Deanna Bryant
Welcome to Episode 43, which is my interview with Lee Jagger about rocking the bedroom. Yep, that’s what I said rock the bedroom. You may think Deanna now rocking the bedroom is the last thing on my mind at this point in my life. Ladies, it shouldn’t be the last thing on your mind. A healthy and satisfying sex life is important to every thriving marriage is the physical component to rich intimacy. So if you think fun and exciting sex is a thing of the past like I have. Buckle up ladies for an information pack conversation with Lee Jagger. So who is this Lee Jagger and how can she helped me? Well, Lee is the CEO and founder of Rock the Bedroom, the only sex education community of its kind. Lee is a sex expert and mindful intimacy coach. She helps women be more confident, creative and playful in the bedroom, specializing in erotic massage. She makes it easy for women to embrace their power and take charge between the sheets. Lee has taught in person and in online workshops internationally, and help women move from a stale, same old sex routine to the next level of passionate playtime. It’s her mission, to normalize conversations around sexuality and make obligatory sex to become a thing of the past.
Welcome to the show.
Lee
I appreciate that introduction. I’m honored to be on the show because I love what you represent. And you really foster connection and cultivating intimacy within a marriage. And that is really all about what I do. So I’m happy to be a part of this party.
Deanna Bryant
So glad you are. I just appreciate you taking the time. I really do. I can’t think of a better person, a woman in midlife to tell other women in midlife what they can do to shake things up a bit. You get us? Yes, I do. I feel Yeah. So I have to ask this because I’m very curious. What was the impetus for you becoming a sex therapists are not therapists, but a sex expert and a specialist for women?
Lee
Is that is a fabulous question. It’s a fun story to tell actually. And it took me years to be able to tell this. So several years ago, and I can’t believe that I’m actually in the position I’m in right now as a sex expert and erotic massage coach because I knew nothing. bedroom, I was very passive. I was a sexual wallflower, if you may, and I did not know how to touch a penis. I just did not have that skill set. But several years ago, I was completely broke. 10 year old son living in a hoarders house just came from being homeless actually. So like really bottom of the barrel moment of my life. And, and I put an ad on Craigslist for Swedish massage, because I knew I had a little bit of skill set with that bare minimum I could probably scrape by and I thought, oh, maybe I could do that. And this woman who answered the ad, she said I actually bought a an office and I let go a bunch of girls who didn’t actually know how to do a massage. But you look like you know what you’re doing? Have you ever thought of an erotic massage job? And I’m I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn’t know that world at all. And I said at the happy ending? And she said yes. And I said no. Yeah, no, no, thank you. That is so not my dealio other than the fact that I didn’t know how to do an erotic massage, but I also didn’t want to deal with the clientele who I thought I’d have to deal with in that profession. And but she mentioned the money and I thought maybe I need to listen. So I kept her on the line and answer lots of questions and she said hey, you know, you could do a forehand where you’re on one side of the table. Seasoned pros on the other side of The table and just follow along and dip your toes in the water. And I was desperate at the time, I was literally hungry. And so I thought, you know, if I can just get through this for just a couple of weeks, just a couple of weeks grin and bear it just No, you do anything for your kids, right. And so I jumped in. And I realized very quickly that it was way more than what what I thought it was, it was it went much deeper. My second client actually got off the table unannounced and said, okay, you get on the table, I’m gonna massage you now. And I freaked out and I got him back on the table. But I realized, Wow, he don’t even know your boundaries, you didn’t set your boundaries, you’re the ones supposed to be in the control in controlling this bed in this room, I was not in the bedroom, I was in an office. And, and like you don’t know how to articulate or enforce your boundaries, there’s a lot about yourself, you don’t even know. And that’s probably why you don’t know anything in the bedroom either. And so it was big girl panty time for me. And six years later, I ended up feeling very much in control around men in an intimate situation. And so I think it was like a year or no, it was only a few months in, I realized right in the middle of massaging one of my favorite clients, I realized how far I had come in my own personal life, having the skill sets, and that I enjoyed sex way more, I was actually initiating sex, I was enthusiastic about sex. I liked it. And it completely changed my enjoyment factor. And I thought, ah, gosh, I wish I knew this. I’m in my 50s now, but back then I was in my 40s I wish I had known that 20 years ago, that would have completely changed my world and all my relationships. And I thought I can’t be the only one, I can’t be the only one who doesn’t know, who doesn’t have that skill set who just is floundering around in the bedroom and all I knew what to do back then in my 20s is that just stick it in. And then and then you know, that becomes boring and and very obligatory after a while it’s like whoa, just stick it in is not my favorite part of sex. So I thought, you know, if, if I had someone like me to take me under her wing and teach me what I now know, Wow, my relationships would have been way better. My relationship with men in general would have been way better. So that’s how I came to, to learn the skills that I know and to want to actually pass these skills along. Because it’s turns out I am not the only one.
