Sex, Love And Sexual Desire For Highly Sensitive People

Kevin Anthony 0:05
Welcome to the Love Lab podcast, a safe and fun place to get real and learn about sex. Whether you’re a man or woman, single or couple, this is the show for you. I am your host, Kevin Anthony. And I am here to guide you to go from good to amazing in the bedroom, and your relationships.

Welcome back to the Love Lab podcast. This is episode 310 and it is titled sex, love, and sexual desire for highly sensitive people. So you may have heard the term highly sensitive people, or HSPs, as they’re referred to, it has been a very popular topic lately, you’re hearing a lot of people talk about HSPs is that because suddenly there’s this new breed of human called HSPs? No, not at all, it’s because we finally recognize them for who they are. And because of that, we are now learning to tailor either our education or whatever we’re talking about a little bit more towards people who are highly sensitive. So there are things that are different about the way HSPs move about the world and how they react to it. And so that can affect all parts of their life.

And today, we’re going to be talking about specifically, you know, sex, love, and relationships because that’s what this show is. And being currently in a relationship with somebody who does identify as an HSP, I can tell you, that there are things you need to do differently when relating sexually or just in a relationship with somebody who is an HSP. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this show. You know, even if your partner doesn’t necessarily identify as an HSP, I think it’s still worth listening to this because you might pick up some things where you go, Ah, I never really realized that that’s why they blah, blah, blah, or that’s because of blah, blah, blah. So you might still really learn something here. Even if you’re 100% sure that your partner and yourself are not HSPs I guarantee you you are interacting with them throughout other areas of your life. So knowing how to interact with them, I think could be very valuable.

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Okay, so today I have a guest if you’re watching this on YouTube, you have been seeing her on the screen as I do the introduction and my guest today is Irene fehr she is a sex and intimacy coach and somatic experiencing practitioner who helps couples make love and sex work and a long term relationship and bring sex and passion into sexless ones weaving together somatic coaching mindfulness, emotional communication, work and experience with the dynamics of highly sensitive women’s sexual desire in a long term relationship. Irene has developed and successfully applied her holistic connection sex framework to turn her client’s relationships around towards more passion, connection, and love. Welcome to the show. Irene.

Irene Fehr 4:12
Thank you so much for having me.

Kevin Anthony 4:15
Well, you know, reading your bio, it’s like if we’re going to talk about how HSPs interact in sex and love, I couldn’t think of a better bio to read for a guest to come on and talk about that. I mean, that’s exactly what we want to talk about today. So excited to have you here today. And I’m really curious to hear what you have to say. So, to get started, I’ve already talked about HSPs and highly sensitive persons. I’ve used that terminology a lot. But for those listening who aren’t really sure what exactly that means. Could you please take a moment to start off by telling our audience what is a highly sensitive person?

Irene Fehr 5:00
So this is a great start because we need to know what we’re talking about here. And, you know, another word for sensitivity is also responsiveness. So highly sensitive people are highly responsive people. And when we’re what we’re talking about when we say that is we’re talking about responsiveness, first and foremost, to stimuli out in the world sensory stimuli, that is sounds, noises. People’s intensity around us, that’s kind of what highly sensitive people are most known for. But that’s not the only trade of highly sensitive people, which by the way, are wired differently than non-highly sensitive people. The nervous system is wired not only to perceive stimuli but to also process that stimuli deeply.

So highly sensitive, people take more time to process the different sensory information that they get emotional cues from other people, and even animals, and everything that comes our way. And so when you have this ability to take in a lot of information, and then deeply process, every piece of information, one of the key experiences of highly sensitive people in our modern, very fast world is overwhelmed. And so in a lot of ways, we when we talk about highly sensitive people, we think about kind of what’s wrong with them. But on the other end of the spectrum, what’s really powerful are the gifts that highly sensitive people have and bring to the table. And being able to feel so much being able to absorb so much information from the world also means that highly sensitive people are capable of a lot of intensity, particularly in sex and sexual experiences.

When we’re talking about highly sensitive, being highly sensitive emotionally, we’re also talking about people who are capable of a lot of depth and connection and empathy, and being emotionally responsive towards each other. You know, when we’re talking about, again, the ability to pick up a lot of sensory information, we’re also talking about this gift of being very sensual, and being very responsive to sensuality, sensual touch, and pleasure from the senses, be it smelling beautiful smells, to looking at something beautiful. So there are definitely some things that make the life of an HSP is difficult. There are also again, these beautiful gifts that were able to have an experience in life and the world and certainly in sex and love and sexuality.

Kevin Anthony 7:55
That was a great explanation. So thank you for that. I remember, you were when you were describing the sort of sensory overload that HSPs can feel it reminded me of my wife, Céline, who you met, the first time you were on this show when we we did the interview together. The first time I took her to New York City, she was so excited to go to New York City because she had never been before. And it’s like New York City, right? It’s like this famous place, you know, and we go to New York City, and we’re not there, like 15 minutes. And she looks at me and she says, Everything about this place is an affront to my senses. It’s too loud, it’s too smelly. It’s too like just to everything. It was completely overwhelming to her to be standing in the middle of Manhattan with just normal everyday Manhattan life happening around. So that to me is a perfect example of what you’re talking about when you’re saying like just the sensory overload that HSPs can feel.

