Dr. Kristen Mark - Desire Discrepancy, How Covid Shaped Sexual Behavior, and the Science of Sex

Welcome, I'm Connor Beaton and this is the man talk show Training for Men and Answers for Women. Joining me today is Kristen Mark who is a PhD and is a sex and relationship researcher, educator and therapist. She has spent the past decade at the University of Kentucky and is currently transitioning to the University of Minnesota Medical School. She is affiliate faculty at the Kinsey Institute and her research program centers around sexual well being, specifically the maintenance of sexual and relationship satisfaction, sexual desire in long term relationships, sexual function and dysfunction, and sexual desire discrepancy and much of which we are going to talk about on this show. She also engages in community advocacy around inclusive, comprehensive sexual health education and integrates messages of sexual pleasure. She holds degrees in psychology, family science, biostatistics and public health and her research and therapeutic approaches are as interdisciplinary as her training. She consistently has her scientific research published in the top journals in sexual health and and has presented her work at hundreds of conferences nationally and internationally. Additionally, she is regularly relied on as she is today, as an expert to digest sex and relationship science to print, radio and media television. So, okay, what are we gonna talk about today? We're gonna talk about sex. We are going to talk about a few things specifically desire discrepancy. We are also going to dig into the impacts of on sex relationships during the period of COVID and how people have been dealing with that. So she's got some good research on that. And we are also going to talk a little bit about the science of sexual satisfaction and some of the pieces that go into that. So this is a great episode. Please share this with somebody that you know will benefit from listening to it specifically, maybe your partner. This might be a really great episode to, to listen to with your partner because we do talk a lot about specifically relationships and what partnerships, what people within relationships can do to elevate their sexual satisfaction, improve communication, all that good stuff. Plus, this is just a fun and lighthearted episode about what can sometimes be a little bit of an embarrassing or shame filled or hesitant topics. So without any further delay, please welcome my guest, Kristen Mark.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks so much for being here. I think it's exciting. We've been talking a little bit about sex lately and so I'm excited to have this conversation and dive into all things desire related and satisfaction related and of course most pressingly and most time sensitive and relevant which is sex during COVID or intimacy during COVID So. But before we dive into that, I have to ask you the question that all my guests fear.

Which is tell Us the story about a defining moment in your life that made you who you are today.

And yet you keep asking it. I know, yeah. So I'm going to tell you. So obviously, I think like most people, there's probably many defining moments. So I'll tell one that's very relevant to what we're talking about today. So I think making the decision to move to the States for my doctoral program and not quite realizing how much that would change my trajectory. I'm from Canada. We just talked about that a little bit.

And I went to Kinsey Institute and the center for Sexual Health Promotion to do my PhD, which was really exciting for me at the time. I wasn't nervous to move or anything, but I never thought that 15 years later I'd still be in the States, far from family.

Really right now I'm in Kentucky. So the amount of work that needs to be done when it comes to sexual health in a place like Kentucky and many other states, Kentucky is not alone in that group. It's just really, I just never would have thought that my work would have taken that sort of trajectory. And I think that if I hadn't left Canada, then it probably, probably wouldn't have as much.

Interesting. So moving away. So you get the phone calls from mom and dad every once in a while, being like, so are you ever coming back home?

Oh, for sure, all the time. I mean, it's decreased. I think once I hit the 10 year mark, it sort of stopped as often.

And my response now is just when are you coming to visit? Which right now is never.

Yeah, exactly. Cool. Well, what sort of propelled you into this career path? I'm curious about when it comes to the science behind sexual satisfaction. Some of the research that you do around desire and what made you curious about that from the very beginning? Was sex a part of your household? Was it something that wasn't talked about? I think people are always curious in terms of when we get into the work that we do. I talk about, I work specifically with men. And so people are always like, why did you get into that? So I'm curious for you, what brought you into this?

Yeah, sex was pretty openly talked about in my household, I would say, but it was really emphasized for my brother, more so than my sisters, my sister and I. So I think that impacted me wanting to like, well, wait a minute, this is like relevant to all of us. And then additionally, I made like just a really pragmatic decision. I was taking a class in human sexuality. I found it fascinating and was told that there weren't that many sex researchers in the world at that time. Like it was just a pretty small field. So that was really appealing to me and I found it interesting. And nobody else seemed comfortable talking about sex, but I was really always comfortable and open talking about it. So. So that was also really appealing to me and made me feel like it would be a good fit. And then within that field, I think I started to realize that a lot of the research was really focused on risk reduction and was focused on like protecting people against HIV or STIs or sexual assault. And all of that is crucially important. But I was also sort of like, well, where's the sex positivity in this? Like, where is the satisfaction? How, how, how much are people self actualized around their sexuality and how can we help to promote sexual health as a part of your overall well being and as something that's like crucial to happiness and being truly healthy? And that's where my work in the area of sexual satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, sexual desire, like sexual pleasure, all that stuff really fed into. We need to know more about all of this because actually we're kind of, we're really far behind as a field compared to some other fields when it comes to the positive side of sexual health.

