Life Uncut - How Old is 'Too' Old & Why You Don't Want to F*ck Your Partner

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Hey Lifers! We reached 500 episodes but we didn't realise so today we are celebrating 512 episodes. This is the biggest thing we've ever stuck to in all of our lives! Britt hates the happiest place on Earth and has a travel review that will really kick the Mickey out of you! How old it 'too' old to have a child? Does it completely depend on the specific circumstances? We dive into whether it's selfish to bring a child into the world past a certain age.  Plus, Laura's been saying it for years. If you're in a hetero relationship, your partner cleaning the house and contributing to raising your children will make you want to have sex with them! There's a study that examines 4 different ways that heteronormativity contributes to low sexual desire in women partnered with men. You can read the whole study here. The TL;DR is your libido is not solely your issue to deal with.  If you have an question please send it on it to life uncut podcast on Instagram hereJoin us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Walamutta land. hi guys and welcome back to another episode of life uncut i'm laura i'm britney brit i wanted to tell you something because we steamrolled past it and none of us not a single person who works at Life Uncut even realized this milestone. Laura Byrne. Yes. You make that sound like we have a staff of like 400. No one at Life Uncut. It's you, me, Delilah and Bridget's Keisha. And

well, now we have one new addition, but we haven't introduced you to them yet. He's here in the room right now. We have our first man working for Life Uncut. So now he knows the ins and outs of the female mind. And then we can get the male perspective. We can bounce straight off him. It's brilliant. So welcome to Life Uncut, Jono. I'm sure you guys will slowly meet him over the episode I like it that the one singular man becomes the voice for all men you are representative of your entire gender now just so you know Jono we're like we did a sample of the men at work one person the results were this is all the opinions that we care about okay no I think I know what you're gonna say continue let's play charades instead I reckon that you and I are

telepathic because we've spent so much time together I think you are gonna say we forgot to mention that we hit our 500th episode. How do you read? Get out of my head. Get out of my brain. I literally knew you were going to say that because I clocked it the other day too. And I was like, damn it. I can't believe we forgot about that. And then when you said it, I was like, I know what she's going to say. This is going to be 512 episodes of Life Uncut, which I want it on record. I'm not consistent at anything in life. Like I've not done 500 of anything. Usually I do it for two weeks, never form a habit. And then I forget about it. We did it together but like this to me is a true achievement that's four and a half years of us

talking non-stop i have done 500 binge sessions of netflix like i've solidly done that 100 that's probably the only thing i've properly committed to but no this is by far including relationships the biggest commitment of my life i've never had a commitment so long you've been the longest relationship i think i've ever had like i don't even think i've had 500 sex sessions with the same person. Not even with Matt. Well, no, you do one a week. So if you times that 52 times six, nah, you're not even close. One a week? I mean, I did for the first year and a half, then we got pregnant. Now I don't do that many. Okay, wait, Keisha just did the maths. If I had had sex every week for the eight years that Matt and I have been together, seven and a half,

it would be 416 times. And I can guarantee you, we have not had sex every week for the past seven and a half years. So I have done more podcasting than sexing, which is very sad for him. How do you think he'll feel about that, that you and I have talked about sex more than you and he have had sex? It'd be devoid. To be fair, at the very beginning, when we first started this podcast, he used to get a bit upset. He used to be like, you speak to Brit more than you speak to me.

Now he just accepts it. He never says that anymore. But at the start, you were the third wedge in our relationship that was keeping us apart. And I think we've definitely done more hours of talking about it, which means that I'm less of an expert. so if I'm ever talking about sex guys just know I don't know what I'm talking about I've just read the books we're not actually supposed to tell anyone that like if we are having a podcast on sex and relationships I feel like we're supposed to be semi well versed on the above mentioned yeah

that's what my 20s was for my 30s is for mental breakdowns and getting screamed at by my children I don't know I'm hoping 40s is like my renaissance I hope I make a fucking comeback by then I don't know actually I think every decade says this but so many people say that they felt like life got the best that it has ever been in the forties decade. But I feel like everyone just says that to make themselves feel better. Like when you're in your teens and you hit your twenties, you're like, fuck yeah, twenties is sick. And then when you're 30, you're like, that is not so bad. I'm great. I've got money. I'm like, I can do stuff now. And then when you hit 40, everyone's like, oh no, I'm so much wiser now. Like this is my decade. I look back on my twenties and I think

at the time I wanted them to be great. Like I did all the things I went and eat, pray loved. And I had lots of boyfriends, not simultaneous, actually sometimes simultaneously, but you know, I did all the things that you do in your 20s. That's meant to be really fun. I partied hard. I tried, I experimented. And then I look back on my 20s. And I go, wow, I was so insecure. I was so not sure of who I was as a person, which I know is just the standard coming of age. And I was just not confident, I don't think. And then I think about my 30s now. And I'm like, these are definitely the best years of my life, like for many, many reasons. my thought about my 40s is that maybe by then you just give less fucks you know who you are as a

