Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Planned Sex: Busting the Myth That Spontaneous Is Better

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

We’ve all seen it on TV, in movies or porn: two people lock eyes, clothes fly off, and somehow it’s perfect. But here’s the truth—spontaneous sex might make for great entertainment, yet for most people (especially in long-term relationships), it’s not the everyday reality.In this episode, we unzip the myth of spontaneous sex and explore the very real, very valid world of responsive desire—the kind that grows with connection, communication, and consent. We talk about how media and porn often set impossible expectations for instant passion, why those narratives can leave couples feeling “less than,” and how planned intimacy can be just as sexy—sometimes even more so—than in-the-moment encounters.We share our thoughts on building emotional closeness, practicing empathy, and navigating changing sexual dynamics over time. The takeaway? Great sex isn’t about chasing camera-worthy moments—it’s about intention, understanding, and choosing each other, over and over again.If you want to read more about different levels of arousal, check out the article that we talk about in the show: Giddy articleIf you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestions

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We are here to have the kinds of real unfiltered conversations about sex, sexuality, and relationships that most people are too afraid or too embarrassed to talk about. No shame, no judgment, just honest, open talk. So zip down and let's get candid. and also did you know that you can watch us now too that's right we have started releasing our episodes the video that goes with these wonderful episodes um so if you ever wonder the faces that dr sue makes when i say something like virginity or whatever or when i cringe or i just start laughing or i say something to get a reaction from dr sue now's your chance you'll find us

wherever you stream your podcasts, but now you can also watch us on Spotify or YouTube. Today, we're going to talk about this myth of spontaneous sex. But before we do, we are going to not spontaneously talk about, have Dr. Sue talk about her background. But first, hey, Dr. Sue, how's it going? Hey, Charlie, it's going well. Good. Well, as I said, would you like to give our listeners a little bit about your background sure so I have a PhD in human sexuality education and I've been working to pay the bills in academia so I did a lot of work working with undergraduate and graduate students but like there's so much more to life than academia no offense to academia so I also do a lot of work in the community and I do some social media posting

so every Sunday folks will submit questions to my anonymous sex questions to my website and then about sex relationships and then every sunday i post one all over social media and i do presentations to just about anyone who asked me to come in and talk about sex um and in doing that one of the things that's happened for me is that i've gotten to work more with media um specifically websites that are usually doing articles and i have had i've had at least one if not more um reporters reach out to me i know we were looking at the story i'd done um about this this whole idea of spontaneous sex so i'm excited to kind of bring it out past like two or three quotes i get to do and talk more about it um but before we do that we have to introduce you charlie me you

for those of you who don't know uh charlie for those of you who do and don't know actually charlie is our curious co-host who's always ready to get into the ins and outs i guess i should work in unzipping and unzip those taboos about all the things that we so rarely talk about openly you want to tell us a bit more sure um that is me i have always from the time that i can remember having an awareness around social issues social justice issues anything norms things that we were i was being told that i was supposed to do or not do because i i'm a girl in american society and then you know growing into a woman so challenging those things and thinking well why is it so different I'm human I'm living I'm on this planet trying to survive and get through

life and experience life so why are why are things expected why am I expected to be so different just because i'm a woman um so just always challenging that and not really feeling um like there is that much of a difference socially or that there should be that much of a difference socially i'll say that um so always in uh challenging always questioning and um deconstructing where where i if i where where that came from where did it start and unpacking that and kind of deep yeah um deconditioning there's the word um and then sue uh dr sue and i have been friends for many years and we became fast friends and um and when the opportunity to join her in this creative endeavor uh presented itself it was a no-brainer because these are conversations that

dr sue and i have anyway and it's uh it's always fun too because we bring our own flavor to the conversation we've got we've got a new yorker and then we've got a west coaster so you know it's always fun um so here here we find ourselves having these conversations and sharing and hoping that it helps uh many of you out there generate some curiosity affirm your curiosity um and help you unzip some things that maybe you thought weren't didn't always kind of feel right for you as far as messaging and, and things that you've been taught so far. So here we are. Here we are. Spontaneous sex, Dr. Sue. Yeah. For our rom-com enthusiasts out there. And porn. I mean, we see it a lot in porn too. And porn. And porn. It's not just the movies.

