Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - World Leading Sex Therapist Kate Moyle on Why Your Sex Life is Normal

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Sex drive isn't constant and it's definitely not one-size-fits-all. In this episode of Just As Well, we sit down with psychosexual therapist and host of the Sexual Wellness Sessions podcast, Kate Moyle, to talk libido, painful sex, relationship mismatches, mental health, and everything in between.   Whether you’re struggling with desire, feeling pressure to “perform”, or simply wondering if what you’re feeling is normal—this is for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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or really preoccupied what's going on around them or might describe themselves as people pleases. You hear about some couples or I have seen. They're like, we have sex four times a week regardless. And I'm thinking, oh my God, what am I doing it wrong? If there's one thing I could get people to take away from a conversation like today, it would be that sex changes and it's fine. Hi, I'm Gemma Atkinson.

And I'm Claire Sanderson, the editor-in-chief of Women's Health. We have just spoken to the wonderful Kate Moyle who is a sex therapist, a psychosex therapist. Yeah, sexologist. Sexologist. All the sexes. Yeah. It was brilliant.

Fascinating. Fascinating. So I know this was an episode that you were really looking forward to, like more than any other, I think we've done so far. And we actually put a call out on Women's Health Instagram and my Instagram and yours for questions. And we were sent loads. But me being quite uptight, when I saw the nature of some of them, I thought I can't, yeah.

She wrong with your gym, but I can't ask these. There is no way I'm asking that question. In fact, I don't think we should share what that question is, so people listen. But I absolutely couldn't ask it. Well, I asked it. Well, I asked it. I asked it. And we got the answer and the explanation.

We did. So I think if you don't ask, you don't get. And Kate was brilliant in explaining how, and it is a taboo subject. People say the word sex. They don't say sex. And she was just debunking all of these myths and these fears people have and explaining about the quality of sex, not just the quantity, and how a sex life isn't just about penetrative sex.

It's other things within a relationship. And I really enjoyed how she framed, why should your sex life be consistent when there's so many other variables in life that change? So, you know, when you've been with your partner for, in your case eight years, in my case, 50 years, years, life moves on, children become part of the equation, life, you know, the mundanity of life. So why would you expect your sex life to be the same as when you first met, when you couldn't

keep your hands off each other? Your sex life has to evolve and grow. And she said that pit that a lot of people fall into is expecting sex to be as exciting as it was. And that is impossible. And what you need to do is learn to develop in your sexual journey as you do with your journey in life. Yeah, it was brilliant. It made me feel love better. She also touched on erectile dysfunction and gave us the how's the wise and what's for that. She spoke about the porn industry and how that's affecting people's sex lives for good or for bad. Pain during sex. A lot of women sent us questions about having painful sex.

So she gave us her advice and her gain reasons for that. And it was a term of vaginism or something. I can't remember that. Something I've not heard of. Yeah. But it's when the vagina walls spasms and make. and make sex, if not impossible, extremely painful. Yeah.

And it's very common. A lot of women have it. So, yeah, hopefully, well, I know this episode will be for so many people, men and women. I think the guys will like this one as well. Yeah. Enjoy our chat with Kate, the sex expert, just as well. Welcome to another episode of Just as Well. Today, we are joined by Kate and Weil.

Thank you for coming, Kate. Kate is one of the UK's. best-known psychosexual therapists and psychosexologist and has worked in the field for over 10 years. Kate's also a big believer in taking conversations outside of the therapy room and into the mainstream, which is what we're trying to do now here, which is brilliant. Alongside her busy therapy practice, she's the author of The Science of Sex, and she's also the host of the Sexual Wellness Sessions podcast. And alongside that, you've been a guest on some of the most downloaded podcasts in the UK. You've got a degree in psychology, postgraduate diploma in psychosexual therapy and a master's degree in relationship therapy

and also a diploma in gender sex relationship diversity therapy. Do you feel a bit inadequate? I do feel very inadequate, yeah. Me with my one bachelor's. Gosh, I didn't even get me GCSEs. Cricy. I know, I struggled at maths for GCSE. Yeah.

Well, thank you for joining us today, Kay. Can we just dig a little bit deeper into what a, psychosexual therapist and psychosexologist actually is before we get to the next and the next of today's conversation. Yeah, sure. I mean, a lot of people think that a psychosexual therapist is like the mum from Meet the Fokers and I have to regularly explain that that's not the case. Gillian Anderson and sex education is basically the easiest reference that people now go to. But basically it is a specialist branch of talking therapy, psychotherapy, counselling where we focus on sexual difficulties, challenges.

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Please play responsibly. And things that people want to change. And so the way I often describe it is the sign above the door is it's okay to talk about sex here. And sex and relationships, obviously, some people are psychosexual therapists without being relationship therapists. some relationship therapists aren't psychosexual therapists, but some of us kind of choose to blend the two. And I guess that's where I've kind of taken those specialisms and put them together.

And a psychosexologist is a separate qualification, but basically someone who works with sex and relationships. So kind of two ways of saying something not that different. So how did you get into it as a profession? I started by studying psychology, and it kind of went from there. And what I noticed with all of these different types of conversations was that this was the area that people kind of reacted

differently to kind of had more questions about but didn't know how to ask them and I was really intrigued by that and kind of took the direction of travel I suppose in in that direction and it just kind of went from there and the more I did it the more I loved it and I think that for me there's so much about sexual problems that happens behind closed doors for people that actually helping people to make those changes you know one else might see you might be the only person aside from the person and maybe their partner who knows what's going on but it can make such a big changes for people's lives that it's just been such a kind of fascinating in it every day is different but so kind of rewarding as well it's true what you said about there seems to be kind of

a taboo around it like when people say they don't say sex in all sex let's talk about sex and it's kind of I mean you were saying weren't you you were a bit embarrassed some of the questions that we've been because we put questions out to the listeners when we said you were coming in and because it is a conversation it shouldn't be I mean I remember you know I was an 80s child, but growing up watching TLC, and when Left Eye, Lisa Left Eye Lopez, wore a condom in a glasses to advocate safe sex, you must, you know, be safe in sex. She got ridiculed for it, and it was like, no, don't watch that. It's awful.

