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O'Zoon, well played. Discover free sports tips, casino games, and poker guides at ozoon.net. Vanessa Mauren, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to be here. Well, me too. We covered a lot of dark stuff on the show, so I wanted to lighten that up a little bit, and I thought you'll be a perfect guest. And so here we go.
It's going to be all about sex therapy. Yeah, and I just want to say I really appreciate you being willing to open up this conversation. It's a tough one for so many people. And you know what I can say, having been in this field for over 20 years and talking to hundreds of thousands of people, I think so many of us are desperate for more from our relationships.
We want more connection, more closeness, more intimacy. And so many of us are wondering, like, what happened to that couple who was madly in love, who couldn't keep their hands off of each other? Like, what have we become now? And so I've really made up my mission to try to bridge that gap in relationships, to try to help save relationships.
So the good news is there are a lot of really practical things that we can do to recreate that intimacy. So my goal is by the end of this episode, your audience is going to feel inspired. They're going to feel motivated, and they're going to have a couple of practical tools. They're excited to start putting the use right away.
Man, I love to hear that. It's just nice to have a lighter subject to talk about. And do you know who Dr. Rina Malek is?
Yeah, I do. Yeah, we just had her on. Oh, she's great. It's just like the forbidden topic that you just don't talk about in public.
And I thought that was an amazing conversation. We haven't even released it yet. And we've been trying to get you on here for at least a couple months. I know.
So, so yeah, thank you for coming. But everybody starts off with an introduction here. So Vanessa Maureen, a licensed psychotherapist with over 20 years of clinical experience in sex therapy, helping countless couples improve intimacy. A Brown University graduate with dual bachelor's degree in human sexuality and sociology.
A master's degree in counseling psychology, co-founder of Vanessa and Xander alongside her husband, where you build a library of online courses and tools that real couples use to reclaim their spark. A best-selling author of the book, Sex Talks, five conversations that will transform your love life. And you've also turned this book into a card deck of prompts to deepen connection and spark intimacy. So we might have to open some of them.
Right on. Let's do it. Let's do it. But so before we get too far into the interview, everybody gets a gift.
Oh, I'm so excited. Did you want to see Gummy Bears legal in all 50 states? It's just candy. I'm very excited about these.
I listened to your episode with Gabrielle and I. Oh, cool. You know Gabrielle too? Oh, yeah, she's a new friend of mine.
And she didn't get hers. And I was like, I really hope I really hope I got my gummy bears. And then we'll send you an extra one back for her. But and then I have a Patreon account.
We've turned it into one hell of a community and they've been with us since the beginning. This is the reason I get to be here with you today. And so one of the things we do is we offer them the opportunity to ask every guest a question. This is from Terry Luckitsky.
I was in a 14 year abusive marriage and returning to single life. How do you suggest setting boundaries in today's dating world reclaiming sexual health and what are your recommendations for meeting someone new? Oh, well, first of all, I just want to say I'm really excited for this person to get back out there and to be in a healthier relationship. I obviously have a lot of grief and sadness of having to process that and move on.
But I'm super excited for them to find somebody new and find something better. So I think a great starting point would be to take some time to reflect on what you learned about yourself in that past relationship. And in particular, what you learned about your sexuality. We can always take all of our experiences and figure out what are things that I want to replicate in the future and what are things that I do not want again in the future.
So particularly when it comes to sex, I would think about what were some of my favorite experiences, what were the times that I felt the most connected to my partner, and what were the things that I didn't enjoy so much and have those be your barometers going forward and what you're looking for in a partner. And then what I always say to people from the beginning, when you're starting a relationship, actually our book is such a great resource because a lot of people will tell us, oh, well, I'm not in a relationship, I can't read it. But it's actually really useful to get started on a good foot, right when you're getting started with a new relationship. Yeah, start talking about sex.
Obviously, not on your first date and first five minutes. But get a sense of how comfortable or not comfortable that person is with their sex life. So once you've gotten a couple of dates in, maybe just ask a pretty general question, like, what's your relationship with sex? How important is sex to you?
What does physical intimacy mean to you? Something more open like that. So you can just get a sense of who that person is. Great, great.
Love that answer. Right at the very beginning, you were talking about you see couples and they're all lovey dovey and touching each other and very affectionate. And then as time goes on, it dwindles away. Sometimes it comes back, sometimes it doesn't come back and things just get totally out of whack.
Why does that happen in most couples? Well, first of all, does it happen in most couples? Does it happen in all couples? It absolutely does happen in most, if not all, couples.
And Xander and I always like to normalize this by saying it happened in our relationship. I was already in this field. I'd already been doing research and studying and the exact same thing happened to us. You know, when we met, the chemistry was instantaneous.
It was just, we both kind of took it as, this is a sign from the universe. This is my person. We're hitting it off so well. And then you're, you know, you're to another relationship and all of a sudden I having this experience of sitting on a couch in our living room, he's sitting on another couch on the opposite side of the room.
