Sex Talks With Emma-Louise Boynton - Part 2 with Paul Brunson: your dating questions, answered

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

Paul Brunson is one of the world's most influential matchmakers, according to the Matchmaking Institute. He is also the co-host of Married At First UK and Celebs Go Dating UK, and author of 'It��s Complicated (But It Doesn’t Have to Be): A Modern Guide to Finding and Keeping Love. In this episode, Paul answers the Sex Talk's community's sex, love and dating questions live at The London Edition. Whether you're in a relationship, looking for a partner or happily single, Paul will give you a new perspective with which to view love and your relationship to it. This episode was sponsored by The Knude Society, aka the female-led sexual pleasure company on a mission to help you enjoy your body, in whatever way feels right for you.  The Knude society has designed two vibrators, as well as a water-based lube, that can help you do exactly that.  Get 15% off when you shop with the Knude society using the code SEXTALKS15.  If you want to join the Sex Talks crew, sign up to Emma-Louise’s substack ‘Swipe Right’ here. And if you'd like to join an upcoming live podcast recording grab your ticket here.

Hello and welcome to a live recording of the Sex Talks podcast with me, your host, Emma Louise Boynton. Sex Talks is dedicated to engendering more open and honest conversations around typically taboo topics, specifically sex, relationships and the future of intimacy. Today's episode has been recorded at the London Edition Hotel. If you'd like to attend a live event in the future, please do head on over to the Eventbrite link in the show notes, as we have lots of exciting events coming up. Before we get started, I also want to tell you about this week's podcast sponsor, The Nude Society. AKA, the female-led sexual pleasure company, on a mission to help you enjoy your body in whatever way it feels right for you.

Now you know I'm a big advocate for self-pleasure, because I really believe there is nothing more empowering than getting to know your own body. What feels good for you, what you like, and of course what you don't. The New Society is designed two vibrators, as well as a water-based loom that can help you do exactly that. I recently tried their Lenin Vibrator, which bends in half, so it can stimulate you both internally and externally at the same time. externally at the same time. You love a bit of multitasking, don't we? Suffice to say, I really like this vibrator and think you will too. Get 15% off when you shop with the News Society using the code Sex Talks 15. Okay, I hope you enjoy the show. So I don't think either of us, Paul, are rapid fire response people, but nonetheless,

I'm going to put you through your paces and we, oh dear God, and we're going to try and rapid fire these as fast as we can. So how are you selecting these by the way? By picking. It's democracy. Is it democracy? It's not democracy. It's a democracy. It's random. It is yes. It is sex talks dictatorship Paul. This is how we run the show here. Okay. Right. Oh, let's begin with this because I'm loving this. Should you stay celibate if not dating? Yeah, that's that's a very good one. I think that I mean, I wish I could ask this person like five questions. You can't pull. But in short, I say that it's most important to identify what your values are, what is true to

yourself, and follow that. Because ultimately what you want to do, ultimately if you want self-fulfillment, self-fulfillment is about recognizing what your boundaries are and really operating within those. And so that's a question that you have to identify for yourself. I don't think that there's a strong pro or a con for your future partner. So you just have to do you. You really do, do you.

So going off the back of that a little bit, or keeping the topic of sex, do you think sleeping with someone on a first date is actively negative or just something that women are told to believe? Well, I actively try to have sex with my wife on the first date. And I was unsuccessful. but but so this is this is a big question right so let me just draw some nerdy stuff real quick and it was like hurry up quick so it's like so right now we know that on first dates there roughly 66% of first dates there's some type of sexual contact that happens so it feels like okay that's quite a bit but remember

what we talked about earlier is that most people in the dating market are looking for short term so this is where I think you have to identify what is it that you're looking for, short term versus long term. You also have to understand what are your boundaries within what you're doing. So having sex on the first date or having some form of sex on the first date doesn't mean that you won't be in a long term relationship. It doesn't mean you won't get a second date. But having sex when you don't want to on a first date means that you've started the relationship already with your boundary crossed. And here's what's very important to understand about boundaries is that if you don't set boundaries, you take even well-intentioned people and you turn them into bullies.

So you have to identify your boundaries. You have to hold on to those. Oh, that is going to stay with me, Paul. This person's written, I think I have an avoidant attachment style. How do I know if I'm sabotaging slash finding flaws in someone or if they're not or if they're just not right for me? All right. So this is a big one. Like, I mean, we need an hour. But here's the short. The short version is this. I think one of the most undervalued resources in dating are close friends and family. The decision of who to date historically has not been up to you. It's been up to your friends and family. That's the history of the world. Now, there's lots of pros and cons to that, but let me look at the pros.