Great, great. All right, well, let's dive in then. How does one even start to begin to study sexual satisfaction? Like, where did you start? What are some of these, what does some of the research look like? Let's just, let's just dig into that a little bit.

Yeah, a lot of the sexual satisfaction research is survey based, which means like you would fill out an online questionnaire with a bunch of validated measures and we would analyze it. A lot of it's individual level, but my work has really, I've really tried to look at the dyad. So looking at like both members of the couple, how can we ensure that we're getting like a much clearer and full picture of what's going on in the relationship and what's impacting the sexual and relationship satisfaction by really digging into both members of the couple because there's a dynamic there that obviously feeds into satisfaction. So I think that's been an area of focus for me. There's also a little bit of work that's been done on sexual satisfaction through interviews. So like asking people, you know, asking people about their experiences with satisfaction. And I think one of the really interesting findings that has come out of that qualitative work has been from some researchers who found that women tend to actually answer questions about sexual satisfaction. With regard to their partner instead of their own satisfaction. Whereas men who are partnered with women, we don't necessarily know men who are partnered with men, what they do, but women who are partnered with men or women tend to do that. And then men answer for themselves like, how satisfied am I? You know, they don't really consider what, how satisfied their partner is in that. So I think that type of insight is really valuable for us to gain from those qualitative studies. So that then when we're analyzing our findings from the quantitative stuff, we can take that into account and try and build measures that are maybe a bit less sexist. I guess.

So what are some of the things that play into sexual satisfaction within a relationship specifically? Like, what are some of the markers that you look for? What's been surprising about some of the data that you've uncovered? Let's dig into it.

Yeah, so I mean, communication is like the most boring one, but also the most important one by far. I feel like I. So often people will say like, what can I do to improve satisfaction? I'm like, communicate with your partner. And, and they're like, no, like something different.

No. Anything but that.

Yeah.

So communication is so important. Like it's important general communication. Just like if you communicate well with each other about general things, but also sexual communication. So like having check ins to say, you know, on a scale of 1 to. Even if you just want to make it data sort of driven. On a scale of 1 to 10, like how satisfied are you with our sex life over the past six months or so? Just to get the conversation going. Because those conversations can be hard to approach for people, but are really critically important on, like noticing when something feels off or knowing when you do need to maybe go to couples counseling or like when you need to change something, because that can build up over time and then it gets harder to get your satisfaction back on track.

Yeah, yeah.

So communication's huge.

Yeah, I think so. Let's, let's dig into that a little bit more because I think one of the things that people hear is like, okay.

We talk about sex or we've had the conversation of the discrepancy exists between the two partners where one person's like, yeah, I'm pretty satisfied in the relationship. The other person's like, nah, this is missing a few components. Where do people go from there? What are some of the things that couple should be talking about when it comes to uncovering sexual satisfaction?

Yeah, I think that they can really talk about needs being met in the relationship. I think that can be a good place to go with that. Like, you know, you want to make sure that. Well, first of all, so there's something called sexual communal strength, which is the extent to which somebody is motivated to meet their partner's needs within the relationship. Sexual needs within the relationship. And so couples who are higher on that tend to. Who tend to like really prioritize meeting their partner's sexual needs. They tend to be more satisfied and have more sexual desire than couples who don't prioritize that or like don't sort of aren't really that motivated to meet their partner's sexual needs. So communicating what those needs are is crucial component for that. And getting to know like, what are some of the needs that maybe haven't been met for you lately and understanding why those needs haven't been met. Like, maybe one of you has been super busy with work or maybe the other one, like due to Covid, has been picking up the majority of the house stuff and that's. Or like the kids. I mean, I just think there's so many factors that can play into it that are completely non sexual that if those got talked about then it would improve the ability to approach sex more readily and like to be able to be more communal in your relationship in like being motivated to meet each other's needs.

Yeah, I feel like the, the old school mentality was just to not talk about any of those resentments that were building up in the relationship just to avoid it all together so that that sex could, you know, can continue to happen. Maybe. Right?

Maybe.

Maybe until it doesn't.

Right?

Yeah. Yeah, until it does. Okay, so, so what about. In terms of. You're talking about communicating about needs. And I think that is something that a lot of couples can struggle with, especially if one partner feels like they're lacking sexual experience or exploration and might not know what they want. And so.

What'S the research or insight behind that about how to bridge the gap when. Because I get this question all the time from people where somebody will be a very sexual partner and have had maybe multiple partners in the past and. And then the other person has not had very much sexual experience and feels insecure about even knowing what they want and what they need. And so communicating that can be quite confronting and overwhelming. And so thoughts on like, where couples should go? I know we're like, we're getting down, you know, into the gritty here, but this, this is. I can hear my listeners being like, you should ask this question. Right. I was like, I'm gonna get a message in my DM box later reminding me to ask me ask this question.

