Transcript

Alissa Kriteman: Welcome to Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex. I’m your host Alissa Kriteman. This show is dedicated to providing today’s modern women with useful information they need to make empowered conscious choices. Today I’m so happy to welcome back a very fun, super smart and vivacious man, Reid Mihalko. Reid’s going to talk to us today about sex with your clothes on. Who knew it could be so fun. So Reid, welcome back to Just For Women.

Reid Mihalko: Thank you for having me back.

Alissa Kriteman: It’s my distinct pleasure. And listeners I just want you to know surprisingly enough the last interview we did was number 69.

Reid Mihalko: I know, that was awesome. I’m like, “Yes, it’s a sign from the heavens.”

Alissa Kriteman: “I must go back.” So, really that interview was so much fun and you brought so much great information about your forte, cuddle parties, how to negotiate, jealousy, so many amazing topics that we really need to talk about, and what I love about you is your dedication to having sex be a mainstream conversation and not something we hide away or we feel ashamed about, so thank you for coming back.

Reid Mihalko: Thank you for having me back.

Alissa Kriteman: Okay, cool. So where do you want to start with sex on… Wait, clothes with your sex on.

Reid Mihalko: It’s when you’re doing laundry and it’s all warm and clean and it’s all on your bed just before you’ve folded, can still wrinkle it, you have sex then. That’s sex on clothes.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, yeah. The hot sheets.

Reid Mihalko: The smell of Bounce.

Alissa Kriteman: Must be a gateway. Alright, so sex with your clothes on. I really appreciate this because even for myself I know, you know, I have a busy life, my partner has a busy life, and we can tend to have sex in a kind of rushed way…

Reid Mihalko: Mm hmm.

Alissa Kriteman: So I really want to talk to you today about, you know, one of the things you mentioned was, Remember those three hour make-out sessions?”, and I’m like, “Yeah.” How do we get those back?

Reid Mihalko: Well the, so basically the, the idea is I’m going to be doing a workshop and hopefully touring around the country doing this workshop and a couple of other things that I do, to teach people and just get people starting to talk again about the idea of slowing things down, and the idea around clothes-on sex as a workshop is to get people to remember and start talking about again this idea of you can have sex before you have ‘the sex’, and that there is a lot more to foreplay than, you know, what we, what the girls on Sex and the City joke about, and that that tension, that anticipation and that delicious angst that you used to have when you had that make-out session back in high school when you were still dating or, you know, the dry humping that happened in the hallway of the dorm before you went back to your room, you know, or where, whatever it has been for you, that… ‘Cause maybe you grew up and you never had that stuff, and now as an adult, like, all you’re getting is this wham bam thank you ma’am, which is kind of the sex equivalent of eating dinner over the kitchen sink. You know, it’s like…

Alissa Kriteman: Very unhealthy.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah. Like, lets set the table and light some candles and sit down and enjoy a meal. And so much of what we do in our culture around sex is just dive right in, and there’s this whole broad bandwidth of activities and exploration and fun and connectedness that you can have that you can do without ever having to take your clothes off. And if you’re an individual who just wants to date and have some sexual intimate connection in your life, but you don’t want to get complicated with the sex, there’s a whole bunch of what, you know, some of us in the sex education business call ‘outercourse’ as opposed to intercourse, there’s a whole range of things that you can do that can be a lot of fun, very satisfying, and also you’ll never have to go into an area that you don’t want to have to go into. And if you’re somebody who’s maybe practicing, you know, abstinence for whatever reason, you know, there’s a full range of self-expression that you can partake in that doesn’t ever have to include what is traditionally known as sex.

Alissa Kriteman: Okay, so now that we’re all super curious about what some of these activities might be…

Reid Mihalko: Well, I mean, obviously the easy one is, to talk about is kissing, and which is kind of the gateway drug into ‘outercourse’, so to speak. There’s what we like to call ‘frotage’, which is just a really fancy, fancy word for humping….

Alissa Kriteman: With your clothes on.

Reid Mihalko: The bump and grind. Those are the two main places that I’m definitely going to be spending time in the workshop on, and those are the easiest places to start with, ‘cause, you know, if I was to start the workshop around massage, we’re all kind of like, “Yay, I already heard that, I read a book on that. You know, I watched the DVD. Like, what else can you give me?” And, you know, developing that connectedness and first of all just giving yourself permission to not have to go right to sex, and to be able to talk about it with your partner, those are a lot of the things that we’ll be talking about. But I would say that kissing and frotage, just so fun to say, say it with me… Frottage.

Alissa Kriteman: Frottage. I sound European.

Reid Mihalko: Yes, yes, lets have some frottage…

Alissa Kriteman: In the cottage.

