Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Stuart Cheverton: Hi everyone! Welcome to the Safe Place Therapy YouTube channel or podcast episode.
Today we're actually all talking about penises and what they're about. And if you are a penis owner, if you have a partner that has a penis, today is going to be a quirky, interesting chat for people who have a penis but might be kind of struggling with different issues.
And so today we'll explore a number of different things that people bring to counselling with or a sexologist.
But first I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners [of the land] on which we meet today.
We are recording this video on the lands of the Kulin Nation and I'd like to pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
I'd also like to welcome back Daniel Di Pietro, who's a sexologist and counsellor with Safe Place. So welcome Daniel.
[00:01:03] Daniel Di Pietro: Thank you for having me back.
[00:01:05] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah, and I'm putting my hands up here saying that you know, this area, you know, I do own a penis myself, but I think there's lots out there that you would know much more about. And I guess to be really clear at the outset, we're not putting out to the world that all counsellors are aware of this. I clearly am not aware of all of this stuff. But I think there's a big message we want to put out there to clients and people struggling with sexuality or sex in general is we need to start talking about it.
[00:01:37] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, most definitely. Most definitely. It's something that really doesn't get talked about in my experience.
Quite hard for some penis owners to even access care around any sexual difficulties they may be experiencing.
[00:01:51] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah, yeah. And just before we go any further, penis owners, the term we're using there, people who are a CIS male have a penis generally speaking. But there's also other people out there in the community who might have a penis, but they actually don't ascribe to the identity of male. They might ascribe to the identity of being non binary or actually being trans.
And if you, if you don't actually understand that if you have a penis but you, you don't understand the other stuff, that's actually okay.
We're, we're just trying to share is a lot of information out there for people who might not generally access this support elsewhere or for everyone to kind of tune into the information that they need. So whether you're a CIS male form of penis or you're someone who identifies us as different to that we're welcoming of everyone. So just want to put that out there.
[00:02:54] Daniel Di Pietro: Cool.
[00:02:54] Stuart Cheverton: So I wonder maybe if we start, Daniel, with maybe kind of introducing a little bit about the work you do with men specifically, or penis owners specifically. Some of the kind of common presentations that come up.
[00:03:10] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, most definitely. So I work a lot when it comes to penis owners coming in with certain sexual difficulties. So that could be something like early ejaculation.
It can be something like delayed ejaculation or even erectile difficulties, whether that be maintaining, attaining, or both.
I work a lot with penis owners in the space when it comes to things like porn, porn addiction, or compulsive sexual behaviours around porn. Whether it be things like compulsive sexual behaviours in terms of reaching out to other people whilst in relational contracts that don't allow for that.
I work a lot when it comes to noticing desire and finding that in the body and how we kind of find our sense of, first off, arousal. So, you know, arousal and desire interchangeably get mixed up there. But, you know, arousal is the sense of this physiological and emotional reaction. So it kind of informs us of our blood kind of getting into our genitals there.
Maybe we might notice increased heart rate. And desire is the motivation to then engage in that sexual behaviour or to engage in that sexual act. So I work a lot with penis owners in that space as well, but with a whole other plethora of things. But typically when I see clients that come to me, they. They typically come to me for typically those types of presentations there.
[00:04:38] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. Okay. So by kind of helping organising today's episode, maybe it might be good to start off with a guy or a penis owner coming to a session with you, and they're having issues related to penis with sex or orgasming or connecting with their partner. So let's start there. What are some kind of specific things that—at that level.
[00:05:09] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. So when someone first comes to me and they present just what you've just named there, I want to do what we call a little bit of a sexual history intake. So I'm looking for whether or not the client is presenting this as something that's a lifelong difficulty. So that means that their first sexual experience of this has been the same. So this is quite familiar for them. This has lifelong throughout their life. You know, I want to know the causes around that. So is it something that's biological? Is there an underlying medical condition there?
You know, what was the learned behaviours? So for some people that come in with penises, because there wasn't sex education available, whether that be through their schooling or their family, sometimes they may have a little bit of an obscure way in terms of how they Engage in self pleasure that doesn't really satisfy their needs. And they could be a little bit disjointed in their pleasure. So it's almost like their arousal switches on and then it kind of switches off there because they're not getting the type of sensation that they're needing there.
So I work a lot in identifying lifelong or whether or not it's acquired. So after a period of, you know, what the client perceives as typical sexual functioning, they started noticing difficulties. And I want to know the onset of that as well. So have there been relational stress?
