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Now, here’s your host, Chuck Gallagher.
You can hear the show with Valda Ford here.
CHUCK: Hi, this is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and, boy, it is my pleasure to be a part of your afternoon this afternoon for those of you that are listening East Coast Time, and I guess it’s afternoon for those that are listening West Coast Time as well. This is Chuck Gallagher and on Straight Talk Radio we have had a variety of guests. Those of you that regularly tune in to the show, you know that we talk about all kinds of topics. We’ve talked about education, we’ve talked to Nido Qubein, we’ve talked certainly about ethics, Scott McKain has been on talking about creating distinction. We’ve had all kinds of speakers and authors and wonderful guests talking about some really, really unique topics and of course because its goal is straight talk, we tend to get right to the point. Today is going to be interesting though. For those of you that are listening, let me say this on the front end, stay tuned. You will not hear another show like this show.
My guest today is Valda Ford. Valda is a self-proclaimed “daughter of the South” and one of the most intellectually disarming and humorous presenters on leadership, privilege and cultural competency in the nation. It’s my honor to be a friend of Valda’s. She and I, actually, are both together in the National Speakers Association, Carolina Chapter. I guess the best thing I can say is as we begin the process of starting on this radio show, let me tell you what the topic is going to be, because you won’t want to miss this.
Valda’s new venture, I guess is the best way to put it would be, is a program called Sex Is Not For Sissies. Yes, you heard that correctly, Sex Is Not For Sissies. Now, let me tell you, for those that are listening, this will be an appropriate show for those who are listening via the radio and yet it will be probably one of the most informative shows that you will ever hear and I am so excited. Valda, thank you for joining us.
VALDA: Thank you so much, Chuck. It’s my pleasure to talk about sex on the radio.
CHUCK: [Laughs] You know, I’ve really been anticipating this show because there are so many different places that we can go and things that we can talk about, but start me off with a little background, if you will, about where did this Sex Is Not For Sissies come from?
VALDA: The way it started is I was contracted a few years ago to address sexually transmitted diseases and infections in young people in a specific place in the Mid West. The numbers were terrible, there was not good information getting out. As I started working with the young people to try to decrease their incidence of disease and unwanted pregnancy, I would speak with the parents to explain to them what was going to happen, what we were talking about so they could say yes or no, but every time I would tell the parents what I was talking to with the youth, they would say, “Wow, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that!” I thought, “Well, how could they know it because of their background was like my background. They probably got the talk from my mother that said, ‘Just keep your knees closed and your dress down.’”
[Chuck laughs]VALDA: Now, that might work sometimes, but when your knees get tired, what do you so then?
CHUCK: Valda, that reminds me of something and I have to tell you this because it’s just one of those things. You have these moments of life that you’ll never forget. Sometimes they just go out of mind temporarily, but I remember as a young kid going to Atlanta and we were in some high-traffic area and there was this kiosk. I didn’t know what a kiosk was at the time, but it said that there was this full-proof contraceptive. And here I am, probably 12, 13-ish and I’m wondering, “What’s this full-proof contraceptive?” Of course, at that age you’re a little embarrassed to just go out and read so I kept circling the kiosk and I’d get a few words at a time and I looked and I thought, “That’s the oddest thing because it looks like a sponge.” Finally, I read it and it said, “Put this behind your left knee, put your right knee in front of it and squeeze as hard as you can.” [laughs]
VALDA: You’ll never get pregnant that way.
CHUCK: You’ll never get pregnant. I thought to myself, “Okay, I got head on that one.” Now, look, let’s do this because obviously we have several breaks that we’re going to have to be dealing with but I’m interested, before we really get started, so that the folks who are listening have an idea of who you are, tell us a little bit about your background so that we can put in context. Why are you being called in to talk about sexually transmitted diseases and so forth?
VALDA: Okay. I happen to be a registered nurse with over 30 years of experience. I did my Master’s thesis on HIV Policy. I have a Master’s in Public Health from Carolina, and when I did that, I was looking at the silly laws that get passed because of hysteria around HIV. Unfortunately, I also have some young people in my life who were affected by HIV and who subsequently died, as it is now we have more where people are going to be in a chronic illness stage with HIV but still 15,000 a year die.
