Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Not Tonight? Understanding Desire Discrepancy

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

What happens when one partner wants sex more than the other? In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we dive into the complexities of desire discrepancy—when partners have mismatched levels of sexual interest. It’s a common challenge in relationships, but one that’s often misunderstood, stigmatized, or even ignored. We explore the many factors that can influence libido, from stress and medication to relationship dynamics, emotional connection, past experiences, and shifting self-perceptions.We also challenge outdated stereotypes about men and women’s sex drives—like the myth that men always want more sex and women are the gatekeepers—and unpack how these assumptions can create unnecessary guilt and frustration. We talk about why communication is key, and why those conversations can be difficult or even painful. That’s why we share ways you can work to bridge the gap with empathy, curiosity, and openness.From rediscovering passion in long-term relationships to handling mismatched desire without shame or resentment, this episode is about fostering deeper connection, understanding, and pleasure—on both sides of the bed. Whether you’re experiencing this yourself or just want to learn more, we’ve got insights, real talk, and ways to help you navigate intimacy with confidence.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf 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 aren't always comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversations. So zip down and let's get candid. Hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. How's it going? It's going well. How are you? I'm doing all right. You know, it's still sunny out. So that's nice. Would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about your background? Sure. So trying to figure out how we want to loop this in. So primarily, I've worked in academia, mostly to pay the bills because health insurance is a thing. But I've also done a lot of work in

the community. I've worked at reproductive health clinics. I own my own consulting firm. So I talk to basically whoever invites me to talk to them about sex. I've done a lot of work across the lifespan, which is important because the question or the topic we're going to do, which I don't think we introduced. We didn't. Okay. Yeah, that's definitely something that I've seen across the lifespan. And then the other thing that I do is I answer questions as, hey, Dr. Sue. So people submit anonymous sex questions to me through my website.

and then once every Sunday I post an answer to one and post it all over social media and so a lot of what I'm doing now is really trying to make sure I mean the education I do in the classroom is important and I have to hit standards but the stuff I'm doing now and the stuff you and I are doing with the podcast is really about answering the things that are on people's minds I feel like I'm teasing the topic but I'll let you introduce it and before you introduce it though you should talk about yourself. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with Charlie, she is our curious co-host who is always ready to explore relationships, the taboo topics we very rarely talk about, and all the nuances of the things that go along with it. Do you want to tell us a bit more about

you? Sure. I am Charlie. I've been friends with Dr. Sue for several many years. And I am someone who has just a general curiosity about different topics and just kind of what makes people do what they want to do and not do and engage with. And I also enjoy challenging taboos and societal expectations that are out there that are put on me as a woman in society. So this is one of my ways to challenge those taboos is to talk unashamedly about sex desire, sex health, and all those things in between. And I think that's it. Oh, there's so much more to you, but that's enough about me for now. But today, Dr. Sue, we're going to talk about desire discrepancy. First, I'd like to point out that I um thoroughly enjoy the alliteration of that phrase I wish I could

say I came up with it and also that the first time I heard that phrase was uh when we became friends I've never really heard the phrase as the thing as a thing yeah yeah it's just like oh they always want sex and they don't there was like no little tagline for it and there definitely was an alliteration then i'm a sucker we all know i'm a sucker for alliteration um yeah and what's it's it's interesting because that's usually how the phrase that's usually how the question gets asked to me and i've been asked this question i i do some i do some work giving commentary to aarp sometimes um and i know they had a question about desire discrepancy which i think came out in an article i don't even know when um but i also get it from college students

and everyone in between and I don't know when that phrase became a thing but that's how it's usually approached with me it's like what happens when we have desire discrepancy and I'm like that's a very curious way to phrase like it's very not curious I mean it explains it but it's a very like it shows that someone had done some research on it yeah yeah exactly it's a that I think that's why I just kind of chuckle a little bit is because again my all my life until we became friends It was just like, oh, well, I always want sex and my partner doesn't. Or there was no like, oh, let's talk about that desire discrepancy, desire deficit. The glorious things that came into your life when I walked into it.

