Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Normal is Relative: Breaking the Myth of “Normal” Sex Frequency

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we dive into the often-asked question: What is the “normal” frequency for sex? *Spoiler Alert*—it’s different for everyone. We explore how individual preferences, partner compatibility, and life factors like stress, health, and age play a role in what feels “normal.” The conversation delves into the motivations behind questions about sexual desire and frequency, the importance of open communication in relationships, and how to address differing libido levels. We also chat about challenges like the impact of medications on sex drive and navigating conversations about sexual needs in a vulnerable, non-judgmental way. Whether you're curious about your own experiences or wondering how to have better conversations about sex and intimacy, this episode is packed with insights to help you understand what your “normal” is and what it can be for your relationships. If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here: ⁠Show suggestions If you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey everyone, welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about. but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversations. So zip down and let's get candid. And today we're going to be talking about a question that Dr. Sue gets pretty often, often enough on Hey Dr. Sue,

and that is what is the normal amount of sex someone, a man, should be having? um but before we dive into that i am here with our dr sue and would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about your background sure um so i have a phd in human sexuality and from that i work both in academia and i also do presentations for everyone from teenagers all the way to people in their mid-80s. And then I also work with healthcare professionals doing kind of continuing ed stuff. Basically anyone who ever wants to talk about sex and is willing to have me talk to them. But I think that's really important because a lot of the questions that I get about like this idea of normal, oh, there come the air quotes of normal. They come up a lot at

community presentations and live events. So this is definitely something that's on people's minds. But before we dive into the whole normal air quotes, let's just throw it back to you, Charlie. So for those of you who are listening for the first time. OK, Dr. Sue is not judging you for the first time. We're very happy to have you here. Thank you so much. Yes. Not judging at all. Go listen to everything else. Those of you who have not yet met Charlie. Charlie is our curious co-host who is always ready to explore all the taboo topics that

we very rarely talk about. But do you want to give us a little bit more about who you are before we dive in? Sure. Dr. Sue and I have been friends for many years, and we did find that we would talk about taboo things and things that maybe we weren't supposed to, air quote, talk about. um and throwing your students i'm gonna throw your students under the bus this time um during dr sue was having conversation with me and was talking about you know some of the things she was hearing uh in class from her students uh from like tiktok and different

socials surrounding sex and sexuality and uh they challenged her and said well where's where's your information out there what where else are we supposed to get it what else are we supposed to hear yeah uh so um that brings us to our podcast this podcast that you've tuned into um i am also someone that enjoys challenging taboos and societal expectations of what i'm allowed to and not allowed to do as a woman in society and so um here we are yes that's me in a nutshell So, all right. So, Dr. Sue. Yes, Charlie.

What is the normal amount of sex that a man should have? And I want to point out that we're using man because that is one of the more recent questions I got. So, I didn't really talk about this in the intro, but people submit anonymous sex questions to me through my website. We can throw the link to that in the description. once a week on Sunday I'll post I'll take one question and post the question and the answer and I put it up all over the place and I've gotten a question about this a few times and sometimes it's very much a about men but I have in some of these live things that I've done had people come up men come up to me and say well how often should be women be having sex and you can tell

that was kind of like they wanted an answer so they could go back to their partner and be like well this is what the doctor said um so so there's just i don't want us thinking it's just for men this question actually does come up for women and sometimes the women are also asking for themselves so now that i have not answered the question for for a minute the problem is there is no answer like my answer to how often should you be having it is how much you should be having as much or as little sex as makes you happy and that you can find a partner willing to do those things with you um but there's there's no one answer there's no one there's no should there's no normal there's no there's just none that's the whole episode yeah i'm imagining there's there's no normal

um that's that's this episode in a nutshell there we go um and do you ever find that you get the question surrounding you know non-binary partners or any you know same-sex partners or anything like that do you have you run into that lately or not lately have you run into that question at all outside of kind of the heteronormative my wife doesn't want to have sex with me as often as I want to have sex you know so the answer is yes and no yes and I don't know I should say when it's live events and I can see who the person's talking to and I can tell there's a relationship it's usually easy for me to kind of gain an idea that the person who that person's involved with and oftentimes it is a man and a woman I don't know because I if for the