And advertising, perfume advertising and food advertising and. Movies, TV show media. basically anything we're consuming basically except in the real world um yes so this idea of spontaneous desire it's the spontaneous sex like you look at the person they look at you and the next thing you know you're going at it and that does happen god knows it happens like people hook up all the time randomly at events in the street like what well maybe not so much in the street happening randomly um but it does happen so i don't i don't want to discount that and i think that's always one of the things i want to be careful about when i'm like well this doesn't exist for most people for most people that's not their everyday experience or their

even their most common experience of sex um but it happens people hook up you know randomly in spaces and there is not a lot of talking about it and wham wham it happens that is not most people's experiences especially after they've been in a relationship for a while um and for folks who are waiting to have sex until it feels comfortable and until you know some people have rules about like not until after the third date or whatever it might be for folks where that's part of kind of the build-up it doesn't usually just happen then it's not like okay like I always wait till date four date four let's just go um it and and it never happens that seamlessly there's always going to be some awkward moments there's going to be weird crap happening in the background

um so yeah but we definitely get that idea from almost every source we consume yeah and and I think that the problem and not you know spontaneous sex is great and when it happens it happens but I think the problem with that being the only thing we're seeing is that it makes people feel like they're doing something wrong when that's not what happens in their lives or something's missing right well obviously some things or there's a defect or you know if you've been in a relationship or even if this is just you you take some time to have some response to to flirting and whatever um i think that i i completely echo that that this message the messaging while entertaining to watch in certain you know in movies and whatever um

it's this awareness of the expectation it can create in people's minds when they get in a relationship and then you're like oh this person's not a character that i have fantasized about that i that i'm projecting onto this actual human in front of me um and that and then also it's it's an unfair um unrealistic i think measuring stick to to apply to your relationship to yourself because we're all so dynamic in so many ways and especially when it comes to desire and sex and it goes back to everything we've talked about before so i know we're always doing this like oh in previous episodes but in previous episodes we've talked about like porn literacy and just and general media literacy this idea of being able to understand the messages we're getting

and be like okay does that work does that not work when we don't teach people to take that moment and analyze what we're learning they're not having that oh okay we're not gonna be at work and shove everything off the desk and have sex right there like right not really how it works but but again because we don't have this this education happening for most of us about really think about what what are the messages you're getting from what you're learning and so just another plug for why we need to do more media literacy yeah no doubt no doubt yeah um and i would i would almost argue and i'm sure we'll get into this as this episode evolves but i would almost argue like i'm thinking of a particular movie one of my favorite all-time favorite movies

it's classic um boulderum and it's an incredible like i actually kind of see it as a bit of a um i don't want to say feminist but it is a woman forward storyline especially because time yeah yeah um it's it's um annie this woman annie who is has minimal if any shame about her desire her proclivities and the way that she goes about it and so there's one scene in there that i remember um many women um referencing and it's between um annie and uh crash and it's after they've hooked up for the first time finally um and they're in the kitchen having breakfast and they just they're having this conversation and annie looks at crash and she's just like god you're so sexy and he stands up and he takes her and he pushes the cereal and the milk off the

counter and it's this big, beautiful, passionate mess. And in that moment, it looks like it's spontaneous sex. But what I would argue is that it is been a buildup and it is that conversation that they were having right before and carry over from the endorphins from the night before and all of those things it it was not as spontaneous and so there's an article that you were quoted in that starts to talk about this idea of spontaneous sex and responsive desire do you want um will you talk a little bit about those differences yeah and we should probably make a note let's link to that in the description i'll yeah um so this idea of spontaneous is like your partner walks in and and i am using partner understanding that this could all happen like at

a party at a bar an event like but we're really focusing on what happens with people who are together for a while because that's this is when we hear the something's wrong it doesn't happen that way um so i totally acknowledging that sex can happen between people who don't know each other and have pre-existing relationships or even know each other's name um but this idea of spontaneous sex is like your partner walks in and you look at them and they look at you and everyone drops everything and suddenly you're having sex right there which happens like i don't sometimes it does um and sometimes usually in the very beginning of the relationship um you know they drop the groceries you drop the dishes there are no kids so you don't have to worry about hiding

it from anyone there's no pets and there's nothing like on the floor to step on or like because no laundry that you're gonna mess up right like you're not walking to each other tripping over like the the something that got left out that's but that idea of spontaneous sex of like you kind of look at your partner and your partner looks at you and you're kind of like yeah now like let's go find a place let's do that and it does happen and and it doesn't just happen the beginning relationship but it tends to happen less the longer and longer you're together and that's normal and okay the idea of responsive like desire is more like i could i'm not really in the mood but i'm not not in the mood and so um so so maybe you and your partner start playing

