 Hi, everyone. Welcome back to our podcast from the Karma Sutra to 2020, where we look at your questions, your concerns, even your worries around all things to do with sex and sexual reality. As always, we have with us Dr. Anritha Madan Behel. Anritha is a psychosexual therapist and she brings these psychological perspectives to the advice that the Karma Sutra has to give. Welcome, Anritha. Thank you, Seema. And welcome to our podcast this week. So, Anritha, today I have a question which made sound familiar, but in actual fact, it's from the other side of the court. And I'm going to tell you exactly what the question is, and you'll know what I mean. So, it says, could you teach me a few tricks to be more focused during sex? My mind keeps wondering, no matter how much passion there is or how much excitement there is in the moment, my mind keeps wondering, which makes it very difficult to hold the erection. That's an interesting question. And what is relevant question? Because, and I'm surprised that nobody's sent this question before, because everybody struggles, we can be distracted. You know, it's just so normal that I don't think, I don't think actually, and I can maybe take a bet on it that we'll find a single person who would say that, you know, they've had sex, but at some point not got distracted or thought about the list they have made or something or, you know, thought about what they're going to do next and when this will finish and will somebody come in, like everybody, I'm sure, has felt distracted while having sex. You know, the women always say, because of course with women, you can't actually tell, but I've had so many women say to me that they actually, during the, during the four play, they're very into it. And when it comes to penetration, most of them are just kind of lying back for most of the time. And I've had women say, oh, you know, I hear the train go past or the tube go past and it's like, oh, today it's about five minutes late. What happened? It's like all these things going through your head or you're making a list for your groceries tomorrow. And I know it doesn't sound very nice because at the end of the day, you're enjoying it anyway. But as we've said before, there are different ways to enjoy sex. It doesn't always have to be about clawing fashion. You can just be really fulfilled and happy with it as well. But I guess when a man loses his concentration on things, it can happen that they lose their erection. Maybe it's more obvious. So let's see what advice we can give today. Yeah. So one of the things that I want to clarify with everybody and because this man said I lose my erection, there is a, there is a problem that obviously exists called erectile dysfunction, which we have done a video about and we've spoken about it, everything, which, you know, in some ways, it's an issue that people can't hold an erection or can't get an erection and, and, and we, it's related to anxiety or medical conditions and everything. And, you know, I don't want to spend the time talking about this. But then, you know, we can think about it a very normal perspective where you are having sex and something happens and you get distracted and the erection goes right or the arousal goes in the woman. So it's basically saying that you got distracted and the arousal went. So what I just want to say there is that just because you lose an erection because you got distracted doesn't mean you have an erectile dysfunction. So we're just differentiating between a condition and something that happens. And this happens often enough to everyone where, you know, you will land up losing an erection. And, you know, and I'm sure this has happened like everybody will relate to it that you're having sex. I'm suddenly the man with you just loses it or becomes softer a little bit. And you're just like in your head, you think, Oh, what just happened and what changed? I think the problem that happens a lot of times is the partner receives it as are they not into it? Are they not into me? Are they not into it? Am I not attracted enough? Am I not good enough? And am I like, and then it becomes such a big thing and such a relational thing, rather than oh, he got or she got distracted and the arousal went. And what we just need to do is focus back and get our attention back into the act and go forward. But I think people start worrying that, you know, I'm not attractive enough. Something's wrong. They don't like me. They've stopped liking me. This relationship is over. I'm not good enough. And that I just think becomes problematic. You're so right. You know, most partners will take that as a very personal thing. It's like, Oh, my God, he lost his erection. It must be me. Yeah. And it's got nothing to do with the fact that they don't love you or that the relationship is suffering. It could be that the person has a really low attention span, or they're anxious about something. And it could happen. So I guess maybe that's point number one, to yeah, for both people, for both partners to understand that this can happen. And the first thing that you do is you don't start to have a fight about the fact this was about me or go into, you know, like, Oh, my God, our relationship is coming to an end. Yeah. And I, and I think so, so if I had to think about what people can do, you know, in a lot of times, one is to really, you know, think about a time, which is, you know, it would be the learn to relax. Now, this is easier done. And, you know, and I'll give some examples. When we mean relaxation, like if you are going to choose to have sex in the 15 minutes before you need to go and get the kids ready or take a school bus or take a bus, you're getting late for a meeting and you have to get somewhere or you're late for a dinner or something like that. Or you need to sleep at a certain time because something's going to happen. Then it's very hard to say, Oh, I'm going to be all there in this act, because