Taking the Angst Out of Anxious Sex

Stop what you're doing and listen closely because Bellesa and I are giving away free spicy toys or gift cards to every single one of you. That's right. Everyone who signs up wins something. And if you haven't heard of Bellesa, let me put you on. They're a bi woman for everyone company that's completely flipping the script on sexual wellness. And now they're hooking you up. You've definitely seen Bellesa's viral toys all over your for you page. Like the rose, it blew up for a reason. This little flower shaped suction toy is iconic. Or. Or their famous whisper collection. You know, the first fully ever silent vibrators. If you live with roommates, parents, or even if your partner is sleeping right next to you, these toys are silent without compromising power. Or their new Pebble Pro. They just one up their best selling pebble with a stronger, smarter and seriously spicy redesign. Ballast has somehow figured out how to engineer a one stop pleasure shop with three interchangeable heads. It sucks. It humps. It licks. It vibrates. I'm speechless. And of course I had to hook all of you up. So my friends at Bellesa are sending out free toys or gift cards for toys to everyone who signs up. You heard that right. Every single one of you wins something. Just click the link in the episode description or head to bbvibes.com Emily that's B B V I B E S.com Emily thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. On today's show. New findings about casual sex and specifically how how women can learn to enjoy the casual sex they're having by taking control and asking for what they want. Specific tips for lasting longer in bed, making sure that your female partner orgasms a whole lot more and shock. It has to do with the clitoris. The truth about STIs in oral sex and effectively dealing with your partner's anxiety in a long term relationship. All this and more. Thanks for listening.

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? Because my man E here, he just got his heart broken. He thinks you're kind of cute. A girl's gotta have her standards. Oh my.

The 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 good. Being bad feels. Feels pretty good. You know, Emily's not the Kind of girl you just play with.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. We're talking about sex, relationships, and everything in between. For more information, go to sexwithemily.com you guys know what's going on there. There's a lot of good stuff, so if you haven't seen it, check it out. But if you miss some of the stuff on the website, that's cool, too, because it's all on social media. Exwithemily, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Twitter. I love hearing from you in all those places. And also, as you know, I love when you review the show on itunes. It helps us when you subscribe and when you review us. And I read your comments and the good and the bad. And I love it because it really helps make the show strong and keeps me coming back to do this for you. I want to read you something. It's a review we got on itunes, which I so appreciate hearing from you guys. So this is from Ryan Guest, and thank you for the March 13 comment. And he said this about the show. When I say awesome, I mean in the way she speaks intelligently and articulately on so many important subject matters, including relationships, friendships, marriages, sex, porn, feminism, masculinity, and many others. In every podcast that I've listened to so far, I felt that Emily, her staff and guests genuinely and patiently help others without judgment or ridicule. So thank you, Ryan Guest, for that. And you know, you guys, I'm really trying to do a great podcast for you all. It really is what I'm here for, and to hear these comments really help. So thank you for taking the time. And I read them all. I appreciate it. Okay, so we have a march contest, which is exciting. We've been getting a lot of submissions for this, so I know you want to get yours in as you should. This is the O's of March. You know those moments when you like an aha moment or like a oh, oh moment. That's how it all works. That's what feels good in parts of your life that just bam. Your whole life changes. Well, in your sex and dating life, I'm sure you've had some breakthroughs. I hope you've had breakthroughs if you've been listening to the show. And let me give you an example, because I want to hear those moments when you were able to pivot in your sex and dating life and things just changed for you because you had a revelation. So it could mean that you finally figured out the words to explain to your partner what you really want in a bed. You're like, oh, this is how they need to hear it. Or haven't been speaking their love language. Or maybe you discovered like some epic erogenous zone. You know, like the left side of your clitoral leg was more sensitive than the right side of your clitoris, which is shaped like a wishbone, by the way, which is mostly internal to clitoris, if I've ever told you that. So explore that. Maybe you thought, like, wow, Emily is right. Sex toys are not just for women. Actually, I really love the way that vibrator felt on my shaft. You get any of those moments. Aha. Moments that change your sex life? Email us, send it to feedbacksexwithemily.com April 10th and we're going to pick out four of you to win super sexy prizes. Just put the O's of March contest in the subject line of your email and we can't wait to hear from you. Also, check out my sex hack videos. Cause I love a good sex hack. It's like an easy tip, an easy way to get what you want in bed or in your relationship. So these videos are posted now. