Sex With Emily - Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex w/ Ian Kerner

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

Renowned clinical sex therapist and best-selling author, Ian Kerner Ph.D. joins me today to talk about sex scripts, why fantasies are important for a relationship, the dynamics of kink, porn as “homework” and how to get into a flow state during sex. Dr. Kerner is the author of the legendary book She Comes First, “the thinking man’s guide to pleasuring a woman” and he just released a new book So, Tell Me About The Last Time You Had Sex. We cover a lot in this interview including what has changed in his last 20+ years as a practicing sex therapist. Hint: erectile dysfunction in younger men is real.Dr. Kerner (“the man who made oral sex into an art form”) walks us through his latest book and explains how you can decode and rewrite your relationship’s sex script and bring your erotic self into the bedroom to transform your sex life. We discuss the importance of psychological arousal, what happens to your body during the honeymoon phase, when to challenge the monogamy script, what to do when there is a “desire discrepancy” in a relationship and so much more.“When it comes to sex and relationship problems, many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation. Sometimes you can be lying in bed next to someone and feel a million miles apart. Talking about sex and relationships is hard, but self-silencing can be even harder in the long run.” – Dr. KernerShow Notes:Ian's New Book: So Tell Me About The Last Time You Had SexGetting Cliterate w/ Dr. Ian KernerRosemary BassonEmily Nagoski, Ph.D.The Kinsey InstituteFor more information about Ian Kerner, visit: IanKerner.comFor even more sex advice, tips, and tricks visit sexwithemily.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If I asked most heterosexual couples, well how long did it take you to get to intercourse? Most of my couples will say, hmm, two minute, one minute, two minute, three minutes. So the sex script is so dominated by this one behavior. Look into his eyes. They're the eyes of a man obsessed by sex. Eyes that mock our sacred institutions. Betrubize they call them in a fight on days. You're listening to Sex with Emily.

I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. I'm so excited because we're now in sex and relationship therapist and best-selling author Ian Kurner, PhD, joins me to talk about Cliteracy, Female Pleasure, his legendary book She Comes First and his brand new book, so tell me about the last time you had sex. Everything he's learned in 20 plus years as a practicing sex therapist. He describes that you could decode and rewrite your relationships sex script. Yes, we all have them, and how doing so will transform your sex life. We discussed the importance of psychological arousal,

what happens to your body during the honeymoon phase, and how to get into the flow state during sex. We also share the effects of porn, solutions for mismatched sex drives, how to be more intentional sexually, and the inner workings of kink dynamics. All right, intentions with Emily, for each episode, join me in setting an intention

for the show. I encourage you to do this, I do it, let's do it together. So when you're listening, what do you wanna get out of this episode? How could it help you? Well, my intention was to give you a whole new perspective and how to approach sex with your partner, so you can avoid getting into a

rut and making sure you're both speaking the same sex language. Alright, if you have a question you want me to answer on the show, just go to sexwithemily.com slash ask emily. It's the easiest way to do it and all I need from you is to include your name, your gender identity, your location, your age, and how you listen to the show. And yes, I'm cool if you change your name. Oh, and stay tuned. I have so missed talking to all of you live.

So first we're going to be setting up a sex with Emily Hotline so you can call and leave me a voice mail and then look for news for some times that you'll be able to call in and talk to me because I miss you. Remember, you can find me on all social media at Sex with Emily. All right, everybody, enjoy the show. My guest is an exciting one for me. He was on the show a few years ago, and today, Dr. Ian Kurner is here to talk about his latest book. He's a Sex and Couples Therapist and the author of numerous books, including the infamous

She Comes First, which has been translated in more than a dozen languages and his new book. So, tell me about the last time you had sex. He's helped so many couples for more than 20 years as a practicing therapist. I really admire Ian and I love all of his books. You can find more about Ian on Twitter, at Ian Kurner, and Instagram, Ian Kurner, LMFT. Tell me about your new book. So tell me about the last time you had sex. Emily, it's great to be here and for to be talking to you. And you know, I've been doing

sex therapy a long time now. And sometimes I feel like I'm like a dentist because people wait really too long to come and they're often in pain, you know? Oh, like... So the thing is, you know, people come in kind of hopeless and I really want to help them in that first session. So I kind of, over the years, have developed what I call kind of like a sex and action methodology,

you know, where I kind of I learn about the problem. I sort of look at it at the big from the big picture perspective. I walk around it. And then in every first session, I will ask a couple. So tell me about the last time you at sex. And I do that because I believe that every sexual event tells a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. There's a sequence of interactions that are of course physical,

but they're also emotional, they're psychological. And you put them together and that creates what I call a sex script. And I believe that most couples, especially ones that start to settle into long-term relationships, kind of have a sex script. And if it works, they're not coming to see me. And if it doesn't work, they are coming to see me. And there's something about the sex script that's reinforcing the problem that they're having. Okay. that's reinforcing the problem that they're having. So I literally want to help couples rewrite their sex scripts