We're in like our ratty pajamas. We're eating takeout straight from the containers. We've had exhausting days at work. We're watching some crappy bravo TV show that I probably forced into watch.
And I remember having the thought, I don't remember the last time we had sex. And at first it was just like an observation like, yeah, when was it? And then it kind of hit me like a tidal wave like, I don't remember the last time we were intimate and I'm not sure I even have really been missing it all that much. And so I've had that experience of what the heck happened to us.
Why did we go from this incredible chemistry to I can't even remember? And so there are a bunch of different reasons why this happens. So let's start with first just purely physiological. Our bodies are not capable of sustaining that level of intensity for longer than six to 12 months.
So the chemical processes that happen on our brain are so intense, so overwhelming. It's the equivalent of being high on cocaine essentially. We're literally addicted to that person. We can't get enough of them, right?
But our brains are just physiologically incapable of maintaining those same levels of neurotransmitters for longer than about a year if you're lucky. Physically, it's just not even possible. But making it even worse, a lot of us take our foot off the gas once we've gotten into a relationship. And if you think about every romance that you've seen on TV and in the movies, the focus is always on like getting the girl, right?
Like getting together and there's something that's in your way, something little you have to overcome and then now you're together and you live happily ever after. And so so many of us have that idea in our heads of that's how it goes. Once I get the person and I lock them down, we're committed, we're married, whatever it is, like we're good, right? And so a lot of us just go into coasting mode and we stop doing the things that helped us feel so connected to our person in the first place.
Can I, before we go too far into this, I just have a couple of theories that, so when you were saying your husband and you were sitting on the couch eating takeout again, that to me, like if I like shit, it's not happening. Oh yeah. If I don't feel good, it's not happening. That's not just me, that's my wife too.
It's if we gorge on fast food, takeout pizza, pretty much anything and then we feel like shit by the end of the night. It's like you don't feel, I don't even, I don't feel comfortable in my own skin, so it's not just not going to happen. I'll tell you one of my favorite rules for your sex life. Yeah.
Okay, it's called fuck first. Nice. So before you go out to eat, go to a party, any sort of event, have sex first. So so many of us have this idea, especially with date night, we think, oh, you go out to the restaurant, you have a nice date and then you come home and you have sex, but let's be real, you go out to the restaurant, you overeat, you over drink, you come home, you're bloated, you're gassy, you're uncomfortable, you just want to put on your PJs and put Netflix on and sit on the couch, right?
Like nobody wants to have sex after a big date night out. So this is something so practical, so simple, but it's literally game changing, have sex first, then go out on date night, then you're not going to be bloated to full and also it feels like the sexy little surprise between the two of you, the secret between the two of you. So the date night just feels even more fun and flirty than it would otherwise. Nice.
Great suggestion. And then my other theory is that people just eventually just, I don't know any other way to say it, they just let themselves go. Yeah. And it's in, I mean, we talk about this a lot with people like Dr.
Gabriel Lyons and a lot of the other doctors that have had it, not enough, not in a sexual way, but Gabriel talks about it. It's like you wind up in the cycle and it's like, you eat like shit and you're like, oh, I did it last time. I'm like, what's one more day? What's one more piece of candy?
What's one more bag of gummy bears? And then it just keeps going and going and going. And I think that, you know, maybe that's why you get these long periods of no sex with your significant other partner spouse, you know, whatever. Am I right on that?
Absolutely. Yeah. The way that we take care of our body heavily impacts our desire for sex, how we show up during sex. And, you know, I can tell a little bit of Xander's story too.
Like at the beginning of our relationship, he was in a really stressful job working very long hours trying to climb that corporate ladder, be a good provider. And he started stress eating, you know, and all of a sudden it was, he's gained a lot of weight. He was feeling really uncomfortable in his own body. And he would tell you the story too.
This is not a secret or anything. You know, he was just feeling really uncomfortable in his own skin and his sex drive really suffered because of that. And I've gone through similar phases in my own life too, where, you know, life gets in the way and you just kind of get off your routine and you really feel that impact. So I think that's actually one of the amazing invitations that our sex life offers to us.
I'm sure we'll get into this more, but, you know, we have this tendency to think of sex is just this purely physical act, but I really believe it's so much more than that. And it invites us to take a look at how are we really treating our bodies? How are we taking care of ourselves? Because if you're treating your body like crap, you're not going to want to be intimate with your partner.
You're not going to be able to perform super well with your partner. Like the desire is just not going to be there. So how we treat our bodies is incredibly important part of our sex life. Okay.
What are the other reasons? Are there other reasons? A lot of it is just letting life get in the way too. You know, we're all busy.
