E282: Is This Normal? He Made AI Sex Videos of Us, and I Have Questions

Is it normal for my husband to create AI images and videos of us having sex?

Is it normal to only have sex 4 times per year?

I know my wife enjoys sex because she says so, but I don't feel it by her actions during sex. Is that normal? Should I just take her word for it?

Is it normal to never want to try a position or a blowjob again after having one bad experience?

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 behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Today we are doing another round of Is This Normal?

Is it normal to like doing Is It Normal episodes?

Is it normal to— sorry, threw me off.

Wow. No response. No witty retort.

I got nothing.

Yeah, nothing else is normal.

I thought I had something, but I like literally just felt my brain just go like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You sounded so confident. I was excited.

I got nothing. I wasn't expecting you to do that.

Have you thought of anything yet?

No, I haven't. I got nothing.

Is it normal to your mom?

There you go. Is it normal to your mom? That's all. Yeah, that's what we're talking about today. We put a question box up on Instagram and we asked our community, what questions do you have that leave you wondering, is this normal? And we have some really interesting ones. I know you haven't seen them at all. I just took a quick peek at them and I'm excited for this episode. There's like literally always something new. The very first question is something I have never heard before.

Yeah, there's a lot of people out there thinking they're abnormal.

And I gotta be honest, we actually don't love the word normal. Because I think that there really is no normal.

It's abnormal to be normal?

I just think normal is the wrong word. But we oftentimes use the language that our community uses. But I like to, I don't know, maybe I'm a little bit of a language nerd here, but I think that just aiming for what's normal with your sex life, I almost said socks. Oh my God, I'm so used to having to censor on Instagram that now it's hard to say sex. Sex. It is so— yeah, to just aim for normal with your sex life, I don't think that's the greatest goal. But ultimately, like, what people are getting at here is like, yeah, is this weird? Is this unusual? Is this okay? So that's what we're really gonna be getting into.

Yeah, well, I mean, because I think normal kind of implies, are you normal relative to a social construct? Like something that we've come up with as a society, because If it weren't a societal thing, you'd be like, oh, well, is this normal as a human being to be into this? It would be like, well, your brain and your body are functioning in a way that is causing you to want something or do something. And that seems like pretty normal. Like, if you're alive, if you're alive and like your body's not breaking down and dying, like, that's normal. But like, that's not how we use the word normal. It's like, is this— would other people think that I am normal due to these like societal norms that we have? So yeah, I mean, I guess the question is, do you want yourself to be normal? your sex life to look like what you think other people think it should look like. Which, let's be honest, when it's what you think other people think it should look like, there's a lot of margin for error there. Uh-huh. Because how do you actually know what everybody else thinks? Like, you don't. You don't even know what your partner thinks. That's like where conflict comes from, because we don't read each other's minds. So anyway, I just think that Yeah, it's like, is that what you want it to be like? Or do you want it to be like how you want it? Like we get into a relationship with somebody else so that we don't— so like, so that we have a space where like we're not being judged by other people. We're not having to conform to what other people think. So why are we doing that in bed? Boom. That's my soapbox.

Thank you for your little soapbox on societal constructs. Okay. Before we get into this week's questions though, we would love to ask a quick favor. If we have ever made you giggle, if we have ever given you a little tip that has helped in your relationship, we would be so appreciative if you could follow the show. Just grab your phone right now, hit that follow button, that subscribe button. If you want to go the extra mile, leave like a 5-star rating or a written review. Mm-hmm. The true gold star. Should we bring back like Prizes? We used to do this for a long time. We had like review of the week. Should we bring back prizes to incentivize people? Let us know. That's always good. Would you be more willing to write a little review if you could potentially win a little prize? Because honestly, it really does help. The podcast is such a labor of love for us. Like, it's really important to us to be able to create this, you know, provide this free resource. But there is an incredible amount of Man and woman and people hours that go into creating this podcast. It's not like a— we're not armchair expert or call her daddy over here, like rolling in the dough.

It also takes a lot of dog hours. We have 2 dogs that have to sleep in their beds next to us. They get really bored when we record the podcast. They do. And they would rather— So please support them. They would rather us be doing other things. No, I'm just kidding. No, they do enjoy it. They're very happy. They're snoozing over here.

I never knew this about podcasts before I had one, but the little stuff like following, subscribing, rating, reviewing, It genuinely makes a huge difference. That's how Apple and Spotify choose which podcasts to feature, to recommend to people. So it's genuinely so helpful for us. So we would really, really appreciate it if you could do one of those things.

