Sex With Emily - The Sex Questions Everyone Is Secretly Asking

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Starting point is 00:00:54 I beg you, pleasure is the main event. So we lean into pleasure. We're all going to get our needs met. We all want things to feel good. Hey everyone, welcome back to Sex with Emily. Today's show is for you and all about you because I've been on the best sex ever tour, which has been incredible. I'm going to fill you in.

Starting point is 00:01:15 But we got so many questions live that wasn't able to get to them all. And when I was reading through them, I thought this would be great for you because I know these questions. They're very relatable and they're going to relate to what you're going through right now. So first, I want to thank everyone who came out to the shows. I'm still thinking about these nights in Chicago and Philadelphia. The energy in the room was just incredible. It was funny. People were vulnerable, emotional, sexy, and just really incredibly real.

Starting point is 00:01:53 And nights like this are reminding me why I'm doing this in the first place. Because I want to save sex. Because after more than 20 years talking about sex, I believe we are more disconnected than ever. We're super overwhelmed. We're stressed. We're glued to our phones. We're having less sex. We're dating less.

Starting point is 00:02:17 And truly, a lot of us have completely forgotten how to talk to each other about what we actually want. But then I get into a room with hundreds of you and something happens. People start asking the questions they've been afraid to be. to ask. And then we laugh about all the things we thought were only happening to us. We talked about desire and orgasms and dating and marriage and shame. We talked about communication and confidence, just all of it. You realize like none of us are as alone as we think we are. And this is what I wanted these shows to be. I mean, yes, I want you to laugh. We're doing any comedy clubs. But I also wanted you to learn something and I want you to leave with tools for better sex but more than anything

Starting point is 00:03:06 I just want us to feel connected again. And so if you've been listening to this podcast for years, I really want to meet you. So there's something completely different about doing this all together in a room live. So be a part of it. Help me save sex one city at a time. So it's sex withemly.com slash events. All right, let's get into it. As always, you can find me on Instagram, I'm TikTok everywhere else at Sex With Emily. Make sure you're subscribed to my newsletter. It's sex with Emily.com slash newsletter. And if you want to watch the full video of this episode, head over to YouTube.

Starting point is 00:03:42 All right. So these shows, these live shows have been, like I said, an incredible way for us all to connect. And I'm learning through each show. And so there are rooms in the show for people to raise their hands and ask a question. people can also send questions anonymously. And from these two shows, it's been really different. So the first show, we had a few anonymous questions, a lot of live questions. And then in the second show in Philadelphia, we had 13 pages of questions, anonymous questions,

Starting point is 00:04:16 although you could also include your name. And then we had a bunch of live questions. And I love taking the questions when people are in the room. And then I looked at these and I thought, let's do a podcast about this. Let's get into your questions right now. So here's some of the questions that I really think would relate to you and that you'd be interested in. Okay. My spouse and I have been together for almost 20 years.

Starting point is 00:04:42 We've been talking about and fantasizing about opening up our marriage. What conversations and actions should we take prior to advancing the next stage of our relationship? Now, we had a lot of questions in the audience about open relationship. ethical non-monogamy. And this has been true in both the shows so far, which really isn't a surprise to me because alternative types of relating has been trending lately

Starting point is 00:05:09 and people have been more open asking about it. And so the conversations and actions to take next prior to advancing it is really just what does the open relationship look like to you? What are the boundaries you might have? Is it you're going to hook up with people together? you're going to go on dates separately. Is it like you're going to go to a play party once a month and maybe you're going to,

Starting point is 00:05:34 you know, play around together? What does it actually mean to you when you talk about opening up your marriage? What are the experiences that you're both looking to have happen? Like, what's the why behind it? Well, I think if we open up our relationship, it's actually going to help our sex life and we're going to feel more connected. Or maybe both of you have fantasies around what it's like to be with somebody else,

Starting point is 00:05:59 but knowing that you have really strong boundaries and like you still want to be together, you want to be each other's primary partners, but you have certain fantasies that you want to explore with someone else or maybe your partner can fulfill it. So getting very, very clear on the why of why you want to open it up

Starting point is 00:06:16 and what are you hoping it will achieve. Those are really important things to discuss. So there's a lot of talking involved. So I wouldn't even get into finding the partner or what it looks like. I would spend some significant time just looking at the, why do we want this? Are we both on the same page about it? What I love is that you're saying that my spouse and I have been together and we both want to do it. So that's a great sign.

Starting point is 00:06:43 When I often hear my partner wants me to do it or how do I get my partner to do it, that doesn't work. But the fact that you both want to do it means that you should get really granular and really specific about why. The why of it. You can also read some books about open relationships. Some books I'd recommend is polysecure, open monogamy, and opening up. Probably the best known books in the space. And then there are some podcasts. You can just search Open Relationship Podcasts.

