Sex With Emily - Why Do Couples Stop Having Sex? w/ Esther Perel

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

Esther Perel is one of the most fascinating contemporary thinkers on sex and relationships. A psychotherapist and two-time bestselling author, she’s the host of the “Where Should We Begin?” podcast, which takes you inside the therapist’s office and lets you listen in on her sessions with clients. Esther is noticing some important changes in sex and relationships. Non-monogamy is becoming more common as a relationship model: why? And is it right for everyone? How about ”family-alization” – when couples start looking at each other like siblings or roommates, how do you bring the sexual spark back? Especially if you’ve never had it in the first place? Finally, how do we revive our sensual selves when we’re immersed in technology? Can we use it to turn each other on instead of numbing ourselves?See the full show notes at sexwithemily.com.Show Notes:7 Signs of Sexual CompatibilityOral Herpes? How to Keep Living Your Best Sex LifeWhere Should We Begin? Podcast: Apple Podcasts | SpotifyWhere Should We Begin? Card GameMating in Captivity: BookshopThe State of Affairs: BookshopMore Esther Perel: Website | Instagram | TwitterSHOP WITH EMILY! (free shipping on orders over $69)Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your PleasureSex With Emily: Home | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok Sign Up Here for sex tips on the regular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We mean sexuality is narcissistic. She has to like herself, so I ask women in my office many times, would you make love to yourself? Because if you don't think you want to make love to yourself, you won't connect with the person who wants to make love to you. You will perform. Right. To keep them coming, but you won't have a fitting experience. You're listening to Sex with Emily.

I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. I have the immense honor of having renowned psychotherapist and two-time bestselling author Estera Paralle on the show today to discuss all things, sex, and relationships. From cultivating eroticism and long-term relationships, particularly when we're all immersed in our phones to the rise in non-monogamous relationship structures. This is an episode you absolutely do not want to miss. Please rate and review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show, my new articles, seven signs of sexual compatibility, and oralpes, how to keep living your best

sex life are up on sexwithemily.com. Aren't everyone enjoy this episode? So I moved into a new house last year and had to buy some new furniture. Of course, the biggest and most stressful furniture piece is this sofa. Who does let's be honest, it's the one thing you can't really screw up. It's got to fit your space, be cute, be comfy, it's a whole thing. That's why Kozy is the sofa company you need to know about. They make ordering a sofa online so simple.

Kozy has four collections of modular sofas so you can buy one doubt to fit your immediate needs and grow it over time. By adding seats and modules, you could adapt your sofa so that it fits every room, every lifestyle, every chapter of your life. So here's how it works. Select your favorite design and cozy's website. Choose the perfect configuration for your space, then choose your color. It gets delivered to your door free in two to five days. Do you know how long other places take? They take a long time. Two to five days is a miracle.

They're a Canadian company that ships to Canada and the US. Kozy offers a 30-day trial so you could have plenty of time to make sure your piece truly works. No wonder they have over 3550 five-star reviews. Visit kozy.ca to order a free set of fabric swatches and get started on sofa shopping that's C O Z E Y dot CA and enjoy free shipping on all orders cozy keep it simple. Psychotherapist Esther Perrell is one of the most fascinating contemporary voices on sex,

relationships, and human connection. Author of the iconic bestsellers, mating captivity, and state of affairs, she's also the host of the Where Should We Begin podcast, which allows listeners to drop in on real-life counseling sessions between Esther and her clients. Her popular card set, Where Should We Begin, was inspired by her work as a psychotherapist, and her celebrated TED Talks have garnered more than 20 million views. It is my huge honor to welcome Esther Proud back to the show today. So pleasure.

So good to see you. It's good to see you too. I want to jump right in, because we've got a lot to cover here, Esther. I think that most couples will benefit from therapy. And yet, you think I was asking them to get like a colonoscopy or something. It still is like a very painful thing for them.

They just don't get it. So what I appreciate so much about your podcast where should we begin is that we get to eavesdrop on real life therapy sessions as you guide them. And then you encourage people to say the things that they think they cannot say. And of healthy conversations, maybe even for the first time, under your guidance, which is such an incredible thing to listen to. I think I was listening to a Reese one. Someone said, we've been together 20 years and we've never had this kind of honesty that they have in that one hour. So for people who have not yet listened to your podcast, what are some examples of healthy

communication? And what are most of us doing wrong? What don't we get? I think sometimes what we do wrong is that we don't see what we do right. We should include that too, that when couples are in a situation of distress or negative sentiment overrides with more criticism than appreciation and more attacks than gratitude, so to speak, and more attacks than gratitude, so to speak, is that they actually do not see the good things that do exist between them because they're having a distortion of perception in which they emphasize and highlight only what's missing or what's negative with a confirmation bias. They're only looking for evidence for what reinforces their belief, you see, an interesting thing is that even couples who have been or are going to see a couple's therapies,

when they listen to the podcast, they experience something that couples often lack, which is the intimate knowledge of what's happening in the neighbor's house. Couples are often very isolated. They have to pretend that things go well. They don't tell the truth. Sometimes the women talk to their girlfriends, often the men talk to nobody. They have to pretend that things go well. They don't tell the truth.