Deanna Bryant
Oh, no, you are not the only one. And I think, you know, no matter where life and the experiences we end up having as a result of this circumstances can really change the trajectory of our lives. And also those experiences can help us change patterns. And then I know you feel this way because I feel this way. I went in to help women with their midlife marriage because what I had gone through what I experienced, and I hear you saying the same thing. I was like you didn’t know about sex, didn’t know how to touch a penis, had no idea all. Just do the deal. And we’re done. And I think that’s why so many women are miserable in their sex lives.
Lee
Absolutely, absolutely. There’s a lot of women suffering in silence. And, they don’t really know any different. There’s no, there’s no high school or college classes that are about, how to enjoy sex, how to touch your man one on one. It doesn’t exist. And it’s so taboo in this culture that we just we don’t talk about any of those concerns. We just assumed that’s just how it is. You know, I’ve been married 20 years, you know, you know how it is, you know, there’s something going along Snapchat, and it was tell me you’re not having sex without having the word without saying the words of not having sex. And what was going around? Were people holding up their hand and showing their wedding band on their wedding ring finger. Right? and so it’s just accepted. Well, yeah, of course, you know, and it’s very common, but it’s not normal.
Deanna Bryant
Wow, you’re giving a lot of hope there. It’s not necessary means there’s something else that can happen if we know the skills and take action. You say they’re not difficult skills either. Well, girl, I’d really like to hear them. I cannot wait to hear them. I need a boost here. Lee, having you on the show is as much for me is every other woman that listens. So I’m a student today, a student. When I went to your website, rock the bedroom, you have a video on there that I laughed when you said, I loved to have mediocre sex, long pause, said no one ever. It made me think who likes cake without sugar in it? So right? Sex is mediocre? Why would anyone have sex with their partner? So what do you define as mediocre sex?
Lee
That’s a great question. I think mediocre sex is a lack of passion. It’s just it’s rote. You know, it’s in a rut, it’s doing the same thing over and over again. It’s racing towards the finish line of an orgasm, because that is pretty well, the only enjoyable thing about sex is well, you’re trying to connect with your with your husband, but it’s not really an intimate connection. It’s not a heartfelt, deep connection. It leaves you wanting. It’s something I got to check off my my calendar or you know. It’s oh, you know, I haven’t had sex with him in a couple weeks. He’s getting onry I gotta, I gotta do this, or, you know, I’m gonna pay because he’s gonna be grumpy. That’s, mediocre sex. And no one wants that. A lot of people are having it.
Deanna Bryant
Well, you know what you said? You said that everybody is going for the finish line. But how many of us have had an orgasm but the sex has not been all that great?
Lee
I mean, absolutely. It’s almost like the orgasm isn’t even worse, what we have to do to get there? You know, so, yeah, I think it should, like people talk about happy endings. And to me is to be happy throughout, throughout, everything should be a moment of bliss, like, every moment should be an eternity of bliss, where there isn’t, doesn’t even need to be a finish line of an orgasm, because what is happening is so darn good. That whether you have an orgasm or not, it doesn’t matter. And you don’t always have an orgasm, right? There’s lots of factors that go into whether you have one or not. And it may have nothing to do with your partner, could it just be stress at work or you’re extra tired or hormone fluctuations or whatever. So, to not be focused on the big O, but to be focused on connection and intimacy? That’s the key. That’s the key.