Yeah, I think so. So we don't really get sex education, right? Not in a way that informs us of like how to function in a healthy adult couple relationship. And getting that information from things like porn is not really accurate and can set our expectations in a way that's not really realistic. So I think there's a lot of great resources out there now that exist to kind of fill that gap of like adult sex education. Essentially. One of them is, is one that your guest Lori was, is part of and that I'm also part of called Coral. And they're really working to get people to get to know their sexual selves because of this exact reason. Like so many people are just left in the dark with all these, especially with all these mixed messages around sexuality. And we just, especially women. I think men do as well, though. Men receive messages that are a lot different than what women experience. Women's messages are like, you're supposed to be sexy, but you're also supposed to be a gatekeeper to sex. And then men's messages are like, you're always supposed to be ready for sex. You're always supposed to say yes to sex or to pursue sex when that doesn't always feel right. And so I think this app really works to fill that gap. And it. So that's been great. I think that a lot of people have really benefited in terms of getting information that they. Or figuring out themselves sexually in a way that maybe they didn't have permission to before or didn't have sort of the resources to before. There's like exercises, there's comments, there's a lot of different features to it. So something like that, you know, that would, that really fills that gap of adult sex education. Yeah.

Yeah. Awesome. I love that. I love that. Okay. And outside of communication, what, what can couples start to do to elevate their sexual satisfaction?

Yeah, So I love this study and actually I've cited a few of her studies since we've been talking. My friend and colleague Amy Muse does some work in this area and she found that once a week sexual frequency of once a week is kind of that golden number to reach for maintaining happiness. And that was for general happiness, not sexual satisfaction necessarily. But I still think that that benchmark is an important one to kind of think about in a long term relationship. Relationship as.

Just if you're getting below that once a week frequency, then that's when your happiness will be impacted. But then I think it comes to Desired discrepancy and frequency of what each of you want. And all of that can be mitigated by talking about it and meeting each other in the middle.

But I think, you know, trying to maintain a. An active sex life is beneficial for satisfaction and also understanding that, like, you might not always feel like having sex right away. Right. Like, you may feel really busy and feel like, I don't really feel like it right now. But the way that our sexual response works is that sometimes sexual activity jumpstarts desire. So you may not start to feel desire. We call that responsive desire. You may not start to feel that desire until you've already started having sex sex. So sometimes it might really help yourself sexual satisfaction and your relationship satisfaction, if you are able to do that. And that's, to be clear, that's in a healthy relationship. I think that's crucial there. That's a crucial component of that. If you're in an abusive relationship. I, you know, don't condone people having sex when they don't feel like it. There might be a lot of reasons why you're not wanting to have sex. Right. So I think thinking about that, but really, that help, like, and more sex breeds more satisfaction, which breeds, you know, like, it's a. It's a great cycle that you can get into that really allows for you to maintain a level of satisfaction and that keeps everything else running too. Like your desire and your arousal and orgasm and.

Yeah, yes, yes. I mean, it's almost like in some ways, keeping up your gym routine, you know, like your morning routine in the morning. It's like the more that you're engaged in it and committed to it, the more satisfaction, at least I found that I derived from it. Right. Because there's a consistency there. You know, you feel connected to it. And I think for a lot of couples, there is an obstacle when it comes to that consistency. Right. I think a lot of the research that at least that I've talked to people about on the show and done is that stress is one of the largest contributing factors to diminishing our desire and our sexual arousal. So can you just speak a little bit to why that is? Like, why. Why is stress such, like a desire killer?

Yeah, I mean, there's the physiological effects of stress that kill desire and kill arousal. Certainly, like, your cortisol levels are not friends of desire or arousal. And I just. Sex is often the first thing to be pushed off of the to do list. And when we're stressed, depending on how you deal with stress, you're typically Having to kind of go into that mode of just like getting the bare minimum done. And sex is never really part of that for a lot of people. And so you really have to work to prioritize it as being a stress reliever, like treating it that way as like, this is part of my stress management plan that can be helpful if that's possible for you. But I think there's also some other barriers for frequency related to stress as well that have to do with like even sexual pain. Like if you're, if you're stressed out, you might experience sexual pain because your arousal response isn't coming in. So in that case, then you might want to make sure that you're using lubricant or, you know, engage in other sexual activities. Like if someone's erection is, is not as reliable as it normally is, that could very well have to do with stress and just like do other things, like make out. Go back to the, you know, go back to the basics and have fun with that. To be intimate with your partner in different ways.

I was going to say I feel like there's a blog article I'm going to write just called the Unreliable Erection, like dealing with the unreliable erection. I love the way you said that. I was like, yeah, I could see a lot of men reading that, a lot of questions about that. So I was like, noted. I'm going to put that in the bank here and maybe there's an article coming on that. Yeah, okay. Okay, great. So you mentioned desire discrepancy before. Can you just unpack what that terminology is? I think I've kind of alluded to it already, but can you unpack what that terminology is and then some of the contributing factors to what causes that discrepancy?