We're all so busy. We have a million things on our plate, a million things going through our minds at all times. And it's very easy for us to just take our relationships for granted and think like, you know, that's my person. I locked it down.
They're always going to be there. And so we let them drop farther and farther and farther down our priority list until the point where they really feel more like roommates rather than romantic partners. I mean, most couples will say we're like two ships passing in the night or we're business partners and managing a household, managing the kids schedules and all the stuff. But that spark between the two of us is gone.
So it's really we've we've stopped making space for each other to connect with each other, to spend time with each other to remind ourselves like, Oh, yeah, I like you. You're fun to spend time with. What about what about fear of asking? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Initiating is wildly wildly vulnerable. You're talking about initiating sex in particular. Yeah.
And then you're talking about how vulnerable it is to initiate and in male-female relationships, you know, it's almost always the man who's doing the initiating. That's kind of the idea that we have like, yeah, the guy's supposed to want it more. So he's supposed to initiate. And I think as women, a lot of us don't recognize how vulnerable that is, how hard it is to put yourself out there and ask to be intimate.
You're putting yourself in the position to be turned down. And anytime you get turned down for anything, it sucks. But particularly when it's around something as intimate as sex, it really hurts. And this is another area where I think we really get ourselves into a lot of trouble by thinking of sex as this purely physical act.
So a lot of women, their partner will initiate. And a lot of women will be kind of annoyed by it. Like, oh, you want to have sex now? Can't you say I'm in the middle of something?
We just had sex a couple of days ago, right? It feels annoying. And a lot of times that's because men are initiating in kind of annoying ways because it's so vulnerable. So you guys do that, like you're trying to joke about it instead.
You're trying to get a little plausible deniability. So one of the classic ones is like the old boob hunk, you know, he comes up behind her while she's watching the dishes and you know, gives her a little honk-kong. And she's like, leave me alone. Like, get off of me.
And he's, oh, I was just joking. I was just messing around with you. That wasn't trying to initiate. You get some plausible deniability, right?
To make it like, to make it stingless when you get a no. But of course, it's an annoying initiation. And so you're more likely, ironically, to get a no from her. But as women, a lot of us will, yeah, we'll get annoyed and just leave me alone.
Go away some other time. And we don't recognize in that moment that what our partner is really doing, even if it's he's doing it really immaturally, really unsilfully, what he's actually asking in that moment is I want to feel close to you right now. Will you connect with me right now? And that's something I tell women all the time, like, imagine in that moment that that's actually what he's saying to you.
You wouldn't respond to leave me alone. Oh, get out of here. If you actually recognize it, that's what he's saying. I want to feel close to you right now.
How should men be asking or what? So first of all, I think everyone needs to initiate. I think it's really important for both partners in the relationship. And it's not about sex drive.
I don't care who has the higher driver, the lower drive. I think both partners need to be willing to be that vulnerable and initiate with each other. It's not fair for it just to be put solely on one person's shoulders. So that's a big part of it.
But one of the things that we go over in sex talks is a model that Zander and I came up with called the initiation styles. Have you heard of the love languages model? It's like kind of an idea that we all like to give and receive love in different ways. It's very similar to that.
So if you don't know your partner's style, you're likely initiating in a way that doesn't really work for them and you're more likely to get that little, leave me alone kind of reaction. So it's understanding, you know, finding out what style your partner is and what's going to work for them. So I'll give you a couple of examples. One of the types is called take care of me.
And a lot of women tend to be of this type where we want to feel like there's emotional connection first. Like you care about me as a human, you're interested in me, you want to spend a little quality time with me, we're easing into it rather than just zero to 100. So for somebody who's of that type, a really successful way to initiate might be something like, Hey babe, I'm going to handle bedtime with the kids tonight. Why don't you go take a bath, relax, and then you and I can meet in the bedroom in about half an hour.
Something like that would feel so good for so many women versus I'll give you a totally different type of this called the play with me type where you like initiation to be more like playful and silly. The other night do this type a lot like we'll do we'll be watching a football game and we'll make a bet on who's going to win this game. Okay, whoever wins this bet, they get to have decide like what kind of sex they want to have tonight. You know, we're being silly about it or like we'll have a secret emoji that we send to each other and that means like, Hey, I'm interested right now.
Oh, nice. All right. So you can see that those are two very different kinds of style and if you're initiating in the style, that's not really what your partner likes is probably not only and as well. I mean, can you just ask?
Yeah, you absolutely can. And I do think that in general, that's one of the best ways to go about it. You know, like I was saying, a lot of men are doing it and he's kind of jokey ways around about why sometimes it's even just like, they give you a hug and you're like, okay, I know what you're doing. This is lasting a little or the back massage.
I'll be able to give you a back massage and you're like, this is going to be 10 seconds of a back massage and then your hands are going to start moving somewhere else. Oh, man. You're more verbal about it. You know, in those moments when you're not using your words, like everybody knows what's going on.
