None of the voices in the series are ongoing patients of Ester Peral. Each episode of Where Should We Begin is a one-time counseling session for the purposes of maintaining confidentiality, names, and some identifiable characteristics have been removed. But their voices and their stories are real. Burn your five-pound weights.
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I have a very, very low need for sexual anything, if I'm honest. I feel like he is in the mood always. Ideally? I would dance every day.
At the extremes, it's one person saying, if I never had sex again, I would notice it and I would miss it for a moment. And the other person saying, if I had it my way, I would want to have sex almost every day, if not every day. One person never interested, one person always interested. That kind of real pulls to the corners.
And this is what happens in this couple. It probably came when we were done with the 80s because that's when he assumed that our sex life wouldn't start up again like normal. And I think he never realized that those years I was kind of just going along and going along. The reason why we've been trying to have more were probably, I mean, it's not every day, but it's pretty close like 20 times a month.
So I mean, the frequency at this point is not an issue. It's just that case scenario is not uncomfortable for her. They have tried quite a few things lately. Red books, consulted people, watched videos, educated themselves, and they have begun to understand that while it looks like it's about a mismatch desire, there is way more that is occurring at the heart of their erotic stalemate.
We've been married now for 17 years and we have four children. We somehow missed this part about each other, so how even though we knew everything else. Well, thank you. Thank you.
It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. And tell me what has helped, what has made it different. I don't even know yet on what.
I think for me, just knowing that sex is an expression of love for me, and it's how I feel like a really deep connection with her. I had this stereotype, I was just, guys want to have sex, they want to have sex. And I think that reading about that is being connected to our relationship and being an important part of our relationship kind of helped both of us kind of view it differently. So both of you?
Did you change anything for you? I don't think we ever talked about what sex was for our relationship before. And I don't know. So I feel like just through individual counseling and marriage counseling, we've learned to communicate better and express that.
So I don't think I ever really realized why it was important before. So when you understood that sex for him is not just about getting off, but getting close. How did that land on you? It's hard because I understand that's how he feels connected, but it's not something I, it's not really something I'm particularly interested in, and I can very well do without it for most of the time and everything.
Can I ask you? Because I understand that sex is an issue and we came to talk about sex. What is the issue? Or how do you define the issue?
I guess like in the last year we've definitely started having sex more regularly, I guess, because we've known it's important, but I really like to make it pleasurable for my partner and that's something that we just can't seem to make happen. I want her to enjoy it. Like the same way I enjoy it, or at least make it not uncomfortable. Like, you know, then it kind of leaves other problems because then I start feeling bad that she's uncomfortable and then it kind of goes off the rails.
So keep going. Take me on the rails. Yeah, like I guess that's been the one negative and kind of talking about it more and like understanding more is like I got way more aware of when she's just kind of doing it to do it and that makes me feel bad and then it kind of ends things like, you know, I don't- So you stop. Yeah.
And just, yeah, that's it. I mean- You go over, you talk about it, you weep, you get mad. I see that. I mean, I usually go and finish myself because like that at least kind of helps me sleep and then, I don't know, I definitely feel bad, but I also just, I know it's not her fault.
Like it's not intentional. It's not. Yeah, like it's not something that she's doing on purpose to me, but it's also, I guess because I was looking for that closest and didn't get it. Like I know that I'm not super cuddly or like really happy when I'm coming to bed.
I try to consciously like still like cuddler, but it's just not the same, I guess. And for you. The issue is. I saw the issue as like just how different we view what sex is in our lives and our importance because we used to fight because the frequency was a problem.
Like you used to get upset and take it very personally. Like if I didn't want to, as if it was, you know, I found it unattractive or I wasn't happy with our marriage, which neither was true. So now the frequency is probably what you're okay with. The frequency is not my preference, right?
And like sometimes I know going in, it's not going to be great from my end and I'm just kind of being there because I understand that this is important and that's what he wants and expects. And then sometimes we muddle through it. I find and then sometimes we don't because especially he gets, I guess he's more aware, like he said. And how is that different for you between him not knowing what your experience is and him checking in with you, noticing you're not into it and then.
