Sex With Emily - The 10 Hottest Moments of 2021

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

2021, we hardly knew ya. Just kidding, we totally did, and we’ve got the FaceTime sex to prove it. All year long, we’ve been saving up the very best moments of Sex With Emily, so you can walk into 2022 more sex-wise than ever. From squirting to sex dreams, Nikki Glaser to Esther Perel, we’re doing a hot flashback of YOUR most talked-about episodes. On this show, we’ve banked the top pieces of sex wisdom from hands-down incredible guests. Discover your dating style, locate the g-spot once and for all, and build your sexual confidence with some of the smartest (and funniest) voices out there. Before you create your New Year’s resolution list, be sure to listen to this one – because I guarantee you, their advice will elevate your 2022. Show Notes:So Tell Me About The Last Time You Had Sex by Ian KernerTo Find Your ChronotypeFemale Ejaculation & The G Spot by Deborah Sundahl Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Honeymoon phase is amazing because, you know, A, we got a nice little neurochemical cocktail back in the South. And B, there's so much excitement just in not knowing somebody and wanting to learn about somebody, you know? So, it's all new, it's all exciting. Once I explain it in these terms, every couple I meet says, we want more of that. We want that. We're ready for that. We don't have it. How do we get it? You can never speak out loud about yourself. The way that you speak about yourself is becomes who you are. 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. to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Oh, 2021, we hardly knew you. Just kidding, we totally did, and we've got the FaceTime sex to prove it. All year long, we've been saving up the very best moments of sex with Emily, so you can walk into 2022 more sex-wise than ever. From squirting to sex streams, Nikki Glazer to Esther Parall, we're doing a hot flashback of your most talked about episodes. On this show, we bake the top pieces of sex wisdom from hands-down incredible guests. Discover your dating style, locate the G-Spot once and for all, and build your sexual confidence with some of the smartest and funniest voices out there. Before you create your New Year's resolution list, be sure to listen to this one, because

I guarantee you, their advice will elevate your 2022. Intentions with Emily. For each episode, join me in setting an intention for the show. I do it and I encourage you to do the same. So when you're listening, what do you want to get out of the episode? My intention is to have a blast with you. You might listen to a few pieces of advice here and go, oh yeah. And on others, you might say, whoa, I totally missed that one. And that's why we put it all together. So think of it as a sex buffet for one. And let's

have some fun. Please rate, review, sex with the Emily wherever you listen to the show. We've got tons of articles up at sexwiththeemlee.com, so check those out and also check out my YouTube channel for more sex tips and advice. If you want to ask me questions, just call my hotline 559 Talk Sex or 559-825-5739. Leave me your questions there or message me at sexwithfamily.com slash Ask Emily. All right everyone, enjoy this episode. Let's start things off with psychotherapists and relationship expert Esther Paral, who discusses the different types of touch and infidelity. Can we want what we already have?

Is the fundamental question of desire? What is the difference between love and desire? How do they relate? But also how do they conflict? Why is it that a forbidden is so erotic? Why does parents who deliver such a fatal erotic blow? What is at stake when the very thing that people rely on is the very thing that becomes most fragile? Because we don't think of desire as something that needs to be

cultivated, sustained, actively nourished. We think that because in the beginning for some of us anyway, it's there. It's just going to remain there forever. And the forever keeps on getting longer. Exactly. That's the crisis of desire. We had to get married. We became property of the man. And then we thought, well, we get to pick a partner.

And it should be based on this love and sex and connection. Well, it's like, well, we're talking about as a honeymoon phase, right? That everyone goes through at the beginning of a relationship. No, not everyone, actually. As many people that start to look warm and become hot later, that is also a myth. That everybody starts with a tremendous amount of erotic enthusiasm for their partner. Some do, but many don't, but we don't say it out loud because the myth says that there should be a honeymoon phase. Okay, well, so those people like in arranged marriages, or they're just making their own arrangements in their head,

and they think, well, I'm not attracted to this person, but they're going to be a great provider. So that's not important to me right now to have that kind of desire. That, or I feel deeply emotionally connected to you, you feel safe to me. You will be good to me. You will not hurt me. You will care for me. And the fact that I am not as strong to you physically or feel compatible with you physically is secondary at this moment. My erotic needs and my emotional needs are not aligned and I am letting my emotional needs be the decisive factor.

It's fine. But is it fine? So how important is sex in a long-term relationship? It may be very important for us. That's very same person, but maybe the emotional leads superseded. And you have to know that, you have to understand that. You know, that same person who made that choice may have been fine for 10, 15 years sometimes. And then that other dormant part of them resurfaces, you know, with evangence and says, and what

about me. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't wrong choice that was made at first. There was a choice that was made for different reasons. And those things, we have the idea that sexual needs and emotional needs are one and the same. And they always go neatly aligned together. And that is not necessarily the case. There are people with whom we can have wonderful sexual encounters with whom we would never want to live a life. And there are people with whom we want to live a whole life, but we have to mourn a kind of erotic flatness that for some of us is a real dear loss.

So how do we reckon? I mean, I know that a lot of your work is getting couples to reconcile this and to understand how the importance of sex, how they can either get it back. You know, we had it at the beginning. That's what I hear a lot, at least they had, even if they had it for a week. Even if they're 20 years, that first week was amazing and they all want to go back. Now, say, you're never going to go back, but what do we do? Can we experience desire and deep love at the same time?

Yes, yes. Of course, some of us really do. The way I organized it in my head was actually based on the workers who have Stephen Mitchell and others. It was not just my original thinking that we all have two fundamental sets of human needs. And we need security and we need safety and stability and predictability. We also need adventure and novelty and risk and mystery and sometimes danger. To the degree to which these two organizing needs, existential needs in our life,

live inside of us, will tell you the answer to how important it is sex. When you say how important it is sex in a long term relationship, my first answer to you is for whom? Tell me the story of that person and who that person is, and I'll have a better sense of how to answer that, rather than some flat generalizable number. And each of us struggles these two fundamental needs, and they change in the course of our

life. So some of us will find that the place where we love is also the place where desire feels very free. The safety I feel with you is what unleashes my erotic self. I ask this exercise a lot, where I ask people to separate the page into. When I think about sex, I think of. When I think about love, I think of. When I am wanted, I feel. When I want, when I desire, I feel. And when I think about desire between you and me. And then on the

other side, when I think about love, when I am loved, when I love, and when I think about the love between you and me. And then you look at the connections. For some people these two seamlessly flow together and one flows from the other. And for other people they are rather separately and disconnected. When I love, I feel deeply responsible. When I desire, I want to be free of all responsibility. When I... It's that dance that every person has to explore for themselves. Then, how do you bring them together?

You tell people it's not the desire just for doing sex. Desire and the erotic, I think that that's what frees people up is. When I say, we're not talking about sex. You can have sex three times a week and feel absolutely nothing. I am not there to help you do it. But I will explore with you, where do you go in sex? What does sex mean for you? What parts of you get expressed in sex?