people who are asking me anonymously because I don't know who they are so it may be that that it's gay men asking for themselves or for their partner. I have not had any non-binary folks ask me this question in live events. I'm sorry. The big delay is me literally trying to think and talk at the same time. I don't think I've ever had anyone who's non-binary ask me this question. I have had women who are in relationships with women talk to me about the slowdown of the frequency of sex play, but they're not necessarily complaining about it sometimes. They're more like, hey, like I've been with my partner for 15, 20 years, like sex play has slowed down. And that's always my question when people are like, is this normal? Or how many

times should I? What I kind of want to return the favor and ask the question back is, are you asking because you think you're not having enough? Are you asking because you feel like your partner's asking for too much or are you just worried about not living up to the normal quote air quotes all over the place with normal because one of the things we do know is that people of all orientations when they've been together with a partner for a while their frequency may start to slow down of how often they have sex and that's quite normal but if you're always told that like you're supposed to be having x amount of sex every week you you may be concerned that you're not hitting the mark but again there's there's there's no mark so I have had folks who are in same gender

relationships absolutely ask me this question um I don't recall ever having someone who's non-binary ask me about this though and you touched on something that came to mind that I thought might be a good thing to I don't know clarify or explore in this conversation is the motivation of the question um of the the motivation of the asker of the question because you know am I do I want it too much trying to gauge if maybe they have a problem like a freak a problem air quote problem I struggle I struggle to say that um but you know maybe some some friends and family have raised concerns about too much or too little or just not engaging because I think we also need to make space for the the ace arrow community who may still be sexually active in this conversation

yeah um yeah and i think that's so i gotta tell you that's the most frustrating thing about the anonymous questions i love that people are asking me questions i love that people feel like comfortable enough to submit the questions but i don't get to do the response question myself and when people ask me at live events or in my classroom, I can say, well, like, let me ask you a question or two. But I do know for folks that there's different motivations. I like the word you used. There's different motivations there. Like, are they asking because they are afraid that their sexual desire is super high and they feel like they may be asking their partner to do too much? Or are they worried because it seems super low and they're worried their partner

is going to think there's something wrong with them and that's the other thing a lot of times it comes down to fear of how it's impacting the relationship for people who are in a relationship which is fascinating they don't just talk to the partner and be like and i know we've talked about this before that in this country it's it's easier to have sex than to talk about it um but a lot of times if you have that question of like hey like our sex life has changed are we cool with this do you want more do you want less are you happy can alleviate a lot of that fear for folks but um But our sex drives change and our relationships change. Even the relationships we have with the same person will change over time. So I think it's important to keep in mind that what was air quote normal for you 5, 10, 15 years ago is not going to be normal for you now. You may have a career that you're focusing on. You may be dealing with some meds or some illnesses that may be getting in the way. You may have children, which can severely impact your sex life because you are either super busy and or super exhausted. So there's a lot of things that can change that. And I think, and that's, again, why I'd want to know the motivation. Like, do you just want me to say you're okay?

because well I mean ultimately I think that's what yeah 99% of people want to want to hear when they're looking for answers or content to questions surrounding sex and sexual health right yep they just want to know that they're air quote normal I feel like that's the new tagline of the so i suppose maybe another uh avenue to go down with down or down the road on with this question or this conversation is you know so maybe going through a couple of the scenarios so you have someone ask you a question um anonymously or or live and they're trying to gauge the question is I really love sex and I, I am, I'm not partnered and I sometimes have sex with random partners or partners that I've played with, had sex play with before. Um, and they're

trying to gauge, do they, do they have an air quote problem around sexual con, you know, sex play sex contact that kind of thing so how do you approach like if you're able to get to that level of the motivation of the question and get all that information they're not partnered and and all of that um how do you approach that conversation with the question asker yeah and that's a that's a great question um for me so so assuming i've gotten there i've probably got some more information in hand, you know, because I stealthily ask questions right to your face. For a lot of folks, they really do enjoy a lot of sex and they don't have a study partner. And so for them, the challenge is meeting those sexual needs. And so they may have, for lack of a better word, they may have

a roster of folks that they have as potential sex partners, whether it's friends with benefits or whether it's just kind of casual relationship or fuck buddies or something like that. For some, the challenge is when you don't have that and you are looking for sex and you don't have that steady stream of partners, how do you kind of fulfill those needs? Because if you're looking for sexual contact and not just release, because if you're looking to orgasm, you can do that on your own. And that's so a lot of folks may be looking for a way to kind of have that sexual contact That can be difficult. And I don't know how people feel about dating apps. But one of the things that dating apps have done really well at is allowing people to be really upfront with what they're looking for. Right. I am looking for one night stands. I am looking for something casual. I am looking for friends with benefits or fuck buddies or whatever terminology they want to use. But finding those partners can be difficult. And so I think for some folks, that's a challenge.

