Sex With Emily - Your Sex Life on Meds

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Ever wonder what to do about the sexual side effects of your antidepressants? It can be super frustrating to have an improved mood but a decreased libido. In this episode, I cover how to know if you��re experiencing unwanted side effects and what to do about them.Anyone else’s sex life taken a nose-dive in the past few months? Well, there could be a lot more going on than just mismatched sex drives. Starting with healthy communication can help you sort out those pesky resentments. I also dissect what we can learn (and not learn) from Cardi B’s WAP video featuring Megan Thee Stallion.For even more sex advice, tips, and tricks visit sexwithemily.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and on today's show I'm talking about Cardi B and Megan these dallians WAP video. Forced sex fantasies, what does it all mean? And how antidepressants can affect your sex drive? All this and more, thanks for listening. But how long have we been losing to men? Raph about and talk about and sing about female sexuality and their their pain is doing certain things right? You know I'm just not down with cleaning up, messes all the time and dealing with bad behavior all the time and it's just like kind of embarrassing and the dog's certainly not helping that. If we experience any kind of abuse of trauma no matter what your gender we often think that when time goes by it'll

get better if we don't talk about it, it'll go away. And as a young person who enjoys sex, it has been disappointing, I guess, to say the least. Eyes that block our sacred institutions, bedroom eyes, they call them in a bygone day. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ 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. All right, on today's show, I'm going to be talking about antidepressants and how they impact your sex drive. Here's the thing. Maybe you've gone through a depression or you've been prescribed medications for either anxiety or depression.

You may have felt like you didn't want sex. You were feeling depressed and too anxious and then you took it antidepressant and then all of a sudden your mood felt better, but you found out it was impacting your sex drive. You had a lower libido. Maybe you weren't able to ejaculate. You could never orgasm. So what gives? I mean, why is it that to feel good, we have to take a pill, but then we can't have sex. So we talk about that and some things you can do about it. And I mentioned a few things in here coming up, but I just want to say that you do not have to live with the side effects

of anything. I don't think it's worth risking the side effect of not wanting sex by taking a drug. But let me say this, I want to reinforce it. Do not ever, ever make any changes to your medication without speaking to your doctor. This is a huge, huge mistake. I know when taking any presents sometimes, you're like, I'm feeling so much better now. I'll just lean off of it. Not a good idea.

And if you think that you keep it, and I just have a phone call with your doctor and let them know that, you know, I've been feeling that, you know, it's just been a little bit off lately and everyone reacts differently to antidepressants. So just know that everyone's body's different. There's so many different things that go into play to how an antidepressant's going to impact

you. And so there's some ways that doctors can sort of tinker with things. They can have you go down on a drug. They can add another one, you know, well, butrin has been a popular one for people that doesn't have side effects. So all I'm saying is, do your homework, do your research. Also the other thing with antinupressants is sometimes the side effects do subside and we get into a lot of that in this episode, but I just want to enforce that.

Talk to your doctors before you do anything. Also, there's a lot of questions we get about fantasies. If we have a fantasy, does it mean we want it to happen? Do we have to share all of our fantasies with our partner? And sometimes it can be really confusing. You know, I often hear from women who say, I fantasize about women. Does this mean that I'm a lesbian or sometimes we just watch things or we think about things? And it doesn't mean anything.

And I think that we are so hard on ourselves. There's two kinds of fantasies, typically the ones that we want to have with the partner and we want to share with the partner and the ones that want to keep to ourselves. That's all okay. I think a lot of my job is to let you guys know that you're completely normal. The most normal thing about human sexuality is that we all think we're not normal. Being the most normal thing about human sexuality is that we all think we're not normal. So that is the most normal thing. And in particular, we talk about a woman who has the four sex fantasy, aka rape fantasy, which is a common fantasy for women. And it can be very

confusing because it doesn't mean that I'm a bad person or maybe it feels like we've had a trauma that's related to it. So we break that down in this episode as well. And we also talk about the video and song that came out last week with Cardi B, Megan E. Stallion. Now here's the thing. It's gotten a lot of hype.

Is it really about female sexuality or are they really just mimicking what all men have been singing about? And I think it's super entertaining to watch for sure. I have no problems with it. The only thing I want to reinforce is that you might be really wet. You might be really turned on for sex. And sometimes you're not.

