Dr. Elliot Justin, a pioneer in men’s sexual health, has developed innovative wearable technology to improve erectile function, sexual fitness, and intimacy. Having tracked over 70,000 erections, he’s transforming how sexual health supports lasting pleasure and deeper connection as we age. Whether you’re a man experiencing fading erections or a partner seeking greater sexual satisfaction and closeness, this episode is for you.
Find out how to have the best love and sex of your life!
A New Era of Sex with Intimacy, Confidence and Men’s Sexual Health: Show Notes
Wow — today’s podcast was fascinating!
Yes, we covered practical tools for creating a satisfying sex life, even when partners have different needs and desires. Yes, we talked about erectile health and sexual fitness in a way that’s eye-opening and vulnerable.
But what truly stunned me were the great lengths today’s guest, Dr. Elliot Justin, has gone to in order to better understand sexual health and pleasure.
This is a man who literally implanted an electrode in a male sheep, and then himself(!) to see if he could support sexual function — similar to how a pacemaker helps the heart.
He has tracked over 70,000 erections, collaborated with urologists and researchers, and created wearable technology that supports couple’s intimacy and pleasure.
He’s on a mission to make sure sexual health is tracked in the way other health wearables do it — and to ensure that sex doesn’t have to fade in long-term relationships.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why only one type of erectile dysfunction is truly “dysfunction”
- The two biggest causes of fading erections as men age — and what to do
- Why every couple needs to “plan for pleasure,” not just plan a date night
- The surprising truth about cock rings (and why men don’t often enjoy them — not true for his new creation)
- How the clitoris is — according to Elliot — the most efficient pleasure organ in the body
- When to see a doctor — and when to try something else first
- Sex toys, intimacy, and how to deepen connection in marriage
- What’s coming next: a revolutionary female wearable designed to revolutionize sexual health for women
- And Elliot’s three keys to a thriving long-term relationship: shared values, shared projects, and a great sex life
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This conversation is funny, informative, and a mix of science and soul. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, it’s packed with insights that can help you understand men, sexual health, and pleasure in a whole new way.
Links:
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Connect with Elliot
Bio:
Elliot Justin MD, FACEP, is the CEO and founder of FirmTech, the world’s first sex tech company focused on keeping men firm and fit for a better lifetime of lovemaking and pleasure. Before there is ED, there is erectile fitness. How can men avoid ED, and if they have it, arrest it and potentially reverse the condition? Dr. Justin and his FirmTech team have developed the Tech Ring and the Performance Ring, transformative tools to help men optimize personal “erectile fitness,” and to inspire better erectile and cardiovascular health.
Transcript:
Shana James, M.A. (00:05)
I’m excited to be here. I’ve never actually done an interview like this. You are the first product creator I’ve had on Practicing Love and my other podcast, Man Alive. Maybe there was one person over there who created a product for men.
So I’m excited to talk to you about both your experience of being in a 37 year marriage and how you’ve practiced love and made love last, and also what you have for people to make love and sex more pleasurable and more connected, to have sex with intimacy and confidence.. So thank you so much for being here today.
Elliot (00:54)
Thanks for the opportunity.
Shana James, M.A. (00:55)
We’re two New Yorkers by the way, so we might swear and get a little inappropriate. ⁓ Let’s start with, can you tell us a little bit about your current relationship? I know it’s a long term, 37 years, so anything you want us to know.
Elliot (01:11)
Sure. I actually met my wife when I was in medical school. We dated for six weeks and it was really fabulous. And then we broke up and we didn’t see each other for 11 years. And I was on Houston Street in New York City with my older brother. We were waiting for another woman who my brother wanted to set me up with. Being in New York City, of course, she wasn’t on time.