Irene Fehr 9:03
And it’s so funny, that you bring up this example because I actually used to live in New York City. And that was before I understood my high sensitivity because I’m a highly sensitive person myself. After I moved away from New York and spent more than a decade living in California, I went back and realized that it was so overwhelming for me that I was so overstimulated that all I learned to do when I was living in it was to go numb. And that’s what highly sensitive people do out of necessity because the world much of the world is too fast, and too loud. And it kind of comes at you like a firehose, and to be able to handle all of that and still survive to be a highly functioning person. We have to go numb. I have to go numb to manage my own energy. And that’s it. Really sad state of affairs, if you ask me that we have to numb ourselves not numb parts of ourselves to be able to survive.

Kevin Anthony 10:09
Yeah, I’m really glad that you brought that up, I actually really wanted to talk about that today, I didn’t plan on talking about it until later on in the show. But since it’s here, let’s just dive into it now. So there’s, like you said, you’ve got the things that are beautiful about being an HSP. And then the things that are challenging about being an HSP. So in response to both of those, there’s the amazing things that they can accomplish, because they are HSPs. And then there’s also, you know, the sort of the shadow side of it, which is how they tend to numb themselves out. Now, I have noticed, and this isn’t true of all HSPs, but it’s definitely true of some HSPs. They tend to numb themselves out through a variety of means, but alcohol, drugs, porn, you know, video games, blah, blah, like, the list goes on and on and on of things that people will use to actually numb themselves out so that they don’t feel the overwhelm and the overload of being an HSP. Have you seen similar things yourself?

Irene Fehr 11:20
Absolutely. And you know, there’s a huge scale, right, so there could be addiction on one side, but then there’s also everyday numbing, which I see all the time. And one of the things is, I need a glass of wine, right after a day of work, women and particularly with say, men too, but women will say like, I need a glass of wine, I need to wind down, I need to relax. And that is a wine, Alcohol is a depressant. So it allows you too depressed to calm down, all this overstimulation inside the body. And we we do that as part of this culture, right, this culture that we live in, because again, the world is moving so fast, and all the time 24/7 That we need to somehow manage that energy. So that numbing is happening all the time.

And you know, all go Hall also, for a lot of people, that’s how they start relationships, they start their sexual experiences, after a nice romantic dinner with a bottle or two of wine. They have these sexual experiences that are lubricated by alcohol, a job, but then they’re unable to have a sexual experience. Without it. They’re unable to, to know know what to do and know what to do with their energy and with all the things that come up without that alcohol. Yeah, absolutely. All the time. And again, it’s part of our culture, it’s kind of a normal thing that we take for normal these days.

Kevin Anthony 12:58
Yeah. And I want to come back to that and talk about that a little bit more. But I want to ask another question first, that’s going to kind of lead into talking about that a little more, which is when we’re talking about HSPs, how common are they in society?

Irene Fehr 13:14
So Elaine Aaron, did a lot of research has been doing a lot of research for the last couple of decades on highly sensitive people, she and her husband have both pile ran studies on highly sensitive people. And according to her estimates, they’re about 20% of the population. So one out of five people is highly sensitive. And that’s, that’s a huge amount of the population. And again, living in a world that’s not designed for highly sensitive people at all.

Kevin Anthony 13:46
Yeah, 20% is high, I didn’t actually expect a number to be quite that high. Now, here’s the follow-up to that question. And I don’t know if any research has been done on this. Have they identified whether or not you see highly sensitive people show up more as male or female?

Irene Fehr 14:05
Yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t know the exact statistics, but I definitely see highly sensitive people in both. And I don’t know the exact numbers,

Kevin Anthony 14:17
I would have been surprised if they had that data. But the reason I asked that question is this and this is leading into what we were talking about before, which is that what I have seen personally, with HSPs is this. Women who are HSPs will often be okay with identifying as HSPs men, on the other hand, who are HSPs will not identify as being HSPs. So I was curious to see if there was data to show my guess would have been it was probably relatively close to 5050 male-female, but that’s if you ask people if you go out and pull people aren’t what you know, here’s what an HSP is what you can you know, The majority of the men are not going to say they’re HSPs. I have two very good friends who absolutely 100% are HSPs, who both absolutely 100% use alcohol to numb themselves out, and who both absolutely would never call themselves an HSP. Because one of them in particular, is six foot three 220 pounds, former Special Forces like a manly man, he can’t possibly be an HSP. Right?

Irene Fehr 15:33
And, you know, that’s I love that you’re bringing this up because it’s exactly why I started our interview saying that. Another way to think about being highly sensitive, specifically, the word sensitive is responsive, because sensitive carries so much stigma a sensitive man does not. You don’t associate that with strength, our society makes that look like it’s a weakness, and it’s a bad thing. And of course, men would be stigmatized to think of themselves as highly sensitive, because again, an applies all these shameful things in our culture. And it naturally would follow that that particularly men would want to shy away from using that label. But of course, they are who they are, and they will need to numb themselves to, to manage what is happening.

