Sex With Emily - You're Not Too Much, You Need the Right Match

Starting point is 00:00:00 Self-love is great, but it's actually in relational love and relational contexts that we grow. It's just kind of like if you have a kid and you put them in a closet, it's terrible. They're not going to grow. We need to be nourished. We need to receive and give love. We need others around us. This is how we're social people. And it doesn't change just because we're adults.

Starting point is 00:00:21 We need to have people around us. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and love. liberate the conversation around sex. On today's episode, I speak with sex therapist Todd Barrett. We get into why we need to stop diagnosing everyone. Spoiler alert, not every person you don't get along with is a narcissist. Among others, we get into all of it. We also talk about how oral sex can make or break your relationship. And finally, Todd shares tips on dating men who don't always know how to connect emotionally and what to do about it. Please rate and review sex with

Starting point is 00:00:55 Emily. Wherever you listen to the show, you can do it right now. It helps get the show out to more people and it only takes you two seconds. So you can do it right now. You can find me in Instagram and YouTube and TikTok and Twitter, Facebook X, all the places. It's all at Sex with Emily. All right, everyone, enjoy this episode. I'm so turned on because women are finally making science work for our pleasure. Let me introduce you to BioLube, the first science-backed intimate care line designed to actually support your vulva's natural defenses. Power bywomen for women. Quick origin story. Cammy and Sary, two best friends, two brilliant bioengineers, kept hearing UTIs are normal and were like, absolutely not. So they spent eight years researching

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Starting point is 00:03:51 to everyone who signs up. You heard that right. Every single one of you wins something. Just click the link in the episode description or head to bbibs.com slash Emily. That's bbvibes.com slash Emily. On today's episode, we're speaking with sex therapist Todd Barrett, who also has an awesome podcast and Instagram with the same name, Diagnonsense. We also talk about why we really need to be interviewing our parents to truly understand how to date better. And my friend Dr. Wednesday Martin and I have fun grilling Todd about what his clients share about their sex lives. And this gets good. I love co-hosting with Wednesday as she's a New York Times bestselling author who's written on topics including female sexuality and popular culture for

Starting point is 00:04:40 major publications like the New York Times, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and Harbors Bazaar. She's an accomplished writer and a sex coach. Find more Wednesday on Instagram at Wednesday Martin PhD. So excited to have Todd Barrett's on the show. I want to start with the title of your book, how to love someone without losing our mind. Forget the fairy tale and get real. Love is crazy making. It's going to make you lose your mind. It's a bit of a bait and switch, but anyone that's ever been in love or had any kind of relationship, it doesn't even matter if it's with an adult partner, family member, a friend. People are going to drive you fucking crazy. And that's because we're all really hard to be with, especially our adult partners.

Starting point is 00:05:19 But listen, this is a funny thing because for me, I'm supposed to be an expert at this. And I found your book really helpful. And one of the things that I found the most helpful was this idea about getting real. What are the most outdated kind of rules and ideas that we have? And how do we get more real about it when it comes to relating and dating and sex? The outdated rules are any of the rules that are coming out of the fairy tale that we've all internalized that, you know, we should find one specific person who's going to fulfill us in all of the certain ways, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, financially, geographically, and that one person is going to be easy and it won't require a lot of work and that there's a certain way to do it and the timing of sex, whether to

Starting point is 00:06:03 have it on the first date or the second date or the third month, all of those roles, all of the shoulds, all of the things lacking nuance and complexity. Okay. So you think we're all walking around thinking like this person has to be my everything. They have to be my lover, my partner, my best friend. They have to be great to travel with, listen to all my problems. my issues, my challenges. And that's what's keeping us. You think that we've just too high of expectations and we're not related to the fact that it can be hard. It is. Exactly. And that we have to love them all the time. I love this idea of letting go of the one. Because for many people, it's going to take many people and then it's going to get even more complicated. But this idea

Starting point is 00:06:39 of the one, I think I was very invested in that my whole life until I started doing this kind of work. Okay. Yeah. And it's hard for people to let go of the idea of the one. It really is. It really is a challenge to think like there's one person that's going to fit. And like, what do you see? Do you feel like you have to talk people off the ledge with that too? Todd a lot in your practice? I mean, I've never believed in the one because I think there's many ones. No, I mean, in doing what I do, I mean, I see individuals and couples and they're constantly getting in and out of relationships. Couples that I'm seeing are breaking up or staying together. Individuals that I'm seeing are writhering in pain from heartbreak. And then six months later, they're meeting somebody new and getting into another

Starting point is 00:07:16 relationship. So the one is just this fairy tale thing. But getting back to the rules thing, there aren't like specific rules. They'll come up and you'll know it when I was with my partner and I was like, he should have texted me. That's a rule thinking that somebody should have texted us. Another rule. I told them and so therefore they should have done it because I told you, you should do it. These rules that we have about the people that we have in our lives, it doesn't matter who it is. It could be our mother. My mother should be checking in on me because that's her role is my mother. All of the, and which, you know, should she, I don't know, I'm an adult. Do I need her to do that anymore? Do I need my boyfriend currently to text me his status every hour? I don't know,

Starting point is 00:07:53 but those are rules that we've all internalized. Then there are more like very specific explicit rules like the one and you should be happy and live happily ever after that I think most of us are knowing is completely bullshit. But the rules are more of these ideas and experiences we have that are more emotions about what our partners should or should not be doing for us. So it's like we should all over our relationship and our partners. Yes. And then the other thing that's so cool about your work is that, I mean, your handle says it all, your diagnostic that you really get into with people on your

Starting point is 00:08:27 IG and in your book about how we do tend to overdiagnose ourselves or be overdiagnosed. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because that really set me free about your work. Yeah. Everything is a self-diagnosis or we're diagnosing other people with something. So like I was saying, you know, my partner is. a problem because he doesn't X, Y, Z. I am a problem because I'm not doing whatever. We have the labels and these shoulds and these ideas of how we believe our lives are supposed to be lived. And when we