It was like a whole new ray of sunshine, if I'm honest. So for those of you who have not heard this alliterative term, I know, Charlie, you're just kind of explaining it. It's just where you're having a different level of interest in sex and sex play than your partner. And it happens to people of all genders and happens to people of all orientations and happens to people of all ages. And I know that's the second time I've said that. But I find that people think that this only happens with people when they've been in relationships for like 5, 10, 15, 20 years. And I was at an event. I was part of a panel for a live event.

And we get some of the questions ahead of time. I think, just to kind of get our brains moving. And there was a question, this was mostly for college students, and there was a question about desire discrepancy, and the moderators chose to not ask it live, which I thought was fascinating. And this is totally my bias and my guess. My thought is that we think that that's associated with longer-term relationships, and it's not always. We can see that for relationships that are a year, two years, three years, 20, 50. so if this is happening to you let's start with it's normal usually that makes people feel better that usually solves all the problems doesn't all the problems but but there's a breath people

people always when they ask me people are always like there's something wrong with me not the relationship which i find is really fascinating when they're asking me about it they're always like what's wrong with me and i'm like this is not a you issue necessarily maybe but that assumption that it's a one person issue is is something i think we we need to kind of shatter that illusion first yeah that one person has to shoulder the entirety of the responsibility of that that mismatch yeah and there was something that you said um at the beginning of this which was, I think, I should have written it down, but it was, it was A and B, essentially, where it was like a difference in, in desire, and I, I'm losing it.

I've lost it. But I wanted to, it, it stuck with me, not well enough, obviously. um but it stuck with me because it seemed to me like an and or like both conditions don't have to exist for desire discrepancy it could be one person just doesn't like it never has there could be a multitude of reasons for this desire discrepancy as you said for any kind of length of of interaction with a sex play partner yeah what do you what I usually do find though is that I tend to get the question after a couple has been together for a bit now a bit could be three months four months 20 years um but I don't really get that that often

and it may just be I'm not talking to those people where it's like new at the beginning of the relationship and it's already a problem what I find with a lot of people is that if they feel like they're not a match I feel like for I feel like for some people they still believe that when you find your partner they're just going to be the perfect match in every way and sorry if I'm just not being all like romantic optimist rom-com about it yeah thank you that's a much better way of putting it but I feel like when we meet people it's still like oh if they're not a perfect match for me to begin with that's that's a little red flag for me and once I get enough red flags maybe I'll walk away. So I do know that it can happen early on in a relationship and people may want

to address it. But when it usually gets posed to me, it's more like this is happening now and it hasn't always been an issue, which is actually helpful because it means that something has changed. So if we can figure out what the change was, it may be something that can be addressed hopefully easily but not always yeah i think i would like to add though that there is there are those times where even early on in a relationship or a part you know a coupling we'll say early on in a coupling that um that there still can be a difference in drive yeah and um and that is normal and it depends on how you want to navigate that like is that something that you want to continuously navigate together or would you rather just kind of hold

out and see if you find someone a little bit closer to your desire level whatever that level is right and then there's also um the discrepancy could be driven by different um different tastes interests in sex play right if you if you find out that your partner is has been become curious about a certain kink or some certain erotic thing um that could make you recoil a little bit and that could be the trigger for it so it's always it's not always usually but not always relationship health it could just be someone changed or that they were always this way but there were other things that you were focused on that it was like a minor it was like a yellow flag or it could also be something yes to all of that it could also be something like a new medication

it could also be something like a new baby in the house that will change your desire for so many things mostly because you're exhausted um it could be it could be so many things that aren't actually relationship based but it's so interesting that people always assume it's that's a indicative of a problem in the relationship and again it may just be the people who speak to me that the person who's speaking to me is always coming from that place of this is on me yeah what have i done wrong where did i go wrong how am i not enough anymore how do i fix it i'm like well it's not really a issue so team sport yeah yeah oh almost always almost enough doesn't always have to be a team sport what are some of the other things that when you encounter um questions about this or just

talking about it when you're working with um with different publications surrounding this subject what are some other things that you note for readers listeners to to understand to be curious about what are the online thoughts there i'm ready i know i see you writing so i don't know is that so one is and i feel like we've talked about this in another episode i apologize sometimes i forget what i did in my column versus what i did here but i think we've talked about desire and how outside things can impact maybe we haven't maybe we need to maybe we need to do an episode on this there are so many things that can impact desire

