The Liz Moody Podcast - How To Create Your Dream Sex Life, Have More Orgasms, Give Amazing Oral, & More With Vanessa and Xander Marin

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

This couple shares all the intimate details of their own lives so you can learn exactly how to have the best sex life ever.  an argument for lackluster sex exactly where to start when trying to spice things up in the bedroom why everything we learned about what men want in bed is wrong how to initiate sex without feeling embarrassed the the top 2 oral sex tips you need to hear right now (for men & women)  how to give the best hand job ever  what to do if your sex drive doesn’t match up with your partner’s the two different types of sex drives + how to identify which you have how to create excitement & intimacy outside of sex  actionable ways to build chemistry with your partner  how to actually have more fun (& more orgasms) in bed  what you should do TODAY to have your best possible sex life and so much more!   For more from Vanessa and Xander, visit sextalksbooks.com and get their brand new book Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life.  To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. This episode is sponsored by: Thrive Market: go to thrivemarket.com/healthiertogether to join Thrive Market today and get 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift.  Seed: go to seed.com/daily-synbiotic and use code LIZMOODY for 15% off your first month. Pique: go to piquelife.com/LIZMOODY and use code LIZMOODY for 15% off plus free shipping FOR LIFE on Pique’s Radiant Skin Duo. Nutrafol: go to nutrafol.com and use code HEALTHIERTOGETHER for $15 off your first month’s subscription, plus free shipping on every order.  Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're getting tips for successfully asking for a raise, figuring out the secrets to longevity, or uncovering research-backed ways to literally become smarter. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. I am so excited to welcome Vanessa and Zander Marin to today's

episode. You may remember Vanessa from our NSFW sex Q&A episode from November 2021 when we got into the five causes of low libido plus exactly how to fix each one, getting over shame around sex and more. It's one of our most popular episodes and one of my personal favorite. So I am so excited to bring Vanessa back to the pod and this time she is joined by her lovely, lovely husband, Zander. Vanessa is a licensed psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience in the sex therapy field, and she and Zander work together to spread real honest sex advice with the world through their podcast, pillow talks, and in their brand new book that just came out this week, sex talks. Their perspective is so unique. Hearing advice from a couple that can offer both

perspectives of a relationship is really different and eye-opening, and they are so honest, and they are so open. I cannot wait for you to hear their advice. We really go there. Some topics that we get into are an argument for lackluster sex, exactly where to start when trying to spice things up in the bedroom, why everything we learned about what men want in bed is wrong and it is hurting our sex lives, how to initiate sex without feeling embarrassed or afraid of rejection, the top two oral sex tips that you need to hear right now for men and for women, how to give the best hand job ever, what to do if your sex drive doesn't match up with your partners, the two different types of sex drives, plus how to identify which one you have, how to create excitement and intimacy

outside of sex, actionable ways to build chemistry with your partner, how to actually have more fun and more orgasms in bed, what you should do today to have your best possible sex life and so much more. We would all love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening to the episode to definitely screenshot and tag me. I'm at Liz Moody. and Vanessa and Zander, they are at Vanessa and Zander. Zander is with an X, X-A-N-D-E-R on Instagram. We also have a really fun giveaway for this episode that I know you will love.

So stay tuned till the end to find out exactly how to enter. If something resonates with you or you learn something new from the episode, which you definitely will, I learned so much from this one. Please share it. This episode would be an incredible one to share with your partner or your friends or anyone that you want to start a conversation about sex with. so shoot them a link and chat about your takeaways over dinner. I cannot thank you all enough for continuing to share the podcast.

It's absolutely the best way to help support the show, and I massively appreciate every single person who shares it in any possible way. And don't forget, if you are new here, make sure that you're following the podcast wherever you listen, so you never miss out on an episode. You're just going to go to the main podcast page that lists all of the episodes, and you'll see the word follow under the logo on Spotify, or a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that.

same page on Apple Podcast. So hit that follow button. And then all of the new episodes will show up in your feed so that you never miss out on one. Okay. Let's get right into it with Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm so excited to have you guys here. I was just telling you before we got on.

I am obsessed with your book. First of all, I saw the cover a while ago and I was obsessed with the covers. The coolest cover I've seen. It's very catchy and beautiful. But then when I dove into the content, it is fun to read. It is informational. It's packed with stuff I've never seen anywhere before. And I feel like we've been talking about sex for a while, but you answered all of the questions that I didn't even know I had.

So congratulations on producing an amazing piece of content. Thank you so much, Liz. I value your opinion so highly. So that is a really, really huge compliment coming from you. So let's get into some of the stuff you talk about in the book. I love how open you guys are. Like you're so open to the book. You're so open on your podcast.

There's literally a passage in the book where Xander goes into the reality of your sex life. and he talks about a time you had sex where Vanessa wasn't that wet and Zander wasn't that hard. And I would love for you guys to first speak to whether you ever get the vulnerability hangover or you get uncomfortable or how you get over the embarrassment of talking about stuff like this. Oh, for sure, we get vulnerability hangovers. The whole book has given me a vulnerability hangover. We share so many personal stories in the book. But for us, what we really keep coming back to is we recognize the value in having these kinds of conversations and the value of being vulnerable. And we know in reading the book, we're asking

the reader to do some vulnerable stuff, to talk about some things you may have never talked about before. So we wanted to take the lead, set the example, and show you guys that we're in this with you too. And also that we don't have a perfect sex life either. That's okay. Yeah, we definitely don't. I feel so much more comfortable sharing and being vulnerable when we hear back from people telling us how good that makes them feel to see that we have the same problems as they do and how helpful it was to hear us talk about our challenges and how that gave them the confidence to go and initiate a conversation with their partner or try something new in the bedroom. I eased myself into being really vulnerable alongside Vanessa in this business. And I couldn't do it without the

support of our community and all of their positive feedback. One of the things that I loved about that passage, which you touched on, is it starts to dispel the myth that there is like a perfect sex life. I think when people meet you, they're like, if anybody is just having literally the ideal time in the bedroom, it must be you too. Can you speak to how the myth of perfectionism in the bedroom actually harms our sex lives? I think it really comes from how we see sex portrayed in movies. and on TV, we could all script out one of those sex scenes. They're so predictable. You know the couple

just gives each other the look and it's on and they run into the bedroom and it's 10 seconds of rolling around and soft lighting and everybody's had an orgasm and you're so satisfied. We're rational adults. We can understand, okay, the movies and TV, that's not always what real life looks like. But when we see that exact same scene repeated over and over and over again, it's impossible. not to internalize it and to feel like that's what my sex life is supposed to look like. And then on top of all of that, I think it's so easy for us with such a sensitive subject to immediately go to feeling like something is wrong with us, something is broken if our sex life doesn't look that way. That was another part of why we wanted to be so vulnerable and share, yeah, we have great sex.

