Sex With Emily - Perfecting Penis Practices with Dr. Edward Karpman

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

On today’s show, Dr. Emily is joined by certified urologist Dr. Edward Karpman and we’re taking your calls for all your penile needs. Plus, she answers your sex & relationship questions.The two discuss many a penile topic, including what to do when ED is haunting you in the bedroom, what is peyronie’s disease and how does a curved penis affect your sex life, and how do other medications affect your ability to stay hard. Plus, Dr. Emily gives advice on how to have casual sex without catching those gosh darn feelings, and you need help because you’re tempted to have an affair with the hot neighbor.Follow Emily on all social @sexwithemilyFind more about Dr. Karpman at https://healthy-male.com/For even sex advice, tips & tricks, visit sexwithemily.com  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There's also a thing called porn-induced erectile dysfunction or P.I.E.D. This is actually in that magazine. Let's talk about that. Yeah, so with the availability of porn, and I remember in my young days, you had maybe two magazines underneath the mattress, you know, and you hoped your mom didn't find them. And I realized, obviously, knew I had them there because she's my sheets on other side. Right. But you had those two magazines and that's all you did. You know, that's all you had because porn wasn't that readily available.

We didn't have the internet. You know, you didn't have like a VHS collection or anything. But now, I mean, people can watch porn on their cell phones, on their iPads, on their laptops. It's everywhere. So what happens is that it's kind of like you reset your thermostat, your threshold for excitation. So if you watch porn all the time and you choose the genres where they have the two blonde girls with the huge breasts and they're just, you know, in love with this guy and this is what you get off on. Okay.

And then you go to your partner, and your partner is not a porn star, obviously most people's partners aren't. Right. And they have the traditional kind of sex, maybe just missionary or little doggy, and it just doesn't do it for them anymore because your threshold is up here, okay?

Mm-hmm. And because you're watching the porn, but your in reality, your threshold is different and you're not meeting that threshold with your average everyday kind of sexual habits. Thanks for listening to Sex with the Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and on today's show I'm joined by certified urologist, Dr. Edward Cartman and we're taking your calls for all your penile needs. Plus, I'm answering your sex and relationship questions. Topics include, What to do when a rectile dysfunction or ED is haunting you in the bedroom. What is

Peyroni's disease and how does a curved penis affect your sex life? You just can't seem to have casual sex without catching those gosh darned feelings. What to do, and you're on the brink of cheating with the hot neighbor and you need help. All this and more, thanks for listening. Betrubized, they called them in a fight on me. Hey, Emily, you got a boyfriend? Because my man E here, he just got his heart broken. He thinks you're kind of cute. The girls got everything. Oh, my. The women know about shrinkage. Isn't it common, what do you mean, like laundry?

It shrinks. Can we not talk about sex so much? Are you kidding me? Oh, my God. I'm off here. I'm so drunk. Being bad feels pretty good. But you know, Emily's not the kind of girl you just fling with.

and bad feels pretty good. You know, Emily's not the kind of girl you just play with. You're listening to Sex with Emily. We're talking about sex, relationships, and everything in between for more information. Check out sexwithethemeliet.com and find us on all social media. It is at Sex with Emily across the board. Intentions with Emily. For the new year for each show, I want to start off by setting an intention for the show and I encourage you all to do the same. So what I mean by this is, okay, you're listening and I want you to think about, well, what do I want to get out of

listening to this episode and how it could help you? It could be like, my penis, Ivan's securities and I just really want to get over them. My intention for the show is to help you feel better about your penis and to give you some added advice from an expert. And I think you're really gonna enjoy this interview and I think we also cover a lot of common questions that you just might be too nervous to talk about. You know, whether it's your own penis or a penis that you love.

All right, guys, enjoy the show. Welcome back to Sex with Emily. I am Dr. Emily. We are live tonight and you can call me with any of your get this for the next 20 minutes. Your penis questions. I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Edward Carpment to the show. I did an awesome podcast with him and we're going to put in the show notes right now. It's called Power to the Penis.

It was wildly successful. He's a board-certified urologist, and he's actually one of the fearologists who's also fellowship trained in male reproductive medicine and surgery. He's the director of the Men's Health Center at El Camino Hospital in Los Gatos. And he is all things penis. I'm telling you, and we loved your show,

and I'm so glad you're back. Hello, Dr. Cartman, thanks for calling in. Good evening, Emily. Thank you for having me. Of course, of course. What are some of the common things that people call you about the most common? Because we already have some calls in the line, but I just hope you will understand that you, there's no penis question.