What is it a vocabulary for for you? When I go into that frame, it becomes a different conversation. Women have done sex for centuries and felt nothing. So, desire is not the desire to do it. I ask an audience, if you've been affected by the experience of infidelity in your life, either because you were the child of a parent who was unfaithful or who left, or you are the offspring of an illicit love, a fair or accident, or you are the friend who's the confidant of someone who's either been betrayed or is in the throes of an affair,

or you're the third person in the triangle. 80% of an audience will tell me they've been affected by infidelity. So this is not just a few rare rotten apples somewhere else. And that's when I said, this is touching us so much. So many people have been affected by this all over the world. The book is in 30 languages, and I've been in 20 of those countries.

I want to find a way to talk about it in a way that's going to be more helpful for all those who've been hurt by it, or who've gotten lost by it, or who destroyed their entire lives because of it. There must be something that is less of a black and white model that embraces the complexity of this very complex embraces the complexity of this very complex, tingled adultery that has existed since the day marriage was invented. Yes. And not to condone it. Not to condone it. I think that's very important piece to add to it.

It is to really help people with it rather than just say if it's good or bad. Right. Yeah. Exactly. And you do help people with it so much. So I just recommend that everyone reads State of affairs because people have this notion, well, if someone cheats on me, I'm gone. I'm out of the relationship, right? And so it doesn't have to be that way.

Right. And Emily, and that if you stay, that you not experience it as a shame, if I had, especially as a woman, the new mandate for the woman is to leave. But you know, it's not always so easy. Life is complicated. People have children who need two parents.

People have economic realities. People have elderly parents living with them. It's not just so easy to get up and go. And sometimes it's not easy to get up and go, because you still care about the person and because the very person who cheated on you may even also have been the one who took care of your elderly father or your alcoholic brother that is a mess and that has come to live with you for the past two years. They put it in the pandemic context. You know, so don't be ashamed over the strength of staying.

It demands a lot to do that too. But get help, but there is hope. This is not the only form of betrayal in a relationship. It's all of that. How do we retrain the brain to understand that pleasure is our birthright and not just a reward? Like I think there's so much about sex and eroticism that we just think we don't deserve it. So the way I work with it is very experientially and I don't just retrain the brain, I retrain

the physical experience, the embodied experience, which then will send messages to the brain. So I work a lot with water. What is your preferred temperature of the water? I want you to send in the shower with the perfect temperature for you. And then I want you to notice, what is the place on your body where you enjoy the most? Is it the nape of your neck? Is it the back? Is it

your head? You know, is it your shoulder? Is it the front? You know, and then I want you to just stay under the shower. And for as long as you can, notice, notice the soothing pleasurable quality of that water. And if at some point you begin to think, oh, I should turn, I should move, I should wash, I should finish. See if you can extend it just another 30 seconds. You see, you can do it alone, you can do it with the partner watching. These are all metaphors, transposed metaphors of experiences around pleasure. Imagine that you're eating and your partner is just watching.

And you're pleasing yourself. You find the thing you like the most. It's so I'll work with food a lot. I work with fruits, I work with water, I work with fabric, with clothes, you know, that experience on your body. You know, I work with touch. Do you want hovering touch? This is from the work of Jaya. Do you want no gentle touch? Do you want straight touch? Or do you want stipple touch? You know, there's a beautiful exercise, another one that is really the difference

between giving touch and taking touch. So the giving touch, I give touch to you. I stroke your hand and I am thinking of you and my mind is completely focused on you. This is a great retrain exercise. And then there is the taking touch, which is now I continue to stroke your hand, but this time I'm focused on me.

It's how I enjoy. It's the contact of my hand, and you can see people completely change the way they touch. Now I am using your hand for my pleasure, and I am taking touch. And now I go back to thinking about you, and now I am giving touch, and to the distinction that the pleasure of giving

is a different kind than the pleasure of taking. Next, Likki Glazer, who talks all about orgasms and porn. Do you believe anything? About this like addictiveness of the orgasm. And also I read this, let me be honest, I read like four pages of cupids, poison arrow about the female and male orgasm and how it like prurons our relationships and how women get super depressed after them

and how you shouldn't be having them all the time. Do you know about any of that? And if you have you heard of women. No, but I think women should. All I know is I go back to, you know, eons ago when women were actually, if you look at the tantric sex and you look at all these practices around women that women, the orgasm and we have an orgasm, and we have an orgasm, it gives us life.

It's our life force. Women can have up to like 226 orgasms a day and that's fine. Men would be better off in this paradigm of limiting their ejaculation and orgasm with ejaculation and then learning how to have multiple orgasms through bringing the energy of the orgasm through their body. So that's a whole another practice. Can I ask you, do you have orgasms with men every time? Yeah, if it's done right.

During penetration. You know what, not if I don't also have a vibrator. If I have a vibrator too, it's guaranteed. And I'm not always guaranteed the vibrator by myself though. That's the thing. I need both the man and the vibrator for a guarantee. Yes. Now if I'm a vibrator alone, I'm about 75% I can get there.

If I'm with a guy alone, also 75%. But guaranteed with both. So when guys are insecure about toys, I'm like, I can't without you either. I need you. You're part of this for me. Right. Well, that's the thing. It's like bringing them along with the experience.

I find that the guys who are insecure are insecure that thought of it, but once they try it with you and they're like, that's really hot. And they like the feeling of it. Guys like it on their shaft too. You have so much work. Like I need a lot of pressure and I need a lot of simulation because I'm just kind of like numb down there and that's what's so good about listening to you is like you've reminded me like, think about your vagina.

Like go there and I just don't feel like my body. I'm like shut off in places and that's one of them. And now I'm just starting to like just go to what feels good. Both for sex and have no shame about it. My favorite porn is women doing feats of like that still feel good and don't hurt them. Like I don't like like multiple penises in one hole. That is not cool.

Like for me at least because I picture myself and I'm like, oh, that would hurt. Although, if a hand, I don't know why I can accept that more. Usually because they do it in a methodical fashion that isn't going to hurt the girl, the stuff that I watch at least. But multiple dicks, I'm like, I don't like it.

But then DP or stuff like that, where a girl. Double penetration. I have on this show and we're wrapping up. And I go, what are you doing next? And guys, I'm a girl. Depth penetration. I have on this show and that we're wrapping up and I go, what are you doing next and guys? Like I'm gonna go DP in Florida with like a director of photography. I know a lot of girls are DP in Florida.

I hear that's like a booming industry. There are a lot of female DP's now in your crew and he's like really? And I was like, do not get DP jokes. No, he actually was like, I hear the joke all the time. But yeah, I like stuff like, I like forced orgasms. That's my new thing. Because I didn't even know if it was a sub-genre.

But I found it on Reddit and stuff on there. I'm like, I just like girls being forced to come because I struggled to come. So if you tell me to do something, I'll do it. But I like to, I live my life very much reward-based. You don't get to have that unless you earn it. And so I want to earn an orgasm because they feel so good.

I want to feel like, why am I getting this present? I did something, I'm getting a sticker. And then I can really, I push orgasms away because I'm like, no, it can be better. I feel a better one coming and then I lose it. And I'm like, oh, you do, even with all the toys? Oh my god, I pushed them away constantly. It is my instinct to not come. I didn't, the first time I had? Oh my god, I pushed them away constantly. Like, it is my instinct to not come.