Sometimes the women talk to their girlfriends, often the men talk to nobody. That's in a straight context. You put two men together. You get a different experience of silence. And so I think that the actual experience of listening deeply to others allows you to see yourself and allows you to normalize yourself so that it's not what are we doing wrong but in fact how is this normal for being in a relationship?

And what we can do better for sure, how can we communicate differently, how do we establish a different type of intimacy, how do we allow for difference in the relationship, for disagreement in the relationship. How do we continue to change it and grow because we are married twice as long as we were 100 years ago? And so it's not like we stay on a standstill. And all of that, I think, is part of the experience of basically you recreate the village when you listen to a podcast, right? In the old village, the streets were very narrow.

We were just talking about having been to Greece. We have these narrow streets. Everybody knows what's happening in the neighbor's house. You know, every fight and every chronic. But when you live in the urban environments of which so many of us live today, you actually often sit there saying, am I the only one? And the podcast brings back the village.

That's the intent, actually. Those are not patients, they have never been nor would they ever be my patients. There are about 6,000 applicants for the new season. So it's people who want to have that experience, that quality of attention, of communication, and of listening. It's listening, which is such an important skill set that doesn't come naturally. I think people don't realize that we actually need to work on it. And so, I guess what you're saying, listening to the podcast, you really kind of get how we could do it better. And maybe we feel better that everyone else is suffering in some way. There is a sense of community for sure. But also, you know, the interesting thing is we listen quite well when people say nice things.

The challenge is how to listen to somebody who says something that hurts us or annoys us or that we disagree with. And the research tells you that we have a capacity to listen for 10 seconds when somebody tells us something that we don't agree with, 10 seconds, that's three sentences. And if you ask people to repeat what was just said, many are incapable of doing so because they're busy paraphrasing, editing, building the response. So listening is really challenging for many of the situations in relationships. Yeah. So do couples ever come in and you think yourself, this isn't going to work? Or maybe it's, you know, mismatch political views, are there hobbies or someone's an introvert, someone's

an extrovert? In other words, like, are there things that we can work on and which issues can't typically be resolved, if any? None of the ones you mentioned are unresolvable. It's a little bit like the princess and the pea. In some couples, the pea is enough to create an explosion. The slightest difference is experienced as enormous. And in other couples, major differences. A friend of mine was mentioning yesterday how her parents never voted for the same party in 56 years of marriage.

And you know, they joke that they each were canceling each other's votes out. And that was that. They fundamentally disagreed. So it's not the issue. In relationships, the context is more important than the content. The process, the form, is more important than the issue.

If you talk to somebody with an element of content, if you talk to somebody where you look down on them, if you talk to somebody in constantly correcting them, whatever it is you do, it doesn't matter what a subject will be. If you talk to somebody and constantly correcting them. Whatever it is you do, it doesn't matter what a subject will be. If you talk to somebody who you think doesn't care about you and you've decided that up front, you'll hear everything through that lens. And you will notice that you can be talking about green peas

in South Korea or childcare or your sex life and it all sounds exactly the same. I do an exercise in the sessions that I borrow from my dear friend, Hedish Alifar, where I make people have an argument for X amount of minutes. She does it 13 minutes, this is to tell you. 13 minutes they argue, even if they don't feel like arguing, they have to keep it up. And then I don't do the 13, I do it shorter, but the idea is then I say to them, imagine this couple that just had this fight, they're sitting next to you in the restaurant and you've actually, you don't understand their language. Now tell me what you see and this takes you away from the issue. You see, you see one person

leaning in, another person rolling their eyes, another person turning their shoulder, another person pounding their face, another person squeezing their lips, and you see the fight without the issue, and then you see what people do to each other, rather than what they're talking about. So it's more like you can feel the contempt even by watching, or you can feel the disreset of the body. Yes, it's a don't. It's a choreography. It's a total, the contempt or the sadness or the hurt or the not being listened to or the trying to say it again with the hopes that maybe this time I'll get true to you

You know like a drill if you We respect for your partner the fact that they vote differently from you or that they have never liked the music You listen to or that they don't believe in the same God as you it doesn't mean there is not a sense of loss same God as you, it doesn't mean there is no sense of loss, but it doesn't have to become a point of contention or of the demise of the relationship. So when people come, if you ask me other times, when I say this isn't going to work, yes, when one person comes in to drop off the other person and basically says, you know, I'm out of here, take care of them, then you know that there is not much to do. You need two people, at least if it's a relationship of two, maybe it's three or four.

