Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / How To Talk Openly To Your Partner About Your Sexual Fantasies And Desires!

Transcript

How To Talk Openly To Your Partner About Your Sexual Fantasies And Desires! · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:08
  Psych mom, show today, I'm going to talk about a common problem
• 0:12
  with my couples, which is when people do not know how to say,
• 0:17
  what they want in bed, I have talked about the problem that
• 0:20
  some women have where they don't know what they want in bed but
• 0:24
  what, that's a different issue. This is an issue that you do
• 0:27
  know what you want and you don't know how to say it because of
• 0:31
  various reasons, including you feel shy.
• 0:34
  Why you feel awkward? You feel that the person is
• 0:38
  going to think you're disgusting or in general you feel like
• 0:43
  asking this will somehow ruin the sex life that you have.
• 0:47
  So we can examine these in turn but just know that this is a
• 0:50
  very common issue. It is something that people come
• 0:53
  into my office with all the time is not knowing how to be open
• 0:56
  and direct about what they want to try in bed.
• 0:58
  And particularly this is for older couples.
• 1:02
  So not people in their twenties but In there especially 40s and
• 1:08
  Beyond because quite honestly at that point your hormonal levels
• 1:14
  of testosterone and others shift and the same old.
• 1:19
  Same old is not going to get you as aroused as quickly.
• 1:23
  This is usually when people want to Branch out and if there were
• 1:26
  things that really turn them on to think about, they want to do
• 1:30
  these things to enhance a sexual experience that at this point.
• 1:34
  May otherwise Be lacking, not just because you're aging and
• 1:37
  your sex drive is diminishing accordingly, but also, because
• 1:41
  you've been in the same old relationship for a very long
• 1:44
  time. As I've discussed, this
• 1:47
  diminishing of libido with in, monogamy is extremely severe for
• 1:51
  women, but it also impacts men, nobody is, at their sexiest
• 1:58
  feeling with the same old, same old partner.
• 2:00
  Now, this doesn't mean that you can't have a better sex life
• 2:03
  with your Spouse of many years than you can with a guy.
• 2:06
  The first night that you meet him you can because you know,
• 2:09
  each other better especially if you follow my advice and you
• 2:12
  learn to talk to one another openly about sex, but what it
• 2:16
  means is that it's not as like, exciting.
• 2:18
  You're not like, oh my God, oh my God.
• 2:20
  Is my husband going to ask me to have sex tonight.
• 2:23
  I mean, you know, maybe you feel like that after 20 years that's
• 2:27
  awesome. If you do, please leave me a
• 2:30
  voice message and prove me wrong.
• 2:32
  And I will love everybody would love to To hear you tell me
• 2:36
  that. But for the majority of people,
• 2:38
  they know they're going to have sex with their spouse in a best
• 2:41
  case and worst case, they know they're not going to have sex
• 2:43
  with their spouse, but in the best case, they know they're
• 2:45
  going to have sex with their spouse.
• 2:46
  They love their spouse and they're looking forward to it,
• 2:49
  but, you know, it's not the same level of, oh, my God, is this
• 2:53
  gonna happen or not? However, especially if you grow
• 2:59
  closer and closer and More in tune with your, with Others
• 3:05
  desires through open communication, then your sex
• 3:09
  life after 20 years could or even 40 years.
• 3:12
  I just read something in New York Times about older couples
• 3:16
  that have lots of sex. I mean, much older, 70s and
• 3:18
  Beyond, but anyhow, it can be better than it was at the very
• 3:22
  beginning because, you know, each other better, you're more
• 3:25
  confident and those things make up for any diminution, Xin your
• 3:31
  hormonal and biological sex drives.
• 3:35
  So what are some ways to tackle your fear of being shy?
• 3:39
  Well, I mean, really, if you're shy about talking to your
• 3:42
  spouse, about your sexual desires, you're probably also
• 3:46
  insecure and other areas and you may be super confident at work
• 3:50
  or with friends. But within the context of an
• 3:53
  intimate relationship, it is very unlikely that you saw a
• 3:56
  very close open relationship between parents growing up.