in your head, you are watching the clock and you're thinking, when will the 15 minutes have I run out of time? So if this is something that is a problem, then think about a time, get relaxed, get into the mood, have some, you know, precursor it might be spending time with each other, knowing that, you know, finish dinner early if you have a babysitter and you have to take care, like, make sure that you're like leaving dinner early so that that babysitter's covering you for an hour rather than thinking, Oh, my God, not to go home after release the babysitter, then the baby might, you know, the kid might get up or something like that. So all those things create the right environment. If you are going to be rushed, if the environment is not right, if, you know, for example, if you're scared, you're deciding to have sex in the morning and you know, the children are going to wake up and the first thing they do is walk into your room. You're obviously going to be distracted because half your mind is in listening for footsteps. And if somebody's going to enter, right, it's not like thing. And so all of these things are normal. So it's about mitigating the practicalities in some ways and making sure that the practicalities are right. Like say these issues happening again and again, look at the environment, look at what's happening. Are you not relaxed is where you're trying to have sex, you know, an appropriate place? Are you nervous about somebody coming in? What's happening? So I would say the first two practical suggestions are this like think about the environment and try and learn to relax into having sex. I think like you said, it's more difficult than one imagines because like when I do yoga and we start early in the morning and you know, our teacher will always start off by saying, okay, now put aside the entire day, forget about what you're going to do or what the day holds for you. Right now, you're present over here. Well, I'll tell you what, in those first five minutes where we just do breathing and thinking of everything. I'm literally thinking of everything no matter how hard and then gradually, slowly, I come to what I'm doing. And I think even if you meditate or whatever, there's always a distraction there. You will lose focus every now and then in the middle. I don't think it's unusual. And I read somewhere, I think this is so important because it says give your self permission to be distracted. I think we put so much pressure on sex and how perfect sex should be and how if people like go one, you know, one centimeter offline, that means we're not good lovers or we're not in a relationship or we're not good partners or whatever, whatever. Whereas I don't think there is any act in this world where we don't get distracted. Meditation, exercising, you know, cooking, working, everything our mind wanders. So allowing ourselves to say and that's another tip to think about it is if you allow yourself to say it's normal for me to get distracted and wonder, then you're, you know, it's much easier to say, I'm getting I'm losing focus or I'm getting distracted, come back to the foreplay. And foreplay is really a great way because when you start focusing on the sensation or the pleasure or you start focusing on saying that touch feels good or now I can feel that pleasure or that feeling is good or something suddenly you stop thinking about the list that you have to do, right? You're into the pleasure then. So the best way is to actually be gentle with yourself rather than being harsh for yourself and saying, okay, this is normal. But now that I'm getting distracted, what should I do? And the best way to focus is to focus on the sensation and pleasure, focus on your body, focus on your partner's body. So when when there is contact and focus, you stop thinking about the other things you become more present in the moment. So you know, the ancient text, particularly the ancient Chinese texts, they actually describe this at more in more detail. But all the ancient erotic texts talk about the reverse lovemaking position where you actually insert the penis into the vagina or you know, if it's a male to male relationship, then you insert the penis into the anus of the vagina, wherever you're putting it with the help of a lot of lube and very expertly with your fingers, but when the penis is limp. So you actually insert it limp, and then you start the foreplay. So you start the kissing at that point and so on. And you allow it to become harder inside. And me, that's fascinating, because I feel like there's a charge that you're giving, you know, you're giving something which is, say, unactivated or electric, you know, there's no electric charges. Suddenly, you put it into the socket and then you give it charge like the foreplay is the charge in some way. The foreplay becomes the charge. So there was, you know, and maybe this particular position was, I know that one of the Chinese texts say that it's for variety, but I imagine that most of the time it was for people who maybe had weaker erections. So rather than saying putting the pressure on them to say, I have got to wait for this long before I managed to become erect enough and will I last long enough and you know, so on and so forth. So I think this was for people to kind of get the anxiety down in case they have an issue. But also, I just love the fact that again, I'm going to reiterate that the Kamsutra always says that you must bring a woman twice to orgasm before you penetrate her. And that just generally means that, you know, you don't feel like you're letting your partner down because you've already satisfied her to this point. You can then make it as short or long for yourself as you need to. And I'm not saying that this is a great trick to bring your erection back. I'm just saying that in case you lose it sometimes, which it happens, whatever that the reason might be, it is a way of making sure that there isn't