Has there been any new medications or medications that they've taken recently? Has there been any injuries?
A lot of our work as well is working holistically with a team if needed. Whether or not it be lifelong or acquired pelvic floor matters a lot, particularly around ejaculation. Our pelvic floor for penis owners really activates that expulsion of ejaculate.
So it's noticing as well if someone's coming in with a difficulty of ejaculation. I also am curious about their pelvic floor and their core there.
[00:07:10] Stuart Cheverton: So.
So I guess to listen. So there's like premature ejaculation, not ejaculating. So, you know.
[00:07:17] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, yeah. So there's an ejaculation.
So it's the absence of ejaculate and that, that can be quite common for some folk.
And, you know, I see in my space when I get a partnership coming in is that typically there isn't enough sex ed around. You know, people think that ejaculate and, or, you know, ejaculating and orgasm are the same thing where they're two separate processes.
So, you know, someone could still have an orgasm regardless of ejaculation.
[00:07:48] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah.
[00:07:49] Daniel Di Pietro: Although they happen quite close to each other.
[00:07:53] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. Okay. And then I'm guessing a partner might be. Or the person. Person themselves might be quite worried that, you know, they haven't been fulfilled enough.
[00:08:03] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, pleasure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So have I satisfied my partner? Because I haven't seen this cue. Because I haven't seen this ejaculate come out.
Am I, am I quote, unquote, you know, failing my partner perhaps to some degree? Am I failing this relationship? So, you know, the partner can carry a lot of that, that feeling of responsibility as well, and which perhaps makes it difficult for the penis owner too.
[00:08:30] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah.
So I guess we're kind of talking about performance issues or, or not getting hard for penetration or premature ejaculation. So that kind of at the, the bodily level, the bodily Function level.
[00:08:48] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, yeah.
And also very interesting.
Sorry. Also very interested in the emotional and psychological aspect as well. And as sexologists, we believe in a biopsychosocial model here, where we investigate what the biological aspects are around the sexual difficulties that may be presenting, what are the social characteristics of what's happening within that person's environment that may or may not be contributing, whether that be family stresses, work stresses or relational stresses, and also the psychological factors. So, you know, not just cognition, but I go towards the emotion as well and that kind of being a factor. So how am I feeling connected in my body? How am I feeling connected with my intimate partner? Or partners.
[00:09:35] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. Because I'm sure you've heard this story. I've heard it plenty of times. Is penis owner or a guy, you know, not getting hot enough, not getting a hard enough erection for penetration, and then they. They suck up all their courage and then go to the gp and then the GP pops out a little blue pill.
But that doesn't solve the issue, right?
[00:10:02] Daniel Di Pietro: No, no, it doesn't. And I did a bit of a thesis whilst finishing my master's in sexology and that was called Overlooked Population. So I was looking at young het cis males between 18 to 39 years, which research showed that that was quite a young age. And in that I looked at how men accessed health care and it was very astonishing in terms of, you know, firstly, they didn't know what a urologist was, which is someone that can assist with any penile difficulties that person may be having, whether that be ejaculatory or otherwise.
And they didn't access health care in terms of mental health care. Or if they went to a gp, their experiences were quite mitigating. So it's like you were saying, it was almost like, well, you're young, you know, here's a blue pill. It's probably just a little bit of stress at the moment, but it's not looking at the client as a whole and it's really leaving out a lot of their narrative, which was a real shame.
[00:11:10] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. Because, yeah, it might be stress related or there's something else might be going on emotionally that they actually haven't really spent time thinking about or pondering.
So if we just pop that pill, we're not really engaging with what our body is trying to tell us. Right.
[00:11:30] Daniel Di Pietro: And I also speak about with my clients, I guess the spectrum of arousal, because arousal is quite subjective and, you know, there's states of hypoarousal, so lower level of arousal, and that could be a sense of Boredom. So there isn't much sexual stimuli there that really activates that sense of arousal. There's, there's moderate levels of arousal as well. So that's kind of the optimum and that's context specific. So it means that we're kind of having that bodily function, the physiological responses that we're needing. And then there's hyper arousal, which is the state of, I guess the fastened blood flow, there's more blood pressure, the anxiety that's perhaps running through.
And when I talk about the spectrum, you know, I give the example of there may be an archer who needs a certain level of arousal that's optimal for them, but that's going to be different to someone who's perhaps, I don't know, shooting clay pigeons with a pistol. Right. Where they need to be a little bit more on edge. So that's their height and level of arousal there. It's going to be a lot different compared to the archer who perhaps needs a cooler stance to make that bullseye shot.