Yeah, so desire discrepancy is just when one member of the couple has higher or lower desire relative to their partner. And we found across multiple studies that that isn't very gendered actually, even though our societal expectations would sort of make us think that it might be. And so some of the contributing factors to desire discrepancy, I mean, our desire, our individual desire, it fluctuates throughout our lives and so does our sexual satisfaction. And so there are going to be different points in time where two individuals have different levels of sexual desire. That's inevitable. I mean, desire discrepancy is inevitable in any long term relationship. It doesn't mean that it has to be a super big problem in the relationship. It could end up being totally like temporary and you could not see any implications for your satisfaction based on it. But that means that you will have had to have been kind of expecting that there are fluctuations and that these things, you know, will eventually get better and get back on track. And also our research has shown that some of the ways to get it back on track is to do couples based activities for getting it back on track. So like one of you just being like, oh, I know I haven't had very high desire lately, I'm sorry. Because often the person with lower desire is the one blamed within the context of a couple. And so if they just sort of take that information and go and like try and do things to improve their own desire, that actually doesn't tend to improve satisfaction outcomes as much as if the two people work together and come up with a plan together of some sort of a dyadic approach to fixing the desire discrepancy that improves satisfaction.

Is that removing shame? Because I feel like there's something in there where generally the person who's maybe experiencing the lower desire is, is probably carrying shame about, you know, not being able to be the, the sort of like contributing partner that they ultimately want to be. And so is it, is that approach have to do with shame in there? I'm just, I'm making a guess.

No, that's absolutely right. And that shame grows and grows and grows till it becomes an elephant in a room that nobody wants to talk about. And that becomes a really touchy issue in the relationship. So not letting it get to that point where it becomes this super touchy issue in the relationship. And many couples are probably thinking right now, well, shit, we're already there. Because so many couples are already at a point where it's like so touchy to bring up, to bring up sex, to even approach the topic if you haven't had sex for a while or if you haven't been very satisfied. And so I think it's best to get at it beforehand because I'm sure your next question is probably, well, what do you do if that is the case? And then I think you have to get at sort of the deep issues around what is driving this, what's driving a wedge between the couple? And it may not be directly related to sex, but that, that ends up being a symptom of a deeper issue within the relationship. There might be resentments built up, there's a lot of fear involved, like fear of abandonment or fear of, you know, not being heard, or there's just so many things that build up over time in the context of a, of a relationship that will need to be dealt with in those cases.

Yeah, I think just the fear that you're speaking to there is important because for a lot of people, they'll experience the fear of if I don't perform or if this isn't happening the way that you want it to, then maybe you'll leave or maybe the relationship isn't going to work or you're not going to like me as much or whatever the case may be. And on the other side, it's like if I don't perform properly, there's something wrong with me, or if I'm not able to perform in the way that I want to, then there's something wrong with me or you don't want me as much or whatever the case case may be. And so I hear those coming up a lot. But I think what you're sort of alluding to there is quite important that sex can take the impact of other relational breakdowns. And I think that's kind of what you were saying. So like, if there's issues happening outside of the bedroom, they'll oftentimes filter down into, into sex. Is that, is that right?

Yeah.

And, and is like, is there research around that that we can talk about? Because I feel like it's so helpful sometimes to just put metrics to this.

Yeah. Sexual and relationship satisfaction. So another thing as we were talking about, like what contributes to sexual satisfaction, relationship satisfaction is a huge contributor to sexual satisfaction and vice versa. So research has shown that that is a very bi directional relationship and one feeds into the other and the other feeds into the other. So like, if one isn't great, like if you're not feeling super relationally satisfied in the, in the relationship, if you improve your sex life, it should, it should boost up that relationship satisfaction a bit. Similarly, if your sexual satisfaction is, isn't feeling great, if you focus on improving the relationship in general, if, like, sex feels like, too scary to approach, focus on fixing components of the relationship because that will trickle down into fixing your sex life eventually. You know you're not going to see an immediate improvement on that. But relationship satisfaction is so tied to sexual satisfaction. And when we have issues in our relationship, there might be really valid reasons why you don't feel like having sex with your partner. Right. They really pissed you off and like, you don't want to be with them and that's understandable. Like you need to sort through that stuff sometimes before you can be sexual with them. And sex is a really intimate thing and like you're sharing a part of yourself with someone and you want to trust that person 100%. And that's really hard to do if you don't have trust in the relationship.

Yeah, so true. So true. Okay, so when it comes to bridging the gap in some of those discrepancies and we've got communication, we've got being able to discuss and start to bridge the gap between the discrepancy of desire, are there certain practices that people can sort of embark on? Like, is there any. Is. Does a research point to any sort of like physical practices that couples can, can try or, or engage in that will allow them to start to bridge this gap? Because I feel like so much of this has and is almost always hyper intellectualized. Right. Like the more that people are having sexual issues, the more it gets talked about and, and the more or it doesn't get talked about at all. That's the sort of like the other side of the spectrum. But, but the more that it can get very hyper sexualized. And so I found that that oftentimes for couples to just start to engage in like simple touching or having like, not all the way to sex, but having these sort of like pre foreplay experiences that are, that are safe can start to like repair that sexual intimacy and start to repair and bridge that gap. And so any, any insight on that front?