Kevin Anthony 16:30
You know with that one friend in particular, I mean, I knew this about him for years, I’ve known him 20 years, you know, and I’ve watched this pattern over and over again, for a long time. And I never really said anything to him about it, you know, and then one day, we’re just sitting in his living room hanging out, I don’t even remember what we were talking about. And I just was like, I just need to point blank say to him, so I looked him in the eye and said, we realize you’re a highly sensitive person, and you use alcohol to numb that out because you don’t want to feel everything that’s going on. Like I just had never said it that straightforward to him before. And he just looked at me like, Oh, shit. You’re right. I’ve never really seen Him go speechless before he went speechless.

Irene Fehr 17:16
Yeah, I would also think that I think there are more than 20% of highly sensitive people out there. Because a lot of people don’t really know themselves because they live in a culture. Again, that stigmatizes sensitivity. And that also has this dismiss our own selves. Case in point is, when I first took the Myers Briggs test, I was working in the corporate world, and I scored myself into a category who I’m absolutely not, but I was putting answers of who I think I should be. I should be analytical, as opposed to emotional I should be, I should know things or I should calculate things and all these things. And, and that was, I thought I was self-aware, I thought I knew myself, but I didn’t, I was very much looking at myself through the filter of who I am supposed to be. If I were to be a good person, a good woman, this is who I was supposed to be. And the more we know ourselves, and the more we really become truthful with ourselves, I think more people would identify with, with with sensitivity, that that they they’re sensitive on the on the inside, but have learned to dismiss that or to numb that.

Kevin Anthony 18:37
Yeah, you know, what I’m hoping listeners just got out of that dialogue that we had was that you know, being a highly sensitive person has nothing to do with being a man or woman. And it doesn’t in any way mean that you’re any less of a man, just because you happen to be sensitive. And that if you can be honest with yourself, about who you are, that you might actually be able to change some behaviors and maybe make your life a little easier. So I’m hoping that that’s what people got out of that little discourse. It wasn’t specifically related to sex and relationships. We’ll get to more of that in a moment. But I think it was highly important nonetheless.

Okay, so let’s move on a little bit. Because when we talked in the pre-interview, you mentioned how you’ve identified four primary patterns of HSPs. So I want to know if you could talk about each one and how it potentially affects people’s relationships and their sex lives. And as we go, I might pause you once or twice here or there to ask additional questions or clarify or what because I know I’m asking for a very big answer here, right? So I just want you to know, it’s okay. It’s slow. Oh, to help, you don’t have to give it to me all at once. And I might ask some follow-ups. But let’s let’s dive into those four primary patterns a little bit.

Irene Fehr 20:08
Perfect. So, you know, high sensitivity, like I mentioned, it spans sensory, our sensory inputs into our sensory world. But I’ve also identified are kind of put other ways other patterns that highly sensitive people fall into in relationships in three other buckets. And so our first one is sensory. Again, I’m going to repeat this a little bit, but tides, particularly to sex, so it’s the sun, it’s overload from, or getting all this input from the sensory world sounds, noises, things like that. And, for people in sex and intimacy, this is a big deal before even getting into sex, and certainly when insects because if we’re coming in overwhelmed by the world by life, it’s going to be very hard to want more stimulation on top of overstimulation. And so it’s very important that we take care of ourselves, this is where self-care is incredibly important. We take care of ourselves throughout our days, throughout in our lives, so that we can come into our relationship and intersect where we have energy, where we are not, again, fighting this overwhelm, but actually are open and welcoming.

And this is incredibly important. It’s really something that we all as individuals as highly sensitive people need to do for ourselves is to learn how to manage that overload to set boundaries so that maybe doesn’t happen as much in the first place. And to make space for our partners. That’s what I see in couples that come to work with me where the woman loses her interest in sex, she’s so overwhelmed that she has no room for her partner. And that, of course, causes a lot of heartbreak and heartache and disconnect and these destructive patterns in their relationship. So this is a really important pattern that again, happens way before the bedroom that needs to be addressed, dealt with looked at.

Kevin Anthony 22:32
Yeah, so the self-care thing is, obviously, very important. So you know, taking the time to really give yourself the space, the downtime, you need the self-care routines in order to calm the nervous system down so that you can be available for your partner. That is huge. And I’m curious, too, I mean, I have my own answer to this, but I’m curious what your, answer is, let’s say your partner is an HSP. And let’s say that they are feeling overwhelmed from their day, and you want to have some, you know, connection time, some sexy time, right? Like, what can you as a partner do when creating an environment that is conducive to that kind of activity to help your HSP calm their nervous system and be able to show up in that way?

Irene Fehr 23:24
That’s a great question. And the answer to this is going to affect both partners and HSPs. And that is to put in transition time, transition time between segments. So for example, a typical time for transitions could be at the end of a workday, before getting in the door, into your home and connecting to partner to family. And so first and foremost, it’s about budgeting that time, so having a conversation and setting the expectation. Again, if you’re the HSP that, hey, I’m gonna need 15 minutes to sit in the car, to just to meditate to be with myself, please don’t rush out, don’t, you know, yell at me or script where welcome me and hug me, give me some space. And then of course, on the partner side, it’s knowing that this is not personal, that your partner wants to see you and they’re actually making room in themselves to be able to see you, but that they need that space.

And so these transitions are incredibly important. Another way to transition is maybe, let’s say if you have children and family before you, you know after you put the kids to bed at night, and before you connect to your partner to also have that transition time. Maybe it’s allowing the part of the HSP to be on its own. Maybe it’s just I don’t know, sitting quietly and meditating together are sitting quietly holding hands without the expectation to rush into the next segment. These transitions are invaluable when it comes to supporting order for the HSP to have, like I said, the spaciousness inside of them to be able to connect.

