Sex With Emily - Initiating Sex is a Skill Not a Habit

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

In this Episode Emily kicks off Sexual Liberation Month. She sets the tone with provocative questions to get you thinking about your sexual freedom, confidence and what’s holding you back. Emily is here to help you live the life you want because what else are you doing right now except staying home and having sex? No partner required!Initiating sex can be overwhelming, especially if you’re quarantined with your partner. Emily gives tips on what to say when you want to get things going and even how to tell your lover you’re not in the mood. She also asks us to examine what our hang ups are when it comes to our own sexual liberation. Are you too caught up in your head about how you look? Ashamed of your “O” face? Do you get aroused too quickly and need to slow down? No matter what your situation, Emily’s got you covered so you can open up and communicate better with yourself and your partner.For even more sex advice, tips, and tricks visit sexwithemily.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and this July, we are celebrating sexual liberation. A part of that for us means reclaiming the sex life you want, how to build yourself confidence in and out of the bedroom, finding new ways to communicate with your partner, especially around who initiates and how to focus on enjoying the moment instead of your performance. We'll get into that and more. Stay with us. I took a COVID test today, and it was weird.

It sticks to your nose, and it's kind of awkward. Remember that initiating sex is actually a skill and a habit. And if you don't have either one of those or experience with it, it's not going to naturally accrue to you. You might already have a built-in mechanism that's like, well, this isn't a good time. Look into his eyes. They're the eyes of a man obsessed by sex. Eyes that block our sacred institutions.

Betrubized, they call them in a fight on days. Fourth of July is coming up. So what we're going to be talking about a lot this month is how are you celebrating your sexual liberation, your individual empowerment to be a sexual being? So expect a lot of ways to kind of mix that up, kind of challenge yourself, challenge your relationship to become even more sexually liberated. Wherever you're at, with partner, get yourself, because listen, we might be at home this summer, but I'm still going to be here from my home talking to you and helping us all

make it through this time with a lot, a lot better love and more love and to ourselves and helping us all make it through this time with a lot better love and more love and to ourselves and to others. All right, so this is from you guys, continue your questions to feedback at sexwithamlee.com. Hey, Dr. Emily, my question for you, other than having sex conversations with my significant other, what are some ways to help me and my significant other be more intimate with each other? We both have busy jobs and recently it's affected how we have sex with each other, because I want her to express and see how sexy I know she is.

Is this just communication between us? Is there something I can do to help her? So, I believe what you're saying here, Scott, is how do I get her to be more into sex and how to initiate sex? That's what I think you meant here. First off, you're said that you're having sex conversations with her. What you're really craving is intimacy. So I just want to say that.

I love that you know that about yourself because I think ultimately if you look at it, that's what a lot of us crave. I mean, sure, we want to have sex. We want to have the orgasms I spoke about and have the feel-good hormones. So it sounds like what you might need to do, and this goes for everybody, is that we have to be really specific when we make a request to our partner about something that we want, especially when it comes to intimacy and your sex life.

And so maybe we want her to initiate more. Here's the thing about initiating. There is one partner that always initiates more than the other. And the big thing I hear of me was how do I get my partner to initiate more? But just telling your partner, for example, you never initiate.

Why don't you initiate sex? You know, I really wish you would initiate more rarely does that work. And what happens is that one partner becomes resentful because they're waiting like I told you to initiate. And the other partner heard it and then thought I don't know when or you know you've always you know in their head they're probably thinking oh yeah that's a good idea. But remember that initiating sex is actually a skill and a habit. And if you don't have either one of those or experiencing with it,

experience with it. It's not going to naturally occur to you. You might always, you might already have a built-in mechanism that's like, well, this isn't a good time to initiate or, oh, I'll do it after dinner or I'll do it on Saturday. And since it's something new, it's your edge, it might not happen. So I believe that in a relationship where you're talking about sex and you have a good relationship in all these other areas that your partner really does want to please you. And if they said yes, they'll do it. They likely want to. But remember that they might need you to paint a picture for them about what that looks like. So for example, Scott, if you want her to initiate more, you might just need to say to her, you know what?