The restaurant was also closed because of a kitchen fire. My wife, Tobe, and my brother had interacted when I dated once. And then later on after the 11 year period, she recognized him and we didn’t recognize each other. She was walking down the street and I just,
So many things are intuitive. In life, we really try to plan, especially since I’m a doctor. You study hard, you take tests, you take exams, you try to guide your career in certain ways. But when I look back on my life, I have to say, almost all the best things have occurred providentially. You can look at them as random if you want. I don’t because they’re beyond coincidence. The are just too many factors that make this feel providential.
Some people actually say it’s God, maybe it’s Aphrodite. I kind of like that idea. But my wife-to-be was coming down the street. I was in my early thirties, and was in love with two people I was seeing.
I was becoming very interested in honor. And I actually wrote a novel called The Chastity of Honor.
About two weeks before I had broken up with everyone. I reached a point of maturity I decided that I wanted to live honorably. Six months later we were married.
Shana James, M.A. (03:54)
Wow, that was fast. Well, I’m loving that something in you, that impetus to mature in a way where you were interested in honor. It doesn’t always happen from the inside. I mean, maybe there was something else that guided you as well, but I appreciate that you had this shift toward maturity. And then that’s when she came. So I am getting the providence of that.
Elliot (04:23)
Right. And that we’re just on the street at the exact right time. Well, just to skip ahead and bring it back to my product, what we’re doing.
I’ve always been very interested in sex. My wife has always been very open-minded about sex toys. And if there’s one word or advice I’d have for your listeners, if you are considering getting married, add to that checklist that we all have, love sex toys. People don’t think about that.
We’ve been married for 37 years and we have three children. I would certainly say out of those 37 years, I’ve probably been happy 36 of those 37 years. All marriages have hard times, but we’ve really been happy.
Why is that? I think lovemaking is one of the keys. I think there’s a tripod that could hold a long-term committed relationship together: shared values, shared project —and children can be a profound part of that – and sex. Regular lovemaking. I really think an orgasm a day keeps a doctor away. We know from your world of therapy that couples who have sex frequently significantly cut their separation and divorce rates.
Elliot (05:53)
Couples that have sex in the big study, I think, in the UK, three times a week versus those who have sex three or less times a month, stay together 50% more of the time. I’ve actually suggested to two commissioners of health, state commissioners health, including one in my town here, and two governors in the United States: You’re concerned about the impact of separation, divorce upon crime, children, drugs, alcohol. You should be encouraging people to make love more. And they kind of roll their eyes. “Elliot, you know we can’t do that. Right?”
Shana James, M.A. (06:12)
One thing I always like to say is, yes, there are statistics and for each couple it’s different. And I think for each couple finding your own way, being able to talk about this with your partner – how much, how often would you like to make love if it was your ideal world? And then we also have the…when we’re raising children, things can be much more challenging and finding alone time and private time.
So I love the statistics and the fact that making love can often bring couples closer. And as you’re listening, Feel this out for yourself, and try your best to do it not with judgment or shame of your own self or your relationship,
Elliot (07:02)
Yeah, I think there are significant stresses with work, children, but that’s where I think people need to plan for pleasure. They can’t rely upon spontaneity. And I’m not talking about date night.
Shana James, M.A. (07:13)
I like that – plan for pleasure. That’s a fun motto.
Elliot (07:17)
Yeah, and I’m not telling people you should have a white board of sexual activities in your bedroom. Well, that’s kind of an interesting idea. But I’ll draw two analogies. I’m a really good cook. If you were to come to visit me here in Montana, I wouldn’t say as the doorbell rings, oh, Let’s go see what’s in the refrigerator. Oh, there’s some leftover rotisserie chicken. I’ll throw some hot sauce on it. Good, done. No, I would plan for pleasure, for all of us.
Now people sometimes tell me, well, there’s date night. Well, no, because if you only have sex a couple of times a week, or a month, there’s a lot of pressure then on that date night. And I’ve heard from patients and customers that the date night really doesn’t actually work out that well. Someone ends up drinking too much. Maybe on date night, you actually have a quarrel over something that’s happened.