We've come a long way. We've learned so much about ourselves and each other. And we've also been together for 15 years. We have sex on a random Tuesday night. that feels kind of lackluster and like, okay, well, we got it done, but wasn't our best effort. And that's okay. So we want to lower that bar of perfectionism that so many of us have and say, yes, you can get better. And it's okay to have those moments where things feel a little off. Do you think that lackluster sex has a place in a relationship? Do you think it's a good thing? Or do you think it's just good to acknowledge that all sex isn't going to be mind-blowing? That's a good question. I think there is. I'm going to make an argument.

argument for lackluster sex in a relationship, I think what it can contribute to a relationship is a sense of momentum, a sense of inertia. So if we put this pressure on ourselves that every time has to be a home run, knockout of the park, we're going to feel ourselves less interested, less excited about having sex because there's so much pressure. And if we make a little bit of space for, yeah, it's okay if sometimes it's totally serviceable, it's fine, that still gives us that sense of momentum. We're continuing to be submit with each other. We're keeping that inertia going. And it prevents us from getting into a dry spell. We've found good old inertia from high school physics. An object at rest stays at rest. An object in motion stays in motion. That applies to your sex life. So I think that when we're having more

regular sex, it just feels easier to keep having it more regularly. Now, I will say if you're finding that sex always feels lackluster or almost always, it feels like you would like it to be less lackluster more often, then that's a great sign that there are some things to work on when it comes to perhaps your desire, when it comes to the type of pleasure that you're feeling during sex. And that's exactly what we go through in our book is trying to identify what are the things that are really going to supercharge your connection, your desire, make sure that both partners really understand how pleasure really works for each person so that each person is going to be enjoying sex as much as possible. So there's a lot of things you can do to make sex better than lackluster.

But I agree with Vanessa. There's absolutely a place for some degree of lackluster sex. It happens. Sometimes I think it's going to be really great on track to have a great orgasm. And then it's just not great. And that's just what happens with our bodies sometimes. You can't do anything about that. It's so funny that you even say that because I think there's a conception that a lot of people have that if men have a orgasm, that it is always kind of the same. If he ejaculates that it's the same, whereas women have this idea, well, I had a great orgasm. I had a fine orgasm, like it was a passable orgasm. Can you speak to that? I can just tell you straight up, at least for me, it is not always the same. There can be some

really big differences in the power of the orgasm for men. What we do know in terms of research on orgasm is that I think women have so many more nerve endings. They are capable of having much larger and longer orgasms than men are. So that's where some men think she's having like a two or three times bigger orgasm than I am. So mine are kind of always the same. The more that we get comfortable talking about sex, the more that we have sex and try new things. Men are absolutely capable of having some pretty epic orgasms. This kind of fits into this idea that we have that women's sexuality is so much more complicated and men's sexuality is very simple. You hear that in so many different ways. Men are easy and women are hard. But I think it's important for us to recognize

that there's a huge spectrum of male sexuality too. Sometimes the orgasm is like he can't speak for minutes afterwards. Sometimes it's like, okay, cool, that was fun. But, you know, not one of the best. That idea that it's kind of always the same for men, it does play into the idea that for men, sex is just an itch that needs to be scratched. A lot of men can really believe that too. It's just this thing that I need on the side kind of in order for everything else in my life to be okay. But reality is it's totally connected to everything else in your life. It's connected to the connection you're feeling with your partner, your overall well-being. Are you happy at work? Is your body feeling good? Are you physically fit? It's so intertwined with all these things. It's so much more

than just an itch that needs to be scratched when we as men or just society in general put guys in this box of, oh, they just need to get off. That ends up hurting all of us. Obviously, your book is jam-packed with tips to not have as lackluster sex or to have lacklester sex less often. Can you give us one of your favorites? One of our favorites is trying new things in the bedroom. And this is advice that we've all heard before. It's not anything new. But the problem is a lot of us get performance anxiety about that. We might spring the question on our partner in the moment. Oh, let's try something new.

What do you want to try? And we freak out like, oh, I don't know. I don't know what to do. So we keep just doing the same old things that we're doing, even though we're feeling bored by that routine. And that performance pressure, too. It's like, I don't want to try something new and maybe it won't go great. And so I just keep myself doing the same thing.

Or I'm not sure if I'm going to like it. So maybe it's better to not suggest it. What we did in the book is we have this exercise where we give you a massive list of possible new things that you can try in the bedroom together. Because we've just found it so much easier to choose options from a menu than have to come up with something out of the blue. So I think that's just a great thing for couples to take a look at. When was the last time you walked into a restaurant and the chef walks up to you? Like, all right, you got 10 seconds to tell me exactly what you want. I'm not going to tell you what's on the menu.

I'm not going to tell you what ingredients we have. but if you want to eat, you got to give me your selection right now. That would be crazy. I'd freeze up and be like, I don't know what I want. And that's exactly what happens in the bedroom when we ask that question. I know from experience, that question has been sprung on me before. I for sure froze up. I felt ashamed like, oh my God, I'm a guy. I'm supposed to want sex all the time. I'm supposed to want all these wild and kinky things. And now I can't even think of something to ask for. Something must be wrong with me. It's so much easier to order off a menu. I love the idea. two of starting with the list that you have in your book and then adding to it over time.

Like as you hear something on a podcast or you see something in a movie or your friend talks about something at dinner and just having this ongoing list of options. Is there anything that you guys really like from the list for your personal sex life? One of our favorite things is really experimenting with different positions. And this is another area where I think a lot of us trip ourselves up. We think about a new position and we think I've got to be hanging from the rafters and I'm upside down and in this pretzel. There are always so many weird positions online too. But we really like seeing how different we can make a position just by making a subtle adjustment to it. If we change the

placement of where one of our limbs are, or we move over onto one hip or like shift the way that our weight is, we often get surprised by like, whoa, we just made this tiny little adjustment, but it feels completely different. It's maybe not even a different position. This weird comparison. If someone were looking at you, they wouldn't think that you're doing a different position, but the weight is a little different. But don't worry, no one is actually looking at you. Just such a subtle adjustment or adjust the angle very slightly. And it can be really shocking how different the experience can be for each partner.