I'd really love if you brought sex to the table. And here's what it looks like. And so this is where we have to give an example. So Scott, you might feel like, you know what, I can't believe she doesn't know that, and doesn't mean she's never turned on? But listen, it's well documented that women have more of a responsive arousal. Meaning we respond to stimuli.

Someone coming, you know, seeing something, maybe our partners are to touch us or cartilage and then we get in the mood. But for men, it's more spontaneous, right? So you see your wife and you get an erection. Like it's literally a spontaneous, external, you are turned on. But since it's different for women, it might, in your, especially in your relationship, not all, but it might take a little bit more explanation. So you could say to her, I would love it if you initiated. So the next time, give an example, after dinner, I'd love you to come over and start kissing my neck, the back of my neck and put your arms around me

and do that thing that you do. It could just be one thing like that that will signal to her, oh, this is gonna signal to you that I'm trying to initiate sex. And then you got to go roll with it. It might not be perfect. It might be clunky.

But what isn't when we're learning a new skill, right? We're never just like excellent out of the gate and taking it from somebody who I had to learn it because I was always having partners initiate. I was like, this is something that I do not do. And it wasn't because I didn't want sex. I just knew it was going to happen. And if it didn't happen sometimes after I'm with someone for them, look, okay, I'm like, okay, we just watched TV

here. We did our thing. But I had to have a partner say to me, you never initiate. I was like, God damn it. Am I that person? I also am not initiating in a relationship and this is my job to tell everybody else to do it.

And so I had to hear it. You know, first I'm like, I do. And then I thought, God, I really haven't lately. And so I just, you know, I really bought about it. And even for me, it is my expertise. I had to think about it before I went to his house. Like, okay, so I'm going to wear this thing. And I actually was really great for me personally because I,

I don't know if this is familiar. I had all these things that I'd bought that made me feel sexy. I had like this really beautiful, like black body suit. They had lace on it. And I had this sat and like I'd splurge on it to wear some time. And I never was in the mood or I'd forget. And I was like, okay, I'm going to wear this body suit. I'm going to bring over, you know, why I always did this, but like my favorite sex story

or something, whatever, whatever I had to try for work that week. And I went there with the intention that I'm going to initiate this. I'm going to make it happen. And so that's how I started doing it. I really just walked in the door and I just didn't get distracted because that's another thing I would do. I'd be like, oh, I'm hungry or we want to catch up about our day or let do something else.

I even remember feeling like, okay, this is going to be a little bit new for me in this new relationship. And it felt really empowering. And it was just a really, you know, and then I like doing it. I was like, okay, I'm going to do this more. And so it feel no how. It's not that we don't know how. It's that we just, it's vulnerable. Perhaps we're afraid of feeling rejected. You know, I remember this, this woman I met at a conference that she came up to me and she said, you know what? She said, I never, she'd been married for 20 years. And she said, I never initiate.

And I didn't realize why. And I was teaching in a workshop and she said, it was something that you said, did she been listening to the podcast and came to a workshop and she said, I realized that 20 years ago when I first got together, my husband and I were newly wedged, she said, I went upstairs and I came down in this beautiful underwear like panties and a bra and like garters, which if you've ever worn those, you don't just whip them on. You've got, there's like an awkward clip in the back and in the front, and then there's a seam, and you have to make sure

that they don't look awkward, because you can't be sexy if the seam is twisted. And they're never even. I mean, we don't just throw it on and feel sexy. It takes effort. So she's like, I did the whole thing, and I put on my lingerie, and I put on my best body oil, and I walked down the stairs.

And she was sitting in the study, and he was working, and he looked at me, and I came down, she's like, I've never, ever put myself out there. And he's looked at her, and went back to his work. Like, he didn't, he said, I'm still going to finish up here. And he, she felt he completely ignored her. And she felt so broken from that moment and so vulnerable and so rejected, even though it was her husband, that she said for all these years, I never tried again, I never initiated again. I mean, this is the thing about our habits and our behaviors. It just takes one thing.