• 4:01
  Likely you saw relationships that were fraud and Way with
• 4:05
  tension sadness or frustration and then this Burrows into your
• 4:10
  subconscious and makes your world view about relationships
• 4:14
  tainted in that, you feel that there is a lot of danger if you
• 4:18
  do or say the wrong thing, somebody could get upset with
• 4:21
  you. Somebody could shame you and
• 4:23
  this is even worse. If you grew up in a house that
• 4:26
  was very negative about sex and I just had a podcast about how
• 4:31
  to teach your kids that sex is a positive thing and also how to
• 4:34
  Talk to your kids about masturbation and porn and a non
• 4:36
  shaming way. That one was a bonus episode.
• 4:38
  If you're a subscriber, you'll hear that one that I just
• 4:41
  recorded earlier today. But anyhow, if you grew up in a
• 4:45
  very sex - household and or you saw parents who are very
• 4:49
  tentative or outright mean to each other, any lack of comfort,
• 4:55
  really so that you saw that an intimate relationship is not a
• 4:59
  safe space and or that sex is dangerous risky and not
• 5:03
  something that good. Boys and girls or men and women,
• 5:06
  even talk about, then you are likely to bring this negative
• 5:11
  attitude forward into your relationship and feel very shy
• 5:15
  and awkward and insecure about expressing any of your innermost
• 5:19
  desires to your spouse. Also, you may not want to rock
• 5:24
  the boat and lose the good, pretty good.
• 5:27
  Alright, somewhat, okay, sex that you have for the
• 5:32
  possibility of better sex, many men, In particular, have this
• 5:36
  idea that if they say to their wives actually I would like a
• 5:39
  blow job. Their wife is going to turn
• 5:41
  around and serve them with divorce papers.
• 5:42
  I mean, when we walk through this cognitive distortion in
• 5:46
  session, they realized this is crazy.
• 5:49
  But that doesn't mean that they don't feel a fight or flight
• 5:53
  response at the time. And also it exacerbates their
• 5:57
  scarcity mentality, many men if they especially were late
• 6:01
  bloomers, I have a post that I could link to about lace late
• 6:04
  Boomers and how that impacts men sexually and their confidence
• 6:07
  throughout their lives. Even if they get married and
• 6:10
  have a great relationship, but men have the scarcity mindset
• 6:14
  where it's like every woman is like the only woman on the
• 6:17
  desert island and thank God. This woman is agreeing to get
• 6:20
  naked with me because if not who the hell knows if, and when I
• 6:24
  can never find another one and that is particularly Amplified,
• 6:27
  if these men did not have positive dating experiences when
• 6:32
  they were in high school and college Years.
• 6:34
  So then they closed on a conception of themselves as bad
• 6:38
  with women, such that I could be talking to a relatively good
• 6:43
  looking High earning nice man. Many of this is comprises many
• 6:50
  of my clients who genuinely will tell me, oh no, I wouldn't be
• 6:54
  able to find anybody if my wife ever left me and I'm like, that
• 6:57
  isn't true. Literally, that is wrong.
• 6:59
  You could probably be remarried within six months.
• 7:02
  But anyhow, if you think about Yourself is somebody that is
• 7:06
  lucky to be getting laid at all, then that can contribute to your
• 7:10
  desire to not rock the boat, not as for more than you're getting
• 7:14
  and generally just shut up and be happy with the problem.
• 7:17
  Of course, being that increasingly, you are not happy
• 7:20
  and you feel that in this one life that you have, you're never
• 7:22
  going to get your secret fantasy.
• 7:24
  Matt. Even if it says, just not even
• 7:28
  secret as wanting more oral sex or wanting your wife to wear an
• 7:32
  outfit or widen your Husband to go down on you or whatever it
• 7:36
  is, you know, so anyhow, what are some other reasons that
• 7:42
  people won't do this? They don't know how they
• 7:45
  literally have no idea how normal ordinary couples.
• 7:51
  Discuss sex because nobody ever talked about sex with them
• 7:53
  growing up. And so they do not even
• 7:56
  understand the word, so sometimes I will roleplay in
• 7:59
  session with somebody not in any sort of fun way that you might
• 8:03
  be imagining, but in the therapy, Way and they'll say but
• 8:08
  I don't really know how I would say to my wife that I want a
• 8:11
  blowjob. I said, well, all right, you
• 8:14
  know, I'll be you, you be your wife and then I'll, he'll say
• 8:18
  how, honey how was your day and I'll say, you know, I was
• 8:22
  thinking my day was really good but it would have been better
• 8:25
  with a blow job or I my day was great.
