DSO Reacts: From the Show "Loose Women" - Saira Khan Opens Up About Avoiding Sex With Her Husband

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Hello everyone, DSO here from dadstartingover.com, and we're going to keep this react video podcast train rolling here. For those that don't know what the hell I'm talking about, it's the first time you've heard the podcast, I've done a couple of podcast episodes where I watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast and basically give my rolling commentary on it. And all of these podcasts have something to do with, um, this Dad Starting Over world of ours, which is the world of men and relationships, becoming a better man, etc., etc. Um, last couple I did a reaction on, um, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson talking about, uh, the concept of enforced monogamy and incels. Which got some pretty good response. And then the last one I did was in response to a podcast episode that Esther Perel did where she talks to a couple about their open marriage, and that one got even more response. Thank you so much, guys, for listening. I appreciate all the great feedback. A lot of anger in that one.

Oh boy.

This is, this is a two-parter here. We're going to do it within the same podcast episode, but bear with me as I switch between videos, um, because this is two different videos from the same show. And this is a show which is, uh, from the UK, as you'll be able to tell by the accents. And it's a show called Loose Women. I don't know what the connotation is in the UK for the term loose women, but here in the States, it basically means promiscuous women, women who are easy sexually. So when I saw that there was a show called that in the UK. I'm like, huh, it's got to mean something else entirely. Or maybe they're just, uh, you know, proud of the fact that they're, um, promiscuous, openly sexual men. I don't know. Um, a listener sent me this and said this was right up my alley. So thank you to the listener for sending me that. Um, I watched a couple minutes of the first one and I said, all right, I gotta stop because I think these are better if I go in cold. So to speak, watching these and can genuinely react for the first time and give my thoughts right off the bat. So here we go. This is, uh, well, before we get started, let me give a little plug. Please check out the website dadstartingover.com and check out the DSO fraternity. That's the members-only group that I'm extremely proud of. It keeps growing. Thank you to all you guys. We're closing in on 1,000 members. From all over the world. And, uh, well, what do these members get for their money? They pay $14.99 a month or $149 a year, or they can pay for the lifetime membership for $349. And what do they get? They get a members-only podcast, they get members-only articles, they get live member meetings. We get together several times a week via Zoom and talk about a variety of different topics. All those meetings are recorded. We have hundreds, literally hundreds of meetings an hour each at least. So there's hundreds of hours that you can listen to of that. Hundreds more hours of the DSO Fraternity podcast that you can listen to. That's again for members only. Members articles that you can read online. And we also have private discussion groups online on a variety of different topics. Um, so, uh, it's very active. I'm very proud of it. Oh, in addition to that, we also have— I forgot to mention this, uh, um, the books that I write. You can get access to them at no charge through your membership. You can listen to audiobooks. We've made it so the technology allows us to push, um, the audiobook feed out to your— to the members, um, podcast apps on their phone. So you can listen to it on your phone like any other podcast, but it's just for members only. Pretty cool. And, uh, coaching is heavily discounted for members. So if you want to do one-on-one coaching with myself or any of the 6 other members of the DSO team, you can do so much cheaper than the general public. So give it a shot, the DSO fraternity, dadstartingover.com/join. All right, now that the sales pitch is out of the way, let's get started with Loose Women, shall we? All right, as soon as I can figure out how to start this thing. All right, here we go.

But you know, lately, um, I feel a bit embarrassed and a bit strange talking about this, but Let me just stop there.

Notice the bottom. This is not what this video is about, but they must have been talking about something. This is obviously a segment of a show. It's not the entire show. They must have been talking about something else. For those listening to this on the podcast, you may want to jump over to the YouTube channel, Dad Starting Over YouTube— YouTube channel, excuse me— and watch this. I think getting the visuals will really help fully digest what we're about to see, listen to here. But anyway, at the bottom of the screen, There's text in the bottom of the screen that says, "Is sex a must on your wedding night?" I kind of— oh boy, that kind of sets the tone about what we're in for here. And for guys in the States that don't know about this Loose Women show, which I didn't up until about 5 minutes ago, it's very much like the show we have in here in the States called The View, which is a panel of women, mostly middle-aged, just talking about whatever middle-aged women want to talk about. In this case, apparently before this little segment, they were talking about, is sex a must on your wedding night? Jesus. And now we're going into the subject of, um, this woman here who is Saira— I believe that's how you pronounce it, I apologize— Saira Khan, um, who is a, um, I don't know if she's Middle Eastern or Indian descent, living in the UK. And talking about the fact that she just doesn't want to have sex with her husband anymore. So let's listen to what she has to say.

I'm 46. I've got a busy life. I've got 2 kids, and I'm very lucky to have all of that in my life. And I've had, you know, in my younger days, a fantastic sexual life. But recently, I feel like I just— it's— I love my husband. He's the most amazing man in the world. 11 years. Been married to him, but lately I just find I just— I'm not— I'm not interested. I just don't want to do it. I don't— haven't gone off him really, just your sexual desire is gone.

Okay, um, right away her little partner in crime there is quick to jump on and say, it sounds a lot like what you're saying here, sweetheart, is I don't want my husband sexual anymore. That's not the case, is it? Is it? No, no, no, no, no, it's— you just don't want sex in general, right?

Right.