When you feel like they're dead upon arrival, they're coming to just say that they did therapy, but in fact they can't wait to go to the lawyers and start destroying each other. Then you know that you're just something that they need to put on the resume of divorce. That's not a good situation. When there's been a grigious repeated betrayals with somebody who has zero remorse, then you'd think, this may not be really a situation here. So there are very clear situations, but they're not about issues, they're about the quality or the lack of the rough of the relationship. I suppose in some cases you say they come in and they say, fix my partner. And then there's

some people who say, okay, I guess I'm here. I do need to do the work, but it's the people who think it's only my partner. There's nothing wrong with me that we can't really fix. So that actually, that situation is very common. Many people come to therapy to tell you how expert they are on their partner and what's wrong with them and they'll help you fix them. They'll be very collaborative with you. That's not the end of the relation. The end of the relation is when there is one person who is implicitly or explicitly gone. They've already...

They pretend they're there but they've left. Okay. Some relationships have finished long before the officially finish. Hmm. The question I get asked a lot, and I wanted to get your take on this, is people often say to me, I'm sure they say this to you all the time, can we get the attraction back? Can we get the sex life back? But here's the caveat, if they never had it in the beginning.

Hmm. How do you answer it then? Esther, this is what I say. And I've been dying to ask you this question. I say it's really challenging. If you never had it in the beginning, like there was no spark, there was nothing. It was maybe more of a marriage of convenience

or you kind of always presented your part of the sex was never great. That it is really challenging to like rub sticks together and make the spark come if you never had it in the beginning. But I'm so curious what you would say about that. It's one of the things I sometimes think, but I've seen so many variations on the situation, right? So I start from the premise that our emotional needs are not always aligned with our sexual needs. What makes us feel good emotionally is not necessarily what excites us sexually. So, it's not about the convenience, it's that you choose someone who answered one set of wishes and needs,

but not another. You did choose right, but you chose somebody, you know, who you knew was steady, who wouldn't abandon you, who wouldn't cheat on you, who knew who would encourage you to blossom. There's a lot of beautiful emotional reasons for choosing someone, and you have to honor that. Now, the question becomes, it's not just a matter of chemistry. I think that I have seen many people who didn't have it from the beginning because that's in their head. They said, that's not why I choose you. I choose you for other reasons. For example, if I think of you as the steady person who you're not the erotic type, as in you're not the one I have to worry about. You don't look around.

You wonder if it's true or you wonder to what extent I do this because when I clip your wings in my imagination, in my head, I make you safe for me. An idea, I re-size you in the interest of other needs that have to do with security attachment and stability, et cetera. You see, it's not just, or we didn't have the spark. I think that it's not the way it works. I've worked with enough people who are queer people in multiple relationships and they find the source of their sexual interest in multiple places.

It doesn't come just from sheer excitement and attraction. It sometimes comes from the depth of the connection, the curiosity. So it's an important part is to say, why, what is your investment in this relationship not being so sexual? Now, are there people with whom you play better music than others?

Absolutely. You can improvise with this one, you can never play with that one. And so then the question is, maybe you won't have that kind of sex. Maybe you won't play that kind of music. Maybe this is music where you each take turns. This is music that has a different intensity. No, this is not the music where you stay till four o'clock in the morning, you know, each jiving on the other. But there are different types of music to play.

Are you interested in playing other music or is your only interest the best music you've ever played? If the only sex that is good is that unbridled sex that was uncomplicated, easy, you know, grew from moment one, then you're not gonna find that here. But are you curious about finding another type of sexuality here? No, it won't be as good as the other,

but that doesn't mean that it has to be none. What you're saying is if both people are like, we really want to find it. We want to find a way to connect and they get to sort of do some exploring together and figure out what kind of music works with them they can both seem to. Yeah, I mean compatibility in this side, some couples are definitely more compatible than others.

In multiple areas, with one you can sleep very well and have great sex but not talk, we have different levels of compatibility. The question is, what do you do with your disappointment? We will never have this is such a defeating statement that nothing can come from there. But I have also seen people who had zero of that connection and then the partner goes and has an affair. And suddenly they have a voracious hunger. You know, this thing called lack of desire or lack of sexual interest or dis-exualizing the other plays itself in many different, has

many different facets. So I've seen people who were for years uninterested in their partner until someone else became interested in their partner. Classic. And then suddenly their partner was no longer the flannel night down. They became the nice silk. We don't respect them or we don't we lose interest in them. We can't have them and then it becomes that spark, right? That friction that you often talk about, right? Or we take or we relate to them like family members. One of the primary reasons people disexualize their partners is because they become family. And they treat their partners like family in the good sense of the world.