right and i want to be careful in saying that this is not someone saying no and you're going oh well it's just they just have responsive desire so i'm just gonna push through the no the no is the no yeah but the person's like i'm not really sure like i'm not totally into it at the moment i'm not saying no but like you know i'm tired and whatever and then the idea is like sex play starts and that sex play can be conversation i think people totally underestimate the power of conversation it doesn't always have to be like dirty talk like we're saying i hate person hey why did I just use that term I hate that term sexy talk like it doesn't have to be like here's what I'm gonna do to you it could be like I was thinking about you all day like and

and I was thinking about that time we did this and like getting someone in the mood does not have to be that kind of sexy talk because some people find that really icky see now everyone can see for those of you watching now you get to see the face I make when I get intimidating yeah right and some people aren't verbal about that um because they never have the language or they feel like it's not appropriate so I want people to keep in mind the conversation can be creating a bond that does not have to sound like sex talk but but maybe you start talking about it or maybe you start some light touching or maybe you start you really want to get intimate stare into your partner's eyes for three minutes that's it yeah like like the clothes just fall off at that point um but the idea is

like I'm tired maybe I'm not up to this I've had a long day I don't really feel into it I haven't been thinking about it but then my partner and I start connecting and whatever that way is for us and then my body's like hey this might feel good and my brain's like hey that might feel good um it's a slower burn it's it's you know spontaneous is that is that I don't know if I snapped close enough to my microphone there we go spontaneous sex is is that kind of instant and the other is what I call a slower burn it's more like a yeah let's preheat that oven and see what happens like it just takes some time that is not always easy to write into a storyline like I'm trying to imagine how I would do it yeah when your porn video is five minutes you're not

going to spend three minutes on creating connection like showing the text thread between the two and how they got there but and that's the thing is that when you start thinking about that though you can start taking that out further and further um in terms of time so it can start after you both leave the house like hey we should you know we should spend some time together and it can be something as an as innocuous as that in case people are reading your text messages um there are apps that are designed and i'm not going to name any but there are apps out there for couples where you can kind of every day you get a list of behaviors and you say like oh i might be into that or I might not and then the only thing that gets shared with your partner

is the things you two agreed on that is a fantastic that is incredible right I have this way of like starting to think about it um there's a thing called edging which let's try to get to that later this is why I always have pen and paper in front of me um but that's the difference like spontaneous is be like I turn around and I look at my partner I'm like yes you me now here and responses is more like I might I might get turned like I'm not opposed to this but I'm not like running across the room at you right now and I ripped your clothes off you know and with all the faces that go with that now they're on video I'm very aware of all the faces that's why we did it

yeah i to me i wanted to do this episode really to to give language and and start the curiosity about taking away that measurement stick of spontaneous sex from individuals and relationships because you could also be out there dating um and you meet someone and you you like them and and you're attracted to them but maybe you're a little bit of a slower burn to desire than they are and and empowering you to feel like that's not that's not unusual you are not unusual to be a slow burn to desire um that that you're supposed to all of a sudden speed up to match

the person's where that person's at that's not if you're not comfortable with that that's normal and that's okay and that it it can take it can take different stimuli to get your body and brain to catch up together to each other to then want to engage in desire with someone desire and pleasure yeah and you also maybe i mean we bring our baggage with us i hate yeah i don't hate the word baggage i just hate how it's become so like everybody's baggage everyone has baggage but but if our baggage is like you know i jumped into sex really quickly in my past relationship and it meant something different because when we do these spontaneous moments we don't go stop what does this mean for our relationship like let me unpack what this is triggering

yeah that doesn't happen and so you may be assuming like hey we're gonna have sex and that going to mean we're now bonded and the other person's like hey i'm having sex and then i'm out the door like this is not this to me is the end of this where the other person's thinking this is the beginning and so if you if you've had these bad experiences you may be less likely to jump into sex or more likely to you if that's like well once i did that my partner knew i was all in so now i'm going to jump into sex all the time like we we take our past experiences and those are going to temper how we move forward and and i've worked with people who are like oh well i used to i used to jump into sex and now i don't so obviously i'm broken and i'm like no you just

you're learning what works for you you're you're undoing you know you're unpacking or unzipping should i be saying those those experiences and really realizing what they mean for you and that's okay and our bodies change and our hormones change as we age and it is really easy to like walk in the door drop everything and you know go at it right there when you don't like i said before have kids or animals, or like, you know, all this will job. Right? Yeah. So it's, you know, I have to go to my second job, I have, I have an hour, I don't really want to spend the hour screwing right now. I'm exhausted. And I just don't have time for this. So as our life circumstances change, that's going to impact how, how we approach sex. Yeah. And I want to,