And of course she jumps in, oh yeah, absolutely, that's the case. Um, if you've heard some of my stuff, I try to, I try to do my best to empathize with everyone in these kind of situations, but, uh, I can only go by my own personal experience and the experience of talking to literally, um, one-on-one coaching over 1,000 men and, uh, probably tens of thousands more online. Um, there's some bullshit here. Um, it's— I just wish that women would, in these situations, would be a little bit more honest about feelings, and then we could actually get to the bottom of a solution here. The feeling, the honest feeling, I, I believe is a little presumptuous on my part, but here goes: she just doesn't have sexual interest in her husband anymore. Take this woman in this scenario, pull her out of this relationship, throw her back into the dating pool, and let her connect with a man that pushes her buttons at a very visceral sexual level. Somebody she, you know, finds physically attractive, you know, the kind of guy she looks across the bar at and says he's cute, and she goes over and talks to him, says, ooh, I like him. All of a sudden, oh boy, she's interested in sex a lot. And this continues on for, if they form a relationship, a little while, up until, well, it could be a lot of different factors that cause a dead bedroom, which is what she's talking about here. And by the way, check out my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. I talk all about this. One thing, one factor in this is that what we have found, and I'm not alone in thinking this, you can pick up a variety of different books, many of which are written by women, by the way, that come to the conclusion that when women enter into a comfortable, domestic, for sure relationship, where everything is taken care of, so to speak, and that little bit of new relationship anxiety is gone, that little bit of, am I gonna lose him to that girl, am I gonna lose him to that girl, that's gone because he's professed his love and marriage and so forth. Many women will report not all, I'm sure, but many women will report that lustful, hypersexual, whatever knob gets turned slowly but surely down. And when kids come into the picture, oh boy, does it really get turned down because of the stress and everything else, combined with a man who very much, uh, turns his knob down as well, as far as the attractive manly stuff that she was attracted to in the first place, the stuff that turned her down. Turned her on— excuse me— um, men just for whatever reason very, quote, naturally start turning that knob down in an effort to show the woman, I'm yours and only yours, and you can depend on me. Oh, kind of going down a rabbit hole of talking about the world of dead bedrooms, but I just want to kind of set the tone for what we're seeing here as a very normal, um, 40-something-year-old woman, I assume. I don't know if she gave her age. That's what I'm guessing. Saying, you've been married for 11 years, kids, everything's great, everything's taken care of. But my body is saying I don't want him anymore. Now, is it her body? Is it him? Is it just the stress? I'd say probably all of the above. And he's probably, if he's like most men, not reacting in the right way to this. So let's continue on.

That's right. I might— I absolutely haven't gone off him because we cuddle up and watch TV and I love all of the cuddling and stuff. But when it comes to sex, I'm finding that I'm making excuses like, "Oh, I'm really tired," and it starts at 6 o'clock in the afternoon. Well, you're often tired, yeah. But it starts at 6 o'clock in the afternoon, and recently I've noticed that at 6 o'clock, as soon as he walks through the door, I'm like— It's like a panic, right? It's a panic, and it's kind of like, all of a— I'll be fine, then all of a sudden I'll say, "Oh, I'm so tired, I've done this today, I've had to run off and do this today," and by the time I've gone to bed— So you're doing like almost an early warning, like, "Don't think when we get to bed that's gonna happen, 'cause I'm tired." That's right. It happened quite regularly.

And also, it's interesting, the tone here is one of, um, she's almost disgusted with herself and her own body's reaction. And a lot of us men cannot relate to this. We look at this as like a nefarious, uh, oh, what do you call it, this is kind of, um, an act that she's putting on, if you will, where she's almost like, guys, I don't know what's going on with me, when in our minds we're like, she fully knows what's going on with her, she just doesn't want to have sex with her husband. Well, Um, welcome to the world of the female mind when it comes to this kind of stuff. A lot of them report almost being held hostage by a body and a brain that they can't quite understand. She talks about she loves snuggling her man, holding him and everything else. That's, that's a pretty big deal. A lot of women are like, I can't even stand doing that. Well, she at least does that part of it. But when it comes to the erotic, the sexual, carnal, that's a whole different world. That's a whole different mindset. And she cannot reach that with him. And that's concerning. That's not a very good thing. And that's what she's saying here. This ain't a good thing. I can't reach it with him anymore. And it's no good. And she finds herself— she's basically, sorry to say, kind of repulsed by the guy. It's basically what she's saying on a sexual level. It's different doing the hold hands. And I mean, let's not be gross about this, but you snuggle with your kids, right? Watch TV on the couch, and you'll snuggle up with your dog, and it's just a different kind of love and a different kind of comfort versus the, um, you know, with your lover, taking your clothes off and rubbing your dirty bits together. That's a whole different other mindset, and, um, trying to equate the two is not necessarily realistic and not necessarily fair. Um, she just can't get there with him. And I'm curious if she will here try and get to the bottom of exactly what's going on, explain it away. Most the time in these things, um, the more the woman approaches the, the ultimate epiphany of I just don't have those feelings for him anymore, and I may very well have for some other guy, um, they get a little scared of that. And they will frame it as, it's me. You know, the old, it's not you, it's me. Um, it's, I have a problem. Um, but again, it's funny how those problems kind of dissipate and go right out the window when they find their new lover. But I digress, and let's continue on with her little speech here.

Yeah, I came down, I looked really nice, I was going to a business meeting, and he came down, he paid me a compliment, he said, oh, you look really nice, you look right. I went, yes, okay then, bye. I'm doing all of this stuff. And it's worrying. But my body as well is just not in that place.

