E280: The Initiation Mistakes You Don’t Even Realize You’re Making

So lazy initiation is the like, wanna do it? I guess it's been a while. We probably should. It's just that like, or you start, you know, you give the like fake back massage. It just, you know, it feels like zero effort.

There has to be some conversation about what types of situations do feel appropriate for initiation, what types of situations don't feel appropriate.

This is something that I've been playing around a lot with lately. I think that this is actually one of the biggest mistakes that couples make is Always trying to initiate in the moments immediately before sex. Like, do you want to have sex with me right now? Yes or no? 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 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 behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Today we're talking about something that is a big problem in so many relationships, and that is sex guilt. Sexual initiation. Only 17% of people said that they feel like initiation is working in their relationship. They like the way their partner initiates. It's going well. 17%.

Damn, that's abysmal.

83% of people say it's not working. They don't like it.

That's wild. There's a lot of room for improvement there, which is great because we got a lot of things that you can do to improve.

Wouldn't that be sad if we're like, there's no room for improvement. It just— we're just gonna do a whole episode about how bad it is, no solutions. It can't get better. You just have to get used to it.

I mean, that's just not who we are. That's not what we do, babe.

Yeah, you know, initiation is a really big deal. I think most of us think of it as just this split second, like, do you wanna have sex? Yes, no. It reminds me of that, um, did you ever write notes in elementary school? Like, do you like me? Yes or no? And you'd like pass it to your crush.

Oh God, yeah.

It's like that. We think of it as just It's just this, like, super quick little process. But it actually is a really big deal, and it's so much more than just those few seconds. Initiation determines whether or not we're gonna have sex with our partner and how often we're gonna have sex with our partner. But the bottom line is most of us just don't know how to do it. So we're doing it in all the wrong ways, which is leading to annoyance, frustration, resentment, less sex, and even less pleasure. Pleasurable sex too. So today we want to help you understand your blind spots and discover how to get better at it. So we turned to our trusty Instagram community. We asked people to share with us, like, what are the annoyances that you have when it comes to initiation? What's not working for you? What's bothering you about it? And we're going to walk you through all these responses because they were fascinating.

Are we going to address the visual elephant in the room today though?

Yes, we are.

I thought at the beginning you were going to say— I mean, we were going to talk about the topic first. You were going to say, you know what's a really big problem? And I was going to say—

My face.

Getting a horrible sunburn.

Ow, it actually hurts to laugh that much. Okay, if you're watching the episode on YouTube, or I guess this is going to happen on all the reels that we make about this episode too.

Yeah, I mean, hey, look, maybe this is your chance to the listener to Go, you're listening in your earbuds, maybe now just flip over to YouTube for a second. Check us out over there because—

Look at my ugly face.

No one said ugly.

I mean, I'm saying ugly. I'm not being mean to myself. It's just, it is the reality. Okay, so let me say what happened.

Why don't we—

My ugly face.

Before we get—

Okay, here's what happened.

Before we go there, why don't we go to where what actually happened?

Yesterday I got a laser treatment on my face, the Halo laser. It's a pretty intensive one. I knew that I was going to be a little red, but I kinda forgot that we were doing the podcast episode today 'cause we're recording on a different day than we usually do. So when I had originally booked this appointment, I thought, oh, it'll give myself a couple of days to cool off before I have to record. But schedules changed, we had to record the very next day. I just got it done like in the evening yesterday. So I'm crispy.

You're fried.

Crispy feels like the best word for it. I'm very red, I'm inflamed, I'm puffy.

You can't smile too much 'cause it hurts?

Yeah, no, I just noticed that. It's like starting to crack in the corner of my mouth. So like when I just laughed really loud, it like hurt right over there. So I'm not looking my finest, but you know what? I honestly don't really care that much. I've had lasers done before and they're always telling me like, okay, you're gonna have to stay inside for a couple of days. Like you might look a little scary. And I'm like, you know what? I'm not that vain. I'm vain enough to want to get the laser in the first place, but I'm not so vain that I have to like hide it from the world. Like I got a laser. It's fine, lots of people do it. Normalize ugly laser face. But yeah, I'm not looking my finest. I'm feeling laser faced. I mean, it's scary looking. I'm very red and it's also like, there's like brown spots too.

You're a little mottled.

I mean, it looks like someone took a fucking laser torch to my face, which is what happened. And yeah, I'm really swollen, especially on my neck. So I'm not, yeah, I'm not looking my finest, but I will be soon. I'll have some fresh glowy skin under all these burns. But you know, We're here. We're doing it. We're just gonna— maybe on all the reels, we'll have to put like a little asterisk on the side like, was just lasered. Don't worry about it. She's fine.

