Rahi: Welcome to Organic Sexuality where we explore the restoration of pleasure, the reclamation of sexual sovereignty, and the realization of our embodied sexual nature. An invitation to honor the pleasures of your body by embodying the pleasures of your nature. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. I'm a certified somatic sex educator, a sexological bodyworker and creator of Somatic Sexual Wholeness. Before today's interview, an announcement that registration for the online course, the three keys to genital disarming for reclaiming and expanding pleasure is now open. Early bird pricing is available between now and August 20th when full access to all course materials becomes available weekly Zoom group learning calls begin September 20th when registration closes. For more information, please go to somatic sexual wholeness.my kajabi.com.

Rahi: Today we welcome Ron and Pono Stewart to the podcast. I've known Pono since our sexological body work training back in 2016, and I've had the pleasure of getting to know his husband Ron. More so in the last few years, our focus today is on sexual health and wholeness for owners, and I could not imagine anyone more qualified or fun to explore this topic with than Ron and Pono. For context, 52% of men over 40 suffer from some degree of erectile dysfunction. In fact, a study conducted in 1994 found that the rates were 40% of men at age 40, 50% at 50, 60% at 60 and 70% at age 70. And yet, men largely suffer in silence, not seeking care, nor talking about it. The result being that one third of men suffering from ED also suffer from depression because of their ED will. It's 37% of men have anxiety as a result of their erection challenges impairing the quality of their intimate relationships. What are the best ways to address erectile difficulty? How can we recondition new somatic patterns involving touch, breath sounding and full body erotic circulation rather than conditioned? And what role does early childhood conditioning of beliefs and touch imprints play in our adult sexual behaviors and patterns involving erections, touch, and intimacy?

Rahi: I am really delighted to have, uh, our wonderful guest today, Ron and Pono Stewart, join us a little background about how I know each of them. Um, so Pono and I were actually in the same certification training for Sexological Bodywork back in 2016 at the Institute for the Advanced City of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. And at the time, our motley crew of, uh, budding sex sex bots, uh, included a number of body workers, um, counselors, a few former sex workers, and one attorney who was Pono. So I always had mad respect for someone like Pono who came from like a, an attorney background and made the switch to becoming, um, a, a really established sexological body worker. So before his certification as a somatic sex educator, Pono was trained in various forms of yoga, the chakra system, and healing arts based on the Native American Lakota traditions.

Rahi: Uh, the practice of focusing, bringing sensate focus to the body senses, which is a lot of what we do as sexological body workers, um, body connection workshops. And since our certification has taught the wheel of consent and is currently faculty at the Body Electric School, uh, and serves as a somatic erotic embodiment, coach Ron, uh, who is well known within our community as one of the veterans of sexological body work, he's also a somatic sex educator, sexological body worker and co-founder of Back to the Body sensual retreats for women supporting women to learn about their bodies pleasure in reclaiming erotic confidence, and has led over 35 retreats since 2011. Um, he brings his background in somatic experiencing as a yoga teacher founder of Sky Clad, and one of Canada's prominent male contemporary dance artist to his work together. Uh, they host private retreats for couples or individuals on southern Vancouver Island, on the traditional lands and unseated territory of the, of the Coast Salish people and Tribes and Canada for clients to co-create their own multi-day exploratory retreats, including private, somatic, erotic embodiment sessions and anything, uh, that their clients wish to explore and expand into.

Rahi: Um, I've enjoyed their lovely retreat space. Indeed, it's a wonderful sanctuary up there. You guys have really created an incredible sanctuary. Yeah, we're really, um, yeah. Well, guys, I'm so thrilled, uh, that you guys are on the podcast. Thanks for joining us today.

Ron: Thanks, Rocky, for having us. It's taking a bit to get us all the three of us together

Rahi: Yes, yes. With all of your travels and workshops and, and schedule, but I'm glad we made it work. Okay. So, you know, I really like to, um, as a jumping off point, invite guests to share a little bit about their personal journeys to give a con, provide a context for our listeners. So I would love to ask each of you, um, how did each of your journeys of erotic embodiment, um, lead you to discovering the erotic healing arts that you are now holding space for others? Like, can you give us a sense of like, what were the turning points or epiphanies in your own erotic reclamation or discovery journeys?

Ron: That sounds big. . Yeah.

Rahi: Yeah, it sounds juicy.

Ron: I'll go first.

Rahi: Um, awesome. So,

Ron: Oh my goodness, how far back do we go? Um, so I grew up, uh, as a boy attracted to men in a culture that did not support same sex experiences. So that's, I think is probably my first wound mm-hmm.

Rahi: , mm-hmm. .

Ron: Um, and the explorations that sort of took place from there were basically what I could get away with, right? So when we're, when we're living in a repressed sexual environment, we do what we can to make the discoveries that fit within the safety zone, like when we're not supposed to, but our body and our biology is, is saying, go for it. We figure out the most, um, safest or minimalist or the way that we're not gonna get caught and mm-hmm. . And in doing so, we, uh, we're forced to explore a very small slice of the erotic pie mm-hmm. . And, uh, what I know for myself and what I have found with clients is by midlife forties, fifties, that pie starts to taste kind of bland, and people want to expand out beyond that. And many don't have, uh, a context or any sort of way of doing that.