person you're better at saying no to stuff you're better at prioritizing maybe you don't have little kids who are constantly screaming at you not that I'm wishing these years away but after the weekend I just had maybe your 40s is just a time where you're more accepting and the other thing is is that we spend our entire life in our 20s and 30s being told that getting old sucks like we get told that oh my god you like oh 40 how do you feel about turning 40 and let me say 40 is still a little way away for the both of us but I think it's been made to feel like it's very scary and so for a lot of people who I know who are already there they're like oh wow nothing bad happened it was just another birthday and life is just pretty good so yeah I don't think it has to be

this big thing that we all make it out to be from what you said to me Laura and I had a conversation earlier on the phone like I feel like there's a part of me that thinks that you can't wait to be that age purely because your kids are going to be at school. They're not going to be at home having tantrums because it sounds like you had the weekend from hell. I feel bad about this because anytime I complain about my kids, I also, and this is the thing that most mums experience, I think, I simultaneously know how grateful I am to have them and have the life that we have and to be a mum. So never do I want to complain and then not have the weighted conversation around, you know, but I love being a mum. And I think that that's why every mum preloads any sort of complaint or

any sort of frustration with parenting with like the oh you know you wouldn't change a thing yeah you would Saturday the kids broke me into a million pieces yeah they test you in ways you never thought you'd be tested this is what I don't understand I think you are completely entitled to complain and I know that like you I have never heard you say anything negative without front loading and back loading with but I love them so much and they're so good the next day and you can never just complain but the way I think about it is if somebody else in your life kept you up all night threw things at you screamed at you abused you threw themselves on the floor in front of you in the shops you would complain I think you're allowed to say that like this is

shit right now if someone did that we would be giving advice on this podcast saying you should leave that relationship unfortunately you can't leave your children sometimes but no I think it's important one complaining about your children especially on a podcast is boring so that's not what I'm doing here. But I do think it is important that the reason why moms so often front load and back load with the, you know, the throwaway statement is because it's not a throwaway statement. We know how grateful we are. We know how lucky we are to be able to be parents, to have the lives that we have, to have the children we have. And for anyone who is trying and is having their own fertility issues or their own fertility journey, it can seem so ungrateful. But even when

you have something that you have always wanted there will be days where it is fucking hard and it is okay to talk about it I think you know everything needs to live in a balanced scale and just because one thing exists doesn't it doesn't mean it cancels out the other they can all there's many shades of gray in this journey that we're all on exactly I love my dog Delilah more than anything but I still just auditioned her for dogs behaving badly because she's a brat but I still love her. So I feel like we're on the same page a lot. But speaking of kids, because I don't have any, I went to Paris last minute because there was a flight for like $40. You are the walking meme. Have you seen it where it's like people who don't have kids are like, hey, you want to go to

Africa on the weekend? That is me. But the best thing about like, this is the thing about Australia. We're so far away from literally anything in the entire world that you can't do these little weekenders nothing's accessible and even if you could you can't afford it because it's so expensive in australia on this little island on the other side of the universe but in europe you can get flights if you look last minute you can get flights for like 10 20 30 literally and they're like another country is an hour and a half away so my sister sherry and i were like let's go to paris because there was a cheap flight and then when we got there we decided to go to disneyland because I was like, do you know what?

I've never been, it's been on my bucket list and I'm all about trying to tick that bucket list. It's the happiest place on earth. Okay, bullshit. It's not. And that's what I want to say. I want to give you a very quick, honest review of Disneyland. This is going to be controversial

and people are going to come for you. People are Disney stans. Yes, but there's one thing I've realized on Instagram. Okay, so I have been posting, a lot of people like give me your honest review because I want to take my family there. and these are people that are families in Australia that really genuinely want to know if it's worth saving their money and taking their family like on a European flight then

accommodation then Disneyland so I feel like I owe it to the listeners to give an honest opinion so that is what I'm going to do I'm prefacing this with I love Disney but what I will say is first of all it's winter there so it's the off season or it's the you know the back half of winter it was still beautiful weather but I did not find it as magical or as exciting or as just like otherworldly as a lot of people have said and I had very high expectations because everyone raves about Disney right it's like the be all and end all people get year-long passes and go every weekend with their kids no without the kids there are grown people that put capes on and just go with an annual pass like they're everywhere Keisha Keisha is one of these people

Keisha would she buys the headbands and she's I'm pretty sure her profile picture on Facebook is a picture of her with bunny ears on in mouse mouse ears in front of a fucking Disney castle okay well I thought that was going to be me I thought I was going to get a selfie with Mickey Mouse like I was vibing it but I did not see one character not one are you sure it was a public holiday what was happening over there wondering if everyone got gastro I don't know but there was no one so first of all it didn't have that air of magic and there wasn't that vibe going around so sherry and i like okay weird then we're like let's just read a blog of like online of the best rides to go to like for the adults because like half and half it's like half are kids and half

you think are adults there were three rides that were for adults and they were the worst rides i have ever been on you just sat in like a log thing like one of the roller coasters and you just floated on some freaking water and like, woo, like a ghost came out and it was like, I reckon I was going one mile an hour. Brit sitting on a log. Sounds like a great Saturday night. But my genuine review is I've never been more disappointed by something. Like I have never had a high expectation. I don't think for anywhere or anything I've ever traveled to or any, anything I've ever done. This is so extreme. This is such an extreme disappointment that you have had I think if you're going to go to Disneyland as an adult you either like because most people

go like I've been to Disneyland LA it was great I loved it I thought it was amazing but I would love to even to Paris one fucking I'm not gonna complain if I end up in Paris and I'm taking my kids to Disneyland even if it's shit I'm in Paris and I'm at Disneyland so I think I would live through the excitement of my kids I don't think I would be sending myself off on a log ride so I'm kind of okay with this Keisha's been over here she's like trying to show everyone a photo of her like cuddling Eeyore in protest of the fact that she loves Paris Disneyland. I went three times in the space of a year and a half. You've got to lean into the magic.

