Girls Gotta Eat - Let's Talk About SEX feat. Dr. Ian Kerner

Episode Date: September 24, 2018

We brought in the big guns to take our deepest dive into sex yet -- renowned sex therapist and author Ian Kerner. We discuss unbalanced sexual desire in a relationship (ie. being frustrated AF) and how to deal, all things porn, the female orgasm, sexual cliteracy, and much more. We hope you find it as eye-opening and informative as we did! For more, buy Ian's book She Comes First. Follow Girls Gotta Eat on Instagram @GirlsGottaEatPodcast, and check our website for upcoming show dates. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ill-cliterate. I just want to, I want to, this is the best word I've ever heard. Did you coin this term? I did coin the term. Oh, my God. I coined the term sexual clitoracy, ill-cliteracy. Oh, my God. Hi, guys.

Welcome back to another episode of Girls Got to Eat. Welcome back. I'm on my game. I know what to say today. We are coming to you from Mouth Media, powered by Senheiser. Glad to be here, as always. A little cooler in the studio than usual. I'm feeling myself.

Are we going to? It's usually hot as balls in here. Do you remember in the wintertime when it rained every single day, though, when we recorded? It's never, it's never been sunny on a recording day. Ever. Or a live show day. We've only had one. Monsoon on a live show day.

We've never walked into the studio on a sunny day. Good. Let's keep it that way. Just your weekly reminder, guys. Please keep braiding us. Get loud on social media for us. Please keep putting us in your Instagram stories. Get loud.

Club DJ Rain is back. Put your hands up. What was the city? I shout out. It was so weird. Louisville, Kentucky. Where about Louisville people at? It was Louisville.

I was like, but you never fucking been to Kentucky. Shut the fuck up. I went to a graduation party in college in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville, things like you said. Anyways. You've been shouting him out ever since. Guys, get loud. I'm sorry.

Where most Scorpio's at? We can make fun of each other. Club DJ Raina is my favorite, Raina. First ever Jewish five-quit-tom. Where my Scorpio's at? A.U. Are we ever going to start this episode? Rate, review, subscribe, yeah.

I have to. I really do. I love that people like fully do the reviews for you. It says like I did this because Raina made me. Rayna shamed me. I'm not saying writer of you. Like just hit the five stars. Can you hit it more than once?

I do it every time. You do? I don't know if it translates. I don't know if it recognizes your phone. Just in case though, guys. Just do it. Every time. merchandise is live.

We're going to be doing some stuff for the fall. But in the meantime, get those tanks, those teas, those trucker caps, GGE, GGE, backslash. That's not our one. What? Girls Got to E! Podcast. Shop and Girls Got Eapodcast.com and click on the shows. You guys, we have Atlanta and Chicago sold out Nashville. A lot of tickets still left for Nashville. We have such a fun show planned.

Like the girls that have been tagging us in their Nashville stories and they're coming to Nashville. I'm not saying that Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are going to be on the show, but I'm not not saying. I'm not saying. I'm not saying that like Kristen Cavalry's not going to be on the show. And afterwards, after party at Tissies, I'm saying it. I'm not not saying it. Favorite play, favorite bar in Nashville. All right. Let's get into it. You in true Ashley fashion like went out for a snack one afternoon and then let's, every five minutes, like, I want a date. True. Actually. My Saturday started a birthday party for a dog, which hell all great days start. And I went after that, I went to a birthday party for a human. And it was my friend Blair. She

was doing a little East Village dive bar crawl. And so started this place called 7B. Total dive, but love it. And I walk in and I see this huge group of girls. It's like three in the afternoon. Huge group of girls. They're all wearing jerseys, like basketball jerseys, which is cute. Like I love a theme. Like, whatever, do you girls? Like younger, I could tell they were in their 20s. And I go back. I'm saying hi to everybody. A lot of the girls at this birthday party had been to the live show. So they were like, oh my God, it was so great. And I noticed this guy very tall, very attractive. And I'm like, who's this?

You know how you like expect someone should have told you that there's going to be some hot single guy at the party? But like it's such a fun surprise. There's like a roster that should have gone out to you. Yes, I had no idea where the guy came from and he's single. And so we go out more often if somebody would send me a roster of like age, location, what you do for a profession. I know. I just like to stay at home. Right. So I didn't know this guy was going to be there. We start talking and one of the girls comes up and she goes, hey, to him, she's like, dude, all these girls in this party, like the other, the jersey party, like the girls, the younger, the 20 somethings and the basketball jerseys, he was like, they're all pointing and staring at you. Talking to the guy I'm talking to. I guess she didn't really know we were flirting. We hadn't really started full flirting yet. So I wasn't offended. And she's like, dude, now's your chance. This whole like group of like 20 chicks is like, all they're all pointing at you and staring. And I had like a suspicion that that's,

They were doing that for me. And he's like, what? Okay. And you could tell he was super flattered within seconds. Two of the girls come up. And they're like, hi, are you Ashley? I listen to the podcast. We love the podcast so much.

And like, do the whole fan girl thing. It's the best thing that can happen. Your ego must have just, you just like flattered. It was, and he's just standing there like, who are you? Like, he didn't know. He did no idea. Like, he had just met me. He's like staying in there like, what the fuck who was this girl I'm talking to?

They were super cute. They were wearing jerseys. The girl said something very cute that I had never heard. She said it's my Jordan birthday, her 23. What's that? Like Michael Jordan wore 23, his whole career. Oh, never heard that. And she said, it's my Jordan birthday.

I thought that was cute. She's wearing a 23 Jordan jersey. The other girls were all wearing like 23 jerseys. It was very cute. And they do the whole fan girl thing. Girls, I cannot thank you enough. Thank you so much. This is like the third time this has happened on a date situation.

What a dream. So if you see me out with a man, do not hesitate. I'm my friends. they're like, I saw Ashley walking the East Village and I didn't say hi. Like, always say hi. Yeah. I mean, if I absolutely look like total dog shit, like it's fine. Like still, I don't need it.

But like, I'm on a clear date with a man. Please come up. Now I'm thinking, like, what if I go on a date and this doesn't happen to me? I think I need like a plant. Like, I have to plant fake fans. I know. I know. I know.

I know. $5 to pretend they know me. So it worked. It worked out. Then we started talking about the podcast. Yeah, I'm just, we hit it off. We hung out the entire day. There was a photo booth.

make-out situation. We hung out 10 hours straight. He's really cute. He's so cute. He's so tall. He's great. You sent me a photo of him and I was like, well, I've never seen a guy tower over Ashley before. Towers over me. This is hot. Oof. But anyway, I don't know. I'll probably hate him by Sunday. Well, actually, what day was it? No, you made it into Sunday

without hating him. We'll hate him by next Sunday. I hate him by next Sunday. All right. All right. Anything for you? Not really. My dad was in town last week, so it was like nonstop. Just binge and eat, like, binge drink and eat. best. I felt so shitty. You used to entertain your parents so hard. My dad, like, my dad ghosted

me after our show to, like, go drink with my girlfriends. Do you know that? I'm, like, panicked about where he went. He left with some of my girlfriends. So to my parents. Right and I, after the show, we're like, where did everybody go? They're at the bar. Another bar, like a block away. In an after party without us.

But it was fun to, to, like, go in the bar, and they were all cheering and stuff. But I haven't had a drink in four days and I feel great. My skin looks good. It just feels good. It does. Yeah. I must say it earlier. Well, you know, like you... It looks really good.

You know all the, like, all of these artists, J-Lo and Gwen Stefani come to mind, they're both 50 years old and they look 25. They don't drink. They don't drink. Yeah, it's really bad for you. I mean, I'm not suggesting, I mean, I'm going to be drunk in like an hour, but... No, I mean, it's fun about it last. It's one of those things I think about all the time. Like, what would we look like if we didn't drink?