it's it's not when I have a ready ready I do I do actually encourage people to turn to to apps that are more known to be hookup apps and for some folks it's a great it's a great outlet for them when they're open and honest about what they want that's that's really that's the big challenge is like oh do I have to put that I'm looking for a long-term relationship I'm like no there are plenty of people online who are also looking to hook up just put that out there so yeah I think that's that's one of the things I usually tell folks is if they have not already explored obviously all the safety issues with online dating and online buddying up but that's one of the things that I usually push to people is is that you may be able to find potential

partners that way so then you have a question asker who is partnered who has less of an drive comparatively to their partner. And so what are some of the ways that you approach that or some kind of key takeaways that the question asker might get from some of your answers and the back and forth that you have so that they can start to approach the conversation with their partner in a little bit more meaningful way? Yeah. I'm laughing because I know what I might say that might piss people off. I like when I can see it coming a mile away. So when I tell people if they're in a relationship and they have different desire levels, and that's totally normal that you're having different desire levels. The big problem people can't realize is that that might

be the fight that they're having. For so many people who are in couples, they don't actually know why. They think they know why they're fighting. They think they have every reason in the world to understand what's going on in the relationship but really when they dig into it a lot of times it comes down to a discrepancy for this issue it's a discrepancy in desire and you know they think they're they're fighting about time or money or whatever it might be or communication it may just be that one person wants more sex than the other person does and that that does happen um and so having i feel like i'm being have a conversation i feel like i'm going to say communicate my students were laughing at me in class today because I was like okay what's the

answer and they're like we know you want talk but it doesn't seem to fit here I'm like that's actually not the answer the one-time communication is not the answer but they thought I mean they have me pegged but having a conversation an open conversation about this is what I want this is what you want how do we meet in the middle like what can we do um for some this is where i know we're gonna get people are gonna be mad at me and i'm okay with that so there's usually two ways i go with this um one is if it's not sexual contact but maybe exploring sexual fantasies or um having conversations about things you wouldn't normally that you haven't talked about in your relationship for some folks they're okay with their partner going online to explore that as long as it doesn't

come offline so um and and i run into this a lot with kink stuff where where one person's like hey i want to kind of give this a shot and the other person's like love you but no um there are places uh fetlife is one that i usually send folks to f-e-t-l-i-f-e.com um where you can go find people who are into similar things but you don't necessarily have to move that offline and so for some people it's this way of exploring this this fantasy or having this outlet but as long as you're being open with your partner sometimes that works to everyone's advantage you're finding a way of living out those fantasies and your partner knows what happens and doesn't feel like they don't feel like there's anything being hidden and they don't feel like they're being cheated on

sometimes lines can feel like they've been crossed even though you've laid out all the all the rules about how that's going to be handled but but if it's an issue of like no no it's not about just talking about it it's not about exploring fantasies it's i want more contact there there may be a way of negotiating play where it's like i get that you're interested in it but i'm not can we kind of maybe do this instead like does it have to always be penetration if that's your end goal like can we do other stuff and um and see where it goes for some people to desire discrepancy um so some people are very like like snap your fingers i'm turned on and other people be like oh i'm just not in the mood and this is where this is where people are going to get back

if they didn't get mad at me for suggesting partners go online and keep it online and be open and honest um for sometimes it sometimes what i tell people is to fake it till you make it and and if you're if you're kind of into it kind of not into it see I'm trying to phrase this so we don't get hate mail yeah I was gonna say can you want to clarify fake it till you make it I'm trying we'll wind up linking to our consent episode some other things here if you're really not into it and you really don't want to do it then that's the absolute no I'm not okay with it but for some people it's like I guess I could be and and what they find is that there's it's a slower you know some people burn really hot really quickly in

