The 10 Hottest Moments of 2021

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.

The honeymoon phase is amazing because you know, a we got a nice little neurochemical cocktail backing us up and there's so much excitement just in not knowing somebody and wanting to learn about somebody, you know.

So it's all new, it's all exciting.

Once I explain it in these terms, every couple I meet says we want more of that. We want that. We're ready for that. We don't have it. How do we get it?

You can never speak badly about yourself. The way that you speak about yourself is becomes who you are.

You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Oh, 2021. We hardly knew ya. Just kidding. We totally did. And we've got the FaceTime sex to prove it. All year long, we've been saving up the very best moments of Sex with Emily so you can walk into 2022 more sex wise than ever. From squirting to sex dreams, Nikki Glaser to Esther Perel, we're doing a hot flashback of your most talked about episodes. On this show, we bank the top pieces of sex wisdom from hands down, incredible guests, Discover your dating style, locate the G spot once and for all, and build your sexual confidence with some of the smartest and funniest voices out there. Before you create your New Year's resolution list, be sure to listen to this one because I guarantee you their advice will elevate your 2022 intentions with Emily for each episode, join me in setting an intention for the show. I do it, and I encourage you to do the same. So when you're listening, what do you want to get out of the episode? My intention is to have a blast with you. You might listen to a few pieces of advice here and go, oh, yeah. And on others, you might say, whoa, I totally missed that one. And that's why we've put it all together. So think of it as a sex buffet for one, and let's have some fun. Please rate Review Sex with Emily wherever you listen to the show. We've got tons of articles up@sexwithemily.com, so check those out. And also check out my YouTube channel for more sex tips and advice. If you want to ask me questions, just call my hotline, 559-talksex or 559-825-5739. Leave me your questions there or message me at sexwithemily.com askemily all right, everyone, enjoy this episode.

Let's start things off with psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel, who discusses the different types of touch and infidelity.

Can we want what we already have? Is the fundamental question of desire. What is the difference between love and desire? How do they relate, but also how do they conflict? Why is it that the forbidden is so erotic? Why does parenthood deliver such a fatal erotic blow? What is at stake when the very thing that people rely on is the very thing that becomes most fragile? Because we don't think of desire as something that needs to be cultivated, sustained, actively nourished. We think that because in the beginning, for some of us anyway, it's there. It's just going to remain there forever and. And the forever keeps on getting longer. Exactly. That's the crisis of desire.

We had to get married. We became, you know, property of, of the man. And then we thought, well, we get to pick a partner, and it should be based on this love and sex and connection. Well, it's like what we're talking about is a honeymoon phase, right, that everyone goes through at the beginning of a relationship.

Not everyone, actually, as Many people that start lukewarm and become hot later. That is also a myth that everybody starts with a tremendous amount of erotic enthusiasm for their partner. Some do, but many don't. But we don't say it out loud because the myth says that there should be a honeymoon phase.

Okay, well, so those people like in arranged marriages or they're just making, they're making their own arrangements in their head and they think, well, I'm not attracted to this person, but they're going to be a great provider. So that's not important to me right now to have that kind of desire.

That or I feel deeply emotionally connected to you, you feel safe to me, you will be good to me, you will not hurt me, you will care for me. And you know, and the fact that I am not as drawn to you physically or feel compatible with you physically is secondary at this moment. My erotic needs and my emotional needs are not aligned and, and I am letting my emotional needs be the decisive factor. It's fine.

But is it fine? So how important is sex in a long time relationship?

It may be very important for that very same person, but maybe the emotional need superseded and you have to be, you have to know that, you have to understand that, you know, that same person who made that choice may have been fine for 10, 15 years sometimes, and then that other dormant part of them resurfaces, you know, with a vengeance and says, and what about me? But that doesn't mean that there was a wrong choice that was made at first. There was a choice that was made for different reasons. And those things we have the idea that sexual needs and emotional needs are one and the same and they always go neatly aligned together. And that is not necessarily the case. There are people with whom we can have wonderful things, sexual encounters with whom we would never want to live a life. And there are people with whom we want to live a whole life. But we have to mourn a kind of erotic flatness that for some of us is a real dear loss.

So how do we rec. I mean, I know that a lot of your work is getting couples to reconcile this and to understand.

The importance of sex, how they can either get it back, you know, we had it at the beginning. That's what I hear a lot. At least they had. Even if they had it for a week, they're even 20 years. That first week was amazing. And they all want to go back. I would say you're never going to go back. But what do we do? Like, can we experience desire and deep love at the Same time.

Yes, yes, of course. Some of us really do. The way I organized it in my head was actually based on the work also of Stephen Mitchell and others. It was not. It wasn't just my original thinking that we all have two fundamental sets of human needs. And we need security and we need safety and stability and predictability. We also need adventure and novelty and risk and mystery and sometimes danger. The degree to which these two organizing needs, existential needs in our life, live inside of us, will tell you the answer to how important is sex? When you say how important is sex in a long term relationship? My first answer to you is, for whom? Tell me the story of that person and who that person is and I'll have a better sense of how to answer that rather than some flat generalizable number. And each of us straddles these two fundamental needs and they change in the course of our life. So some of us.

Will find that the place where we love is also the place where desire feels very free. The safety I feel with you is what unleashes my erotic self. I ask this exercise a lot where I ask people separate the page in two. When I think about sex, I think of when I think about love, I think of when I am wanted, I feel. When I want. When I desire, I feel. And when I think about desire between you and me, and then on the other side, when I think about love, when I am loved, when I love and when I think about the love between you and me, and then you look at the connections. And for some people, these two seamlessly flow together and one flows from the other. And for other people they are rather separately and disconnected. When I love, I feel deeply responsible. When I desire, I want to be free of all responsibility.

It's that dance that every person has to explore for themselves. Then how do you bring them together? You tell people it's not the desire just for doing sex. Desire and the erotic, you know, I think that that's what frees people up, is when I say we're not talking about sex. You can have sex three times a week and feel absolutely nothing. I am not there to help you do it, but I will explore with you. Where do you go in sex? What does sex mean for you? What parts of you get expressed in sex? What is it the vocabulary for. For you? When I go into that frame, it becomes a different conversation. Women have done sex for centuries and felt nothing. So desire is not the desire to do it. I ask an audience if you've been affected by the experience of infidelity in your life either because you were the child of a parent who was unfaithful or who left, or you are the offspring of an illicit love affair or accident, or you are the friend who is the confidant of someone who's either been betrayed or is in the throes of an affair, or you're the third person in the triangle. 80% of an audience will tell me they've been affected by infidelity. So this is not just a few rare rotten apples somewhere else. And that's when I said, this is touching us so much. So many people have been affected by this all over the world. The book is in 30 languages, and I've been in 20 of those countries. I want to find a way to talk about it in a way that's going to be more helpful for all those who've been hurt by it or who've gotten lost by it or who destroyed their entire lives because of it. There must be something that is less of a black and white model that embraces the complexity of this very complex thing called adultery that has existed since the day marriage was invented.

Yes.

And not to condone it. Not to condone it. I think that's a very important piece to add to. It is to really help people with it rather than just say if it's good or bad.

Right? Yeah, exactly. And you do help people with it so much. So I just recommend that everyone read State of Affairs because people have this notion, well, if someone cheats on me, I'm gone, I'm out of the relationship.

Right.

And so it doesn't have to be that way.

Right.

And Emily. And that if you stay, that you not experience it as a shame. If I had, especially as a woman, the new mandate for the woman is to leave. But, you know, it's not always so easy. Life is complicated. People have children who need two parents. People have economic realities. People have elderly parents living with them. It's not just so easy to get up and go. And sometimes it's not easy to get up and go because you still care about the person and because the very person who cheated on you may even also have been the one who took care of your elderly father or your alcoholic brother. That is a mess and that has come to live with you for the past two years. This put it in the pandemic context. So don't be ashamed over the strength of staying. It demands a lot to do that too. But get help. But there is hope. This is not the only form of betrayal in a relationship it's all of that.

How do we retrain the brain to understand that pleasure is our birthright and not just a reward? I think there's so much about sex and eroticism that we just think we don't deserve it.