so many things that impact desire it could be something like a medication and i see this when I work with my older folks, there's a lot of like, I don't know where my sex drive went. And I'll say, well, have you started any new medications? And they list like five. I'm like, one of those may very well be the one that did it. And definitely have a conversation with your doctor if you feel like you can talk to your health care professional. I know we've said this a million times. Yeah. In several episodes. Yes. But not all health care professionals are comfortable talking about sex and sex play. so it could be it could be something as simple as a medication or a new illness or injury or

some kind of diagnosis that's impacting you it could be things like stress and especially with the economy like when you take a look at sex drives and sex play especially among folks who are older and they talk about what's impacting sexual desire money money and fear fear of running out of it is is very much at the top of in that top five usually um could be the world burning down around us it's really hard to get turned on when you don't know if you're about to lose your job or your rights your rights or what executive order is going to come out tomorrow that's going to impact you in ways you never thought so all of those things and i think people forget that i think people are like oh but i'm with my partner but the rest of that doesn't go away like we carry

that with us so that's like the first set of things kids can destroy your sex life and i think i i feel like i'm saying something wrong when i say that because parents always get angry at me and i'm like but don't they and they're like well right but what happened though right like because if if it's a little little wee one you're worried about them crying you know you're hearing them cry you're not going to keep getting you know you're not going to keep your sex play going while you're hearing your kid cry or they're old enough to walk in and you're like, did we shut the door? Did we lock the door? Like, is the child asleep? Will the child find out? So and then as the kids get older, there's more trauma and stress that comes with their lives. And, you know, when

you're busy running them around to 18,000 different events in 24 hours, you're exhausted. And so exhaustion can play a role in this and just all the other things that happen. And I think we forget that i think we forget that just because we're sexual beings doesn't mean we don't bring in all the other stuff in our life into the bedroom with us and it's not always easy enough to just be like okay here with person now it's even from people who are like the best at compartmentalizing it's still hard to turn off that outside world and be present in the moment yes so that can definitely be part of it what else i know i have to look at my paper um

we were talking about this earlier when we were prepping for this um for folks where they feel like the relationship itself is starting to struggle and i know we've talked about the lack of learning how to talk about sex sex may feel like a way to connect but without actually dealing with the issues so so it's like oh i feel disconnected from my partner and and i don't know how to sit down and have a conversation saying i don't feel connected to you or i have concerns or I don't feel comfortable or I don't find you as attractive whatever it may be the way to kind of feel like you're back with your partner is to have sex with them and so it could be that lack of knowing how to communicate about the other things and sex may be that thing you always come

back to so this this desire to have sex may be a desire to reconnect which is not bad I'm not judging this at all I mean you say at the beginning we don't judge it may be a desire to connect but it if there are relationship issues they aren't being dealt with so while one person is desperately trying to connect by sex the other person's like but wait there are all these things happening and that's where we may see a discrepancy some hand gestures this is why we don't are happening don't release videos i think that's very important um because i think that communication can both be an aphrodisiac, you know, throughout the day. Yeah. And, and there's a way to, to see that as a, um, a positive tool for engaging in intimacy and sex play, like

revving up essentially. But, but yeah, being able to identify, am I, am I always trying to have sex with my partner because I feel disconnected in these other ways and this is an affirmation trying to figure out like if that's your motivation that takes a lot of work a lot of a lot of self-actualization but once you can get there then you start to also find some of the language I think and the questions that you can ask to be curious about your partner and why they may recoil or not be interested? And are you actually interested in sex? Or is that just the tactic to feel connected? Yeah. And I don't usually recommend seeing health care professionals. Not that I'm against them. I just feel like for some people, that's a step they

don't want to take. But what you were talking about, that self-reflection, that self-awareness It's very hard to accomplish on your own. And so it may be useful to talk to a mental health professional. But I do want to give the caveat as much as I already have problems with medical health professionals, medical health care professionals. There are a lot of therapists out there who have no idea how to have conversations about sex in a healthy way. so I would definitely if you think that you need to talk about some of these issues and be able to talk through them and again it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you it's just like if you don't have that human to

talk to and it may you may not be able to do with your partner since they're going through it with you this may be one of those places where you do want to see if you can find someone to maybe process this out loud with but I just want to give the heads up like definitely feel out whoever you may be talking to because not everyone is trained in how to talk about sex stuff