I mean, I'm not trying to find out. I'm never going to find out. Never going to find out. Anyways. All right. I think that's all we have. Okay, so we are really excited today to welcome a guest. So excited.

Raina brought this guy in. She's like our superstar guest booker. So she told me about this guy. Sometimes I am. Sometimes it goes astray. There's one that. I'll tell you which one. Don't worry about it.

You guys know. They know. We don't get emails. We're still getting emails about it. That episode sucks. But anyway, so excited about this guy. I would love to welcome to the studio, Ian Kerner. Hey there. Hi. We're so glad to have you. Good. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.

You're maybe our most professional guest to date. Is that because I look professional? No, like maybe like actually credential. Professional. You look like a professional. We have a professional. We have a professional comedians. It's mostly dick jokes and nothing else. You can tell dick jokes if you want to. But anyways, Ian is a psychotherapist and sexual therapist. He specializes in a laundry list of things. So I'll have you introduce yourself, where you're from, what you do. Okay. Well, I am from New York City, born and raised here on the island of Manhattan. I've lived here my whole life. Don't leave that often. I work sort of in the area of NYU. I don't know that I like it. It's just where I've always been. My grandmother was born here. My dad was born here. I was born here. My kids were born here.

Wow, okay. This is where we're at. Yeah. Where's he going to go? All right. So tell us you are really, really, like, well-known, well-respecting your field. What do you do? I am a psychotherapist and a sex therapist.

As you said, I see about 30, 35 patients a week, straight, gay, couples, individuals. I write books. I haven't written a book in a while. I'm thinking about writing a new book. probably my best known book is She Comes First, which was my first book. Not the title. Let's not gloss over that. She comes first?

Great. Yeah. And you have T-shirts, and then what do they say in the back again? The front says she comes first and the back says, think outside her box. And my wife actually came up with that line. Of course she did. I like her. She sounds fun.

She's fun. And what are some things that you talk to your patients about? What do people come to you for? Let's see. Couples will come to me often because there is some kind of discrepancy, usually around desire. One or one partner usually has higher desire than the other. And you can flip a coin. Sometimes couples come in because they're trying to sort of rebuild their sex life after there's been some kind of trauma like infidelity. A lot of couples coming. A baby. I'm kidding. A baby. That changes your whole sex life. Absolutely. Actually, I had a couple come in today with her baby. Yeah, the trauma.

That's the trauma. The trauma was in the office now. But yeah, no, babies can really, you know, compel sort of like a whole reorganization. And sex often takes a backseat. Certainly dealing with, like, issues around porn and masturbation and what's often called sex addiction, A lot of couples come in simply because, you know, they don't have a sex script that works. And so sex just isn't fun or satisfying. I see a lot of men on their own.

I'm talking about couples, I realize. I see a lot of men on their own who are suffering from some sort of like penis problem. Right. Like a lot of young men, like guys your age, have psychological ED, erectile disorder, and having a hard time with that. Often I'm dealing with the opposite problem, premature ejaculation, with women, sometimes painful sex, lack of arousal, lack of orgasm. You're really just like transitioning our topics perfectly.

Okay. Because we had it. I'm going to have to leave it to you to be funny, right? I'm going to be like, I'll try and be funny. That's okay. We're here for your own. I'll certainly be loose. Well, we want.

want your expertise and we looked at your laundry list of things that you are clearly an expert at. We tried to pool listener emails that we don't really know the answer to. We really wanted a therapist advice on. Fantastic. Yeah, because we can ask these like comedians all day, but it's not professional advice. Yeah, we'll tell the jokes. I personally would trust a comedian before most therapists, actually, and I am a therapist. I'd sooner get my own marriage counseling probably from two comedians than from... Bring a wife in here after this. We're going to turn the tables.

Ray and I are going to counsel you. Tell us what's all. It's ailing you in your sex life. Okay. Let's jump into the first topic. Do you want to do the first topic? Yeah. I mean, you mentioned it.

It's this imbalance of sexual desire. And we had an email. We read it at our live show recently of a girl that they'd had sex once or twice. I can't remember exactly. And then he just didn't really want to have sex anymore. And it was, I'm tired. I'm busy at work. Things like that.

I mean, to me, our take on the. that was it's a little early for that. But I think in general, I mean, relationships, the sex fizzles, quote unquote. And I think that we like to speak to the females where they're sexually frustrated so much because there's this stigma of guys always want to fuck. And, you know, they're always wanting to get, like, they're always hard. And women are like, well, my boyfriend isn't wanting to have sex with me. He's not jumping my bones anymore. What's wrong with me? Women get so insecure. I mean, I've been there. You've been there. I'm interested. So like, you know, it used to be that I was mainly hearing about women, men would complain about female partners who have

low desire or no desire. And then certainly over the last 10 years, I've seen a total shift. And I'm mainly, I'm often hearing about men with low desire. Is that when you're talking to your friends? Is that what comes up? And we just think that's, that's, that gender role of like, it's always been typically that the man wants sex, sex, sex more. And that's what we're trying to kind of cover is the women that are frustrated in this way. So we're kind of curious. So sort of like what's behind that? Yeah. Yeah. What's behind the low desire male? Okay. I mean, you know, if I'm just starting to think like out loud about it, sometimes, first of all, men are suffering from some sort of issue or problem that they're

thinking about way more than you would ever think that they're thinking about it because they're not talking about it at all. Okay. Like, for example, like I said, a lot of the men I deal with have real performance anxiety around gaining and maintaining erections. So sometimes that will present as low desire because that guy is really trying to avoid sexual situations that he thinks are going to be potentially embarrassing or shameful. That's often an issue where like he's saying it's one thing and it's in fact something else that he's really not copying to. You're smiling because that sounds right?

Well, we got an email a while ago from this girl. and she said that her boyfriend was refusing to come during sex because he said that he was too much of a feminist to degrade her like this. And I said your boyfriend's lying to you about why he's not ejaculating for sex. Yeah. And that's why I was sort of laughing. Like not coming on her face. Like he wouldn't, any sort of ejaculation was degrading. We were like, well, that's a lie.

So we don't know the answer. But that's not it. Absolutely. You're totally right. Not because he's a feminist. You know, sometimes guys are. usually I'm noticing this more with guys into their 30s and upwards, but they are masturbating, you know, to such an extreme that they don't really have enough

libido for their partners. And so they're sort of masturbating in ways that are a little out of control or not completely thoughtful about maintaining their own sex lives. So definitely I think that sort of, I don't want to say over masturbation, but just like, you know, masturbation can also be the source of low desire. So is it frequency of masturbation or is it the content that they're masturbating to that you can never possibly match as a normal female? I mean, like, porn, SARS, status, crazy stuff. No, I think it's around frequency of masturbation that after men ejaculate,

there's a refractory period or the interval between which they're able to. to really get re-energized and regain erections. And so you find that definitely, you know, guys in their 30s or, you know, masturbating or 40s or above are sort of masturbating somewhat like opportunistically. And then when it comes to potentially having sex with their partners, they're not as interested. I think the bigger issue, though, is that there are actually two types of desire. One type of desire is what a lot of men experience. is called spontaneous desire.

Guy sees something sexy, sees someone sexy, has a sexual thought. That sexual thought ties in very quickly to the arousal platform, and that guy gets aroused and is interested in sex. So that's one type of desire that a lot of men feel

and also a lot of women feel. In long-term relationships, this is true of men and women, desire can often shift from being spontaneous to being responsive, meaning that desire isn't spontaneous. It's not just something that automatically happens. There actually has to be sort of the preconditions to sort of cultivate the arousal that will lead to the emergence of desire.

And so this is confusing for everyone, because you're sort of out in the world and you're getting turned on by everything that you see and experience. and then you come home to your own relationship and desire isn't operating in the same way. You're not getting as spontaneously turned on as quickly. And you start to wonder, well, if I'm out in the world and I'm feeling all of this desire in this way, maybe this means that something's wrong or something's broken. It's not the case at all. It's just that in many long-term relationships, desire kind of shifts.