Starting point is 00:08:52 don't live up to those ideals, which we don't, or our partners don't because they can't, or our relationships don't because they fundamentally cannot, we tend to label them and we want to be analytical and figure out what the problem is. Totally understandable and reasonable process. But when we think about ourselves, others in relationships, just like the weather, they're going to be filled with disappointment and rain and shittiness, and it's only going to exacerbate the anxiety we feel. That's all hypervigilance and anxiety, anxiety about getting hurt. And we've reframed health, which is really just anxiety. We've reframed anxiety as health, meaning these are the red flags, these are the green flags, these are the things that you should look for. This is how you

Starting point is 00:09:31 analyze the other person to figure out if they're a good match for you. All of that is just basic anxiety about being hurt and experiencing pain. And the hurt and pain that we witnessed, our mothers and our father's experience, and so on and so on. This is intergenerational trauma that we've developed all of these rules and all of this really fancy labels and now everyone's a people pleaser and everyone trauma is trending, which is helpful. But everyone's become so hypervigilant and anxious about either themselves meeting up to these expectations or their partners or their relationships, that we can no longer be present anymore. We can't be present in our relationships or for ourselves. And because of that, we're fundamentally disconnecting,

Starting point is 00:10:09 which I think is a collective defense mechanism to disconnect and to try to distance ourselves from getting hurt, which is reasonable. You mentioned earlier there is that we all of this trauma, we all of this intergenerational trauma that we have to identify and that is part of the therapeutic process and we need to work it through before we can be in a healthy relationship or work it through in the relationship. But can you talk about how we can all go about doing that? Like maybe we diagnose the trauma or I've got this thing that happened, but I don't think a lot of us really understand it and go deep with it.

Starting point is 00:10:39 Yeah, well, you can work through your trauma before, during, or after a relationship, and we do it constantly, whether we're aware of it consciously or not. But everybody has some version of trauma. And I start my book off talking about my mother's trauma because I think it's really important that if we're going to become self-aware, which is really a requirement for relational health, that we understand our parents' traumas and we understand our intergenerational stories. So, you know, I ask questions about what was dating like, what was love like? And I asked what were red flags. And she's like red what's? Because, you know, a lot of this is cultural. And so growing up, she didn't have red flags and toxic narcissists. She was just told to get married. So part of her story was my story that I inherited. And part of my trauma was her trauma. So what we're talking about is developing a deeper sense of self and self-awareness by first connecting with our parents and the people that raised us and our experiences during

Starting point is 00:11:31 childhood. And to use that when those get triggered with our adult partners. But it's fully necessary. and anybody that says they had a normal childhood is either in, you know, extreme denial or is really good at emotional repression. Childhood is fundamentally flawed, and we all have attachment issues. And so the more we can become aware of and self-aware of what those issues are, whether they are highly traumatic or passively traumatic, the more we can show up in our relationships and be present. I love the list of questions just that you have in your book, how to interview your parents,

Starting point is 00:12:06 not interrogate them, but interview them and ask them questions so we could really understand where we came from. You kind of mentioned that that's what you did with your mom. And I think that's such a helpful list for people. Like, I'm going to do it. Todd, one of the things that you really taught me in our friendship was that growth happens in relation to other people. So, and like, that was a real moment for me because I had been told, look in the mirror, validate yourself, meditate, blah, blah, blah. And you were showing me that I could grow in relationships better and faster and more relationships with friends, with my family, with partners.

Starting point is 00:12:42 This was a really cool intervention you make. And at the same time, the term validation is something that you get into a lot. So can you talk about this? Like, how is it that we turn to this thing where we only care about our own opinion of ourselves? I feel like you're suggesting that we've gone too far. the direction of self-validation and self-love. Is that accurate? Yeah, I mean, that's not, and whenever I say something like, you don't need self-love, people really get pissed off because

Starting point is 00:13:13 they want to really invest in the idea that they can control their lives by loving themselves more. Self-love is great, but it's actually in relational love and relational contexts that we grow. It's just kind of like if you have a kid and you put them in a closet, it's terrible, they're not going to grow. We need to be nourished. We need to receive and give love. need others around us. This is how we're social people. And it doesn't change just because we're adults. We need to have people around us. We need to have these new experiences in order to... And that's the relational. Right. That's the relational part. When I talk a lot about in the book is this idea of a corrective emotional experience, which is one example I gave was I was with my

Starting point is 00:13:52 partner. I crashed his car. I was freaking out because I grew up and my father used to punish me if I overflowed the toilet or broke a glass. So I was like, fuck, this is it. He's breaking up with me. I went to the parts store. I literally bought parts for a car, which like, you know me. I can't really do much. And so I was in the garage trying to fix the car convinced he was going to be mad at me. I was like 23.

Starting point is 00:14:14 And he found me doing that. And he like, he pulled me up and kissed me and hugged me and said, what the fuck are you doing? He was like, you know, you can't do anything. Why are you doing this? And I learned, it was a corrective emotional experience. I learned that I could fuck up and still be loved. And I couldn't have learned that by looking in the mirror and saying, you know, deserve love, you're wonderful, you're beautiful.

Starting point is 00:14:33 Look in the mirror and say those things, but we have to have actual experiences in a relational dynamic over and over in order to change some of those core beliefs, mine being, if I fuck up, I'll be punished. And that's not to say that in that one moment, I had this instant revelation that, oh, I can fuck up all the time. I'll still receive a, no, I had to have that throughout our relationship. I had to have that experience with my friends. I had that experience ongoing with my therapist.

