Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / Let’s Talk About Sex (After) Baby: Staying connected over the long term

Transcript

Let’s Talk About Sex (After) Baby: Staying connected over the long term · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

0:00
Speaker 1: This is parent Data. I'm Emily Oster Hi, Emily Oster
0:12
Speaker 1: High Caroline Chambers. So you're a cookbook author, an influencer,
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Speaker 1: my go to for easy kid recipes I actually like
0:21
Speaker 1: to eat. You're also married, you've got three kids under five? Yes,
0:28
Speaker 1: how's your sex life?
0:31
Speaker 2: You know, I think that your sex life when you're
0:35
Speaker 2: married like goes in ebbs and flows. But right now
0:38
Speaker 2: we're in a great sex place, which is so nice.
0:42
Speaker 2: Like we literally had dinner with friends the other night
0:44
Speaker 2: and somebody said something about, like, you guys seem great,
0:47
Speaker 2: and George was like, that's because we're having a lot
0:49
Speaker 2: of sex right now.
0:52
Speaker 1: Oh my godness said that at a dinner. I don't know,
0:56
Speaker 1: we're not the same barrel.
0:58
Speaker 2: You know, that's East coast versus West coast, baby, So yeah,
1:04
Speaker 2: things are looking good.
1:06
Speaker 1: All right. So my guest today is a writer and
1:09
Speaker 1: sex researcher, Emily Nagaski. And if you could ask her
1:12
Speaker 1: one question on this, what would it be?
1:15
Speaker 2: My question? By the time we get all of the
1:18
Speaker 2: children to sleep, there's three of them. Even if there's
1:21
Speaker 2: been like sexy banter over dinner or you know, we've
1:25
Speaker 2: both been kind of like cln or you know, by
1:29
Speaker 2: the time we get all of the kids to bed,
1:31
Speaker 2: we are like, oh my god, whoa like that was
1:35
Speaker 2: a full contact sport, Like oh my god. And then
1:40
Speaker 2: you know, I walk back and George is like, let's go, baby,
1:43
Speaker 2: and I'm like, ple what like oh? So my question
1:46
Speaker 2: for Emily would be, what is the best way to
1:50
Speaker 2: shift your mindset from parenting mode to sexual being who
1:56
Speaker 2: wants to have sex with her partner mode?
2:00
Speaker 1: I think that's a good Yeah.
2:01
Speaker 2: That is tricky, right, Like you're wiping a butt one
2:05
Speaker 2: minute and then you're like supposed to be having sex
2:07
Speaker 2: the next minute. He doesn't have that same like have
2:11
Speaker 2: to flip a switch. Like if I walked up to
2:13
Speaker 2: him in the middle of like a freaking tornado and
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Speaker 2: our house was floating and I was like, do you
2:16
Speaker 2: want to go bang it out really quick, you'd be like, yeah,
2:19
Speaker 2: let me put this sand bag down and yeah, let's go.
2:21
Speaker 2: Let's go.
2:26
Speaker 1: Whether you're an economist like me, or a cookbook influencer
2:30
Speaker 1: queen like Caroline, or a member of the human race,
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Speaker 1: you probably spend some time thinking about sex or not
2:37
Speaker 1: thinking about sex and wondering why you don't think enough
2:40
Speaker 1: about sex or wondering about other people's sex and if
2:43
Speaker 1: it's better than the sex you're having or not having,
2:47
Speaker 1: especially after kids. Everyone has been there, and my guest today,
2:53
Speaker 1: Emily Nagoski, is here to give us all permission to
2:56
Speaker 1: cut ourselves some slack. It's not about this we're not having.
3:01
Speaker 1: It's about the sex we are having and how to
3:04
Speaker 1: make it the best it can be. We talk about
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Speaker 1: quantity versus quality, pleasure versus obligation, spontaneous versus responsive, and
3:14
Speaker 1: just how hard it can be to even talk about this,
3:17
Speaker 1: especially and ironically with the person we do it with.
3:22
Speaker 1: There is no parent I know that won't benefit from
3:25
Speaker 1: listening to this conversation. After the break, let's talk about
3:29
Speaker 1: sex with Emily Nagoski.
3:39
Speaker 3: Emily, Emily, I'm.
3:41
Speaker 1: So delighted you're joining me me too. So we're going
3:45
Speaker 1: to talk about sex and sex in relationships. We're going
3:47
Speaker 1: to talk about your new book, Come Together, which is
3:50
Speaker 1: about improving our in relationship experience of sex. And I
3:53
Speaker 1: want to start by grounding us in data from a
3:56
Speaker 1: survey that I did about a year ago. I surveyed
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Speaker 1: about twenty six thousand people and they were mostly women
4:03
Speaker 1: about their sex lives after kids, and most people, like
4:07
Speaker 1: seventy percent say that they have sex between twice a
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Speaker 1: week and once a month.
4:13
Speaker 3: Why not saying those numbers out loud?
4:15
Speaker 1: Why not?
4:16
Speaker 3: Because there's an inevitable thing that happens, Like it's not
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Speaker 3: possible to hear those words and not start contrasting that
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Speaker 3: with what your number is and making a decision about yourself,
4:27
Speaker 3: judging whether you're okay or not based on whether you
4:31
Speaker 3: fit in that framework or not.
4:33
Speaker 1: Okay, So I was gonna my next sentence was going
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Speaker 1: to be, there is a lot of people who say
4:37
Speaker 1: they never have sex, and a lot of people who
4:39
Speaker 1: have it every day. Well, not a lot.
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Speaker 3: There are very few people who have sex every day.
4:43
Speaker 3: That's basically who have sex every day?
4:45
Speaker 1: Say, right, a few people, very few.
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Speaker 3: Mostly we're just busy because.
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Speaker 1: People are busy. Okay, But more than the numbers. And
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Speaker 1: I actually want to come back to what you said,
4:56
Speaker 1: because that is the first question I was going to
4:58
Speaker 1: ask you. But what's more striking the numbers, I think
5:01
Speaker 1: was the shriff of people who said that they were
5:02
Speaker 1: not happy with some aspect of their sex life, whether
5:05
Speaker 1: it was the amount or the satisfaction level. Okay, Yes,
5:09
Speaker 1: And now I'm gonna let you, okay, And then people
5:12
Speaker 1: said things like I want to have sex, I love
5:14
Speaker 1: my partner, I want to have sex, I want it
5:15
Speaker 1: to be different, but I'm tired and this is and
5:18
Speaker 1: it's like, there you have. You feel so strongly in
5:20
Speaker 1: these answers, and I know you have this because you're jumping.
5:22
Speaker 1: If people could see you're jumping on the.
5:23
Speaker 3: Other side of the thinking there's a note actually from
5:25
Speaker 3: your producer. Is something bumping on your table? I am
5:27
Speaker 3: bumping on my table because I am bouncing up and
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Speaker 3: down with excitement because you have asked exactly, this is
5:32
Speaker 3: exactly the thing.
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Speaker 1: Tell me, Tell me what is exactly the thing?
5:36
Speaker 3: Who cares how often you're having sex. The question is
5:40
Speaker 3: whether or not you like the sex you are having.