[00:12:45] Stuart Cheverton: I see. Yeah.
And I guess then if we're, we're taking, if we're literally taking that little blue pill, we're not also really tuning into the, the kind of ongoing fixes you can fix time and space. Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:06] Daniel Di Pietro: We're not looking at the broader spectrum off the arousal.
[00:13:10] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. And back to, you know, young male or young with a penis.
A GPS is jumping down the medication route. But again, there could be an exploration around when is that happening? So when, you know, in terms of arousal, in terms of a fully erect penis, Are they getting a fully erect penis when they're watching porn, but not when they're having sex with their partner?
Like that kind of comparison.
[00:13:38] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. So is it learned behaviour? So have the neural pathways been reinforced to a certain sexual stimuli? Yep.
And that, that can be quite problematic for a lot of people. And unfortunately with technology, there's a lot of young folk that can access pornography. And I think the recent research I was looking at was in Australia. As young as, I believe 13 to 14 years of age is someone's first experience accessing pornography.
[00:14:05] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah.
[00:14:06] Daniel Di Pietro: Which is, it's quite frightening because all they have to do is press. Yes. I'm over 18.
[00:14:10] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that would be a nice next segue here. Is this expectation or this idea, this, I call it the Disney of young, young people, young men especially, who are watching porn and, and you know, it might be a 20 minute or 30 minute video and they're having, you know, penetrative sex that whole time.
And then when they do get a sexual partner and that just not matching up what, what does that do to it to a person?
[00:14:41] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, it creates a general sense of perhaps anxiety for the partner, whether they be another penis owner or otherwise evolver or not. It creates a lot of pressure for there to be this onus on penetration and sex. It can be a lot more, it could be many different things for many different people outside of penetration.
And what porn doesn't show young folk is the consent aspect that goes into it. These are professional actors and, and paid sex workers here that sign a lot of forms here in terms of what they are or are not willing to do. There's a lot of discussion beforehand about consent as well. You know, what they don't tell the audience here is that, you know, for I, I always get perhaps men coming in who do have more of an inclination of watching porn that their penis isn't that big. It's not porn porn dick big, you know, so I, I talk about, you know, well, they have to be and they hire men of a certain size because they need to show the penis entering and exiting at a certain degree. So it's, it's purposefully done.
And what I find quite a shame about the porn industry is that they market it to younger men. Typically that's, that's who it's targeted towards. And they're quite impressionable and vulnerable people. They haven't fully developed yet.
[00:16:09] Stuart Cheverton: Yep. And that might, might even lead into, you know, talking specifically about, you know, the partner side of this. So you know, penis owner and the partner side of seeing a porno and, and that really, really enjoying themselves and moaning loudly or you know, they're orgasming as well or you know, this kind of Disney movie. Beautiful.
[00:16:35] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. That there has to be always an orgasm. There has to always be the sense of that there's been multiple, perhaps orgasms during it too and in the sense of it being quite vocal and maybe rough, or super, super passionate, you know, sometimes, you know. And I always say this with my clients that sex, sex is a little bit clumsy, but that's okay. There's going to be sometimes gnashing of teeth or you know, awkward kisses.
That's all a part of it. It's a fun exploration and I try and switch that mentality with my clients that we go from goal orientated sex. So I'm off the goal of my partner or me having multiple orgasms systems and making my partner moan or whatever it may be to more of exploratory.
So I'm not here for a goal. I'm just here to enjoy the experience of being connected in my body and being connected with my partner or partners in this.
[00:17:36] Stuart Cheverton: And I think lots of young people who come see me and there might be a lack of sex in their relationship or, or for some reason their own anxiety or their partner's anxiety, they actually take sex off the table. Like it's, it's a, it becomes boo or it becomes this thing we don't do, but we also don't talk about that. What's that like hearing that?
[00:17:59] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. So, you know, there always seems to be this dearth of not talking about sex. So it's always the sense of, you know, we talk about how boring maybe work may be or the neighbours or who pissed you off. And there's many things that people talk about in their relationships, but they don't really talk about intimacy and what they feel connected with and you know, taking sex off the table. For some people, they may not feel ready or vulnerable enough for penetrative sex and that's okay. But how else can we engage in, I guess, the broader scope of sex?
Yeah, because for some people, you know, even deep passionate kissing can be sex. Because we're, we're entering another person's orifice, right?