away from the problem and towards pleasure. Okay, so let's talk about this sex script, which you spend a lot of time unpacking in the book, chapter by chapter with homework assignments and every chapter that really just, I mean, couples can take this at their own pace. I mean, they might find they just even in the first chapter, they stay there for a while after those homework assignments and every chapter that really just, I mean couples can take this at their own pace. I mean, they might find that just even in the first chapter, they stay there for a while after those homework assignments, the second chapter, because you give so much in this

book, I could just feel so much of yourself and so much of your years of doing this work. So let's talk about the sex script. How would you explain that? And also, is there a common sex script? Interestingly, about 90 to 100% of my heterosexual couples, if I ask them, tell me about the last time you had sex, and I'm not using this like, oh, we're rewriting a sex script. Like that's sort of what's in my head. I'm just asking them to tell me about the last time they had sex. Half the time they don't even remember. They're arguing about when they had sex. They can't even agree on it.

But with heterosexual couples, especially, I would say 90% to 100% either had intercourse in their last sex script or wanted to have intercourse and failed to. And if I asked most heterosexual couples, well, how long did it take you to get to intercourse? Most of my couples will say, two minute, one minute, two minutes, three minutes, five minutes. If we're getting to seven minutes, we're already getting extended. I'm not kidding. I know. I know. I am. You know, so the sex script is so dominated by this one behavior. Now here's an interesting question because there was actually a study done and they literally asked 25,000 gay and bisexual men to tell them about their most recent sexual event.

So that's like perfect. That's exactly what I do. So people love to say that gay men are like straight men, right? We have like the same appetites, the same desires, it's just for different sexed person. So let me ask you Emily, what percentage of gay men do you think had intercourse the last time they had sex? For heterosexuals, it's 90%.

Oh, intercourse. So penetration, I would say- Penetrate is not penis and vagina obviously. Penetrate is not penis and vagina. It's not as many. I would say maybe 60%. You know, that's what I would have said. Honestly, if you ask me a question, the actual answer is 35%. Okay. Yeah.

So, according to the study of 25,000 gay and bisexual men conducted out of Indiana University, only 35% had intercourse the last time they had sex. So what were the other 65% doing? So they were engaging in 12 behaviors that are really very common behaviors, kissing, hugging, manual stimulation of the genitals, oral stimulation of the genitals, oral stimulation of the anus, rubbing of genitals, things that everyone does. But here's the amazing thing. Those 12 behaviors were put together in 1300 different combinations. That's

1300. Is this like, I hope people are understanding what I mean by sex script. It's the combinations of what behaviors. So there you have 65% of gay men engaging in non-intercourse-based sex and having sex scripts, having 1300 different sex scripts. Compared to, let's say, 95% of heterosexual couples who are having intercourse, we know about the orgasm gap, very few behaviors because we know how quickly they're getting to intercourse. So that's kind of gets you the feeling of what I'm starting to talk about about like thinking about our sex.

I just decided to become back in my next life as a gay man. What I love about your book is that you don't center on penetration. You do not center it on. Penis goes into vagina and that is sex, which forever, you know, I think a lot of people in our field are trying to expand the definition of sex into what if you just kiss one night? What if it's just oral sex? What if it's mutual masturbation? All of that can count as your last time you had sex.

However, what you're finding is, and this is the couples that I hear from mostly too, there's no warm up, there's no foreplay, it goes right to penetration just to get it over and check it off the list. And there's probably not as much satisfaction in that. Absolutely. And they can choose from those 12 acts, we could still choose from those acts, but we don't. Right, choose from those 12 behaviors. Studies also show that the more behaviors you put together, the more likely people are to experience pleasure and orgasm.

So create your own personalized idiosyncratic sex scripts that work for you. Like why does this one behavior of penis and vagina for heterosexual couples have to dominate an overshadow sort of the way we have sex. When A, we know it's the sexual behavior that contributes most to the orgasm gap, right? That's obvious. Like a penicent of vagina just doesn't really stimulate the clitoris very much. And I deal with so many cases of performance anxiety

that are all centered around intercourse. So one of the reasons so many men that I work with focus so much on intercourse is because they're like, holy shit, I have an erection. I got to do this thing right now. Where do I stick it in? What do I do? I have to stick it in. I guess that's what it is.

I never really thought about the way. I think that they also believe then that not only do I not have other options really, but that's gonna be the most satisfying option because maybe it has been up until now. So what we're saying is the elements of the sex script, there's way more than 12 acts, right? Did you find that or are there common acts for that? Let's just say for now that there's 12 sort of common

behaviors, there's gonna be more behaviors. Now then the question is that there's 12 sort of common behaviors. There's going to be more behaviors. Now then the question is, there's two questions. One, how should those behaviors be organized? Because you could have a certain behavior that's sequenced in the wrong way. A lot of women will complain to me. Like, I don't mind oral sex, giving, receiving, but like for it to be the first thing,

it's like that just doesn't feel good, you know? It could be a great activity, but it's potentially at the wrong time. The other thing that I think that is really important to the book is that I don't think that sex scripts should simply be reduced to behaviors. I think that that is the problem so often. Even for couples who have working sex scripts,

they're living so much in the physical domain and not in the psychological or the erotic domain. So it's like once you know sort of maybe what the physical sequence of your sex script can be, how do you make that really erotically alive? So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the psychological, because we always say the brain is a large sex organ.