But some people experience family in such a way that the sex starts to feel insustuous. It's like I'm with my brother, I'm with my sister, I'm with my best friend. They tell it to you, you know? I feel like I'm with my, you know, it's like I'm with my brother, I'm with my sister, I'm with my best friend. They tell it to you, you know? I feel like I'm with my, you know, it's like a parent. I feel like I'm with a child. No, you don't want to have sex with a child if your head is screwed right. So the, the familiarization, it's not familiarization, but familiarization of your partner is often a major deterrent

to being able to sexualize yourself with them or sexualize them in your eyes. More than many others. As there I think that that is so relatable and I think that that is absolutely the case that we feel we become so close. I mean this is your your seminal work and median captivity which just that notion that we're all walking around feeling that this person is so familiar. I used to have this spark at the beginning, but now literally I've seen them do everything. Or I've seen her from friends. You know, he watched me get birthed

to three children came out of my vagina. Now how am I supposed to want to have sex with them? And so this family familiarity is so relatable and relevant. And that's why. But sometimes it's the woman herself, right? Who says, I feel mother. In this house, I feel mother. And from the place of mother, I have a hard time accessing my erotic energy. And so sometimes people find it much easier to leave and go and be elsewhere outside of the frame. It's not just the others are family. It's also in my role as this person,

especially for women and motherhood. It's often more difficult to access the sexual self inside. This conversation was just fascinating. And I hope you're all enjoying it as much as I did. When we're back from a quick break for our sponsors, we're going to play Clip from Esther's podcast in which a married woman was able to learn to enjoy sex again and get the spark back. So I moved into a new house last year and had to buy some new furniture. Of course, the biggest and most stressful furniture piece is this sofa. Because let's be honest, it's the one thing you can't really screw up. It's got to fit your space, be cute, be comfy, it's a whole thing. That's why cozy is the sofa company you need to know about. They make ordering a sofa online so simple. cozy has four collections of modular sofas so you can buy one doubt to fit your immediate needs and grow it over time.

By adding seats and modules, you could adapt your sofa so that it fits every room, every lifestyle, every chapter of your life. So here's how it works. Select your favorite design and cozy website. Choose the perfect configuration for your space, then choose your color. It gets delivered to your door free in 2-5 days. Do you know how long other places take? They take a long time.

Two to five days is a miracle. They're a Canadian company that ships to Canada and the US. Kozy offers a 30 day trial so you could have plenty of time to make sure your piece truly works. No wonder they have over 3500 five star reviews. Visit kozy.ca to order a free set of fabric swatches and get started on sofa shopping.

That's c-o-z-e-y.ca. I enjoy free shipping on all orders. Cosy, keep it simple. Well, I want to click clip from your podcast right now that actually segues right into what we're talking about. Okay. We're going to play this clip from your podcast where should we begin? This clip is from the episode you want me to watch the kids while you go out with another guy, which has the following backstory.

This is a good one. They met as religious teenagers, married as virgins. It's the age old story once you're allowed to be intimate, you no longer want to be. Deciding to open the marriage is brought about huge changes in their sex life and ruptures in their emotional one. And in this particular relationship, the wife is the one who was starting to see other people, which has allowed her to then reclaim her sexuality from a mere total obligation to a source of pleasure. So we're going to play the clip real quick. When we would talk about what the heck should sex be? Can you just tell me what it should be?

Because if you ask me, I don't need it. I could go the rest of my life without it, and it'd be fine. So since we're here, we're married, we must have sex. What is sex to you? What is good sex to you? And he would always say the thing that you want guys to say, which is I want you to feel pleasure. I want to know that I can pleasure you. And it would stress me out so bad.

Because I don't even know what that means. I have no idea what that means. I remember something he always wanted was to go down on me. And it was traumatizing. And now, now I love it. Now I love it. It's been a fantastic lover. I really am.

Would you like me to shake you down? Congratulations. Oh my God. He really is amazing. And the same behaviors, the same touch that felt so violating feels intensely pleasurable. Yes. That should tell you something. You know, to me that is so powerful,

to me that is so powerful, because in some interesting way, what it speaks to is that it is not about the sexual activity, behavior, touch, itself, since the same movements of him, the same touches of him, that felt so violating, is now such a intense source of pleasure. The sex is not the issue. The context of the sex is the issue. So much to unpack here, but this is exactly what we're saying. Like now that she's kind of liberated, they've opened it up. You know, her partners like same lips can feel different because she's been able to go out, explore her sexuality. The first thing I want to address though, I hear this all the time, Esther, from people, from friends, from listeners, I could go the

rest of my life without sex, and I'd be fine. I guess it's case-by-case basis, but do everything that's really true and how important is sex in relationships? This question, if we had time, it would be a treat to like really unpack it because even what you asked me before, right, what do you say to the people who have lost it? And you know, you often say there's only one beginning and it's the one beginning. So it's never the same afterwards versus the one who never had it. And of course part of the people who never had it, we have to find out if it's relational, if it's, I answered it in a relational way, who you choose. But I could also also read from the

perspective of one's own childhood and one's own sexual upbringing and one's experiences sexually, unwanted sex experiences that have made sex, the last thing you look forward to. You know, situations of violations and abuse, etc. So there's many, many reasons why people find sex not an attractive proposition. When somebody says, if I had no sex for the rest of my life, it can mean a lot of things. It can mean I'd rather go hiking than be touched. Why not? If the touch is unpleasant, if the touch evokes bad feelings for you, no, go hiking. I get it. Now, do you want to live this way?