yeah i think i'm glad you pointed that out because i've heard some very bad stories from people oh i can imagine i can imagine yeah there's another episode purity culture um what what else uh comes to mind for you around around desire discrepancy let me back up for one second because i've been debating whether we always know that when i'm debating something in my head i should probably just say it out loud so someone had summed something up in class once and it was very stereotypical about gender and I was like you know how I feel about those yeah so I have a litmus test where I say it to my students who aren't in the class like in a different class and see how they react I don't know why I think they're like they're the beacon of what's true but what the

student had said was that and I'm sure this has been said in other places that men and I'm sorry about the gender stereotypes and I'm sorry about the binary language that men have sex to feel closer but women need to feel close to have sex which is we were talking oh I don't know what that face is we were we we had been talking in class about makeup sex I don't even know how it came up we were talking about makeup sex and what the person was saying was like well guys want to hook up because that's if they hook up with you you know after a fight they feel like everything's better whereas women don't they don't want to get physically close to you until they feel emotionally safe and they feel like it's been settled and so the student said that and there

was a little grumbling but then I repeated it because at that point I was teaching two of the same classes because then he started doing a social study yeah yeah so at that point I was teaching a Monday Wednesday Friday class and a Tuesday Thursday the same thing I repeated it for the next class and they were like uh-huh yeah but like I was yeah they they bought into that hook light and sinker so i you had thoughts i saw the face i don't subscribe to that okay i don't subscribe to i i we can just there are women who just want to fuck oh absolutely and there are women who just love sex. And to me, it's not based in gender. So I cringe at that stereotype because what if I as a partner am the one that's like, I want to have sex to feel close,

but my male partner needs to feel close to have sex. You just never know. It's just a human thing there is a human variable that has nothing to do with your gender okay and i shall step down for my subclass now well i'm talking about relationships pretty soon in my class this semester so maybe i haven't floated it out loud in a while it's also incredibly heteronormative like i understand that that sentence is problematic from 18 ways yeah maybe i'll just throw it out and we'll see what they say this semester yeah yeah it definitely perpetuates a stereotype like i i would be curious of our listeners as they're listening to this when they hear the term desire discrepancy do they automatically picture a husband wanting sex and a wife going no i've got

to do fucking 14 000 things before we all go to bed i would say that 95 of the listeners would say that only because it's just such the norm it's such the stereotype yeah and and those circumstances do exist i'm not i'm not discounting the the air quote norm surrounding this but there are there are partners out there um femme female women who are driven by physical desire more than they're driven by mental desire it happens yeah and for women who were raised in relationships where they learned that that was how you connect they're gonna they're gonna see that physical connection as the thing that they desire to make themselves feel good i just this is i that's why I almost didn't say it because it doesn't.

No, I'm glad that you did, because that is it's an important thing to point out. Because I do. I do think many people, when they hear desire discrepancy, think of that stereotype. Women don't want it. Men do. What do you do? Well, it also plays into the whole idea of women as gatekeepers of sex. And there's that.

My other favorite. I do want to thank the student. I unfortunately don't remember the student's name. So if you happen to be listening, thank you for starting conversation. Yeah, it's a very well and it's a very important thing to challenge, especially around this topic, because if you go into if you're a mental health provider, a health care provider, and you see a masculine presenting partner and a feminine presenting partner, you need to challenge what your implicit um assumptions are yeah the implicit bias yeah and your assumptions about that relationship because i i have female women friends who where it's been the exact opposite as i was describing you know some someone got together and with a

partner and they were together for five years and very early on he would make fun of her sex drive because it was higher than his so so of course be shamed for that right yeah yeah well it's interesting because one of the things we know for folks as they get older and most of the studies we have about older folks are about straight folks so sorry that's just where the research is and i don't think with recent changes research is going to get any more inclusive um but one of the things that we know about straight couples is that if they stop having sex as they get older it's because he wants to not because she wants to but the but there's always that assumption like when we're talking when we do nothing in the culture when we talk about older people except talk about viagra