terms of desire for other people it's a much slower kind of progress and what they find is that when they do kind of start fooling around oftentimes they will start to feel that desire kick back in and they'll be into it more as always if you don't want to or if things change for you and you're suddenly not cool with it then that's the end of that but a lot of times saying okay like i'm not really feeling all that into it but let's give it a try and see where it goes you you the partners may find that they're more into it than they realized or that you know they had so much on their plate between their day at work and then trying to take care of things around house and family and relationships and all that that their brain isn't quite there but if they

can give themselves that space to get into that headspace they may find their way there but again if at any point not comfortable not really what you want the person and that goes try the partner the partner who was all burning hot and heavy may be like you know change my mind yeah that that that happens too but a lot of times it's like allowing yourself to be in that space or at least get your body and your brain the chance to get turned on because it's we have to be most people have to be turned on two places their bodies and their brains sometimes one is but we just don't realize it because the other usually our brain is too much in our way oh i think we found an episode feature episode topic yeah um so i want to get back to this this idea of normalcy

and because you know we talked a little bit we've talked a bit about how you approach answering these questions um but i think my what may be helpful too is um like how to broach the conversations with your sex play partners if there is that discrepancy and and and maybe some kind of key language bits. Like, so what I can think of is, you know, checking in with the person that you, um, either your, your long-term partner or the, your sex partner, um, and just checking in and, and so I'm kind of creating a baseline understanding of what you each feel is air quote normal, like what's normal for you as far as engagement and frequency and type and, and different kinks or or what have you um so i just want to kind of explore that a little bit

in this conversation because we've spent a lot of time about like how you would answer but then how do people go back and have these conversations and try and incorporate it in their life you mean when they've never learned how to have the conversation ever because we don't ever because of the state of sex ed yeah yes oh he's coming back to that yeah um so so that's a good question um and i think it's hard to have the question the first time and so i always tell people like your first time it's going to be awkward conversation you're going to stumble your way through it but hopefully what you're doing is you're creating a space where you can have these conversations. What I usually suggest to folks is all the things I would normally suggest

for bringing up a topic that may be sensitive. Don't do it when you're tired. Don't do it when you just had a fight. Don't do it when someone just said yes or no to sex and you weren't expecting it. Don't do it if they've had the miserable day at work or school or whatever it may be. So make sure you have time and space to have the conversation and use a lot of I language. So I language is where you take responsibility for your statement. And it's really hard to do i think we talked about this in the communication episode way back in the day but i language is super hard to do because we don't teach people how to do it and it's not just sticking an eye in front of the statement like if i say something like i think you don't

listen to me that's yeah that's not a nice statement no no that's still about you so i think what thing coming up a recognize that you want to have the person be okay with being vulnerable and you yourself have to be in a space where you can be vulnerable and if this is not the time or the place for it just say hey there's some stuff i want to talk to you about without making them think you're breaking up with them there's some stuff i want to talk to you about like maybe you know are you okay is now a good time checking in and make sure you know we set the mood for sex we should also set the mood for the sex talk which may not be all like super like yeah a certain dim level and the right music but you know making sure there's not a lot of

interruptions making sure phones are put down making sure people are really communicating but then being really vulnerable and and explaining I'm struggling with because I feel like I want more sex or I'm struggling because I feel like you want a lot of sex and I sometimes don't feel comfortable with it how do we how do we figure out a middle ground but that takes a lot of vulnerability to say and you have to be prepared for a partner who does not necessarily know how to communicate well so I think recognizing that it may have to be a conversation you have multiple times that you may not come to an answer right in that moment that and part of that is how we communicate so for some people it's like we start the conversation we have to finish it right

now for other people they may say that's a lot i need some time and some space i i you know i don't i hear what you're saying but i'm having all these reactions and i need to come back to that and letting that be okay even if you're a no we don't leave the room until we're done talking kind of thing yeah yeah hopefully we solved it yeah so it's done um hopefully it becomes a habit and so and and i think just having these conversations i also think it's a great way if we can start working in more sex conversations before there's an issue like hey yeah well i mean you've talked about you know it's it's vulnerability it is these things and in some ways depending on where you are at in your relationship when you're having these conversations because i