• 8:29
  Thanks for asking. I had therapy and we discussed
• 8:31
  that. I am really unable to ask for
• 8:33
  what I want. And this is a difficult problem
• 8:36
  for me. And then she'll say, oh, honey,
• 8:39
  what do you want? What is it that you were talking
• 8:40
  about? And you'll say, one example, of
• 8:43
  course is a blowjob etc etc etc. I'm using blow job because this
• 8:47
  is a common one for men. No shock.
• 8:51
  But the any sort of fantasy can be inserted here, I really want
• 8:55
  to try tying you up. I really want to try.
• 8:57
  You tying me up. I really want to try to
• 9:01
  pretending to be other people. I really want to try.
• 9:04
  I was taking a shower together. Leaving the lights on anything,
• 9:10
  anything, you know, just Google list of sexual fantasies and
• 9:14
  it'll come up women. Sometimes have a rape fantasy.
• 9:18
  This never means, they actually want to be raped in case I even
• 9:22
  have to say that, but non-consent is a fantasy.
• 9:26
  Obviously everything that a woman actually wants his really
• 9:29
  consensual but when you role play a non-consent, Sensual
• 9:35
  encounter, it's called Consensual non-consent and a lot
• 9:38
  of women want to say they want to try that they want to even
• 9:42
  maybe run around the room and have you tried to grab them?
• 9:45
  But they think that if they say that then it sounds creepy or
• 9:48
  weird or like they're not a good feminist or like they really
• 9:50
  want to be raped or like it's disrespectful to people who have
• 9:53
  been raped whatever you know people get anxious about all
• 9:56
  sorts of stuff. So this could be the secret
• 9:59
  fantasy that your wife wants, right?
• 10:01
  It really could be anything. But if you I have no idea how to
• 10:05
  communicate. This is when there starts to be
• 10:08
  a problem. So, even a wonderful
• 10:12
  relationship can be Sabotage by people feeling Unknown by the
• 10:16
  other person right frequently, though, this isn't the other
• 10:19
  person's fault. They want to know you.
• 10:21
  You just don't let them know you because you don't want to tell
• 10:24
  them. Anything that makes you look
• 10:25
  stupid or perverse or weird, you know.
• 10:31
  So that's not their fault. Now if you say to your wife,
• 10:34
  what I secretly want most is a blow job and she says, yeah well
• 10:37
  what I secretly want most is a million dollars so fuck.
• 10:40
  Q. Well, you know, you got a
• 10:41
  different situation and in that sort of situation communication
• 10:45
  is, shall we say poor? And that would be the moment to
• 10:49
  start researching sex therapists or couples counselors.
• 10:53
  If she's talking that nasty do probably couples counseling
• 10:56
  because she's mad at you for something in your area and or
• 11:00
  visit my group, practice, best life, Behavioral Health where I
• 11:03
  have lots of licensed therapists in many states or visit me.
• 11:07
  If I can, I'm increasingly busy though Which is why I do stuff
• 11:11
  like podcast to give back. Anyway, my point here is that
• 11:15
  you got to let people in and know who you are.
• 11:19
  The majority of people in a loving relationship will not
• 11:21
  just turn around and make fun of you.
• 11:23
  Now they may be surprised, so don't take their surprise for
• 11:27
  anything more than surprised. Don't take it for contempt or
• 11:30
  disgust or disapproval or hatred or any of those things.
• 11:35
  So if you say to your wife, the thing that I want most in the
• 11:38
  world is for you to tie me up. Yep.
• 11:40
  You are wife and life. She is.
• 11:42
  Well, versed in. BDSM is going to be like we what
• 11:45
  you want me? What do you mean?
• 11:47
  When I tie you up? I'd first.
• 11:48
  Are you really do you like that? I would never have.
• 11:51
  Thought you were somebody that like that you would like me to
• 11:54
  tie you and then what would I do?