She's fine.

She was real dedicated to this podcast. I care more about this podcast than about looking ugly on this podcast. So here we go. Also, I can't like— the other thing people were DMing this morning because I posted something on Instagram and I was like, okay, Should I go ahead and record this? It's gonna live on the internet forever. And people are like, oh yeah, go ahead. Just like put some makeup on. I can't. You can't put makeup on this. Also, I don't even own face makeup, but like I can't put on any mascara. I can't, you know, do my brows or anything. But no, I'm just— just have to be like this.

Well, I think you still look beautiful.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Are you gonna try to initiate with me with my...

I might later. I might, I might.

How much are you gonna look at my face when we have sex? You're gonna be like, doggy style, babe.

Reverse cowgirl.

Don't look at me. I wanna have sex with you, but don't look at me.

No, that's mean.

Okay. Okay, so before we get into all the things you're doing wrong with your initiation, I think it's first important for us to normalize that most of us don't know what the hell we're doing. Because we don't have any examples or like good role models of this. I mean, if you think about all of the sex scenes, the thousands of sex scenes that you've seen on TV and in the movies, like you never actually see initiation. It's just the look. Like characters look each other in the eyes and it's on. They don't even need any words. They're just dashing off into the bedroom. It often leaves us with this feeling that initiation shouldn't even be necessary. Like it should just happen. Sex should just happen.

Yeah, like it's almost like this emotional crescendo that doesn't require words. It just is like effortless and like something happens or some number of actions happen and then all of a sudden you're having sex.

Yeah, so it's like then when you do inevitably get to that phase of the relationship where it starts to feel more complicated and tricky, like we're completely unprepared for how to handle it, which can just make it get so much more complicated and tricky.

Yeah, now I, you know, that does make me think, The times that you do see initiation portrayed on TV and in the movies is usually only in the negative.

Yeah.

It's like portrayed showing how stale a relationship has gotten, showing how— like, bad initiation is basically one of the best and easiest ways, I think, that usually very early on in a movie or a show, they will show to establish, oh, this is the phase of the relationship that this couple is in. Like, they can't even have sex because when someone tries tries to have sex, the other partner shuts them down or laughs at them, or like, it's impossible because the kids are around. Like, you know, and so I think that we see all these negative examples of like someone actually genuinely does try to initiate sex, and it's— and so we almost get this weird idea that like, oh God, if you have to even try, yeah, that's probably a bad sign.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let's get into the reasons why your initiation might not be working, or the things that you're Yeah, or it's just not landing the way you want it to. Okay, so first up, you're just not initiating, period. And what makes—

You're doing it like— you're trying to do it like they do in the movies.

Yeah.

By not doing it.

Not at all. Well, where we hear about this the most often is women in relationships with men. We hear a lot from the men saying like, my partner never initiates. It's entirely on me. It's like all my responsibility. They won't do it. And I will say like, this was me for a long time, even for the beginning of our relationship too. And for me, it came from this place of spending my whole life being socialized to believe that it's the man's job to initiate sex. It's the man's job to like be in the lead and be in control of the experience. And so even though rationally I didn't believe that or I didn't want to believe that, it still made it feel so much harder to actually follow through with the initiation. It just, I really had this feeling of like, I'm not supposed to do this. And not only am I not supposed to do this, But like, you wouldn't want that either. Like, you would want to be initiating. It would actually be a turn-off to you or to like my other partners if I were to initiate.

Like, you're doing me a favor by not doing it.

Yeah, sort of. And it was also like, I have had a lot of experiences in past relationships of actually being the higher sex drive partner, which felt very embarrassing and shameful because it was again another like, it's not supposed to be like this. The guy's supposed to be the one who wants it more. And so Having to initiate, it felt like having to admit or acknowledge the reality of the relationship, which just felt super undesirable. I'm like, I don't want to draw attention to the fact that I want it more than he does.

Yeah, so it's like by you doing it, it's like, I'm doing it because you didn't, and therefore you don't want it as much as I do. Even though in reality, it could just be like you wanted it in that moment, your partner wasn't thinking about it. Our next reason why your initiation might not be working is that it feels too random. So this is like you initiate and it totally catches your partner off guard. It just kind of feels like it comes out of nowhere, leaving them thinking like, you want to have sex right now? Like there's no warmup at all. It's just kind of coming out of nowhere. I think this is so common. This is like a very common symptom of A long-term relationship kind of starting to mature and people getting used to being together and living together. And it's kind of like, it feels like the romance has disappeared and like, you're like both living your lives in your own house and all of a sudden, you know, one partner's just like, hey, wanna do it?