Like sometimes it's one rejection. It's somebody criticizing our bodies. Someone telling us we're not a good kisser or, you know, we don't, you know, we're not good and bad. Anything, our criticizing our body and it just can hurt us so badly in the moment that we completely shut down. We integrate that into our bodies. So that becomes part of our like in a way it's like a trauma response.

I mean, for her, I would say that that was a trauma. It was an event that totally changed the rest of the course, you know, the relationship. And so, and she said that she was finally able to, you know, I can't remember if she'd released and listened to podcasts or she came to tell me about it, but she said that she was finally able to, you know, I can't remember if she'd released it listening to podcasts or she came to tell me about it, but she said like she was able to now, you know, bring it up and she felt like he didn't remember. I think he didn't remember that moment because of course he wouldn't.

I mean, he felt so bad. He was like, I, if I had known or I remember, he probably had a deadline for work. He was stressed out, you know what is. I've been there. I don't see what's happening when I'm at the computer and I'm caught up. And so, you know, what this points out is a lot of things, not only about initiating sex,

but that there could be something that happens in a moment, in a flash. And we feel vulnerable, we feel rejected, compromised. And we just go into our, we do what we always did, we feel rejected, compromised. And we just go into our, we do what we always did, right? Maybe we were criticized as a child, criticized in high school, something happened and we just, we either shut down, you know, we retreat, we get anxious about it.

And so if we don't feel safe, that we're in a relationship, we feel safe, you know, dealing with conflict and bringing it up to our partner, there's like a very fine line. There's like a moment there where you're like, I'm just gonna take this, it's very familiar, I'm being ignored, I'm not being seen.

And if I had her here, I would say to her that that's probably a familiar scenario. Maybe her dad came home from work and never, you know never she felt very unseen or maybe she was always looked over for something in school. As a result, that something can happen, that mimics that very early experience and we just do the same thing. The trick in a relationship and any kind of relationship, this could happen at work with

a friend, is that in that moment, we realize that something's happening and this is like a somatic experience, you can learn to kind of feel these things in your body sometimes like this is my anxiety feeling, this is my breath quickening. You can stop and say, oh, it's that thing. I'm feeling comfortable. What is it? Oh, it's the way I just felt unseen. And then you could turn to your partner and say,

you know, maybe it's not even in that moment. It could be the next day, but not to one years later. You say, when you guys are in, you know, my rules for communicating about things that are challenging are the same across the board. Timing, turf, and tone. You wanna make sure that it's the right time, you're in the right place,

and you are doing it with the right tone. And the right tone is always, always, always, always leading with curiosity and calm and just sort of, Hey, let's have a conversation about something. You know? So I'm talking to you for a minute. Maybe you're going for a walk or you just finished a good meal. You say, you know, last night I came down the stairs and I was really excited because I had put on this thing that made me feel really sexy and I noticed you were your computer

and you looked at me and the way you just turned back around, it made me feel really unseen or like you didn't find me sexy anymore. And imagine if she had said that to him, you know, and no one can argue with your feelings. So first off, what I'm saying is you don't want to say you never look at me and you ignore me, but just when this happened, it made me feel blank. That is just communication 101. Now, nobody can argue with your feelings. When this happened, it made me feel blank. That is just communication 101. Now, nobody can argue with your feelings. You can't say you didn't feel that, right?

And so then, in the moment there, you know, he could say, well, I don't remember that, or I didn't see it. I mean, sure, I'm not saying they're all gonna go, it's gonna be an easy conversation, but what could happen after that? You know, you might have said, oh, wow, I didn't even see you. But you could feel bad, but that's just,

at least if you're answer. He didn't think you didn't look sexy. He didn't think you looked ridiculous, because didn't even see you. But you could feel bad, but that's just the least of your answer. He didn't think you didn't look sexy. He didn't think you looked ridiculous, because that was part of it. She's like, maybe I looked ridiculous, or I gained weight, or if he wasn't attracted to me anymore, right? We go to there. We think, I'm being rejected for sex.