Get rid of them. And it was kind of shut away from us as kids. But the reality is, at some point, your child will likely have sex. So why not give them the tools and advice and the safety net around? it. That's what I think anyway. And I know the questions that we've been sent, there's so many people, like you say, having difficulties, problems. I mean, I wanted to ask him, I mean, I turned 40 in November. And my partner is gorgeous. He's Spanish and he's a dancer and he's, you know, but there are times that it's not that I'm not attracted to him. I think he's gorgeous. But I'm just

not in the mood for sex as much as I was when we first got together. Is that to do with age or is it to do when we've been together nearly eight years, we've got kids now, I don't know what that is. That's to do with all of it. Oh, okay, that's good. And I think that the thing is, is I would argue that the biggest thing about a change like that is that you're worried that it's a problem

and we're told that sex doesn't change or that if it change, it must be because it's a problem. And that for me is one of the biggest things that we talk about in my work because if we're told that sex is this constant part of our lives and that it should never change and that it won't change, the minute it changes, which is the most guaranteed thing that it will do because everything in life changes.

Your relationship is different to it was eight years ago. You're different to how you were eight years ago. Your body is, you've got kids now. Like, everything is different. So why would sex be protected from that? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But also how we understand desire, how sex works, what we call in kind of my field, biopsychosocial.

So understanding the physical, of it, the psychology of it, and then also the social aspects. But if we start to worry about something and we think it's a problem, then of course that's going to have a detrimental effect on our sex lives just as a starting point. If we don't feel like conversations about sex are happening, we don't know where to get the help for it, we don't know where to start, we feel ill-equipped to know how to manage the change, whereas I think if we worked preventatively and we had these conversations

and we helped people understand what was going on with sex and that sex changes, And luckily we're seeing a big change in the conversation around menopause at the moment is the perfect example of suddenly there's so much more advice than there ever was before, so much more conversation happening. People feel enabled to know what to do or to even know that how they feel is not alone in what their experience. Because you hear about some couples or I have seen, they're like, we have sex four times a week regardless.

And I'm thinking, oh my God, what am I doing it wrong? Because when we do, it's amazing. And we always say, Blum and heck, it's like, so lovely and it's the best. But it's just not as often now because of life. But when you hear about these people who were, you know, they've been together 10 years and they're still three or four times a week, I think, oh my God, am I doing it? My relationship wrong.

And most people's assumption then would be, okay, I'm the one doing it wrong because we measure, we think we measure quality of sex by regularity, but it's a real misnomer because it actually tells us nothing about the quality of the sex. that we're having. But most of us, because again, we don't have this kind of really open conversation, we think a bit like comparison culture, we think if they're doing it more, that must be better. So therefore we're the ones in the wrong. And what I hear from people all the time is exactly what you just described, which is, oh, I don't feel in the mood for sex

out of the blue. I'm not kind of interested in it. I'm not thinking about it. But then when we have it, I love it. And I think, oh, we should do that more often. Like if I could say it word for word, that line, we hear it all the time in psychosexual therapy. Because you do always feel better after, don't you? You say, oh, I am glad I did that, even though I spent the first 20 minutes telling him to go away. Or pretending to be asleep, boy. Thinking, please leave me. I've just had a bath.

I'm all moisturised. I don't want to. Some of the questions that we've had, like, is there a link between sex and mental health? You know, does that affect people's sex lives? Yeah, massively. Because if we are struggling with our mental health, we're not feeling our best, we're not feeling good in ourselves, then, you know, often we feel vulnerable or we feel, you know, exhausted. We've got kind of also a lack of joy or whatever kind of lack of pleasure. We're going to really struggle to get ourselves in the right head space to be open, relaxed, comfortable for something sexual. But also, if we're in a relationship, we might be feeling really low. We might be questioning ourselves, kind of that self-critical voice can be very high. And that's not a great context for us to be having sex within.

Also, if we're worrying about things a lot more, we also see that some of the common antidepressants, things like SSRIs, have a really kind of commonly reported impact on sex lives. And that's a quite common side effect. But if we think about sex and mental health is what we describe as a kind of bidirectional relationship, if we're feeling good, we might be more interested and open towards sex. And it can be a stress, sex can be a stress relief. you know, when sex, but sex can also become a stressor.

So when sex is painful, when it's a problem, when we're anxious about it, when we're worried about it, it can create stress that can have a ripple effect into the rest of our lives, our relationships, our relationship with ourselves. So we were speaking to a guest yesterday. I don't know. Yeah, Divinia won't mind. Divinia Taylor. And we mentioned that you were coming on today. And Gemma spoke about her fluctuating libido and whether we're going to speak to you. about why it's, especially, you know, women in our 40s

that our libido sometimes drops off a cliff. And she said, oh, I couldn't care less. I'm 50, I've got four kids. If I've got a low libido, you know, it's just another thing for me, pressure on myself. I'm not putting that pressure on myself to increase my libido. That's basically what you said, didn't you? Yeah, with an F word throwing.

She said, I've not got the time. All this chat about sex, it's just extra pressure on women. We should be able to really, you know, surrender to the fact that maybe we don't want as much sex at this stage of life as we did, and that's fine. Yeah. Well, it is fine. If it isn't working for you and you're not interested in having more of it, it's fine. What we see is it becomes a problem when someone's in a relationship and if they're in a monogamous relationship and the agreement is we're not having sex with other people, if there is what we call a mismatch in desire or a discrepancy in desire.