Ron: Mm-hmm. . So as was for me, I think in my forties, I started to think that there was something different that could be happening, but wasn't happening. And I started to become curious about, uh, female bodied, um, folks and my potential relating with them. And so that created a bit of a quandary. I was a contemporary dance artist at the time and teaching, uh, yoga. And I started teaching naked yoga and naked yoga lent itself to naked massage, which was another mm-hmm. , uh, form of expression that had always been interesting to me. And naked massage meant erotic massage. And in the midst of all of the contemporary dance and naked yoga and doing body work, I started to feel that there was potential, but I didn't have a full sense of the scope of the work that could be done with people doing touch and erotic touch, and with the aim to bring more wholeness into their lives. So I did this course with, um, Joseph Kramer, the first Canadian training in 2011 for sexological body work. Uh, and that was a real anchoring point in terms of, um, you know, prior to that doing erotic body work was, was fun. Uh, it was a bit of a, you know, of rebellious, you know, against the repressive culture, et cetera, et cetera. But the training started to really sort of anchor me into the importance and the potential healing and wellness that could show up for people, including myself. Mm

Rahi: Mm

Ron: Um, because while I was doing the training, I was actually involved with, uh, a woman and that was creating all kinds of curiosities and questions. And so the training really kind of started me looking more seriously at my eroticism and my sexuality. The year after I did the training, I met Pamela, and that was when we started back to the Body Retreats. Yes. Uh, and we just celebrated our, we celebrated our 10 year anniversary on our 12th year because of Covid. Um, but at the same time, um, uh, the study, I don't know if, I think I've mentioned it to you, the study that came

Rahi: Yes. I've seen it

Ron: From Widener, um, which shows the benefits on female bodied folks. So the study was mm-hmm. was done on women, but we know to be true that the same, uh, effects and goodness that comes from sexological bodywork for female bodies is also true for male bodied folks as well.

Rahi: Yes. Yes.

Ron: So that was a bit of a scrambling ramble of my, uh, coming into, uh, erotic experiences and, uh, studies for myself. Awesome. Pass it on to the world.

Rahi: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing. I mean, thanks for sharing the context of, you know, what it was like as a boy. Cuz that is where it starts. I mean, we're sexual beings from the time, you know, we're in the womb. Really, that context is a really, uh, uh, precious and important context to understand that in our repressed society Yeah. There are, there's gonna be slivers of where, you know, permissible or safe, quote unquote, uh, expressions of your sexual energy will manifest. And it sounds like the evolution makes so much sense from doing naked yoga to massage, to erotic massage to sexological body work. I think a lot of listeners are gonna be like, oh, I should start offering naked yoga now, um,

Ron: It's funny cuz when you ask my journey, if I don't go right back there, because I think what happens is I recognize in a lot of clients it's the, it's the things, the events and the upbringing that happen really early in life that mm-hmm. , like you say, a sliver, it just jabs it right in there and stays. And when we're thirties, forties, we don't remember that moment, but our body remembers that moment. And so we might be going, oh, I'm experiencing Ed, or I'm experiencing shame whenever I have sex. Like, what's that all about? But they forget the comment or the moment, and it can be mm-hmm. , you know, in, in an adult context it might seem like, oh my God, I'm holding onto that mm-hmm. , but as a child and being delivered this insult or this, um, reprimanding from an adult figure, or your peers in the playground mm-hmm. that can shut you down, that can shut you down for life.

Rahi: Yes.

Ron: You know, and 40 years later, we forgot about that moment, that seed that created the clamp onto that. Like, I'm never doing that again.

Rahi: Yes. Yes. I'm glad you bring that up. I'm really fascinated by initial touch or initial sexual imprints that get kind of stuck within the nervous system and get recalled every time there is a, an arousal or pleasure or something related to that ab Absolutely. Um, Pono, can you share about your, your journey, um, because I'm really, like I mentioned, you know, like I was so blown away when I discovered you were an attorney in our sex spot training and would love to know what were some of the pivotal junctures or events that stand out for you in your, uh, personal, uh, journey of erotic embodiment.

Pono: Thanks. Yeah. Um, I was a pretty curious child. Um, erotically, I did a lot of self pleasuring. Um, it started in the bathtub, in this, the bubble bath. It was where I could lock the door and be alone for the first time. Um, and in hindsight, I think a lot of things really started there and, and we get these habitual patterns of behavior and we do something and we keep doing it the same way cuz we get there. And so, especially with sex, and I think the goal orientation for men towards, it's all about getting there. Um, and that's what it was for me as a child too. Um, so what really evolved was the idea that sex could be something then, goal oriented. So what I would say my erotic journey started was even when I was an attorney, I, you know, I was an unhappy attorney for, uh, several decades.

Pono: And in my private time, I always explored what I was curious about. So I took chakra classes. I participated with a Native American group, um, a TPE in Northern California. I did sweat lodges and vision quest for years. And that became a huge part of my spiritual practice is really nature based. And then even studying, focusing, like you said, when I went to sexological body work training, a lot of the language I was hearing reminded me of what I had done in focusing in the early eighties. And then during the early HIV epidemic in San Francisco, I was participating with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in some workshops. And the buddy connection used to ask a lot, lot of, like, when you're having sex, what are you really looking for? Are you really looking to have sex mm-hmm. , are you looking to just get touch from another person?

Pono: Are you looking to cuddle a lot of things that have come up more recently around ways to be intimate and physical with other people without being sexual. But in essence, I think my, my my ultimate erotic journey began when I met this man mm-hmm. . Um, we met in 20, uh, when did we meet? 2014. Um, and yes, we we were, we were a hookup on manhunt. So that's how we met. And I was a little curious, curious about how I could potentially have a relationship with someone who was doing this work. So I had a history of unwanted touch in my background as a lot of men, as a lot of gay men. And I had been in talk therapy around resolving some of these issues around sexual assault and unwanted touch and agency over my body that I think was actually a byproduct of having sex at a really young age, perhaps younger than I should have been having sex.

Pono: Hmm. So, um, I was living in San Francisco and I came to the Bay Area from se from Hawaii, and I started, um, looking for a sexological body worker to have sessions with not my husband, not my now husband mm-hmm. , so I Right, right, right. I was six different sexological body workers in San Francisco before I found someone I felt comfortable with and kind of that I could work with. And then I had a series of sessions with him, and it was actually at the end of a two hour, uh, Taoist erotic massage that I had an epiphany experience. I had lots of things happen in my vision, but what came to me really clearly was, I want to do this. This is what I want to do. And it was a really, one of the clearest, kind of embodied knowings that I'd ever had.