And if you're not super wet, that's okay too. You know how I feel about Lube. I would like a Lube on every nightstand. So don't forget the Lube. Enjoy the show. I love you all. Thanks for listening. You can always reach out to me and ask questions and I'd love to hear from you what you like to hear more about in the episode. So thanks everyone and enjoy the show. I want to talk about something. Starting out here about this video that's gone viral the last week. And that is the Megan and Cardi B's new song, Megan the Stellion, Cardi B's new song,

WAP. I just said to my mother, she had heard of it. And my mom's all up in the gossip, so I thought that she might have heard of it, but she didn't. So I had her watch the video. And what, let me just say, it's an acronym for a well-liubricated vagina. Volvo. Well, actually vagina, because internally.

But the Volvo can be lubricated as well. It can have some wetness. And it is an overt display of female sexuality. So of course, I had to talk about it on the show and last Friday I was doing a photo shoot at my house and we were playing it because they're like I haven't heard it yet and I had not because life is busy and it's freaking amazing to watch this video. I'd like to talk about it because there's been a lot of controversy people saying well you know if a woman is really wet and really lubricated,

well, then there's something wrong. She's got an infection or there's a problem. But how long have we been listening to men rap about and talk about and sing about female sexuality and their pain is doing certain things, right? We hear it all the time, but to see a woman, I found it empowering. There are parts of it though that I would like to discuss because I think it brings up a lot of things about wetness and female sexuality and arousal and desire. But if you haven't heard it yet, let's just play a clip of it.

Let's just play it so you know we're all on the same page here, okay? I wanna ride, I do a giga, what in the sky? Spitting my mouth, lickin' my eyes Cause he is wet, come take a dive Sign me up, like I'm surprised, that's roleplay I wear this guy, so I want you to park that big, mad truck Right in the slidicle ride, make it scream, make me scream I don't pull it, make the scene, I don't cook, I don't clean But let me pay, I got the string Got both me swallowing me, drip down inside of me

Yeah, jump out, where you lit it, get inside of me I tell them where to put it, never tell them where I'm about clean, but like me too, I got the string. God, both me swallow me, drip down the side of me, we'll jump out when you let it get inside of me and tell them where to put it, never tell them where I'm about to be. So that's the song. That's what we're talking about. It's good, you guys. I like the song. I gotta say it. I mean, you know, and I do see it as a celebration

of female sexuality in many ways. So essentially, she's talking about the fact, Cardi B, you know, just in that part, we just heard she's talking about what does she say here. I don't even like the word pussy, so I never really say it. I really don't. I don't know why. You know me, I say vagina, I say vulva, I say penis.

My first thing is that the controversy first came up because they're talking about how if it's wet, that's a problem when she shouldn't celebrate it. And I thought, well, I just want to talk about this part a bit, because some people think it's shaving or something's wrong with it. The first point I want to make is just technically as a sex doctor, that vaginal lubrication is awesome and necessary.

However, you can be aroused and turned on and not be that wet. You can also be really wet and not turned on. And so my only concern is that it could perpetuate this myth that this notion that women should always be really wet and really turn on every time and ready to go. And then now for not, that's a problem. Now I understand that it's from their perspective and celebrating their sexuality, which again, I think we need more videos and more women and more songs and more things that are celebrating women, loving their own bodies and celebrating female sexuality because there's been so much that is sort of against it, right?

I mean, if you think about like Adam and Eve, right, it was all about Eve being the temptress and it was Eve's fault, right, that Adam bit into the apple. And so there has been, you know, centuries, you know, of oppression of female sexuality and female desire. So whenever I see women celebrating it, it's amazing, right? But not every woman does. I said to my mother before the show. I was like, I just want to know what you think. She goes, I'm too old for this.

I think it's like 40 years too old for it. But I know she, Kylie Jenner makes a appearance, which that was the first thing everyone's talking about. Like, why is Kylie, Kylie Jenner in it. But it really blew up when Ben Shapiro, conservative, talking to him, he tweeted that his wife, who's a doctor, told him that if a vagina is wet, it requires a bucket and a mop. And then maybe it's about a sexually transmitted infection. So I'm not saying the song is about that at all.

