E253: Ask A Sex Therapist: dry spells, sex pillows, and morning sex

How to overcome feeling ridiculous in lingerie. My partner loves morning sex and I am not a morning person. How to navigate this? We're so tired after parenting and working that we're too tired for sex. How can we fix this? How long until a dry spell in a marriage is overly concerning? Pros and cons on sex pillows.

Ah, sex pillows.

Yes, our new favorite topic.

Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Xander Marin.

I'm a sex therapist with over 20 years of experience, and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step-by-step techniques for improving yours.

Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on, on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Today we are back with another round of Ask a Sex Therapist. Oh, that was so lispy. Wow. It's really unfair that—

I'm just gonna let you go with this one.

That I have a little lisp and it comes out the worst when I have to say my own job. Sex therapist.

Great.

Actually, the whole title is hard. Ask a sex therapist.

You kind of struggled on the therapist. But do it fast.

Ask a sex therapist.

Ask a sex therapist. That is really hard.

That is hard.

Ask a sex therapist. It's hard to crisply get all the S's. It's the sex because it ends with a Sound and then you have to go straight into therapist.

Yeah, sex therapist. Have I told my lisp story on the podcast?

I don't know. I think you should. If you have it, it's been a long time.

Okay, so I did not know that I had a lisp. And to be fair, I have a very, it's a slight lisp. It's really just on the S's. A lot of times.

It's very slight.

Yeah, it's slight. But here's the way that I found out that I had a lisp. We were at Xander's house. This was probably like—

Early year.

This was like early days of dating in the late 2000s.

Probably like 2 to 3 months into dating.

Yeah. So 2007.

2008.

Oh, yeah. Sorry. We started dating at the end of 2007. So Xander lived in a house with a bunch of dudes, all like friends from college.

It was a pretty gross house.

It was.

Apartment.

They were having a party, so I was there, and one of his roommates who has a very strong lisp, was like, wow, isn't it funny that at this party there are two people with lisps? And I was like, two? Who's the other one? And everybody looked at me. And that's how I found out that I have a lisp at 23 years old. So anyways, cool story today.

Welcome to our podcast.

Welcome to our podcast. I swear we talk about sex. Yeah, today we are gonna be answering some of your questions. So we do an Ask Us Anything weekly on Instagram, although side rant, we have not—

It's been hard to do Ask Us Anything on Instagram.

We've been struggling on Instagram, you guys. I'll just be honest. I'll go on a little side rant here. Whatever the latest algorithm change, and like, look, we've been on social media for over a decade. We get that you're always having to change and adapt and, you know, The algorithm changes, you gotta learn new things. That's just a part of the game. But this most recent algorithm change, it really changed how stories get viewed. So we've discovered that if we post story— like we love showing up in stories. We like to do them daily. We like to do a mixture of helpful information but also silly things and behind the scenes of our lives and pictures of our dogs.

Yeah, and like we want to be able to go deep enough on helpful stuff that it's not just like a 30-second soundbite of why something is important. Like we want to be able to tell you why it's important, how that shows up, give some tips for what to do next. And that takes—

Content nuance.

That takes just a couple of minutes for us, but not 30 seconds.

Well, and with these Ask Us Anythings, I would answer I think 12 questions every week, 10 or 12 questions every week. But anyways, what we've discovered is that the more stories we post, the lower our views go. And so we've experimented with this. If we post 1 to 3 slides every other day, then we'll get way, way, way better. We're talking 10x difference. This is not like a little tiny like vanity, you know, difference like, oh, I wish it was like just a little bit higher. This is a 10x swing. So it's just been really frustrating that our decision is, do we do stories the way that we want to do, but Nobody sees them.

Yeah, like valuable stuff in a way that is actually valuable for you if you happen to know that we have a story live, which is unlikely that Instagram will show it to you.

Or do we play the Instagram game, you know, whatever this algorithm change, however long it lasts, do we play the game and, you know, we're not really ourselves, we're not super personable, we're just sharing super short little things, but then people actually get to see it. It's really frustrating. It's like I want people to be able to see it. I will admit it also feels demoralizing to work so hard trying to connect with our community and see that nobody's seeing it. So it's just really challenging. If you have any thoughts or opinions, we'd love to hear it. You can come over to Instagram @vanessainzander.

Yeah, if you work intimately at Instagram with the Instagram algorithm, help us out.

Oh, we'd love that. Please, please help.

Can you just like swing things for us a little bit?

Put us on the good boy list or whatever? But yeah, so we haven't done Ask Us Anything the last 2 weeks.

So we're doing it here.

Nobody sees it, so we're doing it here. We're answering some of your questions. We're gonna be talking about sex pillows, dry spells, morning sex, body confidence, and so much more. So should we get into it?

All right. Okay, sex therapist.

That is me.

That's you. Okay. How to overcome feeling ridiculous in lingerie.

Okay, I have an answer, but I actually, I first wanna ask you something as our resident man.

Okay.

Have you ever seen any woman in lingerie and thought, that woman looks ridiculous?

I am laughing at the, how preposterous this question sounds. As soon as you started asking it, I, had a feeling what you were about to ask and I was right. And I was like holding down, like pulling a face, because it's so absurd. No. The only exception is— What is that? You follow that one account on Instagram that what they do is they make fun of the— They make fun of like influencers doing ridiculous things. Was it like Celeste Barber or whatever? She like intentionally wears— she intentionally wears ridiculous— like, she'll like, you know, get some random like thirst— so like show like a thirst trap video, like someone like doing some stupid dance in some ridiculous skimpy lingerie, and then she will like— but she like wear like an over-the-top like version that like doesn't fit her.

And yeah, she like recreates it with like household items, or you should be wearing like, you know, rubber gloves, like Cleaning gloves, that kind of stuff.

So she's trying to look ridiculous in lingerie, so she does. But if you are not trying to look ridiculous in lingerie, you're just wearing normal lingerie, I can't under— I, I can't even comprehend where I would— like, how I could be like, that looks ridiculous.