• 11:57
  And like when we were with the kids be where would all this be
• 11:59
  happening anyway it's not like you know I mean we can't just
• 12:02
  like do that in the house. I mean is that really what you
• 12:05
  want? How long have you been wanting
• 12:06
  that? Right so if your wife says all
• 12:08
  that stuff then just answer Don't take it as some sort of a
• 12:12
  referendum on your character or that she Now does not love you
• 12:15
  or does not respect you or that you're never going to get laid
• 12:18
  again. Well, you would say, is well,
• 12:20
  thank you for asking and showing that you care.
• 12:23
  I was scared. You were just going to say know
• 12:26
  anybody who doesn't just say, no, please reinforce them for
• 12:29
  not just saying, no. So the way that I think of it
• 12:32
  and be vulnerable here, always be honest.
• 12:34
  If you are honest, so many of your marital problems will go
• 12:36
  away. By the way, just be honest and
• 12:38
  vulnerable. So you would say something like,
• 12:40
  This you would say thank you so much for not just saying, no.
• 12:43
  I was so anxious to talk to you about this, to be honest.
• 12:46
  I've liked this idea for many years.
• 12:49
  I just thought it was. I don't know, on masculine.
• 12:51
  I didn't know how you would react nothing about you.
• 12:54
  Just, you know, I get weird about those things.
• 12:57
  I have no idea how to bring this up.
• 12:58
  I've never told another woman that this is something I'm into,
• 13:01
  by the way. Always make sure to tell your
• 13:04
  partner, if they are the first person, you've shared some
• 13:06
  secret with people love that. Wouldn't you love it?
• 13:09
  I mean Makes means that you're special.
• 13:11
  So anyway, back to me role-playing you, the man who
• 13:15
  wants to be tied up. So, yeah, we would, we would do
• 13:19
  it at home or really anywhere. I mean, I don't picture some big
• 13:22
  thing or maybe I do but not yet. Honestly, I just like the idea
• 13:27
  of the loss of power and it's something that sometimes I think
• 13:31
  about and that's been the subject of some of my fantasies
• 13:35
  and honestly feels good to say it out loud.
• 13:38
  Whether or not we do it. I'm glad that I told You and
• 13:41
  your wife is probably gonna be like, well, I don't know
• 13:42
  anything about that because remember she's a person too, and
• 13:45
  she has her own insecurities, she's gonna be like, I don't
• 13:48
  know anything about that. So I'm not even going to know
• 13:49
  how to do that. That's when you say, well, my
• 13:52
  love, I've been researching it assiduously on PornHub for the
• 13:55
  past 15 years? No, you don't say that.
• 13:57
  I mean, you could, but you could say, well, you know, I've looked
• 14:00
  into it and I know how you would do it.
• 14:03
  So, it's something like that we would talk about before and you
• 14:06
  would know how to do it and I think you'd be good at it.
• 14:09
  I mean, you know, When some positives, so anyhow, the
• 14:13
  conversations, like this actually happened by the way.
• 14:16
  And they are the reason that a lot of people try new things.
• 14:19
  Nobody, if you've been watching a lot of porn, by the way, or on
• 14:24
  the female, and yeah, women watch porn too, but not as much
• 14:26
  frequently as they watch romantic movies or reality TV,
• 14:31
  where people are very romantic and in both porn and romantic
• 14:34
  movies, people are mind reader's.
• 14:36
  So in the notebook, the guy is a mind-reader about how To do
• 14:40
  romantic stuff. And in porn, the woman is a mind
• 14:43
  reader that he wants to be dominated in the video
• 14:46
  referencing. My hypothetical man and his ask,
• 14:49
  right? But your real life partner does
• 14:52
  not if she's not a mind reader. So the fact that she never in 20
• 14:56
  years of marriage thought about tying you up, doesn't mean she
• 14:58
  thinks it's gross. I mean she didn't ever think
• 15:00
  about it. Just like you didn't think of
• 15:02
  writing her a love sonnet for on the anniversary of the 10th year
• 15:08
  after you met online at the These like, you know, she may
• 15:11
  think you should have done that. So basically, my point is, you
• 15:15
  need to be very direct about what you want.
• 15:19
  You need to be vulnerable. You need to say, when something
• 15:24
  is hard for you to say, that really helps build empathy.
• 15:30
  So, if you are, let's say a woman that wants to bring up
• 15:34
  your consensual non-consent fantasy to your fairly straight
• 15:37
  laced. Husband you say, right?