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Speaker 3: If you're having sex every day or twice a week
5:47
Speaker 3: and you don't like any of it, that's bad. That's like,
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Speaker 3: my heart hurts thinking about a person in that situation
5:56
Speaker 3: that they're having sex that they don't like. And even
6:00
Speaker 3: worse than just having sex you don't like is the
6:02
Speaker 3: fact that your brain is building that link right that
6:05
Speaker 3: teaches you that sex doesn't feel good and that your
6:09
Speaker 3: pleasure doesn't matter. You're having this sex for whatever reason,
6:12
Speaker 3: you're having sex, all kinds of reasons why people have sex.
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Speaker 3: That's all of chapter one is why why do we
6:19
Speaker 3: have sex? So that anytime your partner asks to initiate sex,
6:26
Speaker 3: you have a stronger and stronger sense of dread that
6:30
Speaker 3: sex is not pleasurable and that your pleasure doesn't matter.
6:35
Speaker 1: So you have a thing in the beginning of the
6:36
Speaker 1: chapter one where you ask the question is sex important? Yeah,
6:41
Speaker 1: and you have this answer which is like maybe you
6:44
Speaker 1: have like a little emoji of a Shrugger person and
6:47
Speaker 1: you say, nobody's gonna die or get sick if they
6:50
Speaker 1: don't have sex. And that's actually a little footnote citation
6:53
Speaker 1: to that to prove that it's true for science. But
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Speaker 1: this struck me as just the most important point to
7:00
Speaker 1: start in the book, which is the question of is
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Speaker 1: sex important? And framing that as is it important to you?
7:06
Speaker 1: Or in what way is this important to you?
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Speaker 3: Rightet, And the underlying question is what is it that
7:14
Speaker 3: you want when you want sex? Because that's what may
7:17
Speaker 3: if sex. Some people listening to this are like, yes,
7:22
Speaker 3: is it important? Why? Why is it such a big deal?
7:27
Speaker 3: Why can't we just why and other people feel a
7:31
Speaker 3: little worried about the fact that we are asking if
7:34
Speaker 3: sex is important, because they're like, obviously, it's extremely important,
7:39
Speaker 3: and why are we talking about this? Because people vary
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Speaker 3: from each other, and also they change across their lifespans.
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Speaker 3: So when sex feels important to us, what is it
7:49
Speaker 3: that we want when we want sex? Hint, especially sex
7:52
Speaker 3: when we want sex with a partner. The answer is
7:55
Speaker 3: not orgasm. Oh, you can do that by yourself most much. Also,
8:00
Speaker 3: if you can't have an orga by yourself, then there
8:03
Speaker 3: are whole books about that. So what is it that
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Speaker 3: you want when you want sex with a partner? People say,
8:11
Speaker 3: for things, broadly speaking, what connection is the first one?
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Speaker 3: And I think that's not going to be a surprise
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Speaker 3: to most people that they want shared pleasure, not just pleasure,
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Speaker 3: but shared pleasure, the specific experience of seeing your partner's
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Speaker 3: pleasure and having your partners see and feel your pleasure.
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Speaker 3: They're looking for the experience of being or feeling wanted
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Speaker 3: and wantable, and they're looking for an experience that I
8:37
Speaker 3: have named freedom, which is the opportunity to not worry
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Speaker 3: about all the rest of the things in our lives
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Speaker 3: and just close the door and focus on the pleasurable
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Speaker 3: things that can happen in our bodies. When people want sex,
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Speaker 3: they want and I don't know what you want when
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Speaker 3: you want sex. I don't know what anybody wants when
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Speaker 3: they want want sex other than me and my partner.
9:02
Speaker 3: I can give a pretty good answer, but people have
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Speaker 3: answers to that question. When people are struggling with desire,
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Speaker 3: when one partner wants more sex than the other one wants,
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Speaker 3: this is a great conversation. Start what is it that
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Speaker 3: you want when you want sex with me? And what
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Speaker 3: is it that you don't want when you don't want
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Speaker 3: sex with me. We can get into all kinds of
9:26
Speaker 3: gender stuff, but so for example, if you were born
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Speaker 3: with genitals that made an adult go, it's a boy,
9:31
Speaker 3: and then that they raised you as a boy and
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Speaker 3: you grew up to identify as a boy and then
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Speaker 3: a man, then part of what you were taught was
9:38
Speaker 3: what makes you a man? What makes you worth the
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Speaker 3: air you breathe is whether or not you get to
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Speaker 3: put your penis inside someone else's body. And so when
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Speaker 3: your partner says no to sex, they may just be
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Speaker 3: saying like, no, thank you, no penis for me. Tonight
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Speaker 3: I'm too tired, or I'm too stressed, or I'm too distracted,
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Speaker 3: or I'm too frustrated with you for other reasons. But
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Speaker 3: what it can feel like is no penis for me tonight,
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Speaker 3: because you're not quite worth the air you breathe. So
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Speaker 3: answering the question what is it that you want and
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Speaker 3: what is it that you don't want? It can get
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Speaker 3: really feelings really fast, and it just cuts through a
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Speaker 3: lot of sort of cultural myths that we carry around
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Speaker 3: in our brains about what it means to have and
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Speaker 3: want sexuality.
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Speaker 1: I also think, I mean, one of the things you
10:27
Speaker 1: talk about in the book is is this idea of
10:30
Speaker 1: kind of there being a way to have sex a
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Speaker 1: sort of like a successful A successful sexual experience is
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Speaker 1: one in which the penis goes in, and you know,
10:40
Speaker 1: if we're talking about heterosexual relationship, is successful one is
10:43
Speaker 1: the penis goes in and.
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Speaker 3: As Nina Harley, the feminist porn star puts, it, had
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Speaker 3: had two positions in a pop.
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Speaker 1: And then there's an orgasm at the end of that experience,
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Speaker 1: and that is that is a successful experience of this
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Speaker 1: And I think that framing, I think it particularly for
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Speaker 1: many people, but actually, especially in this audience for new parents,
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Speaker 1: that framing is really tough because sometimes that particular act
11:10
Speaker 1: is quite painful and is just like, we're definitely not
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Speaker 1: going to do that, or I just don't have time
11:16
Speaker 1: to be involved with that experience now, and there's all
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Speaker 1: these other people touching me and I can't imagine doing that,
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Speaker 1: And then it feels like, well, if I'm not going
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Speaker 1: to do that, then I guess we're not doing anything,
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Speaker 1: because that's the only thing.
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Speaker 3: The script says, that's the thing.
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Speaker 1: Script says, that's the way we have sex. And I
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Speaker 1: think part of what's really I found, so I don't know,
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Speaker 1: almost eye opening about this book was just that frame
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Speaker 1: of yes versus sex important? What are we looking for sex?
11:43
Speaker 1: And then like what is it?
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Speaker 3: Like?
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Speaker 1: What are we talking about? You talk about the idea
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Speaker 1: of curiosity and centering curiosity and centering that rather than success,
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Speaker 1: which I don't think is how many people are thinking
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Speaker 1: about their long term sex lives. It's it's interesting cause
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Speaker 1: I think it's kind of the way many people thought
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Speaker 1: about their sex lives before, right before you got into
12:05
Speaker 1: the long term relationship, where sex was the thing that
12:07
Speaker 1: you have and you approcreate with and so on. Maybe
12:09
Speaker 1: you were doing all kinds of you know, crazy stuff,
12:12
Speaker 1: but now we're in this like regular sex life, and
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Speaker 1: it's like, well, just there's the regular kind of sex
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Speaker 1: and if we're not doing that, we're just doing nothing.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. There's a sex therapist and researcher named Peggy Kleinplots
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Speaker 3: whose work I talk about a lot because it's wonderful.
