Ep #113: Revisiting: Interview with My 74-Year-Old Diamond Didi

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women^TM Podcast, episode 113.

Welcome to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women^TM 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 Diamonds, how are you doing? Welcome to November. This month is going to be spectacular. This month I’m interviewing Diamonds who have gone through my OYSN program. OYSN stands for Own Your Sexuality Now. So I’m interviewing them because enrollment for OYSN kicks off at the end of the month in November. I am so psyched for this month. Find out what it’s like to work directly with me in my program. I love OYSN and the impact it has on women’s lives.

Every time I open my program for enrollment I uplevel it by adding something new that I know my Diamonds need. I’m always asking myself, Sonia, what can I do to make this an even more amazing program for my Diamonds? Recent uplevels have included switching the program from a webinar style to more of a meeting style while preserving the anonymity. We still continue to have our sexy fun names. But I’m finding that with the meeting style format it leads to more connections between members and more commitment to getting the work done.

And it’s so wonderful to see these women supporting each other and doing the work together. I want you to know that you’re not alone with this work. The community and I are here to support you. Another uplevel included adding in relationship coaching where my partner, Dr. Kimmery Newsom who coaches on all things related to relationships comes into my program and is there to support you. You can get coaching on romantic relationships or any other kind of relationships, partners and members of your support community are invited to these sessions.

These sessions do remain as more of a webinar format where you just sit back and relax, and can ask those questions, and get the coaching that you need. One of the things that we discovered in OYSN is that when women become empowered they not only change the sexual intimacy in their life, they also change everything in their life. Family members, and partners and friends need a place to ask questions and to get coaching too as the women in their lives change and grow so we provide it in the OYSN intimate group.

And another uplevel is you get to meet with me and my coaching team to work on your pleasure plan. So OYSN has office hours with me and my coaching team. So in addition to the weekly coaching sessions we also have intermittent office hours. And don’t forget that we have a book club as well. We have so much fun. We just finished reading Becoming Cliterate in the last OYSN group, that was amazing. Okay, Diamonds, are you ready for the next uplevel? I have an announcement to make, drumroll please.

We now have OYSN giftboxes full of fun sexy toys. These giftboxes are amazing, they’re chockful of my, Dr. Sonia’s favorite things, vibrators, lube, journals, you no longer have to do any of the shopping. Dr. Sonia has done it for you. Diamonds, I know you’re going to love this. I am so excited putting together these giftboxes and I can’t wait to send them out to the members of OYSN. Just think, you no longer have to go online and find my favorite things, just like Oprah, I’m going to send them directly to you. You get a vibrator, you get a lube, it’s going to be so much fun.

And these giftboxes are free, yes, the giftboxes are worth hundreds of dollars and they’re free with enrollment to the first 20 women that sign up for OYSN. So OYSN opens up for enrollment during the thanksgiving week and we start January 11^th, the new year, the new you, the new sexuality. It’s all there. And did I mention that OYSN is offered live only one time a year? You can take it year round but it’s only going to be offered live one time a year. And, yes, Diamonds this one time a year has come. So click on the link below to get on the waitlist for OYSN.

And as a bonus I’ll send you my Busy Women’s Guide to Enhancing Intimacy. I’m so happy and so excited about this. I just can’t wait. January is always my favorite time to start the OYSN group. The women are motivated, we’re connected, we’re going to get this work done. It’s so fun. But in the meantime sit back and listen to one of my favorite interviews with my Diamond, Didi, as we talk about how she learned to embrace her sexuality and create the amazing intimacy of her life. Okay, Diamonds, enjoy.

                                                                                                                   

Sonia: I’m so excited to be here today. This is a special treat for me. One of my favorite women in the whole world who’s also been my client in my Own Your Sexuality Now program has agreed to come and talk to us about the program and the impact of doing sex coaching with me. She is fabulous. I love this woman. When we started working together I think she was 72 years old, she’s 74 now. And she gives me goals as to who I want to be, and what I want to be doing when I am 74 years old. She is 74 years young as far as I’m concerned.