The pros is that when you have people who love you, they're able to identify the blind spots that you have because of your infatuation with the person. When you are infatuated, it's called state of limerance. It means that you are not making, you're not making effective decisions for yourself. So for this particular person, I would say surround yourself with people who love you

and ask them. Another person has asked, Do you believe that what starts in chaos ends in chaos? God, it depends what the chaos is. But I kind of interpret chaos meaning, you know, it's lots of conflict, lots of drama, lots of noise, and that sounds messy. And if this is a person who's in chaos right now, with someone, I say, remove yourself. Why do I think actually that leads to a question about endings that I did want to ask you? is how do you know when it's worth sticking around

and trying to make it work versus when it's time to walk away? Big question. Big question. I need a glass of wine for that one. But I'll say this about walking away, right? And the reason why it is big. So John Bulby, my guy, OG, of attachment.

Because of him, we have attachment, right? John Bulby started researching in the 50s. When you look at all of his research, all of his writings, he has it in three volumes, three volumes of John Bolby. it's about this thick for the finding love part it's about this thick for the keeping love part it's about this thick for the letting love go this is a major part of life right for all of us and the short answer i think is when you or your partner is no longer putting effort towards the relationship becoming better if there is no effort there's no interest

And the way that a relationship works is, to me, is there's no such thing as stagnation. Relationships are like a shark. You've got to keep moving for the oxygen. So if the relationship is not growing, it's not stagnated. It means it's dying. So if you have, if it's not growing, you have a partner that's not willing to put an effort or you're not willing to put an effort, it will die eventually. So, so yeah.

And also real quick, too, to put this out is, you know, talking about the patriarchy, but what has happen. What's beautiful is that, you know, women right now lead divorce initiations. So roughly 70% of divorce initiations are coming from women. It wasn't that way when I wrote my book. And what's interesting to me about that research is that most women know 12 months before they decide to leave. Twelve months, they're checked out 12 months. Now, there's a variety of reasons why you stay, right? But my point there is that when you no longer see the effort, that's when you need to begin the planning of exiting. What brilliant advice. Someone else has asked, and you are speaking my language right now, is it possible to look for short-term mating and long-term mating

at the same time? Asking for a friend. Oh my God. Can I say something? I'm very proud of this question. It's like you listened, right? You're like, that's a very nerdy question, and I love nerdy questions. I love that. So technically, yes, but in practicality, no. So, so, so, yeah, that's, that's the quick. Oh, I need to know a little bit more. Can you really not? Because can you not be casually? I don't want to do them an injustice. Paul, can you be casually sleeping with someone, but meanwhile be looking to foster a long-term relationship with someone new?

Asking for a friend? No. Yeah. I mean, here's the reason. And many people will disagree with me on this is I don't think there's... This is bold, but I'm going to say it, and people will disagree. I don't think there's anything... Yeah, I'm going to say it.

I don't think there is such a thing as casual sex. Yeah, I don't. I don't. Whenever you have sex, there's a multitude of repercussions and impact that happens that are not casual, that are permanent. And for that reason alone, sex is never casual. STIs are curable though Yeah

Most of the time I was going to say most of the time Yeah most of the time The special strain of gonorrhea going around Lewisham is not apparently Not that I would know Matt Right

How do you navigate a partner with past trauma slash sexual dysfunction and trauma from this if they don't see it slash won't address it? All right. This is a great question. And I'm fresh off the research on this one. Because this happened last night on Married at First sight. Okay. So there was a scenario with one person who is suffering from low self-esteem.

and the other person, this part was an error, but the other person was like, well, what can I do? How can I help this person? How can I support this person? So there is, there's strong research that shows that when you're suffering from low self-esteem, anxious, et cetera, that what you do is there's a lot of defense mechanism that you put up, right? One way to help to alleviate that with your partner is to affirm them. So self-affirmations are incredibly important, but to affirm your partner is also incredibly important. It was interesting because on Twitter, I mean, whatever it is. There was a bunch of people pushing back, like, what are you talking about, Paul? And I was like, here's the research. So the key is to affirm your partner. And when you affirm your

partner, you could do that in many ways. Like, you know, it's lovely what you have on. You know, thank you for picking up the kids today. You know, I just want to let you know how special you are to me. But the key is that you want to be affirming your partner. And what the research shows is that you want to have, like on average, you want to have five, you know, affirmations essentially to everyone negative. And if you think about that in your relationship, it's quite a bit. It's quite a bit. So you want to be affirming your partner. That's a very, very powerful strategy. Affirming your partner. We love that. Why do you think men put less effort into finding love based on your mass data? So I would say that it's men looking for short-term dating.

