, but I was like, wow, now I see the true colors, which is, I don't want to be along for this ride. I only liked this version of Rena when she was living this kind of life, because that was what was convenient for me, and I can see that very clearly now.
Speaker 2:So I think, knowing that everyone is just there to take care of themselves and and the people who you surround yourself with, they're either I think Reese Witherspoon says this they're either the light bulbs or the people who dim. You like I'm botching this, but there are two kinds of people in the world, like the people who, you know, brighten your, your, your light, and the people who dim your light. And so asking yourself, you know what? Who are these people in my life? Cause, look, we only got seven days a week and 24 hours in a day, and it's like how we choose to spend our time with people is how we choose to live our lives, and I've had to cut a lot of people out of my life too, because I'm like, hey, your energy is just bringing me down.
Speaker 1:And I don't want to deal with it. It's, it's, it's, uh, it's. It's funny, um, I'm just trying to reflect on, um, my own personal journey. It's, uh, the funny thing about it is that sometimes the people who you you feel like, you feel like they're your aces, your number ones, sometimes those aren't the ones that support the new you, and sometimes it's the person that was always watching you, that admired you, that always went to you, somebody you barely paid attention to, that's complete, complete support of who you are, what you're trying to do with your life. So you gave a pretty unique example.
Speaker 1:Typically for me, I've had situations where I'm dressing different, oh, I'm speaking differently, I'm doing certain things people expect me to do, I'm losing weight, I've lost those types of friends, or I'm just goal-driven, but I've never had an experience where, because I lost a partner or I left a relationship, my friends left me. Why do you think that that happened? Do you? You know? Is it do the? Yeah, what do you think that was all about? Just me listening to it? Like, are they, do they want to leave their relationship and they're just like pissed off. You, you had the, uh, the courage to do, to do what they can't do.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I'm thinking of one friendship in particular. She's somebody who was a very dear friend of mine for a long time and I think it was convenient for her for me to stay in this relationship for a long time. And I think it was convenient for her for me to stay in this relationship for a few reasons. One, because the four of us we could hang out, we could be friends together. But I think the thought of me choosing non-monogamy, that can be scary for people because it causes them to ask questions like whoa well, what if my partner one day wakes up and says this to me Right, yeah, like that is threatening, that is threatening.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like this fear, like am I going to catch the cancer from this person? Right, like, if I, if I have somebody in my life who firmly, you know, believes in non-monogamy, is that going to be polluting my partner's view on this? Is my partner going to realize, oh my gosh, maybe I'm not wired for monogamy too. Am I going to start giving people ideas about things? Those were the people, and I'm thinking of one person in particular. And now I think of other coworkers I had who were very threatened and kept telling me like, oh well, this is all fine and dandy now, but you're probably going to regret this at some point, rena, as though, like this was a choice I was making. So I feel like that can be threatening, for folks is choosing to do something differently because it undermines their own sense of safety in their relationships too.
Speaker 1:The friend that you loved. Did you guys know each other before you were married?
Speaker 2:you the friend that you loved, did you guys?
Speaker 1:know each other before you were married. Yeah, yeah, did you guys ever have like a serious conversation before the breakoff, or was it?
Speaker 2:just like a nasty breakoff. No, to this day, I still feel like I've not gotten closure as to that. It's really interesting because my ex-hus know my my ex-husband and I were we're actually on on pretty good terms and he and I have talked about, like what happened there and he's like I don't know, rita, I actually don't know. So, yeah, I mean, it's been many years now and I still never got that kind of closure as to what happened. Um, after a very, very long friendship that I'd had there.
Speaker 1:I always tell people I've lost more sleep over the end of a friendship than I have over the end of a lover. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I can see it falling before it hits the ground and not try to save it and have conversations, and sometimes it's nasty, but most time people just kind of like. I had a friend I'd known since I was like six years old and you know I could leave 200 bucks, leave for five years, come back that 200 bucks to be there. But it's like, you know, we we separated for something that was so small and I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. I was just like Whoa really had to do the way I was dressing. I dressed differently and then it was kind of like self-reflection on him, like he felt like he was behind, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so yeah, and that's the thing is that people's decisions like this say so much more about them than they do about you, right, and their own insecurities, like what you just said. That it was. It wasn't that he took issue with how you were dressing. It was how he was feeling, how it was making him feel that he didn't like.
Speaker 1:All right, raina, I want you I always ask for ask my guests this at the end of the show like what is your? Since you're an intimacy coach for women, you've been through a lot. You've dealt with a variety of different women that have dealt with all kinds of you know lot. You've dealt with a variety of different women that have dealt with all kinds of you know issues from just a sorry relationship to abuse, some level of trauma, and you know also there's going to be young women listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1:So what advice would you give to, to women in general, when it comes to finding love and being living their life?
Speaker 2:Oh, to finding love and living your life. I mean, think of what your life would look like if shame weren't an option, if you could live without fear, without obligation, and if you could wave that magic wand. What would your life look like? And I would challenge you to take one tiny step, whatever that might be, this week, to get you one step closer to living a life that's in alignment with the one you just envisioned.
Speaker 1:Okay, rana, thank you for those closing statements. It was a pleasure having you on the show and maybe we can do this again next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Sorry for the technical issues.
Speaker 2:It's all good. It's all good.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you.