You're afraid of, you've heard it all. I'm not afraid of anything, but there. Even to this day, I learned things that people do to their penises, to their bodies that I can never expect, that I've never seen a textbook, and sometimes we have to learn things on the fly in our daily practices. But yeah, just about anything is that's imaginable, I've probably seen. Okay. Well, that sounds good.

Dr. Eberkartmann and they can find you at healthy, healthymail.com. Healthy-mail.com. Healthy-mail.com. Also, okay, let's just, we could take some calls here. We have, we have Mike 45 in New York. And yeah, hey Mike, what's your question? You're on with Dr. Ed Recartman. Yeah, if Ben married with my wife for about 20 years, I do have diabetes.

The hypertension from my diabetes says, well, for grass to give me a E.D. I have been taken taken the Viagra, but it doesn't seem to be working. It may be once one out of ten times it might work. Because are you on diabetes medicine for diabetes? Oh yeah, I'm an insulin. Okay, so that could be why. What do you think Dr. Cartman, do you have any questions? Well, I always like when patients come in and tell me their Viagra doesn't work. The first question I want to know was how are you taking it?

So Viagra and most of these drugs, what we call PD5 inhibitors, should be taken on an empty stomach and with a period of time before stimulation. So Viagra would be about half an hour and you need to be stimulated. Yeah, because guys come in sometimes and they say, I took the pill. Agra would be about half an hour and you need to be stimulated. Yeah, because guys come in sometimes and they say, I took the pill, I was drinking a beer watching ESPN and nothing happened. And I said, well, nothing's gonna happen.

So you need stimulation, so you're doing that, right? Yeah, I'm playing it right by the book and everything. And that's just not happening like you used to. And you've gotten up on the dose all the way to 100 milligrams? No, I'm still about 20 milligrams. Oh. Yeah, that's a lick-the-bottle cap kind of dose. So, okay.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. So, like, what up it up? Yeah, so one of the first things I would, well what I tell my patients when I put them on the Niagara, one is how to take the medicine appropriately, but also now the Niagara is available in a generic form and it comes in these 20 milligram tablets. And I tell patients they could essentially titrate up the dose all the way up to five

pills assuming there's no contraindications for taking the medicine. And I tell them to keep going up by one pill or two pills or sometimes I tell them start at all five pills and then back off. So if you're concerned that the medicine is going to work for you, then you know right off the bat that it's going to work or it's not going to work. And then you could kind of titrate it down to two or three pills, whichever dose is just right to have satisfactory sexual intercourse. Now, that's kind of the basic instructions,

but you have two of the three most common causes of erectile dysfunction. So if you look at a pygraph of the column of the cause of erectile dysfunction, you'll see things like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, makeup the top three, and that accounts for about 85% of cases of erectile dysfunction. And that's what we call our garden variety ED. So, and it's kind of like Emily said, you got to make sure that you have your diabetes

under control. What is your hemoglobin A1C? My A1C last time was a seven. Okay, well that's not bad, but there's some room for improvement there. And you want to try to keep those blood sugars tightly controlled. So normal hemoglobin A1C should be around less than 6%. And for diabetics, if they're really bad, the best we could get them to is about 7, we'll take it.

But if you can get a little lower, down to around 6, that would be better. And it does make a difference incrementally. And likewise, blood pressure medications. Now, are you taking blood pressure medications? Yes. There's a couple different ones I'm taking. So I'll kind of deen. There's a couple different ones I'm taking. So, like, Clanadine, Oh, Cinepril.

So, these medications, right? Dr. Cartman, these are going to have an impact as well. Yeah, so here's the thing. Here's the thing. So, because they're kind of working against each other and stuff. Yeah. Right, but they are necessary. And I'm going to say to you right now, loud and clear,

do not stop taking those medicines, okay? So all blood pressure medications have that, most of them do have an adverse effect where they lower your blood pressure and guess what an erection is. It's just blood flow to your penis. Yeah. And when you have those arteries that get smaller, you rely on that higher blood pressure to get your penis up.