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, soon to be on Instagram. Also, what other kind of videos would you like to see from me? Tell me, talk to me. Okay, so now we've got some sex in the news. I've got a few stories here that I thought you'd find interesting, as I did. Women who initiate casual sex tend to regret it less, says the study. So there's a lot of really cogent findings in this study. And even if you're not so into casual sex, or maybe you are, it seems like right now casual sex is sort of the sex du jour. It seems like people are sort of, you know, if you're dating, you're like, yeah, we're sleeping. I'm sleeping with a few people. And you know, I got a lot more questions about casual sex the last, I don't know, five years than I ever did before. But. But we also know that it's not for everybody. You know, you have to try out casual sex and see how it feels to you. So for some people, they're like, you know what, let me try it. Or they'll have a one night stand, for example. And in the morning they wake up and they have what I like to call a shame over. And I hear this from women more than men. They say, you know what? I woke up, I felt guilt, I felt shame, and I just felt bad about myself. And you know what? It's not for me, which is totally fine, you guys, you know, you know, you get to choose what kind of sex you want to have. But the interesting thing about this study was they found that women who initiate sex, whatever sex it is, casual sex or one night stands, are likely to have two qualities. First, they're healthy sexually, they're comfortable in their own bodies, they're comfortable with what they want in bed. And second, the women who initiate, they get to choose who they have sex with. Like they were. They made the choice, they were, you know, deciding they were consenting. And so consequently, they have less reason to feel regret since they made a choice. Now, here's an important distinction. I mean, think about it this way, because all of this we do with our minds anyway. So even if you didn't initiate the sex and you're like, God, I still feel bad afterwards, this might help you. This might help you kind of enjoy the sex that you're having in the moment. Be aware that, you know, you made the decision to have sex even if you didn't initiate it. You thought, this person's attractive, I'm gonna try it out. You're consenting, you're attracted to the, you know, to the person. And a lot of times when we mind f ourselves, if you will, it's like the next morning, few days later, maybe you didn't hear back, or you're thinking it makes you a bad person because, I don't know, you developed feelings for the person. And then we tend to beat ourselves up. And we interpret it in a way that can bring us pain and can bring us anxiety and suffering. So this is what I want to say to women is that you have a choice. You can just say to yourself, I wanted to do this. I wanted to have sex with this person. I chose the experience. And not, you know, if you can do your best to not make it mean something bigger than it was. And you had an experience like you went to a great play, you had some sex last night. And it doesn't have to mean anything about your character or who you are and all those things. But another interesting thing about this was that I know this and I've said this to you all many times, but I love when it's backed up by science. The study found that women overall are just dissatisfied with their sex lives in part because they don't know what to ask for. And especially during casual sex, women are like, well, it's casual, and I don't really feel like I can ask for what I want. And therefore, that might be the reason why a lot of women say that casual sex just isn't for them. And guess what? Men not as concerned about pleasing their mate during casual sex. So my suggestion is if you're in a casual sex phase of your life or it is your life, to think of it like a job interview. You know how you go into a job interview. I always say like you go in and take every job interview. That was the advice I got when I graduated from college. Because it's practice, right? So you know, cause that's a big deal, getting a job and going in, you've never done it. So even if you don't want the job, it's experience. You go in, you talk like you do, you learn something. And so I think casual sex is the best place for you guys to experiment and to learn and to think. Like, you know what? I've never ever told someone that I needed to be touched this way. Or you know, I wanted to be tied up or I wanted to be spanked or I wanted to share this fantasy or talk dirty. Like why not practice if you know that it's kind of casual, you might never see this person again. Why not give it a try? Because you've nothing to lose. And that way you'll feel like, you know what, I got something out of this. You know, hopefully you'll have orgasms and amazing sex. But even if you use it as like a practice for you standing for what you want and what you desire and bad and what you really crave, this is the practice that you need to eventually, you know, roll into this sex life that is expansive and satisfying and pleasurable for the rest of your life. To circle back to the most. What I thought found interesting was that, that women, you know, that we're just afraid to speak up about sex even in our long term relationships. And so we stay in patterns. And the reason why, again, I'm going to go back to this, the reason is because we don't really know what we want. And I don't know that men do either, but it's like we like when a partner says to you, hey babe, what do you want? What does this feel good? And I've done informal polls with almost everyone I know and they're like, oh yeah, I just kind of say I don't know or that feels good, baby. So for me this just stuck out that like I just want to encourage you again, I can't tell you this enough that your work is to, you know, sexually is to figure out it's a lifelong Process because our bodies change. But to really like, what do I love about sex? What makes me feel good, what turns me on? This. I don't want this to be like another item on your to do list because we're all already having sex, we want to have sex. This should be something that you're like really into because sex is something that's going to be a part of your life forever. So you might as well make it satisfying and really work for you, not against you. So this happens during masturbation, getting to know your body, all the things that I talk about. And so when you're having sex, use every opportunity as.

