Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - What is “normal” anyway? And why do we care?

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

In this episode of "Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex with Dr. Sue & Charlie," we dive deep into the often-asked question: What counts as "normal" sexual behavior? Dr. Sue and Charlie talk about misconceptions about what is “normal” and the wide range of sexual behaviors and practices that people engage in.  Dr. Sue offers her professional insights, breaking down what the latest science and research reveal about sexual behavior, while Charlie helps make sense of it all with relatable and engaging commentary.   This episode is an open, judgment-free discussion aimed at informing, challenging, and broadening your perspective of what is "normal". If you have a topic or question you’d like to hear us talk about, please submit your ideas here:  Show suggestions

Hi, welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex. I am your co-host Charlie here with Dr. Sue. Hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. How are you today? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm excited for the episode today. Yeah, we got a good one, I think. So today, listeners, we're going to talk about what is air quote normal sexual behavior and where that idea of air quote normal comes from. And before we jump into it, let's just do a little about who we are. Cause I think this, this topic specifically is a lot of kind of how I got into the work that I did. So let me just do a quick, for those of you who are just joining us and haven't checked out other episodes. My name is Dr. Sue. I have a PhD in human sexuality education. I've been doing

sex ed, schools, classrooms, healthcare professionals, basically anyone who wants to listen for a while and one of the things that i i get a lot of when i do public speaking is a lot of is this normal that's like the start of the question and i've seen it across the lifespan and it's one of the reasons i started doing more and more work outside of academia so one of the things i do now if you haven't already checked it out i'm hey dr sue on instagram and facebook i know facebook for the older folks um instagram and facebook and youtube uh people submit anonymous of sex questions and once a week i choose one and i answer it and a lot of the basis sometimes the questions are actually is this normal and sometimes it's the underlying feature of it so i'm really

glad that we're going to be tackling the the is this normal because i feel like this is a lot of the work that i do so that's how i kind of got started in this and then um charlie and i have been talking about for years years having the eons having the conversations that we have privately about the things that drive us nuts about how we view sex in the United States and just everything from pleasure to double standards to everything. And so we decided to kick off this podcast. I feel like I just totally stole your thunder about who you are. You know, you're great. Yeah, we decided to invite you all into our little chats about this. And hopefully it helps many of you find language that you're more comfortable with and really does unzip the taboo around talking about sex with friends, partners, you know, your own internal conversations surrounding it.

That's really our our goal here. Yeah, that internal conversation is so important with this one. Yes, absolutely. yes so there's gonna be a lot of air quotes in this so for those that we do have a video we're still figuring out how the video aspect of this works i guess if we're on spotify folks can see the video if you can't see the video please assume that there's like air quotes every time we say the word normal um because we don't really have an idea of what's normal so there's there's a lot of there's a lot of air quoting going on this time yes so hey dr sue hey hey what is normal sexual

behavior oh just just pose that dive right in dive right in that way so so the answer when when someone says what's normal sexual behavior my answer is always there's no really such thing as quote normal um it really depends on who you're talking to and where you are like it's it's not so much about normal so much as it is about what our society accepts at that moment in time because we it changes like what what we consider normal sexual behavior changes over time it changes based off where you live i know that i have worked on the east coast a lot i've worked in california for a bit i worked in texas for a bit and what was quote normal in each of those places was was different and so it's we can't just write like this is normal sexual behavior

so that's it that's the whole answer so we're done right we've got a quick episode we're just kidding there's so much more to it than this yes so i i do like that idea of acknowledging that it's what is really acceptable in the society that you've grown up in that you live in now you know the people and community that you're surrounded by so much of that informs how comfortable you are with with the idea again of air quote normal um sexual behavior and and just talking about it and how you're feeling about it and all of those things and that it is certainly an evolution because when we look socially i mean one of the kind in my mind um anthropological um things you can point to to show the history of evolution especially in

america um around the attitude and what is acceptable around sex are our movies because of the regulating agency on what was allowed on screen were you allowed to show married couples sleeping in the same bed you know all of those things i think that is kind of one of the ways and can look at how just the American society has evolved because we've got this visual documentation. Yeah, and it's fascinating too because when you look at stuff that's coming, that's based out of other countries,

like how, and this has been true for decades, how they view nudity is so different from how we view it and what we accept and what we think is acceptable and what we allow to be shown. And I get this a lot from my students who are watching Bridgerton. So I don't wanna like focus on one thing, But British Indian has a lot of nudity because it's part of the story. Whereas for decades, you know, we had people who were growing up in the United States, maybe watching soap operas. It was like people were getting hot and heavy and yet they were like fully clothed, either getting in bed or getting out of bed. And so there was this idea of like, here's this behavior, but that nudity is still not okay. And it is definitely different by culture.