So the way I work with it is very experientially. And I don't just retrain the brain, I retrain the physical experience, the embodied experience, which then will send messages to the brain. So I work a lot with water. What is your preferred temperature of the water? I want you to send in the shower with the perfect temperature for you. And then I want you to notice what is the place on your body where you enjoy it the most? Is it the nape of your neck? Is it the back? Is it your head? You know, is it your shoulder? Is it. Is it the front? You know? And then I want you to just stay under the shower and for as long as you can notice, notice the soothing, pleasurable quality of that water. And if at some point you begin to think, oh, I should turn, I should move, I should wash, I should finish, see if you can extend it just another 30 seconds. You see, you can do it alone, you can do it with the partner watching. These are all metaphors, transposed metaphors of experiences around pleasure. Imagine that you're eating and your partner is just watching and you're pleasing yourself. Find the thing you like the most. So I work with food a lot. I work with fruits, I work with water, I work with fabric, with clothes, you know, that you experience on your body. I work with touch. Do you want hovering touch? This is from the work of Jaya. Do you want gentle touch? Do you want straight touch? Or do you want stipple touch? There's a beautiful exercise, another one that is really the difference between giving touch and taking touch. So the giving touch, I give touch to you. I stroke your hand and I am thinking of you and my mind is completely focused on you. This is a great retrain exercise. And then there is the taking touch, which is now I continue to stroke your hand, but this time I'm focused on me. It's how I enjoy. It's the contact of my hand. And you can see people completely change the way they touch. Now I am using your hand for my pleasure and I am taking touch. And now I go back to thinking about you. And now I am giving touch. And the distinction that the pleasure of giving is a different kind than the pleasure of taking.

Next, Nikki Glaser, who talks all about orgasms and porn.

Do you believe about this? Addictiveness of the orgasm. And also I read this, let me be honest, I read four pages of Cupid's porn Poisoned Arrow about the female and male orgasm and how it like ruins our relationships and how women get super depressed after them and how you shouldn't be having them all the time. Do you know about any of that? And if.

Have you heard of people? I think women should. All I know is I go back to, you know, eons ago when women were actually. If you look at like tantric sex and you look at all these practices around women that women. The orgasm. When we have an orgasm, it gives us life. It's our life force. Women can have up to like 226 orgasms a day, and that's fine. Men would be better off in this paradigm of limiting their ejaculation and or orgasm with ejaculation and then learning how to have multiple orgasms through bringing the energy of the orgasm through their body. So that's a whole nother practice. Can I just ask you, do you have orgasms with men every time? Yeah, if it's done right during penetration.

Um, you know what? Not if I don't also have a vibrator. If I have a vibrator too, it's guaranteed. And I'm not always guaranteed with a vibrator by myself. That's the thing. I need both the man and the vibrator for a guarantee. Now if I'm by vibrator alone, I'm about 75%. I can get there if I'm with a guy alone, also 75%, but guaranteed with both. So when guys are insecure about toys, I'm like, I can't without you either. I need you. You're a part of this for me.

Right? Well, that's the thing. It's like bringing them along with the experience. I find that the guys who are insecure are insecure at the thought of it. But once they try it with you and they're like, that's really hot.

And they like the feeling of it.

Guys like it on their shaft.

Too much work. Like, I need a lot of pressure and I need a lot of stimulation because I'm just kind of like numb down there. And that's what's so good about listening to you is like, you've reminded me, like, think about your vagina, like, go there. And I just don't feel like my body, I'm like shut off in places. And that's one of them. And now I'm just starting to like, just go to what feels good both for sex and have no, like, shame about it. My favorite porn is women doing feats of like, that still feel good and don't hurt them. Like, I don't like, like multiple penises in one hole. That is not cool, like, for me at least, because I picture myself and I'm like, oh, that would like, hurt. Although, like a hand. I don't know why I can kind of accept that more usually cause they do it like in a methodical fashion that like, isn't going to hurt the girl. The stuff that I watch at least, but like multiple dicks. I'm like, I don't like it. But then like DP or like stuff like that, like, where a girl double penetration. I'm on the show and we're wrapping up and I go, what are you doing next? And guys like, I'm going to go DP in Florida with like, director of photography. I know a lot of girls are DPing in Florida. I hear that's like a booming industry. There are a lot of female DPs now in your crew. And he's like, really? And I was like, do not get DP jokes all the time. No, he actually was like, I hear this joke all the time. But yeah, I like stuff. Like, I like forced orgasms. Like, that's my new thing. Because I didn't even know if it was a subgenre, but I found it on Reddit and like stuff on there. I'm like, I just like girls being like, forced to come because I struggle to come. So if you tell me to do something, I'll do it. Like, But I like to, like, I live my life very much like reward based. Like, you don't get to have that unless you earn it. And so like, I want to earn an orgasm because they feel so good. I want to feel like, why am I getting this present? Like, I did something. Like I got. I'm getting a sticker and then I can. I push orgasms away Because I'm like, nope, it can be better. I feel a better one coming and then I lose it and I'm like, oh, you do?

Even with all the toys.

Oh my God. I push them away constantly. Like, it is my instinct to not come. I didn't. The first time I had an orgasm was I was 21.

Okay.

And the next time that I was like, regularly coming was 24. And then took a real.

I was like 25.

You were 25?

Yeah, that's why I have this job. Like, what the fuck? I was like, I never had orgasm. I never masturbated. I didn't even know it was a thing.

When did you get, like, wild? Like, when did you get, like, very. Like, I can talk about anything. Like, what was it for you?

Probably it was starting this podcast because I realized I didn't know anything about it. And I thought, but what drew you.

To want to talk about it publicly anyway? Like, when most people are like, I don't want to talk about that.

Well, this was, like, 15 years ago. And I honestly was like, why do I keep getting to relationships with guys where I'm faking orgasms? I'm not asking for what I want. I'm so into their pleasure over my own. Is this what sex is all about? And I literally thought I was the only person I did. So I thought, I'm going to interview everyone I know about their sex life and their relationship. And that's where the podcast started. Like, in my living room in San Francisco. Friends came over. I was like, what? And then I was like, oh, everyone.

But they're not yet. They are. They still are, but not if we talk about it with our partners or anyone. The more we talk about it, the less weird it is.

I love talking about sex. And it's. It's sometimes, like, kind of shocks people. Like, I was just on this show, and it's like we were setting up a shot, and I was just waiting, and someone was talking about. They were reading books. And I was like, what are you reading? And he was like, oh, it's a book about tantric sex. And I was like, oh, my God, that's so fascinating. Like, what are you learning? And someone accused him of hitting on me. And I go. I asked him what book he was reading. He didn't lie. And I have an interest in sex. It doesn't mean that we are going to have sex like this. We can talk about this without it being like, oh, God, this is inappropriate. But some people are, you know, triggered by that stuff. So I guess I should be mindful.

And now, All About Sex Scripts with Ian Kerner.

People come in kind of hopeless, and I really want to help them in that first session. So I kind of, over the years, have developed what I call kind of like a separate sex in action methodology, you know, where I kind of. I. I learn about the problem. I sort of look at it at the big. From the big picture perspective. I walk around it. And then in every first session, I will ask a couple, so tell me about the last time you had sex? And I do that. Because I believe that every sexual event tells a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. There's a sequence of interactions that are, of course, course, physical, but they're also emotional, they're psychological. And you put them together and that creates what I call a sex script. And I believe that most couples, especially ones that start to settle into long term relationships, kind of have a sex script. And if it works, they're not coming to see me. And if it doesn't work, they are coming to see me. And there's something about the sex script that's reinforcing the problem that they're having. Okay, so I literally want to help couples rewrite their sex scripts away from the problem and towards pleasure.

Okay, so let's talk about this sex script, which you spend a lot of time unpacking in the book, chapter by chapter, with homework assignments in every chapter that really just. I mean, couples can take this at their own pace. I mean, they might find that just even in the first chapter, they stay there for a while after those homework assignments or the second chapter. Because you give it. You, you give so much in this book. Like, I could just feel so much of yourself and so much of your years of doing this work. So let's talk about the sex script. How would you explain that? And also, is there a common sex script?

Interestingly, about 90 to 100% of my heterosexual couples, if I ask them, tell me about the last time you had sex. And I'm not using this like, oh, we're rewriting a sex script. Like, that's sort of what's in my head. I'm just asking them to tell me about the last time they had sex. Half the time they don't even remember they're arguing about when they had sex. They can't even agree on it. But with heterosexual couples especially, I would say 90% to 100%, either had intercourse in their last sex script or wanted to have intercourse and failed to. And if I asked most heterosexual couples, well, how long did it take you to get to intercourse? Most of my couples will say 2 minute, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 5 minutes. If we're getting to 7 minutes, we're already getting extended. I'm not kidding.