As an experience where you could really learn to grow and to learn how to ask for what you want and understand your body. And so even if you had, you know, casual sex, you're feeling bad about it, you'll think about it, be like, you know, that's all in your head. Maybe it's again, it's shame, it's regret, but what did you get from it? What was positive? What did you do for yourself? Right? Because sex can be a selfish act sometimes, which is okay because we want to take, we want to understand our bodies and we wanna understand the people that you're with. I don't mean that sex should be selfish, it should be self pleasing, right? Like it's okay. And in fact, the more that women and men really stand for what they want in bed and what they need, what they desire, I just telling you, the better sex that you're gonna have. And I hear from men all the time who are like, God, I love when my partner knows what they want. Because again, we expect, as a woman at least I was raised this way, that men are gonna have the keys to my kingdom. Men are going to know exactly what I want. And I'm telling you, after a lot of sex, having of different ages, at different points in my life, that is not the case. Yes, I've had some amazing sex, but it typically was not because he came in and he figured out everything that I needed while I just lied there and was like my eyes closed, hoping he could figure it out. Sex doesn't work like that. There's two people in every situation. Well, in this typical situations, you know, of course you can have orgies, I'm cool with that too. But there's two of you there. It's like a dance. Sex is a dance. It's not one person just receiving one person, giving. You're both in it together, so you might as well make it a positive Beneficial and hopefully very enjoyable experience. Okay, my next study here, sex of the news is a male pill could be on the horizon. Male birth control pill could be on the horizon as trials yield positive results. Oh my God. I was so thrilled about this because for years we've talked about the male birth control pill and I've always wondered like, why isn't there a male birth control pill? And for decades, as you know, they've been used exclusively by women. But a male birth control pill that's safe and effective may be on the horizon. So how this pill would work is it effectively reduces testosterone and other hormone levels responsible for sperm production without any serious side effects. So it's not going to be available for a few years probably. But the men, you know, there's only side effects where they might, there might be some weight gain, but it didn't really affect anything else. And you know, guys, not a big deal, right? Women gain weight on the pill, sometimes we become moodier, we become bloated, we have headaches. There's things that can happen with women too. And it's not the end of the world. We still take birth control pills. So I love this because if you think about it now, the only options available for male birth control are to have a vasectomy, to use condoms, which you should always use, or you know, pulling out. And we know how effective the pull out method is not vary because most people don't do it right. So I just love that men are going to take responsibility for this as well and hopefully they'll be jumping on the birth control bandwagon when this does come out. And finally, I thought this study was also going to be useful for my listeners. Women orgasm 32% more when they have sex with other women. Now this isn't just for people who are having sex with women. There's a lot to learn in this study. So the study showed 2,300 women between the ages of 18 and 65. They found out that women who sleep with women are 32% more likely to reach orgasm than those who sleep with men. So when they discovered that straight couples were sleeping together more often, like 16 times a month, same sex couples were enjoying themselves a hell of a lot more. So women in lesbian relationships said they climbed back 55 times per month versus just seven times a month for women getting out with men. I mean, this should not make you freak out because what you should learn from this is there's a lot to be learned from this study that same sex couples, what they found is they get More creative in the bedroom, and they make sex exciting and more varied. Because here's what happens in a heterosexual relationship. Men get excited, they go right for penetration. They're not really paying attention to the clitoris is where a lot of the magic happens for women and women requirements. 45 minutes of foreplay before intercourse. As I always say, foreplay is not a light suggestion from me people. It is a requirement. So what this all comes down to is penetration just isn't enough for a lot of women. We need our clitoris to be engaged and engorged. And typically, oral sex has also been a huge indicator of women's ability to orgasm. So exciting foreplay, mixing things up, spending time pleasing your partner, teasing, oral sex, using toys, and making sure that your partner is really turned on could mean that you could also yield these results with your partner. Whether you're in a same sex relationship or you're in any other kind of relationship. Clitoris is magic. Foreplay matters. Thanks everyone. That's sex the news. And now onto your emails.