And so when we treat your blood pressure with these medications, we lower the blood pressure and we just don't get as much blood flow into your penis. So one of the things that would be good for you to do would be to maybe go to a urologist who does a penile ultrasound, who knows how to do penile ultrasounds. And those are really cool studies that we do in our office where we could actually tell what kind of blood flow characteristics you have. So you come in there, you lay down on the table, they'll run a probe on your penis and get some baseline numbers, and then we give you a little shot of medicine in your penis. It's the same medicine that the adult film stars use to perform. Like Lidocaine? No, these are phasor dilators. Oh, right.

What am I talking about? Say, right, okay, got it, got it, got it. You're thinking about going for a surgery. I think it lasted longer, yeah, okay, got it. Maybe you use a lalphal. Okay, got it. Okay. And these medicines will actually dilate those arteries, they'll open up wide.

And if everything's normal with their arteries, that you'll have a very good response, and you have a strong direction with a minimal dose that allows about an hour or two. And if everything's normal, and then we can tell that everything's normal, and then we can focus on the medications. But sometimes, when the guys have really bad arteries, you could give them some very hefty doses of this medicine,

and they still just can't get enough blood flow into their penis. And that would tell us that the medicines probably aren't going to work. The other thing that this ultrasound will tell us is that if you have what's called a venous leak. So, I'm going to ask you this question, Mike. Is your problem getting it up or is your problem keeping it up or both? Kind of both, both. Sometimes I'm like super like in the mood, but it's just there.

It's not doing anything. And it's so frustrating and embarrassing for me. It's disappointing to her. I try to play with her and keep her off stimulated, but it's just not happening and happening. And, you know, it's just like a major let down. Yeah, but it does not sound like a good, what do you think, Dr. Cartman? What do you think your recommendations here, then we're going to take another call?

Yeah, I think that the easy thing to do is try escalating the dose of the Viagra, taking appropriately. But, if that doesn't work, I would recommend going, finding a urologist in your area who can do a penile ultrasound and to better evaluate your blood flow and your penis. So you might have an impairment of getting the blood in. You also might have what's called a venous leak. And that's what's typically what men will, when men describe the ability to get it up, but they can't keep it up,

it might be a problem with your veins also. And that's something very important to look at and that's something the Pino ultrasound will help us identify. So I would do that, okay. Okay, thank you, thank you so much Mike for calling. Let us know as it goes. Thank you, Dr. K. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mike for calling.

Let us know as it goes. Thank you, Dr. Cartman. When you stand hold, stand hold everyone if you're calling, stand hold. And then we're going to come right back. Dr. Edward Cartman, he's going to be able to help you with wood, ale, your penis, whatever ale is you. Last too long, that long enough, trouble staying hard, getting hard, the venous leak, peanut alter sounds, peanut implants.

There's a lot to cover here. I feel like we could date on a crooked penises. A lot of men's penises start to crooked, they're born that way, right? Dr. Cartman, are they start to peronies? Happens? Yeah, yeah, peronies is these. And you know what, the cool thing is that we're seeing

commercials about peronies disease now. I know, what's that about? Anyway, talk about peronia. Yeah, so peronies is an acquired disease that it's a scar that forms on a man's penis. Most common locations is on the top, so if you're looking down at the top of the penis, and the most common curve is upwards. And the curves could be mild, like 10, 20, even up to 30 degrees, and we call those functional curves. Meaning that they're just enough sometimes to actually work in their favor.

Right, in our favor, they hit the G spot. Exactly. And, but sometimes they're a little too excessive, like if you have, like say, in 90 degree curves. So imagine a penis that's bent, like literally a 90 degree angle. Yeah. And so it might get kind of hard to have sex in that way. Or if you have, say, a curve that's to the literally a 90 degree angle. And so it might get it kind of hard to have sex in that way. Or if you have, say, a curve that's to the right or to the left. Even if it's mile like 30 or 45 degrees,

but then when you're having sex, you keep hitting your partners over it every time you thrust. It's also associated with shrinkage of the penis and narrowing of the penis. In the early stages, guys have pain in their penis every time they get an erection. And it's a very, it's a bothersome disease. It's obviously not life threatening, but guys will have anything that pops up on their penis in your heart lump.

