Life Uncut - Live laugh LIBIDO with sex coach Georgia Grace

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Hey Lifers!We're getting particularly hot and steamy today!We're unpacking everything to do with libido and sexual desire with sex coach Georgia Grace.First up we get a little update on Britt's dating life and we're interested to see whose side of the 'playing' field you're on.Annnnnd the countdown is on for Laura's wedding! Days fam, we are talking DAYS!Then we are joined by the wonderful Georgia Grace.We talk: Whether we are born with a sexual desire or it's dependent on our life circumstances Mismatched libido with partners & whether that means you're incompatible Does sexuality impact your sex drive? How you can get the 'spark' back You can find more from Georgia here: https://www.georgiagraced.com/We would love it if you could take a minute to vote for the Australian Podcast Awards, word on the rumour street is that Britt will give you a puppy. *unconfirmed by Brittany Hockley herself.*You can vote here: https://australianpodcastawards.com/voteTell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because we love love! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Life Uncut podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. This episode is recorded on Gadigal land of the Aurora Nation. oh that guy's fucking hot is that recording certainly is now he's really hot i'm gonna read you what he said dating me is like an ingenious combination of sweet and salty with a little bit of french touch to it you know i like

french i read that and i'm instantly like you are a fucking player he's a player for sure look at him he's so hot no not not for me french not for me okay fine i'll say no because laura said no all right hi guys hi guys and welcome back to another episode of life uncut i'm laura and i'm a horny britney that's on the dating side how horny how horny would you say oh i mean i'm just playing i'm pretty horny we're recording this on a monday morning at 9 a.m and you know what must have been a long and lonely weekend every weekend long and lonely but that's not true you went on a date i went on a date yes but i i didn't well i mean i say long and lonely it wasn't lonely because i had company but i didn't have sex i didn't you know didn't go to third

base i think sex is fourth base is it yeah third base is just like oral which is still sex i guess well it's still sex oral sex um no i went on yeah i mean i didn't know we're jumping straight into this but let's do it i went on a date yeah third date with the same person too oh no it's not it's still not a home run it's absolutely not a home run it's third base there's another base so what do I say then just third date third date which I think like means that you like the guy which probably means we won't hear about him again for like at least six months until you're getting married or he moves overseas that is funny he does live he's from overseas of course he does but that's why I'm attracted to him I think I think I still have this this level of

like lack of commitment commitment if someone is just so here and so in my space I don't know what to do with it so as soon as someone has some link to working overseas you're gonna burp no I'm not I'm sitting here thinking to myself covering my mouth holding it back because for somebody who gives dating and relationship advice what you're literally saying right now is I have commitment issues and I'm only attracted to men who are physically not in the country yeah maybe I had it wrong the whole time maybe I'm the one with commitment I've always blamed everyone else but I think it's it's probably me and we did just have this discussion actually Laura Keisha and I had this discussion this morning I told Laura like hey I really like this guy which is you know I

usually don't tell her because then she pries and probes I was like I like this guy and she's like sounds great you're like what's the catch though there's always a catch and I was like well he lives overseas and you're like I knew it okay but also this is the same guy that if you listen to our radio show, one of Britt's very close friends who knows him called her to tell her specifically that he is a player. So I feel like there are some red flags once again, but you know what, let's ride it. It'll be great for content. My hands are on my hips right now. I'm literally looking at Laura with my hands on. I've got this staunchest look. I'm like, yeah, that happened. I'm not denying that, but I like to give someone the benefit of the doubt and he's been lovely to

me. And I actually asked him about it. I'm sure he'd give you the honest answer then. something came up and I said oh you're a bit of a player are you something like that tried to slow slot it in he's like do you like Barada I'm like oh you're a player I just tried to put it in there anyway he's like he was really well I think he was honest he was like oh man I was he's like in my 20s he's like that was pretty wild you know but he was like now it's different he's like I'm in my 30s now I'm looking for something different and I'm going to take that at face value until he does something to me sounds like something a player would say who knows how to play really well that does sound very playerish but then Keisha and I had this

discussion and it is true right when you're single for a long time in your 20s when you've got money that you're earning yourself and you don't have any dependables like you're not you've got a disposable income you're young you're attractive you date you sleep with people I don't know if that is the same thing as being a player or not I think that's just sowing your seeds and being young and wild so I don't until someone does something to me I like this about myself but I'm not going to judge someone on what someone else has said until they've done it to me. No, I mean, I think being a player, let's really deep dive in what the definition for that is.

We need an episode on playing. Well, I think being a player is somebody who plays with other people's emotions. So for example, you are making someone believe that you're invested in them, that the relationship could be more, but actually the only intention you have out of it is sex. And you're also seeing other people at the same time. So I think it's people who are not honest with their feelings, not honest with what they want because they know that by being dishonest they can get what they want that's a player well at the moment I think he's being honest with what he wants but I don't know if he's being dishonest

because I haven't figured out the lie yet so we're just gonna have to play this one out till I get to fourth base well let's watch this space for a home run I feel very excited today because I get a week off well no I think you should be excited because you're getting married not because you get a week off I'm getting married Laura is the time has finally come after three years we have been engaged for four years is it four four years wow yeah it's a long time and a couple of postponings throughout the pandemic like unfortunately a lot of people had to do but the time has finally come we are throwing you down the aisle you're not going to be a burn anymore you're going to be one more johnson for the rest of your life mrs johnson actually we've decided i'm probably not

going to change my name but mrs johnson sounds very old doesn't it are you not at all no so like I think what we'll do is, is for the kids so that the kids feel like we've all got the same name in the one household, which is for me, it's not important because I grew up in a household that had three different names in it. So it's not, literally we had Philippi, Byrne and Vakansky in my household because my mum had been married and remarried. But I guess for me, it's not that important, but I can understand why for Matt or maybe even for the kids when they're a bit older, it could be important for them. So I'm not going to actually change my name because I feel like laura johnson is a weird one to get your head around could you if we change that brittany

hockley and laura johnson sounds weird could you do what a lot of people that are in the public i do and that is so you change your name legally so that you know your family all does have the same name but you still keep all your instagram handles and you still keep your public persona as laura burn it's just that you all in your household have the same name i don't know yeah but you know what the part is that like really stops me from wanting to change my name it's the paperwork I hate jumping through hoops I like trying to do anything like even doing my car registration I'm the person that leaves it to the last day before it expires so the fact that I have to go out of my way to get a new passport to get a new medicare to the thought of that means it's