What I found out, as I was doing this talking, I would talk to many age groups and there was a 74-year old woman who came up me to say that she had a new boyfriend and I thought, “Well, I’m not sure what that has to do with me,” but she said, “You’re talking about having love in your life, enjoying your life and that we are sexual creatures.” She says, “I’m worried about what my boyfriend is asking me. I think maybe what he’s saying might be illegal or amoral or I don’t know if I should be doing it.” Of course, I leaned in closer and I said, “Well, what is it he’s asking you for?” She said, “The same things that almost every person would be having in a sexual relationship,” but because she’d been married to the same man for over 50 years and he had died 2 years previously, she had no idea of what normal is for most people who are in a sexual relationship. She had a one-note wonder, now she had a guy who was performing a symphony and she was a little bit concerned. But as I spoke with her, I found that she was one of the most vulnerable people I’ve ever met as far as sexual literacy, the understanding of what’s important to them. The more I talked to people who are 40 and above and looked at the statistics for Centers for Diseases Control, I found that they were in the highest risk group right now for getting HIV as a new disease. I thought someone should be doing something about it.
CHUCK: Now, one of the things that I think we need to do as we talk through this, the proliferation of HIV is what started you down this path of openly talking about sex, sexual morays, what’s normal, what’s not and so forth. Yet, this show isn’t solely going to be about that just so people that are listening will know, because one of the things I have found true about Valda is if you want to know the answer to the question, just ask the lady because she is not going to hold back. If the Fifty Shades of Grey folks who are listening are thinking, “Hmm, I wonder what they’re going to be saying on the radio,” we’re going forward because there are a lot of things that I think we can talk about.
To start the process, Valda, you said that, I guess, the group that is most highly exposed today [08:41], good word, for the AIDS virus are people who are over 40. I’m a person over 40 so somehow in my head I just think that that shouldn’t be an issue. Talk to me a little bit about why it is that folks over 40 are in the highest risk group.
VALDA: Well, let me qualify to say they’re not in the highest risk group. They are, I think, in the most vulnerable group because no one is talking to them about their risk. There are plenty of people and lots of money going towards talking to men who have sex with men, people who are IV drug abusers about HIV. There is some information out there for women. However, people who are in the 40+, and especially 50+, just imagine, if you learned about sex during the “make love not war” years of the 1960s, the only thing you had to worry about was what? If you got the clap then you got a shot. If you got pregnant, you go shipped off to somebody else’s, relatives and your aunt had a baby after that miraculously. That was the state of what we learned. A woman who would have condoms in her purse would have been considered what? A tramp.
Therefore, a person who is 50+ has not learned to negotiate condom usage, does not even understand that he or she needs to talk about getting tested, therefore they’re thinking they’re in the perfect time in their lives. Women are postmenopausal, they don’t have to worry about the curse every month. Men are probably understanding that, hmm, this is still a pretty good time for them sexually so you’ve lost all of your inhibitions. The kids are out of the house, you have time to get naked again and play around and guess what? If you have a new person in your life, you might not understand that just because they’re older, they’re not necessarily wiser so maybe they’ve been tripping the light fantastic still in their fifties and are putting themselves at risk and you at risk if you don’t know what to talk about.
CHUCK: Okay, so as a guy over 40, let me just be practical here… Number one, I would make the assumption if I were sexually engaged with someone that I was unfamiliar with, not my wife, but I would make the assumption that if I’m post 40 or post 50, if I were going to have the disease, I would probably have it and therefore know it and probably be responsible enough not to have sex with someone. Somehow you don’t tend to see, unless you’re in a high-risk group, you don’t tend to think as a heterosexual person who has been fundamentally monogamous that the risk should be that high, so where does the come from?
VALDA: Well, that is the big part of the problem. You have people who are saying, well, they expect a person with HIV to look a certain way, they expect them to have certain behaviors that would put them in the high-risk category as in IV drug use or men having sex with men, but here’s the thing: HIV doesn’t have a look to it and it takes as long as seven years for the average person to develop symptoms enough that they would be tested for. So, if you were having sex kind of out there a lot and you’re 32 years of age, then by the time you’re 40 it might be the first time you’re actually showing some symptoms and if your physician or nurse practitioner hasn’t been asking you, “Have you been tested?” or if that’s not a part of what you would do, you could have HIV and be passing it all along so it’s not intentional. There is a very small percentage of people out there who are just being mean and terrible and knowingly giving HIV to other partners. The average person does not know. They don’t have any clue because they’re expecting, like most diseases, that they are going to have symptoms but, unfortunately, most diseases don’t have symptoms in the early stages.
CHUCK: This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and this has been a sobering segment because obviously we’ve been talking with Valda Ford who is absolutely a joy to talk with and who knows her stuff along with her new program, Sex Is Not For Sissies. Now, when we get back from our break, we’re going to talk about some other segments of this outside of disease control that I think you might want to stay tuned for. This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio. Stick with us and we’ll be back in just a minute.