And it's funny to hear Vanessa say, we like to experiment with different positions because when I hear her say that, I think we're going through the Kama Sutra book and doing all these acrobatic things. But that really couldn't be further from what that experience is like for us. you can try all kinds of things without it actually looking like that image in your head of like, oh, she's upside down. She's upside down and I'm like twisted in and not. It occurs to me even as we're talking about this, that I feel like when we're trying

new positions or we're trying all these new things, we're expecting those things to be better by default than the things that we're doing. We're like, oh, this new position needs to technically give me more pleasure. But what we're talking about is that the trying of something new, bringing the novelty in is what is bringing you a lot of that pleasure. So the thing you're doing doesn't even technically need to be better, quote unquote, than the other things. And I think that can lead to a lot of disinterest and experimentation because you're like,

oh, the thing that I'm doing is good. Why would I mess it up? But actually just the novelty says, I want to try something new. I'm interested in making sex as fun and spicy as possible. I feel like the novelty in itself is sort of what we're seeking. And that novelty is what research has shown really lights our brains. up. We get so excited when we're trying new things. And so if we can approach it as it's not that every single thing needs to be better than the last thing, but rather, I'm curious, what's this

going to feel like? And some of our most bonding and intimate moments in the bedroom have been when we've tried something new. And it went wrong. We didn't like the position or someone farted in it or we fell or something like that. Recognizing we can experience that intimacy and that connection regardless of how something goes. But also in the book, we call it our first pancake rule. When we make pancakes, the first one is just always kind of weird. And you don't know why. But we turn that into a little rule in the book of a way to lower expectations when you're trying something new. And you can have this joke between the two of you. It's our first pancake. We're just tossing this one out. It's not going to count. But let's give ourselves permission to see how it goes.

I love that. Does anything embarrass you guys anymore? Like you just said somebody farts in the bedroom. Are you guys so evolved that that doesn't matter to you? Whatever, it's totally fine. Vanessa hates it when I fart. I hate it when Xanderfards. I have farted in front of him like less than 10 times and 15 years. We still very much get embarrassed by things. And I think that's a part of the vulnerability that we want to share too. Another example that comes up is I still will feel vulnerable initiating sex with him sometimes. It doesn't happen all the time anymore. I've gained a lot of confidence, but there's still that random moment where I'm thinking, oh, gosh, I want to have sex, but I don't think he's really in the mood and I don't really want to be turned down.

And I don't really want to put myself out there and try to do this super sexy initiation. It's just a normal thing. No matter how long you've been with someone, there are always going to be ways that you feel shy and awkward and embarrassed. And that's okay. Do you have any tips for that? Because I think that's really common, especially because of this societal notion, like Xander was talking about men,

should want to have sex all the time. And if he wanted to have sex with you, he would be jumping you. And because men should want to have sex all the time, quote unquote, that you should feel really crappy. It must be you if they're rejecting you. And that makes it so scary to put yourself out there in that way. How do we get over that feeling? We have to recognize that that's going to be a part of our sex lives. A lot of people want to know, how do I prevent myself from feeling rejected? And this is a question that makes sense. Who enjoys being rejected? It's a deeply painful experience. I'm back on the playground in elementary school being picked last for kickball. It's just had that visceral feeling. But one thing that we talk about in the book is that rejection is always going to be a part of your sex life.

No matter how close you get, no matter how similar your sex drives or your desires or interests might be, there are always going to be times where one of you is in the mood and the other is not. You're just two different people. It's going to happen. And so we need to normalize it and to expect that it is going to be there. And then we need to talk about strategies for softening it in the moment. So a super practical thing that we teach in the book is if you're going to turn down sex in the moment, share with your partner a reason why you're not feeling open to it. And you want to connect it to that you feel the desire to be intimate and close with your partner, but there's something that's getting in the way of that. So for example, let's say Xander initiates, I could say something like,

I really appreciate that you initiated. I have a horrible stomach ache right now. And it's so distracting. I'm not going to be able to be present with you in the way that I want to. So can we look at another time or something like that? So I'm making it clear to him. I'm turning down sex in this moment for this reason, but I'm not turning down you. And if you're able to in that moment, and this totally depends on the circumstance. Is there something else that you can offer in that moment? Hey, my stomach really hurts. How do you feel about lying together on the couch right now and cuddling or something? I'm up for that. How do you feel about making me some ginger tea? Yeah, and rubbing my belly. We think about initiating and we think of sex, and especially for male, female couples,

our brains go immediately to there has to be some P&V intercourse. And that can often feel like a very high bar, especially if you weren't feeling it in the moment. So if we put more options on the menu where it's not just this black and white intercourse or nothing, it's okay, maybe I'm not open to intercourse, but I could make out with you, I could cuddle on the couch with you, I could talk dirty to you while you masturbate. There are lots of other ways that we can connect. It doesn't have to be intercourse. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I am so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys.

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you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitopier gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. And how are you preempting this conversation? If you're the one initiating and let's say you're the one who's read the book who has all these tools. And then your partner's just like, NABRA, how do you get your partner on board with this style of communication? We know that couples are going to be on really different timelines with the book. There's almost always one partner in a relationship who's that one taking the lead, looking at Instagram posts and listening to podcasts, picking up our book. So we really wanted to structure the book to give them resources for getting their partner slowly engaged in the process.

That's really why we picked acknowledgement as the first conversation. The mistake that a lot of couples make is they wait until there's some big problem or issue with their sex life and then they start talking about it. And it becomes a massive fight. And the partners thinks, I don't want to talk about sex. This is a dangerous and scary topic. Instead, we want to help couples ease their way into these conversations and just get comfortable with the topic of sex.

That acknowledgement conversation, it's not about making requests, making requests, making complaints, trying to solve any sort of problems. It's literally just about introducing the topic of sex as a topic of conversation. A super practical way to get started with that, it would be just share with your partner one of your favorite sexual memories with them. Remember that time, we went on that trip, that hotel we were staying at. You're not trying to do anything with the conversation. You're just trying to get comfortable talking about it and building this positive foundation of talking about sex. If you are somebody who finds the idea of talking about sex at all, just deeply embarrassing, what should you do? Take some time to identify where did that come from?

So we believe none of us were born feeling ashamed or embarrassed of sex at all. We were taught to be. And it's important for us to take a look at where did those messages come from. But looking back at your life and thinking, okay, what did TV and the movies tell me? What did my parents directly or indirectly tell me? What did my friends say about it? My religion or my culture that I grew up in. What kind of messages did I get about sex? It's this process of separating ourselves from those beliefs and recognizing I was taught to feel these things. When you're able to identify where those beliefs came from, it helps take some of their power away from you. For most of us, at least most of us in the United States, we have the experience of having a very awkward talk

from our parents when we were somewhere in the teenage years. And for most people, that was an extremely embarrassing, perhaps shameful conversation. What we saw from that is like, well, my parents are probably not very comfortable talking about sex with each other. They're certainly not comfortable talking about it with me. this must be a scary topic. This isn't something that's really safe to ask questions about or really dig into, even though every teenager has so many questions about sex. So of course, you end up carrying that energy into the rest of your life, into the rest of your relationships.