I feel bad. I mean, I always feel bad because I understand that this is what he needs. Do you feel differently that he's noticing you? Is that better?
That he's more aware of you? More attuned to you? I don't know really. I mean, I feel like it ends up more or less with more disappointment.
So I don't know if that's like, yeah, I mean, for me, I don't really feel like it's changed much for me. Okay. So I have 10 questions. There's a lot of things I want to make sure I understand and they're not in order of importance, but you're using words and these words represent entire experiences and I don't know what they represent for you.
So first word is sex. What sex are we talking about? I mean, it's normally PIV sex or sometimes oral sex, but I mean, for me, like, it doesn't really matter what we're doing. Like, you know, if I can make her feel good, like, that's like the best for me, which it doesn't feel like it's ever really happened, but that's almost more important than like my own orgasm or my own climax.
When you say I've never, I don't feel that I've ever given her much pleasure. What's that like for you? I mean, it's disappointing. Like, it's frustrating.
I want her to experience like the way I'm experiencing it. I think recently she's like, well, tell me, like, what does it feel like for you? And I'm like, I can't even compare it to anything. Like, yeah, I can't think of something that is anywhere near like the level of like an orgasm for me.
Like, if she does orgasm, I feel like I don't know if you've described it as a burp. Like, I want her to kind of have that same like elation and that just that feeling of like bliss and closeness and everything afterwards. So the loss for you? Do you experience it as a loss?
I guess a little. She tends to just kind of get in her own way and get in her own head and literally if there's anything I could do to like help her get past that I would, I just don't know what to do. No, I'm going to do, I'm going to take a pen and paper because I have too many things that I've thrown into my head and they're going too fast. Well done.
Okay. So I'll tell you words that are on my page, right? I'm going to ask you define sex. Oh, I guess, penis and vagina.
And that ends with an orgasm or should end with an orgasm. I guess, yes. Okay. When I ask them to define sex, this is whole very much performance driven, outcome driven model.
Another way of thinking about sexuality is that sex is not just something you do. Sex is a place you go. With yourself inside yourself, with a partner or partners and that it is an experience. And that is where I hope the conversation can go because it's become so restricted.
Penis in a vagina that ends with an orgasm and so much pressure exists between them about that. One thing is quickly becoming clear to me is how to invite them to shift from a performance driven way of thinking about sex to a pleasure focused on sex. What feels good rather than what works? And do you ever have sexual activity that isn't meant to end in orgasm?
Um, I guess not. You know, we'll cuddle on the couch or, you know, we'll hug or kiss or definitely not intend to be sexual. I mean, one thing that we've kind of been working through is she has like a pretty strong bristle reaction to touch in general. So we've been trying to non-sexually touch more, just hugging and kissing throughout the day when we see each other just to kind of.
And does that feel different to you or that too could be? I'm fine with that as long as it, like, because like for the longest time, like I would not do much of that because it came with the demands. And I felt like he would interpret then and then he'd be like, but you did that before. So why aren't you interested now?
Or he would accuse me of like trying to tease him. And so I kind of just backed off and like just wouldn't do anything. I would do anything that would turn him on because the minute I turn him on, he's going to want more. And if I give him a kiss, it's going to have to go all the way.
And so I'd rather not give him a kiss and not have to endure. Yeah, I'd rather not build up the expectation unless I know I can't, I'm willing to like, I have to commit in my mind. And like, so I'm kind of like, I would have to mentally be able to say I can sustain it all the way all the way till bedtime. And if I give him a signal at five, he's going to have an expectation at 10.
Yes. And so I'd rather lower expectations and then be pleasantly surprised right at the end versus having this problem. So she just described sex as the problem. And in this dynamic where one person is the pursuer and one person withholds or is avoidant, you can instantly see this negative cognition, this thought that says stop right in the beginning, because if you give him the slightest, he's going to want the whole thing.
