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Amanda: Okay, so I know a lot about you but my audience may not so will you introduce yourself to them?

Dan: Yep, I’m Dan. I live in beautiful st. George Utah been married to my sweetheart for 17 years. We have six children among other things I run a company or an organization. And calls get your marriage on or we’ve put on Live Events. I have a podcast and most importantly I am or what I think is most exciting as you make apps to help strengthen marriages.

Amanda: That is so much fun. Okay an eye I love your podcast to so if you aren’t familiar with Dan’s podcast, you need to go. Listen, he’s got lots of sex expert Source experts whatever you want to call and talk on Friday of topics. I’ve been on his podcast and so I’m excited to have him on the this one talking all about how to add fun and variety into your sex life. So tell me a little bit your about your story and how you got into this Dan.

Dan: Thanks, my wife and I guess you could say we’ve always had a pretty good marriage. We communicate really well. We share life’s burdens together really well, we raise children really well and and so on but there was one part about us that we never really explored and that is our sexuality until a few years ago. I had a conversation with a friend and he really opened up about his sex life. At that time in my life just don’t have conversation with friends that talk about what they’re trying in the bedroom and what’s working and not working for them. That’s just such a foreign concept to me and I was really embarrassed about being embarrassed about such a conversation because deep down inside I knew sex was good and healthy. It was such a taboo topic. So I went home that night to my wife and said hey Emily am I good enough lover?  Are you maybe unsatisfied you haven’t like voiced anything or whatever and and kind of told about the conversation. And for the first time in our marriage up to that point. We’ve been married 13 years that point we I think that was really the first time we really had a really in-depth conversation about our sex life up until then. It’s just been something we kind of avoided or you know just pretended it was fine and and those conversations went into the wee hours of the morning. Night after night day after day and what came through from that as we realized we both needed to learn a whole lot more about sex and we didn’t know where to turn. Thankfully -and I don’t know why in my neighborhood but there’s like five marriage family therapist that within a 1/4 mile radius. I guess God has a sense of humor, right? Anyway, I so I reached out to one of my buddies and I took him to lunch.   He helps men overcome pornography.  So I thought if anyone kind of knew the line of what is safe or not safe to discuss he would know. I asked all of these questions like is this okay . .  is this okay? What do you think about this?  I want to learn more about this. But like where’s the line because that was really a big moral dilemma for me. Like is it okay to really learn more about sex?   We found a podcast we found really helpful and blogs and websites. So we really dived in deep in learning more about sexuality for us. And the most amazing thing was we started to see results immediately in our relationship. We started really connecting even at a deeper level. I think our kids could tell a huge difference, my work got better we’re sleeping better like everything in life just got better because we were a lot more sexually active and we’re exploring our sexuality and really like connecting at a deeper level than we ever had. And that was just a magical time in our marriage that that I’ll always cherish.

Amanda: That sounds awesome, Dan. So where did it go from there?

Dan: One of the things that really helped us sexually is when we made sex more playful and like a game we made it kind of creative and fun. It took the pressure off for us and it kind of loosened this up. We got to laugh a little bit or a lot. We tried new things and if it didn’t work out no big deal, Sex is supposed to be like really serious, right? And so we don’t spend the time having fun and laughing and you know, when things don’t work out the way we hoped we don’t get upset. I think that’s a really good point to make sex the adult form of play, right? And absolutely is so much better when we can really have fun with it. So we learned to have a lot of fun with it good and we’d make up little games and whatever and I thought you know these things that work really well on an app. So I go on the App Store and pretty much all the sex games out there, which there are plenty of them on the app store. They’re all crass and raunchy and really vulgar. Yeah, and it was just it felt dirty like we didn’t want to get caught with it. Like an app like that on our phone. We also felt like for us in our experience in the way we experience their sexuality is it had a lot to do with intimacy as well as just sex. So yeah, we were getting closer. We’re like seeing and seeing each other in the new like we’re being known and knowing each other and that was a big component of that kind of fuels our eroticism in our relationship and a lot of the apps kind of neglect that we felt really neglected. And that part of the relationship of the sexual relationship. Well, I’m a software engineer by background came up with some ideas and we put together this app called intimately us that has tons of ideas to enhance intimacy as well as lots of ideas to make sex really playful and fun and the app itself has several games in it to make sex kind of fun. So it’s kind of an outgrowth I guess of our experience and what we’ve Learned and our journey and kind of our way of sharing it to the world of how to make sex fun. I’m collecting awesome.

Amanda: Okay, so tell us a little bit about the app because I have it. I love it. I think it’s so great. But I want everybody else to go and download it right now. Is it on both IOS and Android?