disappointment, guilt, anxiety, self-castigation, you know, self blame, all of that because that makes the next time more difficult because you're going into the next time thinking, damn, that happened last time. Shit, whatever happens again. And you make such an important point because that is the key to an erectile dysfunction. It's mostly previous experiences that have gone wrong and, you know, and people don't realize like a lot of time, heavy drinking, like we don't associate that. But when you've had excessive alcohol that leads to lack of erection, like erections are difficult when you have too much alcohol. And so you might have had an incident where you're too drunk, the erection doesn't happen. You're unable to have an erection. But now the next time you're going in with your partner, you're thinking, shit, the last time the erection didn't happen. Not saying, oh, I was drunk and it was just a, it happens, it's okay. And then you adjust what we call spectatory, just looking down and thinking, is it happening now? Is it getting erect? Has it been a little bit more? And when you're doing that, you're not being present. You're not really enjoying it. You are just worrying and looking upon it rather than actually enjoying it. So you're absolutely right in that way that I think the next time's become difficult. But if we are gentle once again with ourselves saying it's okay, it happens to everyone, it's less likely to impact long term the issue. And it's funny, it's something that we say each time sex is not an exam. Nobody's marking you. You're not getting marks out of 100 percent. Okay, today you got 20, today you got 85 percent. It's not an exam. It's supposed to be joyous. Each time you have sex is going to be different. And if it is different each time you're doing the right thing. It's not that, oh my God, last time it went like this, but this time it's going in a different way. There are so many nerve endings in your sexual organs. Each nerve ending doesn't have the same sensation. Each one has a different sensation. Think about it. Every nerve is not a clone of the other nerve. So just imagine how many sensations are waiting to happen. Let sex be different every time. And one of the things that this gentleman has written, which I want to also reiterate, is that he says even if it's a really passionate affair, it still happens. And I think I want to say that you know, passion is also not a magic pill. We really have this, again, people have this thing about there is so much chemistry between this person and me, and therefore there's a lot of passion and when we have sex it's going to be mind blowing. Chemistry is not, I mean, just because there isn't that, oh my god, I saw this person and immediately I have a hard on. That is not what counts as chemistry. Chemistry can be with somebody that you've been with for many, many years. It doesn't mean that there will be instant arousal. Maybe you have to work at it. But passion is not a never ending thing. Passion comes in ways. So it goes up, it comes down. If you're going to measure your erection by your passion, understand it will go up and down. And actually from when what you were saying, what I was thinking is that actually arousal or passion is so related to how into you are. It's got nothing to do with your partner. So if you're into having sex today, like if you're feeling aroused, if you're feeling excited, if you're feeling like, oh, I feel like having sex, you are into the foreplay, you are into the pleasure, you are feeling aroused, your body is connected, you are into the act in some ways. Whereas if you're having sex on a day saying, oh, you know, it's a Friday and he likes having sex on a Friday or she likes having sex on a Friday and I'll need to have sex. Everybody has seen the difference in those two scenarios when you're doing it, because, you know, it's just you have to do it or you should be doing it or the other person wants to do it. Or, you know, it's like, okay, let's have sex like today versus the day you really want to have sex. The day you really want to have that sexual experience is different, you know, it's the orgasm is better, the sex is better than everything. And we somehow put it on the other person, whereas it's got so much to do with our mood and where we are. And you're more likely to be the day you're not into sex, you are going to be more likely to be distracted, you know, other things will be, you know, you will be preoccupied with those rather than being into sex. So the two things that I always found really impacted me. One was, as we all know, that good blood circulation is essential for good sex. I mean, for your arousal, that it's absolutely what leads to good arousal. So if you have not exercised well enough, if your fitness levels are lower, generally, you will have more hiccups with your arousal. Whether it's with an erection or the woman's arousal or whatever, there are more hiccups. The other thing is that when I went through a batch of depression, I found that that was also something, you know, because sometimes quite without understanding why there's this wave of unhappiness that passes through you. And we've always said that if on the inside, you're not like at your best, if you're not feeling really happy, nothing on the outside, you could be all dressed up, you can be doing all sorts of amazing things. Nothing on the outside works. Yeah, you're not into it, you know, you're not into anything at that time. And I think added to that is also the idea that when sometimes people have felt trauma, distractions or in the case of trauma, what we call is a dissociation, you know, the only way that you can get past something that you dislike, and you know, which is reminding you about the trauma or trauma trigger is by dissociated, is by distracting. And so many people who have experienced trauma will come and say, I just think about this for the whole time while leaving. I