Getting Cliterate with Dr. Ian Kerner

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Look into his eyes. They're the eyes of a man obsessed by sex. Eyes that mock our sacred institutions. Bedroom eyes, they call them, in a bygone day. Hey Emily, you got a boyfriend? Cause my man E here, he just got his heart broken he thinks you're kinda cute.

A girl's gotta have her standard.

Oh, my. Do women know about shrinkage? Isn't it common knowledge?

What do you mean? Like laundry? It shrinks.

Can we not talk about sex so much? Are you kidding me?

Oh, my God, I feel so drunk.

Being bad feels pretty good. Well, you know, Emily's not the kind of girl you just play with.

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I'm not usually sitting here, so it's always interesting to, like, see what the patients see.

This is actually good for you, I would think, the perspective. I could do a little mini therapy on you. I'm with Dr. Ian Kerner. I'm sitting here in his office, his infamous office. I think it's Infamous because. Very well known licensed marriage and family therapist, sex therapist, New York Times best selling author of she Comes First. Hi, Ian.

Hi, Emily.

I'm glad to be here in your office.

It's nice to have you. I hope that the. They're doing some work on the facade of the building. You know, it's one of these old West Village.

Yeah, I love it. Have you been in this office for a while?

You know, not that long. About 18 months. I was in Soho before this.

Okay.

But I like it here.

Yeah, I like it, too. I was just thinking, like, if these walls could talk. I mean, how long have you been practicing?

Close to about 20 years.

Okay, 20 years.

Yeah.

That's a lot of people that have come through. Mostly couples. Where did this all begin for you?

It all began back in my own childhood and college with my own sexual issues and dysfunctions and fears and anxieties. And there we go, right on time. Hasn't been doing that for the last two hours. But that's New York, New York clock. And I think that that always opened up a desire for me to.

Feel at ease in the world and to normalize my own insecurities and my own issues.

What were those? Yeah, those insecurities. When you were a teenager, was it teenager? You said high school.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, really, in all of my early sexual interactions with women, I suffered from premature ejaculation. And I felt very embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated and kind of sexually crippled or sexually disabled. There was no Internet. There were no men's magazines. There were no easy to read books. There was just Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson and Helen Singer Kaplan and studies and technical data. And I sort of had to make my way through that to kind of come through to some sort of experience. But I was with a girlfriend at the time, and she thought, well, this is the sort of thing that we could talk about with a therapist. Because I also had so much anxiety and I didn't really even know how to talk about the issues. So it wasn't just the experience. It was that I didn't have the words to match my internal experience or the vocabulary. So we went to see a therapist. And it didn't save the relationship, it didn't save me. But it started a process of communication and sort of opening a valve. Everything sort of unfolded from there. And. And here I am sitting on the other side talking to lots of men with the same issue, lots of women with different issues, lots of couples.

Because here's the thing. When you said you had pe As a child, you were what, eight? 17? 18? Yeah, for a few years. Like until college.

No, through. I mean, PE is. It's a manageable condition, but it's not a cure. So I would say even up into the present, I mean, it's. It's something that I'm conscious of, something that I'm aware of, something that I'm mindful of. You can take an SSRI to sort of delay ejaculation, but there is no but.

There's side effects.

And yeah, there are side effects. There's no cure. This is a. A managed condition that involves cognitive and behavioral interventions. It involves insight, it involves sexual creativity, it involves empathy with a partner. And the ability to communicate with a partner involves a lot.

I understand that's a managed condition, obviously, and I thank you for being so open and honest about this. I know you've talked about it before, I'm sure, but I feel like so many of my listeners can completely relate to this. So many men that listen to the show and women and the fact that saying that it's managed because you oftentimes you hear people say, well, I had it and I don't anymore. I think it just maybe depends on, on the person and your conditions. But it is something that. But I always say, like going through it to people, it is a practice. Like it's. If you just, let's say you. We talk about edging or we talk about different things you can do. You can't just stop doing it. Like, if you stop, the condition will come back.

Absolutely.

So you were on my show recently. You called in. I'm so glad to be sitting here with you. And we talked about she comes first. And I think I actually got in trouble. Just kidding. But nobody were like, you really love that book. Like, you love him. You love. I'm like, I'm obsessed with she comes first. It's amazing. I talk about it all the time. I'm like, okay, I won't talk about it as much as time. But that book really was. I'm just gonna say it now if you missed that show, but it was groundbreaking. I mean, and I do talk about it on my show all the time. Like every man should read it. Women. Like, there's so much useful information in there. But was that really when in that book was you just had your 10 year anniversary or is it 21st? I should know this. Was it your.