Reid Mihalko: Yes, yes, lets shall we? Like those are the two areas that, that I’m going to spend a lot of time on. We’ll talk about breathing techniques and just general relaxation stuff, and the concept that, that building up the sexual tension as a form of having sex, like that that in and of itself, that kind of like, “Oh my god, I really want to have sex”, like having that point of erotic build-up be the point of what you’re actually wanting to do. Like what happens where, and this kind of goes into the tantra practices and the Daoist sexual practices of building up and cultivating erotic and sexual energy with the distinct intention of not releasing it and what happens there, and that gets a bad rap, ‘cause when we’re in high school or, you know, even before high school and early adolescence, you know, the whole blue balls, you know, conversation and like, “Oh, it’s so painful.” You know, part of the reason it’s painful when we’re young like that is our bodies are developing. You know, I’m a guy, I’m in adolescence. Like my gonads are dropping. Like I’m growing, it’s all this stuff. My body’s pumped full of hormones. It’s a little tender, and the same way with women as they’re going through adolescence. You know, your breasts are developing, maybe they’re tender. You’re having your period for the first time and you’re like, “What the hell’s going on to my body?” And that’s during our sexual awakening hormonally, I mean we’re sexual since the day we’re born, but hormonally speaking so much is changing us as we’re having that awakening. I think we collapse the pain and discomfort of growing onto that erotic angst or tension, and we forget to kind of recalibrate as adults. So the other thing I want to be dealing with in the Clothes-On Sex workshop is that this tension, this delicious anxiety isn’t really anxiety, it’s like pent-up excitement, and that you can recalibrate that as being something that’s pleasurable.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, also you bring up a good point about the distinction between when we’re young and growing into our sexuality and being an adult because a lot of that tantric stuff is about the breath and is about, you know, the cycling and utilizing sex for something other than relaxation or release, you know, this kind of peak experience, but more of an extended, expanded type of experience, which when we’re in high school it’s sort of like totally overwhelming, and isn’t that a time to enjoy, like, all that hormonal stuff?

Reid Mihalko: I would kill for a three hour make-out session in a car. Like, I live in New York City and I, you know, I live here in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where in Los Angeles I try to stay away from driving. So like, I can’t remember the last time I made out in a car for more than two minutes. Like when’s the last time you did that?

Alissa Kriteman: I know, I know, I know, that’s what I was saying. It’s like we really have to bring our conscious awareness to that and rethink what sex really is, and I really like that because you also bring up that point about having that tension, that angst be the goal versus the release be the goal, and so often we’re really just indoctrinated and societally, you know, born into this is how it is, this is how it goes and that’s why I like talking to you, to bring these perspectives up. Like, what if that, that, that heat was, was it and then you go home, but we’re not trained to do that, and I can see people getting a lot of crap for that, like, oh. I mean, what do guys talk about, right? “Did you score? Did you score?” I mean, it’s still kind of….

Reid Mihalko: You know, there’s reverse, there’s reverse discrimination on that too, ‘cause I know enough really sweet well-meaning very masculine men who are just like, “You know, I want to take it slow”, and you know, I’ve heard horror stories from men where a woman is just like, “You know, how come you’re not going to fuck me?” And, and then they get angry at them, it’s like, you know, “Come on, be a man.” And they’re just like, “You just don’t get it”, you know, and as much as most men are thinking about sex all the time, it doesn’t rule all of us, and we can enjoy that anticipation just as much. The problem is that so few of us have that experience of, you know, allowing energy to get pent up so that you’re really horny and desiring the person that you, that you’re with so that you want to go, you want to see them the next day, because you know that, you know, “Okay, so now it’s Tuesday. Maybe tonight is the night that we’ll, you know, actually get to release that energy.” And it can make for better orgasms, it can make to increase people’s sensual and erotic lives, ‘cause then you get kind of that hunger that’s there, and all of a sudden you can’t get your lover out of your mind. You can’t wait to get home to them. And that can be a really great experience and bonding experience for couples to practice. You know, like tease each other for a week. You know, start on Monday and, you know, plan 20 or 30 or 40 minutes every night to canoodle and do stuff and not have intercourse, you know, not have oral sex, and see how much you can enjoy that frustration. And then what the sex is like on Wednesday night or Thursday, or if you get that far, to Friday, like make a game of it and see, see how that is for you two. Even just a couple, even if they, if a couple did that and it wasn’t that great, being able to talk about it or even going on that journey together to try something new is more than most couples are trying…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Reid Mihalko: And that ability to try something new bleeds into the rest of your life. And then all of a sudden as a couple you’re just enjoying each other more. So I mean, it’s kind of a unique idea to bring your selves closer together as a couple and to improve your sex life, to not have sex…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Reid Mihalko: And then, you know, to just enjoy the exploration and the conversation around, you know, “Okay, so how hot can we get with each other without… Like, like lets get ourselves right to the point where we’re just about to tear each other’s clothes off, and then not, and then lets see what happens.” Like I think that that’s a really fun game…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah.

Reid Mihalko: And, you know, even just talking about it, like I’m sitting here with you and I’m like making like eye contact with you, and I’m just like, “Yeah, I’m, this is a great, I want to take my own workshop. Gosh darn it.”