I didn't, the first time I had an orgasm was, I was 21. One? Okay. And the next time that I was like regularly coming was 24 and then took a real, like, 25. You were 25? Yes, that's why I have this job to, like, what the fuck? I was like, I never had orgasm.

I never masturbated. I didn't even know it was a thing. When did you get like, wild? Like, when did you get like very like, I can talk about anything, like, what was it for you? Probably, it was starting this podcast because I realized I didn't know anything about it and I thought,

but what true you don't want to talk about it publicly anyway? Like, when most people are like, I don't want to talk about that. Well, this was like 15 years ago and I honestly was like, why do I keep getting to relationships with guys where I'm faking orgasms? I'm not asking for what I want. I'm so into their pleasure over my own is this what sex is all about?

And I literally thought it was the only person I did. So I thought, I'm going to interview everyone I know about their sex life and their relationship and that's where the podcast started. Like in my living room in San Francisco, friends came over, I was like, what? And I was like, oh, everyone's made me feel the same way, but they're not, yeah, they are. They still are, but not if we talk about it with our partners or anyone.

The more we talk about, the less weird it is. I love talking about sex. And it's sometimes like kind of shocks people. Like I was just on this show and it's like, we were setting up a shot and I was just waiting and someone was talking about, they were reading books. And I was like, what are you reading? And he was like, oh, someone was talking about they were reading books and I was like, what are you reading? And he was like, oh, it's book about tantric sex.

And I was like, oh my God, that's so fascinating. Like, what are you learning? And someone accused him of hitting on me and I go, I asked him what book he was reading. He didn't lie and I have an interest in sex. It doesn't mean that we are going to have sex. Like, we can talk about this without it being like, oh God, this is inappropriate.

But some people are, you know, triggered by that stuff. So I guess I should be mindful. And now all about sex scripts with Ian Karner. 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 action methodology, you know, where I kind of I 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. So I literally want to help couples re 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 home markets, I mentioned 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, you know, so the sex script is so dominated by this one behavior. We just go towards sex because it's pleasurable until it's not, right? It's 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.

So it's all new. It's all exciting. It's all new. It's all exciting. So, you know what I, 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. 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. And 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. And 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 dark, 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 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 gonna 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 couple and 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 ralzo, or we need 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? That's a problem. And I'll say then, you know, I think that we gotta 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 erotic literature aloud I don't care

if it's listening to an erotic a 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 home other. 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 mutual 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 Radica or porn that doesn't turn you on necessarily, but you think it's going to turn on your partner. And then that always becomes it. Oh, that's fun.

Yeah, that becomes fun. They're going to 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, like want you 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 there. 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 the 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 blowjob 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, right, with some lube and your hand. No, no, I like it because it's it'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 feel 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. 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 pads to

pleasure. The other thing that I really try and do is say anything you do, whether it's a blow job, 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. 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 up with your body. You're engaging. It's forced engaging 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, I want it when I'm writing or when I'm on the show, actually I have it when I'm on the show. We're in our heads. We're disassociating. So it's that flow state. Everything we all want, the fly one, it went on writing or went on the show. 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. 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 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 us. 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. 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. Wondering how to find your or your partner's G-Spot? Deborah Sundell has the answer in this top moment. Okay listeners, this might be a little repetitive, but Deborah, Sam at one of your workshops, how do you actually help all owners find their G spot? I take them through like a meditation practice to slowly identify the head, the body, and back of the prostate with their finger. I'm like you saw it now with your eye. Now slowly go around the meaty area that surrounds the urethral canal. Put your finger very slow, very tender. Everybody wants to rub it and go really fast. It's like, guess what?

Millimeter by millimeter ever so slow. Well, everything changes when you do that. And from the urethra, then you go with your finger slowly down to the vaginal opening, that's all the prostate under that tissue there. So it's just at the opening and just two inches in. What is that? That's the first knuckle.

Yeah. People think it's so deep in a hat. Yeah. Right? We're going way in there and pounding away at her. Like no. This is what I've been saying for years. The pounding, pounding, it's not deep inside,

out of the belly button. It is an inch and a half to two inches inside. And I think people are still even going in. They don't get what that is up to your knuckle. And then when I discovered mine, I was like, oh, it's just right. It's literally like it's, it's that why we always say that come ahead

of emotion is because it's like going towards your belly button. It's like that little, you just feel it's right there. It's like on the, it's right there. It's right there. It's like it's, yes, it's right there. We thought it was this left side of your Twitter. It's like it's yes. It's right there We thought it was this tiny spot that somewhere in the deep oceanic recesses of the vagina was a Spong and some women had it and some women didn't and only the right man will come along and find it for us and blast us off the

Planet. No, it's just a total myth. Total myth. Oh, we got to find it first. He was like, oh, we got to teach sex ed. When women come to me first, like, oh, how do I be a great lover? I'm like, first, you got to do the work on yourself. When you become a master of your own body and your own domain, then you can share that with a partner. Or you find a partner. And I love it in your book, female ejaculation and the G spot. You could do it with a partner. Like there are tips in here to do with a partner, but if you don't have a partner, your partner is not in. I think it's less pressure, perhaps, it's on your own.

So now we're inside and we've seen it peek out and then we, you're just saying we touch it with a finger, then you'll become more... Yes, because it's a process of awareness. Once you know and see and have felt with your finger, okay, I saw this G-spot stick out. Now I shut my eyes and I locate that with my finger. I feel what it's like to touch it with my finger and I feel what it's like to have a finger touch my G spots body. Mm hmm.

Right. This is all awareness. I do not go fast. Right. I take women through this very slowly. I don't think I even ever really looked at my vulva puppet in this way that like there's a G spot. I never knew my vulva puppets G spot.

We find our G spot. No pressure orgasm or to ejaculate, but you found this is awareness. Awareness. The first day is awareness. We're finding it. We don't have a bit of a way to go to orgasm yet. We have performance issues. We have impatience issues. We have to go, we are trained to go really, really fast.

We want that pleasure now. We want this now. It's like, no. Okay. So we're articulating something that has not had a name. It doesn't exist. That is what I do. We're going to articulate this millimeter by millimeter. You will have no doubt about your G spot after that. You will own her forever. That's empowerment. Next up, Dr. John and Julie Gottman, share some fascinating findings about compromise and relationship dynamics.

For example, this pandemic is changing people so dramatically, not only superficially, but at a much deeper level in terms of their values, in terms of what they dream of doing when they can finally get out, you know, in the world with safety. So, sharing those thoughts and how your dreams have changed over the decades can be really a momentous conversation. Yeah. You're right. We do often share that when we start dating somebody and maybe that's what even attracts you to them that they have these dreams and passions of who they're going to be and

what they're going to do. But then life gets busy and you have a kid and it is about the laundry and paying the bills and slowly but surely each one of you have little dreams that you're that are dying. Like maybe every year they're just getting a little bit more repressed. And so to have it had to be able to talk about it and say, you know, this is still important to me. This is who I am. And I think this might be the antidote to we always hear that couples grew apart.

