Latest / Libido Lounge / Privacy or Secrecy? What I'm Not Telling My Spouse with Brooke Bralove

Transcript

Privacy or Secrecy? What I'm Not Telling My Spouse with Brooke Bralove · Libido Lounge

• 0:00
  I just gotta say, you gotta schedule it.
• 0:01
  I don't really care that you're annoyed by that answer.
• 0:04
  Men believe that only good sex can be spontaneous or only spontaneous sex is good
• 0:13
  sex.
• 0:15
  And that's simply not true.
• 0:17
  You cannot have the exact same libido as anyone else.
• 0:23
  When you create a space for sex, you actually create anticipation.
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  And anticipation is what leads to desire.
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  The question that matters is, would I do it in front of them?
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  And how do I imagine it will make them feel?
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  And I think you need to hold those two things.
• 0:48
  The only two people who have to be okay with the amount of desire, the amount of sex are the
• 0:57
  two people in the relationship.
• 0:59
  That's it.
• 1:03
  Hey, everyone.
• 1:05
  Welcome back to another episode of the Libido Lounge.
• 1:07
  I'm your host, Doctor.
• 1:09
  Diane Mueller, and I have a real treat for you all today.
• 1:13
  I have Brooke Braylove with me on our show today.
• 1:16
  She's a licensed clinical social worker, a psychotherapist, a certified sex therapist, an
• 1:22
  expert in trauma, sexual health, and emotional healing.
• 1:25
  And I wanted to bring her on today to talk about all sorts of things.
• 1:28
  We're going to talk about desire mismatch, we're going to talk about little t traumas and
• 1:33
  these small things that happen in our relationship that actually have pretty big
• 1:39
  impacts on intimacy, both emotional as well as our physical and sexual intimacy, and so much
• 1:46
  more.
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  And as always, we will be talking to Brooke over a series of a couple episodes, so make
• 1:52
  sure you are subscribed to the channel so that you can get the notification when episode two
• 1:57
  comes out.
• 1:58
  So excited to be with you today, Brooke.
• 2:00
  Welcome to the lounge.
• 2:02
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 2:05
  So I wanna jump right in.
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  One of the things that I am curious about about your work is you work with so many couples.
• 2:13
  You talk to people all the time in and out every week, and I'm curious, is there one thing
• 2:21
  that you see over and over and over again that you find yourself saying, like, gosh, this is
• 2:27
  like the hardest thing I have to tell people, and I have to tell people this over and over
• 2:32
  and over again?
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  You could pick one thing, what would it be?
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  And I know that's a little bit of a tricky question, so if you need to pick two things,
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  that's totally fine.
• 2:40
  Oh,
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  it's such a great question right off the bat.
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  I would say that the thing I say ad nauseam is you need to schedule sex.
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  People hate it.
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  They're pissed off, especially men.
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  And at the outset of this, I do wanna say that I mostly work with cis hetero couples, and so
• 3:02
  that's gonna be a little bit of my bias today, and I just wanna own that.
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  So a lot of men really don't wanna do that.
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  And I think partially it's because of the way they don't like to schedule a lot of things.
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  Right?
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  So, you know, often moms and wives are the ones scheduling the social stuff, the play dates,
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  everything, you know, that goes into it, the doctor's appointments, the camp schedule,
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  everything.
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  And so part of it is I just think there's resistance to actually scheduling anything or
• 3:36
  being that organized.
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  But secondly, it's that men believe that only good sex can be spontaneous or only spontaneous
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  sex is good sex, and that's simply not true and not what the research shows or what we actually
• 3:58
  find works in long term couples.
• 4:02
  That's the biggest barrier is that, you know, I just gotta say, you gotta schedule it.
• 4:07
  I don't really care that you're annoyed by that answer.
• 4:10
  I'm curious because I I say this a lot, you share that belief, and I say this a lot too.
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  Have you found anything, especially in talking to the gentlemen, have you found anything that
• 4:21
  helps them kind of understand the importance of this and get over that belief that it has to be
• 4:27
  spontaneous?
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  Like what do you say when you get pushed back to help motivate people to to actually start
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  prioritizing the schedule?
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  So I usually say two things.
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  The first is you schedule all the things that matter to you.
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  Right?
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  And, again, this goes for, you know, any gender.
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  You schedule Pilates.
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  You schedule lunch dates with friends.
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  You schedule time with your kids and activities with them.