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Speaker 3: And one of the things she says in the books
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Speaker 3: she co authored with Dana Maynard of the title of
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Speaker 3: the book is Magnificent Sex. It's a little on the
12:33
Speaker 3: academic side, but if anybody is remotely like science inclined,
12:37
Speaker 3: you will love this book, Magnificent Sex. One of the
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Speaker 3: things she says in that book is one of the
12:42
Speaker 3: worst things you can do is to do what works relentlessly, like.
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Speaker 1: You should think they don't work.
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Speaker 3: You figure out what works for each of you and
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Speaker 3: you just do that every time. And instead of it
12:56
Speaker 3: being about like human beings connecting with each other in
13:00
Speaker 3: the moment, it's about performing the mechanical skills in order
13:04
Speaker 3: to get the adequate outcome.
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Speaker 1: And then, of course, when we're doing that, then it's
13:08
Speaker 1: easy to when we don't get the adequate outcome for
13:10
Speaker 1: it to be like they're for failure too.
13:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. The thing about an adequate outcome is that the
13:17
Speaker 3: more often you do it, the less adequate it becomes,
13:19
Speaker 3: simply by virtue of the fact that it's the same one.
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Speaker 1: Yes, And there's a particular example in the book about
13:26
Speaker 1: impotence that is like such like I marked the page
13:31
Speaker 1: because it's about the sort of failure to get an
13:34
Speaker 1: erection as a kind of easily being framed as unsuccessful
13:37
Speaker 1: again in an environment in which you're expecting somebody to
13:40
Speaker 1: have an erection and so on, and you have this
13:43
Speaker 1: phrasing like people should instead of being upset or feeling
13:47
Speaker 1: like that's a failure, of like something has failed and
13:49
Speaker 1: we have to stop because this isn't gonna that you
13:52
Speaker 1: want to think about it as like what would be
13:53
Speaker 1: interesting to do with this not erect penis?
13:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like I.
13:58
Speaker 1: Just I and I guess I thought about that in
14:00
Speaker 1: the context of the New Parenthood, not so much because
14:03
Speaker 1: of impotence there, but because of this feeling of like
14:06
Speaker 1: your body is different, and so like, what can we
14:07
Speaker 1: do in this space where for various reasons, maybe the
14:10
Speaker 1: kind of way that we've been having sex up to
14:12
Speaker 1: this point is not really available to us.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I start talking about this because I get asked
14:18
Speaker 3: the question I get asked more often than any other
14:21
Speaker 3: in some form or other, is am I normal? X?
14:24
Speaker 3: Is happening to me? Am I normal? Including? I know
14:27
Speaker 3: you're gonna tell me I'm normal, but like I just
14:30
Speaker 3: I just have to check, like this specific thing that's
14:32
Speaker 3: happening is it normal? I get asked it so often
14:35
Speaker 3: that I had to think, really, what what are people
14:38
Speaker 3: actually asking when they're asking if their sex is normal?
14:43
Speaker 3: Because it's not the statistical definition, right. They're not asking
14:46
Speaker 3: if they're plus or minx the me standard deviations from
14:50
Speaker 3: the statistical mean, right, Like, they're not actually asking, am
14:53
Speaker 3: I having sex? Like within two standard deviations of the
14:57
Speaker 3: twenty six thousand people that Emily's surveyed in terms of
15:01
Speaker 3: their frequencies.
15:01
Speaker 1: Actually, the people who listen to this might be asking that,
15:04
Speaker 1: but I let's put a.
15:05
Speaker 3: Pin in that so you get that answer, like here's
15:08
Speaker 3: how often they're having sex on average, and you compare
15:13
Speaker 3: how often you're having sex, and you have a piece
15:15
Speaker 3: of information that is not helpful, doesn't tell you anything
15:21
Speaker 3: that you need to know in order to resolve some
15:23
Speaker 3: dissatisfaction that you have because if you're like, well, we're
15:26
Speaker 3: having sex as often as other people are, but somebody
15:29
Speaker 3: involved doesn't like the sex, or let's just have sex
15:32
Speaker 3: as often as the average and it'll all work out,
15:36
Speaker 3: not if somebody doesn't like the sex, right, So I
15:40
Speaker 3: invented a definition of normal sex, which is normal sex
15:45
Speaker 3: is sexual contact among peers where everyone involved is glad
15:48
Speaker 3: to be there. They don't have to be like hot
15:51
Speaker 3: and horny, can't wait to put my tongue in your mouth,
15:53
Speaker 3: but just like glad to be there, free to leave
15:55
Speaker 3: with no unwanted consequences. And I'm including no unwanted emotional
15:59
Speaker 3: consequence says no, oh, come on, but if you love me,
16:02
Speaker 3: you would write no one wanted consequences. Plus, of course,
16:05
Speaker 3: no one wanted pain. If it's pain that you want,
16:09
Speaker 3: do you awesome love that for you? And if it's
16:12
Speaker 3: unwanted pain then and I am not saying this flippantly,
16:16
Speaker 3: I know that it takes approximately seven attempts for even
16:19
Speaker 3: white cisgender women to find a medical provider who will
16:23
Speaker 3: take their sex sexual pain seriously. But medical treatment is
16:28
Speaker 3: available and effective for a lot of kinds of sexual pain.
16:32
Speaker 3: So everybody's glad to be there, free to leave if
16:34
Speaker 3: no one wanted consequences, no one wanted pain. And then
16:37
Speaker 3: then I offered a definition for perfect sex because when
16:40
Speaker 3: people read, when you spend one hundred thousand words reading
16:44
Speaker 3: a book about sex, you don't want the outcome to
16:47
Speaker 3: be somebody saying to you, wow, Emily, that was that
16:51
Speaker 3: was really, that was really normal sex. Really, that was
16:55
Speaker 3: fully consensual, and I did not experience any unwanted Pain's
17:00
Speaker 3: that's that's not what people want. They want to be
17:02
Speaker 3: the best partner their partner has ever had. So what
17:05
Speaker 3: is perfect sex look like? And my definition is that
17:09
Speaker 3: it's normal sex, glad to be there, free toly with
17:13
Speaker 3: no one wanted consequences, no one wanted pain. Plus whatever
17:16
Speaker 3: is happening in this moment, everyone turns toward whatever it
17:21
Speaker 3: is with kindness, compassion, curiosity, and if they possibly can
17:26
Speaker 3: a sense of confidence and joy. And if that includes
17:30
Speaker 3: that someone with a penis would like to have an
17:32
Speaker 3: erection and an erection isn't happening, you turn toward the
17:35
Speaker 3: not in erection with kindness, compassion, curiosity, and if you
17:39
Speaker 3: possibly can a sense of confidence and joy and that
17:42
Speaker 3: could be like, there's a lot of neat things we
17:44
Speaker 3: can do with a soft penis that you cannot do
17:47
Speaker 3: with an erect penis, and you could do those very
17:50
Speaker 3: fun things, or you could do stuff that has nothing
17:54
Speaker 3: to do with a penis or any combination. Right, and
17:59
Speaker 3: the same if it's a person with a volva and
18:01
Speaker 3: that volva has recently been through some kind of trauma
18:04
Speaker 3: and is unavailable for contact, Like you just turned toward
18:08
Speaker 3: what's true right now in this moment, with kindness and
18:12
Speaker 3: compassion and curiosity and a sense of confidence and joy.