And so I talk about that a lot, actually, in my classes, like what we see coming out of other places and now what we see on TV compared to decades ago. So if you were to, I don't know, if you had an ideal definition of normal surrounding sexual behavior, I mean, is that even possible? I don't think it is because I think that what's normal for you when you're 18, 19, 20, especially with patterns and frequencies, is going to be different when you're in your 60s, 70s, and 80s. I think that the normal, the quote, normal, I'm going to stop saying quote, just assume there's an air quote. The normal behavior when you're partnered versus the normal behavior when you're not partnered. I think there's just too many things that are, that there's too many things that go into it. Because what's normal for me, based off my health conditions, based off what medications I may be on, based off my stress levels, you know, at work, like all these things that are going to impact my life are going to impact my sexual functioning. And all of that's okay. I think that consent is absolutely built into anything that we're going to consider normal. So that is the one thing I always say.

I used to joke about, you know, I don't really care what you're doing as long as it's consensual and as long as it's legal. But even that term legal is such a social. It's so much about our society because 20 years ago, we didn't see people getting married who were the same sex. we didn't you know even in in some states having oral sex between people of different sexes so men and women having oral sex in some states was illegal even though we know people were doing it all over the place so so i had to actually take out that part of my joke definition like oh as long as it's consensual and legal i don't care because the legal piece is reflective of our norms at a different time and and while we're changing our our laws now to catch up it's it still may not be reflective of what we as a culture consider acceptable so really the big piece for me is that consent piece I mean I would love to say everyone should enjoy what's happening

but not everybody is doing sex for the pleasure aspect of it sometimes it's just about a need or sometimes it's just about something like to get revenge or just to satisfy a partner whatever it may be so yeah I think the I don't really think I have a normal definition excuse me a definition of normal because that's, that's completely fair because they, and I wanted to put it out there for listeners who, who may be listening going, okay, but what is it? Well, that's really our point here is that there is, there is not a way to give you a broad baseline that is applicable to absolutely everybody in every society across, you know, across the world, across demographics, all of those things because you know to your point frequency um and even you know your preferences

can evolve over time and that you know we are evolutionary beings and so our behavior will evolve with because of experience because of you know socioeconomic impacts or anything like that ages you we are adaptable beings and so that that will also play a factor into how you evolve and what feels best for you it's it's interesting that you talk about the adaptability piece because um they used to do a survey of of americans who are midlife and older and one of the things that they would find when they would do the survey was the impact of money and and that was i think A surprise for a lot of people when they would read the research was that financial security or concerns about financial security would impact people's sexual functioning. And it's not just because we live in a capitalistic world, because you and I have had plenty of conversations about that. Yes, we have. But it's about the idea that it's hard to get turned on if you're worried about losing your place of living. It's hard to get turned on if you are worried about being able to put food on the table.

And so so when we're talking about what's normal behavior, that's going to change based off all the things we've been talking about. But but even our life circumstances this year may be different. How we reacted to being around humans during covid. Right. And what was normal then? Not that covid's over, but like the the the the immediacy of it is. And yeah, that year of isolation. Right. And what people learned. And so that's the fascinating thing. We didn't plan on talking about this, but this could be a good rabbit hole to go down. What we learned about ourselves coming through COVID has changed what we would consider normal

behavior for us. And so that's, it's just, you said it perfectly, we're just, we adapt and we adapt to so many things that are happening in our culture and in our world that there is no one thing that's normal. Yeah. All right. Absolutely. and again there's our episode no i'm just kidding but can we go down the rabbit hole the covid