There is a little analogy that I give, a little illustration in the book The Dead Bedroom Fix, you can find it at all major retailers, where I say to a man, or to the readers rather, let's say that there is a 900-pound woman with a beard that you really get along with. I, I use that example because that's the most subjectively unattractive as far as my mind's concerned. I'm sure there's some guy out there going, well, that sounds pretty good. Well, you're not in the majority, dude. Most of us think 900-pound one with a beard and laugh and say, ooh, yuck. Well, let's say that that woman, uh, we really connect at, uh, at a friendship level, right? She's a cool chick. We like the same kind of things. And then that 900-pound woman with a beard says, you know, you and I should go out on a date sometime. That's where you'd go, oh, you know, hey, gotta go, sorry, because that is just not on the table. And sure as hell, if that same woman, 900-pound woman with a beard, said, hey, let's go in the bedroom and get it on, you'd run for your life. That's the reaction that this woman is having. It's utter revulsion on a sexual level. 900-pound woman with a beard, she's really cool, she likes the same kind of music I like, same kind of sports I like, I'll hang out and have a beer with her. Um, I'll sit at the same table with her, but to cross that threshold into the world of the erotic and sexual is completely off the table. And that's what she's saying. She even got a compliment from her man: you look really nice today. Oh, Yuck, mister, you're tiptoeing close to that sexual space. You're paying me a compliment on my physicality. Ooh, yuck, go away. That's got to be hurtful.

Normal? Am I— is it said you're busy and therefore you're tired? And, you know, any sort of sex expert, for want of a better phrase, will tell you that tiredness is one of the great sort of robbers of sexual drive, you know, Um, not to get too personal or too graphic here, but, uh, when my now wife and I met, she was in—

she's a medical doctor— she was in what's called her fellowship. And for those that don't know, after you do your residency as a physician in training, you go out in the real world and you go in like a hospital setting somewhere and do what they call a fellowship, which is, uh, you're a full-blown MD, you're working, but you're kind of under the tutelage of other doctors and you're learning as you go. And you're not the full-fledged attending physician. You're in this little practice fellowship thing, and you can do it in a variety of different disciplines. My wife, or my girlfriend at that time, did a couple of different fellowships, and sometimes those fellowships required that she worked 80, sometimes 90 hours in a week. She was exhausted. She was completely spent. Every waking hour was basically work, work, work, going home and on call with a pager on her side, waiting to get called back into work or with me. And when I say not to get too graphic or anything, we had a very physical relationship during that time. Very, very hypersexual. We were new to each other and we clicked on a variety of different levels and we had a lot of sex. Ridiculous amounts. Sorry, and I'm not bragging here, but I'm just painting a picture for— and I'm not unique in this. A lot of men will report the same. I met this chick, we really clicked, um, we had a lot of obstacles between us— distance, time, kids, job, whatever it may be. And, um, you know, I often say to men, if a woman— you're dating a woman and she's really into you, that woman will crawl through broken glass to be with you. Um, so when this, uh, her co-host here says, hey, any sex researcher will tell you, uh, sleepiness, being tired really gets in the way of sexual desire. Yes. Uh, when you have this giant wall in front of you of all the domesticity and everything else related to marriage and a relationship and family, combined with a man that you've lost that visceral connection to, then yeah, something like sleep can absolutely get in the way. So can something like stress. So can something like fill in the blank. A lot of anything could get in the way when that connection is gone. And that's what she's seeing here.

It's just like, oh my God, it's another thing I've got to fit into the day. So, you know, it's funny, it's true, you know, you've got to make You've got to do maybe what Nadia did. Nadia was talking about it on Friday because she was saying she'd had the same situation, and in the end she just said, we've got to just make time. And it's almost like the anticipation is greater than the— than when you actually— she went off to a hotel. They did like a hotel just for the afternoon, just, you know, there's no distractions, no kids, you've kind of planned it, you know it's there, you're not— there's not that pressure.

I was going to say to you though, before that, I feel like I'm the only one Okay, um, she got some very real advice there, which is you're gonna have to put some work into this, sweetheart. We recognize what you're saying, which is that visceral connection, click, is gone. Hey, that happens in a lot of marriages to the majority of men out there. The majority of men don't have the skills and know-how to keep that little spark going. It's understandable. Well, you're married to the guy and you love him. You have to put some work in. You're gonna have to get away. You're gonna have to, you know, do all those boilerplate, keep the spark alive stuff. And she just brushed that aside and said, yeah, but I feel like I'm the only one who has the— oh God, stop with the I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, and just listen to these very pragmatic solutions on how to fix this thing. But she's not interested. This is a vent and how I'm special, and these women shows just get on my last nerve.

I feel like I'm the only one this is happening to, and that actually everybody else has got the best sex life in the world. They're all doing it, and it's just me.

Yet the segment right before their show was, do you absolutely have to have sex on your wedding night? She— this is bullshit, and she knows it's bullshit. All the women talk about this kind of stuff. Of course it's common.

Everybody lies. You're, you're really not the only one. I get so many letters from, from men and women actually usually women who have reached a certain age, have kids, really, and then what happens is because it becomes such a subject that they don't, you know, they're both aware of, then the whole thing becomes just a mess where they don't talk about it or they're frightened. And then the men write in saying, you know, I've tried everything, I just don't feel she fancies me anymore. They take it as a real kick to their pride. And I've got to that stage where I actually said to my husband, gonna be really shocked that I said— I said, look, I'm just not in that place. If you really want to go and go with somebody else, just go and— I know.