I want to back up just for a moment, because I realized we didn't do what we normally like to do when we're talking about these phrases or terms, we didn't share the common definition that we're speaking to. And I think we've implied it, but I just want to explicitly say, like, to me, the myth of spontaneous sex is this idea that sex is always naturally

and unexpectedly initiated without any kind of communication, planning, engagement, all of that. We just know. It's just always, we just always know. we just look at each other and it just happens so I just wanted to back up because I feel like there were some implied understandings that we were talking about up to this point the thing that kills me about how we do media and I wrote this down as you were doing your intro actually

I think I feel like we need to keep my really good ones here um so one of the things that I was thinking about is that yes this is what we show in the media because we don't want to spend time doing the build-up and we don't want to spend time sometimes although that's not true because there are tv shows where like the first five seasons are build-up are you thinking of new girl no actually um but but that's the build-up to the relationship and then it's like yeah like all the sex is going to happen one of the things that i was thinking about as we were going through this is that a lot of times and there's like two or three that are popping into my brain right now there's this so much heightened emotion that almost seems angry like i hate you i

hate you and then they look at each other and they go at it yeah that kind of heightened emotion all the time can actually be really tiring in a relationship but it's this idea that you have to have this heightened emotion and sometimes the emotion we're portraying is actually hate or anger um i've had my students they're they're revisiting the movie now that the series the mr and mrs mr and mrs smith because the movie came out like a while ago but i guess there was like that series that just re came out with the same title and so my students are rediscovering the movie it's that scene where literally they're trying to kill each other they destroy the entire house there's more weapons than i've ever seen and i think in this kind of scene and then it's like

now we're just gonna make love and i'm like that's that's sending a in some ways that's sending a really disturbing message that has to be this heightened level of anger or resentment or hate or something like that. But I actually wrote it was heightened emotion and then blam, sex. Blam. They're picturing like a comic book. Yeah. But that's, I mean, for those of you who may or may not be like, okay, they've lost their minds. Like think about when you've seen those scenes. Cause I think the more you think about it, the more you're going to recognize how often we're shown that and when we're not processing what we're seeing we try to recreate it because we think it's normal yeah or we equate that to like the lasting relationship because also the

other thing to consider is that these movies these shows the movies are hour and a half two hours long and it's showing a blip of because i i remember after the like boom of rom-coms in the late 90s early 2000s and then some of the come there are some movies out there that are like the concept is okay after the after the meet cute and the and the finally getting together like what is that life and and so that's also something to keep in mind especially if you're someone who is measuring your relationship against these kind of ideals or, um, holding, holding out, looking for that kind of chemistry, um, that they're in, in the scheme, if you were to take the storyline in the scheme of a five-year relationship, that storyline is maybe six months, maybe.

so just like to give yourself some grace and some space to understand that this that it's entertainment and many times what they are highlighting is not necessarily emotionally healthy attachment to each other and so i think that's part of the other problem is that it it perpetuates these kinds of heightened emotions or heightened attachments and then boom it's the best sex they've ever had and that's just not if you ever look at it like in the time anyway sorry go ahead that's okay but that's just not it's just not yeah I'm just gonna leave that there sorry I'm writing notes I have so many notes today so really yeah just to me it's it's lead it we've talked about it it's it perpetuates um pressure and um expectations that

no real person or real life scenario can necessarily meet all the time every time right if ever right um and which then to me that's a domino effect because then it it can negatively impact your own sexual well-being your self-image yourself worse it's like it's a it's a dangerous domino effect if you're taking it as relationships in real life should be if i don't walk in the door my partner's not ripping my clothes off every time what does that say about what does that say about us as a couple and i don't mean that tone is like to make fun of people but it's this idea that you think something's wrong because most of us don't do that most of us don't walk in and be like oh this what's wrong