How do we get our brain on board? What are some of those psychologies? So you start with the sex script and you figure out the accent feel good, because that's sort of, you say, and that's the basis where we understand. We're like, I really like seeing I like massage. I like oral I like using a finger here, but how do you get your brain on board? And this is where we get into Desire

So one element that I didn't describe which I should have said is like when I'm asking a couple about their sex script I'm really guiding them. I'm saying, so how did you initiate? Who initiate? How did you end up of all the things in the world you could have been doing? How did you end up having sex? Oh, okay, great. Someone initiated and what, how did you begin to cultivate a rebel soul? Like, did you do undress yourselves, do undress each other? Like, what happens? Is it interesting? And then, well, how do you get going? How do you get absorbed in this sex? Like, are you present? Are you distracted? How do you get focused? And then, wow, how do you get going? How do you get absorbed in this sex? Like, are you present or you distracted? How do you get focused?

And then, wow, how are you building up that momentum towards, you know, orgasm? Is orgasm important? Are they happening both at the same time? One after the other, not happening at all? What happens after the orgasm? Do you connect? Are you staying there?

Are you reaching for the iPhone? And then, oh, what happens in between sexual events? the orgasm, do you connect or you stay in there, you're reaching for the iPhone and then oh, what happens in between sexual events? Is there an erotic thread, does eroticism stay alive? So I am like hearing all of this and I'm getting data back and a couple might say, you know what? We don't even initiate. If sex happens, it's just because one of us feels obligated or we get going, but he loses his erection or I'm never really into it. You know, so Emily, I'm listening for all of the problems in the sex script, but I'm listening for the first problem because that's the first problem that I can

target and I can give them homework and then they can come back and we can work our way through every element of rewriting the sex script. That's so good. So if they say to you, well, I'm just not in the mood and he loses his direction, but how do you start talking to them about arousal then? Getting actually in the mood for it, not just going through the motions. Absolutely. We're talking in this phase, we're talking about arousal. We're talking about

absorption, right? Just getting absorbed in the moment, just getting present. And then I will often ask a couple, you know, they'll tell me the activities that they're engaging and I'll learn that they'd like more for play or, you know, it's so interesting because history will come up too. Like one woman will say, like, well, no, I don't let him touch my vagina or go down. I mean, because when I was 15, I had a case of bacterial vaginosis and someone told me my vagina smelled and now that's a no, you know, so I'm also getting like interesting history. I'll get a sense of kind of the physical behaviors, but then I'll ask them. I always ask them. I'll say, so what kind of like psychological arousal do you generate? And it's kind of like a leading question because you know that everyone's going to say,

what are you talking about? Exactly. Yeah, they're like none. What? What do you mean psychological razon? I'll say, well, listen, we know for a fact that there are women who can fantasize their way to orgasm. I know for a fact when I'm working with men who have erectile unpredictability, and I want to give them a homework, sometimes I'll say, hey, next time you're putting on some really hot porn, I want you to wait five minutes before you touch your penis and tell me what happens. And those guys will come back and say, hey, I had a pretty decent direction. And once I did touch it, I was really had a good direction.

So that's the power of psychological arousal. It's hands free. What are you doing that's hands free, that's touch free to generate arousal? And why are you doing this with yourself and not with your partner? Because we're never taught. We're never taught anything about this at all. We don't understand it. We just go towards sex because it's pleasurable until it's not, right? Exactly. Exactly. Because I think this happens in most relationships.

I really do. I mean, after the honeymoon phase is over. The honeymoon phase is amazing because, you know, A, we got a nice little neurochemical cocktail back in us up. And B, there's so much excitement just in not knowing somebody and wanting to learn about somebody, you know. That's all new. It's all exciting.

It's all new. It's all exciting. So, you know what I love Emily is that once I explain it in these terms, every couple I meet is says, we want more of that. We want that. We're ready for that. We don't have it. How do we get it?

Right? That's $1 million. That is the $1 million question. So I think complicated questions really have simple answers. You know, I really do believe that. So I think it's important to engage in what I call the cultivation of psychogenic stimulation. That's the clinical term. I think that there's two ways of doing that.

I think it can be face-to-face and I think it can be side-by-side. By face-to-face, you know what I mean? By face-to-face, Emily, you watch two little kids or three little kids, five or six-year-olds playing in a playground. They're making something up. They have no props except maybe a twig to be a gun or who knows what or a jungle gym to be a castle with nothing but their imaginations. They're actually creating worlds and characters that have power structures that if we play

those same games as adults, they'd be really hot. They'd be really large, you know. So face-to-face psychogenic stimulation is being able to not just pull out a vibrator, not just grab a set of handcuffs, it's really being able to reach into your own psyche and begin to share something that terms you on. And it's crazy to me that so many of us either can't do that, won't do that. I think we shouldn't need to do that or believe they don't even have those fantasies or don't know that. Right.