Thanks.

Thank you. Okay. Ready for this new question that I have never heard before?

I am ready. Oh my god. I just realized I left my wedding ring in the car after— I take it off when I go to the gym. How dare you? Because I don't want to like bend it like grabbing, you know, like a bar or something.

You don't want to bend your wedding ring.

I know, but it's also— it's not comfortable on your finger when you're trying to like hold weight and the weight is pushing against a metal thing on your finger. Like why would you want that?

I mean, I wear my rings at the gym.

Well, that's crazy. I take mine off. I take mine off at the gym and it is in the car. So I'm still married, guys. Don't worry.

You can only see if you're watching on YouTube, which some people don't know that we also post the videos on YouTube.

So you can see our beautiful faces.

I just realized I didn't fully shake my hair out. I did my curly hair routine, but I haven't broken the cast.

What's broken? What's that? Broken the cast?

Only the curly girls know. Okay. Yeah, so it doesn't look good right now, but I need to let it continue to dry.

Wait, what's the cast?

This is so boring, but you basically put gel on it and it makes it a little crunchy. And then once your hair fully dries, then you rough it up to break the cast and then you get more natural-looking curls. Okay, let's get into our first question. Is it normal for my husband to create AI images and videos of us having sex?

Oh, we're coming in hot today.

I've never heard this one. I mean, yeah, we're in this new day and age. We have this technology that we've never had before. We did do an AI episode.

We did.

And I think we were actually A little ahead of our time because it did not go over super, like not a ton of people listened to it, which I'm so bummed about because I think it's incredibly important. It's this brand new technology that we have never had before in history and it is really changing so many things related to relationships and sex and intimacy.

Yeah, regardless of what your feelings about AI are.

Yeah, regardless. I don't care if you love AI, you hate AI, you have to talk about AI with your partner. You have to talk about what your boundaries are, what is okay, what is not okay with things like companion chatbots, dirty talking with AI, making fantasies with AI, having relationships with AI. I highly recommend going back and listening to that episode. I'm pretty sure we had a freebie in there that gave 20 questions that every couple needs to ask each other, 20 scenarios that couples need to work through. Honestly, it's so important. Like, please go back and listen to that episode. At the very least, get that free guide. It's totally free, no strings attached. We're not selling you anything on the other end of it. It's completely free 'cause we were like, we want couples to be prepared for this. And this example is actually not in that 'cause I had never, I didn't think of that possibility. We did talk about your partner using AI to create erotic, you know, or nude images, but we didn't talk about the specifics of like, it's the two of you. Mm-hmm. If you were creating AI images of other people, yeah, creating AI images of other people versus creating AI images of us feels pretty different. I'm not saying I would be okay with either, but they do feel different.

Yeah. To me, this feels, if we're going to draw parallels to something that's non-AI, I would say this feels more along the lines of Like filming yourselves having sex and watching it back. Yeah. Though there are broader kind of ethical questions of like, okay, so in order to create images and videos of us having sex, you clearly have to upload some amount of images or videos of you to the AI in the first place so that it can make videos of you and probably give it some details of your sex life, of your body, so that it is actually like accurately reproducing what you look like naked. And whatnot. And it's like, so then there's the question of, do you want that? Do you want a— because these are not mainstream AI models, LLMs that are creating these. These are, I mean, I don't even know what these are, but these are some more in the darker corners of the internet where God knows what is happening with your data. I guarantee you this is not like ChatGPT or Claude where you can be like, please don't train your model on On my videos and images. Yeah, to me it's like filming yourselves and putting it like in a publicly available Google Drive folder where you're like, well, hopefully no one else finds this, but maybe they will.

I think this is a consent issue. Like, I think in— I like your comparison to filming yourselves. Like, if you're gonna film you and your partner having sex, you need to get your partner's consent. Yes. Because a lot of people are not comfortable with that. So that's not something that you can just spring on a partner. It's not something you can like hide the camera and never tell your partner about that. Like they have to be active participants in that. And to me, yeah, this feels the same way.

Well, I guess we don't know. It's not clear if—

No, no, I'm saying like the husband needs to ask, hey, I want to make AI images and videos of you nude. Is that okay with you?

Yeah, and it's hard to tell from this question.

We don't know from the question if I'm guessing no, he didn't ask.