I know, Ian.

You know, so. So the sex script is so dominated by this one behavior.

We just go towards sex because it's pleasurable until it's not. Right?

It's exactly.

Because I think this happens in most relationships. I really do. I mean, after a while, after the honeymoon phase is over, the honeymoon Phase.

Is amazing because, you know, A, we got a nice little neurochemical cocktail backing us up, and B, there's so much excitement just in not knowing somebody and wanting to learn about somebody, you know.

So it's all new, it's all exciting.

It'S all new, it's all exciting. So you know what I. You know what I love, Emily, is that once I explain it in these terms, every couple I meet is says, we want more of that, we want that. We're ready for that. We don't have it. How do we get it? Okay, right, that's million dollar.

That is the million dollar question.

So I think complicated questions really have simple answers. You know, I really do believe that. So I think it's important to engage in what I call the cultivation of psychogenic stimulation. That's the clinical term. And I think that there's two of doing that. I think it can be face to face and I think it can be side by side. And by face to face. You know what I mean by face to face, Emily? You watch two little kids or three little kids, five or six year olds, playing in a playground. They're making something up. They have no props, except maybe a twig to be a gun or who knows what, or a jungle gym to be a cable. With nothing but their imaginations, they're actually creating worlds and characters that have power structures that if we played the same games as adults, they'd be really hot, they'd be really charged, you know, so face to face psychogenic stimulation is being able to not just pull out a vibrator, not just grab a set of handcuffs. It's really being able to reach into your own psyche and begin to share something that turns you on. And it's crazy to me that so many of us either can't do that, won't do that, think we shouldn't need to do that, or believe they don't even have those fantasies or don't know that.

Right? Yeah, well, we don't. I mean, this is what we hear all day, every day. People think, well, I hear what you're saying, Emily. We should talk about our fantasies or we should role play. But that's just awkward. We've been together forever. Like, they're gonna laugh. Like, yeah, it's all those reasons. I can't, I won't, I have, I don't have any fantasies.

But I agree, but. So I'll sit down with that couple and I'll say, but listen, we've agreed that you need psychogenic stimulation. And I sometimes Say, you know, we need a different on road into arousal or we need like a different on ramp or we need a, an arousal Runway. Those two terms, like an arousal Runway and an on ramp, people kind of like relate to those terms, you know.

Great one.

And I'll say then, you know, I think that we got to do some side by side psychological arousal. And that's really simple. I just want you to take in together some sexy media. I don't care if it's reading erotic literature aloud. I don't care if it's listening to an erotica podcast. I don't care if it's listening to audio porn. I don't care if it's watching ethical porn, which is always interesting because everyone will then say ethical porn. And then that gets me to give them a whole nother spiel.

Exactly.

And deconstruct their ideas about porn. But, but like I said, complicated issues have simple answers.

Yeah.

Then taking something really sexy together with the shared aim of letting it get you aroused, maybe get into a little mutual masturbation, you know, while it's happening.

You know, like let's say somebody says, yeah, but porn is wrong, or it makes me feel bad or I, it's against my beliefs.

Right. First of all, I can try and make it fun. I can try and make it like that version of the Newlywed Game. I can say, I want you to pick erotica or porn that doesn't turn you on necessarily, but you think is going to turn on your partner. And then that always, oh, that's fun. Yeah, that becomes fun. They're going to start to tell me about the solution. Right. So we've moved from problem to solution. My job then is to raise the temperature in the room a little and around that solution, turn it into a fantasy. So, okay, so what does that mean? Like, you want him to desire you a lot more. Do you want him to say something? Do you want him to do something? Yeah, I want him to push me up against the wall and tell me he wants to fuck me.

Right.

You know, like, wow, okay. Like that's, that's not something he probably does. Or it's not the way you talk about putting together the shopping list. Right. So you sort of want to like, like want you or hunger for you or almost want you to be objectified in those moments. Right. So I'm just working with them to build the fantasy. Right.

And then, and then he might say, well, I don't know how to do that, or that feels weird, or how to write. And then do you Give them tools to do it as well.

Yeah, I do. But I feel like the main thing that they need is permission from each other. Like, once they've sort of talked about a little more, like, it's okay to come up to me and just, you know, bite me on the neck. It's permission, and it's getting them to get in touch with their erotic self. So sometimes people will come back and say, yeah, I picked out the porn for him. It was a POV of a blowjob. Because I know he loves blowjobs, and I hate it. Why is everything a blowjob? Well, that's interesting. Do you like blowjobs? Yeah, I do. He'll say, yeah, I really do. Like, blowed up. So is it simply because it's a lubricated mouth with some friction of a hand against your penis? I mean, that could be just you masturbating, right, with some lube and. And your hand. No, no, I like it because it's. It's. It. It makes me feel like. Like she totally loves me or it makes me feel like I'm totally in power. Oh, it makes you feel, like, really loved or makes you feel powerful. Right. There were then we're getting to even a sexual behavior or a body part, it contains an erotic element. It contains an element of fantasy. So when I think. When people think about fantasy, they're getting way too ambitious. They're feeling like I have to be, like, so super creative. You realize there are so many paths to pleasure, first of all. So I'm not going to ever. I hate when couples get so hung.

Up on the blowjob. I agree. Let it go. Do something else.

There are so many paths to pleasure. The other thing that I really try and do is say anything you do, whether it's a blowjob, whether it's intercourse, whether it's a kiss, it can have some kind of psychological meaning. It can be the most loving, romantic kiss. It can be the most passionate kiss that oral sex can come from. And there's really like a mutual flow state being generated. And I think that's what every couple needs to have happen during sex. Right. You need to get really turned on psychologically. And then you need to kind of shift into a kind of, like, flow state together where you're just totally present in the moment. So that's one lesson that I just learned from working with people who practice.

Oh, how do we. I love it. You describe that so well in the book about that state that we get into. And that's why people Often like power play, because you are not in your thinking about the laundry and worrying someone's coming. But your body, you're. You're. You're engaging. It's forced engagement. Because a lot of us are not as connected during sex. We're not connected to our partner. We're in our heads. We're disassociating. So it's that flow state.

Everything.

We all want the flow. I want it when I'm writing or when I'm on the show. Actually, I have it when I'm on the show, but in other areas, it's. It's just so hard. So do you teach couples this, or. It's more like a theory of.

I do. Yeah, I do. So the. The technical concept for being in a state of flow when you're with another person is called entrainment. Okay. Like when you're pushing someone on a swing, you get into a state of entrainment. When you're throwing a ball with somebody, you get into a state of entrainment. When you're dancing and you're not thinking about the steps, you get into entrainment. When you're a good musician and you're playing, you get entrained. Right. So it's. It's actually a brain state. It's.

It's.

It's like getting on the same frequency with someone via something rhythmic. So, you know, like, a lot of artists or writers say they do their best writing when they're walking. Right. Interesting. Not sitting down. They're actually walking.

That's what happens when I walk. I have my best work, best thoughts about the show. Yep.

So there's something about rhythmic entrainment. Right. That gets you into, like, that flow state. It's rhythm combined with either a process with yourself. Like, I'm brushing my teeth and I go into a daydream or with someone else. So the essence of sex, Emily, is getting into that mutual flow state. It has to happen for both.

And you have a great chapter on entrainment. We don't have to give the whole book away, but I think you explained it really, really well there. And I even. I was thinking going, yes, that's what I want. I want my partner to read this. You know, it's like, I've had it. Or how do you have it more often than not? You can't guarantee that every time you're going to be in entrainment.

No, you can't. But in the book, I just give lots of little exercises that incrementally help you build up. I Call it entrainment training, basically. And there's lots of little ways of doing it and getting there. And ultimately. So the ultimate thing about a sex script is you want, like, all the novelty and the eroticism at kind of, like the front end. I mean, that's why kink is so powerful, because it gets you both physically and psychologically engaged. Right. So it really cloaks the experience in something psychological. But then you kind of want to go into just that state of flow where you're not thinking. So it's nice to have a script that works, because then you kind of encode that routine.