Well, I was practicing as a sex therapist, got certified. And then that book came out of clinical experience and personal experience and was kind of the Culmination of a first chapter.

Right. What year did it come out?

2003.

Right. Okay, so like 15 years. Yeah, yeah, that was the anniversary. Through your practice, you were just sitting here thinking, God, these guys don't know. Women are complaining like, what? What mean? There's so many things you could write about. You, you touch. You're an expert in so many of these issues that people come in and talk about.

So why did I pick that issue?

I don't know.

Yeah, well, because it was personal to me. Because I really believed that, you know, men needed to be enlightened in the area of sexual cliteracy. Today we talk a lot more about the clitoris. And we have books by Emily Nagoski, Debbie Herbinek, and there's so many and articles in Men's Health. But there was nothing really at the.

Time that was like, that's why it's so groundbreaking.

And I think that we were all living under the shadow of what I call the intercourse discourse. And men believing that the main way to satisfy a partner is through intercourse and wanting to have the hardest possible penis that could last as long as possible.

Pounding waiter with a jackhammer.

My goal for a while too, right?

Everyone goes, they still go through the.

This, you know, some men never learn and. Right. And you can have the hardest penis and you can last as long as you want to last.

You suck in bed still if you.

Don'T make in bed, right.

And you will suck in bed.

And a lot of women who felt, well, what's wrong with me too? Like, why isn't I. Shouldn't I be having these vaginal orgasms? Shouldn't I be having these intercourse based orgasms? So I felt that both men and women were kind of hobbled by this intercourse discourse. And so I wanted to kind of start to. To dismantle that.

That's why everyone a little bit.

And I wonder if I even focused a little too much on oral sex.

I mean, although it's the chat. Okay, can I just tell you that if it's the chapter that every man should read, and woman, well, you just want to even understand your own body to be able to explain it to a partner. Because I think a lot of women don't even know how to explain what they want. But anyway, I think it is the most detailed, specific, useful chapter on oral sex I may have.

It's the whole book. I mean, really half the book, two thirds of the book. And. And I guess for me, oral sex going down on a woman was so important not only because it gave me a kind of feeling of mastery and ability and dexterity that I completely lacked with my penis. But it's also such vulnerable, connecting, deep, intimate experience. And I still talk to so many women who wonder, do guys like this? Is it taking too long? What are they thinking? Smelling, tasting? And a lot of men who still approach it as sort of nice to do, not a. Must have something that's sort of a chore. And I really think that they're missing out on, like, a Zen, mindful, connected experience.

How do you teach? I try to teach that, but it's true. I think that there's a lot of men who are just. Yeah. They're like, it's not my thing. I can't do it.

Right.

Takes focus. They feel like they don't want to fail at it. Whoever. So I think it's important message.

But I sometimes feel that for better or for worse. And really it's only for better with she Comes first, because the techniques are so detailed and I am so passionate about oral sex. Sometimes I'm a little frustrated because it's just labeled an oral sex book.

I think of it as the orgasm book. I mean, really like you. She Comes for, like, just. Even just the title is amazing. I always feel like it becomes part of my. Like, remember, she Comes First. You know, I mean, it's just. It's a thing. And it's true. You could write it today. What else would you put in there? What would you have added or taken away?

Interesting. A colleague of mine, have you come across this new book called Being Clitorate by Laurie Mintz.

Yes.

Okay. So it's a new book. It just came out. She actually is very lovely and refers to me and she Comes first and. But she's really just focused kind of the cliteracy and the importance of thinking clitorally as opposed to vaginally and all of the possible ways of being cliterate and thinking clitorally. And I think that sort of. So she's sort of out there with that message in a kind of very essential way.

Right.

That I feel like I do with. She Comes first, but it Often.

But that was your own voice at the time. I don't. I don't think it's. It's a different way of saying it. Maybe she's just. Just the clitoris.

But you know what's interesting, too, Emily, is I really wrote she Comes first before the renaissance of the sex toy, you know. Right. Like 2003. Writing it in 2001, you did not walk into land to Have a hundred beautifully crafted vibrators.

It was a different world that even when I started 12 years ago, sex toys were not what they are now. So it's been an explosion. So then you're like, you got your tongue, you got your fingers, right?