This is part of the vigilance, each constantly tracking and the other vigilantly following every sign in the body, the eyes, the behaviors of the partner. So you have a whole strategy. I tried, but you know, I mean, I don't necessarily know how effective it is because we've been fighting on this on and off for a while now. I think that's one thing that I've learned though, that it's something we need to do during the day and that will kind of help like normalize the touch to that.
At 10 when I go to touch her, like it's not an immediate shutter, like there's obviously no fun to be receiving into that and it's not fun for her because she's reacting the way. Can I ask you something? Do you ever approach her after you have masturbated so that you don't come with an acute edge? Do you approach her for sex or just for both?
Not usually for sex. But even for sex, actually, it's more pertinent if it's for sex because one of the dynamics is your pent up, she tracks you being pent up. She decides what strategy to use in relation to your pent upness. Her mindset is primarily about how to avoid it, what's the least I can do, and you is what's the least I can get in quotation.
That's not even the body. Okay, have you approached her when you're not in a state where you think I depend on her for relief and for connection? It's both. So that I can be relieved by myself and I can connect with her without this being the central plot.
It's just a question. It's not a prescription. But have you had that experience of decoupling? I think not intentionally, but I do think that does happen and because of that, whatever reason, I'm not expecting anything.
And then sometimes she will initiate it actually. Yeah. That does happen. You don't expect that she has freedom.
She has space. She can want because she's not only responding to your wanting. At this moment, when it's polarized like this, you're wanting and her not wanting. If you can approach her not from a place of that kind of wanting, then she can get in touch with what do I want rather than just how do I manage what he wants, which is what she has done how many years together.
So she's been doing that for about 20 years. Manage you wanting. Does that resonate? Yeah, it does.
Put it in your own words. For me, sex is kind of a chore. It is something that is expected and I have never experienced what he, I sometimes think that he's exaggerating it just to make me feel like this is what you're missing out on in some sense. I just have never felt the need.
I'm kind of like, all right, that was okay. But it definitely was like the way that I feel like it's almost like, yeah. And Oki is what happens in your body? Tell me the body.
I mean, it's like a little rush, but it's also very quick. That's the orgasm. Yeah. Like the pleasure.
The pleasure is not the orgasm. The whole experience. What's it like? What do you experience a heart rate increase, a sweaty palm, a state of arousal, an experience of desire, a closeness to with him, an openness of your body.
A change in your breath. I don't know. I think I get a little flush. Don't look at him.
Don't talk about sex and look at him. That's been the problem for me too long. You can look at me or you can look at me. I don't know how else like I've told him this before and I think he thinks it's odd as well, but like I can sometimes like orgasm with my mind without doing a single like I can just be sitting here.
It's also not. I've never felt that I feel like the peaks that like we talked about, but I don't need to do anything. So I can just kind of build up enough in my mind and then it kind of like happens and then I'm like, okay, for me. But that is actually something very useful for you to know and very powerful.
That speaks to the opposite of how you think of yourself. You've decided he's sexual and not. If you can bring yourself to orgasm just with your mind, imagine how sexual you are. There are two simultaneous realities here.
One is that contrary to the way that they have organized themselves. He's sexual, she's not. The fact is that she's orgasmic and she can bring herself to climax just from thoughts. So physically, this is not the issue.
But on some level, his needs are too much at the center of her experience. On the other end though, even though she physically is very responsive, it's not of interest to her. We have to take a brief break. Stay with us.
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I have a very, probably strange relationship with, because as a whole I find sex very just like I usually don't like watching on television. I don't really like being like around it. Like I kind of just don't want to deal with it. When you watch it you feel what?
Mostly uncomfortable. But you see that word uncomfortable, I've written it in big. But uncomfortable has a thousand facets. What is uncomfortable for you?
There's like I should be here seeing this. Like this is something that like you know, I mean it's private. Yeah it's private. Like I should not be the third party here watching this.
So when I watch it my discomfort is this. It's like I get very awkward. You know it's just like this childish like I think that's the best way to put it. It's very like silly, very, I don't know.
I know he doesn't like it. But I also don't know how to stop. Is it gross? Yeah.
It's like a cringe right now. Yeah. Is it gross or is it dirty? It is gross.