There you have it.

That's like, that's like, that's like, do you ever, do you ever like You put your penis into a vagina and it hurts? Like, no, it feels good.

What? That is such a weird comparison.

Like, and it's painful, but it's like, it doesn't make any sense. Like, you do this thing because it feels good.

I am not following your comparison at all.

Well, yeah, I'm saying lingerie is hot, and if like you're gonna put lingerie on for me, it's gonna be hot. It's not gonna be ridiculous. Like, it's like a does not compute type of thing. It's supposed to not compute.

We'll just leave it as does not compute. Okay, now I wanna answer this question. So I think that there's a bunch of stuff wrapped up in this. Obviously, I think there's some body confidence stuff that's coming up, and I'm guessing that you feel ridiculous in lingerie because you feel like your body isn't perfect. Because the only images that we ever see of people in lingerie are supermodels who are 6 feet tall and ridiculously thin and have huge boobs and huge butts, and of course they look perfect in lingerie. And you know, yeah, I'll admit there have totally been times that I've put on lingerie and thought like, oh my God, I do not look like that. So I get it. Like, of course, so many of us struggle with body image. Of course, lingerie is like some of the most, it is the most vulnerable thing we can wear. So it very easily brings up that body insecurity. So obviously there's gonna be some like deeper body image work to do here, but I just wanna say that, I don't think this will make a huge impact, but like your body is perfect and beautiful and I can promise you that your partner would just die to see you in lingerie. And truly like men do not, this was such an interesting thing that I learned from Xander that honestly took me a little bit of time to fully internalize, but like as women we have been socialized and taught to pick our bodies apart and pick other women's bodies apart. And we look at ourselves and other women as a series of body parts. "Her stomach is too flabby. Her arms are wobbly. She doesn't have a thigh gap." But men—

Or like comparing their body part to yours. "Oh, like her boobs are better than mine." "Oh, like my stomach is larger than hers." Yeah.

Men see the full package. They don't see body parts and they really don't see these "flaws" in our bodies. I'm putting that in air quotes if you're not watching. By the way, our videos, our podcast episodes are on YouTube if you wanna watch them. Do you wanna see the air quotes? Yeah, they don't see these quote unquote flaws that we see in our own bodies. Like, your guy, and I'm assuming that you have a male partner, 'cause I don't think you'd be feeling this level of insecurity with a female partner, but I could totally be wrong about that. But your, well, we'll just say your partner is not looking at your body thinking like, mm, I want to change that, and that could be a little bit better. Like, they're just looking at the whole package and thinking, wow.

Unless you are that asshole on Love Is Blind. What's his name? I don't even want to say that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, let's be real, people like that are out there, unfortunately, but they don't deserve to have sex with you. They don't deserve to see you in lingerie.

Yeah, so yeah, if you have a partner like that, then don't wear lingerie. Break up with that partner.

Yes.

Um, they do not deserve to see you in lingerie. But yeah, if your partner wants see you naked, I can guarantee you they want to see you in lingerie. Like, how would— if they like seeing you naked, how would they not like seeing you almost naked in lingerie?

Okay, there might be another dynamic coming up. A lot of times we hear from women like, it feels stupid to put lingerie on because I'm just going to be taking it off like 30 seconds later.

Just like I think it feels stupid to wrap a present for you because you're just going to rip the wrapping paper off and open the present. Like, The outcome is the same. You're going to get the present sans wrapping paper, right? Like you're going to get it no matter what.

You're going to get it. Yeah, no, that's always my favorite comparison, the wrapping paper. It's like, yeah, of course it's coming off right away, but who doesn't? It looks nice for a moment. And it's fun to unwrap.

Helps you get excited. Ooh, yeah, look at this. Look at this packaging.

So if that's part of it for you where you're like, this is so silly, I'm putting it on and just to take it off, like don't worry about that. That. It's part of the fun. It doesn't matter that it comes off right away. Also, sometimes women feel self-conscious about putting the lingerie on, and I think this really ties into people feel a lot of shame around being intentional about sex. We hear this in so many different realms where they're like, "Oh, I don't want to put the sex playlist on because then it'll make it obvious that we're gonna have sex," or "I don't want to light the candles because then—" Or someone has to say, "We're gonna have sex.

Should I put the music on?" Yeah, like it makes it too obvious.

But that's part of ensuring a great experience, like preparing for it, putting effort into it. Like we have these crazy expectations that we put on sex that we don't put on anything else in life. Like imagine having a date night and then telling your partner like, "No, no, no, don't talk out loud about the date night. I don't want to acknowledge that we're going on date night.

That's too awkward." You're making it weird.

You're making it weird. Don't talk about what restaurant, don't make a reservation. Don't look at any menus online. Don't decide where we're gonna go. Like, nope, we just have to magically show up at the same restaurant at the same time. Like, we know we— we don't do that. That's insane, right? But we do that with sex. So if that's what's coming up for you, then yes, like, preparing for sex is a good thing. It's a necessary thing. And we actually did do it a lot at the beginning of our relationship when you were dating. You did not feel self-conscious or stupid or awkward about putting on lingerie at the beginning of your relationship. You were like, we have a hot date night tonight. I want to look my best. I'm going to put on my cute new little set. So reframe there.

I will also say most guys get excited when you acknowledge that sex is about to happen. Like it's fun to talk about. That helps get the juices flowing. So to speak, of like, you know, like if you were to say, hey, how about I go put something sexy on? One, I'm like, hell yeah. Two, then I have a couple minutes of anticipation, not only because I know we're gonna have sex, but also the anticipation for what you are going to be wearing, what you're going to look like when you come out of there, what it's going to be like for me to get to take it off of you. Like Yeah, you are creating more excitement by doing this.