Yeah, and I think that also comes to sexual trust. So it does also work to repair sexual trust. And one of the things that is, you know, and sort of what you were talking about there is sensate focus exercises. That's what we call it in sex therapy. And so sensate focus exercises allow for you to build up intimacy between one another without the goal oriented nature of what sex often becomes. Right. We so often end up making sex goal oriented for like an orgasm, often male orgasm. And so that, or someone might get like obsessed with a certain type of female orgasm of which they might go searching for and miss out on the sexual pleasure that exists in just like the act of sex itself and the act of the exploration of sex. So sensate focus does instruct couples to touch each other. There's like a whole bunch of stages to it. And you go through each stage with just like naked touching each other the first night. And then like the next time you might touch one another on your genitals the next time it's. And this is not accurate if I don't have the, I don't have the steps right in front of me right now. But you get the point, like you increase what you are instructed to do each time. And I will say that doesn't quite take away the intellectualization of it because you are following a set of instructions.

So for couples.

But sometimes, sometimes couples. I think sometimes couples need that. Right? Like, I mean, I said like, oh.

It tells us to do this, so we have to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, we're gonna, we're gonna, we don't know what to do, so we're gonna follow a set of instructions. They're gonna tell us what to do. And that's gonna alleviate some of the fear because that is some of the fear for a lot of couples when they're like, we don't know how to talk about this, we don't know what to do. We've, you know, listen to podcasts like this. What's the next step? How do we actually take action?

Yeah.

And so I think that's. That's wonderful.

Yeah. So they could Google Sensei focus exercises. It's a sex therapy trick. And yeah, I mean that's a, that's one way to do it. Now if they don't want to go with the instructions and they do want it to be a little bit more free flowing, you know, I think there's a lot of benefit. Now, has the research been done to show benefit of this? I'm not sure. I don't think so. But like sensual touching, that's not sexual focused. So like massaging each other, for example, or like just holding hands again.

So often in long term relationships, you get away from doing that kind of like early relationship type touching. So trying to really remind yourself to get back into the habit of doing that can increase intimacy between the two of you, which can then in turn impact your satisfaction.

Yeah, sorry, we're going to say something.

No, I was just going to say it's interesting because I think when we can start to turn towards asking our partner for some of these things, that's where a lot of the reparative action can take place. To get into the uncomfortable space of moving through our own resentment or disappointment or moving through our own embarrassment or insecurities around it and just saying, okay, I'm going to do something about this. And sometimes that as a couple needs to be the first step. And I think that's why what you were talking about before is so important. I just wanted to reinforce that, that it's a dyadic approach, that the couple is a unit in this activity rather than the onus sort of being like, this is you. You need to go figure this out.

For sure. And I think that's even in sex therapy. One of the first things I assess is in a couple that's coming to see me is their level of commitment and their level of trust. Those are the two things that I want to know, like how committed are you to help to making this work? Because if both of you aren't committed to making the relationship work and to acknowledging that there is actually work involved, like relationships, long term relationships don't last and don't remain happy unless you're willing to put in the work, then I don't know, it's a waste of both of your time because both of you have to be on board.

Yeah, Yeah. I usually get the question, like, how do I, I get a lot of questions from women asking how they can get their partners to get. How they can get their men to go to therapy or, you know, go to counseling. And it's like, it's not, that's not it. Like you can't, you can't force someone to be there. Right. And so if one person's not willing to participate, you know, that's, that's sort of pretty important data that you want to take into consider.

Yeah. And I think that really sparks the question of how committed are you to this and that person? If they could get the courage to ask that question and to truly have that conversation with their partner, then maybe their partner would begin to realize how serious it is. Because I think so often people just blow that off as if it's not a serious ask, like wanting to go to therapy, but pretty serious ask if you're looking to improve your relationship and you're not happy. And talking about satisfaction in the relationship, I mean, yeah, you can exist in a just like status quo relationship that's not very satisfying and fulfilling and you can go on and live your life in that way. But I think a lot of people want more than that. They want to be satisfied. They want to feel fulfillment from their relationships. And there are ways to make that happen. But it does take work and effort.

Yeah. I usually say, like allowing yourself to feel the desire for your desire, you know, like letting, letting that part build. Right. When we can let that desire for our desire start to build, it can sometimes help push us past the threshold of that embarrassment or that shame or that frustration or whatever the case may be to actually say, hey, I'm, you know, wanting to explore this, or I want to have a conversation about this, or I want to try this with you. And sometimes that can be the thing that we actually need to do that. We need to cultivate. I'm curious because one of the things that I definitely wanted to talk about is sex and intimacy within the times of COVID And we were sort of discussing before we started that you're doing some research right now specifically around this. And so what, what have you been finding?

