Sex Talks With Emma-Louise Boynton - The first solo pod! Discussing situationships, comparison culture in sex, and why the grass is always greenest where you water it

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

In this solo episode of the Sex Talks podcast, Emma discusses three main topics: her experience watching a play called 'After Sex' and the dating lessons it reminded her of; her brand new mantra 'the grass is greenest where you water it' and how we can apply it to both work and relationships; and, finally, the negative effects of comparison culture, particularly in relation to sex. The final Sex Talks Live podcast recording of the summer will take place on July 30th at The London Edition. You can purchase tickets here.

Hello and welcome to the Sex Talks podcast with me, your host, Emma Louise Boynton. Sex Talks exists to engender more honest, open and vulnerable discussions around typically taboo topics, like sex and relationships, gender inequality, and the role technology is playing and changing the way we date, love and fuck. Our relationship to sex tells us so much about who we are and how we show up in the world, which is why I think it's a topic we ought to talk about with a little more nuance and a lot more curiosity. If you want to join the conversation outside of the podcast, sign up to my newsletter via the link in the show notes. Welcome to the first solo sex talks podcast, which I am so excited to record. I've actually wanted to do a solo podcast for ages.

but then I felt really worried that I wouldn't have enough to say because obviously I'm most comfortable in the chair of the interviewer but obviously I have tons to say because I never stopped talking so I thought given that it's summer given that we don't have another live recording of the podcast till next week I thought fuck it let's try let's see how this goes so welcome to the first solo sex talks podcast so the first solo sex talks podcast so the first I wanted to begin with, is to tell you about this play I saw last night called After Sex, obviously so relevant to sex talks. So it made for the perfect conversation starter for today's

podcast. Now, I went with sex therapist Kate Moyle, and I was obsessed. It was so wittily written. It was written by Siofra Dromgul, I hope I correct, pronounce that correctly. And it was directed by Izzy Paris. And it was a two-person play and bless the main, the male lead in the play has got COVID. And so had to pull out last minute. So the guy he replaced him had to step in that day. So he had like 12 hours, bless this man to get his shit together and step up to be the lead co-star. So he had his script for the duration of the play. But actually, he was such a good actor. It kind of didn't really matter. He kind of incorporated it in. I kind of felt like he was quite a kind of literary studious

kind of guy. And this was just his book that he had at hand all times, at all times, during sex, after sex. You know, thinking about sex, there he was, this little booklet. But okay, so the premise of the play, which by the way, was at the Arcola Theatre, which is in East London. And I think it's got like quite a few days left. So if you can get a ticket, get a ticket and go, I really think you'll love it. But so the premise of the play is with these, this like lead couple, there's two people and they work in the same office and they start up what I imagine to be a summer frisson. And frisson is my new favorite word. I'm probably butchering it, but whatever, let's run with it. And it begins as casual sex. You know, they both talk about how, you know, this is just

casual. Do we tell anyone in the office? Like, what's there to tell? That kind of vibe. but over the course of the play, which is mainly scenes of them talking in a kind of post-coital context. So they fuck, and then we obviously don't see them, but they have sex. And then it's them chatting afterwards. So they're in this kind of casual frisson.

And obviously, as often happens, they start to catch feelings. You get the feeling that it's mainly the woman who catches feelings. And by the way, I have no idea what their names were, which is terrible. And I should have looked that up.

You know what? We're learning for the next solo podcast. So let's say lead actress was catching feelings seemingly more intensely than the guy, but he was also having a bit of a change. He was, you know, classic. I'm emotionally unavailable.

I'm not looking for a relationship. You know, this is just casual for me. But over time, he does seem to also kind of like her more and more. it was so brilliantly written and was littered with lines like actually i'll read you one of them which i just found online which was so good and it's the lead actress said this the guy after he said to her they're both high they've just been out and they have sex and he like says to he's like god i'm just imagining you pregnant and you look so good pregnant and they're and they

both get like really turned on by him imagining her pregnant yeah kind of weird anyway she turns to him and it's like, thing is, I'm just worried because I think what I'm being turned on by is the fact that you're imagining a stable future with me, whereas what you're being turned on by is the potential potency of your own sperm. What is so confronting and also brigant about this play is that it's so goddamn resonant because throughout the entirety of watching this non-couple situation ship couple have sex and get deeper and deeper and into this non-relationship is that at no point did they properly articulate what they want and where they're at and what they need. And you just see them obviously like projecting so much