Hey all, it's VP Ken. Now we're onto emails. Do you have a question you'd like Emily to answer on the show? She would love that. We've made it super easy for you to ask your question. Just use the option that's easiest for you. You can text right from your phone right now. Just text Ask Emily all one word to 797-979. We'll send you a short form where you can enter your questions and contact details. If you'd like her to call you during a future call show, please indicate yes on the form. Talking to you about your question is one of Emily's most favorite things. Or you can submit your question from the sexwithemily.com website via the Ask Emily tab. As always, Emily would love it if you could include the information that would help her answer the question. Your gender, your age, where you live, how you listen to the show, your household income, street address, Social Security number. I'm kidding. Please don't send us that stuff. We don't need it. Just tell us the pertinent things that will help Emily help you. That's it. She can't wait to hear from you.

All right. This is from T27 Colorado. Hi, Emily. I have two questions for you. My first question is about casual sex. I'm a bigger guy and it's been nearly three years since I've hugged, kissed, or done anything with the woman. My relationship ended kind of rough and I feel like she was cheating on me for most of the time I'm always shot down when I try to find a hookup. Can you help me with some advice? Also? How does one go about prolonging a release? I can never seem to last long, no matter what I've tried. I would love to know how to last longer in bed. Thanks for all you do. I also love your voice. Thank you. T27, Colorado. Where do I start? Here. Okay, so first of all, it's been three years since you've been with someone, and it sounds like your last relationship, like you said, was rough. I'm not sure why you're being shut down now when you're trying to find a hookup. All I can assume is either you're not really being present and authentically yourself with the women you're approaching, still some residual stuff left over from the last relationship. And also, maybe you're being too hard on yourself, too much pressure, too intense. I'm not sure. I think the best way to handle approaching women is through practice and through practicing talking to women. Whenever you're out in your life, like when you're going out with friends, when you're standing on at the coffee shop, you know, when you're like on the bus home from work or whatever it is that you do in your life, you just practice. Because everything in life that we want to become good at or that we want to really master, and in your case, it's, you know, getting into a relationship, talking to women. It's gonna take practice. And we often don't give ourselves that space that, like, it's okay if I felt awkward or weird or this woman rejected me and she didn't say yes to me. Just keep going. T. This is a two part question. So if I had more details about how you're going, about your hookups, I could tell you more. But what I can really help you with now is your second one, which is about lasting longer in bed. Because that might also be related to why you're not hooking up. Because you might have some fear that if a woman actually says yes to hookup with you, that you're not going to last longer in bed. So you might also be sabotaging the way you're approaching women. So let's talk about this, because believe me, when guys are challenged around their penises at all, it really hits your masculinity. It's almost like your small head is bigger than your big head in the sense of it's harder to do anything else than to think about, oh, my God, I don't last long enough in bed, I'm not as much of a man, and I can't hook up with anybody, which might be some subliminal messages that you're sending to yourself, because none of that's true, of course. Let me tell you this, T, A lot of men don't last long in bed either. Every time, A few times. You guys have all had that experience. I know. And women, we're like, from what I've heard from a lot of women, and including myself, we're cool with it. We're not judging you. We understand that it happens. So really, this is about you taking control of it. And so the first thing is recognizing that a lot of not lasting long enough in bed has to do with anxiety or it has to do with your thought process, not that anything is medically wrong with you. So if you're healthy, I'm going to assume that, you know, you've gotten checked by your doctor, that there's no, like, major addictions going on. You're not, you know, on some drugs or smoking a lot, because smoking cigarettes can do that, smoking pot can do it, drinking too much, all these things can impact it. But let's just say, for purposes of helping you and my listeners, because I know there's plenty of plenty of men listening and women dating men who have these challenges that are dealing with this. So in order to last longer in bed, the first thing you have to do is practice when you're alone during masturbation. And getting. It's really with the goal of understanding your body and getting control, ejaculatory control. So when you're masturbating, you start to, you know, you start to masturbate until the point you feel that you're about to ejaculate. They call this edging, or they call it the stop start method. And it's a practice. So when you feel you're about to go over or ejaculate, you stop yourself. You slow down, so you're going fast, like how you normally would, and then you slow it down again, stop, take a few deep breaths, and then you go back to building it up again until the point when you're about to go over, and then you start again. And so that process is you're not allowing yourself to ejaculate by, you know, ramping down the process of the wrapping up again. Doing your Kegel exercises also help tremendously. Men who do Kegels regularly, you know, it's great for your prostate, it's great for your overall health, and it can really, really help you last longer in bed. And it's a great practice to get into. And a lot of this, again, when I say it's about anxiety, it's because it's happened to you in the past, to you with your girlfriend, maybe your last girlfriend or everyone you've ever been with. It's gone quicker than you'd like. And so of course you're gonna go into a situation