Kevin Anthony 25:05
Yeah, transitions are huge. Absolutely. Once you think also about, you know, because when we’re talking about HSPs, and the overwhelm, right, so there’s all these stimuli, that’s overwhelming. What do you think about creating an environment within your house or bedroom that takes that away? In other words, like, myself and Celine, when she was alive, we were really big proponents of setting the scene, right? So if you’re in your bedroom, there’s no TV in there, right? If you don’t have a TV Go on. It’s just more overload and sensory input, right? Maybe you just put on some very mellow, quiet, relaxing music, maybe you put on something that smells good, you know, you turn the diffuser on in the bedroom with some essential oils, you lower the lighting, like you do things to try to calm the entire environment, which would then allow the HSP to relax a little bit. And then when they relaxed, they might actually be able to show up for you. What do you think about that idea? Is that something that you would recommend?

Irene Fehr 26:07
Absolutely, the only caveat is, it’s going to be very personal. So some people do need, for example, music to relax or they need sense. Other people actually completely the opposite. Other people need no music, no sense. Maybe I don’t know, opening the window and just clearing out whatever sense there are in the room. So that, absolutely they get into themselves, they get into their body and they can start to relax. And I call this process de armoring. Because the numbing that happens when we are so overstimulated and also so consumed by processing all of that information is that we numb which is we put armor around ourselves, right? numbing, putting up a wall, putting up armor, or our different words to express the same thing. And so part of either putting sensual things on or removing maybe some is part of the Dr. Merengue right, How can I calm myself down? How can I put these walls down, so that I can be present with myself with my partner with intimacy, that’s, what’s happening.

Kevin Anthony 27:24
So basically, know what your partner really needs in order to calm themselves down, and get familiar with that. And I would say if that’s if that’s the case, which I agree with you that it is, you know, one of the best ways that you can figure out what those things are simply to ask, what do you need?

Irene Fehr 27:42
Yep, ask and come up to agreements, like, the agreement would be that maybe, you know, for one person, the partner draws a bubble bath for the other person, the partner does a shower. So that there’s there’s protocol for lack of a better word of the things that work, the things that are going to be that are going to ignite something in a positive way. It could be igniting relaxation or it could be re-igniting connection. But agreeing on these things and doing them for each other.

Kevin Anthony 28:18
Yeah. Okay, so that was one of four was the perfect place for me to take a short break and read an ad, and then when we come back, I want to dive right back into the other three All right, man, are you tired of falling short in the bedroom and your relationship? Do you want your woman to respect you and crave you? Do you want to be the man she secretly brags about to all her friends? What if you could become this man What if you could not only master your masculine sexuality but also be the dream man who shows up for his woman in all the ways she desires what if you can become so irresistible that she becomes addicted to you if you’re ready to become that man then check out my become the man of your and her dreams coaching program by going to https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/become-man-of-her-dreams/. Don’t worry about the long links I know I could shorten them there in the description just click on them you don’t even have to remember what it is. But that is https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/become-man-of-her-dreams/. This is where we work together. And I teach you how to be the man how to show up as the man that she has always wanted in all the ways in the bedroom and outside of the bedroom.

Okay. So we were talking about the four primary patterns of HSPs and so far we have covered the sensory one and how that pertains to sex and relationships. So what is number two?

Irene Fehr 29:48
Number two is emotional. So highly sensitive people are highly sensitive when it comes to emotions. What I mean by that is, that there is a wide range of emotions and all of them are felt deeply. Right. So you have ecstasy and deep joy on one side, and you have depression and despair and agony on the other side. And highly sensitive people tend to feel the full range and feel it deeply. And so when it comes to sex and intimacy, highly sensitive, people want to bring all of themselves into their sexual experiences. So you know, the saying, get over something, emotionally, doesn’t work for anyone, but especially as HSP get older or things we want to bring, as I said, our whole selves, whatever we’re feeling, and that emotional connection with our partners is essential. So Elaine Aaron talked about how for HSPs emotional connection in particular is the reason to have sex, right, you want to have sex with someone that you’re in love with, or you want your you connect to deeply, that it gives purpose and meaning to an otherwise physical, you know, plain physical act.

And so the emotional connection piece is huge. And this is particularly what I see with couples in a long-term relationship when the couple naturally starts to drift away from each other when they have children when they get busy when they’re, you know, worried about the mortgage, and who mows the lawn and who takes care of the dog and the kids that their connection when the general but for women in particular, sexual desire goes by the wayside. You lose that sense of being in love, not just like this, this sense that just happens when you’re in love. But that is created when you have time to connect emotionally, right? A sense that is cultivated daily, through daily intimate connection, when that’s not there, a purpose for sex goes away too. And it becomes difficult for the body then to respond because an HSP might not see a point in that to that sexual activity. It may feel like completely out of context. Like I don’t understand why would I even want to have sex if we’re not connecting.