You've got to do the ears on your head. You've got to make it like you're a child going to the happiest place on earth. It was a dumpster fire. There was no magic to lean into. If I leaned into the magic, I would have fallen over because there was nowhere to lean. Did you go to the parade? Like the parades are amazing. There are no parades.

there are parades it was like disney was on strike and you also i don't think you stayed for the fireworks at the end which is the best bit the fireworks at the end is the grand finale of the day at disney maybe they're still on writer's strike maybe the cartoon's on writer's strike i reckon you didn't even go to disneyland i reckon you went somewhere else did you get the mickey mouse nuggets all the chicken nuggets are mickey mouse shaped half the restaurants were closed. With my experience, I would never ever tell anybody to go to Disneyland Paris. It was that bad. It was so bad. It was the worst thing I've ever paid money for. I can't tell you how different I feel. I mean, I obviously feel different because I went three times in a year

and a half and two of those times were in winter and I had the best time. Do you know what my issue is? Okay. I've been to Disneyland, loved it, blah, blah, blah. And I lean into the magic. I'm all here for it. But I don't, I'm so stubborn as a person. I don't like being told that something is going to be, I'm like, you're setting me up for disappointment. Don't tell me that it's going to be the happiest place on earth. I will make that decision. Okay. That's up to me. That's not up to you. Even on the train, you know how you get the stops on the train and they've all got different names. Even the ones for Disneyland have little pictures on them. You've got to lean into the joy. You've got to lean into the dopamine that's being fed to you. Okay. Well, speaking of

kids. I wanted to speak to you because I love the communal life uncut feeling on this. Robert De Niro. He is an elderly man, some might say, very successful, still killing it in his careers as we established at the Golden Globes, but he's 80 and 80 is getting on. Okay. But he's also just had a baby. So at 79 years old, he had his seventh baby to his girlfriend, Tiffany Chen. And now there's been so many articles that have come out about it last week. And we were talking about how outrageous it is to have a baby at 79 years old, mostly because I'm so fucking tired at 37. So the thought of, I was like, retire already, stop being an overachiever. But we were talking about this idea is whether it's selfish to have a baby that age and kind of like the moral obligation that

you have when you have a baby so old. And I know that obviously Robert De Niro sits in a very different. He just sits in a very different social circle to what anybody can relate to. Like the man is absolutely minted. He would have all the accessibility in the world, but is there still an issue with having a baby at 79 years? Well, it's interesting because the first thing I thought was like, so his wife or girlfriend, partner, Tiffany Chen, she's, it's actually unknown from all the research we've done. People say she's maybe 45, 46, 47, but apparently no one knows for sure, which I think is amazing. Like what an anomaly. I love her elusiveness. I could be 45. Fucking guess. So that's a guess, right? From what people have said. But I think it's interesting to

note here that the average age of death in the USA, where he's from, for men is 77.28 years. So he has already exceeded by three years, the average age of death. Now I know that most people's first thought is so selfish you are going to obviously pass away soon which I think is a big call like he could live another 20 years he could live to 100 easily that's not for us to say he looks like he's a healthy man he's got the best medical the best medicare the best doctors he's obviously having a lot of sex if he's pumping out kids left right and center he's doing okay I'm amazed that he's because like you know people talk about female fertility and how that dwindles with age but male fertility dwindles with age too it's something that is so not talked about enough

so like there is I mean kudos to him that he's still got swimmers at 79 80 years old and the libido to go with it well I think the libido comes with a bit of extra helping hand in a little pill bottle but the immediate thought is okay very selfish because even if you live 20 years you start your child's still going to be quite young and you're not able to be an active fatherly figure at 90 or 100 years old like you still might be with it but you're not out there kicking a soccer ball really like he's not exactly going to be shooting hoops no well I mean also on the flip side to that it's different because he obviously has access to all the help and all the money and everything else so like he's never going to be in a situation where his kids need to be his carer

but you know there's a potential that he's going to have a 10 year old who's going to see his father being so elderly that he's needing to be cared for that is definitely a very possible situation and outcome of this kind of dynamic of having children at 80 years old yeah and he also said like he made a point of saying look my partner Tiffany does most of the heavy lifting obviously we're very blessed and have help as well but I did have to check my thinking for a little bit and I was like hang on a minute of course there's this small aspect that's a little bit selfish but is it that bad because his partner who is in her 40s like she wants to have a baby she wants to raise a child and she wanted to have a baby with him who she loves and is her life partner for as