Men looking for, so I would counter that question. Men looking for long-term relationships actually put in, say, on average, more effort up front. The data tells us that men, this is going to sound morbid, but I'll connect it, is men are the first in relationships typically to commit suicide. And why is that? It's because of the feel of the bond of the connection. On average, men are the first to say, I love you in a relationship. Why is that? It's because of the love, the commitment, the connection. And so when you find a man, who is interested in a long-term relationship, you don't find that.

It's like the opposite. It's like, when I got married, I was like, I want to do this yesterday. Like, I'm planning the wedding. Like, I'm like, so it's one of those where I don't think that happens on average for long-term mating. For short-term mating, absolutely. Because short-term mating is about how can I put in the least amount

effort to get sex. That's what short-term mating is. How do you remain optimistic with the current dating scene? Keep coming to these events. But you know what it is? It is getting around level-headed, grounded people, bless you, level-headed, grounded folks that are in love, you know? That's the key. You know, you talk about content that you consume. One of the first things, one of the, one of the most important things that I ever did, and I did it by accident, is I found a, love mentor. My uncle. So my uncle, my uncle James, who I love, he, I watched him enter a healthy

relationship when I was in my teens. And I wanted what I saw. That changed everything for me. Because my friends were like, yo, you could do anything you want out here. I was like, I know, but I don't want everything. I want one thing. And it was because of what, it was spending time with my Uncle James, and I saw the return that he got, he's still married to this day, right? And so having a mentor, love mentor, I think is incredibly powerful. So that's one very effective way to stay optimistic. Oh, I love that idea. How this question is brilliant. How do you get over someone you thought was the one? I mean, there's, there's, there's, there's, You believe in the one.

Well, I don't believe in, I think soulmates are made, not found. Like, you know, I know many people who have been in incredibly loving relationships. They have separated and they have found equally as incredible love. I know people, you know, actually, I have a good friend who, she, her husband passed away two and a half, three years ago. They looked like they had the best, like the perfect. relationship, thought, like, she said, I'll never enter another relationship. She was resigned. I'll never be in another relationship.

She's engaged, you know? So it's one of those where love is incredible. You know, my son always, my youngest son, always, he'll, he'll say, all right, dad, just tell me, who do you love more? Me or, or Kingston. And I'll say, how are you going to ask? He said, because love divides. It divides.

And I was like, no, my man, it multiplies. And it does. It does. And so one of those where, so I don't, but how to get over, though, is you need to heal. And there's lots of ways to heal. There's therapy, but there's self-reflection. There's journaling. There's meditation.

But the number one, I think, like, just to be, give some tactics is our values are like our rulebook to life. So, like, my values, creativity, ambition, religion is one of mine. Like, I have different values. I think that when we feed our values, we feel better. Our esteem rises when we're feeding our values. The more that we could feed our values on a day-to-day basis, the better we are. So that's something very important to do.

And also, unfollow him on Instagram. Oh, yes. Don't do the doom scrolling. And actually, Paul, I think you've just said that I think what is fundamentally the most important thing to know in the aftermath of heartbreak is that there are other people who you will be able to fall in love with. Because I think so often when, whether you've been in a relationship, whether it's long or short, it's that loss of hope that to the end of that relationship represents, this life you imagine building with this person, this future you imagined in your head that was so compelling that took you out of where. whatever shitty situation you may feel that you were in at that moment. And I think sometimes that loss of hope can be the most

painful thing. And I think the hardest thing, but the most important thing in the aftermath of heartbreak, is rebuilding that hope and kind of like restocking yourself with the hope that you will have that and you will have that with someone else. Because I think when you begin to have that, that's when you go back into dating

without a scarcity mindset but with an abundant mindset. And that's when you're looking for someone with shared values rather than anyone who'll take you. Yes. Yes. and you know a good book on that. Go on. We're getting a big reading list tonight.

Carol DeWicks mindset. Yes, yes, yes. Carol DeWix's mindset. It is on top of it. It is on top of it. It's to your point. And that's what we want. We want to open a growth mindset

and to get there, read her book. How do you not panic about being single in your 30s? Here's the staff. that the average age that people are getting married right now, it's going up. So we only have data for last year. It's between like 33 and 35, right? It's here in the UK.

So if you are early to mid-30s, you're not even at the average yet. You know, I mean, you're just like right there. So don't worry. The other thing, too, is this, is that getting married is not what it's about. What it's about is finding satisfaction in your life. that's what it's about and finding the right partner can help you to get there

but you know like Michelangelo would look at stone and not say I'm going to carve this beautiful thing out of the stone right this is called the Michelangelo effect he's like I'm not going to car he would never say I'm going to go over here I'm going to carve this beautiful thing what he would say instead is I'm going to go over there

and I'm going to unleash this beautiful thing that's already in the stone that's how we need to need to look at our life. We need to look at our life like we are the beautiful thing is in here. How can we just unleash it? And if you unleash it with a partner, cool. If you unleash you without a partner, you're still cool. You know what I mean? So unleash your thing. I always note we've had quite a few of this kind of version of that same question of like, how do I navigate being single in my 30s? How do I not panic in my 30s? How do I not panic in my 30s?

