Now let’s get to the first part of my interview with Allan Turner, where we’re going to be talking about what women really want in bed, but make sure you tune in next week for part two, where we’re going to dive in deeper into kink and BDSM.

Amanda: Welcome to the podcast everyone. I am so excited today to have Allan Turner on the show today. He’s a friend of mine that I’ve made online in some of my favorite sex groups. He’s an LDS man, and he has some really interesting ideas. I am really excited to share with you today. I get a lot of questions about kink and BDSM. What’s allowed in the Mormon culture and what’s not. And so we’re going to talk a lot about that today and really what women want. 

So Allan, welcome to the podcast. 

Allan: Thank you very much, Amanda. I have always loved your answers and the interactions we’ve had have been fascinating. And so I appreciate the discussion. I think we have revolved around the same intellectual circle, so I appreciate the opportunity and by the way, I’m a fan of the podcast. 

Amanda: Well, thank you. Thank you. Well, why don’t you introduce yourself to everybody? So they know a little bit more. 

Allan: Oh, sure. So I’ve been married 33 years to a beautiful, wonderful woman that I adore and worship. I have four kids. I have an adult daughter who is disabled and that has always brought some challenges and good and bad in life. I am self-employed. Some of my businesses both involve things around here in the U S and outside. So that’s interesting. I’ve always been an active member of the LDS church. I was born here in Utah, actually in Salt Lake. I spent some time living outside of Utah and I’ve traveled internationally and it’s always interesting to kind of choose to be LDS in environments where it’s not so easy.

So I’ve done both. I grew up here, but I’ve lived other places for extended time periods. I’ve been active in Ward and Stake callings and stuff like that. So, this has kind of been most of my life, but I’ve also always been aware of some of the peculiarities of our faith. Even though I grew up here, it’s always been kind of funny. 

I’ve been a long time promoter of the ideas of healthy sexuality and marriage. Sometimes, probably much to the discomfort of other church members. 

Amanda: Yeah, I’m familiar with that. 

Allan: Yes. I’m sure you are. And you know, what’s interesting is I think it’s become much more acceptable. I would say even just in the last three to five years than it was 10 years ago. 

And, so in the last few years, as you said, that’s become more of an online community. So kind of by accident, I’ve found myself promoting ideas of healthy sexuality, even kink that some people consider exotic, and a moderator of Latter-Day Kink and a contributor in other multiple online kinds of intimacy, marriage and sexuality discussion groups.

It’s weird to me when people come to me for advice. I’m like, Hey, I’m just the guy who’s read a lot of books and listened to podcasts. And yet there is clearly, as your whole program and podcast demonstrates, a need for it. And so one of the reasons I, after discussing it with my wife at some length said, you know, I think as members who want to advocate for better relationships and frankly, better sex within our relationships, we can’t just keep hiding in the shadows and hoping.

Amanda: Yep. I’m all for getting it all out there and helping couples have better marriages and better sex. 

Allan: Yep. I agree. 

Amanda: Okay. So we had an interesting discussion going leading up to this about what women really want. So why don’t you share some of your ideas with us? 

Allan: All right. Sorry. I got to go to the right mode. So, all right, got it. 

Cause you’ve got to channel the right energy. 

What I would hope for your listeners to do for a minute is pause, breathe deep, and if you’re a Marvel fan, I’m going to try a little, What If demonstration. 

What if it was in the evening? And you were folding your clothes in the bedroom or taking your makeup off. You’re at the counter, you’re getting ready to take your makeup off for the evening and your husband or man in your life, whatever that might be, was to come up to you, put his hand on the back of your neck or run his fingernails up into your hair. Grab your hair gently, tip your head to the left and gently breathe on your neck. So you could feel his warm breath and whisper in your ear, “You are so beautiful” and then begin to kiss your neck softly. And then run his other hand across your neck, pulling your bra strap and shirt slightly over your shoulder and remind you that you are the most beautiful woman in the world.

Okay. So I’m hoping that idea connects with people and I hope some of the women out there notice how they’re feeling when they listen to that. 