So I feel like yes, you have your hands, you have your tongue, you have your penis, which you can use much more clitorally. And you have this whole new world of fantastic sex toys that are out there.

Yeah. Do you like sex toys?

I do. I love them. I don't really use them a lot in my own personal sex life. I mean, I've been with one woman for 20 years and we have figured out what works and we enjoy it. But I love sex toys. I mean, I would love to use more of them in my own sex life.

But you can't.

I really would.

Because here's the thing, I don't think this is the thing that people. I've been talking about this a lot lately, personally and professionally, and that people are like, it's sort of like a cop out to use a toy or it's not a natural orgasm if it doesn't happen, you know, with like PV sex. And I'm like, well, sometimes it can happen though, but doesn't mean it's taking away from it. It's like if you want to have ice cream one night, you have chocolate ice cream, you love it. And then sometimes you're like, let's have some sprinkles. Better. Just different. It's a variety. And I feel like we've come a long way in the sense of 12 years ago when I started and maybe when you started 20 years ago, it was like you had to say like to men all the time. They were so intimidated by toys. I'm like, it's not going to take over for you. Like it can't. Can't go to the movies. It can't. But now. But there's still. So it's not as much of that, but it's still.

Although a lot of men still believe they do.

They do.

A lot of men. I mean, I'm working with a couple, like they are breaking up because she has not been orgasmic for a whole duration of a marriage. And she actually, early in the marriage introduced a vibrator into the sex play. And it was really helping. And he didn't like it. He didn't like that. He felt threatened by it.

Right. So how do you talk to men? I mean, I'm sure they're getting separated for other. Breaking up for Other reasons maybe not. Or maybe well. Well, I mean, orgasm, not having.

I mean, I'm really known as a sex therapist. And so that's kind of the issue that people are coming in with. And so.

So it is. So he's like, she can't use it.

Well, now he would love for her to bring a vibrator back in, but it's too late.

Water on the bra, right? Too much time. I mean, can you ever see a couple the first time you're like, this is done. Like, you know, like the Gottman theory, the test, like looking at couples with like, contempt and the way they speak to each other?

Well, if it was really done, they wouldn't be here.

True.

You know, if it was really done done, they may come in thinking it's done. But if it was really done, they probably wouldn't be sitting here. And my job isn't necessarily to undo what's done. Sometimes getting undone has taken so much work and so much self reflection and so much courage. It's important that it stays undone.

You mean like if they came in because of a crisis or an affair or sexual thing that's been going on, that. That's what got them here?

You know, what about a relationship where one woman has really had to exile a sexual part of herself for a whole marriage? It's not really only her husband or her partner's fault. It's. It's her fault as well. They own the relationship together. But a sexual part of her in this relationship just never really came alive in the way that she wanted it to. Or something that was alive became exiled.

And you mean the orgasm never came alive or you're saying in general?

In general. In general. And I would see that's a problem. As a therapist, you get too general.

Yeah, let's get a theory. No, it's not a problem. It's amazing. But I know. I'm just thinking about how I always say, you know, it's. We're responsible for our own orgasms. And so I was right. I was still hearing the woman sitting here going, I've never had one, but.

I could be with a. So that couple can be here and she could really have made a decision that she's ready to leave or wants to leave or wants to open up the relationship or really do something structurally different. And that partner may be hearing this for the first time or really getting it, has heard it 100 times, but is really getting it for the first time.

You know, because of the presence of, Of a therapist being here.

I think presence Of a therapist. Yes, very often.

Whatever.

Hearing it more seriously. Maybe she's. They're separated or she left or they just haven't been sexual in a very, very long time. It's not necessarily my job to keep them together.

Right. No, I mean, I know you're probably not going to say you got to be done. I'm sure there have been times when you said that, but. No, I get it. Just have to have a place for them. I mean, that's why I say every couple, I think needs to therapy like a maintenance. I feel like your car needs a checkup and every single couple on the planet needs therapy. And I don't even know why people still. Right. Do you want. We're on your couch. You want me to go sit your desk? I could try. I'd be so nervous. Be like cooking for like some kind of. I can't cook either. I don't know what I can do now. We're going to take a quick break and give a shout out to our sponsors. Thank you for supporting them and for supporting the show. We'll be right back.