onto the other and saying things defensively because they don't want to seem to be vulnerable or wanting too much. And I was just like, fuck, that is literally all my relationship slash situationships, where we go into it, not neither party saying what we're looking for and dating and what we really want, hanging out more, you know, high-level WhatsApp boyfriend. So we're talking all the time, all day, texting, you know, I'd say I'm pretty poetic over text, or I send like tons of articles and podcasts, becomes kind of mutual intellectual masturbation session, then you have great sex and feelings build. no point you stop and say like, oh, hey, like, what do you want, what you're feeling? And then

because you're scared of being vulnerable to this person, you just end up shutting down any opportunity to be open and vulnerable and projecting and affecting until suddenly the relationship has kind of got quite intense, but because you haven't set any terms or boundaries or conditions, it feels like it's kind of run away from you. And at that point, things break down. And in this play. I don't want to spoil it because, you know, I really think you should go and see it, but something big happens and it kind of forces this non-couple couple to confront how they feel and where they're at. And you just both see them really grapple with articulating their feelings. And even in this very kind of high intensity space they find themselves in with what's

happened, they still are so defensive, particularly the main actress, she's still so defensive. and so projecting onto him and like testing him is like you know, I guess I'll never see you again and he's like, oh okay and she's like, that was a test you weren't supposed to answer like that. It's just they're speaking and riddles and rhymes.

That is all to say. I found it deeply, concerningly, resonant because it just, I guess I felt frustrated at all the times in which I've done exactly what these protagonists were doing in just refusing to be honest with feeling something about someone else. It's like, you know, you just, you feel like embarrassed to admit that you like somebody because you need to be the cool girl. You need to be

super independent, you know, boss bitch, I don't need anyone, I'm not needy. And sometimes I feel like in trying to be that independent person, we, by which I mean I, end up pushing people away, I'm not allowing somebody in because we, I am so scared of being perceived as desperate. And God damn it, I'm not desperate. So I would say definitely going to see it. I also, I said I went to see it with Kate Moyle, the wonderful sex therapist who I've had on sex talks many times who, you know I love. And I came out for the bit of being like, oh my God, Kate, you know, I've been in the situation so many times. And she was like, yeah, I get this in the therapy.

room with people all the time. And it was a reminder to me, and it should be reminded to all of us, that as my sex therapist said to me in every single sex therapy session, communication is key. Communication, communication, communication. It also reminded me actually of a piece of advice that Paul Brunson, aka the like godfather, leader of sex relationship, advice and expertise, said on the sex talk stage, I mean, almost a year ago now, it was like November. last year. And he said, when you're dating, you're dating somebody new, if you're looking for a relationship or whatever you're looking for, put it on the table early on, like straight up, say like, I'm dating because I'm looking for a relationship, or I'm dating because I'm looking

to have fun. And at the time, I was like, oh, that seems like good advice. Then I thought about and I was like, I don't know, do you risk shutting down relationships prematurely or not like allowing yourself to explore getting to know someone by being really definitive at the start of, I'm looking for this, there's kind of no room for maneuver within this. Do you potentially preclude, you know, an amazing experience with someone new because you're so kind of steadfast with what you want? And so I've always been actually really nervous of doing that, because I'd rather personally kind of see where something can go more organically. But actually, as experience, particularly since then, has led me to realize, as my mom always says, like, the truth will

out. If you are going into dating, looking for a relationship, like, that is where you're at your life, you want a relationship, then you have to say that. Because there's no point in spending your time with people who are going into dating, looking for something completely different, because you're probably not going to change their mind. There's always that, exceptional story where one person didn't want a relationship but then they started hanging out and then they changed their mind and now they're married and have two kids. Yeah, great. There's always an exception to this rule. But I think more often than not, we need to like hear people when they tell us where they're at and really listen and then act according to what they say,

not what we're interpreting from their actions. Because otherwise, if you let it evolve and you want something very different from what they have said that they want, it is really hard to not then feel really hurt and offended and like it's you're the problem when eventually things don't go the way that you want them to and they're like, no, no, no, I don't want this.