all too hard so I'm probably just going to stay Laura Byrne and just tell the kids teachers that it's Laura Johnson so you're gonna lie yeah so you're gonna tell fibs yeah I mean like well that's fine right because otherwise I don't think it's fine no Laura Johnson yeah well call me whatever what does Matt think about that does Matt have a real like I you know I want because I feel like there are a lot of men out there that I'm not saying Matt would but a lot of men would take offense to be like well why don't you want to be my name you know because it's such this old school tradition and of course there's this whole new wave of people keeping their own names a lot of people do it but I think there are a lot of men that are like don't you want to be a part of me

and my family my tradition and don't you want to all be this one big unit when Matt and I first got together when it like when he first proposed I remember him saying like I would like it if you took my name. But then now four years later, even the other day, he was like, Oh, let's be real. You're never going to take Johnson. You'll just stay a burn. So he gets it. He, and also I think for us, like, just like you said, Brit, it is an older fashion thing to do. And I understand why for some women it's important, but I also understand why for a lot of women that they're choosing not to do it. And I think I'm 30, almost 37 years old, 36 years old. Like the thought of becoming a whole different name, the thought of like me not being Laura Byrne anymore, just feels

so foreign like it's so core to my identity that I can't imagine being Laura Johnson I think for me it would depend on like not that so much but literally what the name was like like if I don't like yeah if it didn't go if it was like Brit Dick or something Brit Dick that's terrible Dick's Dick is not a last name yes it is who oh yeah Dick Smith that's the first name no I think Dick Smith was like that was his last name so he called it Dick Smith yeah Dick's the last name but that's I mean, like I just pulled that out of a hat. Richard. But Brit Dick is not a vibe.

So I probably wouldn't do it if that was it. But if it was something like something beautiful and French Italian. What's the new guy's last name? I'm not telling you that. You're Googling. What does it rhyme with? Wenkin? Lenkin?

Franken? Wenkin. Denkin. Sri Lankan. I mean, I'm not talking. Do you know how crazy that would sound if he heard this and I'm talking about taking his last name? Laura, don't even. Why did you give this?

why did you just start this segment here this little question let's be real he is listening i'm sorry britney's not as crazy as i make her sound she's great this is why i can't tell you anything she's top shelf so other than the name this whole name debacle are you ready because there's been a lot of disorganization a lot of things went wrong a lot of things weren't well they literally weren't ready you didn't have a lot of stuff are you back on track because it's about four days away okay so we're recording this on monday it's four sleeps into the wedding which I didn't realize until our emcee just texted me before we sat down to record and she was like four more sleeps and my internal body went oh my god no I'm so excited does anyone have anywhere

to sit yet yeah because that was a big yeah we had no chairs for a long time it was gonna be a standing wedding I feel like I'm now past the phase of like worry or stress that things aren't gonna go well you know I just want everyone to have a really good time and making sure that all those pieces of the puzzle come together I think for us I'll give you guys a very top level little rundown on what happened and maybe we'll get into it a bit more after the wedding you're gonna breadcrumb the audience so we had a wedding planner that we organized about four years ago unfortunately I introduced them three years ago it was a long time it was when we first got engaged we got this wedding planner and she was super lovely like you know we got along really really

well when we were face to face but she was incredibly hard to get in touch with so like I felt like we were always chasing the wedding planner always being like hey where are things at like leaving messages no reply for weeks would go on and it's not how it works like no we need someone to make us organized you need someone to come to you and say here's four options pick one like this is happening not you being like can you update us on this but anyway that was five weeks ago Matt is he's the most incredible planner so he used to do events organization back in the day and he just jumped to action so he has pretty much pulled this wedding together in five weeks everyone's gonna have a chair it's not a stand-up wedding it's gonna be great you get a chair you

get everybody gets a chair they may have been a little bit overpriced but everyone gets a chair i think i mean you've been to weddings everyone's been to weddings i just went to two in a week all right come on i think people take away from a wedding the thing that makes people have a good time or not i think there's three things food there just has to be enough food there has to be enough music and like good music to dance like enough music sorry you've run out of music now no more it has to be enough so don't stop it no but it has the music has to be great music or your dj or your live band whatever is make or break and then i've forgotten a third one but i'm just going to put one in hot guys hot single guys okay they're the three things that you need

to make a wedding really really great well good thing for you is that i've sat you at the epicenter of all of the single men so i can just like question them throughout the night and pick one by the end am i going to hook up at your wedding you and quiche are on the singles table we created pretty much a singles table that's only got a couple of couples at the end of it Do you reckon, knowing the table seating, do you think Keisha and I will hook up with someone? There is two people who I think that maybe you guys might fight over. Keisha, you get dibs on everything. So I'm getting dibs this time.

You do. You walk into the club and you like shotgun and you literally walk over to him. I've seen it a thousand times. But can I just say, I mean, like, I know we have lots of laughs on this and I'm talking about all like the drama about organizing a wedding. I think it's so easy to get caught up in the nitty gritty of the actual organization of a wedding. Because like, yeah, it can be stressful.

yeah there can be a lot of things you have to like lots of emailing back and forth it can become a bit of a job doing that side of things but i'm so excited to marry matt it's gonna be the best day of my life and i'm so excited to see the girls be flower girls and walk down the aisle i will be an absolute blubbering mess like i'm gonna be like a real real wreck of a person i i'm i'm gonna cry 100 we got matt last week on the radio we got matt to record a message for laura and just and play it to him like a really nice can't wait to marry message and i was the one sitting there blubbering in the radio studio I was like why am I crying but you know our tagline is we love love I love love I've watched you guys over the last four years and you see that everything that you go through

and you've had two children you've moved houses you've created grown businesses you've done so many amazing things and to see you know everyone has trials and tribulations everyone went through the lockdown everyone went through you know a really rough couple of years and then to see couples come out the other side and then go and look I could cry now talking about just to see like a really beautiful true pure love especially when it's your friends and your close people you want to know that they are set and there's something about it i was the same with my sister i was like wow i know that this person is going to be so looked after for their entire life and there is something that's really i'm about to cry there's only it's really but it's really beautiful

to know that your friends and family have found their place where they don't have to worry because they're going to do life with someone that they trust and love and and he's safe totally and i feels so great honestly like we're looking at each other like it's so it's so weird to me that I met the man that I'm going to marry on a reality tv show like it doesn't happen it does not happen everyone still too soon still too soon like I'm so great I can't wait to share it with you guys when I'm back from this little mini break uh one week off woo get married we'll tell you guys all about the wedding we'll tell you everything that happened all the highs all the lows we'll tell you whether Keisha or Britt hooked up with Matt's single friends and that's all coming when I'm back