And you need to start to think about how to create the environment for that shift. I guess you could also say Well, okay, so what's that? Switching up the outfits you wear. Right. Ashley was uses this example of like she switched it up from like a thong to boy shorts. Right. And that's, yeah.

Guys just need variation, whatever it is. And so I would wear a certain type of underwear and the second I wore boy shorts. My boyfriend at the time was like, whoa, this is so crazy. Like he was just on me. And suddenly it was the hottest sex ever. Nothing about the sex actually changed. I was like, these shorts? The stuff she was wearing before the sacks.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm really, like, I'm super interested in this. Like, I love what you said. It doesn't mean something's wrong with their relationship. Right. Right. So what do you recommend if this couple comes to you and that's the... Okay. Well, let me even do mind if I, like, even put it in a little more of a... No, no, no, no, no, in a context, which is...

We're like on the edge of our... No, no, no. We also know that... I hope this isn't too boring, honestly. I swear to you, it's not. We are eating this back. But, you know, one thing I was going to say also is that we know that both... the male and female sexual brain, that the human sexual brain has two different systems that are

operating at once. One is called the sexual excitation system, SES, and the other is called the sexual inhibition system, SIS. SES, SIS. Think of it like a car that has an accelerator and a break. SES, the excitation system, is the accelerator. Those are all the things that turn you on, create pleasure, move you through desire, arousal to orgasm. It could be the sight of your partner naked. It could be the memory of sex that you had that was exciting. It's something you see.

It's something you remember. It's something you smell. It's something you feel and the connection. Those are all of the things that would move you through arousal. That's your accelerator. But we also have a break. And the break is all of the things that stop us from getting turned on. anxiety, being angry at our partner, feeling less attraction to our partner, not feeling good in our own bodies,

some kind of trauma that may have happened, how we feel, like I described the men who have sexual performance issues, how we feel about our own bodies and our own self-esteem. I think when you're single, this is a generalization. What I was going to say is that I think when you're in a relationship, it's very easy for the breaks to become louder in a way than the accelerator. So really you have a lot of reasons not to have sex very often. And then the question is, okay, so how do I get that foot off the break? How do I deal with those issues in my relationship that are inhibiting or impeding my sex life?

And then how do we start stepping on the gas? And for many couples, they don't actually have enough accelerators or enough exciters, enough things to really step on the gas. They met. They fell in love. Their relationship was new. There was novelty. They were attracted to each other.

They couldn't keep their hands off each other for a period of time. They didn't really experiment much with sex. They didn't even really talk much about sex. They don't really have a little toolbox of exciters to engage. And I think the thing that most couples, if I had to make a generalization, most couples also do not know how to create psychological excitement or erotic excitement. Yeah, they know how to get in bed. They know how to undress.

If they have a little bit of sexual intelligence, he's able to communicate. Boy shorts would be nice or lingerie would be nice. But there isn't really a vocabulary for talking about sex. And I'm not saying talking about sex the way we're talking about sex in a sort of a laid-back clinical way. don't know how to engage the language of arousal. Like, they're used to as a couple, oh, where should we eat tonight, or whose friends are we getting together with, or are we visiting the family, or who's picking up the food at Whole Foods? What they don't know how to say is, I really want to fuck you.

Or I really want to be fucked by you. It makes so much sense. Yeah, it does. I'm just sitting there like, you're like playing out some of my past relationships. Exactly. It's exactly it. Okay, keep going. But then what?

So what do you recommend? Well, I agree. Like we walk around, we go around especially. Like are they doomed or? Not at all. I think we're in these relationships and we want to be in these respectful egalitarian relationships. And that's fantastic. But sex is its own channel in which you need to be able to find language to match your arousal.

You need to be, I'm going to use the word objectify. And I know that that's a word that gets a lot of shit these days. But you need in a healthy way to be able to eroticize or objectify to see your partner as the object of your fantasy. and to be able to communicate that. And so I work with a lot of couples around starting to just create erotic and psychological excitement together. I have a very close friend and her and her husband do the best job I've ever seen. Like it's still like he just had a birthday.

She did like the full boudoir shoots. They've just had a great sex life since day one. I think they started that so early that it's like this long lasting thing. Like they got the toolbox set up before like. Now they've been in a relationship for years and it's still like hot and sexy. And I'm thinking of them because they started it early on. How did they, how did one of them was one of, like sometimes in a relationship, one person may be a little more in touch with their sexual personality or they may have

grown up in a sex positive environment or they're just more comfortable with the language of sex and they can sort of drive and bring the other partner along as a passenger. And then pretty soon both partners are driving. How did this particular couple sort of decide to do this and get good at it? I think they both were super sexual. Like, I remember the first hearing about their early days of sex. I was like, Jesus Christ. I think they just were super open.

And it's just lasted. And so I'm so curious of like this couple comes to you and it's so clear that they like need the accelerators. Like what can you tell them to do at this point? It's really hard, you know, because if you think about it, I'm even thinking about my own childhood. We live in a country that's very, very sort of prudish and very shameful around sex and has a lot of guilt around sex and a lot of morality around sex. Most of us did not grow up in what I would consider to be a sex positive environment. We grew up in like maybe a sex neutral environment where it just was never talked about or even far worse.

We may have grown up in a sex negative environment where we really developed issues and hang up. As a result, like, I don't blame anybody for not having the language or the vocabulary to express sexual thoughts and ideas. And so, yeah, so a lot of couples, I mean, I'm thinking about two couples I already saw today. And another one that I'm going to go see when I leave here that, you know, they have like, you're a food blogger, right? Yes. So to compare sex to food, they have like one go-to menu.

that mainly just has an entree of intercourse. And I think a lot of people fall into this. I've fall into this in my relationships for like, you wake up, five-minute blowjob. You get on top, you get off, the person that gets on top of you, five minutes, it's over. It's like the sexual experience has lasted 11 minutes. And if you're lucky, you both had orgasms. Right, right. But like, it's on the menu.

This is like. You know what? I like that menu. I call that like the, like, for me, it's like the comfort food menu. It's like my Chinese food takeout menu. If you can have the- great restaurant. People come back all the time. Listen, if you can have 15 minutes,

people come back to my restaurant. They don't even need weekly specials. It's just like the daily specials. It's like, blow job, blow job, you come, I come. But listen, you know, I think it's, I work with a lot of couples. First of all, I don't want to discount that. I started to discount that. But I want to say if you can develop with your partner a great baseline sex menu or sex script where you can touch each other, communicate in a way, and give each other orgasms. That's fantastic and not to be discounted. Yeah. And, you know, that's the kind of thing that you can really build upon and layer up from there.

In fact, if you're always focused, you know, on trying to do new, have new sexual adventures, then your brain is always having to focus on how do I do this new thing. And if your brain is focused on how do you do this new thing, your brain actually can't relax and deactivate enough for you to actually go through the process of arousal and have an orgasm. So there's something to actually be said for about sex that's familiar, that works, that you don't have to think about. It's been sort of embedded into a different part of your brain structure that's easily accessible. So that's, that, that is fantastic.

I think the issue is, though, when that sex script is no longer arousing enough, is no longer exciting enough. Maybe never really worked in the first place for one or both partners, but they didn't really have the courage to talk about it. And they don't have any ability to cultivate eroticism or psychological excitement. So you asked, how do you do that, right? Is that what you're kind of teaching, like how to speak this new language, essentially? Well, on this topic, that is part of it.