My partner just rejected my advances, and so therefore I am not lovable, I'm not attractive. But he was like, oh babe, no, I would, like maybe he would have said, I'm so sorry. Let's show me right now. I had that deadline. I was talking in my, you know, whatever, I had something going on. And that's how you repair. Like that's when we talk about repair in a relationship.

And I believe that that relationships are not actually about perfection and about getting along all the time. In fact, if you're in a relationship, you're like, we never fight. There's a problem. If you never have conflict, they're not about perfection, they're about repair. They're not about everything being great, they're about how do we repair when we get into a fight on argument? How do we communicate? Like, how do we resolve conflict? Because that should be, literally, you're, you're, you're, if you don't have those skills right now, you don't not have a repair and argument or talk about your feelings. That's where your focus should be. And once you learn it's a skill, right? It's like, it transfers to every other area of your life.

It transfers to the next conversations, your work conversations, everywhere. So, Scott, there's your answer. We're gonna take a quick break, but stay tuned for more sex with Emily. Let's talk to Kyle 21 in Tennessee. Kyle, what's going on? Thanks for calling. Hi, how are you doing?

I'm great, Kyle. Good to hear from you. What's going on? So, I've been seeing this girl for a few weeks now, and I really think she could be the one. And we haven't had the chance to have sex yet. And I feel like every time we get there, I get real nervous.

And I feel like if I don't please her, she may not want to stay with me. And I just need to figure out how I can call these nerves and just be myself with her. OK, wait, what has happened so far? Are nothing happened to see her yet? Well, we've gone on a few days. When we go back to the house, we start to get serious.

And every single time, I get too nervous. I feel like I'm not going to be able to perform to her standard, because she's really pretty. And it's like, I can't live up to those expectations. And then what happens? I just, I kind of pull out. And I, I don't keep going and keep playing with her. You just gotta go in with the note

and like I'm gonna make her feel good. I'm gonna please her and see what she wants. Should I go down on her for a while to start? Just to kind of maybe calm the nerves. Absolutely Kyle, this is what I always recommend. So I'm not gonna please her. Yeah, exactly Kyle, listen. Whenever you're in your head, that's exactly what's happening, but I promise you there

is nothing like getting your confidence. Because you're talking about confidence and Kyle, just know that no one at 21, the guys who think they're confident at 21, I'm telling you, if I can go back to my 20, they didn't take a false confidence. Like, yeah, women like when I pound away at them and that feels good, I'm telling you. So you just have an end of years on the planet yet of having sex that you would false confidence. Like, yeah, women like when I pound away them and that feels good, I'm telling you. So you just have it end of years on the planet yet of having sex that you would feel confidence. You just know you're, you're we're most,

many people are your age. So you're not like behind the eight ball, there's no problem here. It's just like it's a new thing and she's a new partner for you. So you're always gonna lead with giving, especially when it comes to sex. So if you go in, you're like,

I just wanna look at you, I wanna dress you, just want to look at you, I want to dress you, I want to go down on you, I want to finger you. I mean, ask her what turns her on. And then once you are pleasing her, that's how you get your confidence up. You're like, oh, I got this. She's feeling good right now. And then you'll be more focused on her pleasure. And then you won't have been in your head the last 15 minutes, getting addressed, and

then boring the same things going gonna happen again. So absolutely. And also we know that you get nervous, especially like in our 20s, like this guy's a nervous. Women are nervous too, but they don't have to perform like men do. They just like show up, have an erection, you know, it's it's it's happens Kyle. So I think just and if it happens and you start to get nervous again, just say, you know, I want to take a few deep breaths here. Like I think you're so hot. I mean, telling you to keep telling her how hot she is now attracted to you and you just want to please her take a beat. It's okay. But I would ask what feels good to her. Next time again, my head,