Starting point is 00:14:59 You know, again, it wouldn't have happened just by reciting a mantra to myself or by meditating. I needed to have that moment, those moments with people in order to slowly convince myself that, oh, wait, I'm actually, people aren't going to be mad at me if I make a mistake. You broke that down so beautifully. When we say that relationships can be healing, we mean we're repeating something with the difference, it sounds like you're saying. Yeah, they're corrective. Corrective. And this is how our brains grow fundamentally, is we have new experience. experiences, and we change our wiring.

Starting point is 00:15:33 We override and override. We also have to be willing to look at ourselves. Like, that's the part of it. I think that, like, we just mentioned, like, we think, like, narcissism. Well, if I dated a narcissist or I did someone who's toxic or could have it, then I don't have a part in it, right? Because that's the way we're also overriding it. We're like, well, it was all them and we blame others.

Starting point is 00:15:51 I just think you have to be someone who's also, like, self-aware, I'm willing to do the work, right? Like, for example, the people are like, I just keep dating narcissists or I keep dating alcoholics or I keep dating whatever. Well, the thing with that that I find so interesting is that people that are dating narcissists often have a lot of narcissistic personality traits. Not to say they're narcissists, but there are often traits that we can be drawn to. But the whole focus on diagnosing people, again, I think is just a way to try to avoid pain and being hurt. It's also a way to avoid ourselves. If we're focusing on somebody else's problems or what they did to us, we don't

Starting point is 00:16:22 have to focus on what brought us to them. We don't have to focus on the role that we played and participated in the dynamic that we actively are choosing people that are hurting us. And why is that? What is the story behind that? Is it intergenerational? Is it from our childhood? Is it better gender, our identity, or sexual orientation? You know, what's happening here?

Starting point is 00:16:40 And so when people are focusing on others and analyzing and labeling and blah, blah, blah, it's a way of avoiding ourselves. And it's really not helping. But let's move into sex for a second. We're talking a lot about interdational trauma. We're talking about basically our mental health and awareness. What do you see about the relationship between sex and mental health in your philosophy, with your clients, all the things? Well, sex and relational health, I think there's

Starting point is 00:17:02 obviously a huge connection between the two, especially an adult relationship that if it's a monogamous and sexual relationship, that sex is often one of the most, or non-monogamous, or polyamorous, sex is a huge tool and skill for love, giving and receiving. So it's a pretty crucial part of all of our adult partnerships, so long as someone is sexual and their partner is, too. It's a pretty central piece of connection, a piece of giving love, a piece of receiving love, a way that people often feel most loved. It can be a really important part of the experience of relational health or just feeling calm with a partner. So it's pretty huge, which is why I hate so much, which I'm sure you do as well, when people relegate sex to this physical, it's just an orgasm, it doesn't matter, it meant nothing. For most people, it means everything, even if it's with someone that they don't even know.

Starting point is 00:17:55 there's a fuck ton of meaning. So there's so much meaning and information, useful information. It's not just genitals. It's also oxytocin, vasopressin, but it's also emotional. A lot of chemicals, yes. But it's also a lot of feelings. You know, this leads me to something that Todd and I have talked about a lot, which is the challenges for people who date men, whether you're a man or a woman. If you're dating a man, you are more likely to be dealing with. dating a person who has been pretty aggressively socialized away from connection, taught that connection is not masculine or that it's not cool. What are your thoughts about this, Todd, about dating men specifically? I mean, I talk about this in terms of context a lot in the book,

Starting point is 00:18:45 is that the context of our lives, meaning our gender, identity, or sexual orientation is going to shape how we experience our life. It's going to shape how we experience our partners. And their experience is going to shape how we experience them. So that's what you're describing. You're describing the experience that cis men have growing up in a culture that denies and minimizes their ability to feel. And the result of that, which is often disconnection, maybe a lack of communication or a lack of capacity to prioritize that connection. We're not bashing men, no. But med just weren't socialized in an environment where they were, you know, felt free or encouraged to express their feeling.

Starting point is 00:19:24 penalized for it. If you don't have any understanding or curiosity to explore what's happening for them, then you won't be able to make it through any kind of relationship, whether, no matter what the gender person is, in terms of what they're presenting with and how that pisses you off. We have to have some capacity to then pause and say, well, why are they doing this? What's the story for them? Why are they communicating their hurt to me and this way where it seems like they're incompetent? It's not that they're incompetent. It's that they're limited. And it's It's not that they don't want to give us love. It's sometimes that they don't know how, or they never received it themselves.

Starting point is 00:20:00 And so if we don't know that story, then we can't connect. So the real question is, how do we connect better with people who struggle to connect? And that's developing curiosity, managing the emotions that get triggered because it's really annoying and can be really frustrating to have to continuously do emotional labor. So it's about tolerating that, even though, you know, there's probably a lot of tolerating already happening. And being more curious and seeing if when you express that curiosity, if they can reciprocate and share. But in the absence of their ability to share and to develop more understanding than, you know, you're fucked.

Starting point is 00:20:35 It's really about trying to figure out, okay, so what's the capacity that I'm working with here? If I ask questions, if I express curiosity, if I empathize and show compassion and really try to pull this story out of them, can I develop an understanding of who they are and can we connect better? And if not, then, you know, fundamentally you're not going to connect better with them. Right. Because there's some men that obviously won't want to do that work or it won't resonate. Yeah. To be clear, though, I have plenty of people I know of all genders that really struggle to communicate and who are relationally incompetent and frustrate me and piss me off.

Starting point is 00:21:10 No. For sure, though, a lot of men because of their gender and how they were raised, deeply struggle to do the things I know that you're thinking. I want to ask something, make a little pivot while we're talking about gender and sexuality to asking you, Todd, a little bit of a personal question. We had people write in questions, and people are very curious about what it was like for you to grow up gay in the 90s. Gay in the 90s. I grew up in the 90s, but I also grew up with a therapist, Derek, who I still see today. And I was asked questions about my sexuality in a very affirming way.