I think on the 22nd. Yeah. Well, on that note, Laura is, believe it or not, we are forcing her to take three episodes off. Yeah. Keisha's going to be on the pod. Got some great episodes. Keisha and I have already done one really great interview that you guys are going to love, but Laura's really going to try and switch off. So we're going to do our best not to hassle you. But speaking of great interviews and great episodes, we should probably tell you what today's is about. So we're interviewing a wonderful woman. Her name is Georgia Grace, and she's a certified Australian sex educator and sex coach. Now what we're talking about on this episode, it ties very nicely to getting married and having long-term relationships. We're talking about libido. So we get so many

questions. I can't tell you how common it is that we get questions around mismatched libido, how like some people have had a drop in their libido, how to deal with a partner who has a high sex drive when you have a lot, whatever it is. Libido is something that comes up as a point of conversation at different parts in people's relationships and that's what we're doing a deep dive on today we're doing a deep dive in everything the ins and outs around sex drive and libido yeah and the big one is it actually the end of the world if you do have a mismatched libido with your partner because that's a question we get a lot but before we get into that and whilst we were still speaking about dating i want to tell you something pretty funny that happened on a dating app now these are some

friends of mine that i met through producer keisha so it happened to two friends maddie and ellie they're both in Bondi and they're flatmates okay they live together one of them got a really great message response now you know how we're always all about the prompts we're like you know answer the prompts write something great put some effort in yeah make it relative to the person that you're writing to so it feels like it's been personalized yeah so one of them comes in in the morning she's like to the other one's room and she's like oh what do you think of this guy he's really cute he went out of his way like look at the messages he's got me what do you recognize should respond i'm gonna read it to you madeline and it's a lot of emojis and i'm actually

going to say the emojis madeline with the hand up emoji man emoji like hi i'm here i'm loving the vibes of your profile not to mention those amazing looks of yours love heart face pick three emojis surfing palm tree boat yacht paragliding bike cocktail sunset wine dancing holding hands and let's go on an adventure love heart hands cute it's a lot of emojis in a short period of time but i like the fact that he's like okay i'm gonna put all these emojis out there and there are activities and fun things as in like do you want to go get a drink at sunset do you want to go and do something active on a bike ride do you want to go on the water like okay great do you want to go paragliding that was a big one but like he's been creative who's paying for this date well this is

the question so madeline's gone in and said that to ellie and then ellie's gone fuck off she's like what she pulls up her phone she goes i got the fucking exact message she goes the phone it's the exact same person but he changed their name oh so it's a copy and paste message it's copy and paste message but he's changed their name now i guess the question is i think this is funny do you think that this is okay to do because i'm on the fence right i think i'm on the fence because i think okay there's a part of me that's like you little fucker like you couldn't you couldn't write something different for someone else but the other part of me is people are time poor online dating takes a lot of your time and energy and he might not be

lying he might think that they both do have amazing looks and vibes and he obviously likes all the emojis he sent like they're the activities he likes so he's put that forward so I'm on the fence of is this bad or not okay I'm not on the fence I think a copy and paste message early on is fine it's unfortunate for this guy that he got caught out right that's very very annoying I think also you have to be aware that if you are going to do the copy and paste there's two things that could go wrong one you might accidentally copy and paste the wrong name over we've all been there two the two people might know each other and they might figure it out and they might tell each other that you've been sending a bulk message but okay do you not

remember when you Brit said like your ultimate pickup line on hinge was to do the little dog running away thing how many people did you copy and paste that too well no sometimes I'd add a further distance between the dog running so still same message still the same sentiment well that's why I think that's my point that's why my initial reaction was like you dickhead and then I was like well actually this makes a lot of sense I think it's fine I mean I don't have anything against the copy and paste yes sure there is something about it if you're on the receiving end of it and you realize that makes it feel disingenuous and unpersonalized but the reality is is that nobody has or not everyone has the time to really deep dive and do a nuanced intro message and I'm

sure what he would have done is he would have just hedged his bets whoever ended up being like the more interesting chat is he we probably would have taken on the date but the reality is you probably don't know if someone who you've gone on a first date with did the bolt message or not because 99.9 percent of time you get away with it so I think it's fine to do it but I also think you have to accept that if you get caught out like yes oh well the end my question is too who's paying for the paragliding in the super yacht he's put some I would be writing back to this guy being like he said pick three i would paraglide onto the yacht and have a wine they're my three emojis do you think he's like oh this date is byo though well that's okay i'll bring the wine if you bring the

yacht to paraglide all right let's get into our favorite part of every episode and that is accidentally unfiltered all right i'm gonna kick it off on the weekend i booked a mobile mechanic to come to my place and look at my car's aircon i know very very little about cars how much things cost and so the mechanic is talking to me and telling me how much things are going to cost and what he's doing and I quickly text my boyfriend saying is this how much he's going to charge me and do you think that this is a reasonable price or am I being ripped off the next text I send is I have a feeling I'm being taken for a ride now the mechanic continues to twiddle around with my car and then he looks down at his phone then up at me and he says uh

nah miss this is not a rip-off and these prices are very reasonable i had accidentally texted the mechanic instead of my boyfriend i stood there mortified and then i paid him exactly the amount he asked me to turns out i was ripped off and i wish i had texted my boyfriend it's so sweet it's such a sweet and innocent one but mate we've all been there it's so funny i actually did that to laura last week we had a surprise planned for laura and in a group chat and I won't go into detail but I I messaged the surprise into the chat because we've got so many group chats and always doing a thousand things at once and I messaged it that I was like locked and loaded and we're ready to go and I wrote back don't worry I'll act surprised I like surprise I

was like fucking kill me uh deceased bury me I am dead I was like and then you know when you quickly I just sent like a hundred texts really quickly like shut them off I was like I'm so sorry I'm so sorry pretend you didn't know don't see that don't reread that look at like it was I went into panic mode, but, you know, it happens. This was also a thing that, like, we were trying to do for radio that was a nice surprise that the producers and stuff were organising and just fucked it for everyone. I really did.

