Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Sex As Act Of Service

Transcript

Sex As Act Of Service · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi, everybody, and welcome to the doctor.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today, I'm going to be discussing sex, as Act of
• 0:10
  service. So before we get to that, and
• 0:14
  I'm sure you are on the edge of your seat.
• 0:16
  Waiting to hear what I'm going to say about sex as active
• 0:19
  service before that please do subscribe.
• 0:22
  The most recent one was about self-care versus selfish which
• 0:30
  is very relevant in today's you know Society Are self-care is
• 0:36
  put on a pedestal but then somehow you're also supposed to
• 0:39
  be, you know, still a good partner.
• 0:43
  So, how can you do that if you're always engaging in self
• 0:45
  care, we're going to talk about that.
• 0:47
  Of course, there is a role for self-care, but it is not as you
• 0:51
  know, universally positive in its current conceptualization
• 0:55
  that as people may think. So, do subscribe to get that and
• 0:58
  close to 90 other subscriber episodes.
• 1:00
  So what do I mean by sex as active service?
• 1:03
  Well, a lot of men in particular are going to rail Is this
• 1:05
  because it sounds like Duty sex you know and nobody wants pity
• 1:10
  sex or Duty sex? Yes.
• 1:13
  Well that's not what I mean what I mean is that okay?
• 1:16
  So I just did my podcast on massage and massage.
• 1:20
  I talked about as like super important to get women in the
• 1:23
  mood. Particularly if they have a
• 1:24
  sensual blueprint, or if they're suffering from any kind of
• 1:28
  chronic pain which so many women are depression leads to
• 1:32
  increased pain and Etcetera, Etc.
• 1:36
  Whatever you can go back and listen to that one.
• 1:38
  But a man is not doing the massage because he loves
• 1:43
  physical touch, even a man, who. Right now, let's say it's in a
• 1:47
  totally sexless touchless marriage and he's like, man, it
• 1:50
  would be good to even give her a massage that she would like if
• 1:53
  you did that every day like quickly, you would understand
• 1:56
  that it was an act of service and it would not be a turn-on
• 1:59
  necessarily anymore especially because I'm literally telling
• 2:02
  you to give a good massage. And not just to do like, you
• 2:06
  know, to rubs and then, you know, start to be do an erotic
• 2:11
  massage. So it's really, really similar
• 2:14
  about sex and I've had women in my office where this is really
• 2:17
  an epiphany because they say that they would do acts of
• 2:21
  service for the man because that's their love language is
• 2:24
  acts of service. They want him to engage around
• 2:26
  the house, they wanted to do chores, they want him to do all
• 2:29
  manner of things, and they're having acts of service love
• 2:32
  language, but they think of sex as a physical touch, love
• 2:36
  language like that. That's all that.
• 2:37
  It is. And so they also have this idea
• 2:40
  that any sort of touch is has to be wanted so bad.
• 2:44
  Otherwise it's non-consensual and whatever whatever so this
• 2:48
  whole thing. So when I talk about this all
• 2:50
  the time that women have responsive desire, but what
• 2:52
  about a situation? And this is not uncommon where a
• 2:55
  woman, does not have responsive desire either quite honestly,
• 2:58
  you know, and she's really not in the mood and she's not in the
• 3:01
  mood for at least half the month, if not all the month and
• 3:04
  she can't really Get in the mood and they make out and they
• 3:07
  touch, and she doesn't feel any desire.
• 3:09
  So should she just be totally sexist?
• 3:11
  Just cause she doesn't have a biological desire response?
• 3:15
  No, I mean not if she wants to stay married.
• 3:17
  Obviously, that's not fair. I mean, what if the guy was
• 3:20
  like, you know what, I don't like doing household chores
• 3:22
  anymore because I don't have the desire to do it, so fuck that
• 3:25
  shit. I'm out, you know, it's all on
• 3:27
  you, man. I mean that's not going to work,
• 3:29
  right? Obviously, that's crazy and
• 3:31
  selfish. So if a woman still loves her
• 3:33
  husband, And she knows that he likes X.