Starting point is 00:21:48 and it was normalized and it was a very affirming environment. So I was very lucky in that sense, whereas many people grew up without a singular voice that was giving them positive reinforcement of affirmation or safety. But it was really weird. I don't know. I mean, I grew up thinking that I had to grieve my straight life, that I wasn't going to have marriage and children,

Starting point is 00:22:11 the thing that I thought I should have that's only there for me. I didn't think I was going to live past a certain age or have a relationship or, you know, it was a bizarre experience, especially when you compare with what's happening now, things have completely changed. But it was definitely a struggle. I, you know, it was very hard. I mean, when you say that,

Starting point is 00:22:30 interesting that they're expressing curiosity about that. You said it's interesting that they're expressing curiosity? Yeah. Well, I think that it's interesting just to think, you said, because it's different now than it was then, but that's what I wonder, is it? Because if we're still struggling to talk about sex and to talk about our desires and what we want,

Starting point is 00:22:46 I know we're more accepting of people's sexuality and choices, for sure. But when it comes down to it, do you see that there's been a change in the way people are handling it now? Things have definitely changed in terms of queer experience in the 90s, 80s, 70s, and now. In terms of sex, I mean, I think on the surface, things have changed, but that's the surface. Underneath it is decades of sexual oppression and fear and anxiety and horrible, phobic things based on gender and just terribleness. So, you know, we could say there are memes and sex toys everywhere and Instagram accounts about sex positivity everywhere, but we all still have this horrible sexual shame internalized and sex negativity and sexphobic values. So things have changed, but unfortunately it takes a lot longer for those values to change internally for everyone.

Starting point is 00:23:38 Yeah, and I think some of us might think, oh, well, I'm not gay, that doesn't have to do with me or I don't need to be a sex positive. person that has nothing to do with me, but in the current environment, everybody has skin in this game. And so it's nice to hear you reminisce about that during pride. Isn't it cool how Todd permits you to reframe, go from what you're not liking in your partner to what you like and want? It makes me feel very grown up. Yeah, exactly, because you talk a lot about we're all focusing around what we don't like. It's true. And how do we focus on what we do want? Yeah. I mean, the thing is that I'm saying all of these things and I talk to my clients about it and I've written about it. But also, you know, it's another thing to actually do that and experience it and shift the way you think about things. And that's why I share my story with my ex and that's why the title is the title. Because, you know, we can collect information and insight from here until tomorrow. And no matter how much we know about ourselves, we're still going to struggle. We're still going to have, we're still going to suffer. our partners are still going to disappoint us,

Starting point is 00:24:45 no matter how therapies and communicative they are. And it's still going to be really hard, which is why I thought it was really important for me to include my story in the book, because there's a lot of people talking about relationships or just life in general. And then others assume that because I'm saying these things that it's not a problem for me.

Starting point is 00:25:06 But it's been a huge problem for me, and I suffered so much. And knowing these things hasn't really... I mean, it's, of course, made my suffering a lot less. But they're normalizing the fact that we're all going to be suffering and it's okay. Yeah, it's kind of, we're all going to have challenges. Yes. Why do we give you some questions?

Starting point is 00:25:24 Because we got some good questions from people, Todd, that people have questions for you. But here's one actually about texting adjacent. We're seeing each other often and sending messages daily, but it's not turning into a relationship. What do I do? So this is that whole thing about situationships, people living in this gray area. Yeah, I mean, the thing that I find interesting about these questions, a lot of these questions is they're describing what the other person is doing and not what they want. So I'm assuming they want a relationship. I'm assuming they want, what do they want to know? Do you want to be dating this person? Do you want to be in relationship? Do you want to marry them? What do you want? I think it's the first step for them, which it sounds like they want to be formally dating them. And then they have to talk to the person about it. Oh, this is the most radical intervention that Emily Morse and Todd Barrett's made in my life. Are you ready? Ready? Wednesday, Martin. Why does my husband do this? Why does he, he, blah, blah, and then Emily and Todd, why don't you ask him? What? No, because then I can't be in a position of self-righteousness. Right. Why don't you just have a talk about that? That is so crazy. So many people are so afraid to be direct. I've been married to Joel for 24 years, but I need to be reminded. We'll just ask him. Don't make up stories, right? Exactly. Before we go up, because as we said, and this is what you talk about is,

Starting point is 00:26:42 that we are using that to avoid feeling our own feelings. But you'd be righteous, but like, no, you've got to talk to them. Right. These are all conversations. I know you said, I hate to come to communication, but a lot of it is, right? Like, where are we? What are we doing? And understanding what prevents communication.

Starting point is 00:26:55 So like Wednesday, you're not thinking about just asking, well, what within your history. I mean, knowing your parents, I know why you don't ask. You know, because if you did ask, you weren't going to get it and you'd probably get something worse. So, you know, it's something that, you know, there's a lot of meaning as to why we don't communicate too. So we have to communicate and we have to understand why we're not communicating. And it's such a radical act for people to just ask a partner or a person they're dating.

Starting point is 00:27:20 Hey, what are you thinking? People act like its weakness. It's not its strength. And also, if your partner is asking you to do something, fucking just do it. Like, seriously, if your partner is mustering up the courage to ask you to fulfill their needs so long as it's not like moving a mountain, just do it. Like, I don't, I see these couples and they're like bargaining about basically. basic needs. And it's like, what would you lose if you just did the thing? It's wild to me. That is wild. What's one of the things that comes to mind?

Starting point is 00:27:52 Text me. Like if you like text, someone wants to be texted more or receive more physical affection is another one. Just give your fucking partner a hug. Just hug them. Yeah. It's hard for some people. I tell people like, put it a reminder on your phone. If you can't remember to hug them when you go from work, like put something every day. I come home at five. because I was talking about like people's language, like, oh, my partner really needs touch. And I was like, well, then when you come home every day, you get in the house, like, because sometimes we need to be reminded of things. Sex. Have sex. In terms of asking for what you want and setting a reminder, a lot of times we hear from women saying,

Starting point is 00:28:27 my partner goes down on me, I go down on my partner and my partner doesn't reciprocate. Just give us a- Well, if they want reciprocation, that's a problem. Give us a comment. Well, what's the rest of the question? My partner doesn't reciprocate. I really want to receive oral sex. I think that's the question.