Wondering how to find your or your partner's G spot. Deborah Sundahl has the answer in this top moment. Okay, listeners, this might be a little repetitive, but, Debra, say I'm at one of your workshops. How do you actually help vulva owners find their G spot?

I take them through, like, a meditation practice to slowly identify the head, the body, and back of the prostate with their finger. I'm like, you saw it now with your eye. Now slowly go around the meaty area that surrounds the urethral canal. Put your finger very slow, very tender. Everybody wants to rub it. And go really fast.

It's like, guess what?

Millimeter by millimeter, ever so slow. Well, everything changes when you do that. And from the urethra, then you go with your finger slowly down to the vaginal opening. That's all the prostate under that tissue there. So it's just at the opening and just two inches in. What is that? That's the first knuckle?

Yeah. People think it's so deep.

Knuckle and a half, Right? We're going way in there and pounding away at her.

Like, no, this is what I've been saying for years. They're pounding, pounding. It's not deep inside. It's out of the belly button. It is an inch and a half to two inches inside. And I think people are still even going in. They don't get what that is. Up to your knuckle. And when I discovered mine, I was like, oh, it's just right. It's literally like. It's. It's that why we always say that Come, Heather. Motion is because it's like going towards your belly button. It's like that little. You just feel. It's right there. It's like on the left side of your clitoris. Like, it's.

Yes, it's right there. We thought it was this tiny spot that somewhere in the deep oceanic recesses of the vagina was a spa. And Some women had it and some women didn't. And only the right man will come along and find it for us and blast us off the planet. No, it's just a total myth.

It's a total myth. We gotta find it first. People like, oh, we gotta teach sex ed. And when women come to me first, like, oh, how do I be a great lover? I'm like, first you gotta do the work on yourself. When you become a master of your own body and your own domain, then you can share that with a partner or you find a partner willing. And I love that in your book, Female Ejaculation and the G spot. You could do it with a partner. Like, there are tips in here to do with a partner. But if you don't have a partner, your partner's not in. I think it's less pressure. Perhaps it's on your own. So now we're inside, and we've seen it peek out, and then you're just saying we touch it with a finger. Then you'll become more.

Yes, because it's a process of awareness. Once you know and see and have felt with your finger. Okay, I saw this G spot stick out. Now I shut my eyes and I locate that with my finger. I feel what it's like to touch it with my finger. And I feel what it's like to have a finger touched by G Spot Spot's body. Right? This is all awareness. I do not go fast, right? I take women through this very slowly.

I don't think I even ever really looked at my vulva puppet in this way that, like, there's sounds spot. I never even knew my vulva puppet's G spot. I just.

We find our G spot. No pressure. Orgasm or to ejaculate. But.

No, but you found this. This is awareness.

Awareness. The first day's awareness.

We're finding it. We have a bit of a ways to go to orgasm yet. We have performance issues. We have impatience issues. We have to go really. We are trained to go really, really fast. We want that pleasure now. We want this now. It's like, nope, okay, so we're articulating something that has not had a name. It doesn't exist. That is what I do. We're going to articulate this millimeter by millimeter. You will have no doubt about your G spot. After that, you will own her forever. That's empowerment.

Next up, Dr. John and Julie Gottman share some fascinating findings about compromise and relationship dynamics. For example, this pandemic is changing people so dramatically, not only superficially, but At a much deeper level in. In terms of their values, in terms of what they dream about doing, when they can finally get out in the world with safety. So sharing those thoughts and how your dreams have changed over the decades can be really a momentous conversation. Yeah, you're right. We do often share that when we start dating somebody. And maybe that's what even attracts you to them, that they have these dreams and passions of who they're going to be and what they're going to do. But then life gets busy and you have a kid and it is about the laundry and paying the bills. And slowly but surely, each one of you have little dreams that you're that are dying. Like maybe every year they're just getting a little bit more repressed. And so to have it, to be able to talk about it and say, you know, this is still important to me. This is who I am. And I think this might be the antidote to. We always hear that couples grew apart. Well, we just grew apart. Well, this would kind of prevent that if you kept kind of monitoring. Well, I'm. We grew apart because I was going after my dream. I mean, I've heard this. This is sort of a cliche example, but. Well, I was home with the kids, but you were out doing this thing and you were out living your life, and I didn't get to live my dream. So I guess I just love this idea of getting people to stick with these conversations that why you fell in love and what attracted you so important.

There is a huge myth out there. It's probably the most common myth about relationships, that you have to be compatible and how compatible are you. But the reality is that if you're truly compatible, you're a clone of the other person and you get bored silly relating to them. Right. So you really want to have a person who is different from you, and that is fine. That is great. The key to really having a successful relationship when your dreams are very different from the other person's is do you support each other's dreams even though they're not yours? Now, there's going to be exceptions to that, where your partner's dream is your nightmare. Well, okay, that's not going to happen. Probably. I want to get back into conflict for a minute. And in relationships, because that's a lot of what we. You know, there's so many conflicts and there's so many problems that people just won't get past. They might not go to therapy. And I've always said it seems like you're repeating the Same things over and over. And then Hearing your stat, 69% of conflicts are never solved. And in fact, they stay the same so over years. So, like, this is never going to change. But then, yet we call these relationships still successful. How is that possible? Well, here's the thing. You know, the question about successful relationships isn't do they solve all their problems? It's again, how do they dialogue about those problems? How do they dialogue? Right. So, you know, you were talking about compromise. Well, one of the things that is really, really important is taking the time to really understand your partner's point of view about a particular conflict and where it comes from, what it's about for them.

What's the history behind that?

Childhood history, other relationship history? Why is it so important to you that you have this particular position on the issue really lived? What is the underlying sense of purpose and meaning for you in having your position on the issue honored? And when you have that kind of conversation with one person as the listener and the other as the speaker and that listener just staying with question after question to really understand the other person's point of view and then reversing the roles so there's deeper understanding, then compromise becomes so much easier because you develop compassion and a much deeper appreciation for your partner's internal world regarding their position on a conflict issue. Could you maybe give me some examples about how a conflict that stays the same, but how you kind of learn to do the judge it so it works in a way. We call this the dreams within conflict. And we analyze 950 of these conflicts that seemed like deal breakers, you know, where they're opposed to each other and compromise seems unthinkable because in these deal.

Breakers, you're kind of selling yourself out.

If you compromise, that's the way it feels. And so after we analyze that, and we also saw that in our own.

Relationship as well, we found that some.

Of these unsolvable problems become the points of better connection. But you have that skill set of listening and teaching. I guess people learn this, they learn this from you. But we are not born listeners. Right? Active listeners.

Right.

We really learned it from the couples in the lab who, you know, took.

These deal breakers and asked each other.

Questions that deepened their understanding of their.

Partner'S point of view.

And Julie really is the one who.

Was insightful enough to see that this.

Was an important therapy technique because of.

Her background as a therapist.

We're gonna take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We will be back with more of this year's hottest Moments.

Of course, we had to bring back Dr. Bruce's fascinating insights on everyone's second favorite bedroom activity, sleeping. Everything's been disrupted, Everything's been thrown out of whack. And then to try to find order in this time of disorder and trauma, for many, our sleep is one of the first things that's gonna go right.

Well, then before COVID like, how did sleep become the little black dress? Before COVID right? And so here's what happened, right, Is all of a sudden several different things sort of collided. Number one, we could start tracking it a lot better. So now we've got rings, we've got wristbands, we've got things under our mattresses that can start to give us a little bit more feedback so we can start to understand more about our sleep. So that's certainly helpful. The other thing that we started to realize is that performance is really directly tied to sleep. All kinds of performance. So, like financial performance, like how well you do at work, relationship performance, sexual performance certainly has got its roots in sleep. So, you know, when you start to think about all things performance related, we as a, as a species seem to be kind of evolving towards this sort of high performance, high tech sort of universe.

Well, before you enter this, I do want to talk about how sleep impacts our sex life. But the first thing off the top of my head is that one of the most common questions I get asked over the the last 15 years is, I want sex more often than my partner. What do we do? And then a lot of times it comes to, well, I'm a morning person, my partner's a night person. How do we make that work? We're not home in the middle of day. Even now, maybe we are, but still, then how does it impact our sex life?

