Ep #87: The Kitty Cat Suit

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast episode 87.

Welcome to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast, the only show that combines a fun personality, medical knowledge, sexual counseling, and life coaching together. To create unique sex coaching that helps busy women awaken their libidos, address intimacy issues, and learn how to express their sexuality for the rest of their days. Here is your host, certified life coach and sexual counselor, Dr. Sonia Wright.

Hello, hello, hello, hello my Diamonds. How are you doing today? I am so excited to talk to you today. I am going to talk to you about a concept that I’ve known for a long time but I didn’t have a name for it. And while I was coaching one of my Diamonds it came to me what I would call this, this situation, this scenario which I have to say just about every woman that I coach goes through to some extent at some point in time. Now, there’s been many women that I’ve coached around this topic but there’s one that stands out for me and so I wanted to mention it.

So, I just coached a woman who was pretty angry about life and specifically about her sex life and her sexuality. She felt like she had been duped, like she was a sucker, like she had wasted half of her sexual life catering to her partners and being and acting the way she thought that she was supposed to act. And now she was just realizing that this act did not benefit her in any way. It was all about looking sexy, looking like she’s having pleasure, looking like she is what society would say is the approved appearance for a sexual woman and how you get to look and act but not actually being in it.

She wasn’t benefitting from it, she was acting like she was experiencing pleasure. And she was putting on a pretty good performance and she realized she had been putting on this performance for a number of years. Looking like that sexual and sensual woman but not really feeling or experiencing all that she was portraying. It was just really a performance and she realized that all that energy had gone into the performance and that energy was directed outward. And it was not directed inward at her, making sure that she got her needs met.

And making sure that she was experiencing pleasure as opposed to looking like she was experiencing pleasure and doing what she thought she was supposed to do and look and act like when it came to sex. I call this the kittycat suit of sexuality. It’s like women are collectively told that the approved version of female sexuality looks like a sexy kittycat suit. We prance about, we stick out our asses, we walk provocatively. We do all the sexy things that we were told are the things to do but it’s not really about being sexual.

It’s more about looking sexy and being a sexual object for others. Now we’re on this list of things that the sexy kitten does are things like taking however long we take in order to have an orgasm. It doesn’t talk about the sexy kitten requesting her clitoris to be touched in that just so exact way and location. In fact, no one talks about the sexy kitten even having a clitoris, just a vagina.

The sexy kitten prances, and twerks, and sex sticks, rides poles and does all these things that make the male gaze happy but deep inside the sexy kitten longs to take off her costume and really get down to business, really get down to pleasure. If she could just get off, her mind off the performance and really if she could just get off really, let’s really be truthful about this. If she could just get off. If she could just take off that suit then she would focus more on her own pleasure.

It’s usually not until her late 30s, 40s, 50s, even 60s that she realizes that this suit is pretty itchy and she’s not liking it. She’s not feeling it. It’s just not what she wants. You realize when you see that there really hasn’t been much there for her inside of this suit and she wants to take it off but she can’t find the zipper. She put that suit on so long ago she has no fucking idea how to take it off. You know what’s really interesting, amazing and kind of sad? Is that she’s been wearing this suit since she was a teenager. Yeah, think about that.

When we’re a teenager that’s when we start to look and see, actually from a very young age we look and see that media and whatever, what a sexy woman looks like, what a sensual woman looks like. They don’t really say, “This is what a sensual woman, sexual woman acts, and feels, and talks like.” They just say, “This is what a sexy woman looks like.” If you objectify her and you look at her, this is what she looks like. And this is not to blame men or anything like that. This is just saying, society has put people in roles and this is the role that society puts women in.

Society also puts men into a certain role which usually has to be like men always have erections. Men always want to have sex. Men always have to perform and to please their partner. So, there’s roles that men are being put into as well. And I would say that they have a catsuit, or a dog suit, or whatever that they get put in as well. They have a suit that they can decide to take off too. I’m just looking at this sexy kitten catsuit.