Yeah, I think a lot of times what's going on here is like, you might have it in your head, hey, I wanna have sex with my partner. And you're kind of thinking about it, you're mulling it over, like, how do I initiate? Does it seem like they're in the mood or not? And it's like you've kind of been thinking about it for at least a couple minutes by the time that you come out with your initiation. So for you, it might not feel that random, or maybe you were even like pretty anxious initiating, so you've been thinking about it for a while, like working your courage up to do it. But for your partner, the experience is that it's just like out of nowhere. Like, wait, there's no warm-up, there's no like connection we've had. We'll talk about that one in another minute. But it just feels like, wait, like I'm so caught off guard. It just feels too random. And it kind of dovetails nicely into our next one that we wanted to talk about, which is you initiate in inappropriate times. So these could really be the same thing, but I felt like they were separate enough, the inappropriate times, for us to give that one its own category. So this could be like at times when it's not even possible to have sex in that moment. So you're initiating with your partner even though like it's not gonna happen, and it leaves your partner feeling set up for failure in a way. I can think of a really egregious example of a time that I did this.

Oh yeah? Okay.

Yeah.

Let's hear it.

Do you know what I'm thinking about? Early in our relationship.

Oh, I don't know. Let's go.

I initiated with Xander once when we were having a beach bonfire at night with a bunch of friends. And it was like, okay, I had not really eaten very much that day. We were drinking a lot and we were like 23 or something like that.

Yeah, there might've been a lot of alcohol involved.

There was a lot of alcohol.

More for you than for me.

I was very drunk. I've always been a lightweight. It probably took like one drink to get me like that. But I was very drunk and I got it in my head that I really wanted to have sex at the beach bonfire.

Sex on the beach. You didn't wanna have it at the bonfire. You wanted to have it adjacent.

15 feet away. It was like not— there was no privacy.

In your extremely drunk mind, you were very far away from everyone and it was very private and romantic. And I had not had As much as you. It was not that private or romantic to me.

Yeah, and so it felt like really annoying and bothersome to you that I initiated in that way. Like, it just felt— there was no way for you to win. Win isn't even the right word, but like, you know, you obviously weren't gonna say yes to me because we were in public around people that we knew. Like, we could have been arrested for having sex in that way. So you obviously weren't gonna say yes, but I was also so drunkenly insistent on it that it was really frustrating and annoying. So that was my inappropriate time. But I think this can also happen in less egregious ways. But like, maybe you're— this has also happened to us when it's like, we have to leave the house in 5 minutes to get somewhere.

Yeah.

Where it's like, we can't, like, we can't do, you know, it's just gonna be too stressful trying to have sex and get cleaned up and dressed and ready in 5 minutes. Like, it's just not gonna happen.

Yeah. And I think when we say inappropriate, it's not necessarily We're not trying to say if you are being accused of initiating inappropriate moments that like you're wrong and your partner's right. Like there are definite shades to this. Someone might be like, oh yeah, we have 5 minutes. To me, that's super hot, trying to get it done in 5 minutes. I mean, I've done that before, like very early on in my sexual career, I feel like.

I mean, honestly, I'd be down to do that more often, but you get a little stressed out about it.

I've been changing. I've been changing in that regard. But no, but what I'm saying is that, you know, it's sort of like one person's inappropriate could be another person's random. Like, you know, it could be— we're not saying that you can't do that. It's just like there has to be some conversation about what types of situations do feel appropriate for initiation, what types of situations don't feel appropriate. Because I think with that, that like 5 minutes before you have to go is a great example. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Because one person might be like, yeah, that's super hot. I actually fantasize about that all the time. Like, I would love to do that. It just doesn't feel inappropriate to me. To me, it's like, this is me showing you how much I want you. I want you so bad that I wanna try to do this right now and like race against the clock.

Mm-hmm.

But the other person, like, and this is where the conversation is so important, is like the other person can hear that and be like, okay, I understand where you're coming from. And for me, it feels disrespectful because to me, timeliness is really important. And when we're having sex, I like to be able to take our time and know that we're both going to have an orgasm. And I'm just sort of making up reasons, but describe to you what it is like, what that feeling is like in that moment, and describe how for you. it feels impossible to oblige in that moment. So it's not like you're wrong, I'm right. It's just like understanding, okay, so we each have different things that we want, and so they're incompatible in this moment. So those are probably not good moments to initiate. So ultimately, we just need to understand, you know, for each partner, like what feel like appropriate times and what feel like inappropriate times.