[Commercial break]CHUCK: This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and we’re back from the break. My guest is Valda Ford and oh, my goodness, this has been an interesting conversation. Her new program is called Sex Is Not For Sissies. While the first segment was fairly sobering where we were talking about the issues of sexually transmitted disease, HIV, there are some things that we do need to discuss that I think are going to be fascinating to those of you that listen.
Valda, you said that there was a 74-year old lady who came up to you and she apparently had been married for 50-ish years and her husband died and now she had a new boyfriend. Tell us a little bit about some of the stories you hear because I’m 57, I hope to be sexually active at 74, 75 or whatever it happens to be, but obviously there are a lot of people who believe that once you pass a certain age, you’re not there anymore.
VALDA: That’s a good thing that we know that as long as you’re alive, sex is possible, as long as you’re physically fit and able to do so, which is one of the reasons we need to get out and do all that running and eat all that bran. But this woman was an example of many people who come up to me after I’ve talked about just living well and they will move right to sex because somehow I’ve said one word that’s allowed them to do that and they will ask questions like, “What does an orgasm feel like?” and I am thinking, “Oh, my God, I’m so sad that you don’t know this already, but let me tell you what the continuum is for that.”
Men are kind of lucky; they have this obvious evidence of what’s happening but women may not. There are many of them who have never been satisfied sexually and now they don’t even know how to tell their partner that has always been terrible whether male or female. How do you go back to tell someone, “You know, you’re about the lousiest lay I ever had,” but you don’t want to say that because then you don’t have a relationship anymore. But how do you say, “Well, I was told as a young girl,” and many women my age were told, “just grin and bear it, child. Just grin and bear it.” So if you’ve been grinning and bearing it but now you’re recognizing that, “Hmm, maybe there is something positive that should be happening in my bedroom,” the male and the female is going to benefit from this positivity in the change but how do you tell them?
I have seminars where I talk to people about everything from being conscious in your decision-making about what you’re going to do, when, with whom, and under what circumstances. Educated women are very frequently told that if you’re educated, over 50 and successful that you’re going to have a limited number of men available to you so just deal with somebody else’s husband, the gay guy who just gave you some relief periodically or just take care of it yourself. These are terrible things for women to be thinking about when they might start a new relationship, especially with the cougar age when there are a lot of younger guys being involved with older women. Many older women think that, “Oh, I’m so proud that I have this 32-year old stud who’s taking care of me.” They are afraid to ask them to be tested, but just from the pleasure side, all of us should have good, safe, enjoyable sex well into our eighties and nineties as long as we’re physically fit. We may have to decrease some of the acrobatics but we can still have great and satisfying sex.
CHUCK: Okay, let’s talk about satisfying sex. You made the comment, if you’re a man, there’s obvious evidence typically of an orgasm. I’m going to show my ignorance here, I may as well do that. Heck, this is Straight Talk Radio so let’s talk straight. You speak as if it is not obvious that most women recognize what the experience is like of having an orgasm, one, and two, that somehow it’s, I guess, the partner’s responsibility to create that, whereas for the average man most men probably don’t figure that to be the case. You can take matters into your own hands, sort to speak. Help me understand why that seems to be such a difference between the genders?
VALDA: Unfortunately for us women, we don’t usually have the earth-shaking, shattering thing and the evidence that it has happened. We might feel something, but the orgasm for a woman can be anything from just a simple thing where there is a sigh, or there can be some screaming hanging off the roof kind of thing going on. When you have that kind of continuum, there is no standard by which we know it has happened. If you have one that’s the hanging off the roof kind, there’s not going to be any concern about that at all, but if you are disappointed because that’s what the movies have shown us or television has sexualized, that’s what it’s going to be about, you might be disappointed but your body isn’t really disappointed. You’ve convinced yourself that you should be.
As a woman who got married very early, I was married at 17, this was during the Vietnam War, I thought I was doing something patriotic by marrying a marine. Well, let’s just say it wasn’t the best decision I ever made in my life, but I have this wonderful son as a result. I can tell you that for the first seven years after I was married, I did not experience the pleasure of orgasm. It was later with another partner when I was convinced that I wasn’t going to have one. That was just something that they made up to sell products or to convince you it was a good thing to be in the bedroom and when I did, it was one of those “Okay, this is what all the fuss is about. Now I get it! Yes, yes, yes, yes!” Before then it was kind of like, “Okay, I’ll do this. I got to do this. It’s the only way you keep your relationship solid,” and if you are, unfortunately, one of those people who’s not having it but you’re trying to keep your relationship together, you’re just going to lie. Let’s just say it; there’s a whole bunch of faking going on and it doesn’t benefit anyone.