Dan:  The main thing that’s in it is the bedroom games. So there’s a game where you put in your name? We have different Adventure Packs so you can choose the pack.  It fits your comfort level and you can also adjust it further. Like if you really don’t like oral sex, you can turn that off or if you really like, you know, a little bit of light bondage is to be playful you can like turn those things on or whatever you might be. It’s there’s a lot of variety and you can customize it and that’s the beauty of it awesome and then in essence the game you take turns it starts really More on the Romantic side and then it gets spicier as the game progresses and you basically follow the prompts and take turns and you may not finish the game and that’s not the point. So that’s that’s kind of fun. We have other games too. Like we have a stripping game called battle strip. It’s the classic Battleship game, but instead of ships arranged on the great is items of clothing and you try to sink each other’s like shirt or underwear or whatever. It might be that is and that’s so there’s that and then we have sexy twister. Like we’ve played twister naked and that is a lot of fun. I think you every couple should experience that but it’s kind of a pain if you’re like, I don’t know. It’s really limited, especially when this just two people and your hands already on the floor and you have to like get up to like flick the spinner. It just doesn’t work. So we have an app version where instead of Using the the mat using each other’s bodies. So it’ll and you can Auto Spin and it will light read out loud the actions to you. So it might be like right hand but or left hand foot or something like that. So you it’s supposed to be goofy and fun and you can customize that to and add in your own body parts. If you want to add more we can also add an actions like might be caress or lick or or suck or tickle or other things like that. You can add into to kind of spice things up. And we have one more coming out Connect Foreplay. It’s the old Classic Connect Four game. We’re trying to get four in a row, but each tile has a foreplay action on it and the winner gets to collect those those favors.

Amanda:  Sounds like so much fun. Hey, so do you have some other ideas of how to add some fun and variety to your sex life?

Dan: Yes, I’ve got lots of ideas.  There’s I guess there’s different levels of kind of what you’re into. There’s ones that maybe take a lot of preparation and time to execute and that’s half the fun. Okay, there’s others that are more simple. So let’s talk about maybe some of the more involved ones. Okay, and I think they’re fun. So here’s just a few ideas of fun things. You can get it’s Easter is coming up you’re going to have leftover Easter eggs those plastic Easter eggs and If the big ones what you do is you get by glow sticks from the dollar store and you’re going to break a glow stick and it’ll fit inside the Easter egg and you can hide the Easter eggs around your bedroom and they will the whole Easter egg will glow and before you hide the egg. You can write on a little piece of paper like a little foreplay activity might be make out for 2 minutes or you know a back massage or whatever you want you want to add in there and then 

Dan: You can also you can also get black light light bulbs really inexpensively or just a black light flashlight and there’s a glow in the dark paint or there’s neon paint. That’s body paint. It’s non-toxic and it is so much fun to paint on each other in glow-in-the-dark paints. And that’s you can add that to your glow-in-the-dark Easter egg treasure hunt if you want to to do

Amanda: I’m loving these what else what else you got for me?

Dan: Probably the time I remember laughing the hardest is we prepared a bunch of Minute to Win It games with kind of a our own bedroom twist. I don’t want to get too graphic.  We tied a string around and end of a banana and then the other end around your waist and we had an orange on the floor and we had to dangle the banana between your legs and roll the orange from one side of the room to the other and and we’re timing this series to see who gets it fastest . And then we got all my wife’s bras out on the on the bed and wearing oven mitts we had to time the fastest person that can unclasp all of the bras wearing oven mitts, so it was just kind of goofy and fun and then there’s there’s there’s a whole bunch of like you just Google Minute to Win It game ideas. It was just so much

Amanda: Oh my gosh. That sounds like so much fun. So why do you feel like this is so important to a sexual relationship?  I think there’s three reasons that come to mind.   One is when your brain is in more of a playful State you’re going to be willing to explore new things and try new things and you’re not you’re more you’re more apt to be in growth mode mentally than like protect mode and that’s really important for intimate connection. If you’re going to really know and be known you need to be kind of in a state of mind where you’re curious and Open and and playful. Yeah, I think the second reason is when you put more effort into sex sex becomes more meaningful and more memorable. And so like those times we’ve put a lot of effort into like a little you know, is that scavenger hunt or or that painting night or whatever it might be you’ll look back and those those become some of the fun times but half of the fun Was preparing for the day’s the Patient it’s the build-up to it. It’s like prolongs that pleasure that much longer even just just preparing for it. Yeah, and I think the third reason is it’s to take the pressure off when you when sex is more playful and it’s a game it takes the pressure off of like, oh I have to reach orgasm or I have to like get there or I have to last longer or none of that matters. And when you’re just enjoying like enjoying the journey and make sex less goal-oriented. Yes. I love that it all comes back down to just really enjoying each other and connecting at that deeper level and when your playful about it and creative about it, then you’re bringing in a whole lot of you now, I want to also mention you don’t if you don’t consider yourself a very creative person and that’s not your style. That’s okay if you’re not if you’re not if you’re Of the serious type. That’s okay. You don’t have to fit someone else’s mold of what they think of what someone else is telling you what sexy is to be sexy? Yeah, you can just be yourself and take whatever it is about your personality. Like if you are a goofy person then bring that into the bedroom. If you’re more of a analytical person then bring that into the bedroom.