Starting point is 00:28:43 That's the question. I've encountered this in a variety of different versions with clients. And my first question is always, how have you survived without receiving whatever it is that you're saying you want? Like people that are married for 20 years and they don't get any affection. And they say, I need affection. I need it so much. And it's like, how have you gone 20 years?

Starting point is 00:29:03 Or couples who haven't had sex in years and like, how are you managing this? But anyways, oral sex should be reciprocated if you want it. Absolutely. I think that's a good rule. There aren't that many rules about sex and relationships. But like if somebody is performing oral sex. Reciprocality is important. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:29:23 You go opportunity. It's very important. Yeah. If I bring you water, you bring me water. If I go down on you, you go down on me. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, really, that was one of my first interventions with a boyfriend, like years ago.

Starting point is 00:29:35 When I first started this show, probably so 20 years ago, I was like, what part of going, because I would ask him and he wasn't doing it, I had to be very clear, like, what part of going, you know, I was like, do you, are you not into it? Is it not your thing? Do you not, do you need more feedback for me? Do you think I don't like it? And he was like, yeah, it's just not my thing. I was like, well, you're not my thing. But it is important to talk about it, truly. It wasn't his thing. He wasn't into the going down on the vagina, on the vulva. But the thing is, is now that was so early on that now I would have asked more questions. I think I was happy to get the relationship done with at the point because there were other issues.

Starting point is 00:30:10 But now I'm like, well, what is it about the vulva that you don't like going down on? You would ask. But at that time, I just, not then I was like, oh, what a great way to, why we should break up. I agree. I bet the reason why he didn't like it was because he didn't know how and he felt too ashamed to ask how to do it. Yeah, I think so too. And I hope you work that out. When I see a gay guy and he's like, I don't like sucking dick.

Starting point is 00:30:30 I'm like, how are you gay and you don't like to suck dick? Yeah. That happens, right? you're like that seems how are you straight and you don't want to have a vagina and a vulva and a clit in your face we'll be right back with todd barrett's after a short word from our sponsors don't go away i have a question for you about sex if you're gay or straight like do you see different questions come up with sex? Like, would you say that they're pretty similar or different?

Starting point is 00:31:08 I mean, as I'm sure you know, the biggest issue is desire that people deal with is in relationships. But are you asking for differences in similarities? Yep. Yeah. I always think it's like a lot of it is similar, truly. It's the same. I think so, too.

Starting point is 00:31:26 I'm like, it is literally the same. It's just about the parts, right? Yeah, the only difference is that anal sex can be a little bit more. complicated, less easy access, and there's more timing and preparation necessary. But beyond that, it's pretty similar. We're talking about how to love someone without losing your mind. And it seems like texting is a place where people really lose their minds, behavior, sexual stuff, not being reciprocated. And then also, I think people really lose their mind over discrepant desire. Todd, what do you advise, you know, when you're working with a couple or an individual?

Starting point is 00:32:03 and there's discrepant desire. Wouldn't it be great if you were in a relationship and you both wanted sex at the same time for the same duration, at the same intensity and frequency? Wouldn't that be so great? I think at the beginning of the relationship, it can be like that.

Starting point is 00:32:21 And then after a while, it just the differences really start to show up. But it's so hard. Again, requires a lot of communication and also understanding if there are any things that are actively contributing to whatever decline in desire one or both partners are having, whether that's a relational dynamic, this is what I love you, talk about in your book, Emily, the pillars to go through those pillars with each other

Starting point is 00:32:46 to see if there's anything that's a barrier to desire. And Emily's list is really fun too. You're basically saying why are we calling it discrepant desire? Just call it two or more people trying to be in that. sexual relationship. Well, that's part of the fairy tale, too. It's like, oh, we should be finding somebody who like, you said want sex at the same time that I do,

Starting point is 00:33:08 the same kind of sex at the same time of day, same amount of times per week. And a simultaneous orgasm. Yeah. None of that is real. None of that exists. It doesn't. I honestly think, though, like if you could find a partner

Starting point is 00:33:19 who always wanted sex at the same time you did and you had it regularly, I don't think people would have problems. Right, exactly. But we're also saying that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. Spiler. None of this exists.

Starting point is 00:33:31 All this stuff that we want is a challenge. This is another thing you guys both say all the time. You're always telling people, and so I've started telling my clients, isn't it amazing that you're a grown up now? Like, you're a grown up. When you were little, you had to lose your mind when you loved someone when you were little. You had no power, but now you're a grown up and you have power. How do your clients respond when you tell them that, Todd?

Starting point is 00:33:57 Because it blew my mind. Yeah, I mean, well, it takes some time, but I think it's a big. relief for people to know that they, you know, the power, you're talking about the powerlessness of childhood and the powerfulness of adulthood. And it's really empowering to know that we have a lot more control and safety just by being inside our bodies as adults than we did as kids. It's a really big deal. It has a huge impact that can be really freeing, especially when it comes to sex. And the good news for this person is since they don't know, it sounds like they don't know what would give them their sparkle, is they can try literally absolutely fucking everything

Starting point is 00:34:26 and see what gives them the most sparkle. Yeah. This is the time in your life to find What gave you sparkles past? What may give you sparkle now? Yeah. Get inside your comfort zone. Do things differently. Check out hormones. Get your sparkle on.

Starting point is 00:34:39 Get your sparkle on. Get your sparkle on. You're so sparkling. You're sparkly too, Emily. And so is Todd. We're all pretty sparkly here, I must say. Todd, Todd Barrett. So I got to ask you the five quickie questions.