If you are a man, many times as a younger man, it’s just a natural thing that when things start to stand in attention, you just take it, as you said, into your own hands and then if a young man has an ejaculation, then he’s going to know the obvious, “I did this and this happened,” so it’s the cause and effect. With the woman there are many, many, many women, especially older women, who are taught, “Don’t look down there, don’t touch down there,” so they believe that masturbation is a terrible thing. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a rite a passage for young men and it might be something as terrible for women. You see the beginning of the disconnect right there.
CHUCK: Okay. So, a lot of then what you’re explaining to us is, I guess, how we’re taught and how we’re trained. I have to ask this then, just going along that particular line, it appears that society’s changed. What people in their, well, I don’t know your age but I’m 57, so what people in their fifties and sixties were taught inexperienced is probably far different than today when people in their teens and twenties experience. I’m assuming that a 20-year-old female is not going to have the same aversion to physical stimulation that perhaps you were taught as a teen or a 20-year old.
VALDA: That’s possible but when I have my seminars, I have people from 18 to 80, that’s how I approach it. If you’re legal, you can come in. Other than that, you’ve got to come with your momma because I don’t want anyone complaining about what I’m talking their baby girl about.
But, what I find is that there a lot of young people, specifically now, with puberty starting so early. It can be as early as age 8 for those of you who are thinking about having the talk at age 12. You will be 4 years too late for girls and at least 3 years too late for most boys. Imagine this: your body is telling you, “All your hormones are released, make new small people.” This is why we have all that happening, right? We’re supposed to make small copies of ourselves that populate the world. If our bodies are saying, “Do it,” but our brain is having a thought not to, that’s a recipe for a disaster.
But on top of it, even if we’ve been in this super sexualized society where we’re told it is good to have pleasure, it’s good to do this, young people still don’t know what they’re doing. They’re typically going to fumble around and make a big mess of things. There’s a lot of pressure on young women to do things like have oral sex in groups and out in public just to prove that you’re popular, which of course are now labeled as being easy that same way they were back 40 years ago. Unfortunately, these young girls aren’t learning about pleasure, they are just pleasuring someone for the most part.
If you look at the percentage of young girls who will give oral sex versus young boys who will give oral sex, it’s a bad differential; 80% girls might do it because they’re asked, and about 20% boys will do it. You see, for 80% of women it takes direct clitoral stimulation usually for about 20 minutes in order to have an orgasm. If you’re having intercourse in a typical missionary position, then a guy, especially a young guy, might last 2, 3, 4, 5, let’s say hopefully, 10 minutes and that means that the woman hasn’t been stimulated enough even if it’s indirect stimulation by having their pelvises bump. She’s not going to be satisfied and he’s not going to be satisfied. It may be that she’ll take it into her own hands and either use her hands or use some type of device, but it’s still not the norm like we would think it is based on what you see on television.
CHUCK: We’re talking about Sex Is Not For Sissies and I think for those of you that are listening to this conversation, you understand why that is and yet it’s amazing that here we are, 2014, and we still don’t know the depth of what we need to know in order to enjoy sex and yet at the same time be intelligently responsive to that flood of hormones going out and telling us to make little people.
This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio. My guest is Valda Ford. She is a registered nurse, self-proclaimed “daughter of the South”, one of the most intellectually disarming and humorous presenters on leadership, privilege and cultural competency, and her new program is Sex Is Not For Sissies. When we get back, we’re going to talk about some medical issues and conditions because having been diagnosed with prostate cancer some now nine years ago, obviously, there are a lot of people that have challenges from a sexual perspective or could have and that’s a conversation that needs to take place as well. Stick with us, this is Chuck Gallagher on Straight Talk Radio.
[Commercial break]CHUCK: We’re back from the break. This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and, boy, this has been enlightening. I mean, I’ve already learned some things that I didn’t know and thought I was at least reasonably educated when it comes to issues of sex. My guest is Valda Ford and her program is Sex Is Not For Sissies. We happen to be offsite this time. Most of our shows are recorded via Skype but we happen to be at the National Speakers Association Convention in San Diego, California, so if you hear a little noise in the background, that’s speakers, they talk a lot.
Valda and I happen to be at the National Speakers Association Convention 2014, here in San Diego, California. It is a beautiful day outside and we’ve had a very enlightening discussion up to this point in time with her new program Sex Is Not For Sissies. Valda, before we go forward, because this is a program that really spans ages. You said, 18 to 80, talk to us a little bit about how people can connect with you to get some of these questions answered because I know there’s some pent up questions out there.