Spontaneity doesn’t work either. Cause if you’re trying to be spontaneous, then you get the, “I’m kind of tired.” Or, “You know, after what happened today at work, or this problem with the kid,” or “I didn’t tell you what happened to my mother today.” It just doesn’t work. I think there needs to be an expectation on both parties that they are going to make a regular effort to make love and then suppress the excuses and commit to having sex with intimacy.
Shana James, M.A. (08:47)
I think that is interesting. I can imagine people listening saying, “yeah, but I don’t want to suppress my excuses. I want to be authentic. I want to be genuine.” And I can feel this too. I think there are ways where I do suppress my excuses, or I kind of check in to see which part of me is having the excuses, and where’s the part that knows that this is actually usually amazing, connecting, whatever, even if I’m not there in the moment, as I’m more perimenopausal.
So I do love that invitation to check out the excuses. Though excuses feels like judgment, but what reasons I’m having for not making love, or not connecting with my partner.
In my book, Honest Sex, I also talk about expanding the definition of sex so that it’s not just
penetration, it’s not just genitals, so that people can not feel so much pressure, and feel a lot more satisfaction when there are more ways to play, which I know is something that you are bringing to us.
But before we go there, the question I ask everybody on Practicing Love is, what is something that you’ve struggled with that you’re now practicing, which may be your product that you, is your practice?
Elliot (10:05)
Sure. I’ll start with myself. I don’t technically have erectile dysfunction, but all men do. And this is something I think doctors and women and even men, don’t grasp this. So erectile dysfunction breaks down, I break it down to two groups. And I hate the word dysfunction because to my mind, it should only be reserved for one group and not all men.
We don’t talk about women as being dysfunctional, even though female sexual dysphoria: FSD, the technical name, we don’t talk about. That’s not part of the common vocabulary.
I’m 70 years old, early on in medical career, women were still being described as frigid, hysteric, anorgasmic. And the feminists came along appropriately. They drove the language out – to talk about things more positively so people aren’t ashamed or embarrassed.
I like to talk about erectile fitness. So that turns into something positive. We are all on the road, men and women, from fitness to dysfunction in many ways, but let’s focus on sex.
We all would like to know, where am I on this road? Can I press the brakes? Can I make a U-turn? Can I go back? Can I recover the fitness that I’ve lost?
But we don’t have a dashboard. We don’t have a GPS. And that’s what our technology is doing for men with the tech ring. And we can talk later on about this –We’re working on the first female device, the Clitique, to give data to women. And once you have data, you can then say, where is the problem?
So let’s talk about erectile dysfunction specifically.
Elliot (12:02)
I’m aware of the deterioration of my sexual health. Even though I can have an orgasm every day. I’m aware, especially over the last decade, that there’s a certain resistance, a growing sort of, “maybe not tonight.” Where I’m looking for an excuse, basically to avoid a situation where I might fail.
Shana James, M.A. (12:35)
And what’s the difference between that just being a natural way that our bodies shift and change over time versus there’s something wrong or unhealthy there?
Elliot (12:48)
Well, what if it’s unnecessary?
That’s what our technology has revealed. That’s kind of what I suspected as I got into this.
Is there some way of fixing this? Now a lot of people have the notion that the guys have this pill. The pills don’t produce erections. They facilitate blood flow into the penis. But that’s not most men’s problems, is what our data has discovered.
For me personally, sex is profound, making love is a profound pleasure. Something that I think ideally we would enjoy five, six nights a week, because it’s part of the bond of our life. And I found both of us sort of drifting away from that. And I missed it. And I want to, like I said on the road from fitness to dysfunction, I want to make a U-turn.
Now I couldn’t zip back to where I was at age 14 or 20, but could I go back to my 50s? Could I go back to my 40s? For my wife, the solution turned out to be something else. We can talk about that. But for me, I was wondering, why is this? So what I noticed was that I enjoyed penetrative sex much less.