Going back to you said opening up. I wanted to talk to you about opening up relationships. So non monogamy, alternative relationships, polyamory. There's so many different ways to talk about open relationships right now. There's a million different ways, configurations of it. But, you know, that's probably been coming up again probably for 20 years. But I feel like in the last five to 10 years more and more so maybe even more and less. Few people are like, oh, it's really an option. It really can work for couples. But then there's sex relationship therapists who think, no, that could never happen. If that happens, your relationship's over. It's. It's going to be disaster. What's your. What have you, Sam? You help couples navigate this. I'm sure you do.

I do. I think that there are more options than ever for couples that are normalized and can be mirrored in their lives by other couples. And these are really exciting options. I mean it's, you know, beyond just what you can do on your own in the privacy of your own bedroom with your partner. There are really opportunities to be more sexually adventurous together, to go to sex parties, to swing, to bring in other partners, to engage in some form of consensual non monogamy where you may have play partners or experiences on the side to, you know, more full blown polyamory. There is a wealth of options and I'm always surprised about who goes for it. And who doesn't? I just put stuff out there as options.

Do you, do you ever. So you put it out there to come.

I put it out there. I put it out there as a menu of possible choices to reflect upon when you come into this office.

Yeah, tell me.

You get an opportunity to throw a lot against the wall, to reflect, to risk a little bit of vulnerability in terms of what you want to say. But nothing has to be linked to a behavior or an action. Everything that's happening in this room is just reflection. And so if a couple is really stuck in their sex life and my mind starts going to some version of sexual adventurousness shared or some version of consensual non monogamy, I'll just put it out there as. I'm not saying it's for you, but here's a few different options that couples have pursued. What do you think?

Right. And they're probably like, oh, no. I mean, there must be such a range of like.

I am, I have, I have been shocked. So sometimes, clearly you get that a couple is hungering for this and has something in their DNA that makes them ripe for this. But I recently was working with a couple, that traditional couple, married, professional careers, had some serial monogamy before that. A couple of kids now really tuned out, not really listening to each other, not sexual anymore. A whole range of majority of couples come from being disconnected. And they came in ready to separate, really ready to separate. Very painful, very depressing session. About halfway through, I was like, well, before you separate, I just wonder, have you ever considered any of these other structural dynamics that might allow you to not just quit on each other right now? And I just put them out there and I did not expect any of them to take. And they came back about a month later. I thought that they were done and separated. We settled up their last bill, everything, and they came back saying that they really took to heart the session. There was. This isn't so long ago. There was that article in the New York Times that was out about open relationships. And they've been trying it and they're together.

Right? Exactly. I mean, this is the thing, I think that's. That's amazing to hear.

And it's incredibly fraught and it isn't easy and it's creating a lot of new conflicts and a lot of new friction.

But they're trying better than the old friction. Maybe. Yeah, it's a new friction. It still has that novelty, the newness. Not the same goddamn issues. Right? Because I think it's interesting because I think that monogamy is hard, non monogamy's hard. There's struggles in all it. And in a way it's almost like they're taking on a new. You know, we say couples should take on a new activity together, learn something new together. They're kind of learning non monogamy together. And even though it's stressful and they're getting that sexual.

Absolutely. And I really think that a couple of years ago, even a year ago, they would have gone straight to separation and eventually divorce. They may still go to separation and divorce, but they will have gone off the monogamy highway. They would have gone off road, off map, you know, and given something different to whirl.

Right. Because why not? So do couples that come in here and you actively are helping them like work on a boundary.

Now some couples come in, that's specifically the work that they want to do.

Okay.

Start talking about it, adjust it, figure it out, launch it, relaunch it. Lots of couples come in now and that's sort of the centerpiece of the agenda.

So how did you learn about this 20 years ago? Would you talk about this? When did it start becoming more of your practice?

Well, I mean, it's become much more of my practice in the last, honestly, the last two to three years.

Right. So do you feel like there's kind of been a tipping point?

Because I feel that there's many more options for couples and again, there's much more mirroring.

What do you mean by that?

Well, that there's more people in society doing it that, that look.

Ample reflections of who you are.

Yeah, people think, oh no, it's ponytail guy. As my sometimes co host, it's a guy with a ponytail and they're swinging, doing drugs.

And I feel like more young people are also like sort of graduating from college or launching into the world with a more fluid non binary, just a more fluid approach to life and relationships and sexuality and gender in. In general. So I feel like it sort of was a bunch of sort of stuff waiting to happen. I mean, I think it's very helpful that there are at least here in New York, so many amazing sex parties that you can go to that don't feel like sleazy per se.