long as that's going to be there are plenty of people out in the world that have children on their own they go into parenthood and motherhood and fatherhood but on their own you know for for whatever reason that is. And those kids grow up just fine. So I don't think at the end of the day, if a couple have made that decision to do that together and they know they're financially in a safe place, fucking go for it. I actually changed my tune once I thought about it and I'm sort of like, I'm pretty happy for him. He's stoked. He's happy. He's got a new lease on life, he said. The way in which the media likes to portray these stories, because they're so sensationalized, right? It sounds so crazy. A 45 year old woman having a baby with an 80 year old

man like also the age difference the discrepancy scandal scandal also the fact that she's younger than his oldest child scandal scandal you know all of that scandal clickbait clickbait yeah we lap it up we're sick for it I get it I think it's very interesting it's so otherly like most people don't have the opportunity or could even think about the idea of having a baby 80 because they don't have the resources the capabilities the team around them all the support structures or the financial freedom to even contemplate it. Most people want to retire and just go on a holiday, on a cruise, like, you know, those three-year cruises that everyone just lost money on. That's what most people want to do when they hit 80, not be raising a newborn baby.

I don't think it's as selfish as what my brain instantly goes to. The only thing though that I question is that there's a difference between making the choice to have a child on your own and knowing that they're going to be sans one parent. So for example, you know, if you're a and you're wanting to have a child, then they're not going to have a mother figure in their life. Not even that, you know, I mean, same-sex couples have children all the time. You don't have to have a mother or father figure, you know, but you're not going to have a secondary parent is what I mean. But I guess the thing that's different in this instance is that this child does have a father. They are going to create a bond with that person. They are going to create love and a parent

child intimacy. And then that child is going to go through grief very early in life, which I think is a type of pain that you would never want to impart on anyone right like I know that that can happen you could walk out of the front door and get hit by a bus tomorrow and your kid might have to go through some sort of enormous grief that most children shouldn't have to experience but I guess the part that's different about this is that you're going into this experience knowing that that is going to be something that that child is going to experience young so I guess it comes down to like how do you mitigate that how do you have conversations around death around the inevitable around like you know the transparency of it because all of that is going to come into

play at some point we're all going to die he's just going to die sooner which is harsh but true and there was like a quote from De Niro he's like the journey of raising my daughter is wondrous it's great everything that I'm consumed with or worried about just goes away when I look at her I want to be around for as long as I can just to enjoy it and enjoy her and I think that's a beautiful thing and I know it's not going to end that well for him he's going to pass away but every single one of us is going to pass away like that is life at the moment he's still fighting off Chelsea Handler like the guy's doing okay for now something that I don't think gets talked about enough and I would be so interested to hear this from big families like if you're someone who was

raised as like one of seven children one of eight children and I know we spoke about it with Moana Hope a couple of years ago when we interviewed her she's one of 13 children and the way that she described it was that there is simply not enough love to go around when you were one of that many children, it's not possible for your parents to be able to give you the type of attention and not just love, but like the type of connectedness that kids need in order to flourish and feel valued. And also so that they don't become parentified. Now, I don't think that this is going to be the case in terms of Robert De Niro, because obviously his kids are older and a lot of them have already grown up and had their own families and whatnot. So he's almost like starting

again. But I do think that sometimes for these massive, massive families, where my brain goes to is how do you manage to parent everyone? And how do you manage to give them the type of individual needs and focus that kids need? So I can actually speak a little bit to this. My dad was the youngest of six children and the six children are not like De Niro's kids. They're not all spread out right like my grandma just pumped out six kids he was the youngest and his dad died when he was only about 11 years old like he was quite young you know he remembers that grief he remembers him dying he died of brain cancer and this situation is different because of financials but there was not enough time or energy to give it to everybody because all of a sudden my grandma was looking

after six kids on her own in every capacity so my dad got shipped off to a boys school for the rest of e-schooling because there's nothing else they could do like there was nothing to do well what I think often happens is it's the situation of like the squeaky wheel gets the oil right so whichever kid is having the biggest problem the biggest meltdown the biggest needs their needs are the needs that come up to the top of the list as the priority needs right like they're the ones that become the focus and so if you are just like the okay kid that goes under the radar that doesn't you know make a big deal or isn't like a big problem or whatever you're often the kid that gets missed a bit and it's not an intentional thing but it's just because like the hierarchy

of the shit that needs to be done in that day goes down the list it fascinates me I don't say this is a criticism of people who have big families I think everyone is entitled to make their own choices and how they want to live their lives and how they want to parent but it fascinates me and I'm in awe of people who look like they're doing it and seem to be juggling everything because I always wonder how like when I'm 80 I hope I am sitting on a porch somewhere drinking in a Negroni and yelling at the kids on the street. Like, I just want to be that crazy woman and I don't care. I want 17 cats and I hope my kids come and visit me at the nursing home. Like that's all. I just want, I want quiet or peace. I want to watch the sunset. That's going to be

where I'm at. Do you want to go to a nursing home or do you want your kids to look after you? I really don't want to go to a nursing home, but I also understand the burden of asking my kids to take care of me. I hope, I hope that I give them enough now that they will volunteer. I just hope that I don't end up at a nursing home and no one comes visits. That's sad. I'll visit you. We'll still be doing the podcast.

