The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 19 - This Is Why Your Sex Life Sucks: Kate Moyle

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Talking about sex can often be an uncomfortable conversation for most of us, especially if it includes discussing our issues in the bedroom. This is why I decided to fire all of the taboo questions we all want to know the answers to at Kate Moyle, a Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist and host of The Sexual Wellness Sessions Podcast. Episode 73 - https://g2ul0.app.link/zstxzWwVOib Kate: https://www.instagram.com/katemoyletherapy/ https://www.katemoyle.co.uk/

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all of you that listen to this show let's continue this is probably the most you know popular question i'm sure you get which is like how do you keep it fresh what advice would you give me to keep my sex life with a partner i've been with for x amount of years still fresh exciting and uh yeah exploratory um yeah i think it's it's the question everyone wants the answer um it's about, I suppose, first thing, acknowledging that it might be different

to how it used to be. So again, one of the biggest hurdles people can get kind of tripped over on is it's not the same as it used to be or it changed. Now, why does that mean it's worse? Actually, perhaps the quality of the sex that people might be having might be better because they know each other better they understand each

other's bodies better they feel more in tune with each other so it's understanding that you might be in a different phase or stage and that's okay it doesn't have to be you know that famous phrase the honeymoon period that kind of everybody quotes or goes back to so I think that is one thing and I think actually kind of carving out the time and the space and the effort and not seeing that as a bad thing not seeing that as problematic that we have to be a bit more conscious of that part of our relationships is a huge huge factor because what the kind of common narrative we see in like society I suppose is if I have to make an effort for this then there must be something wrong with that because sex should be spontaneous should be something that just

happened that's what it says in the movies which is part of the problem right because that's one of the most easily accessible visual versions of sex that we have we don't see into other people's sex lives in the same way now what we do see is social media or pictures of couples or images of couples or and we make assumptions about them super naive question but I'm sure it's one of the most popular questions you get asked, which is like, is there a healthy amount of times for a couple to have sex per week or whatever? And, you know, one would assume that changes over time, right?

Because I think, I know, just judging by my relationships, we start like fucking energizer bunny rabbits and then, you know, life happensizer bunny rabbits and then you know life happens but is there you know and i hate these questions because that again they're so like un-nuanced and so like narrow but is there an average amount of times that couples you would you know if you had to answer this question and not swerve it in this for the sake of nuance what would the answer be i would like to know what you think the answer is i think again context like i'm going to go

into nuance in here but context matters like if you live on opposite sides of the world then obviously there's there's barriers but if you're living in the same if you're cohabiting living in the same house i think like at least twice a week you know once in the weekend Tuesday I don't know but where okay so where do you think um that idea of twice a week would comes from just looking at my schedule where can I find time probably like once in the week and then on the weekends i have a bit more time so um yeah but i mean it obviously changes over time i feel like i'd probably have sex every night but if i you know but just energy levels and yeah what's the answer then so someone i um interviewed talked about the amount of sex we have as a red herring so the kind of regularity

of sex doesn't determine like the satisfaction of it or the kind of pleasure of it or the enjoyment of it and I think what it feels like we've been trying to do is find an objective way of measuring sex so it's this idea of okay well we're all trying to find the answer to sex like how to be good at sex like what that looks like how to know where we pitch ourselves against everyone else and regularity is one of the only kind of objective measures we have of that so it's the one that we kind of all lean into or we want to know the answer to whereas what I would say is I don't think we do have an idea of i don't know what kind of modern like surveys say there's a big survey that's done um

kind of every few years but i haven't actually seen the results of that one yet but what about the monkeys how often do they do i feel like they were like 99 i haven't asked them what are the orangutans doing um i haven't got a clue okay i need to find out maybe your next guest yeah but i think that the the thing is is working out again and what it what we're looking for is a measure of like how we're doing yeah by knowing that um answer and i think one of the things is for some couples it might be as you said they might kind of work in different countries it might be every time they see each other they have great sex and that's enough like that's works for them for other couples it might be we have sex once a

month and it's really good you know we're both enjoying ourselves and we feel like our needs are met great for other people it might be once a week you know I think it's about determining like what your normal is or what your what is right for you but again the kind of worries and anxieties and stresses come from a we're not having enough sex why is that yeah you know is it because my partner is no longer attracted to me that tends to be the first thing people go to and what's going on um is it because our relationship isn't working is it when we don't have a clear kind of obvious because my partner is no longer attracted to me. That tends to be the first thing people go to. What's going on? Is it because our relationship isn't working? When we don't have a clear, obvious answer,

like we've just had a baby, for example. So there's the assumptions that go with that. Why has sex changed? What's going on? But also the, well, everyone else is having sex once a week, and we're having sex once a month. So we must have a problem. There must be something wrong with us. What is the single biggest killer of relationships in the modern age in 2021 in your view? If you had to say this one thing is the biggest killer of relationships, what would it be?

Unrealistic expectations. the single the biggest killer of relationships what would it be unrealistic expectations one of the big problems you you talked about it earlier this idea of like what we see in the movies so we're like oh that's what it's like so then when it's not like that we're disappointed our partner fails us they haven't our expectations. They haven't met all of our needs. You know, we talk about this idea, lots of relationship experts talk about this idea of how we shouldn't expect one person, our partner, to meet every single one of our needs. But we do. And so they're kind of doomed to fail then in that way. So how do we change that? How do we start to kind of like open that up how do we you know we have other relationships in our lives we have family we have friends we have colleagues

you know we need to start to think about like how we can do that for ourselves and then our we work with our partners to create something together and lastly just a wrap sort of loop around from the from the start what are the if you were to say that there were there were similarities in couples that do enjoy great sexual relationship just principles top line principles what are those sort of key distilled top line principles um such a big question communication yeah is like top of the tree and i think i think it's top of the tree and i think it's the one that people don't want to hear because it's less actionable and it's quite

scary yeah exactly it's like in a way i think talking about it is the hardest thing to do and but it is you know any relationship kind of expert any expert in sexual kind of well-being health space will say to you like communication is that and then it's like okay but how do I yeah do that and you know we talk about these communication exercises things like kind of speaking from your own position so like I say so there's a place called the Gottman Institute and they have you know done so much research on couples but it's this ownership like my feelings are I'm feeling my perspective is because actually what you're not saying to your partner is you yeah it's not blame it's not blame exactly so I think that the communication part unlike positive communication is a big part of that but it's that break away from assumption it's that breakaway from assumption. It's like clarification on

assumption. Assumption is what trips us up so much of the time because we're mind reading. We think we know what our partner is going to say before they say it, so we don't even give them a chance.