And I have definitely found sometimes it's easier for couples who, couples who are uncomfortable sharing a fantasy or uncomfortable allowing, say, a more aggressive or gendered part of themselves to emerge, sometimes that face-to-face kind of interaction can be unsettling. So I try and think about how do I ease this couple into sort of creating side-by-side psychological excitement. So in some cases, I mean, it's going to sound cliche, I guess, but it can be reading erotica allowed together in bed. I love some of the erotica that was written back in the 60s by

like Anas Nin and other stuff. I'm also honestly really excited about the whole sort of renaissance that's happening in ethical porn or porn that would be, sometimes

it's called more female-centric porn or couples porn. The bigger umbrella would just be ethical porn. It's porn that's being made by actors and performers who want to be there. Everything has been consensually agreed upon. There's contracts. Very often, this is the porn that you actually have to pay something for.

It doesn't cost a lot, but it costs more than free. And when you're paying for something, you know that there's going to be a higher degree of quality. We're going to talk about porn after this. So save some of your porn stuff. All right. I'll save some of the porn stuff. But do you blow your load on the porn stuff.

All right. I will not prematurely ejaculate my porn load. Do you think that some couples fall into this sort of cycle where I call it the Madonna Hore complex where like a man, he loves his wife or is growing so much, she's like this angelic person to him and he can't see her as a sexual being anymore and that becomes like a real issue? Yeah. I think it's that it was hard to see him or her as a sexual being often to begin with.

Certainly sometimes something like motherhood can change somebody's view of sex. You know, oh, she was like my dirty girl and now she's like mom. You know, I see that honestly less frequently. What I see more often, again, is what I sort of described of couples who have very equal relationships, very egalitarian relationships. there is no level of real sexual objectification or fantasy happening. So it came down to like, you're hot, I'm hot, I like your lingerie, or you like my smell. And it was just sort of relying on what all the low-hanging fruit that was just like right there.

When you get somebody, you're like on a, it's like a drug. Like you can last on that like high of a new person for a while. So I think like you can get by on just that like newness and freshness. sex is fine or even great even for a while. And then once that fades, then that's when I can understand that that's when these problems woke up. I agree. You know, when you're out there and you're single and you're dating, your brain is really in a kind of a more generalized seeking mode. You don't know who you're seeking, but you know that you're seeking something. Maybe you want to be in a relationship. And sex is a way of sort of facilitating that seeking process.

you don't know who you're going to get. Most of the time you're throwing people back because you're not interested. But then suddenly somebody really steps into focus and everybody clears out. And a different brain system, definitely you're right, gets engaged. And that's all about facilitating that sense of focused connection with one person. And that can last for a while and you can really ride out that phase. Yeah. Prescription-wise, it sounds like there's a lot of things, but it is kind of like, is it mixing things up?

It's like maybe you watch a little porn together. You read erotica. Those are kind of the tools that you're giving these couples that have fallen into a rut, I'd like. I'd like to give couples more than that. I'd like to give couples, first of all, the tools to create what you were describing, which is just like sort of like good comfort sex or sex script that works. Then before I give them like erotica or ethical porn, I want to give them the tools, hopefully, to eroticize each other. Right, right, right.

You know, to be able to say, like, yeah. Like, I had the set, like, look, if I'm home with my wife and I can talk to her about anything, I can talk to her about in-laws, I can talk to her about her day at work, I can talk about my day at work. Why can't I grab out of the air and I had the sexiest dream about you? Right. I had the hottest fantasy about you. It's a little crazy, but let me share it, you know? No, I think that people want to also remember that their partner thinks they're sexy.

I think this is why people, especially women, you know, more than that. than I do. But I think women cheat because they want, like, they want to feel sexualized again, and they want to feel like somebody finds them attractive. And so, like, why you should get that from your partner. Yeah. It's hard, though, too, like, if you think about it, because let's just say, like, you're in a relationship where the sex is kind of bad, or you're not as interested in sex as you feel like you might want to be. And your partner is coming at you trying to be sexual. in your mind, you may be avoiding sex because, or let's just say you're even a guy and like, you can totally eroticize your partner, but you know when it comes to actually having sex, you may not be able to get an erection. I think our ability to eroticize somebody is so connected with this idea and then we'll have sex and try and have orgasms together.

What if you just like forget the sex part? Forget the orgasms part and just decide to really eroticize each other. Right, like have like a hot makeout. Totally. I mean, in the street, I don't know. Maybe that's just my thing. It's not the true. Yeah, I think, yeah, and I can understand the pressure on a male.

I've always said that, like, that I feel for men. And not a lot of ways, but in the way of sex, it's like they're supposed to get hard. And then they're supposed to fuck you. And then they're supposed to like stay hard for this amount of time. Like, I feel like there's got to be a lot of going on in a guy's head of like performance anxiety when it comes to sex. I really do. But women have it harder on the, we'll get to this, but like not having as many orgasms.

And then a guy can, let's just say, last as long as he wants or get the erection that he wants, but he's totally like ill-cliterate and lacking in any kind of basic sexual clitoris. This is my favorite thing that is. This is what you were trying to think of. Ill-cliterate. I just want to, I want to, this is the best word I've ever heard. Did you coin this term? I did coin the term.

Oh, my God. Ill-cliterate. I coined the term sexual clitorate. ill clitoracy. Oh, my God. Ill clitority. I think I coined it. I know other people have claimed to coin it.

And then I was like, actually, I was using it in 2002 as documented right there. So you didn't invent it in 2015. Sorry. Somebody else may have documented it before me. But, you know, so like just because you're right, guys do have a, it's like living under the shadow of the intercourse discourse. why does everything have to become sexually about how long a penis can be in a vagina? Right. When in fact, there is a distance between the clitoral glands, the head of the clitoris, and the vaginal entrance.

And most sexual positions barely, rarely, rarely stimulate the clitoris persistently, insistently, consistently, consistently enough to actually generate the requisite arousal to create an orgasm. Right. So I think we totally have to get out of sort of out from under the shadows of intercourse and maybe more embrace like outer course. So sometimes just like go down on your girlfriend and like call it a day. Yeah. I like that.

Well, and I just, I feel like a solution so you don't fall into this rut, if that's even a word to use for this, but like is like to kind of be proactive. I just think like knowing that this could happen and keeping those like sex. things, whatever they are, like, up top in a relationship and, like, realizing the importance of that, I guess. Yeah. You know, so you don't, a year down the road, you're like, oh, my God, we're not having sex anymore. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Having good sex is the best incentive to have more sex. But I appreciate what you said, because I think a lot of girls and meet, I've been in this situation where you're like, why doesn't my boyfriend want to have sex with me? Like, he's going to have an orgasm. What guy doesn't want to have an orgasm? And it's like he probably already did today.

You know, he can have it whenever he wants and he's not being stimulated by me, whoever, his girlfriend, for whatever reason, and perhaps it's all these other things going on. But it all just, it kind of makes sense, but I think that's where girls get so insecure. But is it possible for two people to really just become so mismashed when it comes to sexuality? And I'll explain to you, like the last person I was in like a more serious relationship with, he just didn't really like sex that much. I mean, he didn't initiate it really. If I initiated it, he was happy to have sex.

But he never seemed really excited about it. He didn't really care for oral sex at all. And I would try these tools to say to him, like, what kind of porn do you like? What excites you? It was a long-distance relationship. I would try, like, sexy photos. He just never, ever, ever checked into it. And I tried everything I could in the world to be like, what turn.

Like, I want to turn you on. It makes me happy. Is it possible that a couple can never, ever, Just match up. Maybe he just didn't like sex that much. Yeah, I mean, I think what you described is a little extreme, and I think that there's something going on with that guy, like maybe he has some kind of erotic conflict that he's sharing.

Like, he might be interested in a type of sexual partner or a type of sex that he can't really validate for himself. Or, you know, I do meet with men who are so guarded sexually and their sexuality is so exiled. That exiled part hasn't even called. cultivated language to speak. So they just seem like they're dissociated and disconnected. But to answer your question, you know, you mentioned something interesting. So you fall in love.