I ruined Christmas anyway. Okay, okay, okay, okay. My accidentally unfilled titties has come from a friend and it happened in England where it's colder. Okay, it's cold right now. Confirmed. She's doing a dissertation and a dissertation, if you don't know, it's like the big honcho at university or college.

Like, it's the big one. sometimes it can take you a year like it's a really big stressful thing a half of your degree you know it holds a lot of weight so she had been working on this until the ninth hour like she it was ready to be handed in and she was frantically doing it I'm talking like she had an hour to wrap it up get to uni present everything she's running around the house she's doing everything really quickly she's getting a laptop getting dressed putting a beanie on puts a jacket on gets all her papers that she needs throws them in a bag runs out the door she's walking down the street She's got big boots on because she's cold with big socks on.

You know that cute look where the socks come up to your – halfway through your calf with the big boots. So she's rugged up because it's cold. She's walking about 10 minutes. And she's like, why do I feel so cold? And she looks down and she didn't put pants on. She's on her way to uni with boots, socks, a beanie, a jacket and undies. That's it.

no pants and her laptop and she's like oh my god this is why it's so breezy she's like they weren't they're like bridget jones undies they weren't even cute undies so good she's like my brain and she was like oh my she was just so stressed she's like all i could think about was i had no time to get to uni to get it in anyway so she had to run back put her pants on and then run back to you just do your jacket up and just wear it like a dress like it wasn't long enough it was a bomber jacket it wasn't one it just went to the top of her it wasn't a long coat that you could pretend to be sexy was she wearing stockings because that would make more sense if you had stockings and i could understand why you'd forget pants no nothing she just nothing just this bomber

that went to just her crack and then her bridget jones's with socks and boots r.i.p that's fucking great it is so so good all right let's get into the episode georgia grace is a certified australian sex educator and sex coach and she's here today to help us unpack libido georgia welcome to life uncut thanks for having me normally we start by asking, what is your accidentally unfiltered story? But I want to know, what does a sex coach actually do? So my training has been in somatic sexology and basically what that means. Somatic means bringing awareness to the body and sexology is the scientific study of sex. So in terms of what that means for how I work, I'm in session with clients two days a week and we work through

a range of like sexual issues and concerns, but also curiosities. Some people often come to me and be like, I don't know what I need to know, but I just know that I'm not currently having the best sex I could be having. But then I work in other ways, whether it's like running events, I write a lot. I work for an incredible sexual wellness company called Normal as their in-house sexual wellness advisor. So yeah, I do quite a few things, but basically a lot of my work is just about creating safe spaces for people to learn about sex. Okay. Well, I have a lot of sexy questions, but before we get into those, we're throwing you under the bus, the metaphorical bus. What is your accidentally unfiltered? I can only assume, actually, this is not an assumption. I was

going to say, has it got anything to do with sex? Well, do you know what? I was going to go with one of my many accidental and unfiltered poo stories. Always a trusty, faithful, like it's just like a steadfast. If you're not sure what to go with, it's always the backup. Totally. But yeah, as we are speaking about sex, I thought something came to my mind this morning that I actually blocked out for years and years. But when I was really young, I was just out of school and I was having sex and somehow we lost the condom and it broke or something happened. And we were searching around the room, couldn't find it anywhere. I was like, look, it's a hotel. Perhaps we'll just never find it. Let's just move on. Who could it have flung? Also like, sorry for the other person who has to

find it, the cleaner. Yeah. I was like, there was so much linen. There was so much bedding. It's probably in there anyway the next day I went to the toilet and I looked into my undies and I was like oh my god that is a huge amount of discharge like we know that discharge is so normal and we know that you know it could happen to the best of us but I was looking at this discharge and I was like oh my gosh there's something so wrong with me I need to take this and get it checked out and being like a little bit of a science nerd, I put it in a Ziploc bag. I booked into the GP. The discharge? Yeah, my discharge.

You put the discharge in a Ziploc bag like you're packing a sandwich for school. People do this. People have like weird things that happen in their body and they're like, I will take that sample to the doctors. Because I feel like I've been called out so many times where I've had like a rash or something and then it's gone down and I haven't been able to get the diagnosis that I needed. Anyway, this time I was prepared and I go to the doctor and I'm like look I'm really nervous I don't know like is this a baby is this discharge is this an SDI like what have I what's going on here and I pulled it I was like I was like it's really like sticky and flexible and big and then she turns to

me and she's like oh my darling heart that's a broken condom it's literally like it's plastic This is latex. Probably the fucking funniest accidentally unfiltered we have had in a long time. I thought it was going to end with like, oh, and then it was lost inside me and I found it. The fact that you went to the doctors just adds a whole other layer of amazingness to this.

You just made me think of a story of like I have a really good group of girlfriends. Obviously, you're going to realise how close we are. But there's a couple of us in a group, in a WhatsApp group. Similarly to that, one friend one day sent a photo to the group chat. she's like sos what the fuck is this and she sent a photo of she's obviously on the toilet she's pulled her undies down and she's just taking a screenshot there's just like this huge clump of exactly what you're saying like she's like this dischargey weird consistency thing and none of us

in the group even bat an eyelid we're like oh that's interesting she should have put that bad boy in a ziploc bag taken to the doctor but gee how does one become a sex coach is this just something that growing up you were like I love sex I'm interested in sex sex is just my world like were you a hypersexual person or is it something you more just stumbled into like coincidentally I've always like reflecting on it I've always been really curious about sex and fascinated by it I was always really excited for sex ed classes although I didn't get many but yeah I've always been fascinated by it I've loved speaking with friends about it I'd always loved having sex. I'd been, you know, really curious about it, had lots of questions. I did start my

career studying journalism, then I moved to PR. And I was working in a few agencies for a few years. And then I just realised that I wanted to follow this career path. And it was at the time that we were hearing lots in the news and the media around, you know, the Me Too movement was at that time erupting this amazing new research around the orgasm gap and how there was you know a lot of people were having not so great or boring experiences with sex so that's when I decided to quit my job and start studying again and it was hard at first I did have to work through I still although I was quite sex positive I still had a huge amount of sexual shame and what this would mean for me. The way people spoke to me and about my career was sometimes really challenging. But