[00:18:49] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. And then I think by, by kind of understanding how that person sees sex or the expectations from the movie or the porn that they watch. And then, you know, what do they think reality should be in terms of expectations on themselves, their partner, how it should play out. But also what else is possible? Can, can we actually slow things down? Can we actually, you know, do a little bit more touching, etc before penetration? What would that be like?
Just cool the jets down a little bit from rushing to, you know, okay, I'm fully erect to, let's get off.
[00:19:30] Daniel Di Pietro: Well, it depends on that broad spectrum that I talked about with arousal. Because for some people it's quite hard to feel a sense of pleasure if they're in a hyper aroused state. So again, they're overstimulated.
So it's really context dependent on the person whether or not that they need that. And that's called I guess, that sense of responsive arousal there. So there needs to be some things being led up for that kind of physiological response or whether or not they're just able to kind of go with the experience.
Yeah. So it's really dependent for some people. Optimal. They may need. And that's where I go back to, I guess the archer and I guess the clay pigeon shooter there. For some, they may need a Little bit more touch than others. And that's. That's quite okay. That's quite typical. Everyone's different.
[00:20:22] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. And I guess that's maybe where a lot of penis owners will fall into trouble is they've got a new sexual partner.
They've had years and years worth of watching porn and they've got this new partner and they ejaculate really quickly. They're not used to.
So they have to. Then it's almost like it's a domino rush. Right.
[00:20:43] Daniel Di Pietro: So.
[00:20:46] Stuart Cheverton: Penetration dusted and yeah. You know, it just doesn't work out.
[00:20:51] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. And. But no, no wonder that there's a faster J. And that means that it's a pleasurable experience. Right. They. They're quite overstimulated. Here's this new novel experience that I get to kind of try this sexual smorgasbord with this. With this fresh partner, this new partner here that I have. And, you know, I'm quite aroused by that. And I'm being touch ways that I perhaps hadn't been touched in other sexual experiences. And so no wonder there's this quick release. Right. There's that fastened heart rate there.
[00:21:19] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah, yeah, totally. Even I talk with. With people about, you know, do you feel you have to wait till you have an erect penis before you engage physically with someone? Like, did the ingredients have to line up so for you to, you know, get naked and get happy?
Like, could you actually do it, you know, with. With an unreal penis? Like, is that okay?
[00:21:47] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. And. And I work a lot with penis owners around, even having sensation play with. With having an un-erect penis, just having a flaccid penis there. And because people can actually have orgasms through a flaccid penis too, with frenulum play. So it's called frenulum. It's the banjo string that's at the back of the glands there. With enough lubrication, you could have a toy that vibrates that you can run across the fre gently in different ways, you know, with that. That's almost like the G spot, so to speak, for penis owners.
And it's more sensitive for folk who haven't been circumcised compared to those who have. But again, it is also context dependent. Some may still have that similar sensation.
[00:22:33] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. Funny segue. Have you seen the movie 500 Days of Summer?
[00:22:39] Daniel Di Pietro: No.
[00:22:39] Stuart Cheverton: Oh, you have to watch it.
There's a scene in there and hopefully viewers have watched this, but there's this scene where there's a couple, they're dating and the game is the female partner starts at where they say penis and then they, the partner says penis and then they get louder and louder and louder like test how, how far they'll push themselves. And I just got that feeling of you, you know, literally saying the word penis or dick or what else, that it creates this kind of funny, awkward thing that I'm sure lots of people feel simply because they're not talking about it. It creates this kind of discomfort. But you know, we don't want to get left alone in this isolated stuff.
[00:23:24] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, yeah. And I guess on that sense of feeling isolated in the experience as well, what can also happen in terms of people waiting for the right moment to talk about it or, or waiting for the right moment to make their move if there hasn't been sexual activity in their self pleasure experiences or, or in their partnered experience. That creates a lot of pressure.
Right. That I've waiting until this weekend because I'll be all alone in the home or my partner won't have work and this will be the perfect environment.
But perhaps it also sets it up for failure, too, that there's been this whole onus place on this one specific day where this is my only window where I can enjoy intimacy and pleasure, where there's many windows throughout the day. And Esther Perel talks about foreplay and I don't like using that word, but you know, foreplay starting at the end of every orgasm.
So it's, you know, what are we doing to kind of cultivate that sense of arousal and desire within us? Now the reason why I say I don't like foreplay is foreplay kind of gives this sense that it's, it's this kind of lesser thing than penetrative sex.
But just for, you know, viewers, here, and listeners, you know, foreplay is a concept that better understood, let's say there.