That is a sense of erotic energy. And most of the time, the way when I dig a little bit and you talk to women about what they really want, when they start to experience those feelings of erotic energy, what I get most often is, Oh, I’m melting. 

So, it’s interesting when you dig a little bit, what that means, because as your language episode discussed …

Amanda: Credit to you for a lot of that. 

Allan: Thank you. And to Sherry Winston, some of that was from her book and some of it was combined with things that I wrote, but we don’t have good language to discuss this in normal English. Our language is further limited by the euphemisms that we use within LDS land. Right? Things we’re told we can’t say. So it’s interesting. 

For example, romance books have language about this. Language like, you’ll be sparks, energy, butterflies. I’ve heard women use right in real life, but in English we don’t have a lot of good language to further describe that chemistry. 

From my reading, the best I have is from tantra and not everybody likes those terms, but to me, those are feelings of inner erotic energy and they’re connected between people.

And you can feel those if you’re emotionally sensitive, if you’re an empathic person, and if you are open to it. If you’re not uptight and closed about sexual energy, you can become aware of those feelings, just like you can pain or grief or anything else, in my opinion and experience. You can start to feel that and be aware of that. And sometimes you can connect with that, at least I hope, in my little What If demo there.

Here’s where it gets a little interesting. There are very specific terms for that within the kink or BDSM community but we’re scared to use them.

Amanda: Yes. We addressed a lot of that in the language episode, but I think we should explore that a little bit more. Maybe we’ll be careful of language a little bit, but tell us more.

Allan: One of the interesting things, if you look at what women want there’s a spectrum, like everything else in sexuality. Right? So again, if someone feels they don’t fit, please don’t feel marginalized or something else.

A lot of women, when you talk to them and you dig a little bit about what they want sexually or sometimes referred to as ‘in the bedroom’, they generally will give you some version of, I want a man who knows what he wants, who knows how to touch me. 

Am I wrong? 

Amanda: I completely agree. I get a lot of pushback because even like with your What If demo, if she’s not in the right mindset for that, then that’s going to be a complete turn off. But what we’re working on here is, going back to the five gears of touch, if she’s in gear one and he’s in gear three, it’s his job to go down to where she is and bring her up. But what we’re hoping is that we’re getting women into more of this mindset where they can kind of stay up in that level three like he is a lot of times so it’s not such a huge jump all the time to get from zero to 60. We’re going, maybe from 40 to 60 on the arousal scale, where 60 being orgasm. That’s kind of where I live my life is in that 40 to 60. So if my husband did something like that, I’d be like, let’s go.

Allan: That’s a good example. Right? So even in my little What If demo, if I was with my wife or another theoretical partner, and I knew her well enough to read her emotions that, oh, she’s at one and I understood what she needed and it would change to, Hey, how you doing honey? What’s going on? Right? Then I’d meet her at one. 

And I don’t use my three gear skill until she’s ready. I might go over and just hug her and say, it’s okay. That’s my level two gear. Right? 

So I use my level one voice and my level two gear. I’m using my example, cause my wife lives at three or more because that’s our dynamics, but you’re right. There are certainly couples where they’re so accustomed, the kids have been dragging on them. Right. Blah-blah-blah and where a lot of us live with little kids and I’m a little more past that stage, so you’re right.

But I’m saying even in that situation, a good lover who understands that can go in and connect at where that individual’s at, frankly using the same energy. And skill set. Does that make sense? 

Amanda: I totally agree with that.

Allan: What’s interesting to me is, as I’ve studied this, I’ve often tried to explain things that occur within the kink/BDSM world through things like romance novel narratives. I have yet to see a romance narrative where the guy is poor, and unattractive. 

It is interesting that the modeling that you almost universally see and what appeals to this romance now, whether that’s Regency era, or the ubiquitous 50 shades or Sylvia Day or whatever’s more modern. It’s almost always portrayed as that and it even goes deeper. 

You think of every fairy tale, every single one. Whether it’s Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, every single one, conquered the dragon, even Shrek. 