So there's a gap between partners and it's how they negotiate that gap. Now, what I will add here is like we negotiate all gaps in our relationships because couples are not going to be perfectly sexually aligned in the way that they're not aligned in everything else in their relationship. We don't all want exactly the same thing at the same time. But if the kind of social narrative or social script, we talk a lot about scripts and psychosexual therapy is if we are in love and in a healthy, healthy relationship, we should always want sex at the same time in the same way. we should know what each other want, then we fear that that's a problem.

But actually, it's the same as any other relationship factor. And sex changes. That has to be, you know, if there's one thing I could get people to take away from a conversation like today, it would be that sex changes and it's fine if you adapt, if you work with it. Like I said, your relationship is different. If you're in your 50s, how you feel about yourself is different to how you felt in your 20s. You know, a lot of people actually are reporting better sex, more satisfying sex when they're older. They know their bodies more, they feel more confident in themselves, their careers are in great places, they know themselves better, they might know their partner better if they've been in a long-term relationship with them, they have an understanding of themselves.

And less sex or less regular sex doesn't necessarily mean worse sex. It's just that we are so obsessed with objectively measuring sex when it's a completely subjective experience. So when do you think someone should access help? At what point is there a problem? Is it hard to answer that question? Is it different for everyone? Yeah, it's different for everyone, but it's when it becomes a problem for you really is, you know, it probably sounds like quite a therapy answer.

But help isn't a psychosexual therapist. Help is starting to explore what sexual well-being looks like for you. It's listening to a podcast about sex. It's picking up a book, a TED talk. Now we have some brilliant, brilliant, really kind of well-educated, like research-backed sex experts, that's talking about this stuff. And that is a first step

because a lot of people fear that if I have to take that step, it means I have a problem. And again, this is where a lot of this comes from. If I have to talk about it, if I have to ask about it, if I have to read about it, I must have a problem rather than, I'm interested in seeing what I could do differently in this part of my life or what I could change

or what would work better for me. And again, this, it comes back to that once we've got this idea of sex it should never change. And I think we fear that quite a lot. It makes a lot of people really anxious and they feel like they're the only ones doing it. But yet we know that there's a huge gap in how often people are talking about sexual problems to how often people are actually experiencing them. I think as well, it something changes for me switched with age in that when I was in my, you know, my early 20s, the relationships I had then. It wasn't like they were just based around sex only, but was not a lot of,

common ground elsewhere. So you were like, you know, 22, yeah, it looks, oh, they're coming round, let's have sex. Oh, we're going out for drinks. Let's have sex. It was that kind of thing, whereas with my fella now, it could be sat together watching a show, just cuddled up on the couch, or holding hands when we go to the Trafford Centre, or, you know, little things like that for me still round up to a healthy relationship, not just, oh, you're not having sex four times a week so it's not working. And again, I don't know if that's with the partner or my age or what, but I like that kind of things as well, not just always home that's going to have sex. It's like, let's sit. How was your trip? How was this? I like that kind of communication as well.

Yeah, it's what we call sexual currency. So sexual currency is everything you do with a partner, which isn't the kind of act of having sex, but positively contributes to your sexual relationship because your sex life is so much more than just when you have sex or the act of having sex. And we'll kind of get onto this, I'm sure. But there's also something in that which is that we only define sex by like what body parts go and what places. Whereas actually if you ask people, they would say,

oh, my sex life is many different things. It's not just this one act. So sexual currency is a good way of thinking about it is it's the thing you'd only do with your partner. You wouldn't do it with your auntie. So it's a specific kind of couple or partner experience and it's all of those things it's flirting it's touching it's reaching out for each other it's attention it's eye contact it's you know a cheeky squeeze as you walk past

each other it's a text saying can't wait to see you later it's all of those moments that keep those bridges between you going even at the times that you're not having sex and we know that there are times when people aren't having sex like they've just had a baby or they're struggling with sexual pain they're having cancer treatment They've got some kind of sexual kind of pain condition going on. They physically, you know, they're struggling with an illness or an injury. And we know that couples don't have to lose their sex lives or their sense of sexual connection at those moments. But just because they're not having sex.

But the sexual currency you just described are probably what you need to work harder to maintain in a long-term relationship. Absolutely. Because I've been married 15 years, two kids, teenager, nine-year-old. sometimes we feel like housemates you know and we are ships that pass in the night because we both have very full-on full-time jobs and managing the chaos that is a teenage boy and a girl who's almost 10

you know and the various commitments weeks can go by and I genuinely feel we've not even had a proper conversation let alone send a flirtatious text I can't remember the last time I got a flirtatious text basically did you do that if you'd look at couples kind of WhatsApp chats. It's like, did you do this? Can you get milk? Did you sign that school for?

And that's all really de-sexualising. That kind of domesticity is what Esther Perel talks about as nurturing the erotic. There's not much about kind of parenting that's erotic or that kind of home life at all. And we lose that version of ourselves at the start. And you have to then kind of inject it back in or work for it. But undivided attention, you know, putting your phones down, having those moments with each other is a really good place to start. But again, so many of us at the moment are in our primary relationships with our phones, with our smartphones. And it is admin-based when we see each other.

You know, I'm not in a dissimilar situation, like two kids. It's, you know, two people who are working. You know, we have to really intentionally do something about it. But in a funny way, when we're so busy, we then have to think, oh, I need to do that intentionally. So again, it just feels like there are so many barriers that we have to. to work with. Running is booming and the Runner's World UK podcast is the authority for inspiring, trustworthy running advice.

So if you're planning on running a marathon or you're just doing it for fun, check out the Runner's World UK podcast available every Tuesday. I wanted to touch on, you mentioned it briefly, pain during sex. We had a question sent in, what's going on if sex seems to hurt me in most positions, it feels like winding hitting the top. Yeah. So that's what a listener's sent in. There are so many reasons that sex can be painful.

One of the things that is really important to say is painful sex for women has been really normalized. And a lot of us have been taught to accept that sex might be painful at times. Sex should not be painful. Just because painful sex is common doesn't mean it's normal. If you are experiencing, now there are different ways. So some people might experience kind of pain around the entrance to the vagina. So that might be to kind of vaginal dryness or penetration might feel kind of painful if it's to do vaginal dryness. So common times we see that are breastfeeding postnatally when we see estrogen dips, menopause.