Deanna Bryant
It’s the foundation isn’t it?
Lee
It’s the foundation to a happy marriage. It’s, not a happy marriage without intimacy. I agree. Roommates at that point.
Deanna Bryant
And that leads me to the question, you say, divorce starts between the sheet and ends between the lawyers. So, what do you mean, by that?
Lee
I find that what’s going on in the bedroom is often indicative of what’s going on in the rest of the marriage. You know, if you’re not talking in the bedroom, you’re probably not talking about other things in in the relationship as well. And the bedroom is really difficult place to talk. It’s a very silent place. It’s a very just physical and, you know, you love your guys, so you don’t want to bring up that you know that for the last 10 years, you’ve been doing this, and I actually don’t like it like. Yeah, it’s really hard to to have those really tough conversations. And, most conversations in the bedroom are difficult. They’re very vulnerable and potentially volatile. If you get into the blame game and shaming your partner. So, expecting your partner to, to do it for you to read your mind, you know? What happens in the bedroom can really exacerbate what happens in the rest of the relationship too, so I find that if you can, if a couple can really dial in their intimate time. I call that play time. Juicy time, then you can handle what happens out in the world, you can handle the craziness at work, you can handle the craziness of COVID when you like if what’s going on in the bedroom. The bedroom is, is a paradise, your home isn’t a waste, then oh boy, the rest of your your relationship really, it just ripples out. And when you have a really great sex life, or you have a really great conversation in the kitchen, in the living room, you have fun time, like, everything is lighter. Everything is lighter. It’s like a reset button when the sex is good when the intimate time is really meaningful. Yeah, so when I when I hear about couples who are starting to have problems in the bedroom, oh boy, like I’m just watching the next 10 years of their life unfold and it’s just a slow march towards divorce. It’s inevitable or it just really long, unhappy marriage.
Deanna Bryant
I’ve noticed that for the couples I know, especially the the female perspective, the last years of their marriage are sexless. I’ve also literally heard this. Well, I spent a lot of money this month. So I guess I’m going to need to have sex. And I’m thinking that sheer prostitution there.
Lee
Right, exactly. It becomes a tit for tat. You know, it’s, it’s an exchange. It’s a business dealing. And that’s mediocre sex. That’s not cool. It can just be so much more fulfilling than that. And, and women, it’s interesting, because there are a lot of women, like I was, and yet I was not looking to better my sex life. I thought that I was. For a while there, I thought I was gay. Like, maybe I’m not into guys, you know, because that it just died. But it wasn’t that. Maybe I was sexually abused as a child. It wasn’t that you know I went to all sorts of therapy. Maybe I’m asexual, like, maybe there’s, I mean, I’m just broken. Or maybe you know, that’s just what happens in a long term relationship. That’s just what happens. There’s nothing to be fixed. I was not looking for a person like me to fix me. And I find a lot of women until they know what is possible, they’re not looking to fix their sex life, because they hate their sex. Like, why would they want to have more sex, they just don’t realize that they could get to a place where they’re craving that form of intimacy with their husbands. They don’t realize that’s possible, you know. So, yeah, you can spend a lot of money this month, and you can still want to have sex with your husband.
Deanna Bryant
But you know, what you said there, I think, is almost a common perception of what happens to women after they’ve been married a long time. They stop wanting to have sex. They no longer you know, try anything sexy in the bedroom like they did at the beginning. And it’s the women stopped wanting to have sex and the men do. And so yeah, the society says that’s just normal. I’ve heard it, I’ve seen it, and it’s not normal.