VALDA: The best way to reach me is either email, valda@valdaford.com, or by phone 336-870-5571. I have a website sexisnotforsissies.com that you can contact me through that box as well.
CHUCK: Valda, I mentioned this before we got into this segment, in our last segment, I was diagnosed at the age of 47 with prostate cancer. I’ll never forget the doctor coming in and saying, “You have prostate cancer. Now, there’s four things we can do,” and then he starts to proceed to tell me what the treatments would be and he said, “With any of these treatments,” he said, “there are certain side effects that could exist. One would be incontinence and the other one would be loss of sexual function.” Now, I’m sitting here and I have to tell you, I’m sitting in this doctor’s office and it’s like, “Number one, you told me something that I didn’t want to hear at 47 and then you tell me that I might pee on myself for the rest of my life and not be able to have sex.” And then he wanted to schedule a surgery in two weeks and it was like, “Dude, time out. I just need a little processing time on this, this is a little challenging,” and once I did some preliminary research, I concluded that based upon what we knew at the time, I was not going to die from prostate cancer.
So therefore, that being out of the way, then the issue was, “Wait a minute. I might not be able to have sex for the rest of my life?! I didn’t sign up for that gig.” It’s really different for women and men because for women when you’re faced with issues of breast cancer, women will openly share. That’s why there are all the pink ribbons everywhere, but men don’t seem to want to talk about the issues that can take place with loss of sexual function or the possibility of loss of sexual function when it comes to prostate cancer and I know as a nurse you’ve had to have seen what takes place and how things happen in doctors’ offices and I’m amazed by that. Any comments?
VALDA: Number one, women have gotten better at talking about breast cancer, but unfortunately there are still a lot of women dying of breast cancer because they do keep it to themselves and wait a long time to get diagnosed officially. For men, I talk to men all the time who say they’re not having a prostate examined when they go to the doctor’s office. They said, “Nobody’s sticking their finger up in my butt,” and I said, “Okay, look, takes 30 seconds to do the exam. That gives you another year of being relatively confident that all is good. Would you give up 30 seconds for a prostate check because we know that having prostate exams at age 50 usually and above for white males and 40 and above for African American males is a very good idea because prostate cancer is one of the cancers that is the most likely for the person to be around 5, 10, 20, 30 years later. Now, the issue is about sometimes we as healthcare professionals really don’t get the fact that this is a big shock. We need to wait for a few minutes and let people process, but what people come to me about, as it relates to prostate, is that wives will say, “My husband had a prostate surgery and now we’re trying to figure out what to do. When will he be able to have sex again? Or will he be able to have sex again?” That’s all relative to which procedure you get, whether it’s surgical, whether it’s radiation, and of course the skill of the surgeon. So, anyone out there who’s been talked to about having the illness should definitely do due diligence and check out the skill of the surgeon because that’s going to make a difference in your quality of life.
Now, the most important thing I tell women is if you have a guy in your life who’s gone through a prostate surgery, just be supportive. If he all of a sudden, out of the blue, eight months from now has an erection and he says, “Baby, I’m on the way home,” you say, “I’ll be ready.” You don’t say, “What are you talking about. I’m at work, I’m in a meeting. I got to go to board scout meeting.” No, no, no, no. The thing here is the psychological effect for men not to be able to have an erection again is shattering because we’re all tied up with our genitalia, we are. Unfortunately, I’ve had men tell me, “If I can’t have an erection, just shoot me in the head.” I hope that no one goes like that, but if we don’t have a supportive partner at home when that’s happening, then when the physical part is happening and the psychological part is not matching it, then you can just end up with a whole world of trouble.
A woman who has a hysterectomy sometimes is going to be happier about the fact that it is gone. She’s not going to have her menstrual cycle anymore and then might be more willing to be sexually active because she doesn’t have to worry about some things, that is when ovaries aren’t taken out because you’re still producing hormones.
There are a lot of things they worry about and wonder about, but the most important thing is if you have any kind of question, get yourself to a doctor. People are dying unnecessarily because you’re ashamed of it, they’re worried about it, they think they’re going to have a negative outcome so they don’t even check and it definitely will be worse if you don’t talk about it.
CHUCK: Yeah, I think the easy thing to say is, in my case, I found out by accident. I was interested in the pill Propecia because supposedly it keeps your hair from falling out and at 47 I was all about wanting to keep my hair. I used to have a forehead, then it went to a fivehead, it’s gone to sixhead now, I don’t know. Anyway, the doctor said, “Will you have a blood test?” I don’t like needles, okay? Let’s just be honest, as a nurse, most men don’t like needles. I don’t like needles, I’m petrified of them, quite frankly, but it was worth it to get the pill.