Well, we don't. I mean, this is what we hear all day, every day people think, well, I hear what you're saying, Emily, we should talk about our fantasies or we should roleplay, but that's just awkward. We've been together forever. Like they're going to allow, yeah, it's all those reasons I can't, I won't, I don't have any fantasies. But I agree, but so I'll sit down with that cup on, I'll say, but listen, we've agreed that you need psychogenic stimulation.

And I sometimes say, you know, we need a different on-road into a rousal or we need like a different on ramp Or we need an arousal runway those two terms like an arousal runway and an on ramp People kind of like relate to those terms, you know And I'll say then, you know, I think that we got to do some side-by-side Psychological arousal and that's really simple. I just want you to take in together some sexy media. I don't care if it's reading a Rodic literature aloud. I don't care if it's listening to an erotic podcast. I don't care if it's listening to audio porn.

I don't care if it's watching ethical porn, which is always interesting because everyone will then say, ethical porn, and then that gets me to give them a whole nother speech. Exactly. And deconstruct their ideas about porn. But like I said, complicated issues have simple answers. Yeah.

Then taking something really sexy together with the shared aim of letting it get you aroused, maybe get into a little neutral masturbation, you know, while it's happening, you know, like, let's say someone does your, yeah, but porn is wrong or it makes me feel bad or I, that's against my beliefs. Right. First of all, I can try and make it fun. I can try and make it like that version of the newlywed game. I can say I want you to pick a rhodica or porn that doesn't turn you on necessarily, but you think it's gonna turn on your partner. And then that always becomes it.

Yeah, that becomes fine. And then I will say like listen, I don't really care what you do. Like look, I grew up old school. I'm a kid of the 70s and 80s. We didn't have the internet. We had books, we had literature, we had the story of, oh, we had a manual. Manual, yeah. Exactly. Books we had literature we had the story of oh we had a man well Manuel yeah Exactly so first of all I will really

People most of the time one or both partners will dismiss porn and I really just want to explore that as a conversation I want to say great you're definitely not going to watch porn. I just want to know why right because there's a lot in there like Oh, it's objectifying or, oh, I'm afraid that that's what he or she is going to think I want to do. Oh, because it's sleazy. Oh, because the actors don't want to be there. And then I can sort of just lightly challenge all of those assumptions.

So I do believe I will never push anything, but I always want to challenge people a little bit. And then Emily, the other thing I do is, everything for me, it's like, you know, the book is very structured, right? And the sessions are very structured. Like I always say, like, listen, I just want to do an experiment. We're just bringing data back. So I don't even want you to have sex. If you go and have sex, that's your own business. But I just want you to do a limited experiment of watching this erotic media together or taking it in. And I just want you to bring me back the data from that.

You know, sort of like what happened? Yeah. You know, and so then that leads to the second session. You know, some will say, you know, what, we really couldn't not have sex. We just had to. We were turned on or some will say, like, we actually never did it. We just never got there.

And then that becomes interesting, like, why? So I guess what I'm saying is like, the idea of a sex script is really breaking things into smaller units and then just addressing those units with a focus and getting some just interesting experience back from that. Right. We're going to do a quick break but we come back. I ask Ian how he helps his patients figure out there fantasies. Like how do you get them to expand what their fantasies are? Let's say they don't know or let's say they're still afraid of talking about it.

Because that's why we have stuff on my site like the yes. No, maybe it's like I'm always trying to give people suggestions. But how do you, is there another way that you help them have language around it? Yeah, I have a couple of ways. So what we're talking about now is moving from the side by side to the face to face, right? We want people bringing their erotic selves into the picture. They've engaged psychologically and they got aroused. Like, like look Emily this could be a couple that now has a new on-road into sex which always involves watching some ethical porn or reading something or getting turned on right that might be their sweet spot for a little while but you're talking about something

different which is how do we begin to bring our erotic cells and I have a few ways of doing that you know in every first session and I give this as a homework assignment in the book. I'll ask a couple. So look, now we know about the problem. We sort of know about the sex script that's reinforcing the problem. I want to ask if we work together for not that long, like two or three months, and we meet each other other every couple two or three weeks with the homework in between. And let's say like what month are we in right now or in like April, mid April. Let's just say by June, not too far away at all. Things are actually getting better. I want you to first off tell me what does better look like. They're reconstructing the sex group for me. They're saying like, oh, like, he's going to like just come at me with like more desire. Like, I'm going to really

feel, or I'm going to feel her desire more palpably, or we're going to really engage in some great oral sex, or we're going to start to play with like some power, something that we've already always wanted to write. So they're gonna start to tell me about the solution. So we've moved from problem to solution. My job then is to raise the temperature in the room a little and around that solution, turn it into a fantasy.