But there are lots of other reasons that people might be experiencing that. Or if people have a condition called vaginismus, which is where the muscles around the vagina, the pelvic floor muscles contract, which makes penetration painful or uncomfortable. But kind of that deeper pain can typically be associated with things like endometriosis. So often people experience kind of find that sex is more painful when it's kind of like a deeper penetration or feels like a deeper pain. And that it might be that they have something like an inverted cervix. But what it is is about working out, is this happening for me all the time? Is it only certain positions are the things that feel okay, things that not? But always, always go and get something like that checked.

doctor is not going to blush if you go in and you're talking about sex. And I think we see a lower uptake for medical appointments for anything to do with our genitals. And it's because we're embarrassed and we're scared and we're anxious about it. But please do go and get those things checked out. And I think that kind of what we do not recommend in any way, shape or form is just continuing to have sex which is hurting you. It's not going to, it's only going to have a negative impact on your, desire for sex, your motivation for sex, but there are lots of medical reasons that could be underlying that. Because if you know it's hurting, you kind of, you'll mentally prepare yourself

for it, which will just, you're just not going to enjoy it in any way, shape or form, are you? In the most sort of blunt terms, though, is there ever such a scenario where a man is too big for a woman and they are just not sexually compatible? Oh, sexually compatible, I'd say, is a different thing. But yeah, I mean, some people can be, like, much bigger, obviously. But the vagina is an elastic canal, you know, it is designed to accommodate, you know, at its kind of biggest point, a baby kind of passing through it. But there are certain positions and things that can be adapted if you have a bigger partner. You know, we talk about lube, there are amazing products that can help kind of manage the depth of penetration like the own-ut, which are kind of like

these set of stretchy rings that can be worn around the base of the penis. But it's essentially about working up what positions and what way of having sex works for you, but also there's an assumption that that means that sex is always penetrative. And And there are so many other ways to have sex. And someone who's having painful sex but wants to still have sex, I would explore other ways of being sexual and working out, is it a certain way that isn't working for us, but are there lots of other things that we can do?

But I guess for me, I'm under, when we're talking about pain, we're thinking about is it provoked, which is kind of on touch, is it unprovoked, which is all the time, does it happen at other times, as there links to other symptoms? As James said, can it also be a little bit psychosomatic as well? that you work yourself up so it's obviously becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. This is going to hurt because I think it's going to hurt

and then you get in this vicious cycle. Absolutely. We see cycles of pain a lot when it comes to sex and that's where the condition vaginismus often comes from is some, we don't know what, you know, the source of the anxiety may be something as historical as I was told in the playground when I was 13 that the first time you have sex it's going to be agony and I'm going to bleed everywhere. I can't tell you how many times I hear stories.

like that from people period anxiety anxiety about how our vulva looks and fears about being close to someone you know there's so much sexual trauma that can kind of be at the bottom of that but essentially the cycle is if I'm anticipating pain so I kind of have sex coded as something that will hurt me then I'm going to brace my muscles are going to tighten that's the defense mechanism for that and then the act of penetrative sex is going to be more painful because you're pushing on something that essentially is kind of tightened or closed but bracing is a natural defence response to the kind of anticipation of pain. You mentioned then how it looks and I think that's massively important because, you know, they're all different.

And I always think it's the same with men as well, you know. Men just think, oh, it's a penis, they all look the same. I don't think they do. We were joking yesterday, weren't we, that? Do you find in clinic, and it might sound bad, but a lot of men, they're not bothered either way. just, they're just happy to be having sex because we were, I was telling Claire, I had noravirus months and months back and Gopher saw me literally vomiting. I mean, it was both ends. I was in such a mess. Two days later, he was up for having sex for me. And I said to him, like, I don't

feel great. You've, you've seen me literally hanging every, like, but he was still up for having sex. And I've spoke to some of my girlfriends and they've said there's never been a time where if they've initiated it, their male partner has said, no, regardless of what they're doing, they'll drop what they're doing and have sex. Whereas if it's the other way around and the male initiates it, sometimes the woman goes, no, not tonight. Is that something you find? Is that to do with the different sexes? Yeah, so what we're talking about here is desire and differences in desire. So there are lots of reason. We might hear terms like libido, sex drive, but desire is basically, we separate desire and arousal. So desire is the process of kind of psychologically being interested, motivated,

open towards a sexual experience, arousal, the body's physical process of preparing for sex. And they often happen together or kind of at similar times. Now we typically have seen that there are, this is a really common kind of experience, but also it's a social script. There are so many social scripts around men initiating sex and women responding that men should always be up for sex. A lot that we all kind of feed into. But desire is broken down into kind of these two different types, what we call spontaneous or kind of proactive and responsive. And so this idea of responsive is I'm not in the mood for sex, but then if I start something, I then start to become in the mood for it. And a bit like we were talking about earlier. Yeah. I don't, my partner approaches

me, I don't currently feel in the mood for sex, but if we start kissing, touching, doing something, then I start to get in the mood. That is most common in, for example, long-term relationships. But again, we fear that because it changed and at the start, it never felt like I needed to think about it like that, and never felt like it started like that. We were ripping each other's clothes off, having sex all the time, out of the blue, I was initiating it. Again, it's that shift between those two different things. But everything at the start of relationships is kind of of pushing all the right buttons for proactive, kind of spontaneous desire. We're touching more, kissing more, more eye contact.

We're interested in this person we don't really know. Our brain is kind of primed to enjoy all these things about curiosity. We're getting like the big dopamine hits. There's everything on our side. When we get more familiar with someone, we get used to them. We habituate again like we do everything. And then the back of their head annoys you when you're what passed? You think, oh, and you remember something they did for like three years ago.

go and think I'm going to bring that up when you get home. You mentioned that desire fluctuates. We've had two very similar questions here from readers. And I will caveat this, that we don't know if they're in an hour in a long-term relationship. But we'll just take it as is, we'll just assume that this means forevermore. It simply says, why don't I have much libido? And then someone else said, but why don't I want it ever? I do have PCOS, but no other hormone issues.