I don't like a lot of, not just for this. Like I'm not into any kind of human bodily functions. They're all kind of gross. I've had children.
It's kind of a mess. The human body just makes all kinds of mess. I really don't like that. In general, there's a lot of hand.
I make him hand wash a lot in between things. Because I can't deal with the idea of that touching me. So yes, it is definitely gross. And when you are on the couch, like just like when you're cuddling on the couch is that I don't mind like that cuddling and touching.
Like I said, as long as it doesn't require a absolute like this is a firm. Yes. Now. I'm okay with it.
I'm okay. Doesn't mean I like it. I enjoy it. It feels good.
You know, there's a lot of other things besides I can tolerate it. It's very narrow. And for being as involved with him, it needs more. Not more frequency.
God forbid. More quality. More ease. More enjoyment.
Yeah, absolutely. I like to think of myself as a warm person. And like, I don't think I'm a very touchy, feely person in general. I definitely am with our children.
But I'm not in general a very touchy person. And neither are really my parents were either. If we had another conversation, I would have wanted to explore further her aversive responses to the human body, the fluids to her description of children. What is the disgust that she feels and what has she noticed about it?
And I also would have wanted to speak further with her and to explore together what she meant when she says I'm not a touchy feely person. That is such an expression, but it connotes a whole experience of closeness, connection, boundaries, boundary intrusion. What is her experience of touch or what has been her experience growing up with the absence of touch? Take me a bit about the background.
Okay. We'll be here forever. I'm only child. My father passed away a little over, I think it's more than 10, more than 10, more than 12 years now.
My mother is still around. She lives very close by. Where did it from? They're from Taiwan.
And you were born? I was born here. They came over for college. My parents did not have a great marriage.
I felt like my mother was almost always on the brink of wanting to leave. She did not actually do that until I was like in college. And my parents are just weird. They're weird people.
I think. That's another word. These are words that represent worlds. So what is weird for you?
My parents are two people that my mother especially loved work and went, oh, I'm turning this age now. And if I don't have a baby, I probably won't have a baby. Probably should have a baby. Had a baby.
And like the expectation of what a baby was and what a child is was like, I think completely different from like what my mother especially mentally imagined. She is a very critical person. She's never happy. Like nothing I did was ever right.
Like even my own children are not what she thinks children are. Like it's like she spends time with them and then she has nothing but a litany of complaints which are mostly kids just being children. I see her talk to her, but I have a thousand strategies and ways to kind of manage and how I want to deal with it. And I mostly just try to limit what I can where both of us are not.
I was just thinking with your mother, you manage her criticisms. With him, you manage his yearning for closeness. But you're always managing. Yeah, I try to balance it.
So that way you know what they want and you know to manage them. But there's not enough space for you to ask yourself and what do I want? I don't know what I want. You don't know because partly because there's no space to ask to be curious about the question and sexual interest or sexual curiosity or sexual desire involves all of us.
You're not owning the wanting. Desire is wanting. And you straddle him. You straddle her.
You straddle for children. But I'm just noticing that you're filled with what these people need want feel think and have to say. So my image as you were talking is to see this body of yours closing because that's a boundary you can create for all their needs to not penetrate you because they have a lot of them. So the body needs comments, wishes, frustrations, and you tighten and tighten your body.
And it becomes wound up and everything else that touches it, it bristles because it just says this is my little world that belongs to me. And everything else, stay outside for a minute. No, it's true. Yeah.
I'm feeling you as you speak, but I need to know if. Right. Like I feel like all day, I'm just bouncing around bouncing what everyone else's things are. And so like I don't really like know who I am in some ways.
I am in some way. I don't think I ever really did because for so long when I was a kid, I built up whatever my mom wanted, like what was I supposed to be? And then because I'm an only child, I was very lonely as a kid because it was either study or I was stuck with my parents. Like I had friends and stuff, but I wanted the family that I have now.
I wanted kids and I didn't want them to feel these things and stuff like that. So I'm very lucky for having a partner that much better than what I saw as a marriage for my parents for sure. I was you then? He's okay.