But I do think that it points this thing that women sexuality has been a threat to men in so many ways, that a woman standing up and celebrating her sexuality. And that a lot of our power has been, you know, men are sort of the arbiters of a healthy sex, and men are the ones who sort of control female sexuality. So I like the celebration of that. And then what I also like is that it's women that they're sort of saying, yeah, you know, great, we own it, because so many times when women have done that,

especially when I was like in my 20s, if women, if I talked about the men I slept with and what I did, I was called slutty, or you know, you women always talk about I want to keep my numbers down. I don't want people to know how many I slept with because it's somehow virginal, which is all just kind of silly to me because I feel like women, I find it obviously it's my job, but I talk to everybody, women and men obviously.

And I'm very open and not judging anybody, but what I'm saying is when I do see women saying it's okay, I'm going to own my body, I'm going to own my pleasure, I'm very open and not judging anybody. But what I'm saying is when I do see women saying, it's okay, I'm gonna own my body, I'm gonna own my pleasure. I'm gonna talk about my orgasm. I'm gonna ask for it. I wanted it. I wanted this sex. I'm gonna take it. This is what I need.

To me, that is a celebration. However, it's done. But we've not ever, whenever, grease on music. We don't grill lyrics. We don't all even grill pop culture. Or any of it. But I like it when I see women celebrating and owning it.

So that's how I feel about it. I mean, there's so many examples of men, Megan, our call screener said, if men can rap, slob, and my knob, we can rap about the whop. I mean, it has been normalized in pop culture for a long time. So I did want to take it back to the wetness level here.

What does it mean? Because I do, this is my thing. Because when I thought, I was like, yeah, I can talk about it in the show. We don't usually cover out the stuff that's going on in the news, but when it relates to sex I will. And so my thing is, I want you to understand that it's important for your vagina to be well lubricated for sex. And that's why I'm a huge fan of lube,

and I want there to be a lube at every nightstand because you can't control how wet we get. It changes certain times a month. It can change hormonally, certain medications. And if women aren't wet enough, then there's like tears and dryness, and you can get infections. It is not pretty.

So I just want women to be able to monitor. Now, when you can't get too wet, so Kendra asks on my team, what do you do when you're too wet? And that happens for women as well. They're like, I am just too wet. And now it's just too much wetness. And that can happen too.

This is the stuff that I want to normalize here on the show. I want to normalize all of it and say, yeah, you can get two wet. So that could happen. Usually you're not too wet the whole time, but what I would suggest is you just kind of get off and you can put a towel down. You can sort of wipe up and then go back at it.

But there's not really anything you can do if you get too wet, except for maybe kind of, if it's causing a problem, then you can kind of pull back and do something else. Actually, there is a gynecologist who's been on the show a lot. Dr. Carolyn Delusia out of New York. And she says that women can take, I believe it's like an anohistamine, because it's the same thing.

If it's really like a problem, and it can help dry you out, that was the only thing I heard that was like a medical. But I don't like to recommend that people are taking certain drugs for certain things that they're not meant for, but that is what I heard. Otherwise, I just think you stop for a minute, you throw a towel down, you go to the bathroom,

you wipe off and you go. Because usually if you're, the other thing about when, so I just wanna say, is that it is not only an indicator of you being a rouse or turned on. And that the reason why we have this notion is because were we saying, I wish you were it, are you wet? I remember having sex with guys and they were like, oh, you're wet.

Are you wet? Are you going to be wet enough? And you're like, oh, I'm so wet. That's something that we say. Because women sexuality is always compared to men who have this sort of spontaneous arousal, right? Like you know if your partner's turned on because there's an erection. And then women, it's another way that we're like,

oh, I'm not turned on enough, I'm not wet enough. But all I want to say is that it's not the way that you measure your arousal and there's so many other ways to be aroused and to be turned on. So another question here from Amanda, what if it's poor timing or it's not a sexual situation like when you're on a run? Yeah, that can happen too. When you get to, you guys are going to have the sneeze and pee or running and pee, that happens a lot. And what that means

when that happens for women is that usually it is a pelvic floor thing. It means that there's a weakness in the pelvic floor for a lot of women they experience after childbirth. And this is why you're keeping your pelvic floor strong and doing your cagol exercises is so important for women, really women at any age. And so when that happens, you really just, I mean, honestly do your cagols. And in Cardi B does say in the song, I do a kegel when he's in me at squeeze a keg. And that is true for some women. When you, like here's the thing about your pelvic floor muscles,