Another little trick is you can just wear the lingerie all day if you can deal with the discomfort of it, but that can actually be fun, a fun thing to play with on your own, just knowing, hey, I'm wearing my work clothes, or I'm just at home wearing my yoga pants and sweatshirt, but I got something cute on underneath. That could be a nice way to help you feel sexy in your lingerie. And then one final thing I'll say, who knew I could go so deep on lingerie? I know. I spent all this time on this one question. But the other thing I'll say about lingerie is you have to find your own style of lingerie too. I think most women hear lingerie and we just think like Victoria's Secret, like some super over-the-top, really strappy, sparkly— Not a podcast sponsor, by the way. Pink, glittery, shiny, and—

A brand whose all the product images are those types of models, super skinny, huge boobs type of models that don't look like 99.9% of real people out there.

Yeah. But that's not the only lingerie that exists. And if you look at that stuff and you're like, that's not my vibe, I don't think that's cute, that's not sexy to me, like don't buy that stuff. Look for other kinds of lingerie. So—

Yeah, there are brands where the models that they use are much more regular everyday people.

Yeah, and there's so many different kinds of styles. So maybe you don't wanna wear a thong, but you can find some like cute little boy shorts that you feel super sexy in. Maybe you don't like a bra, but you like a little like silky nightgown, or you like a one piece, something that like covers your stomach. You know, there's just a million different styles, colors, shapes, everything. Like it doesn't have to just look one way. So I think it's worth spending some time just searching around the internet looking for like, hey, what looks, what looks cute to me? What feels like me? So Xander's out of town right now on a surfing trip and I'm feeling a little lonely at the house and this is why I am extra grateful to have a very cozy bed to crawl into at the end of the night and a lot of that is thanks to Cozy Earth. They make some of the softest, coziest, most luxurious bedding. It makes our bed feel like an absolute sanctuary, makes me so grateful to crawl in at the end of the night. They also make a ton of other incredible products. They have towels, they have clothing if you want extra comfy jammies. They even make comforters and socks. Xander loves the socks, they're super cushy. Their bedding comes with a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty. Discover how care in every detail transforms simple routines into moments of true comfort and ease. Head to cozyearth.com cozyearth.com and use our code Pillow for up to 20% off. And if you get a post-purchase survey, please be sure to mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here on Pillow Talks. Experience the craft behind the comfort and make every day feel intentional. That's cozyearth.com, code Pillow. All right, Vanessa, did you know that most mattresses are made with materials and chemicals that just are not good for your health. And this really makes a big difference because you're spending like a third of your life in your bed, right? We have recently been on a quest to bring more non-toxic products into our lives, and we are so excited to tell you about Birch mattresses. We also are really picky about our mattresses, and, you know, we are always getting people asking us for mattress recommendations because of the content that we talk about. So Birch makes non-toxic mattresses with materials like organic fair trade cotton, organic wool, and natural latex, and they make the whole process of trying and buying a new mattress super easy. It gets delivered straight to your door, it's rolled up in this box, very easy to set up, and you get 120 nights risk-free to try it out and make sure you love it. We've been sleeping on our Birch mattress and we are obsessed with it, like getting such good sleep. And Birch has a great deal for you. They're in the middle of their March Madness sale, so you can go to birchliving.com/pillowtalks for 20% off site-wide. That's birchliving.com/pillowtalks.

We're so tired after parenting and working that we're too tired for sex.

How can we fix this? Okay. So let's start with acknowledging that parenting is the most exhausting job in the whole world. I've definitely gotten— I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for parents. And how hard and all-encompassing and consuming your job is. But especially since my sister gave birth to our niece Poppy, this is the first like grandbaby in the family, I've, you know, gotten a renewed appreciation for just how hard it is. My sister and my brother-in-law are exhausted. So I don't wanna downplay it. I think it's really important to normalize it. And validate it. Like, it feels hard because it is hard. And you're also talking in this question too, it's like you're parenting and working. You have two jobs, maybe even more than two jobs, right? So it's that juggling act. It's trying to like, you know, do so much. So it feels hard because it is hard. So let's start there. And then let's talk about a couple of things that you can do. So the very first thing that I wanna recommend is to talk about it openly with your partner. Even if nothing changes, just acknowledging the situation makes such a big difference. And most couples do not do this. Most couples, they will get into a dry spell. We, we have a question about dry spells coming up lit next too. But most couples will get into a dry spell and they'll feel embarrassed about it. They won't want to acknowledge it, so they kind of bury their head in the sand and they don't talk about it. And that just leaves so much space for misinterpretation and misunderstanding, where the partner is left wondering, like, hey, it's been a while. Does my partner know it's been a while? Are they missing sex? Are they missing me? Are they still attracted to me? Do they still want to have sex with me? It's very easy to spiral out. So at the very minimum, just being able to acknowledge to your partner, hey, we are in such a busy season right now. I know we are both so exhausted. We are giving it our all and it doesn't feel like enough. This is so hard. I just want you to know, I need you to know that I miss you. I miss us. I miss that quality time that we used to have. I miss the intimacy between us. I know this is just a season and I want us to work on trying to get out of it as as soon as we can, and I also just want to acknowledge this is our reality right now, and I want you to know that I miss you. That one little speech repeated often seriously makes such a big difference. So at the very least, start there. Okay, the next advice that I would give you is to try to prioritize intimacy as as early in the evening as possible. And again, I'm not saying this is easy. This is challenging for sure. But very often, and this is true honestly for people, couples who don't have kids either, it's very easy for us to get sucked into this evening routine of chores. So we're like, you know, we're having dinner and then we're cleaning up after dinner and then we've gotta fold that load of laundry that we didn't get to. And then we need to write back to those emails and we need to pay those bills.

And then we need to put the kids to bed and then we need to do all these other chores.

So we often get swept up in just doing chores and like, again, we have to be realistic. Chores have to get done, right? It's not like we can just ignore all of this stuff, but try to prioritize intimacy as soon as you have the privacy. Like, so as soon as the kids are down, you know, down for the night, try to spend some time with each other then. Because here is the secret to sex: sex gives you your time back. I know it does not seem like that. I know it seems like we don't have the time for sex, there's literally not a spare second in our day. But when you are connected with your partner, when you are on the same page, when you're feeling close and intimate, you are a team, a true team, and a team blast through chores and responsibilities so much faster. We have experienced this in our own relationship countless times where we thought—

It's like time travel.