Yeah, so we've been finding that it is absolutely. I mean, it's impacting people's sex lives. There's no question. I think that now we're starting. Now that we're starting to see some people go back to. To work and starting to see people sort of, you know, restaurants are opening in some cities and a little bit of normalcy is coming around. It's less. It seems to be a little bit less of an impact. But some people's frequency, for example, the majority of people's frequency decreased with the initial lockdown stuff. Most people's frequency decreased. There was a small percentage of people whose frequency did increase. And of those people, they were like trying a lot of new things. So they tended to be a bit more sexually adventurous in that pursuit of higher frequency. And so I think that those are a very unique demographic because they're typically people who are in relationships, locked down with their partner and don't have children. And I think that the not having children piece through this. Especially school age children, like teenagers, they can kind of exist on their own. Ish. And. But people who have like little kids are definitely struggling the most because they're having to. They're having to really battle well and single people. So in very different ways they're struggling. But people who are married or who are in long term relationships and they have little kids in the house, like sex really, I mean, it's really. It's hard in good times to keep sex at the top of the to do list. So for them it was like, I mean, it just, you know, was not gonna happen. And I think that that really does impact satisfaction in the longer term. But knowing that it's a temporary. Ish state, we don't really know how temporary at this point. You know, can. Can be helpful. I think we did see. So in one paper, couples typically have like either ideas around their relationship that. That love is sort of about growth versus love being about destiny. So like someone who believes in soulmates might be more likely to think to have like what we call destiny beliefs. Meaning like, I'm supposed to be with this person. This is my person. I'm like, we're gonna just be together forever. And this is great, right? They have this idea in their mind that that's the case. And then there are people who believe in grow, who hold what we call growth beliefs. And those folks are like, yeah, I'm making a decision to be with this partner. I love this person. I'm very satisfied. But I also understand that it's going to take work in order to move forward. Right. Like, we're going to have to work on this and we're going to have to grow together as a partnership. So what we found was that couples who believed in, like, destiny beliefs, who were more oriented toward destiny beliefs, their sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction were impacted far more than people who had growth beliefs. Because the growth belief folks were kind of like, this is just something that we're gonna have to work on together and grow through together. The destiny folks were probably a little bit more shell shocked by this shift that they weren't expecting and maybe weren't expecting it to be quite as difficult. So that's one paper that is forthcoming that was some interesting findings around that.

Can you, can you speak a little bit more to the destiny versus growth beliefs? Like, what would constitute in the category of destiny beliefs? Because I think that's important for the listeners to sort of understand, like, where they sort of reside. They might have an idea already, which they probably do, but let's just dig into it a little bit.

So I think if you tend to believe in soulmates, like, if you believe that, like there's one person out there for you and that you're going to meet that person and that. That person that's like, you're going to know and that's going to be the person that you're with that's like someone who holds destiny beliefs. And I think there's a lot of people out there like that.

It's the Disney destiny, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Disney has infiltrated our version of love.

Yeah, yeah. Prince Charming.

Yeah, right, yeah, the. The white knight and the princess.

Exactly. And then people with growth beliefs are people who are maybe a bit more pragmatic about it. You know, just like there's like, I understand that relationships take work, right. I understand that it's going to be important to continue to cultivate happiness in the relationship. Happiness isn't just going to come to us, right. So destiny belief, folks, is like, because we're together, happiness will come to us. We will be shined upon with happiness because we found each other. Whereas growth belief people would be like, we have to actually work for that happiness. And we have.

You got to work for that Sexy time?

Yeah, right.

You got to hustle for it. You got a kid or two, you gotta. You gotta work for that shit. Come on now, people, you know, you gotta. You gotta work for carving out some sexy time. It's. It's. That's just a. That's a. That's a part of it. I think one of the biggest shocks that I've had while doing these interviews was I had Maureen McGrath, who, when I did a TED talk a few years ago, she's a sex therapist out of Vancouver and she's got her own radio show and stuff like that, and she was talking about how sexless marriages are. I think I remember this correctly, but sexless marriages are anything underneath 10 or 12 times a year. And I was like, oh, I for sure have worked with countless men that are in those marriages and are, like, would not. I think they would be shocked to hear that that constitutes as a sexless marriage. And so is that a frequent thing? Like. Like just that. That topic, that terminology? Because I think as the more research that I do, the more that I'm really surprised by how. How frequent it is for couples to not be prioritizing sex and intimacy and going long periods of time without it or not talking about it. And. And that it's not necessarily indicative of a sort of, like, clinical dysfunction or something that's dysfunctional, but rather like, out of an avoidance mechanism. And so I'm curious to get your thoughts on that.

Yeah. Now, I don't know if I would call 12 times a year sexless necessarily. I don't know that we have, like, an empirical definition for sexless. I think it depends on what sort of time period we're looking at over a year. If someone's had sex 12 times. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure if I would classify that that way, but it's certainly. If both of them want it more than that, then it can be a problem. Right. I think that we should really be defining it based on our own wants and needs and our partner's wants and needs and prioritizing and talking about, like, what does your partner want? Where are they? Like, it's that check in that I talked about initially. Like, having it at. Check it once a month. Like, put it on the calendar. Let's have a sexual satisfaction check in. Like, how are you feeling this month? I know it's been really busy with work. Like, maybe we should. Maybe we should get to this sometime soon. You know, I think that's very different than a couple who has sex once a month out of duty and feels really guilty about it and doesn't talk about it at all, doesn't joke around about it. Those are two really different marriages or relationships. And so I think the context around all of that is really important.