is that your pelvic floor muscles, your kegels, doing a kegel muscle, it's that, it's when you are using those muscles where you stop and start the flow of urine. That's what it is. Like if someone's knocking on the door in the bathroom and you're like, I gotta stop, it's that muscle. And so if you exercise those, like you tense and you relax,

you know, for three hold for three, release for three seconds or five seconds, and you do that for a few minutes a day, that actually will make a huge difference in just a few weeks because for women like after childbirth, well, when you just get older, if you don't have kids, you start to have these in P, you start to run in P, the other amazing thing I want to talk about, oh, this is good that we're on kegels is,

there's this awesome product called Yarlap, and it's Y-A-R-L-A-P, and so many of you have loved this, so I'm bringing it up again. And it is a product that women can use, and you put inside of you, and it actually does your kegels for you, because a lot of us don't do them correctly. And so you can just lie back and put inside of you, and it actually does your kegels for you, because a lot of us don't do them correctly.

And so you can just lie back and put inside of you, and it uses the electrostimulation that it doesn't, you can't really feel it, it's not painful, it's just inside of you, and it's actually stimulating those muscles, and gets the blood flowing in and builds those muscles, so you won't have the urinary incontinence as we call it. It's these and these are easier, but it's called urinary incontinence. That is the medical term for it.

Also, the thing about doing your cagals and strengthening them is that it helps you have stronger orgasms because if you think they're the muscles that are responsible for orgasm, Because if you think they're the muscles that are responsible for it as thinking that like we have so much pressure is women to feel like that something's wrong with us if we're not turned on and always ready for sex that we be or somehow. I mean, honestly, there's some ways that we feel broken because we are compared. And again, this is not I don't I literally think that people don't know this because it's always been this way that we compare like penetrative sex. Like we are told that sex is all about penis going into vagina. And that's the ultimate. We're not only 30% of women are going to have an orgasm that way. They're actually not going to have their most pleasure from that, but that's how we compare it. Because I think that we feel if we're not having pleasurable or satisfying sex in some way, it's because we are not that there's something wrong with us or that we're broken.

We're like, oh, my partners turned on. And I'm not turned on yet. And then we put this, do you guys do this? I do, you put this pressure on yourself. And so then we put pressure on ourselves before it even starts that we're not turned on yet or we weren't like, we're distracted or we're stressed or something else has been going on. And to understand, to give women the permission that when we want to get a rouse or turned

on, that it's a process and that for a lot of women it can take anywhere from like 15 minutes to an hour to be ready to be like, okay, I'm ready. Well, I am mentally aroused, I am physically aroused, I've done all the things I need to do to be ready to be like, okay, I'm ready. Well, I am mentally aroused, I am physically aroused, I've done all the things I need to do to be ready for. And sometimes we got to prepare for it on our own. And that there's just more to think about when you think about the complexity of female desire and arouse all, and that it just can take a while.

And then we start to think that we have a low libido and that we're never in mood for sex or we're somehow broken because we don't understand the process. And this is for women of all ages. That actually to be there and be ready for sex is a process for every single woman to figure out what that looks like. It might be watching porn.

It might be sending sexy texts throughout the day to our partners and be thinking about the sex happening. Like we need the premeditated sex. We need to know sometimes that it's happening. We need to build towards it. And there's no information about this for women. All right, we'll take a quick break.

There'll be more sex with the Emily. Thanks everyone for supporting our sponsors. You know, we only work with sponsors that we enjoy ourselves and I hope you do too. Let's talk to April 39 in California. Hi April. What's going on? Hi. Hi Well, I would just say I guess that my boyfriend I've just kind of had a lot of bigger issues to try and work through like wanting to move to a new place and just working on a relationship and I find that I'm just not as into sex lately and I normally

am really into it but I'm just kind of mad and frustrated with him and feel like the emotional part is getting in the way and I just kind of wondering if there's a way to figure it all out. Yeah, well April this is the thing that we have to honor that it's all normal. I feel like it might normal. And my normal is it's okay, yes. The thing that's the most constant about sex, the most normal thing about our sex drive and our sex life is that it fluctuates over time. That sometimes we're in the mood, sometimes we're not in the mood, we go through periods

where we're feeling very sexual and then long periods where we're not. And also emotionally, if you're having challenges with your boyfriend right now, then that would make sense that, you know, when our brain isn't on board, it's hard for our body to follow. I mean, your question is, how do I get back on board with sex? And I can tell you that. But also, what's going to, do you think you want to be