We thought, it's magic. Yeah, we've thought like, we do not have the time. There is no time for sex. And we've said, nope, fuck it, we're having sex, we're prioritizing us. And then we just jam through all the stuff that we have to get through. And we're like, whoa, how did that happen? It's truly magic. So I want to encourage you to give this a shot.

Another thought here as well is, you know, you're talking about like prioritize it as soon as you get the kids down. And I guess, well, one, that's, you know, assuming the kids are young enough where it's like, you're, you know, there's this whole, you know, putting them down type of routine. There's another scenario where the kids are maybe older and a bit more self-sufficient. And there, you know, they're sort of a, hey, you know, maybe we need to get creative about getting ourselves some alone time in our own room with some music on, with white noise machine, with the TV on, whatever, is like, can I increase my tolerance for having sex in my home with the door locked even when the kids are awake? But going back to the other scenario, which is like, you got to get the kids down, can you consider moving up the kids' bedtime a little bit? That is one option to get a little time. Move it up by half an hour. Is that, is that in the realm of possibility? That is definitely— I think a lot of us are like, oh well, you know, but it's whatever, it's 8 o'clock, that's bedtime, that's what it's always been. But we know lots of parents that put their kids to bed at, you know, the kids don't know the difference if they're young enough, like at an hour that objectively seems a little early because they're like, you know what, the kids don't really know the difference, and it's they get into this pattern, and that gives us more time back. So that's an option. But regardless of the timing of it, I think one big mistake that people make is that it's like, okay, we just put the kids down. Oh, I need to relax for a second. And I think that is the mistake that most people make is the— now, if you want to like sit alone and try to like kind of come back to your own body and tune back into yourself, that is a different story. But what most people do is they go, oh, I'm going to sit down on the couch, I'm going to pull out my phone, I'm going to open Instagram, and I'm going to start doom scrolling. Mhm. And that— or turn on Netflix. That— yeah, or you turn on Netflix. That is not going to get you into the mood for having sex. We think, oh, I need to like recharge for a minute. My suggestion is, unless you are super, super touched out, and in that case you just need a couple minutes to yourself in like a dark room, not with a screen. So that's a different story. But I would suggest you two get together, get into the bedroom, get naked, get together into the bed, and have that be your moment to relax and start touching each other, give each other a massage. Like let that be your transition time rather than the getting on the couch. Because like once you get on the couch, you're just sucked in. And once you open Instagram, you're done. You're done. You're totally done. Yeah, like, it's— how are you going to be getting in the mood from watching Instagram stories? It's not like you're going to reach a certain level of relaxation and all of a sudden be horny. Like, you have to create the desire yourselves. Like, I hate to say it, but after a long day of parenting and working, the vast majority of people are not going to feel strong desire. You have to go co-create that together. So just get in the bedroom together and be like, we're going to lie together for 10 minutes naked. Before there's any move towards actually having sex, and let's just see how we feel. Maybe we talk, maybe we check in, maybe we rub each other's shoulders. See how that goes.

I think that's gonna make a huge difference. Absolutely. I mean, the reality is the average American watches, I can't remember the exact stat, but it was between— It's bad. It's between 5 and 6 hours on their phone, and then 3 to 4 hours of watching TV every day, plus time gaming. It's crazy. So I know we all feel so busy and overwhelmed. And again, I'm not trying to detract from the fact that parenting is exhausting and all-encompassing. And the reality is I think a lot of us aren't— most of us, probably all of us, we aren't fully honest with ourselves about how we're spending our time, that we are wasting a lot of our time relaxing with our screens when in actuality it's not relaxing and it's not bringing us any actual intimacy, happiness, connection with the people that actually matter in our lives. So that's— it's a really good point to bring up. I will also say another tip is to take the bar down, especially with male-female couples. We have this tendency to think that intercourse is the only thing that counts as sex. Yeah. But if you're exhausted, overwhelmed parents, that's a pretty high bar to intimacy. But if you can think of like that everything counts as sex, any sort of physical contact between the two of you can count as sex, then you're going to have a lot more sex and you're gonna feel a lot closer and more connected. So even if it's just like, hey, all we have the energy for is just to get naked in bed and make out, maybe it's, hey, we can masturbate side by side, that's all I got in me, or we're just gonna use our hands on each other, or one person's gonna go down on the other person. And that, like, the more options that you have on the table, the more sex you're gonna have.

I think one of the easiest, like if you're shooting for both people having an orgasm, one of the easiest and most underrated things to do is use your hands on each other. Take, you know, you give him a handjob, he fingers you. If I know a lot of guys are weird about handjobs because it seems like really juvenile. But if you check out our ultimate foreplay guides, there are some techniques in there that really elevate handjobs. Like, I think that men would be surprised at how good a great handjob can be. And it is very low— like, you don't need to be super energized to get a handjob. You don't need to be super energized to give a handjob. I know I definitely don't need to be super energized, you know, to finger you. It can be something that is, you know, you get done fairly quickly and both people come away feeling good about it. And that can be a way to introduce like you know, oh, just, you know, prioritizing making an orgasm happen as soon as possible after the kids are down. I bet you if you start doing that more regularly, you both might— because I think what happens is once you start to get a little turned on, then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I could be, I could be down for more, right? And so once you build that trust that, oh yeah, once we start doing this, then we actually are kind of both ready to go, then you can jump more quickly into But yeah, you know what, we do trust that once we get into bed together, within a couple of minutes we're itching to go.

Yeah. But bottom line is do not save sex for the very last thing at the very end of the night. That is the worst time. It is so hard to get excited about being intimate with each other when you are already in bed, you're already exhausted.