Kevin Anthony 32:38
Yeah, you know, I would say to some extent, that’s true of women in general. Right? If that connection is lacking, then it’s like, what, what’s the point? But I think the point that we want to make here with HSPs is that that’s, that’s even more so. Right than even just you know, your average woman. And so that is a very important thing to keep in mind. I think it’s something that men often have difficulty understanding, because for us, pretty much we could do sex anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Right? So it’s difficult for a lot of men to understand like, Well, wait a minute, you What do you mean, you need? All these things are what do you need this connection? Like, of course, you know, I love you. Of course, we we’ve been together at whatever, you know, I don’t know yet. This is what we hear from men all the time. So, you know, if you are a man, and you’re listening to this, and you’re thinking, wow, this sounds a lot like my woman, this is really important to understand because how you show up and how you interact with her is going to change radically based on that.

Irene Fehr 33:44
And the frequency of interaction is really important too. Because for men, they can leave the house in the morning, and come back at night, not having talked or or interacted in any way with a partner. And they’re still as much in love and they’re still as connected and still want her worse for the woman is like, but he’s a stranger, we haven’t talked all day. And so it again, for women, it is just like that, it makes no sense to want to engage sexually with someone that you feel like a stranger to. But again, for HSPs in particular, it just gives an extra level of meaning, an extra level, an extra level of requirement. Let’s put it this way. When it comes to sex, it’s very hard to to get the body to respond if there is no emotional connection. And I also want to say that it’s an emotional connection to where you are because it’s not just you know, my partner was caring about me, but he really gets that today. I’m joyous tomorrow, I’m in despair and he can meet me there and he can hold me in both of those polarities and two Want to, again, not just like, brush things aside and get Oh, get over them at some point, but to really be met, to really have a partner who can hold that space for all those emotions of an HSP and let them process it themselves as well.

Kevin Anthony 35:18
I can already hear in my head, some of the comments that men are inevitably going to leave on this video because I get them all the time. This sounds like a lot of work. Why would any guy want to do that? Blah, blah, blah, okay, two reasons, men. Number one, if you want to enjoy all of the wonderful things that a woman brings into your life, this just comes with it, this is part of the territory, right? If you want to have a high-end sports car to drive around, you know, it’s going to take more maintenance than your, you know, Toyota that will run for 300,000 miles without changing the oil, right? Like, there are things that come along with welcoming in the beauty of the feminine into your life. So just know that if you want that in your life, that’s part of it. Number two, if you don’t want that in your life, then just go date men, it’ll be way easier, just just go do that.

Irene Fehr 36:17
And I want to add to that, too, is it is a lot of work but emotion, emotionality, and femininity will show you lands, places, and corners of existence that we don’t even know exist, right? So if you love travel, get to know a woman because she will take you to places like ecstasy and, you know, depth that you never knew existed.

Kevin Anthony 36:48
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I will say, that without the feminine presence in life, life is just really, its blog, it’s boring, it’s missing so much of what, what makes life truly beautiful. It’s like I say all the time, women bring beauty into everything, you know, and there’s different ways there’s the physical beauty, but it’s not just the physical beauty, right? And Life can be so ugly at times, that when we’re when we when we lack that presence of beauty in the world, life just isn’t nearly as good. So you may differ in opinion on that, as I know, inevitably, some commenters on YouTube well, but that’s the way I personally feel about it. Okay, so we covered sensory and emotional, what’s next?

Irene Fehr 37:49
The third one is energetic. And there’s a lot of overlap with emotional, but it’s a little bit different. So when I think about energetic sensitivity for HSPs, that is about being an empath and taking on the energy of others. So, you know, empaths and HSPs are known to walk into the room and to be able to read the room very quickly, whether there’s tension that you can cut with a knife, or there’s openness and relaxation and connectivity. And so part of life for HSPs who are out in the world is taking on other people’s energy. So that’s another level of overwhelm that needs to be understood and dealt with, be it through relaxation, be it through boundaries, because again, I want to reinforce that it’s not just self-care of like relaxation, but self-care as in setting boundaries, not saying yes to things that you do not want to do or that you cannot do cannot handle doing and saying no to activities, people who deplete you so that you can preserve your energy pleat or overwhelm you.

So this is again, another level of overwhelm to work with and manage. But it also very much affects women in a relationship or any HSP in the relationship because it’s about taking on the energy of your partner, especially if your partner is the bigger personality of the two. Right. So taking on their energy you might come home feeling good and your partner is sulking and as is the really wrapped up in something and you will go down to where they are in that place even though you may be starting off high. And so it’s really important to like I said, have your own boundaries and take care of yourself so that you don’t get dragged down by where other people are. And where can I Action is, is really important. But again, you need to hold your own ground so that you don’t lose yourself because that’s where we’re HSPs will lose themselves very quickly, they just go down with other people’s moods.

Another piece of the energetic patterns is that presence is very important. So energetic connection is presence, right? I’m there with you, I’m paying attention, I’m engaging with you and HSPs love that on the receiving side. But they also love giving that because one of the biggest gifts that HSPs have is the ability to be present, the ability to be in the moment because we’re so aware of everything that’s happening around us, it makes us be nowhere else, but right here. And so HSPs need presence. And again, they can give a very high-quality presence to other people. And that makes for beautiful relationships and intimacy and, you know, passionate sex when you really feel that you’re there with each other.

Kevin Anthony 41:11
Yes, that is one of the keys to being a great lover is having that presence. And it’s definitely a huge piece that, that I always teach, you know, the men that I coach, and that is in our online programs that you heard advertised at the beginning of the show because it is one of the number one things that women say they want in a sexual relationship.