yeah, as soon as I got into the space, it really did feel like this was the job for me. One of the questions that we get so often on the podcast and one of the topics that comes up all the time, we do Ask Uncut and it's a reoccurring question and that is around libido. And I think that it's one of those things that, I mean, it affects, we all have a libido of varying degrees and it's something that at all and different points in our life will affect us. Can you explain a little bit about what is libido and how, like how is one's libido increased or decreased? Yeah. So this is a great question. And I think the terms libido, desire and sex drive are used interchangeably. When I'm working with people in session, I use the term desire because I feel like

that more accurately speaks to what we're talking about. And when we're defining desire, it is essentially wanting a longing, an urge or a motivation for sex. It's that feeling that you think, oh, sex could be like a really great idea for me right now. And you're so right in saying that everyone experiences this completely differently. But I think there are lots of assumptions as to what we should be like. You know, we're in a sexual revolution. There's so much sex positivity at the moment. And I'm also finding that for people who perhaps are desiring sex less or identify as having lower desire for sex they feel like there's something wrong with them that they're broken and often when I'm working with couples who are experiencing mismatched or

desire discrepancy it's often the person with lower desire who will come to the session and not the person with higher desire because the person with lower desire feels like they're broken they feel like it's their issue but when I'm working with this as a couple it really is a relational problem you need to work with. Do you get more people coming alone in the relationship? For example, you just said someone with a lower sex drive or libido or desire will come to you. Do you get more people that want to come on their own maybe without telling their partner or do you get more partners coming together to work through it together? It's pretty split. I work with couples and individuals, but I certainly do have people who will not tell

their partner at all. And I think that, you know, that's totally fair enough. You can experience a great amount of shame or fear or guilt for having to seek professional support. But I will kind of gently encourage them to have a conversation in a way that is useful for them. Because if they're coming to session, they're working through all of these things, they're making all this progress, they're learning and engaging, then they're going to be changing quite a bit. And their partner might be a little bit confused or lost or not really know where this new approach to sex has come from. So when we can get both people in the relationship intercession, I find that that is a really effective way to work with this concern. It's such an interesting one to me because,

you know, when you think of someone who has low libido and what you said around it being, we're in a time of a sexual revolution, like we see that across social media. There is so much sex positive talk. There's so much talk about pleasuring yourself or using toys or, you know, having orgasms. I think there's never been a time like there is now where sex conversations are so at the forefront but I also think when when you say you know if someone has a lower libido that they've come to seek help for that as though that's a problem I guess when it comes to libido it's only a problem if it's a problem for you because there must be people out there who have a low libido and they're perfectly happy with that and they're in relationships where their

partner also has a low libido and from the outset someone might judge and go oh you're only having sex what once a month but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's something wrong with their relationship. Totally. Yeah. And I think that often people will get really caught up on the quantity and the amount, the number that they're having sex. And, you know, some people, when I ask my clients, some people are fulfilling sex life for them is a few times a week. And then for others, it's a few times a year. And there's nothing wrong with that. The only time it becomes an issue or a concern is if it's affecting you and your relationship. And if it is, then there's a lot that we can do, but we all just want to feel normal, really. Like we all want to compare

ourselves to our friends and what we're seeing and what we're hearing. But I think the best kind of sex positivity is when you feel really comfortable in the way that you're choosing to have sex. Do you think you're born with the sexual desire that you end up having when you're older? Do you think you're born with a high libido and sex drive or a low libido and sex drive? Is it something that's ingrained in us or is it something that we develop as a teenager when we hit all those hormones? Yeah, this is such a huge question. And I think a lot of people can really resonate with going into puberty, having this surge of hormones and everything's changing and you develop your first crushes and sex is all you can think about. And, you know, we also should really speak

to people who experience no desire and who are asexual. So as it's a part of their identity, they will say that they don't want to have sex. And that is normal and healthy. And we must celebrate that as a sexual identity. But when it comes to desire, what we really need to do is talk about context. And there are many things that can affect our motivation or our wanting for sex. And I think, yes, hormones can certainly have an impact. And I know that when I ask people who bleed, a lot of people will identify that when they're ovulating, they're feeling confident, they're feeling snatched, they're feeling sexy, they want to flirt and get out there. And then perhaps when on their first day of bleeding, they may want to sort of go within and they feel really

vulnerable and so on. But then again, other people will say that they're so horny when they're bleeding. And I guess it's just really different for everyone. But then other factors can be life changes, you're pregnant, you're become a mom, you've got stress at work, you're surviving a pandemic you know there's financial stress or you know there's so many different things that can affect you as well as sexual trauma or going through a really you know hard time in life or mental health or illness so desire is really contextual and I think that some people will say I am a sexual person I've always been a sexual person it's who I am it's a part of me and even those people can experience changes in desire as well. I really love that you said that because I

think for me I always thought prior to having children that I just had a high sex drive like if I put myself into a category I would have said I had a high sex drive that's just who I am like that's a part of what's normal to me but now that I'm in a very different phase of life and my sex drive is very low in comparison to where it used to be I never really understood until I was in this phase of life just how much libido is affected by what is happening around you and I think it doesn't just have to be that you're a mom, maybe there's stresses at work, maybe you're on new medication, whatever that looks like for how your life is unfolding. But I think that it's almost too easy to just say, oh yeah, I was born with a high sex drive and I'm always going to be an

overly sexual person because, you know, somebody in your family might pass away and grief might take over. You're probably not going to feel like an overly sexual person when you're grieving. And I think that all of these factors that can happen to us in life play a huge role in libido. Absolutely. And I think as you identified, you can feel a real loss of your identity and yourself. 100%. You're like, what's happened to me that I'm grieving the person I was before I had kids. And I think it's important to bring front of mind a bit of a framework when we're understanding

desire. So desire can really exist on a spectrum. On the one end, we have spontaneous desire. and that refers to your wanting, your longing, your motivation for sex that seemingly comes out of nowhere and a lot of people will identify that maybe at the start of a relationship they're more spontaneous or you know at a certain time of the month or with you know in certain things that are going on they've experienced spontaneous desire. It is healthy, it's normal and it's sexy but it's just one way of experiencing it. On the other end we have responsive desire and this refers to how

much stimulus your body needs in order to bring sex front of mind and for some people that could be receiving a neck kiss for half an hour it could be going on a really romantic date and having a glass of champagne it could be seeing your partner in their element or having a really nice clean house and feeling like you can finally relax and get into the moment yeah it's that certainly is a turn on for many people but really what it's referring to is what you need in order to bring sex front of mind and often people who say they have lower desire actually don't just understand that there are two ways of experiencing it they're expecting to be spontaneous but maybe at the moment they're more responsive in everything that they need in order to bring sex front of mind