So okay, so what does that mean like? You want him to desire you a lot more? Do you want him to say something? Do you want him to do something? Yeah, I want him to push me up against the wall and tell me he wants to fuck me. You know, like, wow, okay, like that's the, it's not something he probably does or it's not the way you talk about putting together the shopping list, right? So you sort of want to like want to or hunger for you or almost want you to be objectified in those moments. Right. So I'm just working with them to build the fantasy right. Right. And then he might say, well, I don't know how to do that or that feels weird or how to write. And then do you give them tools to do it as well?

Yeah, I do but I feel like the main thing that they need is permission from each other. Like once they've sort of talked about a little more like It's okay to come up to me and just you know bite me on the neck It's permission and it's getting them to get in touch with their erotic self. So sometimes people will come back and say, yeah, I picked out the porn for him. It was a POV of a blow job because I know he loves blow jobs and I hated it. Why is everything a blow job? Well, that's interesting. Do you like blow jobs?

Yeah, I do. He'll say, yeah, I really do like blow jobs. Is it simply because it's a lubricated mouth with some friction of a hand against your penis? I mean, that could be just you masturbating with some lube and your hand. No, no, I like it because it makes me's it it makes me feel like like she totally loves me Or it makes me feel like I'm totally in power. Oh, it makes you feel like really loved or it makes you Powerful right there were then we're getting to even a sexual behavior Or a body part it contains an erotic element it contains an element of fantasy So when I think when people

think about fantasy, they're getting way too ambitious. They're feeling like I have to be like so super creative. Like I want to be annually probed by my alien husband and I'm a sponsor after coming out of suspended animation like it can just be next level of the blowjob or would it make you feel to receive or it's all it's all in the feelings so I'm glad you brought up blowjob is because I hear from so many men and women and heterosexual relationships the man would say my partner won't do it she won't like it she won't swallow she will never do it she just swears it off and then I hear from the women who are like I just won't do it, she won't like it, she won't swallow, she will never do it. She just swears it off. And then I hear from the women who are like,

I just don't like it, how can I learn to like it? And I get that you, Ian Kurner, have successfully encouraged couples or like gotten them to get to the point where they are. I do, I do, Emily, like, first of all, though I want to say what you live to be my age, which is actually women to be getting up there in years, right? You deal with like so many sexual problems. You realize there are so many paths to pleasure first of all. So I'm not

going to ever, I hate when couples get so hung up on one. I agree. I like, let it go. Do something else. There are so many paths to pleasure. The other thing that I really try and do is say anything you do, whether it's a blowjob, whether it's intercourse, whether it's a kiss, it can have some kind of psychological meaning. It can be the most loving, romantic kiss. It can be the most passionate kiss that oral sex can come from like, look, you can go to any porn side and oral sex can be done as femdom domination, right? Or it can be done as a morning loving act. We're not watching just to see the penis in the mouth. No. Watching for the psychological context. So I always want to come back to, well, what's the psychological intention behind what you want to convey?

It doesn't always have to be the same thing. It can be something different every day, you know? Right, so what you're saying is we don't have to force everyone to learn to love low jobs or going down on their partner. It's like we want to have a threesome or all the things. It's like, how else can you get that same feeling? What are the other paths to pleasure? How can you wrap a behavior and like a really nice gift wrapping that's really a turn on? And

listen, you know, once you know something about, you know, human sexual anatomy, right? And you got to, we know, right? Like, when a fetus is in the womb, it's not until like seven or eight weeks that it's determined, does that fetus gonna become a boy or a girl or intersexed? Most of the time, it's gonna become a boy or a girl. So it's not like once that's determined, like the material that tissue goes away,

it just gets used in a different way, right? So we all share common tissue, common sexual function, tissue goes away, it just gets used in a different way. So we all share common tissue, common sexual function. And once you learn some basic principles of stimulating, like once you learn like, hey, you know, like a penis really responds to friction at the head and the glands, right? And lubrication can help with that friction. And it really responds to pressure at the base.

And you can really experiment with friction and pressure. And it's sort of going to be those two things in combination with some psychological inputs and sound, some emotion like, well then you don't have to like swallow. Right. You don't have to like deep throat. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. In fact, you should do the things that are gonna be

within your safe space, within your good feeling space and that can be sexy. And I think it's when we don't really understand the principles of something. Like, you know, if you don't understand, you're not clitter it. If you don't understand how a clitoris works, then you're thinking about all these crazy positions and techniques. Right. Without thinking about what's fundamentally at the base, you know.

It's so true. I get so many questions about all these things. Oh, well, you need a new sex position. We're so bored. It's like, it's not about the crazy acrobatic sex positions, but you're so right, Ian, and we're so not glittering. We don't even penis-literate, really. So it's not about getting more acrobatic and creative.