Life on death's door. Life will certainly be cut soon. Life is about to be cut. Enough. You guys know that since literally since we started this podcast, something that I have been saying and I have been banging on about it

year after year, 500 episodes deep is that women, and this is a stereotype I know, but I'm going to stand by it. And I don't care what anyone thinks. Women who are in heterosexual relationships will want to fuck their partners if their partners clean the house. And now what I mean by that is I mean, they will want to fuck their partners more. If you come home and your partner, your husband, your boyfriend has loaded the dishwasher, he's cleaned up, not just his shit, but all this shit in the house. Because what often happens and this is I mean this is a bit pointed sorry Matthew Johnson Matt will put away his own clothes and he'll say but I put away the clothes and I'm like no you cleaned up after

yourself you didn't do communal cleaning that doesn't get you laid if you want to get laid put the kids clothes away put you know what go crazy put some of my clothes away sometimes wipe down the benches do things that live outside of you existing and just be a grown-up and contribute to this house. I think that if you find a partner who shares equally in the domestic load of the household, you will want to fuck them more. Yeah. What you're saying is if you see Matt with a bucket and a mop, he doesn't need to fill that with water because you'll fill it yourself. That's a wet ass pussy. Yes. A hundred percent. That is a wet ass mop. If he has a bucket and a mop, other things are getting wet around this place. And a wet ass Laura. Sorry. Could

you please clean this up Laura's made a mess on the floor yeah I couldn't agree with this more but also it's I don't think it is just heterosexual relationships I think it's any relationship if one person does far more in any capacity so maybe it's the child rearing or it's the cleaning or it's the cooking if I think in a relationship people don't feel like it's cut down the middle and people are meeting them halfway that they can feel low libido and like I don't want why would you want to fuck someone that's a slob and not helping and you feel like you're doing everything like that's never going to happen and you become resentful but the thing and the reason why i say heterosexual relationships i do think that this is important because in same-sex relationships

the gender dynamics don't exist in the same way right like we have been brought up with real gender stereotypes like you know men do the high impact jobs kind of thing they go outside and they do the lawns or they might tidy up the garden or they might take the car down to get the car fucking serviced, whatever it is. Whereas like women have been brought up and raised to traditionally do the other domestic labors, the washing, the cleaning, the jobs that need to be done every single day consistently and to a high standard. Whereas the male orientated jobs, also stereotypes, I know guys, they are way more low impact. They don't have to be done every single day. They can be done on whatever schedule they decide that they need to be done. And I guess

like that's that sort of variation and that's why when i do talk about this it's why i'm very specific around saying heterosexual relationships because i think if you're two females together you would generally split the load in a way that is like you know unique to your relationship and if you're two men together the same sort of thing so where are you going with this did matt put the washing away and you had the best orgasm of your life or what what have you got to report to be fair matt did take care of the kids like he did everything he did top down of the entire like list of duties that exist in our household. He did it whilst I was dying of pneumonia. And as soon as I got my breath back, I was like, I will shave downstairs for you, Matt.

You're like, wax me front and back. Flip me over. I still can't breathe properly. So I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be too active, but I will lay here for you. Don't put me face down. I can't breathe. Actually, no. Apparently laying prone when you've got pneumonia is good for you. So I just laid on my front and got to town. Okay. No, that's not what happened. Actually it did. But look, that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is a TikTok that I came across, which led me down a rabbit hole of really trying to get to the bottom of this theory. Have a listen to this. Okay. So I just wrote a study about why women in relationships often want to stop having sex with their husbands. And it blew my mind. So apparently women go to the

doctor and they're like, I don't know what's wrong with me. My libido is bad. What should I do? And the doctor's like, something's wrong with your body and does all these tests and they don't know what's wrong it's perimenopause or whatever you're too stressed well what they really found is that women whose husbands don't do as much domestic labor have a hormonal response that makes them not want to have sex with their husband and the reason for this is that when women are caretaking children their libido goes down and their caretaking goes up it's actually a hormonal response so when they feel their husbands are dependent on them for domestic labor they have this response where their libido goes down and their caretaking goes up and they feel

kind of skeezed out because they're like ew I'm kind of having sex with someone I'm caretaking so in to quote the study it says the mother caregiver role that women find themselves cast in within heteronormative frameworks can cue this nurturant hormonal system which lowers desire and leads women to view dependent men's sexual overtures talking about dependent for housework as inappropriate non-erotic or even disgustful disgustful so if you want to have sex with your wife do more dishes so i listened to this tiktok and as i said i went down a rabbit hole and your girl read the entire study now the tiktok is not completely correct this study and we'll put it in the show notes if you actually want to go and read it's like 15 pages but you're

welcome to laura just feels so validated she's like this needs to be on the podcast so all my feelings for the last four years are validated. Some people might enjoy the facts. You might be a numbers galley and that's okay. You can get into the data. All right. But the thing about this that I think is so interesting is that there's lots of different like hypotheses around why women's libido in heterosexual relationships often decreases. One of the things that I thought was so interesting is that the way in which they describe it is that they say often the male's libido is used as the base metric for it. So what that means is, is that if a woman has a higher libido, she's deemed still as the problem. Even if that high libido might match a man in another