Oh, and you hear the crowd. Why is this such a giant, oh, holy shit moment here? Um, she let the cat out of the bag. This, guys, is relatively common, and it's never good. It's a bad thing, and I'll explain what's going on here. Um, to women, safety and security is the ultimate. It's paramount within a relationship. Without that, just the whole thing starts to fall apart. That's why she's in a relationship in the first place— safety and security. She can run off and have titillating sexual adventures with a variety of men, but not all of them check the boxes that say, this is a guy I can depend on. That's ultimately what she wants in a long-term mate. Now, with that in mind, what she just said to her husband was, look, I recognize you got needs, I recognize you love me and want me and everything else, but it ain't happening. So why don't you just go ahead and get it from somebody else? Now, there's a twofold or two-pronged reason why this is a bad thing. Either she is saying, and we both know you ain't gonna get anything, so I can freely say this as many times as I want, and there's no danger of losing my safety net, my security. Or part 2 is, yeah, you can probably go get something somewhere else, and that will may— it will probably mean that you will leave me, but I don't care. Oh well, I've detached from you a while back. So one of those two things, and both of them aren't good. Both of them basically signal that your, um, Woman has either lost respect for you or just completely detached from you and couldn't care less if you leave or not. Not a good thing. And we all just kind of innately know that when your woman says, fine, go get something somewhere else, that's pretty hurtful to a dude who is committed and has sacrificed so much to be with a woman. To be flippantly cast aside like that, like either A, hey, we both know you're not going to go find one. Good luck, mister. Um, or B, um, go right ahead. And if it means losing you, it means losing you. So what?

Because I wanted to make you happy. Because I want to make him happy. And I got— he's going to kill me for talking about this on national TV, but I just want to— I just want somebody, if they're feeling like— yes.

Oh God. Yeah, she's dragging her husband through the mud here on national television, or actually international, because this is on the internet and some doofus here in the United States is watching this and playing it for his podcast audience. This has gotten everywhere. She's basically saying to the entire universe, I do not have attraction to my husband, not in that way. And so much so, I told him, why don't you go get something somewhere else? And she just keeps bringing it back to, I just, I'm just raising awareness of this situation so that other women don't feel alone. We all know that a lot of women feel this. We all know how common this is. Just, we're not getting to the bottom of this, which is how do we regain that visceral attraction? Or is it even, in this case, warranted trying to regain? Is that something he wants to work towards, or does she want to work towards it? I'm trying to put myself— you know, the only ultimate perspective I have in all this is my own, and I'm trying to think if my— this would— I was going to say this would never happen. Never say never. But I'm trying to think if my woman said that to me, like if one day I'm making a move on my woman and she says, you know, that's never happening. So why don't you just go get it from someplace else? I'd probably laugh because I think she's joking. And then if I saw that she was serious, I'd probably say, you do realize what you're saying here, right? You just— I mean, you really want me to pick up that phone and start making some arrangements now? I have a feeling though that if this husband is like most, um, it's probably not what he did. Um, it's probably— probably what he did was, oh no, no, no, I want you and only you. And probably, you know, the slump shoulders, hurt puppy dog thing, which, um, natural, understandable thing, but not the most attractive response in the world to that.

But I think Colleen's right, is that it's obviously become this sort of, you know, and whenever you read anything about articles in newspapers or whatever about sex therapy or whatever they call it, they always, half the time they say, they ban you. They say, right, you are not to have sex for 6 weeks or whatever. So they remove that kind of pressure. Pressure, yeah.

We, um, we have a term for that in the, uh, DSO fraternity world. We've talked about this exact subject in our discussion groups Again, go to dadstartingover.com/join if you want to learn more about the DSO fraternity. Um, and they've— the guys in the group have coined it as a sex moratorium. And, um, basically it's when you have a healthy version of the talk with your wife, which is, we need to reconnect, we've lost our way. And before you even ask, this isn't necessarily just about sex. In fact, we can remove sex from the equation for a period of time. If you just laid down there and said, okay, go ahead, I wouldn't do it because We're not connected. Something's off here. It's broken. So let's just remove that from the equation. Let's just, let's go out. Let's have fun. Let's reconnect again. Now, that's a legitimate way of looking at this. Like, it's just, let's take the pressure off, which is a nice roundabout way of saying, I recognize you, wife, are very not attracted to me right now in that way. You are very not turned on right now. And that's understandable. I get it. It's hurtful. I I need to decide whether or not I want to continue on in a relationship like this. But for now, let's try and reconnect and let's set that sex thing aside. Because right now you just feel very turned off and pressured to do it with a guy that you really don't want to do it with. And that's what she's talking about.

And then people find that that works quite a lot. People lie, Cyrus. People lie. So nobody wants it like this forever. Is it gonna— I don't know. I'm sure it won't be. I'm sure it I think it won't be, but I think, you know, the fact that you're talking about it, A, you're obviously concerned because you know it's not what you and your husband would normally be like together, so you're clearly concerned about it, which means you care. Because I think if you didn't care, it wouldn't bother you, would it? You'd just think, I don't really care what he thinks. But you do, and I'm sure, you know, because your children are still very young, you know, so I'm sure you'll get your mojo back, but I think you have to maybe address it and put some facts— Yeah, but don't you think as well— sorry, don't you think as well that we all— and I think we're probably all guilty of this— when you get married and you have your kids and a few years have gone by, you do get into that rut as well of not consciously actually making the effort as much anymore because of— all the women are eating in the same restaurant every night. Yeah, but remember, did you hear that?