with us we're thinking what's wrong with me what's wrong with this you know what did i do wrong yeah so it does create this kind of sense this problem it also creates another can i veer off this for a second absolutely a couple places actually considering how many notes i've now written um the other thing is it perpetuates this idea of a sexual spark that must always be present the moment you meet on a first date and and that spark i'm not saying that spark doesn't exist it absolutely does for some folks but the number of friends that i have who've been like well I went on a date and there was no spark and I'm like but did you did you like them were they funny could they carry on a conversation like were they interesting I'll be oh yeah they were

so interesting and it was like you know we sat down the next thing I knew was three hours later but there was no spark and I'm like you know I'm not going to tell them they're wrong but but when we have this idea that that's what it's supposed to be that we're supposed to instantly look at this person I keep snapping because that's the idea that it's that quick um that we're supposed to instantly look at this person and they're supposed to be our everything and we're supposed to know it in one second sometimes it takes a couple of dates to get to know someone so when we're not when we don't have that spark it may just be that it's a slow I keep coming back to slow burn and slow flame but it's this idea that it may take some time but we could be

discounting potential relationships because in the first moment we met them we didn't want to rip their clothes off. And to take that further, I think putting so much weight on that spark is like that can actually get you engaged in a very unhealthy relationship dynamic because that spark is really just your pheromones. It's like a chemical thing. It's not anything about quality or sustainability together and compatibility it's just your fair your your chemicals and their chemicals are buzzing when they get around each other that's that's what that spark is and it's funny because when we look at long-term relationships what we know is it's less about that physical piece which is hard for people to believe um and relationships do change over time

but when we look at the relationships that last it's more about that emotional connection like the ones that have those emotional connections are the relationships that tend to last longer there's not going to be a spark that that's going to be the oh my god we sat down and the next thing i knew like they were kicking us out of the restaurant because it was you know five hours later that is more of an example of or more testament that that relationship has the potential to last because you can talk to the person and you can create this bond but because we don't see that and because we're never taught it we discount the importance of that yeah and I do want to I want to make sure I'm making space for some people like if I don't want to fuck you the

minute I meet you then you're not the right person for me okay that's like those people do exist there's nothing wrong with that yeah but that's not what we're talking about here but I want to acknowledge that's out there yeah yeah that that certainly does exist and and and many people have fulfilling experiences with that. But I think what we what we are really trying to hone in on is the taboo that we see is that that is the measuring stick for everybody. And that's what we're unzipping here. I had a really weird, maybe not weird. I had one of those out there moments while you were talking. I don't know. I don't want to go back to it. I'm going to go back. And if you're like we're cutting this that's fine too um so when you were talking about the idea of like

this of what the sex looks like and it's really you know just how you're portraying it in the media one of the things that i always pick up when i'm watching um non-porn because porn there's a lot of nudity but when i'm watching american television because i have this conversation my students a lot about how american television is very conservative in some ways um women will always have sex with their top on ah yeah they always start and finish almost always not always because there's definitely places where that's not true bridgerton is one of them um but they're for most for most network television um you're never gonna see her bra come off and i remember having this conversation in my class one day about because we actually we watched like for

homework they watched something and they rated it i don't remember the details but one of my students is like we talked about it one of my students is like is that why men can't figure out how to take off a bra because they never see someone do it and i'm like that may absolutely that could be a correlation causation thing for sure right because we're never showing that piece of it it's just like take off top clothes men gets naked from top up we may see some kind of like there's stuff you're not seeing off screen and again i'm not talking about the shows where they are showing more nudity outlander bridgerton and things like that um it's this we still like they wake up in their bra you know they have sex in their bra they wake up in their bra and i'm

like that's not what most women are going to do but we don't show the importance of that and so that might be why some people are like i don't have to do with that thing i've never seen it happen yeah that was my strange tangent i just remember one person was like is that why their aha so um so i think we've done a job a decent job unzipping the myths and why the myth of spontaneous sex and and hopefully empowering some listeners who have kind of used it to measure the desire in their in their selves and in their relationship but part of the other half of this was to talk about how planning sex is actually sexy yeah and it can be incredibly erotic yeah and and like I was saying before so you can use the apps to do it to generate ideas