Starting point is 00:07:11 I haven't listened to any of them, but that might be helpful for you as well, just to kind of hear how other couples are navigating it and managing it. But just start with getting on the same page together. Love that question. Another question we got from our live audiences is I thought this was a really interesting one because I don't think that we talk about this enough. The question was your thoughts on alcohol as an aphrodisiac. If you can only have sex after alcohol, is that okay? All right, let's talk about alcohol.

Starting point is 00:07:41 Alcohol can feel like an aphrodisiac because it lowers our inhibitions. So you might feel less anxious, you might feel less self-conscious, you might feel more confident, maybe you're willing to initiate. But physiologically, alcohol is actually a depressant and too much alcohol can make arousal, your erections, your lubrications, your sensations, and orgasms a lot harder to achieve. But if you enjoy a glass of wine and then have great sex, that is totally fine. But if you feel like you can't have sex unless you've been drinking, that's something I'd get curious about. wouldn't get ashamed about it. I don't want to beat yourself up about it. Because the question becomes,

Starting point is 00:08:24 what is the alcohol doing for you that you don't feel like you're able to do sober? So, for some people, it might be quieting the anxiety. You have less body insecurity. You don't have as much performance anxiety, performance pressure. Maybe there's less shame. Is it helping you ask for what you want, whereas when you're not drinking,

Starting point is 00:08:47 you're not able to ask for what you want? Does it make you feel really safe so you can let go? Because that's the part that I'd work on. Because ultimately, ultimately, I would love you to be able to access that relaxed, embodied, turned-on version of yourself without needing the alcohol to get there. So remember, alcohol does lower your inhibitions, but doesn't actually create desire. So instead of asking, do I need a drink to have sex? You might think, what does the drink give me permission to feel that I'm? I'm not giving my permission to feel sober.

Starting point is 00:09:21 And that's where the magic happens. That's where all the good stuff is. Here's our next question. I am open to try a number of things that my husband wants to try. Some of them make me clench or tighten up. There's no known specific trauma. How much to push through and how much to just say the preference doesn't know. I don't have many alternative things to propose to try.

Starting point is 00:09:43 I do not love the idea of pushing through anything sexually, especially. If your body is tightening up, that is information. It doesn't necessarily mean that you've had trauma. It doesn't mean that never. It just means, hmm, my body is tensing. Maybe this is time for me to slow down and listen. I like to separate things into yes, no, or maybe, right? I have my yes, no maybe list, which is a free guide that you can download. This is a great way to explore your turn-ons and what you might want to try. But a no really says no explanation is needed. it maybe means, hmm, I am curious, but I might need to change up the conditions. So ask yourself this, what specifically is making me clench?

Starting point is 00:10:29 Is it the act itself? Is it I feel rushed? Has it given me pain in the past? Or do I feel like it's going to give me pain? Do I feel like I have to perform to make this happen? Or maybe you don't know what's going to happen. Maybe your partner said, you know, I want to do some be able to. DSM with you and you're thinking, I don't even know what that means. Does that mean you're going to

Starting point is 00:10:52 throw me into a dungeon and a red room of pain? Like maybe you don't have enough information yet. And if it's a maybe for you, you could experiment much smaller. You don't have to go from like zero to the whole entire fantasy. Take one tiny piece of it with an agreement that you can stop at any time. And then you mentioned you don't have alternatives to propose. And you don't want to owe someone an alternative in exchange for your no. But if you want to discover more yeses, start paying attention to what makes your body lean in rather than tense up. And I love thinking of things like that. What is a hell yes? Where is your body like, I want more? And then where are you like, oh, no? You know, your body isn't an obstacle you need to overcome. It's part of the entire

Starting point is 00:11:38 conversation. So pay attention to how your body's reacting to the request and just get curious and have the conversation. These are really good questions. I can see why people, the show was supposed to go on. The live show in Philadelphia was supposed to be an hour and a half and we stayed there for two hours because I was trying to get everyone's questions in. So that's why we're doing it now. Sometimes I just want to be held in touch without it leading to sex. I have communicated this, but he always wants it to lead to sex help. Oh God, this is so common. And it creates the most vicious, terrible cycle. Because of every time your partner, cuddles you, it becomes this bid for sex. And you're like, oh, God, there they are cuddling me

Starting point is 00:12:20 or they're wrapping their arms around me from behind. Then you start to avoid cuddling because you know there's an expectation attached to it. And then your partner thinks she never wants me to her anymore because now when they touch you, you're like not as responsive to it because the touch feels like it's going to escalate to sex. This is a loop that happens. And so my best advice for you is to create touch that is explicitly not allowed to become sex. And only you can do this in your relationship. Say something like, tonight I want you to hold me, rub my back, kiss me. And we're agreeing ahead of time, it's not going anywhere. Because it is so important that we have affectionate touch that still exists in the relationship without being something that's going to lead to sex.

