Permission for Pleasure
A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
Permission for Pleasure
What Are You Saying With Your Touch?
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Loving behaviors is one of the six ingredients Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh has found necessary to build a lifetime of love. In this second part of our conversation, we talk about the importance of touch and developing a touch lexicon within your relationship. We get specific about all the ways to touch and how to make sure the touch given is received as intended. Sara also shares her distinction between sexual chemistry and sexual harmony, to help couples create desire and arousal as relationships evolve over time.
Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh is an Author, Speaker and Thinking Partner with a PhD in Social Psychology and specialization in the fields of human sexuality and relationships. Her latest book is, Love by Design: 6 Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love.
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The one place, one time, one person, one relationship at a time. We're gonna change the world.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey your host, and I would like to ask a question. Do you feel like your relationship is thriving or just surviving? As my guest says, why is it that when it comes to love, we're supposed to just know how? How to have a love that is thriving. In this episode, I'm continuing my conversation with Dr. Sara Nasserzade, author of Love by Design: Six Ingredients to Build a Lifetime of Love. Dr. Sarah has worked with thousands of individuals and couples, organizational clients to enhance relational health and sense of thriving. And we get practical as she offers a few exercises and practices from her newest book. If you missed part one of our conversation, I do hope you'll go back and listen to that as we talk about what we call our genitals and why our relationship with them matters. Let me share just one quote that I wrote down from Sarah's book about intimacy. She said, When you take a deep interest in your partner and about how they are changing and evolving over time, it is like extending an invitation to bring their whole self into the relational space time and again while introducing and reintroducing yourself to them over and over again. This is how attraction in all its forms becomes the foundation of sustained intimacy. If you liked that, you'll like what Sara has to say. Sara, welcome back to Permission for Pleasure. Thank you so much for having me back. I am delighted we can continue our conversation because last time we talked about our genitals, and we didn't really get to some of the things in your book that I was really wanting you to share with the listeners. So let's talk about your book for a moment. Share the title, why you wrote it, and your emergent love ideas around love that is cultivated.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, with pleasure. I will talk to anyone who listens, we're gonna change the world.
SPEAKER_01So the title of the book, I called it Love by Design, and it's six ingredients to build a lifetime of love. So that's the title. Why love by design? Any religion, any pathway, any scientific endeavor, anything that you pursue at the heart of it is what? Intentionality.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01I don't think anybody disputes that, right? Why is it that when it comes to love, loving relationships, people make all the efforts in the world, but they're not getting anywhere? Well, for majority of times, unfortunately. And why is it that when it comes to love we're supposed to know how? How are we supposed to know? I've been sitting with couples and individuals and communities for it feels like forever, like for really more than half of my life. And what I learned was that that's not gonna come to you. You have to really plan around it, plan for it, but also I give us benefit of the doubt here because we didn't know what we were doing. But what I'm trying to do is to really bring all the wisdom that the clients and our research participants shared with me, also colleagues who've done a great job with their research, their books, whoever that I'm standing on their shoulder of. Let's bring everything together, make sense of it, and offer it to people. One of the things that I feel like, you know, as providers is our responsibility is we have to first acknowledge the privilege we have. Not everybody had the privilege to sit with people day in, day out behind the closed doors when they are pouring their heart and soul and dilemmas and fears and everything out. I was there. I received it all. Better I wrote notes on them to keep them. Of course you did. So I wanted to make sense of it also selfishly. I wanna know. I want to help my siblings, I wanna help my child. So one place, one time, one person, one relationship at a time, we're gonna change the world. The world is made up of us, right? So if we really go after one relationship at a time and try to make sure that they are thriving, they're satisfied, they're peaceful, we are going to create world peace. I'm not just one idealistic person who thinks that. I've seen it because also remember, I work with individuals, couples, and I am at those United Nations meetings too. I could see that when a person comes, I can tell that this person is going to be a facilitator of our conversation or a hindrance. Just because of the energy they bring to the meeting. Right? And that energy comes from where? The intimate relationships that we have. And I'm not suggesting that everybody needs to be in a couple. Not at all. But what I'm saying is that there are certain elements that make us feel thriving. Peace of heart, clarity of mind. These are the things that we are after. So that as we walk through the world, we are not looking to go after other people or hurt them just because we are hurting.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01This is the whole idea behind the book. Love needs to give your heart a break, not a heartbreak.