levitra cialis this is ideal like men want it all the time and we actually know for a lot of time the men it's like their desire is not as high as it used to be and for so many reasons and we could talk about that another episode about sex and aging and how the gender stereotypes play out for the aging um the sex life will die so yeah so thanks former student from who and it was a while ago so i feel justified not remembering the name but yeah thanks for that well and we wouldn't share their name without consent anyway that's true that is true i would just rename them probably yeah so the last thing that comes to mind when we're talking about so we've talked about kind of like things happening outside the the bedroom that are getting in the way of sex

we've talked about using sex as a way to connect and so that desire may be different just because of different relationship satisfaction pieces and i don't know if i'm gonna piss anyone off with this third one but apparently that's my thing tonight as it is most days sometimes it's boredom it's just flat out boredom it doesn't mean the relationship is broken it doesn't mean the relationship can't be like this can't be addressed it doesn't mean the relationship is doomed to failure but there's a boredom that sometimes kicks in for couples who've been together for a while yeah so and i think sorry i swear i've said this before um it's always good to hear it twice three times what i find with people who've been together for a while is that it's like this script right

like i touch them formula yeah i touch them there they say oh baby they touch me there we do this then we do that and then all done and there's no there's no variation there's no surprise there's no there's no emotional like excitement happening anymore like yes maybe one or both of them will orgasm maybe they won't um but maybe one or both of them will orgasm but it's like the brain never gets fully turned on so if the brain's not really fully turned on it's not something that people are excited to repeat so I think we kind of need to talk about the boredom piece a little bit yeah tell me more I'm feeling like I might be pissing people I I think because people don't want to think they suck in bed and it's not about sucking in bed um but I think

people don't want to think like oh it's because like I'm not good enough in the bedroom it's it's not that you're not good enough it's just like they've seen your playbook there well yeah there's that and there's just when when you're with a partner for a while there is there is this time or there are certain like milestones in a relationship that i from relationships that i've been in and i've observed like around five to ten years is a is a recalibration period and you either make it through it or you don't but there's this recalibration period where you either get curious about each other again or or not and you figure out what the the next evolution of your normal is and is that will that suffice for your relationship

but there is that when you're with someone um and we're we're assuming monogamy when we're talking about these relationships is that right dr sue it it is though it also isn't because it Maybe like if you're in a poly relationship or an open relationship, it's like I do these things with these people and these things with these people. But there may still actually be a script for those different partnerings. So no, I don't think it's always just monogamous relationships that we see that. Yeah. So then I would say when you engage with a partner in a multi-year partnership, relationship, what have you, that involves sex play, there is a tendency to lose curiosity about their pleasure, your pleasure, their desire, your desire. and and then calibrating those and seeing how you can line them up how they can complement each

other how they can how it's more of a partnership intimate partnership in sex play rather than all right so I know I'm going to do I'm thinking of the the friends episode where they do one two three three seven seven three seven you know um knowing knowing the sequence that they're going to hit just because they know that it'll get them there especially if you're the low desire partner but you want to make your partner happy your high desire partner happy so you're just going to get there as quickly as possible potentially if you do decide to engage and so I would say maybe a first step and I don't know Dr. Su if there's any backing to this but becoming curious about your partner again like understanding that you don't know everything about them and what they like and

what they desire and what pisses them off and what excites them and what turns them on beyond control you know yeah well and it's funny because we you'll see that sometimes the phrasing is like you need to date your partner again um and i think there's something to that like and not just like we're going to have a night out by ourselves but like a different night out like an experience like going back to like re-establish like i don't know if my partner likes to go ice skating let's try that one night but when i work with couples i've been together for a while what i do is i actually tell them that there are certain things i can't do together and usually what we do is we rule out penetrative sex so it's like because that's the end for so many couples

that's the end so when you take that off the table but you still want to fill sexual desires it's like how the fuck am i supposed to do yeah like you've just taken away my end move like what am i supposed to do and it's like figure it out like figure out what else you like right and figure out what else your partner likes and our bodies change over time so it may be that i never got turned on by touch here but now i am but we don't know that because we haven't explored it because we always do the same damn thing so I think there's a lot about it it's kind of being curious and and and if if need be like changing the script and it could be in a way of like stopping certain behaviors or encouraging the the start of new behaviors that might be it as well but also that idea of