I mean I would also say I don't have kids so I'm not in that stage of life obviously I'm busy and have stresses but I would also call myself a very sexual person when I'm in a relationship it's like you need to lock me up but when I'm not in a relationship and when I haven't had it so for example post-breakup well some people you know get over people by getting under people I did not and then when you don't have sex for a little while you almost don't remember what you're missing and so I feel like my sex drive has dropped because I'm not having it for no other reason I don't think the external stresses have anything to do with it I think it's just that I'm like oh it's almost like you've detoxed from an addiction of kind you're like I forget what that

feeling is I forget what that's like and your sex drive just goes I don't crave it anymore I don't need to go and look for it. And I think that for me, the only way that will come back is to literally go and have sex again. Yeah. That's such a great point and such great awareness of your own desire and what you respond to, because that is really a piece of homework that I will set for my clients. How can you bring sex front of mind more often? Because I think this is why I also like to use the term desire overdrive, because when we call it sex drive, we're assuming that it's something like a drive to drink water, a drive to survive, a drive to eat food, that if you don't do those things, you'll die. But if you don't have sex, you're not going to die. Although

it can feel like it sometimes. Spoiler! You're going to be just okay. You'll be totally fine. And I think people are often expecting it to be this drive, this urge. And sometimes what you need to do is really be proactive and prioritize bringing sex front of mind. Whether that is, listening to something that's erotic, thinking a sexy thought on your way to work, masturbating more often, writing something erotic. There's so many different things that you can do to bring sex front of mind. And maybe that's a piece of homework for anyone listening is if it's important to you to do daily, small moments, small daily moments of sensual intimacy with yourself or with your partner. Just circling back to this idea of spontaneous desire or reactive desire

I think that you know once you've been in a long-term relationship you can think that there's an issue because you don't have the spontaneous desire as much and of course it still exists in some ways but it's to a lesser degree than when you don't really know someone because part of that spontaneity is also the excitement around the unknown it's that feeling that you get that not that it's inconsistencies, but it's not having the certainty around that person that gets you really excited. Whereas once you have the stability and you have the routine and you have that incredible foundation for what makes a wonderful loving relationship, it's hard to have spontaneity when you also have this foundation of stability because the two of them don't

necessarily go hand in hand. So for someone who is in a long-term relationship and feels that that is where their libido is at now, like they're lacking in spontaneity, what can they do? Or is it more so just leaning into this idea of being more reactive and understanding your own cues? Yeah, yeah. And I think that this is what a lot of people in long-term relationships long for. They're at this stage where they have all the intimacy, the cuddles, the touch, and that's a really amazing part of a long-term relationship, that intimacy that you can form. But often a lot of the sexual attraction or the longing can go from that relationship because you always have access to it. So really what I would do when I'm working with a couple who wants to approach this,

we'd break it down into looking at how your brain and your body responds to different stimulus. So we have our sexual excitation system. These are your accelerators. So that's essentially scanning your environment for everything that is sexually relevant or appealing. So what we'll do is we will literally map out all of those things that turn them on. And that could be types of touch, certain settings, things their partner can do for them, things they can do for themselves. The list can be really long. But then we'll also look at your sexual inhibition system, also known as your breaks. And that's when you scan your environment for everything that makes you think sex is just not a good idea right now. And that could be feeling really full after a big

meal or having a lot to do been there yeah I think a lot of people know that actually that must be my problem yeah it sounds so simple but it's so true like you might go out on a date with your partner and then you know because you're enjoying yourself you have like six drinks and a big meal and then you're like I wanted to fuck you earlier but not now I have a belly full of pasta whereas if you were first dating you probably would still have the sex but like now that you're because you wouldn't eat as much yeah but now you're sorry but now that you're in a long-term relationship you're like fuck I'll just fuck you tomorrow like a week from now it's fine tomorrow is always like the best time to have sex and I think what you might do then if that's the case if you want to

go out and have that bowl of pasta maybe you have sex before you go and you get dressed up you wear what you need you set the tone so that you can still engage with that I get a lot of resistance from couples who are also wanting they want it to be spontaneous they really reject this idea of learning about why they're responsive and you can still be spontaneous while creating a context for desire you can still try new things you can still explore novelty but also knowing that my partner might not be wanting sex if they feel stressed overwhelmed if you know there's a lot of things on but actually another really interesting point recently some research came out about how the mental load affects cis women in heterosexual relationships, how it has a huge impact on their

desire. Now, this wasn't groundbreaking for me, because I say it all the time in session, but I think it's really important for everyone to know that typically and statistically, cis women in heterosexual relationships do a lot more. They do more of the emotional labor, more of the housework, they think about others more, they're, you know, having to do a lot. As a result, that can significantly have an impact on their breaks and inhibit any acceleration and anything that would excite them or make them think that sex is a good idea so the really simple practice and act of getting your partner to come in to support you to not help out with work but be a partner and do the shared and equal amount and also this research showed that when household or the mental load was

shared that statistically cis women were more desiring of sex they wanted sex more often so it sounds simple it really does but often these are things that go unaddressed and because sex and desire is all about context we've got to create this context more often well we always joke well it's actually not a joke but like manny j gets laid when he cleans the house that's it when he comes in and he helps laura out with anything she's like this is the time but i i mean and the jokes doesn't just stem from me the joke stems from like I have so many friends and women in my life I'm very lucky that I'm in a relationship where the workload is very very even but I see it in people who are around me and I hear it from our own community of women and mothers

or whoever it is that's carrying the household everything like the household chores the household labor the household mental load taking the kids out all of the stuff that they have to do and then on top of it, their partner wants them to be this sexually aroused person. And I think that like, it does come to a point for some women where it's like, that's the one thing that they're kind of like, I don't have left in me. There's nothing left in the tank for myself. And that plays a part in affecting libido. Yeah, absolutely. And we can think about it when you have just so much on your to-do list that of course, sex isn't going to be a priority. Of course, it's going to be really hard. And another piece here is that a lot of what I work with is supporting people in feeling