We're not fooling each other and then you're doing this whole like, nobody's saying anything, but we're communicating back and forth to each other anyways. So let's just say it. Hey, do you want to be intimate with me? Hey, I would like to feel close to you right now.
And one of my favorite techniques that Zander and I have actually been experimenting with a lot recently is we're separating the initiation from the actual sex. So for a lot of women, and this is even true for me, I've experienced this a lot. When Zander initiates with me, it can often feel like a pop quiz in the moment. It's like, oh, wait, wait, wait, you want to have sex right now?
I wasn't even thinking about sex right now. So I feel caught off guard. I feel like I'm already behind in a sense. So it's very easy for me to give this knee jerk like, oh, no, like I'm not turned on right now.
No, I don't want to. But I want, I really want people to get used to the idea that we don't have to be turned on in order to initiate or to say yes to sex. But what we've started doing is like creating more space between that so that I don't get that pop quiz feeling. So oftentimes we'll talk about it in the morning.
We'll say, hey, I would like to be intimate with you today. What does our schedule look like? What would be the best time for that to happen? If one person has way more on their plate than the other, like, hey, can I take this off your plate?
Maybe we can collaborate on this. Maybe we can push that off till tomorrow. So we're kind of like working together as a team to figure out when's the best time and the best way for us to be intimate. So it makes it feel like it's a collaboration.
It's not one person putting themselves out there being really vulnerable. It's both of us saying, hey, this is important to us. We want to make sure there's time for us in this crazy, busy day. So that has felt so nice for us lately.
I think it's a great tip for a lot of couples to try out. All right. All right. I mean, how much, how much sex should we be having?
That's the age old question, right? So there really truly is no perfect answer. Like every couple is so unique. And I know this is a very unsatisfying answer.
Like we all want to hear this magic number. I think a lot of us have a lot of anxiety about our sex. Like, am I having enough? Are we normal?
And so we want something like simple and concrete, like a no, just tell me, just tell me the number and we can do it. But here's what happens. Like, let's say I say three times a week is the perfect amount of time. If you're pushing yourselves to have sex just to hit quota, it's probably not going to be very good sex.
And there's a huge connection between our enjoyment of sex and our desire for it. If we are not enjoying the sex we're having, we're not going to desire it. It doesn't make any sense to. So trying to just hit that quota really doesn't work.
So it really is very unique. Who doesn't enjoy having sex? Oh, Sean, so many people. What?
And mostly women. There are so many women out there who are not enjoying the sex that they're having. And I'll tell you why. It's not any fault of men.
It's not any fault of any of ours. But the way that we are taught to have sex heavily prioritizes male pleasure. So let me, I'll go into the full like science geek out on you here. What's happening when we have intercourse intercourse is not the most pleasurable activity for women.
We actually pulled our audience before. We have over a million people in our community on Instagram. And we asked women is intercourse the most pleasurable activity for you? I want you to guess what percentage of women said yes, it is intercourse is the most pleasurable activity for me.
Well, you said it's not very many else. I said you have a little bit. 40%. Nine.
Wait, what? Nine percent? Nine percent of women. Enjoy sexual intercourse.
Say that intercourse is the most pleasurable activity for them. No kidding. Nine percent. All right.
Because when we are having intercourse, we're getting stimulation in our vagina. And our vaginas do not have very many nerve endings in them. Like think about how intense childbirth is. If we had even more nerve endings there, that would not be a good thing.
So we're getting stimulation of a part of our body that just is hardwired not to feel a ton of sensation. The most sensitive part of our body is the clitoris. So the clitoris is incredible organ. It's the only organ in the entire human body that exists solely for the purpose of pleasure.
The penis has reproductive functions. The clitoris is just purely for pleasure. The clitoris has about eight to 10,000 nerve endings in it. And compare that to the penis has two to three thousand.
So we have way more nerve endings, way more sensitivity. And this is where I can science geek out on you. Like when we are fetuses in the womb, we are actually, we all start off essentially with no gender. And then around 11 weeks or so, that's when we start to differentiate into male or female.
So the analogy I always give is like, imagine a ball of clay. So I could take a ball of clay and I could form it into a mug or I could take that same ball of clay and I could form it into a plate. So it's the same ball of clay that I'm starting with. I'm just making different shapes out of it, right?
So the same tissues that make the penis make the clitoris. One tissue is they just turn into different shapes, right? So the problem is when we're having intercourse, we're not getting clitoral stimulation. So we're not getting the most sensitive part of our body stimulated.
So the comparison that I always like to make is that intercourse for a woman from a nerve ending standpoint, it's like playing with a man's balls. Like that might be fun, that might feel good, but is it going to be enough stimulation for you to have an orgasm? Definitely not. But that's what we're doing to women is we're stimulating this part of our body that's not really designed to feel a lot of pleasure.