Okay, next, let's talk about one that might sound a little controversial at first. You're initiating in the moment. This is something that I've been playing around a lot with lately. I think that this is actually one of the biggest mistakes that couples make is always trying to initiate in the moments immediately before sex. Like, do you wanna have sex with me right now? Yes or no? And when we do it this way, I think it makes initiation feel like a pop quiz. I know it's felt that way for me plenty of times. Like, when you initiate with me, it gives me this feeling of like, Wait, wait, wait. You wanna have sex right now? Like, I wasn't even thinking about sex right then. It's this pop quiz feeling. Like, I wasn't prepared. I'm already behind. I feel like I've already lost. So it's really easy to have this knee-jerk no reaction. Every once in a blue moon, you might initiate at a time where I happen to actually be in the mood at the same time. But we're just 2 different people. And even though your and my sex drives are relatively similar in this season of life, like, we're turned on or interested in sex In different times. And I think that's so important for people to recognize. Even if your sex drives are aligned, are very similar, you're still going to be turned on or interested in sex in different times. So when you initiate in that moment, like, yes or no, do you want to have sex with me right now? It puts all this unnecessary and undue pressure on your partner, and it makes it so much more likely that they're going to say no. And it ties back in with these other ones that we were talking about earlier too. Like, it can often make It feels too random. Like it's kind of coming out of nowhere. It's the pop quiz out of nowhere type of feeling. So I think that one of the best things couples can do is extend the period of initiation. So it's not something that you're doing immediately beforehand, but you're creating more space there. So not only does that put less pressure on your partner, it also creates more space to build up anticipation, excitement. excitement, to get a responsive sex drive going and in the mood. It just really makes such a big difference. Now, the logistics of this, if that's something that you're interested in, we definitely recommend that you check out our course, The Art of Initiation. We'll put a link for that in the show notes, or you can just go straight to vmtherapy.com/initiation to check that out.

Our next category of ways you might be initiating wrong is that you're just not emotionally connected. When one of you is initiating. And actually 86% of our audience related to this idea of being annoyed when there's been no flirting or no affection being shown until it's time to initiate. So it's, it's, I mean, this is kind of along the lines of like initiating right in the moment or in a random moment where it feels like there's no, no effort made to create any kind of connection beforehand. Now, the challenge here, we talk about this a lot, how there are kind of 2 types of people in relationships, people who want to feel emotionally connected in order to feel open to having sex. And then on the flip side, there are people that feel connected emotionally after they have sex. So they want to have sex in order to feel emotionally connected. And very often in relationships, we have one of one type and one of the other type. So most often we get into this type of situation When the partner who is doing the initiating more is a wants to have sex in order to feel connection type, and their partner receiving the initiation wants to feel emotional connection first. And so it feels like, well, hey, I'm not open to having sex because it doesn't feel like there's any thread of connection. Or maybe it could even be like, it doesn't feel safe to have sex. It doesn't feel like we're in a good place or a stable, solid place that I want to be in in order to feel open to this.

Next up, we have you initiate too often. This is what we call the spray and pray approach, where your approach is like, let me just initiate as many times as I can. Because hey, the more chances I give, the more likely I am to get a yes.

Cast the net wide.

Exactly. Yeah. Let me just do it as many times as I can. But actually, this can feel super annoying to your partner. It feels like a ton of pressure. It feels like you're not respecting their responses. It feels like you're not seeing or hearing them. Like, it can just— I mean, think about— it reminds me of that classic, like, you know, a kid yelling like, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom.

Oh, this was— that was totally me. That was totally me as a kid because, okay, for me, I grew up kind of in the woods. We didn't—

Kinda?

I grew up in the woods.

Deep in the woods.

Deep in the woods. We did not have cable TV. And even if there was cable offered on our street, I am 99% certain We would not have had it. I was really not allowed to watch TV other than watching movies, VHS movies that someone had been nice enough to record for me, mostly my grandma. So I had a collection of VHS tapes and that's all I wanted to do was watch movies. And it would be like, I feel like on the weekends or when I wasn't in school, it was just like multiple times a day. Mom, can I watch a movie? Dad, can I watch a movie? Okay, how about now? How about now? I'm sure I asked like 10 times a day. And probably eventually wore them down and got a yes. So for me, I was a spray and pray. Spray and pray.

With your mom? I don't know about this, babe. It's really weird to bring an example with your mom in.

Watching, watching movies. You brought up the example of a kid saying mom.

Okay, we're just gonna move along. Why don't we go to our next one?

All right, and our next one, there, there are no moms involved. Thank God.

Well, I mean, there might be.

But I don't know. I'll, I'll let me say what it is and then you can try to figure out how you could incorporate a mom into it. Uh, and this one is that you've waited until the very end of the night. This is so common. Like 91% of our Instagram audience said that they relate to this frustration. We have absolutely fallen into this trap for probably like the whole first half of our relationship.