Lucky for most women, lucky or unlucky we get to decide. The suit usually has a return date in our society. Society has a concept of when you can be a sexy kitten and when you have to return the suit. You get into your 40s and society says, oh no, women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, beyond are not particularly sexy. You can take off that suit now and go knit in a corner or something like that. So, society tells women that women over 40 no longer get to wear the suit because they’re not really sexy anymore.

And you know, it’s usually perfect timing because right around that moment the kittycat has found the scissors and she is cutting her fucking way out of the suit anyway. It’s not like she wants to be in that suit anymore. She’s like, “Wait, what have I gotten from this suit?” And the question becomes, what does she do then when she cuts herself out of the suit. You can just imagine, she’s got the scissors and she’s like, “Fuck the zipper, I’m getting out of here now.” And so, she cuts the kittycat suit and she’s climbing out of the kittycat suit.

Now she’s naked and alone with her own thoughts and her own ideas. And she’s like, “Now what?” What does she do now? Does she put on another suit? Does she put on another suit that society says, “This is the 40+ suit, put this suit on now?” Or does she say, “Hells no.” And she decides that she’s not wearing a suit anymore and she’s going to figure out how to be her own authentic sexual self.

And this is where my Diamond was at when she came to me for coaching. And this is where a lot of women are at when they come to me for coaching, either individual coaching or in my group, Own Your Sexuality Now. They have taken off the suit. They are like, “Fucking, hey, this is not what I expected, what I signed up for but now what?” And this Diamond that came to me for coaching was like, “Why did I wear that suit for so many years? It wasn’t benefitting me. Why didn’t I take it off sooner? And what do I do now?”

She was blaming herself. She was saying, “I’m a fucking idiot, why did I keep that suit on for so long?” And I’m like, “Why wouldn’t you keep that suit on for so long? This is what society says your role is and how you should show up in this world as a sexy being, not as a sexual being, not owning your own sexuality.” But if you look at pornography, and I’m not saying pornography is bad. But it’s a fantasy and it’s a movie. And it shows a version of what society thinks a sexy woman should be and a sexual woman should be.

But you don’t really see her getting a lot of pleasure out of this. You see her prancing around, or moaning, or groaning. But you don’t exactly see her really into it and getting what she needs out of it. Yeah, so step one that I usually say is do not blame yourself. Do not blame yourself. This is the role that you were told was what you should do. And we need to realize that we were cajoled into this suit in our teenage years. Our bodies were changing as teenagers and we wanted approval for ourselves and for our bodies.

And society offered that approval and it said, “Hey, put on this suit. You get to be sexual when you’re in your late teens into your 20s, you get to be sexual. This is how you present when you want to be sexual.” This is how the media shows it. This is how we, like, books, media, anything, movies, if you look, that’s how it’s presented. So that’s how we think it should be.

So, society offers that approval and says, “Put on your catsuit, learn your lines, learn what actions you do as a sexy woman. And if you’re good enough, if you look good enough then you’ll get selected. You’ll be taken off of the shelf to play with and make sure that you please everybody. Make sure you please whoever takes you off the shelf to play with you, make sure you please them.” So, you’re told, “Smile, look pretty, do what you’re told, think about everybody else.”

And yeah, this kittycat suit, yes, the metaphor is about being sexy in the bedroom and around the issue of sex. But in a lot of ways, it’s just like the role that women are put into or told that this is what a good woman is. You smile, you look pretty, you do what you’re told. You think about everybody else, you make sure everybody else gets what they need. You’re focused so much on people pleasing. A lot of this kittycat suit is really about people pleasing. And nowhere in there are they saying, “Don’t forget to focus on your own pleasure.”

The society’s like, “Why would you need to focus on your own pleasure?” Your pleasure will be found in being a good girlfriend, a good partner, a good wife, a good mother. You get to be like that Sleeping Beauty that things are done to but it’s not about you very much. And the path is all set forward for you. And if you do these things you’ll be happy ever after. And this is a message that you get from the time you’re a little child. Some of the newer kids princess movies are not so bad. It’s like the princess saves herself type of thing.

But there still is this element of she has to do and be a certain way to get her partner, usually a man. So, whenever I talk to my daughter when we’re watching these princess movies I always have a discussion with her beforehand about it, which she kind of says I ruin the movie for her. But I’m still going to have the discussion every time.