All right, so this is the $64,000 question, as they say. So in my book called the Power of When. I actually took a look at this question, because this is a question that I actually get asked on a very regular basis, is what's going on here? So first of all, what we're talking about is a basic idea that I call chronotypes. So people may have not heard the word chronotype before, but you have heard of the concept. If you've ever heard of somebody being called an early bird or somebody being called a night owl, right? Those are chronotypes. So originally we thought that there were three. There were early birds, what we called in the middle, or hummingbirds, not the best of names, and then night owls. Right. So I added a Fourth chronotype to the literature. And so, by the way, these are genetic. So it's not like you happen to choose, hey, I want to be a morning person or I want to. This is actually something where we see a single nucleotide polymorphism or what we call a SNP on a particular gene, the PER3 gene. This is what actually has a lot to do with scheduling within your circadian system. So when you see the polymorphism there, it makes you an early bird or it makes you a night owl. So this is where it gets interesting. By the way, if this is one of these genetic things, right, and it's kind of inbred in us, you know, we want to figure out what that is. We probably, probably want to be dating somebody that's the same chronotype as us, right? Like, wouldn't you want to.

Well, that should be yes. I mean, I always say, let's talk about.

So here's my question. Why doesn't like match.com or like eHarmony, like, why don't they ask these questions? Like, wouldn't there be a ton of sleep related questions that you'd want to know about your partner before they became your partner? Right? Because, I mean, I want to know, do they snore? Do they like it warm or cold? What side of the bed do they sleep on? Like firm bed, soft bed. Like, there's a bunch of factors here, right?

Yeah, a snore and a soft mattress. We're done. Like, let's not even go out for drinks. Let's just call it there, right?

I mean, you see what I'm saying?

Yes, the irony.

Sleep is critical. It's part of the human condition. It's all about the relationship. The chorusly, for sure.

And you can't change that. So I always thought there should be a dating app for sex. Like, why don't we just lead with what we like? Is sex important to me? Am I someone who wants to prioritize pleasure? We should just do an app together. But you're right.

So let me answer the question.

Go. Yeah, tell me, how does it work?

What do we know? So here's the basic answer to the question when we look across chronotypes, right? You need five hormones to have successful sex to be elevated. You need estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. You need cortisol and adrenaline, all to be high, right? You want all of those to be high. You want melatonin, the sleep hormone. You want that to be low, right? So we did a survey, 74% of people like to have sex between 10:30 and 11:30 at night. What do you think their hormone profile looks like? The opposite.

Right.

The melatonin is high and all the things that are supposed to be high are low.

Right, Right.

So that's clue number one as to what might be going on here. And if you're in a heterosexual relationship, what do most men wake up with?

Right.

If that is not mother nature telling you when to use that thing, I don't know what is. Right, right.

Yes, I agree with you. You already got it going on. You got half the problem there. Right? Half the. Half the problems are answered.

Yeah, because you've got the elevation in testosterone there, so it makes a lot more sense. So a lot of times I have a lot of patients who say to me, I like having intercourse with my partner, but he falls asleep afterwards all the time and I want to spend more time or whatever. And so I'm like, well, okay, well what about morning? And I'm like, I'm being a sex doctor, not a sleep doctor here. But what I'm talking to them about is when they want to do that. And so that's really what we talk about. So I actually created a matrix in the book. So what do we do if an early bird is already married to a night owl? Right. That's the big question. I had to create a matrix in the book. And in the book I also have a matrix for lesbian couples and gay couples because the hormone profiles are different.

Wow, this is amazing hack.

Yes, the science is incredible.

I love the science of it. And I love, because I actually want to talk about too the chronotypes. Go back to that, your Chrono quiz. You can find it at chronoquiz.com, that's c h r o n o quiz dot com.

Okay, so I'm going to give all of your listeners a five step plan. Everybody can do and it's not going to cost you a dime and your sleep will be significantly better. Okay.

Okay.

So step number one is to pick one wake up time and stick to it. I would tell you go to Chrono quiz, figure out what your wake up time should be and do it that way. If you don't want to do it that way, that's fine. But figure out what your wake up time is seven days a week, including the weekends. Including the weekends. I saw you catching up on. No, don't mess around. Circadian consistency number one.

Got it.

Okay, step number two, caffeine. Stop caffeine by 2pm Why 2pm so most people don't know. Caffeine has a half life of between six and eight hours. And so if you stop at two and it's eight hours because maybe you're a slow metabolizer, half of it's out by 10. It's around when most people are going to be going to sleep. So you want to have your coffee, have it in the morning, but stop by two. Step number two, stop caffeine by 2:00pm Step number three, alcohol. All right, look, there's a really big difference between going to sleep and passing out. Okay? Right. We don't like the passing out, we like the going to sleep. It turns out that there's a very important relationship to understand here. It's all about the time in which you have your last sip to lights out. Whatever that time frame in is going to have the greatest effect on your sleep. So if that time is very short, it will have a very large effect. If that time is longer, it will have a smaller effect. So step number three is to stop alcohol three hours before bed. It takes the average human approximately one hour to digest one alcoholic beverage. So I figure you go to two glasses of wine, I'm going to give you a little bit of room for maybe a half a glass more. But to be fair, you don't want to go over 2. For most people, it gives them energy, it doesn't make them relaxed, and for men, it can make them aggressive. Step number four is exercise. Exercise daily. But don't exercise too close to bedtime because like we were talking about, we want your body to cool down, not warm up. So stop exercise four hours before bed. Step number five, this is going to help with brain fog in the morning. When you wake up in the morning, you should have a 15 ounce bottle or glass of room temperature water. You should grab it and you should drink it, walk over to the window and get 15 minutes of direct sunlight. Most people don't know, but in fact, sleep in and of itself is a dehydrative event. So you actually lose a full liter of water as you drink your water. You lose a full liter of water every night just from the humidity in your breath. So you need to get that back in there. And then number two, light that comes from sunlight when it hits your eye. You have specific cell in your eye called melanopsin cells. These cells will turn off the melatonin faucet in your brain, which will help you remove brain fog. Do me a favor though. After you grab that bottle of water and you walk over to the window to get your sunlight. Put on a robe.

Let's hear from Chelsea, Glenn and Sade, from black girls texting. Okay, Chelsea, what's up?

So I'm the relationship gal and it's awkward because he can probably hear me, but we are in a long term relationship. This is the person that I want to marry and have a family with. This is the person that I love. But I'm just like such a goofy person. Like, I feel like I wish I could be. I wish I could like, do a dance for him, but like, I can't. I would just start laughing the whole time. And I feel like the time when I'm like the hottest is probably when I'm giving him fellatio because like, like I know what I'm doing. Other than that I'm like overthinking it, like laughing because I don't know what else to do. But like, I want to be sexier.

Right. Okay. It's so funny because what is sexy, right? Is it what we see other people doing? But like, I love that you're asking this because it's really about fighting. When do I feel the sexiest? So we know when you're performing, when you're pleasing him, that turns you on too. But I'm curious about your own relationship to your body and your sexuality. Like, do you masturbate? Do you get into your body? No. Never?

No. So like the first time I masturbated actually was because Sade gifted me a vibrator and I tried it, but like, I've never done it, you know, with my hands. Like, I always have to use a tool.

That's great. Say, so many of us are in that boat, so there's nothing wrong with that. Did you have an orgasm? Did you have pleasure?

Yeah.

If you had to think about your hottest sexual moment in your whole history of sex. What's that for? Your hot. Your sexual movie. Your what you fantasize about. If you fantasize.

Well, definitely if I have like a specific, like, outfit on, I feel more sexy. But then I just start like, laughing. But maybe that's my sex.

I don't know. Yeah. Do you ever dress up for yourself? Hear me out. Like in your bedroom, you got a mirror. Do you live with your boyfriend?

Yes, we live together.

So maybe he's not there or he's out or you're in the bathroom, you're taking a bath and you put it on. And even though women, we've got things about our bodies, but hopefully, you know, we move past that and how we move past that is just like. Like when we feel ourselves in the mirror. And you look at your body and how. What it does. And, you know, maybe you're taking a bath and you're rubbing lotion on, and then you, like, kind of move for yourself and you practice, and maybe you give yourself an orgasm. You're in the tub. You bring your toy, play your favorite music, light your favorite candle. Like, all the senses. You get all the senses going because you got the warm water on you. Your playlist. Maybe you have your favorite chocolates or whatever.