rabbit hole for a second i know absolutely we have like this whole pre-show meeting and then we never stick to it which is which is one of the reasons i love working with you um one of the things that we found about women specifically during covid especially women who were not partnered um was that they had to deal with the the whole stigma of being single and being alone which women being raised in this culture that is a thing we try to scare women with and i don't want to get into the politics of what's happening now but this whole idea of childless cat ladies um it's it's used as kind of a weapon but what was happening with a lot of women who were single during lockdown was this realization that they were okay like yeah they were lonely and maybe

they weren't getting all their sexual needs filled and maybe they were exploring with new toys or new masturbatory practices whatever it was but when we started going back out and being around humans again they weren't willing to accept less than the less than what they wanted and we're seeing that translate into men really struggling right now straight men really struggling right now with dating because the effort that they were giving before is now no longer being seen as acceptable and they didn't change but the women a lot of the women they were dating were changing and going this this half-ass you know not not communicating whatever it may be this may have been acceptable back then but i realized that i don't need this so i'm no longer going to accept

less than what i think i deserve and so we're seeing that change there's there's more and more now we're seeing women who are choosing to be single and i don't think it's just covid i think it's a whole lot of societal stuff but if we ask women now what they consider to be normal sexual behavior for them may be very different than if we'd asked them 10 years ago so or even five years ago even five years ago yeah I think it's it's one of those things that we're seeing it's just this change in what's in what we're seeing is normal yeah it's so interesting that you bring that up because, um, several, uh, social media accounts I follow, um, there was this one where he posted, you know, he was having a conversation with a woman friend of his, and she pointed out,

you know, men think that they're competing with other men. And really what you're competing with is my peace, my peace, my safety. Yeah. And, and that is such a cultural shift. Yes. Um, broadly about the motivations of, of women seeking partnership and that kind of interaction and engagement. And I think also part of that evolution is that women are also leaning into our, you know, our sexuality, our desire. And, and if sometimes if that's all we want from someone, you know that's all we want and we don't need to let it go beyond right or want want it to go beyond right this idea that i don't have to be in a partnership to be able to have my sexual needs met i mean that's not a new concept but i think you're right i think more and more women are

leaning into that idea of well if i'm just missing the sexual satisfaction with someone i don't have to take on all the baggage of a relationship if i don't want it if i just need to get if i just need to get off um and i do i think we're having more and more women leaning into that um which is fascinating but i also think i'm just gonna kind of you turn to a different topic here sort of kind of not really um the idea of what we were talking about before we were talking about what society is telling us we're still kind of talking about that but um the implications that we get from where we're getting that information from ah yes my favorite yeah consumption yeah information consumption information consumption and the thing that

always gets me so one of the things when i lived in the used to live in the washington dc area and i did a lot of work with senior citizens and people who are providing um care for seniors but a lot of what women were being told and i'm not just focusing on women folks like this is this is for everybody these are just some examples but a lot of what women were told was that their sex drive was going to tank after menopause that because of the hormonal changes their sex drive was going to tank. I remember seeing literature at the time that said that one of the changes that we should expect as we go through menopause is a decrease in our sex drive. But what I found when I was actually talking to women was that for some of them, their sex drive

was increasing because they weren't worried about pregnancy anymore. And they just felt this whole different sense of like they'd finally figured out who they were and they come to love and accept themselves in their 60s and 70s and so in a lot of ways sex was even more desirable for them and more enjoyable but what they were getting from their doctors because that was the common thought of the day was this idea that that that's not normal that the normal thing is that as you age your sex drive will decrease and when we tell women that and they're still having this strong sex drive or just developing a new sex drive in their 60s and 70s, it stops them from reaching out for help if they're having complications. Because one of the things that happens as we age,

as women age, excuse me, is that their vaginas will become less elastic and they have natural thinning in the tissue and there's just less lubrication. So the biggest sexual problem that women talk about as they get older is pain during intercourse. So if I'm 70 and I'm having pain during intercourse but i'm enjoying the whole process but my doctor has told me that this is not normal at my age i'm less likely to talk to them about how to deal with the situation so so it's it's media consumption which is i know somewhere we're going to do but it's also then how that's being filtered through like doctors and and medical practice and literature and some of that literature was coming from the u.s government so um yeah so i just it's it's a

lifespan issue in terms of trying to figure out what's normal but we we have to talk about where those messages are coming from um because they are impacting us yeah and the triggers for research right like this will likely be maybe part of a different episode but you know i mean just looking at at research now you know they're finally testing cotton tampons with actual blood not water what a concept um but but it's that thing right the the triggers for research to inform doctors so that they can give care to their patients if there is already this societal notion that it decreases then there's no motivation to research those where it has increased Mm hmm. And and, you know, when you do visit with a health care provider and they say that's not normal for your age, how we as non trained medical professionals receive that information is there, you know, you can internalize that as an implication of judgment.