If you feel that coming up really strongly, one reframe that can help you get over the hump a bit is think about what would I want my kids to think about sex? How would I want the talk to be received by my kids, would I want it to go different than the one I received? Hopefully the answer is yes. And hopefully that gives you some motivation to figure out how you can get a little more comfortable. And if you keep running up against a wall with your partner, I don't mean to harp on this, but it is the interesting thing about sex is that it is two people. So you can feel like you have one person who's like, oh, I want to share this sex memory. I'm working through my shame and processing what I learned about sex.

And the other partner can be like, it's not that deep or this is silly. Why are you spending your time on this or something like that? Do you have any tips for bringing your partner to the page that you're on? I can resonate with this because this is what we went through at the beginning of our relationship. We started off hot and heavy, life caught up. And our sex life was really suffering. And I was the first person saying, I want us to work on this. I want us to fix it.

can we go to therapy? And Zander was really not on board for a long time. And it was very painful for me feeling like, I want to do this work. And I'm already kind of annoyed that I'm the one having to initiate it. And now you're not even on board with it. So I resonate with that and I can definitely sympathize with that. Sometimes it really is just a matter of time. I had been thinking about it for months before I even initiated that first conversation with him. So I had all this time that I had been working through it in my head. And similarly, somebody who's picked up the book, maybe they've been looking for something like this for months or even years. So sometimes it's just giving your partner a little bit of time to catch up. And sometimes it's you being willing

to do the work first, even if your partner's not on board. And it's not fair by any means. Of course, we all want our partner to be on board immediately and doing the same level of effort. But that's how relationships are sometimes, that there's one person that has to take the least. And there's one person who has to say, I want to do this with you. I'm going to do it without you, though, too. And you're going to watch me and you're going to see the ways that I get more comfortable and more confident with myself. I'm going to keep bringing things up with you and sharing what I'm learning and what I want you to know. And I just have to have that hope and faith that you're going to get on board with me. What I will say in the chapters for each of the five conversations in the book,

we do cover conversational pitfalls. For each chapter we have navigating conversational pitfalls where Vanessa lists out all the things that she has seen in her own experience facilitating these conversations with couples of where things can go wrong, where a partner might push back, and ways that you can address that, ways that you can try to make a reframe or introduce the conversation in a different way. The reality is, is that very often you're going to have to make a couple adjustments. It's not going to go in the perfect order that we lay it out in. And so it's really important for us to be able to try to preempt as many of those concerns or issues as possible.

Zander, I want to know what got you over the line. What made you comfortable having those conversations and wanting to have them with Vanessa? Yeah, that's a really good question. It was a learning process for me. It was very confronting for me to hear her saying the things that, I knew we're true. I knew we weren't having very much sex. I was so busy with work. I wasn't in a very good place with my health. I wasn't very happy. I knew all that was going on, but you don't want to admit it. You just want to think, hey, you know, after I finish this project, everything is

going to be better. Or next month, things are going to go back to normal. Why can't it just be like it was those first couple months that we were together where everything felt so natural and normal. It was hard for me to hear her voicing out loud, those things that I knew to be true subconsciously. And I didn't really want to have to admit that my way wasn't really working. But what Vanessa said about needing there to be some time for the other person to get on board, that was absolutely true for me. I'm not proud. I didn't respond super well the first couple times she asked me to work on things with her. But it did sink in. And I did start to realize this is the reality of the situation

that we're in. My sex drive is not very high. I'm not as happy as I would like to be. I'm struggling with work. It feels like our relationship is starting to struggle. And I have a choice to make. I can either continue down the path that we're on. I might have to accept the fact that this relationship will end because I'm not willing to make any changes or I can try to make some changes and see what happens. Once I started looking at it in that context, the choice was really clear. Well, I don't want this relationship to end. I love her. I'm so happy with her. So why not try? What do I really have to lose? It just took me time to get around to that. It really may take some time, but I think it's so important that they are able to hear the other partner's experience, which is, this is really

important to me. I'm getting started with this. I'm doing this with you or without you. And I hope we don't end up so far away that we can't bridge that gap anymore. Is there anything she could have said at the time that would have gotten you in that headspace sooner? No, that's a really good question. If she had been able to walk me through all the ways that I had been conditioned in our society and especially as a man to believe certain things about my own sexuality and how sex is supposed to work and how my sex drive is supposed to work, I think that would

have been super helpful. The reality is that it's not all about me and my sex drive and how much of a man I am. I've learned all these lessons from society, from movies and TV. If we had been able to have that conversation more effectively then, I think that would have really helped. I'm a big fan of playing a podcast out loud when the person that you want to hear it is new back. Oh, yeah. This is a great one. And be like, oh, babe, I didn't know you were in the other room. Like, you happen to hear this. So interesting. I think it's a very effective strategy. I want to speak to one pitfall, which I think is similar to what you were discussing, Zander, but can we address the pitfall of wanting to improve your sex life, reading like a critique of

your current sex life? I hear that so commonly amongst my friends, some pragmatic tools that we can use to approach this so that it doesn't feel like we're offending the other person or hurting their feelings. Whenever we think of. about talking to our partner about our sex life, most of us go to this very negative place in our heads. And we're picturing the conversation as if we were telling our partner, you suck at sex and you have to get better at it or we're going to break up. The reality is that is not the only way to initiate these conversations. And obviously, if that was the way you initiated the conversation, it would not go well. But we talk in the book about positively pleasurable

feedback, especially at the beginning when you're asking for things from your partner or giving them feedback to couch it in something positive that they're already doing well. Give your partner lots of compliments about your sex life. Like, I love our sex life. Oh my gosh, the sex that we've been having lately has been amazing. Our connection is so special. I just can't help but wonder what are we even capable of. So it's not about let's work on our sex life. Don't use the phrase work on our sex life because that sounds like work. But if you talk more about that potential that the two of you guys have, it's so amazing already. Another way to even frame it is it's so good and I want it to be this good for the rest of our lives together. Then that makes it feel fun and exciting rather than

something that needs to be fixed. And another thing I would throw out there specifically for the men in male-female relationships, because I think this is really important is guys get this idea that they're supposed to be really good at sex, regardless of how much experience they have. The way to be a real man is, do you want it all the time? You know how to please your partner without ever needing to ask them from the very first time. It's just magic. You give her the best orgasm ever, you know, like with no hands or with your penis. This is true for everyone, regardless of gender, but it's very true for women. There is no one thing that works for all women. There is no cheat code.

There is no secret like, oh, well, I'm the only one in the world that really knows if I do these three things in order, she'll have an orgasm in 30 seconds. That doesn't exist. And not only that, but every woman's body is different. What is going to work for one partner is not going to work for another partner. If we can help men reset their expectations where it really doesn't matter how much experience you have, it doesn't matter how many people you've had sex with, how many women you've made orgasms. or not because everything you know from the past, it very likely doesn't apply to the person you're with now. So that can be a way to prompt a guy to think, let's just reset.