You.

Tastes delicious to you. And then you're just like, wow, I'm. I'm pretty hot. Like, I had an orgasm. Like, take a mirror and, like, look at your vulva and be like, this is, like, hot. Like, mirror. And then you get to know. Then you're like, oh, this is my power. Like, it's in our body. We have to get it out. And then you'll just walk different. You'll be like, I got this. It's just. That's why I. Sometimes, you know, they say, like, men pregame, but I'll pre game before sex. I'll be like, have my orgasms going, get in my body because I'm tense. I'm, like, anxious, work. So then I just try to come down, and I like, before I even see someone that I'm dating, I need to shower. I need my space. And you're living together too, so it's probably also harder because you're like, I'm in my sweats now, and then I'm in my sweat. You know, you're just. It's hard. It's a little bit harder. Especially during the pandemic. So it starts with you and then exploring what has been hot to you in the past and why.

And I like that. Getting sexy for yourself.

Yeah.

It's such a vibe, Chelsea.

It's like, one of my favorite.

Nudes.

Yeah, Taking nudes is really hot. So when you take a nude and you learn your body, like, I know it sounds, but all of it's awkward. Like, we all have these roadblocks, but once you take one step and you're like, okay, I'm gonna take pictures. The girls told me, right? What do you guys get from taking nudes? Like, what's tell? Yeah.

Oh, my God.

I. I remember when Sade and, like.

Another one of our friends were always taking nudes of each other, and I.

Thought it was ridiculous, and I was.

Like, oh, my God.

Why would you take naked pictures of.

Yourselves and have them on Your phone.

That's scary. It's terrifying.

And then they, like, hooked me up.

With a photo shoot one time, and.

I literally felt like the baddest bitch alive.

Like, it was. I felt so fine.

Like, I was looking at those photos. Like, look at my ass, look at my body.

And if only for me, I don't have to send them to anyone.

Yeah, but remember when I joined and I was just laughing the whole time?

Yeah.

You were like, is it possible that some people just aren't sexy?

It sounds to me that perhaps the laughing is sort of a. It's because maybe you're uncomfortable with it. It doesn't feel like you. Or it doesn't feel natural. Or maybe you grew up in an environment where it wasn't okay to talk about sex and it was always a joke. Or your parent, you know, your parents shut it down, which is very common. And so they'd be like. Like, cover your eyes or, you know, so then. Or it's a joke. Or maybe you had older brothers who are like, I don't know. It's. It's a conditioning, but you can undo it and ask your partner too. What's. What. What does he think about it? Like, does he think it's cute that you let. I mean, I'm not saying, because maybe there's not, but sounds like you're having an issue with it. That's really what it's about.

So there's so much power, I think, in having moments of.

Of sexiness and owning that.

Owning your sexuality.

Yes.

Yeah.

And as black women, it's particularly interesting because I feel like there's this hyper sexualized, like, rhetoric around black women, especially from, like, very young. And then it's like, oh, you know, body, big hips, big asses, big tits, like, all of this voluptuousness. But then when a woman does step into her sexiness. We talked about this on an episode when Meg thee stallion made her now very famous song Wap. Everyone lost their shit. And it's like, we can't talk about our wet ass pussies.

What's wrong with that? Exactly. So let's talk about. Because that was actually my next thing about, you know, your. Your podcast, black girls texting. What could I learn from you? What could we all learn?

I would say that we're just people. I know that's, like, silly, but, like, even just thinking about when I travel, right. I've been mistaken for, like, a prostitute simply because I'm black. And it. Nothing's wrong with being a prostitute or a sex worker. But like, it's just like those weird moments of, like, people putting something on you that might not be you. Like sometimes even thinking you're sexy when you're like the goofiest goofball like me, you know? So I don't know. That's one.

Yeah.

No, absolutely. What do you guys think? What do you. What have you. What can we understand more? I mean, I really want to.

That's a good point, Chelsea.

I also just like that idea of.

Like, having our right to pleasure and without shame.

Like, I think that, like, we deserve.

Pleasure sexually in all sorts of ways. Like, I like to indulge myself in simple pleasures whenever I can. Like, I just think we've been denied of pleasure forever. We work so hard, it's just we're owed. We deserve.

Yes, pleasure is your birthright. And so much of the self care movement and self love and sexuality has been started by black women. Right?

Exactly.

I think for me, communicating and having the open space to have communication around sex across races is a big thing. So, like, I notorious amongst the group for, oh, Sade, she fucks white guys, but I fuck all guys for one. But two, a lot of times I would sleep with men that were not black and they would always be like, you know, I've always wanted to sleep with a black girl, but I've been kind of like, afraid and all this stuff. And I'm like, I don't need to know all this information. It could have just been an exchange. We could have had the sex and we could have kept it moving. I have been more open with some guys to like, have the conversation and be like, why did you feel like you needed to say that? But sometimes you don't want to have to go through that. Right. So I think it kind of piggybacks off of Glenn and Chelsea statement of, like, we're just people, we deserve pleasure. And like, even if this is like a little like, fetishy moment for you, like, really unpack that a little bit before you just go telling people.

Yeah, exactly. No, it's offensive.

I was just gonna mention Emily something, a piece of feedback that we always get. People are always like, I can't believe you guys are so honest about, like, the sex that you're having.

And you tell these stories and they.

Really appreciate that vulnerability.

Yeah.

And we think that's important. Like, it is important getting those stories out there.

Well, I always say that to women, like, be that friend that talks about sex. That's how we're gonna learn. And then we can reinforce pleasure as Your birthright. Like, I do that with, you know, all my close friends. I'm like, have you had an orgasm? Have you asked for what you want? We think. Women think we don't deserve it. We gotta work hard, and then maybe I'll deserve. No, we deserve it now. And we are better when we have more pleasure in our life. And now, the hottest moments with dating coach Matthew Hussey.

If I could give people one piece of advice on meeting people in person, it's say something instead of nothing, okay? Because so often we get in our heads and we think, I've got to say the perfect thing. I've got to somehow win this person over. I've got to seduce them with one powerful line. But what most people actually need is a green light. A green light for an interaction, whether it's man or a woman.

Okay?

We need a green light for an interaction. We're looking for that cue from somebody else that it's okay to invest a little of ourselves. It's kind of like walking down the street. If you walk down the street and a stranger smiles at you, doesn't matter. Man, woman, young, old, whatever. If a stranger smiles at you in that moment, you're quite likely to smile back. And it's not that you didn't want to smile, it's that you were waiting for them to smile because you don't want to be the weirdo smiling at the stranger, and they don't smile. Now, a lot of us, by the way, this is what's kind of interesting about life, is someone. We walk down the street, we walk past someone, and someone smiles at us. And by the time we've registered that they smiled at us and we want to smile back, they're already past us.

That's true. Just have a smile on your face, right?

Yeah. Well, that's the thing. But that's exactly it. If we.

How do we do that?

By having a standard for yourself that has nothing to do with other people. If you have a standard of warmth. Like, I think about this a lot sometimes. I told you before this, I'm introverted, right? By nature. But I've learned how to be an extrovert when I need it. And I'm a big believer in before I go to a party or I was just at an event in Connecticut where I was around a lot of people. Even to this day, I have to sometimes really psych myself up for those situations because I'm like, oh, God, I've got to go and interact with a whole bunch of people and do Small talk and do this, that some of that is just. Just the effort of it all. And the fact that I don't love small talk. Who does, really? But some of it is ego, too. It's, oh, God, I'm gonna be in this room and I don't know anyone, and am I gonna feel special and am I gonna feel like I'm standing there and I don't know anyone? It's gonna be hard to talk to. There's still that kid in me that feels that way now as an adult and as someone who does what I do, I also have the tools, so that's really handy. And one of the psychological tools I use for myself before I go into that room is I want to have a standard for the warmth that I give.

Okay?

That has nothing to do with how warm this room is. Because we go into a room looking for warmth, looking for someone who's going to unlock our loving, compassionate, warm, friendly side. And if we actually instead take responsibility for that, unlocking other people's warm, compassionate, friendly side, then we will have a magnetic effect everywhere we go. Instead of going to a room to be changed, we go into a room to change the room.