You already brushed your teeth because you've already— over the years you've programmed yourself to, oh, okay. "Okay, this is my wind-down routine. I go into the bathroom, I start brushing my teeth, I floss my teeth, I wash my face," whatever your bedtime routine is, whether you've explicitly thought it or not, you've trained your brain to be like, "Once I start doing these activities, you can start turning off the light switches," figuratively, inside the head. So by the time you get into bed, you're pretty much ready to fall asleep. And that's when most people leave sex too. And that's— it's not smart. Yup.

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All right, hard 180 here.

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Kind of, but not really, because I mean, maybe this could be utilized in the last one too. Pros and cons on sex pillows. Ah, sex pillows. Yes, our new favorite topic.

Our new favorite topic. Okay, until about about a year and a half ago, we were pretty solidly in the cons area of sex pillows. So we have tried so many pillows. You know, I get sent a lot of sex products. People want me to try things out, and we have tried them all and never enjoyed it. Like, we've only— so the shapes that we've tried have, I think, pretty much exclusively been wedges or like triangle shapes. Most of them were very large and just felt kind of like unwieldy. It just— it's awkward. They're so big. They take up a lot of space. They're kind of squishy. Yeah, they don't actually provide much support. So you'd like sink into it and you're like, well, this isn't really making that much of a difference. Most of them were so big that we'd have to, you know, like you didn't want it out on your bed at all. So you'd put it in the closet.

Yeah, who wants like a big wedge or triangle shape on their bed? Anyway, and then you have to like stuff this big squishy thing like into the corner of the closet where no one can see it. And then if you're short like Vanessa, how do you get that down? It's just like so many problems.

They were bad. And also like a couple of them were hideously ugly colors too. Like it's always the bright like royal purple velour where you're just like, oh, I don't even, I don't like looking at this. Okay, until Well, about a year and a half ago, I was looking for Christmas presents for Xander, 'cause this man is impossible to get gifts for. Surfboards, skiing. And I got an ad for a sex pillow. And I truly don't know what came over me, because we've never enjoyed them. But I think it was just out of pure desperation. I was like, you know what? At least he'll get excited that I got him a sex-related gift. And if we hate it like we've hated every other one, like whatever. I'll at least get like a brownie point.

You probably saw two and you were like, well, this one actually kind of looks a little nice.

Yeah. I saw one that it was a different shape. A like oval shape, not a triangle, not a wedge.

More of a standard throw pillow shape.

So we got it. We tried it out and holy crap, did we absolutely love it. And so long story short, through a series of like funny coincidences, we ended up meeting the couple who who creates these pillows and loved them so much, loved the product so much, their mission so much that we, about I think 2 weeks ago, we officially signed on to be advisors to this company. So now we are solidly in the pro camp of sex pillows, but it truly is all about the specific pillow itself. So to answer what are the pros about it, 'cause a lot of people are like, "Sex pillow, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't even know what that is." So a sex pillow is designed to help you create new angles on your old standby favorite sex positions and be able to try new positions. So you put the pillow under your body. Basically under your hips. Yeah, basically. The most common usage of it is like under her hips, but you can put it under his hips, you can put it under different parts of your body. There are a lot of different ways to play with it, but it changes the angle, it changes your flexibility. Yeah, it supports your hips.

As well if, you know, if you have hip issues or lower back issues.

So sex pillows decrease pain and discomfort, but they also increase pleasure. They create new angles. Like I said, they create more— a little more flexibility, which can be very fun to play around with.

It creates a better view for me, for the penetrator. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty incredible. I, I enjoy observing the beautiful body of my partner, my wife, when I'm having sex with her, and, um, And this really, it opens up a new perspective, so to speak, that is hard to get out of your head in the most positive way possible.

It is seriously so fun. We do, like, I will be very honest, we do not promote sex products. Like, there's just so much crap out there. I take recommendations super seriously, probably like too seriously. We have never shared a product. We've shared this product in our stories before. Like, we have never shared a sex product in our story. Like, literally never in over a decade of being on social media, because I just didn't like anything enough to like firmly stand behind it the way that I stand behind this pillow. So I hope that that shows you something. But I, I think it's something that every couple should try. So if you want to check out the specific pillow that totally changed our mind about Sex Pillows, you can go over to vmtherapy.com/pillow and there is a little code word on that page that will give you a secret discount. I'll give you a heads up, this is not a cheap pillow. No. You can find some crappy wedge on Amazon for a whole lot less. And if you want to go that route, sure, but you're gonna be back for this one. You're gonna be back for this one. So I would recommend just getting this one. It's so good. It's worth every penny. I have had so many of my friends have bought it. So many people in our community have bought it. When we posted it, like thousands of people bought it.

We were just at our friend's house and they have it proudly displayed on their bed. I think that's the thing that like, I mean, that's the pro of this and the serious con of most other ones is that, yeah, it's like you, you already mentioned, where do you put it? But yeah, it's like, well, if it's not already out, then it's like, it's just one more thing to remember. And you would, you'll find yourself very often not using it or midway through being like, oh shoot, we should have grabbed the pillow. But like, do I want to like get up and walk to the closet and pull this thing out, blah, blah, blah, right? Being able to just have it there makes such a big difference. And yeah, so it's expensive because one, it looks really nice. Two, it's made with really high quality materials.

It will not sink on you. Like it's very firm.

Yeah. Firm thing. So yeah, you're not going to sink into it. Um, it's got like—

you can't use regular pillows either. That's— people are always like, well, can't I just like use my pillow?

Yeah, good luck. Try it. Yeah, you're gonna be like half an inch higher off the ground. Um, so yeah, no, and it also— yeah, it has like a— it's like a linen cover that is a beautiful, beautiful fabric, but it can zip off. It's machine washable. Um, the interior cover is also machine washable. So, um, yeah, really, really friendly to using it frequently.

So yeah, we absolutely love this one. You can go to vmtherapy.com/pillow to check it out, and we will also put that link in the show notes.