That's a different question. And it's for people to come and say, I something's missing for me or or something's missing for my partner. When I say this to my partner, my partner is things I'm opening a casket, you know, this is a death sentence. Basically, we will never have this connection together for some people that's tremendous grief, you know. So people throw that sentence sometimes and it can be quite hostile and sometimes they throw it in despair. So it's a very real sentence that you hear in a lot, it is true, but I also think it takes

place in a context. The lack of sexual connection to oneself or to another person, the loss of the spark or the desire is often a disconnect, an emotional disconnect from a person and a sexual or emotional disconnect from oneself. I mean, you can't separate these two. So, now she says something else. You know, in her case, you see, she grows up in a very Christian environment. She, her, and she tells me at one point, my sexuality has belonged to the church. It has belonged to my Indian background. It has belonged to my family.

And now it belongs to the institution of marriage. It has never been my own. And as a result, I have treated my sexuality as a thing that I need to dispense of for the pleasures of others or for the rules and the restrictions of others. When I was in Catholic school, I was voracious. It was forbidden and therefore I knew it, I wanted it. If I do something I'm not supposed to, then I know I'm doing something I want. But today I married the guy and it became not only the thing I should want, but the thing I'm expected to do, I was once again in opposition and I decided I want

none of it. And what is it that she recovers? She recovers her sense of ownership, of autonomy. My sexuality belongs to me. And because of that, the same touch of this man, the same gestures become sources of pleasure rather than experiences where I grind my teeth just to get through it. It's very, very telling. She understands it. She sees that it's not even the fact that she went with others. In her case, it involved going with others. But it's the fact that she reclaimed something. It's really a reclamation. It's an experience of reclamation. And from that place, I give to you freely rather than you get. Yeah, that's so powerful so that the notion of her feeling like she could really take

sex for herself and be present and enjoy her body and ask for what she wants with another lover, where would she sit home? It feels like a duty. In this case, she steps outside. And I want to get to Namanagami in a minute. But the other thing in this clip, we hear many men like you're client here in this podcast say, nothing turns me on more than to see her turned on.

Or I want to turn you on or it gets me hot. And I've heard you say this, and I thought this was fascinating, but you rarely hear women say the same thing. Very rarely are women like, I just want to see my partner turned on. You know, I really want to see him turn on and then I get turned on. And what do you think this says about female sexuality? Because I think that's such an important note too for women.

Like, there's so much to unpack with that. You know, this is the conversation where we know we already want another conversation. I know. There's a lot to talk about you. There's so much to talk about always. I would share with you my observation and you tell me what you think because this is not something I can prove. But I noticed that in my office indeed, in heterosexual couples, I would often hear the man say, nothing turns me on then to see her turn down. If she's into it, you know, why? Because if she's into it,

then I know that I'm not a predator. If she's into it, I'm not hurting her. And that face is what it's the only thing that will tell it to me. You know, she can even pretend the whole thing and I wouldn't be sure. So knowing that she truly enjoys it is liberating for the man from the predatory fear. It turns aggression into pleasure. It's extremely important. It is probably the most important sexual block in the psyche of many men. But on the other side, I thought, I never hear her say, nothing turns me on more than to see him turn down. It's actually irrelevant. If she's not into it, he can be standing there with the biggest direction, not possible.

It will do absolutely nothing to her to shop. It's closed. You know, nobody at the reception. And so then I began to wonder, why is that? It's like, it's not what's happening to him, that matters. It's what's happening to her. And a part of that is that, that makes me think, what is the most important sexual block in the psyche of many women? It is the burden of caretaking. block in the psyche of many women, it is the burden of caretaking. If I am busy thinking about others and the well-being of others, I cannot enter into my own erotic universe, into my body, into my sensation, into my pleasure, into my orgasm for that matter.