Shana James, M.A. (13:48)
You weren’t having as much pleasure through it, would you say?
Elliot (14:12)
Correct. In thinking about the factors, one is simply boredom. As much as I might love my wife, there are certain positions that just don’t do it for me anymore.
So there’s certain things she enjoyed that I no longer enjoyed and that led to a disconnect between the two of us, even irritation on my part, as in feeling that she knows I don’t like this position, and I don’t get the friction I want, and I’m gonna lose my erection, so why do you do this to me?
Shana James, M.A. (14:45)
Well, right. And that was one of my questions I was going to ask: what kinds of conversations are you having about it? Because in that conversation, it sounds like it’s more of a conflict there versus, let’s try to work this out together. It didn’t sound as much like you’re on the same team there.
Elliot (15:02)
The conversations were not effective. Because people want what they want, especially when it comes to sex and being turned on, they want what they want.
Shana James, M.A. (15:20)
But you said it wasn’t effective for some reason, there was something that wasn’t happening.
Elliot (15:28)
It’s often hard to negotiate someone out of something they want. It’d be nice if it were easy. And what we did discovered is that there were solutions and it is easy.
Shana James, M.A. (15:40)
It’s good to know, because sometimes there are communicative solutions where we can explore together – what would excite you? Where do you get turned on? Where do I get turned on?
And what I’m hearing you say also is sometimes there are actually physical solutions. If there isn’t enough pleasure in certain positions, then there could be a physical solution, which you have found and created.
Elliot (15:54)
Correct. And women have vibrators and men have shit. In the course of my lifetime, vibrators have gone from my mother’s supply room closet bottom drawer in late 1950s to the 70s and 80s when vibrators started to come into play, but there’s still a certain shame and embarrassment – you’re going to become a vibrator addicted. And now that’s gone. I don’t know how many vibrators my wife owns depending upon what position, what her mood is! She could probably come to bed with a bandolier depending upon what she wanted at that moment. And I think it’s a lot of fun.
Shana James, M.A. (16:52)
I love that you are accepting of that because I think there are some people who feel like it cuts at them, or like there’s pride or some ego there. But again, I think through communication, we can actually learn to play together.
Elliot (17:12)
I challenge those men to be able to move their hand as fast as a vibrator. Anyway, good luck guys, go to the gym, show me.
Now, our daughter’s 30, she’s actually getting married. She takes them on dates. I think she gave away some of our toys at her bachelorette party. They’re normative, cock rings aren’t.
Shana James, M.A. (17:16)
Great. I love it.
Elliot (17:33)
And cock rings never caught on. I’ve always played around with cock rings. My wife would go into a sex toy store and buy something for herself and she’d buy a ring. They pinched, they’re uncomfortable with these hard silicone rings and they’ve been made in the same stupid male anatomy insensitive way for the last 150 years.
Shana James, M.A. (17:50)
There’s been no improvements in the realm?
Elliot (17:52)
No. Look at vibrators. Let’s start out with Dr. Roos, the aerosolator. Big seller. Now the motor’s the same, an offset motor. She got the idea, as lore has it, from an electric toothbrush. But they’ve evolved.
I have to say that when I’ve been on podcasts and I’ve been on platforms at events and people and women want to complain – not something else for men. Well, men have shit. It’s true, women have not been paid attention to in medicine. So women are underrepresented in studies about cardiovascular health, kidney health. Women are underrepresented…
Shana James, M.A. (18:31)
Women are definitely represented in medical studies and research.
Elliot (18:45)
But when it comes to sex toys…
I’m aging, certain positions are less attractive to me. despite my communicating to my wife that there’s certain things that don’t work for me. I mean, in a successful marriage, in my opinion, the woman comes first and third, the man comes second. That’s the way it is, in my observation.
For most couples, not always, not 100 % of time. This isn’t a rule, but most of the time.