Amanda: He has to be rich. He has to be good looking.

Allan: So to some degree, women are pre-programmed subconsciously from little girl hood that they are a princess in need of rescue. Now I apologize to any of the feminists out there are gonna be really mad about this, but again, I’m saying in general, this is fairly typical and traditional and not everybody feels this way and I get that, but there is this strong cultural narrative that plays out in the bedroom, I should say, not necessarily in real life. And maybe that’s a differentiation I should go through. 

What I’m talking about is more about what plays on the psychology of sexual place.

Not in terms of sharing the housework and not in terms of that stuff, right? This is more what plays out in the romance parts of the brain, the sexual parts of the brain. 

It’s a little deeper psychology, not in terms of the partner that helps me manage the kids. Right? Those are almost separate spheres, separate ways of operating.

Even in my case, the part of me that manages my disabled daughter is not the same part of me that engages with my wife romantically. Almost not the same guy. Almost. 

Amanda: I can see that. 

Allan: Because you’re over here solving problems, then you almost have to say, okay, this is now bedroom time and you almost have to flip the switch. And I think that is hard. I think that’s hard for some men and I assume it is for women. 

Amanda: We talk about with women, getting out of caretaker mode, where you’re taking care of kids all day, and then you feel like you have to take care of your husband. Like really flipping that switch.

Allan: You don’t want to caretake the husband.

Amanda: NO!

And biologically speaking, we’re not supposed to be attracted to people that we take care of so it makes a lot of sense. So when we can get out of the mindset of, Oh, okay, now I have to take care of his needs and go to like, now my needs are going to be taken care of. I mean, that’s my personal philosophy and that is why God created it, so that women take a lot longer to orgasm because it’s our time to sit back, relax and be taken care of. We’re just not good receivers. We’re usually not good receivers of that. And so when we can start getting into this narrative, then I think we can change the way that we’re thinking about things so that we can be better receivers.

Allan: I think that’s true. And I hate to say this and I don’t mean to make any men out there feel bad, but there is no male trading for giving. Now men want to be successful. I literally think most men want to be the prince charming. They want to be the knight that saves you. The problem is the vast majority of them have not done the amount of study and don’t anatomically understand how to be a confident man. 

Amanda: Well, and when the woman doesn’t even take the time to understand her body and what she wants, how the heck is he supposed to know?

Allan: Well, yeah. Let me get to one point and then we can talk about that. 

So you get the romance novels and fairytales stuff. The confident man who knows what to do, who is successful, who projects that air of confidence in king terms that is called a dom. He is literally the responsible caretaker of whomever he’s taking care of, which in kink terms is called the sub or submissive. 

Now that doesn’t mean she submits to him in his life. But again, that’s not the part we’re talking about. If you will, in the bedroom, although I’m a big believer in play outside the bedroom, but in the sexual realm, he supposed to now be the protector and provider. He’s supposed to be the initiator, the initiating energy, right through your energy episode, same thing. He’s now responsible for her pleasure and comfort and safety. That’s what the dominant is. He’s the responsible party when that bedroom closes and locks and the kids are now out there and it’s now transformed into a magical fairy land world where the prince charming and the princess exist.

Okay. Now I become prince charming and he is perfect. He is confident. He knows how to touch her, whether that’s her ankle or her wrist or her breast or whatever it is that she likes. But to get to that point, guess what? There’s a whole negotiation that has to take place. Consent boundaries, all this stuff, and we don’t even talk about that.

Amanda: No! We were just talking about this in my group today. That the kink and BDSM community is so good at that part. And that is one part we need to take, even if you’re not into kink and BDSM, we need to take more of that into our know our sexual relationships. Like that consent piece. Being vocal about what you want, if things aren’t working for you stopping it, instead of just going along with it, because you’re worried about how the other person is feeling or don’t want to upset them. That’s the part that they’re really, really good at that we need to definitely adopt into. 

Allan: They are. There’s a couple of typical models.