People just have it in their heads that the end of the night is when sex happens. Like, oh yeah, that's supposed to be it. When you're, you know, the day is over, you brush your teeth, you wash your face, you're crawling into bed. Like, that's supposed to be the time.

I mean, we kind of create that pattern in a way in how we date. Like, because early on in a relationship, often you go out on a date, like go out to dinner or go out to a movie at night. Then you come home and have sex together.

Mm-hmm.

The difference between that and crawling into bed after the end of a long workday and making dinner for the kids and putting them to bed, the main difference between those 2 situations is one, you are building emotional connection throughout that date. You've been excited about it all day long, or maybe even for multiple days. So it's a totally different scenario. You're excited about the fact you're already thinking all day and probably all throughout the date, like, ooh, are we gonna go back and do it later? Versus crawling into bed at the end of a long day. Sex is probably the last thing on most people's mind. They're like, oh my God, get me to sleep. If I can go to sleep in the next 10 minutes, I can get 7.5 hours of sleep.

Mm-hmm.

And at that point, like, you've already lost if you're trying to initiate, because then you're just forcing that mental calculus of, How many hours of sleep? Okay, if we do, like, then okay, down to 7. How am I gonna feel on 7 hours of sleep? You know, like that kind of thing, and that sucks.

It's just such a tricky time. I think that's one of the worst times to have sex, and look, I get that everybody's schedule is different. For a lot of people, they don't have very much time together alone where they could be having sex, but even if you can prioritize one thing over it, like we have sex and then we brush our teeth, we have sex and then we wash our faces, we have sex and then we fold that last load of laundry, Do something afterwards. Don't have the sex be the very, very last thing. It's just such a hard time.

I mean, 'cause another thing, I just, you know, I'm thinking about our own, you know, what it looks like when we go to bed. It's like a whole wind-down routine. Like the, you know, we do the same things every night. Like, and I have, you know, I've created the habit and the muscle memory basically of like, oh, you know, all right, I take the dogs out, I go brush my teeth, I wash my face. And I'm throughout all of that, I'm telling myself, okay, We're like gonna get tired now. We're starting to shut down. Like we're about to go to sleep. And so then like trying to throw this wrench in of like, oh, but maybe, maybe we'll do sex too, is like, you're kind of like setting yourself up for a loss. 'Cause so, you know, there's all this research showing that like, like, you know, certain like nighttime routines are really beneficial to you actually falling asleep and, you know, building that habit of going to sleep at the same time.

We actually had sex as the very last thing. At the very end of the night, like, last week.

Though we planned it.

I know, but I hated it. It made me— I was so awake afterwards. I was like, ugh, what did I do? I couldn't go to sleep after. Okay, next category is you didn't initiate in a skillful way. Like I said earlier, none of us ever learned how to initiate, so it makes sense that we're not initiating in skillful ways. But let's break this down. I would say there are, like, 2 general categories of unskillful initiation. First up, we have lazy, and then we have unsexy. So lazy initiation is the like, wanna do it? I guess it's been a while. We probably should. It's just that like, or you start, you know, you give the like fake back massage. It just, you know, it feels like zero effort.

Or it could even be the like, you know, you turn off the light. It's right before bed. You turn off the light and then you start like doing the like, you know.

Oh, the little booty scoot?

Yeah, the booty scoot. Like, you know, that one too. Like where it's like, really? That's like the only effort you're gonna put in?

Okay, then we have unsexy, which is boob honking, random genital grabbing, except if you're Xander because he likes that, dumb jokes, helicoptering, like, you know.

What's helicoptering, babe?

Do people not know what helicoptering is, do you think?

I mean, I would say helicopter penis.

Helicopter penis, when he's like swinging it around, you know, just swinging it around in the air. Guys really think that just swinging your dick around is gonna get us excited.

I mean, to be fair, you get a kick out of it. Not a sexy kick, but—

Not a sexy kick.

You get a kick just out of the male genitalia and like how exposed it is and how wild it is.

I'm always worried about it.

Like whipping around and—

I'm just always worried about it. I feel like it's getting smashed.

You got some glee out of just the things that it can do.

Yes, but you, if you were just to come up to me and helicopter your penis around, that's not gonna get me going to wanna have sex with you.

Oh yeah, absolutely not.

And humping. The humping.

Ugh, God.

Just the coming up behind you, just humping you. Ugh. So many people are initiating this way and it's just, it's not fun. I think what we forget is that initiation is supposed to feel like an invitation. It's supposed to feel like something your partner wants to say yes to. And just coming up behind your partner and humping them, like, that's not exciting. It's not sexy. It's not intimate. It's nothing. Other than annoying.