Yeah, the only con I can think of about this pillow is that you might not want to stop using it. Is that Monster Energy? Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra, that's the OG. It kicked off this whole zero-sugar energy drink thing, but Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian, Sunrise, and Vice Guava, and they all bring the Monster Energy punch. So if you've been living in the white can, branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe, and every single one is zero sugar. Tap the banner to learn more. Like when you're traveling, you can't bring it with you because that's— yeah, it doesn't really stuff down. I guess that's it. That's a con. It stuff down for it's not travel friendly. So the con is that when you are having hotel sex, you might miss your pillow. Yeah, sorry. Okay, so let's assume that you are not using a sex pillow and you are in a dry spell, Vanessa. How long until a dry spell in a marriage is overly concerning?

So there's not a specific set period like you have 6 months, but if it's 6 months and 1 day, you're in trouble. Like, there's no specific timeline, and it truly depends on the couple. Like, if you were a couple who was having sex 2 to 3 times a week, you know, for you a dry spell might feel like 2 or 3 weeks. But if you're having sex once a month, every couple months, like, a dry spell might feel like 6 months, right? So it's really going to depend on what the— what your typical frequency was before a dry spell. I do want to back up for a second and say I would say dry spells are very common in relationships. Like we just go through seasons of life where someone gets sick, something really tough is happening at work, kids, you know, there's so many different things that can come up. So my advice that I shared earlier about parents really applies here. Like if you're in a dry spell, the absolute best thing that you can do is to acknowledge that you're in the dry spell. I will say though that I do think dry spells are concerning because sex is an important part of a relationship. Yeah, it's a relationship glue. It is. We really have this tendency to think of sex as this purely physical act. It's just putting body parts in other body parts. It feels frivolous or unnecessary to a lot of people, but it's not. Sex is such an incredible way that we experience intimacy and closeness with our partner. It's a way that we play with our partners, the way we connect with our own bodies. It's a way we relax and co-regulate together. It's this special thing that we only do with our partner, nobody else. Like, it's so much more than just the physical act. So I want to try to strike this balance here of, you know, I don't want to shame anybody for getting into a dry spell because, again, it's really— it's very normal. And, you know, every couple is go through a dry spell. So don't get it in your head of like, you know, if we've gotten into a dry spell, we've failed in our marriage. So that's on one hand. But, and I also want to encourage you to put effort into getting out of and avoiding dry spells. It's, it's worth it. Your marriage is worth it. Your intimacy is worth it. So we do have to put that effort in. Question for you.

Might you say, well, the moment it starts to feel overly concerning to at least one partner, yes, then it is overly concerning for the marriage. You know, if it's like, like, my problem is your problem, like, you know, if it's, you know, it's, it's us against the problem. So, you know, that's not to say that it's been like 3 days since you've had sex and one partner's like, it's been forever since we've had sex. I'm not trying to say, oh my God, now you have a serious marital issue. But I mean, this is in good faith. It has been longer than it usually has been. And one partner is expressing serious concern, not just like, you know, and they've already taken the steps to try to reengage, to reconnect with their partner. Or you've already— they've already acknowledged, hey, it's feeling like we are in a bit of a dry spell. Like, what can we do to to get things going again. Yeah. And you know, both, and you know, that partner is operating in good faith. Yeah. And operating, and there's not, I think the good faith part is important. It's that you are actually doing the right things. You're not being manipulative. You're not pouting. You're not like, okay, well, I'm just going to be waiting here until you're ready. Yeah. You know, like you are being a true partner. And, you know, for whatever reason, you are not coming out of the dry spell. Then I think at that point that partner is like, hey, I'm feeling really concerned about this. I'm— I feel like I'm doing everything I can to contribute to us solving this problem. I'm not seeing the same thing from you. Then I think that at that point it is a serious problem, and it's, you know, it's worth trying to get into some sex— some couples therapy, well, a sex therapist to talk about what is going on. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I, I think it's really important what you just said. Like, if it's an issue for one of you, it should be an issue for both of you. And that's not That's really anything in the relationship. And it doesn't mean, you know, I have to agree with your perspective or I have to drop everything to fix it for you. But it's like, that's just a really healthy way of looking at a relationship. If something is your issue, it's my issue because we're a team and we're in this together.

Yeah. And I think once one partner expresses a legitimate relationship concern and that is not heard by the other partner or the other partner doesn't engage with it, at that point, I do think that you— I know how tempting it can be to be like, okay, it's all right, everything else is all right, we'll just— I'll just wait this out a little longer, and hopefully it'll solve itself. But at that point where it's like, hey, I tried to express how important this is to me, and I'm not being heard by my partner, they're ignoring it, they're trying to, you know, redirect me or minimize it. At that point, I do think you are really— you're playing with fire. Long-term in your relationship, you are creating the, the, the circumstances for resentment to build that can create all kinds of long-term problems, whether that is, you know, divorce, infidelity, etc. Like, that is where— that is the breeding ground for that to happen. I think a lot of us think, oh, I'm just going to be the bigger person by like giving it some more time. If we ignore over our own feelings, we minimize to ourselves the severity of something, that's when we open the door to all the stuff that really is gonna burn down our relationship. Yeah, absolutely.

You're probably bad at foreplay, but that is totally normal. We are not saying this to make you feel bad or ashamed. Even though I am a sex therapist, I was bad at foreplay.

I was bad at foreplay too.

And that's because foreplay is a skill. This is one of the most important messages about sex that we really try to drill in. Like, none of us are ever taught how to have sex, how to do foreplay well. So it's kind of like basketball. Like, I know generally how basketball works. I could kind of like muck my way through playing it, but I'm not gonna know how to actually be be good at it unless somebody teaches me how, like how to actually play the game.

Yeah, and that's exactly where our Ultimate Foreplay Guides come in. Want to take your foreplay game to the next level and actually have fun doing it? These guys are all about exploring, experimenting, and discovering exactly what makes your partner melt.

So we give you step-by-step instructions. Like, there's no vague or generic advice here. We literally lay it out exactly what to do for you, and we cover hand jobs, blow jobs, fingering, and oral. We also have tasteful custom illustrations and GIFs that show you exactly how to do each move. You're a podcast listener, so clearly you like hearing things. So we have— Plug it in your ear. We have an audio version of the foreplay guides. We also give you a written version too. It covers over 100 different techniques, secret hacks, precise spots to maximize pleasure. Seriously, it's everything you need to feel confident, playful, and adventurous in the bedroom.