So I say we don't know at what stage, whether they're in relation. relationships or not, but are there some women, well, people, but I'm assuming these questions that come from women who just simply have a lower libido and I'm not interested in sex. Yeah, and sex is a motivation, you know, it's not, we don't have this drive for sex in the way that we do kind of food, air, water, but I think we've been taught that we do or that we should and I think should is a super interesting word when it comes to sex. And it's also we're responsible. to what is around us. If we are feeling good about ourselves, feeling good about our bodies, that the touch feels good, that we're in the right place psychologically, that we're able to be

in the moment and enjoying what's happening, we're probably going to be much more open to the type of experiences which are satisfying and when we're more satisfied, we're more motivated. Now, if we haven't had sex for a while, we're not really feeling like we're missing anything, we've got a lot of other stuff going on in our life, we might not kind of physically be feeling good in our bodies, we are really stressed with work. It's understandable that it drops down the priority list. And then on top of that, we're told that because that's happened, we are, as the individual, the problem because we should be wanting to do this more.

Now that creates a problem cycle in itself, which is, okay, well now I've got a sexual problem. Is it me? Is it our relationship? Is it that there's something wrong with me? What should I do about that? Okay, I'm the problem. maybe we're the problem. Does this mean it's not a healthy relationship because it's changed?

And that stuff just kind of puts layers on top of desire and becomes a real desire dampener. And sex can become stressful. It can come anxiety provoking. It feels like the stakes are higher. We had a question in, I will just go through these, the top one. You were very embarrassed with this one, weren't you? Oh, look at this. She said, I cannot even ask this, Claire said, but I said I'd ask it. But it did provoke a long conversation between us about the very nature of this because we, None of us knew what, none of us know what this is. Well, we know what the act is, but we don't actually know physically what it is. So someone sent a question in saying, squirting, can anyone achieve it?

Best ways to achieve it. I'm not too bothered, but my partner is. And we were like, what actually is it? Hey, obviously we know what happens. But we were like, is it urine? Is it like? That way, yeah. And because I have a work laptop, I don't be like.

She couldn't Google it, yeah. I said to you, I said, Google it now. and she said, I can't, we're at work. And I said, well, I'm not Googling it on my phone. My kids play on my phone. It's the next women's health feature, isn't it? Yeah, I don't want that on my search history. When Mia's trying to look for YouTube kids.

So what is it and can anyone achieve it? Yeah, so we actually don't have any specific research on what it is, why it happens. And what we think is that basically it's the expulsion of fluid from the urethra, which is probably a mix of something, kind of a fluid from a place called the Skeens Glans and maybe some urine. It's not peeing, so that was the theory for a while. But basically, it most commonly happens at peaks of high arousal and orgasm. Now, it has become kind of really holy grailed in a way of people being like,

oh my God, if that happens, then it means it's really good. For some people, it is a real indication that they've had a good time. For a lot of people, it will never happen. It doesn't mean anything more than you had a great time. It might feel really satisfying for the people that are having it, but it isn't a kind of unicorn to be hunted and a thing to kind of put pressure on. Now, most people experience it

when they're having a particular kind of type of pleasure, which is G-spot stimulation. So the G-spot, rather than being an anatomical structure, is a highly sensitive zone on the inside kind of front wall of the vagina, which is why a lot of sex toys might have that kind of slightly curved shape. And it's a part of the clitorial network. And most people, and again, this is an example, or kind of reported, experience squirting when they're having kind of intense pleasure

through that area being stimulated. But as to kind of exactly what's going on, we have no specifics of it, but that's the best information that we have at the moment. So it's not like something someone can do on demand? No, it's an involuntary kind of response. But some people, if they get to a particular point, they might know that it's going to happen for them or it can be a part of their sex life. But one of the things that we know with orgasm, and, you know,

a lot of women I work with, for example, are women who struggle to orgasm or haven't reached orgasm or don't know how to, is that the more pressure we put on it, the harder it becomes. It's a kind of ironic cycle of the more I focus on it, the more I try and get it actually, the least likely it is to happen because that provides an anxiety, a goal, a distraction. And so we actually try and take pressure, kind of an expectation off in order to kind of get people to a more relaxed, comfortable place. That was the next question. Someone said, I've never orgasmed.

they've said what's wrong with me? There's nothing wrong with them. No, it's quite sad, blessed them. Yeah, and words like wrong, broken, you know, I can't tell you how often I hear the word broken in my clinic, failure, are a lot of the words that we hear when people are describing struggling with sex. And, you know, again, if there's anything I can kind of get people to take away from today, it's you are not. Like a lot of us are working in a kind of not perfect sexual culture. We haven't been given the tools, like we have everything else in life. most of us haven't had the education around this.

And we're not taught to explore our bodies and to kind of get to know them. And that conversation has shifted a lot. You know, the fact we're having this conversation today is a real indicator of that. But so many of us don't feel like we've been kind of well set up to know how to manage this part of our lives. There's a lot of women who haven't had an orgasm. It's a combination of what we call good conditions. So the right type of physical stimulation, psychologically being aroused, turned on, being comfortable, being relaxed, and being in the moment. So the ability to kind of

give ourselves permission to let it happen, to let go, again, a phrase that we hear a lot. And it's the kind of perfect triangle of those things. A colleague of mine called Dr. Karen Gurney kind of talks about that a lot. But also something that we see, again, in clinic anecdotally, is people, for example, who are really like overthinkers or really preoccupied what's going on around them or might describe themselves as people pleases, find it difficult to focus on their own pleasure, their own experience, they're preoccupied with other aspects of sex or what's going on for their partner and it means it's harder for them to tune on, tune into themselves. Can someone learn how to do that? Yeah, to let go. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that again, with something like orgasm, it can be quite

a learned response. If we work out how to do it, how it feels good for us to feel comfortable enough, then we're able to replicate that. And that's where often psychosexual therapists might see people who describe orgasm being something that happens situationally. So I can do it on my own, but I can't do it with a partner. I can't do it when someone else is there. And that's about kind of bridging the gap between those two things. You know, how do I psychologically learn to let go?