make my list in my head, I need this or I, you know, prepare what's going to happen next, what we're doing or I just go to another place. I so sometimes being distracted is a protective tool that you're using because the pain is too much. So that also, you know, we can like you're saying with depression, if you're not into it, then it can be very difficult as well. So I think that I'm hoping that everybody listening in will at least maybe stop blaming themselves for losing the erection. It has nothing to do with your partner. It has nothing to do with how much passion you're feeling. It could be one of many, many things. And it's way more common than you realize every single person goes through it. Some people more often than others, but it is very, very common. So the first thing you need to do is you need to stop getting distressed about it. I think the second thing that I would like to say is that, like you said, be in the moment. So be more present the moment you feel that your mind is wandering. Instead of letting it wander too far, understand that you want to try and come back to it. We always say in, you know, in the ancient times, the idea in the erotic text was that you actually went into sex by saying, I want to prepare for it. You know, it's going to be something special. I want to have a bath. I want to put on my shingles. I want to put on my makeup. I want to make myself beautiful. Whether it's the man or the woman, you know, you want to sort of make yourself special for that person. It automatically brings you more into the mood rather than saying, OK, I've arrived over here 10 minutes to go. Just because come on, let's do it. And I think maybe it's worth trying this idea of letting the orgasms happen first, then penetrating so that even if you then lose it in the middle of it, you know, even if you kind of get distracted, you wander off and you lose your erection, at least you're not letting yourself down or you're not letting your partner down as you feel that you might be. And I think it's really, really important to to do this, because sometimes I mean, if for instance, like this person and that has just written into us, we don't know what is his background. Like you said, it could be it could be erectile dysfunction. We don't know it. We don't know if there's a medical background to this. All we know is that he says that when he gets distracted, he loses his erection, which is a very common thing. So if that is the case and you feel that what's happening with it is that your your partner is coming away dissatisfied. There are other ways to satisfy your partner. And we have to understand, I think Anvita has said this over and over again that we always think of sex as like a linear thing. You start with this, then you go to this, then you go to this and you know, you have your orgasm and you're finished. That's not sex. Sex, sexuality, arousal, desire, passion, pleasure, excitement is everything. Yeah, many splendid things. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing that people will read a lot when it comes to staying focused and being in the focus and we haven't used that word, but that word I feel today is everywhere is mindfulness and they will read it everywhere. And as you were saying, even with yoga, being mindful like now, I think we just say it all the time. Have you tried mindfulness? Have you tried mindfulness? As if it is the easiest thing to do. It's the most difficult thing to do is to do mindfulness. So practice, practice, practice, mindfulness, and that's what will help you. But the other way to, you know, practice mindfulness and if you're getting distracted like you were saying Seema, the way to bring yourself back a lot of time is the breath. Like it's always the breath. If you take a deep breath, but you have to be aware of your breath. You have to be, you have to be able to feel it. You have to be able to feel where the air is going, where it's coming, where it says reach, is it here on the chest? Is it in your nose, nostrils? Where is it? And that breath gets, helps you come back. And once you're back, then, you know, focus on the pleasure and the sensation like I said. And the other thing I would just add is eye contact helps you keep focus. So when you're making eye contact with your partner or you're looking at your partner or the partner is looking at you, the eye contact it is. But it is an intimidating. I know it's intimidating for a lot of people and that, you know, eye contact and somebody is looking me at me and especially if I'm naked, what does it mean and everything? So I hear that it's there's also a lot of pressure for a lot of people who are thinking, OK, my partner is looking at me. Am I supposed to be reflecting the passion that I'm feeling? I mean, like this or this? Absolutely. You're like, oh, am I playing the part? Can they see I'm enjoying this? Can they take? So yes, you know, I can I can just hear people as soon as I say make eye contact, how intimidating it is for people. Like you're saying, it is like so much involved in it. There is like, am I, you know, can they say that I'm enjoying it? And am I seeing it seem passionate? And you know, sometimes people say, oh, I contact with that person seems so not into it. Like what are they doing? Like, you know, it can be really problematic. And of course, you know, we can not forget the idea of body image with eye contact as well, because I think and destruction because so many times people get so distracted by body image because they start thinking, oh, my God, you know, I'm going to be naked now. Are they going to notice? Are they going to notice the extra pounds? Are they going to notice? Like, you know, there's a little bit of more fat around here or there or whatever. Are they going to like not enjoy sex or they're not going to enjoy, you know, they might not feel attracted towards me because of the body image issues. So obviously that's a deeper, more