• 15:39
  This This is really hard for me to say I'm scared, you're gonna
• 15:42
  judge me, but this is something that I always thought would be
• 15:45
  fun, right? If you say that, you worry about
• 15:48
  judgment, which is true. Then the person that loves you
• 15:51
  here, your partner. They're not going to want to
• 15:53
  make things worse for you. Now, if you have massive
• 15:58
  problems in your marriage, this is not the time to bring up your
• 16:01
  fantasy, right? This is the situation, where are
• 16:04
  you really want to work on that first?
• 16:08
  If you are, if there is Anger, bitterness resentment on a daily
• 16:13
  level in your marriage. Nobody wants to be told that on
• 16:16
  top of that you want to be tied up.
• 16:18
  No, their tie you up in the light you on fire and it will be
• 16:22
  nothing like what you're picturing.
• 16:24
  So in this case is when you would go into couples counseling
• 16:27
  and work on the relationship now, you should also bring up
• 16:30
  the sex problems. You know.
• 16:32
  I always say that and I will link to a post.
• 16:35
  I wrote about that sex issues need to be addressed at the
• 16:39
  same. Time is emotional issues and
• 16:41
  couples counseling, otherwise it doesn't work.
• 16:43
  Because then, if you're in there for like, you know, six months
• 16:45
  listening to her, say how you communicate like trash and you
• 16:48
  have never got to say that the sex life is trash to, then
• 16:51
  you're going to be very resentful.
• 16:53
  So you need to be talking about that too, but you cannot just
• 16:57
  go, you know, Rogue here and start talking about the your sex
• 17:01
  fantasies when you and your wife barely get through a day without
• 17:05
  fighting. But coach, you're not going to
• 17:07
  be receptive and in the gender and verse Not going to be
• 17:10
  receptive. Nobody wants to hear about the
• 17:12
  sexual fantasies of someone they can stand.
• 17:14
  I need a t-shirt that says that. So that's when you need to work
• 17:18
  on your relationship first. So did this resonate with you, I
• 17:23
  hope so. And if it did there are steps
• 17:26
  that you can take, you can talk to your partner and say I've
• 17:31
  been listening to a podcast or I've been reading up on how to
• 17:34
  share my fantasies with you and this is what I've come up.
• 17:40
  With and I'm scared to tell you this.
• 17:42
  But this is the thing that I really like, and you can see
• 17:45
  this by the way, try to say this when you're getting along and
• 17:48
  it's like a romantic time, you can say it out of nowhere to if
• 17:51
  you guys just genuinely get along, but if you are people
• 17:54
  that are kind of like a little bit awkward or trepidatious
• 17:57
  around one, another not active conflict in the situation I
• 18:00
  described earlier but just a situation where you're like, I
• 18:03
  don't know, a little disdain. You haven't been on a lot of
• 18:05
  date nights lately. Go on a date night, talk be
• 18:09
  closed. And that That's when you can try
• 18:10
  to be vulnerable in this way, but for others of you, you'll
• 18:15
  say, yeah, you know, why we do love each other?
• 18:17
  We do talk a lot during the day, and I am going to go full steam
• 18:20
  ahead and bring up things that are important to me.
• 18:23
  I'm going to get right off of listening to this and text my
• 18:26
  partner and say, guess what I've always wanted to do and you know
• 18:31
  what? It may go.
• 18:32
  Excellent. You know I mean at the very
• 18:35
  least everybody's bored at work and it's a lot more fun to get a
• 18:38
  text message about. Out any sort of sexual thing.
• 18:41
  But it is to sit there doing your job.
• 18:43
  So that could be something that this podcast spoke to you
• 18:46
  individually and that you decide to try and your life and can
• 18:51
  lead to a positive outcome that you would have never realized
• 18:55
  before getting my pep talk from this podcast.
• 18:59
  So anyway, hopefully this has been helpful for some of you,
• 19:03
  please subscribe to my podcast for bonus episodes as well and
• 19:08
  if you have any topics especially Only, if you're a
• 19:10
  subscriber, your topic. Request will go right to the top
• 19:13
  of the list. And please, please keep
• 19:16
  listening and share my podcast, widely, and I will talk to you
• 19:20
  guys soon.