Yeah. They think, oh my god, the worst, and they're coming in, I'm going to tell them that to cut it off. So the first thing we always do is just reassure them that this is a benign process, but the deformity can be very troubling for the patient and we have to talk about, you know, how do we fix it. And so the cool thing is that we now have our first FDA-approved drug on the market to treat peronies disease, which is like an injection. Okay. And so the guys come in and we give a shot right into this little scarred area and they get several shots like weeks apart and the shot actually will dissolve with the scar tissue

over time. And they could restore their angle of their penis, the straightness of it. And the good thing about what I really like about this medication is that the public service announced in the cum of it and the appreciation of the disease state because now these drug companies want people to know about it and peronies disease is not something that people ever talk about like who knows about peronies disease unless they have it. Exactly. Unless they've been to a doctor and a lot of guys have it, they just don't know what it

is because they're too scared to have the doctor. Exactly because men don't talk about their penises to anybody, even if they're at the doctor talk about their penis or even if they're at the doctor and the doctor asks them, they don't talk about it, but you don't let them get away with that, right? Dr. Cartman. Well, I hold their feet to the fire. You do, I know there's something with your penis. Okay, we're going to talk to Mark 31 in New York.

Hey Mark, you're on with me and you're on with Dr. Edward Cartman. You're aologist. Hi Emily, hi Edward, how are you? Hey good, thanks for calling. How can we help? Emily, I just want to say congrats on the winners. Thank you. Awesome.

Thanks. It's been a great year. How are you doing on all platforms and on enjoy your stuff? Thank you. So glad to hear it. So what's going on? I want to know how can I make my penis more sensitive? I heard coconut oil will soften the skin. Okay, so yeah, more sensitive how like do you feel like you're lacking in sensation? Yeah, elaborate on that. What does it mean to be more sensitive? I'm more confused, though.

The only way I can get it up is, uh, well, in the morning, when I wake up sometimes and, uh, porn. Porn. Okay. So in the morning, when you wake up and then porn is the only way you can get it up. So do you think you're watching a lot of porn? I haven't... wait me. Well how much porn are you watching? I guess a lot is bad, right?

Well, I mean you tell me if you... are you having... you think you have less sensitivity because... I'm like good days and bad days. Okay. I watch you a lot sometimes and sometimes I don't. All right. So, what about the sensitivity then? You're saying that you- it's harder to get- do you understand the start of the department? Well, let me ask you this question.

Is it you feel it less when you're masturbating or you're just not getting excited as often enough to do it. I'm not getting excited enough normally. Okay. I like a normal person to check. Okay. The only way I can masturbate is with porn pretty much. So do you have sexual intercourse with anybody? I haven't a while now. Okay. Well, I want to gain my confidence back from when it comes. Yeah, I think it has to do with cutting back on the porn and starting to get to know your body again without watching so much porn. That's what I think it is really because now it's changed

your 31 years old to overtime out and really this is what we're seeing with so many men right now. Thanks for your calm mark We're seeing this with so many men right now that like have you seen this doctor? Cartman men who can no longer Stay hard when they're actually having intercourse with the human or they can't get aroused as much because of porn I'm sure you're seeing I would assume more so probably in the last 10 years Yeah, absolutely right so with the availability of porn on the internet now, so many more people are watching it. I heard this crazy statistic that half of the websites are, you know, are porn related and the other half of the websites are on the internet are the ones we switched to when

someone walks in the room. I believe that. Oh my god. There is also a thing called porn-induced erectile dysfunction or P.I.E believe that. Oh my God. There's also a thing called porn induced erectile dysfunction or P.I.E.D. This is actually an impact magazine. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So with the availability of porn and I remember in my young days, you know, it was like you had maybe two magazines underneath the mattress, you know, and you hope your mom didn't find them. Now I realize she obviously knew I had them there because she changed my sheets all the time. But you had those two magazines and that's all you did.

You know, that's all you had because porn wasn't that readily available. We didn't have the internet and you know, you didn't have like a VHS collection or anything. But now, I mean, people can watch porn on their cell phones, on their iPads, on their laptops, it's everywhere. Okay, so what happens with this? Yeah. Well, so what happens is that it's kind of like you reset your thermostat, your threshold for excitation.

So if you watch porn all the time and you choose the genres where they have the two blonde girls with a huge breasts and they're just, you know, in love with this guy. And this is what you get off on, okay? And they're doing it in every position, imaginable, you know, three something, everything. And then you go to your partner, and your partner is not a porn star, obviously most people's partners aren't. And they have the traditional kind of sex, maybe just missionary or little doggy.