Well, we just grew apart. This would kind of prevent that if you kept kind of monitoring, well, I'm couples grew apart. Well, we just grew apart. This would kind of prevent that. If you kept kind of monitoring, well, I'm, we grew apart because I was going after my dream. I've heard this, this is sort of a cliche example, but well, I was home with the kids, but you were out doing this thing and you were out living your life. And I didn't get to live my dream. So I guess I just love this idea of getting people to stick with these conversations that why you fell in love and what attracted you to each other. It's so important. Yeah.

Right. There is a huge myth out there. It's probably the most common myth about relationships that you have to be compatible. And how compatible are you? But the reality is that if you're truly compatible, you're a clone of the other person, you get bored silly relating to them, right?

So you really want to have a person who is different from you and that is fine. That is great. The key to really having a successful relationship when your dreams are very different from the other persons, uh, is do you support each other's dreams, even though they're not yours. Now, there's going to be exceptions to that where your partner's dream is your nightmare. Well, okay, that's, you know, not going to happen probably. I want to get back into conflict for a minute and in relationships because that's a lot of what we, you know, there's so many conflicts and there's so many problems that people just won't get past. They might not go to therapy and I always said it seems like you're repeating the same things over and over and then hearing your stat 69% of conflicts

are never solved and in fact they stay the same. So over years, so like this is never going to change. But then yet we call these relationships still successful. How is that possible? Well, here's the thing, you know, the question about successful relationships isn't, do they solve all their problems? It's again, how do they dialogue about those problems? How do they dialogue? Right? So, you know, you were talking about compromise. Well, one of the things that is really, really important is taking the time to really understand your partner's point of view

about a particular conflict and where it comes from, what it's about for them, what's the history behind that? Childhood history, other relationship history, why is it so important to you that you have this particular position on the issue really lived. What is the underlying sense of purpose and meaning for you, and having your position on the issue honored?

And when you have that kind of conversation with one person as the listener, and the other as the speaker, and that listener just staying with question after question to really understand the other person's point of view and then reversing the roles. So there's deeper understanding, then compromise becomes so much easier because you develop compassion and a much deeper appreciation for your partner's internal world regarding their position on a conflict issue. Could you give me some examples about how a conflict that stays the same but how you kind of learn to do the juzhits, so it works in a way? We call this the dreams within conflict and we analyze 950 of these conflicts that seemed like deal

breakers, you know, where they're opposed to each other and compromise seems unthinkable because in these deal breakers you're kind of selling yourself out if you compromise. That's the way it feels. And so after we analyze that and we also saw that in our own relationship as well, we found that some of these unsavvable problems become the points of better connection. But you have that skill set of listening and teaching. I guess people learn this, they learn this from you, but we are not, we are not born listeners, right, active listening.

Right. We really learned it from the couples in the lab who, you know, took these deal breakers and asked each other questions that deepened their understanding of their partner's point of view. And Julie really is the one who was insightful enough to see that this was an important therapy technique because of her background is a therapist. We're going to take a quick break but don't go anywhere we will be back with more of this year's hottest moments.

Of course we had to bring back Dr. Bruce's fascinating insights on everyone's second favorite bedroom activity, sleeping. Everything's been disrupted, everything's been thrown out of whack, and then to try to find order in this time of disorder and trauma for many, our sleep is one of the first things that's going to go. Right. Well, then before COVID, like how did sleep become the little black dress before COVID, right?

And so here's what happened, right? Is all of a sudden a several different things sort of collided. Number one, we could start tracking it a lot better. So now we've got rings, we've got wristbands, we've got things under our mattresses that can start to give us a little bit more feedback so we can start to understand more about our sleep.

So that's certainly helpful. The other thing that we started to realize is that performance is really directly tied to sleep. All kinds of performance. So like financial performance, like how well you do at work, relationship performance, sexual performance, certainly has got its roots in sleep. So when you start to think about all things performance related, we as a species seem to be kind of evolving towards this sort of high performance, high tech sort of universe.

Well, before you enter this, I do want to talk about how sleep impacts our sex life. But the first thing off the top of my head is that one of the most common questions I get asked over the last 15 years is, I want sex more often than my partner. What do we do? And then a lot of times it comes to you, well, I'm a morning person. My partner's a night person. How do we make that work? We're not home in the middle of the day, even now maybe we are, but still then,

how does it impact our sex life? All right, so this is the $64,000 question, as they say. So in my book called The Power of When, I actually took a look at this question, because this is a question that I actually get asked on a very regular basis is what's going on here. So first of all, what we're talking about is a basic idea that I call chronotypes. So people may have not heard the word chronotype before, but you have heard of the concept, if you've ever heard of somebody being called an early bird or somebody being called a night owl,

right? Those are chronotypes. So originally we thought that there were three. There were early birds, what we called in the middle or hummingbirds, not the best of names, and then night owls, right? So I added a fourth chronotype to the literature. And so by the way, these are genetic. So it's not like you can happen to choose, hey, I want to be a morning person.

I want to, this is actually something where we see a single nucleotide polymorphism or what we call a SNIP on a particular gene, the PER3 gene. This is what actually has a lot to do with scheduling within your circadian system. So when you see the polymorphism there, it makes you an early bird or it makes you a night owl. So this is where it gets interesting. By the way, if this is one of these genetic things, right, and it's kind of in bread in

us, you know, we want to figure out what genetic things, and it's kind of in bread in us, we want to figure out what that is, we probably, probably want to be dating somebody that's the same chronotype as us, right? Like, wouldn't you want to? Well, that should be, yes. I mean, I always say, let's talk about it. So here's my question.

Yeah, so here's my question. And why doesn't like match.comcom or e-harmony? Why don't they ask these questions? Wouldn't there be a ton of sleep-related questions that you'd want to know about your partner before they became your partner? I want to know, do they snore? Do they get warm or cold? What side of the bed do they sleep on?

Firm bed, soft bed. There's a bunch of factors here, right? Yeah, a snorer and a soft mattress were done. Like, let's not even go out for drinks. Let's just hold it there, right? I mean, you see what I'm saying? Yes, see, I already do. Sleep is critical.

It's part of the human condition. It's all about the relationship, the core is sleep, for sure. And you can't change that. So I always thought there should be a dating app for sex. Like, why don't we just lead with what we like? It's sex important to me. And by someone who wants to prioritize pleasure, we should just do an app together. But you're right. So let me answer the question. Go. Yeah.

Tell us it work. What do we know? So here's the basic answer to the question. When we look across chronotypes, right? You need five hormones to have successful sex to be elevated. You need estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. You need cortisol and adrenaline, all to be high, right? You want all of those to be high. You want melatonin, the sleep hormone, you want that to be low, right? So we did a survey, 74% of people like to have sex

between 10, 30 and 11, 30 at night. What do you think their hormone profile looks like? The opposite, right? The melatonin is high and all the things that are supposed to be high The opposite, right? The melatonin is high and all the things that are supposed to be high. Right. Right. So that's clue number one as to what might be going on here.

And if you're in a heterosexual relationship, what a most men wake up with. Unreaction. Right. If that is not mother nature telling you when to use that thing, I don't know what is, right? Right. Yes, I agree with you. You already got to go and I've got half the problem there. Right? Have to have the problem.