She’s fabulous, and amazing, and she has agreed to come and talk to us about all the things to do with what she’s learned over the time that we worked together. Okay, so let’s get started. I want to introduce Didi. And, Didi, if you can just tell me, I had a question in terms of why did you decide to seek out the assistance of a sex coach? And also why did you decide to come and work with me?

Didi: Well, first of all before I go answering those questions, I have to acknowledge the wonderful being that you are as a human being, as a spiritual being who connects all the dots between sexuality and spirituality and makes it exciting. It helped me to embody who I am as I am and know that there is always more. I have to own that. And to answer your question about why I decided to do this, because I was frustrated, number one.

And I had been looking for someone that I could talk frankly about sexuality without it being pornographic and with someone that had some knowledge of how to put the dots together I wouldn’t feel a whole lot of shame and a whole lot of guilt about saying that I wanted to explore my sexuality. And I was looking, I kept looking for almost four years. It was four years.

Sonia: I didn’t even realize that. I didn’t know that.

Didi: Yeah. I had been looking and wanting to find someone and I had talked to people and I said no, talked with some people. And then I said, I couldn’t go there with them with what I needed to discuss. And then I saw this advertisement for you because I explore Brooke Castillo. I follow her and listen to what she does because I really admire her as the life coach and there you were. There you were. And I really looked further and it said you gave a free consultation.

Sonia: That’s true.

Didi: So I had to get my courage up. Okay, I’m going to do this. I am going to do this. And so I called you. I called you. And we set up, I don’t remember whether we did it on the first call or not, I can’t remember. But I know we did a consultation. And when I talked to you I was so at peace with talking about my own sexualities and some of the challenges that I was encountering being in my 70s. I felt comfortable with you. It was an instantaneous connection because I could freely be and say what I needed to say.

And you didn’t come at me like, “You should be ashamed of yourself, girl. We don’t talk about that.” So that’s how I came to find you. And then after that we worked out the logistics and everything. And I made a decision and I processed it and you became my person to talk to, to go to about intimate, very positive, very personal details about my sex life.

Sonia: Yeah. And it was fabulous. I should say that we worked together as private clients. You were one of my private clients and then you also went into my group coaching program, Own Your Sexuality Now when I started that program. And so when you came to me and we started working together, what were your thoughts? I’m interested in the thoughts that you have been raised with, the thoughts about women’s sexuality. What were the things that you were thinking about in terms of a woman’s sexuality?

Didi: Well, I have a lot of baggage in that area. I have a lot of dysfunctional patterns around sexuality being a no, no to discuss. And as far as me as a woman owning that I was even sexual, it was a no, no. Plus the fact that I was raised by a Baptist minister and raised in a paradigm where you did not talk about sex. You have to be married to have sex. You had to always remember, and if you did any other thing, way to express your sexuality, you got labeled jezebel. You got labeled the devil.

You got labels and shaming statements. I was raised with a lot of shame from the pulpit, in my home. And I never saw women completely express their sexuality. I had all of those beliefs that my body was something I had to hide, that I had to hide the curves in my body. That I could not own that and if I was going to not hide them, it was okay for a man to identify and express their sexuality. And it’s okay for me as a woman to give my body to that man but not thinking about my own self. That’s what I had.

Sonia: So very interesting. So it’s kind of like you were a tool to be used by somebody else, or an object to be used by somebody else, but not specifically thinking of sexuality in terms of your own needs, and your own wants, and that you had a right to express your sexuality.

Didi: Yes. I was raised with that. I was raised with that. I was programmed with that. And I got what I call BBs, Bible beatings. So our scripture and everything about being a woman and how you are to express yourself in all dimensions of who you are, especially with the sexuality.

Sonia: Okay. So you also got Bible beatings in terms of told as to what you should do, your guidelines and how you should be as a woman which did not allow for you to express your sexuality at all.

Didi: Yeah. And just because one of the scriptures that I had often, just to give you an example was that God took a rib from Adam’s side and he created woman. So therefore you as a woman ought to be obedient in all areas, in the bed or anything else to a man. You are to give yourself, you’re to be wife, and mother, and whatever they needed in bed. That’s what I was told, because of that scripture, I heard that scripture over, and over, and over again.