• 3:37
  Then what is another way to conceptualize sex acts of
• 3:41
  service, right? Just like a massage, it's
• 3:44
  literally like a massage. I mean you know it's the same
• 3:48
  thing. You know I have job is literally
• 3:50
  like a massage and sex is not really different, you know, not
• 3:54
  that different and it's it's the same sort of thing.
• 3:58
  It's using your body to make another person's body, feel good
• 4:02
  and as I discussed in the chronic pain podcast, there are
• 4:04
  many You have issues that prevent them from having
• 4:07
  intercourse and they do engage in oral or manual stimulation
• 4:10
  because they still want to be loving and positive, you know.
• 4:14
  And so I wrote a post years ago, guy said, why can't my wife just
• 4:18
  go down on me when she doesn't want sex.
• 4:20
  And I said well because it's going to make her not want sex
• 4:23
  pretty much anymore because, you know, like would be nice if she
• 4:27
  could do that and people with higher sex drives overall and
• 4:30
  younger people can do that. But for women that in some ways
• 4:34
  still enjoys Sex, you know, then having it when you don't want it
• 4:38
  at all, in a way that's not going to cause you any pleasure
• 4:42
  at all. He's like a turn-off pretty much
• 4:46
  but then so like, for example, like a woman who wants to have
• 4:50
  sex like a few times a week, but the guy, but she's really
• 4:54
  exhausted in the guy says, why can't you just go down on me so
• 4:56
  she's totally not in the mood. There's no foreplay or anything
• 4:59
  for her and she's just supposed to go down on him out of
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  nowhere. Well, it's gonna be a pretty big
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  turn-off and she's To start to associate his penis with being
• 5:07
  turned off because she's not excited at all.
• 5:09
  But then every, you know, there's other situations in the
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  world and some of them are women, who just don't get turn
• 5:15
  on anymore or don't get turned on frequently enough for it to
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  really, you know, matter. And if there is a massive
• 5:22
  disconnect between, how much the guy would want to do it, and how
• 5:26
  much the woman wants to do it. And in this case, sex is really
• 5:31
  an act of service. It truly is, it is a generous
• 5:33
  Act of service to have that. Any sexual contact because
• 5:36
  you're not going to get anything out of it, except the joy of
• 5:39
  giving, you know? So it's kind of like going to,
• 5:42
  you know, your kids dance recital or something, right?
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  You're going to sit through all these dance numbers that you
• 5:47
  could give a shit about, you know, and then you see your kid
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  on the stage, which is three minutes long, but you've been
• 5:52
  there for two hours and, you know, you gotta go.
• 5:55
  I mean and it's an active service, really?
• 5:57
  It's to be there. It's an act of love and makes
• 6:00
  you feel like a good parent. You would certainly feel like a
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  shitty parent if you didn't go to the dance recital.
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  So you know, You deal with it and you go and you don't resent
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  your kid. It's just kind of something that
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  you do because you're a loving parent.
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  Well, if you're in a situation where you have zero desire, then
• 6:14
  giving a hand job, maybe something that you do because
• 6:16
  you're a loving partner and you got to think about it as an act
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  of service to the person, the person wants to be touched, this
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  is a basic human need for the majority, all humans as babies
• 6:27
  and then continue to be many people as adults.
• 6:31
  I would say a majority because our specific culture is very
• 6:35
  touch a verse but in other cultures throughout the world,
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  you know, continue to touch is is a big part, even a lot of
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  people say to me that in other cultures, European cultures and
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  so forth. There's a lot more hugging and
• 6:47
  kissing among male friends. Then there is among American
• 6:50
  men, you know, who are probably the most touch starved of
• 6:53
  anybody anywhere. So the point is is if you really
• 6:57
  have zero sexual desire, you can say that this is a love language
• 7:00
  thing. You know, for you, it's not
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  going to be, you're not going to get in the Mood, you're not
• 7:05
  going to like physical touch and I'm gonna like any of it really,
• 7:08
  but if you want to be a good partner and you do love your
• 7:11
  partner that still wants sex, then thinking about it.