So answered. Yeah. Because you've got that you've got the elevation and testosterone there. So it makes a lot more sense. So a lot of times, you know, I have a lot of patients who say to me, you know, I like having, you know, in a course with my partner, but he falls asleep afterwards all the time. And I wanna spend more time or whatever. And so I'm like, well, okay, well, what about morning sex? And I'm like, I'm being a sex doctor, not a sleep doctor here. But what I'm talking to him about is when they wanna do that.

And so that's really what we talk about. So I actually created a matrix in the book. So what do we do? And an early bird is already married to a night owl, right? That's a big question. I had to create a matrix in the book. And in the book, I also have a matrix for lesbian couples and gay couples because the hormone profiles would be different. Wow, this is amazing.

It's awesome, right? It's great hack. Yes, the science is incredible. I love the science of it. And I love, because I actually want to talk about two, the chronotypes, go back to that. Your chrono quiz, you can find it at chronoquiz.com, that's CH-R-O-N-O quiz.com.

Okay, so I'm gonna give all of your listeners a five step plan. Okay. Everybody can do, and it's not gonna cost you a dime. And your sleep will be significantly better, okay? Okay. So step number one is to pick one wake up time and stick to it.

I would tell you, go to Chrono Quiz, figure out what your wake up time should be, and do it that way. If you don't wanna do it that way, that's fine. But figure out what your wake up time is, seven days a week, including the weekends. Including weekends. I thought you were gonna say that.

No, don't mess around. Circadian consistency, number one. Step number two, caffeine. Stop caffeine by 2PM. Why 2PM? So most people don't know caffeine has a half life of between six and eight hours, right? And so if you stop it two and it's eight hours because maybe you're a slow metabolizer, half of it's out by 10. It's a round when most

people are going to be going to sleep. So you want to have your coffee, have it in the morning, but stop by two. Step number two, stop caffeine by 2pm. Step number three, alcohol, all right? Look, there's a really big difference between going to sleep and passing out, okay? We don't like the passing out, we like the going to sleep. It turns out that there's a very important relationship to understand here. It's all about the time in which you have your last sip

to light out. Whatever that time frame in is going to depend, is going to have the greatest effect on your sleep. So if that time is very short, it will have a very large effect. If that time is longer, it will have a smaller effect. So step number three is to stop alcohol three hours before bed. It takes the average human approximately one hour to digest one alcoholic beverage. So I figure you go to two glasses of wine.

I'm going to give you a little bit of room for maybe a half a glass more. But to be fair, you don't want to go over to. For most people, it gives them energy, it doesn't make them relaxed, and for men, it can make them aggressive. Step number four is exercise. Exercise daily, but don't exercise too close to bedtime because like we were talking about, we don't try to cool down, not warm up. So stop exercise for hours before bed.

Step number five, this is going to help with brain fog in the morning. When you wake up in the morning, you should have a 15 ounce throttle or glass of room temperature water. You should grab it and you should drink it, walk over to the window and get 15 minutes of direct sunlight. Most people don't know, but in fact, sleep in and of itself is a dehydrated event. So you actually lose a full liter of water as you drink your water. And you lose a full liter of water every night just from the humidity in your breath. So you need to get that back in there.

And then number two, light that comes from sunlight. When it hits your eye, you have specific cell in your eye called melanopsin cells. These cells will turn off the melatonin faucet in your brain, which will help you remove brain fog. Do me a favor, though, after you grab that bottle of water and you walk over to the window to get your sunlight, put on a robe. Let's hear from Chelsea Glen and Saude from Black Girls Texting. Okay, Chelsea, what's up? Tell me. So I'm the relationship gal, and it's awkward

because he can probably hear me. But we are in a long-term relationship. This is the person that I want to marry and have a family with. This is the person that I love. But I'm just like such a goofy person. Like, I feel like I wish I could be, I wish I could like do a dance for him, but I can't.

I would just start laughing the whole time. And I feel like the time when I'm the hottest is probably when I'm giving him Felicia because I know what I'm doing. Other than that, I'm overthinking it, laughing because I don't know what else to do. But I want to be sexier. Right. Okay. It's so funny because what is sexy, right? Is it what we see other people doing, but like I love their asses because it's really about finding when do I feel the sexiest. So we know when you're performing, when you're pleasing him, that turns you on too. But I'm curious about your

own relationship to your body and your sexuality. Like, do you masturbate? Do you get into your body? No, never. No. So, like, the first time I masturbated, actually, was because Shade gifted me a vibrator. And I tried it, but like, I've never done it, you know, with my hands. Like, I always have to use a tool. That's great.

Say so many of us are in that boat. So there's nothing wrong with that. Did you have an orgasm? Did you have pleasure? Yeah. If you had to think about your hottest sexual moment in your whole history of sex, what's that for you? Your sexual movie, your fantasize about if you fantasize.

Well, definitely if I have like a specific like outfit on, I feel more sexy. But then I just start like laughing, but maybe that's my sexion. I don't know. Yeah. Do you ever dress up for yourself? Hear me out. Like in your bedroom, you got a mirror. Do you live with your boyfriend? Yes. We live together. So maybe he's not there or he's out or you're in the bathroom, you're taking a bath and you put it on and Even though women we got things about our bodies, but hopefully you know We move past that and how we move past that is just like When we feel ourselves in the mirror and you look at your body and what how would it does and you know

Maybe you're taking a bath and you're rubbing lotion on and then you like kind of move for yourself and you practice And maybe you give yourself an orgasm you're in the tub you bring your toy been lotion on and then you like kind of move for yourself and you practice and maybe you give yourself an orgasm, you're in the tub, you bring your toy, play your favorite music, let your favorite candle like all the senses, you get all the senses going because you got the warm water on you, you're playlists, maybe you have your favorite chocolates or whatever tastes delicious to you. And then you're like, wow, I'm pretty fucking hot. I had an orgasm like take a mirror and like look at your vulva and be like, shit, this

is fucking like hot like mirror. And then you get to know, then you're like, oh, this is my power. Like it's in our body. We have to get it out. And then you'll just walk different. You'll be like, I got this. It's just, that's why I sometimes, you know, they say like men pregame, but I'll pregame before sex. I'll be like, have my orgasms going in my body

because I'm tense, I'm like anxious, work, la, la, la. So then I just try to come down. And I like, before I even see someone that I'm dating, I need shower, I need my space. And you're living together too. So it's probably also harder because you're like, I'm in my sweats now and then I'm in my sweat. You know, you're just, it's hard,

it's a little bit harder, especially during the pandemic. So it starts with you and then exploring what has been hot to you in the past and why. I like that. Any sexy fear. So it's such a vibe, Chelsea. It's like one of my favorites to do. Yeah, taking newt is really hot. So when you take a nude and you learn your body, like I know it sounds, but all of it's awkward. Like we all have these roadblocks, but once you take one step and you're like,

okay, I'm gonna take pictures. That girls told me, I could take a picture. Right, what do you guys get from taking notes? Like what's tell? Yeah. Oh my God, I remember when Shade and like another one of our friends were always taking needs of each other and I thought it was ridiculous. And I was like, oh my god. Why would you take naked pictures of yourselves and have them on your phone?