It's about pinpointing what you know feels good and then working around that in positions. Okay, so Ian, then do you spend a lot of time like I know I always pull out my evolve of puppet and every like do you sit there showing them the Clitoris and the penis? So absolutely. I have shelves of sax toys. I have shelves of books that I'll pull off the wall. I'll give to patients. Right. Like take a look at these picture right because we just don't know. So that's what I like. You're giving people so much information in this book. And I love that people can kind of create their own cocktail. They can kind of, they can even jump around in the book too. I mean, yeah. So you're talking the book about the exciders and the inhibitors, the acts that keep us engaged versus like what is distracting us from having sex. And I think we have a long list of things that are keeping us from having sex, right?

Right. Yeah. So, so, so let's broaden out a little bit because desire issues are probably the main kind of discrepancy that couples deal with. Yes. Desire discrepancy. Absolutely. Miss Batsypedos. One partner wants sex more often than the other. Absolutely. Our boat partners are shut down a little bit. So I really talk a lot in the book. I'm really glad you brought this up because it's probably as important as the concept of the sex script is figuring out what is your desire framework and

what would be a shared desire framework for the two of you. Right? Because and now this is not my work obviously. It's standing on the shoulders of Rosemary Besson and Emily Ngoeski and the Kinsey Institute and Debbie Urbanick and everyone who's exploring sort of the differences between male and female desire. What I think is the next stage to recognize that that gender line doesn't really exist, that it's just issues with desire that we all experience. But in the book, I frame it this way.

Some of us can metabolize a sexual cue very quickly, right? We can see something sexy, and it really hits the genitals in an instant, right? And I sort of described that, like, to having like a fast pass to getting on like an amusement park ride. It's like I got the fast pass. She looks hot in that towel coming out of the shower. I got a fast pass down to the roller coaster of sets. Right. Like I'm ready to go. I can process that sexual cue very quickly.

So I call that framework sort of a highly reactive desire framework. I'm very reactive to sexual cues. It also gets called a spontaneous desire framework. So that's my framework. Is that my partner's framework? Maybe if that's my partner's framework, wow, then we both have a fast pass. Our problem isn't getting on the right. If they're in my office, it's probably that they went off the track somewhere on that right, right, right, right. But more than likely, if it's a long-term relationship, this can be a long-term heterosexual relationship, it can be a long-term gay or lesbian relationship. More than likely, one partner doesn't have that fast past. It's not that they don't appreciate a sexual cue. They just, they need more of that.

Not only do they need more sexual cues, their desire is not as resistant to the stressors in an environment. It's not as resistant to a context. So like, right, like, I'm still, at my age, luckily, I'm still in the highly reactive framework, right? My desire, there could be a fire in the next road, but I might still really want to make it happen. Is it a big fire? A little fire? Exactly.

That's amazing. Right, right. You know, honestly, for my wife, and she's got some of that highly reactive desire going because we have an environment that cultivates kind of eroticism. But more than likely, her desire is not as resistant to stressors.

So she's in what would be called, I call it a more deliberative desire framework and also gets called a responsive desire framework because we need more sexual cues. And then it comes down to what you talked about this relationship between exciders and inhibitors or like a car, like the accelerator versus the brake. Like what are the things that are turning you on? For me, it's like my wife in the towel. For her, it might be like my smell. She likes my smell. It's a little bit of my secret weapon when she's really angry

at me. I kind of bring her clothes and I'm like, come on. It's going to be okay. Kind of get some of that like smell. So now we're coming back to like what's the desire framework so I'm fast pass and my wife is like wait and line so what is that mean that means honestly I'm going to have to wait in line to right if I want to go on the ride alone if I want to master make great I can use my fast pass if I want. long on the ride with me and they don't have a fast pass. Well, I have to wait online with that. I have to make it a very pleasant experience. I have to reduce all of the stressors. I got to get a messota, get rid of the heat, whatever it can do. Exactly.

Close the windows, put the kids set to a nap, whatever it is, right? You got to clear everything, clean the house. Okay. Yeah. And so now we have like more of a shared desire framework. And I think it's also important for us to understand each other's desire frameworks

because I hate this so often. So I'm in that spontaneous desire framework and I'll say, well, what's wrong with her? This is the way it's supposed to be. You know, and she's like, yeah, I guess it was that way one time, so maybe it should be that way. I don't know what's wrong. Or from the responsive desire person's perspective know what's wrong. Or from the

responsive desire person's perspective, what's wrong with him or her? It's always sex, sex, sex, sex, sex without any thought to anything else. So I think it's so important to understand each other's individual desire frameworks. And then I help them to create a shared framework. And again, it's not it's not rocket science. It's just new information and new ways of thinking for people. After the break, Ian tells me what we can all learn from the Kink community. Stay tuned. Stay tuned.