SPEAKER_02And so how do we do that?
SPEAKER_01Here's how you do it. By now your listeners know that I am the optimum nerd. Here's how I wanted it to happen for my clients, and then how I designed it. So two pieces of research, one with 312 couples that I personally worked with. The criteria was they had to be with me for a year at least, so I know them actually. So that was the first one, qualitative piece. I saw the notes that I took after the sessions, and then I went through 10 years of notes and picked out the 312. Then I started digging and digging and digging to see what are the themes that are emerging. Let's say, for example, compassion, trust, respect. Is this something that we know based on like a common knowledge and what people talk about? Or is this actually the pain point, the pleasure point? These are the things that actually matter in a couple term. So that was the first piece that was based on the grounded theory research. And then out of that, I came and teamed up with Dr. Peshwan Azarmina, who is my husband. So we put it into a quantitative US representative sample. US representative sample means that if uh we included 159 couples who self-identified as thriving individually and as couples. So we studied them individually as well as in the couple. We asked them, what do you mean by thriving? How is it different from sustaining, surviving, satisfaction? How is it different? What is that quality of thriving? What is it?
SPEAKER_02What did they say?
SPEAKER_01Well, they talked about six ingredients: respect, attraction, trust, shared vision, compassion, sometimes empathy, and acts of loving. So I think I covered the six, yes.
SPEAKER_02So wait, attraction, respect, trust, trust, shared vision, compassion, and loving behaviors. Yes. All right, tell me more.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So after these six ingredients came together, which I'm going to give a one sentence for each because we defined them differently based on the research. After that, then I wanted to know if I'm I've been married for 23 years, going to be 24. I want to know how is it that I can put my effort where it matters? Every relationship has issues, every relationship has cracks and tracks, and you know, like, you know, whatever. I want to be on track. I want to know that with limited resources that I have of time, energy, money, and attention, where do I put my effort? So I don't become one of these people that say, we work so hard on our relationship. And then I look at them, I'm like, really? You put your efforts in the wrong place. I'm so sorry. And then I didn't have the answer when they asked me, so where do I put it? I'm like, well, based on your couple them, I wanted to do more. I wanted for millions of people to have this data to say, okay, so I read these. Here are the things that resonate with me, here's how I'm gonna use it, and here's how I'm gonna be on track. Therefore, we went on with these six ingredients. We developed an inventory, relationship panoramic inventory, which is very much like what they give you at any job, like annual review. So you go in and this is strength-based, it's not personality test, it's not uh pathology, it's not history taking. It's like an algorithm that a couple goes to, it's out there they can take it. If both of them can send the report, which is about 28 pages, it's sent to them directly. If not, they can choose a provider, write the name, send it to them, and review it with them. What it does is this. Remember the research of 159 Thriving Couples. So we have that account there, and then if I'm taking that test with my partner and I feel not very much respected in my partnership, or I feel like the respect for my partner is missing, whatever that is, for example, at the element of respect, I also immediately get to see what my partner thinks, how he expresses it and experiences it in the relationship. And so these are mutual, both sides, reciprocity of it is tested, and also what is that average thriving couple doing? So I want to know where do I fit, and that is evolutionary base. We want to know. We want to know where we fit in the human community. So that's what it does. So it's a full circle that you do the test, where do you fit? And then now thank you, God, for you know, the this book that was in the cooking for many years. They can go through it, and then when they come at the end of it, they have this annual checkup again, like at 360 degrees to see what is missing, what is working, from sexual connection to ability to connect to the stressors in life, how they are impacting them, respect, compassion, all of those elements, right? So now, if I die tomorrow, just that you know, I'll die happy because I created this.