Yeah. I mean, I think the reason why most people— not, sorry, I don't mean most people are doing these unsexy initiations, but most people who do unsexy initiations, the reason behind that is just a general discomfort with verbal initiation or with clear initiation. Like, you know, with a dumb joke or, you know, boob honk or whatever, there's plausible deniability. Like if, if your partner says no, it's like, oh, well, obviously I was just joking or I'm just playing.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like, I think that we guard ourselves. Initiation feels so vulnerable, even though we have this idea that, you know, oh, men are supposed to know how to handle rejection, and they're the ones who are supposed to initiate. Oh, they have no problem with that. Like, even people who initiate all the time feel super vulnerable about it. We hear from men all the time who are like, oh, my partner turned me down like a number of times, and now I just like won't do it.

Mm-hmm.

Like, I won't— like, I, I can't handle the rejection anymore. And so, you know, before people get to that point, I think they start to resort to these more lazy or unsexy ways because it's like, you know, you're, you're not really having to like, you know, kind of go out on the ledge per se, um, and expose yourself. You're just kind of like, oh, let's see if that works. Oh, nope, I was joking. I was joking.

Yeah.

No one's trying to actually do that. Why would I wanna have sex with you?

So obviously we all need to learn how to initiate sex more skillfully. This was something I had to learn. Again, there's no shame around this. I didn't know how to initiate sex.

Yeah, she used to just come up and hump me.

I used to helicopter you all the time with my boobs.

Hey, if you could get them going in opposite directions, I would be impressed. I might not be turned on, but I would be impressed. I'm sure I'd probably get turned on eventually.

So if you are looking for more skillful ways to initiate, we'll just put another little plug for The Art of Initiation. We have 61 different ways to initiate, and we also have a whole initiation styles model in that guide too that breaks down for you our 6 different styles that we've come up with. It's kind of like the love languages, this idea that we all like to give and receive love in different ways. Like, we all like to have sex initiated in different ways. So we need to understand our own language and communicate that to our partner. So that we understand how to turn each other on, how to get each other going.

Yeah, because there actually is one type that may possibly—

Possibly.

Sometimes respond better to some of these unsexy moves.

I am that type though, and I'm not into these. But yeah, you can check out that guide at vmtherapy.com/initiation, or the link will be in the show notes too.

Our next reason why initiation might not be working so well for you is that you're just not being obvious enough. We hear about this the most coming from men who are in relationships with women. And so men who are talking about, okay, when my partner initiates with me, like they're not using their words or they're being really vague. I can't tell if they actually want to. I can't tell if they're actually talking about sex or something else. So it's like, it's either it's vague or it's lazy in the way of being like, of like you're kind of teeing it up for your partner to finish the job.

Yeah.

Like, oh, oh, like, oh, You want to have sex? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah.

It's, yeah, it's like, it's like kind of the, a different type of lazier plot. Like I was talking about the plausible deniability on the last category of like, oh, well, I was just making a joke. Like I wasn't actually initiating. It's kind of the same thing, but the other way around, like the partner is being really vague. And so if they're, you know, if the guy picks up on it and it's like, oh, Oh, so like, do you want to have sex? It's like, okay, great, it worked. But if it doesn't, if they don't pick up on that, then it's almost like, well, no one actually initiated, so no one had to say no.

Yeah, yeah. We hear this just all the time from men. They're like, be more obvious. You are not being obvious.

Like, yeah, when we poll men, the— like, this is— I think this is really interesting. There's obviously a lot of different types of, you know, ways that we like sex to be initiated. But one of the biggest findings that we've had in all the research that we've done is that the very vast majority of men love clear and direct initiation.

Mm-hmm.

I think that amongst women, there's a much bigger variance of like what types of kind of energy or style they prefer to be initiated in. And that's not to say like direct initiation can take on all kinds of different energies and vibes still, but like when it comes to whatever way you're gonna do it, The vast majority of men really like just a super clear and direct, not leaving anything to the imagination or leaving anything up to chance kind of approach. But it would be good to check that with your partner because, you know, there's always going to be exceptions to that rule. We never want to be like, oh yeah, if you're with a man, just do this, because there's never— Yeah, of course. There's never one answer, and he probably is going to prefer, might prefer a whole different Different types of direct initiation. They might like a verbal direct initiation or a physical direct initiation or all kinds of things.

Yeah, I forgot to mention at the beginning of this episode that this is another great one. I mean, we designed so many podcast episodes to be this way, but to listen to with your partner where you can listen to each category, pause it, have a little conversation between the two of you, because like Xander's saying, everybody's different, everybody's unique. You might totally disagree with some of our advice, some of our thoughts here, But it's really just designed to get that conversation open between the two of you. Okay, I want to talk about you pressuring your partner with your initiation.