And it just doesn't do it for them anymore because your threshold is up here, okay? Mm-hmm. And because you're watching the porn, but your in reality, your threshold is different. And you're not meeting that threshold with your average everyday kind of sexual habits. So porn kind of resets that and it's kind of an epidemic and we're seeing a lot of it. And like I said, they've been publishing papers on this. It's a distortion of reality and you know it's kind of like looking at you know NBA players and just feeling so inferior because you're only six foot tall and all of them are six foot seven and seven foot tall.

Exactly. So if you just watch NBA players in basketball, you everyone would think they're midgets. And that's like what happens when we watch porn. These are professionals. These are professionals. They're casted for their penises. They're for their ability. And they're not really orgasming. And it's all fiction. It's fiction. So, but yeah, you get addicted to seeing the same images over and over again. Thank you for that Dr. Karmam. We're going to we're going to talk to Rob 52 in Arizona. Hey Rob, thanks for calling.

How can we help? Yeah, thanks. So I have been using cock rings of all sorts since I'm probably 14 years old. And now I don't even... I can get erect, but I have trouble staying erect. I've tried those pills and they give me really bad headaches. I do have cardiovascular issues. I've had to have four stints put in. I'm not taking any statins because I couldn't do those. But one of the things, I'm wondering about two of the things. One, the thing you just talked about about porn,

I think that's probably part of it. But I don't understand why I can't keep it hard anymore. Because you said some, I don't, yeah. OK, thanks Rob. OK, let's, Dr. Cartman. So the question is, why is Rob using a caulk ring? So caulk rings are designed for people who have venous leeks. And so what they do is they compress the veins that exit out the penis, drain the blood out

of the penis because they're on the surface and the arteries are deep inside. As soon as somebody tells me they wear a caulk ring, they tell me they probably have some component of a venous leek. You can't trap the blood in there. Now with your history of cardiovascular disease and stents, I'm pretty sure there's also an inflow or arterial problem, meaning that he can't get enough blood flow in there. And so, he probably needs to use things like Viagra, Psyallis, or levietra. And he would be the kind of guy that I would recommend

they get a penile ultrasound to better understand that cardiovascular or the blood flow dynamics in his penis. But I think there's two problems there. And they need to be addressed simultaneously. Now, in Rob's the kind of guy, cardiovascular disease, probably calcified arteries, and now he also has a venous leak. He's the kind of guy, cardiovascular disease, probably calcified arteries, and now he also has a venous

leak. He's a kind of guy that would probably benefit from a penile implant because he has two problems. He has an inflow and an outflow problem. And he would be something that we could understand better if he got that penile ultrasound done. Okay. Has that sound, Rob?

Terrible. I know, but we can help your penis. I mean I can't but Dr. Cartman can. Penal implants, pretty amazing. He showed me one and I was blown away about how it works. Yeah. Okay, so Rob, okay, you got that? Go get a penal implant. It's scary but worth it. It's your penis. It's a life-finger And let me tell you all that most people have the same kind of reaction that you do when You first bring up that subject But if you talk to people who've had them put in the most common responses that I get I saw three or four patients today It's the same thing to me is why doesn't every guy have one of these?

Why don't I get one of these sooner? And after they get it and they start using it, it's more the disbelief that it's not more widespreadly known and used in our society than it is. That's true. Okay, thanks Rob. Thanks for your call. Appreciate it. I want to keep talking to you, Dr. Carb.

We talked about this on the podcast you did, which you guys, if you want more information on this, because I would love to get, it's a talk about pedaling plants, because we covered it a lot, but it's pretty amazing to me too, that men, it's not what you think. I think men think, oh, it's gonna make my penis larger,

it's gonna do all these things, but I think it's really amazing technology for a lot of what else, the penis. And, yeah, so actually one of the things I love to do is to show people this video on my website at healthy-mail.com. And I came up with this several years ago, and I think it's the most popular

Peno implant video on the internet now. And essentially it's one of my patients inflating his Peno implant after surgery. Right. I saw that last time. I couldn't believe it. It took our remote. Yeah.

And when people see that, they realize how natural it looks, how amazing it looks, how everything is so discreet. And you really don't even have to tell your partners if you're dating what's going on until you want to. In fact, I saw a guy today who told me I did his PNL implant like a year ago and he said he still hasn't told any of his girlfriends that he has it and they don't know. So I would recommend anybody who's even thinking about it, start by just looking at that video

to see what we're talking about because you'll realize that it's really not what you expect. Most people think when you tell them PNL implant, they're really confusing it with the vacuum erection device. And they think that I'm recommending some external device that they're going to strap onto their penis and they're going to walk around and it's going to be like one of those Austin powers. Not my pump, baby. And so it's really not what they think. And so I love that video because it really just dispels a lot of misconceptions that people have about PNL implant. Okay, well thank you so much. Dr. Cartman, Dr. Eber Cartman, everyone check out that video we can also put it in the show notes, which you will if you go to sex with M.E.com.