SPEAKER_02I wish you could see your face. She she is delighted. All her research and all of this time, and I can just tell you're thrilled with what you're offering people in this opportunity of assessment and then the book. And I will tell you, there were a few things in there, and I've been married over 36 years. I mean, a long time. I've been with the love of my life, my whole life. High school sweethearts. I mean, day one. And there was a couple things in there. I immediately went to him and said, okay, I'd like to talk about this. I really think this is fascinating, and I want to make sure we're speaking the same language here. I mean, after all these years. So the hopeful piece to that, Sara and those listening is that it's never too late.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. There's always a way, there's always hope, and congratulations on your wonderful emergent love marriage.
SPEAKER_02Well, we we're still working on it, obviously. But I do think you know, this kind of research is so hopeful and helpful for couples because most of us don't get a lot of relationship education, modeling, healthy practices around relationship. And so that's how these kinds of resources you're providing can prov could offer that to people.
SPEAKER_01I hope so. I really hope so. Because it's a new model of love, and I know that some people might be skeptical until they really get the gist of it. And then when they see how freeing it is, they will go for it. I remember the first time I was presenting the results of the research, as we do, right? We go to scientific meetings, we present just to see feedback. Is it only me? Is it just a validity here? What do peers think? And after I was done with the presentations, at the part that I said, we grew up with the model of one plus one equals one, meaning that we are going to fall in love and stay in love and that happily ever after. And I'm offering one plus one equals three or more than two at least. Right? So as I was talking that it's very important for you and for that love to emerge, it's not just a submerged love that we meet and submerge together, but actually it's emergent. That's the quality that gives you that sense of thriving. For that to exist, these six ingredients need to be continuously in place. With good quality that I promise I provided you everything I knew in this. With good quality, then that love is like a warm fire that lives forever. That is your happily ever after. And that's only one of the byproducts of a relationship, love. The other one is fit, the other one is global satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, even if you don't have intercourse, because that's not the point, right? So these are the things that healthy, well being, all of those outcomes will be there. A woman stood up in that presentation, it was Stanford twenty fifteen or sixteen, and then she was clapping and sobbing at the same time. I was so moved and I had the mic moved to her and I said, What is happening? Why are you crying this hard? She said, Look, you just changed everything I knew about love. And where have you been 20 years ago? It hit me so hard because I was there 20 years ago. I didn't know. So I feel like hopefully moving forward our conversations, our discourses, they're going to provide something new, something fresh. Einstein said you can't solve the problem with the same mind that created it. We have to change the world with a new mentality. Let this be a new way that we look at love.
SPEAKER_02I would just love it if we could get practical for just a minute or so. Just to whet their appetite to get your book and try some of these practices, your sexer sizes that are in the book, your touch script. Let's start with just the distinction you make between sexual chemistry and sexual harmony. Because this is like ding ding ding. Tell us more.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Sexual chemistry in short form. Sexual chemistry might be something that brings people together. But if they stop learning from each other and create intimacy around it, into me, I see what do I want over time at this phase of life with this body that I'm occupying at this moment in time, and stop sharing that in a loving and firm way with our partner into me. You see, then the chemistry dies and so is our sex life. So what I'm offering with sexual harmony is that you play a tune, I play a tune, you play a tune, I play a tune, and then we have a beautiful harmony, and harmonies could be created and recreated over time. They're not gonna die, they're not gonna go away. And that's one of the main issues. Exactly. Evolve and beautiful.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I think it's a great way to describe that and help people see you know that a sexual attraction and that chemistry is something that has to be cultivated. And it doesn't look like the movies, it it evolves and changes, and then one thing I wrote down that you said loving with intention means paying attention. And when we stop paying attention, it is really difficult to evolve and maintain and develop a lovely sexual harmony.
SPEAKER_01Yes. On that note, may I just offer something to people who are listening because I know a lot of people are thinking, oh yeah, right. There's so much demand, there's so much demand on my time, energy, and attention that when it comes to sexuality, I can't really pay attention. I hear you. I'm there as a working mother, you know, like all that. I get you. But here's a suggestion. If you can't really maintain your height of sexuality or sexual connection forever, at least keep your physical connection with each other. Because look, many people forget that over a period of time I might be still intellectually connected to my partner, financially, socially, all that good stuff, parenting, all of that. But if my body doesn't know his body over a period of time, after children go to college or old enough for us to have a lock on the door or you know whatever, what happens is one day we want it. We so want it. But our bodies are so alienated, it's awkward.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Or we don't know what to do, we are clumsy, or our pride or resentment gets in the way. So one of the basic things that I can recommend to people is that just come together for five minutes. I'm not asking for too much, five minutes every day if you can, if your context of life allows, and really spend some time body to body with one another. Sit back to back, breathe, hold hands, eye gaze, rub your feet together. Something, something without the distraction of other things, so your bodies don't get alienated over time. That's really important.