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  So we schedule what matters to us.
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  We prioritize things and then we plan for them.
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  And so why do you believe that somehow this is the one thing that's just going to happen
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  spontaneously in your life?
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  So that's the first and foremost.
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  The second thing I say is when you create a space for sex, whether that's intercourse or
• 5:24
  cuddling or a massage, you actually create anticipation.
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  And anticipation is what leads to desire, and desire can often lead to arousal.
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  So you're actually setting the stage for yourself, and it's more likely to go well.
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  And especially for women who have trouble transitioning from, you know, wiping snotty
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  noses to take off your clothes and let's get you wet, that's a really hard transition.
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  So when you have it on the calendar, when you've scheduled this space, you know, this
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  sexy space, this sexy time, it can be anything you want, but it actually creates the
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  anticipation that helps fuel everything around the experience.
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  I wanna
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  talk about desire because I think one of the areas too that people get pushed back is this
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  comparison thing that happens, right, around, you know, what is normal, what is not, and you
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  know, for for most people, they don't have exposure to conversations like this, and most
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  people are not sitting around the dinner table when they're having dinner parties talking to
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  their friends about sex.
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  I'm I'm really fortunate.
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  I'm in a group of friends where we have regular dinner parties, and it's not that we sit around
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  and talk about sex all the time, but if one of...
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  If one couple has like found some sort of new fun technique that they're enjoying in their
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  sex life or this new thing they're doing, they share it.
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  And so we'll have these open conversations around challenges and struggles and things
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  we're learning and it's really pretty unique.
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  But a lot of people don't have that.
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  So what do you find around desire?
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  Like, is there a normal amount of desire that happens?
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  Do you feel like comparison is a problem?
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  Like, how much how...
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  I guess the question is like, how much is it important for people to actually be like
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  looking at their relationship and saying, okay, well this is normal or this is not, and I have
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  a problem.
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  Mhmm.
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  I believe that when you talk about desire, there's no right and wrong.
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  There's
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  no level.
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  There's no number we can ascribe to.
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  And comparing
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  desire is futile.
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  It's just not gonna work because sex is comprised of so many things.
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  Right?
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  Arousal, desire, closeness, intimacy.
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  Did your partner show up for you in other ways that you now desire them?
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  There's no doubt that loading the dishwasher can be a huge point of creating desire in a
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  marriage.
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  Doing acts of service...
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  I mean, and women will tell you, you know, when he just puts the kids down for a nap and just
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  says, you look a little tired.
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  Why don't you go lay down?
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  You can have a little nap.
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  I got it.
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  There is no doubt that that woman is going to be not necessarily turned on that exact second,
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  but I guarantee you she's much more willing to try.
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  So do not compare.
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  It doesn't help.
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  And you always feel either better than or less than.
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  But that doesn't stay forever because you're gonna have weeks, months where you're not gonna
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  have the same kind of desire in a long term relationship.
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  And so I think that's not a great idea to do that.
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  And the other thing I say is the only two people who have to be okay with the amount of
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  desire, the amount of sex are the two people in the relationship.
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  That's it.
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  No one else has to go, I agree with that or that sounds normal to me.
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  Nobody.
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  Now are there things called sexless marriages where we would say it doesn't sound like
• 9:25
  there's a lot of desire or commitment to work on the relationship?
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  Sure.
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  You know, we sort of decide as sex therapists that a sexless marriage is usually where you
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  haven't had any sort of sex in a year because that's really taking the element out of the
• 9:43
  marriage for a significant amount of time, but there are couples that exist in sexless
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  marriages that are okay okay with that for a variety of reasons.
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  That's not the couples that I see.
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  Right?
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  I'm not seeing couples who are like, we barely have sex.
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  We're totally happy with it.
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  It is usually a mismatch in desire.
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  So mismatches in desire are super common.
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  In fact, you cannot have the exact same libido as anyone else.
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  You can't have the same turn ons for desire.
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  It's, you know, you hope they line up, but there's always a mismatch.
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  So what I look at is not in terms of mismatched desires, but how mismatched are they?
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  The name itself is
• 10:31
  really not important because everybody has them, So I normalize that right away.
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  How could you possibly want sex at the exact same time, the exact same amount, the exact
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  same way as another human?
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  It just doesn't work like that.
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  And so we are looking at how wide that gap is, and when it's too wide, that's usually when I
• 10:52
  say, it sounds like there's something you want to talk about.