Lee
It is not normal. No. And, and what you said is true, like, generally speaking, unless there’s sexual abuse with a guy when he was young as a kid or something. But generally speaking, yes, men do crave sex a lot more than women. It’s like water to them. Sex is the way for them to connect with their wife. That’s their favorite way to connect. And I agree, show her that he loves her. That is his way of saying, I’m going to make you feel good. I’m going to do something for you. This is how they give. They love to reciprocate. They love to. They love to make us feel great. That’s just the point of pride. It’s an ego thing for them. Right? For women, we need to feel connected, we need to feel loved, and then we want to have sex. Men and women are a little bit different in how they treat sex. So, the guys are going to continue to be craving it. They need it like water. They need it all the time. And they are, God love them. God love the guys, they have the greatest of intentions. But sometimes they’re doing things in the bedroom, that make us feel disempowered, and they don’t realize that they’re doing them. But nonetheless, women are just different. And so we think about sex very differently. And if we go down the road of obligatory sex, then it ends up being like, you know, she ends up feeling used. She distances herself from him, she doesn’t give areally deep smooch one day, because he’s gonna think that means sex.
Deanna Bryant
I’ve heard women will say that, if I touch him, if I kiss him, he’s gonna think I want to have sex, so I just don’t touch him or kissing.
Lee
Exactly. And so there needs to be an opening of a conversation there to create a container of, Okay, I just want to make out for 10 minutes. That’s all I want to do. So, the whole reason why I teach erotic massage is because it teaches women to put on their big girl panties, to step into their power, to have the confidence to have a conversation that is honest, real, and compassionate and kind towards her husband, and still giving him what he wants, but her not having to do anything she doesn’t want. That’s the key. Women only don’t like sex because they’re having to do stuff they don’t want. They don’t want whatever’s happening in the bedroom. So let’s change what’s happening in the bedroom and make a woman empowered. She owns it, like Beyonce stepping under stage, like, I’m gonna rock your world, and I’m gonna have more fun doing it than even you receiving it.
Deanna Bryant
I love that, you know, you’re talking about these conversations. And sometimes I find that women know what they don’t like, but they don’t know what they do like in the bedroom. So you you help with confidence. That was one of the things that that you tell women, you can help them to get their confidence back. So my question is, what affects our confidence that we cannot be creative and be playful?
Lee
Well, one thing is sort of like, imagine this. Someone says, okay, so get up on that stage in front of this audience. And tell us some jokes that are funny, make us laugh. If you have no jokes, that’s a scary place to be, that’s a very vulnerable play. You don’t want to get on that stage and have people look at you and go, really, that’s all you got. So you get to have something in your pocket. Right? So women don’t feel confident performing, I guess I want to say that I don’t really like that word, performing. But stepping up to the plate, getting into the driver’s seat in the bedroom, because she doesn’t really have those skills. Like she does have those skills in her back pocket. We’re just not taught them like, I had this one client, Heather. She was married for 30 years. And she admitted to me this reason why she sought me out. She said, Lee, I have never touched my husband’s penis with my hands. Like, I’ve never touched him down there. We’ve had sex. Yes, he’s put it inside me, but I have not actually touched it. And, through the course of of working with me, she ended up having a conversation with her husband, where he came out said yeah, like that’s hurt me all these years. I have not felt loved, like I have not felt desired because of that. Mother Teresa has this awesome quote. You know, she dealt with people in the deepest of poverty. And she said, the most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unwanted. Wow. And I really resonate with that. And a lot of my clients resonate with that because men feel unwanted and very lonely in the bedroom. Because women just aren’t paying attention to that area. And men highly identify with their genitals like you reject his penis, you reject him. You don’t mean to, but that’s how he takes it. And so just having some skills like Instead of just plain old, up and down, which is a little boring and awkward, there’s never enough lube. So, you know, having a few more skills in your back pocket to make him squirm under your touch, and look at you, like you are God’s gift to man, and make him want to swim oceans for you, you know, without those skills, what are we gonna do? You give a woman those skills and confidence is a natural byproduct of that. So I think women just don’t feel confident in the bedroom because they just don’t have the tools.