Yeah, if you're asking, is it normal? Yeah. Well, what I'm concerned that possibly this person, because they're saying, well, is it normal to do this? It's like they know that their husband is doing it. There's been some talk about it, but the person maybe feels hesitant to really put their foot down or take a stand. And so it's like it's happening, they know about it, but they haven't really talked about their feelings about it. And so this person has allowed this possibly to go on for a while and is now like, hey, I wouldn't be worried about the normalcy of this. I would be worried— it doesn't matter if this is normal or not. This is about how do you feel? What is okay for you? Would you be okay filming yourselves having sex? Would you be okay with your partner filming you without your knowledge having sex? This is bad. Would you be okay with those videos maybe getting shared?

Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. This is a great example of why I don't love the question, is this normal? 'Cause I think a lot of women, and we don't know this person's gender, but a lot of women will hide behind the, is, well, hide is not the right word. A lot of women will use the, is this normal, to like overpower their own feelings about what they want. Like, maybe I'm reading into this, but I'm sensing some discomfort around this, but it's like, I don't know, maybe this is a normal thing that all husbands do. And if it's a normal thing that all husbands do, then I guess that's okay. No, what we need to start with is how do you feel about your husband creating these images? I do not care if it's normal or not normal. I don't care if everybody's doing it or nobody's doing it. What matters is how do you feel about this?

And on the flip side, I worry that some people, you know, will look at normalcy as the judge of Like, should the partner not be doing this? Rather than being like, hey, I'm really uncomfortable with this, is like asking people like us, hey, tell me if this is normal, 'cause I'm pretty sure it's abnormal, hoping that we'll tell you, yeah, this is totally abnormal, so that then you can tell your partner, oh, I don't think that you should do this 'cause it's totally not normal, rather than just being like, 'cause it's not okay with me. I'm a participant in this and I'm not okay with it.

Yeah, no, that's a great point too. So I think with this one, this is a perfect example of, you know, there's no right or wrong answer here. Every couple needs to decide for themselves how they feel about this. So if it's like, there are definitely gonna be plenty of couples who are like, yeah, that's hot, that sounds fun. Yeah, let's do it together. Like, fuck interviews, we're using AI. There are gonna be other couples who think, absolutely not, I don't want any of these photos or videos of me like that. So you need to get clear on what you want first. A couple of things that I would think about is, you know, AI is the fucking wild, wild west right now. Like, we don't really know You know, we're like, what happens to these photos and videos? Is your husband putting in already naked photos and videos of you and like using the AI to enhance them? Or, you know, even the end result is that there are naked photos and videos of you. You know, we don't really know. Like, I mean, we're getting, you know, these companies are telling us like, oh yeah, it's private and that's your stuff. But I don't know. It's, you know, we're, we're, uh, when something is like brand new like this, I think it is important to be a little bit more on the cautious side. I think you also need to, to think about like, what is your husband doing with these images? Is, are these for his private use or is he sending them around to his friends? And maybe he's thinking like, oh, well it's AI. It's like not actually what my partner looks like. So like, it's okay to send them to my buddies. Yeah.

Look, I gave myself an 8-inch dick.

Yeah. You know? So there's a lot of other scenarios that are wrapped up around this. So I would really get clear on asking him, like, what are you doing with these photos? Like, what purpose are they serving for you? Yeah.

I mean, look, there is totally a world in which I don't even care about normalcy. There's a world in which both of you guys are on board with this. Hell yeah.

Yeah. Make your own rules.

Make all the videos you want. That's awesome if you're both into it. I'm assuming that probably you are not 100% on board with this because of the way you asked the question. If you had asked, is it normal for me and my husband to be really turned on by making AI videos of us? That would imply to me that you are more on board with this. Yeah. And I mean, the other thing too is like, you know, 'cause like people, we haven't considered this before when our previous parallel to this, like I'd said, was Filming yourself, right? If you have a video camera and you are filming yourself having sex, and you guys are both on board with that, you pretty much would view that as like, this is us filming ourselves. The fact that we are filming ourselves doesn't create any other danger. Just because my partner, or just because my husband has a camera to film us, doesn't mean that he's going around Filming other people having sex, right? Because like, how would he even do that? This is totally different though. He has the tools at his disposal to write a prompt that says, make a video of me and my wife having sex. He could literally switch out your name. He could send a picture of your friend and be like, actually, now swap out my wife for this person, right? Mm-hmm. So it's like, I think that where we can get a little hung up is we go, oh yeah, well, this is basically just the same as taking a video of us. But you have to ask yourself, well, is it really? Because he could now be making videos just as easily, if not easier, because there are publicly available images of all kinds of celebrities and of anybody out there. It's just as easy to make videos of somebody else. And then how would you feel about that? I'm not trying to say that your husband is doing all of that. It's just you got to ask yourself, Do we even want to have these, the temptation of these tools at our disposal? Personally, for me, no, I don't want that.