Alissa Kriteman: Reid, my mind’s spinning, I’m like watching you, listening to you and I’m like, “That is totally hot.” Like we don’t think, I, you know, but if I’m not doing it then, you know, it’s like you’re creating a course like that because you’re tuning into what is going on with couples. And so it sounds like you’re sensing a piece, a piece of where people go unconscious and kind of have their sexual relationship almost in a rope kind of way, right, and this is what I like about talking to you is that you’re actually thinking about, you know, yeah you can have the tantric stuff in there too, right, but this is just kind of like getting the heat going. ‘Cause tantra can be really intense.

Reid Mihalko: Tantra can be really intense and there’s the same situation can occur for people that are, you know, into sacred sexuality and the whole spiritual, whether you’re spiritual about tantra or not, like the whole, like, you know, “Lets do the fire breath together and sit in the abiong. And lets like, you know, get it on that way.” You can go right to the whole like, you know, ohm Shanti, Shanti bit and skip over all the fun deliciousness of just keeping your jeans on and soaking them…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm.

Reid Mihalko: And, you know, the idea of making out with each other and then, you know, because I hang out with women so much and talk to women a lot, if not more than I talk to men about sex and relationships, you know, the idea of when I work with men teaching them, you know, being able to get a woman really juicy and wet and then walking into the, you know, into the mall with her or going and sitting and watching a movie, like she stays wet and is going, and is constantly being reminded of what you guys just did. And, you know, for women the mind is so much a part of your sex…

Alissa Kriteman: The entry point…

Reid Mihalko: If, you know, yeah, I mean…

Alissa Kriteman: So to speak.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, I mean it’s, and that’s, you know, it’s not even a cliché, but when I work with men and coach men around, you know, relationships with women and lovemaking with women, you know, it’s almost like you’re always having a threesome. Like, you’re making love to her body and you’re making love to her mind, and you need to jump back and forth and make sure both partners are happy because one at the expense of the other doesn’t really work for women. And what’s great about men is we really want to be better at being in bed with women. So when we learn that, ‘cause that was never told to us, you know, in seventh or sixth grade when you all go to the gym and watch the whole movie about menstruation, it’s not like we’re, we’re not brought to another room where they give us the handbook on women. Like the reason women, and I’ll be very frank, the reason why you’re so frustrated, so many of you with the men in your lives is we were never given a handbook. We don’t know that no one’s talking about this stuff…

Alissa Kriteman: Exactly.

Reid Mihalko: And, you know, we just want, you know, “We’re talking about it. Tune in everyone.” But like that’s the whole thing is like men, we want to be doing a good job, and if we can, you know, if I can help men understand that like not, having her keep her clothes on and playing with her nipples through her tee shirt is going to get you laid better later and make you a frickin’ stud, they’ll do what I tell them, they’ll do what I tell them to do because we’re so wired to want to do a good job, you know. And for couples that are going through a listless faze in their sex, or for single people who want to be dating and want to be really, you know, engaged in the people that they’re dating but aren’t ready to actually, you know, hop into the sack and have full blown sex, you know, the whole range of outercourse is a perfect place where everybody gets to win. And if you’re, you know, you end up dating somebody who’s a little bit frustrated that you’re not having sex yet, you know, be patient with them because we’re so conditioned to go right for the sex, but at the same time, at some point if they don’t get that the frustration and expectation is just as juicy, you know, that’s going to be one of your signals that maybe you shouldn’t, you know, if you’re dating them don’t settle down with them because, you know, they have a limited range of what’s possible in relationships. Be patient with each other, but at the same time you’re like learning a lot about people from how they, you know, the feedback they’re giving you.

Alissa Kriteman: Totally. God, that brings up so many things about being confident in your own boundaries and, you know, what you want and how long you want to wait and really sort of gearing it that way and having enough love for yourself. We’re going to take a quick break. It’s so great to have you back and talk to you about all of this stuff…

Reid Mihalko: I have a button for after the break.

Alissa Kriteman: A button for after the break?

Reid Mihalko: Make sure you come back after the break because we’re going to talk about being a cock tease.

Alissa Kriteman: A cock tease. That’ll get them all back. We love that. Alright everybody, there’s some great ads coming up. Again, these are my fantastic sponsors for the show. I’d love it if you’d support them. This is Alissa Kriteman. I’m with Reid Mihalko, and we’ll be right back to talk about being a cock tease. We’ll be right back.

Alissa Kriteman: We’re back. I’m Alissa Kriteman. We’re talking with Reid Mihalko. He’s a sex educator and a relationship educator. What else are you? You’re like rock star, movie star.

Reid Mihalko: I don’t play musical instruments so I wouldn’t consider myself a rock star. I have a couple of black belts. I used to be a martial artist. And I used to be a comic book artist before, before I became a sex educator and became an actor.

Alissa Kriteman: Now do you design porn, like, comic magazines?

Reid Mihalko: No, no, but the kind of art I did back then was very much, you know, you know, muscular men in spandex and bodacious women with, you know, spandex, which, you know, now that I look back at it is just apropos for me as a sex educator.