What goes on? Tell me about the ones here that people. Have you been to them?

I don't go to them.

No, you couldn't. You'd be like, no, then what am I?

If I run into a patient, they'd.

Be like, selfie, right? Like, no, please don't post this on instagram. That is true. I mean, they have them, I guess, all over. There's a lot of places, though, where I get like emails from listeners, like in the middle, wherever. Like, I don't know if there's a sex party in that town in Kansas or not, but you can create one. But it's interesting because I feel like that now it really is an option and that. That people, more people are asking about it and taking to it. Is there a couple that would come in here or what kind of couple would you say would not be right for it? You're like, absolutely not. This couple could not handle non monogamy without any traits.

Normally I don't, I don't want to say for sure because I would have said a couple that's under tremendous stress and pressure.

But you've seen it all.

But I've seen that couple come in ready to break up where one partner doesn't want to break up. You know, I've seen couples that have been extremely rigid and conservative and how they approach amazing.

Right.

Sexual relationships. So I don't.

There is not.

I've seen people who are both adventurous and are just looking. You know, they both share different types of adventurous experiences and peak experiences, and this is just an area that they haven't ventured down yet in pursuing peaks. But I. I guess at this point I don't have any clear.

Right. I'm just curious if there's anything I think it's healthy not to have.

I don't want somebody to feel pressured into it. I don't want somebody to feel like they have to. Now, I have worked with couples where one partner feels very, very strongly about it and really wants to try swinging or being in an open relationship or has a particular vision of what an open relationship looks like and the other partner is going along for the ride and is in the passenger seat and is trying to make it work, but really just isn't happy.

And you can tell those people that I'm bored.

Yes. That person looks dispirited and drained.

Have you seen couples come in where they were like that, but then eventually they come around? I'm sure, I'm sure you've seen all iterations of this. I always say the same thing. Yeah. If they're not on the same page, you can't force your partner to do it.

But you and I was working for a long time. I don't know if you call it a triple or throuple, but, you know, I love it. Yeah, a triple. A throuple. A triple. But yeah. They were polyamorously together, knew each other, and constantly renegotiating the rules of non monogamy. And one person who was the secondary wanted to be the primary, kind of became the primary, and then the other primary decided they needed a secondary. But then the secondaries didn't like being secondary secondaries and needed primaries. And so the whole thing just like expanded and expanded until, believe it or not, at the end, I just ended up working with two of them as a couple. And so they worked their way actually to monogamy.

Right, that's so interesting.

Total polyamory and non monogamy. Monogamy.

Right. Because it's kind of like there is. There are no rules to it. We get to make up, make our own rules. Do you think that monogamy should be the only, like, kind of legal union on the table? We're not meant to be monogamous.

No. You know, actually I really do. I do believe in the power of the pair bond. And I do. I think it's. I think it's certainly socially conditioned, but I think it's probably genetically conditioned as well. And I mean, I think that there's a lot of power to the pair bond. I have a very personally. I mean, and I don't ever try and use. Although I was writing she comes first, beginning with personal experience. And I do often look and locate myself in these situations. I don't try and map my own what I'm doing onto any of my patients or anybody. But I think I've experienced a very powerful pair bond that's lasted 20 years. And I don't envision it.

Right. Of course it's possible. I'm just saying for a lot of the patience that you see, you know, do you just feel like sometimes I feel like now it is a different time because people think, oh, it can't. It's not just this crazy notion of your neighbors who are swinging and having key parties. It's actually can be a lifestyle. People that are working in that monogamy, like I said, just as much of a struggle as you think about it. Yeah, I think it's a good question. I do think that it should be more of an option. I like when I like talking about on the show and I like we will see healthy examples of it and having couples on that show that it does work because I believe that there's a lot of outspoken, there's a lot of voices out there, people that a lot of people respect in our space that are like, no, it could never work. Not many of them left but who think it could never work or it's not right or it'll tear a relationship apart, which can be true if you don't handle it correctly. But, yeah, I'm not. I don't know. I think a lot of it does have to do with your, you know, maybe how you're wired, your DNA.

What I don't like is sometimes, though, when a couple comes in and one partner is more sexually adventurous, wants to open up the relationship, maybe even wants to leave the relationship, and the other partner, who's more conservative, really relies on marriage as an institution or as a definition. You are a wife, I am a husband. This is a marriage. And that's supposed to give that a privilege in the room. A husband, a wife, a marriage. And I don't like that. I don't like when somebody's just using the. The language, the discourse of sort of.