That's such a good practice. That's so true. Because I'm thinking about. We're talking about, like, dating. Should you approach? Should you not? And how approachable are you? Like, when you go to a bar? I mean, back in the day, before we were all obsessed with our phones. You'd be with a friend, or you'd be looking around. You had to. There was. You couldn't be on your phone. But now we're all on our phones. You don't even realize that your body language is shutting off. You're not approachable. So people are like, oh, no one ever hits on me. No one ever talks to me. And I think, how do we recognize what we're doing that's making us not very approachable? And how do we become more so if we want to meet someone?

I do think that we have to almost reverse engineer it and say, what are the things that, when people do them, make me feel endeared to that person? What makes me feel like I'm comfortable with another human being? And then really look at yourself and say, be really, really honest. Am I doing any of those things when I walk into a room, you know, or when I go into a restaurant with a bar? Am I looking up? Like, simple things, Am I actually looking up and at the room, or is my head in my phone? And we know most People's heads are in their phones. Not because there's anything that interesting there.

It's really not.

It's because there. It's a comfort blanket. It's smoking. You know, it's. It's like smokers kind of look cool and indifferent because they always have something to do. People on their phones, it's the same thing. It's like, no, no, I'm not. Look at me. I'm not a loser. I have something to do.

Right.

Instagram posts of people I don't know.

Exactly. Do you ever look some around? Everyone's on their phone and they're always on Instagram. Like, you just look to the left, to the right.

Yeah, because it's. It's.

It's.

You know, I'd be the last person on earth to say how addictive it is, but it. There's. I'm getting lost in this mosaic of lives and stimuli and colors and patterns and aesthetics and moments, none of which are my life, none of which are the room that I'm actually in, none of which are the people that I'm actually surrounded by. You know, you've got someone who is surrounded by other people, but looking down in their phone, saying, I can't meet anyone. It first is about lifting our gaze to the world that's actually around us, to the world that we're actually inhabiting. Opening up our body language to the room. What we do is we go and find a corner of the room or a table, and we close off to the room and everything points inwards and we close our space down. We're in this big room with lots of people, and then we close our space down and our energy down, and it becomes a really brave thing someone has to do to come over, turn you around, lift your gaze up from your phone and try and say something. If the way that you are with your body language and where your eyes are looking and what you're doing is something that requires someone else to be disproportionately brave to come over. That's why you're not being approached. You want to lower the amount of bravery required for someone to talk to you. People invest based on how much they like someone. And you shouldn't invest based on how much you like someone. You have to invest based on the mutual exchange of investment that's happening between you. Invest in someone who invests in you. Now, look, in the beginning, someone has to move, right? You can't just. If you sit around and say, I'm just going to wait for someone to Invest in me. Then you can have a stalemate. Someone has to move. Someone has to say, hey, how are you? And then, oh, we have a conversation. Someone has to say, should we go out sometime? Oh, one of us asked us the other one on a date. Someone has to say, I like you before the one person. The other person says, I like you, and so on. There's always got to be a someone who. Who steps in closer. That's fine. That is a very small form of investment. But then you test, you invest, and you test. You see, if I move forward, do you move forward or do you stand still or do you move backwards? And come to think of it, why do I find you more attractive when you move backwards?

Why, though?

What's going on with me? Groucho Marx said, I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member. Contained in that is the problem with most people's confidence in dating. You like me. There must be something wrong with you. You don't want me. Well, now we're onto something.

Yeah, right.

If they're not into me, it must mean they're more valuable than me.

Right?

They're more valuable, so I'm gonna go after them. Or it must mean they're scarce. We want what's scarce. We value highly what is scarce.

Next up, Logan Urie breaks down the most common dating types and how to know if you found the right person. Tell me about what you label as the different kinds of daters. The three kinds of daters, and we could start there. You guys look for yourself in these descriptions.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's really one of my favorite parts of the book is this framework called the three dating Tendencies. And the story there is that as a dating coach, I had all these different people coming to my office, showing up on Zoom, and I noticed they're from all different walks of life, but they seem to suffer from the same set of dating blind spots. And so those are patterns of behavior, ways of thinking that are holding them back from finding love but that they can't identify on their own. And so I categorize them into this thing called the three dating tendencies. And each one suffers from unrealistic expectations. And so first you have the romanticizer.

I love this. Okay.

Yay. The romanticizer is somebody who has unrealistic expectations of relationships. So this is that friend of yours, or maybe this is you who says, I love love. I believe in a soulmate. There's one person out there for me I don't to want to Use the dating apps. They're not romantic. And they're waiting for the meet cute. They're waiting to go to the farmer's market and reach for the tomato at the same time as the guy. And then suddenly they fall into happily ever after. And the issue here is that the romanticizer thinks that once you're with the right person, a relationship's going to be effortless. And that's just not true. Relationships require work, and even the best relationships do require that constant effort and attention. The second type is the maximizer, and I'm a maximizer. Many of the clients I work with are maximizers, and these are people who have unrealistic expectations of their partners. And this is the one who says, I like my girlfriend, but could I be 5% happier with somebody else? Or my boyfriend's ambitious, but could I be someone with someone who's 5% hotter or 5% more interesting? And it's always, what else is out there? How can I do better? And they're constantly looking for the next best thing. And the thing about the maximizer is they feel like I can research my way to the right answer if only I can see every possible option, then I can make the perfect choice. And so the issue with the maximizer, as I'm sure you know, is that you can't date everyone. You can't turn over every leaf. At a certain point, you have to say, this person is great. I'm going to commit to them and I'm going to make it work. And it's not about finding the perfect person. And then it's easy. It's about finding somebody great, investing in them, and then building that relationship. And then the last one is the hesitator. And I have to tell you, hesitators are really having a hard time during the pandemic because hesitators are the ones who say, well, the thing about the hesitator is they have unrealistic expectations of themselves. And so there's the ones who say, I'll be ready to date when I lose 10 pounds. I'll be ready to date when I have a more impressive job title. And with the pandemic, that's given them a of lot excuses not to date. And so for the hesitator, they think I'm just, I'm not lovable yet. I need to make all these changes to myself, and then I'll be ready for somebody to love me. But they really underestimate two things, and those are one, dating is a skill, and you need to get out there and get better at it. And if you're not dating, you're not getting better at dating. And two, you need to figure out what type of person you want to be with. And if you're just sitting at home trying to, you know, improve yourself but not actually dating, then you're not figuring out what type of. Of person makes you happy. And so the advice really for the hesitator is to don't wait, date. It's just to get out there. You'll make some mistakes, you're imperfect. The person that you're going to wind up with will be imperfect. And don't sit around waiting to feel a hundred percent ready, because there's no such thing.

Did you find anything, split by gender, that there was more men who were more likely to be maximizers or more women or romanticizers?

Yeah, it's an interesting question. And honestly, as I've been doing more interviews for my book, one thing that's come up a few times that I actually feel really proud of is I've done interviews with a bunch of young women in their 20s who are like, I liked your book because you didn't say to women, pretend to be something you're not, play games, pull back, don't have sex until this date. And they were like, I feel like every single piece of advice in your book is for everyone. It's not very gendered. And I was like, I didn't even realize that. But that's how I feel. A lot of this stuff is universal. It's like, be a good person, have integrity. Find somebody who's reliable. Don't get distracted by the spark. Give somebody a chance. And I don't think that those gender rules are relevant. Obviously, there are some differences. And in the book, I talk about fertility and men can have kids way older. And there are some things there that are frustrating. But mostly I feel like men and women benefit from the same advice, which is, be a good person and know yourself and find somebody who's a good person who knows themselves.

Exactly. Logan, What I found now, after so many years of doing this, is that it's really not about gender. No matter who you're sleeping with, your gender identity, it's behavior.

Yeah, I mean, I can say I think in general, women probably have a slight more tendency to be romanticizers, and women are more likely to consume Disney movies and Disney princess stories and rom coms. And so there is more of a story in women's head around the meet cute and the narrative and what am I gonna tell my friends? And Then I would say men maybe tend to be maximizers a bit more. More focused on the research, more focused on the quote, unquote, objective right decision. But in general, the patterns that I describe in the book are about human behavior versus gendered behavior.

Right. So let's talk about how you know. How you pretty much know when you've met the person that you should maybe commit to.