Starting point is 00:13:11 So, for example, in a relationship I was in, we would actually make it funny. He'd be like, I want to hug you. This is a non-sexual touch. Because he knew, like, he could tell eventually when I wasn't in the mood or when I was tired. He's like, non-sexual touch. And sometimes I was like, really? Maybe I do want sex. So it just became a funny way of knowing that it was safe because he knows I loved.

Starting point is 00:13:35 He knew I loved hugs and touching. And so it was just a really fun way. It didn't become a big deal. It just became something that we knew was. important because of this exact question, right? Of course we all want to be held in touch without it leading to sex. But sometimes it's just, you know, really challenging for our partners who want the sex from the touch to differentiate or maybe they feel, God, I start to hug you and I want sex right away. So this is just a matter of having some discipline and just being specific and

Starting point is 00:14:06 setting some ground rules. Not every touch needs to lead to a destination. This is from Marvin. He was not anonymous, but he asked this question. He said, I want to step up my game asking women out. I get in my head about approaching. Okay, here's a reframe from this. Your goal isn't to become amazing at approaching women. Your goal is to become more comfortable connecting with people without needing a particular outcome.

Starting point is 00:14:36 So when we put approaching person for the goal of dating, it makes it a lot more stressful. You're jumping 10 steps ahead because you're getting in your head like, does she like me? Is she single? What do I say? Am I bothering her? Like, can I get her phone number? Forget that. Your job is only to make contact.

Starting point is 00:14:59 So you can start with something like, you know, have you been here before? Like, what did you order? Love your jacket. Those are great shoes. Like whatever is actually true in the moment. How about that rain? It's always about observing something in the moment, like something that you're both sharing,

Starting point is 00:15:16 that's super casual that you would say to anyone in line, right? Or anyone who's sitting next to you. And then you pay attention like, is this person engaging back? Is she asking questions? Is she giving you more than one word answers? If she is, you can keep talking to her. And if she's giving short answers,

Starting point is 00:15:34 like she's looking away, She's with her friend. She has headphones on to try to move on. Let her move on. Now that doesn't mean that she's not interested in, you know, just might meet you, maybe she's not available or she's not interested in making conversation. But what you can see is it is a practice of every time you're out in a public setting,

Starting point is 00:15:54 I want you to try to talk to someone next to you in the room and observe something going on. And if there is a vibe, you can say, like, I enjoy talking to you. let's get a drink sometime. You know, it's like this happened to me the other night. I was out. It was after actually the Philadelphia show and I was out with my mom and my sister-in-law and some friends. And there was a guy who was actually quite handsome and cool, kept talking to me at the bar.

Starting point is 00:16:21 And I was like, if this was any other time, I was in L.A. I was out with friends. I might have talked to him. But also, I was with my family. And I didn't have the bandwidth to talk to him. So I just said, oh, I'm with my family. family right now, but have a great night. And again, I thought he was attractive. I was living in the same city. But I was polite about it. And I don't think he meant it to mean anything. So I think

Starting point is 00:16:45 that the more you do this and the more you practice that not everyone's going to want to talk to you, that's totally fine, that, you know, you're going to get the skill set down and eventually become a habit for you to start talking to people. And then you can find out if there's mutual interest. Oh my God. This is a great one. How do I get my husband to have a some foreplay before sex. I've always had an issue with the word foreplay because it makes everything except penetration sound like it's the opening act or it's the main event when for a lot of us foreplay is the event, everything is sex. So instead of saying something like, you need to do more foreplay,

Starting point is 00:17:25 tell them specifically what gets you turned on. Specifically, I want you to kiss me for five minutes before you touch my genitals. I would like a massage. I need more oral. I want you to tease me, slow everything down, touch me over my clothing. Now you might think, I don't want to have to tell my partner that. They should know that already. But you wouldn't be asking me that question if they already knew it. Because more foreplay is super vague. It's super vague and our partners need explicit instructions. Your partner might genuinely think that like a three minute boob grab, like he's doing for a foreplay or like the quick like, you know, let me stick my finger inside of you and then penetrate. He might think that is foreplay. So the why about this is because when we go

Starting point is 00:18:14 straight to penetration, your body a lot of times hasn't caught up yet. So explain the why. Say when we go right to penetration, my body hasn't caught up yet. But when you slow down and you do these things and you touch me softly and slowly, I get more aroused and then sex feels better and then I want more of it. Now, that's going to get their attention. That's going to say, oh, I get the use of this. You're not just saying you want just, it's another thing you want from me. It actually is going to make sex better. Another reminder is that arousal isn't just about your genitals.