And I had the discussion with my son before these movies as well. My discussion with him was like, “You’re not meant to go save anybody. You get to live your own life, you’re going to look for a partnership where it’s equal and you two make sure you’re taking care of your own needs and you get to be there with each other.” So, it’s not like I only had this discussion with my daughter. And my son also said I ruined all those movies for him as well when he was a kid. But I have to say, he’s an excellent man and partner at this point in his life.

Yes, so okay, I’ve ruined a couple of princess movies for all my children but hopefully as they are an adult and grow into their adulthood they recognize that this happy ever after crap is just that, crap. At least how they portray it as a fantasy where a few are people pleasing and saving people and all that stuff, then you get to be happy ever after. No, that’s the part of it is that is the crap.

Yeah, getting back to the kittycat suit talk. I just went off on a little tangent, don’t mind me. I’m coming back now. So, it usually takes about 20 years before women realize the bullshit that all of it is. The whole lot of it, this happy ever after shit, you work, you have to work to be happy ever after. And how you work is not pleasing everybody. How you work at being happy ever after is having your own back.

And remember, we talked about that unconditional love, the lube of life, the unconditional self-love? It’s about that. That is what’s going to help you be happy ever after. But not this, putting on this kittycat suit and trying to please everybody else. So, it usually takes about 20 years or so before women start to realize, I did everything they told me I was supposed to do on this list and I’m still not happy. And I’m definitely not happy sexually. They usually come to me because they’re not enjoying this duty sex, this to-do list sex and they can’t imagine another 40 years of this.

They come to me because their partner knows that they are not enjoying themselves. And their partner’s asking them, “What can I do for you? How can I please you? How can you enjoy yourself?” And one thing that I’ve noticed as men get older, they become better and better lovers because they recognize as well that the roles that they have been put in to just take and fuck and whatever, that that’s not really where it’s at.

And usually as men get older they’re like, “Hey, there’s got to be more about this. I don’t see that you’re enjoying yourself in the way that I would love to make sure my partner’s enjoying themselves.” And so, they ask their partner and the partner is asking the women, “Hey, what do you need? What would give you more pleasure?” But the woman has never thought about herself and she’s like, “I don’t even know what that would look like.” So, then they come to me, they’re like, “My partner wants me to find pleasure and I have no idea how to do this.”

Don’t worry, I can help you with this. And actually, you can help yourself because it’s not about me saving you, it’s about women saving themselves and finding their own pleasure. Yeah, so they come to me to work with me because they don’t know about pleasure. And they come to me because they realize they have been sold this bill of goods. They come to me because their relationship is such that the sexual intimacy has gone and they’re headed towards a divorce.

Or they come to me because they’re trying to figure out how to live in a sexless marriage, how to make this work. Maybe their partner is the one that has a pretty low libido and their libido is higher and they’re trying to figure out, what can I do? I love my partner but I can’t stay in this situation forever the way it is. They come to me for so many different reasons. They come to me after they cut themselves out of that kittycat suit and they don’t know what’s next.

And that’s why I love working with my Diamonds either as a private client or in my Own Your Sexuality Now program because the Own Your Sexuality Now program takes you from that point where you’re just getting out of the kittycat suit and the now what. They’re like, “Who am I as a sexual being? What is happening right now?” And we go through every single area. We talk about libido. We look at anatomy. We talk about body image. We talk about pleasure, talk about prioritizing yourself.

We focus on all the different aspects that should have been taught to you way back when, when you were a teenager. We do that work now. So, when they come to me they have cut themselves out of that kittycat suit but they don’t know what’s next. Some of them come to me and they have not had sex in years. Some of them come to me and they’re moms with little kids and they need to deal with self-care. And they come to me and they’re usually saying, and this is whether or not they have kids, they’re usually saying, “My partner wants more sex.”

And they’re like, “Can you teach me how to have more sex?” And I’m like, “No, I’m going to teach you how to have more pleasure and you get to decide what it is that you want.” Because finally it’s not about your partner, it is about you. And they give me this stare like, “Wait, no, no, no, I really just want you to tell me how to have more sex.” And I’m like, “Yeah, no, that’s not what I do.” I’m not going to sign up for the patriarchy.