Because my body hasn't changed. It's just in a situation with someone else. So my perception of the situation is that it's different, that I'm more nervous, more preoccupied, or I can't tell them how to touch me, or I don't feel like I can do it the same way when I'm on my own. And so often we kind of help people kind of translate one to the other. Because you often hear women and maybe men describe their long-term partners that they struggle to see them as sexual beings

because they see them as the mum or dads to their children. And they might have been rampant when they first met, but their relationship has evolved to such an extent that they struggle, still have sex but they struggle to see them as a, you know, a sexual being or someone they can be turned on by. Well, I think it all gets lost in the domesticity, isn't it? And, you know, that's so well documented. You know, we see so many experts talking about this. And that's where we have to kind of work to what I talk, kind of give each other intentional attention. We have to kind of keep that bit alive. And it might feel different. And it might be that our sex life is

in a different phase, a different stage. And that's as much as a problem as, we want to make it. You know, it doesn't have to be problematic. But there's, you know, our attention, I think, is a really interesting thing. Because if you think about what most people do in bed at the moment, it's two people on their phones in bed next to each other rather than, and rather than that kind of leaning in towards each other or eye contact or connecting, a lot of us are ironically kind of connected with everybody else more.

And so our kind of culture around this has really changed, but the way that we relate has also changed as well. And so we're battling against a lot of stuff in our sex lives at the moment. It's quite frightening, actually, isn't it, when you think of it that way, how you're two people in a room, but one of you could be doing work on the laptop, one's watching telly, ones with the, you know, it's the same for so many couples.

We've had two questions about erectile dysfunction. One lady's asked, how can she overcome it for her partner? And another lady said, they're trying to conceive, but her partner can't perform. and she's 37, so she said every month matters, what can they do with erectile dysfunction? Yeah, it's a really common experience, again, not commonly discussed, but when sex becomes a pressure point or an anxiety, that we can start to struggle with, at one, the distraction, kind of preoccupation, less experiences of pleasure,

but kind of at one end of the scale and the other end of the scale impacts on sexual functioning. So when we're talking about erectile dysfunction, it might be or unreliable erections, if it doesn't fit the kind of clinical guidelines, is that it's people struggling to kind of get erections or they're unable to maintain erections. And when sex has become, when we're kind of trying to conceive, it's a really good example because sex comes quite timed around windows of ovulation. We used to have sex for fun. Now we have sex for function. It's not really about the sex we're having. It's about the goal we want to get to. and if we are struggling with that and it's creating a sense of pressure, it's much more obvious in people with penises and men

because an erection is external. And so if you're struggling with it, it becomes very obvious and it can feel like all of the pressure is around that. So being kind of supportive, trying to take the pressure off, I would say, like having sex at other times of the month, not just focusing around the window of ovulation. And also one of the things that I talk to about couples when they're struggling with this is about

approaching each other, you know, that boost of sexual currency at other times during the month because all of your contact can become centralised around the ovulation window. And then it can become very pressured. You can feel a lot of expectation. But again, like there are lots of resources. So Mojo is a really great platform that helps men with psychological erectile dysfunction. One of the things with erectile dysfunction is that if it suddenly changes, your partner, is waking up suddenly with no erections and they've always been really consistent. That's the time to go to your GP because that can be an indicator that other things are going on. And nocturnal erections are unconscious.

There's no kind of psychological kind of processing going on. So most men are waking up with erections, not because they've just had really horny dreams. Yeah. But because it's a process that their body's gone through. It declines naturally with aging and kind of slows down a bit. They're not as strong or as regular. But if there is a sudden change and then it's something to go to your job. GP to see. But could it be to do with, for one of them ladies who said, her partner's got an old

sex drive, could it be to do with testosterone levels? Is that play a part? Yeah, absolutely. Conditions like diabetes as well, because it's to do with circulation and sensation. It can be to do with testosterone levels and kind of physical changes for men. If you are really worried about it, a testosterone check is a simple blood test done in the morning when testosterone peaks. It's something that your GP can do. There are medications, so things like that. like PD-5 inhibitors, so known as kind of Cialis, Viagra. But what's important is when we take those medications is we know that they're not an aphrodisiac.

So they don't, you don't take them and they turn you on. You still have to kind of create the sexual arousal for them to work. But in these kind of instances, it's a bit like we were talking about earlier, about sexual pain. You know, if you're bracing for it because you think it's going to hurt,

if you're bracing for it because you're worried you're going to fail or you're not going to get an erection, you're going to be really anxious, really preoccupied, not able to focus on the sensations that you're experiencing in your body that make you feel good, that maintain your erections, that increase your arousal, because your mind is going at a million miles an hour and you're anxious, so you're going to be kind of prioritising that.

And so it's really easy for it to become a cycle. Because I never thought of it, like what you just said, for the man, it is more pressure because we can fake an orgasm if we want to. Like, men can't, can they? Because it's there, you can physically see if it's happened or not. I never thought about that than having more pressure than women. That's really interesting. It's the ultimate sign of masculinity, so they feel like their masculinity is being questioned

if they can't get an erection, I would imagine. It's a really common, yeah, it's a really, people who are reporting erectile dysfunction, like anything, there's a massive psychological impact of it. And the more of that psychological impact, the worse the problem typically becomes because you get caught in these cycles of anxiety. And like we were saying about kind of sex being coded in your brain then

as something that is about pain, if it's something that makes you anxious or you're kind of scared of, not scared of, but fearful of, or fear of failing, makes you feel bad. You don't approach it in the way that you used to approach. sex, which was because I want to be close to my partner, because I think they look hot, because I'm in the mood for an orgasm, because all of those whys change, and it can happen very quickly when it's related to fear, anxiety, stress.