Deanna Bryant
I agree. Well, you know, I get this question a lot, because I work with women on marriage. And the question always is, why is it my job to change things in my marriage? So you know, that’s going to come up, somebody is going to listen and say, why is it my job to rock the bedroom? What do I get out of it? So what would you say, is the benefit of rocking the bedroom?
Lee
I would say I would agree with you, it is not your job to rock his world. It’s your job to rock your own world. And, and so I guess at face value, it’s like, okay, so the woman is giving an erotic massage, the man is the receiver, he’s the benefit, or he’s the one in bliss. Not such a great deal for the woman. But that’s just face value. What actually happens is, when a woman learns how to touch a man, in ways that feel good to him, she will inevitably be opening up conversations in the bedroom, because she needs to get his feedback. You know, do you like this? Do you like that faster, slower, harder, lighter? It just naturally opens up conversation. So, she will feel a lot more in control in the bedroom when she is setting that stage. And that does a lot for her confidence as I just as I mentioned. But also it’s like it’s just putting a woman in the driver’s seat, as opposed to just going along with in the backseat of this scenario. She’s driving the bus. And she’s taking him to yes to bliss Ville. But she gets to have a control over how that happens. And, and it’s not so much her doing it for him. Although that is definitely a natural byproduct, he’s going to definitely benefit from that arrangement. But it feels really good to care for your man on that level and have the skill set to walk in and go, Oh, baby, you just lay there, I’m gonna take care of you. And you know exactly what to do. You know, like when you give someone a gift, I do this every Christmas where I’ll pick a family in need. They are unaware of this. And I put together huge baskets of goodies for them.And I deliver it on on a just before Christmas or Christmas Day, depending on the situation. And they don’t know what’s coming. And the joy I get from that is way more than the joy that they get from receiving that like you would think wow, yeah, they, they were the recipient of this very generous gift. So they would be benefiting more out of that situation. But know, the giver actually gets so much out of that. And when a woman is treating her man like a king, oh my goodness, like it’s a whole different level of care. It’s a whole different level of care that you’re giving your guy. And when the man is treated like a king, he will want to reciprocate and make you feel like the queen. Guys are wired that way. They will want to reciprocate, they feel weird not reciprocating. So it just opens up things in the bedroom, someone’s got to go first. And if the woman learns how to actually enjoy it, and he’ll be able to feel that that’s going to change the chemistry within the bedroom. It’s not going to feel like she’s putting out. It’s just going to change the whole ballpark. You know, when intimacy enters the bedroom and playfulness enters the bedroom. Creativity. And when you have dozens and dozens and dozens of, of, oh my god moments, your partner, wow, is he ever going to be grateful. And his attitude towards you is going to be different in the bedroom and out of the bedroom. So a woman is helping herself by, it’s like, for example, self improvement, personal development, that is our way of showing up as the best version of ourselves. When we show up in any relationship as the best version of ourselves, that changes how the relationship works. It does everything, if you show up as the worst version of yourself, then that person is going to respond to you very differently. So so by a woman working on her own side of the bed, and figuring out things for herself, and empower herself in the bedroom, that will affect what the bedroom looks like, altogether.
Deanna Bryant
I like that, because I say that, I say that for my own business. Women can change the trajectory of things, we are powerful, we are influencers. And I think we can really get things rolling in our relationships. I often say yes, it does take two to tango, but one has to initiate the dance. And it’s just a way to look at your part and how you can begin to change even though I know some people feel like it’s not my job. No, it is your job if you’re in a healthy relationship to bring your best self into the relationship into the bedroom. Instead of watching the fan go around.
Lee
Exactly. Exactly. You just had a podcast about Are you an influencer or a director? This is such a juicy and very fun way to be an influencer in your relationship. Because Oh man, in the throes of what you’re about to do for your guy, he will agree to the world. And it’s not a manipulation thing. It’s, it’s, you know, like, he is going to you’re going to influence whatever it is you want to influence. You have all the power at that moment. When he is underneath your magic hands, you run the world at that moment.
Make sure you tune in next week for Part 2 of my interview with Lee.