And then so many of us women are feeling like something's wrong with us or broken with us. We're not enjoying intercourse. Do you feel it? That something's off?
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What about the G-spot? The G-spot's a really interesting thing. So there actually isn't consensus in the sex therapy field about whether or not the G-spot actually exists. So what we do know is it's not really a spot in the sense of a button that you just press.
It's a zone. Yeah, there's a network of tissues that are there. And what they are around is the legs of the clitoris. So most of us think of the clitoris as just a little button, but it actually extends up into the body.
It's like a wishbone shape, exactly like a wishbone shape. So those, the legs of it are called the crura. And around the edge of the bottom of the legs, that's where the G-spot area is. So when you're stimulating the G-spot from inside the vagina, you're stimulating the clitoris.
It's still the clitoris. You're just going through the walls of tissue and muscle in the vagina. Gotcha. So it's still the clitoris.
All right, so how do women like to be pleasurable? With hands and mouths tend to be way more successful at helping her reach orgasm. So you're going to be a lot more successful that way. But that doesn't mean that intercourse can't be enjoyable, can't be intimate.
And you can also add clitoral stimulation. You use your hand. She uses her own hand. You could use a toy.
But you have to make sure there's some sort of clitoral stimulation happening. So I tell men, imagine, you have to think of the clitoris as the penis. And imagine, if you're having sex, but you're getting no stimulation of your penis, you're not going to enjoy it, right? So we need to treat the clitoris in the exact same way because it's the same tissues.
It's the same organ, the same purpose there. We need to make sure the clitoris is always invited to the party. Interesting. Okay.
Okay. All right. Where do we go from here? Where do we start?
We're talking about... Well, one of the bring up... Yeah, we were talking about initiation. And okay, so we talked about initiation, how to initiate, and then we got into only 9% women enjoy sexual intercourse.
But let's talk about the... How do we start the conversations in your book? Acknowledgement, Connection, Desire, Pleasure, Exploration. Okay.
So everybody knows... You've heard the advice, like, we should be talking about sex. You know, when you're up late at night and you're incognito moving on your phone, googling, like, why aren't we having sex anymore? It's always at the end of every article, like, talk to your partner about it, right?
But the problem is nobody ever tells you how to have those conversations. And you know, even when Xander and I were going through a tough period in our own relationship, even though I was in this field, I couldn't find any resources about how do we talk about our sex life, how do we talk about what's happening, what's happening between the two of us. So actually, the very first conversation that Xander and I ever had about our sex life was in bed. I had been hoping that he was going to initiate and he just rolled over to go to bed and I said, why don't you want to have sex with me anymore?
Just pour it in out. I was pissed off. And as you can imagine, that conversation did not go very well, right? Like, he got really defensive, he was hurt, he'd been about to go to sleep and all of a sudden he's being attacked by his wife.
So it did not go very well. So we decided, you know, years later, once we had finally gotten through that tough stage of our relationship, started building this business, we kind of went back to that initial idea of conversation. And we thought, you know, I want to help couples talk about their sex life in a more productive and open and positive way. So they're not making the same mistake that we did, waiting till there's a problem and then you only talk about the problems.
So we laid out, we picked, okay, these are the five conversations that I think every couple, whether you're in a great place or you're really struggling, every couple could benefit from having these five specific conversations. And we laid them out in a specific order too. We really wanted to give couples specific instructions of exactly what to do, exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it. So what we start with, the very first conversation is called acknowledgement.
And it's literally just getting comfortable with sex as a topic of conversation. So most of us, you know, we all grow up being taught to be embarrassed and ashamed of sex. I don't know about you, but I certainly got that message like sexist taboo. We don't talk about it openly.
It's inappropriate. And so none of us have developed that skill of how do I even say the word that loud sometimes, right? So this conversation helps you create that foundation of just getting comfortable saying the words you can talk about, hey, you know, what do we want to do for sex tonight? The same way that you might talk about what we want to have for dinner tonight, right?
So one of the, one of the starting points that we give is to start up talking about sex in just a positive way. So this is not the time to make any complaints. There's no criticism. There's no trying to solve any problems.
None of that. It's literally just getting comfortable saying the words out loud. So one of my favorite conversation openers is to ask like, what are your, some of your favorite sexual memories with me? Just that.
So, you know, ask your partner to share a memory. If you're worried about them, you know, feeling nervous, you can go first and share one of yours. So I like saying something like, you know, just randomly popped into my head the other day, that trip that we took to Mexico on our anniversary, you know, that time we barely left the hotel room, it was just a fun little memory that I thought of, or you can even say you had a dream about it. Oh, you know what I had a dream about last night that you had to do.
So you're just sharing it in a positive way and just leave it there. Don't go into, oh, what happened to us. I haven't done that in a long time. Just leave it there.