Sonia: And how old were you when you think you started, you first started to hear that scripture?

Didi: I heard that scripture from the time I was 15 or 16 years old. I heard that scripture from the time, yeah, 15/16, I can remember hearing all of that, 15/16 years old.

Sonia: So just at that point when you would be starting to really discover your sexuality and questions things, and think, what’s going on with my body? My body’s changing. So at that time you’re getting these messages that basically you are meant to be subservient to another gender, the man basically. Because you came from the man then you have to be subservient to the man in all their wants, and needs, and wishes, and desires. But it’s for you to serve the man basically.

Didi: You got it. And even one time when I was, I guess I was maybe 14/15, my blind cousin attempted to rape me. And I couldn’t even tell anybody about it because they wouldn’t have believed me. They wouldn’t believe. I got away from him.

And then another time there was a man that was waiting for me and I was raised on a farm. He was hiding in a place in the woods. And when I came through there he grabbed me by my breasts and pulled me up off the ground. And that stayed in my mind as well because I heard all these things about how sex was taught as being dirty. And then when those two things happened to me, they were very traumatic for me as a 14/15 year old girl.

Sonia: Yeah. So that would reinforce that there’s something wrong or bad with sexuality because you’re having these traumas occurring at the same time when your body is starting to change and your curves are coming out. And it’s also a time where – how did you start to think about your body as it was changing and it had these curves, and these traumatic events were starting to happen as well?

Didi: Well, I didn’t feel like, and especially when my period started, and I was told that now you know. I thought, this is what it did, I thought if I kissed a man I got pregnant. Because of that, and I had never had a kiss. I had my first kiss when I was maybe 17, 16/17 in the high school that I went to. And I thought I was going to be pregnant. That’s just how strong the training, I call it training, of my mind was because it laid the foundation inside of me that what I had done, even kissing, that I was going to be pregnant.

Because I was told, “You better not bring no babies in here.” And not even fully understanding my own anatomy because it never got told to me about what a period was. I remember when it started and I had on a pink dress. And the whole back of my dress got messed up, I didn’t know what that was. So that’s how I was raised.

Sonia: Yeah. Without getting the education that you needed. And then the introduction to your body and puberty, just not getting that information. So there’s so much trauma that’s going on, and misinformation to the point where you think that if you get kissed, and in people’s minds, they feel like if they don’t really explain and tell you about your body and how you can get pregnant then you won’t actually attempt to do anything sexual. But we’re human beings and we’re sexual beings. And so we’re going to explore at some point or another.

But the exploring is now tied to a lot of shame, and guilt and fear just at the point where you’re starting to grow up and to explore your sexuality. There’s a lot of fear that comes in at that point in time. So at what point did you say that you started to feel comfortable about your sexuality? You’re 74 now, where along this continuum from the time you were 16 to where you are at this point in time, where did you feel that it was okay to be a sexual being, at what point?

Didi: Well, I’ll tell you, it was after maybe three marriages. I just have to give it to you just like it is, just like it was. It was probably after three marriages. And in the fourth marriage I really came to see, I was in that marriage for 10 years. And I really came to see that it was time because I put myself into therapy. And I had to learn to own my voice around my body and to stop faking orgasm.

Sonia: So, you basically went through three marriages and into the fourth one faking orgasms?

Didi: Yes.

Sonia: Yeah. And so were you having pleasure at any of that time in there or were you just trying to get it over? Why were you thinking it was best to fake an orgasm?

Didi: Well, I can’t tell you that there weren’t times where there was an orgasm because I learned to use masturbation for myself, and not be involved in it, not have to wait. I just wanted to get it over with. And that’s what I did because I felt like it was my duty as wife.

Sonia: Right. So your duty as a wife to engage in sexual intimacy, to engage in penetration?

Didi: Yes. And when I started the counseling it changed the way that I had to look at my codependency issues. I had to look at setting boundaries and saying, ask for what I wanted and what I need at that point. And that counseling continued for a long, long time. And then I was able to say, “Hey, no, this does not work for me. Hey, that does not work for me, or I choose not to have penetration with you or whatever.” I became able to say that.