I thought you were going to talk about me for a second. I want to talk about you pressuring.

Pressuring. You're pressuring me. No, I mean, the unfortunate reality is that a lot of partners are being very pressure-y with their initiation.

Different shades of pressure-y.

Yeah.

Like, from like kind of like manipulative to probably like not realizing that what they're doing is kind of manipulative or pressuring.

Yeah, there really can be a lot of shades to this. Sometimes this can also look like begging too, or like negotiating or pleading, like, come on, well, just a handjob at least, or just do this at least, or it's been so long though, or I'm so tired. Like, you know, that kind of, yeah, really trying to goad your partner into doing it.

Wait, I'm so tired?

I don't know where I'm so tired came from.

I'm so tired, I have to have sex! What, for you? Actually, you were just complaining about we had sex before bed the other night and it kept you up.

Yeah, I said, yeah, I'm so tired, wake me up.

I'm so tired, just fuck me. It's the only way I can wake up. Hold the caffeine, give me some sex.

My energy is going into healing my face right now. My brain's not at full capacity. But you know, partner pressuring you. So I mean, this is a tricky one because the vast majority of these situations, it's a go straight to couples therapy, do not pass go, do not collect $200 kind of situation, but we don't want it to be I wanted to mention it because this is important to talk about. Yeah, the bottom line here is, look, you are allowed to ask for sex. You are totally allowed to do that. Like, you have sexual needs. You want to connect with your partner. You want to feel close to them. You want to experience pleasure and intimacy and joy. Like, wanting to have sex with your partner is not a bad thing. You're allowed to have that, and you're allowed to express that to your partner whenever you want, as long as it's done Respectfully.

Yeah, and you're allowed to have feelings if your partner— if you wanted something and your partner declined.

Yeah, like that always sucks if you ask for something you want and your partner's not open to it, or any other person is not open to any other request that you had or need that you expressed. Like, that always sucks. It always hurts. But your partner is allowed to say no to sex whenever they want to, for whatever reason, for no reason. Like, it's their body. They get to decide what they want to do with it. So it's not okay to make them feel guilty, to make them feel bad, to make them second-guess their decision. Like Xander said, you're allowed to have those feelings about it, but you're not allowed to create pressure. So again, if you're in a situation in your relationship where it feels like there's a lot of pressure around initiation, you guys are fighting about it, we definitely recommend that you go to couples therapy, but we wanted to mention this one.

Or at the very least, I think the first step is making sure your partner understands that whatever they are doing to you is coming across as pressure. Because I do think that with this category, there can be a high potential for misunderstanding.

Uh-huh.

And I think that, you know, what one partner may be doing in initiating, they might think that they're being like funny or silly or doing something that maybe you guys laughed about sometime in the past. And they're continuing to do it, and to you now it's coming off as pressure. But for them, like they they just they think like oh wait well like this is something that we have done before that like you laughed about, or like I thought I was just like making a funny joke, not realizing that it was pressure. So yeah, it's not like oh if this is happening your partner's trying to manipulate you. I mean, I think that you kind of have to gauge for yourself. Like are they doing this with a manipulative spirit? In which case, like we you just got to go to couples therapy. Like you're not going to be like hey. I want you to stop being manipulative.

Yeah.

And your partner's like, oh, I've been caught.

Yeah.

Okay, I'll stop. But I do think that it is very likely that if, you know, I were to hear from you, hey, this thing that you've been doing a lot has been actually feeling like a lot of pressure for me. And I'm like, oh my God, I had no idea. I thought I was being funny or silly or like goofy. And, you know, 'cause like, I know for us, like goofiness is important. But I didn't realize that it was coming off that way for you. I'm gonna moderate my approach.

All right, and let's bring it on home with, you didn't read the room.

This is a phrase that I think a lot of people can relate to. Read the room, buddy.

Read the room, buddy. So you're initiating when the time just is not right. 68% of our audience said that this was a common initiation annoyance for them, and one of the most frequent examples they brought up is being interrupted when they were in the middle of something. For a lot of people, it left this feeling of just not being seen. Like, did my partner not realize that I was in the middle of doing something? I was doing something for them. I was doing something for our family, doing something for the household. This came up a lot around chores. And this one gets really tricky and complicated because it also loops into like mental load imbalances or responsibility imbalances. Like one partner saying like, I'm doing all the work around the house and then my partner comes and tries to initiate while I'm in the middle of doing the dishes.

It feels like a slap in the face.

Yeah, exactly. Like they don't even recognize how much I'm doing. I get resentful and frustrated with them because it reminds me in that moment of like I'm doing way more than they are. So it obviously can get very tricky. But this was such a common complaint that people brought up, this feeling of like, yeah, it feels like my partner is just not seeing me at all. They just see a body that's there for them to go initiate with rather than really paying attention to like, what's my vibe? What's my energy? What am I doing right now?