Mm hmm. Yeah. So then that that filters to or that leads to not seeking out information because you don't want to feel judged. Right. You know, you want to you want to be able to enjoy your life. But when you're told you're not being normal, then what you many, many people will just retreat and and then that can lead to a host of other, you know, potential issues. So I think kind of broadening this notion of normalcy or taking that need for normal to be normalized out of these conversations can be huge and can have a greater impact on education and on health. and for you know for every everybody that engages in sex yeah and i use the older people example because they are less likely to get online searching for information not that they don't but they're less likely to get online um they're more likely to listen to their doctors and because we don't usually talk about older people in sex so i love using that as an example but i think we need to talk about where the i almost said average and that's just as bad as normal

we're we're like good catch yeah if you if you're in your teens your 20s and you're wondering if something is normal the first thing we're going to do in this day and age is we're going to get on social media um we're going to get on social media we're going to get on the google we're going to get on reddit or we're going to get on youtube and we're going to look for information about whether or not we're normal um and the problem with that is who that information is coming from and we don't teach people how to be good consumers of education we don't teach them how to um find an article and and figure out what you know if they're referencing a study where that study come from um or how they get that data we we're just so desperate to feel normal and most

people aren't just like, oh, I wonder if I'm normal today. Let me just go online and search. It's because they're worried about a specific behavior. And so they're not reading things in their entirety. They're not looking into who the authors are. They're not doing any of that good, like information literacy stuff. They're just trying to find an answer. And we live in a world where it's so clickbaity. Yeah. So clickbaity. And, and you get, you know, if you, if you search on a social media platform for this question that you're you're worried about in this moment the levels or what populates in that search you know there could be different platforms that are just kind of culture news platforms and so understanding what they're what they're getting

at to get you to click into their site and then also you're going to likely look for content in those first couple of sentences or, or captions that confirm what you're hoping the answer actually is, and not what the what the spectrum of the answer is, right? You you are looking for a result that says, Yes, you're fine. Just beware of blah, blah, blah, you know, take this quiz, and you'll find out. I know we were talking about this beforehand, I often get feedbacks on the posts that I do. So I post, I post all over the place, but it's response to people's questions. And I try to answer the question in the very first sentence or the very first paragraph. And I have gotten people who have reached out to me and said, Hey, if you want more

traffic, if you want more, you know, more engagement with your posts, you need to bury the lead. And I'm like, but people are, people are literally reaching out for information. The last thing I'm going to do is, is hide that information. But that puts me lower in the searching. because they don't have the same level of engagement as other people. So we just, not that social media is a bad place to find information. We just want people to kind of question the source and really take some time and kind of look into things. Make sure you're getting your information from good people. But because there are definitely things I've seen where they're, they will outright say this behavior is not normal. And I'm like, yeah,

maybe that is normal for that person. Yeah. Or that, and the demographic they're in and, you know all of those things and you know kind of pointing to pop culture news platforms um to you know be clickbaity um we kind of realizing that by the time it gets to that platform what they are using as their sources from those the sources that they have used to writing their article has been filtered down so much into a five minute read, because a lot of what they they are doing is reading comprehensive, you know, psycho health articles or medical article research articles, articles that have been vetted and, you know, peer reviewed and all of those things. Well, the general public isn't I don't know if any listeners, any of our listeners have

read um those kind of peer-reviewed articles um but it's you know it's dense language it is dense content and so to get it to a pop culture platform it gets distilled down too much and then you add the filter of the voice of the journalist writing it and the censorship that happens yes because if you use certain certain words to say certain things you're going to get edited you're going to get censored depending on your platform so we need to make sure that we're not only putting it into pop cultural language that people can read and i think that's important and i'm going to come back to that in a second absolutely but it's also how do i do this without getting censored and that's that that can be a real challenge as well and and we're talking about this because so much