What I love is that you really help people unpack. Very specifically, like the nuance of the problem, because we all get people in our field, we get the same questions for years, it's the same problems. And yes, you could say, well, buy a vibrator, watch a rotica, go shut your, all the things that we say,

buy lingerie, have a threesome. But you're like, stop there, like you are listening and you're helping people that really just dissect what's going on step by step by step. Thank you. And this is the pattern. Like I hear the questions, like if someone calls me a show, I know where they're going, but I can only do so much.

And then I'd say go see in, but now I could say get his book because it's really in. It's good. It really, you know, she come, my two loves, like I don't think I'm going to write another book for I really don't. I want to do other projects, other things I want to be with patients. I want to be with my family. I want to travel, but like the two books that I really think, really are my life's work. One is she comes first and that really came out of my lived sense of sexuality and my own sense of dysfunction

and wanting to like break through to just a new way of being and generating pleasure. So that book was really about me. It came out of me. This book really is about my patients and it really comes out of the people that I sit with every day and I talk to, there's a lot of case studies in there, it comes out of the work I do with other therapists teaching

and supervising. So it was a hard book to write, but it also was easy in that I never doubted what I was writing or had to really. Right, this works. Exactly, like this is exactly the step-by-step process of what I do with patients and you have so much in your toolkit.

Let's just talk about the foundations of power play. Like do you work with couples who say, well, I want my part to be dominant, it's a mis-saving kink. Do you help them sort of figure that out as well? So how do you? Absolutely, I mean, I take a few things from kink. Like, let me, before we get into the, quickly, the power play, the thing that I really learned

about kink is that when it's done right, both partners go into a flow state. They're really present. I know kink really sounds like it can be all this acting and putting on stuff, but like, there's like, really like, it's been studied, like, bottoms go into what's called sort of like a subdrop, which is really into a deep state, like a trans-like state.

Topps go into kind of like an alpha wave kind of flow state, and there's really like a mutual flow state being generated. And I think that's what every couple needs to have happened during sex, right? You need to get really turned on psychologically and then you need to kind of shift into a kind of like flow state together, where you're just totally present in the moment. So that's one lesson that I just learned from working with people who practice. Oh, how do I love it? And you describe that so well in the book

about that state that we get into. And that's why people often like power play because you are not in your thinking about the laundry and worrying that someone's coming out of your body. You're engaging. It's forced engagement because a lot of us are not as connected during sex. We're not connected or we're in our heads. We're disassociating. So it's that flow state.

Everything we all want, the fly one, when I'm writing or when I'm on the actually I have it when I'm on the show, but in other areas, it's just so hard. So do you teach couples this or it's more like a theory of. I do. I do. So the technical concept for being in a state of flow when you're with another person is called entrainment. Okay? Like when you're pushing someone on a swing, you get into a state of entrainment. When you're throwing a ball with somebody, you get into a state of entrainment. When you're dancing and you're not thinking about the steps, you get into entrainment. When you're a good musician and you're playing, you get entrained, right? So it's actually a brain state. So it's actually a brain state. It's like getting on the same frequency with someone

via something rhythmic. So you know, like a lot of artists or writers say they do their best writing when they're walking, right? That's interesting. Not putting down their actual walking. That's what happens when I walk. I have my best work, best thoughts about the show.

Yep. So there's something about rhythmic entrainment right that gets you into like that flow state. It's rhythm combined with either a process with yourself like I'm brushing my teeth and I go into a daydream or with someone else. So the essence of sex, Emily is getting into that mutual flow state. It has to happen for both of our... And you have a great chapter on entrainment. We don't have to give the whole book away, but I think you explain it really, really well

there. And even I was thinking, go and guess, that's what I want. I want my partner to read this. You know, it's like, I've had it. Or how do you have it more often than not? You can't guarantee that every time you're going to be an entrainment. No, you can't, but in the book, I just give lots of little exercises that incrementally help you build up. I call it in training, basically. And there's lots

of little ways of doing it and getting there. And ultimately, so the ultimate thing about a sex script is you want like all the novelty and the eroticism at kind of like the front end. I mean, that's why kink is so powerful because it gets you both physically and psychologically engaged, right? So it really cloaks the experience and in something psychological. But then you kind of want to go into just that state of flow where you're not thinking. So it's nice to have a script that works because then you kind of encode that routine, right? Like, if I'm driving the same route every day, I don't have to think about it anymore.

If suddenly I'm driving a new route, I have to think about it. So when we're having sex at a certain point, we don't want to be thinking about it anymore. We don't want to be searching for that technique. So if they know that this is their new kink play, then they have a whole other field to play in, and then it's not getting his wrote and bored and numbing, I suppose. Yeah, and I do have a really nice section on King. And again, it, for me, it comes down to like, too many people mess up with King

because they're just thinking about the props and they're not thinking of the intentionality behind it and why it should turn on and why power turns them on and where? This is it. Get started with it. Get inspired. It's gonna answer all the questions that people have

about this stuff, right? I hope and I try to do a whole part of the book for people who may be dealing with a problem already in their sex script, like problem with erections or a problem with orgasm or a problem with pain. I can't go in depth or early ejaculation or a rouse, I can't go in depth or early ejaculation or around. I can't go in depth into everything,

but I try to give people like workarounds, ways of still getting to pleasure, even if they have a problem. Because you say that that's the thing is like they have a problem. I always say it's like a sexual challenge. I try not to, right? But it's like you can work around all of it.