in this relationship? What's happening? I mean, I definitely want to be in it. And I hope that we can work through staff staff because it's not like, you know, the worst issues compared to say some of my girlfriends, but I just feel like he's not addressing any of the things that are kind of big issues for me. And so that's just making me kind of resentful. And, you know, I keep telling them to spend more time talking about things and like trying to figure it out,

but you just not get it communicating. And I don't know what to do. I just feel flustered. And yeah, well, I hear you. Well, resentment's a big thing. So if you talk about why you're not in the mood, it's because you're having resentments right now. And let me just tell you this,

I'm gonna give it to you straight. If right now he's not considering things that are important to you and doesn't want to talk about it. How long have you guys been together? Cheers. Okay, so let me just tell you this, there's not going to be a time where he all of a sudden decides that he wants to spend a lot more time talking about your issues. That's not going to happen. So just know that, that people don't change much. I don't think that all of a sudden he's going to be like, you know, April, I want you to tell me now, like, let's just take this night and dedicate it to what

is going on with you, because I'm here for you. You're not going to get that, right? But you might get something else. You might get part of that. Just know that this, I just, these shifts don't usually happen the way we expect it, because it's been two years. If you were like two months, I'm like, okay, you're still going to know each other.

But two years, you know, what are the big issues that he doesn't want to talk about right now? I would say it's kind of a few things. So one, I want to talk about our spec life more because it hasn't been as great as it was last couple of months. Okay. I just want to kind of talk more about our relationship and where it's going and where we're going and like goals and life and I just kind of feel like he might be a little bit stuck and just how I feel about that. And you know, I want to move into a different place and we're in a

really seasonal climate so we don't have a lot of windows to like do that kind of stuff. And he has a pet that just drives me crazy and he won't do any training or like resolve any issues there and you know I'm just not down with cleaning up messes all the time and dealing with bad behavior all the time and it's just like kind of embarrassing. Yeah, that's a lot. Okay, so April, can you hear why maybe you don't feel like jumping out of bones right now? I mean, I'm hearing, I mean, really, I mean, you guys live together then, right?

Because you have to deal with the pet. Yeah. So, I mean, the first thing is, I feel like if you had some more security, I mean, what I see is I just read more down. I was like, hey, sex life relationship goals in life than the pets like number four. But I see them as all kind of related, right? Like, you think he's not moving forward in his goals in life and he's not even training.

You say it was a dog or just a pet. I mean, he's not training his pet. Yeah, a dog. He's not training the pet. He's not training himself. Your sex life is not stagnant right now because you don't feel safe and you don't know where it's going. you're 39 years old So like you know in our 20 I love for me in my 20s I said yeah, I got all the time in the world and then I'm like oh Right I actually need to know because if we if it's not working I'm out These are not just the things that are important to you. I think April you want to be with a partner who things these are important to

Who the second the sex life is and great? He wants to talk about it with you. And be like, what can we do? And they want to know we're doing as well. So, yeah, I mean, I could tell you ways that you could get turned on again and what you can do. But I think that these are the things that we got to figure out now,

because you lived together. Do you want to have kids? I'm still like that window is closing quickly. It's already closed, so. Right. Probably more unlikely than not. Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, I mean you're 39. You know, women... And the dogs mean certainly not helping that.

The dog? Yeah. I mean, right, we'll look at the dog. The kids are going to be out of the bedroom, sick. These are really big issues. These are really important things to figure out as an adult, with someone you've been with for two years. Even one of these things, right? Like most people are like, everything's great, but our sex life isn't.

Or everything's great, but I feel like I'm not inspired by my partner because he's not motivated to get a job. Like, but these are all three things. I'm not even including the dog. So my recommendation to you is to say we have to talk about all these things because we got to figure out an answer right now. Is it going to work? Is it not? And I love therapy. Like right now you could get a therapist on Zoom. You could see someone for an hour a week for the next month and have way more answers than you did today. Because I don't think that it doesn't sound like he's someone who's going to be on board

that or you guys are going to be able to figure it out when he doesn't really want to talk about anything. So what really helps is, and I was, you know, I've been with guys too for even shorter about 10 than two years and we went for a few weeks, a few months and we figured it out because it's like a mediator. It's someone's going to help you move the needle and move it along. Because these matter to you and they shouldn't matter to you. It's not just your agenda, it's his agenda too.