SPEAKER_02I believe that. Wow. Okay, what's one more thing in that idea of connecting our bodies?
SPEAKER_01Do you want to talk about lexicons? Because I think that's something that might be helpful for people.
SPEAKER_02Love it.
SPEAKER_01So another concept that I speak about is touch lexicon. Sometimes I ask my couples that if I want to I write things on papers and give to each of them without the other person know. Or I whisper something in somebody's ear and then I ask them to do it to the other person. Or in the you know, like I ask somebody leave the room in the case of Zoom meetings. And I tell them, can you touch the other person, give them comfort? And then the second one, show them how hot they are and you want to have sex with them. And then the third one tell them only with touch, not words, you did a great job without children today. Show me these three only with touch. And then I see that many, many people, they don't know what they're doing with themselves. They give the same touch to say you're a great parent, you did good during the day, thank you for taking the garbage out. I'm hot for you, and I want to comfort you, I'm in it, don't worry, uh reassuring touch, you know all of that in one form of touch. Okay. No wonder your body is confused. Right? So it's very simple. So I ask couples to get together and then come up with ideas in their own head individually, give a touch, have their partner guess it. To see whether they are aligned, they receive the touch the way that it was intended by the other person, to bring out the role that was required in that moment in time. That's touch lexicon.
SPEAKER_02Well look at that little exercise, listeners, for you all to try. I think that's a fabulous idea. I do think we lose something if we're not Well, if we don't touch in a way that communicates what we want it to communicate, or we don't receive in a way it was communicated, and then we don't communicate about it. So this is a great starting point to get your bodies reconnected. And more in her book about this, it's just really fascinating. As you say, Sarah, touch is a language of its own.
SPEAKER_01So important, so important. And you know, in a low-context country like the United States and Northern Hemisphere in general, we talk about so many things. We talk too much. And the content, when you look at the content, is like, oh my god, if we can just communicate some of that through touch, through look, through our presence, energy, the physical field that we are occupying, we go such a long way. Such a long way. I want people to put their efforts where it matters. We don't have limitless energy and time in the day.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Well, we could probably talk for hours and hours, I know, all about your couple's toolkits and all the really practical exercises you offer in your book. So, listeners, you're gonna have to get your own copy, Love by Design, and go through these exercises. Learn something about yourself. Learn something if you're partnered with your partner. Thank you so much for being with us, Sara. It's just a joy to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. I felt the mutual joy here, and thank you so much for doing this and for allowing for these messages to get out in the world. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Tell people how they can find you and your book.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Actually, on the topic of resources, if they go to lovebydesignbook.com, because there are some novels out there and TV shows under Love by Design, just make sure that you go to Lovebydesignbook.com. And on the resource page, I have some worksheets that I speak about in the book, and I try to put some of them there. And also, oh, actually, on that website, they can order the signed copy of the book. I signed them personally and ship them to them. So we can do that too.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and I'll link to that in the show notes. And on this show, Sara, we like to share something that delights us day to day. I wonder if you might share something that brings you pleasure.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to be cliche, but just hugging my son this morning. We were meditating together. It's just sheer joy.
SPEAKER_02I love it. How old is your son? Ten. He's ten. Beautiful. What a beautiful practice to be spending that kind of time with him and teaching him about touch in that way.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. I'm hoping. I'm hoping. You know, if I do one thing right, he is going to continue this way. And one day he says, Mom, thank you for this work that you've done. At least I'm more intentional in my relationships.
SPEAKER_02Beautiful. Thanks for being with us and listeners. Wow, I hope you do check out this book, Sara's written, and work on some of these exercises. I think it's really nourishing and it will help you give yourself permission for pleasure.