Yeah, this is our number one top-selling guide, so head on over to vmtherapy.com/foreplay— that's F-O-R-E-P-L-A-Y— to check out the guides. Um, we're also going to link to it in the show notes.

Get ready to laugh, play, and discover new ways to turn your partner on and yourself too. All right. You've been there, settling in for an evening of TV only to waste half the night scrolling. Enter Fire TV, entertainment with zero effort required. Fire TV serves up personalized recommendations from across all your apps. Not sure what to watch? Just tell Alexa Plus what you're in the mood for and she'll pull up the perfect recommendation. Problem solved. Solved. Stop the scroll, start the show. Find what you're looking for with Fire TV.

Subscriptions may be required. Another, uh, another hard 180. My partner loves morning sex and I am not a morning person. How to navigate this? Is this why you're there in the dry spell? They're like, we just can't have sex because I can't do it in the morning and my partner can only do it in the morning.

Oh, I forgot I should mention something about dry spells. We have a whole podcast episode that's all about like how to prevent and how to get out of a dry spell and prevent them from happening in the first place. So I'm sure if you just, wherever you're listening to podcasts, if you just type in Pillow Talks dry spell, you'll find it. So definitely go check that out because there are a ton of specific tips for what to do.

Okay, for real though, these two questions are not related at all. This is just, one person loves morning sex, other person is not a morning person.

7. I mean, I could have written this question. Xander loves morning— I mean, you like morning sex. Actually, you don't love it.

It's more of a novelty. Like, you know, if I got a nice morning boner and it can be fun to be like, oh, let's just do it right now.

Why do you always make that gross voice when you're talking about it? You never use that voice in real life, thank God. And let's do it right now. It's horrible. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I might have to do some self-reflection.

Where does that come from?

I don't know. That's the like me being not entirely comfortable with what I'm saying. Hey, at least you can own it. You know, I'm talking about having morning boners and wanting to use them. Even I can get a little uncomfortable sometimes. But I personally, I have found it is not quite as, like, I can never last for very long first thing in the morning. And it's sort of like, it feels to me, it's like more of a fun novelty. I personally, like, I don't want to do that every single time. I feel like I would be, I would end up, the result would be I would end up missing out on a lot of better sex. Yeah, okay.

So you like morning sex more than I do. Yes. I'm not really a fan. For me, Interestingly, like my body just doesn't feel very sensitive in the morning. It doesn't wake up?

Your body's not a morning person, but your head is.

I'm a morning person. Like I'm usually up and at 'em and ready to go, but like physically sex doesn't feel as good. It almost feels like, especially my clitoris, the sensations are like kind of dulled. It's harder for me to like get wet in the morning. It's just, yeah, it's not as enjoyable of an experience. So I get it, I get it. —There are a couple of things though. So I mean, well, I always want to start with like validating and acknowledging like if you're not a morning sex person, that's totally fine. We don't all have to love morning sex. We're all different and unique, right? There are though a couple of things that you can do, and it depends on like why you don't like morning sex. So we do hear from a lot of people, I don't like morning sex because of morning breath. So if that's the issue for you, then you can then just jump up and brush your teeth and come back to bed. Or maybe you can do something like have some breath strips or mints. Yeah, have a mint by the bed. Like by the bedside table so you can just do that like really quickly.

Also, shocker to all of you, this is gonna be hard to hear if you hate morning breath, but after about 5 seconds of kissing, you cannot, you can't tell that there's morning breath anymore.

Yeah. Just do it. You can just go ahead and do it. You will, yeah, the morning, at first you're like, well, we both got it. And then it just, I don't know, it's like—

That was a great discovery when I realized that. I feel like early in our relationship, I was like, oh, that's morning breath. And then like within 5 to 10 seconds, I was like— It's gone. It's gone.

Yeah, I was like, mm, okay. Yeah, so like you can just get over it. It's also like—

You can just get over it. We should, I could lean into a little more of this in our podcast.

No, it's like, sorry, I said that because— Tell them how you really feel. I said that because I was thinking a different thought in my head, but I, like short-circuited being able to say it. It's like when you both have garlic breath, you know? Like if just one person, wow, if just one person has garlic breath, you're like, whoa, that's garlic breath. But if you both have garlic breath, you don't say it.

I like garlic breath. Bring it on, girl.

Onion breath, let's say something different. Bring it on, I don't care. Okay, so if it's a breath issue, breath mints, Listerine strips, those can be really helpful. Also, you don't have to kiss to have sex. You can do it in like doggy style or spooning where, you know, your faces aren't like in each other's faces.

You can do a little like friends with benefits role play. Like, oh, we can't kiss.

It's too intimate. You could also just take care of your partner. But if you don't want anything in return, that could be like a fun thing to do. Like take care of your partner and then you're like, okay, I get to call in the favor whenever I want later today. And you can kind of like play around with it in that sense.