thinking it's gonna happen again. So a lot of this has to do with if you're doing the, doing the kaggles, you're practicing, and then you go into your next sexual encounter. When you feel yourself having these defeating thoughts, you're just like, nope, I'm just gonna get into the moment, I'm gonna feel my body, I'm gonna connect with this person that's in front of me, I'm gonna breathe, I'm gonna focus on the sensations happening around me in my body, and I'm not gonna let my thoughts take over. Like, I'm so afraid that I'm about to come. So that's all those practices that I think are really important. And then finally there is perescent. It's the only treatment for premature ejaculation. If you wanna last longer in bed and you can check it out, you can get it without a prescription. You apply it 10 minutes before intercourse and helps you last longer in bed. But I would really love you to try out all these things so you can kind of get control of it and have more confidence. And when you have this confidence, it's going to be a lot easier to approach women as well. Thanks, Tee. Okay, our next question is from Gibbs, 23 in Brooklyn. By the way, lots of calls and emails from Brooklyn lately. I love Brooklyn. I love that Brooklyn's paying attention and listening to the show. So shout out to to my friends. Hey, Emily. I'm a 23 year old guy. My girlfriend is 21. We've been together for almost three years, from when we were college sophomores to now we're about to graduate. I love her and I want her in my life. My girlfriend suffers from anxiety. When we first started dating, I was okay with being with her and supporting her in every way I could. Lately, her anxiety has been getting worse. She shut down, obviously upset and on the verge of having an attack. Half the time we're together. Whenever I ask if she's okay, she answers with, I'm fine. Sometimes it's like I'm just in an empty room full of stress. I've talked with her before, telling her that it pushes me away and wears me down, which fixes it for a few days. Then it's back to the same way she used to go to therapy. Stop going. And refuses to go, claiming it does nothing for her. I try to stay over at my place. Most of time I dread going over, feel like I'm walking in eggshells around her, and almost feel like I'm resenting her. We do have sex, but lately that feels more like a job to make her feel good or to get myself to feel attached to her. I really don't like this. I love her. I want her to feel good. I don't want to resent her. I don't know what to do, Gibbs. Okay, Gibbs, here's the deal. There is a lot here. First of all, anxiety is like an epidemic right now, right? I feel like, I don't know that there's more anxiety now than before, or it's that there's so many places for people to see speak about their anxiety. Like, we've got blogs, we've got podcasts, we've got television, We've got everywhere. People are so authentically reality tv. God, we're all having anxiety. So just know that. God and I know what it's like to be in a room around anxiety. I suffer from anxiety. In fact, we spend a good part of my morning here in the office, where I think my staff was surrounded by my anxiety. So I'm going to be honest with you. I suffer as well. Okay? So here's the thing. It is not your job to fix her. And I get that you care about her and that you love her, but she has got to do the work on her own. So it's not okay that she's not going to therapy anymore or looking for answers, and she's just going to be in her anxiety. And by telling her that, it's really affecting you and it's making you not want to be with her, guess what? Making her anxiety worse. Not that you're trying to do that. Gibbs, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just saying by you telling her that, it's pushing you away, you know, what kind of result is that having? That's not going to work either. So here's the thing about anxiety. And yes, I suffer from anxiety as well. And sometimes, you know, I don't think that it ever truly goes away in life. Like, I feel like we learn to manage it, which is something that there's certain things in life that make your anxiety flare. There's certain things that can calm it. But I can tell you this, for your girlfriend, the best practices for dealing with anxiety therapy, it's huge. Like, she needs to go back to therapy if she didn't connect with her last therapist. You guys, finding a therapist is like finding a relationship because it is the most intense and probably transformational relationship you'll ever be in. So it's okay to kind of shop around for therapists and go to three, check out three therapists, and you're going to get something from every session, even if they make you pay for it, which they often do, and find who you drive with. So she's got to get back into therapy. Meditation is important. Taking 10 minutes in the morning, even just to breathe helps. Sleep is big, you guys. I can't tell you how much sleep matters. Getting the right amount of sleep, your health, your mental health, your physical health, working out and nutrition, those are all the things that any people will tell you, and I'm telling you right now, are going to deal with. But I can tell you, Gibbs, you can just be there and support her. But she's got to get back into therapy and take it very seriously. Because just like everything else in life, you know, untreated trauma, anxiety issues we're having in our relationship, the easy thing to do is to ignore it and hope it gets better. The hard thing to do is to get into it and try to fix it and try to work with it and get best practice for dealing with anxiety. So, you know, you can give her some tough love, not make it about you, but just tell her that you don't know how else to support her other than to encourage her to get back into therapy. That's the best thing you can do, Kips. So I can tell you love her, but you gotta support her on her path. And if she resists, then it sounds like this might not be the time for you guys to be together. Because if you leave her and you let her know that you can't be with her unless she's taking her mental health seriously, she's going to wake up and she's going to have to get help. But I hope it doesn't come to that. Okay, now we're going to take a quick break. Give a shout out to our sponsors. Thanks for supporting them, and I'll be right back.