Sonia: And so, how old were you at that point?

Didi: How old was I at that point? That was third marriage. I’ve got to think about that. It seems like it’s been forever. I would say, okay, I’m 74, probably around 60 years old.

Sonia: Okay. So we’re saying from about the age of 17/18, through to 60 years of age you didn’t necessarily have an understanding that sex was for you and for your pleasure and that you had a say in it. So you were raised at this point where we still had these concepts that sex is a duty and a wife’s duty, and that’s just something that you did?

Didi: Yes.

Sonia: Okay. So when we started working together what was it that you wanted to get out of working with me?

Didi: Well, I knew that my sexual needs had changed at 70 when we started working together. And it had been a long time, I had allowed other things, steer some of the old programming to creep in and I was having a lot of issues with my father. And he was the one that gave me all of the other things that were planted in my head. And when I started dealing with him, I lost interest in being anything because I was hearing the same old things in another way, in my mind about how I was acting.

And when I met my present partner I got liberated because he is younger than I am so it was like learning things all over again.

Sonia: Yes, learning some good things it sounds like.

Didi: Yes. So that made a difference to having a younger man. So not someone that was my same age or older than me but having a younger man made a difference. And I didn’t have to be married to him. I didn’t have to perform for him. I didn’t have to fake it for him. I was able to ask and able to try some new things that I hadn’t tried before.

Sonia: And so when we were working together, what do you think was the biggest benefit of working with me in the Own Your Sexuality Now program and also with the private coaching that we did?

Didi: Well, that really shifted a whole bunch of internal programming so I could really let go of some of that because the things that you were talking about and free to talk about masturbation and toys. And just exploring things even without having to have sexual penis penetration that I could explore, and play. And I could feel the sensations. I could feel it in my whole body. I could feel the fire, the passion. And really I just started doing things from there because in your classes you went from one module to the other module around sexual toys.

And I bought the books that you had suggested to read. And then I even started watching pornographic stuff because I saw new ways to do things. And then I tell you, one of the things that I became willing to do was to just step out and find new things after being able to listen in on your classes. And we talked every Tuesday. You and I used to talk about what was happening and what was I doing. And the more I did the more I wanted because it was pleasurable. And I call it my pleasure box. It’s like that’s what happens.

Sonia: Yes. I remember you started calling your vulva and your vagina your pleasure box, I love that. It’s so fabulous, yes.

Didi: Yeah. And not only that but to be able to kiss, be kissed, face kissed all over, my God. And to have someone gently hold your face in your hand and kiss every spot on your face. That is the most sensual thing and sexual thing I’ve ever had, one of the ones. And I let go because the more that I talked to you and the more that you would check on me, “Okay, how are you coming this week? What did you explore this week? What did you learn this week? And how you coming?”

And you and I build the relationship and I was able to be honest and talk about it and not be saying, “Shame on you. Why are you talking about it. And you’re too old to do this.” That never was a part of our conversation.

Sonia: No, it never was and it never will be. There is no such thing as being too old. We are sexual beings from the moment we’re born until we die, the majority of us. And it’s about you get to express that, you get to enjoy that pleasure. It doesn’t stop. You don’t get to 75 and it’s at an end. No. And what I love about working with you is that you and your partner are so creative. Honestly, you guys have a better sex life than I do.

Didi: You know what? We get dry brushed, so brushes that you brush your body with. And you brush your partner’s body, and I’m going through this, but that is such a sensation to have somebody else do a dry brush massage with the brushes, the long handled brush over every inch of your body and it’s so so nice, it’s just tantalizing and sensation. And then to have my partner give me a bath, that really is one of my favorite things to do.

And the other thing was use an avocado oil. Oh lord, have mercy, I’m going to call on the name of the lord here. And I have to tell you, that has become one of the foundations of what we do now. We’ve got to have avocado oil.

Sonia: So what do you do, you massage it on your body? What do you use the avocado oil for?

Didi: We heat it up in a bowl and then we pour it, and I’m going through this because I’ve got it in my mind. Pour it into a container that you can get your whole hand in and you put your whole hand in it and you put it on the other hand and you start, and you put it all over your face. It’s all over every face, and neck, and shoulders, and arms, and fingers, breasts. And then you can use your breasts to just kind of, okay, let’s try some new things here. It is spectacular.