We've got one question from the female perspective of erectile dysfunction. She's asked, how can she get over feelings of self-doubt and frustration when her husband has a rectal dysfunction? Because you'd take it personally, wouldn't you? Yeah. If your partner. Well, I would anyway, even though it's probably nothing to. do with me. Yeah, it's really common again because also the kind of Hollywood narrative is,

oh, he's just not that into you, or he's not attracted to you. And I can't tell you how often I hear that and how often it's just not the case. But again, it's also about this kind of gap that's happening between us. How do I explain to my partner? We've been having sex for five years and suddenly I feel really anxious about it and I can't get an erection, but nothing has changed. And often stresses from outside sex can leak into our sex lives. You know, I didn't get a promotion at work and I'm feeling really low about it. I'm really distracted and my partner starts initiating sex and I'm kind of somewhere else psychologically and I'm not getting as hard as I want and then I'm noticing that and then I'm panicking about it. You know, it's these things, you know,

my phone's on my bedside table and I'm working to a deadline. I can hear it going. It's pulling my attention elsewhere. There are lots of things going on that can impact it. But how we deal with it as partners, it's really important for us to try and kind of not take it super personally, try to make it not such a big deal, but you have to learn how to talk about it. And that is the hardest thing for couples to do, because we're not socialised to think that these are conversations that we're having. But an example that I often give is if you broke your leg, you would have the psychological impact about it, you would have to say to your partner, can you help me do this?

like shall we try something different? I can't drive. How are we going to get there? You're frustrated. You are in pain. You might have to take a medication. You haven't taken before. You know, you can't, you have to cancel the holiday.

But there's so much impact and that people would understand. But when it comes to sex, we have the experience. And then it's this kind of silence around it. And we have to work out as a couple how we do that. Is it that we say, okay, shall we try something different? You know, what would help? you know, shall we take kind of penitative sex off the table for a bit? I know one couple said they were trying to conceive,

and so that might feel like a really big ask for them right now. But is there another way we can do this? Is there another way we can feel sexually close to each other? Is there a way I can help you feel less anxious? What can we do about this? And again, seeking advice on that sometimes is a really useful thing to do because it typically, in the majority of cases, particularly in younger men,

is a psychological difficulty rather than a physical one. They'd probably save loads of relationships as well, just having that initial chat. Because I would imagine, like, if I was with someone who did have a rectal dysfunction or, you know, I didn't want sex all the time and he did, if we didn't communicate about that, you get one bit of attention from someone who doesn't have a rectal dysfunction, and so you perceive that as, well, he finds me attractive, I'll go with him. you know, it can lead to so much more down the line. Yeah.

Which would just be awful when you can just talk about it from the off. It shouldn't be such a taboo subject. Well, you work with your assumption and your assumption is probably the worst case scenario. Yeah. And if we have to clarify, and this is huge in couples, and I'm aware we're kind of talking about couples more than people who are single or dating at the moment,

but if we assume it's the worst case scenario, and that's what we're working with, Then we've already made up our mind about what we think is happening. And sometimes couples need to talk about it in order to be like, oh, okay, that's not what's going on here. And that can be a real light bulb moment for people, but it takes the risk of a really uncomfortable conversation we don't know how to have. You know, I make it sound like these are really easy conversations we can have every day. They're not. And most of us don't know how to have them.

Some of you may not be aware, but I'm also the editor-in-chief of Men's Health UK. So if you are enjoying this podcast, which my team at Women's Health have put together, please do go and check out Men's Health's podcast. Hosted by fitness director Andrew Tracy, he delves deep into the science of physical and mental well-being. With inspiring guests and world-leading experts, it's well worth a listen. So please go and check it out. Is using sexting and porn a bad idea to masturbate too regularly?

Not if it's what's working for you. Is there a danger, though, that you get so used to. to be stimulated by that that you are not in your real sex life? Yeah, well, I suppose, I mean, real sex life is a really interesting term because I guess for this person, it is a part of their sex life. And we fear this getting hooked on things. You know, it's often a question around sex toys. You know, if I use sex toys, will I never be able to enjoy sex again? When I get addicted to my sex toy, will I get kind of hooked on it? And again, what you're doing in your sex life, it's kind of adult, leave.

consensual really if it works for you it works for you now what can happen of course is if we get really we can have like tunnel vision so we do one thing and one thing only and then obviously our partnered experience feels completely different to that and we might struggle to translate one to the other so with anything it's quite a good idea to kind of mix it up in general to try different things to not kind of lean on one thing specifically all of the time but one of the things that we see when it comes to porn is it's quite a moral discussion, people have a lot of views on it, and obviously all porn is not created equally. You know, we have now seen the real rise

of feminist pornography, kind of, the kind of female gaze created porn, a lot of feminist pornographers. But of course, if you are kind of feeling like you can't be without something, then working out what you can be with or what you can try differently is never going to be a bad thing. I read Jenna Jameson's book She was the huge porn star My friend actually lent it me It was called How to Make Love Like a Porn Star And it's a really interesting book

And it's I mean I'm not big on porn anyway Because I've got no sexual desire When when Gorkas away I'm like right Bath and Bed for me This is bliss It's the last thing I want to do Got your final butt arm is on

Yeah it's the last thing I'm doing But she She made me view it very differently because she goes into detail on how it is just a job for them. And they're literally backstage. They're told, right, you're up, scene, go. And I think knowing that, I was like, oh, well, I'm not really, you know, turned on by that anyway. She was just so factual about it, how they just, they go in, do it, they go home.