Pono: I was always pretty wishy-washy. I'm a libra rising, I'm always kind of weighing things together and not able to make up my mind. But from that moment forward, I was full steam ahead towards, I'm gonna be a sexological body worker, this is what I want to do. Wow. So really within six months I had started the training. Six months later I finished the training. Um, and then I moved to Canada with the goal of moving here, being a sexological body worker, living with Ron and doing some of our own private retreats together, which we did before pandemic. We did six retreats in three years. Um, Allman's retreats Mm. Based on the sexual sexological body worker model. Um, and so I've continued to explore, I mean, the full body orgasm has become a thing through the Mantka Chia, uh, Multiorgasmic Man book. I've read that mm-hmm.

Pono: , I mean, there's a side story there, but I actually think that I've been multiorgasmic or full body orgasmic since I was a kid. And it came from long term masturbation sessions when I was alone and having no refractory period and just continuing and continuing. And then I'd have what felt like a seizure and I didn't know what it was mm-hmm. , but it felt like a seizure. Wow. I was shaky mm-hmm. . And so I was kind of afraid of it and tamped it down. And it would periodically over the years happen when I was engaged periodically with someone and it kind of freaked me out. Um, a couple times it freaked the person I was with without, and I really didn't know mm-hmm. what it was. Um, now I do , but I can look back and go, oh, that's what those were.

Pono: Um mm-hmm. And so I've learned to separate from orgasm because they're not actually mm-hmm. Completely linked in the body. They happen mm-hmm. most to simultaneously, but not quite. So I think I'm getting onto another subject, but, um, I, that's practice is, is a, is a virtually daily self pleasuring practice mm-hmm. . And that brings up a lot of stuff about what, what is important to us, um, what do we make time for? How do we, how do we assess pleasure as a priority in our life and what keeps us from doing that? Yes. So we bump up against lots of obstacles, but every obstacle is a golden opportunity for learning something about yourself, um, because you can figure out like what your belief system is. So, tapping into what Ron was saying, we often can think like, okay, well I'm in this situation and I'm having this bodily response, but it doesn't, it's not consistent with what I believe now.

Pono: And often what you can find is a belief system that was created when you were a child a long time ago with something someone told you, or just what we pick up from osmosis as children when we're trying to fit in with everyone else and be one of the pack mm-hmm. . And so we'll have a belief system that, you know, it's not okay to touch your body. Mm-hmm. It could be as simple as it's not okay to touch your body, don't touch down there. Mm-hmm. , you know, often even when little babies are being diapered, sometimes little boys will touch their penis and they're often slapped mm-hmm. like, don't do that. Right. And so we get these messages before we even verbal to not touch ourselves mm-hmm. . So it

Rahi: Can be a really

Pono: Absolutely helpful exploration to find out where those beliefs came from, and then mm-hmm. , ask yourself, is this what I believe now? Because it it's often not, and the shift of that consciousness can change the behavior in your body.

Rahi: Yeah. Super, super important. Um, yeah, I mean, there's so many kind of critical junctures during the developmental process. You know, like the way in which our diapers are changed by a parent is the anus shame because it's smelly. You know, like when we first are, are caught quote unquote, you know, or seen self pleasuring, is it met with respect or is it shamed? I mean, I have some clients where they're punished, you know, like punished with damnation, like with fear and, and physical punishment. So these all have powerful, powerful imprints. Like you said, Pono like unexamined. They will just continue on in our adult behaviors. So I wanted to ask you guys, I mean, there's so many juicy things that, that both of you have shared that, that I, that I wanna continue explain, like there's a million tangents we can go, but I, I'm wondering how I wanted to focus, I know both of you work with all genders, but I did wanna focus more on male bodies today and you know, because it is, you know, we were talking about the silent shame and how large percentage of our male population do have sexual what they would consider issues, but just afraid to talk about it.

Rahi: I'm curious, with the clients that you work with, with the male identified cl male bodied clients that come to you, what is it that they're mostly wanting to discover, explore, expand, or address?

Pono: Well, it's, it's a little, I would say it's a little all over the map, but at some point there are mm-hmm. , there are topics that are re uh, come up a lot and, and get repeated. Mm-hmm. , I think one of them is just this overarching question of like, the Peggy Lee, is this all, is that all there is a sense that yes, after 20 or 30 years of having sex, there's a sense that maybe there's more here and maybe they've looked up on the internet or they've read our websites and so they're curious about full body orgasm. Um, or people come in. I mean, erectile dysfunction is a huge issue, um, with guys as they age because of testosterone, because of stress, because of lifestyle issues. I mean, the, an erection is a parasympathetic response in the body, so you need to be relaxed and calm. Yes. If you're stressed out, if you're angry, if you're in some kind of fight or flight for some reason, you will likely not get an erection. And so I think a lot of guys are, are stuck in that state. And so if they're high stress and high sprung, the erection is gonna be hard to to to come. Um, I guess that was a pun. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. I've

Rahi: Had a new, I've had

Pono: A new thing with younger guys, which is that they've grown up with the internet. They've mostly and had erotic encounters with themselves alone with a computer screen. And so when they get to it into a room with a partner and there's a real person in the room, there's shyness and anxiety around having an erection being aroused. And then they sometimes have trouble with another person in the room. So that's been a new issue that's come up for me a couple times recently.

Rahi: That is fascinating. That is fascinating. So it really speaks to how Pavlovian and how like, conditional our body's response is. You know, if someone's really just used to to a screen to have another human being in the room. I mean, it's like counterintuitive to me, but Yeah. It makes so much sense cuz that's the, that's the, the wiring that happens. Yeah,

Pono: Absolutely. There, there's, that happens in all aspects of life, you know, but we don't think about them as much. I think we're, we're born as men and we're in our culture. It's just believe that we're vir and we know what we're doing and we should know how to have sex. So the lack of education mm-hmm. and the lack of curiosity and the culture, the lack of openness to talk about things causes more problems, I think because everyone seems to think they're alone. I'm the only person having this problem and I don't want to talk about it. I'm embarrassed.