Everything's brand new. There's all of this like neurochemistry. There's all of this novelty and expansiveness. And it's kind of fueling the sex. And then a year down the line, you realize, wait a second, how is it that we might actually be sort of like sexually incompatible in some way? And I think that, you know, just as we all have different personalities, we can have different sexual personalities and we can have different sexual temperaments. And I definitely meet men and

women who are sort of much more, say, on the novelty seeking or the thrill-seeking spectrum or maybe they don't jump out of planes or climb up mountains, but one way they have peak experiences is sexually versus somebody who might be much more of like, not a thrill-seeker, but more of like a comfort creature. Like same bed, same menu, same time, and that works. And you can absolutely have two. I can't tell you how often couples are coming to me with like their differences in sexual, erotic tastes and interests.

And they want me to help them create sort of a bridge. And it's like, why? Why did you two choose each other in the first place? Yeah. Like, you weren't thinking about sex at all when you chose. Right. And I'm not saying that should have been the main thing that you were thinking about, but you just left sex over here when you were, like, deciding to get together and somehow

thought, this shit would work itself out. Right. And now you're here asking me to work it out for you? Yeah. I mean, I have some years of experience behind me, but I'm not like fucking the Gandhi of sex, you know? Right. Or whatever.

I'm so that's a bad analogy. Like, right now. That guy was like, you knew you were never going to like be with him, be with him. Like it wasn't this like, oh my God, my soulmate, but the sex isn't matched up. I mean, there was other things wrong there. And I dated a guy like that too for years of just not great sex. And I kind of knew deep down he wasn't the guy for me, but God, looking back, I'm like, oh my God, it was so boring. You know, and like it was just, I was so unfulfilled in that way. I think, do you tell me like, you know, because I've been married for a while and I'm older,

but I am noticing with like a lot of young couples that I work with who have sort of some sexual incompatibility, it's kind of like when they decided to finally get married or settle down or really pick a long-term partner, like sexual attraction, sexual chemistry was not something that was being privileged high up on the list. Now maybe it's just the fact that all I see are people in their problems. And so I'm sort of generalizing and I'm skewed from there. Right. People aren't coming to you to like talk about how great their lives are. usually, unfortunately. Us either.

You know, we are inundated with a lot of like, guys are terrible, my relationships. We're not getting hundreds of emails from people. My mom's a relationship psychologist as well. Oh, cool. And my mom said to me, you're just in New York or where is she? In Pittsburgh for 40 years. But my mom said, I said, are all guys terrible? And she was like,

no, people in good relationships just aren't emailing you. Right. Like, so for you too, people aren't just coming to you. Yeah. But I feel like, I don't know, like, we live in a culture where we're bombarded with sexual and sexiness, and yet when it comes to picking, and most of us want some kind of partnership for a long term, and yet we're not really privileging or really thinking enough about sex when

it actually comes to making this important decision. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just my inner circle, like I'm thinking of my girlfriends that are married have done a pretty good job, and they're all pretty, I think for the most part, pretty sexually fulfilled. But I surround myself with like strong females and ask for what they want. So I don't know. I wonder what that may be because it's like so hard to just find a decent human. I guess so. You're like, you know what?

You can't have it all. Well, I think in a good, I think it's... I'll just masturbate, you know? I think it gets said in a good relationship, sex is like 20% of a good relationship. But when sex is bad, it becomes like 80%. Yeah, you can't stop talking about it. We're going to cover a topic now that we get a ton of emails about porn. Okay.

A huge range of emails. What's normal? How much of watching porn is normal? So we got an email from this girl that I thought was really, really interesting. I wanted to read it to you and get your take on it. But I sort of have, we have our own feelings about this, but a clinical education on what's going to help. Okay. Short and simple version, I don't like my boyfriend watching porn and getting off from other women.

We've been dating for about three years and I don't like when he watches porn. We've had multiple talks about this topic and it took a while to get him to understand my perspective. and eventually he started to see where I was coming through him. Although he promised he wouldn't watch porn, one day I came over, walked into his house, and saw him watching porn. I was very upset by the fact that he broke a promise to me and don't understand why he had promised something he couldn't keep. I don't like the fact that he's orgasming to other females, and I feel like it sexualizes women in an unrealistic standard. There's a lot in there.

A lot in there. But in general, you know, we do get a lot of emails from girls being like, I don't like my boyfriend watching porn. And why can't he just masturbate to me? And like my boyfriend has old nudes on his phone. Like why can't he just look at nudes to me? You know, just I guess we don't need to break that email down on every single thing. Yeah, no, there's a lot in there to talk about. I mean, I relate to parts of the, you know, there have been a lot of, even in my, forget studies, even in my own clinical experience, you know, at least the more that a couple can talk about porn, potentially.

share it together or at least communicate about it, the less it's a secret, the less damaging it is. So, you know, very often it's not just the porn, but the fact that it's kind of a secret that that really does the most damage. But, you know, I grew up, you know, there was no internet. And, you know, if you wanted to masturbate, I mean, I personally, I mean, you know, wasn't going to go out and really buy magazines or anything like that. So, like, you'd have to rely on your imagination and your creativity. Your spank bank as it would be? The what?

Spank bank. Spank bank. Yes, sure. I'll donate this to you. Spank bank. Yeah, the spank bank. Your memories. But I work with guys today, I would say

many guys under the age of 30, maybe even 35, who have never had a non-porn-based masturbatory ejaculation. So they have only ever

masturbated to porn. Unless they had like an involuntary like nocturnal ejaculation, they have always found porn handy accessible right there and they have never turned to

their own history their own fantasies their own partners or relationships as a source of masturbatory imagery. I can't say that that's bad. I'm not going to put a value judgment on that. I don't like it.

Nothing is bad to me. Not bad, but like, I don't want to judge it, but it's interesting. It seems damaging a little bit. It's for the future partner for that guy. Well, it's definitely an epidemic in our generation, but is it fair to say to your partner, well, first of all, I don't think it's fair to put any parameters on something you can't really control.

So if somebody wants to do something with their body and their own time, it's really none of your business. You can't control it. Is it fair to ask your partner? I mean, I feel like I have the answer to this, but can you ask your partner to not watch porn? Well, I think you can ask for anything that you want. My problem is when, you know, somebody feels pressured into agreeing to something. I mean, I work with much more serious cases of what I call out of control sexuality or problematic sexuality.

Some would cause sex addiction. And very often, let's just say one partner is perceived to have a problem with porn. the other partner is very upset about it. And the other partner wants a promise of total, you're going to totally abstain. You're going to give this up. And the partner who is doing the behavior either feels guilty, shamed, pressured, scared into saying yes, and just agrees to something that is completely unrealistic or something that they have total ambivalence about. So I would say somebody has the right to ask for something, not to insist.

I think there's a big problem if you're in the kind of relationship where somebody's just going to insist upon something and it's their way or the highway. And so somebody that's being asked to watch less porn or to not watch porn at all has to think long and hard before they agree to that. I don't, I would never ask that for one. I think that's so crazy and unrealistic. Can you stop watching porn altogether like cold turkey? I don't know. I guess my, I guess my question is like the guy that's like quote unquote addicted to porn and watches so much porn.

Like I don't want that either. So I don't know. I don't know. Like I understand the frustration, I guess, from a female. Like how do you reconcile that for a female that is very frustrated? that all her boyfriend wants to do is watch porn. I mean, maybe it's a breakup situation. You know what?

And it's not usually, in my experience, it's not usually the female partner that's insisting or that has an issue. It's very often the person himself who feels like, you know what, my relationship with porn is problematic. I'm watching too much porn or I feel like I'm watching porn that's visually, has visual imagery that's extreme for me in some way, or I'm wasting too much time on porn or I'm not getting to other things. So very often it's usually the guy himself who is self-identifying that this is a problem.