18:16
Speaker 3: Confidence is knowing what's true, and joy is the hard part.
18:19
Speaker 3: Joy is loving what's true. Love what's true in this moment,
18:23
Speaker 3: even if it's not what you wish were true in
18:25
Speaker 3: this moment, even if it's not what you were taught
18:28
Speaker 3: should be true in this moment. I love that perfect.
18:32
Speaker 1: Okay, So I want to talk. I want to talk
18:35
Speaker 1: about transitions because this I think for people who are tired,
18:41
Speaker 1: which is parents and just people, but like this is
18:45
Speaker 1: I think the piece. So that is really huge. So
18:49
Speaker 1: your parenting all day, your kid, family is to bed,
18:51
Speaker 1: the kid is quiet, the person is thinking like I
18:54
Speaker 1: am going to get in my bed and I'm gonna
18:56
Speaker 1: get my iPad on and I'm gonna watch like, you know,
19:00
Speaker 1: Golden Bachelor. Now I'm just listening shows that I like,
19:02
Speaker 1: you know, great British Bank Show, whatever. I'm gonna like relax,
19:05
Speaker 1: and then your partners like, hey, I have a bad sex.
19:11
Speaker 1: And and there's the I think for many people in
19:14
Speaker 1: a moment that you're just like, are you fucking kidding me? Like,
19:16
Speaker 1: not another thing? I did all the things today, and
19:19
Speaker 1: it's it's in some ways then you say no, but
19:22
Speaker 1: then maybe later you know, I maybe not know, and
19:25
Speaker 1: and or if somebody feels bad and somebody feels rejected,
19:28
Speaker 1: And it's not so much the not wanting the sex,
19:33
Speaker 1: it's the it's the not being ready for the question. Yeah.
19:37
Speaker 3: It's that you were already in a certain state, like
19:42
Speaker 3: you have checked out of the world and checked into
19:45
Speaker 3: Downton Abbey. Yes, and knock knock, knock, do you want
19:49
Speaker 3: to have sex? And you're like, but it's not that
19:52
Speaker 3: I don't want to. It's not that I don't want to,
19:55
Speaker 3: it's it's that I am already doing this. So there's
19:59
Speaker 3: a temper trait, and parents will recognize this as being
20:03
Speaker 3: something that characterizes their children, especially if you've got more
20:06
Speaker 3: than one kid. You'll know that humans vary in this
20:09
Speaker 3: temperamental trait called adaptability, whether or not they adjust well
20:14
Speaker 3: to change how long transitions take. Some of us just
20:18
Speaker 3: transition more gradually than other people. My sister was actually
20:22
Speaker 3: just talking about this with her husband, that his first
20:25
Speaker 3: reaction to everything is just no, and like he'll like
20:30
Speaker 3: think about it and process it and later come back
20:32
Speaker 3: with like, yeah, I think we can find a way
20:34
Speaker 3: to make that work. But just and it's not that
20:36
Speaker 3: he doesn't want to it's that, like, there's a transition
20:41
Speaker 3: that is required to get from one brain state to another.
20:45
Speaker 3: In computer coding, they call it context switching cost, which
20:50
Speaker 3: is literally the amount of like electricity and time it
20:54
Speaker 3: takes for a computer to switch from one task to
20:58
Speaker 3: another task because it literally takes time and energy. And
21:02
Speaker 3: that is true for human brains too. It literally takes
21:05
Speaker 3: time and energy for our brains to transition from one
21:08
Speaker 3: task to another, from one state to another. And if
21:11
Speaker 3: you are a person who is slow to transition anyway,
21:14
Speaker 3: and your partner asks you out of the blue, it's
21:17
Speaker 3: not that you don't want to say yes, it's that
21:21
Speaker 3: you're looking at like the energy and the time it
21:24
Speaker 3: would take to transition out of where you are now
21:27
Speaker 3: into where you would need to be in order for
21:30
Speaker 3: sex to be like a big giant yes for you,
21:33
Speaker 3: and you're like, this is one of the four that
21:38
Speaker 3: people are resistant to the idea of scheduling sex, and
21:42
Speaker 3: scheduling sex is not for you. Feel free not to
21:44
Speaker 3: schedule sex, and people who are slow to adapt, please
21:47
Speaker 3: try scheduling sex. Yeah, because it means that you can
21:51
Speaker 3: build in your transition to the rest of your day.
21:55
Speaker 3: You can make sure that like, Okay, so Saturday is
21:57
Speaker 3: going to be the day. I'm going to make sure
21:59
Speaker 3: that Saturday is day when I don't have anything that's
22:01
Speaker 3: going to like suck me in to a completely draining
22:05
Speaker 3: brain state so that it's easy. And I'm gonna schedule
22:08
Speaker 3: half an hour before the sexy times to do a
22:11
Speaker 3: thing that helps me transition into a sexy state of mind.
22:14
Speaker 3: For me, it'd be something like taking a bath. For
22:17
Speaker 3: my sister, it might be something like listening to her
22:19
Speaker 3: husband practice piano, because they are both musicians. So finding
22:23
Speaker 3: the thing that helps you to transition from that state
22:26
Speaker 3: into the other, knowing that it's gonna require time and
22:30
Speaker 3: planning and energy, and it's so much easier if you
22:33
Speaker 3: know ahead of time instead of like just fingers crossed
22:37
Speaker 3: hoping against hope that both of you are in the
22:39
Speaker 3: same state at the same time.
22:41
Speaker 1: In addition to the cognitive or maybe as a part
22:44
Speaker 1: of the cognitive load of transition and the there is
22:50
Speaker 1: for many people perceive a gender difference in this that
22:54
Speaker 1: women take a longer time to warm up. They don't
22:59
Speaker 1: just like you can't just like turn it right on,
23:01
Speaker 1: you know where you think about sex and you're like,
23:03
Speaker 1: I could do that right now. It's like it take
23:05
Speaker 1: a little time to warm it up. And I feel
23:09
Speaker 1: that gender difference in some of how people in some
23:12
Speaker 1: of how people talk about the dynamics in their relationships.
23:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what I think the language that is
23:19
Speaker 3: most clarifying here is spontaneous desire versus responsive desire. So
23:25
Speaker 3: spontaneous desire is this experience. Erica Mohen, the cartoonist who
23:28
Speaker 3: illustrated Come as you Are draws it does a lightning
23:31
Speaker 3: bolt to the genital is just kaboom.
23:32
Speaker 1: You just want it.
23:34
Speaker 3: You have a stray sexual thought or see a stray
23:36
Speaker 3: sexy person, You're like kaboom, I would like this suck.
23:39
Speaker 3: You go to your partner, ah kaboom, and your partner
23:42
Speaker 3: is in the middle of doing the dishes or is
23:44
Speaker 3: wrist deep in baby poop and is like now, uh respond.