And vibrators certainly help a lot, with pleasure and to have sex with intimacy. So commonly after my wife would come climax, she would want me to have sex with her in the missionary position or from behind. And I would get irritated because I understand why she wants it. She’s in that post orgasmic low and she wants to be a bit more passive and enjoy that.
I call it the post orgasmic stupor almost. She wants to enjoy that but if it wasn’t working for me I would get irritated. I’m not the only guy in this situation. This is something men don’t want to talk about with women. We talk a lot about the importance of communication but no man wants to communicate to his female, or male partner for that matter, I’m bored. I’m not getting friction. You’re not giving me the attention that I want.
Shana James, M.A. (19:36)
I do agree that no man wants to communicate this, and I also support men, and people of all genders, to be able to communicate these hard topics. And I’m grateful that you have also come up with these other solutions.
Elliot (20:02)
I live in Montana, I own horses. I, at one point many years ago, broke six ribs and six vertebrae. Fortunately I did not injure my spinal cord, but I got interested in what’s been done to rehabilitate sexual function in men and women who have spinal cord injuries or multiple sclerosis or other disease of the spinal cord. And that eventually led to me trying to pacemake human sexuality.
We’re all familiar with the cardiac pacemaker, the cavernous nerve, the pudendal nerve, the nerves in men and women that are responsible for arousal and climax. And I succeeded in pacing them on two rams, but we also got defecation urination. So it wasn’t exactly bedroom friendly.
Shana James, M.A. (21:07)
So you did this research on male sheep?
Elliot (21:10)
Yes, two rams. I implanted an electrode by the pudendal and cavernous nerves, had a wire coming out. I called this project O for obvious reasons.
Then I had a friend of mine who’s a urologist surgeon try it out on me, and I felt nothing. I don’t think we know how arousal, especially in climaxes, is produced in men and women.
Everything in the body should be electric at some point. Because I’m a doctor, I say that. My wife says it’s Aphrodite. Maybe she’s right. I don’t know.
Shana James, M.A. (21:40)
Right, but it’s not, apparently. I am loving the lengths that you’ve gone to to make this happen. I’m blown away!
Elliot (21:49)
Hahaha! So by coincidence, I told this story to a surgeon years later, about three and a half years ago, As I was working on a catheter to regulate blood pressure after a stroke, this doctor on the last day of ski season happens to be sitting next to the associate chairman of urology at the University of Utah, tells him about what I’m doing.
Oh, can you believe what this doctor did? He actually had an electrode planted. And the urology professor says, well, that’s interesting, because I want to figure out how to count nocturnal erections because they’re a leading indicator of a man’s cardiovascular health.
He contacted me and I said wow, that’s incredible because that means you can actually predict the state of someone’s heart through monitoring their erections. By the way, I think something is true for women as well, which is why we are working on that female device.
Ok but that doesn’t get to your point.
In order to come up with a way of counting nocturnal erections, we have to solve the cock ring problem. So when this doctor told me he wanted to count nocturnals, I said, well, why stop with nocturnals?
What do men care more about? The ones they are having while they’re having sex or the ones they’re having while they’re sleeping?
Let’s come up with a way of measuring all erections. So we had to change the material from hard silicone to a soft elastomer. We want to allow the arterial blood to flow in and only constrain the venous return.
We want a ring to be worn not just overnight to count nocturnals, but it can now be worn for long sex sessions. So as opposed to these hard silicone rings that are really uncomfortable after about 15, 20 minutes, you can now have sex for as long as you want.
Shana James, M.A. (23:34)
This ring is actually comfortable. And you’re not putting a pill into your body.
Elliot (23:39)
That’s correct.
There are two papers – One is by an independent study, another one by us internally comparing our ring to 10 milligrams of Tadalafel Sialis, showing that the ring is as effective, if not more effective, than the pill.
For most men, there is now a non-pill solution. I started out with technology and now I find myself solving my problem, and the problem that many men have.