Rahi: Yeah. You know, um, a as I shared, I I was listening to this podcast yesterday and some facts that really stood out, uh, in regards to Ed erectile dysfunction. Over 50% of men over the age of 40 admit to suffering to some degree of ed. And a study that was published in 1994 found that 40% of men at 40 experienced some level of ed. 50% at 50, 60% at 60 and 70% at 70. Hmm. Um, and then up to 30% of men suffer from what they would describe as premature. The podcast talked about, you know, what you and I spoke about before we started recording, which was the suffering in silence. They do not talk about it. Yeah. They don't know where to go to talk about it. Yeah. And you know, a lot of the clinicians, the, their general practitioners have so many other things to look at, you know, diabetes, you know, like heart pressure, like all this kind of stuff that Ed is just at the bottom of that long list of things in the short amount of time.

Rahi: Yeah. I was shocked that the study showed that 44% who suffer from some level of sexual dysfunction will not tell their partners, uh, about it because they're too embarrassed. Yeah. I'm guessing that a lot of Yeah. Where do we go from here? Exactly. You know, I feel like, you know, female bodied, I mean, just, it's dismal when it comes to sex education in general across our culture Yes. Across all genders. Yes. But it, it, it feels like at least like, you know, every time I walk by a a Cosmo magazine, there's some huge headline about, or multi how to have multi orgasms or something, you know, I mean, maybe there are a few men's magazines that do that, but I feel like there's a lack of conversation amongst men around sexual issues and challenges and just education and know-how Yeah. And I'm guessing that's a lot of what you guys do.

Ron: Yes. And I'm gonna make two references. So like you said, like the multifaceted arena of the conversation around sexuality is so diverse. And when we talk about people experiencing ed, and I assume part of that is self-diagnosed, and so then you, then you have to go back. I, I find with so many clients we've been founding the foundational work to be where the, the, the cracks or the flaws are in their belief system, or if, or in their understanding around sexuality and sexual expression, that when you go back to the foundational, like, uh, what does it feel like to feel your boundaries in your body or to feel safe in your body, to feel unsafe in your body, to go back to that base level and then grow out from there to explore eroticism gives a more, um, functional foundation and understanding because people could be experiencing erectile dysfunction because they're, they're wanting to have sex, but their religion told them not to have sex.

Ron: So there's like this internal fight in the body, you know? Mm-hmm. people could be having, uh, erectile difficulties because of, again, going back to when I was saying how our dismal teaching around sex and self pleasuring, which could be a time in your life when you explore solo, what qualities of touch you like, like what, you know, just all the ways that you could explore masturbation and, and, and, and withholding so that you are able to hold more erotic energy and go for longer so that partners are more pleased and, uh, pleasured mm-hmm. , uh, and having more excitement as well. There's just, uh, so many different arenas that you could look at for why Ed is happening, or premature is happening. I think for most people, when they come to middle age and they go, you know, they're scratching their head going, is this all there is mm-hmm. to be able to go back and do a somatic sex education about what is going on Yes. Inside your body. How is, how is your body and your brain responding to the concept of arousal and eroticism then mm-hmm. , doing self-exploration will often give you the information to help move yourself forward and therefore mm-hmm. , when you're relating with other people, that experience will move forward as well. Have I said it? Yeah. Makes sense.

Rahi: Yeah. Yeah. What I, what I hear you sharing, Ron, is that, because one of my questions was going to be, well, ed is such a prevalent issue, how do you guys support your clients in that? But you've described it beautifully, it sounds like you go to the original foundation, go

Ron: Back to the beginning of what,

Rahi: Go back to the beginning of how their arousal and response got wired. And it sounds like you teach them about, you know, bringing safety and downregulating their nervous system and the role that plays cuz we know when the nervous system is upregulated, it affects, you know, everything Yeah. And including, uh, response. Yeah. And then it sounds like you're retraining them as far as well educating them about touch, sensation and pleasure in their body. So it's like you're rebooting their whole kind of arousal, erotic intelligence with experience with their body.

Ron: Yeah. And because it's somatic and people are feeling the difference in their body while it's happening, it's, it's easier to build practices so that you can repeat that experience. And as you repeat that experience, that new neural pathway gets a little more easier to go down and, and the experience becomes easier to repeat. Because I always sort of feel like if you think of eroticism as being like a buffet and you've got this whole table in front of you, but all you were offered was a very narrow, like the dessert table , you were only allowed to access a small part of it because you didn't want to get caught eating at the whole buffet and being your enormous beautiful self. You just, you just stayed with, you know, the bread and butter at the far end of the table. At some point you want to expand out, but how, how do you open up your perception to what's possible if all you've been fed is this one little experience?

Ron: And so somatically creates this opportunity to work with a professional, to ask questions to, to ask questions that would be hard to ask of a partner. Right. If you're trying to build a relationship mm-hmm. , it's not so easy to be vulnerable about the learning of sex when you're in your forties or fifties. If you work with a touch professional, you can go through all those blips and blowups and like, this is embarrassing. Mm-hmm. Well, you know what, this is embarrassing . Yeah. Like ask and move forward and get the result like, like harvest the gold and then Yeah. Embarrassing doesn't seem so bad anymore because you've kind of moved through it, you've got a success and things feel, um, expanded and more, um, uh, available possibilities.

Rahi: Yeah. You know, this reminds me of when, when, uh, Pono was sharing about his evolution after you guys met, how he really made it an intention to seek out other sexological body workers. And I'm glad you, you auditioned six before you found the one that really works for you. And, uh, it sounds like Pono did exactly what you're speaking to Ron is, which is, you know, exploring with a professional sexological body worker to really understand his own erogenous anatomy, his own body's pleasures and preferences and not rely on you not only his beloved partner, but also professional sexological bodywork. Right. I think that's so wise. Yeah. Um, and you know what you're saying, I think your analogy is really great cuz we do have a buffet of eroticism and sexual pleasure and I do feel like our society is fixated on the dessert. You know, it's fixated on the money shot in porn, you know, and that's something I never understood. It's like a guy and the party's over. Why is this so glorified? You know, .