I don’t want to be another person that is looking at this rulebook that was established by the patriarchy and trying to get you to fit in and say, “You should be having more sex.” I’m always going to be the one that’s on your side, having your back saying, “What is it that you want? Let’s figure out what you want.”

Some of the women come to me because they’re trying to rewrite the story that they had that sex is dirty. Some of them come to me because they want to know more about non-monogamy and kink. Some just want to spice it up in the bedroom. Some want to reignite that flame. Others are actually looking for permission from themselves to leave the relationship that’s not working for them. They don’t really know what can happen in a little 12 week period of time. But if they do the work their whole perspective changes. They finally have their own back.

They’re focusing from a place of unconditional love and that is what makes this big difference. The relationship with themselves, and if they have a partner, the relationship with their partner changes. They get to figure out their authentic sexual self and along the way they connect with others in the group. And if they need to they can go through the group again. They just pay a small fee and they go through the group for another 12 weeks because I want to be here for my Diamonds in whatever way they want.

So, watching women evolve and empower themselves is some of the best work that I do. And that is the work that brings me joy. I don’t even know if I could call it work. It’s just so fabulous. Watching women go through the process of taking off that kittycat suit and evolving into their authentic sexual self through empowerment is just an amazing process.

But what I love even more is then they turn around and they help the next generation. I have so many of my Diamonds that tell me that now they talk to their daughters, and their sons, and their non-binary kids. So that people don’t have to put on these suits. They can get to them to this point where they don’t have to even put on the suits or if they have the suits on they can take them off a lot earlier. And it is so empowering when your mom, or your aunty, or somebody else says, “Hey, I have been there and you don’t have to make these decisions. This is bullshit and it does not have to be this way.”

So, Diamonds, if this kittycat suit is itchy it’s okay to cut yourself out of it. It is okay to set yourself free. And if you need any help I am totally here for you. This kittycat suit has to go. You get to put on whatever else suit you want to put on or don’t put any suit on at all. I think even better, don’t put any suit on at all. And for my male Diamonds, it is the same message that I have for you. You don’t have to put on that suit that society says that you are supposed to wear sexually. Everybody gets to decide for themselves who they are and how to show up authentically as their authentic sexual self.

Okay Diamonds, it’s Dr. Sonia, I’m done for today. So good talking to you. Alright, I love you. Take care.

Diamonds, how is your sex life? No, really, on a scale of one to ten how is your sex life? You know I’m all about the intimacy in midlife especially for women. If you rated the intimacy in your life as less than an eight then we need to talk. I’m personally inviting you to check out my Own Your Sexuality Now program, the intimate edition. We just finished the January cohort and it was on fire. Women of all ages from 35 to 65 were learning about their bodies and expressing their sexuality and doing it on their own terms.

Couples who had not had sex in years found a new level of sexual fun and established a new intimacy. Others learned about their bodies and tapped into their pleasure zone. Another one learned to set boundaries and focus on her pleasure for the first time in the 30 year relationship. Another Diamond got the independence she needed to change up her whole life. She’s starting fresh. Amazing.

OYSN is not just about sex, it’s about empowerment, and of course, pleasure. And right now, I’m enrolling a new group. Orientation starts on May 18^th. Come join an intimate group of women for the next 12 weeks and literally change your life. Let’s create that amazing, satisfying intimacy that you so deserve. If you’re in your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s or even 70s, this is the place for you. You potentially have 30 to 40, even 50 more years of intimacy ahead of you. What do you want that to look like?

Let’s get real and let’s talk about what’s going on with your body, your libido and see what we can do to kickstart this intimacy. This program is for you whether you have a partner or not. If you’re a woman or a person who identifies as a woman and who wants to enjoy all aspects of her life then this is your program. It finally gets to be your time. It’s about time. So, click on the link below in the show notes or on my website at soniawrightmd.com to join me in Own Your Sexuality Now, the intimate edition. I can’t wait to see you. Talk to you soon, Diamonds. I love you.