But actually, they're just being consistent with what they said from the very start that they don't want a relationship. And it's nothing on you. It's no reflection on you or how gorgeous you are, or like all the attributes you have and what you bring to a relationship

is just that they're not in that place. So going back to what Paul Brunson said, I do actually now think, like, early on, if what you're looking for is something serious, just you have to say it. And then abide by that. And if don't let people waste your time because, you know, our time is our most valuable commodity,

there was a really great phrase that I used to, oh my God, what was it? It was like, spend your time wisely lest you let other people spend it for you. Isn't that good? I really try and live by that now. So the next thing I really wanted to chat to you about was actually the topic of this week's newsletter, which was about my new mantra. And it's the grass is greenest where you water it. It's something it's been like playing on my mind a lot recently. And I've really been like, okay, what does that actually mean?

And so I wrote the newsletter about this idea and reflect a little bit on what my kind of previous grass is greener mentality, how that affected the way I've behaved from work to relationships. Loads of people reached out to me off the back of the newsletter and said, oh my God, this resonates so much. I totally like, yeah, I completely feel this. So if those of you who haven't read the newsletter, let me briefly, briefly explain.

So when I was growing up, so I think really in my 20s primarily, I was obsessed with the infinite possibility of the unknown. I chased it doggedly. I chased novelty doggedly. I just always, whatever I was doing over here was not interesting to me. And I was looking at what people were doing over there, all the shiny objects that were around me. And as my friend remembered, reminded me the other day. We were walking through Barrow Market and I was talking to him about this, my new mantra. He was like, yeah, like, you've always been someone who seemed more likely to go on holiday with a stranger. So like someone you've just met at a jazz bar in New York, true story, where I went to L.A. with. Or, you know, a guy you get set up with at a wedding and

suddenly you're going on holiday with him for New Year's with his friends. Also true story. then more like to do that than to go away with your actual friends. And it's so true, I've always actually, like, hated the idea of group holidays and find them really oppressive because to me they felt really predictable and contained, like I kind of knew what it would be. Whereas with a stranger, there was this infinite possibility of the unknown. I had no idea what it would look like. I had no idea what we'd do.

I didn't know what they'd be like or how I would be like in their company. And this kind of, like, insatiable. desire for the unknown and for and for this kind of newness meant I just found it really hard to stay like to sit still and then also to stick with things and with people like in relationships because I'd always be thinking the back of my head or like what else could I be doing like what is the what is the other company I could be setting up what is the other person I could be dating you know where else could I be living you know I moved around so much I mean in the UK, then moved back off from New York. So anyway, that was very much, I feel like,

something that characterised my 20s. It was this constant kind of need to just chase newness. And as I got older, I found myself just being less enamored by novelty and more excited by what can be achieved and what can be experienced with a bit more consistency. This notion of like an overnight success is such an alluring one. And I think social media really contributes to that because we are daily exposed to the literal highlight reel of other people's lives and successes without any sort of context. So we see their highlight reel in isolation from all the hard work, graft, sadness, suffering that sits behind that. But we just see all of these highlight reels. So just like back to back, back to back, decontextualized. And so we're constantly being confronted with

this really idealized depiction of other people's lives that I think really perpetuates this idea of success and also perfect lives being like really easily won or easily achieved. And so I think that we end up, it's really easy to then feel like you're failing if you're not getting your hopes and dreams, your ideal life, partner, career, home, etc., instantly. Like, if you don't have it in your early 20s, my 20s, like you've somehow failed, which just couldn't be further from the truth. But I think that then exacerbates that that craving for newness

because you're like perennially dissatisfied with what's in front of you because you're like, well, it's not exactly what the person over there has. so I'm going to keep chasing, keep chasing, keep chasing. And actually, like, more off than not, success comes through actually picking something, making a decision, picking your plot of land, and then watering that goddamn grass every single day. That's how true success comes about.

And often it takes a long-ass time. So I was listening to Elizabeth Day's podcast, How to Fail with Salman Rushdie. And Salman Rushdie, you know, prolific author, author of the satanic verses, he said on the podcast that it had taken him 12 years of hard graph writing for him to really like kind of figure out what writer he was and to achieve any sort of like, rightly success. So for 12 years, he was, I think he was doing like copywriting to make money. and then his first book, his debut novel, was commercially, like, not a success, but then it was followed up by Midnight Children, which since sold millions and millions of copies, and he's written so many books now, numerous bestsellers, but it was 12 years of hard graft. And those are