Then she says, “We’ve got to do a PSA test.” “Well, what’s that?” “Well, a prostate specific antigen. It’s just giving us a baseline.” Well, my baseline was higher than what it should have been at my age and that’s what caused ultimately the process to proceed to determine that I had prostate cancer. But in the interest of transparency, because I believe in being transparent and I’m transparent when I talk about my ethics program so why not when we talk about sex? I ended up having surgery. It was a robotic surgery and I agree with you 100%; skill of the surgeon is going to get you a better result. Fortunately, nerves were spared, which would allow for an erection to take place, but he said, “It could be 12 months to 18 months.” Sporadically, from time to time, I would experience an erection. I also found out, since we’re talking about Sex Is Not For Sissies, that you don’t have to have an erection to have an orgasm as a man, which I was shocked by. Apparently, and you probably know more about this, I’m going to turn back to you, but apparently the whole sensation, although for a guy we think it’s in our genitalia, the reality is it’s in the brain! It’s a function of the brain mechanism firing. I don’t know, people call that their third eye and that’s the thing that’s like that’s the off-the-wall kind of [generates a high-pitched voice] when it happens.
But the reality was it took about a year before there was normality to an erection and it was never the same as if I was 17 but then again I was 48. I wasn’t 17 so I needed to give that up as well. I’m fascinated and I’m interested in what you’ve experienced from this, because I’ve interviewed a little over 125 men and their wives if they were married or they were willing to talk, and most women seemed to be. I got three responses, let’s put it this way. Response number one, “I’m there for my man. I’m going to walk with him through this. That’s what we’re about.” Response number two, “Thank God! Maybe I won’t have to put up with this again. It’s okay if we never have sex.” Really? And response three was, “If he can’t perform, I just don’t know about this.” What have you experienced?
VALDA: Definitely those are the three kinds of responses I hear. Now, the first one is, “I’m going to stand by my man,” which is great, every relationship should be like that. The second one is, “Thank God it’s over because I never wanted it anyway,” might also be more like, “Well, I never was getting what I needed,” and unfortunately, they never knew how to ask for it so now they’re thinking, “Great, I have just been putting up with it.” But if they had some talk along the way or come to one of my Sex Is Not For Sissies seminars, then they would be learning the ways to ask for what they actually want. And the third set, there are actually people who do split up when there’s any type of catastrophic event that’s happening. It could be having sick children, it could be having cancer, it could be the loss of a really superior income. Those things do split families up. That’s unfortunate, but that’s the reality and those are the three.
What I’ve seen so far with the people I have spoken with has been more people really hanging on in there and trying to work it through. And if they can get some counseling as well so that the man understands that he can help give pleasure to the woman without actually having intercourse. There are some people who have what’s called outercourse anyway and they never do penetrate each other and guess what? If 80% of women are obtaining pleasure not from intercourse, they’re going to be okay while you’re getting to be okay, and if you’ve helped them achieve pleasure over and over and over again, then guess what, they’re going to be there for you later.
Those who are thinking about, “Thank goodness it’s over,” might discover for the first time… I know many women in their forties, fifties and even sixties who’ve never had an orgasm, who’ve never had a partner who was worried about their pleasure or didn’t know they weren’t receiving pleasure, which is unfortunate. Sometimes you have people who come apart in their relationship because in the forties and fifties when the hormones change and some of the things we’re looking at as to whether or not it is reasonable and people are excited because those brain chemicals are being released. And 90% of sex is in the head anyway, but you do have that 10% that might be physical. If you’re a person who’s going through a menopause or manopause or andropause and your hormones aren’t released in the same way, for a man, you might not have an erection as often or as long. You might not be able to complete or start sex. For a woman, it may be that she does not have the lubrication and let’s face it, that’s how we determine if you’re ready, is by checking lubrication status. So, if you have less, if it doesn’t last very long, then we might be thinking that you’re not interested. Or men might think a woman isn’t interested where it’s simple her body doing it to her. Her mind still wants it, but her body is not producing and that might mean you need some kind of supplementation, but that should all be done strictly under a doctor’s care because there are some side effects that can happen with supplementation.
But these are things that happen so all we have to do, though, as partners is just listen to each other and if you do have a partner who’s saying, “Thank God it’s over,” then maybe ask why. At the height of this “oh, my God, I might have cancer and I’m going to die” thing is not the time to be getting totally into relationships, but it might be an opportunity during the recovery time to find out how to get closer together and when you’re close physically, you release oxytocin which is that “I want to be with you forever” chemical. It’s the thing that makes you stay with one partner as compared to say dopamine which is like “I need some pleasure and I need it now.” These are all chemicals that are released, but all of this is what I talk about with people because who has ever told us this stuff? No one!