23:49
Speaker 3: And so spontaneous desire is one of the normal, healthy
23:51
Speaker 3: ways to experience desire. And also there's responsive desire. Where
23:56
Speaker 3: spontaneous desire emerges in anticipation of pleasure. Responsive desire emerges
24:02
Speaker 3: in response to pleasure. So you have to create a
24:05
Speaker 3: context that makes it easy for your brain too. Like
24:08
Speaker 3: you get in the bed because it's scheduled and you've
24:12
Speaker 3: already transitioned into a pretty good state of mind. You
24:14
Speaker 3: let your skin touch your partner's skin, and your body
24:16
Speaker 3: goes right. I really like this. I really like this person.
24:21
Speaker 3: What a good idea this was. We should do this again.
24:24
Speaker 3: That's responsive desire and it is also normal and it
24:28
Speaker 3: was developed in the late nineties by sex therapist Rosemary
24:32
Speaker 3: Besson as a way to describe women's sexual response. But
24:37
Speaker 3: the more research has been done on it, the clearer
24:40
Speaker 3: and clearer it becomes that it is not really that gendered.
24:44
Speaker 3: Some of it has to do with the way people
24:46
Speaker 3: are socialized and certainly, if you get raised as an
24:48
Speaker 3: it's a girl type person, you're given so many distressing, scary,
24:56
Speaker 3: overwhelming messages about sex that your sexual breaks are just
25:00
Speaker 3: on all the time, and that means that it's going
25:02
Speaker 3: to be a more gradual process for your body to
25:04
Speaker 3: engage sexually. But when I wrote a confident hair flip,
25:10
Speaker 3: I wrote an op ad for the New York's Hams
25:13
Speaker 3: about responsive desire and how it's entirely normal, and I
25:17
Speaker 3: got more emails from men than from women saying thank
25:20
Speaker 3: you for this language. It explains what I have been experiencing.
25:23
Speaker 3: So I hesitate to frame it as a gender difference,
25:26
Speaker 3: but I do frame it as a difference in ways
25:29
Speaker 3: that people can experience desire. And the most the sort
25:35
Speaker 3: of the most frustrating thing is when people experience spontaneous
25:38
Speaker 3: desire like early in their relationship, and then their desire
25:41
Speaker 3: becomes more responsive later in the relationship because it changed,
25:45
Speaker 3: they believe it is broken, and no, what happened was
25:50
Speaker 3: the context changed, And so the way your brain is
25:53
Speaker 3: able to respond to the world is different, and it
25:57
Speaker 3: is normal and natural that when your life changes, the
25:59
Speaker 3: way your brain work is going to adapt to that.
26:02
Speaker 3: So there's nothing broken that a change in your context
26:06
Speaker 3: can't fix. Does that make sense?
26:10
Speaker 1: I love it?
26:11
Speaker 3: Just to be specific. Testosterone is associated with increased spontaneous desire.
26:17
Speaker 3: How that maps depending on a person's as signed sex
26:22
Speaker 3: at birth or their gender identity is really complex. But
26:25
Speaker 3: there's no straightforward like story to tell about which hormone
26:29
Speaker 3: is associated with what everybody varies and the research. You'll
26:35
Speaker 3: be surprised to learn that people who have monthly oscillating
26:39
Speaker 3: menstrual cycles, we really don't have a lot of research
26:42
Speaker 3: on how that their sexuality interesting. I'm so interested to
26:46
Speaker 3: hear that and surprised. Thank you so surprising.
26:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I also think there's a there's a piece
26:52
Speaker 1: of having this conversation and just recognizing in some ways
26:57
Speaker 1: talking to your partner and saying like, hey, you know
27:00
Speaker 1: often when you ask me, I say no, this is
27:03
Speaker 1: kind of why this is part of it. And you know,
27:06
Speaker 1: can we talk about like I don't want you to
27:07
Speaker 1: interpret it as I never want to do it, or
27:09
Speaker 1: I don't or I'm disgusted by you or think that
27:11
Speaker 1: you're terrible. It's just like that transition is you know,
27:15
Speaker 1: computer energy.
27:16
Speaker 3: You need a longer runway.
27:17
Speaker 1: I need a longer runway. Yeah, and let's figure out
27:20
Speaker 1: how we can make the longer runway, because I do
27:22
Speaker 1: want to be at the end of the runway. I
27:24
Speaker 1: just was watching out in Abby right then.
27:26
Speaker 3: And until people know that this is just true about them,
27:32
Speaker 3: they might have absorbed an idea from somewhere in the
27:34
Speaker 3: culture that needing a long runway is somehow a problem
27:38
Speaker 3: or means you're broken in some way, And it's just
27:40
Speaker 3: people's brains vary. Some people are slower to adjust to
27:45
Speaker 3: change than other people are. That's just that's just a
27:48
Speaker 3: difference in people. One of the ways people have the
27:51
Speaker 3: conversation most successfully is when they can start with an
27:54
Speaker 3: example of their slowness to adapt to a transition in
27:59
Speaker 3: another their context, in a non sexual context, like we
28:02
Speaker 3: were planning on having X for dinner. It turned out
28:05
Speaker 3: we couldn't have X for dinner. We had to have
28:07
Speaker 3: why for dinner. And the reluctance and the difficulty that
28:10
Speaker 3: my brain had and adjusting to like changing, even though
28:14
Speaker 3: the thing we ended up having is one of my
28:16
Speaker 3: very favorite things to eat. It's not about it not
28:18
Speaker 3: being something I don't enjoy. It's the letting go of
28:21
Speaker 3: the plan and transitioning to something else. Is it's just
28:25
Speaker 3: work for my brains, and if it's worked for your brain,
28:28
Speaker 3: then it'll be work in other contexts as well.
28:32
Speaker 1: So you talk a lot in the book about the
28:33
Speaker 1: idea of pleasure. It's basically in every chapter, and so
28:39
Speaker 1: I guess what I want.
28:40
Speaker 3: It's the title of the first half of the book
28:42
Speaker 3: is Pleasure is Pleasure, And.
28:44
Speaker 1: It comes up in the second half too, it's everywhere.
28:46
Speaker 1: So why, like, why is this so important for you?
28:49
Speaker 1: Just like, why is this such a central theme here?
28:52
Speaker 3: Because pleasure is pleasure is the measure pleasure is. The
28:57
Speaker 3: reason I say that is because I learned while I
28:59
Speaker 3: was getting ready to promote Come as you Are in
29:03
Speaker 3: my first book, I learned that people don't just remember
29:06
Speaker 3: what you say more when it rhymes. They believe you more.
29:10
Speaker 3: It feels more true if the thing you say rhymes.
29:13
Speaker 3: So pleasure is the measure of sexual well being. It's
29:17
Speaker 3: not how often you do it, or who you do
29:19
Speaker 3: it with, or what position or where or what room,
29:22
Speaker 3: or even how many orgasms you have. It's whether or
29:25
Speaker 3: not you enjoy the sex you are having, and if
29:28
Speaker 3: you are having fun, if you like the sex you
29:31
Speaker 3: are having you are already doing it right. There's this
29:35
Speaker 3: great analogy that I learned from sex therapist Christine Hyde
29:38
Speaker 3: in New Jersey, where she talks to her clients with
29:41
Speaker 3: this metaphor. If you're best friend advice you to a party,
29:45
Speaker 3: you say yes because it's your best friend and it's
29:47
Speaker 3: a party. And then as the date approaches, you start thinking,
29:51
Speaker 3: it's gonna be really heavy traffic, We're gonna have to
29:54
Speaker 3: find childcare. Am I gonna want to put my pants
29:57
Speaker 3: on at the end of a long week? Oh, but
30:01
Speaker 3: you know what you said you would go. So you
30:03
Speaker 3: put on your party clothes, you arrange the childcare, you
30:07
Speaker 3: go through the traffic, and you show up to the party.