Alissa Kriteman: It was already in there, it was just finding its way out.

Reid Mihalko: Exactly. Exactly. So, and then, you know, and sadly enough I won’t be wearing a cape during any of my workshops, yet, but who know, you know. Spandex would probably be a great selling point.

Alissa Kriteman: Did you see Watchmen?

Reid Mihalko: Yes. My friend Billy Crudup was, played Doctor Manhattan. I was very happy with his performance and his big blue dong.

Alissa Kriteman: It’s so funny that you that, this is totally an aside, but we’re going to talk about it anyway. When that man was walking, I mean it was silent because you could not do anything but stare at his cock that was just swinging back and forth, and one of my friends, her boyfriend goes, “He’s swinging”, and the whole theatre just erupted because it was like, are you kidding me. I don’t even know how they did that. The Roto Scale…

Reid Mihalko: I’m going to have to tell Billy about that, that’s very funny. I’ll make sure he listens to this.

Alissa Kriteman: Oh, it, honestly, I talked to my girlfriend, I’m like, “Did you see that?” I know it’s like a big blue person, maybe that’s how they get away with it…

Reid Mihalko: It was awesome. I was very happy that they had, I mean as a sex educator and, ‘cause now I’ll go out for my little, I’ll climb up on my little blue soapbox, you know, we don’t see full frontal male nudity in, in the movies and, you know, like, I forget which James Bond movie it was, Casino Royale with what’s his name, the new hot James Bond who’s all rugged and what not. There’s a whole torture scene of him tied to a chair and they’re like taking a big rope and like whacking his nuts, and, and they go for it, right. That movie, if you’ve watched the movie, it’s rated PG-13 and there’s no sex in it, so it’s okay for a child over 13 to watch James Bond get his scrotum whacked, but we can’t show any full frontal nudity of a man and we can’t show a man and a woman who care about each other actually making love. And so, I guess that’s my little poignant deep message to come back to it made me very happy to see Billy’s big blue dong swinging up there. And from a sex education perspective, yeah, I mean they can get away with it because, you know, it’s a comic book, but you know, we need more positive representation of nudity and, you know, normalizing that it’s okay to have pleasure. And so, you know, some of my work ends up being about that too, you know, and clothes-on sex, the demonstrations that we’re going to have, you know, we’re going to have frottage demonstrations and making out demos and talking about this stuff really frankly, because sex becomes in our culture one of those areas where we’re not allowed to watch other people to learn from it.

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Reid Mihalko: You know, and then you have a whole, generations of people learning how to have sex from movies and porn, which are horrible learning mediums.

Alissa Kriteman: So it sounds like you demonstrate sexual activity in your workshops.

Reid Mihalko: I have a range of workshops that I do. I have my PG-13 workshops where I’m just talking about, you know, like romance and communication, boundary skill setting, stuff like that. I’ve got my, my rated R workshops, which I think they’re more rated R because they’re more just salacious. Like I even, I have a threesomes workshop that I do where we have live demonstrations, but they’re all clothed. And it’s more just about, it’s very humorous and very fun, of watching people try to get into these, you know, geometric considerations of like how you would have sex with an extra person in the bed. You know, and then I have my NC-17 workshops where, you know, sometimes as an educator the best way to educate and show people how to do something is to do it, to demonstrate it, where I have my, you know, my audience members are just watching, but there’s actual nudity and sexual contact going on, because I’m trying to demonstrate and show something that, you know, me with a dry erase board isn’t going to help you in the bedroom.

Alissa Kriteman: Do you ever feel like a porn star? Or is it more clinical?

Reid Mihalko: I try to make it more comical than anything else.

Alissa Kriteman: Put this here.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah. This is tab A, this is slot B. And this is how we do it.

Alissa Kriteman: This is such, is this a California conversation? Are we totally deluding ourselves that people in the Midwest are just like, “Are you people crazy?”

Reid Mihalko: I get a lot of emails from people in the Midwest. I mean, the thing is now that the people that are coming out of college have had, have had mostly abstinence only education. They’re the least educated sexually generation that there’s been since probably our parents. I mean, I’m 41, so I mean you can get an idea of where my parents are in the age range, but you know, the baby boomers didn’t really have sex education in a certain way. But I’m, myself and my older brother, we’re the one’s who had some, there was some pretty hip kick-ass sex education that was happening in this country in the 70’s. We were actually leading the world in sex education. And then, and then AIDS hit and then everything started to change, and then the Reagan era hit, and then things definitely changed. So this is all a long way of saying the short thing which is people are hungry for any kind of decent education and information around sex, and the thing is the internet has helped a lot…

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, I was just going to say, like…

Reid Mihalko: But if you don’t know what to Google because you’ve never had any decent sex education, how do you know what to look for?

Alissa Kriteman: Right, like there’s particular terms and the things, like I didn’t know what frottage, frottage was, but yeah… If you didn’t even know what tantra was, that there was some kind of way that you could breath to expand your ability to orgasm like, yeah, I, so I can get that.