realize that this, what I'm about to say is different for a couple six months in versus a couple six years in potentially, right? But if you, that level of vulnerability for those of you that kind of need to be revved up emotionally and intellectually, these conversations are, in my opinion, very intimate. Very, very intimate and connected and can be connective if you're both able to get yourselves to be vulnerable and listen in a vulnerable way as well. And so that intimacy that you create and that habit of having those conversations and kind of renegotiating and recalibrating together I mean that that that's a level of intimacy that I don't think a whole bunch of people allow themselves to experience yeah and once you once you enable

that space and that ability to do it like doesn't just have to be about I don't like this in our relationship or I don't feel like I'm having enough sex or I feel like you're asking too much it could also be a great way of introducing things like hey I heard about this thing on some podcasts we should try this out in the bedroom or like I was looking at porn there's a really cool thing you want to try it like creating a space where you can have conversation and trying it and maybe failing at it because it's hard to have these I mean I do this for a living and I still sometimes find conversations like those hard but giving yourself the time and the space and the grace to screw it up and to keep trying but I think it can create a huge amount of intimacy I got a

question for you. Okay. How do you feel about having this conversation by text? I think I feel fine. I feel fine. Good. I statement. Thank you. I've been listening. I feel fine. I will, I will add a caveat. I feel fine with these conversations by text. If there is a balance in the relationship as far as vocal communication in person, quality time, those kinds of things. But especially at the beginning of a relationship or beginning of a sex partnership, sex play partnership, it is a great way to receive the information, process it, and then respond because it, you know, you, you get a little bit of a, a time grace, a grace period, as far as

how soon you can respond and you can say, Hey, I need a minute to, to think about what you just said. And then you can qualify not in any kind of a judgmental way. I'm just kind of processing it. That's new information. Um, so I think it's, I think it's good. Um, but I think it needs to be balanced by other forms of communication it can't be the entire relationship uh not ideally for me for me it may work for others but no judgment everyone's welcome here no judgment interesting okay i just want to get your take on yeah why dr sue i i really just wanted to get your take on um i just because i think texting is i mean texting is different for every for everybody and i think if you try to do this

early on without context if it was just a random like hey you happy with how much sex we're having that could be like a whoa where the hell that come from um but one of the things we know about couples is that they they develop their own language through text i mean i've seen friends texting even their friend like when I say their own language in relationships I don't just mean sexual relationships like I have friends who can communicate with me through nothing but emojis and I know exactly what they mean and so when you get into that rhythm with a partner where maybe you can explain yourself a little bit better or I did have a couple that I was working with that was trying to kind of refine each other one had been deployed and had come back and there was some

stress in the relationship because that can be a stressful thing yeah and they were trying to find like refined each other and so when one of them was interested in maybe having sex that night they had an emoji that would send so again you have to have a conversation it can't just be all text there has to be a conversation around the texting conversation and then the partner would respond with that like one thing if like yes one thing if no one thing if maybe um so they had the and and it didn't need to be a whole conversation it was just kind of a like hey i'm thinking about this and there was one time when they were they did manage to get back together and make the relationship work. Just let me give the spoiler there. But there was, I guess, one time where

one of the partners sent something in the morning and it was like whatever the no emoji was. And then sometime like three hours later, it was like a maybe and like with no prompting from the partner. And like three hours later, it was like a yes, because they had like then they were thinking about it and they were getting turned on over the during the course of the day. So I think text can have its place. I feel like a lot of times you're like, oh, technology is bad. I'm like, technology can be super helpful. It can also be super detrimental to a relationship depending on how are you using it. Yeah. Yeah. I think in this case, if you, if it's supplementing those conversations and, and context and kind of, and giving that space to introduce something,

I think it can be quite effective. Oh, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Well, I was going to switch. go for it okay um i want to get into this idea of why we're framing this conversation about air quote normal where do some of these ideas come from dr sue yeah i i mean i just like to use the i just like to use air quotes when i talk about normal um just because i there's no there's not a a lot of normal when it comes to what it's like sex and sex play there's not there's just not a ton of things that are normal or common throughout I can't I'm sure if I started sitting here and trying to rack my brain I'm sure there's something we could say is found with most people but I don't know what it is and I just think we put out these expectations for folks about I don't want to be

different I don't want to be deviant I don't want to be less than I don't want to be it's a little like the fairy tale i just want to be just right i just want to fit in um and and i think it could be really hard for for people if they don't know what they're supposed to measure themselves to so if i'm having sex once a week and i'm really happy with it and i come to you with numbers and say well most people in relationships have sex i'm making this number up 3.6 times per week you just went from being happy to now feeling like you weren't a good partner even though you and your partner may be happy and so I think I think there's some we want to make most of us want to know that we we are quote-unquote normal when it comes to some things so some people within