Let's just start from zero and come at it with an open mind. Like, okay, well, what is going to work for you? I know this thing worked in the past for someone else, but who cares? That person isn't you. That's a really helpful way for guys. We just need to kind of be beat over the head with it a bit that it's like, sorry, dude. It doesn't matter what worked in the pads. It doesn't matter how many people you did it with.

It doesn't matter at all. What matters is what she likes. Play that part out loud. Yeah, on repeat. If you have a male partner. Even like if you picture the sex in the city brunch after you've gotten laid the night before and it's like, oh, were they good in bed? And I actually think literally the notion that somebody is objectively good in bed is not

true because it is such a subjective experience. Like you said, it's subjective based on your partner. But even your partner, what I want in bed now is drastically different than what I wanted in bed five years ago or even 10 years ago. But I've been with Zach the whole time. So he's figuring out and he needs to be learning all the time in the same way that I need to be learning all the time. Yeah, there is no objective good in bed. I mean, we would all love to get a gold star A plus and being good in bed. Certified A plus in bed.

There just is no objective truth to that. It's so partner dependent and what we like. changes over time and even moment to moment. Zander could show up in a certain way during sex one night and I think that is smoking hot. I'm so turned on by this. It's bringing me so much pleasure. And then the next night we could have sex and I could feel like I'm not really in the mood for this kind of sex. Like this isn't working for me. That's why communication is so important, us normalizing, talking about sex, talking about what we want, talking about what we're feeling in that moment because that allows us to make those kinds of adjustments and to grow with each

other rather than just, okay, I've got my moves locked and loaded and I'm never changing them up. That all said, can you give us one great tip for giving a great blowjob and one great tip for giving oral sex to Volva? My tip for a blowjob is to use your hand as much as possible. So many people get in their heads thinking a blowjob means it's just my mouth. I like to think with a blowjob, your mouth is creating the wetness, but your hand is what's creating the pressure. If you use them in tandem, that can feel amazing.

You want to wrap your hand around the shaft of the penis. And imagine you're like gluing your hand to your lip so that you're creating like this unending experience or your partner. This is also a great tip for people. If your jaw starts to get sore, I mean, let's be honest, you're just using your mouth. Your jaw is going to get sore in 10 seconds. If you focus more on creating that pressure with your hand, you can free up your jaw to not be working as hard. So you can just focus on the head of the penis.

The classic like go-to move is just moving up and down on the shaft with your hand and your mouth moving at the same time. And if you want to get a little fancy, you can throw in a little flick of the wrist as you're going up and down too. Following on that, this is the perfect segue. This applies for either a blowjob or a hand job. Don't be too concerned about the amount of pressure you're using with your hand. I think that when you are doing something to someone else, we tend to be overly sensitive to pressure. We think it feels like I'm pushing really hard or it feels like I'm squeezing really hard where

you're not getting any of that feedback back. You can't feel the thing that you're squeezing. I'm going to say, I think women go too gently on men. Men sometimes can be a little too aggressive on women. Yes, true. We can save that for, you know, for the next tip. But yeah, don't just jump in, like, squeeze as hard as you can, but check in with your partner like, hey, do you like this pressure or do you like that pressure? And I think it can be helpful to just remember that very often he might like it a lot tighter than you think, you might think it's going to hurt him, but give some different pressures a try.

And then for going down on a woman, one of the most consistent pieces of a difference, advice we hear from women is that they love the tease of oral sex almost as much, if not more so, than the actual tongue-on clitoris contact. Whereas a lot of men tend to prefer that you go straight for the penis. A lot of women and vulva owners like you to work your way up to it. So a lot of kissing and licking along the thighs where the thighs like kind of meet the labia. And then even when you're on the labia, long, slow licks back from the vaginal. opening up to where the clitoris is, using your tongue along the whole area, very slowly, putting your tongue inside where the two lips meet, going really, really slowly and teasing,

and you want her to really be, like, begging you to start licking and kissing her clitoris. Once that happens, once she is begging for you to be licking the clit, I think that a key for, especially for men to remember, but for anyone who's doing the licking, is that once you find a good stroke or good pressure to stay consistent. When she says, don't stop, she literally means do not stop anything that you are doing. Don't go faster. Don't go slower. Don't go harder. Don't go softer. That women typically need a lot of consistency in whatever the stimulation is that she's getting in order to reach orgasm. Because especially for men, they hear, don't stop. They get excited. And then they go, okay, well, harder and faster, that would make me come faster.

And so it for sure is going to make her come faster, right? And the problem is you go a little harder, you go a little faster. And it's like you reset everything. It's like you're back to the ground floor. You've got to go all the way back up the elevator again. I think that should be your next book. And it should just be that written, like over and over and over. Just like keep doing the same thing.

If men could internalize that most women just want you to keep doing the same thing, like they need that in a different way. And I think it's a very under internalized thing. I want to go back to something Vanessa said, Zander, do you not care about kissing up your thighs and that kind of teasing type stuff? Is that not of interest to you? No. I love how you're considering it.

It is enjoyable. Be honest with that. I guess I was like, go to the dick. Yeah, he's like, get started. Go to the dick. I've done it before. Like, I've tried to be all slow and sexy and seductive. And he's like, it's tickling a little bit.

Yeah, true. The one exception to that is she's going to blindfold me and like tie me to the bed or something. Then it's like, okay, we're doing the whole sensory deprivation and teasing. Even then you would still want me to go straight for it. Yeah. But I'd still, yeah, but you know. That's interesting information because I do think that. a lot of women are like, well, if I like this, then they might like this too. And the same way you're

saying with the men, with the pressure, they're like, I want hard and fierce pressure on my dick, so I'm going to just go straight in for that with my partner. And I think it's interesting to internalize that. Yeah. Of course, everybody is different. In general, we've definitely heard the vast majority of men say, like, just go straight for the penis. And the vast majority of women say, no, I like the tease. I like to go slow. You could tease the penis. Just make it about the penis, please. I want to know that it's going to happen. I want to know that it's going to happen. Once you're there, you could start slow there and kind of teasing.

I could fill out the pressure, so to speak. Okay, I want to get into some of these listener questions because a lot of people were very interested in what you do on your whole platform. So if you're interested in this, definitely go listen to their podcast, read their book. But I think it's such a unique and cool thing that you both share both of your takes on all of these types of subjects. So I asked for some listener questions or challenges, and I would love both of your takes on them if you are down. Yes. Let's do it. Let's see if we agree.

