003 Sex & Technology- Kate Moyle & Marta Plaza

Welcome to my virtual therapy room!  I am Dr Lori Beth Bisbey and this is Sex Spoken Here. Today we are talking about Sex and Technology! It’s the 21st century and many of us don’t go anywhere without our phones, our pads and myriad wearables to connect to the internet. What used to be confined to behind closed doors, sex has now entered a new open world or sort of open – on the internet. We no longer rely on dating services that make introductions face to face. We choose partners on the internet – often because we discover them in special interest groups that cater to our individual sexualities. When people have sexual difficulties, they also turn to the internet as the first place for information. But what are the ethics in this brave new world? How can we encourage people to connect intimately by using technology?

Today I am joined by Kate Moyle and Marta Plaza.

Kate Moyle is a Qualified Psychosexual Therapist working with couples and individuals to help get them to a place of sexual health, happiness and wellbeing. She believes in offering her clients a confidential and taboo free space, where they can address their sexual issues and concerns and create a path to change that is right for them as individuals. After completing a BSc degree in Psychology Kate went onto complete her Post Graduate Diploma in Psychosexual Therapy and a three year MA in Relationship Therapy. Kate is also the co-developer of the Pillow Play ap. This ap helps couples to get creative with intimacy. 

Marta has been involved with tech since she left college and a couple of years ago joined to build Desire, a game for couples. Desire game can be as romantic as you want or as spicy as you want, depending on your mood and on what you like in that moment. The game uses gamification to spice up the relationship and bring couples closer creating great memories between them. Desire has currently half million downloads thru iPhone and Android and couples enjoy daring each other. 

We talked about how technology can facilitate closer relationships. We discussed the need for adults to remember how to play and that both of these games facilitate play and more playful communication which deepens intimacy. We also talked about the need for novelty in relationships to keep things fresh, increase the intimate bond and help break routines. Marta’s game, Desire involves having the couples dare each other to do things and there is a point system and scoring takes place online. She described a comment on line when the game was released where a woman said her husband was shy in the bedroom but the game appealed to his ego with the points and this meant that she was having more fun too. Kate spoke about her app creating more communication between couples.  

We all agreed that technology can be extremely helpful to increase communication between couples and that it can also act as a distraction. We spoke about couples needing to set boundaries in their relationships as to how and when technology is used. I brought up a desire to see technology in the future used to help couples with sexual dysfunction and we made brief mention of virtual reality.  

To find pillow play, go to the app store or download from the website http://www.pillow.io/

To find Desire – download from googleplay and the app store or the website http://www.desire.games/ 

Thanks for joining me this week for Sex Spoken Here with Dr Lori Beth Bisbey.  Write to me with suggestions for the show, questions you want answered at drbisbey@the-intimacy-coach.com, follow me on twitter @drbisbey. For a free 30 minute strategy session with me, go to www.the-intimacy-coach.com and click the button that says Schedule Now!  I look forward to seeing you next week.