Okay, our next email is Lamar, 28, from Virginia. Hi, Emily. I can't stop listening to you. I love you, Madison. Jamie, I've been with my girlfriend about five years and our sex life is amazing. My girlfriend gives me the best head I've ever had, and she has no issue with swallowing. I love giving her oral hearing, her moans of pleasure, and I love when she calms her squirts. Is there anything unhealthy about each of us swallowing each other's fluids? That is a great question, Lamar. I'm glad you asked it, because the truth is, you've been with her for how long? Five years. I think you guys are clear. That's great. Because the truth is, if you are with a partner, a new partner, and you haven't been tested, you can get an STD through oral sex, through performing oral sex on a woman or a man. Like, it's very low risk if you're performing oral sex at a woman. But for example, Lamar, let's say you had sores in your mouth and your girlfriend had an std. You could catch something. Just like women can get that from swallowing semen. Now, it's risky, but if you've been tested, your partner's been tested, I think you're all going to be fine, though. They do, you know, if you haven't been tested and you're worried about STDs, I'm telling you, it can be a risk, but I don't think that you really all have to trip on it. But just know it happens. But, Lamar, gosh, sounds like you guys are having amazing sex, and I love that. So don't get all tripped up on it. You've been together five years and you both seem healthy. So keep on swallowing and blowing and licking. That all sounds amazing to me, you guys. The truth is, though, if you are worried about it, you have like, oh, shit, I'm seeing a new person. And I don't know, you can use a dental dam, you can use a condom. I know it's not as sexy, but if this is something you're worried about, you're with a partner, haven't been tested. You can make a dental dam out of a condom. You just cut the snip the tip off, and then you cut it down the middle the long way. And you have a dental dam for performing oral sex on a woman, and nobody uses them. I'm going to be honest, they don't, but they feel really freaking good. Because sometimes when you're adding something, like over your vulva, like when someone's rearing oral sex on you, it feels really cool. It feels good. There's like a friction that happens. So try it out for fun. This is from Daisy23 in California. Hi, Emily, my Boyfriend and I are the same age, 23, and have been together for five years, living together for four. Recently, I decided to ask him if there were any kinks or fantasies I didn't know about. He mentioned pegging, but also mentioned masochism. This gave me pause, and I really didn't understand it. I started doing a little research and saw that people had some theories. They suggest that childhood trauma or childhood experiences could be the cause of masochism. My boyfriend was sexually abused when he was quite young. He said he didn't think much of it because he didn't understand until later on. I don't know how to tell him how I feel after doing my research. I don't want him to think that he can't tell me more of his fantasies. How do you think I should approach this situation? Okay, Daisy, first of all, masochism is like sadomasochism. Like, he believes that he might be sexually satisfied by having pain inflicted on him by you. Right. And you probably read about that. Well, a lot of times that can stem from trauma that could come from being abused. Absolutely. It could also be that he's got a fantasy that's independent of that the likelihood of being them being tied are better than not. So clearly, he wants to be dominated by you in some way, you know, by pegging or by, you know. And when I say, like, you know, he would, like, maybe you to spank him or to tie him up or, you know, something like that, and he sounds like he didn't really get into it. I think that this is such a great question, because I understand your sensitivity to this, which I'm really impressed by, Daisy, because on the one hand, I get it. You're like, babe, tell me your fantasies. And then you're like, oh, no. Oh, red flag, Red flag. So you guys have been together five years, which is the good news here. So if you've been together for this long, I think you can say to him, untreated trauma, as you guys have heard me say a lot, really doesn't go away. Untreated anything doesn't go away. Anxiety, depression, you know, issues we have with our best friend that we haven't talked to in five years. It still weighs on us. Like, every single broken promise or challenge in our life, they just kind of build up. Okay? So trauma kind of trumps them all. And dealing with sexual trauma is something that you really have to, like, go back into therapy, and you actually can go back into that traumatic situation and work it through so you can release it. Emdr Therapy is great for dealing with sexual trauma. The other thing, though, is that there's a lot. Once people have done that work and recognize their trauma, it actually can be a really healthy outlet to eroticize a trauma. Like, there's people who have been in abusive relationships, and they're like, in a BDSM relationship, or they're in a relationship that sort of plays out their