Let me first define dysfunction There are men who can’t attain an erection, which is about 12 % of men who report having dysfunction. That’s dysfunction. If you can’t attain erection or struggle to attain erection, any one of you listeners, you need to see a doctor.
You have a major cardiovascular problem or metabolic problem or an allergic problem, maybe more than one of those things until proven otherwise. Don’t just go online and get pills if you’re struggling.
Shana James, M.A. (24:30)
Don’t mess around with that. There could be definitely other emotional, psychological, relational things as well, but don’t mess around.
Elliot (24:38)
Yes. And for the other 85 to 88 % of men who get an erection and lose it, in other words, they get blood into their penis, but they’re losing it, that’s where the data is really profoundly valuable because you can sort out – Is this psychogenic? Is it due to the medication I’m taking? Is it I’m drinking too much alcohol? Is it multifactorial? Is it with this person, not with that person? You can actually start to sort it out if you have data for these events.
Because of this data, we’ve now documented 70,000 erections and there are seven published papers. The previous ideas about erectile dysfunction come from a study done in early 1990s with a device called the radioscan that had 800 erections.
So on the basis of that data and the other thing, it’s a common mistake that doctors make – we see the sickest people in our practice, especially academics, and we project from them on the general population.
Shana James, M.A. (25:11)
Wow.
Elliot (25:36)
So these academic neurologists, who are seeing men who can’t attain erection are projecting the reasons for that on the general population.
Well, those guys who can’t attain erection, they’ve got angina, they’ve had a heart attack, they’ve had a stent, they had a stroke, they have Parkinson’s, they are diabetics out of control.
Yet those guys, for them it’s true that the penis is “the canary in the coal mine” of cardiovascular disease.
But it’s not true for most men. Most men get an erection and lose it. The data shows the incidence of rectal dysfunction goes up 10 % per decade after age 45.
The expectation of the doctors, me too, was that as that incidence of erectile dysfunction goes up, men’s sex erections will soften. The number of men’s nocturnal erections will go down. That’s not happening. Men are staying just as hard until the late 60s, early 70s. And men are having the same number of nocturnal erections until the 60s and 70s, even though they’re getting mild diabetes, mild hypertension, et cetera.
Shana James, M.A. (26:37)
Okay, can we slow this down a minute? You’re saying that the research was showing this decrease, but now your data is showing that that’s not actually happening?
Elliot (26:47)
That’s right. Exactly. The research on this small study done in the 1990s shows that men who have struggled to attain erections have this problem of declining firmness and numbered nocturnal erections. And the patients that the academic urologists see in their practices with advanced ED, they’re seeing the same thing.
But that’s not the ED that most men, including myself, are experiencing. Most of us are experiencing the fact that our erections, as we get older, fade faster.
Every erection ends in a venous leak. Every erection, the clitoris too. Here’s another way, just to digress for a moment…Here’s an area where women, the clitoris, is such a superior organ to the penis for sexual pleasure, because the vibrator maintains blood flow. The vibrations increase blood flow. So whatever the pleasure aspect is, the vibration, neurologically, blood keeps flowing.
Men don’t have anything other than a ring. So the ED in most men who lose it, get it, lose it, is multifactorial. So whether that’s due to the fact that you have a drinking problem, you’re bored, you’ve lost your confidence, you’re with someone new, or it could be that you’re taking medications that have an impact. If you put a ring on it, it holds the blood in the penis.
When you’re when you’re 14 years old you can hold a girl’s hand for 20 minutes and you get a hard on for an hour and a half. Blood doesn’t want to leave the penis. So as you get older, that changes. When you’re 20, an average guy can have sex four or five times a day. By 30, it’s two or three times. And then just deteriorates with age.
Although, if you plan for pleasure, and you exercise it, and you create expectations, I’m confident, and I think I’m an example of this, you can actually improve that situation.