Starting point is 00:34:52 We ask all of our guests. Biggest turn on. Humor. Yeah, I just. Oh, humor's the biggest turn on. Okay, second question. What's your biggest turn off? A lack of texting.

Starting point is 00:35:04 Disinterest. Ambivalence. Diffidence. Yeah. What makes good sex? Verbal. Being verbal. Being really verbal.

Starting point is 00:35:16 Yeah. And what's something you would tell your younger self about sex and relationships? Try more things. What's the number one thing you wish everyone knew about sex? Try more things. Use more Lou. Try more things and use more Lou. I'm with you.

Starting point is 00:35:37 Okay, Todd, congrats on your book. Tell us where people can find you. Thank you. The book, all the things. You guys, this book will blow your mind. Yeah. Yeah, and then you'll lose it. Find me at your Diagnonsense on Instagram.

Starting point is 00:35:48 I love how authentic and real and inspiring you are in this book. And I think that people are really going to see a lot of themselves in this book. And you're really going to be able to help them with it with your words. I love it. I think you did such a beautiful job on it. And it's very insight. You're just insightful and inspiring. And no bullshit.

Starting point is 00:36:07 And no bullshit. No bullshit. No frigid bullshit. And we love that about you. And I think that's why everything you do resonates to people because it's, it is what we need to hear right now. And it's counterintuitive. It's you're making those really simplistic messages on social media.

Starting point is 00:36:23 You're adding the nuance that we need. You're adding the context. You're getting us to think. So thank you, Todd. I love you. Thanks for being able. I'm so excited. Thank you for saying all those sweet things.

Starting point is 00:36:34 Thank you for having me on your show. Bye the book, everybody. How to love someone without losing your mind. Yay. Yay. We all need that. Woohoo. Such a fun interview with Todd.

Starting point is 00:36:49 And now we're going to talk about what my turn-ons are in this episode with my producer, Falgany-Lacani Adams. Fagany, let's talk about this episode. Let's do it. This isn't, like, my fun part of the whole episode. I love getting your insight about the whole time I'm watching you do an episode. I'm like, I wonder what's going on inside her head as, like, points come up because I know this is the kind of stuff that you, like, live for. So tell me, tell me, what were your turn-ons from this episode?

Starting point is 00:37:13 I love that his idea, because you know his whole Instagram diagnosed, it's all very, like, counterintuitive to what everyone else is talking about. And I love that he says, you know, not everyone is a narcissist. Just because you don't like their behavior or they weren't that kind to you. you don't have to label everybody. So I love that notion because you do keep hearing on. He's a narcissist. We're just throwing these terms around without a lot of information about what that actually means. I'm with you.

Starting point is 00:37:40 I feel like at least once a week, I feel like one of my friends is like, oh, that guy's a jerk because he was a total narcissist. And I'm guilty of it. I'm guilty of calling people narcissists when I don't like them. To Todd's point, people who are thrown around everyone's a narcissist might have narcissistic tendencies themselves. But I also want to say that narcissism is a specific. spectrum. So we probably all have this spark of narcissism, if you will, that we want to be loved and cherished and adored. And who doesn't want that? So it presents a little bit differently

Starting point is 00:38:10 and everybody. It's been given a bad rap. It has been given a bad. Use your narcissism for good and not for evil. I love that, Emily. I'm going to start using that. That's amazing. Okay, I have some thoughts on what I thought you'd get turned on by, but I want to hear what, yeah. Okay, so I like that one, like basically the takeaway from this episode is that we're throwing a bunch of labels around and we can all, you know, you can take information, maybe, but you can watch TikTok, you can talk to all the, you know, TikTok therapists and all the things. However, take it all in, but everything is bio-individual. So our relationship is unlike anyone else's. And we have our own experiences that we come to the table with. So, well, you might be educating yourself in all these terms. It doesn't mean it necessarily

Starting point is 00:38:54 applies to you and we should all take a look at our own situation. because two people's relationship is unlike anyone else's relationship. So I think that is the takeaway and why I loved him, you know, pointing that out. And that's why I really enjoy his work. So, okay, another turn on for me. You know I love this stuff. I think that we, it is our duty as humans to examine our past and our childhood. We're not saying that it's all disaster.

Starting point is 00:39:22 You're not criticizing your parents. But there was a lot of information in the way we grew up. and the patterning that is dictating how you are living today. It's dictating how you choose your friends and your lovers and the way you behave and a lot of stuff that we struggle with can be found in that blueprint of our childhood. I have to tell you, the second he said family generational history, I saw your eyes light up. You were like, yes, let's get into that. I mean, what is it? You are eternally fascinated by it.

Starting point is 00:39:52 What is it about it? And like, have you done that work a little bit? Absolutely. I mean, I think that the work that I've done around understanding my own trauma and my own upbringing has allowed me to be more compassionate and connected to members of my family. It's so easy when you start doing the work, in quotes, and saying, oh, my father was a narcissist and my mom didn't love me or she abandoned me or all these things. And that's fine. I think it's good. These are the layers of therapy and of knowing your history is understanding where you came from. But then going a little bit deeper, we talked about this. in his book as well and on the show that he gives people these tools like interview your parents understand where they came from understand what their upbringing was like so then you can have more compassion and more empathy for the people in your life who are just you know living out the patterns that they grew up under so for me it allowed me to have connections to people in my family without having just anger around things being like okay for example my mom had challenging

Starting point is 00:40:51 situations of her own with her parents and her grandparents and with anyone in my life I want to understand my friend's history. I want to understand my partner's history because then I understand that they are acting out from a place that was really generational, lived in their body. It was in the cells of our bodies. So to me, I light up because it allows me and the work I've done, and I think for others, if they're stuck to connect with people that we deeply love and that we want in our lives, or even people that we don't want in our lives anymore by understanding people's personal history and where they came from. It allows us to connect deeper and more authentically in our lives. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. I will say sometimes when I hear about that,