30:11
Speaker 3: And what happens at the party usually you have fun
30:16
Speaker 3: at the party. If you are having fun at the party,
30:20
Speaker 3: you are doing it right. And my thing is there's
30:23
Speaker 3: no amount of being like, man, I really wish we
30:26
Speaker 3: could go to a party tonight that would make that
30:29
Speaker 3: party worth going to. If you don't like the people
30:34
Speaker 3: who are there, if you don't enjoy the kind of
30:37
Speaker 3: music they are playing, if you're allergic to the food,
30:40
Speaker 3: if you've recently had an argument with somebody there, and
30:42
Speaker 3: it's unresolved and you wish it could be resolved when
30:45
Speaker 3: you still have a huge to do list in your
30:47
Speaker 3: mind of like all the stuff that needs to get
30:48
Speaker 3: done back at your house, and why am I wasting
30:50
Speaker 3: time going to this party? Like none of that's going
30:53
Speaker 3: to make the party worth going to. So with pleasure,
30:57
Speaker 3: whether or not you're having fun is the question. Do
31:01
Speaker 3: you like it?
31:02
Speaker 1: I love it? So back to.
31:03
Speaker 3: Peggy climb plots, she talks about having clients come in
31:08
Speaker 3: in this very typical situation where one partner says, I'm sorry,
31:12
Speaker 3: this hurts my partner's feelings, but you know, I'd be
31:14
Speaker 3: happy never having sex again, and Peggy being Peggy says, well,
31:19
Speaker 3: tell me about this sex you do not want? And
31:22
Speaker 3: what do you suppose they describe.
31:25
Speaker 1: The sex is not good? Yeah? Is it like fat
31:28
Speaker 1: and it's bad?
31:29
Speaker 3: Yeah? Her phrase is the sex they describe as dismal
31:33
Speaker 3: and disappointing. If it's sex where you feel like it's
31:37
Speaker 3: where you're you don't enjoy it, where you feel like
31:39
Speaker 3: you have to hide some authentic part of yourself, where
31:41
Speaker 3: you feel like you're just doing it out of a
31:43
Speaker 3: sense of obligation, where you really wish they would do
31:46
Speaker 3: something and they're not doing that, and you've just given
31:48
Speaker 3: up hope that they will ever participate with you in
31:51
Speaker 3: the kind of party you enjoy. So after the couple
31:55
Speaker 3: describes the sex that they have, Peggy being Peggy says, well,
31:59
Speaker 3: you know, I rather joy sex, but if that's the
32:01
Speaker 3: sex I were having, I wouldn't want it either. So
32:05
Speaker 3: what kind of sex is worth wanting? And the question
32:09
Speaker 3: comes back to it's not about desire, it's about pleasure.
32:13
Speaker 3: And here is the totally radical, completely obvious once you
32:17
Speaker 3: hear it set out loud idea. It's not dysfunctional. It's
32:20
Speaker 3: not a problem. If you don't want sex you do
32:24
Speaker 3: not like If you don't like it, of course you
32:27
Speaker 3: don't want it. It's not a desire problem, that's a
32:30
Speaker 3: pleasure problem.
32:32
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a very practical question, which is,
32:35
Speaker 1: even in long term relationships, I think it's often quite
32:38
Speaker 1: hard for people to talk about sex, even with the
32:42
Speaker 1: people they have the sex with, even with the people
32:44
Speaker 1: they have the sex with, Like, you have the sex,
32:46
Speaker 1: but you don't talk about it, you know, And I
32:49
Speaker 1: think with you know, after fifteen years of not talking
32:53
Speaker 1: about the sex, like awkward to be like Hey, you
32:56
Speaker 1: know the sex we've been having for fifteen years, Like
33:00
Speaker 1: I haven't liked most of it, or even if you
33:03
Speaker 1: like it and you want it, you say, like I
33:05
Speaker 1: like it, but it would you know we could do this?
33:07
Speaker 1: It is like it's it's awkward. How do you talk about.
33:12
Speaker 3: We have been taught that if you have to talk
33:14
Speaker 3: about it, that automatically indicates that there's bad. Yeah, that
33:18
Speaker 3: it's inherently a.
33:19
Speaker 1: P We should just figure it out. It should be
33:20
Speaker 1: just sort of like we should just be able to
33:22
Speaker 1: have the sex.
33:23
Speaker 3: And I would love it if we could all internalize
33:25
Speaker 3: what the science tells us, which is that the people
33:27
Speaker 3: who have great sex lives talk about sex all the time.
33:33
Speaker 3: They have great sex. They talk about sex, and correlation
33:37
Speaker 3: is not causation, but the two are correlated. Talking about
33:40
Speaker 3: sex is not correlated with a bad sex life. Talking
33:42
Speaker 3: about sex is correlated with a spectacular, magnificent, optimal sexual experience.
33:50
Speaker 3: So if we can all just like take a breath
33:52
Speaker 3: and like consider the possibility that if we're a couple
33:55
Speaker 3: who talks about sex, we're a couple who is increasing
33:58
Speaker 3: our access to ecstatic pleasure. Is that motivating at all?
34:03
Speaker 1: I think I find that motivating.
34:05
Speaker 3: And the other piece of it is so like, if
34:08
Speaker 3: we're able to have this conversation, we are able to
34:11
Speaker 3: say the words out loud when we have sex. I
34:15
Speaker 3: really love it when you whatever, And I had a
34:20
Speaker 3: fantasy where you tried this other thing? Is that something
34:24
Speaker 3: you'd be interested in? Like, we're capable of saying those words.
34:28
Speaker 3: So when people ask me, but I could never have
34:31
Speaker 3: that conversation, how how do I ask my partner for whatever?
34:35
Speaker 3: And like, you say the words, So the question really
34:38
Speaker 3: is not how do we do it? How you do
34:39
Speaker 3: it as you say the words. The question is what
34:42
Speaker 3: is it that's the obstacle between you and saying those words?
34:46
Speaker 3: Like what? What do you dread will happen?
34:50
Speaker 2: Right?
34:50
Speaker 1: I think people dread that their partner will be like,
34:53
Speaker 1: what kind of weirdo are you?
34:55
Speaker 3: Yeah? Exactly, a person like you said, maybe a person
34:59
Speaker 3: you've been having sex with for more than a decade.
35:04
Speaker 3: We're still worried that if we dare to disclose a
35:07
Speaker 3: thing about our sexual identities, that they're going to judge us,
35:12
Speaker 3: maybe so harshly that they will never be able to
35:15
Speaker 3: look at us the same way again, that they may
35:18
Speaker 3: leave us forever and that again in the same way
35:23
Speaker 3: that we have been taught that if you have to
35:25
Speaker 3: talk about sex, that automatically means there's a problem. We
35:27
Speaker 3: have been taught that our entire identity is tied to
35:32
Speaker 3: our being sexually successful, not having any questions about it,
35:38
Speaker 3: already knowing everything we need to know, being a perfect performer,
35:43
Speaker 3: putting work into it like an employee who wants a promotion, right,
35:48
Speaker 3: and yeah, we are so. We have been taught to
35:53
Speaker 3: be really fragile, to feel like we don't have the
35:57
Speaker 3: internal and external resources to deal with any degree of
36:03
Speaker 3: vulnerability beyond what we're already willing to try in our relationship.