you can simply start sexting your partner if you're comfortable with that um some folks are not comfortable having those kinds of messages on their phones um but you can start you can start it in the morning before you I'm assuming you both leave like at the same time or near each other you can start with a hey like that whole face sorry oh my god what Dr. Patel but like hey like later today or like you know like building the idea of let's let's do something and not like let's just get sexy but like let's have let's take some time to have dinner let's take some time or whenever you eat a meal together let's let's really think about it or I would love to see you wearing that thing that you know that that lingerie or the underwear or that shirt that

shows off your eyes like just just starting to drop these little hints as you go there's this there's this thing called edging I'm trying to figure out where this is going to fit and I don't know if it fits naturally anywhere so I'm just going to just get it out there just spontaneously so edging is this idea of bringing usually when we talk about edging people have heard it in this context of being physically together so you're physically with your partner and you're both getting to that point you're almost about to orgasm and then you stop and you calm down which for some people is like why would you ever stop and what it does is it builds this like heightened sense of when it finally when you are finally allowed to hit that orgasm that it's going to

be this amazing thing because you just keep building up to it you can do that with a partner by text or phone all day. Now it does mean you're going to have some spicy stuff on your phone and again some people are like I'm not doing that I should you know people can see my phone I don't ever do it on your work phone please but you can start that process of trying of building all day and then you may have so then what happens is you come home you're like I don't care that we're supposed to have dinner like we're doing this now and you see that as spontaneous but really it's because of these messages that have been going back and forth all day. There's this thing I'm seeing happen on social media where people are sending spicy texts to their partners

while they're with friends and family. Have you seen this? No. So they'll be like talking to their mom and they look down at their phone and they see this message and like suddenly they're really hot and bothered and like eventually they may do something about it. And in their minds that was spontaneous, but really it started with that text that may have been half hour, hour, two hours ago. yeah and so there are ways of building up to this where you can have it last all day or even all week like we don't have the kids at home on Thursday here's what we're gonna do and that idea of like building this it really is this idea of building and it gives that person who may have a slower response time or that response of desire it gives them time to really start thinking about

and building into it yeah i but because i think what it shows is intention and it shows um it shows that that you're being chosen in many ways which is i think important for many people especially people in long-term relationships who have been together for a minute this kind of um planning plan the word planning isn't sexy but the the steps you take for planning are can be incredibly sexy i remember um i had i had a male friend who came in to work one morning um and this was it wasn't a corporation work environment it was like service industry um so a little bit more free range and what co-workers would discuss with each other free range without being in

yeah without um having it be a thing yeah um and he came in just beaming and um and we were like hey bro what's up and he's like it was like this incredible aha moment for him he the day before he had been engaging with his wife via text message and a phone call here and there on breaks and whatever and what have you and then that night was like the most passionate explosive sex um that they had had in a while um they had they had a young child so they were relatively new parents and and yeah he was just being he's like I didn't know that that's that a day of doing that is all it would take because she you know they're young parents so she the mom was still saying his wife was still staying at home with their toddler and

he was like if I had known it was that easy and really and that's what it is it's um it's affirming to your partner because you're taking the effort to just say this is I'm thinking about you this is how I'm thinking about you I'm thinking about that time that or whatever and it doesn't even have to be that but it's just that engagement where you're not talking about the to-do list and of life day-to-day bills whatever you're just you're flirting again mm-hmm and that's why I go back to that that argument from that bull Durham scene is that that's that's not it wasn't spontaneous it wasn't spontaneous it was the build-up of their their little cat and mouse game for weeks and weeks and weeks and then them catching up to all of that

right but most people saw that as spontaneous right right yeah it's understanding all that stuff the other thing is i remember i was talking to a co-worker once and she said that she never finds her husband sexier than when he's cleaning the house and i'm like okay like that wasn't what I was expecting her to say but he's like because he's trying to make my life easier and he's helping and she's like that turns me on she's like you clean you know you're in the bathroom cleaning the shower like I'm gonna like get naked and get in there with you and I don't want people thinking like oh if I do chores I'll get some but if you want someone to be responsive to you you also have to check out what the rest of the load is in the rest of their lives um so if

you let's say you've picked Thursday I like Thursday because it's a random night too many people pick Friday so let's say it's kind of weekend but it's like weekend eve so let's say you pick Thursday right you're building up to that and then you're like this is you know we're going to go out to dinner and blah blah blah and then your partner's life just crashed around them at work and they walk in the door and the last thing they want is to like get dressed go to dinner and do all that they've had a miserable fucking day they just they just want to get in comfy clothes and relax if you can help make that transition out you like crappy day at work come home how can I help them I know they like when we have this snack I'm gonna put on their favorite show I'm