relationship, the man's sexual desires is used as the benchmark of how the libido should be in the relationship. So if she has a high sex drive, like that's still deemed as like an outlier as a problem. If she has a low libido, it's also deemed as a problem, but it's not based around her own sex drive it's based around like what is required within that relationship and often who is setting what's required in that relationship is the male yeah you mean that that's how they can be perceived by others so if they have a high libido they can be perceived as like oh they want too much sex they're promiscuous they're loose as opposed to just saying like when a man wants sex oh like they have a high sex drive it's always that there's some physiological problem involved the

frustrating thing is they make it sound like when they say oh you you have this physiological problem like you have this problem inside of your body so you're the issue so should we fix that with some kind of hormonal pill should we give you some sort of medication and they don't take into account in any capacity that it could be an external source like the stress the domestic stress that you have at home and the childbearing load that is not taken into consideration at all but this study has found that that actually weighs in heavily to how you react with your sex drive well I think I'm getting better with it. Like, I mean, I think that this is very one dimensional in terms of like maybe how it has been perceived in the past. I know that we've spoken to many sexologists

on this podcast and I think holistically we understand that there are so many reasons why one's libido can be affected. Yes, it could be hormonal. Yes, it could be lifestyle. Yes, it could be circumstantial. Yes, it could be because you're married to a flog who doesn't do anything. Like, and that's a reason why you don't want to have sex with them. Like there's many reasons. Okay. But I guess the thing that was so interesting about this is the way in which it describes that it can be often associated as being something that lies entirely wrong with the female, that there's something wrong with you and that you need to change something. But the problem with that is that the language around that then takes any responsibility away from your male

partner to have to change anything about their behavior to help bring libido into the bedroom. So instead of it being a holistic couple thing, it becomes about, well, how do I increase my libido? how do I fix this where really if you're experiencing low libido in your relationship it should be about how do we fix this how do we make this something that we can work on together and I think that if that's something that you have experienced in your relationship if you're listening to this because 40% of women do actually everybody goes through ebbs and flows in their libido but 40% of women would say that they experience low libido to a place where it's an issue in their relationships. And I do think that there'll be so many people who listen to

this podcast, who have gone through this with their partners. Maybe they're not wanting to have sex with them at the moment. And they're like, well, how do I get my libido back? But I don't think that that's just a conversation for you to have yourself. I think it's a conversation that you have to bring your partner into and you have to talk about, okay, well, what are the things that's contributing to this? We spoke to Esther Perel a few years ago. And the thing I loved that she said is that foreplay starts the second that the last time you have sex ends. So foreplay is not about what you do in the bedroom before having sex to get lubricated. It's all those little things that you do throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout whatever period

it is between the last time you had sex to now to build intimacy with your partner. And that's a two-way street. That's not just you arriving in the bedroom being like, God, I gotta have sex tonight because it's been six days and he's expecting it which is a terrible place to be but we've all been there at some point it's interesting because what this does is put the complete responsibility on to the woman which in turn is a form of gaslighting it's the man literally saying you don't provide enough for me you're not giving me enough sexual gratification so I'm going to be mad I'm going to be angry I'm going to pull away from you I'm going to go and find what I need outside of the relationship. How many times do we hear people say that they

cheat in a relationship or they're unfaithful in some capacity, micro cheating, emotional cheating, physical cheating, because they say, I don't feel like I was getting what I needed at home. Now, what that does is put this extra level of pressure and stress and guilt and shame on the woman in that relationship because she feels like she's not doing her duty to keep her husband happy which is like ridiculous but also like no one wants to have sex with someone when they think it's a job if you get to a point in your relationship where you're having sex because you feel like you've got to do it which is a very problematic place to be in for many many reasons but that becomes work and you're already doing a lot of that so like why would you want to do more

nothing makes you dry up like the sahara desert quicker than someone saying have sex with me you have to have sex with me when you don't want to have sex with them and then that adds to this vicious spiral and cycle of shame and guilt and stress and makes you want to have sex less so spoiler just pick up the shit off the floor totally i mean i think it's so i mean i don't want to just like glaze over that though and say when someone makes you have sex when you don't you know like there's so many conversations around consent that is loaded into that obviously that's still a very problematic thing that people experience within their own marriages but you guys might remember last year we didn't ask uncut question around it was a woman who had recently

given birth. She was only four weeks postpartum or three weeks postpartum. And her husband was saying that he wasn't feeling sexually gratified by her and she wasn't putting out and she had three kids to him already. If you guys don't remember the question, we were infuriated by it. It also went viral on our Instagram. So we still are receiving comments all the time. I would say 40% of the comments on that post do not pass the vibe check. They are deeply misogynistic and problematic and so I know that maybe we've spoken about this in a way that alludes to the fact that a lot of people are living in these relationship dynamics where they are very gender stereotyped but I read those comments actually at the point where I think we should turn comments off