So let me explain. So the most common model, they call it the stoplight model, easy to understand. So obviously green means go. But, and so it’s not just checking if it’s wrong. It’s also, Hey, where you at? On green? Let’s go. I’m green. Let’s go. Right. Accelerate, accelerate. Accelerate on. Hey, how you doing? Oh, I feel a little yellow. Let’s back off. Right? So it’s not just, no, it’s where you at on that scale. 

And the other rule is if you get to red, there are zero complaints, recriminations or accusations. That’s called ethical kink practice. So it’s an absolute rule that you don’t complain.

A reason is you can have two theoretically random people coming together for a scene. It may not be sexual by the way. Not all kink involves sex at all. But it could, depending on what you’ve agreed to, they have to have a common set of language to navigate what they’re going to do.

And what the boundaries are. There’s also one that I actually learned in a class from a professional in Salt Lake. I’m pretty sure we were the only married people with garments in the class and got some looks. So that was funny. Maybe we should have worn something different under our clothes. This is kind of a good way. 

So anyway, we walked into the class and it was pretty interesting, but she actually showed a technique where, because she does a lot of restraint, right. She’s a professional domme. And so she would actually fully restrain men and that was kind of her thing. And I was like, oh, interesting. She would actually hold their hand and squeeze once. And if you got a single squeeze back, because you’re restrained and gagged, right? That was, I’m okay. 

And the nice thing about this in a role-player bedroom situation, particularly for a woman who doesn’t want to be verbal or talk or whatever, now it’s just touch. I’m just touching you. Are you okay? Right. And if you’re yellow it’s two. And if you’re in trouble, it’s the MMA tap out.

I thought that was very interesting. The other thing in that class, she was showing restraints. So she was showed us a leg restraint. I happen to be sitting in front with actually some nice boots and jeans on, and she looked at my wife and said, may I restrain him? She didn’t ask me, she asked my wife and my wife was like, Yeah. My wife’s quite like shy and quite submissive, honestly, in terms of kink play. And then she looked at me and I’m like, Oh yeah. And so I sat for like half the class leg restraints and couldn’t move.

Amanda: That’s awesome. That’s hilarious. Well, I think we need to do a better job of that. Whether we’re doing kink or not is more of that consent, constantly checking where your partner is…

Allan: And you have the right to change. That’s the big deal because I think particularly, you change. Just because we intend to do this, this, and this, and end in again, take your pick whatever sex act, you have the right to change your mind. 

Amanda: Consent can be withdrawn at any time. Absolutely. Yeah. 

Allan: And the line can be shifted. It might be, Oh, well, I was just gonna caress you this way and do this to you and we were good. And it’s like, Oh, now I’d like to finish in this way. Like that can change. Right. I’ve been practicing this for a while. My wife and I are in a very good place in that regard, but at any given time, we still practice consent even during lovemaking. Actively consent. So I agree with you like that idea of active consent, and the other one is affirmative consent. I think that’s one that ought to be practiced in marriage.

Like before you initiate and start something, you get a clear, Yes, I want to do this. 

Amanda: It’s not just like, Oh, okay. It’s a yes, let’s do this. It’s an enthusiastic yes.

Allen: That’s correct. I think particularly if you’re doing something unusual, not an I guess.

I realize that’s problematic, but if you’re getting those less than enthusiastic responses, I think that that to me says there’s a problem that that couple should work through. Whether that’s with a therapist, if it’s that bad, or with a coach like yourself, or just between themselves or whatever. That means there’s a dynamic there that’s less than healthy if there’s not enthusiastic consent.

So, yeah. Consent to me is huge. 

And the other one is boundaries. Just because you set a boundary this day or this month or this year, doesn’t mean it doesn’t change. And whether that’s how you interact together, how you interact with other people.

I mean, some people are uncomfortable just talking to somebody else, others aren’t like that. 

Amanda: It’s totally different for every couple too.

Allen:  It is. And it will change. 

Amanda: All right my friends, I hope you found that discussion. Fascinating. Stay tuned for part two next week, where we’re going to dive even deeper into this topic as well as kink and BDSM.

We’ll see you next time.