Uh, the woman on the, on the right there, for guys that are watching on YouTube, said, huh, same restaurant every night. Yeah, being— that kind of surprises a lot of men to hear that within the confines of a monogamous relationship, a lot of women just get flat out turned off. There, there is a subset of people out there who have come up with a solution to this, which they call polyamory, which they call swinging, or whatever, which is bringing other sexual people into the relationship, and they've recognized that, oh wow, my wife sure has reignited her sexuality when it comes to this, when it comes to our relationship after introducing others into the equation. Look at this, how interesting. Yeah, I got my wife back. But we know how that turns out for many people. I'm sure somebody out there is able to navigate that world long-term and make it work, whatever, good for them. But, um, I talk to the guys a lot that that doesn't work out for them, and what happens, uh, quite often is, uh, the woman will pair bond or form a, form a bond or relationship with another, and away they go, and then your relationship is over. Um, so that's kind of what the woman on the right there is hinting at, is, hey, eat at the same restaurant every day. We all know how that turns us off, right, ladies? Um, this is tough, and you saw how the, the main chick there Saira, was that her name? Yeah, Saira Khan, who seems to be the youngest of the group. Sounds like she's in her 40s, and they talked about you have young children. So that's tough for a woman in her 40s. She's got a lot working against her. And that combined with a monogamous relationship, that combined with the guy who she's lost respect for, and This is a pretty potent cocktail of stuff to turn a woman off.

I'm interested. You said you cuddle, which is good, because normally when people stop, you know, or lose their sex drive, they lose the intimacy as well, which women like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also you quite often equate sex with love. To me, it's all, all mixed up together, you know. So if somebody doesn't want to make love to you, then you start questioning, does he love me? Does he still love me? Does she still love me? Definitely. The two go together. What about the ladies in the audience? Is this something that you can relate to, or am I the only one? There's a few.

She seems overly concerned with what does everybody else think. Um, that's very irritating to men. It's very irritating to me. But I've often— and I pointed out in The Dead Bedroom Fix— it's something that you need to come to terms with, men, is that your woman's feelings towards a lot of stuff regarding your relationship She uses the opinions of her social group or the experiences of her social group as kind of a barometer for how she should feel about your relationship and how she should feel about you. I've often talked about the very annoying habit my ex had of seemingly not showing me respect for a myriad of different circumstances until her friend Sally said, "My husband said that your husband—" DSO— it's not my name, by the way— um, is a really good guy and he's a really hard worker. And he saw him working really hard on this project the other day at the office and blah blah blah. And he was saying just what a cool guy your husband is. And then my ex would hear that and then be all over me and give me hugs and kisses and saying, I have such a great man. And I'm sitting back going, this is great, but don't you— can't you see that for yourself? Why did you have to have Sally talk about what her husband said about me? Why do you have to hear it in the third person to form an opinion. And I've realized over the years that that's kind of a very female-y thing. What does my social group think here? And that's— this is what this host here is doing. Sarah is saying, uh, hey, social group, please, am I legitimate in my feelings here? Am I a bad person for feeling this? Please absolve me of feeling guilt and, uh, make me feel like I'm part of the club here.

Nodding heads there, they're going, yes, yes, that's me. I think when you said said, oh, you know, or Colleen just said, we just get out of the habit of making the effort. A lot of women went, oh yeah, I think we're all a bit guilty of that because, you know, it's, it's sometimes—

it's an effort in the vast majority of relationships. When that spark is gone, when that domesticity hits, it's going to take effort on both parts. And the men kind of have to lead in that regard, and the women have to submit, so to speak, so to speak. They have to let their guard down, and yes, recognize I need to put a little bit of effort to get the engine going. That's what they're saying. And if for some women though, they just kind of throw their hands up and say, effort, schmeffert, why should I do this? And I think that's where Sarah's at right now. Really not in the mood.

Sometimes it only takes 20 seconds for you to be in the mood. And then it's over in 20 seconds. So, you know, it's like, for me, I'm dead.

Oh fun, it just takes 20 seconds to get in the mood. 20 seconds, excuse me, to get in the mood. Sarah's probably thinking, uh, no, not, not really, I've tried, it ain't happening. And then of course the old joke of wham bam thank you man, you know, getting it done in 20 seconds, haha. Uh, hey, let's be honest, that's true for a lot of guys.

Well, I feel very, I feel, I feel very kind of embarrassed that I'm talking about my life like this, but I just feel like it's something that if I can share, hopefully other women out there can, and that you feel that it's not an abnormal thing. It's part of the drive. Yeah, yeah. For more Loose Women action, click here.

For more Loose Women action. All right, well, that's, uh, video 1. Now we're going off on video 2, which is a bookend to this, uh, conversation. Sarah Khan's husband speaks out about her open relationship comments. Um, they bring the husband into the studio to say, what do you think about your wife and her comments about why don't you go get another woman? I thought when I saw that, oh cool, I'm glad to see this. I'm curious to see what the guy has to say and see what kind of dude he is.

This must feel incredibly strange for you. You're, you're not in the public eye, you're, you're not a TV personality, you're a regular bloke, and suddenly you're on national national television talking about your sex life. So fair play to you for agreeing to come on the show today.

Um, this whole thing is very weird. Um, this guy's wife on national/international television, internet, said, uh, I don't want to have sex with my husband anymore. In fact, I told him go get it elsewhere. Does that make me weird? And, uh, instead of dropping it there, they actually brought the poor bastard on television to talk about it. Like it's some momentous, uh, you know, international political discourse here. This— it's nothing. I, I don't know, it's just very strange to me.