It's his life. Right. So could you see it? Could you see it there? I do. I mean, honestly, well, first off, do you have insurance? I do. Okay, awesome.

I mean, a lot of insurance companies right now, you know, for many plans, you get like 10 sessions free or they pay half of it. Psychology today has a good list of therapists. You know, you can search specifically by what you're looking for, like a family therapist or a couple's therapist. And it really, it's a relationship thing. It's like making new friends in a way. You got to see like, do you like this person?

But I don't know. I've been seeing mine on Zoom and that's really easy. So I would find somebody that's covered by your insurance and honestly a basic therapist, they don't do the best one in the world, but they can, I mean, hopefully you find a really good one. But most therapists will help you develop tools so you can learn to communicate with him specifically

and get to the bottom of this if you both want the same things. And if he says no to therapy and no to talking, then call me back. Thank you, April. Thanks for con. Good luck. Appreciate it.

All right. Of course, want to find out more about this book. Check out sexwithamilie.com. We'll be right back. Olivia's 22 in Brooklyn. Hi, Olivia. What's going on? How can I help you? Hi, oh my God. I'm so excited to be on this show. Thank you for having me. Of course. So, have you talked to you? Yeah, so I wanted to talk to you about SSRIs and sex drive, which is something I've experienced a problem with personally. And as a young person who enjoys sex, it has been disappointing, I guess, to say the least,

because I'm also an anxious person, so the SSRI helped that. Yeah, I was just curious, like, if you had any advice on that sort of... Yeah, how to deal with that and how to sustain a sex drive and relationships when you're also dealing with being on medication. Yeah, how long have you been on the medication? I've been honest for a little over a year. Okay, have you talked to your doctor about it at all? I have, I have.

And she suggested other medications. I'm just not sure if I want to add on another medication. Yeah, no, I understand that. See, this is what happens. This one's how you that you're so not alone with this. It's like, you know, I don't know if you went out for depression or anxiety. You're like, I'm too depressed or anxious to have sex. And then you feel like having sex.

And then you are feeling happier, but then you have sex and you can't have an orgasm where you just don't, your libido has been impacted. It's honestly both, but yeah, I can't even make myself orgasm at times, which is like truly like the most that I've been saying through it was three. That is.

So, yeah, I wonder. I mean, so honestly, I was going to say, if you'd been on it, sometimes the side effects go away for some people. There's a few things that happen. Sometimes the side effects go away for some people after a few months. Now, some of it could also be that we are, you know, this happens so much with sex that we think it's, it happened once you couldn't orgasm and And then you're like, oh, I will be able to orgasm and then you continue. You can't say, we hear this from guys

allowed by premature ejaculation, right? That happens once and then every time they have sex they come quickly because they're afraid it's gonna happen. There's a lot to be said for talking to your doctor but seeing what you could do if you reduced it just a tiny bit, but I would not do that without talking to your doctor, because I feel like sometimes they have you reduced it, or they can add something else in.

You could all reduce some of the things I talk about on the show, which is like mindfulness practices, getting out of your head, you know, and because the side effects can't subside for many people, they do. And so you could be, like I don't know how to know if you're caught up

in a pattern right now. What do you do wanna tell me what you're on? Is it like a necessary, like, Prozac is roll off. Yeah. It's Prozac, yeah. Prozac, okay. Yeah, it's like that,

so that is really common. And so I think, and I know this is for many people, and I took it in the past, and it's like I would go down. I think with my, and this was a year ago, but you just sort of, it was a tiny bit of a reduction and it made a difference. And again, still don't know, was it, I think there's something to be said for reducing the

medication and feeling like you've done something different. So was it the placebo effect? You know, it clearly has an impact, but also so much of sex is our mind and our brains when our brains are board for sex, our body will follow. So like, how much time live here? Are you spending in a space where you're like thinking about erotic thoughts or how you want sex to happen or how would your fantasy life? Because there's a lot of that that goes into sex as well. fantasy life because there's a lot of that that goes into sex as well. Right, right. I think sometimes I get what you're talking about like this mind block where it's very easy to, yeah, to forget those processes that lead to an orgasm or lead to being turned on.