Does, does humor play into sexual satisfaction and connectivity? Because I feel like sex can be such a shame riddled, you know, embarrassing insecurity. It seems to be like the epicenter for where a lot of our psychological baggage goes to. So any thoughts on that one?

Yeah, I think you're right. It does tend to end up being. Yeah, it's just something that is so intimate and raw and you have to be vulnerable in the context of it that sometimes what happens is these, these insecurities get revealed in ways that maybe you're not happy with, like with an unreliable erection, for example, you know, and it's really nothing to do with sex at all, but it has a lot to do with a whole lot of other stuff going on in your life. And so that can be. Yeah, I think that's really hard for couples to navigate if they are feeling like they can't talk to each other about it. So humor, I think, you know, for me, humor plays a huge role in alleviating some of that stuff. But that's because humor plays a large role in a lot of my life. Like, I just like to laugh and have fun and be able to have that sort of joy in my life through comedy. But not everybody has that personality. And so maybe for a couple that's a bit more serious, maybe it wouldn't. Maybe humor would actually potentially not work in the context of sex. Right.

Any, any research or thoughts around like sexual entitlement? Because I think that's one of the other things that I get a lot of questions about is like, you know, my, my partner, like she feels like entitled to X, Y and Z, or he feels entitled to X, Y and Z. And like, you know, is sort of treating this like a deal breaker. Like if I don't do that or if I don't experience this, that somehow, you know, it means like it's a deal breaker for the relationship. So can you just speak to the concept of sexual entitlement and is there any research that's been done on that yet?

So I think that that's research on sexual entitlement specifically I'm not super familiar with, but I'm certainly familiar with like, there's been some research done on sort of like sexual consent in particular as it relates to longer term relationships or like ongoing consent. And that's certainly related to what you're talking about with telling. Asking somebody to do something or like that is not okay. Right. Using it as a bargaining tool. Using sex as a bargaining tool in any way in a relationship violates consent and is really unhealthy. And so for couples who are using sex as that bargaining tool, any sort of sex act that they're wanting to do, that's just really disrespectful in the relationship. And I think that taking a step back to evaluate why are you willing to disrespect your partner in that way and how can you two get back on track with just that basic line of respect in the relationship?

Yeah, yeah, because I feel like a huge part of this. I think Oscar Wilde, I believe, had a great quote that everything in life is about sex except for sex. Sex is about power. And so it seems like these conflicts that we're talking about where sex is being used as a bargaining chip by either party is almost like a power grab. You know, it's like a last ditch effort to try and reclaim some sort of power or to try and maintain some sort of like one up, one down position within the relationship. And so any thoughts on that? Because I know quite a few listeners that are out there within the ether that do deal with this and the partners are sort of like, I'm wanting to move the relationship forward and yet sex is being used as this withholding bargaining chip, or it's being used that I have to do X, Y and Z. And so.

How can an individual within a relationship like that? And then maybe I'm asking you a question that, that is more of like a therapeutic question, but I'm curious to get your thoughts on how couples can start to approach that if they're listening to this show.

Yeah, well, I think really shifting that sounds like the type of relationship where you're not approaching things as a team. And I think that that plays a really big role in the way that couples approach sex and sexual difficulties that might come up is trying, trying to get back to, or at least get to, maybe they never even started as a team, but like getting to a place where you let those walls down. Because that sounds to me like a whole lot of walls that are absolutely born from an underlying fear. And that fear might be rooted in a lot of things that have nothing to do with sex. But sex is a very convenient, as you mentioned, it's a very easy way to exert power and control over somebody. So trying to get to the bottom of that can be difficult in the context of a hostile relationship.

It almost becomes not your job to get to the bottom of that kind of behavior, but rather the individual who's exerting that power and control over you. And so there are lots of places where people can get help around that sort of thing.

And I think looking to your own community for that kind of help. We think about abuse as just being physical, but that is. That's a psychological manipulation, and that is definitely abusive. And especially over the course of time, that can really take a toll on somebody to where they are being controlled in such a way that they can't. Don't feel like they can get out.

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you just sort of like, diving into that topic.

Yeah, no problem.

I think it is something that a lot of I'm seeing it being more common than maybe is being talked about within relationships that people are. Because again, I think we are sort of unconscious of some of our relational patterns. Sex can often be this sort of, like, refuse spin where we put a lot of our emotional, psychological, relational, you know, garbage that we're not dealing with. And it can. Sex can be the thing that takes the hit for it. And when what I hear you saying a little bit, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I kind of hear you saying, like, hey, if we actually prioritize sex, it can help us alleviate some of these things because we have to talk about them, because we have to face the hard things and have the hard conversations.

So, yeah, definitely.

Any. Any final thoughts on that part?

Yeah, and we just did it. We just finished a study of women who had experienced sexual trauma, but they're now in healthy sexual relationships. And I will say, like, we learned a ton from that study about all of this because these women had worked so hard to make sure that their next relationship was not sexually abusive in any way. And those partners like information about defining consent. And how do you navigate consent in your healthy relationship? Consent is super sexy, actually. It's like something that is. It ends up communicating to a partner that you respect them and that you want them to enjoy themselves. And so if we could normalize that of consent being sexy. Like, a lot of these women just talked about how important that was for them for their partner to really explicitly talk about consent with them and to be openly communicative about it and about what their wants and needs were within. Within sex and outside of. But we were really talking about within sex. So that that provides a level of empowerment that can really fuel sexual satisfaction in a really Important way.