present with their body, in being aware of things that are going on. And in order to experience pleasure and orgasm, you really do need to be present and aware and attuned to sensations and what you're wanting. And I think many people can relate to having sex, having someone going down on them, doing a specific thing, and your mind goes to all the other things that you need to be doing. And when your mind is somewhere else, it's pretty tricky to feel good. So we can joke about how having a clean room is kind of lame, or it's too much, or it's too much of an ask. But actually, I think it's so essential if that is important for you to be able to relax and to release, but also to just know that the work is shared, it is more attractive. It allows for you

to relax and to release into that moment even more. Circling back to something really important, the pasta. Is it true that there are certain foods that are aphrodisiacs that can help with sex drive? I mean, we always hear growing up that if you want to have sex when you're younger, you're like, oh, go get some oysters. Oysters are an aphrodisiac. I don't even know if that's real, but are there certain foods or certain things that people can start to put into their diet and do if they want to increase their sex drive yeah okay so this is a fairly disputed area i think that there are you know there's research and schools of thought and people who will speak to the benefits and you know certain foods that can certainly work to increase desire and then others will say

you know absolutely not but I think the interesting thing here is how certain foods or even just the association to them can create a sexual context and make you prioritize sex so say for example you're having a glass of champagne there's some oysters you're in you know a sexy or fun setting you're feeling relaxed you're feeling good that does create a context for sexual desire it makes you bring sex front of mind so whether or not it has tangible impacts or effects on your body actually it would be useful for everyone to give it a go maybe do a bit of an experiment on themselves but another thing that I think aphrodisiacs kind of conflate is the difference between desire and arousal and these are actually two very different things so desire as we've

spoken about is the wanting for sex, the motivation for sex. Arousal is the physiological responses or the physical responses that happen in the body. So that is your genitals becoming engorged or lubricated, your heart rate doubling, your cheeks becoming flush, like all of these physical responses. And sometimes we can experience physical arousal, but not desire sex. And sometimes we can desire sex, but not experience physical arousal. And the only thing that can tell us whether we want sex is us. And a lot of the time I'll hear these concerns that people will say, I really want to have sex, but I feel like I'm not wet enough or not hard enough. And I feel like my body is letting me down or my body is trying to tell me something. And unfortunately,

we can't always turn to our arousal to tell us exactly what we're wanting to do. That's really all about consent. And that's us thinking about what we're excited by. And if our body is responding in an unexpected way, you could give an aphrodisiac a go, or you could just try lube or toys. So what I'm hearing, I'm hearing cancel my dozen oyster order right now. Keep the oysters because they're yummy. On the flip side to this though, what are some of the things that can really affect someone's libido? And I know that a discussion that we've had recently is how much say being on antidepressants could affect someone's libido or taking other medications that there are other not just context in terms of things that are happening in your life

for example taking care of kids but like things that may be introduced to your life like medication that can also have an impact on libido yeah definitely medication antidepressants this can all have an impact on you and hopefully your psychiatrist or your gp whoever's prescribed it has had this conversation with you. If you're noticing that it's affecting your desire, it can also affect your orgasm. So some people will say that they never struggled to experience orgasm, but since being on a new medication, it has affected the way that their body responds to arousal or even how intense their orgasms are. If it is affecting you and your relationships or your relationship with your body, it's worth having a chat with whoever's prescribed you

the medication to see if there's things that you can do and of course like I can't give this advice that's not my field but it is certainly worth a conversation around either the times of day that you take it or the specific dose but just know that this is really normal as well hormonal contraception can have an impact on you as well do you think libido is affected by sexuality and what I mean by that is there is this stereotype that gay men for example want sex all the time yeah so I guess this is a really important thing to speak to because there is often a misconception that all gay or queer people are just hypersexual they want to fuck and party all the time and for some people absolutely like that is what they want to do it's fun for them it's their lifestyle

it's you know their identity but for others it is not and just because they're queer or they're gay it says nothing about how much they want to have sex and I think we see this a lot in our discussions around bisexuality in this really harmful perception that bisexual people are hypersexual that they want to have sex with everyone that they're just greedy and just because you're bisexual doesn't mean you want to have sex with every single person. Your sexual identity can mean many, many different things. So I think it's really important that we challenge that, but also to look at how when you are comfortable in your sexuality and maybe when you are challenging some of the binaries that can come with heteronormativity, that can open you up

to the opportunity to challenge a whole other range of binaries. And this is not to say that every gay or queer person is in a non-monogamous relationship, but many of the clients who I speak to have also noted that their experience of coming out or being gay or queer also allowed them to challenge other binaries that were just not right for them. Having said all of that, that, you know, cannot speak to all queer people at all and there will be many queer people out there who will identify that they're not overly excited by sex that it is not a priority for them that they're really happy in their monogamous relationships so yeah we can never speak to just like you would never expect me to speak on behalf of you know all cis women in the world we can never expect

you know one person to speak on behalf of every single queer experience is just not possible and I love that you say this as well so eloquently because I think all and we know this with every stereotype that there is all that does is to then further marginalize people who don't fit into that stereotype and friends of mine who are in a loving same-sex relationship who may have lower libidos when you think about this stereotype and and the expectation that they must be you know having wild and outrageous sex it's like then what impact does that have on their relationship or how they view their relationship when that's not the case, you know, and it's very easy to then interpret. Maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm not fitting in the way that I'm

supposed to fit in. And that's all that the stereotypes do. Well, it continues to perpetuate the stereotype. And then we keep having these conversations, which I think is why it's so great. We ask these questions and people that are very experienced like you put it to bed. So that was not a pun but a question we get a lot on ask uncut is about mismatched libidos so if someone's in a relationship and they're like oh my partner wants sex all the time and I don't want it I want sex all the time and I feel like my partner's not giving me what I need do you think that that relationship is then doomed do you think that we can recover we can have a relationship where everyone is getting what they need because a lot of people write to us saying I think