I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go through and look at her and just do her day and can't. I'm gonna go down in there and just pleasure her until I get the confidence to get in there. Yes, exactly Kyle. That's what you're gonna do. That will work. I'm telling you. It's also a beautiful resolution here for the whole thing because I'm telling you, she typically women take longer to get aroused in men. So that's why you know one of the best books about sex, which you should could order right now. It's called She Comes First. And it's a great book written by Dr. Ian Karner, you know, renowned sex therapist like 20 years ago. And essentially it's

not just because women first, women are better. It's like literally the way we are, we are built, right? Our genitalia are such that we there's an orgasm gap. It can take women 20 to 40 minutes to have an orgasm, get arousin, but for men, you know Kyle, you know you get turned on and you're ready to go. Oh yeah, I get arous fast or anyone I know, it's insane. Kyle, yeah. Yeah, that's so true. That's what happens, that's what's up. So this is just totally normal, typical,

and you're exactly ready to be at 21 years old. In fact, Mendo no longer is a 40 so. Thank you so much, Emily. Thank you for having me on. Close to that, for Emily. Yeah, Kyle, thanks. Call back, let me know how it goes. I'm here for you every night.

Let me know, okay? This is what I love. Is it now I want to hear about? I'm invested in Kyle now. Look, he's just sent him off into the going to be talking about how you can sexually liberate yourself this month. Different things you want to try, make it interesting. A lot of us aren't going far from home, like literally.

You might just be taking out the trash this weekend. So in the spirit of Independence Day, I want to focus on sexual liberation all month. What does it actually mean to be sexually liberated? So before you can even liberate from your sex life or to liberate yourself sexually, you have to think about what is my relationship with sex right now, with my partner, with myself. Do I still have a lot of shame, body shame, or shame around even being a sexual being, a sexual person? Maybe there's been some trauma that you've gone through that hasn't been resolved yet.

I mean, all these things that I'm saying too, and talking about open relationships, again, I should have said this caveat that of course, if one of you in the relationship isn't in a healthy place, you haven't done work on trauma. You are still feeling a lot of shame around it. You haven't been able to even talk about it. If you've never talked about sex with your partner or explored, you don't just open up with the let's swing this weekend. let's have a threesome. There's some more groundwork to do.

And that's what sexual liberation is about, is that I'm going to give you tools all month long, but also just even right now to think about it, to kind of put it, what do I mean by it? Where are you feeling closed off? Where are you stuck right now? Where are you feeling that sexually you Where are you stuck right now? Where are you feeling that sexually you could use a little bit of work? You could say, I've always wanted to try this thing

or try something with my partner, but maybe I haven't gotten up to courage yet. Is there something you've always wanted to try? But you haven't gotten up to courage yet. Where are you stuck right now? Where can I help you liberate sexually? Now maybe you are with yourself and without a partner now, or maybe it's a lifestyle,

I feel like I'm in that lifestyle right now. I'm in a lifestyle without a partner. And where could I liberate you around self pleasure? Where could I liberate you around masturbation or fantasies or things that you've been wanting to try? Because we have a lot of time, I said this at the beginning of COVID, but now we're going on like month 28 or something.

It's like we've got time to actually explore right now. All the things I talk about about opening up sexually and masturbating, to liberate yourself sexually, how do you want to touch yourself differently? You know, maybe it's time to buy a toy. Sex toy market is booming right now, by the way. It wasn't just a notion, it wasn't just a hint, it wasn't just a, maybe people buy more sex toys. They are certifiably saying, this is the time, I can invest in a bunch of new other things

right now, but I'm going to invest in my pleasure. And that's what I want you to do right now, even if it's not buying anything, it's not you don't have to monetarily invest in your sex life. But you can say, I'm going to invest in changing up the way I think about my sex life. I'm going to liberate myself from the sexual jail I've been living in my entire life the last few months. However long you've been in a place where you don't feel that you deserve the pleasure. The pleasure is not your birthright because I believe it's all of our birthright.

Pleasure is our birthright. We all get to explore. We all get to experience more joy in our life. And I don't think that we do that enough at all. And sex is like something that we can all do. We can all please ourselves at the very least. We can all, orgasm is actually, it's healthy, it's good for us. Boost our mood, our immune system.

And I think we can all use a little immune boost. So liberating can also mean, okay, so maybe you're like, Emily, I got no hangups. We're good, we're good, we're healthy, we're having sex regularly. Maybe you just want to talk to your partner about how do I explore toys right now? How do I, I want to play with some anal sex. I want you to annually penetrate me.