Reid Mihalko: And that’s assuming that, okay, so great, like I go to this website, I click on, you know, ‘expanded orgasm’, they talk about breathing and I’m reading this, you know…

Alissa Kriteman: Right.

Reid Mihalko: there’s, I mean you can read about golf all you want, but if you don’t go out on a course and try to hit a ball with a piece of metal, I mean it’s a completely different thing. And then even Tiger Woods has a coach, who’s like, “Dude, bring your elbow in, you know. Use your hips more.” But we don’t have that in our culture for sex.

Alissa Kriteman: It’s true. And I almost forgot that you said you were going to tell us how to be a cock tease. I got so distracted by Mr. Manhattan and that conversation. Derailed. Okay, we’re back. Cock tease. Talk to me. No, I appreciate all that you said because it’s interesting, it’s curious to me that people coming out of college would not know a lot about sex because I would think with the internet there’s so much to see.

Reid Mihalko: What kind of sex did you have in college?

Alissa Kriteman: Drunk.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, hello. Hello!

Alissa Kriteman: Was I not the only one?

Reid Mihalko: I it’s, that’s the thing is like, you know, and don’t worry, we’ll get back to cock tease in a minute… It’s where are we supposed to learn this stuff? We learn by trial and error. If you’re lucky enough to have grown up and gotten to college, as a man or a woman with some ability to be like, “Hey, lets slow down and actually talk about what we like and enjoy, and how would you like me to touch you, and to help show me how you pleasure…”, like nobody did that for me in college and I was too embarrassed to say anything, right, and I was very well meaning. So we’re kind of doing this hit and miss routine, and maybe we’re sober, and hopefully we’re remembering the things that worked really well, and hopefully the relationship lasted long enough for us to start to get good at it. And then maybe, you know, what worked for you is going to work for my next girlfriend after we break up, so the thing that works on you works on her, and then maybe I pick up another one or two tricks that work really well for her, but only one of the three that I have right now works on the next girl that I date, and I marry her. And then we have a kid within a year, and then the second one nine months later, and then we’re not having sex at all. Like, hello. How’s anybody supposed to get good at this.

Alissa Kriteman: I just had a thought of a course you can do called Recovering Catholics Course, because I think about, oh my god, you know, I was so conditioned as a kid that sex was bad, I didn’t have sex until I was in college, and then it was with…

Reid Mihalko: Me too, so…

Alissa Kriteman: and then it was with my boyfriend of like…

Reid Mihalko: That was a high five you just heard.

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, we’re slapping. And it’s so, you know, it’s like it could be embarrassing to say that, but when you do say it, that somebody like you is like me too. You know, because it was just, you know, whatever, Catholic, whatever, people have all their shame and whatever around sexuality and it takes a long time to search out for yourself how it’s actually, who are you as a sexual being, what does feel good, how can you communicate in all of these ways, and that’s what I really appreciate about what you’re talking about. Not only that, so then you start having sex, but then there’s the lost art of all the romance and the heat and the building, because you haven’t had sex for so long that you just want to get right to it, and then it’s like whoa.

Reid Mihalko: And there’s the, so, you know, we talked about like, you know, a woman’s major sex organ is her brain. You know, and then there’s all the, there’s the flip side of it of, you know, you’re dating and having relationships or making love to a man, and this goes for queer people too, it doesn’t matter, whomever you’re picking, it’s not about gender so much, but, you know, there’s all these things that aren’t being talked about in culture about how to make love to the other person, you know, and, you know, talking in huge stereotypes, you know, men, you know, for the most part were culturated to want to do a good job and all of culture is telling us that we, you know, we need to make you come every time and we’re watching porn which means we’re supposed to hammer away at you…

Alissa Kriteman: Mm hmm, exactly.

Reid Mihalko: And then I know, especially for the women who are, you know, listening in, they’re like, “Uh huh, that doesn’t always work baby.” But, you know, you’re having, those of you who are in relationships with men, you’re having to deal with the fact that, you know, we are culturated for the most part to not, to pretty much fake that we’re, like we’re not supposed to be really sensitive, we’re supposed to be masculine, even though we’re supposed to be sensitive, but we’re supposed to be masculine. Well there’s a whole way of dealing with men that, that makes us feel seen and acknowledged and has to do with, with words. And even though it might not track in your experience of being a woman, that the words are landing on us, but we’re hearing a lot of it. You know, when we’re ignoring you it’s because we’re focused on one thing and we’re trying to get a specific task done and we tend to block everything out. But when we’re actually listening to you, like your words land on us. And if your words aren’t quite framed the right way, they come off as criticism and not acknowledgement, and we run on acknowledgement. And…

Alissa Kriteman: That’s a really good point.