Have a positive conversation. Yeah, keep it positive. So eventually you start building that foundation and the two of you start realizing, hey, it can actually be fun to talk about sex. It can feel connecting to talk about sex.
It doesn't feel as scary and taboo anymore. So how do you, how often should that conversation be happening? How long should couples be talking about sex? I need to be talking about sex at least a couple of times a week.
A couple times a week? Yeah. And I think it's fun to talk about it, not always talking about your sex life. So Xander and I, like with our Instagram account, we designed so much of our content to just open up conversations between couples about not about your sex life.
Like we'll answer, you know, we'll answer a question from someone in our community and you can show that to your partner. Oh, this is a really interesting question. It has nothing to do with us or our sex life. Like what did you think about the advice they gave?
Did you agree? Did you disagree? Well, one of my favorite series that we do is we act out horrible sex positions that we find online. So we're like making total flows of ourselves like twisted over upside down.
You know, there's no way this position could work. And it's like, just send that to your partner and laugh about that. Like look at these guys acting like total idiots on the internet. I thought those women were supposed to be a professional.
So like just laugh about it. This is silly. This is funny. You know, it's not that every conversation has to be that you're trying to achieve something.
It just becomes this more comfortable topic between the two of you. I mean, when do you advise people to bring these conversations up? Is there any, is there like a window that we're looking for here or just? Start now.
I mean, just bring it up. Yeah. I mean, read the room. You know, if your partner is like in the middle of doing a ton of things or obviously really stressed out in her bad mood, probably that's not going to be the best time to like, hey, babe, what's your pick for sexual memory?
What's the name of it? So maybe like more a quiet time, like maybe before bed between the two of you or you know, if you're out in a walk together or something like that. Okay. Okay.
So, acknowledgement to connection. Connection is a second conversation. So we like to think of physical and emotional intimacy as two sides of the same coin. You know, a lot of people were, were surprised to see that, you know, oh, one of the five conversations about emotional intimacy, I thought this book was about sex, but we really think that physical and emotional intimacy are just deeply entwined.
And this is going to be an issue for a lot of couples is we've, we've found people tend to be balling to one of two camps. You either want to feel emotionally connected before you have sex or sex for you is a way that opens up emotional connection. That's how you feel the most connected to your partner. Do you have a sense of what type you might be?
Like to feel connected beforehand or is sex a way that you feel the most connected? Probably the way I feel most connected. Yeah. That's pretty typical for men, but I'm, they and I are actually the reverse of like the typical gender dynamic.
I like to, I like sex as a way of opening up connection to. So this is another way that, that men, women really misunderstand each other because like I said, most, most people tend to fall into the woman's the one who wants to feel emotionally connected before sex, but the man is the one who feels more connected through sex. And so it can lead to the standoff where the classic fight is, you know, the woman will say, like, well, why would I want to have sex with you right now? I don't feel connected to you at all.
And the man will say, yeah, we're connected. That's why we should have sex. And it feels like this horrible standoff of, you know, who gets to go first. And what we forget in that conversation is we both want both things.
This is just such a classic way that men and women misunderstand each other. We both want to feel emotionally connected and close to each other and we both want to feel physically connected, physically close to each other. But we wind up in the stalemate of feeling like, you know, you don't understand me. You want something totally different.
So it's really important to recognize that that's what we're both wanting. So that's why, like I said earlier, I think it's so important for women to recognize like, when your man is initiating with you, what he's really saying is, I want to feel close to you right now. And I think this is also, this is a way that men sabotage their ability to have more sex with their partner is that they don't share with her that emotional component of sex. So so many women, they think, he's just horny.
He just wants to get off. I could be any warm body, you know, it doesn't matter. And a lot of men, they just perpetuate that stereotype because they never share that actual like intimacy part of it. So one of the best ways to do this is right after sex.
A lot of men will say like, that's when I feel the closest to my partner. I'm the most open. I'm vulnerable. Like, that's when I feel the closest.
But what do most of us do right after we have sex? We jump up and we go about our day, we get on our phones, we go to the bathroom. We're missing that opportunity. I call it aftercare, that moment after sex to really like linger in that, in that intimacy that you've just built and created.
So if a man were to tell his partner, just like, I feel so close to you right now, I love you. That was amazing. Thank you. Like it doesn't have to be complicated.
Simple, simple, something simple like that. That would go a really long way in helping women recognize like, Oh, this isn't just a, this isn't just a physical release that he's looking for. He actually wants to connect with me. Okay.
Okay. Anything that men should do before. Before, yes. So, okay, I always used to use the phrase, you know, women want more emotional intimacy.
And, and they and I had so many great conversations about this. He said, he told me, you know, a lot of men, we hear the phrase emotional intimacy and it just, we don't know what that means. Like it just kind of feels big and scary and like, I don't know, you know, as men, you're socialized, not to be emotional, right? Like you're not supposed to show your feelings.