of that consumption is what contributes to what is normal or acceptable and how it evolves in society yes all the air quotes around those things all the air quotes there yeah i do think it's important that we're we're breaking down information i mean there are times i'm reading journal articles i'm like can someone just get to the point um right there's there's sometimes there's a limit and i really just want the answer and i do think it's important that we're breaking stuff down and we're doing in a way that's easily consumable by people so they can understand the science um so i don't i don't want us to think that we're not that we're going after people who are breaking down the science what we're going after yeah what we're going after is the idea that

it's not breaking down the science it's reinterpreting it sometimes we're using a specific lens with a specific motive that that there's the big issue with um yeah and really the point the other point here is not again not attacking the those platforms or those journalists that are breaking you know distilling this information down and putting it in a um in a digestible way it's you know you as a consumer of that information just you know have have a little bit maybe a skepticism yeah we want you know a desire to dig deeper and follow the breadcrumb trail because a lot of these platforms are responsible following responsible journalistic standards and so they're linking or or citing where they are where they got this information

Yeah. But we don't I think we just need to keep in mind sometimes that, again, when this whole idea of like, am I normal and people are freaked out and they're panicking like something happened and they don't know if that makes them normal, that they're not always thinking about doing some of this. And that's important. I mean, we all know the big joke about like, don't Google your symptoms, like whatever you do if you're sick, like don't Google, don't go online and do a symptom check and symptom checkers are very often inaccurate. And yet we all do it because in that moment we want an answer. And so we just want you to keep in mind that there's this idea of normal and how normal changes. And one of the examples, I know we were talking about this before, that I always give is when we talk about what's normal in terms of vanilla sex. And I almost hate to use that term, but like a non BDSM. That's usually what we do. We do like the BDSM, the light BDSM and the vanilla. There was this idea that everyone was engaging in like vanilla sex and and then Fifty Shades of Grey came out. The book came out. And I remember people were talking about BDSM and kink stuff all over the place. um i think i'm trying to give my personal opinion on on the books and the movies

yes we are not here to give or editorial opinions though if you know me um i think i think you know how i feel but what it did do regardless of whether or not you like the books but regardless of whether or not you like the movies what it did do was it normalized talking about it and when we surveyed people about their engagement in light bdsm behavior before the books and movies came out we had one set of numbers and then when we asked about it after the books and movie came out suddenly more people were reporting that they were engaging in this light bdsm stuff and i don't think it's because they read the book and were like oh let me give that a go i think what they did was they read the book and i say book only because it came out before the movies i think what happened

was people were reading the book and that normalized the conversation about it and it it was seen as more acceptable so it's not even that people were changing their behaviors and somebody like oh oh more people are engaging in it okay now we get to call it normal it was really just how much we were talking about it and so i i think we need to keep in mind that that's how easy it is for things to to go from being seen as taboo to normal unacceptable right yeah normal acceptable yeah i remember um in my you know earlier my educational career uh experience i won't say career because we're talking with an educator um I don't want to conflate the two no but in my uh early in my college experience uh in a psychology class there was a classmate who

was like well now we're seeing all these things these days and that didn't exist before and I raised my hand I raised my hand I was like well it's not that they didn't exist before it was that it was not socially acceptable for them to be part of society kind of thing or for these conversations to be part of society and so I think that's also something important to remember again with all the media and all these sources I mean it's just an informational fire hose you know it's like drinking from a fire hose as my friend used to say yeah um i think that's important to remember you know because you we have people motivated um to get certain results and to do that they employ a fear tactic and so you know it didn't used to be this way or

these didn't used to exist no if you look across the course of humanity many of this many many of us and many um practices existed it's just it it has shown to ebb and flow with it can be out in the open or it goes back behind closed doors and it's all it you know in my in my view it's all been cyclical you know there's there's a wave of acceptance and and normalizing and then there are people who get who use that to to employ a fear tactic to get what they want and to you know maybe control a population and so it goes back behind closed doors and then there's a wave and accept of acceptance and then it comes back i think i think if we look at history that would absolutely yeah so i'm thinking as we wrap up we should think like so if somebody's listening to this