• 7:15
  As an act of service can be very different thinking of it.
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  Like, giving a massage is very, it's a different
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  conceptualization. And for some people, they still
• 7:23
  do have some sex drive. So they would like it to be
• 7:27
  intercourse because if they are getting in the mood and
• 7:30
  everything, they're touching the person and whatever, and they're
• 7:33
  already doing all of this, then they do have The flickering of
• 7:35
  desire and they would like to have that address to, you know.
• 7:39
  So so for them it's an active service at first but then it
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  leads to responsive desire and they would like to then try have
• 7:45
  an orgasm and try to enjoy it and that's great.
• 7:48
  And then you can refer back to my response of Desire podcasts
• 7:50
  which are more relevant. But you some people increasingly
• 7:55
  more and more people. As people age are in a situation
• 7:58
  where the woman is maybe postmenopausal or she's on an
• 8:01
  antidepressant which is basically like being
• 8:03
  postmenopausal Really it's our our medical system.
• 8:10
  You know, there were many things to be said about medicine in
• 8:14
  general and side effects are usually not discussed as much as
• 8:19
  they should be. So I have so many people coming
• 8:21
  in and they're like but my my doctor said that there's the
• 8:24
  least side effects with this with you know, Prozac versus
• 8:27
  Zoloft. Most people can't even feel
• 8:30
  their dick on Prozac or Zoloft you know I mean and that's men
• 8:34
  women. It's It's almost like to
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  completely gone, any sexual desire for many and people don't
• 8:40
  talk about this when they prescribe, it birth control,
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  also impact sex drive. So there's a lot of things that
• 8:45
  impact sex drive. So let's say that your wife is
• 8:47
  on Zoloft she has terrible depression and but she would
• 8:52
  like to still be loving partner to you and to, you know, have
• 8:57
  some sort of sex with you. But she's not going to feel
• 9:00
  anything. It's not going to have the
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  desire. She's not gonna have to drive.
• 9:03
  Does that mean that? Because she's on an
• 9:04
  antidepressant? Never have sex again.
• 9:06
  I mean, how would that be good? You know, I mean, would you get
• 9:09
  on a medication? Would she want you to get on a
• 9:11
  medication? For?
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  Let's say, let's say, you had anxiety and the only medication
• 9:15
  that you could take was a sedative, that you slept 16
• 9:18
  hours a day. What?
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  You'd be like, oh yeah, cool. No biggie.
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  You just go to work and then go to sleep, no worries.
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  I'll deal with the house. I'll deal with the kids know.
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  Obviously, that would be a problem, right?
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  So there would have to be some other way to deal with it, and
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  so there's a lot a lot, a lot of people.
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  On antidepressants. And there's a lot of
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  postmenopausal people and there's a lot of people who are,
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  you know, you know, just really don't want to have sex.
• 9:43
  It don't have the desire, they don't have to drive monogamy,
• 9:46
  whatever, you know. And for those people, it can
• 9:49
  really, really be a helpful conceptualization that has
• 9:52
  helped many in my practice to think of it, as an act of
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  service as a massage as ahead rub or as a, you know, just a
• 10:00
  physical service. Like, like how you would.
• 10:03
  Hopefully, if you And a loving marriage.
• 10:06
  You would give the person a bath.
• 10:08
  If they couldn't bathe themselves at some point and you
• 10:11
  could still do that as they age or if they were ill or you
• 10:15
  would, you know, you would make them food, right?
• 10:19
  Because they need to eat. So if they couldn't eat, if they
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  couldn't make their own food, then you would make food for
• 10:25
  them. Hopefully, if you're in a loving
• 10:26
  marriage, you would not allow them to starve, so it's the same
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  kind of thing. I'm people cannot put
• 10:31
  masturbation in here because masturbation is not the same as
• 10:33
  sex. No way.