I need to end this relationship he's amazing she's amazing but it's not enough sex gosh this is just such a big topic and I think when I'm working with it I'll reframe it to desire discrepancy away from mismatched libido because when we hear this which is a really you know mainstream and well-known term it is this assumption that we're mismatched that there's something wrong with us that we're not meant to be. But really, like it is so normal and expected that if you're in a relationship with another person, that you will not be completely and entirely synced for the rest of your life, that you will both as individuals be going through things and within your relationship, you'll be going through things as well. So it is totally normal. And I don't

think we speak about this enough and the pressure that we place on ourselves or partners to be totally aligned with how often we're wanting sex. And this is something that it's an area I love working with because you absolutely can work on this so long as all people involved are playing their part and they're taking responsibility. For some people, if sex is really important to them and how they will define a fulfilling relationship it may be a non-negotiable it may be something that they are really looking for in a relationship and that may be when they move on or end the relationship however there are just so many ways that we can work with this it's certainly not a sign that you're not meant to be together maybe it's just a sign that we need to you know work

together as a relationship to see what is possible and how you can create this fulfilling sex life together well g g spot thank you so much thank you so much for coming on and talking about this libido has been something that we get a lot of questions on and that we talk about ourselves a lot because laura and i we're in different phases absolutely different phase my sister sherry getting married different phase everyone in our life and the listeners it's and it's something that people really start to question in themselves and their relationship is something wrong with me how do i fix this? Do I end my relationship? So I think it's a really great conversation that we've just had and we can't thank you enough for coming and bringing your very educated responses to

Life Uncut today. Yeah, thanks for having me and for opening the space for this conversation because you're so right. Everyone at some point in their life will have a fear or a question or a need to work on this. So if anyone is going through that, hopefully today this conversation has helped you out a bit. Georgia, can you let everybody know where they can find you, how they can find out more, or if they're wanting to book a consultation with you, how they can do that? Probably the easiest place to find me is on Instagram. I'm at gspot.underscore because gspot was taken. I feel like that is a really common question that men would ask is like, where do I find gspot? Oh yeah. Well, you know where to find me. That's where we can go find you.

Guys, you know that we never finish an episode without our suck and our sweet, our highlight and our lowlight of each and every week. Britt, what is your suck? My suck, I mean, like I mentioned it in the intro, but it's probably just like ruining your surprise when I put in the group chat that I had locked in your surprise. It was very silly. It was just dumb.

Like it just sucks. You know when you know you've just fucked something and there's nothing you can do? Yeah. Do you know what it was? It was still a good surprise. I enjoyed it. It was so quick because Apple even have that thing

where you can undo a message now if you take the message back within the first like couple of minutes. Laura, sometimes it takes days to get a response from Laura. This one time you were like within seconds. I don't think I'd even press send and you wrote back. And I was like, why is this the one time? Why are you sitting on your phone right now? I was in the group chat at that point in time.

I was the first person to see it and I was like, oh, that's uncomfortable for you. So I couldn't. It sucks to be you right now. Well, that's why it's my suck. My sweet. I had a lovely week. it was great weather i went on a really great date as you know we're getting ready for your

wedding i just feel like it's it's just a good week today it's such a good week yeah i mean it is a good week but i have two sucks that i'm gonna share anyway my first suck is is that i parked my car on oxford street across from my shop on like a tuesday afternoon i parked it there and then i went back to my car at four in the afternoon and someone driving down the street had just fucking side swiped my car completely taken off the side mirror which is annoying because it's got like electrical stuff in it you sort of need that pay for that yeah and it has you can't you can't actually can't drive your car without a mirror with an indicator on it yeah crazy anyway well it's not that crazy actually i am still driving it believe it or not so that happened

that sucked no no so i have to pay to get that fix do you have to put your hand out let me know like a bike now to indicate that you're turning like a horse and carriage back in the day bike riders will like indicate when they go right no because i still have an indicator on the back and on the front does nothing on the little side mirror and i also have to kind of stick my head out to see if a car's coming which is very dangerous but i can't see anymore super safe i can't see and then my other suck is poor marley yesterday she was completely fine in the morning and then she just had a bit of a temperature was super tired we're four days out from the wedding like four days out from the wedding you're like if you get covered and then last night she was

like mommy my tummy hurts i feel really sick and then she had a really bad temperature and then in the middle of the night she vomited all over herself all over me all over the floor all over the bed all over the blankets all over the pillow all in her hair it was just one of those moments where i was like god i hope this is a 24-hour bug really just last night that was last night yeah how is she this morning well she's home from daycare she's not the best uh but she's currently with matt matt said she's 75 which i think is a pretty good percentage oh yeah you can 60 you can roll with 60 you just can't hit 50 i was like you just you need to be well enough to be able to be with a babysitter for a couple of days next week yeah mind you she's at the wedding for all of the

wedding it's just that she wants it's like dinner time and bedtime is she on the single table with me wild molly and i'm gonna get wild so that's my socks and my sweet is is that i feel like this week has just been such a wonderful lead up to the wedding like we've been able to do some really really like lovely things together matt and i took the whole week sounds so dumb we took the whole weekend off but we did we spent we spent the weekend together and we at the train no we didn't go to the train we went to the beach and we just had a really beautiful family weekend and like they're my favorite days so it was such a nice little end to the week and now we're going to steamroll into wedding week well the next time you guys hear from laura i was going to say she'll be

laura johnson but she's not but she will be married she will be a married woman you'll be in the next little chapter of your life i'll be mrs johnson ish yeah we could do that fine johnson ish yeah johnson mrs semi johnson yeah we'll work on that we'll discuss it we'll think of something for you guys we're gonna workshop this in between now and then but also guys if you haven't yet voted it is the podcast awards have come back around jump onto into the show notes we're going to pop the link there but we would absolutely be so incredibly grateful if you would jump on and vote for life uncut in the people's choice award for the podcast awards this year it would really mean so much it's literally for us in the podcast world it is like the academy award logie oscar you know what it's

just what makes you feel good about what you do it's the acknowledgement and the recognition you know it's it's the one event one award of the year pretty much this is the time to shine this is what you know this is what i guess you want in your industry yeah and we like i mean we love making this podcast we have it's the fucking best we and we're so grateful for what an absolutely incredible community we have been able to create for all of you who constantly support us like it does not go unnoticed we're so so grateful for everyone who bought the book for everyone who cast the vote like it's because of you guys that we keep on making this pod but that is it from us guys you know the drill tell your mom tell your dad tell your dog tell your friends and share the

love because we love love so much so that you're getting married Thank you.