reconnecting emotionally with your partner and touch I think touch is such a big deal and I know I've talked about skin hunger 18 million times what we find is that for a lot of couples regardless of age gender all that mostly time together touch only happens when someone wants something so if I'm trying to get your attention I will touch you to make sure you are paying attention if I want to get funky later with you I will make sure to touch you to kind of communicate that But other than that, a lot of times couples and some couples physical touch is their thing. So there will be a lot of a lot of touch. But for some couples, there's no touch unless their sex play. Try working touch back into like, just put your armor on your partner, you know, physical, just physical action. Don't be surprised if you haven't worn them if they're like, what do you want? what yeah what the hell is happening yeah what's going on um but when we've lost that basic connection with our partner yeah there's a really good chance that our desire is also going to start

to wane a little bit so we kind of got into the how to solve this which i didn't think a little bit a little bit well because i think it's just it's so important to remind people especially those that enjoy being in long-term partnerships or are in long-term partnerships marriages that everybody partnership or not changes and evolves throughout their life and so things change your desire can change so those those who married their high school sweetheart it's going to be probably a bit different 20 years in and then 30 years in yeah right um and so just giving room for that because especially in those instances where you've been together for a really long time especially if you got together in your early 20s like the high school sweetheart not but like that

age group if you got married before you're 25 and you're still married or together now there could be ways that your partner has figured out how they want to speak up but they don't want to disrupt anything and that's why it's so important to remain curious and about the person that you're with, that you love, that you want to stay connected with, that you want to engage in sex play with, curiosity and providing that safety for them to share how they feel they're evolving and so that you can do the same as well. Because if you can provide that safe space, then they will give you ideally that safe space to do the same thing and be that vulnerable.

and then i mean pants off i think you just scared people with that word vulnerable probably it's interesting because i can see why people would be hesitant to bring it up that they want to try something new or that their interests have changed because for a lot of couples the first assumption may be that you're doing something outside the relationship and that's how like that's how you know about that and i've had that i've been doing it wrong for all these years and you never told me right like what why why are you telling me now after all these years minutes decades whatever that like it's not good but i had i was working with a couple and we were talking with one of the individuals in it and she was like i read something in one

of my smut books that's her language not mine i read something in one of my smut books and i was like oh that might be fun to try and when i tried bringing it up with my husband he's like well who have you been doing this with so there's this fear of like if suddenly you've been together for a while and you're talking about something new that it must have been something you discovered in a way that was not that was outside the boundaries of the relationship when it could just be you saw in a movie or any of the books that are out right now that are like really getting into the sex side of it the very spicy side which is how someone phrased it for me it could be you saw it in porn it could be just a fantasy you've always had but I can understand why people are afraid to

bring it up because it's have I not been pleasing you this whole time which really is about the other person like when that's their response that like they're two in their own heads and they're not really hearing you when you're saying I want to try something new there's also that fear that there's going to be an assumption of cheating so I do understand why people may be afraid to bring that up especially if it's not the healthiest of relationships yeah I was going to add that caveat a lot of what we're talking about assumes safe relationships that people are in relationships that they can be in and if they don't want to they can leave so there's a lot of a lot of assumption in our language today but sorry i had a whole thought sorry it was totally it was but

it was a little tangential do it okay um one of them curious one of the things that um that i find that i hear from folks is that the way they discovered new positions that turned them on was during pregnancy because they had to change how they were having sex because it was just too damn uncomfortable or certain positions were just no longer accessible and they still wanted to engage in sexually with their partner and so literally they had they the large belly made it being it necessary and for them they're like oh we we never tried this before like this is wondrous but it was like this perfect opportunity to try something and and when i hear them like i never thought i'd discover pleasure from this and never thought i'd discover it from pregnancy yeah yeah um maybe

not something you tell the the kid after it's born like hey thanks to you we discovered this position uh but it's always fascinating when people are like oh we've never tried that and it was it wasn't it was always like that i wanted to follow up with why why why didn't you think of trying it before like why did it take yeah a large physical change in your body to decide to experiment a little bit but i i get that for some people experimentation is scary and we do have a history of purity culture where we look at certain positions as acceptable and other positions is a little too freaky but i think there's a lot that goes on there and all that again all that comes into the bedroom with us oh the complex characters that we are and all that it does to us that's