• 10:34
  No how Wow. That's like telling a baby to
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  like rock itself to sleep. Like it masturbation is cuz its
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  own animal has absolutely nothing to do with the human
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  drive for touch and engagement and sex from another person.
• 10:47
  So if you are somebody that has no sex drive or you're married
• 10:51
  to somebody with no sex drive, then, you know, section is not
• 10:55
  this like unique thing where like it cannot be thought of in
• 10:59
  a practical manner. Of course, it should be thought
• 11:01
  of in a practical manner person has a need for sex.
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  I can touch and physical love in the same ways that have a need
• 11:08
  for food, Water Shelter, whatever.
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  So, in this case, if you really cannot put it in the bucket of
• 11:15
  something that will ever turn you on that, it's an active
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  service. Now, that doesn't mean that it's
• 11:19
  nasty that you have to be like, all right, welcome here.
• 11:22
  Guess it's time for your weekly sex.
• 11:24
  I mean that's that's shitty. Like, that's not a nice thing to
• 11:26
  do, just like you wouldn't say, here's your fucking dinner, you
• 11:29
  know. You can't get up to cook.
• 11:31
  Well, I did it. Here you are, is your shitty
• 11:33
  dinner, like you wouldn't. Not say that that's not being
• 11:36
  kind. So if it is an act of service it
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  should still be an act of service out of love in the same
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  way as you would give a massage out of love or you would do any
• 11:45
  other service bodily or otherwise.
• 11:48
  Hopefully with love. So that doesn't mean that you
• 11:51
  have to like, fake an orgasm nor should you.
• 11:54
  But you can certainly act loving, you can say, I love you,
• 11:59
  you can be happy that the person feels loved kind of reach its
• 12:05
  Very similar to a massage. It is the best conceptualization
• 12:08
  the best analogy that I can give you is to think of it in that
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  way or like rubbing some of these back till they fall asleep
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  or whatever, you know, any sort of pleasant physical thing that
• 12:19
  is in no way designed to give you an orgasm.
• 12:21
  But still means that you care about the person you're giving
• 12:25
  of yourself to the person many women do this.
• 12:27
  You know, many women do this already.
• 12:29
  Some of them fake an orgasm, some of them don't but women
• 12:33
  that are not in an unhappy. Happy disconnected, marriage
• 12:37
  women who still love their husbands usually end up with
• 12:41
  quite a lower sex drive than their husbands and many of them
• 12:45
  look at sex like this and these are the women that say things
• 12:48
  like I don't need to get off. I just want to be close to this
• 12:52
  mean they wouldn't appreciate getting offshore they would but
• 12:55
  it may not just be that their husband can't get them off as
• 12:58
  like now it's like so common. Oh my God!
• 13:00
  Every joke I hear is about how men can find the clitoris.
• 13:03
  I mean you know they need to find it.
• 13:05
  One time you need to show them where it is, they can learn.
• 13:08
  You know, I'd be there are mammals that can learn.
• 13:10
  You know, if mice can learn to run through a maze definitely
• 13:13
  man can learn where clitoris is, you know, and they do.
• 13:16
  And so this is just kind of more anti-male sentiment.
• 13:20
  Now it's like all the jokes about a man not find the
• 13:22
  clitoris. Meanwhile have the woman shown
• 13:24
  them where it is, you know, possibly not.
• 13:28
  And there's no way for them to know otherwise men are in a bad
• 13:30
  position, right? Women get mad at them for
• 13:33
  watching porn. Then they get also mad at them
• 13:36
  for not understanding how the female body works.
• 13:39
  So it's like, you know what, you're supposed to be learning
• 13:41
  about it. Are you not like, were they
• 13:42
  supposed to be taken out? Biology textbooks?
• 13:45
  Like I don't get it. Like, if you're in love with
• 13:47
  somebody, show them how to make you happy in bed that seems to
• 13:50
  me to be practical. But then I guess we couldn't
• 13:53
  make jokes about how stupid men are.
• 13:55
  Anyway, that was a tangent. But the point is that there are
• 13:59
  a lot of women who have already figured this Epiphany out which
• 14:03
  is I love my husband. I Get aroused anymore.