CHUCK: That’s the fascinating thing. My guest is Valda Ford. This is straight talk and this has been a show of straight talk and her new program Sex Is Not For Sissies. We’re going to take a quick break and then we will be back right after that from San Diego, California, with the NSA Convention and you can probably hear screaming in the background because there are a lot of people having a great time here. I am just thrilled that Valda and I have been able to connect to bring you this very informative show.
[Commercial break]CHUCK: This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio. My guest has been Valda Ford and this has been an enlightening show. For those of you that listen to Straight Talk Radio on a regular basis, I think you will find this show has been unlike any others that we’ve had because we have been talking about the issue of Sex Is Not For Sissies.
Valda has put together, I guess the best way to put it is, a seminar series. She has a website, sexisnotforsissies.com. I encourage you to go there because the biggest thing that I think we tend to find is people don’t know what they don’t know and there’s a lot of not knowing out there. There are a lot of people who want to not talk about this very important topic for whatever the reason may be and if you don’t know what you don’t know, you’re never going to find out. I think it’s fascinating to look at and understand the perception from perhaps whenever you were a teenager and your hormones flowing and you wanted to create little people or at least practice. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, practice. Practice creating little people [41:40] little people creating a little bit down the road there versus the people now who are the baby boomers, and you and I both fall into that category, and I don’t know about you, but I look at myself and think, “Well, I’m 57 and I can see physical changes in my body, but my mind still thinks, ‘Dude, I don’t know. It’s Woodstock. Let’s go out. Let’s listen to Led Zeppelin,’” when music was great. I’m sure our parents said the same thing about when Sinatra was singing. But we don’t look at it the way our parents did. We look at being sexually active as long as that’s possible, and of course our children go, “Eww!” and it’s quite funny.
Tell us about the program. Tell us about Sex Is Not For Sissies and how that can benefit people and where they can get that in their hometown.
VALDA: Thank you. The thing about it is I used the title Sex Is Not For Sissies because when I was speaking with that 74-year old woman I referenced earlier, she kept going that eww herself. “Oh, no, I don’t want to do that. Ugh, no!” So I said, “Look, do you want the guy? Do you want to be in a relationship with him? Is he a keeper?” And she said, “Yes,” and I said, “Well, you can come to some compromise. But remember, sex is not for sissies. Sometimes you have to put on the big girl panties and just keep on getting up.”
[Chuck laughs]VALDA: So that kind of stuck. What I found is when I would have seminars with women and talk to them about the things we’ve talked about, they would say, “Would you please talk to the guys because they need to know this and maybe they’ll take it from you, or I’ll forget it, or I won’t have the depth of knowledge.”
So I developed a seminar series. I do dinner and a show, basically, where people come together for about half a day. We have a great meal. They ask questions. I go through my C.A.R.E.S. Model, which means that every person who’s having sex should know about conscious decision-making. You decide who, where, when, what, with whom and under what circumstances. Followed by A, an attitude adjustment because if you are an older person and you don’t know about condoms, you need to know about condoms and your responsibility, male or female. Then you get to R, which is romantic anticipation. Too many times we’ve forgotten all about romance and to me romance is a great part. Romance is the best possible foreplay there ever was and, unfortunately, people are forgetting about that and just going to the act and wondering why they are not being satisfied because there’s so much more to that. Then the E is the educated experimentation. In this era of Fifty Shades of Grey, there a whole bunch of people who are showing up at the hospital with injuries and all sorts of bad things happening because they think, “Oh, it’s popular. Let me go and allow someone to handcuff me and chain me to the floor or to the ceiling,” whatever the case may be, whip me, flog me, dip me in ice, whatever the case, because they think, “Oh, this is what I need to do to be hip.” I talked to people about educated experimentation. When was the last time you just did intimate touching so you really got in touch with what you like or what your partner liked? And that’s the easy discovery so people know without having to have that horrible conversation and without accusing each other of not being good or bad, but now you’re rediscovering each other.
Finally, if you do all those things, then you’ll have seriously satisfying, scintillating sex and that’s exactly what we want. In order to get me to do that, you either just call me up, send me an email and tell me, “I would like to come to your seminar, webinars.” I’m having the seminar in Charlotte, North Carolina in September. I’m having a retreat in the Kansas City area, actually in Dearborn, on August 8 through 10, so if you want the intensive experience of two days, you can do that. Or if you want me to come to your town because you know you have a big group of women or you want to do some couples retreats, then just get in touch with me. I will be glad to set it up. I’ve done this in several states now and it’s my goal for this to be as well-known as people know about what their normal blood pressure numbers are or what your normal blood sugar is or what your cholesterol is. Why don’t we know this? This is the most obvious thing that we should all be well educated about and for the most part there’s no topic about health that we’re more ignorant about.