because there are so many men who exist in the world who think it is a wife's duty to have sex with them and that became very very fucking clear to me when I was reading through how problematic some of those comments were and how there were so many men who were like well tell me did she give birth with her mouth why can't she give him a blow job and I was just sitting there fucking shaking with fury around this and I guess the thing is like it's an education piece but it's infuriating that one it falls on women to do and two that it is such an uphill battle for so many people within their relationships to completely recondition this idea that men are entitled to it For a lot of people, these discrepancies in their sexual desires, it doesn't become apparent until

you go into a different phase of your relationship, right? Like sex doesn't become a big issue until potentially you have kids or potentially you're married or potentially you're cohabitating. The reason why it becomes such an issue at that point is because when you're in the honeymoon phase, everyone's fucking, you know, like everyone's having sex. You're having sex a couple, every couple of days, maybe it's every day, maybe it's multiple times a day that is being satiated. and then for a lot of you know relationships not everyone of course but for a lot of relationships you move into another phase you have children there are other things that require your time your energy and your capacity you're touched out there's so many reasons and the last thing I want

to go back to about this study which I thought was so interesting that's what the woman touched on the TikTok that kind of spiked my interest in the first place is this idea about caregiving roles and how often the things that once upon a time a heterosexual male, his mom would have done for him. Things like picking up his clothes, things like cooking his dinner, all the things that his mom used to do can often fall onto the wife or onto the female in that relationship to pick up those pieces. And so no one wants to have sex with someone who they're taking care of in the same way that they're taking care of their kids. This shouldn't need a research study. This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. And I know that this is obviously, we've gone like for the real black and

white at this. There's many shades of gray that exist in all relationships. But I do think it's so interesting that finally people are unpacking this in a way that's saying, okay, maybe it goes beyond hormones and maybe it really is the circumstances around how we're living our lives, how our relationship dynamics take place. That's actually contributing to the reason why women seem to have this severe drop in libido, especially after kids are in the picture. Well, it's time for our accidentally unfiltered, our embarrassing story where you guys ride in literally those moments where you want to dig a hole and die in it and cover yourself again. That's what we want to hear. Your deepest, darkest, most embarrassing moment. I have a good

one today that I think you can relate to, Laura. I was sleeping with this guy for the second time after we slept together on New Year's Eve. It was getting pretty hot and heavy, but midway through, I sat up and I looked at him and he had a couple of really big boogies hanging out of his nose. Now this was only the second time seeing him so I didn't want to embarrass him and point them out so I just sort of had to pretend like they weren't there. I closed my eyes we went back to kissing and I'm about 95% sure I ate his boogies. I feel so uncomfortable about this and so yuck to this day. Laura, this is you reincarnate.

I feel physically sick. If I had a booger on my face right now and I did this whole podcast episode knowing we were going to put it on YouTube, you wouldn't tell me. I wouldn't. You're a bitch. I wouldn't tell you. Okay, I wouldn't. I wouldn't tell you.

This is not a secret. I feel uncomfortable about people having things on their faces. it doesn't bother me but like the having to tell them they have something on their face i just i just avoid it but i'm not gonna eat his snot i'm not gonna rub my if a man had i feel sick no i'm just thinking about the logistics of this imagine making out you suck it in do you stop and pick it out and say like this is yours have you ever like made out with a guy and he's pushed his chewing gum into your mouth oh what how old are you 12 who is pushing the chewing gum into your mouth i have a phobia of chewing gum put it on the record i hate the shit i have made out with a guy and he

has pushed his chewing gum into my mouth and i felt violated maybe this is why i have a phobia maybe this is where it's come from this explains a lot if you were making out with people that are putting chewing gum in your mouth explains a lot of your relationship issues but let's just scoot back because you just scooted over a little bit too quick oh i feel sick i get that maybe occasionally actually i don't even get it but i'll let it slide if i had something in my teeth like a little bit of parsley and you didn't tell me if I had a giant booger on my face and you didn't tell me that would be relationship ending for me I would tell you if you had a massive booger it's only when it's something that's like there but kind of in like discreet like you know if you've got a

bit of mascara like I don't care so I'm not going to tell you but if you had a huge booger I would care about that because that's gross and I don't want to look at it so I'd be like could you please sort yourself out you pig but if I was fucking a guy and he had it dripping down his face like I'm just never going to be that into the sex that I'm not going to tell him do you know what I mean like some people everyone has different things maybe that's your thing maybe you're into booger kink I don't know I don't care but there is nothing about that that would mean that I could proceed no I just actually put myself in that I just like took myself there visually and I nearly vomited if I was making out with somebody and somehow a booger dropped

down their face into my mouth I don't even know that how that happens because you don't make out with someone's nose if i was making out in a booger went in my mouth i would hands down stop and say your boogers in my fucking mouth i would say that i'd be like get your booger out of my mouth now that's not something you let slide can i okay this is just taking a weird turn but i'm gonna go there remember when you were a kid and someone would like an older person you know maybe it was a nana or your mom or someone you know usually a relative would come to get something off your face and they would spit on a hanky to do it like lick a hanky that is not okay like that is so not okay it is so violating of a child's boundaries i will never forget my nan being like