• 14:06
  Shit, whether it's due to age medications or what.
• 14:09
  And so we basically have what is on my part, a cuddle session and
• 14:14
  what on his part is sex. So, on my part, I'm using it for
• 14:17
  my cuddle needs like to be close and snuggly and intimate and
• 14:22
  say, I love you and be skin to skin.
• 14:24
  And that is the, that is sex. Like so it's for him.
• 14:28
  He's getting some sort of sexual need men for me, I'm getting a
• 14:30
  closeness need met. And then if you couple this with
• 14:33
  the framing of active, Service. It's even better because then
• 14:37
  it's like I'm getting my cuddle need met and some women don't
• 14:39
  have a cuddle need so they can just take that right out of the
• 14:42
  equation. But either way, I am being a
• 14:45
  good loving partner who is giving this act of service to my
• 14:50
  spouse and he is then getting a sexual need Med as well as
• 14:56
  knowing that I love him because it's not lost on him.
• 14:58
  That you don't have an orgasm, of course he knows.
• 15:01
  But you know, men are going to be a lot happier when they're
• 15:04
  white. Love this them and love is
• 15:08
  giving somebody what they need and if sex is what they need,
• 15:12
  then you're trying to do it. This doesn't mean that if you
• 15:15
  have zero sex drive, you are going to give them daily sex.
• 15:19
  No, everything is a compromise but it also doesn't mean monthly
• 15:22
  sex. You know, there's something
• 15:24
  really in between there and the more loving and close.
• 15:27
  The marriage is the more comfortable.
• 15:29
  Both people are exploring these sorts of compromises and these
• 15:32
  sorts of conceptualizations and And just trying genuinely to
• 15:36
  give each other, what each other needs, you know, which is what
• 15:39
  everybody wants. They want to be in a
• 15:40
  relationship where both partners are trying to give each other.
• 15:43
  What they need. Doesn't that sound lovely that
• 15:45
  could be your marriage, you know, if you frame it like that
• 15:49
  that could be your marriage. This is a marriage where both of
• 15:51
  us tried to meet each other's needs you know, and couples
• 15:54
  counseling can help with this Frame it because if you're like
• 15:57
  fuck that active service I have so much resentment toward him
• 16:00
  that I would never do something. I don't want to do.
• 16:03
  Well then you obviously Bigger fish to fry, right?
• 16:06
  So there's a lot of empathic ruptures potentially to be
• 16:09
  resolved. There's a lot of incompatibility
• 16:11
  issues. There's resentment.
• 16:13
  There's bitterness that shit. You should be in couples
• 16:15
  counseling for don't just withhold sex not like you're
• 16:18
  withholding it. Obviously, I've done a podcast.
• 16:20
  People, don't withhold shit that they don't want to do.
• 16:23
  You want to do it? It's why you're not doing it.
• 16:25
  It's not like you really want to have sex with your husband but
• 16:27
  you're not doing it to spite him.
• 16:29
  That's some bullshit that isn't real, but if you don't have sex
• 16:32
  with your husband and you also hate him, So much that you
• 16:35
  wouldn't even try to do it as a loving Act of service.
• 16:39
  Well then you ought to be in couples counseling, right?
• 16:41
  Because there are big problems. Alright, well hopefully this was
• 16:45
  something new to think about in some way or another and I'll
• 16:49
  talk to you all soon. Do follow me on Tick, Tock, and
• 16:52
  Instagram, and Facebook, and join my Facebook group, and
• 16:55
  likes all these different ways to connect with me, if you ever
• 16:58
  do want, couples counseling, or coaching I am, you know, you can
• 17:01
  always contact me. There are the links in my
• 17:04
  episode-description. Options, as well as many people
• 17:06
  who work for me at best life Behavioral Health depending on
• 17:09
  what state you're in. So always reach out if you need
• 17:11
  some individual or couples work. All right, talk to you soon.
• 17:15
  Bye, bye.