Amanda: Okay, how would I can do an analytical person bring that into the bedroom?  I’m really curious about that.

Dan: Well, you got to ask someone more analytical than me.  You can make sex very very much more of a mindful experience, like using more more conversational, more mind, like fantasize and bring that element in with your sexuality. Yeah, it could be all about conversation and the pleasures in the conversation about discussing erotic and sexual themes together like that.

Amanda: Okay. So how do you think this has really impacted your marriage or have you seen how it’s impacted other relationships?

Dan: It has definitely impacted my marriage tremendously and we’re still on the growth like we still my wife and I still have a long way to go. We still have much more to explore and learn and grow, but we’re finding a lot of joy in the journey and sex is no longer like this. scary taboo thing between us. It’s now something we celebrate and enjoy and look forward to and I think that’s really helped us and other people.  We have so many stories like people write in really really fun things that they like about the app. For instance, one of the things about the Intimately Us App is there’s a daily challenge. Because the philosophy behind that is you’ll strengthen your marriage far more by doing little acts of daily kindness or intimate acts that are small been like waiting and in between waiting for big grandiose acts once in a while. We encourage that and we have prompts for little simple things that couples can do every day. We get emails from couples talking about how that’s really strengthening their marriage because they get to do their daily intimacy challenge and they want to.  There’s a lot of things out there that I think are that most people wouldn’t want to Google or search for because it kind of seems scary either don’t know what they’re going to find. As we work with various experts that have a good Christian background, they are sources we can trust.  But there’s a lot of other things like from technique like how to do certain things that are really helpful. But also very respectfully written.  We have hundreds of conversation starters on all sorts of topics to really deepen that emotional intimacy that emotional connection and the relationship. We have a sex flirtation list where it’ll there’s a whole bunch of prompts for different sexual themes. It can answer like thumbs up thumbs down or maybe and you answer the questions and your spouse answer the questions and it and then after you’re both finished it tells you where you’ve both said yes, or both said no.  It gives you a safe way to explore. You know, hey, I’m kind of interested in this are you and yeah, I’m kind of interested too. It creates a foundation for a conversation about various topics.

Amanda: And just so we’re being completely transparent , is all of it free or are there paid portions? 

Dan: It’s there’s paid portions and free portions. The app is free to download and to unlock more parts of the app and to customize like the game. For instance, it’s $3.99 a month. A really small price to upgrade. 

Amanda: It is totally worth it and isn’t there a place to have conversations with your spouse as well?

Dan: Yes the conversation starters or do you mean like a chat?

Amanda: Like a chat?

Dan: Yes, and that’s a separate app. We call it “Just Between Us.”  Which I think is a clever name and that idea was born out of my wife and I like to chat back and forth. We flirt over text messaging and is so embarrassing when you accidentally send something unintended to someone else. So first of all, the app is password protected .  You set your own password or you can use your thumbprint or face ID and second of all every communication back and forth is double encrypted. So there’s absolutely no way any intermediary can read your messages and you can sync with only one other person. So there’s only one other possible person.

Amanda: That’s awesome. I think that’s been a concern that I’ve heard from people about using one of these private messaging apps is like was there someone like inbetween out on the internet reading our stuff and so they they’re reluctant.

Dan: And you can share photos and videos to and those are all double encrypted and stored only on the device. So awesome. They’re safe.

Amanda: Awesome. That’s great. Well, is there anything else you want to share with us before we end our call?

Dan: I think investing in really developing your own sexuality and bringing that into your marriage and loving your spouse through your God-given sexuality is worth the pursuit.  We talk about return on investment in business all the time. Right? Like we want return on happiness investments and I think investing in being the very best version of you and investing in your marriage yield the highest return on investments for happiness. Absolutely and definitely worth every pursuit and time and the effort you put into that. Absolutely.

Amanda: So where can people find you?

Dan: The best way is our website Get your marriage on.com. I’m also on Instagram at Get Your Marriage

Amanda: Thanks to Dan for coming on the podcast today. Have a great weekend everyone.