Well, start with the basics. How, how did you feel when Sarah first said to you that you could sleep with someone else? When you had that conversation, to be honest, I was, I was pretty devastated.

For her, really, that to think that she would even think that she needs to say something like that to me.

Um, hmm, how to dissect this. So this guy is saying, I feel bad for her, my wife, for thinking that she had to say something like that to me. Um, kind of a wussified way of looking at this, isn't it? Um, I think a more visceral honest response would be, um, I feel bad because I thought I had a connection with my wife that obviously I don't have, and she's so disconnected from me that she told me to go get my jollies elsewhere. That sucks.

Because it's something that I would never contemplate doing, I never think about doing, and you know—

This is a, um, uh, very provider-y, wussified, whipped Man's statement, which to a lot of men in the same mindset, the knee-jerk thought is, well, what a good, wholesome, um, what's the term, devoted husband this is. Even though you told me, wife, go get it elsewhere, I say no to that. In fact, I will take it a step further. I have never even fantasized about such a thing. That kind of thought has never even crossed my mind. Sex with others? Are you kidding me? Well, the guy's lying. How do I know? Because he's a dude. And more generally, he's a human being. You trying to tell me that this man who has been without sex from his partner for so many days, weeks, months, whatever it is, has not had the fleeting thought in his mind of lying down with another person? Of course he has, guys. There's a multi-billion dollar industry called pornography that preys upon this very natural, normal, um, desire, inkling, uh, characteristic of the man. There's— do you know what the world's oldest profession is? You've heard that term? Prostitution. Why? The market has responded to an overwhelming need on men's part for sexual intimacy, and so much so that they will pay for it. And I've often joked around about, you can go to any bad part of town, park your car, and some woman's going to come up and knock on your window and ask if you want a date for $20 or whatever it is. That's just the market recognizing this. But this guy is doing the very, um, chicken shit thing of, oh no, no, no, it's you and it's only you. And even in the realm of my mind, it's only you. Oh God, please. You can hear the, the respect go right out the window for this man. And I can see why. He's, um, he is throwing his very natural, normal desires out the window to appease his woman. That's a very sad state to be in. And I've even called it out in my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, as one of the 5 mistakes Pretending that no other females in the world exist is a no-no. It sounds stupid and it sounds misogynistic and it sounds mean on my part to say that, but it's natural, and to say otherwise is unnatural and dishonest. And dishonesty allows you to inch towards the world of creepy. And if you are creepy, you are repulsive. And if you're repulsive, she ain't gonna fuck you. That's, I think, in part what we're seeing here. This guy is falling all over himself on national television to say, no, no, no, I would never ever in a million years do that, and it really hurt me that she would even suggest such a thing. This little over-the-top puritanical point of view. And, uh, guys like me are just sitting back smirking, going, dude, just stop.

Idea for me of, you know, what people talk about as an open relationship is, well, that's just not for me. It's just nonsense. So I felt really— I felt really troubled. I felt heartbroken that, um, that she'd got to such a point, really such a low point, that, um, that she felt the need to say something like that.

Did you feel that after, what, 11? Um, it's—

in other words, it's very hurtful to hear from her that she took the, the last step to actually push me away. You know, when you're, um, all this behavior that Sarah was talking about with— he could say, you look very pretty today, I gotta go. Um, 6 PM rolls around, boy, I'm tired. Uh, you are in essence pushing your partner away. Get away from me, get away from me, get away from me. You're slowly but surely building the, you know, the Lego castle of divorce, of separation. And, uh, she just basically put the last piece of the castle together, and it's hurtful. As your partner to see that. That's what he saw.

Years of marriage together, that she obviously didn't know you. If she thought that you were capable of that, or do you think that she felt she's being generous to you?

I think probably a little bit, a little bit of both, to be honest with you. And, and I, and I think, uh, it was really heartbreaking to, to think all the things that we've been through. So, you know, I think like many marriages, you, you know, you, you start off, and everyone has troubles and difficulties. So we both started businesses the year after we got married. We went through infertility, we adopted, we've had, you know, lots of— and it was, of course, it was challenging me as a white bloke from London marrying a Muslim girl. That in itself was a challenge right from the beginning. So we've been through a lot, and I kind of would have hoped that she'd actually thought, well, you know what, we're in the situation at the moment, and, uh, that Steve will be patient. Steve will, Steve will come around to it.

He's looking at it as a dude who he has put himself in this, uh, um, oh, I'm trying to— how best to say this— he has kind of painted himself in this saintly way of, I am able to sit back and wait patiently for my wife to finally wake up and become attracted, sexually attracted to me. I am— I'm hurt that she doesn't recognize that patience in me. She recognizes the patience. She doesn't care. There's nothing within her biological makeup that is— that says, um, husband is kind, caring, devoted, and is willing to wait. Oh, that activates my sexual energy. That mechanism doesn't exist in human beings. Um, the sexual drive, that visceral must-have-sex-with-this-man thing is a very primal, basic thing based upon different levels of attraction. And none of those levels of attraction are defined as, my husband is very patient when it comes to not having sex. That's not attractive. That's not sexual. That's not visceral. That's, if anything, unattractive. You know, going back to the, his assertion earlier of the Being with other women doesn't even ever occur to me. I'm trying to think of an instance here recently where my wife was talking about her friend, we'll call her Kim. Kim is an attractive younger Asian American gal and who's having all kinds of men problems. And we were talking about how she seems to have, this Kim seems to have settled for a not so attractive provider-y, nothing really sexy about him kind of guy, but she's ready to settle down and make some babies, so she has settled for the guy. And we were just going on and on about it, and she said something— my wife said something about, and she's still such a pretty young thing. And I agreed and said, yeah, she is. And my wife paused, and then she said, um, would you have sex with Kim? And I just said, yeah. And my wife just laughed and said, wow. And I said, Yeah, well, you asked. And that was the end of it. That's honest. That's— you can frame that from her as a bit of a test. That this guy is, you know, being asked, are you willing to be a very real man in this realm and show me that you have options in life and show me that you're being true to yourself and so forth. And he's just failing left and right. No, there's no other woman. It hurts me that you could— that you don't think I'm patient and I'm able to wait it out, and etc., etc. I'm, I'm— in a roundabout way, what he's saying is, is that I am upset that you would think that I'm a visceral sexual man. I'm more than that. Which is ironically, um, that visceral sexual man's probably what she's looking for. I think she need—