Now, I do not like the term porn addict or sex addict. It is not a accepted diagnosable condition in the DSM-5. There have not been anywhere close to definitive studies that show that porn can change the brain. and the way that say substance addiction can. Right, right, right. So I don't really like the term porn addiction because it's so... And it's so extreme. Yeah, to measure it. Right.

How do you measure what addiction is? Right. So I do, but, you know... Well, I want to know what you tell that guy. Right. So what do you tell that girl, though? Is he cheating on her because he's masturbated? And also have to know more about the relationship.

Like, is it causing him to not have sex with her? Is it causing him... Absolutely. What is she experiencing? I mean, clearly she feels like uncomfortable by his fantasies, uncomfortable by the porn that may turn him on, uncomfortable, that he's having orgasms through self-pleasure. I think that studies have shown that couples who have healthy sex lives, those couples actually masturbate more, not less. So I think that masturbation is a completely healthy activity. I think it can help us having an orgasm.

You know, it stimulates the body, the brain's natural opiate system. I think an orgasm is a completely healthy way of dealing with stress, distracting yourself. Hangovers. Hangovers. Yeah, so great. It's the only reason I want a boyfriend. I mean, I can do it myself, but like, you know, I think sex is a great hangover cure. All the reasons I want a boyfriend are just alcohol-related.

It's like, I just want someone to hold me and fuck me when I'm hungover. That's it. But what do you tell the guy, though? I mean, are there, again, not a quote-unquote addictions or not a quote-unquote cure, but I mean, this guy comes to you and he's like, I think this is like taking over my life. Like, what do you? Well, first of all, I mean, to me then, his relationship with porn is probably a symptom more than the problem itself. Like, for example, I find that many men who have sort of a dysregulated relationship with porn, like there's other. other stuff happening in their lives. Like maybe they're dealing with depression. Maybe they were recently fired and they're unemployed and they have a lot more time on their hands. Very often men are coming in presenting as though porn is the main issue, but it's just the thing that's sort of front of mind, but there's usually somebody, there could be a guy who's depressed. There could be a guy who has undiagnosed bipolar disorder and is entering into these sort of cycles of mania. There could be guys who are dealing with extremely high levels of anxiety and stress and porn is their

main coping mechanism. There can be men who have erotic conflicts, as I said. The sex that they're having is actually not the sex that they really want to be having. And so they turn to porn to create a mirror of the kind of sex they might like to be having, but then they feel guilty or shameful and they pathologize their own sexuality. A perfect example would be a guy who is, you know, a guy who is attracted to men and is gay, but is in a heterosexual relationship and will masturbate to gay porn, male to male porn, and then feel guilty and shameful about that, and come in and say, I watch all this porn and I'm a sex addict, when in fact, this is somebody who has an erotic conflict.

Sometimes, you know, men use porn as a way of sort of regulating their attachments and their feeling of being alone or they're feeling of being too close to somebody and needing an alone space. So there's lots of reasons why men can turn to porn and become dependent upon it or use it as a form of escape and start to feel dysregulated. I don't think just sort of saying, let's get rid of the porn, is the answer. And it doesn't have to be so insidious either. He doesn't have to have all these psychological problems. Like, maybe he just wants to jerk off to something other than you. Sometimes.

He's not like a bad guy. For me, I love that. It's like one last time I have to have sex with my boyfriend. Go ahead. I'm curious what your take on it is. Have you dated a guy that watched a lot of porn? I've never dated a guy that watched like copious amounts to my knowledge, like, that it was ever, like, an issue. But if I ever, like, went on one of our computers and, like, found, I wouldn't have cared.

Like, if it was, like, rape porn. Or, like, or, incest porn. Or incest porn or pedophile type of stuff. I probably... Or the combo? Or the combo. But there's a lot of porn that will depict taboo situations that's not actually... Like most incest porn or all...

Most incest porn is like foesest, right? What's that? F-A-U-X-Sest, fake-sest. Okay. You know, it's just like they had a boring porn video of a guy and a girl and they labeled it, you know... Dad and daughter. step siblings. But no, I think what I'm trying to say is, though,

we shouldn't judge people based on the fact that their porn is taboo. I mean, fantasy is taboo. I guess if it was rape porn or pedophile type, I would have questions. But what I'm saying is like, if I just saw that my boyfriend was watching porn, I don't care, I mean, watch porn. Well, that's been my experience is that most women don't, most people don't really care as much as this person cares. Here's what I would, I'm going to give my therapist recommendation. For a guy, I think a lot of it too is that, and again, we don't know all the details

or the relationship, but she obviously feels neglected in some way. So I think if a guy is going to watch porn, I hope he's also balancing how sexualized he makes his partner feel. Like, I remember, Rayan and I both talked about this. We love if a guy tells us, like, I jerked off to a picture. view or whatever. Like, I remember an ex of mine. Like, we were pulling on my Instagram and he was like, oh, I jerked off of this picture. And I was like, what? I felt very, like, I felt turned out by that. Best compliment ever. Right. And so I, I think that if I'd recommend to guys that maybe their

girlfriend's a little bummed that they're watching porn or they're jerking off to other people, I just hope that they're balancing out letting their girlfriend or their partner know that like, you're sexy to me too. And like, and it's not enough to just say, oh, like, I was in the mood for sex and you weren't. And so I masturbated. And I, and I'm masturbated. And I, and I, watched porn. No, that guy absolutely has to work on eroticizing his partner, making his partner feel sexy and wanted and desired, and invest in the sexual environment. It's not enough to just say, oh, I had spontaneous desire. I wanted to have an orgasm. I sort of approached you. I could tell you weren't interested, so I went off and had an orgasm. On the other hand, a lot of men, you know, a lot of

women are very into porn and really enjoy watching it and don't have any of the shame or stigma that men have around it because these are guys who were, you know, raised to feel shameful and guilty and stigmatized around masturbating and watching porn. And so a lot of guys, when confronted with a woman who said, hey, by the way, were you, do you watch porn? Were you watching porn? It can bring up a whole history of feeling shamed around their sexuality. And that guy's already in then a one-down position of sort of denying

and lines. So it's also about the way in which the conversation is being approached and framed. Well, and to some of these females, like, start watching porn yourself. I mean, if you're like, I think some women, it takes, I just know that a lot of times women, like, watch, they don't get into porn to, like, a later in life or whatever it may be. But I just hope that women that are so against porn and their boy from watching porn, like, have you watched it? Maybe you'll like it.

Maybe you make it like a shared hobby, ladies, if you're looking for some good porn, Pornhub, red tube, tons of categories. We'll do a swipe up. I'm a fan of the lesbian category. Right. Like, maybe it's something that you can enjoy together. I think there's got to be such a, that makes it even worse when you're this. I'm just saying, because we got the email, but some female that's so anti-porn.

And maybe if you can find this middle ground. And I would say the same. Sometimes I work with women who are really like, I'd love to start watching some porn, anything to start spicing this relationship up. And then he'd meanwhile home master. masturbate to it, you know, all night. But if it comes to like watching it with me, ooh, it's like so hands off and off limits because guys, again, they have a history of being shamed around porn that women do not. So I think women can often approach porn in a more liberated fun way.

Right. So maybe she watches some porn with the boyfriend. Right. Just once. And then to the boyfriend, let her know that masturbates to her too. You know, I think that I think that's a thing. And if he doesn't, start trying to do that. That's great.

about it or whatever, but make her feel like she's, I think that's probably where a lot of it comes from. Yeah. Just for not feeling sexy. When I'm working with men who have problems with porn, I'll say, okay, don't stop masturbating, but try masturbating to something else. Try masturbating to a photograph or to a memory or to a fantasy. Yeah, right.