the margins of normal within the margins and that bell curve um there's there are definitely people like screw that I want to be as abnormal and not normal as possible but I think that because we don't talk about it openly we don't know what that measurement is and so we fear sometimes that we're too far outside that that normal range yeah yeah so that's why i always put in air quotes well i would say i think the most normal thing about sex in our society is the way that media portrays it and kind of convinces us how and how we need to participate and you know all of those things yeah so i would say that's probably the most normal part about sex and

sexuality in our society in the messages we get i'll never forget i was doing an event i was doing a live event for foster youth who are aging out of the system and it was i want to say it was like tuesday at 7 p.m or something and then wednesday morning i was actually going to a community for active retired folks so at like nine in the morning so maybe maybe 12 13 hours different and the question i was getting from the kids the night before and the questions i was getting from the older folks the next morning were essentially all boiled down to am i normal and these folks were not watching the same tv they were not some of my older folks didn't have cell phones at that time and or they or smart smartphones smartphones excuse me um but we have this pervasive idea

that we get from media about what's normal and what's not normal and we want to live up to what's normal because that that's what's portrayed as the goal for a lot of people yeah good old normalcy can i change it 180 degrees now absolutely so one of the things that comes up for me a lot is for folks who are dealing with some kind of mental or physical health issue. Because so many of the medications we give people and I know I've talked to you offline about this before and how much it pisses me off. So here I get to vent. Yay. So much of health care is we don't treat the person we we treat the thing that the person has. So we don't treat a person with depression, we treat the depression, but we don't treat the person as a whole person. And I do want to make

sure I'm saying that there are some mental health care professionals, some physical health care professionals, some social workers out there who rock it. And I know them and I love you and the work that you're doing. But for so many people, they're just getting the diagnosis or the thing treated. And so they're throwing medications at it and treatments, a variety of treatments, depending on what the condition is. And because you can become a doctor in this country and never take a sex class, the doctor may not feel comfortable asking a conversation about how is this impacting you sexually. And we see this a lot with antidepressants. Almost every antidepressant on the market, except for Wellbutrin, I think there's one other out there,

almost every antidepressant on the market, one of the side effects it can have is to kill your sex drive big note if you are on an antidepressant and i just explained what happened to you in that one sentence do not go off your antidepressant please have a conversation with your provider tell them that you want to look at options do not just stop your antidepressant yeah no uh i mean you can do what you want it's your body but don't um but the problem is when someone comes in and say they have depression they get they get an antidepressant and the question the follow-up question from the from the person who gave them the medication is is this helping your depression and it may but then they're not following up with well how's your sex drive knowing that these meds

can tank your sex drive and so if the doctor or the prescribing person isn't bringing it up the patient's not going to bring it up and so now they're like well i'm less depressed but i'm also depressed in different ways because my sex drive sucks and then how do i explain that to my partner and what the hell is wrong with me I used to have a sex drive where did it go so part of the problem is the way we treat things someone may be in a relationship and dealing with a mental or physical health issue there's a lot of there's a lot of things that we give people for physical problems that aren't depression that can also tank your sex drive so they're trying to deal with this issue and they don't realize the impact it's having and they know that their partner is

not happy and they don't know what's going on with them so a lot of times the question is like well what's normal well what's normal while you're dealing with cancer is very different than when you're not dealing with cancer what's normal while you're trying to find a regimen that helps you with your depression or your anxiety or both is is it's going to be different than when you've kind of have it figured out and but but because people aren't told that might happen they just figure that something went wrong with them and so now they're struggling to understand what's happening and the prescribing person isn't having a conversation and they don't know how to kind of throw all this at a partner because they don't understand it themselves. So if I have just

explained, again, what happened to your sex drive by mentioning medication, here's my general rule of thumb. If you were just given a new medication and your sex drive has done something that you do not enjoy, some people's sex drive actually increases. But if there has been a change in your sex drive that you are not enjoying please have a conversation with the person who prescribed it and say hey the drug is working for this thing but it is not working for me here don't take yourself off the med don't don't screw with dosage yourself but have that conversation but the number of people where we figure out like after having conversation where they're like my partner wants sex all the time and i don't and there's something wrong with me and i i start