36:09
Speaker 3: And just in the same way that we don't want
36:13
Speaker 3: our partners to judge us, we don't want our partner
36:16
Speaker 3: to feel in any way hurt, criticized, or judged. We
36:19
Speaker 3: don't want to offer something that might feel like criticism
36:23
Speaker 3: to them, especially if you got born with it. It's
36:25
Speaker 3: a girl package of genitals race as a girl socialized
36:28
Speaker 3: grew up to identify as a woman. A major part
36:31
Speaker 3: of your role as a sexual person, you were taught
36:33
Speaker 3: from birth or earlier is to be a giver, is
36:37
Speaker 3: to meet other people's needs, and so like, when you
36:40
Speaker 3: get into sexual situations that involve another person, a lot
36:43
Speaker 3: of your attention shifts away from your internal state onto
36:46
Speaker 3: like monitoring this other person to make sure their needs
36:50
Speaker 3: and expectations are being that they are satisfied, they are
36:54
Speaker 3: pleased with what's happening, so much so that you might
36:56
Speaker 3: not even be aware of whether or not you yourself
36:59
Speaker 3: are experienced pleasure, so that when somebody like me comes
37:02
Speaker 3: along and says, tell your partner what you want and like,
37:06
Speaker 3: just talk about it, You're like, how how am I
37:08
Speaker 3: supposed to even know what I like?
37:11
Speaker 1: Yeah?
37:12
Speaker 3: So I'm in no way saying that this stuff is easy,
37:15
Speaker 3: And I am saying that the people who have great.
37:17
Speaker 1: Sex lives talk about this.
37:19
Speaker 3: This is exactly what they do so build the coziest
37:24
Speaker 3: emotional nest.
37:26
Speaker 1: So you talk in the intro to the book about
37:28
Speaker 1: the key to great sex over the long term, and
37:31
Speaker 1: you say, basically, these three things. So can you tell
37:33
Speaker 1: us what are these three things? Yes?
37:35
Speaker 3: Characteristic number one, These couples admire and trust each other.
37:39
Speaker 3: They have a strong friendship at the foundation of their relationship,
37:43
Speaker 3: and most of the time, it is not controversial the
37:46
Speaker 3: idea that if you like the person you're having sex with,
37:49
Speaker 3: the sex will be better. Two they prioritize sex, they
37:54
Speaker 3: decide that it matters for their relationship that they set
37:57
Speaker 3: aside time and energy, not just to have the sex,
38:01
Speaker 3: which that'll, by itself is a lot to I mean,
38:04
Speaker 3: you know, we've got maybe we've got kids to raise,
38:06
Speaker 3: maybe we've got school to go to, maybe we've got
38:09
Speaker 3: jobs to go to. Maybe we've got other friends to
38:11
Speaker 3: spend time with, other family members to pay attention to,
38:13
Speaker 3: God forbid, we do just want to watch the Golden
38:16
Speaker 3: Bachelor and take a nap, right, Why would we set
38:20
Speaker 3: aside time to just like let our bare skin rub
38:25
Speaker 3: against another human's bare skin and put our mouths on
38:28
Speaker 3: each other's genitals and bite each other's to Why?
38:31
Speaker 1: Why?
38:33
Speaker 3: Because the couple decides that it matters, it does something
38:37
Speaker 3: valuable for their relationship that they spend some of their
38:41
Speaker 3: time together doing this very silly, often fun, sometimes important,
38:48
Speaker 3: sometimes really terrible thing that we humans do when we
38:53
Speaker 3: choose to. But the couples who prioritize sex aren't just
38:56
Speaker 3: setting aside the time actually to do it. They're setting
38:59
Speaker 3: a high time to talk about what went well and
39:02
Speaker 3: what they could try different and what it means for them,
39:06
Speaker 3: given their life history, to have the kind of erotic
39:09
Speaker 3: connection that they have with this person, They decide that
39:12
Speaker 3: it matters. The second characteristic is that these couples prioritize
39:15
Speaker 3: sex and blanket caveat that it is normal for sex
39:20
Speaker 3: not to be a priority at some seasons of our lives.
39:25
Speaker 3: The first four years of having young humans in your
39:28
Speaker 3: home is it's quite typical for sex just to like
39:32
Speaker 3: disappear off the priority list. People vary, and that's a
39:37
Speaker 3: sort of standard narrative. And the third characteristic is this
39:41
Speaker 3: is honestly the hard one. The couples who sustain a
39:43
Speaker 3: strong sexual connection over the long term, especially the people
39:46
Speaker 3: who have really extraordinary sex, are the ones who recognize
39:51
Speaker 3: that they have been taught a lot of other people's
39:55
Speaker 3: opinions about who they're supposed to be as sexual people
39:58
Speaker 3: and what it means that they're sexual and what kind
40:01
Speaker 3: of sex they're supposed to have. They jettison all of
40:04
Speaker 3: it and create space for who they truly are as
40:09
Speaker 3: a sexual person, and they explore to learn who their
40:13
Speaker 3: partner truly is beyond all of those other people's opinions
40:18
Speaker 3: about who their partner is supposed to be, and they
40:22
Speaker 3: explore who they as a unique pairing are in a partnership.
40:28
Speaker 3: They start from scratch so that their authentic selves can
40:32
Speaker 3: connect in a way that feels true and vulnerable and
40:37
Speaker 3: real to them without trying to meet somebody else's expectation
40:42
Speaker 3: of what they're supposed to be doing. Because all those
40:45
Speaker 3: other people whose opinions you have in your head about
40:48
Speaker 3: what sex is supposed to be, they're not in the
40:50
Speaker 3: bed with you. I always think of that moment in
40:53
Speaker 3: Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth tells Mariah Maria's repacking her
40:58
Speaker 3: bags because Lady Catherine de Bergh told her she should
41:02
Speaker 3: be packing her bags totally differently. And Elizabeth taps her
41:05
Speaker 3: on the shoulder and says, this is your trunk, These
41:07
Speaker 3: are your gowns. You can pack them any way you want.
41:09
Speaker 3: Lady Catherine will never know. This is your sex life,
41:13
Speaker 3: this is your partner.
41:14
Speaker 1: Pack it anyway you'd like, packet.
41:16
Speaker 3: Lady Catherine will never know.
41:18
Speaker 1: All right, So I when I have a last question
41:21
Speaker 1: about the book itself, so I'm always curious about how
41:24
Speaker 1: people structure the books and how people how they hope
41:26
Speaker 1: others will use them. So this book is a sort
41:29
Speaker 1: of really interesting combination of very practical advice like you
41:34
Speaker 1: might benefit from keeping sex towels in your drawers, to
41:38
Speaker 1: very broad things like is sex important to you? And
41:41
Speaker 1: so I'm curious, if you think about people reading and
41:43
Speaker 1: using the book, how are you imagining them doing that?