CHUCK: It’s fascinating that you say that because that really is true. Not to get off on a different subject, there’s a fellow here who like me had prostate cancer and he said, “If I go to talk to men, if I ask the average man, if there were 100 men, and said, ‘Tell me what your odometer is within a thousand miles,’ every man can tell you what their odometer number is.” Now, tell me what your PSA number is and half of them, or better, will not know or not even know what it stands for. The fascinating question is why as a species would we be willing to have something that is so significant in our life and yet be so ignorant about it? It’s really amazing.
This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio and Valda Ford is my guest. You said something a minute ago, I lost the words, satisfying…
VALDA: Seriously satisfying, scintillating sex.
CHUCK: Seriously satisfying, scintillating sex. That just sounds good. That’s sounds like a book right there. Let me ask you a question on the program that you do, Sex Is Not For Sissies. You said at one point that you had women’s groups and then the women were all clamoring the same, “Tell the men, tell the men.” Then you had couples groups. Which do you find more open and more effective?
VALDA: It’s always fun to get with a group of women, especially if they had a couple of glasses of wine, but even more importantly, all my seminars are set up so that questions can be asked and answered in a confidential and anonymous way, either using an audience response system or using index cards to send out questions. I found, actually, that the ladies were more open when their men were there, especially in sending me questions to ask because they wanted those things discussed in front of the men. I was a little bit hesitant about doing it with men, but the first few times I did it when I had a cameraman and, say, a massage therapist there and other men, they would say, “Look, we need this, too.” Right now I think it’s pretty good that I could have either group there and it would be successful.
CHUCK: As we wrap up today’s program, Straight Talk, Sex Is Not For Sissies, this is on Transformation Talk Radio and this certainly could be transformative to the people that listen, I’m going to put you on the spot. Tell me three things that people need to know that generally they don’t, as we start to wrap up.
VALDA: I would say that three things people don’t know is number one, each person has the capability of having really good sex every time that they have sex. Not just sometimes, but every time.
Number two, that we are extremely and exceedingly ignorant about the things that our kids are doing if you’re a parent. On the other side, what your parents are doing because, unfortunately, right now, or fortunately for the elders, they’re still having sex, but they’re the most vulnerable because they’re the most ignorant about the things we’ve talked about today.
Finally, I think that we need to have a conversation about our bodies, that we need to be in touch intimately with our intimate parts and we haven’t been told that. There are people who come into the hospital all the time who had prolapses. For those who don’t know, that’s a dropping of the uterus or the vagina or the bladder usually through the vaginal canal and they don’t even know it. They’ve just been hurting and feeling badly so the third thing is get to know your body intimately. Don’t be ashamed of it, even if it’s older. Guess what? It’s still better.
CHUCK: Valda, I have to say, I appreciate your willingness to bring this topic to the forefront. Valda is a part of NSA Carolinas and I have to tell you, the first time I heard your Sex Is Not For Sissies it was like wow. I mean, I’ve heard a lot of people when you go up to a speaker and say, “What do you speak about?” and they hem and haw, “Boy, you were right out with it,” and it was like, “You go, girl! That is awesome.”
For those of you that have been listening to the show, thank you, thank you so much for being a part of Straight Talk Radio. This is Chuck Gallagher, my guest is Valda Ford and I want to encourage you to go to sexisnotforsissies.com. That way if you want to connect with Valda, talk with her if you have a question, read the information that she puts out there and probably most importantly, perhaps if it’s a women’s group, I tend to think they’ll be at least more open to seeking your program, but look at the programs that she offers and see how that might work in your marketplace.
This is Chuck Gallagher with Straight Talk Radio. We appreciate you listening each and every week. Next week we will be back with another great show and I promise you, since we have straight talk about subjects, it will be equally exciting and, Valda, thank you ever so much for your participation. Folks, this is Chuck Gallagher with Transformation Talk Radio, Straight Talk Radio and we’ll be back next week.
You’ve been listening to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher. Tune in each week on transformationtalkradio.com, each Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern, as Chuck Gallagher, international speaker and author, cuts through the noise to share truth through transparency. Nationally-known guests talk about what’s important to you – your life, your concerns, and your success. Visit gallagher.pcgdev.com for more information and turn on to Straight Talk with Chuck Gallagher.