Pono: So I think that's really key. That is really key because it, the, what I call the four pillars of sexological body work, or actually most erotic arts are breath, touch, sound and movement. So I always get back to that. It's what I teach in self pleaing workshop. It's how I e e encourage clients to be during a sexological body work session is to be focusing on those things to stimulate and generate erotic energy. Yes. But if we go back to our history of masturbating, we're probably not breathing. We're probably holding our breath. We might be touching ourselves. What, what what studies or research, uh, , sorry. Exposed what study or research exposes is that most of us do it the same way. We find a way that feels good sometimes that's in utero. I mean, there's images of inner utero Yes. Touching themselves in ma and self-pleasure.

Pono: Yes. So we touch ourselves in the same way that feels good. And, um, we don't move a lot. So I grew up for 15 years with a brother in a bed eight feet away from me in the same bedroom. I'm not making a lot of noise. I'm not making the sounds. I'm not moving, I don't wanna squeak the bed. So we've taught ourselves if, if the goal is, we can do that in two or three minutes. I can still do that three minutes. I don't. Right. I could, yeah. Cause I trained my body that way for decades. So it's hard to have a five or six or eight minute wink session and then, and do that your whole life. And then think you're gonna be engaged in an erotic encount with someone and all of a sudden last two hours and have this two hour glorious mm-hmm.

Pono: You know, erotic encounter because your body's right. Trained to do it really, really quickly. Mm-hmm. So one of the first things I teach people is just slowing down and slowing down and slowing down. So we, you know, I teach the erotic arousal scale, which a lot of sex therapists teach, or for people who are having issues with erectile dysfunction. You know, zero is no mm-hmm. erotic arousal in the body. 10 is an, nine is the point of no return. Eight is the point where people edge. So edging is a practice mm-hmm. where you practice masturbating, self pleasuring, and really self pleasuring, touching your whole body, moving the energy in your body, but not quite. And what you're doing is you're retraining your body to hold and experience more pleasure in the body without actually. And so mm-hmm. doing that process for a long time can help you last longer and longer.

Pono: But the side benefit of all that is that prolonged periods of sexual arousal really stimulate almost all the happiness hormones in your body. Oxytocin, serotonin, adrenaline. And so really, if you're having a five minute arc from, be from zero to 10 mm-hmm. You're having five minutes of maybe a little hormonal in injection of happiness hormones. But if you can do that for two or three hours, you have a huge injection of happiness hormones. It really affects how your whole body feels inside your skin and how your whole system works. So from the Taoist philosophy, part of the disconnect here is that in western culture, having that as the end all be all, you know, for sex mm-hmm. , that's one philosophy. Whereas the TAUs philosophy is that erotic energy is life force energy, it's healing in the body, and our sexual organs are as important as our heart or our lungs or our kidney. And that they all work together. So it's really

Rahi: Yes.

Pono: Um, talking about how important the erotic energy is in the body, how important our sexual organs are, and how much stimulating them can actually add to health and longevity. So Taoism to me is a way of being, but it's also a methodology mm-hmm. of having long health and longevity. And the core of that practice is daily stimulation of erotic energy to stimulate the, the pharmacy of hormones that we have in our body and we have access to if we learn how to play our body.

Rahi: Yes. Yes. I love that. It is, we, we, we are inhabiting this pharmacy of chemicals and hormones and it is available to us at, at any time. And yeah. I I totally hear how for, for you, for you and what you're teaching your clients is to make it a lifestyle, you know, to make it a regular thing, to inhabit a state of orgasm rather than going for the or the orgasm. Yeah.

Pono: Yeah. I talk to people about, you know, not being at a state of zero arousal when you walk through the world. So if I start the day and I have coffee and I have my newsfeed and I have my Facebook feed within an hour, I'm in a pretty bad mood. I'm just not feeling very good about the world mm-hmm. . And if I get up instead and I have some water and I do some self-pleasuring and some meditation, and I do something to really stimulate those happiness hormones in my body, and then mm-hmm. with that frame of mind, frame of body frame of being, I go out into the world, I, I'm just happier and I can manage Yes. Any other things that happen and I can manage listening to the news at four in the afternoon, , but not mm-hmm. mm-hmm. seven in the morning.

Rahi: Yeah. It's, it's really bizarre, I think how we've compartmentalized sexuality as kind of separate from the rest of our lives. And what I'm hearing you guys in your, in your conversation and hearing about your lifestyle is, is really honoring it as the life force energy that we bring to all of our lives.

Pono: And that's certainly been a process for me. So when I talk about, like, my history of attorney days, my erotic life was completely compartmentalized. My work life was here. Mm-hmm. , my home life was here, my erotic life was actually somewhere else. So I actually personally had a long-term history of going to get erotic massage as a way of mm-hmm. . Now in hindsight, I look at it as a way of, of be being erotic feeling in my erotic body, but it was somewhere I went to do that, and it was time limited mm-hmm. , and it was contained Yes. And it didn't go outside of that contained. Yes. So it

Rahi: Was really, really

Pono: Segmented. And, you know, honestly, I think that gay men, gay boys learn to do that. Mm-hmm. , I actually think it's where I learned to lie. I couldn't tell people that I, I was attracted to boys in the fifth grade. I couldn't tell anyone I knew it was wrong. I knew I wasn't supposed to feel that way, but I wanted to do stuff. I had hormones raging. So as I started to engage with people, other men and other boys, well men and other boys, , um mm-hmm. , I started to lie, where are you going? Mm-hmm. , I wasn't at the basketball game at school, I was over there and so mm-hmm. , I was hiding, I was lying, but I was also hiding who I was. I'm hiding my eroticism. Yeah. And I'm hiding who I was. So it begins a process of actually hiding not just erotically. Yes. But I think for me, it was just hiding lots of things and not being true to who I was to myself or to other people.