We got a lot of calls online, but we got to let you go, Dr. Cartman, so if everyone's going to have to call back, will you call back in again or come visit us here in Los Angeles? Absolutely, I love it. Okay, I love it. So helpful, we need you. Thank you for all the great work you're doing, and all your information is in the show notes. Thanks a lot, Dr. Carman. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, and we come back, we're gonna get into your

email questions. All right, we've got some emails with me and Jamie's here too. Hi, Jamie. Alright, guys, I love answering your questions. If you want one answered on the show, just go to sexwithemily.com, click the Ask Emily tab, fill out the short form, or email feedback at sexwithemily.com. Whatever you do, just include your name, your age, where you live, and how you listen to this show. Okay, Jamie, you want to read the questions?

Oh, but of course. Okay, thank you. This first one comes to us from Lisa, who is 25 in Spain. Hi, Dr. Emily. Every time I like a guy, I get attached very quickly, and if we have sex, I feel like I want to be in a relationship with him. I would like to know how to detach myself from those feelings that might be caused by the love hormones that are really stirring sex. This would save me from a lot of heartache because unfortunately the last guys that this happened with weren't looking to be in a relationship with me, and I fell in love despite the fact that I wanted it to just be casual. Basically my question is how to have casual sex without getting too emotionally involved. I see a therapist once a week for different

reasons and have mentioned this to her, but I'd love to get your insight on this. Thanks so much. All right, thank you for your questions. Very insightful, Lisa, because here's the thing. Let me just say this, casual, sex, casual relationships aren't for everybody. They're just presented as options for people

who are not looking to invest their time and energy with one person. Maybe people in casual relationships are looking for a variety and they really want to focus on their own, you know, personal growth. But again, it's not for everybody. If a guy says to you, I'm not looking for a relationship. I'm dating a bunch of people believe them because you can't tell you how people have spent time thinking, well, this person says, you know, I used to have got a lot of guys who would say this to me when I was in a period of not wanting

to commit. And they'd, they would still stick around and say, thinking they're going to change me. Guess what? No one ever did. Nothing changes unless we want to. So if you really do want a casual relationship, then my best advice is to give yourself limits because when we get attached is, I mean, you're saying it was after once

or twice having sex, but maybe we don't do sleepovers. You only see that person once a month or once a week. And so you just kind of, you don't talk about a lot of personal things. You don't invite them home to meet your parents or to meet your friends. You keep it casual. You don't keep talking to them about everything

because eventually our emotions get involved. Then we've got the physical stuff and you're so right about those love hormones. So really it's matter if you are going to stay casual with someone putting in the boundaries yourself because we can't always guarantee that our casual sex partners aren't going to be sending us mixed signals like saying they don't want a relationship with them sometimes acting like your boyfriend and then sometimes pulling away. That's all just very confusing. So I love that you're in therapy

and I love that you're working on working on yourself because truly that is the first step towards really getting clearer on what kind of relationships work for us among many other helpful tools in therapy. Thank you so much Lisa. Okay, this next one comes to us from Paul who is 38 in Indiana. Hi Dr. Emily, I met this girl at a singles event in the summer and we've been talking a little over 6 months.

We've gone out a few times just as friends and I brought up the subject of dating about a couple months in to getting to know her. She just got out of a relationship and didn't want to date anyone. Since then we have talked almost every day. I don't really want to mess anything up, but how do I get out of the friend zone? I feel like if I brought up dating again, I probably wouldn't get anywhere. Thank you.