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  And it doesn't mean they have to come to me.
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  They can talk about it with their partners.
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  The problem is very few couples have any ability to talk about something as vulnerable
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  and touchy as sex without another person helping them, especially when it's already a
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  problem.
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  Yeah.
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  We're really just not given tools about it, you know, and even in education, it's like the
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  biggest thing I think most of us got in education from a school standpoint was PNV sex,
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  and it was just like very anatomical.
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  So it is it is something that's like not modeled anywhere.
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  We're generally not hearing our parents, our elders talk about it.
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  It's not talked about in school, so it's it's pretty easy to understand I think why this is
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  something that we're just not skilled at it.
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  So I'm curious in your work, like as couples come in and they're talking to you about low
• 11:47
  desire or desire mismatch, and clearly it's it's causing some level of distress in their
• 11:51
  relationship because they're sitting in front of you, how do you tease apart in your work
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  some of the root causes?
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  Like, how do you tease apart, like, how much of it is relationship, meaning their
• 12:02
  interrelational dynamic versus the body, hormones, medication, exhaustion from
• 12:08
  living
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  in our modern day society?
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  So I'm just curious about your process, you would tell us a little bit about how how people
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  really start to uncover, you know, what the root causes are and and start to rebuild and
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  repair.
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  Yeah.
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  I just want to take a quick break to say one of the number one things that leads to a lack or a
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  slowing of passion in the relationship is thinking that our partner's body and mind and
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  spirit is going to be the same today as tomorrow.
• 12:39
  So one of the things that happens for so many bodies especially for female bodies, is that
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  with time, the pleasure needs change.
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  And we get into those sexual scripts and those habits of doing the same thing over and over
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  and over again, not always realizing that our pleasure body is wanting something else.
• 13:00
  This creates a lack of passion, a desire, a lack of orgasm, and it's one of the reasons why
• 13:07
  bedrooms can start to get quieter.
• 13:10
  I talk about how to fix this and so much more walking you through a step by step guide for an
• 13:18
  entire year if you want on how to improve your pleasure life.
• 13:22
  Start with a free trial, stay for a month, stay for the year, make it yours.
• 13:28
  You'll see all of this and more and how to get started in the show notes below this video.
• 13:33
  I hope you will join me in my Hot Monogamy Society.
• 13:37
  Now, let's get back to our episode.
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  So this is where we want to look at
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  sex and relationship sex, and as you said, desire.
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  We want to look at the bio cycle social.
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  Right?
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  And so in the first session, I'm going to find out what's bringing them in.
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  When I see couples, I always do one session with each of them individually, and that's
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  where I'm gonna do more of this type of assessment.
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  And I don't hold secrets.
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  I tell couples all the time, I won't hold secrets, but your partner doesn't necessarily
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  need to be there for the details of how many people you've had sex with and what positions
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  you've tried.
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  You know, some of that is, I think, personal.
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  And I do wanna...
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  I think there's privacy and secrecy, and those are very different.
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  And so I do think we're entitled to some privacy around that.
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  So still, when...
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  Let's say I'm working, you know, I see the man for one individual session to kind of assess.
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  So I do a a sexual timeline kind of first and foremost.
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  Just tell me when you first were aware of your genitals.
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  Tell me when you first masturbated.
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  Tell me, did you have wet dreams?
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  What messages did you get?
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  Childhood messages are a massive component of to try to kind of tease out what's going on.
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  And sometimes, I love this, people will say, well, my parents were fine about sex, and I'll
• 15:10
  say, oh, okay.
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  So they openly talked about it, and then they'll say, no.
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  No one ever said a word.
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  And I would say, that's a loud message that they never said a word.
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  Right?
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  And people are like, oh, I never thought of it that way.
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  So
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  childhood messages will go through.
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  We definitely go through medications.
• 15:31
  We go through, you know, have you had your testosterone?
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  Let's say this is the person with low desire.
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  We would want to go through, have you had your testosterone checked?
• 15:40
  What medications are you on that might be contributing to that?
• 15:45
  Or if they're coming in for erectile dysfunction or inability to have an orgasm.
• 15:51
  Again, we're going to want to tease out the biological as the baseline.
• 15:57
  Because if you've got low T, then that's impacting everything else, so we have to fix
• 16:03
  that first or address that first.