41:47
Speaker 3: I imagine often when someone picks up a book like that's
41:51
Speaker 3: about having a better sex life, they may already be
41:54
Speaker 3: in some kind of distress and they're looking for solutions,
41:57
Speaker 3: They're looking for answers. Chances are they are looking for
42:02
Speaker 3: a way to conform with the ideal they have, and
42:06
Speaker 3: they are their head of what they think sex is
42:07
Speaker 3: supposed to look like. And I spend the first quarter
42:12
Speaker 3: of the book deconstructing that, because your idea of what
42:18
Speaker 3: you think sex is supposed to look like is made
42:20
Speaker 3: up of all those other people's opinions about who you're
42:23
Speaker 3: supposed to be, and all of that is lies, and
42:27
Speaker 3: all of that is just obstructing your access to ecstasy.
42:32
Speaker 3: And so then we start with tools to use to
42:35
Speaker 3: find because in addition to the couple where someone would
42:40
Speaker 3: be happy if they never had sex again, there's couples
42:43
Speaker 3: like me and my partner. The origin story of the
42:48
Speaker 3: book is that in writing Come as You Are, my
42:50
Speaker 3: first book, which is about the science of women's sexual
42:52
Speaker 3: well being, the stress of writing a book about sex
42:58
Speaker 3: was so intense that I lost hole. I had zero,
43:03
Speaker 3: zero interest in actually having any sex for months nothing.
43:10
Speaker 3: So here I am this sex expert with nothing for months.
43:15
Speaker 3: So I did what anyone would do. I looked at
43:18
Speaker 3: the peer reviewed research on how couple sustain a strong
43:20
Speaker 3: sexual connection over the long term, and what I found
43:24
Speaker 3: there and started me on this journey of like, wait
43:29
Speaker 3: a minute, everything in the mainstream narrative is not only wrong,
43:34
Speaker 3: but wrong headed and making the situation worse for people
43:39
Speaker 3: if they actually believe that the goal in a long
43:43
Speaker 3: term relationship is to keep the spark alive. If I
43:47
Speaker 3: could eradicate one sentence from the English language, it would
43:50
Speaker 3: be keep.
43:51
Speaker 1: This sparks spark alive, keep it spark alive, and.
43:55
Speaker 3: Replace it with pleasure is the measure.
43:58
Speaker 1: Which rhymes, so it's even therefore it's true, definitely more better.
44:03
Speaker 3: That's how you know. So the first half is about
44:07
Speaker 3: like what is the gateway to pleasure? And I spent
44:09
Speaker 3: two big chapters talking about the solution to my thing,
44:13
Speaker 3: which is where like I knew that if we got there,
44:15
Speaker 3: I would like it.
44:16
Speaker 1: We had good sex.
44:19
Speaker 3: We had amazing sex, and if if I could just
44:22
Speaker 3: if I could just get there, it would be great.
44:25
Speaker 3: But I was stuck, and I had to figure out
44:28
Speaker 3: where I was stuck and how to get unstuck. And obviously,
44:33
Speaker 3: for that I turned to the father of affective neuroscience,
44:36
Speaker 3: Yak Pangcep and the seven primary process emotions as you do,
44:41
Speaker 3: and developed a metaphor that I call the emotional floor plan,
44:44
Speaker 3: and that is actually the tool that got me unstuck.
44:48
Speaker 3: And then the second half of the book is dealing
44:50
Speaker 3: with specific problems that will definitely emerge over the course
44:54
Speaker 3: of a long term relationship, applying all the tools and
44:57
Speaker 3: the framework in the first half of the book.
45:01
Speaker 1: Well, I think the book is fantastic and I hope
45:04
Speaker 1: that everybody reads it, because it's pretty clear to me
45:08
Speaker 1: from the people who talk to me and just from
45:12
Speaker 1: everything in the world that there are a lot of
45:13
Speaker 1: people who could really use this. And I think the
45:16
Speaker 1: reframe that you have is I think people will find
45:20
Speaker 1: really surprising and helpful.
45:23
Speaker 3: The best thing I can say. So obviously, writing this
45:26
Speaker 3: book also totally lost all my interest in actually having
45:31
Speaker 3: any sex. But the cool part was that at the
45:34
Speaker 3: end of it, when I got to the end, I
45:36
Speaker 3: had this one hundred thousand page manual of how to
45:41
Speaker 3: fix what had gone wrong for us over the course
45:44
Speaker 3: of writing the book. So even if, like I would
45:48
Speaker 3: love it, if lots and lots of people read the book,
45:50
Speaker 3: I would love it. If it saved marriages and expanded
45:53
Speaker 3: joy and pleasure across the globe, I would love that.
45:55
Speaker 3: And also, even if nobody else reads it, it has
45:58
Speaker 3: already made my sex life better than it's been in
46:02
Speaker 3: all twelve years that I have been with my partner,
46:05
Speaker 3: which that alone made it worth it.
46:08
Speaker 1: Okay, Emily, we're gonna do some rapid fire lightning round.
46:10
Speaker 3: Questions, so I should start to be actually rapid.
46:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, try rapid. How do you define sex in a
46:16
Speaker 1: long term relationship?
46:18
Speaker 3: I don't Okay, that's up to you.
46:20
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good answer. We can use that all right. Ah,
46:23
Speaker 1: what do couples in long term relationships struggle with the
46:26
Speaker 1: most when it comes to sex.
46:29
Speaker 3: Honestly, the thing they struggle with most is communication. Yeah,
46:33
Speaker 3: because of all those barriers we talked about.
46:36
Speaker 1: What is the biggest myth about sex in long term relationships.
46:41
Speaker 3: The biggest myth is that you're supposed to be keeping
46:42
Speaker 3: the spark alive now when actually what you should be
46:48
Speaker 3: doing is centering pleasure. If you put pleasure at the
46:51
Speaker 3: center of your definition of sexual wellbeing, all the other
46:54
Speaker 3: puzzle pieces will fall into places expecting.
47:11
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Emily for being here.
47:13
Speaker 3: It was such a treat. It was my pleasure.
47:26
Speaker 2: You're gonna leave.
47:32
Speaker 3: You don't have to feel like a waste of spas you're.
47:37
Speaker 2: To know cannot be so, Emily Auster.
47:42
Speaker 1: So, Caroline Chambers, what would you say is your recipe
47:47
Speaker 1: for great sex after three kids?
47:49
Speaker 2: I think the recipe is finding ways to make your
47:54
Speaker 2: life feel sexy because your life is not really sexy
47:59
Speaker 2: right now. Like, nothing about my life with a five
48:03
Speaker 2: year old, a three year old, and a one year
48:04
Speaker 2: old is sexy. So finding little ways to like connect
48:09
Speaker 2: with my husband, read a romantic book because that's the
48:12
Speaker 2: only way I'm getting romance in my life right now.
48:15
Speaker 2: Do things that are sexy make my life feel a
48:17
Speaker 2: little sexier than it truly is right now?
48:22
Speaker 1: That's hot.
48:29
Speaker 2: Sure.
48:36
Speaker 1: Parent Data is produced by Tamar Avishai with support from
48:39
Speaker 1: the parent Data team and pix. If you have thoughts
48:42
Speaker 1: on this episode, please join the conversation on my Instagram
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Speaker 1: at prof Emily Ostro. And if you want to support
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48:55
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48:58
Speaker 1: make better, more informed decisions. For example, just in time
49:03
Speaker 1: for Valentine's Day last year, we conducted a survey about
49:05
Speaker 1: all of your sex lives after kids and found the
49:08
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49:12
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49:18
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49:24
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49:30
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