Irene Fehr 41:36
And arguably, that’s what men want to write, they usually frame it as I don’t want her to just be there, I don’t want her to go through the motions, because what they’re actually saying is I want her presence, I want her excitement to be there to engage with me, rather than to just indulge me on what I want to do. Yeah, it’s important for everyone, it adds richness, richness, and quality, to sex. Yeah, that could otherwise just be, you know, two bodies rubbing against each other.

Kevin Anthony 42:08
Absolutely. And, you know, this is the thing I mean, there, unfortunately, there are still men out there who two bodies rubbing together salt they’re really looking for. But when you’re trying to expand their minds into the possibility of what sex could be, and how much better and more powerful it could be. This is one of those essential components. So all right, anything else on energetic sensitivity?

Irene Fehr 42:38
On that level also, there’s a lot of for HSPs, Elane Aaron also wrote about this, there’s a lot of spiritual connection, that HSPs experience. So its connection to to spirit outside of ourselves, that being in nature, or God or universe. And that’s also an important element when it comes to the meaning of sex for HSP is that we seek depth rather than the breadth of experience, this way we seek depth, and part of that depth is that connection to something greater connection to something that’s outside of ourselves. And when we’re talking about the connection between two people, that spiritual connection figures into that, you know, souls talking to each other. It’s it’s being connected again. And it’s something that’s greater than ourselves, man.

Kevin Anthony 43:38
So we’re getting close to the end of the show already. We’re on question number three of nine that I wrote for this episode. And I really want to ask you more about what you just said. Just a quick follow-up question, and then we can move on, we can do number four, and then maybe wrap up with a couple of quick last questions. But why do you think it is that HSPs seem to have maybe more awareness or connection? Or to what’s outside like the spiritual connection that you’re talking about? Is there any insider thoughts on that? Because I just find that fascinating?

Irene Fehr 44:24
Well, it’s a great question. I think a lot of it has to do with the depth of processing that HSPs have. So there’s the nervous system sensitivity, but there’s also really brain differences in HSPs versus non-HSPs, which have to do with depth of processing, right, finding connections between things that we experience out in the world and in a way that’s what spirituality is. We’re trying to make connections and make sense of the beauty the magic around us. And it could be hard that and it could be part of that the sensory sensitivity of maybe we are picking up something that’s out there that we don’t necessarily have words to describe. And so I think spirituality is the best word that we have to describe this the sense that something is out there, we can’t we can’t touch it. We can’t put words to it. It’s not a vision, but it’s this energetic thing that’s out there. And so I think between getting the sensory and the brain configurations of HSPs, we’re picking up on something that’s there.

Kevin Anthony 45:45
So that’s interesting because I had not thought of this until I was listening to you speak. And then that was a legit question that just popped into my head. My initial thought on it was so we know that this is true for everybody, that there’s a massive amount of sensory data coming in, and that our brain does this amazing job, sometimes for our benefit, and sometimes not for our benefit of narrowing that down to a very, very small amount that we can handle. Which then, of course, means we’re missing a lot of stuff like the example that I would use is, the electromagnetic spectrum, right? There’s, there’s only a small fraction of that, that we can actually see with our eyes. But there’s a ton more of it out there, right, we just our eyes are limited to what it can perceive. And so my initial thought was like, it’s kind of the same thing here is because HSPs have an ability to process to send some process more of that data that’s coming in, that they might actually sense some things that the average person can sense.

Irene Fehr 46:57
We’re putting, picking up on patterns we’re picking up on, on information. And again, the best that we can do is call this the sense of spirituality. Because we don’t as human beings have the words to describe that. That is fascinating. I’d love to think more about that. And then look at what’s being said about that.

Kevin Anthony 47:21
Yeah, you know, if you find out more about that, please send some my way. Or maybe we could have you back on to do a little follow-up YouTube video on that particular subject, because I find that really fascinating.

Irene Fehr 47:33
Yeah, me too. And it actually perfectly segues into the last pattern, which has to do with introspection, because, you know, highly sensitive people have a very rich inner world, right? We’re processing so much information, we’re processing all the connections, all the emotional information that we’re getting, we’re processing energy that we’re picking up from other people. And so that means that highly sensitive people are, again, there’s a rich inner world, there’s a web of meanings, a web of connections inside of us, and also rich and imagination that the richness of imagination comes from that as well. And for sex and intimacy, meaning and purpose need to be driving that, that it’s, you know, again, Elaine Aaron, and her research showed that the highly sensitive people compared to non are less likely to engage in meaningless sex because it makes no sense. Right?

It doesn’t, it doesn’t create satisfaction, it doesn’t, it really doesn’t follow to want it because there’s no meaning attached to it. On the downside, of course, are rich in a life, that where you’re processing a lot means that you get stuck a lot. So expect that with a highly sensitive person, they’re going to get stuck in their own heads, they’re going to get stuck and over-processing. And that’s where also partners need to support each other that it’s not about. It’s not about taking personally, it’s not about thinking that they’re somehow broken, but to understand what’s happening and to support each other to be there to hold space. And to not let the partner feel like they’re alone in this so that you understand what’s happening for them.