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  Once we've ruled out some biological stuff or maybe even, you know, fix some biological
• 16:12
  stuff, then we are certainly looking at stress, relationship happiness.
• 16:24
  We're looking at other types of touch.
• 16:27
  Is your partner touching you outside of the bedroom in ways that feel good to you?
• 16:32
  Are your emotional needs being met?
• 16:35
  And then most importantly, what do you think is happening?
• 16:39
  How do you understand this change inside yourself?
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  Does it feel like it's about aging?
• 16:45
  Does it feel like it's about boredom?
• 16:47
  Does it feel like it's about attraction?
• 16:51
  And so I'm really gonna wanna tease that out too, but again, you always start biological,
• 16:58
  psychological, and then the social, meaning the interaction between the members couple or
• 17:04
  throuple maybe even.
• 17:06
  I love that.
• 17:07
  And I think it's such an important thing.
• 17:08
  One of the things I appreciate with what you're saying that I hope everybody is hearing in this
• 17:12
  is there's layers of this and oftentimes there's more than one layer.
• 17:16
  And I think one of the problems people get into is like is thinking that there's only one
• 17:21
  cause, and because of everything that can go awry biologically, as well as all the training
• 17:28
  we've had growing up and the inability to have people around us that are talking about sex in
• 17:34
  a healthy way, there's just so many different layers of what can cause a desired mismatch.
• 17:40
  One of my favorite biological ways to really help people is using pumps.
• 17:44
  And so pumps are suction devices that had a a, like, vacuum suction tool to it.
• 17:51
  And they make men's versions that...
• 17:53
  You have the suction device that kinda goes with this tube.
• 17:56
  There's many different sizes of these.
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  And then the female version has like one for the clitoris as well as one for the entire
• 18:04
  vulvar structure.
• 18:05
  And what's so great about these is the ones that are good vacuums, not all of them are the
• 18:11
  same and some of them can actually cause problems, but the ones that are truly great
• 18:15
  medical grade devices like this one, one of the things we'll see is that there's improvements,
• 18:21
  major improvements in things like with ED, or even if it's not true ED, just having
• 18:27
  imbalances where maybe men are not getting quite as hard or they're going soft easier or
• 18:32
  it's just not as full of an erection as it used to be.
• 18:35
  And you know, in these things I think it's like that circuitous scenario where if something's
• 18:41
  going wrong physically, that can impact the mental.
• 18:44
  And so we wanna dissect the mental, but we also wanna work with the mental by saying let's fix
• 18:49
  the physical so there's not that problem.
• 18:51
  And for women, there's so much to be said about getting blood to the vulva and to the clitoris
• 18:57
  as we need circulation as women just like the men do.
• 19:01
  It's just another area that's not talked about as much.
• 19:04
  So I wanna ask you this because you said something that is I think really important for
• 19:09
  people to delineate, which is privacy versus secrecy.
• 19:14
  And I was watching an episode of Seinfeld last night, you're making me think of it before bed,
• 19:18
  I was rewatching this episode and it was George was in a relationship, for anybody that's
• 19:22
  listening and knows Seinfeld, one of the characters was in a relationship and his fiance
• 19:26
  was basically saying, we're we're a couple now, so this means we tell each other everything.
• 19:32
  It's just a rule.
• 19:33
  And so I think there's some level sometimes of this expectation around, hey, we're a couple.
• 19:39
  It's it's wrong if we don't share everything with each other, but yet there's this real
• 19:44
  privacy thing that happens, and and oftentimes, like you said, like it's not beneficial for a
• 19:49
  couple to maybe know every single thing about a previous, about their partner's previous
• 19:54
  lovers.
• 19:55
  So how do you delineate that for people and how do people, how do you coach people in therapy
• 20:01
  around maintaining that healthy privacy without having this, like, secret thing that could be
• 20:08
  happening and causing harm to the relationship?
• 20:11
  So when you're delineating between privacy and secrecy, I think there are a couple questions
• 20:17
  you need to ask.
• 20:19
  One is if it's current behavior, like, should I tell my partner that I'm doing x?
• 20:27
  The question that matters is, would I do it in front of them, and how do I imagine it will
• 20:37
  make them feel?
• 20:38
  And I think you need to hold those two things, and mostly it's really the first one.
• 20:43
  Would I flirt with this man that I work with in front of my partner?
• 20:50
  The answer for some people might be, oh, yeah.