That's scary And then they like hooks me up with a photo shoot one time and I literally felt like the baddest bitch alive Like it was I felt so fine like I was looking at those photos like look at my ass Look at my body and if only for me, I don't have to send them to anyone. Yeah, but remember when I joined and I was just laughing the whole time. Yeah, you were like, is it possible that some people just aren't sexy? It sounds to me that perhaps the laughing is sort of a, it's because maybe you're uncomfortable with it. It doesn't feel like you or it doesn't feel natural. Or maybe you grew up in an environment where it wasn't okay to talk about sex.

And it was always a joke or your parent shut it down, which is very common. And so they'd be like, cover your eyes or so then, or it's a joke. Or maybe you had older brothers who were like, I don't know, it's a conditioning. But you can undo it and ask your partner too, what does he think about it? Like does he think it's cute that you lack? I mean, I'm not saying, because maybe there's not, it sounds like you're having an issue with it.

That's really what it's about. So there's so much power, I think, in having moments of sexiness and owning that. Owning your sexuality. Yeah, yeah. And as black women, it's particularly interesting because I feel like there's this hyper sexualized like rhetoric around black women, especially from like very young. And then it's like,

oh, you know, body, big hips, big asses, big tits, like all of this voluptuousness. But then when a woman does step into her sexiness, we talked about this on an episode when Meg the Stallion made her now, very famous song, WAP, everyone lost their shit. And it's like, we can't talk about our wet ass busses. Right, exactly. So let's talk about, because that was actually my next thing about your podcast, Black Girls Texting.

What could I learn from you? Well, could we all learn? I would say that we're just people. I know that's like silly, but like even just thinking about when I travel, right? I've been mistaken for like a prostitute simply because I'm black and it nothing's wrong with being a prostitute or a sex worker. But like it's just like those weird moments of like people putting something on you that might not be you like Sometimes even thinking you're sexy when you're like the goofiest goofball like me, you know, so I don't know. That's one Yeah, no absolutely. What do you guys think? What do you what have you?

Yeah, what can we understand more? I mean, I Was just like that idea of like having our right to pleasure and without shame. Like I think that like we deserve pleasure. In all sorts of ways like I like to indulge myself in simple pleasures whenever I can. Like I just think we've been denied of pleasure forever. We work so hard. We it's just we're old. We deserve. Yes. Pleasure is your birthright. And so much to self-care movement and self-love and sexuality has been started by black women, right? Exactly. I think for me communicating and having the open space to have communication around sex across races is a big thing. So like I'm notorious amongst the group for, oh, shite, she fucks white guys,

but I fuck all guys for one, but two, a lot of times I would sleep with men that were not black and they would always be like, you know, I've always wanted to sleep with a black girl, but I've been kind of like afraid and all this stuff. And I'm like, I don't even know all this information. It could have just been an exchange. We could have had the sex and we could have kept it moving. I have been more open with some guys to like have the conversation and be like, why did you feel like you needed to say that?

But sometimes you don't want to have to go through that, right? So I think it kind of piggybacks off of Glenn and Chelsea statement of like, we're just people. We just pleasure. And like, even if this is like a little like fetishy moment for you, like really unpack that a little bit before you just go. Yeah, exactly. No, it's offensive. I was just going to mention Emily, something the piece of feedback that we always get people are always like I can't believe you guys are so honest about like the sex that you're having and you tell these stories and they really appreciate that vulnerability Yeah, and I think that's important. It is important getting those stories out there Well, I always say that you've to women like be that friend that talks about sex

That's how we're going to learn and then then we can reinforce pleasures, your birthright. Like I do that with, you know, all my close friends, I'm like, have you had an orgasm? Have you asked what you want? We think women think we don't deserve it. We got to work hard and then maybe I'll deserve. No, we deserve it now. And we are better when we have more pleasure in our life.

And now the hottest moments with dating coach, Matthew Hussey. If I could give people one piece of advice on meeting people in person, it's say something instead of nothing. Okay. Because so often we get in our heads and we think, I've got to say the perfect thing, I've got to somehow win this person over, I've got to seduce them with one powerful life. But what most people actually need is a green light, a green light for an interaction, whether it's man

or a woman. We need a green light for an interaction. We're looking for that cue from somebody else that it's okay to invest a little of ourselves. It's kind of like walking down the street. If you walk down the street and a stranger smiles at you, it doesn't matter. Man, woman, young, old, whatever. If a stranger smiles at you, in that moment, you're quite likely to smile back. And it's not that you didn't want to smile, it's that you were waiting

for them to smile, because you don't want to be the weirdo smiling at the stranger and they don't smile. Now, a lot of us, by the way, this is what's kind of interesting about life is someone's, we walk down the street, we walk past someone, someone smiles at us. And by the time we've registered that they smiled at us and we want to smile back, they're already past. It's true. Does have a smile on your face, right? Yeah, well, that's the thing you have, but that's exactly it. If we... How do we do that?

By having a standard for yourself that has nothing to do with other people. If you have a standard of warmth, I think about this a lot. Sometimes I told you before this, I'm introverted by nature, but I've learned how to be an extrovert when I need it. And I'm a big believer in before I go to a party or I was just at an event in Connecticut where I was around a lot of people. Even to this day, I have to sometimes really psych myself up for those situations because I'm like, oh, God, got going interact with a whole bunch of people and do small talk and do this. Some of that is just the effort of it all and the fact that I don't love small talk.

But some of it is ego too. It's, oh, God, I'm going to be in this room and I don't know anyone, and am I going to feel special? Am am I gonna feel like I'm standing there, and I don't know anyone it's gonna be hard to talk to. It's still that kid in me that feels that way. Now, as an adult and as someone who does what I do, I also have the tools. So that's really handy. And one of the psychological tools I use for myself

before I go into that room is, I wanna have a standard for the warmth that I give Okay, that has nothing to do with how warm this room is Because we go into a room looking for warmth Looking for someone who's gonna unlock our loving compassionate warm friendly side And if we actually instead take responsibility for unlocking other people's warm, compassionate, friendly side, then we will have a magnetic effect everywhere we go. Instead of going to a room to be changed, we go into a room to change the room.

That's such a good practice. That's so true. Because I'm thinking about, we're talking about dating. Should you approach? Should you not? How approachable are you? Like, when you go to a bar, and back in the day before we were all obsessed with our phones you beat with a friend or you'd be looking around you had to there was you couldn't be on your phone but now we're all on our phones you

don't even realize that your body language is shutting off you're not approachable so people like oh no one ever hits I mean no one ever talks to me and I think how do we recognize what we're doing that's making us not very approachable and how do we become more so? We want to meet someone. I do think that we have to almost reverse engineer it and say, what are the things that when people do them make me feel, indeed, to that person? What makes me feel like I'm comfortable with another human being? And then really look at yourself and say, be really, really honest. Am I doing any of those things when I walk into a room, you know,

or when I go into a restaurant with a bar, am I looking up, like simple things? Am I actually looking up and at the room, or is my head in my phone? And we know most people's heads are in their phones, not because there's anything that interesting there. It's really not it's because It's a comfort blanket. It's smoking, you know, it's like it was smokers Kind of look cool and indifferent because they always have something to do people on their phones. It's the same thing It's like no, no, no, I'm not look at me. I'm not a loser. I have something to do right Checking Instagram post exactly I have something to do. Right. I'm scrolling into that. It's the ground poses people I don't know. Exactly.