Kevin Anthony 49:34
Okay. I’m going to try to narrow down the next six questions as quickly as I can, as we’re running out, but there are a couple of things I really did want to touch on that I think would be valuable for the audience. So the next one is, and we can’t you’ve kind of talked about this already, but just to reiterate it maybe in a way that’s a little bit more specific. You’ll understand what I mean when I ask the question. It’s basically what are the pre-sex needs of an HSP?

Irene Fehr 50:11
And these are really, really important because as the name suggests they need to happen before sex can even become an option for an HSP. before they’re able to open up to sex, and they’re not nice to have their must-haves. And the first pre-sex need, and you’ll see how they’re very necessary is what I talked about earlier, and that is, transitions. And taking care of your energy. If you’re over stimulated by the world, you’re not going to want more stimulation. It’s just, it’s just how it is. And so that transition is critical. We already talked about that. So I’ll skip to the other two. And the second one also very much builds on what I said earlier, about emotional connection and an energetic connection.

So being emotionally connected, sharing your hearts to each other, you know, you could still be talking about practical things, but on the emotional level, such as you know, what’s happening at work. It really It scares me, I’m scared that my boss doesn’t, doesn’t value who I am, and I don’t feel seen and it, you know, it, it makes me worried about what I can contribute, right? This is a different level of conversation than my boss did this. And they I said this, and they did this, right, this is the kind of surface thing whereas we’re dropping into Heart to Heart conversation. And that’s incredibly important. Holding space for each other’s fears, worries, but also joys and something that you’re maybe proud of, of yourself of your kids of your partner, and sharing that as well as presence being present with each other. So fly-by conversations and connections do not work for HSPs, we need full attention on us, we need that why it uninterrupted space. And that again has to happen, especially for women more often than just in the morning. And in the evening, there needs to be touch points, even if brief touch points.

But certainly, at the end of the day, there needs to be that syncing up emotionally and energetically. And all of this boils down to showing up with each other as lovers. Not just practical partners, not just roommates, but lovers, right? And this has to happen on a regular basis before sex can even be an option, right? I have an idea in an HSPs mind. And then the last one is about touch. And so the energetic and emotional connection piece is the beginning of the Dr. Marine process, right? I’ve all day I was numb an armored and now I’m connecting with my partner or softening of up. The last one is about the armoring through touch. Having touch that is attuned to where you are. It could be it certainly cannot start with sexual right away, it has to start with potentially affectionate touch, maybe supportive touch, if you had a rough day, maybe it’s just being held while you cry. Right, not even touched in any way but just held very important. Other times they be affectionate, maybe a playful touch for the D armoring doesn’t have to happen so much right because maybe there was more connection or maybe more relaxation that day.

But there needs to be a progression from let’s say affectionate or supportive touch to affection attached to sensual touch, where an HSP starts to really get into their body and start to enjoy it and open up to their partner to receiving pleasure to then sexual touch. So there is a progression that needs to happen. If you skip over that and go from let’s say emotional to sexual. Well, the D armoring hasn’t happened. The partner you know, especially women, are not going to be ready. Their arousal is not going to be near what would be pleasurable for her to have sex. She ends up getting doing basically obligatory sex feels disconnected alone and all of this fails. So it’s really important to follow these in order right transition time to emotional time to physical time and build up on that. And of course, the more you have this on a regular basis, the less you need to be so prescriptive about it?

Kevin Anthony 55:07
For sure. So, you know, we’ve talked a bit about how, if you don’t have those pre-sex needs met in women, that will often result in a lack of desire. So does it result in the same thing in men? So is it the lack of desire in men? Or does it does it show up like other things that happen? For a man when it comes to sex as a result of not having those needs met, if they are the one who’s the HSP?

Irene Fehr 55:40
What I’ve seen is, it’s, it’s almost the same, but a little different in the sense that it affects desire for both people, right? If a man is overwhelmed, and overstimulated, he may not also want to have sex, but his body might still react. So he might be able to show up and still be able to have sex and maybe even relax and enjoy it. Whereas a woman is not going to be able to get there at all right, she could engage in sex without any arousal. But the point is, she may not even want to, right, she may not want to engage at all. Again, with men, they may not want to be able to, or they may not want to at all, but one of the biggest pieces that I’ve seen from for HSP men, and that’s the impact on their performance. So not being able to get hard or stay hard, or have premature ejaculation. Because the body’s saying, Look, I’m overstimulated, I’m not able to do this. I don’t know, I don’t have specific numbers, or percentages of how it affects men in whether it affects desire or performance. But there’s a wide range of spectrum, a wide spectrum of what the effects are. And it can be a combination of those different things that I mentioned.

Kevin Anthony 57:07
Yeah. And, you know, obviously, I’m, my questions often are one of two things, there’s a point that I want to pull out of you as the guest that I want to make sure you cover. So I’ll ask a question specific to that. Or it’s something that I’m genuinely interested in and want to know the answer to because I don’t know the answer to that particular one, I really wanted you to talk about the possibility of how that could affect Male Performance. Because I don’t think that that is an area of performance or performance anxiety, that is really talked about when it comes to men. We cover it from almost every other angle, but rarely ever talk about this particular possible cause of performance issues. And so I’m glad that you were able to bring that out.