[00:24:49] Stuart Cheverton: Is a client or penis owner that is getting wound up in that kind of premature ejaculation or the, the kind of arousals kind of shooting up really quickly and, and cause issue anxiety from maybe them and maybe also their partner. Yeah. Is there some controls there, is there some things that help just slow that down a little?
[00:25:15] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, there is. So I walk through with my clients the dual control model and in that model we talk about sexual excitations which is the sense of it's almost like a gas pedal. So what is it that kind of raises our arousal here and our desire and then sexual inhibitors. So what is it that kind of inhibits arousal and desire here too?
So for instance, with that example you know, the consistent thoughts about the premature ejaculation can be an inhibitor for the experience.
Then the partner's expression is also an inhibitor on the experience. Which the inhibitors are almost like brakes. And if you think about it like a car, right. And our sexual bodies as a car, it needs to have more gas than brakes because if we got even amount, we're just going to be at a standstill.
Right. So it's how much of the brake that we need to lift off so that we're not in a hyper aroused state, but we're kind of in that optimal contextual range for us.
And that could be things like then looking at our environment. So what in our environment can be an inhibitor or what it for us is also an inhibitor. So, so again when it comes to perhaps those cognitions or the feelings about it and then what is the sexual excitation? So what do you notice when you feel more readily inclined to engage with your partner? Well, you know, I notice that perhaps they touch me along my chest or you know, they touch my nipples or you know, they, they play with my scrotum. Great.
Yeah. So that's a, that's an accelerator. So let's, let's put that one down.
Yeah. What else? So it's very curious and open for that. So they have a bit of a roadmap for themselves of where to go to from there.
[00:27:07] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah, it really builds a fine tuning process for actual both partners. Like if we actually said to our partner, hey that's really good, let's do that more. Or can you, can you shift that a little bit just to build up a bit of a platform, I suppose, on what works, what doesn't work and, and then if you're getting that reassurance or feedback, you know, you kind of know a bit more of what to do. Right?
[00:27:38] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right, exactly. And you have a bit of a, I guess, an internal framework to go by, one that you start knowing your own body and it's also giving the information to your partner or partners of them getting to know you too.
[00:27:55] Stuart Cheverton: I think, I think for all kind of penis owner, whether you're male or non binary, etc. And having a female partner or someone that's not there.
I think there can be this assumption going back to kind of porn and watching lots of porn, is the penis owner usually or generally has these ideas, is on the shoulds. Right. Should be into penetration or should be wanting sex a certain amount of times a week, etc.
And I'm wondering what you do with that when Someone brings that expectation into accounting.
[00:28:38] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. So you know that that's again leaning into sexpectations. So what is it? Where did you learn this? So if it was from, you know, what about that? Were you enjoying it? What entice you to seeing it extend for this period of time? It does create the sense of should, you know, if there's a partner or partners, I typically invite them to come into the room to also perhaps speak about their experience too. But for individual clients, I work through the whole narrative and perhaps provide a little bit of psychosexual education. So for vulva owners, if there is penetrative sex, you know, the research shows that it's about 15 minutes of what vulva owners can handle of penetrative sex before there starts to become intimate pain or the self lubrication starts to dry up.
Right.
And so there's a little bit of an understanding as to, you know, well, this isn't actually something that should happen then because this is, I'm causing my, my partner potential pain. If I go for 30, 40 minutes and you know, that's a lot of time to hold blood into the penis.
Right. If we're talking about 40 minutes, an hour or however long that that person would like to go for, you know, that that's typically, that 15 minute mark is typically the, the general standard for when you start to lose that, the blood going towards the penis then and holding that blood there.
[00:30:11] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. And I, I've heard a term coined probably more recently around enthusiastic consent. Can you kind of explain that one?
[00:30:21] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. So enthusiastic consent is explicit consent, but it's context dependent as well. So it's the sense of it being enthusiastically said. So for instance, if I give an example of someone who said, can you give me a kiss?
And someone goes, "Oh yeah, okay..." That's not really enthusiastic. Perhaps there's something else happening internally. And although that they've given consent, it's not enthusiastic consent, it doesn't give you much certainty that that person's actually consenting to it.
So it's always important to get that enthusiastic consent where if you're not certain by the enthusiasm of that consent, "I could see there may be something happening when I asked you that."
"That's okay, we don't have to do that. Is there anything else that you'd like to explore here together?" and not just shutting things down, inviting openness about what they would like to have in the experience.