Because it is use it or lose it. There’s an atrophy that occurs in men and women. Anyway, all a man has to do to improve to himself…well, first he has to get over his inhibitions. He has to stop associating rings with gay guys, if he’s straight, or fetish sex. He has to get over his pride of “I don’t need that.”
Look at this objectively. Get hard. Then no stimulation. See how long it takes for your erection to go down. It’ll be about 25, 35 seconds. If you put a ring on it – ours of course is the most comfortable one – but put a ring on it, you’ll stay hard for two to three minutes. Before that you’re so soft you couldn’t penetrate. And if you take the Tadalafil, you’ll add about another minute to that.
So every man gets fading erections as they get older. Every man will benefit ⁓ from a rain, except for the guys who can’t get an erection. That’s different. So we shouldn’t call this dysfunction.
Shana James, M.A. (29:22)
Got it. It actually sounds like it’s a common function that we’re attempting to, like you said, to solve for.
Elliot (29:46)
Right, and doctors like to medicalize things. We like to give people the care that we can bill for. And that care involves pills, that care involves getting a heated implant, getting a Doppler. It doesn’t evolve – hey, put a ring on it. So I encourage all men, if you have a problem, get your data, but all men should put a ring
Shana James, M.A. (29:51)
This reminds me too of the ring that many people are wearing now to track their sleep, the aura ring. People are tracking blood sugar too, right? So why not track your sexual health and sexual functioning? This makes so much sense.
Elliot (30:13)
Well, there’s a gap. I think we live in this incredible age of healthcare wearables. Apple Watch, Garmin, Myzone, all these, and yet there’s this gap, which is sex. And that’s why my wife, again, my wife says, well, how did we get into this business?
Because what we’re doing should have been done 20 years ago. The sensors that we’re using in our device are not, I didn’t invent these sensors, they’re off the shelf. The notion that erections are indicating one’s cardiovascular health or medication side effects. This isn’t new. Psychiatry and urology are about the only two areas in medicine where we treat major problems with no data. And now there’s data.
Shana James, M.A. (30:59)
Fascinating. This is amazing. I’m so grateful that you have created this and that you used one of your struggles in life and something you knew that other men struggled with to create something to solve for this.
Elliot (31:16)
Let me make another point about my struggles. I’ll illustrate this with an anecdote that kind of makes me look like a jerk, but I’m a guy and a jerk in a sort of a typical, male way.
Shana James, M.A. (31:23)
Okay, we’ll see. We’ll see how this goes.
Elliot (31:39)
When we first came up with a full prototype of the device, which was about two years ago, in February, it was a cold winter day in Montana. My wife and I were making love.
We were both turned on. but in the middle of sex, in the middle of making love, she can talk about something else. Some of that occurs to her. And she’s got to get rid of it before she can get on with it, so to speak.
Shana James, M.A. (31:54)
It just pops into her mind and then she says it.
Elliot (32:00)
Now this time she had left the garage door open, and it was snowing outside. Now, there’s no heterosexual relationship in the world where the woman is likely to jump out of bed and say, I’ll take care of it.
Shana James, M.A. (32:14)
Right, I’m going to go out to the garage on this snowy night, naked, and close it.
Elliot (32:19)
You got it, yes. Correct, that doesn’t happen. I’m glad you agree on that.
So ordinarily for me that would have been a what the fuck moment. I probably would have cursed.
Shana James, M.A. (32:30)
Can we recognize that some of that cursing and what the fuck, that what was underneath that is the vulnerable part of, shit, I’m going to lose my erection.
Elliot (32:39)
I’m gonna lose it. You got it and something I want, which is Sex, at that moment is out of my control.
Shana James, M.A. (32:45)
…is going to be out of your control. So you were wearing the ring at that moment. Okay. So you go and close the garage.
Elliot (33:08)
I’m gonna lose my temper, I’m gonna lose my desire, and I could just feel it building up inside me, because she and I have had that fight a hundred times, but I’m wearing the ring, so I go downstairs and the garage is open, and the back door of her car is open because she must have been taking groceries in, and I’m coming up the stairs and she calls out to me, Elliot, you know that tequila I like? Can you pour me some? Don’t forget the ice and the lime.
