Pornhub has published (once again) statistics about searches on their platform. I’ve seen people from the field of sexual development commenting on or offering their perspectives related to these, what it means or shows about society, etc.
For me, I have a completely different reaction here: sexuality is about the individual, not about the statistics of porn searches.
DO WE HAVE PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT STATISTICS?
Why doesn’t any major adult sexual development provider publish statistics about what their clients are looking for? Amazon could do it for books in the field (published and read; even what percentage the most popular books were read). There are huge businesses on this topic in the West, they could easily provide such numbers.
And there are big Western influencers on the subject of sexuality, with millions of followers. Why don’t they create their own statistics? But here’s what I’m thinking: an influencer doesn’t necessarily work with people individually in sessions. Most likely because many are not trained to work in coaching, therapy, counseling. And it’s not as easy to work individually, concretely with one’s case, as it is to make videos with high reach or popularity addressing general topics, not particular individuals and their challenging situations. These are two different “specializations.” Often, influencers don’t even have concrete programs for sexual development. They don’t have direct and real contact with people and their real issues.
I recently came across a completely disappointing case: an American influencer with over a million followers on YouTube (urologist and pelvic surgeon, so with medical background) is selling a mug and a bottle, both with her face printed on them, on that channel. On her massive channel, she’s selling this… It’s really not easy to create programs and work individually with people.
MY 2023 STATISTICS
Here are the top 5 themes I’ve had this year in individual coaching on the topic of sexual development:
✨ #1. “I want to express myself better.”
Each one formulates this goal differently, but the idea is that they want to express better than before. When I dig to find out where the need for that “better” comes from, sometimes I hear these reasons: “I think I can”, “Sometimes I have these sparks of insight I can, but I just don’t know how”, “I want to bring out the best in myself”. Yes, in many cases, I also hear: “He doesn’t like me anymore”, “Other women are better in this regard”. It’s not clear to them where they got the information; mostly it was based on the external impression one picks up. Rightfully I wouldn’t recommend anyone to display or tell everything they have or do in their intimate life. It is their intimacy, right?! Thus, assuming about others’s lives and then comparing ourselves to an assumption is a very harmful scenario.
✨ #2. “I want us to spend more beautiful time together.”
In many cases, intimacy becomes routine. How much online scrolling can you do and feel fulfilled? Instead of making your relationship fulfilling? How much can scrolling solve the challenges in your relationship? Am I right or am I right?! Well, in coaching, we sit down and look at everything that stands in the way of spending “beautiful time together”. It’s a lot of discussion in those cases, but this discussion is of paramount importance. Then, a new strategy is put into practice. This is the mother of coaching right there!
✨ #3. “We have different preferences.”
In many cases, those who come to me say that when they decided to be together, this aspect wasn’t a problem tot hem. They thought they would solve it eventually. Well, at some point, that time to solve it comes up. My only remark here is this: the earlier in the relationship you come to work on yourself / both through coaching, the more likely this method will work. Why? Because you haven’t accumulated so much dissatisfaction, frustration or neglect in this area. At the beginning, everything is still pinky, so it’s the ideal time to work on what you already notice is challenging. Otherwise, the longer time passes in the relationship, the more you are likely to head towards therapy, not coaching.
✨ #4. “I don’t have that much availability for intimacy with someone else.”
With this topic, not as frequent, single women come to sessions as they feel the need to unload (from their whole system – body, emotions, mind, nerves) unpleasant things they’ve accumulated in their previous relationship or even more. Usually, those who come with this reason have gone through an unpleasant or painful experience (or more) or they may have lost someone dear, they may carry regret, resentment, or mixed emotions. Here, the approach is already more complex. Firstly, there’s the willingness to work on themselves and the capacity to go through emotional releasing processes. So, there are women who find resolution through somatic coaching. Most women, however, approach therapy for these particular reasons, which is perfectly understandable. It really takes a greater personal capacity to work with releasing emotions and then getting back on track through coaching. Because it’s coaching, even though we work somatically, after a woman discharges the unpleasant things from her system, she is aware the work doesn’t end there. We next have at least one session where we also look at her mindset, communication, how she chooses partners a bit more carefully and delicately, and how she gages the moments or stages of each one’s life at that time. (meaning when they enter a relationship). Through coaching, personal foundations are laid for a better and more satisfying choices in the future.
✨ #5. I want to learn “stuff”.
Most would have thought this was the first reason people came to coaching. It is indeed one of the best ways to use coaching: skills! But since I published my video courses, those looking to learn skills tend to take courses. However, at least one woman, Zoe — I’ve talked about her before, an American who has been coming to coaching with me since 2020 — came precisely with this approach: she wanted to learn, get ideas, be inspired and bring as original things as possible into her relationship. We’re not reinventing the wheel in our sessions, but she does get personalized things nonetheless. Apart from Zoe, there was only one other request of this kind, from a Romanian woman. But in that case there was only one session. Zoe came for the long term, 3 years to date. She came from time to time, at her own pace.
As for my statistics in numbers (first half of 2023):
- 5 new readers of the eBook
- 8 individuals in individual coaching (7 unique sessions)
- 11 individual participants in breathwork events (some on a medium-term basis)
- 3 individuals in individual breathwork sessions
- 35 participants in online somatic practices (at least one month each)
- 5 new students in TheDOJO programs
- 15,786 new students on a marketplace (new collaboration)
BACK TO YOU
When you see statistics of any kind, do you honestly wonder where you stand in relation to them?
Or, even more importantly, do you ask yourself what you want, the power and inspiration you want, to do for your intimate life? I’m sure that searching for new topics on porn sites doesn’t help you much…
Here, I think the biggest stake is: who am I as an individual, what is important to me now, what does the quality of my intimate life mean to me now? And how do all these things affect the rest of my life?
Standardization and uniformity along with globalization, I don’t know how good that is. Honestly. I’m talking about our intimacy now, where we really don’t have motivation from society to work too much on its quality. Encouraging people to engage in personal development in sexuality and intimacy is taboo. While meditation, sports, nutrition, and finances have openness even from workplaces to lead people to development, not the same for the sexual side. The reason is obvious: it’s a very delicate subject. But the negative part is that what we do in intimacy can affect the rest of our aspects, including performance at work. Absolutely!
And if we develop our search for pornography but not the quality of our intimate lives, erotic maturity (a concept very misunderstood),
If we have a few economic giants in pornography consumption that draw our attention to them through all sorts of tricks, such as search statistics (they have resources, they can do whatever they want),
This doesn’t seem like “sexual evolution” to me, but rather consumption of time, energy, attention.
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