Rahi: You know? That's really poignant. I, I feel because, um, I mean, certainly in our society we do compartmentalize sexuality, but as a gay boy in a repressed culture, um, I think it's almost the only way to stay safe is to compartmentalize, oh my god. You know, and sneak away the experiences you're speaking of. Ugh. Which creates kind of this association of sexuality as a compartmentalized experience

Pono: Mm-hmm. and something you need that I needed to hide Yeah. And be ashamed of mm-hmm. and not tell other people that.

Rahi: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, you know, it's kind of, I don't know, sometimes I look at our society and think, God, we are just really funny and

Ron: Weird. Oh my God. You

Rahi: Know, like, I mean, come on. You know, I mean, like, the way we compartmentalize sexuality, I mean, you know, like, I mean, you know, like as an attorney and the workplace, like, it's so hyper, I don't know, like sensitive, you know, and I, to some degree, it, it needs to be, you know, I mean there, there needs to be respective boundaries and consent, but I think that's what it is. We're a society that doesn't, we never learned how to talk about, identify or honor our boundaries and consent. And I think that's why we just squash it all away and, uh, you know, just, it's not allowed in society as a result.

Ron: Everything gets bossed into the same ball and put over to the corner. It's um, yes. Like even when you're walking down the street and you like, like there's a young person sort of engaging in a really sort of playful, joyous way, and there's a desire to interact or say hello or acknowledge their excited existence as another excited human being. But it's like, you just don't, because interacting with someone that young is gonna cause a problem first. Like the parent or the child themselves will be confused or something.

Rahi: Right. Right.

Ron: So it all just gets put into this massive ball and we all Yes. Lose as a result because there's no ref, there's no refinement. Um,

Rahi: There's no refinement. And the life force gets repressed and everyone. Right.

Pono: Right. So that's why I talk about like, if you go out in the world and you're like at zero erotic energy, to me, that's you. You're missing life force energy. So on that arousal scale, yes. If I'm arousing myself in the morning, I might be a two or three during the day. I might still feel mm-hmm. , you know, I feel the wind blowing my body and I feel that tingling and, and it's arousing in an erotic way. Mm-hmm. , or I, you know, I touch my husband's arm and I can feel energy and I, I get arousal. So it, it taps into, it's more available on short notice. And so being an erotic, being out in the world, we are erotic beings. It's part of who we are. Mm-hmm. , but if we're tamping that down, absolutely. It's no different than walking around with a blindfold on or with your hands tied behind your black. You're not really utilizing your whole being and your capability as Right. A human being.

Rahi: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I feel like that erotic, that life force energy affects our intuition, affects our creativity, affects our, you know, magnetism, like all, all of that, all of that. Um, guys, I, I'd like our audiences to have a sense of the retreats that you hold space for, whether it's for individuals or for couples or for groups. Yeah. Because your, your space, you know, on, uh, Vancouver Island is really, really fantastic and it's kind of ideal for, you know, whether it's group or one-on-one retreats, gi gi Give us a sense of some of the offerings that you've had on your land. Interesting.

Ron: Uh, so since we moved, uh, to our new location in Cobble Hill, we have not hosted any group retreats. Um, we had talked about doing something this summer, but the success of the individual and the couples retreats have kind of kept our schedule, uh, in a happy place of fullness. Um, cool. And something that we're really sort of excited about is that we're able to customize any retreat for the individual or the couple in terms of duration and to match their budget. Um, so, uh, guests stay in our cottage. It's a, got a queen-sized bed, one bedroom, uh, self-contained bathroom, and a small kitchen. And, um, you know, how it unfolds is really dependent upon what their intention is and what they, uh, individual or couple is interested in exploring. Can

Pono: I talk about like a typical program day? We, we would start, please and we do, um, like a naked yoga or clothing, optional yoga movement type of class. So working on the movement part, we're also bringing in breath there with pranayama. And then we move into something called that I call B T S M is my little joke for breath, touch, sound and movement. So teaching some breath practices, some upregulating breaths, some downregulating breaths. We talk about touch and different qualities of touch and encouraging people to touch all over their body, uh, for male bodied folks, not just their balls, but like their whole body or their anus mm-hmm. . Um, and then we move into and talk about sound and movement, all of those things. And then work into kind of a communal self pleasuring where there's kind of a group of us in a, in a room, all self pleasuring at the same time.

Pono: And that's mainly Oh, nice. Designed to kind of build up the erotic energy of the individual who's, who's the client, um, but also have them have some experience dealing with and, and cultivating energy through utilizing breath, touch, sound and movement. And then at that, on that state, we usually often take a short break, and then that person goes into a private session with either Ron or, or me, or, uh, we do four handed work too. Mm-hmm. . So depending on the person's budget, like there could be the morning practice and one session, and that could be the whole day, or they could have a break in lunch, and in the afternoon they could have another session. And the nighttimes are often for dinner and processing and stuff. And it's also allows us to redirect or re um, readjust based on what the person has experienced and what they're curious about.

Pono: Mm-hmm. . So what we find is in a group retreat with four or five or six or eight people, there's, there's the person who wants to go the fastest, so to speak, and the person who's going to slow. Right. And you need to kind of corral them all and keep them going. So with an individual or a couple, there's a lot more flexibility to just course correct and say, oh, we were gonna talk about whatever today, but what's come up from yesterday is this curiosity about this thing I wasn't even aware of. And so now I wanna explore that. And so we can switch gears a little bit, but honestly, we have people coming for one night. We have people coming for three nights. We have people coming for six nights mm-hmm. . So it depe depends on people's curiosity and their budget, but we can work with them depending on even what their issues are, what their questions are, what their curiosities are, but it really takes a bit of that, um, beginner's mind from meditation or like the curiosity mind.