Okay. I want my partner to want me more. I'm a female and he's male and I feel like I have the larger sex life, but I don't want to always initiate. I want him to want me advice. I think it's interesting the female having the larger sex drive, but also I think this is a common problem with the initiation thing. I don't want to initiate. I just want to be so irresistible that they want to jump my bones. all the time. How do we address that? First, I just want to say it is very normal to be in a male-female

relationship where the woman is the one that has a higher sex drive. We pulled our audience about this, and we found 47 percent of people said that in their relationship, the woman is the one that has the higher sex drive. But we just never talk about this. It goes back to what Zander was saying about all this messaging that we receive about male sexuality. So I want to throw that statistic out there so people understand it's totally normal. We've had seasons. of our relationship where I've had the higher sex drive. When it comes to being wanted, we all want to feel wanted. Of course, that's totally normal. But I think sometimes we can get into these trouble zones because we want our partner to do all of the work of the initiation. It's like,

well, I just want you to want me and you to initiate. And we don't want to take on that vulnerability on our own because initiating is very vulnerable, especially when you're doing it. correctly. For so many of us, unfortunately, in long-term relationships, initiation turns into like, you want to do it tonight? It's been a while. I guess we should, huh? In reality, initiation should feel like an invitation, like something exciting. So we go through in sex talks ways to initiate that are going to feel more enticing, but it's really important for both partners to be willing to have that vulnerability, to initiate in these really sexy ways with each other, instead of of just sitting back and hoping, like, I want my partner to do it.

Like, when are they going to do it? This really brings me back to early on when we were really struggling. Because that question really described the dynamic between us for a while. What this makes me think of is the sex drive types. There's actually two types of sex drive. One of them is the one that we see portrayed in movies on TV. And it's the one that we assume that we're all supposed to have, which is called spontaneous sex drive.

It's all about when do you find yourself wanting sex? And if you're a spontaneous sex drive, you find yourself wanting sex at random times throughout the day. It comes to your mind spontaneously. In the case of this person asking the question, it's definitely possible that a partner asking the question has a spontaneous sex drive. She's thinking about it randomly throughout the day. And she's expecting that he also would be thinking about it randomly through the day and wanting her randomly and then showing that by initiating sex. But the other type of sex drive is called responsive. Responsive sex drive,

your body needs something to respond to in order for sex to start sounding good. This type of person very often, like, they love sex. And when they're having sex or right after sex, they find themselves thinking, hey, that's really fun. I should want to do that more. Like, why don't I want to do that more? Because right now, I'm thinking about it. I want it.

it's definitely possible that he is a responsive sex drive type. And that's me. On our story, Vanessa is more spontaneous and I'm more responsive. Once you can understand what you each need to get fired up, that can change what the expectations are. In her case, it may be that it's not a reasonable expectation that he is just going to be randomly thinking about it throughout the day. For them, it's more of, okay, can we invite each other to have some kind of physical activity that he can respond to or for him to think about, okay, I need to initiate some cuddling or some making out. And then in five or ten minutes, I need to assess, do I want sex now? Because probably if I start having some more physical intimacy, I'm going to want it. The number one rule of habits is to make

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It obviously makes sense that it applies to men as well, but it's so interesting to even be breaking down all of the internalized societal bullshit that I still have of he should be aroused by simply me walking into the room. That's very normalizing and helpful to even here. It applies to people of all gender. And we all can experience both types of sex drive, but most of us tend to fall more heavily in one camp or another. But understanding what your type is and how to get sex going and feeling exciting is so

important for every couple. Do you think it's okay to say to your partner, I want to feel more desired? I want to feel like you want me. Absolutely. It's the same sort of thing that when we ask our partner, can you tell me you you love me more often. It's okay to want that validation from your partner and to want to feel that. We just have to be careful that we are willing to show that as well and that we can give our partner some clear and specific ways that they can show their desire that aren't just

you have to want to have intercourse with me. One of the questions that we have is what are some good ways to add physical intimacy that aren't overtly sexual? Too often in long-term relationships, we stop touching each other throughout the day. And we create this association that any sort of touch leads to sex. We talk in the book about what I call the bristle reaction, which is your partner might be coming in for a little hug and you feel yourself tense up because you don't want it to lead to sex. So we start cutting off the possibility of even connecting outside of the bedroom because we don't

want it to go in that direction. It's so important for couples to incorporate more touch all throughout the day and non-sexual touch. To get this started, one super practical thing that you can do is tell your partner, I want us to have more non-sexual touch. For just a temporary period of time, can we be really clear with each other that this is non-sexual touch time? So sometimes just labeling it like that. You can even come up with a cute little name of what it's going to be. Zana and I, we have this joke about like, it's skin to skin time at night. We have like a little naked cuddle session every night. So creating some sort of ritual like that. just being really clear for a short period of time. Hey, I just want us to hug. I just want us to cuddle right now. That can be very helpful. Just being able to have a conversation with your partner about what types of physical intimacy do you enjoy? What is your experience like with non-sexual physical intimacy? Because it's so easy for us to see the world through our own eyes and assume that other people like to receive love in the same way that we like to receive love. Like, I'm

a big physical touch person. I love cuddling with no promise at all of sex. And it took me a long time to really understand that Vanessa, she's not a big cuddler. She loves it when I compliment her. That makes her feel really loved, whereas I feel super loved if she just comes over and randomly gives me a hug throughout the day, once you are able to communicate about that and start to really understand, oh, my partner is totally different for me. My partner loves making out. I don't love making out that much, but I understand that for them, it feels this way. It means that they feel more connected to me. That can be a way to start to cue yourself to, oh, I want to do the things that I know my partner is going to enjoy because for me, I don't think of complimenting her all the time,

but now I can think of, oh, if I compliment her, it's going to feel the same as if she comes over and gives me a hug and that feels really good. So just being able to start to make that association. That is the perfect segue into my next listener question. You guys are doing my work for me. I don't like giving blow jobs in general. It's nothing personal with my partner, but he wants them. How should I navigate this? One of the things that we've discovered is that a lot of people don't like giving blow jobs because they don't feel confident in their technique. And that makes sense. Why would we want to do things that we don't feel like we're very good at? So I would explore learning more technique. We have four play guides. I'll mention those that really go through step by step

illustrated exactly how to give an amazing blowjob. So I would explore that. I would start with asking, like, what is my discomfort around it? Because absolutely some people have sexual trauma or really difficult past experiences that they've had. So there might be some work in doing like some sex therapy, maybe, in processing those experiences. But if it's more of a, I just don't feel very confident doing it, then check out the foreplay guides. If you do some thinking about that, you know, if you come to a place where it really truly is that blowjobs just aren't really for me, I do think there are a lot of more advanced hand job techniques, especially when you add a good amount of lube and finding the right kind of

loop. I think a lot of people have weird or bad experiences with lube where they buy some really cheap, crappy drugstore. Don't buy your lube at the drugstore. It's absolutely horrible. There's some really good products out there, and everyone likes different ones. Find one that feels great for you. And you can do some really amazing things with your hands that are not possible to do with your mouth. In the foreplay guides that Vanessa mentioned, we go through a bunch of hand job techniques. I think a lot of guys have this negative association with hand jobs because it's like you get a hand job like before you get a blow job or something like that.