Yeah. So how would you feel if I said, I want to use AI to make naked photos and videos of us having sex?

Well, I mean, kind of based on everything I just said, no, I wouldn't be. It feels like, I mean, well, if we were to do it, I wouldn't want to send naked pictures of us, first of all. But still, I don't like the idea of There being, you know, there being an output of video of us, because especially now the video that AI can make is really fucking real, can be really fucking realistic. And yeah, yes, we are living in a day and age now where basically any video that comes out of someone, you can be like, oh, that's AI, whatever. Like, the reality is this is going to be just— this is going to be our reality that most of videos that come out of people are no longer going to be real. And we're just gonna kind of get numb to that, I believe. But still, I don't like the idea of like, who knows what happening. Like, I would not be surprised if some of these sites are like selling outputs of their stuff on like the dark web or putting them onto like porn sites, like AI porn sites. Like, I don't even know what's going on out there because I don't fuck with that stuff. But yeah, no, it doesn't feel good to me. And also just the— like, it would be too easy for that to like turn into Oh, well, I'm kind of curious, like, what I would look like if I looked a little different, or if Vanessa looked a little different, or looked like this person.

Oh yeah, that's another interesting part of it too.

Yeah, how do you modify your bodies?

Yeah, like, would you feel comfortable? Okay, so let's say somebody feels like, sure, my partner can make naked pictures of me with AI, whatever. But how would you feel if your partner was then altering your body? Like making your breasts bigger, or your butt bigger, or taking weight off of your body? Like, that gets real weird real fast.

Like I'm saying, this feels like a whole can of worms I would rather not touch.

Or like, what about— oh my God, we have time.

Oh my God.

No, I'm like, we need to like redo our AI freebie because there's so many other scenarios. What if your partner was making videos of specific sex acts that you were not willing to do in real life?

Ooh.

That's fascinating because I could see it going a lot of different ways. Some people might say like, let's pick something specific. Let's say somebody doesn't want to get, like, have anal sex.

I was about to suggest that.

Okay, so I could see some women saying, well, hey, I'm not ever gonna have anal sex with him, so if he wants to, like, make this little video of us doing it, sure, go after it. And then I could see other women saying, like, that feels—

That's not very good though, 'cause then he's, like, looking, then he's, like, jacking off to it, like, oh yeah, you know, then it's, like, creating—

I'm just trying to make space, like, everybody has different feelings about everything, and there, again, are no right and wrong answers here. It's every couple's responsibility to decide for themselves. So I'm just saying, I can imagine some women might say, whatever, I don't care. I'm not gonna do that in real life, so sure, make your little video. And I could imagine, you know, way more women saying like, no, this feels super violating. I've told you this is something I'm not comfortable with, and now you're making this hyper-realistic video of me. You're using my likeness. You're forcing, you know, this My likeness to do this act that I've said I'm not willing to do. Or like having an orgy or something like that, or having other men fuck you. I mean, there's so many things that you could do here.

Oh, I know. That's why it's kind of—

This is gnarly. Honestly, this is such a crazy, crazy world that we are in now.

I mean, it is—

I could spend the rest of this entire episode just talking about this question.

I mean, it is kind of— this might sound kind of trippy or weird, but it is it is like you can print your imagination. It's like we kind of— we don't really talk about imagination being a problem because it is just imagination. It disappears. Like, you know, it, it doesn't— it's not permanent. It doesn't stick around. It's not like totally lucid. And it's like now we have this capability with stuff like that where it's like anything that you can imagine, you can one, imagine it, you can describe it, and then you actually get an output that is a replica of it and then, and then have it bring it to life. And that's, that is, that is kind of scary.

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talk about? I think we really have covered this one, man. I mean, this is like half of— let's get to some more questions for the people.

All right, why don't you ask the next one?

All right, is it normal to only have sex 4 times per year?