That's not what a real man does. Um, you know, so it's harder for you guys to understand like what that means. I think a lot of people think it means, you know, that it's, it's, I mean, what am I trying to say here? Yeah.
What does it mean? I mean, I said the phrase, if your wife were to say, I want us to feel more emotionally intimate. I would take that. I'm probably way off here.
I would take that is I need to be romanced into it and it's going to become this big long drawn out. Hmm. Period of time where I don't know, maybe it's flowers cooking for you and it becomes like this long process to get to sex. That sounds like a lot of work.
Sounds like a lot of work. Sounds like a lot of work, a lot of time, a lot of planning. Okay. So yeah, versus just saying it, like I got to do this every time.
It's like, you know, there's only so much time we have in the day and I have to do this whole thing every time. Yeah. So it sounds overwhelming, right? So that's what the ender really helped me understand about men.
It feels overwhelming for us and we don't know what to do. And I think there's a lot of, like he shared with me, but sometimes I feel kind of embarrassed about that. Like, I don't know. I'm not that classic, like by you flowers and write you poems kind of guys.
So I kind of feel like I'm, I don't even know how to do this and that feels a little bit embarrassing. So what I realized in talking to women is, sure, flowers are nice, planning a date night, those things are nice. But really what women are looking for is we just want to know that you're interested in us. Like a, that's what I was going to ask, like, what a simple compliment.
Exactly. We just want to know that you're interested in us and getting to know us and who we are and what our experience is like. You know, so many women say, like, it feels like all day my husband just ignores me. And then as soon as he wants sex, you know, then he's all over me.
But I'm like, Hey, what about the rest of the day? We've, you know, you haven't shown any sort of interest in me whatsoever. So just show some interest in her, like ask her about her day and actually pay attention to her answer or ask her a more interesting question than how was your day? You know, Hey, what's something you've been thinking about lately?
Just be nice to her, give her a compliment. And again, it doesn't have to be complicated. Like you look really beautiful today. Your eyes are just sparkling today.
Like, man, you look so good. Touch her. This was one of the most interesting things that we've heard about from women. Like women want more touch throughout the day.
We don't want you to just touch us when you want sex. Because that makes it feel like you're just trying to get something out of us. You know, we want to feel that interest from you all throughout the day. So give her a hug and then back away.
Don't let it linger in your hands. Start to creep down to her butt. Like give her a kiss. We can't help it.
Sometimes away you. I promise you, there's nothing that turns a woman on more than a little tease. Like we like that. Like you get something started and then you walk away.
There's no pressure. There's no expectation. Let us come to you a little bit more. OK, but yeah, let's not think of emotional intimacy.
It's this huge overwhelming scary topic. Like let's boil it down and just say nice things to her. Give her a compliment every once in a while. Give her a hug out of the blue.
Like that's what's really going to make her feel more connected to. I mean, before we move on to the next one, I just want to ask him. Do you have a do you have an idea of how many men want to they want to see their partner climax during sex? Oh, every man.
I would think every man. Yeah. Right. And this is another thing that a lot of women misunderstand.
I don't think we give men enough credit for how much they genuinely want to please us. Of course, like their assholes of, you know, out there. Of course, men and women. But, you know, the vast majority of men, especially if you're in a relationship with somebody like you care about her pleasure, you want her to have a good time.
The problem is that us women, we've been fed so much crap about our pleasure for our entire lives. We've been taught to believe that, you know, our bodies are icky and weird and gross and our pleasure is so complicated and the clitoris and some mysterious and where is it doesn't even exist. And we've been taught to be caretakers. So it feels selfish to us to be the center of attention, to let ourselves, you know, receive from our partners.
We have all the misinformation about how our org doesn't really works. Like I always share very openly, I struggled with my orgasm for years. I never orgasms with a partner until I met Xander and it wasn't because my partners didn't care. It was because I was dealing with my own crap around, you know, allowing myself to receive pleasure and understanding how my body worked, even being a freaking sex therapist.
I still struggled with that. So, you know, men genuinely want their partner to feel good. I think it feels good to a man to provide pleasure to a woman, right? And I think a lot of women don't get that.
And a lot of women sabotage our own ability to feel that pleasure because we won't allow him to focus on us. We fake orgasms. So he gets the idea that what he's doing is working, even though it's not. We tell him, oh, you know, we let him touch us for a few seconds.
Like, okay, let's move on. It's fine. You don't have to go ahead. You know, so it's like men are trying to give us a gift and we are pushing it away.
Why are women faking orgasms? Because it feels easier. I mean, I faked a lot of orgasms in my life and there were a lot of reasons for it. So sometimes it was I primarily it was I didn't know what I needed.
And so it felt embarrassing. I feel like I don't know what to tell a partner. I don't know how to instruct him. So I might as well just fake it instead of making him fumble around and neither of us really knows what we're doing.