It is spectacular because you don’t have to worry about any friction being created anywhere because we put it on, both of us put it on each other. And you slide and feel the sensation.

Sonia: It’s like the love slide.

Didi: Yeah. You know how you go down a water slide. You didn’t ask me for all this. You didn’t ask me for all of it but I’m telling you, it’s like when you go down a water slide and you slide quickly, but your bodies just slide from one place to the other place. And then you get all of these sensations. And to me it just heightens. So we won’t have intimacy without avocado oil now.

Sonia: Okay, alright, I love that. And I remember you telling me your decision to go visit your first sex toy store. Do you remember that?

Didi: Yeah, I remember. I had never been and you had this lady on, there was a lady, what was her name? There was a lady that talked about, she was in DC someplace, I don’t know where. So I finally got up the courage to say, “Hey, when I talk to Sonia next, I’m going to tell her I have gone to a sex toy store.” And when I went in that store I was in another world. I felt some shame, I have to tell you, at first when I walked in because I had never gone in because I had it in my mind that this was pornographic. And that that was a place that only men go, the other thing to go in and see.

I went in and the people were just nice. There were young ladies in there waiting on you and I went and I walked all the way down one aisle and back up. And I said, “Wow, look at all of this.” And down another aisle, and just walked and explored. I had no idea that this even existed. They had all kinds of vibrators, and dildos, and they had all kinds of different things that you could wear and put on, and this and that. I was just like, “Okay, I’m in here looking at all this stuff.” All the different ways that you can explore and it’s not pornographic.

To me it settled down inside of myself and my view of what pornographic means. And I had to change the way I look at the word ‘pornographic’. Because pornographic to me says it’s forbidden. When I hear the word in my mind, pornographic means forbidden, that there’s some shame attached to that because you do that. But I went in and I looked and I was so proud of myself, I really was. At 70 some years old I had never been in one of those stores.

Sonia: And so what was your thought? You said that you were so proud of yourself, what was your thought that you were thinking that made you feel that pride?

Didi: Because I had broken a truth that I had thought was the truth in my mind, that it was something wrong with me if I went into the store. That broke, that just demolished all of that, it demolished it. And I felt proud that I was able to break through that. And it’s just like when I break through other patterns of behavior that I no longer serve my highest good, that I become joyful and blissful about. But this was just another way that I became joyful and excited that I had accomplished something that otherwise that I had seen as being the wrong thing to do.

But it actually was because it was for me. It was for me and my pleasure of what I wanted to do. It had nothing to do with what anybody else thinks. It had nothing to do with what anybody else does, loved it.

Sonia: Yeah, so fabulous. And so what did that make you think about other thoughts that you might have about sex and sexuality?

Didi: That it was okay to explore it the way that it best suits me. And other people can explore it the way that best suited them, that I did not have to condone or do it this way because somebody said it. I can make the choice to do it the way that’s going to give me pleasure. I was entitled to my pleasure and the most important thing, I’m still spiritual.

Sonia: And you’re still spiritual, it’s not one or the other. It’s actually both. And I had spent some time talking to you about this concept that your sexuality is so closely tied to your spirituality and they’re interconnected. And it’s a way to connect to your higher being and to that spirit part that’s within you as well. And so we had spent some time working on that, I remember.

Didi: Yes, it was. And I’ll tell you one of the ways that I came to connect it is when I would take walks. And I would get these downloads. I would get these downloads. And the downloads that I was getting was about being one with my sexual self. Sexual intimacy with myself and with spirit because spirit is the one that gave me the downloads. And I knew that it was coming from a spiritual place because that’s the way all of my other spiritual stuff come.

And it had automatically in my inner self combined it all together. It combined it with what I was learning, and the downloads that I was getting. You know all those downloads that I was getting. And I considered that a gift from spirit because it combined it for me and I got to witness it coming through me just like all the other poetry and whatever else, downloads to me, I got to witness it for Didi.