I want to explore some BDSM, some dominant submission, some role playing. What is holding you back from that happening? I just want to know, I'm actually really curious why we're not going there. Like, what is it? So we're going to declare sexual independence. And, and you know, we do this during masturbation month, but I think we should do it now,

just with my, even with my team, if they're so willing to speak up. What could you do? And all the things I just said to you is there's something that you thought, huh, a light bulb, when I thought, I'm going to liberate myself sexually this month, and I'm going to blink. That's a good point.

I'm going to tell my partner what I want this month. That I think that we should blink. Who wants to speak? Oh, Amanda, tell me Amanda. Hi. What I struggled with is caring too much about what I look like during sex and focusing on the faces I'm making or what my body looks like

or just being so preoccupied with that that I totally forget to enjoy the moment. And so that's something I really wanna work on is not performing but experiencing. Thank you for sharing that because I think that is so relatable. Is that so is that something that you have been thinking about

for a while Amanda or to just? Yeah, I think it was something I kind of just grew up thinking especially in high school and college, I just put so much emphasis on using sex to make my partners like me more or to like get them to so much emphasis on using sex to make my partners like me more or to like get them to want to be with me.

It seems more like a tool for validation. Yeah, performative. I got older, I was like, no, that's not how it has to be. Yeah, you're absolutely right. So it's so relatable. I think that it's also I was socialized that way too, you know, that it was about, you know, we don't want to make this weird orgasm face, so we want to make sure that we look good

and we're like everything's shaved and in place. And we look at porn and think, well, that's how it's supposed to happen and stuff. So what do you think you could do? Well, could you do? You think it would be a first step, or I could also have you think about it. But I think this is saying it.

It's the first step. Yeah I could also have you think about it, but I think this is saying it is the first step, but. Yeah, of course, mindful. Yes, mindful. I think that was one of the big things that even just like developing a yoga practice and like learning that mindfulness was a thing was really helpful because then I could kind of hone in on my body and like really enjoy and be present

in my experience. And then once I realized that that actually enhanced the connection because a partner with being is going to want you a partner with being with is going to want you to enjoy yourself. So that helped. Yeah, no, you're right. That's such a, that's so true is that we think because we have no other place to learn this that it's all about appearance. Such a, it's just another thing that's wrong with our culture. It's like, in society, societal norms that we'd have to look a certain way and feel a certain way.

And then if we've only seen porn, we've all these ways that we think we have to be. But no one tells you that actually people, the people who are like you, a man, if you're having sex with somebody, that when you actually get past all that and you're really in your body and you're really experiencing pleasure and you don't give a shit who's watching, who's seeing you, you are truly in your body, you're embodied. That is the sexiest thing on the planet. And you don't even, and once you were able to get there, what I found is on my own, I actually think it's a good weeding process because let's just say a partner said, oh, God, you were really, oh, you really had an orgasm there.

You were really excited to be like, yeah, I got that. You know, as soon as judging me, I'm like, I'm so glad you did it because you were out the door. For example, if someone judges you for that or isn't, they're not your person. And I don't even know that people consciously know that, but I think the lovers that you'd want to be with a man and I'd want to be with would be the ones that would just, you know, that had a heart that just responded to it.

And we're like encouraging that. I'm saying, I love that you love sex so much. They just sew into your body. That's so hot, right? You get that kind of encouragement. But Amanda, will you ever wished someone that had maybe changed you or was there anything that ever happened when you felt, because I know from,

you know, I've had guy, oh, you're orgasm faced, so you're really loud, I'm like, yep, you better tell your neighbors, you know, when, yeah, I'm not, you know, so. Yeah, it's funny, as I wasn't in, I don't think so, which is interesting to why that idea sort of manifested in my head. I think maybe when I was younger, like in college, I was shamed for not like shaving my legs,

which is ridiculous, but it's something that, with age and experience that I've really started to, to try to take control over. And it's still on my mind for sure, which is why I think this month of sexual liberation, that's going to be a potential focus of mine. I love it. Thank you Amanda. Happy 4th of July. All right, business with Emily.

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