So I mean, that was a primary reason, but sometimes it was just I just want sex to be over. I'm ready for it to be done. A lot of times it was I want him to feel like he's done a good job. I want him to get to have that experience of like, Oh, I made her feel so good.
I made her orgasm. You know, I was thinking so much more about my partner's experience and their pleasure than my own experience. And yeah, that's what so many of us women are socialized to do. It's more important for him to have a good experience, more important to pay attention to him and make sure he feels good and his ego is protected and we can sacrifice ourselves.
And so I really want women to stop doing that. Is this the overall and recognize that men don't want us to be doing that either. Is this the overwhelming majority of women that do this? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We, you know, there's not any like proper scientific research that I've seen on the numbers, but we've pulled our community before and something like 95% of women said that they've faked at least once in their life.
And we asked if you're currently faking orgasm with your partner. I believe it was around 37% of women said 37%. Wow. Wow.
And some women, someone will say, I don't fake it, but I it just doesn't happen. And neither of us. We don't talk about it openly. So it just, you know, it just happens like that.
So that's another big percentage of women too, that they're not necessarily faking it, but they're still not having them. Well, that's not good. It's not good. And this is, I mentioned earlier, the connection between enjoyment and desire.
It sounds so obvious, but most of us don't make that connection. You know, the dynamic that I hear about the most frequently is the woman's the one that has a lower desire. It's always the woman and it's, and she's always blaming herself. What's wrong with me?
I must be broken. Something must be wrong with me. It's all my fault. My husband always wants sex and I never want it.
And what they don't recognize is that connection between enjoyment and desire. If you are not enjoying the sex that you're having, it makes zero sense for you to crave it. I call this the mushy broccoli problem. So do you ever find yourself just absolutely craving a bowl of steamed, mushy, unseasoned broccoli?
No. No. Do you think anything is wrong with you? No.
Not wanting that, of course not. But the same thing is true with sex. There's so many women who, again, it's not a fault. It's not their fault.
It's not their partner's fault. It's just misinformation and misunderstandings. But there's so many women who are having mushy broccoli sex and then beating themselves up for not wanting more of it. So the problem is not, you know, when a woman comes to us and says, I have a little libido fix me.
What do I take the supplements? I take the pills. What do I do? The first question we ask her is tell us about the sex that you do have.
You know, I think I think that a bad sex life in a in in a not enough relationships leads to I think that's the stem of a lot of problems that we see with couples today. I agree with you. I think it all I mean, I don't know. I think that that that sex life stems from self confidence.
I believe that and I believe that could be way off, but that's why you're here. And then I think that that, you know, that the marital problems, a lot of marital problems stem from an unhealthy sex life. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And this is, I'm glad that you're saying this because this is the battle that Zander and I are constantly fighting in our business is trying to help people realize sex is not just sex.
Sex is not just putting body parts in other body parts. Sex is the way we express love for each other. Sex is the way that we create intimacy with each other, that we feel close to each other. It's the way that we play together.
It's a way we explore ourselves and each other. This is a way we're vulnerable and open and raw with each other. It's this thing that we do that we don't do with anybody else in our lives. It's a special thing that just the two of us do.
It's not just this act that we do. It's a journey that we take together. And if that connection isn't in place in a relationship, there's so many other aspects that are going to be damaged. I don't think that you can have a healthy relationship without a healthy active sex life.
Aside from a very small percentage of people who are asexual, I don't think you can have a healthy sex life. Can you can you pick out in couples who has a healthy sex life and who doesn't? Can you see it immediately? You can.
I mean, I have never been tested on this. Maybe if somebody wants to find some testing, see how good my radar is on this. But I can usually sense it. Yeah, you can see like it's in the way a couple looks at each other.
Do they make eye contact with each other? Do they touch each other? Is there that kind of like mischievous little grin they have when they look at each other? Are they standing close to each other?
There's a lot of body language between a couple that's connected versus a couple that's disconnected. How many couples do you think there are that have bad sex life? I would venture to say the majority of couples. I'd say it's more common to have a bad sex life than a good one.
Bad. And I know it bums me out. It really bums me out. That's why I'm so passionate about doing this work is that I want more people to be able to be connected, to be able to experience it.
Because we've most of us have had that experience of great sex. Where it just, I'm curious for you, like when you've had, and you don't have to share any specific detail, but like when you've had really great sex, what mindset does that take you to? What do you feel afterwards? I've been at fact, what do I feel great?
I feel confident. I feel closer to my wife. I feel, I mean, it's just, I think it relieves a lot of stress. Oh, yeah.
You know, and yeah, that's what comes to my head. Yeah, it's an amazing experience. There's this high that we get. We actually have really great research showing that when a couple has great sex, there's an emotional high that lingers for about 24 to 48 hours afterwards.