And this one differs a bit from, 'cause like earlier on we talked about, um, like initiating at inappropriate times. I think this one is a little different 'cause it could be that it literally is an inappropriate time. It could also be like it's an inappropriate emotional moment or like it's inappropriate based on like What, you know, the way that things are feeling between us, or like, hey, we're like literally in the middle of an argument. Like, I've just expressed to you how upset I am about something. And, you know, like, we haven't closed that out and now you're initiating with me. So yeah, I think that there can be like a sort of a physical component of like, okay, yeah, this is like, you didn't read the room that like, I'm literally like in the middle of a chore.

Mm-hmm.

Or like, I'm like literally walking out the door. Or it could be like, yeah, like you didn't read the energy between us. This is a clearly inappropriate time.

There's also what we call like the interruption conundrum that comes into play here, which I think we talked about like a couple of episodes back as well. Like for some people, being interrupted when you're in the middle of something reads as very rude. Like, can't you see I'm obviously in the middle of something? Whereas for other people, this could actually be really hot.

A huge turn-on.

Yeah, this feeling of like, I can't, wait another second to have you. I know that you have your hands full, or I know you're in the middle of this, but I have to have you right now.

Yeah, that could feel like— it's funny because that could feel super invalidating or extremely validating.

I know. So it's a perfect example of something that couples need to talk about with each other, to ask each other, yeah, are you open to me initiating when you are in the middle of something? Does that feel hot and sexy to you, or does that feel rude and disrespectful to you? So this is actually something that we go over a lot in The Art of Initiation. We have something that we call our ideal conditions for initiating.

Yeah, we walk people through this very early. This is like one of the first things that we do in that course, and I think that this is like so eye-opening for so many couples.

Yeah, it's a series of questions similar to like, yeah, are you open to it being initiated when you're in the middle of something, to really walk you through these specific scenarios and examples so you guys can very, very quickly and easily get on the same page about when you like sex to be initiated and when you don't.

Yeah, it's like not only just about like, are you yes or no okay with this, but it's an opportunity for you to talk about, this is what it would feel like for me. And that, 'cause I think that it's important to know like yes or no, is this a good idea or a bad idea? But I think what's even more valuable is the understanding of how do both people actually feel about this? It's just, it's so helpful if it's, yeah, it's like one partner's like, yeah, this feels like really disrespectful for me to like, you know, to interrupt me when I'm in the middle of something. And the other partner says, oh man, like I didn't realize that. For me, the idea of that, you know, like if you were to do that to me, it would feel super hot and feel like, oh, you just can't, like you can't wait to have me. You can't keep your hands off of me.

Yeah.

And so when I'm doing that, You know, I'm trying to show you love in that way. Like, I am like, I'm so ravenous for you that I can't help myself. And so it's not like, you know, it's not like the other partner's gonna be like, oh, now that I know that, like, I'm on board. But it just opens up the door for more understanding and figuring out, okay, is this something that maybe we could work on? Or is this something where it's like, okay, we just wanna say this is not a situation that we wanna get into? Yeah.

All right, well, we've now gone over all the ways that initiation might be causing a strain on your relationship. But if you want to help get initiation back to being exciting, a source of connection, playful and intimate—

Because it can. Not only can it, it should be.

It should. Then we definitely invite you to check out The Art of Initiation. That is going to help you learn practical ways to create and sustain more emotional intimacy Why differing libidos don't need to stop you from experiencing the intimacy you both deserve, and how skillful initiation can actually bridge the gap of mismatched libidos. How to confidently know and express exactly what turns you on. Those game-changing initiation questions you never knew to ask. Confidence-building hacks that will get you initiating with ease. The secret to staying connected even if one of you isn't open to having sex in a particular moment. And And so much more. So we will put the link for that in the show notes, or you can go straight to vmtherapy.com/initiation to check it out.

All right. Well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week. We drop new episodes every Thursday.

Okay, quick little update. I am actually recording this after we recorded the podcast because we decided to do something special with The Art of Initiation. Until October 6th only, it is on sale for just $49. It's usually $89, so that is 45% off. We really want you to check out this guide. We know it can have such a huge impact on the initiation in your relationship. So just for these couple of days, we're doing a major sale on it. And I will be totally transparent with you guys, we do not have a sale this big planned anytime soon. Not even Cyber Monday, Black Friday. It is not gonna be that big of a discount. So if you're curious about improving Initiation in your relationship, now is the time. You can go straight to vmtherapy.com/initiation to get Art of Initiation for 45% off, just $49, until the 6th only.