All right, Paul, the old friend zone. Well, here's the thing, once you're in the friend zone, it can be a challenge to get out and it can certainly help you so it doesn't happen next time. But let me just say this. When people say I don't want to bring it up again because then I'm gonna lose the friendship Let's be honest. You weren't going into this wanting to be her friend

You could still say to her hey, you know, I noticed this a few months ago But I really still have feelings for you and I'd like to see if this can go somewhere and I'm interested in you in this way And then see how it happens So I wouldn't say that just because you brought up three months ago Doesn't mean that you can bring it up, that you shouldn't bring it up again. However, what happens is, and why so many people fall into the friend zone is because what we do is we actually act as a friend before we, you know, we lead with the friendship part of it before we do with the creating the polarity and the sexual attraction. So for example,

by helping our other problems and being really available and, sexual attraction. So for example, by helping her with her problems and being really available and doing all these friend things, it's like of course, a woman's really good at love that. It's gonna feel really good, but then she stops seeing you as a sexual partner. So I think if you really like her, say, let's go out on a real date,

I'd love to take you out. And then if she's not interested, believe her, move on. You got to do it. Paul, to save you time too. It does. And I think the problem is that they're like, oh, I'm going to talk to her all the time. I'd always be there for her and all of this stuff. But that's what girl friends do for other girlfriends. Right. So then it does you lose that thing and like they're talking every day It's like no distance yourself because then that would maybe even the pulling back she might be like oh Exactly Let's get in a life Think about what you're contributing to her life and so that's exactly it

So you know, I just don't want him waiting around. It's 38. Whatever age you are Actually, we shouldn't wait around for anyone to decide they like us, right? Right, because you could be waiting for forever. For forever. You know, all my thoughts of friends that I've had, guy friends that were in the friend zone and would try to get out, it's like, they never got out.

And even times where I thought, I love this guy, we're such good friends, maybe I'll just hook up with him once and, no. They went back to the friends home. Yeah. And some of them stayed, some of them don't, and that's okay. So we'll see, but then we always hear stories

of people who are best friends, Jamie. Well, no, you were hooking up with him. Her new boyfriend was a friend with benefits. That's different. Yeah. Whatever. Anyone, just take care of yourself, you guys. You can't control anyone else's behavior.

Okay. Yeah. This next one comes to us from Chris who's 39 in Canada. Dear Dr. Emily, I have a real big predicament. My girlfriend of eight years never wants sex or anything. I do so much around the house and help her all the time and I still can't get a reward. Now, my predicament is that my neighbor wants to have sex with me and says that we would never get caught because her husband doesn't show her affection. She says she needs to find someone to get off

and that we could both help each other out. Ah, what do I do? Oh, Chris, what we don't do is you don't go over to the neighbor's house and have sex with her. I can tell you that. This is not a good plan. I mean, no one's gonna find out. It's your neighbor.

It's, that's not good. So listen, eight years you've been together and she never want sex. So first off, I feel like have you talked to her about why she is not interested in having sex because she can't just decide that she never wants sex after eight years. And clearly the reason why you're even entertaining this neighbor scenario is because you're not getting your needs met. and clearly the reason why you're even entertaining this neighbor scenario is because you're not getting your needs met. Now, I know you think that by contributing and doing housework might be something that gets around board. And for many women, it will, like if her love language is acts of service, I know

many of women who'd be like, if my partner just cleaned up around the house, I'd want to have sex, you know, I'd want to have sex all the time. So find out what her love language is. We've got a love language quiz on our website because if doing housework she might appreciate you, but it doesn't mean she wants to have sex all the time. So find out what else she needs from you to feel desired and loved. Get curious with her non-judgemental conversation, our sex. I miss it. Let's talk about what do you think we're not having sex?

Is there something that's missing? And then you could talk about things that you desire, but you have to do it non-judgmental outside the bedroom, make it like a super light conversation. And please don't hook up with the neighbor. If you feel you need to cheat, and this is how I feel, I think a lot of us have been there or we're like, well, I'll just cheat because I got to get off. Think about it. That is energy that you're putting towards someone else.

It's going to create energy and drama, even if your partner doesn't find out. So what I recommend is take all that energy where you're pining for the neighbor and put that towards energy in the relationship where you can have a constructive conversation and a plan with your girlfriend to get your sex life back on track. If that doesn't work, then I recommend ending the relationship and then you can go have sex with anyone in the neighborhood or outside the neighborhood. You'd like. Thanks, Chris. Radeus, wherever you guys are listening, we love when you leave us a review. iTunes is awesome or just look down right now.

Are you listening on Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud? What are the places? There's so many places. Just give us a lot of stars. I'll have to read it. We appreciate you. And thanks to my awesome team, Love You All, Ken, Kristen, Lisa, Brian, producer, Jamie, and Michael.

Was it good for you? Email me. Feedback at sexwithemily.com.