[00:31:25] Stuart Cheverton: And I think at Safe Place specifically, we do get a lot of clients with trauma history, abuse or rape, or, even just relationships that they've been in where they felt that they couldn't say no, or was this real trigger thing that. That bubbles up for them during sex or around.
And often I do talk with, with people about maybe we actually do need to take penetrative sex off the table for a bit. Maybe we actually need to understand our partner's trigger or build safety in the kind of sexual space so both partners can enjoy it, of course, but also prevent triggers, prevent kind of serious injury, right?
[00:32:18] Daniel Di Pietro: Most definitely. And you know, it. It depends if someone's having this nervous system reaction where they go into this flight fight or kind of freeze response there. And typically, you know, when. When people don't give enthusiastic consent, they're almost entering this fawn or freeze response there where they kind of let something out and just hopefully that the person will stop or whatever may happen.
It's important to take that off the table so that there is nervous system regulation that, that we can come back into our bodies, that it feels safe to be vulnerable.
Right. And that's just starting at the very foundation of it. And that, and that I typically start whenever I see partnerships or even individuals who want to work on this, is that it starts with communication, being able to be safe to talk about it, because doing it is a whole other thing, perhaps for someone.
[00:33:10] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah. And for some reason people might not enjoy sex physically. That doesn't mean it's one partner's fault necessarily. But there might be other emotional stuff going on for one party or maybe, who knows, maybe there's some kind of symptoms that need to.
[00:33:29] Daniel Di Pietro: Whether it be intimate pain, whether it be something like neurodiversity, where there's certain sensory difficulties that can occur for people where they don't. They can only do a limited amount of sexual activity before it becomes quite uncomfortable. It's knowing and having open dialogue and conversation there.
And that's what's not shown. And if we kind of segue back to porn, I know we've segue back to a few times here, but if we segue back to it, that's not what it's showing. It's not showing the openness and what goes on behind the scenes to lead up to these scenes for these professional workers, it's not showing the amount of consent and aftercare, which is very important, that goes into it.
[00:34:16] Stuart Cheverton: And yeah, just because someone doesn't enjoy sex per se or that doesn't mean they're asexual. That doesn't mean necessarily that, you know, sex is off the table forever. There's clearly stuff that needs to be talked through.
[00:34:30] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah. And worked on.
[00:34:32] Stuart Cheverton: Yeah, yeah. Oh, so by the way, we will be actually doing another episode for vulva owners. So people that again might identify as being female or non binary transition who own a vulva.
And we'll actually be getting a special external guest because I think it's appropriate to have someone who has vulva to talk about it.
So just wanted to share that. And I guess the cool thing about this episode and the next one is you don't have to own a penis to, to watch this. Maybe you're actually trying to understand your, your partner who has a penis a little bit more and, and the kind of intertwinings going on related to sex, particularly men.
Penis owners generally.
We often don't talk about this stuff because there is a bit of shame or embarrassment and this kind of, this internal somehow it's my fault or somehow there's a. Something deeply wrong with me if I do have kind of penis issues, which, which obviously isn't the case.
[00:35:45] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, yeah.
[00:35:49] Stuart Cheverton: So I often bring up sex and kind of relationships, romantic relationships with people in a counselling setting. And sex relationships is a big part of us as human. Humans.
So yeah, people might scratch their heads as to why we're doing this. I think it's super important for people to get to know themselves and that includes their body, but also talk about their needs, their desires, what, what gets them horny and engaged with someone else, but also what they want from life and that sex is a really big part of it. And Daniel, hey, it's so cool to have you on the team to explore this stuff.
You're. You're a whiz kid at this area and I, and I do hope that people do reach out for help, even just as a tune up, even just as a, hey, I'd like my relationship to be better around sex or talking about it. You could have a one- or two-off session related to that, right?
[00:36:49] Daniel Di Pietro: Yeah, most definitely. And it's just a little starting point on how to have those conversations. And whether it be certain sexual interests that you have that you don't feel confident in terms of bringing up, or not knowing how to actually speak about certain sexual interests. That's something that I do here in Safe Place Therapy quite often, is to help provide the platform for the people who may enjoy certain things to express their desires and their needs.
[00:37:18] Stuart Cheverton: If you haven't found out by now, we like to go there. So if you have a problem like this or you'd like to talk more about this please reach out to our team and you can ask specifically to to talk to Daniel. He's one of our sexologists at Safe Place.
And yeah, we continue to be your safe place to talk. So if you like this video, please like it and subscribe. Share it with another penis owner or someone that's climbed with a penis.
That's totally cool and thank you and bye for now.
