Is mind reading sexy in bed?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: So someone wrote in and said: “Hey Reid, sexy question here.”
Reid: Ooh, sexy question time.
Cathy: “So I’ve just read one of your articles on communicating and not assuming that your partner can read your mind. What if you’re an incredibly empathetic person and one of your skills is intuition, and you find that you’re really turned on when other people have these skills too, especially in the sensual, sexual area? What is your advice? Is it unfair to want, or even to expect a partner to be interested in learning some aspect of intuition? Or would it be better to find ‘sexy’ someplace else?”
Reid: Mm.
Cathy: This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com.
Reid: This is Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com. We love it when you send us these kinds of questions. So here’s the deal: as somebody who is very much a skeptic, lived in New York for 20 years, I like my peer-reviewed, double-blind tested research. But also somebody who considers themselves a mystic, in that I’ve had experiences that, to my knowledge and research, we do not have science for.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: And I remain open to that stuff and that creates a kind of fun magic and adventure to life, in the same way that understanding science creates fun, magic and adventure. It is my belief that people cannot read minds. If you want to hang out with a bunch of magicians and talk about mind reading techniques and what not, there’s a lot of science to how we as human beings, how our perceptions, for the most part in adults because most magic tricks actually don’t work on children of a certain age because they don’t have the same assumptions that we do as adults. And some magic trick don’t work in other cultures because of different cultural assumptions. That being said, there is a distinction between mind reading and what I would call somebody who is a really good jazz musician-
Cathy: Improving.
Reid: Who’s great at improving and jamming with other musicians, and jamming off of an audience. What I think that question’s talking about is this kind of flow and this riffing that can occur during sex. While that is a really awesome skill to have, it is more important to date, hangout with, marry, surround yourself with people who can find their voice and their words and are self-aware enough to tell you what they need.
Cathy: Because then you know you’re on the right track anyway.
Reid: Well, those people make life easier. There’s less drama, for the most part, when you’re around people like that, because most drama in life occurs from miscommunication, not mis-mind reading.
Allow me to say this to our video viewers here: Most drama in life occurs from miscommunication, most drama. If you’re in a war zone there’s a whole other thing that’s happening there right? Or if somebody gets cancer or something, that’s not miscommunication. Most drama occurs from miscommunication, not from mis-mind reading. If you would like a life filled with less drama, which usually gives people more happiness, if you would like a life filled with more happiness and less drama, hangout with people who are better at finding their words and self-aware enough to communicate what’s going on for them.
Once that’s your baseline, then geek out with everybody so that they’re really good at riffing with you as musicians in life. Empathy and the ability to track nuanced changes in people and also understand people’s bodies and understand your own body and kind of riff and play with those bodies around pleasure, that’s a skillset that can be learned. That skillset alone, hanging out with people who cannot communicate-
Cathy: Is not going to work.
Reid: Is going to just make your life a big pain in the ass, and I do not advocate pain in the assery, unless it’s just you hanging out with me and I’m just a pain in the ass.
Cathy: He is sometimes.
Reid: So that’s my state on that.
Cathy: There are ways to get in the flow. Like you’re talking about that improv feeling and you actually taught me this, it’s brilliant: is find someone who communicates well and then invite them to please their own body with you. Because I was always in my head thinking ‘what should I do next?’ And you were like; ‘well just see if you can please you’re own head, as opposed to trying to think about what would please the other person.’ That let me drop into the flow and be more aware of the feedback from my partner.
Reid: And, I’ll keep going with the music analogy, really great jazz musicians who can jam, still talk to each other. There’s a thing called rehearsal. They talk about how they’re going to do things. They interrupt each other on stage and communicate. They’re not reading each other’s minds, that’s a flow state. This is just my opinion, as a skeptic and a mystic, so I don’t even know if I answered the question at this point. But I believe I have stated my principles.
Cathy: We’d love to know what you think. Does this match what you’re looking for? Do you want someone who can read your mind and know what you want before you know? Or is it okay to be able to learn what you want yourself and have the skills developed and the muscles developed to say, ‘Hey, this is what I want now.’
Reid: And if you really are a mind-reader… And you can speak up in the moment, and role model speaking up in the moment so that the people you’re with can learn how to speak up in the moment. What do you think about that?
Cathy: Thanks very much. Thanks for your questions.
Reid: Subscribe! Leave a comment! Read my mind.