always kind of my favorite thing is when someone's like oh you're so fill in whatever compliment and you go yeah but if you lived inside my head yeah right would you really think that yeah it sounded like you had another thought no no I was just gonna say do we want to start talking i mean we've kind of already talked about how to how to address it a little bit a little bit yeah unless you had more to say on the other things i i feel good about okay what we talked about how do you feel dr sue i feel like i feel like we've touched on some good things about like variety is wonderful um there's lots of ways to play and if you haven't done something i am giving you permission with consent from your partner to try new things

um it doesn't mean the sex is bad it doesn't mean that you're not excited by it just means that you're in a little bit of a rut and it's just kind of like yep this is what we always do so definitely like encouraging maybe trying new things um and it could be as simple as a different position it could be as simple as a different time of day like or a different spot in the house right as long as there are not children well where you're comfortable and animals could be weird about that too like you have like pet's eyes staring at you i could assume that might be a little uncomfortable um open windows sorry I'm having all these thoughts about places that's a different episode um but what I usually find is people are like well it's the last thing

of the day well guess what you're tired at the last thing of the day so maybe before dinner or first thing in the morning if you could wake up early to do that or like just just little variations can help the best suggestion is the hardest suggestion which is to talk about it talk about it and ask questions yeah but we and i know we've covered this like how scary it is for some people to bring that up like if i've been with a partner for 20 30 years and i'm like i'm not really into it because i feel disconnected i don't feel as attracted to you i don't feel like you find me attractive I feel like you don't talk to me unless you want sex I'm bored I'm like that's a whole lot of vulnerability even in the healthiest relationships that's a whole

lot of vulnerability so if if you can talk about it maybe try talking about it if you need help talking about it a couples therapist who is okay with the idea of talking about sex again not all of them are um that might be a good place to start i agree thank you i appreciate that um like you do this for a living or something i know um i so i've said this before and i said this when i was working i was being interviewed by a magazine and i i said fake it till you make it and i could hear the reporter it was a phone it was a phone interview i can hear the reporter pause like like it was just this isn't something we're supposed to say and the reason I say fake it till you make it I don't want you engaging in a behavior if you truly don't want to do that is

absolutely 100% not what I am saying if you really don't want to engage in a behavior do not engage in behavior and don't pressure your partner to engage in a behavior if they're telling you no but sometimes it's like your brain is so tired that the idea of doing this you're not really into it and they're super excited and you don't think you can match it if you kind of get into the moment sometimes our bodies can help us take over and be like oh wait we do want this oh wait this does feel really good oh wait like that again thank you please yes like sometimes getting into the moment and allowing yourself to be there even if you're like take it or leave it yeah and you were mentioning this before like you know if you're the person who doesn't have as high a sex drive

you know kind of kind of going along with it and then if you're like this isn't really working for me then and again assuming that it's a safe enough relationship where you can say that but maybe just being in the room with them while they're masturbating or maybe hugging them or kissing them their bodies while they're using a sex toy like you can be present and physically connected without necessarily having to do all the things and maybe that's a great way of like re-establishing a relationship where the person's like i want to be i love you i want to be with you i want to care about you i want you to feel connected just don't feel like doing those things but i'll physically be close to you i'll say things in your ear that may turn you on

but you're kind of on your own with like taking care of things um but that could be a way to do it a lot of times people are like especially if they have a different if they're a slow burn like some people are like okay i'm ready let's go and other people like it's gonna take me like 30 minutes to get in the moment can you fake it enough until your body goes yes or no and again it could be hard if you're constantly trying to be in that moment and being this isn't what I want that can become an issue for the couple but we go back to open communication about it but I am not not not not saying that you should be pressuring your partner into having sex because I didn't say that don't blame me and don't do things you really don't want to do right yes

i always feel so validated when i talk to you good well i want to thank everyone for joining us on this episode of unzipping taboos we hope today's episode sparked new thoughts and will open up conversations worth having remember that 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 leave your thoughts let us know what you thought about what we said today or any other episode especially the comment about men have sex to to be intimate the one that oh yeah off earlier if you if you have comments and thoughts on that i definitely want to hear that we all want to hear them so yes feel free to chime in yes um

and 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 also want to give a very special shout out to Allie O'Brien for our incredible theme music. It brings a smile to my face every time I hear it. So thank you, Allie. And with that, everyone, take care.