He's definitely more affectionate with my mother, but my father was a compulsive gambler. He disappeared for days and come back in the middle of the night. I could hear them fighting or he could come in my room crying. So it was hard.
I understand on one hand why my mom wanted to get a divorce because it was a lot to deal with like this and money issues of course. So I get it to a degree, but it's also hard when you're growing up hearing that all the time too. And my mom always told me that's why I'm an only child because she could not have another one because she was afraid that she would have to get divorced. And I was such a hard child to deal with is that if she had to have two or three, how would she manage?
My father's gone now. I mean, we had an odd relationship, I guess. Like, I mean, he was, I mean, I don't know. My parents, they were imperfect people.
And then together they just made like an imperfect life, right? Like, you know, they had different things. He was strange, my father. He disappeared.
He would cry. Like my parents would buy me. Like my parents always just buy stuff to kind of, you know, if he was gone for a while or if he hit me, then they would buy me like a stereo. Like, you know, so it was kind of just this odd life.
He also had ADHD. Like. Yeah, I mean, that's probably why he, that's why he gambled. Yeah.
And you think you have it too? Oh, I definitely have ADHD. I'm on medication, but I still don't. That's, I know that's perfect.
I'm struck by how she talked about so many aspects of her childhood, the loneliness, the absence of her father and the inconsistencies between harshness and then overindulgent stereotypes systems and between the belligerents, between the parents and the economic tensions. And I wish I had acknowledged some of that, including, she did say in the middle of this, but I wanted a different family and I've created that and I have four children. And I have a fantastic partner with whom I created the marriage that is way different from the one that I grew up with. And I miss all of that.
There is still so much to talk about. We need to take a brief break, so stay with us. I'm Maria Sherpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness.
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Have you ever made a connection between the ADHD and the inability to stay in your body when you've been physically? My one therapist mentioned how that could be a reason why I just float out and everything. Especially because it's not something that I'm particularly engaged or interested in, why I stay in, right? In some sense, unfortunately.
So that's why I like my mind. Can you take his hands, one moment? Sure. And put it somewhere on you where you would like it to be.
Don't face it, you'll probably have it. I just want to, wherever you want it to be. And now put it at the pressure that you would like it to be. If you want, close your eyes and do nothing else.
But see if you can feel that hand on your knee. And then just breathe like deep breath in and you can count four, three, two, one as a breath out. He ain't gonna do anything. He's not gonna ask for anything.
It's entirely yours. You can lift it, you can move it, you can keep it there. This is about, it's exactly what I want. You see what makes touch sexual is not where you touch it, nor the involvement of genitals.
It's where it connects with sensuality, with pleasure, with control, not as in being in control, but as in surrendering. It's letting go. That's concept of control. And when we talk about initiating, this is initiating.
It's not about four play, which is five minutes before the real thing and the real thing isn't of course. And you know that it works because there's an orgasm. That is a very particular script, but it's also a very narrow script. And it's one that is not doing you good at this moment.
How is this? Oh, this is fine. Like I mean, what? It's like the best you ever describe anything in this realm.
That's fine. I mean, I don't know. Tell me more about fine. I mean, I think I probably would like more touch, but I don't like the expectations that come with it.
So it's like, like I said, like he's always talked about how that's how he feels close and connected. And that is not what I need to feel close and connected. Look, I know that you have, and it doesn't mean that it's not true, but you have over the years, each of you told yourself certain things. And the more you say, I don't need this.
I don't need this. What you insist on persists. And you can create a reality with those words. But you also do not want to continue, have sex, that you grin and bear.
Yeah, sure. So I think that what may be more helpful at this moment, instead of saying, I don't, I don't, I don't, is to say, I have not yet. I have not yet experienced an openness around touch, because I often experience a demand. And I don't know yet.
And I'm a young woman. And who knows where I'm going to go? It's a part of me I have never explored. I know I'm at the idea or I know my mind takes me fast in places, but that doesn't, it's pieces of information, but it's not pieces of an identity.
If you keep saying, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, you don't leave the door open. It's about developing self-awareness. It's not about responding to his pleas. It's about developing a sense of autonomy, so that you're not just managing other people's needs.