Pono: Mm-hmm. Like to just be into a space of curiosity where you can talk about the tantrum philosophy of everything's an experiment. And I find that really helpful. Mm-hmm. I think in, in the way I grew up, we, we weren't allowed to make mistakes, whatever that meant. We were supposed to do everything right. You know, the goal is a hundred percent, the goal is an a plus, and it wasn't rewarded to try something out and maybe have it not be successful or not have it turn out the way you thought it would. So in that experiment type of philosophy where you might have a theory and you go into the laboratory and you play with it and see if it works, if you can have that kind of kind of attitude around playing in the erotic realm, you try something out. If it doesn't feel good or it doesn't work, then now you know, when you go onto something else. Or you might have discovered something that just blossoms into a whole new way of feeling or being. And so that, that begin mind. But also this idea that everything's an experiment and we're just trying things out and practicing and playing, and we'll find something

Rahi: There. Mm-hmm. that's really beautiful. I mean, what I'm hearing from both of you is that you're really meeting the client where they feel safe and ready to explore, and you're kind of rebooting their entire erotic iq Really. Yeah. From but somatically from like the ground up. Yeah.

Pono: Yeah. It's like

Rahi: Rebuilding both, which is brilliant

Pono: Ian conversation.

Rahi: Totally. Totally. That's so great. Um, guys, um, I would be remiss before, um, uh, completing the podcast, uh, I, I, I'd love to ask each of you about like pono, your involvement with the Body Electric and the Erotic Brotherhood and, um, Ron, your involvement with Back To The Body. You've mentioned it, but this recent study is so I think, super significant in actual providing data. And I would love to know from each of you, how did your involvement with each of these movements really come about and what is most exciting to you about your involvement with, uh, back to the Body or the Body Electric and the Erotic Brotherhood?

Pono: ? I'll Go Body Electric. I got involved with Body Electric during covid, um, and it's started because I was going to be teaching, uh, in-person self-pleasuring workshop, and a friend slash colleague asked me to co-create it and co-facilitate it. So we had done that and were prepared to do something in person in spring of 2020 and mm-hmm. , of course that couldn't happen cuz of covid. So that's when everything started converting to trying to use Zoom and do things online. Um, my, the partner who had asked me to do this with them was unable because of internet issues to do the program, and lo and behold, I was allowed to do a self fledging workshop by myself. So I've done about three of them. I think there are four week programs, two hours, uh, meeting, and they're really designed really for like a month of let's practice trying to self-pleasure every day for a month.

Pono: Great. And so there's meetings once a week on a Saturday morning, and then we go through all the principles of breath, touch, sound and movement, talk about all the issues that come up around self-pleasuring. And then the idea is that during the week there's experiential practices to do and then we come back together and kind of keep, keep talking about it. And for a lot of guys, honestly, the talking about it part is kind of shame shattering or starts the healing process. They're so happy Yes. To just talk about things and have some, and find someone else who's had a similar experience that's really validating. Mm-hmm. . And so now I've been involved in a, um, a six month program that's every year called the Erotic Brotherhood. It started in 2021 and I was involved in 2022 and 2023. And I'm also doing it in 2024 with Jojo Bear, who was actually another participant in our 2016, uh, certified sexual, of course sexological body work program.

Pono: And then Roy Canard mm-hmm. From Philadelphia. But it's a, it's a, it's a hybrid program that was created for guys, ma male, uh, body and male identified, uh, people to gather. And we have online programs for six months and we explore a different theme every month. Um, integrity, the heart, the body, the, spirit and arrows. And then at the end of the program, pretty close to the end of the program next year, then we have an in-person gathering for a weekend for four days mm-hmm. and put a lot of the practices that we've done virtually in, in, into place with touch and in-person collection mm-hmm. . So what's really interesting is that often in an in-person workshop, especially a long weekend workshop, there's a day of getting to know everybody and lots of icebreaker programs and being comfortable. And this program really accelerates that because everybody knows each other. We've had buddies at

Rahi: Breakout,

Pono: Of course, we've been talk each, each Saturday. The one once a month, every sat, uh, one Saturday a month program is three hours. So it's a pretty long intense meeting when we do gather, but when we, what we found last year was when we got together in person, it was really an intense advanced type of weekend because of the connections that had already been made. And so Sure. We've expanded upon that every year. We're already working on the programming for 2024. It will be up on the website in the next month or two, and it goes next year from January to the early June body electric.org.

Rahi: Okay. Great. So, uh, if listeners wanna know more about the, um, erotic Brotherhood, you can go to body electric org. Um, and I should mention now, uh, po uh, uh, P'S website is ecstatic touch.net, ecstatic touch.net. And Ron has two websites. One is sky clad ca, that's sky clad c l ad ca, and then his other website is ron Stewart net. And Ron, I'd love to hear, I mean, you know, the fact that Weidner, you know, which is one of the very few universities in the world that, that has a PhD program in human sexuality, like, you know, that the data collection was done through Wideners. Huge. So I'm talking about the back to the body research paper that was recently released. Um, but specifically I'd also love to know what excites you most about what you've been privileged to witness and, and learn from the experience.

Ron: Yeah. Over the past 12 years, uh, it's been pretty phenomenal for sure. So as a gay man to support women in their sexual liberation, uh, really feels like sister sisterhood in some kind of wild way. Mm. Um, yeah. To have worked with so many people who didn't know what the possibilities were within their body and then within the course of a retreat or, you know, some women come back cuz they love it so much, they come back for multiple retreats and they just kind of go deeper and deeper and deeper. But yeah, I would say that in the 12 years I have about a thousand sessions under my belt and that's just like standing

Rahi: Amazing. I

Ron: Know standing beside the massage table, uh, helping people explore pleasure in their body, aside from the fact that Pamela and Back to the Body has kind of taken me around the world, which is its own, um, amazing.

Rahi: Totally.

Ron: Yeah. Yeah. The number one thing is just helping people go from a place of, I don't know what my body can do to, oh my God, I did, had no idea what my body could do. Yeah. You know, and, and the whole range in between there and whether they're coming from, you know, histories of sexual abuse, drug and alcohol use with, um, you know, never having explored eroticism without the use of drugs or alcohol. Um, um, always ex people experiencing painful sex, like mm-hmm. trying to help them find a way that eroticism and sexuality and penetration can be like joyous and pain free. And you know, what often happens is the understanding of the foundational, like where are your boundaries? Do you, when you have sex, do you feel empowered to say yes or no? And so often it's that realization that if I don't feel like I can say no, I'm gonna close up my and you're not getting inside there.