That would have been a second male What the fuck? And I would have told her to get her…
Shana James, M.A. (33:19)
I hope it wasn’t “you get your own f’ing tequila,” but also I can understand in that moment:
What the fuck? There’s this thing that we’re in the middle of… I’m very unifocused. It’s what I want and it’s hard to not to have what I want.
Elliot (33:38)
I didn’t yell at her either time because I put the ring on… I’m not a saint.
Shana James, M.A. (33:42)
Thankfully. Well, I hope you wouldn’t have yelled at her even if you didn’t have the ring on.
Elliot (33:51)
We’re both hot tempered people and it’s really hard. The important thing is to recognize and apologize quickly. That’s the whole issue.
Anyway, I come up the stairs and I’m about 90 % hard after like five minutes. And she says, you know, the garage door was true, but the tequila was a test. And we both laughed.
Shana James, M.A. (33:57)
Was she testing you or the product? The ring.?
Elliot (34:21)
She was testing the product. She’s like, I am a part owner of this company. So I created a test for him.
Now, we make love about 50 % longer. And I hear about this from customers. My customers and my patients and my sexual health practice. If a man is confident he’s not going to lose an erection, it’s great for both partners, male or female partners. I’ve heard about it from a couple of gay guys too. Because there’s no longer this rushed orgasm.
Shana James, M.A. (34:45)
Right.
Elliot (34:45)
So previously, in our andropause, menopausal life, there was this rush. Oh, we’re turned on, we’re in the mood. We get the vibrator, what position, blah, blah, you know, and this sort of rush, that doesn’t necessarily produce the most satisfying, not just orgasm, but intimacy as well. So we estimate that, as opposed to making love for say 10 to 15 minutes, we make love for 45 minutes for an hour, because she knows that I’m going to stay hard and I know it too. And that’s a game changer.
Shana James, M.A. (35:17)
Much less pressure, which leads to much more intimacy.
Is there anything else you want to highlight?
Elliot (35:26)
Yes, I just want to reiterate that you now have the ability to harness data to assess the status of your sexual health. If it’s good, you want to know where you want to establish a baseline, the way you do with blood pressure, or low proteins.
If it’s a problem, you now can figure it out with data. And the most common problem, which is fading erections with aging, can be solved with a ring.
Shana James, M.A. (35:47)
Amazing, amazing. And thank you. I’m going back to all the research you’ve done, including your own surgeries and working with the sheep. And wow, you never realize how much goes into creating a product, especially around sex, because I think the missing piece, like you said, we’ve got all these wearables and then there’s shame around talking about sex and talking about erections and talking about sexual function in our culture.
And so then of course there’s this missing link. So amazing that you have tapped into this and given men and couples the ability to not only track their health, but also to take the pressure off and create more intimacy.
Elliot (36:33)
That’s right. Thank you. And I’m waiting for the female device because it’s going to revolutionize sexual health for women as well too.
Shana James, M.A. (36:35)
Yes, awesome. How so?
Elliot (36:44)
Women will then be able to assess the impact of diseases, diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, upon their sexual health. Perimenopausal women will be able to see the impact of hormones and SSRI antidepressants that they take commonly – What’s the right dose? And they will also be able to assess the benefits of testosterone replacement therapy, shock wave therapy, all things that are along right now to enhance the sexual health of post-menopausal women.
Shana James, M.A. (37:13)
Amazing. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing this and for creating this. How can people find your product?
Elliot (37:22)
You can get the product here. And you can reach me directly at elliott@ myfirmtech.com
Shana James, M.A. (37:28)
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Elliot, for having this conversation about men’s health and how couples can have sex and with intimacy.
Elliot (37:37)
Thank you, it was a pleasure.
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