asking like what medications you on there are like two or three things that are tanking their sex drive that has nothing to do with their partner has nothing to do with whether or not they find their partner attractive it has nothing to do with what they may be able to get turned on by it's that they're not feeling those emotions because they got tamped down by the meds so yeah shame on the medical care system that's now gonna also hate me this is just gonna be the one where get all the hate mail from hmm um yeah that that's that's pretty fascinating to me um but i think i think it boils down to as far as this what is normal what is a normal frequency of sex i think it is what's what feels normal and comfortable for you as an individual

yeah so understanding the answer for yourself yep um and feeling comfortable with it and if there's something that you don't necessarily feel comfortable with and so you wind up reaching out to dr sue on hey dr sue um asking this question um or us because we do take or or us yes because we have comments and we want you know we want engagement with you all um then you know you have a space to to ask explore that question and maybe some possible answers that might resonate um but if you if you have an understanding and a comfort level with what feels normal to you then that's your starting point for when you start engaging with um a new partner your existing partner um and you you have some somewhere to to or you have a starting point right yeah

I feel like I made a redundant sentence well I would I would always challenge a person back like if they say what's normal I'd say well what's what feels good for you I can give you statistics from research but folks people lie in sex research a lot and a lot of the research that we used to do focused there was this thing I remember saying this 10 years ago that folks who were in married relationships actually had more sex than people who were single and part of it may have been the the access to a partner but then people stopped getting married which is cool like good if that's what you want like good for you but we kind of forgot to include those folks in the in the research it was like married people single people

like what about people who are committed but not in married relationships we don't we don't have a lot of that data which is that and that a lot of our data collections often flawed i don't i don't get stuck in the numbers. And my fear is if I give you a number, you're going to feel like there's something wrong with you if you're above or below. Right. So if someone were to say what's normal, I would and people hate when you answer questions this way. But what feels normal for you? What feels good for you? Like what number per week makes it feel like you're hitting what you want? And then it's like, oh, well, you know, my partner or this and I'll be like, well, let's start with you. Like what feels good for you? Are you reaching that number? If it's too high,

too low than what you're getting like what can we do to help you with that but but yeah i think it's about less about comparing people to the norm and more about what what feels good for you yeah what feels good what feels healthy although all those things and recognizing it can change as you as you go through um if you're worried about losing your job you're probably sex drive's going to tank for a bit and that's very normal um if you're stressed about anything your sex drive's going to tank a little bit and that's very normal so so recognizing that you're changing your body's changing you look like you want to stay same let me finish if that's your stress response because your stress response could be true i'm gonna go engage in these things that i

know i can get a release from and and and have some pleasure from so right momentarily space for that yeah no that makes sense thank you but but yeah just just recognizing that what feels good for you now may feel different when you've been with a partner for six months, eight months, six years, 60 years. What feels good for you now when you're 18 may be different than when you're 28, 48, 68, 88. So just recognizing that it changes. But that's always my big push is a lot of people say, what's normal? I'll be like, well, why? Also an answer people hate, by the way. Yeah. Why? Tell me more. Why are you asking? And usually that's where we get into the either i fear i'm not hitting the normal or i fear my partner's not happy or i don't feel like this

is me something feels off so it usually falls into one of those three categories yeah but in the end folks if you're happy with how much sex you're having like that that should be the end of the story don't don't worry about don't worry about everybody else is doing yeah just don't worry about them yeah what what they tell us is all just to sell sell stuff anyway so don't worry about it there's the capitalism in you but listen to our podcast all right all right let's get out of here um that was a great conversation thank you dr zoo thank you and i want to thank you all for joining us on this episode of unzipping taboos candid conversations about sex we hope today's episode sparked new thoughts and may open up some conversations worth having. Remember your

curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review, leave a comment. We want to engage with you. If you have a thought about this episode or any other episode you've listened to, leave us a comment. We're here to engage in the candid conversations. So if you've got a question or a topic you want us to dive into, reach out to us via the link in the episode description. We want to give a very special shout out to, um, our music composer, Allie O'Brien for our incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Allie. And then until next time, keep the conversation going, keep unzipping those taboos and everyone take care.

© transcript Emily Beynon