And I really feel that. It's such a real worry because especially as women, we've been programmed to think that our value is tied up with marriage, with kids, starting a family. And I think you really have to do a lot of work, to detach yourself from that being the idea of where your value is placed. And also the only route to happiness in your life is by virtue of having that happily ever after. But when you can do that. Yeah. All right. Another book on this.

Oh, yes. Dr. Waldinger wrote a book, The Good Life. Anybody read it? Yeah. So Dr. Waldinger has the longest longitudinal study on happiness and satisfaction, right? He's out of Harvard. What he found was so interesting is that to get to that highest level of satisfaction where you're living longer, where you're healthy, where you're feeling good,

it's about your intimate relationships. But it doesn't mean romantic intimate relationships. The key, one of the most effective things we could do, is to build a crew, a nucleus of people that we love, that we want to spend time with, that love us, that are there for us at 3 a.m. That's the most important thing you could do. When you get that, everything else seems to open up.

And so remember, to get that highest level from Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it's not from a romantic partner, right? It's from having friendship, right? It's from having intimacy, which doesn't always mean romantic. That's so true. And as my best friend and I always say,

like, find the romance in your other relationships, a.k. find the romance in your friendships. Find the romance in the relationships that sit outside of the typically romantic, like partnership dynamic. Because I think so often we can overlook how wonderfully romantic those relationships can be. Like, go on a date night with your friends, put in that effort, dress up, do the romantic stuff outside of the context of looking to have sex and be with someone forever.

And I think that also puts you in a kind of happier, again, more abundant mindset when it comes to dating because you don't feel like you're missing out on something and you're chasing dating for the sake of being able to do those romantic things. Yeah, and this is sex talks too. So let's, I mean, go home and masturbate. So true.

I mean, I'm just, yeah, top tip. Top tip of the night. Go home and masturbate. But it's true because not only the but then I say this ad nauseum, but also then you're exploring your own body without the pressure of someone else there, and you're getting to know yourself better. And I think, you know, throughout this conversation,

you've said, like, it's so important to identify what your values are, what you want in life. But in the same way, that's so important for relationships and what you want in a romantic partner. It's also true sexually. Like, find out what you want sexually alone. Because then you're able to do the communication. Like, when you are then with a sexual partner, you can communicate, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. This is what I'd be really curious to explore.

But unless you've done that work on your own, it's very hard to set those boundaries. outside of that. Preach. Paul Brunson says, Go home and masturbate, and that is all I'm hearing tonight. You heard it from the world's number one matchmaker, so who am I to argue?

We have now run out of time, sadly, and I'm sorry we've... We're ending on Go Home and Masturbate. Paul, it's been such a pleasure. I feel like, well... In more ways than one. but I have really learned so much and I think the way that you approach love

and romance and dating gives me so much hope at a time when I think it can feel at times a little bit hopeless especially when you're in your 30s and there's a lot of pressure to be partnered up when dating apps have definitely changed the landscape

in a way that can feel a bit kind of confusing and discombobulating it can feel a little bit hopeless but I think when I listen to you speak when I listen to you preach I feel really hopeful and I feel excited about dating and excited about the love

that I get to cultivate in my life now with a potential partner, so thank you. Well, and I have to say this, and this is for you, this is for everyone, is that when Emma and I met, right, she did kind of track me down and kind of stalked me a little bit at this party, but what I loved most

was your energy and your light. And I remember what I did is I went to your Instagram and I looked at your other sex talks. And what I loved most was the audience that you brought were curious and smart. And I thought to myself, I've never seen an event like this, ever seen an event. And that's why I committed. I said, all right, I'm here.

And I can see, you know, from the audience, I can see from the note-taking, my manager is here, you know. We'll talk after this. you know but I honestly I could see how incredible this room is I think this I think I think that you all should recognize that the fact that you are spending time here in this space

how important that is to you and to your life and what that means and how incredible each of you not only are but will continue to be so thank you for your time and Emma thank you for the space thank you for the invite oh thank you so much Thank you so much for listening to this live recording of the Sex Talks podcast with me,

your host, M. Louise Boynton. This was recorded at the London Edition Hotel. If you'd like to attend Sex Talks Live, head on over to the Eventbrate link in the show notes, as we have lots of exciting live events coming up. In the meantime, don't forget to submit whatever Agniant question you'd like us to tackle on a future episode via the Sex Talks website. to that's sextalks.co.uk. And finally, if you've enjoyed the show,

I hope you have, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to this on. So apparently it helps others to find us. Have a wonderful day.