Yeah, absolutely. And so I do think many people are maximizers. I think our culture creates really, a feeling of maximizers. Because I talk about this in the book, right before somebody goes on a trip, they're gonna read every Airbnb review, They're gonna look at TripAdvisor, they're gonna look on Yelp, and. And it's this feeling of the right answer is out there. I just have to research my way through it. And people crave this sense of certainty, and they feel like, you know, the objective right answer is only one Google search away. But that's just not the case in dating and relationships. You can't date all people. You don't know all possible outcomes. There is a point at which committing to somebody is a leap of faith. And so the 37% rule, which I'd love to talk your listeners through, is basically something that I share with maximizers. And so maximizers are like, well, I've been dating my boyfriend for this many years, and he wants to get married, but I'm just not sure because I don't know what else is out there. And so what I like to talk to them about is this concept called the secretary problem. And this is a sort of a mathematical riddle. And so here's how it goes. Imagine that you're hiring a secretary, and you know you have 100 possible candidates. You have to interview them one at a time. And each time after you go through a candidate, you say yes or no. And so at what point do you choose your candidate? So let's say you choose too early on. You don't know what else was out there if you choose too late. What if all the good candidates came before and there's nobody good left? And so what they have found is that this is what you should do. This is the mathematically correct solution. You talk to the first 37 people, and after that, you say, who was the single best person among that group? That person is now your benchmark. The next time that you find somebody who's as good or better than that person, you hire them on the spot. And so with dating, and this is an idea from the book, algorithms to live by. They say, well, who knows how many people you're going to date? Can't come up with that number. But let's just say for argument's sake, you're going to date from age 18 to 40. Well, what's 37% into that age range? It's 18, 26.1. So when you're around 26 years old, you've already dated 37% of the people, come up with the benchmark from that first 37% and commit to the next person who you like as much or more than that first group. And when I say this to people, they usually freak out and they say, but I'm way past 26. What are you saying to me? Am I behind? And I'm like, you're not behind, but you've likely already dated somebody who'd make a great partner. The answer is not to keep. Keep researching. It's to figure out who was the best person you dated in those years. And now, the next time you find someone who you like, realize how great they are, commit to them and build that relationship versus letting all these great people go. Because you always have one foot out the door wondering what else is out there.

And to wrap things up, let's hear from Serena fucking Kerrigan. All about confidence. Confidence is just. How would you describe it? Yeah, like, it's a. It's a state of mind. It's a state of.

It literally spills into every facet of your life. And that's why it's so unfortunate that, like, we live in this capitalist society that is predicated on us feeling insecure. Because when we're insecure, we buy shit, buy makeup, weight loss products, and women especially, like, it's just, like, thrown in our face. And we were born with confidence. But if you really begin to treat yourself like your best friend, like that same kindness, it's not sick. You don't always love your best friend. You can not like your best friend one day or disagree with them or think that they could have done something better. But regardless, you will never be nasty or demeaning to your best friend. You'll always try to make them feel better, whether they're getting ghosted. You'll be like, fuck that guy. Like, right. That kind of dialogue is something that I literally say to myself in front of my mirror, mirrors everywhere. And that is really how you do it. And it will spill into everything. Because when you're your best friend, if she came in and was like, I'm not, like, feeling sexy, like, what would you say? To her, you'd be like, yeah, you're not sexy.

I.

That sucks. You probably suck in bed too. No, you never say that. You'd be like, okay, how do we get sexy tonight? Like, what should we do? Should we put on some lingerie? Listen, Beyonce.

So.

So that kind of support you need to give to yourself, and it's exactly right. It's not about experience. You know, I think that that's a question I get a lot. Like, I'm not experienced enough. Like, so I'm not confident. I'm like, it has nothing to do with that. Because like, I wasn't experienced in starting a business or a card game. But that doesn't stop me from doing a great job. It's about having the confidence to do it and believing that you will get the hang of it.

Right. What was your steps then? You said, like looking in the mirror. And when those negative. Because the limiting beliefs is part of the human condition. Negative self talk. And I think, you know, the suffering, most of the suffering comes from our thoughts, I would say in the human condition.

I agree. And it's about verbalizing them. Because if you got in front of your mirror and said half of the shit you're thinking about yourself, you'd be like, oh my God, that is so right. Mean. You would never. So that's why I'm like, get in front of your mirror even when you're having a bad day, even when you're not believing in yourself, even when you like, you know, get fired, anything. Get in front of the fucking mirror and talk to yourself like your best friend and see what happens. That's step number one. And this is something you have to do every day, every night, all the time. If I'm like walking by, like, you know, anything with a reflective surface, it could be a water bottle. You bet your ass I'm winking. It's a puddle on the street. I'm winking at that girl, right? Because I would wink at you or say hi to you if you were on the street and I recognized you. So why aren't we giving that same attention and love and recognition to ourselves? One, two. You can never speak badly about yourself. The way that you speak about yourself is. Becomes who you are. So when I used to say, I'm the queen of confidence, and any press article from two years ago would be like, Serena Kerrigan, the self proclaimed queen of confidence. Now you look me up, it's Serena Kerrigan, the queen of confidence. Because I manifested that for myself that I literally. People will just react to how you present. You really do write the script of your life. And so if you were like, I'm the baddest bitch in bed, you become the baddest bitch.

And bad.

That's just how it is. So when I hear, like, my apartment, like, my company, like, no one is allowed to speak proudly about themselves. You can say a feeling. Because feelings go away. They're temporary.

So do you teach them the difference between that saying, like, I'm feeling a little bit.

Yeah.

Bloated. I'm not feeling sexy. Right. Feelings. Feelings go away. They're temporary. I'm feeling sad.

Right.

You're not feeling sad yesterday. Well, when you say I am, that's it. Like, that's it. And I think it's so funny because growing up, I heard that phrase, like, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. I'm like, who was what? What were they smoking? Because words carry so much weight. I mean, like, we're storytellers. Like, that's what human beings are. So the way we verbalize things, and especially ourselves, is how the world will see us. Because we decide it's us. We are the baseline. Like, there's one person that has been with you your entire life, and guess what, bitch? It's you. And that's it. So that is the one.

Yeah, that's the one.

That's true. So those were some of the hottest moments from this year. What was your favorite? I can't wait to see all the Sexy Memories that 2022 is definitely going to bring into our lives.

That's it for today's episode. See you on Friday. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Be sure to, like, subscribe and give us a review. Wherever you listen to the podcast and share this with a friend or partner, you can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Sex with Emily. Oh, I've been told I give really good email, so sign up at sex sex with emily.com and while you're there, check out my free guides and articles for more ways to prioritize your pleasure. If you'd like to ask me about your sex life, dating or relationships, call my hotline 559-talk-SEX. That's 559-825-5739 or go to sexwithemily.com askemily Special thanks to Acast for powering the Sex with Emily podcast. Was it good for you? Email me feedbackexwithemily.com.

There's one overlooked mineral behind better sleep, Sharper focus, stronger muscles, and a healthier heart and at least half of us aren't getting enough. Most people don't realize they're running low on one of the most vital minerals for human magnesium. And here's the thing, no single form of magnesium can deliver all of its benefits. That's exactly why Qualia Magnesium plus was created with 10 highly bioavailable forms of magnesium plus over 70 essential minerals. It provides total magnesium support, helping you sleep better, think clearer, move stronger and feel your best every day. And honestly, when you're less stressed and more energized, your intimacy and desire naturally benefit too. Sure, magnesium can help you sleep, but Qualia Magnesium plus goes beyond that. It's a whole body nourishment for how you think, move, connect and feel. More than just a sleep supplement. It's a foundation for daily well being which absolutely supports a healthier sex life. Getting enough magnesium from food alone is harder than ever due to depleted soils and chronic stress and our body's reduced ability to absorb it as we age. Well, Qualia's Magnesium plus formula is non gmo, vegan, gluten free and designed so all the ingredients work together for comprehensive magnesium support. And personally, I've been taking Qualia Magnesium plus in the evenings and I really notice calmer nights and clear mornings and just just feeling more grounded in my body, which always makes intimacy feel more accessible and enjoyable. It's become such an easy part of my nightly routine. Experience the most trusted magnesium for your purity, potency and performance. Go to qualia life.comsexwithemily for 50 off and here's a bonus use the code Sex with Emily for an additional 15 off your order. That's Q U A L I A life.com sexwithemily thanks for Qualia for sponsoring this episode.