12 years that we don't see or hear about, because as soon as someone becomes successful, that's when we begin hearing from them. That's when we get the interviews, that's when we have, you know, the cover, you know, articles, magazines, that's when they become a point of interest to us culturally. And so that's when we engage with their story. So there's that perception of overnight success. And so if you don't have that event, so you're like, okay, cool, well, I'm not doing the right thing. I need to do something else. You go and chase something new. And actually, that should be an example of, like, you buckle down and, like, really double down on what you're doing because you're more likely than to be able to achieve greater things than that. And I think the same is

true with relationships sometimes as well. And please don't get me wrong. I am in no way advocating staying in a relationship that doesn't make you happy. Absolutely not. If a relationship is making you less happy than you were outside the relationship, if cumulatively someone is not adding to your life, they're taking away from your overall health, well-being, happiness, I think cut. I just think life is too short. I actually hate that phrase life is too short because life is actually touch would please god quite long but it's not ever worth giving wonderful years that precious time we talked about before to someone that doesn't add to your life however big butt here in line with my new mantra of the grassy greens where you water it sometimes i think particularly

in a culture where dating apps by the way i do not hate dating apps at all i think that they have been amazing for many people, particularly the queer community, people who don't live in busy metropolis cities, you know, who don't have necessarily access to the kind of dating scene that we're so lucky to have in London. So I think dating apps can be amazing, but I do think they have contributed to a culture of disposability amongst people where you just have this seemingly like endless pool of potential dates and partners that it makes us value the person sitting in front of us less because if you're always just one swipe away from perfect, why ever settle for the person in front of you? And with that, I think it can therefore be

quite easy to think when you're dating to feel that perennial dissatisfaction I just discussed in relationship to work, the relationship to people. So you might be, you know, you might met someone great, you enjoy your time together, you really fancy them, the sex is good, but in the back of your head you're thinking, yeah, but there could be someone better. And the thing is, there probably is there are so many people on this planet there are so many good looking amazing great people who you're going to be attracted to and yes those people might earn more money they might be kind of they might be more generous in some ways they might dress but they might wear better shoes but if you always have that mentality of there might be something better

You're never going to try and actively nurture and cultivate what you have in front of you. And I think we can lose out on a lot of actually really great relationships and I think that's true, Platonic as well as romantic, by not giving enough time and energy to watering that patch of grass because we're too busy running off to find the something better and that kind of endless chase. there's a quote in Sylvia Plath's book, The Beljar, which now this is, this gets, this passage gets quoted so often, but for very good reason, I think it is such a beautiful passage. And I remember reading it actually my, it was a couple years ago. I think Dolly Alderton included it in her Dear Dolly column. And it just struck according to me because it resonated just so much with

kind of how I've often felt about my life and the uncertainty I have felt. regards to my decision-making, work, relationships, everything. So I'm going to read the passage in case you haven't heard it. I saw my life branching out before me, Plath writes, like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children,

and another fig was a famous poet, and another fig was a brilliant professor. And beyond and above, these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree starving to death just because I couldn't make up my mind which are the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest. And as I sat there and able to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black. And one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

so in being unable to make a choice and then stick to that choice the protagonist ends up with nothing with no figs just a pile of dried up shriveled fruits which sit accusatorially at her feet so i think i always whenever i'm feeling really indecisive and i have that like little niggling back in my head of, you could be doing something else, there might be another fig to plot, getting distracted from the fruit I've chosen in my life. I remind myself of this passage, and now I remind myself of the Salman Rushdie success story. Hence, the grass is greenest where you water it. Okay. So that was the, I would love to know what you think. So if you haven't read the newsletters, sign up to newsletcher, if you haven't already, if you have any thoughts on that mantra, if you have a mantra of

your own, that you have maybe recently come to abide by and have found to be really helpful. Please let me know. Either slide into my DMs, respond to the substack, probably DMs the best. I love the DMs. Okay. So the third thing I want to talk about is comparison culture. The reason I wanted to bring this up is I was reading up on the report with a Natsal survey, which if anyone who doesn't know, it is the worldwide. It's like the largest sex and behaviors survey. And in the UK, the survey's done every 10 years. So it's kind of a metric for where we're at with our sex culture, basically. And the survey since its inception, I think it's inception was 40 years ago because we're on that south floor now. It has shown a decade on a decade