• 20:53
  It's harmless.
• 20:53
  He would think it was funny.
• 20:55
  That's fine.
• 20:56
  And so I think that is simply just privacy.
• 21:00
  It's not really important.
• 21:02
  It's not really relevant.
• 21:04
  But if the answer is absolutely not, he's incredibly jealous and we would have a huge
• 21:09
  fight and it would lead to a month of, you know, really difficult stuff.
• 21:15
  That's secrecy.
• 21:16
  That's saying this will impact our relationship in this moment.
• 21:22
  So I think that's really important.
• 21:25
  And then the second question I think
• 21:26
  that
• 21:27
  matters when you're delineating, you know, privacy from secrecy is does this hurt my
• 21:34
  partner for no reason?
• 21:38
  It is not necessary.
• 21:40
  Like, you know, there's often this, is it necessary?
• 21:43
  Is it kind?
• 21:44
  You know, when you're trying to say something.
• 21:46
  And I think it matters here with privacy and secrecy too.
• 21:50
  So telling your partner that their dick is not the biggest dick you've ever seen and naming
• 21:58
  the one partner's dick who you also were madly in love with and said, that's the biggest dick
• 22:05
  I've ever seen.
• 22:06
  That's the best sex I've ever had.
• 22:09
  That is hurtful for no reason.
• 22:13
  There's nothing to gain from that.
• 22:15
  So you've got to ask yourself these two questions, and I think that's a great guide.
• 22:20
  Yeah.
• 22:20
  I love that.
• 22:21
  I think it's a really helpful thing, and and the thing that you said that I hear so many
• 22:25
  people say around like, is this truthful?
• 22:27
  Is it necessary?
• 22:28
  Is it kind?
• 22:29
  Right?
• 22:29
  And if it's not, if it doesn't meet all three of those, then maybe we shouldn't be saying it.
• 22:35
  This was a really good lead in too to what I wanna talk to you about in part two. In part
• 22:39
  In part two we're gonna talk about little t traumas, so these tiny little things that
• 22:44
  sometimes get said to each other or or done to each other.
• 22:47
  Right?
• 22:47
  These tiny little things that oftentimes actually can have big results in our body.
• 22:53
  And this could be interrelational little t traumas.
• 22:55
  This could be little t traumas from our past life, from things that we grew up with.
• 23:01
  Our life before our partner is what I mean by that.
• 23:04
  So we're gonna talk about all of that in the next episode.
• 23:07
  I also wanna talk about shame because shame is a really big thing that oftentimes people don't
• 23:13
  identify with having shame, but it's very common that we have these subtle shames or we
• 23:18
  shame ourselves in certain ways and we don't even realize we do it because maybe we saw our
• 23:23
  parents do it, so it's modeled to us and it just seems normal and we don't even realize the
• 23:28
  harm it's having.
• 23:29
  So we're gonna talk about all of that and more in the next episode.
• 23:32
  Make sure you do subscribe to get that.
• 23:34
  Before we go though, I wanna make sure that we allow you to talk about, a little bit about
• 23:40
  what you do as far as your practice, how people get ahold of you, how people work with you.
• 23:45
  We'll have all of your links and information in the show notes, but could you just tell us the
• 23:49
  next step for people getting to getting to work with you?
• 23:52
  Sure.
• 23:53
  So you can send me an email or fill out a contact form on my website, brookbraylove.com.
• 24:01
  You can also follow me on Instagram brookebraylovepsychotherapy.
• 24:06
  Same thing for Facebook.
• 24:08
  I'm also on TikTok.
• 24:10
  So those are great ways.
• 24:13
  Sex therapy can be done virtually or in person.
• 24:17
  And I really, at the moment, I'm kind of specializing in this brief treatment called
• 24:21
  accelerated resolution therapy, ART, and that has a wonderful connection to sex therapy and
• 24:31
  can really move things like libido or desire or erectile dysfunction or these little t traumas
• 24:40
  and can move it in one to five sessions using some rapid eye movement.
• 24:45
  Amazing.
• 24:46
  Well, thank you everybody for listening.
• 24:47
  Thank you Brooke for being here.
• 24:49
  Please do subscribe so you get the next one coming, and we'll see you all again on our next
• 24:54
  episode on the lounge.
• 24:58
  Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge.
• 25:01
  Please don't keep me a secret.
• 25:02
  Please share this with your friends.
• 25:04
  You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.