Yeah, that's definitely something to remember. I mean, that's what I would recommend. So, you know, did you, you know, also did you try other medications before? Right. No, yeah, I haven't. So, that's definitely something to talk to my doctor about. Yeah. I would talk to your doctor just because I know sometimes it feels like you found something and it works that you don't want to mix it up.

Even though they're all SSRIs, like ProZac and Zola often they're all sort of the same. They impact everybody differently. And so I think that giving up your sex life and your sex drive isn't like, it's something to work for if that's part of it. So I think I would say my prescription for you then would to be kind of practicing thinking about how do I engage my mind erotically?

How do I start to think about other things that turn me on? How do I be more engaged with my partner? When I masturbating, I'm doing something that's more, either it's more presence, it's more mindfulness, it's using your brain, getting turned on, and then also talking to your doctor because that's, you know, those are all the different ways and I want you to continue to have a flourishing sex life.

And that's right, recommend. Of course, thanks for calling. I appreciate it. Yeah, so nice to hear from you. You're right. Colin, my producer here, tell me what's up. Yeah, I just wanted to jump in. I've had the same issues. I got on my doctor prescribed a mix of Xyloft and Lexapro. And it just ran right over my sex drive. Yeah, Xyloft and Lexapro. So you still on both of them? No, no.

And I talked to my doctor and we switched the Lexapro out for Wellbutrin. Yeah, Wellbutrin. What better for me? Game changer. It's true. I was actually going to say that to our caller. Now Amanda is saying this too say that to our caller.

And now Amanda is saying this too, that to Olivia, because she said she didn't want to go on another medication, but would doctors sometimes add his well butrin? Because well butrin is the one anti-depressant that doesn't cause sexual side effects. So are you saying that you went off of the Lexipro, you're still on Zoloft, and then you added the well butrin

and your sex drive came back. Yeah, before the problem, it was like everything. I couldn't get an erection. I had no desire to have sex. Now the hardest thing I deal with, it's sometimes it's hard, and it definitely depends like even, I'll notice like time of day, like how recently I've taken my meds. The only thing I struggle with now is just getting to an orgasm. Sometimes I can't orgasm. Yeah, and you never had that before.

No. No. And this is the kind of thing that you are. I mean, it's interesting they put you on both SSRIs. But it is true that there were years where I tried different things and different medications and it's sort of a process to go to your doctor, but you have to sort of stick with it because I don't think it's worth it to kind of give up your sex drive and your connection and your orgasm. And I also think that sometimes doctors talk about taking like a vacation, dry, this is again, talk to your doctor about this, but you could take a, you know, a little vacation

from your medication or like take it later on the day but you could take a, you know, a little vacation from your medication or like take it later on the day, or earlier in the morning, you know, or miss it, like, take skip a dose when you know, like it's the weekend. And so there's ways you can play with it, but yeah, it feels physical, right? Like you feel like you're getting turned on

and it's just not happening. Yeah, yeah, it's weird. It's such a weird feeling. I'm all, it is. And I'm also wondering though, if there is a way that you could talk to your doctor about taking just like a little bit less, like even like a third less, they can break pills in half.

You can do certain things because that can also really bring your sex drive back. It's just sometimes it's just a little bit too much, and I also think our doses. I was actually just reading this article today about how, and I was going to say this to Olivia, if she's still listening, that the way the lot of these drugs were tested, we do not test them on women. Sometimes women are given the same doses as men, but they're finding that those doses are too much, and that they didn't test it on women because of hormones. And so they don't, we don't want to, you know, disrupt women's hormones, but that's actually

why we metabolize medications differently. And so, you know, it's like one in 10 Americans take an antidepressant. 23% of women in their 40s and 50s take an antidepressant, a higher percentage than any other group. And men say all the time too that this also impacts their sex drive. So I know that if it's something just like everything else, something that you value in your life that you could continue to talk to your doctor about it, and there's always new medications coming out. So I'd recommend that to you, Colin, if it still happens.

There's something in knowing that you're on top of it that could also help you because we don't know, like, nature, nurture, placebo, the medication, but you become wired, unfortunately, so easy. Easily, like, something happens and we're like, this is now my state. So, that's where I recommend. Learning about sexuality is a process, but we're all in this together. I'm always learning, aren't you? We're learning together. Subscribe to Sex with Emily for more sex, dating, and relationship advice.

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