Irene Fehr 57:57
I want to add to that, too, is that I really hate the word dysfunction, when we’re talking about men’s performance issues, right? Erectile dysfunction. In this scenario, there’s no dysfunction, he’s functioning completely, as expected of someone if it’s a highly sensitive male, of a highly sensitive person, meaning that if, again, it could be that overstimulation doesn’t allow him to get aroused at all arousal is more is a response to stimulation. So his body is functioning completely normally and healthy in a healthy way. Or if he’s already so overstimulated, he might be able to pull off getting hard, but then he ejaculates right away. And again, that’s no dysfunction. If it’s a highly sensitive male who’s overstimulated, his body is acting in a healthy way, we cannot look at that as dysfunction we need to go back to look at how to, how can he manage his energy. How can he have his pre-sex needs met? So that this doesn’t happen? Yes, otherwise, the body is reacting the way it’s supposed to when under this kind of circumstances.

Kevin Anthony 59:14
That’s a really great reframe. Because, you know, a lot of times we do tend to look at things as it’s broken, or it’s a dysfunction, rather than looking at it from the point of view of, well, given the circumstances, that’s exactly how it would work. It’s like, you know, we wouldn’t say that if you drive your car with no oil in it, that it’s a dysfunction that the engine doesn’t work, we would say, Well, you didn’t put any oil in and of course it didn’t work right. So just just to use an analogy the men might relate to it.

Irene Fehr 59:49
Yeah. And for women as well, you know, low libido is seen as a dysfunction, right? She doesn’t want to have sex, but if we look at what is happening in her life, we start to see See, wait, her low libido is common sense. Of course, she’s not going to want to have sex if these precepts’ needs are not being met. Right? It’s kind of like if you want to bake a cake, well, here are the ingredients. And if you’re trying to bake a cake, and all you have is a cup of water, you cannot fault that you cannot make a cake from that. Yeah, it’s not gonna dysfunction, it’s really a function of what we’re given or what we’re taking.

Kevin Anthony 1:00:31
Or, you know, I think that’s such a huge reframe because I think it really helps people to see that they’re not broken, that they just need to create the right environment, the right circumstances. And I think it’s also important for partners to realize that their partner isn’t broken, you don’t need to fix your partner, you just need to fix the dynamic that’s occurring between you and them.

Irene Fehr 1:00:54
And to create a context that is going to bring the best out of your partner, not the worst, right, not overwhelm, not irritability that comes with that, not the shutdown, but the the depth, the intensity, the presence, right? These are just amazing, beautiful gifts. How can we create the circumstances to bring that out?

Kevin Anthony 1:01:16
Yeah. This is a perfect segue into the next thing, which is, you know, if you’re listening to this, and you’re thinking, like, how do I actually do that? How do I support them? How do I bring out the best in them? How do I help them? How do I create, you know, the environment that will work for them? Obviously, we gave you a lot of stuff in this episode. But, you know, I never just want to say, well, there you go. That’s all that’s all you need to know. Because I understand it’s not that simple. This means we need to give you other potential tools and ways that you can get better at this, which of course, means getting the support and the help that you need, which is the perfect segue into how you can tell people about if they need more support and figuring out how do they manage this dynamic either for themselves because they are an HSP? Or because their partner isn’t HSP? How can they find out how to work with you?

Irene Fehr 1:02:12
My website is the main point of contact and also a resource for a lot of information on HSPs on sexual desire and a long-term relationship. And it’s my name, Irene feiyr.com. And you can get in touch with me there to work, I work with couples primarily, and also single women. But when it comes to sexual desire in a long-term relationship, it’s a couple’s issue. And so I work with both partners as a couple.

Kevin Anthony 1:02:42
That link will be in the description because fair isn’t spelled quite the way you think it might be. So just look in there and all social media and the descriptions and everything that link will be there. Okay. There is, of course, one last question. I’m sure you answered it the last time you were on the show. I’ll have to go back and listen to see how you answered it the last time versus this time. But if you remember, the the question we always ask at the end of this show is what is your best sexual talent?

Irene Fehr 1:03:19
And think mine is connection. I’ve always it’s a word that always resonates for me. It’s the word that, that it’s an aspect of sex that I love. And I think that’s, that’s what I bring.

Kevin Anthony 1:03:32
Beautiful. That’s great.

Irene Fehr 1:03:35
I’m very curious to know what I said.

Kevin Anthony 1:03:39
I’m gonna go find that show and see what you said the last time. I’m willing to bet you’re consistent across the shows because it was a long time. It was a couple of years ago that you were on the show. So yeah, well, thank you, Irene, for coming on and sharing your expertise, I think you delivered a lot of value. And I really hope that it was helpful to the people listening, I know that this is something that in the past has not been talked about very much. Although it is starting to gain a little bit of momentum. Now we’re starting to hear about it more. But because it hasn’t been talked about a lot. I think it’s something that a lot of people haven’t been aware of and should be aware of. So I really appreciate you coming on and talking about it.

Irene Fehr 1:04:21
Thank you so much for offering this rich space to do this.

Kevin Anthony 1:04:25
All right, everybody. That’s all the time I have for this episode. And I will see you next week.

I hope you like this episode of the Love Lab podcast. If you enjoy this show, subscribe. Leave us a review and share it with your friends. And for more free exclusive content join me in the passion vault at https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/vault/ that’s https://www.kevinanthonycoaching.com/vault/. Thanks for listening and remember as Céline used to say you’re amazing!