Sonia: So wonderful. And so what’s next? What’s next for Didi and her sexuality? What’s next for you at 74?

Didi: Well, I know that there’s always more and that I’m always becoming, and I have made up in my mind for my desires to always be acknowledged, to always acknowledge my desires, whether they be sexual, and that sexual has become a part of everything else what I desire. And that it’s okay if I want to try something new, it’s not something crazy. My partner is willing and I’m willing and we do it. So I have someone that understands that and thinks of ways that we can explore together.

And even though I know that I will have another birthday real soon I will never, never ever stop becoming a sexual being combined with my spirituality because it is a gift. It is a gift. It is a gift to have that internal recognition. It is a gift to just know that you really are the gift that you give to yourself when you own all of yourself.

Sonia: When you own your sexuality, right?

Didi: Yes.

Sonia: That is so wonderful. I love that. It is a gift. It truly is a gift. Thank you so much. Is there any last words that you’d like to say to my Diamonds, my listeners that are listening to you on this podcast?

Didi: Well, I would like to say first of all, thank you for having me. And I want to say to the people that are listening to that, and if you have any apprehensions, any fears, any doubts, please remember that we are all still exploring, expanding and evolving. And that’s just not limited to some areas that society may tell you that’s how we need to be. It’s holistic. And sexuality is a part of that. And it really does put, for me what it has, an extra pep in my step because my light is a little bit brighter. My light is still glowing and there’s always more.

And to never allow someone to put you in a box because there is no box. There is no box. That paradigm is manmade and to not tell you, you’ve got to stay within the lines, when you color. If you do, you’re going to be a prisoner of your own sexuality, your own beliefs when you know that there’s other things to do. Open your mind, use your intuitive self and your feminine self so that you can embody and feel all that there is to feel because there’s always more and it does not stop.

Sonia: There’s always more, it does not stop and it’s a gift. Thank you. Thank you so much, Didi for being on this podcast and sharing your experience with me and with all of the Diamonds that are listening. And it’s just been a pleasure and an honor working with you.

Didi: Thank you so much.

Sonia: Thank you. Thank you.

Didi: I appreciate what you bring.

Sonia: Thank you and I appreciate you very much, thank you.

                                                                                                                   

This is a public service announcement. OYSN is starting in January of 2023, Diamonds. And for you that may not be familiar. OYSN stands for Own Your Sexuality Now. It is my signature program for women and I’m only offering OYSN once a year. I love this group and I want you to be in this group with me. Enrollment opens for a short time at the end of November and into the beginning of December. So, let’s start the new year with a new empowered sexual you.

And as always, I like to ask questions so here is a question for you 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. 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 intimate edition. The last group that went through this, they were on fire. Women of all ages from 35 to 65 were learning about their bodies, expressing their sexuality, empowering their lives and doing it on their terms.

Couples who had not had sex in years found a new level of sexual fun and established new intimacy. Other women learned about their bodies and tapped into their pleasure zone. Another one learned about setting boundaries and focusing on her pleasure for the first time in her life. Another Diamond got the independence she needed to change her whole life. Amazing.

OYSN is not just about sex, it’s about empowerment, and it’s about pleasure. And the new class is starting in January of 2023. So come join an intimate group of women for 12 weeks and literally change your life. Let’s create that amazing sexual intimacy that you deserve. If you are in your 30s, or 40s, or 50s, or even older, this is your time and this is the place for you. You potentially have 30 to 50 more years of sexual intimacy ahead of you. What do you want that intimacy to look like?

Let’s get real and let’s talk about what’s going on with your body, your libido, your life, let’s see what we can do to kickstart that intimacy. This program is for you whether or not you have a partner, this is about you and sexual intimacy with yourself first and then with anybody else that you choose. So, if you’re a woman who wants to enjoy all aspects of her life then this is the program for you, it finally gets to be your time.

So, click on the link in the show notes or on my website soniawrightmd.com and grab a copy of my Busy Woman’s Guide to Enhanced Intimacy. And get on the waitlist for Own Your Sexuality Now, the intimate edition. I can’t wait to see you. Talk to you soon, Diamonds. Dr. Sonia out.