It brings you back to being a teenager or whatever the case is. But you'll change his mind. I think it is possible to change his mind about that with trying to uplevel your hand job technique. You have to give us one advanced hand job technique. One of my favorites is using your hands, we call it like the waterfall in our foreplay guides, where you're doing one hand over the other. You start at the top of the head with your fists, work down to the shaft.

So you're going towards the body, not away from the body. You can't do it in either direction, but I would generally say, start with starting at the head and going down the shaft to the body. If you time your hands where it's like there's just a hand on him at all times, it feels like one never-ending thrust. That's something, a vagina can't do that, a mouth can't do that. It is fun to think about the things that hands can do that are unique to hands. With your hands, you can also replicate a bit of what Vanessa was talking about with the blowjob of a flake of the wrist. Because you're using two hands, you can have a lot more coverage. You can do different things with each hand. The twist of the hand or the wrist can really

work some wonders. Okay. What should I do if I love my partner, but I don't feel like we're that compatible sexually. I love our life together, but I don't feel like he turns me on or that we click in the bedroom. I am a firm believer that chemistry is something that we can create. This goes back to the perfectionism that we get from TV and in the movies. We're led to believe that if we're with the right person, things should just click. It should be effortless and magical. And I think that that's just not true. We can improve that chemistry that we have, especially if the relationship is incredible in every other way, like give it a shot, buy sex talks, work through all those exercises together. If you get to the other end of it and you're not feeling like we're connecting,

it feels like we want very different things, then sex is a perfectly valid reason to end a relationship. And of course, it's heartbreaking if it gets to that. But we struggle with how much importance to give to sex. Like, is it okay to end a relationship because the sex isn't good? Yeah, that's a very crucial part of a relationship. But I really believe that there are so many ways to explore the blockages that all this perfectionism is put in our way and to explore how we like to connect and find some common ground. I would be just really curious.

Have you guys talked more openly about what it is? that you're each wanting from sex? Have you tried a variety of things? You think your partner wants one thing and they're thinking you want another and it just feels like you keep missing each other because you haven't talked about it openly. It's so common for couples who don't talk openly about sex, who don't feel comfortable with even that first acknowledgement portion of the conversation to feel like they get locked in to this implicit agreement about what sex is in their relationship where it's like,

okay, well, this is how we did it the first couple of times. Maybe one or both of us was a little overly exuberant or pretended a bit about how good it was or something. And now I have this idea that this is what he's expecting and I made it look like. I enjoyed it. So he thinks he's doing the right thing. I'm just trying to facilitate this relationship going smoothly. And then six months or a year later, you're like, okay, well, I couldn't possibly ask for something different because this is what we've agreed to. without actually agreeing to anything.

If that's something that may be going on in your relationship, having these conversations in the order that we are suggesting them is going to be totally game-changing. You do think, though, that any two people can have mind-blowing sex, or do you think there's like an undefinable element of chemistry there? You can't pick two random people and toss them into the bed together and they can have incredible sex. But I do think that chemistry can be so much more than that.

initial spark. We put way too much pressure on those first few interactions with somebody and is something that can grow with communication. It's a combination of technique and connectedness or shared experience. There's absolutely a technique portion. And if the technique that I want or the technique that I need is totally different from the technique that you want or you need and we're not willing to compromise or to be giving and do that with each other, then yeah, we're not going to match up there. But I think if we can get 50% of the way there on the technique piece, then there's the whole other side of that connection. If you have a really strong connection outside of the bedroom, you really love each other, you care about each other. You know, you have that intimacy together that can really bring things together.

It's not a purely technique-based thing. That is such a pet peeve of mine, this notion that sex definitely gets worse the longer you're together because I feel like my sex life has gotten so much better. One, because I am more willing and capable of having these types of conversations just with age and comfort, but also because the intimacy of building a life with somebody is so connecting. I feel like I'm so turned on by how well Zach knows me on every single level. That just makes our sex life better. And I hate the notion that it was better when we were drunk 21-year-olds. I could not agree more. If we could go back and have the sex that we were having at 23 than when we met. It's a very different story now. The problem, though, is a lot of us

compartmentalized sex, and we think that our sex life is completely unrelated to the rest of our relationship. So we blame it on, we don't have very much sexual chemistry, but then in reality, if you look at the rest of things in your relationship, if it feels like the load is in balance in your relationship, you're resenting things about your partner, you're always arguing about this topic or that topic, then of course you're not going to feel very much sexual chemistry. Maybe there's the rare scenario where regardless of how bad things are, you always have really hot sex. But I think that is the exception, not the rule. And the reality is if you're not feeling very connected in the bedroom, I think the first place to look is actually outside

the bedroom. How is everything else in your relationship? And can you work on some of those other things, your general connection, your respect for each other, you guys, you guys, equally sharing responsibilities, that kind of thing. Love that. Can we do maybe one more? Yeah. Okay. Amazing.

Let's do, how do I get over the feeling that is taking me too long to come? Oh, such a good one. First, you think about the fact that humans are very bad at estimating how much time has gone by. So it might feel like to you, oh my God, it's been half an hour. It's probably been two minutes, maybe. That's such a good point. Like just the very logical, like how much time has passed here. Don't pull out your phone or your stockwatch.

Yeah, don't do that. Second, if you're a woman, you need to get a little bit fired up about all this BS that we're taught to have about that we should be more concerned about our partner's needs than our own. We're supposed to be caregivers and self-sacrificers. And recognize it is important for us to be able to have the same sort of experience. as our partner does. I mean, look at the orgasm gap. There is a massive difference in male-female partnerships and how often men have orgasms and how often women have orgasms. Even if it takes you longer than he does, there's still a gap to catch up to, so that's fine. And then third,

I think it's important to also recognize sex isn't about both partners taking up exactly the same amount of time or exactly the same amount of effort. We could pull out a stopwatch and say, okay, Zander, you have exactly five minutes and 37 seconds and then I'm going to have five minutes and 37 seconds. But that's not going to make for an enjoyable or intimate experience for either one of us. So even if the reality is that you take double the time to orgasm that your partner does, who cares? You're supposed to be teammates in that and the two of you having the same experience. And life isn't about an exactly 50-50 split of our time and resources. is. If you are the partner of someone who is perhaps struggling with this worry that they're taking

too much time, the best thing that you can do is try to describe to your partner how important it is for you that they are able to feel the same amount of pleasure as you or to reach orgasm as frequently as you and how important that is. It's easy for us to want to fall on the sword and be like, oh, I'm taking too long. It's just not that important for me. It's more important for you to be happy. And I think it's so important to share with your partner how it is that you would love to be able to help them feel and that you're not worried about how long it takes. Yeah, I mean, literally tell them, I'm not keeping time here.