complex issue, but a very common one for people to start thinking and worrying about. I think also one of the things that I always say for almost any issue that comes up is to acknowledge it, to acknowledge it to your partner. I know that we've already touched upon it earlier in the talk, but actually acknowledge it. So I know that one time I remember I went out on to stage and it started to leak and the drop actually fell on my head. Like, you know, you start and as you can imagine, you have an entire auditorium of people around you. They burst into laughter, you know, there's just and everybody's like going, oh, my God, oh, my God, so what I did was I stepped forward. I asked one of the people from the side to bring me a little mug, which we put just under the leak. And I came forward and I said, well, you know, today we have two shows going on. We've got one Diki state, one Diki roof and one me. So everybody had a nice, loud laugh with that. And then we were able to move past it. If I hadn't talked about it, everybody's focus would still have been on that. And every now and then, if there was a particularly loud drop, people would look at it. It's very natural. And the thing to once again do is, you know, I would turn around and say, OK, yeah, that one went, but now we're OK for a while. And, you know, it's amazing because then you carry them with you. And I'd like to say that it's the same thing in any situation in life. So if you're in bed with somebody, your partner, you tell them that, you know what, I have this problem of staying focused. I absolutely am into you. I can't tell you how much I'm into you. But I have ADHD. I don't know. I have some kind of distraction issues. And this is known to happen. So it's not personal. And, you know, people that we say this all the time, don't be communication. People don't. People see the word communication as saying, I love you. I love you. I love you to the moon. I love you to the sun and back. You know, that's not communication. That's on your example. Oh, my God. Yeah. And I think your example is just absolutely fantastic because what you did is they were going to focus on that anyway. And you said, OK, don't like, let's talk, let's bring the elephant into the room rather than the whole audience thinking about it. So rather than your partner's mind going everywhere, thinking what is happening right now. They don't seem into it. They feel distracted, distracted, everything. If you've had the communication, like you're saying, you have built on intimacy. The other person thinks, oh, my God, like they're being so honest. They're so into me. I'm going to help them with this. And it's so much easier to say, oh, focus right back into sex. Like, you know, your mind is going somewhere else also. Stop thinking about words. Stop thinking about the children. Stop thinking about school or stop thinking about college or whatever it is. And focus, you know, like, just let's enjoy this for the next 15, 20 minutes. And it'll be so somebody else might then just feel so relaxed and think, yeah, actually, let me focus on this for 15, 20 minutes. But rather than ignoring the whole issue and, you know, then every each partner, you know, coming up and making their own assumptions and stories about the relationship. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's something that we don't do often enough. And like I said, you know, if all else fails, try the reverse method. Try actually going in length and see if it helps. But whether you try anything or not, whether you take on any of the suggestions that we've given or not, I think we just need to say to yourself, it's OK that it happens. Absolutely. And that pleasure comes in many, many forms, particularly as human beings, we understand pleasure at such a deep level that if this is actually an issue, if it's really a problem and it's a it's a bigger problem than you've written to us about, then this is your time to actually start exploring pleasure at a deeper level and just enriching your life through this more than you would ever imagine that which is possible. Yeah, no. And I think the takeaway if there was any from the deal is the normalizing the distractions. Like it's normal happens to everybody. The less value you can put on it, the more you can normalize it and say it's not a big deal, the easier it will be for you to focus. The bigger the, you know, the bigger the problem you make it, the it's overcoming it can become a really big challenge. So normalize it. It's normal happens to everybody happens to maybe everybody every time they have sex. Like I think you need to be some Rishi Amuni who could just be into the focus all the time. So yeah, it's very normal. It's very normal. Well, if like you said, if there's a takeaway to, you know, there's one thing that you take away, maybe this will be it. And it might just fix the problem anyway with any luck. So we hope that you found this video really useful and interesting, of course, but particularly useful because we know that this is a common problem. We know that there's nowhere that you can turn to for things like this without being judged or without people sort of jumping down your throat and saying, Oh my God, this is happening to you. And, you know, it's it's not a big deal. Take that away from it today. Enjoy your sex. Enjoy your sex life. Find pleasure in it. Don't tick boxes. And yeah, stay well and healthy as you have sex because it's amazing the benefits long term of intimacy are amazing. They're very, very good for you. If you've enjoyed the video as always, please do comment, like, subscribe. If you need to get in touch with me to send in a question, I am on info.seema.anand at gmail.com. And if you need to get in touch with Anvita for a consultation, she is on anvita.medanvehel at gmail.com and the details will be there below our podcast. And we will see you over here next week with a brand new question. Stay well.