just gonna tell them to go relax and I'll put the things away it is amazing how that can help that person get back in the mood because they feel taken care of they feel safe they feel loved they feel seen that in and of itself can be a huge turn on for some people and so it's it's really getting to know your partner for who they are there's a level of intimacy that's required for that and god you were gonna say oh no it was just this notion there was a term when we were working before we hit record there was this term that popped up in some of the research that i was doing um to me that sounds like erotic empathy but but but i know you don't like but that could be it's it's a good way to frame it for some like for those for those partners who have

where it's a challenge for them to reset their expectation because their partner walks through the door coming home from a shitty day and that partner takes it personally reframing it for that partner as like the empathy will be the turn on yes i feel that's what i mean by that yeah is because i i i know people where where they really do struggle and they'll take it personally like okay well i guess i'm not getting what i was looking forward to all day and that that you can have that disappointment but if your partner has a shitty day or is stressed or isn't feeling sexy or themselves putting putting your disappointment onto them as well that's not the way to do it it's that empathy and that empathy can be erotic I don't mean to suggest

with that term that erotic empathy I think phrasing it that way can lead some to be like well if I just show empathy then I'll get what I want that's not what I'm saying I'm saying that your understanding and putting aside your disappointment because there's something bigger happening for your partner that outweighs that disappointment that the event may not happen may still that'll be even more of a build-up for your partner and re-engaging for your partner and a little bit of like just show up for them and give them that space without saying well I was really looking forward to this they already know that they're already in their head about that and so so then if they're already in their head about disappointing you and then you're validating

that they disappointed you and then they had a shitty day and then they're stressed and then they don't feel sexy and then of course they're going to withdraw right and that's that that's starting to build a hole that it's going to be really hard to get out of yeah and it's a habit and and you don't want to make that the emotional habit in your relationship so yeah the empathy yes can can lead to desire and intimacy in ways that are even sexier than the act of sex and I think it's knowing your partner well like I my poor friends I really am afraid they're listening just going why is she talking about me again um i have a friend who uh hates flowers absolutely hates being given flowers because in

previous relationships it was a sign that the person had done something she was unaware of i was apologizing in a way like i was like oh i was thinking about you but it was really i had fucked up and this is what i'm doing yeah and i remember when she was dating her boyfriend now husband that he would buy her flowers and she was just like i fucking hate these things and and it got to the point one day where they had something happened and I don't remember what it was it was something not flour I don't it was some kind of edible I want to say it was a pastry or some kind of dessert like he he had that delivered to where she was working and that was the moment where she realized she was seen and he understood her and he listened and and I don't know what

happened when she went home that night but I can imagine it was better than just like I got flowers at the office she also hated getting flowers at the office she felt like he was like trying to own her in public yeah it was very disturbing for her because of past relationships but yeah there was one day it was something was delivered it was something edible I want to say it was like a pastry or from a shop or whatever it was yeah I'm watching her be like oh like he gets me he knows me like he actually knows who I am now as a person um and so it's taking that time to get to know your partner and what they want and what what will give them what they need to be in a place that's safe and maybe feeling like they're turned on but that takes effort and again we don't see

that you know we never see that being portrayed we never see the emotional effort being portrayed yeah yeah and really it is just that if you want that feeling of spontaneity I mean you don't always have to acknowledge that there was a buildup to it but if you want that feeling of spontaneity or I would argue that and I think this is what we've been saying it's making the relationship with your partner on the emotional level feel safe and trusted and that they can have a bad day without you being pissed off that you're not getting any at the end of the day that's not a safe space for your you or your partner emotionally and it it can lead to all sorts of unhealthy emotional habits and and and

things so so just I think part of planning too is that it shows I think I I said it earlier is that it's a choice that you are choosing that you are choosing your partner and to share with your partner in the moments that they're on your mind in that way or it could be like say say you're in a relationship and your partner manages the household does the cooking makes makes the home a home and there's an incredible amount of emotional and mental lift that goes with that and so if you were to text during the day i or say before you leave i i want to cook dinner for you tonight yeah and then throughout the day you say oh my gosh i can't wait for you to taste what i have planned um i think you're really going

