A short conversational transcript of a Vanessa and Xander Marin YouTube video answering how couples can recover after disappointing sex. They normalize that not every sexual encounter will be great, recommend a mindset shift toward acceptance, suggest light-hearted validation after mild duds, and advise direct communication outside the bedroom (or immediate intervention if something was painful or unsafe).
Chapters
How do you bounce back after a disappointing sexual experience?
Woo. This is an interesting question. I can think of a lot of. I can think of a lot of shades of this. I think the first thing I want to say about this, let's. Because disappointing is like, is that. Was this like seriously disappointed? Did something go horribly wrong? Was something painful? Was this just a. Not ideal?
It just wasn't. It was a mediocre sex.
Mediocre.
We do.
What do we do?
Well, if we just have one that is just like, you know, it's fine. A little bit of a dud. We're usually just like, hey, we got it done. Yeah, we'll high five.
Yeah, like, you know, not. Not my finest work, but we did it.
I feel like we usually. Yeah, we usually joke about it where we. And we congratulate ourselves. We're like, you know what? We still did it. It was connecting. We, you know, had that experience. Not every single time. I guess I want to start there. Like, let's back up for a second and let's just normalize that. Not every single time you have sex is going to be amazing. I think we have incredible, epic next level sex. And sometimes we have experiences that are just kind of a dud. And like, sometimes we can sometimes, you know, ahead of time where we're both like, you know, we're a little tired or just like not super feeling it. But we've decided, both decided to have sex anyways.
It's like, let's get this done.
Yeah. But sometimes it's like it kind of surprises you out of nowhere. Like it seemed like the vibes were right and everything was going good and then it just ends up being like, oh, that was like, fine, but not as good as I thought it was going to be going in. So like, let's normalize. It's okay to have a dud every now and then. It's totally fine.
Yeah. The first thing I want to say is like, this is a mindset shift that I think is required. This is a mindset problem. This is an acceptance problem. Like, we need, we need to be able to accept that sex is not always perfect. That if sex were always perfect, then that would just be average. Right. Like, the, the reason that we have good experiences is because there is a baseline or, you know, a general, like an average. And that by having that, that allows us to be able to judge, oh, that was better than usual or that was worse than usual or less. I don't know. I don't want to say worse. Like, worse sex. It was just like, you know, not as good as it usually is. So I think that there's an acceptance piece that like, yeah, we are not fully in control of this. We can't have perfection all the time. Sometimes things will be better, sometimes things will be worse. And it's like shifting your mindset to accept that this is, this is the reality of sex in a long term relationship. And so once you have that mindset shift, then it becomes much easier to bounce back. I mean, in theory, once you have accepted that perspective, you don't really need to bounce back because there's nothing to bounce back from. Oh, that was just a normal sexual experience to have that. It was not the very best one I've ever had. So I think that that perspective shift can be really helpful. Yeah, but yeah, and then that also what you were saying, the acknowledging it, just the simple fact of, yeah, not, you know, that wasn't our finest work together, but it was still, you know, but then think of a compliment. Make it a little compliment sandwich.
That's what I like about what we do is like, we just congratulate each other. Like, hey, you know what? We got it done. And it feels connecting rather than us being feeling embarrassed or retreating to separate ends of the house or like, oh my God, I can't believe we had this disappointing sex. We turn it into a little light heart joke and like, hey, we did it, you know, we got back in the saddle, we made that time even though we didn't think we had it, like, go us, Hell yeah.
Now, if it was like, on the more serious end of disappointing, like there was something that was actively unpleasurable or painful or uncomfortable. That's not something where you just hold it in and expect to bounce back. Like, that is where you gotta have some kind of conversation about that, of saying, you know, hey, when X, Y, Z happened, that didn't feel very good for me. That didn't feel very safe for me, you know. So.
Yeah. And I would suggest having that conversation outside of the bedroom at a later time. So don't do it immediately while you guys are still naked in the bed. Go out of the bedroom, loop back around to it and say like, hey, I wanted to talk about, you know, what just happened.
Yeah. Unless you do need to stop in the moment. Like, if you are like, yeah, we're.
Talking much more serious.
Vanessa is not saying just grin and bear it and then talk about it later.
No, no, I mean, if, yeah, if we're talking something like in the middle, you're in pain or you're not feeling safe or whatever it is, like, definitely stop it and talk about it then and there. But I'm talking more something. Something much less serious. Like, let's just say your partner tried out a new oral sex technique that you just, like, weren't really loving. I would say wait until you're outside of the bedroom and bring it up really gently and just say something like, hey, you know, when XY happened, this is what I felt. Or next time I'd rather that we do this. Or I really appreciated that you tried that, but it just wasn't my jam.
Not my favorite one. Yeah.
So, yeah, if there's something to learn, something to share with your partner, something that you want to do differently next time, of course, talk about it. But I think the vast majority of these situations are where it's just people are getting a little too in their heads thinking they need to optimize everything when the reality is you're going to have times that just aren't the greatest. They're a little bit of a disappointment. And that's okay. Just roll on to the next one.
Yeah. So, like, long story short, number one, like, accept that it will not always be perfect, that it is normal to have somewhat disappointing or not ideal experiences. Then after you have, you know, had that mindset shift, if you are still feeling like something happened that was like, not. Not just a normal sort of like, you know, higher, low, then. Then bring that up.