I can't even come. So it really said, my social role is to think of others, but my sexual position is much more narcissistic. It has to be self-centered. Yes. If I'm busy thinking of him, then I'm not able to enjoy it nearly as much. I have to be able to think about myself. And these two configurations, I find open up a whole other vista on what goes on in the sexual realm. It speaks to so much performative sex that we see women having because if he's happy and he has an orgasm

and he looks like he had a good time, well then it must have been good sex, check it off the list, I took care of someone else. And so what have you found when you dress as the couples? But how do we get women to realize this, to recognize that you deserve the pleasure and that you got to take it for your own because it's such a mind switch, takes work. Right. Which is why I really use the word,

the provocative word, and I said female sexuality is narcissistic. She has to like herself. So I ask women, in my office many times, would you make love to yourself? Because if you don't think you want to make love to yourself, you won't connect with the person who wants to make love to you. You will perform. To keep them coming, but you won't have a fulfilling experience. And it is about autonomy. Many times you will see a woman say, and then putting

it on women in this instance, more because I've seen it more in a female frame. I think it could very well be in a non-binary frame, no less, just to be clear. But a partner comes and initiates, and the first response is, no. But 15 minutes later or an hour later, they initiate. And the partners think of it as a power menu. Why is it never a toy on your turn? It's never when I ask, et cetera. But once I understood that it wasn't an issue of power,

but it was an issue of autonomy. When I come, when you're not asking, then I know that I want it. When I respond to your request, then I feel like I'm obliging, like I'm complying. And because for so many people, sexuality is so tenuous to own, to really feel like it's yours, it takes very little for another person to ask you something for you to instantly lose the ownership and feel that you're just trying to please them. That's how performative sex, how intense it is, and it is intense historically in the making of female sexuality more than men. This is what we've seen more for sure.

So this notion of them were actually then saying to women like we want you to learn to initiate, right? So we're saying that figure out how you can get into your own sexuality so you have desire. I can just hear what I'm saying like I don't know how to initiate night. Like it's such a it's a leap for many. Like if you've had your whole life of performative sex, how do you sort of say I'm going to let my eroticism boil up and then I'm going to make so an exercise we do is I say you take the hand of your partner male or female or them you take the hand and you just stroke your neck your head your hair your face forget genitals don't because the performative is also often very genitively focused when

you penetrate if sex very heterosex just let them stroke you And I do an exercise that I think is actually one of the very revealing ones. It's very simple. I can do it in a big workshop and as I do it in an office. One person takes the hand of the other. And I basically say play with this hand and just explore it. But at this moment, while you're exploring it, you want your focus to be entirely on your part. Do they like it? Do they know they haven't knuckle here? Oh, I didn't never feel this before. And as you continue to play and explore the hand,

I want you to go from giving touch to taking touch. I want you to use their hand to please you. And you see instantly the hand changing. Now, I'm rubbing myself to, you know, like a cat that is pleasing and the switching back and forth between giving touch and taking touch, between pleasing you and pleasing me, between thinking of you and then just thinking of me in the presence of you is an incredible exercise to practice owning one's pleasure. That's a beautiful exercise of embodiment,

attuning to what feels good to me and what feels good to you and the practice of asking for what you want. I loved starting with the hand exercise of rubbing your hands. It's very hard for some people by the way. It's a really hard thing. No, it is hard.

This is not easy work, but it can be done, which it's a practice. So more people are seeing ethical dominoge meat people by the way. No, it is. This is not easy work, but it can be done, which, you know, it's a practice. So more people are seeing ethical dominoge meet these days as a viable option for their relationships, or at least not that it's a new concept, but I'm wondering if you're seeing this as well, just more and more people asking about it, thinking I think we're seeing more examples of an immediate people are being more open about it. You know, we just always think the neighbors are not doing anything, but now the neighbors might actually be telling you we're, we're swinging, we're open.

So like, what do you think about this? Like, who's ethical non monogamy right for? Who isn't? Like, what change are you seeing right now? So let me go back a tiny bit just so that we don't have a sense that we had a monolithic model called monogamy that has always meant the same thing and suddenly comes this new notion of polyamory or consension on monogamy. You know, for most of history monogamy was one person for life and now monogamy is one

person at a time. And people easily tell you, I am monogamous in all my relationships, plural. And they think that makes sense and it's always been this way. For most of history, you married and you had sex for the first time. Then we married and we stopped having sex with others. Then we had contraception that allowed us

to have other partners before. And now we want to be able to continue and have other partners before. And now we want to be able to continue and have other partners during. And we want to have not just sexual partners, but also emotional partners. And it also comes as a response to the hardships of the nuclear family model, in which one person is supposed to give you

what one's an entire village used to provide. And so in a way, the poly mentality is a communal mentality that says different people for different things, different people who care about the children too for that matter, not just in a personal way. And I think it makes a lot of sense as creative attempts for some people to develop new family, arranged, new family configurations.