Do you ever look somewhere around and everyone's on their phone and they're always on Instagram? Like you just look to the left, the right? Yeah, because it's, it's, you know, I'd be the last person on earth to say how addictive it is, but it, there's, I'm getting lost in this mosaic of lives and stimuli and colors and patterns and aesthetics and moments, none of which are my life, none of which are the room that I'm actually in, none of which are the people that I'm actually surrounded by. You know, you've got someone who is surrounded by other people, but looking down in their phone saying, I can't meet anyone.

It first is about lifting our gaze to the world that's actually around us, to the world that we're actually inhabiting, opening up our body language to the room. What we do is we go and find a corner of the room or a table and we close off to the room and everything points inwards and we close our space down.

We're in this big room with lots of people and then we close our space down. We're in this big room with lots of people and then we close our space down and our energy down and it becomes a really brave thing someone has to do to come over, turn you around, lift your gaze up from your phone and try and say something. If the way that you are with your body language and where your eyes are looking and what you're doing is something that requires someone else to be disproportionately brave to come over, that's why you're not being approached. You want to lower the amount of bravery required for someone to talk to you. People invest based on how much they like someone and you shouldn't invest based on how much you like someone. You have to invest based on how much they like someone and you shouldn't invest based on how much you like someone. You have to invest based on the mutual exchange of investment.

Okay. This happening between you invest in someone who invests in you. Now look, in the beginning, someone has to move. Right. You can't just, if you sit around and say, I'm just going to wait for someone to invest in me, then you can have a stalemate. Someone has to move. Someone has to say, hey, how are you? And then, oh, we have a move. Someone has to say, hey, how are you?

And then, oh, we have a conversation. Someone has to say, should we go out sometime? Oh, one of us asked us the other one on the date. Someone has to say, I like you before the other person says, I like you. And someone, there's always got to be someone who steps in closer. That's fine. That is a very small form of investment, but then you test, you invest and you test. You see, if I move forward, do you move forward? Or do you stand still? Or do you move backwards? And come to think of it,

why do I find you more attractive when you move backwards? Why, that's going on with me. Groucho Marx said, I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member. Contained in that is the problem with most people's confidence in dating. You like me? There must be something wrong with you. You don't want me? No, we're on to something. Yeah, right. If they're not into

me, it must mean they're more valuable than me. Right, they're more valuable. So I'm going to go after them or it must mean they're scarce. We want what's scarce. We value highly what is scarce. Next up, Logan Uri breaks down the most common dating types and how to know if you found the right person. Tell me about what you label as the different kinds of dateers, the three kinds of dateers. And we could start there. You guys look for yourself in these descriptions. Yeah. Yeah. So that's really one of my favorite parts of the book is this framework called the three dating tendencies. And the story there is that as a dating coach, I had all these different people coming to my office showing up on Zoom and I noticed they're from all different walks of life, but they seem to suffer from the same set of dating blind spots. And so

those are patterns of behavior, ways of thinking, that are holding them back from finding love, but that they can't identify on their own. And so I categorize them into this thing called the three dating tendencies. And each one suffers from unrealistic expectations. And so first you have the romantic size. Oh, I love this. Okay. Yay. And the romantic size is somebody who has unrealistic expectations of relationships. So this is that friend of yours, or maybe this is you who says, I love love. I believe in a soulmate. There's one person out there for me.

I don't want to use the dating apps. They're not romantic. And they're waiting for the meet queue. They're waiting to go to the farmer's market and reach for the tomato at the same time as the guy. And then suddenly they fall into happily ever after. And the issue here is that the romanticizer thinks that once you're with the right person

a relationship is going to be effortless and that's just not true. Relationships require work and even the best relationships do require that constant effort and attention. The second type is the maximizer. And I'm a maximizer. Many of the clients I work with are maximizers. And these are people who have unrealistic expectations of their partners. And this is the one who says, I like my girlfriend,

but could I be 5% happier with somebody else? Or my boyfriend's ambitious, but could I be someone with someone who's 5% hotter, 5% more interesting? And it's always what else is out there? How can I do better? And they're constantly looking for the next best thing. And the thing about the maximizer is they feel like, I can research my way to the right answer. If only I can see every possible option,

then I can make the perfect choice. And so the issue with the maximizer, as I'm sure you know, is that you can't date everyone. You can't turn over every leaf. At a certain point, you have to say, this person is great. I'm going to commit to them and I'm going to make it work. It's not about finding the perfect person and then it's easy. It's about finding somebody great, investing in them and then building that relationship.

The last one is the hesitator. I have to tell you, hesitators are really having a hard time during the pandemic because hesitators are the ones who say, well, the thing about the hesitators, they have unrealistic expectations of themselves. And so there's the ones who say, I'll be ready to date when I lose 10 pounds. I'll be ready to date when I have a more impressive job title.

And with the pandemic, that's given them a lot of excuses not to date. And so for the hesitator, they think, I'm just, I'm not lovable yet. I need to make all these changes to myself. And then I'll be ready for somebody to love me. But they really underestimate two things. And those are one, dating is a skill. And you need to get out there and get better at it. And if you're not dating, you're not getting better at dating. And two, you need to figure out what type of person you want to be with. And if you're just sitting at home trying to improve yourself but not actually dating, then you're not figuring out what type of person makes you happy.

And so the advice really for the hesitator is to don't wait date. It's just to get out there. You'll make some mistakes. You're imperfect. The person that you're going to wind up with will be imperfect. And don't sit around waiting to feel 100% ready because there's no such thing. Did you find anything split by gender that there was more men who were more likely to be maximizers or more women or romanticizers? Yeah, it's an interesting question and honestly, as I've been doing more interviews for my book, one thing that's come up a few times that I actually feel really proud of is I've done interviews

with a bunch of young women in their 20s who are like, I liked your book because you didn't say to women, pretend to be something you're not, play games, pull back, don't have sex until this date. And they were like, I feel like every single piece of advice in your book is for everyone. It's not very gendered. And I was like, I didn't even realize that, but that's how I feel. A lot of stuff is universal. It's like, be a good person. Have integrity.

Find somebody who's reliable. Don't get distracted by the spark. Give somebody a chance. And I don't think that those gender rules are relevant. Obviously, there are some differences. And in the book, I talk about fertility and men can have kids way older. And there are some things there that some differences. And in the book I talk about fertility and men can have kids way older and there are some things there that are frustrating. But mostly I feel like men and women benefit

from the same advice, which is be a good person and know yourself and find somebody who's a good person who knows themselves. Exactly Logan. What I've found now after so many years of doing this is that it's really not about gender. Yeah. No matter who you're sleeping with, your gender identity, it's behavior. Yeah. I mean, I can say, I think in general, women probably have a slight more tendency to be romantic izers and women are more likely to consume Disney movies and Disney princess stories in romcoms. And so there is more of a story in women's head around the meat, cute, and the narrative

and what am I going to tell my friends? And then I would say men maybe tend to be maximizers a bit more, cute, and the narrative, and what am I going to tell my friends? And then I would say, men maybe tend to be maximizers a bit more, more focused on the research, more focused on the quote unquote objective right decision. But in general, the patterns that I described in the book are about human behavior versus gendered behavior. Right. So let's talk about how you know,

how you pretty much know when you've met the person that you should maybe commit to. Yeah, absolutely. And so I do think many people are maximizers. I think our culture creates really a feeling of maximizers because I talk about this in the book, right? Before somebody goes on a trip, they're going to read every Airbnb review, they're going to look at trip advisor, they're going to look on Yale, and it's this feeling of the right answer is out there. I just have to research my way through it and people crave this sense of certainty and they feel like, you know, the objective right answer is only one Google search away. But that's just not the case in dating and relationships. You can't date all people.