or watching it and they're thinking well well okay like i get all this it's societal and fine i understand but is it normal like is what i'm doing normal because we haven't really answered that question um i think we should leave people with some ideas of like if they're worried about their behavior being normal yeah and i guess i should answer it since i'm the one who brought i think you should yeah so so what i usually find is when people think that what if whether or not they're engaging a behavior if it's normal if you want to do some internet searching and find out if it is like absolutely do that sometimes you'll find stuff that goes yeah totally normal um but i worry i worry about all the things that we've been talking about um i think one of the things you

need to do if you're thinking is this normal is thinking about why do you think it's not is it because you don't hear people talking about it is it because you didn't learn that that was acceptable because that would absolutely be part that may absolutely be part of what's going on for you um if it's causing you i'm worried about kind of how it's impacting you in your relationship if you're in a relationship so if it's causing you to be uncomfortable that's that's not a question of normal or unnormal that that's something that probably should be addressed um because we want to figure out why it is it's making you uncomfortable if you were taught that if you masturbate you're going to hell then I can understand why you're worried that you may be

that masturbating at the rate you are feels abnormal um and so sometimes it's about getting into like what what what what do you bring into the situation that's making you worry about it being normal or abnormal um and I'm realizing I still haven't answered the question because I don't think there is an easy way to answer it I don't think there's an easy way to answer it but to build on what you were just saying i think what a place to start is when you are saying when you are asking is this normal of yourself if you can go inward and and define what norm what you think is normal or what you have been taught is normal because then that can allow you to finally, and you know, write it, write it out, use your notes app, do something to just get the

ideas out of your head. Because so many times, so many of us internalize it, and we don't see it in front of our face. And writing them, writing it out, you know, speaking, again, use your notes app, however, however, you get that out of your mind, so that you can start to process it. Because when we internalize it and just keep it inside there's that doesn't allow us to dig through through the muck of normal normalcy and societal expectations so i think if you can if you can get there um if you can get to what normal what you have internalized and interpreted as normal surrounding sexual behavior your own sexual behavior then you can start to unpack and look for better or um you know just the resources to to address some of those things i think the last

two thing the thoughts i would leave people with is if you're really still worried because i'm like oh you know if i'm sitting here like oh i still don't know if i'm normal yeah um that anxiety is quite normal by the way that i can definitely say the anxiety about being normal is quite normal um the the two last thoughts that i kind of have as we as we start to get out of here is um the first is if you're looking at behavior numbers because i know i have a lot of questions about behavior numbers and i know we're probably i know we've been talking about doing episode on this sometime in the future the idea of like how often should people be having sex should people i feel like everything there goes in a quote um what we know about sexual behavior whether it is partnered

or whether it is masturbatory is that it's based on self-report so always keep that in mind when you are looking at when you're looking at data i mean unless we're watching people and following them i'm sure we could get there maybe off an aura ring or your apple watch i don't know if we can get data on your sexual patterns but always keep in mind if you're like oh is it normal to only have sex this many times or to think about sex this many times keep in mind that any data that you find is based off self-report and don't want to i don't want to surprise people but sometimes people lie on those surveys so we have to kind of keep those whoa i know i just rocked your world there didn't i whoa um the other thing is is really if we haven't answered the question

and i and i feel like that might be people's frustration is that we haven't answered the question specific to you like we've kind of given you some information about some light bdsm stuff and maybe it's seen as more acceptable and certain behaviors always, you can always submit questions to me. So you can always go to my website. I'm sure we're going to have the information up somewhere, um, submit the question. And, um, if we didn't answer your question, I'd be happy to do it at some point. So, yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned that because I wanted to be sure that we did say, you know, if you still have a question or you just need to see something written out from a professional and submit the question to, Hey, Dr. Sue, which we will have linked.

All right, everyone. Well, thanks for joining us today on Unzipping Taboos, Candid Conversations About Sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We hope today's episode sparked new thoughts and opened up dialogues worth having. Remember, your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need to hear this. Got a question or a topic you want us to dive into reach out to us via the link in the episode description until next time dr sue it's been a pleasure as always and keep the conversation going and keep unzipping those taboos take care