decline in the amount of sex that we are all having. So that's a kind of contextual stat, to keep in your mind. So we're all having less sex. And there are multitude of reasons for this of which we will discuss next week. But then, even though we're all having less sex, we all think other people are having more sex than us. And this is where that comparison culture comes in. So I think stylists ran a piece about this recently and I actually contributed to the interview. They asked their readers, I think they asked like 100 readers, how much sex are you having and how do you think that compares to those around you, to your peers and everyone and everyone, although a lot of people, think that everyone else is fucking all the time,

and they are not. It was a report by the healthcare company Hymns and Hers in 2023, and it found that 21% of adults in the UK haven't had sex in the last month, but 98% assume everyone else has. 98%. Similarly, while 81% of us assume other people have sex once a week or more, only 45% actually do. As I was reading these stats and the stylist piece,

I'll link in the show notes because it's worth reading, I just thought how easy it is for us to constantly be comparing even our intimate lives with those around us and comparing it negatively. One of the problems surrounding this is that half of UK adults still consider sex a taboo topic. I've had so many people come up to me at the end of sex talks and say, You know, I've never spoken about sex to anyone, least of all my partner.

And the thing is, when a topic like sex is taboo, and we don't have vulnerable, open public conversations about it, and we don't therefore feel like we have, even like the language to talk about it in a mature, you know, open way, if we have an issue with our relationship to said taboo topic, we often feel completely alone in that issue, because, we're not having the conversations that would allow us to see that other people are going through the same thing that we are. And by the way, that was a hundred percent me. Before doing sex therapy, I did not talk about sex. As far as I was aware, before doing sex therapy, everyone around me, all my friends, everybody knew, was having mind-blowing, amazing carefree sex.

They were loving it. They were giving blow jobs, having orgasms, all great. I thought that I was individually broken because I couldn't orgasm and partner sex following the end of my like formative first relationship. And I didn't really like sex primarily because I felt so anxious about sex. So I would go on dates with guys and I would almost dread the end of the evening if we've been seeing each other for a bit and I knew they were going to say, oh, come back with me. And I felt like a lot of pressure. I felt like I just had to. And I felt so nervous because I knew I wouldn't be able to come. I felt like I was broken. I felt like I didn't work. I felt sex was very performative. It was very much for somebody else and not for me and my own

pleasure. And because the conversations I therefore have with my friends always seem to be quite surfacy and very, you know, people are saying, oh yeah, I went home with this guy, had sex with this guy, people seem to be able to talk about their relationship to sex so casually and as though it was just so easy for them. And by comparison, for me, like it wasn't easy for me. I felt so racked anxiety when it came to sex. Then I did sex therapy and started talking more openly to people about my problems around sex and then what sex therapy was teaching me. And the floodgates opened. I kid you not, suddenly everybody and their dog was telling me about the issues they had around sex. Issues around orgasm, issues like performance anxiety,

body image issues, all this stuff began coming out. And by the way, I'm not saying everyone's having shit sex. I'm just saying suddenly people were far more open with me in terms of telling me with how they really felt about their relationship sex. And it wasn't all amazing. Because of course it's not because sex is, as with every part of life, it's, you know, it's good and it's bad. I think there's so many things that contribute to how we experience sex. You know, we just don't talk about them. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, whatever you are doing.

If you haven't already bought a ticket to the next sex talks, please do. It's going to be amazing. As I mentioned, it's with comedian Sophie Hagan, who's just published a book, Will I Ever Have Sex Again? They haven't had sex in 3,000 days and counting, and they want to understand why. Hence, they went on this big investigative journey to understand our seemingly broken sex culture, to better understand their own relationship to sex. The outcome is fascinating.

The book is brilliant, so well written, so witty as to be expected. And Sophie will be joining me next week on Tuesday at the London Edition Hotel, the live recording of the podcast. And we will also be aggranting your questions there too. So if you haven't bought a ticket, definitely do. And I cannot wait to see lots of you there. See you next week on the podcast. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to today's Sex Talks podcast, with me, your host, Emma Louise Boynton. If you'd like to attend a live recording of the podcast, check out the event bright link in the show notes, as we have lots of exciting live events coming up. You can also keep up to date with everything coming up at Sex Talks, plus get my sporadic musings via the Sex Talk substack. I've also popped that link into the show notes, and over on Instagram, where I'm at Emma Louise Boynton. And finally, if you enjoyed the show, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to this on, as apparently it helps others to find us. Have a glorious day.