Starting point is 00:41:33 my knee-jerk reaction is fear. When I think about like having to analyze my familial history because my parents had an arranged marriage. So that's not like my ideal relationship. It worked for them. They were together for 50 plus years. But like I think that that's why when I hear that I'm like my eyes closed your eyes light up and mine are like oh gosh you know do I really want you know what is and then I go to a place of like what was I doing to feel loved you know what what did I do as a child so that I could feel loved by my parents like I don't know why my brain goes there well it's interesting so going back to the arranged marriage thing you said it's fear or is it shame like I wish that because that's not the norm that's definitely cultural for you

Starting point is 00:42:21 Do you think it's something around like, that's not normal? Other people's parents weren't arranged. And maybe that could be a deeper childhood thing, but you felt like I'm not like everyone else? Yes, it was. I actually always wish that I had the dad who would drive me in my date to something. You know, like I wish I had the dad who would be like the person taking everybody to prom, you know, but I had to hide my relationships from my dad.

Starting point is 00:42:44 I was not allowed to date at all. And it's interesting to see the patterns come up in my house where my son is dating. someone, you know, dating loosely. I mean, he's 13. But he tells us everything about it. But he's dating someone who is not allowed to date. And so it's like coming up from me where I'm like, he's like, oh, it's a racial thing. And I was like, no, son. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. My parents didn't have anything against anybody. I just wasn't allowed to do it. And so, yeah, I think it is a shame thing. It's a like, but they were successful in their own right. That's what I find fascinating, right? There's, I mean, I think that we underestimate how important and how successful

Starting point is 00:43:25 you should look at love. Like, if you can sustain love, that is a success story. And I don't think that our society actually really values that the way they should, you know? Absolutely. No, thank you for sharing that because it's like, and the reason why I said shame is because I heard you don't want to look at it. So I was trying to get to that. The reason why I light up is because I know how hard it is to look at the stuff, but then that is the challenge. And I'm not saying this is you because you are. I have a lot of depth and wisdom. Well, we talk about in the episode about connecting with men,

Starting point is 00:43:54 that the challenge around connecting to people who haven't really connected to themselves. And again, this is not all men. In fact, I know many, many women like this too, all genders where I love when Wednesday said, it's really hard to have relationships with people who are aggressively socialized against connection. And so we use in the context of men. But again, there's so many people like this that if we take the man example, the example of men, many men were told, fuck up, don't cry, don't show emotions, don't be inquisitive, don't be compassionate, don't open up. That is not a very manly thing to do. And so when we struggle to connect with people in our lives who were told are modeled, even if men were not directly told, it's society.

Starting point is 00:44:44 society is expecting men to be the strong, mighty force that is just taking care of everything and again, that could show up that way or you were just, your parents did not model for you a loving, and again, this is most parents, I think, at least of our generation, did not know how to allow children to fully express emotions and feelings on the entire spectrum, anger, fear, sadness, even joy sometimes. Modern parents like yourself, I'm sure you, I know that you parent this way because you are a very wise, intuitive parent and loving parent. But we learn now that takes 90 seconds to experience any emotion. I mean, look at a toddler crying. You see them. If you let them fully go through the tears of something, maybe it's,

Starting point is 00:45:35 it is 90 seconds or two minutes. They're crying. I want a snack. I want something. And then they switch to something else. But a lot of us are walking. around in these little bodies, you know, as little children and full on adult bodies who never fully learned that it was okay to feel everything. And that once we feel everything, it's so healing and curative to live a more thoughtful life. So if we find people in our lives, whether it's friendships or lovers or family, where we feel like, what is it? I can't quite get there with person. And I think it's missing because they did not learn and it wasn't modeled to them to fully express emotions. And usually it's because we don't feel safe and we don't feel that

Starting point is 00:46:17 it's okay and accepted and we don't have experience. And everything is a skill set. Learning to express your emotions and your feelings is a practice for so many of us. And so I love just highlighting that the wisdom to a lot of this can be found going back into our family history. I love that, Emily. You know what I will say, too? The word safe comes up a lot when we talk about these things. And I agree with you. But I also think that we do live in a society that when you try to make that connection or when you're trying to go there with somebody, it is viewed as intensity. And that is what I think needs a reframe. Because, you know, people are like, oh, that person was so intense. They were just like really trying to connect. And it's like, no, maybe it's because you are not meeting them where they need to be. And maybe we need to say to ourselves, listen, this is where I am. I falgony, I like to connect with someone. I want a meaningful, fulfilling relationship with you. Because you know what?

Starting point is 00:47:16 I've done the work. I've been doing the work. And even when it's shameful or fearful or all of the things, I still am doing the work, meet me where I'm at. And we can have a really wonderful, connected relationship. And I just think that there's a lot of that too. I hear it a lot. I hear it a lot from my friends who are trying to date, where they're like,

Starting point is 00:47:35 am I just too much? Am I like guacamole just too much? You know, like that there's a whole meme around like an avocado saying, you know, I'm not guacamole. I'm not too much. And like that's what my, you know, my friends say that. They're like, I just feel like these guys think I'm too much. I'm too intense. And it's like, no, you're not.

Starting point is 00:47:53 You're okay. It's just that you need to be with someone. There's nothing wrong with that guy either, by the way. Right. You just need someone who can meet you where you need to be met. Yeah. I love that the word intensity that sometimes. we are too much for people and that's because they don't have even the nervous system

Starting point is 00:48:10 or the experience taking in someone else's authenticity because they are so shut down to who they are. And the other thing we cover in this episode is that that's okay. Like not everybody has to be that either. And I don't think you're necessarily going to change people unless they want to do the work on themselves. And so sometimes we're going out with people and we're waiting or we're hoping that they'll all of a sudden get what we're trying to do. Like, no, I want to know about your childhood or your feelings. If somebody isn't in the practice of saying, you know what that made me feel or this hurt my feelings or, you know, this thing happened or willing to be vulnerable. We're also talking about vulnerability.