I don't think that she needed to say that.

Yeah, you must have known for quite a long time, obviously, how she felt, and you felt the same in a way. Did you never speak to her about it and say, we have to talk about this?

We talked, and often, to be fair, as a typical bloke, you know, it's often the woman that's initiating those sorts of conversations. So yeah, and so I I'm not the one to instigate it really. And I think as well there's a little bit of denial and you kind of get as a—

that's unusual. Um, from my personal experience, the guys that I speak to are very much the talkers in this. They will often talk until they're blue in the face about, um, sweetheart, this isn't normal that we're not having sex. This isn't me. What's going on? Do you not love me anymore? You're supposed to put in work. Why don't you even try? Etc., etc. That from the men I speak to and that are part of the group, that's the predominant theme. Um, so for him to say it's often the woman that brings it up, not men— men bottle it up and don't like to talk about these things— that's not what I've seen personally, but it sounds like in his case. But, uh, it also— he's kind of insinuating that Sarah's the one to bring up this topic of this is bad that we're not having sex. I doubt it. In fact, it sounds like as soon as the sexuality even, you know, came into the picture in any way, shape, or form. In the term, in the, like when he said, hey, you look pretty today, she shut that down immediately.

As a man, you get into a situation where you're thinking, well, it will come around, it will come around, it will change.

And I mean, the point is, is that she's had a real loss of libido, which happens for an awful lot of women. Well, and for men. This isn't about her not wanting to sleep with you, it's just no sex drive at that time.

Hmm, bullshit.

How do you— how are you managing with that? Because I think there's a lot of couples that are going through this. What do you— well, you're still very, very close.

Yeah, massively close. And we've got a really good— I think we've got a really good marriage and a great family. So, you know, it's not—

because we're made to believe you can't have a good marriage unless you have a great sex life. Oh my God, how can any man survive without sex? And actually, I think I think that's what's the great thing about this. I know this must be tough for you, Steve, but in terms of making a conversation happen now, we get locked into this thing. No bloke can possibly be in a relationship without sex, whereas actually, well, maybe you—

maybe, maybe if you're Steve, you can go without sex. Huh, ladies, isn't he a catch?

No, no, he's not. Oh, you're accepting that you go through stages, and it was not the worst thing. There's an ebb and flow in a relationship.

And I've had that I've been amazed by some of the reactions. I mean, obviously it's been the hardest thing for me has been just facing the press reaction, the way that it was twisted and very quickly turned into suddenly I'm splashed on the front pages of papers. And the presumption was, or the insinuation was, that I was in this open relation environment, and it's complete nonsense. I would never ever contemplate being in that sort of relationship.

Wow, so this apparently blew up over there in the UK. I don't know, guys in the UK, have you heard about this before? I, I checked the date on this and it looked like this happened like 5, 6 years ago, so I'm a little late to the show here apparently. But, um, apparently this was a big thing. A woman on this, uh, Loose Women show says, I don't want sex with my husband, I told him to go elsewhere. And this goes all over the papers. Apparently this is a big thing.

Who knew? What's worrying about you though is that because I was in the same situation with my ex-husband because I had a baby, I'd lost libido, I couldn't bear it, and I couldn't bear him to touch me even in the end. And he got angry and angry and angry, and I said to him, well, then go out and have sex with somebody else. He did.

What I admire about you is good for him. Um, you pushed him away. You pushed him away. Don't even touch me. I want nothing to do with you. Go fuck other women. And he said, all right. And he did. I'm curious how that relationship ended. It may come as a surprise, especially to some of your more provider type of men. Women in relationships, that's— it's, you know, I kind of framed it as it's kind of a test. Let's see what you're made of, Mr. Man. Go get some. It's funny that when it comes to infidelity, male infidelity, the man running off and having sex with others, it's interesting that If you were to ask the question to women, okay, your man went out and got some one-night stand. He was on a business trip, met some chick at a bar. They did it one night. They have never spoken since. It's over, done. Versus he's in a relationship with a woman who he's never touched, but they speak every day. Multiple times a day over text message. They, uh, they maybe they meet for lunch every now and then at work. They're talking on the phone. They've obviously formed a very close emotional, close intimate friendship, but it's never really crossed the line at all into sexual anything. It's interesting how the majority of women polled in such thing will, will feel way stronger about that emotional connection than that one-time sexual thing. And to a lot of women, when they hear about that one-time sexual thing— and this is the real mindfuck for a lot of men— that will actually get their engine going a little bit. I'm not in any way saying that you should run out and have relations with other women. Personally, I think if you're gonna go do that, then you might as well file for divorce first, because what the hell's the use for the marriage in the first place, but it shows just the very visceral and animalistic nature of human beings. For this, it's ironic that if this guy had said, "All right, cool, I'm gonna head out next Friday, don't wait up for me," the chances are of his wife saying, "Now hold on a second, who's this guy?" just, it goes up exponentially. And versus, "Oh no, no, no, I'll wait for you and only you. If it takes 10 years, it takes 10 years, that's fine." To this guy, it sounds like an honorable thing. To his wife's sexual desire, it means, "Oh God, not more of this horseshit." You stuck there.