Reid Mihalko: And so, now you’re trying to make love to a man in bed who’s completely shut down because by the subtle things that you’re saying and the way that you’re behaving to the extent to how it lands on us, our whole relationship looks like we’re doing a bad job. So we’re completely feeling like we’re not being men because we can’t please you. And so, we’re shut down and then we’re not making love to your mind and, you know, the whole thing comes grinding to a halt. You know, and then in queer dynamics, you know, women who have relationships with women and trans dynamics, and then men who are in relationships with men, like it’s just, it’s just as complicated. It’s a little bit different, but a lot of the dynamics are the same. It’s just got a different spin on it. So, you know, it just ends up that there’s a whole planet of people, most of whom aren’t really having great amazing relationships. And that’s where I’m trying to change that.

Alissa Kriteman: It’s interesting too because, you know, we’ve definitely heard before that men do not thrive on criticism and that how we speak to them is such an important point. So that’s an interesting point that a man thinking he’s doing a bad job is directly  linked to his sense of being a man…

Reid Mihalko: Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean men, I mean if I was going to tell women anything, like one major piece to understand about men is that for the women that we’re in love with especially, it’s, we actually need to hear this from probably every woman in our life, our moms, you know, is where it starts, but with the women our partners, the women that we’re in love with who are important to us, we need to hear that we’re doing a good job. Even if we’re doing a shitty job we need to hear from you, “Things are bad right now, but I appreciate how much you’re trying. You’re doing a great job at trying and we’re just in a shitty place in our life right now with the relationship.” Our masculinity, our sense of who we are is so tied into doing a good job, that when we’re getting from our partners that the relationships not in a good place, it crushes us. And most men don’t know how to un-crush that, like how to take, you know, how to un-collapse the can that is our masculinity. It’s like we’re in an aluminum can and we’re just getting, we just get smushed. I, you know, I do this for a living. I’ve got my black belt in communication and, you know, being a man so to speak, and it’s all I can do to stop me from crushing the can when I screw up in my relationships.

Alissa Kriteman: Oh, okay. So it’s not only do you get it from your woman, but you’re doing it to yourself?

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, I mean that’s where it comes. Like, like we hear, you know, I’m in bed with you and you don’t cum, I’m not a man. You know, I get sick and I can’t pay the bills, I’m not a man. Like I have a good friend, couples of mine, who her husband is, is, has very bad cancer right now, and it’s hard to get him to talk about anything because he’s beating himself up so much because if he dies he’s leaving his wife with a mortgage and no way to pay it and three kids. So he’s automatically epic failed as a man…

Alissa Kriteman: Wow!

Reid Mihalko: And, you know, so it’s hard enough to get him to talk about anything, and he’s really, you know, he’s angry. So, you know, that’s an obviously a, a very large example, but, you know, as a man, I can’t get it up in bed, I’m not a man because I can’t please you, because our entire culture is about my cock.

Alissa Kriteman: So you’re saying…

Reid Mihalko: Not mine, Reid Mihalko, but as a man…

Alissa Kriteman: Mr. Manhattan’s cock?

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, exactly. That big blue swinging dong.

Alissa Kriteman: He’s got enough for everyone. But basically what you’re saying is come, we’ve got to, we’ve got to support our men, even for incremental goodness that they’re doing, that we have that power as women.

Reid Mihalko: As, yes. Your acknowledgement means the world to us. And I know we’re kind of off the topic of clothes-on sex, but that’s the thing, like, like if we know what’s pleasing you, we’re going to be that much more into doing it because for most of us, 95 percent of how the world occurs to us is how, how good of a job we do. And there’s no place that’s more important to us, I mean, a lot of guys are like, you know, my career, but if it’s not their job, it’s their family, it’s the woman in their life. And, you know, and part of, because of our culture, part of that is the bedroom. You know, if I know I can make you sopping wet and turned on and like you’re just like, “Honey, I’m going crazy. We have to have sex”, like, I feel like I feel like a stud because I’ve been aculturated to, that that’s what it is, like that’s the sweet spot. I’m nailing this relationship.

Alissa Kriteman: It’s so interesting. It makes a lot of sense that the, you know, yes, sexuality has been so repressed, but that, that a man’s drive to please is so directly tied in to his sexuality, and is he, you know, doing well there. Yeah, is he doing well in his career, but it’s like, it’s really driving home that men want to succeed the competition and to really pay attention to our part in supporting that. I do want to get back to though the, the clothes-on sex, and I really want to hear like what is it, what is it that… Give me one, just give me one hot tip, ‘cause we do have to take another break, and then we’ll come back and talk about more and the cock tease. I’m not letting you get away without you talking about that.

Reid Mihalko: So, so, one, one tip that I would recommend for, for men and women who want to explore the whole clothes-on sex, it is, have your hands….Like, so lets say you and I are making out, and…

Alissa Kriteman: Lets just say….