It's lazy. It's lazy. Okay. Next topic. Yeah, so clearly your book, she comes first. I mean, we're referencing an orgasm at. it is. And we got, but we've got a few emails about this. I've talked about it before on the podcast that I was like a late orgasm, Blumer Rain always makes fun of me. I had my first orgasm at 19,

which is not crazy late. No, no, it's very consistent with men versus women. When you look at like demographic charts of like when men sort of start to masturbate and can operationalize having an orgasm and an ejaculation, it's all very focused around puberty. But for women, when you look at when did women start to become orgasmic, it's much more spread out across the life cycle. Right. So we got this email. We've gotten a few before. Like, I've never had an orgasm.

My number one question when we get an email like that is, how old are you? Because I think there's a huge difference between being 20 and 30. But regardless, I mean, we just kind of want to talk about female orgasms with you. And clearly, statistically, females don't orgasm as much during sex, right? Yeah. So when you say somebody has an orgasm problem, do you think we're talking about a woman who can't orgasm during partnered sex or also doesn't orgasm during masturbation? I think a lot of emails we got are probably during partner sex. Right. But I think the extra frustration I can imagine is like either.

When you're like, okay, so I can't get this done during sex, I am going to try it on my own and then you still can't. You know, I think that's got to be very frustrating. For a woman, you feel like your body's not working. As two women, what would you attract you? that to both let's in both scenarios someone who has a problem orgasming during partnered sex and maybe somebody who has a problem orgasming during both partnered sex and masturbation but let's start with partnered sex why do you think a woman would have a hard time so for me I think it's just with age you just learn to ask for what you want you learn what you want you know and I think that like

you know when you're younger you have sex in missionary position or maybe what the guy wants and you let him sort of drive the experience and sex is so much like driving to towards the male orgasm. And once that happens, sex is over. And so I, for so many years, I didn't know what I wanted or what I liked or what turned me on and how to get off. Because, like, you said, like, vaginal stimulation and clitoral stimulation, like, those are very far away from each other. And so I didn't even know that it was normal to ask a guy to, like, touch your clit during sex or that you would do something like that during sex. Like, that was, I always knew that that's how I got off, but it wasn't something that I ever would have asked for. And so for me,

I just think that people just don't know how to ask. for it. Right. Well, and just, sometimes guys don't know either what to do. So if you're having sex with 18, 19, 20, these guys, a lot of these guys don't know. Yeah, it's, it's, my first orgasm was oral sex. And I think it was like, oh, right, the clit. You know, like, it's just, you grow up and you see sex as like penetration. And that's not what does it for females. So I think that, everything that Raina said, being comfortable in your skin is huge. So 100% asking for what you want. And I don't know. I would think sometimes it's like how two people's bodies are like functioning together. Like I had an ex. Like I just got off every time. I just knew I could get on top and whatever,

whatever worked. And like another person, that exact same situation may not have worked for me. But I think a lot of it. Do you find if you're having, you're both single? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you find if you're having sex with some. somebody for the first time, are you able to have orgasms? Or does it usually take until the second, third, or potentially fourth time? Are you orgasmic on a first sexual experience with somebody? I'm not. Typically, I like to be a little more emotionally connected to somebody.

When I say emotionally connected, that might be the third time we have sex. I just want to feel like I'm in a little more of a comfortable space. I've been to your place more than once. I know where I'm sleeping. I know, like, sort of the roadmap to your body a little bit. Like, it's not the first time we get each other's close off. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I've said this before. Like, the best sex to me is, like, be someone you're in love with, you know, like a lot of it's that emotional connection.

But earlier this year, I was just having sex with a guy that I really wasn't even that into, but, like, he was just great at sex. I didn't orgasm with him the first time I slept with him. But it was very strange for me because I was like, I don't want him to spend the night. It was the first time that I've had an orgasm that I was like, I don't like you like that. Yeah. But you're great at this, so we'll keep doing it. Do you think when you're having sex for the first time with somebody or the first couple of times that you're thinking or worried or a little anxious about like how are you doing or what's happening? I worry about their pleasure and I worry about how I look. It's the first time people's going to see me naked and they think I'm sexy.

Am I doing the right things? I think a little level of normalcy and familiarity for me is important. It was interesting because there have been a couple of studies done. around like what sort of happens in the male brain versus the female brain during arousal and orgasm. And as I recall, I think they put men and women each in sort of these like cat scans or fMRI scans where you could see sort of the brain activity. And what was interesting, the sex looked very similar in both the male and female brain. But there was one very distinct difference, which was that as women were getting turned on, and sexual parts of the brain were sort of lighting up, parts of the brain that were associated with stress and anxiety were deactivating. And that was not the case with men. So men did not have to have that part of their brain really deactivate in order to have an ejaculation slash orgasm. But for women, I think the researcher, it was out of the Netherlands, said,

You know, it's kind of like women are going into almost sort of like a trans-like state. And for a woman to turn on, parts of the brain actually need to turn off. And so I think, you know, what you described about just sort of feeling comfortable, feeling safe, feeling secure, maybe not having to worry about how you look naked, not having to worry so much about him. I think that ability to relax during sex and let your mind deactivate is really essential, especially to female arousal in the orgasm. Right.

But to any girl that's like, I'm never having orgasms. I'm like, that's pretty so common. Like, I mean, most of my, I would say maybe more than half the sex I had in my 20s was not, I wasn't having orgasms. Were you faking it or were you telling the guys that you're not? I faked if you're in there or it was just, I don't even know. Like, I didn't have many like serious relationships, but now I wouldn't settle for that. Right. You know, like I'd ask for what I want.

I'm way better than I used to be. It's just, like, asking and doing what needs to be done. And the serious relationships I've been in have been great in terms of that. Do you think a lot of women are still faking orgasms? We always say, like, I would never let somebody believe they're doing a good job at anything that they weren't doing a good job at. Right. But, yeah, I think that, you know, some are, I don't think I ever have in my entire life faked. I just don't see what the point would be.

Like, what the point of me? I mean, I just don't know. A lot of times it's just over. Like, the guy comes and, right? See you later. It isn't even really asking. There's no need to even, it's just over. Guys are very inhibited about asking and being curious.

I guess they are defending themselves and defending that vulnerability. I find that guys more as I get older are more interested in giving oral sex. Like a lot of guys I've been with are very turned on by giving pleasure. and a lot of guys on the show have said the same thing to us that it really turns them on to give pleasure. And that's been my experience. A lot of guys, they want to go down on you. They want to, like, I haven't had, like, a lot of sexual experiences with guys

where, like, they just get on top of you and hump you until they finish and they take a nap. Like, have you had a lot? I haven't had a lot of that. Not in so long. Right. I mean, few and far between, but if that even happened, it was a very long time ago. You know, like, yeah, I wouldn't settle for that. I'd be like, I'm out of here.

So ask for what you want? Huh? Ask for what you want? Yeah. A lot of times I never want to sound condescending to our listeners, but we, you know, Rain and I are in our 30s and we know a lot of girls that are 18 and 22 and 23 listen. And I just, you just get better. You just grow up. You're more mature.

You're more confident. And like, I just wouldn't stress over it so much if you're not having like mind blowing orgasms at 22. I don't really think any of us were. What would you say to guys who might write in or call in or whatever and say, you know, I really get off on. giving my partner pleasure. I really want to go down on her. In fact, I don't want to be so reliant on my penis. It puts a lot of pressure on me. But she is sort of categorically like says no to oral sex. Can't relate. I can't relate. I've said it before. Anyone can go down on me. Anyone from the street can go down to me. I just don't care at all. Anybody. It's not my favorite

activity. Like if I'm given a menu, I'm doing it. I'm like, not going down on you. Raina calls it to Ashley Heseltine special. Come go down on me and leave. Like, I just, I don't have that insecurity. Right. I mean, I feel good about my vagina. I'm like, go for it.