I have all the time in the world for you. Your experience matters to me. Especially in male-female relationships where if this is the gender stereotype where the woman is taking longer to have an orgasm and worried that she's taking too much time, for the guy, it can be easy to get in your head where it's like, okay, well, I'm hard now. I'm ready to go. I don't want to lose my erection. Take that whole thing out of it and be like, hey, before we even think about focusing on me, let's just focus on you. Let's focus on you and let's get you there. And then after that, you can help me get hard and we can

have intercourse. You can give me a blowjob or whatever, but just trying to take the pressure off yourself to perform because I think that a lot of couples can get in their heads about penis is being hard and how if it gets soft, then it's all over and we can't have that. So try to just cut that whole thing out of the equation. Like the penis is the clock that we're watching in this scenario. It is very nuanced and tricky though, because I even think I definitely want to make you come could add to the pressure that makes it hard to come. I think a lot of women fake orgasms because they want to make their partner feel like they did a good job. It comes from a very well-intentioned place. The language is very nuanced. You're right. You don't want to say, like, I need you to come. I won't

have a good time unless you've come. But instead, it's letting your partner know your experience matters to me. And whatever I can do to help you have a good experience, I am here for that. Letting them know your, their teammate, when we say, I need you to come, that's making it about yourself. I want that satisfaction of knowing I got the A plus and being good in bed. But you want that focus to be on your partner. I care about your experience. I'm here for you. I'm your teammate. I love that. Can you each leave us with one separate homework assignment, something that we can all go do today to have the best sex life possible? My assignment is to take a little bit of time by yourself to think about what does good sex mean to you? We all want to be having great sex,

but so few of us have taken the time to actually identify what does that mean to me? You can think about it more generally, what are the specific qualities or characteristics, or you can even script out. This could be really fun, your ideal sexual experience from start to end. But sit with that question of what is it that I'm even working towards in the first place? My assignment is think about what's your favorite sexual memory with your partner, write it down either text it to them or tell them next time you're together and just put it in the context of I was just going about my day and it's just popped into my mind. I couldn't

stop thinking about it. It was so fun when we were in this place or we did this. I was thinking about that and feeling really connected with you and wanted to share and just see what happens. I want to give a quick shout out for text messages because I do think the conversation in person can be a little bit scary and obviously you guys provide so many tools for that. But it is so much less scary to start to say this stuff via text message. It's such a great baby step. Oh yeah. We're big fans of starting via text, get a little bit of that confidence in that momentum going and then work your way up to those in-person conversations. Amazing. I would love to hear from both of you. Please talk about your beautiful book. Tell everybody what they're going to get from this amazing,

amazing resource that you've provided. And then I also would love for you guys to hype up your podcast because I've been binging it lately and I'm obsessed and I feel like everybody should listen to it. So the book is sex talks. It's the five conversations that will transform your love life. And this book is for you. If you have ever watched those sex scenes on TV and the movies and wondered, why does my sex life not look like that? If you've ever thought to yourself, like, shouldn't I be feeling more? Shouldn't I be feeling more excitement, more intimacy, more joy? This book will really walk you through exactly how to create that sex life that you've always wanted to experience that deeper intimacy and connection with your partner. And in a way that feels

fun and playful and that you're also being entertained by lots of embarrassing stories about Zander and my missteps in the bedroom. It's so fun to read. It just feels like a really fun conversation you have with a friend who's super smart over brunch. But then you also provide all of these almost like gamified ways to make it interesting. It's just such a different take on sex than I've ever seen. We really wanted it to be fun because we know that people are intimidated. They're feeling scared. And we did not want to throw this big academic book at you of here's the latest research in the field of human sexuality. So there's so many fun things like identifying your sex personality type, writing your sex menus, your initiation style, all kinds of fun stuff like that. Your touch maps. They're these great exercises that feels like a more grown-up version of a women's magazine type of thing that you have going on. We think that this is just going to be such a fun way to have those conversations and

ultimately to have that incredible intimate sex that we are all craving. It takes science and it makes it fun, which is what we love to do here on this podcast. We would love to have you listen to the Pillow Talks podcast. It's just Vanessa and I showing up every single week. we talk about any and all random sex and relationship topics. We try to inject a lot of humor into it, share a lot of personal stories. We share a lot of stories from our audience as well. Mental mode.

We have an episode called I Want You to Want Me, so that's a good one to check out. You also have two episodes about your decision to be child free, which is huge. We have a pros and cons of having kids series, and we talk about that a lot on all of my various platforms. You guys were so open and honest and those were such interesting episode. So I think everybody would really enjoy those. Those surprises. Those have been our most popular episodes by far. I think it's a conversation.

People just are not having publicly. And there's a lot of shame and judgment. And you guys peeling back those layers is starting to remove that shame and judgment. So I think it's a really powerful thing. I love your podcast. I'm a huge fan. I love you both. I love this book.

And I so appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today. Thank you so much for having us. And yeah, we have all the information about the book at sex talksbook.com. Amazing. Thanks, guys. Okay, giveaway time. Vanessa and Zander have kindly agreed to give five winners a copy of their amazing book, Sex Talks, which I'm sure you want after listening to this episode.

Plus, their pre-order package that's worth hundreds of dollars and literally isn't available anywhere anymore. You will get their dirty talk guide, which is normally $69. They're How to Know What You Want in the Bedroom Masterclass, their sexual buck. which is normally $29 and a ton of other goodies. It's an incredible package and to enter you just need to make sure that you're following me on Instagram. I am at Liz Moody and Vanessa and Zander on Instagram. They're at Vanessa and Zander. Zander is with an X, X-A-N-D-E-R. Follow both of us on Instagram and then comment one thing that you loved or learned from this episode on my most recent post.

The post does not need to be about the episode. Just mentioned Vanessa and Zander so I know what you're entering. Please share a link to this episode with anyone who you think might need it. Let's be real. We all have that friend who is not getting what they want or what they deserve in their sex life who could really benefit from hearing this and we just need to normalize having these types of conversations generally. And if you're new here, make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. Just go to the main podcast page, the one that lists all of the episodes. And you'll see the word follow under the logo of the podcast under where It says healthier together on Spotify.

And then there is a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page on Apple Podcasts. That way, all of the new episodes will show up in your feed so you never miss out on one. And we have some amazing new episodes coming up, including an episode about the secrets to succeeding in entrepreneurial endeavors. And one of my favorite episodes that I have ever recorded all about how to become more confident. So make sure that you're following so you do not miss out. Okay. I love you. and I will see you next week on the next episode of the Healthier Together podcast.

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