Reid Mihalko: Lets just say that you and I are making out and that, and that, you know, what I would recommend is use your, use everything but your hands and your mouths to explore and touch and graze and put pressure on each other erogenous zones. Like the traditional ones; we’ve got boobs, nipples, I would say people’s tummies, you know, because they’re, for reasons that I won’t get into, and your private areas, your genitalia. So, that means like I’m using my hands to explore everything but, but I’m using my hands to pull you closer into me, I’m using my hands and my, I’m using my thigh to lean into your crotch ‘cause I want you straddling my leg as we’re making out. I’m, you know, and I would say you’re allowed to grab each others asses, but more because you want to pull each other in, and because your body is a great tool to create arousal by using pressure and using the weight of each other on top of each other, you roll onto your lover and use your weight. And so much of the time we end up using our hand because, you know, now we’re adults and we can to grab each others private parts. So start right off from the bat to use your hands to not do that, but use the rest of your body to do that, because that’s a great way to get people to start using their bodies differently, and then that different, that quote/unquote “differently” for some couples is like, “Oh my god, this is really hot. This is new. You know, I’m now putting my head against your tummy and using my shoulder to lean into your crotch, you know, while you’re running your fingers through my hair and up and down my neck. That a, you know, for some couples they’re, you know, I hope they’re listening, being like, “Oh my gosh, I hadn’t even thought about that.” You know, and that can be really, really hot. So, you know, use your bodies to explore each others bodies, rather than your hands to go straight for the erogenous zones.

Alissa Kriteman: Good point. Thank you. That’s hot. Alright, we’re going to take a break and we’ll be right back.

Reid Mihalko: Totally blushing.

Alissa Kriteman: It’s hard to stay present. It’s like my mind wants to spin, like in all these scenarios. Anyway, this is Alissa Kriteman. Wait, let me tell you some things. Okay, send me an email. This is the problem with doing things in person. The sound quality’s better, but you get all turned on. Okay, everyone send me an email if you want. I’d love to hear your feedback and questions. You know, Alissa, a-l-i-s-s-a, @personallifemedia.com (alissa@personallifemedia.com). You can also leave me a phone message, 206-350-5333. And again, I’m with Reid Mihalko. So fun to always have you on the show. And we’ll be right back to learn about the cock tease. I’m not letting you get away until we hear about it. We’ll be right back.

Alissa Kriteman: Welcome back. I’m Alissa Kriteman, host of Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex, and we’re here with Reid Mihalko, again, talking about some very important topics regarding men, and definitely I really liked your point about how a man and how well or not he’s doing in his relationship, especially in his sexual relationship, has such an impact on his masculinity and who he is as a man, almost as though there was no separation. And so that we can actually be, be more conscious and tender about that as women and be super generous and super communicative and really almost like taking the charge for what we want in the bedroom, in a very open ended and kind of like, hey, straight way.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah. I mean it’s definitely, I mean we’re, I mean for most men like we’re very linear in our thinking, and when we have more information we’ll usually put it right to use, so, you know, in the bedroom like tell us what you want, tell us what you like. Occasionally that might land on us like criticism, like, you’re telling me to touch you this way and we’ve been together for six years, how come you didn’t tell me that, I’ve been doing it wrong for six years, is how it might occur to us, but if you can reassure us that you’re, that you’re not criticizing us, and the way to do that is, the best way is not to say, “Honey, I’m not criticizing you.”

Alissa Kriteman: ‘Cause you already brought it up.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, because then it’s like, “Okay, she’s totally lying.” It’s more to be…

Alissa Kriteman: That’s a good point.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, it’s more to be like, you know, like I want to acknowledge, like acknowledge us for the stuff that we’re doing good. You know, tell us what, what we’re really rocking, even if it’s just that we’re showing up. You know, we can be complete failures in the relationships, but you can be like, “Honey, I just want to acknowledge you for never leaving me, even when times were bad.” Like that means so much to us, and it gets us to open up in a way that, that most women, just by the way that you’ve been raised and role-modeled communication. And I get it, I get that you’re not criticizing us, except when you are criticizing us. Like I get how women jump to the next topic. You know, I hang up the shelves in the garage and you’re like, “Oh my god, when can we hang up the ones in the laundry room.” But as a man what I need is I need you tell me that I did a good job with the ones in the garage before you bring up the laundry room. And…

Alissa Kriteman: That is such a good point.

Reid Mihalko: And it’s really simple things like that that kind of chip away at us as men. And especially like if we’re having problems at work, we’re having problems with our parents or something, you know, as we get older, you know, our parents are getting older and all of a sudden I’m being, you know, I had a thing with my dad today on the phone where, you know, he was, ‘cause I’m going to go visit him, and he was telling me how excited he was and I’m going to see where he lives. I’ve already been there. You know, so I’m having this moment of my dad who’s starting to lose his cognitive ability. You know, so that kind of rocked me a little bit, you know, and so I’m, you know, I need more than ever to come home to my partner telling me how awesome I am.

Alissa Kriteman: This is such a good point that you bring up, especially with the economy the way that it is and so much of what men and women are dealing with right now and the tenderness that we really must pay attention to especially in this craziness that’s going on. So thank you for saying that.