None of it's a deal breaker. The size of your penis being, I mean, you know, your work was started on. You're having being a premature ejaculator. My mom was on faking orgasms. I was like, I do not want to take orgasms. You're like, I don't want to, you just learn that there's other past. That's all it is. Other past to pleasure, right? Right. You just got to get past your own stereotypes and, you know, internal schemas around what sex should look like. You know, once I realized sex does not have to look like the way everybody tells me it should look. Just, and even that way that it looks leads to what you talked about

the faking part, you know, like, I have an orgasm yet in the movie in porn. She she already came. So Ian, in the year, how many years have you been doing this 20 plus? Yeah, about. Okay. So what do you, what has changed as far as the, the challenges that couples are coming within the last, if any, in 20 years, anything you've noticed? You know what I've noticed a lot. And I think this were in a cultural moment, like a lot of ever sexual endocouples who picked

each other as life partners, but they really didn't pick based on sexual attraction. They really didn't base privileging sexual attraction, which is different. I just haven't seen that. I didn't see that as much at the beginning, and they're really struggling with it. I really try and get people to think about then, well, if you started monogamously oriented, and you're really not sexually happy and you never have been, but you're so good in so many other ways,

can't we just start to even deconstruct that script, the monogamy script, the marriage script, even in just a little way. So that's something interesting that's coming up more. People with this real existential dilemma, like picking between the relationship or sex, you know, a lot more men, Emily, in their late teens, 20s, and 30s, struggling with erectile issues that are whole psychological.

Yeah. Well, you know, Ian, I was going to say it's funny because I see similar things and I want to go back to the erection thing. But first, let's talk about the so what we're saying is more couples are realizing that menogamy is not for them and you're helping them, perhaps open it up, right? How do you have the rules? How do you have the contracts? How do you set boundaries in open relationship?

Man. But it's again, it's like going back to she comes first and getting people to challenge intercourse. You're asking them in this case to even challenge something that's harder to challenge, right? But they tell the kids, what do they tell their family? Who do you bring? You know, so, but I think that's important. Yeah. Or living, live with despair, right? Just live with despair that you can't take anymore. Right? Because sexuality is such an essential part of life and expression. And if couples aren't attracted to you at the beginning, like often they'll say, oh,

we were never, the sex was never great. Don't you think it's really hard to create it, I don't know where? I really do. I mean, it helps so much if that chemistry, that, you know, that ineffable thing that I said is so hard to... You can't just drum it up on a nowhere. And then can we go back? I want to talk to you about real quickly.

They're rectile dysfunction thing. I've noticed that as well, that more... I never really heard from men in their teens in 20s for having a rectile dysfunction. But have you seen these studies lately about testosterone,, that the levels and testosterone drops since the 80s? And it's because of toxins and because of pollution.

What do you think about that as a theory? Well, I would love to come and talk about this because it's such a important topic, but I will say this, I think more than anything, it had more than testosterone, more than porn and neural rewind or whatever people are saying I think it has to do with increased levels of anxiety. Okay well that was my first take okay all right Ian thank you so much for being here

I have to ask you the five quicky questions we ask all of our guests so they're quick ready? Okay what is your biggest turn on? What is my biggest turn on oral sex? Very on brand, very on brand, biggest turn off. Chicken flannel pajamas. What makes good sex? Not me, I got it. I got it. I got it.

Not all pajamas. What makes good sex? What makes good sex being able to turn on erotically and being able to turn off and get into that flow state, being able to like turn on your sexual self and turn off every other part of yourself. Something you tell your younger self about sex and relationships. Embrace your challenges, embrace your problems. They may even pile up on top of each other. They're always going to come and there is always going to be a workaround. There's always going to be a solution. There are so many pads to pleasure. Number one thing you wish everyone knew about sex.

It's not just that the brain is the biggest sex organ. It's that we really need to bring our minds into sex and really focus on mind-based arousal, right? Like, I want to be able to give my wife and orgasm just by talking to her, you know? I want us to make love with their minds. I love this. Thank you so much, Ian Carter, and people can find your book. So tell me about the last time you had sex and where else can they find you? Yeah, I come to my website, I always try and keep it up to date with what I'm doing and what I'm thinking about. Thank you Ian. Thank you for

all of your work. We're excited for this book. And thank you Emily for all of your work. That's it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to like, subscribe and give us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and share this with a friend or a partner. Believe me, if you got something out of this episode, they will too. We release two to three episodes a week, find me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. It's all at sex with Emily. If you'd like to ask me a question about sex or dating relationships, email me. Feedback at sexwithemily.com or sexwithemily.com slash Ask Emily. And check out my website. We have so many great articles that I've been deep into topics like,

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