You don't know all possible outcomes. There is a point at which committing to somebody is a leap of faith. And so the 37% role which I'd love to talk your listeners through is basically something that I share with maximizers. And so maximizers are like, well, I've been dating my boyfriend for this many years and he wants to get married, but I'm just not sure because I don't know what else is out there. And so what I like to talk to them about is this concept called the secretary problem. And this is a sort of a mathematical riddle.

And so here's how it goes. Imagine that you're hiring a secretary, and you know you have 100 possible candidates. You have to interview them one at a time, and each time after you go through a candidate, you say yes or no. And so at what point do you choose your candidate? So let's say you choose your candidate? So let's say you choose too early on, you don't know what else was out there. If you choose too late, what if all the good candidates came before and there's nobody

good left? And so what they have found is that this is what you should do. This is the the mathematically correct solution. You talk to the first 37 people and after that you say who was the single best person among that group. That person is now your benchmark. The next time that you find somebody who's as good or better than that person, you hire them on the spot. And so with dating, and this is an idea from the book, Algorithms to Live By, they say, well, who knows how many people you're going to date? Can't come up with that number, but let's, who knows how many people you're going to date? Can't come up with that number, but let's just say for arguments, say, you're going to date

from age 18 to 40. Well, what's 37% into that age range? It's 26.1. So when you're around 26 years old, you've already dated 37% of the people, come up with the benchmark from that first 37% and commit to the next person who you like as much or more than that first group. And when I say this to people, they usually freak out and they say, but I'm way past 26. What are you saying to me? Am I behind? And I'm like, you're not behind, but you've likely already dated somebody who'd make

a great partner. The answer is not to keep researching. It's to figure out who was the best person you dated in those years. And now the next time you find someone who you like, realize how great they are, commit to them, and build that relationship versus letting all these great people go because you always have one foot out the door wondering what else is out there. And to wrap things up, let's hear from Serena fucking carigan all about confidence. Confidence is just how would you describe it, Yelike, it's a state of mind, it's a state of, hey, literally spills into every

thousand of your life, and that's why it's so unfortunate that we live in this capitalist society that is predicated on stealing into church, because when we're into here, we buy shit. By makeup, lay-offs products, and women, especially, it's just like thrown in our face. And we're born with confidence. But if you really begin to treat yourself like your best friend, like that same kindness

or trick, it's honestly you, you don't always love your best friend. You can not like your best friend one day or disagree with them or think that they could have done something better. But regardless, you will never be nasty or demeaning to your best friend. You'll always try to make them feel better, whether they're getting ghosted, you'll be like, fuck that guy, right? That kind of dialogue is something that I literally say

to myself in front of my mirror, mirrors everywhere. And that is really how you do it. And it will spill into everything because when you hear about a friend, if she came in and was like, I'm not feeling sexy, like what would you say to her? You'd be like, yeah, you're not sexy, it sucks. You probably suck in that too. No, you've never said that. You'd be like, oh, yeah, how do we get sexy tonight? what would you say to her? You're like, yeah, you're not sexy at the socks. You probably suck in that too.

No, you've never said that. You're like, oh, yeah, how do we get sexy tonight? Like, which do we do? Should we come into lingerie, listen, beyond type? So that kind of support you need to give to yourself. And it's exactly right. It's not about experience. You know, I think that that's a question I get a lot.

Like, I'm not experienced enough. Like, so I'm not confident. I'm like, it has nothing to do with that. Because I wasn't experienced in starting a business or a card game, but that doesn't stop me from doing a great job. It's about having the confidence to do it and believing that you will get the heck out.

Right. What was your step, then? You said, like, looking in the mirror and when those negative, because the limiting beliefs is part of the human condition, negative self-talk. And I think, you know, the suffering, most of the suffering comments from our thoughts. I would say the in the... I agree, and it's about verbalizing them, because if you got in front of your mirror and said, happy the shit you're thinking about yourself, you'd be like,

oh my god, that is so right. Me! You would never. So that's why I'm like getting in front of your mirror. Even when you're having a bad day, even when you're not believing in yourself, even when you like, you know, get fired, anything, getting in front of that fucking mirror and talk to yourself like your best friend and see what happens. That's stuff number one. And this is something you have to do every day, every night all

the time. If I'm like walking by like, you know, anything with a reflective surface, it can be a water bottle. You bet you're asking, winking, it's a puddle on the street and winking up that girl, right? Because I would wink at you or say hi to you if you were on the street and I recognize you. So why aren't we giving that same attention and love and recognition to ourselves?

One, two, you can never speak badly about yourself. The way that you speak about yourself is becomes who you are. So when I used to say I'm the queen of confidence and any press article from two years ago had been like, Serena Karrigan, the self-proclaimed queen of confidence. Now, you look me up, it's Serena Karrigan

the queen of confidence, because I manifested that for myself. That I literally people will just react to how you present, you really do right the script of your life. And so if you're like, I'm the baddest bitch in bed, you become the baddest bitch in bed. That's just how it is.

So when I hear like my apartment, like my company, like no one's a lot of sweet, wealthy about themselves, you can say feeling, because feelings go away. They're temporary. So do you teach the difference between that and saying like, I'm feeling a little bit... We have bloated. I'm not feeling sexy, right?

Feelings, feelings go up. They're temporary I'm not feeling sexy, right? Feelings. Feelings go up. They're temporary. I'm feeling sad, right? You're not feeling sad. Yesterday. But when you say, I am, that's it. Like, that's it.

And I think it's so funny because growing up, I heard that phrase like, stick since Dunes May and break my bones, but words don't have a hurt me. I'm like, who was what were they smoking? Because words carry so much weight. I mean, they're storytellers. Like, that's what human beings are. So the way we verbalize things, and especially ourselves, is how the world will see us, because we decide it's us. We are the baseline. There's one person that has been with you your entire life,

I guess, with a badge, it's you. And that's it. So that is the one. Yeah, that's the one. That's true. So those were some of the hottest moments from this year. What was your favorite? I can't wait to see all the sexy memories that 2022 is definitely going to bring into our lives. That's it for today's episode. See you on Friday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily.

Be sure to like, subscribe, and give us a review wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner. You can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Sex with Emily. Oh, I've been told I give really good email. So sign up at sexwithemily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating, or relationships, call my hotline 559 Talk Sex. That's 559-825-5739. Go to sexwithemily.com slash Ask Emily. Special thanks to ACAST for powering the Sex with Emily podcast.

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