It's about discovering things that you like. Even if they're small, I mean, small is who decides? They're going to be big for you. The way you just moved and you moved the mic and you come close to him and you brought yourself against him and you took his hand and you put it exactly around your hip, you knew exactly where you wanted it to be.
This, all of that, we're gesture upon gesture of somebody who knows, who has a sense, the knowing is a sense knowing. It's not an intellectual knowing. And then owned it. How was that for you?
I mean, I definitely enjoy like non-sexual touch. I think that's something that in the last year we've gotten better at. I guess she's never told me how she wants to be touched. Like we've tried...
She just did. Right. That's what I'm trying. Literally, I'm trying.
I'm trying. I believe you. I believe you. I know like she likes more pressure.
We've tried like massages beforehand, which I think helped. I mean, it's hard to, you know, we've tried so much. And it depends on your mood and sometimes something works and sometimes it doesn't. But like I feel like that has helped...
Works means what? Works means like gets her like into a headspace to want to have sex. He begins to talk about how much they have explored non-sexual touch. But it lasts one sentence.
It instantly becomes non-sexual touch meant to make her want to be more sexual with me. So there is no non-sexual touch. She may be more single-minded in how she views herself as non-sexual, but so does he. That's why I stop him to ask, what do you mean by it works?
Because I had a sense that it meant it's just a lead-on for the other thing. That thing in and of itself does not really do it for me. What are other ways you can experience closeness? Because there is experience in closeness and then there is alleviating or relieving yourself.
And the fact that it seems that it helps you go to sleep, it chills you, it relaxes you. And you have it in your mind that it has to be with her. It doesn't have to be with her, but I just... I mean, ideally it would be with her.
Yes, but ideally it can be with her, but not nearly. So here's your question. You can have frequency or you can have quality at this moment. Right.
If you want quality and you want her to be engaged and you want a partner who is enjoying it. And says, I want this too, then you have to step back. We've kind of tried both and neither has worked, so that's why we're here. But this was quality.
Yes. And this was very simple, what do you like without saying what do you like? It says, take my hand and take it wherever you want it to be. We can do that at home.
We can do that on the couch and if it doesn't leave anywhere else, it doesn't have to leave anywhere else. Then you go and take care of yourself, but you won't feel taken care of yourself rejected. Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it that I'm trying to deal with is that it does feel like rejection. And I guess part of the frustration is the best case scenario is fine.
And it's I think yes, if we had more quality satisfying for her interactions, it would make the times that we didn't easier. But that's something we haven't figured out. I prefer the quality. That's where we were having the problems because for me, the idea would be, obviously, we both want to, like when it's good, it's good.
Right. I don't know. It does not come up in my mind. It is not something that naturally I'd be like, oh, this is what I would like to be doing right now, either.
No, but you don't have spontaneous arousal. No, that's OK. And lots of people, particularly loads of women, have responsive design. We're definitely opposite.
Yeah. So Emily Nagoski in her book, Come As You Are, describes it very beautifully. You are responsive, but you're not going to be responsive if you experience the man. You're going to be responsive if there is invitation.
And even more so, you're going to be responsive when the invitation comes from you, not from him because it's so hard for you to experience his as an invitation rather than as a demand, as a need. When he needs you and he comes with you with that need, that emotionally, not just a sexually, it's an emotional need in the language of sex, then you can be nice and you can be kind. And you can do it because you're taking care of him, but you experience nothing pleasurable for yourself, except the fact that you feel good about having been nice to him. In an occasion, you start to resent it too.
Very true. OK. So that script is what is standing in your way at this point. Sometimes we engage in sex because we are aroused.
Sometimes we engage in sex because we have desire, but we don't experience the physiological arousal yet. Just the thought of it is nice. I know I feel good, but physically my body, I feel nothing yet. So I do things with myself and with my partner, and I start to experience arousal that comes next.
And sometimes I start because I have willingness. If you stayed like that for a chunk of the evening and it was completely, completely on your term, there's a good chance that you would say this would be a nice thing to do with him, for him and with him. And it would be willingness. No, you would still not have any arousal.