But I remember having a conversation with my nephews, they're like late 20s now, and explaining to them what they see in pornography, not all women will they look like that. not all vaginas will look like that externally, you know, with the little Hollywoods and all this. And not all women will want to do that. Because my fear, my kids are only two and six, so they're way off it. But my fear is that if they see something and think that's the expectation on them, you know, with their first partner, who he's watched such a body do this in like squirting, for example. If I can't do it, I'm not turning him on.

That's my personal fear with it. And we have to understand that porn is not representative of the same. sex that most people are having. It wasn't created as an educational resource. It was created as something to create arousal. And that's where the gap between those two things has to happen. And it's about how do we educate and how do we understand that one is one thing and one is another.

And it's not designed, you know, it wasn't designed to replicate or show, kind of be representative of the sex that people are having in their lives. But because of the internet and everything being surprised. accessible instantly all of the time, it has become a resource like that. And that's why also, you know, as parents, you have to get there first. You have to start having those conversations. You have to kind of feel like you can start saying, okay, well, you know, know, know that it's going to come, know that the internet is going to be a part of everybody's lives and do that education bit. And I think there are big conversations happening, particularly in my space at the moment,

about how parents can feel better educated to have conversations with their kids. Because most of us were not educated by our parents. Previous generations didn't know. Well, I mean, the internet wasn't around for a start. Smartphones didn't exist. How to have it. And so then if you make yourself as the parent the safe person to come to, the person you're allowed to ask questions to say, and also to be able to say to your kids, oh, I don't know the answer to that. But could I go away and work it out and come back to you? Then that means that you have a chance to kind of get those conversations going first before they happen. Because they get shown stuff. It's, uh, it's, uh, it's school we were talking this morning weren't me about our boys will be showing things on the

WhatsApp groups and like you say if they see it first you want to create a space you want your kids to come to you like I always say godfitt there will be a problem one day something will happen and I don't ever want my kids to say oh my gosh don't tell mum and dad they'll go mad I want them to say ring my mum and dad they'll know what to do that's how I want them to be with every situation including sex stuff but it's it's knowing when to start it and how to how to it's getting younger and younger the the chats in school and stuff now and parents really fear you know I'm a parent myself I completely understand it like that's how I feel a lot of the time the we fear getting it right and we fear if we get it wrong that the cost is so high

but then also that means lots of us don't have it at all and there's you know this real fear that if we start talking about it that it sexualises children earlier actually the evidence is the opposite and it's about age appropriate conversations It's about, you know, you're not trying to tell young kids everything about everything. It's just, oh, this is the correct name for this body part. Or how do you feel about that? If somebody touches you and you don't like it, you say no. You know, it's those kind of things that you drip feed gradually.

And it's hundreds of tiny conversations. It's not just one big birds and the bees conversation. Well, I think we've coming to the end of our time. But if there was one message you could say to the population about sex, or the most common message that you deliver in your, in your clinic what would it be? I think it's the knowledge that sex changes

and that doesn't have to be a problem and that sex can be this part of our lives that we adapt in whatever way we need to whether that's introducing something that we need help with like a lubricant whether it's you know what I really used to like that

but actually it's not working for me so much anymore it's about how learning how to talk to our partners about it's about thinking what used to work for you is no longer working for you and that that's not that's not not okay and I think the other side of that for me is sex education across the lifetime is that just because you didn't get the sex education you wanted or you didn't feel well set up for this part of your life doesn't mean that you can't go and get it at any point well thank you so much I really

have and I've learned a lot and Claire was terrified yes yes um at least we know now what squirting is well we We caught up on Friday and I said, I'm not asking that, Jebba. I'm not. No way. Don't you know? I will. No worry. No, yeah, because I just think it was the moment I put it out on socials. Everyone was like all these women especially messaging because it is like you say we go sex and we shouldn't. It's normal and it's natural and it can potentially make your relationship, you know, incredible. So you've given me really food for thought there.

So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Before we finish, we've got some quick fire questions. There's just some fun questions that we've been asking all our guests. So Gemma and I have invited ourselves around your house for dinner. Okay. What are you cooking us? I would ask my husband to cook the Carbonara, which is his favourite.

Nice. He's the cook in our house. Is he? Are you not one for the kitchen? Just a bit tired. Yeah, I'm the same. I mean, we've got to keep our energy for sex. I can't cook and then have sex because you have to do one or other in our house.

You're going on a desert island for 12 months. You can take one. thing. What is it? Books? Can I take a pile of books? Yeah. I think so. Go on. Well, choose a book, or any type of literature? Is there a type of book that you particularly like reading? Oh, a thriller. A thriller. I love a thriller. Have you got any good, good tips for me? Because I love a good page turner. Oh, I am pilgrim. I mean, it's like a doorstop. I think I could read it a hundred times. Follow-up, not so good. Did you watch? Did you want to follow up? No, it wasn't as good. What's the last thing that made you belly laugh? My kids. Always.

the kids, isn't it? My youngest, there was a police car on our road this week and he went up to the policeman coming out of a building and he went, ooh-hoo, son of the police. I just didn't know what to do. And I was like, I don't even know where that's come from. And everyone walking down the street was like howling with laughter. So that. Coffee and wine for the rest of your life. You have to give up one and choose one. That's an impossible ask. I can't do that. But I start the day with one and finish with the other. I don't think I could live without coffee for everyone else's sake. Yeah.

But then I feel the same way about while. We both said coffee in an instant. Yeah, I'm going to have one after this. Yeah. And what's the one wellness thing that people listening to this today could do today to make themselves feel a bit better? Every time you talk to yourself negatively, ask yourself where that's coming from. That's a lovely answer. Someone else said something very similar about just being kind, because we're not kind to ourselves.

No, we're our own worst critics. Yeah. Oh, Kate, thank you so much for joining us on Just as well. I'm sure it's going to be a brilliant listen for so many people. So thank you. Thank you. Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded. So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like tea time you. Or this tea time you Or even this tea time you Said you hear about Dave Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you So update on Dave It's up to you

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