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, you’re welcome. You know, and again, like with clothes-on sex, you know, it’s my zany way of getting couples and single people to have these communication skills and these awarenesses where you can start to apply them, ‘cause the communication skills that make hot juicy three hour make-out sessions work are the same things that make, you know, “Hey honey, I’d like to be more adventurous in our relationship and have a whatever. You know, lets go to an orgy or lets have a threesome”, like, you know, they’re the same communication skill sets, but so many of us didn’t learn them growing up, and we’re also not having great sex education, as actually like this is how, you know, this is how you put tab A into slot B, and this…

Alissa Kriteman: That’s what you’re for.

Reid Mihalko: Yes, exactly. And so I’m trying to do all of those things all at once in a more holistic way, while normalizing that it’s okay to feel pleasure. It’s even okay to have shame. You know, let yourself feel it so that you can, you can work through it and then get on the other side of it and be shameless in your expression of sexuality and lovemaking with the people that you love. And, you know, and so this is kind of the segway to, we’ll wrap it up with cock tease.

Alissa Kriteman: Yay!

Reid Mihalko: Put some sound effects in there, it’s like dun-da-dun-da, cock tease. So, what I want to do, and this is, I’ll talk about this with the Clothes-on Sex Workshop is, is one of the things that, that gets hammered, no pun intended, into you as women is don’t be a cock tease. Don’t be a cock tease. And I think that that’s really dis-empowering. And I think we can, ladies I think we can reclaim the phrase and make being a cock tease really cool…

Alissa Kriteman: Will you make us tee shirts so we can wear them?

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, “Cock Tease Sheik”, and it’ll be a clothing line, it’ll be awesome. Then Calvin Cline will come out with the scent, it’ll be great. The fragrance Cock Tease. And it’s really that…

Alissa Kriteman: In the fallace shape bottle…

Reid Mihalko: Wow! Is that, think of it, don’t stop being playful and teasing and, you know, creating this delicious tension between you and your lover because you’re afraid of being labeled a cock tease. Reframe it as what you’re trying to do is pump up the pressure in the pressure cooker so that the two of you get so pumped up that you literally get to blow the lid off each other. And, you know, come, you know, check out my website which is ReidAboutSex.com, for more tips and things like that. I mean we talked about using your whole body…

Alissa Kriteman: Love that. You have one more before you go?

Reid Mihalko: Yeah, I would say, you know, practice, practice the art of nibbling. I’m a big fan of earlobes. My ears are very, very sensitive. But, and the idea of using your lips to just graze your partners body, neck, shoulders, inside of the elbow and wrists can be really great. You know, and use that nibbling and that kind of, use your lips as fingertips, and to just kind of trace and explore your partners body.

Alissa Kriteman: I really like that. I remember once I licked this guys eyebrows and he didn’t really like it. What is up with that? Was that not a good thing? I was just getting into it.

Reid Mihalko: Some people have weirdness around wetness. Like, you know, like me leaving traces of saliva on you is for some people is considered slobbering, and they’re just not into that. What I would say though is check in with your partner and be like, “Do you mind wetness?”, like, you know, ‘cause some people like it, some people don’t like it, you know, and check in and be like, “I’d like to try something on you”, you know.

Alissa Kriteman: That’s good, instead of just, you know… I don’t know. But I think it depends…

Reid Mihalko: It’s okay in the heat of the moment.

Alissa Kriteman: Exactly, I think it depends. I think it’s okay to make mistakes, just do it.

Reid Mihalko: And acknowledge each other, be like, “Wow honey, that was awesome and didn’t work at all.”

Alissa Kriteman: Yeah, exactly. I…

Reid Mihalko: It’s research and development.

Alissa Kriteman: I would rather have that, we’re both fighting for the microphone. It looks like it. Alright, we have to go. We are like so over time. What else do we need to know? Say the website again.

Reid Mihalko: It’s ReidAboutSex.com, r-e-i-d about sex dot com.

Alissa Kriteman: Okay. And you travel nationally all over the place, you’re doing workshops, cuddle parties, amazing stuff. Check him out, ReidAboutSex.com. We have to end our show. We’re going to have you back. You’re just, you’re so much fun to talk to. I really appreciate it. Clothes-on sex, create that angst and heat and tension, it’s good. It’s like getting back to basics. I really like that. You’re so much fun. So everyone, for text and transcripts of this show and other shows on the Personal Life Media network, you know where to go, personallifemedia.com. What else do I need to tell you? I think that’s it. So thank you again for tuning in. I completely appreciate you subscribing and tuning in every week to Just For Women. I’m your host Alissa Kriteman, always expanding your choices here at Just For Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex. Tune in next week for more juicy news you can use.

Testimonial…

Hey Reid!

Heard interviews with you on “Just for Women” and appreciated the practical tips and the idea of giving more information to men if we want them to do be the wonderful lovers we expect them to be.

Any chance you are coming to Europe? Your Cuddle Parties and workshops are very needed here!

~Irina, Sweden