Ron: Right. As opposed to mm-hmm. , oh wow. I have a voice. I've, I've never mm-hmm. Asked for anything before in my life. Mm-hmm. I've never mm-hmm. , I've never been able to say no. I've always said yes mm-hmm. , and now I can say no. Mm-hmm. It makes me want to say yes and look at this mm-hmm. , I'm experiencing this, that, and the other thing. You know, so often it's the foundational that once you help people feel that sense of safety in their body, all of a sudden all kinds of opportunities open up. Uh, and that's been the miraculous experience

Rahi: That is so beautiful. I love that, that that stands out in your experience. Yeah. I, I do find, you know, I do find that when clients claim their voice and their body feels, has the evidence that only what it says happens matters, or only what what it wants, you know, happens, something just starts to unravel in the body. Mm-hmm. , you know, like the energy flows, the life force can trust that it can expand, uh, in the way that it wants. And, and, and then, you know, arousal and pleasure follows. I,

Ron: Um, I worked with a friend in Toronto who, when I was talking to her about the work, uh, I did, she said, oh, I thought you helped people to not have boundaries. And it was like, oh wow. Interesting. Oh, wow. No. Yeah.

Rahi: Like,

Ron: Let's go back to figure out where your boundaries are. Cause you know, for people who have experienced abuse, that whole piece of information in their body gets scrambled and mm-hmm. from that point of abuse, they will start to reveal a whole history of, you know, violations, be they large or small because of this initial scrambling of the internal knowledge of where am I safe and where am I not, where do I give my body up and where do I hold it because my body says no. All of that gets kind of scrambled. And so the violations continue and that narrow pathway just gets reinforced and reinforced and reinforced, um mm-hmm. . So if we go back and really clarify what your boundaries are, what your yes is, what your no is, then you can move forward with a sense of freedom and often from that mm-hmm. , if you have a desire to open your boundaries and go further, that might be more available to you.

Rahi: Yes. Yes.

Ron: But the idea of the work is Yeah. That be boundaryless, the idea of the right is to what is safety in your body. And when you know safety, then you can start to expand out to feel the whole, the whole thing.

Rahi: Yeah. I think that's such a, such an important tenet to underscore that it is actually the clarity of identifying and honoring the boundaries that gives you the freedom in your eroticism. Yeah. It's like boundaries. Equal freedom. Yeah. Not boundarylessness. Yeah.

Ron: Um, so when you think over the last 10, 15 years when we've seen the amount of violence and abuse take place, especially to female bodied folks. Yeah. It's no wonder women are not being satisfied, nor are there men because we're all working with a false idea of what sex and eroticism is.

Rahi: Yeah. Yeah. It was really, it's so true. It's so true. I mean, honestly, you know, I think because of the, the lack of sex ed and because of the porn, you know, culture, I think young, I mean, I think people of all ages think that they want sex when they really want, is intimacy . And I think there's a confusion between the two, you know, based on the lack of, of slowing down, the lack of understanding, erotic touch and connection, you know, heart-centered touch, uh, you know, and I think people are going out there essentially having fast food sex and feeling and starving, you know, because there's no intimacy there.

Pono: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I have a colleague who likes to say that the porn is really sexual entertainment, and it's not sexual orientation. I'll attribute that to jojo Bert, and it's true. Good one. So what we see is hardons, we don't see soft ever. You know, we see very clean, sanitized sex, and we're talking gay sex. If there's anal sex, there's not gonna be any, any kind of that they're gonna show on the full screen. Right? And that's a reality of life. When you're playing with body parts, you have different kinds of bodily fluids that come out. And so they don't show fluffers course. They don't show the reality of real sex. And so guys who are thinking that is what we're, that is sex. Firstly, they can have mm-hmm. issues around their penis because there are no small penises in porn. There's large penises mm-hmm. . And then they think that they're supposed to be hard all the time. So what is the expectation that they're having? If we saw porn where an erection came, an erection went, an erection came, an erection went, that's much more realistic, but it doesn't maybe. Mm-hmm. serve for good entertainment.

Rahi: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, guys, um, I, we could talk forever. . Yes. There's, yeah. I really, I really like, we vibe on a similar wavelength, uh, you know, in our approach to supporting clients, our philosophy around sexuality and, um, yeah. And the way we serve clients. So this has been really, I mean, it's always a joy to, to see you guys, and thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Thank you

Pono: For having us, Rodney. It's been really fun. Thanks.

Rahi: How is this interview landing in your body right now? Can you relate to being forced to hide or repress your sexual energy, curiosity, or desires as a child or as a teenager? And how might this early conditioning affect your current sexual expression or behaviors? Are there old outdated beliefs regarding your sexuality, your body, your genitalia, or your pleasure in need of reexamination?

Rahi: Links to Ron and Ponos websites. The Body electric and back to the body, as well as to the sexological body work directory are all listed in the show notes. An announcement about an upcoming retreat, sexual healing with Mother Earth in Costa Rica, exploring the intersection of sexual healing plant medicines and echo sexuality from November 19th to the 26th. The space is being organized, curated, and held by myself, Dr. Jennifer Lang, holistic gynecologist and maps, psychedelic integration specialist, Suzanne Sard, creator of the Gaia Method and somatic sexologist, Kate Pearl Bodywork, intuitive and psychedelics researcher, and Salome Tabi, psychedelics, facilitator, integration specialist, and clinical counselor. If you're a practitioner holding space for a plant medicine journeys and or sexological body work, and you're interested in participating, please email me at rahi somatic sexual wholeness.com or visit somatic sexual wholeness.my kajabi.com/ Costa Rica. Until next time, take good care.