Yeah. Can. Can you maybe just speak a little bit more to that? Because I think one of the things that I've heard a lot of men talk about is they'll be in a relationship with a woman who has. Who has been abused in the past. And this is a really big challenge because a lot of the guys are like, I want to help her, I want to support her, I want to be a safe space for her, but I don't know necessarily how to do that or how to engage specifically around sexual exploration or conversations in a way that is going to be generative, you know, and. And restorative in many ways. And so what was some of the things that you learned in that study? And maybe if you can just speak a little bit directly to what a man can do if he's in a relationship with a woman who has been sexually abused or abused in a past relationship.

Yeah, I think really taking her lead with it is super important and also understanding where she's at with all of it in terms of processing. And some women really wanted to be able to talk about it with their partner, and other women didn't necessarily, because they'd already processed it. They didn't consider that to impact their current sexual life. They found consent to be really important, but there were just a few really specific things that maybe were off limits, and they communicated that to their partner really clearly. So there's sort of a real range depending on where they're at with it, which isn't necessarily the answer that most people want to hear, I suppose, but I would say, like, being supportive. And rather. So we. One paper that's about to come out from that actually is about men's responses to the disclosure of the sexual assault. And I think this is helpful information for men to have for just knowing, like, for instance, not over. Not like overreacting, almost. I hate using that word. But not like, overreacting to the disclosure of being like, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry, like, what happened? I can't believe that. Or like, getting angry. Like, these intense emotional responses to it. Even though you might feel that just hold it in a bit, because she's already had to go through all of that, and she's already had to process all of that. For her to now manage your feelings around it is not something that she wants to do in the context of disclosure. The best responses around that were really like. Like, wow, I'm really happy that you shared that with me. And I'm like, really glad that you felt safe to share that with me, if there is anything that you need from me, I'm here for you. And I want you to know that we can talk about this anytime, but we also don't have to talk about it. So just offering that as just being like a really open space rather than reacting in the way that you might want to, you might want to get angry. Who did it? Who was it? Like, let me, you know. And that was not a response welcomed by any of the women. All of them expressed that as being almost an immature response. Sort of like a, yeah, I've been through this, I've done this. This part's behind me. We're now in this relationship and this is a healthy relationship. Let's cultivate that.

Yeah. And I think there's sometimes, I think an emotional hijacking that some men will experience in that space and.

Approach it from a very sort of immature way of like, I'm going to be this person's savior. And it's like, well, maybe she's been working on it for like a decade.

Yeah, she's already saved herself.

She's got that shit together. Like it's not, you know, it doesn't need you to sort of like swoop in and save the day. But again, that's part of like the Disney programming of you know what? I feel like I'm putting a lot on Disney right now.

You can keep landing on deep on Disney.

This episode, it should just be called like Disney's programming, you know, like, like just, just wrecked the 80s and 70s and you know, 90s generation. What we expect for love. Okay, all right. On a, on a lighter note, let's just, let's just end off with where can couples begin to elevate their, their sexual satisfaction? Like is sexting play into this, you know, outfits playing this, role playing, like, you know, power dynamics and domination. Like what, what does the science show that, that couples can start to engage in that's going to help elevate their, their sexual satisfaction.

So I think primarily the take home message from the body of work in this area is like all of those things you just listed are great accessories, right? Those are great little side bits to add in. But what really has to happen is you have to be willing to meet your partner's sexual needs, needs and be motivated to do so and be open to talking about that and like what those are and to like exploring together what your sexual needs are. You might not know what your sexual needs are. So how fun to get to like do that with your partner and figure that out and maybe you can use some of those things that you just mentioned as tools to get there. But really I think the real place of getting to a spot of true sexual satisfaction within your relationship is really being intimate with one another and open and vulnerable and like exposing yourself through sex in a way that feels really close and trusting and important to each other.

Yeah, I appreciate you keep you sort of like coming back and breaking it down to that simplistic first actionable of like if the two of you aren't committed to to each other's satisfaction and desire and are dedicated to that, the rest of it is just all glam and glitter and probably is not going to carry the long term satisfaction that you're actually looking for.

It might work short term and it might be exciting for the night and that's great. I think you should do that. But if you really want to achieve true satisfaction and what I think about as sort of the self actualization piece of sex.

Yeah. You just have to go a bit deeper than that.

Yeah. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been an absolute blast. If people are wanting to learn more about you and your work and your research, where can they go?

Yeah, I try and keep my website updated. Kristenmark.com or you can follow me on Twitter Kristenmark.

Awesome. Awesome. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining in. For everybody that's out there listening, this is definitely a podcast. If you're listening to a by yourself, this is an episode that you need to relisten to with your partner or send to them for them to listen to so that you can have a.

Conversation or bookmark it. If you're single, bookmark it for when you're not.