You know, when divorce started, especially when women began to divorce, the concept of a blended family was a whole revolution. The concept of single families, the concept of, so we have had many new family models, we haven't had many new couple models. And it is not for everyone, but what we do understand is the economy of one size fits all. People are now seeing that there's options, I guess. So then it could be possible. Well, that the only option isn't just to divorce

and to start over. That the needs of a family may be different from the needs of a couple, maybe different from the needs of an individual. That the monogamous model is one thing a model. That it isn't natural or the laws of nature or it is heavily the religious model. But it is a model that has favored certain people over others. And so there is a questing, it's part of a questing of what makes for modern connection. How do we create trust, loyalty, desire, family, you know, when we

don't have the traditional institutions to support it? So it's more entrepreneurial, it's more disruptive, it brings that whole energy, and it's more chaotic sometimes as well. And it works for some people at some point in their life and not others. And then it is utterly not attractive to, you know, but I think that from a societal point of view, it's a rather understandable evolution. That makes sense. I mean, I kind of see this as an answer to like all the things from media and captivity that expecting one partner to be our everything.

I am finding that people are more communal living. And people are thinking, I know even with my friends, we're saying like, we should all just buy property and live near each other, you know, we're all different ages, different kinds of relationships and taking care of everyone's kids. Like, are you seeing that actually happening? I know there was a story of recently of these, yeah, there was a question of the mother's death as she was in China. Yeah. Yes, there is a question of the model that has been passed in China. There is a deep, no, also in the States, there was an article about

models who came together during the pandemic, both houses together, are raising their chin and together. I think that we are, especially in the United States, the level of individualism is so intense, everybody has to do everything on their own. So even having a co-op for parents who come together around childcare becomes progressive rather than sensical. Some of these things are just responding to the realities of life. Families live totally fragmented all over the continent.

Who is going to be your family? A family of choice. You know, who are the people that you can entrust your children to that will be there when you are sick, that can come and visit you at the hospital, even if they're not married to you. You know, but they are your family. And maybe they're even better at than your spouse,

supposedly, to be that person. So I think that we are in an era where we are redefining family all together, what makes a family, and that is very enriching and very generative. Yeah, I think so too. I think it's an exciting paradigm and I love seeing that happen right now.

I loved her recent South by Southwest talk, which people can find online. You can also link that, but you talk about the other AI, and that's artificial intimacy. And you say we're having less sex because we're on our phones constantly, which is, I think we all know this. I'm guilty of this. I've been watching a show with my partner and scrolling. What do we do about this? How can we heighten our intimacy in this age of technology? Now, we could play your game where we should be getting, which is literally sitting in my fireplace mantle and we whip

up cards sometimes and play it. What do we do? What's working right now? The first thing is we recognize it, not everybody even recognize it. And it's not just that we live in the sex because we are in our phone, is that we are experiencing a growing social atrophy, you know, with people who are losing the skills of relating to others and connecting and being in the friction and the messiness of proximity with other people. So maybe people are having plenty of sex with themselves, maybe they're having with the robot,

maybe they're having it on form, so there's lots of ways to have sex and just with one's partner, but there is a lot of connection. There's no doubt about that. Whether it's parents and kids, or whether it's people or adults with each other. So how do we counter it deliberately?

The same way that when people say, how do we maintain sex between us? I always say it's not spontaneous. It's deliberate, it's premeditated, it's woullful, it's a ritual. You write it down, you plan it, you make a deal, but it's not just happening like that, spur of the moment, on occasion, but much of the time, you have to want it, you have

to will yourself, you know, do you always run to the gym? No, but do you ever regret when you went to it? Probably not either, but you made an appointment, you planned it, you got, you know, you have your clothes, your stuff that goes with you, that is part of that activity. And that is very uncomfortable to people, to say, committed sex is premeditated sex. So it's just no different in this instance. You want to use your phone, use your phone and start flirting with each other. How about instead of scrolling, you just start suddenly saying,

hey, you know, somebody very hot sitting next to me, or, you know, we'd like to have a chat with this woman who is on the other side of the couch, or could I invite you for a drink? And you start playing with your partner, like, which is probably what you're doing with other people anyway. So, right. You have to, it is about bringing that kind of playful, creative energy into domestic. But it is not that far off from what I said when I wrote a meeting. It's just one more hurdle of one more level of motivation that you need to master.

And hopefully, it creates something that you say is pleasurable enough. I just posted 10 favorite erotic films. And I just picked 10. And it's fantastic. Now the fascinating thing was not so many comments. It wasn't the biggest, it's how many people saved the list and the tens of thousands that are saving the list of erotic films. So this is what they give you tonight. They could literally go to your Instagram and say like, oh babe, let's watch this erotic movie that could be a two-faire. It's entertaining and we might get aroused. Yes. And you can play trailers to each other and you can make a select. So now we have decided to make a second list because all the people that wrote to us told us of other movies