Starting point is 00:48:51 And I think that being willing to express our deep emotions and feelings and experiences of life is being vulnerable. And that's how you have connection. And that's why we always loved hanging out, Falgadisness, the moment we met. Because we get into it. We're like, let's go. We get into it. We don't ever like skip a beat on that. We have fun too.

Starting point is 00:49:10 That's the thing. You can have lightness. You can have lightness in a relationship along with depth, right? I mean, there's always dark and light. And I mean, the dualities are beautiful and the, you know, the layers. And I love layers. I love layers too. All the layers.

Starting point is 00:49:24 I want every layer. I mean, I think depth is sexy. You think it's a turn on. It's a turn on. Depth is a total turn on. In reflection, what would you? say you want to expand on more like we can't get to everything in an hour right well we kind of covered it briefly when I said what is the connection between mental health and sex and and

Starting point is 00:49:47 we sort of talked about briefly about how sex isn't just about genitals sex isn't just about penetration and I think it's important to expand on what we meant by that was that a lot of times we think we put sex as something we're craving and we want we act to like it's a workout. Like it's something we're just going to cross up the list and now we've done the sex thing and now we can move on to something else. But to emphasize the fact that a lot of times when we are craving sex, we really want connection.

Starting point is 00:50:15 We want intimacy. We want vulnerability. You might be thinking, like, I really want sex right now because that's going to feel good and it will. But sometimes you can have sex people and it's just sex. You feel lonely. You feel detached. You don't feel connected.

Starting point is 00:50:26 And so I think for a lot of times all this emphasis that we put on sex and people have mismatched libidos and all these. these things, desire discrepancy. All that is true and important. But if you go a few levels deeper, it's really we want connection, touch, intimacy. We want to be seen, heard, loved as we truly are. That's beautiful. I am turned on by this conversation. For real. Like, I think that even when I share little tidbits that you may not know about my life, like you just heard for the first time about my parents having an arranged marriage, you're like, lean in. Tell me more. I saw that. You're like, let's see. You're like, let's see.

Starting point is 00:51:03 turn off the mics and let's get into this. But, you know, there's a lot. There's a lot there. Is there something that you heard in the interview that has given you pause? Like really made you think, like, oh my gosh, I just can't stop thinking about this thought or notion. I think what I loved is that notion of how do we connect with people who aren't raised to connect? And so we have to learn with these people in our lives to give in the benefit of the doubt, be compassionate, be curious, it in a loving way, try to see if people can open up, but if they can't, they just might not be your person. And that's okay too to walk away from somebody or maybe less in the connection you have with them and say, well, maybe they'll just be my casual friend or my casual

Starting point is 00:51:49 partner, but not try to force everybody to be like you are, like I am. Like, not everybody's going to find depth super like a turn on. And like, that's okay. And I guess kind of getting out of my own way and thinking, like, loving people of who they are and how they show up, not everybody's going to do this work. And I think that that's just, I keep thinking about that. That was really powerful. I liked it too. And I like that you raised it right now because I think I think about it more often than I realize. Like, I feel like I have a pattern where if someone, if I'm not connecting with someone, I'm really trying to connect with them. Like, I'm like, what can I do to connect with them? Because I don't get it. I just don't get it. And by the way,

Starting point is 00:52:29 that might have to do with my familial pattern because my dad was a very stoic man. And so I was probably always trying to penetrate that wall of like, hey, dad, hey dad, like, loosen up, lighten up, dad, loosen up, hug me, hug me, you know? And so maybe that's where that comes from. But the truth is that, yeah, I don't need to connect with everybody. And everybody doesn't need to connect with me. But that comes with age, right, also sometimes. And that comes with doing the work and, you know what, facing the hardship and facing those hard relationships that didn't work.

Starting point is 00:52:59 work make you make you stronger and understand yourself better too absolutely see that's exactly what it is falcony i think that what i find to be the sweet spot of life and the biggest joy of life is getting to know myself and others like continuing to say like you know what you're never really done doing the work and i think every time i find a new way to connect to somebody or a new way to understand myself it just gives allows me to have more joy deeper friendships um and just sort of find more people and places and things that are truly turn-ons in life and that I see it as like removing blocks that help me back like I love understanding the human mind the brain psychology and why it all works so that's exactly it's like it's um and it's freeing to say

Starting point is 00:53:47 it's okay if not everyone's going to be here on this journey with me but this is where I'm at so that's the that those are the people and that you know I want to be part of my life in a meaningful way and it's okay if everyone can. I send everybody love. I love that. In a small way, you remind me of my dad right now, and I'll tell you how. He would always say, the world is a big place. Like, don't basically sweat these other things.

Starting point is 00:54:11 Like, the world is a big place. It's expansive. You can meet another person who will connect with you. So don't worry about the person that you're not connecting with, you know, which I love. And then my mom would say, with every goodbye you learn. And that's also true. With every goodbye you learn, you have very wise parents. makes sense. Look at you, girl.

Starting point is 00:54:31 I always learn from you. We learn from each other. It's really wonderful. Okay, well, thank you so much for your friendship and producing this incredible episode. Thank you for sharing your turn-ons. Yeah, I love it. Everybody always wants to hear your turn-ons. I am so turned on by Hot Depth. Ooh, I like that.

Starting point is 00:54:55 That's it for today's episode. so much for listening to Sex with Emily. And if you love this show, please like, subscribe, and leave a review wherever you get your podcast. And hey, share this with a friend or a partner. It might just spark something. It usually does. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and X. It's all at Sex with Emily. Oh, and I've been told I give really good email. So sign up at Sex Withemly.com for free guides and articles and more ways to prioritize your pleasure. Thank you.

Sex With Emily - You're Not Too Much, You Need the Right Match

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