trauma, but it's healthy because they've made peace with it. And they're like, okay, I understand the origin of where this fantasy comes from, but I'm not being re traumatized by it. So the risk here is that if you just started, okay, babe, let's do some bdsm and I'm going to tie you up and I'm going to spank you, or I'm going to use a light little whip on you or something. It could re traumatize him if he's sort of blown off the trauma as like, oh, yeah, it happened in the past. So I think you got to tread lightly here. But you can just tell him, babe, I love that we're having this conversation about our sex life. I think it's. I want to hear about your fantasies. I want to tell you about my fantasies. And there's, you know, I'm happy to fulfill them with you, and I know it's going to bring us even closer together. But I know you've mentioned your sexual trauma in the past, and I've been doing a lot of research on it, and I think that it could be so healthy for you to go into therapy to work it through, because even if right now he's not feeling it or thinks it's no big deal, I promise you, the fact that it even happened is something that means that he's got to get into therapy and figure out a way to deal with it. Therapy is a great call for him and maybe go with the pegging first and leave the masochism for after therapy, but, you know, see what he says and come from a very loving way. Don't make him wrong. Don't make him feel bad. Don't blame him. Shame him for not having taken care of it. But you sound like a very loving girlfriend. You did the research. And I think if you sit down with him and you're like, babe, I've just been thinking more about you and your health and the trauma. And I think that having this conversation will not preclude him, if you say it in this way, from sharing with you his fantasies, especially if he takes it seriously and starts to Kind of delve into that trauma so he can release it. I think that would be the right way to handle it. Okay, thanks for emailing Daisy and let me know how it goes. I would love to hear it. And you guys can also listen to this together. Speaking of listening to this together, I really love this email. This is Elizabeth, 32, North Carolina. Hey, Emily. My husband and I started listening randomly on a road trip just last weekend because he always says I'm shy about sex and that he feels I just do it sometimes to maintain our marriage. Maintaining quotes, he suggested we search the podcast and we came across yours, which I love, by the way. I'm absolutely in love with my husband, but I do sometimes go through the motions to keep him satisfied. We've been married for almost 10 years. We have three kids, age 9, 6 and 3. I work full time outside the home, and my husband's job takes him overseas for months at a time. When he gets back from deployments, we usually have a few days, weeks of good sex, and then it quickly falls back into routine. I never masturbate when he's gone, and I feel shame for some reason. I grew up in a Christian home and I just have a hard time feeling sexy. I'm in pretty good shape, but I'm just not comfortable in my own skin. Sometimes I can't take myself seriously. I literally laugh when he's talking dirty to me. I'm trying to work on my insecurities, but I'm afraid to fall back into a routine where I'm too tired for sex. After work, kids, house, work every day. This man wants every part of me every day, even when I feel gross or pushed back. Do you have any tips or ideas from other long time and successful married couples for keeping sex top of mind? So this is the million dollar question. Elizabeth, first of all, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you guys found it together. And I hope you guys are taking a note on this because there are a lot of couples who listen together. I mean, to me, that's the easiest way to have the sex talk. Cause you're on a road trip, you're driving to a friend's house, and I bring up something that you've been wanting to say to your partner. You press pause, you're like, hey, babe, what do you think about that? Voila. You're having the conversation. So I think this is great, Elizabeth. And I'm so glad that this got you thinking about yourself. Because the truth is, great sex, longevity, and sex does start with you being comfortable in your body. Because great sex is like a dance, right? The two of you, over time in your relationship, there'll be times, I know it doesn't feel like this now, where you're going to want sex more than he does, and he's going to be exhausted or other things are going to come up with your sex life. But the base of having amazing sex is truly, truly being comfortable in your body and doing work around that. And so I understand that religion in your home was like, nope, don't masturbate. It's, you know, save it for your partner, save it for marriage. Masturbation is wrong. And when you hear that, like, every day of your life, life, it'd be easy for me to say, yeah, just shake it. It's not true. You know, listen to what I say. But that's almost like, how do we, you know, think about. A lot of us walk around with the voices we hear in our head from our parents, our mothers, our fathers, you know, church, religion, our friends. We just. We have these voices