I would also ask, you say my partner loves morning sex and I'm not a morning person. I think that often we hear our partner express something like this. And what we hear is my partner only wants to have sex in the morning. Good point. Now, is that truly the case here? I think that this is a very typical male-female misunderstanding. A guy expresses an interest in something or a desire to sometimes experience something, and what she hears, this is all he wants. This is all he— he not only says all he wants, he actually hates doing it. Yeah, during the middle of the day, he hates doing it at night, and he hates me too unless I do it in the morning. Like, it's like, you know, the, the train has left the station and all sudden we're at the next stop, I would kind of back everything up there and be like, maybe have a conversation and be like, hey, so I know that you were talking about enjoying morning sex. I would love to hear a little bit more about, like, about what that— like, what, what do you love about it? That's a great opportunity to get to hear what it is that they love about it. I would love, you know, in your ideal world, like, how often are we having morning sex relative to any other kind of sex. Like, you know, how much morning sex versus nighttime sex versus middle of the day sex would you like to have in an ideal world? I think you would be surprised that your partner's probably not going to say, "Yeah, ideally it's 100%." But even if they say ideally it's 100%, it's like, well, do you not enjoy sex? Like, literally go through all the scenarios and actually understand. Because yes, if your partner is saying to you, to you, the only kind of sex I'm capable of enjoying is in the morning. Well, that's just— that's going to be a serious, uh, mismatch, an incompatibility. That's an important thing for you to know. But I think the chances of that are highly unlikely. So yes, if you find out from your partner, hey, it's something I would love to experience once a month, then can you think about— that changes the question for you. Can you think about how you can accommodate that once month. And then think about, okay, well, if I like sex at a certain time of day, how about I try to initiate that more often? If you start initiating the sex that you like more often too, you might also find that your partner is less desiring of the morning sex. Mhm. So have the conversation, please. Absolutely. All right, Vanessa, bring us home with, do you have to be horny to initiate?

Oh, great question.

This is a great misunderstanding that I think a lot of people have.

I feel like this person already knows what my answer is based on the way that they phrase the question. No, you do not have to be horny to initiate. And yeah, I think this is a huge misunderstanding that so many of us have. We think that the order of things is supposed to be get horny and then initiate. And that can work for some people who have spontaneous desire.

If you find yourself getting horny all the time.

But a lot of people, women especially, have responsive desire, where actually it's flipped, where we need to be feeling something physical before the idea of sex starts to sound good. If you have no clue what we're talking about, listen to last week's episode, right?

I believe it was last week.

Where we talked about our 4 desire types. Yeah, you gotta check that episode out. It's a very good one. So for a lot of people, especially women, this is just straight up not how our desire works. But also, I mean, my hot take on desire is that we put way more pressure and emphasis on desire than we really need to. I do not think that you need to have wild, uncontrollable desire in order to have sex. Now, to be clear, I am only talking about relationships relationships where there is emotional safety, there is no coercion, there is no guilting, there's no abuse certainly, where you can say no at any point for any reason, then that no is respected. This is the only context that I'm talking about this in. But if you have a relationship like that, I think that there's something to be said about not setting the bar so high. Like, if you really think about it, Where else in your life do you put that level of pressure on yourself to feel the desire to do something? I think the truth is that most of us feel pretty ambivalent about a lot of the things that we choose to do. I mean, the example that I've been using a lot lately is having a, like, a date night with a girlfriend. Who has not had the experience of— I don't even have to say girlfriend— you have a— you're supposed to hang out with your friend, you haven't seen your friend in so long, you're so You're excited to see them. Great, we have this plan. But then the day rolls along. It's been a long day. It's raining and you're tired and that new show, new episode of that show just came out that you really want to watch and you're already sitting on the couch and you're just so cozy and you're like.

I gotta take my PJs off and put real clothes on again.

Man, like I really wish my friend would just text and cancel. That would be so great. But we get ourselves up, we put on our hard pants, we go see our friend, and we're so fucking glad that we did. We're there having dinner with them and we're like, I cannot believe I wanted to sit on the couch instead of hang out with my friend.

Yeah, it's like within 2 minutes of arriving you're like, okay, yeah, I made the right decision.

Like, this is always a good idea to see my friend because what we're focusing on it's not how we feel about it beforehand. We're focusing on how I'm gonna feel in the middle of it and how I'll feel afterwards. I know when I'm sitting with my friend and we're laughing and we're sharing stories, I'm gonna be so glad that I was there. I know that when I'm on my way back home after I saw my friend, I'm gonna feel like my cup is so full. I'm so glad I did that. I feel so energized. I feel so good. Why can't we expect the same from sex? Why can't we say, you know what, yeah, I'm not like wildly horny right now, but I know that when we have sex, it's always a good time. And I know that after we have sex, I feel so close to my partner. We feel so connected. Everything's lighter. We feel like a team. Like, why can't we look at sex in the same way? Yeah, right.

I, I'll be totally honest here. I have spontaneous sex drive. I think you have spontaneous sex drive. No, I think you have spontaneous sex drive. I don't know what they— I'm curious what your answer will be here. But what percentage of the time that you initiate sex are you feeling horny? For me, I would say maybe it's only like 10% of the time. Time. Honestly, it's more often like when we are like on vacation. Yeah, on a trip where I'm like, we're like, I'm like, let's fucking go. Like at home during the course of like normal day-to-day stuff with like we're working, we're out doing our various things, you know, friends, activities, workouts, etc., there are limited convenient times where sex can happen even though we run sex therapy business talking about this shit all the time. It's not like we're just having sex willy-nilly on— as much as some people think we do. But yeah, I am wildly horny. Like, the times that I'm wildly horny are— well, I'm not finding myself wildly horny most of the time, let's be real. But I will find myself a little bit horny at various times. Most of those times are not convenient. Like, Vanessa's not there. It's not a convenient moment, so I will store that up, essentially. I will think, okay, you're finding yourself feeling horny, you should probably initiate some sex today. And then I will make a point to do that later on, or I will immediately say, hey, I'd love to have sex with you later. Yeah, I was just thinking about you. Maybe I'll give her a detail what I was thinking about. I would love to do that later, right? I'm queuing up, okay, yeah, let's do that later. But for the most part, I initiate sex because I know that I am going to have a good time. I know that we're going to feel closer. I know that we're both going to have an orgasm. And I know that it's good for us. Just like why I go to the gym. Like, it's the same kind of thing. And I'm really fucking glad I did it. Every single time. I'm never finishing. I never walk out of the gym. I never finish sex and be like, oh God, that was such a mistake.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I'm about the same. I'd I would say like, yeah, 15, maybe 20% of the time that I initiate, I'm like actually feeling it. And the other times it's, I'm more focused on how I'm gonna feel during and how I'm gonna feel afterwards. All right, well that's all the questions that we have time for today. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. Join us again next week. We release new episodes every Thursday.