Just because we got married. That's the way it should be. Right? No, I get. I think there's. I think it's. There's a lot of challenges around it. I would just like people to see that there's other. Other options. Whatever works for them. They get to define the rules of their own relationship. So when couples come in and they have, like, conflicts with their. Not mismatched libidos, but more like, what. What turns on, like, erotic desire, how do you work with couples, like, kind of mapping that out? I know that's, like, a huge question, but I just feel like we talk so much about communication, and how do you sit down and talk to your partner about these different desires that you have? I mean, yeah, I know there's not, like, a tool. They're like, I wish there was a quick fix, but what do you. What works?

Well, I think. I think in general, couples have often developed a physical vocabulary of actions that result in a sexual experience that either works or doesn't work. And they have not developed a verbal or psychological vocabulary to the same level of sophistication. So they are going through a series of physical actions, sometimes with no discussion, no talk, no psychogenic stimulation. And so I absolutely believe that psychogenic stimulation, the ability to think your way through arousal, the ability to fantasize your way through arousal, is extremely important and extremely powerful. And I know that. I believe that wholeheartedly. I've seen that in my own relationship. I went from somebody who was afraid to utter a word during sex, I wouldn't have been able to comment on my partner's body or on my body or what I was noticing in their reactions or in my reactions. To not only developing a comfort with that and finding, wow, it's so reaffirming and assuring to be able to just praise and communicate and talk and engage that language to actually being able to risk a bit of my own core erotic themes and the things that turn me on to share that with a partner and open up a fantasy world, an entire fantasy world that's purely imagination where the actual sex itself doesn't change at all.

Right.

But the psychological context around the sex is so vulnerable and exciting and risk taking.

Yeah.

And so I really believe that that is part of the key to a long lasting, sexually fulfilled relationship is being able to open up that psychogenic dimension.

Talk about it. So the core erotic theme, figuring out what turned you both on. So let's say couples, right? That's.

Yeah, that's part. But you're definitely.

Yeah, I mean, I love the core. I mean, I've been talking a lot about the correct theme and that fantasy is such an important part of relationships. You've couples in here, I'm sure, from all different stages of that one has more of an active fantasy life, the other one doesn't. But what kind of like homework do you give couples or assignments or how do you. What if they're like, I have none. I don't have any fantasy. I don't even know where to start. What would you tell them?

Well, I'll often, you know, go through a menu of possible fantasies.

Do you have like a list?

Yeah, I mean, I'll start talking about submission, domination, voyeurism, exhibitionism. I'll turn them on to a lot of progressive porn sites.

What do you recommend? Tell me. Progressive porn sites that you tell them.

I love. I. I love a lot of the female directors.

Right.

Who. So Erica lust and Jackie St. James and some of the. The site.

I'm just curious if there's anything. Yeah, no, I'm just curious if anything comes to mind that's. So you actually, you like, go home and like.

I like the porn that you pay for.

Yeah, I like the Kink dot com.

Kink dot com.

Where else do you pay these days?

What's that?

I'm trying to think of where I just know Kink from San Francisco.

The reason I like the porn porn that you pay for is because generally the porn that you're getting then are from artists who really care. Care about what they're doing, are more committed to the theme of what they're doing, who aren't just chasing advertising and clicks by Just showing body parts. There's stories, there's narratives, there's bodies that look realer and are more authentic. Authentic. So many of the people that I work with who complain about porn just complain about how boring it is and how it just all starts to just look the same.

It does. Because they're not. Right. They're not searching. I think that's a good point. I talk about a lot of the things you mentioned, but really you're right. Like, it's kind of like if you have to pay for it, you get the pre. You get what you pay for. And so it could actually be a great tool for couples to learn together. I mean, absolutely. We talk about that a lot. That's so interesting.

Oh, I was working with a couple couple and just the theme of like comic books came up and superheroes and like she gradually got to reveal. She would never have revealed this, that she had like a Supergirl fantasy. Wow. She wanted to be dominated and she wanted her partner to pretend to be a super villain who had kryptonite, who would like knock her unconscious with the kryptonite. Amazing. Take her. And then they used Halloween as a way of like, she got the Supergirl costume and the boots and the cape and it was fantastic for them. It was like led to mind blowing sex because she was really tapping into a core erotic theme, which was interesting too. She had also had a history of being sexually assaulted in college and feeling very powerless in that situation. And so the idea of being, I guess of being Supergirl, of being a strong woman but still being able to take a. An experience that had been very powerless and painful and transform it through pleasure was. Was very rich for her.