You said no. That's not what this relationship is about. All relationships are different. Can I ask you, Steve, you talk about the press reaction, but what about people closer to home? How have your friends been? They were very quick to be—

they were very quick. And my, my close friends have been absolutely fantastic. You know, most of the lads that I know were really quick to, to take the mickey. Oh, really quick.

Did that help? Yeah. I'm not sure what that means, take the mickey. I need to look that up later. Oh, you You Brits and your little colloquialisms.

It did, it did. You know, I, I won't say some of the images that I got sent through on the phone very quickly, but they were, they were hilarious.

Okay, for those listening on the podcast, the wife Sarah just came into the frame. She's been absent this whole time. It's just been him and, uh, different women. Apparently this Loose Women show, they go through different women on the panel. Because this is a whole new group this time compared to last time. But here comes Sarah.

Oh my goodness, I just want to say I'm so sorry for putting you in this position. I feel so sorry for putting you in this position, and I didn't mean to, really, really did not mean to do it, but it's just really overwhelming. You know what's so lovely is just watching the, the two of you. You're just a normal couple at the end of the day. You are just— and you know what I think both of you need to do Maybe do what Nadia did the other week. Go and have a cheeky little lunch and a bottle of wine. Maybe book into the Maldives. I want to go to the Maldives. I want some wine and theatre.

So this woman's just saying you two just need to get away. Go get a bottle of wine and Sarah there, if you can hear under the applause, just keep saying, can we go to the Maldives? Can we go to the Maldives? For those that don't know, Maldives is an extremely expensive getaway. Very pretty, but of course she picks like the most pricey place she can go to, um, and I have a feeling that that won't help a thing.

I won't say the guy, but somebody who was very quick to judge and said, oh, clearly there is a real problem at the root of this marriage. And I'm seeing you now, you two are pretty solid together.

I mean, we've got a really strong relationship. I adore her, she's fantastic, you know. You know, she's my best friend. You know, there's nothing— Oh God, here we go, here we go.

Can I tell you that, I mean, just on a sort of a light note, but my, um, my mum's in Kashmir at the moment and this news has gone worldwide. Kashmir is the remotest part in the world and I got a phone call and I, I had, I had Saira. I said, yes, you're talking about sex on TV? And I went, no, Mom, I'm talking about I don't have sex. And then she went, good.

It's all right, that's kind of funny. But, um, interesting, isn't it? The narrative of, uh, sex bad, sex bad, sex taboo, we don't talk about sex. And then, no, Mom, I'm talking about not having sex. Oh, okay, good. Um, you don't think that has some kind of, uh, influence upon Sarah in particular, women in general, when it comes to once you enter into that world of domesticity and marriage, uh, with Mr. Safety. This is, uh, it's okay to not have sex. That's just kind of general, um, feminine theme here is one of it's okay. Um, to which I say, uh, no, it's not okay. And, uh, Mr. Baldew there as a fellow bald man, um, needs to grow a pair, basically. And the next time your woman says, go out and get some, you just look her in the eye and say, you do realize what you're saying, right? Because that could definitely happen tomorrow, and you're saying you're cool with that, right? That's the genuine attractive reaction, as opposed to, uh, oh no, dear, that will never happen. I can wait another 20 years. I'm cool. I love you and only you. Um, just— you're just going to get more of the same, dude.

Well, you know, can we just say whether you are or you aren't now is entirely up to you. It's nobody else's business now. And thank you so much, Steve, for coming on. Thank you.

That's the end of it, folks. So there you go. This, uh, this whole dead bedroom lover-provider thing, um, it's not unique to me in my writing. Obviously, this is international thing, and it's been going on since the beginning of time. Um, marriages are not easy necessarily. Um, they can be, quote, easy in terms of if you want to live a very blah, domestic, uh, predictable, boring kind of relationship, if you will. But if you want to kick things up a notch and have a fun, sexy, uh, we stay connected kind of relationship that, let's be honest, 99% of men want, that's going to take some work and it's going to take some know-how and it's going to take some skill. And the fact that you want to do that within the confines of a marriage with kids, you've just ramped up the difficulty tenfold, hundredfold, a millionfold. It's that tough. Um, and by virtue of the fact that I've sold so many of my books and our fraternity membership and everything is illustrative of that, this shit ain't easy and it can go squirrely in a hurry. And it can go down some pretty nasty places, such as your wife on national TV saying, "I don't want to fuck my husband. In fact, I told him to go get it elsewhere, and he said no. Isn't he awesome?" Ugh. Anyway, thus ends another DSO Reacts video/podcast. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you think. What would you do in this husband's position? What do you think of the wife? What do you think of the panel there? And the overall reaction apparently to the press to such a thing, treating it as if it's just this major news story. I'm kind of surprised by that. But, uh, anywho, guys, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it, and you have a wonderful day.