You just would just have a thought in your head, but it would be yours. And that is why it would give it the flavor of desire because it would be self-generated. He says, nothing turns me on more than to see you turn down. That's all I would want is to please you.
There are very few straight women who say that. What changes her is what happens to her is how she awakens herself, how she ignites herself, not what happens to him. And that means that she needs to be able to enter into her body, into your body and to experience it pleasurable, relaxing, inviting. No responsibility.
Responsibility for you will be the killer of sex. I have to. No, that's true. And I have to because otherwise he's upset and if he's upset then tomorrow we're going to argue and if we argue then we're not going to be a good family and then our kids are going to see everything that I always promised I would never do in front of my kids.
Yeah, that's pretty much how our arguments went. Yeah. Give me the sequence. Yeah, I mean it would be a failed, frustrated encounter.
We would yell, we would fight, we would sometimes he would storm off. You know, we're both cold to each other to be fair. Like we both get cold. But it's a noticeable difference for him I guess in the degrees of like the difference when he's happy and when he's not.
And especially with the frequency thing was it's like, okay, one day, okay. Two days, it's like three is like when like that's about when like I feel like yeah, like his limit of being able to and then it's like then it all becomes like a force like because we have to now because we've. It goes what? Because we've let it kind of slide for like what happens to you.
I mean, what is so interesting. I mean, it's something that like I'm trying to avoid and maybe doing other things like being closer in other ways would help that. But yeah, I just I feel like that lack of of closeness and that like that lack of connection and but you want to lingual. You feel very close here.
I watched you. Right. No, and I think that part of it is we've only had that one way to feel that. That's what I mean.
You want to lingual. Okay. I'm sorry. I rely on sex.
Yes. The only way. Yeah. I'm not saying that you're not going to wish you had more sex and more frequently than you will, but the way that it it it it pens up inside of you energetically and how you experience it as a complete severing of the tie from her is is acute.
You need to learn other means to self-suit and to regulate so that you know that a mercy. What she experiences is the pressure and the urgency. How do I calm myself? How do I help myself go to sleep?
How do I not have anxiety? Because when you can't sleep, you get anxious and then you rely on sex for your anxiety. That has not much to do with sex anymore for connection either. So do you feel that you can leave with a few things with you?
Yeah. I definitely feel like yes, we need to find a way to kind of dissociate that and I would like to feel that closest. I mean, that's what I want from our relationship too, but I don't know how. No, but don't.
Okay. Don't do it. Yeah. See, you're still in your positions that you want to constantly reiterate, read to it.
You know your positions by heart. Yeah. Don't bother. You can switch roles and you know exactly what the other one's going to say.
So it's nice for him to hear. I want that and not just because you want that, but I want that. That's a clear. I want statement.
It's beautiful. Receive it. Want to try it again? Without the butt.
Yeah. Yeah. I want the closest. I want us to find a way to have that non-sexual.
No, I appreciate that. And by the way, the way he strokes your hip in the last hour is not just affectionate. It goes in and out. It's affectionate, it's sensual.
It's beautiful. It's pleasurable. And you notice it sometimes. You don't notice it at other times.
It's in the body and outside the body, inside myself, outside myself. That melody is one of the many sexual melodies, but it is a sexual melody. Yes. I think I would be more comfortable with it on a regular basis if it didn't always carry stuff with it.
Here's another way of saying that. I love it when I can sink into it because that's the thing it is. That's true. I really do enjoy it for what it is.
When it stays, what it is. And that will at times become an invitation. Where should we begin with Esther Peral is produced by Magnificent Noise. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with New York Magazine and the Cut.
Our production staff includes Eric Newsom, Eva Walshover, Destry Sibley, Huwate Katana, Sabrina Farti, Eleanor Kagan, Kristen Mueller, and Julian Hahn. Original music and additional production by Paul Schneider. And the executive producers of Where Should We Begin are Esther Peral and Jesse Baker. We'd also like to thank Courtney Hamilton, Mary Alice Miller, Jen Marlar, and Jack Sol.