Starting point is 00:18:55 Foreplay can start hours before sex. I always say foreplay starts after the last orgasm. So that's all about the flirting, the anticipation, feeling desired, feeling connected. And for a lot of people with responsive desire, desire that responds to things happening in the environment, activities with your partner to get you arouse, that runway matters.

Starting point is 00:19:18 Like these things that are happening, like having time before the sex is really important. So let's just all stop. treating penetration like it's the main event. I beg you. Pleasure is the main event. So we lean into pleasure. We're all going to get our needs met. We all want things to feel good. Okay, I love this question. It's very specific. Is there a space between the anus and the penis that can be massaged for ejaculation or is it strictly internal? Yes, you're talking about the perineum that is the area between the scrotum and the anus or the taint, as they call it. So the prostate

Starting point is 00:19:55 is internally, sits internally, but you can sometimes stimulate the general area externally through the perineum. So prostate pleasure does not have to mean inserting a finger or toy into the anus. You can massage the perineum externally with your fingers. So you're just applying pressure to that area between the scrotum and the anus. You all know, close your eyes, picture that place, picture that spot. And then you can just start. start gently, add some lube, experiment with pressure. Some people find like they want like more of a firm, like rhythmic pressure. And then there's, it's also really pleasure with because you are stimulating an area that has so many nerve endings and indirectly applying pressure

Starting point is 00:20:42 to the prostate and the pelvic floor, which can feel wonderful. But it is not a guaranteed ejaculation button. It's not guaranteed going to feel amazing to your partner. Everyone's body's varies so much. And so for some people, it adds a lot of pressure and for other people, not so much. So if you do have interest in direct prostate stimulation, the prostate is accessed internally through the rectum a few inches in toward the front of the body. That's how you find it. So you don't necessarily have to go to the back door to enjoy what's happening in the neighborhood. In the neighborhood. How do I safely get into Kink and BDSM as a newbie? Okay, first you want to start with a conversation, not a dungeon.

Starting point is 00:21:31 You don't need to go get a dungeon. I think people hear BDSM and then they immediately picture whips and chains and somebody hanging from the ceiling. But Kink can be really subtle. It can just be blindfolds or restraints or dirty talk or role play or power exchange. So start by talking about what actually turns you on about it. Is it that you're surrendering? Is it control?

Starting point is 00:21:53 is it anticipation for what might come next? Do you love being told what to do? Do you want to be the one in charge? Your partner would be in charge? You might not even know any of this. So you can just start finding resources where you can observe BDSM and Kink. Maybe there's some porn.

Starting point is 00:22:10 I'm sure you can find porn. You can read some books. So just pick one thing that's super low stakes that you could experiment with and then talk beforehand about your boundaries. Like what's off limits? How are you going to communicate during it? Is there a safe word?

Starting point is 00:22:25 A clear stop signal. You can just use a traffic light. Red is go. Red is stop. Green is go. Yellow is caution. That's an easy one. And this matters, particularly with anything that's involving like restraints,

Starting point is 00:22:40 impact, breath, physical risk, of course. Educate yourself deeply on whatever it is you're trying, what you're going to try out. And then have an aftercare conversation. I love aftercare. What do you need afterwards? Do you want some cuddling? Do you want reassurance? You need water.

Starting point is 00:22:56 You know, what happens? Like the sexiest thing about good BDSM isn't actually the equipment. It's the communication. It's that you're in something together. You're creating experience together. And why I love couples engaging in this kind of play is because a lot of times we feel like sex can be a very separate experience from our partners. But when you're engaging together and you're playing together, it can be so much.

Starting point is 00:23:23 much sexier and hotter. You're not distracted. You're not thinking about other things, but you're playing together. So you're negotiating the desire and the boundaries, which basically everyone can learn from. And it's also, again, Kink is and BDSM are really just play. And I think we could all use a lot more play and a lot less judgment. Okay. So you guys, those were some great questions that you sent along in Philadelphia and Rosemont. And I can't wait to see you all our next show, which is in Nashville on September 29th. But as always, you can find me at all social media. You can subscribe to the podcast, sign it for our newsletters.

Starting point is 00:24:03 People love that. And I just appreciate you. Appreciate you all. Thank you so much for listening. And let me know, was it good for you? Find me, DM me wherever you get your information. All right, everyone, have a great day. Thanks for listening.

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Sex With Emily - The Sex Questions Everyone Is Secretly Asking

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