But that's you. Like, if somebody doesn't want something, you can force them to have it. Like, I guess I would find other ways to pleasure my partner, you know? Right. But I'm just asking, what do you think is, for these guys who are confused, like, what is it, why is it that a woman might be uncomfortable with receiving oral sex? I would actually volunteer that I think some women are uncomfortable with the way their vagina looks. I think there's a lot of shaming about like color of your vagina, the shape of your vagina. Smell or taste.

The smell or the taste. I think there's a lot of people that are very insecure about that. I have never met a man that said to me, oh, I just couldn't go down on this vagina. Never in my life have I met a man that did love the taste of pussy, the smell, the way it looks. They love it. I never met a guy that was like, oh, this was awful. rotten. So a lot of women then come in with this own internalized anxiety.

I think so. Well, and like, you don't go straight from spin class and ask your boyfriend to eat you out. But like, I mean, whatever you're in. They're not just, yeah, no guy's going to be like, oh, God, I can't. Letting a guy eat you out requires more vulnerability than just having intercourse with that guy. For some people, yes. Maybe not for you, but I think there's some people, yes.

Maybe not for you, Ashley. Blow jobs a ton, ton more. I always say blowjubs are for boyfriends. Like that is the most intimate thing. Like I'm not giving those out. But if I'm seeing a guy, we're going down on each other, you know, I'm just not giving like blowjubs out on the first night. But like someone can definitely go down to me the first night.

Like I said, anybody can. It's fine. That's funny. What about, what about are you, are you comfortable introducing vibrators into partner sex? I'm just sort of saying I need a little extra clitoral stimulation right now or in, you, Yeah. We have girls that write us and say, my boyfriend wants to do this. We've gotten quite a few emails asking that the girls say, my boyfriend wants to introduce this stuff. I think that's a whole separate topic.

But, I mean, yeah, it's just, again, it's with age. Like, I don't love a lot of toys. I don't need to, like, twist my body into a pretzel and have 19 things on the menu to come. Like, but some people do. And I think as you get older, you're just more comfortable asking for it. And it's also, I mean, I dated a guy. 24 that was just super sexual. And that was the first guy.

We went shopping for a cockering together. And so that kind of set the precedent of being into that kind of stuff. But I don't know when that stuff would have happened for me without him. So I kind of just like followed his lead and that normalized it. And now it's just like, yeah, toys, vibrators, it's like no big deal in the bedroom. Can I segue into a toy question? Sure. Because we don't have a ton of time.

We're going to play one round. it is this weird. I don't think I'm going to think anything is weird. As long as it's consensual, I'm not going to think that anything is weird. We always think that too. We play a game every week. Is this weird? It's kind of like red flag or deal breaker.

It's like, of course it's not, nothing's like weird. We just kind of want you to answer these questions for us. Okay. So I have one question. I'm just dying to ask a psychologist. I've been dying my whole life are a psychotherapist. And we only get through one of these, I'll be happy. Okay.

Here's an email. My boyfriend asked for something in bed recently, and I didn't know what to think about it. He asked me if I would use a strap on, dot, dot, dot, on him. Sure. Why would you want me to do this? Doesn't that make him gay? Is this weird?

Okay. So this is commonly referred to as pegging. And I want to unpack why somebody would want this, and I don't think it makes you gay at all, but does this make somebody homosexual? Absolutely not. I mean, it's just a sexual behavior involving anal stimulation. It does not mean that you're gay.

I mean, I look at plenty of gay men who enjoy blowjobs and manual stimulation and anal intercourse or not. I mean, just because someone enjoys anal penetration, I think it's really too simplistic to just associate that with being gay. We don't think that at all. But the difference is, I guess she's asking, you know, a lot of people like a finger in the ass, and that's super normal. I mean, men have.

But a full-blown, like, your girlfriend puts a strap on on and does you in the ass. Like, is there, psychologically, that is that different than a finger in the ass? Sure. Okay. Do you think she should be concerned at all? Concern. I mean, I mean, first thing, we could talk about pegging.

And look, a lot of men enjoy more than just a finger in the butt. They enjoy a sex toy in the butt. They enjoy a prostate stimulator in the butt. They want to experience prostate stimulation. they are asking for a form of pleasure that they really want to experience and they're completely comfortable experiencing. A lot of guys also or a lot of women enjoy anal sex. So I don't see why anuses are in any way off limits in men or women if it's consensual.

I think that just as sometimes a woman who's a strong woman in the world maybe wants to have a more gendered experience of sex or be dominant. I think it's completely fair for a guy to want to enjoy submission and for a guy to be even oriented towards submissiveness or wanting to have that experience. And I think that, again, I think that there's a lot of fantasies out there that we can access and we can see. And there are a lot of taboos that spark our curiosity. And I think the more and more that we especially get to see this stuff, we may be more comfortable suggesting it. experiencing it. There was a study recently by Dan Savage that showed an increase in fantasies of cuckolding amongst both gay couples and heterosexual couples. So I just think that we're getting

more comfortable sharing fantasies that are a little bit taboo. I think it could be a lot of fun, don't you think it could be a lot of fun for a woman to also dominate a guy in that way? Totally. And I don't think it makes you gay. I think if he wanted to be fucked in the ass by a man, And that would make him gay. Yeah. Most of the men that I know that I've worked with that are gay and are in heterosexual relationships do not want to be pegged by their wives. They want to avoid sex completely.

Interesting. They're not like looking to, they're not attracted to their, you know, they're just not interested in sex. They're sex avoidant and they're often picking partners that are sex avoidant as well. And so they're coming in as two sex avoidant people where something has sort of stirred the pod or been a call to an action. I don't know. I fucking can't speculate about that guy. But sometimes I think a sexual fetish can just be a fetish.

There's not necessarily anything deeper, right? I don't pathologize or try and explain anything unless an explanation is really demanded. So if somebody comes in and says, why am I doing this? Why am I this way? I'll be like, if that's the question you want to really explore, I will explore, but I'm not looking for you to have to explain or construct or interpret your sexual fantasies and interests. In fact, I think the interpretation that we often will come up with is either negative, pathologizing, simplistic, and off the mark. I think that sexuality is wonderfully complex. and mysterious, and we don't need to worry about the whys so much as just experiencing the what of it. That's beautifully sad. It is. Well, we are going to wrap up. Thank you so much.

We could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. All right. Plug all your things that you want to talk about. You want me too. Yeah, whatever you want people to do. I just hope, you know, it's been out for a while, remains still kind of popular. It's my first book. She Comes First.

And it was written with a lot of love and passion and conviction. So, you know, I hope that that's a book that continues to have an enduring legacy. And if any of your listeners can find their way to that book, that would be great. We're going to put a swipe up to the Amazon. Is that the best way to find it? Sure. We'll put a swipe up to that. And do you take new clients? Yeah.

Okay. I feel like someone's going to be like, I want to go see that guys. I see, I see patients in my private practice. I mainly have daytime availability, not so much evening availability. But I also, for those people who maybe can't afford private practice sex therapy, I also supervise other therapists at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, where you could call the numbers 212-333-3444 if you think you wanted sliding scale therapy and you would maybe be assigned to a sex therapist that I might be supervising.

Gotcha. Okay. Okay. This was great. Thank you so much. So much. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I think you're looking at us skeptically. You're like, was this good? We've just been sitting here the whole time. I know. I'm wondering,

did I talk too much? No. Was I too boring? No. Is I looking into it. This is so great. You can stay for two more hours. We would love that.

But as always, guys, follow us on social media. Girls Got to Eat Podcast on Instagram. Please keep putting us in your Instagram stories. Tell your friends about us. You can buy the merchandise and check out links to our shows at Girls Got to Eat Podcast. podcast.com. We have some great shirts and hats and always our shows are up to date so you can

get tickets. We have Chicago, Nashville, and Atlanta coming up. I think almost all of them are sold out except for Nashville. So check the links. Check it out. Yeah. And on Twitter as well. Oh, I forgot about Twitter. And ask for what you want in the bedroom. Thanks, guys. Have a good week. Bye.