come here love and licking a hanky and then wiping her saliva on my face to get something off i'm like in what generation was that fine okay i'm gonna top you i don't want a story top but strap in kids you're like my nanny used to piss on a hanky on my face sorry no strap in my dad I've been going to therapy for a long time when we were kids we did this big trip around Australia right in a camper van like four little kids mum and dad in this camper I'm talking like raw dog in it we sat in a bucket to bathe every night it was like I look back and it was amazing please never use your dad and the word raw dogging in the same sentence ever again but I'm talking like I grew up camping right so I'm talking when you had to go and do a poop

you just take a shovel and go and dig a hole in the desert you'd squat and do your poo and fill it in like that was my upbringing I'm as it's probably why I was such a tomboy and like anyway because we were in the desert facilities were low when we got like when there was a sandstorm which happened often and we got sand or dust in our eye the only way to get out because you didn't want to waste water because the next water could be days away my dad would hold our eye open and come to get the dust out and lick it out with his tongue he'd put his tongue in her eyeball i'm violated we need to go this is not okay all right guys well now look tomorrow we have such a freaking good episode we're interviewing

terry cole who we've had on the podcast before but the reason why we're revisiting our conversation with terry cole so we spoke to her about cheating a few years back and she's a psychotherapist she spoke to us around fixing a relationship post-cheating the reasons and how it may be achievable the impact that cheating has on a relationship the reasons why people cheat that was the first time we spoke to her, but her speciality and the thing that she has really honed her area of focus on is boundaries. And now I know that boundaries are a bit of a buzzword. We actually covered a little bit of boundaries with Mark Manson on last week's episode. He said that the number one thing that he experiences when his listeners or people

ride in with their life problems is that it is some sort of compromised boundary issue, some inability to set healthy and clear boundaries. So we thought off the back of Mark Manson's episode, it would be great to speak to somebody who specializes in boundary setting. I mean, I know we know or know like we all got to have boundaries, but like what are boundaries? How do we set boundaries? How do you implement boundaries with somebody who maybe has already walked all over you and you've already set up their relationship, but now you need to kind of retrofit healthy boundaries in a relationship that already exists. That's what we're covering on tomorrow's episode. Yeah, but I think it's also about some stuff we haven't really covered

before in Boundaries that the idea of the relationship and the romanticized relationship we have as women with your children, the fact that you should be best friends with them and that really tight, is it a parent relationship or is it a friend relationship that a lot of people write in about, you know, I feel like I'm best friends with my daughter. I want to do everything with them. Terry has really strong feelings on that parent-child relationship that I think we haven't delved into before and I found that really fascinating yeah it's so interesting isn't it because I think normally when we think about boundaries the first relationship that we go to is romantic and I know we've spoken about romantic relationships so much but as a parent no one really

talks about well what does healthy boundaries look like for your child and I don't mean setting them for their relationship with the world but setting them for your relationship with them and after the weekend I had trust me I fucking needed this episode so if you're also a mum who feels like they're failing at life you will get so much out of this okay before we wrap up for the episode we have our suck in our suite our highlight and our low light from the week Laura what is your suck this week my suck well I mean I already covered my suck my suck was like the kids screaming at me but if I have to find another suck you know because I feel like I can't double up on content here so our car has broken which it's only three years old but basically we were driving around the

other day and I thought the kids water bottles must have come loose and that the water must have gotten into the carpet from their water bottles. It has been happening quite consistently. And I got kind of annoyed at Max. I was like, you've got to pick up their water bottles. Anyway, turns out the water is actually coming up through the floor of the car. So the carpets in the car is saturated. There's something wrong with the air conditioner. And now as of this morning, we are without a car. So that's very annoying. Also, it's going to be very costly because it's been going on for so long that now the car kind of stinks of mold and they're going to have replace cups blah blah so that's my suck for the week my sweet for the week which sounds like a

very dumb sweet but i'm excited about it i have not gotten rid of this cough since having pneumonia and keisha is doing an excellent job of editing out my intermittent coughing fits that i'm having so i've just started a steroid treatment which sounds like a stupid sweet but it actually has helped so much in the last couple of days i can't even tell you so i'm on steroids i'm going to be so big so buff you're going to be jacked I'm going to be such a jacked better version of myself but it's actually fixing me and I feel like the last two days has been the healthiest that I have felt since January because 2024 has been the year of sickness thus far not the year of health and so I'm ready for a reboot I never thought I'd hear the day that you'd say

you're sweet a steroid but I love that my okay my suck this week is that I actually don't have one like I genuinely I just feel like I can't complain right now I'm with Ben like obviously we're back at work so I'm you're such as me guys know no but with the time difference I start work at 9 p.m and I work until 5 a.m so like I am still over here working it's not a holiday but I don't have anything to complain about because I'm with Ben my sister's over here and I just genuinely am really happy with my life at the moment so I'm not even I'm breaking all the rules and I'm not doing a suck laura you can't make me it's okay i'm happy to be your suck i'm happy to be the reason that you don't want to get up in the morning slash night time i'm happy to be the

reason that you stay awake all night put it that way thank you you're so welcome it's definitely not ben keeping me up it's you all right guys well that is it from us if you've loved the episode you can jump onto apple review and leave a little sneaky review or you can subscribe to the podcast so that's always in your feed and you know the drill tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the love because we love love