I should have included do that with your partner. Why would be your list? Don't even take mine. Don't even take mine afterwards, you know or take mine as a subject for discussion Would you put that on your list? Would you put that one on your list and change the conversation right away? That brings erotic energy into a relationship. From there, you'll do whatever you do, but you get to warm up to this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's, it's just,

whatever father we can give people, like we've got our yes-no, maybe less, like people need tools. They need something to help lead them often to this path to eroticism and getting turned on again. So if it's a sexy movie, it's, you know, listening to podcasts. Oh, it is the card game, I mean, the card game,

which is such a good sex question. But somebody has to say, hey, I have a question for you or text it since we were sitting next to each other anywhere with the phones in hand, how text you? Hey, I have a question. And then I just suddenly throw a card at my partner. And it's not about being sexy. It's about saving the relationship at this point

before we become totally numb. What you just said, though, I'm just curious about the relational skills that we're losing. I think it's been happening for a while with our phones and social media, but I think just it's just good to hear this because I even feel that myself,

I'm always an extrovert. I love people. I get my energy that way, even doing this on Zoom. I just say, I'm not doing anything unless I can meet the person in part. Like this has been a struggle for me, just connecting sometimes on the on the Zoom. And this is what our life is right now. And I do feel like I've even gotten more awkward. I never thought I was socially awkward.

I've got issues that stare, but it was never that. Take me to a room and I can talk to people. And now it's just gotten more and more uncomfortable. And I guess you're probably seeing that in your practice with couples as well Just that's impacting our relationships. I guess is what I'm saying is that even more so we might be relying on our partners One more not there's a lot of ways to answer this but I'll highlight two things Number one is there's a massive virtualization of our lives Pandemic only accelerated all of that.

Number two, we are living in the type of assisted living. We have every predictive technology, from Netflix to Ways to Spotify to Tinder, telling us where to go, what to eat, what to watch, what to listen to next. And we are less and less in contact with our own choices, our own doubts, our own deliberations, our own preferences, so that we actually become less and less able to deal with uncertainty.

And the minute something happens in our relationship that isn't as I expected, we react. We want ripple free, like an app. We want the smoothness and the polished aspect of app life in our relational life, and we are really struggling with the rough edges. Then you add to that the fact that we have become conflict averse. Because if you don't really have face to face with people and you don't rub next to them, you don't have to deal with difference disagreement in the micro. So that when the big things happen, you have practice, which is part of why we just created

a course on conflict, on turning conflict into connection, just because I realized there is on a society level of conflict avoidance, and then we just polarize. I can't talk to you. Okay, then I cut off. You know, I ghost you, but I don't care because I've never seen you face, and I have no idea what I did to you, you know, because it was only in writing anyway. And I don't have to take responsibility for my actions and the impact that it has on other people.

And only I think about is what other people do to me. So dealing with conflict is not just about learning to fight well, it's about relating better. And those are aspects of artificial intimacy that I was highlighting in the talk, that we are losing the friction. Now, friction is important and when you talk sex, you talk friction. So it's not even just metaphorical. If you smooth all the things out, you create people who are anxious. And then you can talk about a mental health crisis.

Uncertainty, ambivalence, ambiguity, there are intrinsic to relationships as is conflict. And that's where I am focusing now. Because why would I have sex with you? I'm upset, I'm annoyed, you know, I'm disappointed, I resent. Those are all reasons of people to cut off sexually or intimately as well. I want nothing to do with you. That's so interesting. We do need this course, right? Maybe the conflict could become foreplay, right?

Couples seem to be like, we got a conflict, but now we can lead the connection. I love that. In a way, for couples who are struggling to communicate, which is so many, they can learn how to choose, perhaps even a rhodocysic, because as we know, we need that kind of friction to create the eroticism. So I love this ester. This course comes out soon. Yeah. I think I can act. October 10. October 10. October 10.

October 10. October 10. October 10. October 10. October 10. October 10. October love that, Esther. That is such a great course. And really, timely, we need this ASAP. Why don't we just go into our quicky questions, then, Esther? We've got five questions. We asked all of our guests. First thing that comes to mind, ready? What's your biggest turn on? Oh, I'm a sacred sexual, you know. My biggest turn on, I don't have one. I can totally melt with somebody who is playing the guitar and singing to me a beautiful ballad as somebody who is reading a poem into my ears as somebody who is touching me in

a way that it feels really good. I rarely have one answer for any of these questions. Big is turn off. Smell. What makes good sex? Variety, playfulness, unexpected, surprise, being generous. Something you tell your younger self about sex and relationships. Don't ever do it if it hurts just because you think you should get through it.

What's the number one thing you wish everyone knew about sex? That it can transport you. That it's a trip. That it's just something you do, that it's a place you go, inside yourself and with another. And stop thinking about acts and performance and think about experience. And it will be a whole different ballgame. That's beautiful, Esther. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. Everyone can check out your podcast

where shall we begin, which has a subscription now in Apple. We will put all this in the show notes, but thank you for being here, Esther, so appreciate you. It's good to connect. It's a treat. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

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 where ever you listed 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.

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