and that's how we think the world is. So I'm here to tell you I understand why you don't feel sexy and you don't feel comfortable with your body. But your husband's gone a lot, you said. And I really think that even though masturbation feels super uncomfortable for you now, when you do it, I would love you to just kind of, without a goal in mind, start to get comfortable in your body. I think, you know, masturbating is a huge, huge part of it. Getting to know your body, what makes you feel good. And even if you laugh and even if you stop 10 days in a row, just the fact by starting and trying to get there with your body and getting over this uncomfortable place that you find yourself in, and you might need some outside material, like maybe you want to watch porn or read erotica or. I think that the masturbation part is really big. Mutual masturbation, you guys. It's so good for couples because then he can understand your body, you understand his body. And, like, you actually watch what he's doing, he's watching what you're doing. And it's really. Can be hot for both of you. And I'm wondering if you've talked to your husband about this. Does he know that you are not feeling great about, you know, your body or sex or any of this stuff? Because. Or even that you grew up in a Christian home and sex was. Wasn't really comfortable to talk about or to even have. Sharing this with him might make him understand maybe where you're coming from, when you feel like it's getting into a routine, but also know you guys, for everyone listening, everything becomes routine. Sex is going to be routine. There doesn't have to be fireworks every single time you have sex. I mean, think about that pressure. Like, is every meal amazing? Is every workout amazing? You know, is every day at the beach amazing? Like, no. And I think we have really unrealistic expectations for sex, especially sex and marriage. We think like, you know, it's really bad that it's routine or we don't have it enough or we have it too much or there's a problem. Sex is an imperfect, it really is. But the part that's the consistent part is that when you continue to talk about it and explore what's holding you back sexually, talking about it with yourself and with your partner, that's how you take all the power away from whatever it's holding on you. The fear and the anxiety around sex. I think by sharing this with him and then also, I mean, honestly, you're asking me. Finally, tips or ideas from other long term and successful married couples for keeping sex top of mind. They prioritize it. They decide that even though we have kids and we're exhausted, that our sex life is just as important, you know, as making sure there's enough money in the college fund for their tuition. It's just as important as making sure, you know, our kids succeed as our religion as everything else. You guys health is just another one of those really important buckets that you prioritize. Like, they know that it's not okay that two weeks go by and they don't have connected sex. Long term couples have date night. They have a night that they set aside that no matter what comes up, the babysitter is there. It, you know, you take your kids to the grandparents, the grandparents come over and watch. And that night is non negotiable. It could be a Wednesday, it could be a Saturday. But the two of you go out without the kids and you have that time. You don't talk about the kids. If that's, if that's something that you guys fall back on and you make it about both of you and they keep doing things together. They, you know, take time for each other, they listen, they prioritize each other's feelings and emotions even above the kids, to be honest, because your relationship is so important for the health of your family. And so I think that when you have kids, it's really hard because you're like, well, my partner will be here. The kids matter. Of course they matter. But the kids can also they want to grow up in a home and they can feel at home when the parents get along and when they don't, when you're connected and when you're not. So I don't know if this will help you, but to reframe it thinking will be better parents and better role models for our children if we are prioritizing the intimacy in our relationship. Because your kids will feel it and you'll feel it and it'll just make up for a happier, more satisfying sex life and life overall. So I'm glad that you guys found the show, Elizabeth and thank you for emailing and best of luck for you. Keep just keep talking about it and spend some time alone masturbating. It never fails sex with someone you love. Okay everyone, thank you for listening to the show. Thank you to Ken, Jamie, our volunteer, Shannon, Jenny, Sarah, producer, Lark and Michael. I do have the best team on the planet. I also have the best listeners on the planet. So thank you for subscribing in itunes, reviewing the show and just for reaching out and sending in your emails and letting me know how you like the show or what you would like to hear on the show. Really takes away all my anxiety in this moment and always when you guys are happy makes me happy. I love you all. Was it good for you? Text askemily to 797979.

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