to enjoy it i'm really going to enjoy like i'm going to love pouring you a glass of wine while i'm cooking and having you sit there so that we can chat like the the the your partner may experience from that is is incredibly intimate and then can possibly not always but possibly lead to spontaneous acts of intimacy seemingly spontaneous acts and it may not be that day it may be the next year the day after or yeah and that's the problem with this idea of spontaneous as we think it has to be right in that moment when it could be yeah within a 24-hour period of the trigger of the clock can i do something else about the problem of spontaneous sex in the in the media it's always perfect well not always again there's a i can think of actually tv and media where it's

actually not but if you've ever tried to have sour shower sex with a new person like someone's gonna slip things are going to go crashing things are going to fall you may fall out of the shower um one of the things about spontaneous sex is like nothing seems to ever go wrong like it's super serious and super sexy where a lot of times having sex with your partner can have your awkward moments or someone's laughing hilarious right or like you go to take off that bra and you can't figure it out and now it's become a whole thing or you had a candle and you knocked it over and now you know like there's when we think of sex it's just like the sexy moment where everything's going perfect and I'm like a lot of times that's not how it is and sometimes those those are really

intimate moments when you're laughing about something that happened um you go to kiss and you pull away and there's this long string of spit like you know the things that happen in the real world I've actually seen that in a tv show which is why that comes to mind I actually did see that happen um but but that's the problem is that that's spontaneous when they're shooting a spontaneous scene it's not the first take it may not even be the time that part yeah and so so keeping in mind that you may have this idea that's going to be super sexy and it's going to go perfect and then like you trip on the way to the bedroom or um it was laundry day and someone forgot to make the bed and there's no sheets on the bed or it's just it's just having that room for that

human moment which can actually be some great bonding time yeah we never see that very rarely let me change that we very rarely see that in the media and so we forget that sex can sometimes be funny and awkward I have students who are like how do people have sex in the dark like how do you find each other I'm like well that can be a great game of like Marco Polo but like but they're like but but I don't know what I'm doing and I can't see anything and I'm like then maybe turn the lights on like you're not supposed to have lights on during sex i'm like okay where'd that idea come from because yeah you know there's that like after lighting in the in the tv shows they shut the light and then the other light comes on um but it can be really awkward and we don't

see that and so when you have those really human vulnerable moments if you're like well that's not you know that's not living up to par whereas it's not instead it's like a that was a really that's a moment we're probably gonna talk about for a while yeah yeah do you have any other thoughts as we wrap up here on spontaneous responsive and i all that i think just being giving you're being gentle with yourself and with your partner and and recognizing that things change like you may have started in very spontaneous um you know sex all the time everywhere you could find it and you know as soon as you could rip your clothes or even all clothes didn't have to come off um when you've been together for 5 10 15 20 years pick

a number anywhere in there just recognizing that that might not be what's happening and that was okay and you may just have to rediscover how to how to get there um having patience with yourself if you are the one who likes spontaneous sex and your partner doesn't and also vice versa just really really being gentle with yourself and your partner especially if things have changed over time because your relationship will change over time yeah so just yeah be gentle with yourselves and stop stop thinking that you're going to be able to recreate those moments that you're seeing on television and and movies and porn like it's just don't don't let that be your bar don't yeah those things are written not necessarily to mirror society but to get money from you so just keep

that in mind and and enjoy it i mean i enjoy i love movies i love almost all genres of movies but know that it's entertainment it's not life yeah like you don't very rarely see situations where people are trying to have really loud sex and they have a roommate yeah like i know that when i've written articles and and contributed to other articles about vibrators one of the things we talk about is the noise level because if you have if you have if you have very thin walls in your in your apartment or home and or you have a roommate like the noise of your sex toy is going to matter that noise levels never seem to matter yeah so yeah it's just it's just recognizing like they're great to watch and they may be and they may give you ideas but don't let that be the bar

that you're measuring yourself or your or your relationship with right that's my final word i think. I don't want to. No, I love it. I think that's the perfect, perfect final thought. Good job, Dr. Sue. Well, everyone, if I want to thank you for joining us on today's episode, and if you like what you heard and saw, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, leave a comment on this episode or any other episode that you've listened to. We'd love to hear from you and engage with you. And if you feel like this or any other episode is something that someone you know might need to hear, please share and have people join us in unzipping these taboos. Now that we're on video, feel free to wave back or say, hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. I mean, we won't hear you,

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