That is rich for trauma. If you can do that. People who've suffered trauma that if you can kind of turn it around and use it towards your sexual. That's. I mean, I'm sure you do amazing work that around that a lot of God. I just think everyone needs sex therapy. They do.

Sometimes people are like, oh, I have this fantasy or I have this fetish, like why? Why? I need to get to the bottom of it. And I think that that automatically pathologizes it in a certain way. You don't need to know the why.

Right.

But sometimes there is a why. And sometimes getting to the why is really interesting and fascinating. I was just going to say I had a patient who came in with a very sort of rigid fetish around sleep fantasies, like somnophilia, like the idea of making love or having sex with women who were unconscious and clearly, like, we know this from the Bill Cosby stuff. And he, he had never crossed those lines, although he had had some weird sort of like drunken blackout type sexual experiences that were a little scary for him. So he pushed up against the hard boundaries of this and. And he was dispirited and scared about it and just felt, you know, I'm never going to have the right partner and I'm always doomed to repeat this. And even if he found a partner who was sort of game to explore this fantasy, they would get bored of it. And anyway, like, we tried. I mean, I worked for months and months around just exploring it and examining it and trying different things. And then eventually, like a childhood memory emerged that had never come up for him in years, where he grew up in a home with a single mother who worked, I think, six days a week, 17 hours a day. Her only day off was Sundays. But by Sunday, he would wake up at like 7am excited to spend time with his mother. And she, she would be dead asleep. And he would try and wake her up and tickle her and be with her and just wanted, wanted her, wanted the attention of his mom. And she would just say, go away, go away. And she wouldn't. I mean, the poor woman was working six days a week. Like she couldn't get out of bed until about noon. And he just got there and just broke down in tears with this memory. And it just became clear that this was some kind of reenactment of that early experience, some attempt to take that pain that had been dissociated and experience something through pleasure and through some kind of mastery.

And after understanding that, did he still have that same urge to have that?

It became loosened up.

Right. Wow. Those are the moments, though. You're like, that's why I do this show. Right. No, seriously, I think that's such a breakthrough through. After working for you for once.

And it's not that the fantasy or the theme went away, but it was able to soften up enough so that other types of fantasies and themes could emerge.

I think when we connect those dots, that's why I love therapy. Literally walking in here, I got so excited. We were sitting in the lobby. I was like, I just love therapy. I just want to lay it out. Seriously love being in therapy. But it's true. Like those moments when you have school, therapy building.

I know that's probably like therapists on every floor. There's probably about 500 therapists.

Do you think I should just go knock and see if anyone's Available. Like, I've cut a jones in here in New York. I need a little therapy. No, but that's. I mean, it is kind of the old school with the white therapy.

I have another session.

Okay, you gotta go. Okay. You're awesome. No, we're. We're gonna wrap up. We're out of time. Is that what you say to a therapist, we're out of time? When you hit your breakthrough. I hate when they do that.

We have to stop for two. Yeah, I have to stop for today.

Usually when I'm just about to break through, like, we have to stop. Do you bring a check? Okay. I have one more question for you, though, but you can answer quickly. My final question for you is, after years of doing this, would you say 20. What would you say is the main thing that has changed? If there's anything that you've seen, like this shift, and we talked about polyamory, is there anything that you think, wow, that's just wasn't around when I started. Like, toys. We talked about.

Yeah, toys.

Anything else that come up?

Well, a lot more kink. And.

A lot more kink from a kind of like a pansexual perspective of like, hey, maybe this is not exactly my orientation, but almost an orientation.

Right.

And so seeing, like, different new types of sexual orientations that don't fit neatly into straight or gay and that are thematically driven.

All right, good answer. It's an exciting time to be a human and having sex. Thank you so much, Ian Kerner.

Thank you, Emily.

Dr. Kerner, you're amazing. We'll have all your contact info. Is there anything else that you'd like to mention or people can find you your website.

Nice to see you in New York.

Nice to see you, too. We'll wind you this forever. Thank you for taking time.

Absolutely.

And we have to stop now. Okay. Thank you so much.

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