Another perfect example of why is this normal is not the useful question for us to be asking. So are there people who have sex only 4 times per year? Yes. Are there people who are happy with only having sex 4 times per year? Absolutely.

A small number of people, but yes.

Are there people who would be miserable having sex only 4 times per year? Oh yeah.

Probably a lot more.

And ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is how do you feel? Only having sex 4 times per year. Does that feel like enough for you? Does that feel connecting? Does it feel like it sustains and nurtures your relationship? That's what matters.

Now, I doubt— given that you included the word only in your question, I'm guessing that probably— I'm guessing that if I'm really just gonna read into this, I'm guessing that this might be a situation where life is really getting in the way. Things are maybe challenging in the relationship. And so you having sex 4 times a year may feel appropriate given what is going on in your relationship, in your life. But there is that part of you and/or your partner who is like, hey, this is not okay. This doesn't feel right. And so, I mean, so yeah, I think if you're saying, is it normal to only have blah, blah, blah? Yeah. I mean, it is normal in the sense that when shit is going down, when things are tough, it can be really hard to want to be having sex. It can be really hard to prioritize having sex. So that is normal. But it is also very normal to know in the back of your mind, hey, something is not right here. Like, this is not what, this is not what, you know, our relationship looked like in a healthier era of our relationship. This is not what many people's, you know, this is not what a, you know, many people's— Yeah. people's healthy relationships look like. Unless, of course, you're like, yeah, no, things are great. Both of us are super happy. We're in communication about this a lot. Mm-hmm. Because sex is, you know, in a non-asexual relationship, sex is an important part of a relationship that we understand is something that typically happens in monogamous relationships just between the two of us. And so even if we are not having it very frequently, it's important for us to check in Because it's important for both of us to be happy and feel like our needs are being met.

You know, this also reminds me that I don't think we've really talked on the podcast about how we're making a bit of a shift in who we are talking to. We haven't talked about that yet, have we? We just started talking about this on Instagram. But we've made a decision that we are really going to be focusing our content going forward on talking to couples who want to have an extraordinary sex life. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you currently have one. Maybe you do and you're like, it's great and I wanna keep it great. I love it. I think the vast majority of people are like, we're doing okay, but I would like it to be better, right? And that's really who we are gonna be talking to because we do come across, and there are, I think I would venture to say the majority of people in the world Just don't really care about having a great sex life. You know, and it's not— They

want it to be good enough.

They want— maybe not even that.

Or they want it to be enough so that no one's really actively complaining about it.

I don't know. I want to be really careful and clear here that I'm not trying to judge or blame people. We have all grown up believing that sex is this embarrassing taboo thing. We've all grown up thinking like it's just It's not just sex. There are other things that are more important. So many different negative messages that we get as women, like good girls aren't supposed to want to do that. Women aren't supposed to want it too much. We're supposed to be putting the brakes on things. So we all have very complicated relationships with sex, and most of us are still unpacking that, including us. We have our own baggage around sex, our own limiting beliefs around it. But ultimately what we've been realizing is there are a lot of people who aren't willing to make any changes, don't really want to make any changes. There are a lot of people who like complaining better than taking action to make things better. There are a lot of people who are just stuck and having a hard time getting themselves out of that stuck place.

And I think there's a lot of people that want us to co-sign Mm-hmm. On or validate them being stuck or them being like in a challenging spot. And therefore, yeah, it's cool to not focus on your sex life. We get so many comments and questions from people where they try to say, hey, well, in this type of situation, isn't it okay to not focus on our sex life? And I think the reality is you don't have to have an extraordinary, completely super hyperactive sex life 100% of the time in your relationship, but you do always need to look out for your sex life. I mean, pretty much most— sex is one of the top 3 things that people divorce over, and it usually comes at the tail end of one of those periods where one or both people aren't focusing on it and they're slowly building and building resentment. And once you get to that point, it's really hard to come back from it. So it's like, no, neither of us are willing to be like, oh, we're just so busy right now between work and the kids and stuff. And so for the next couple years, we just aren't going to worry about sex. And neither of us feel willing to be like, oh yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

Yeah. And we were realizing that we were spending a lot of time trying to convince people to care about this, and it was taking a lot of energy and time. We're fighting a lot of resistance around it, and we ultimately realized, like, there already are a lot of people who are on board with this idea that sex is important. They want to prioritize it. They want to put effort into it. And in that group of people, there are a lot of people who are struggling with that. Like, I want this so badly, but oh my god, I'm so tired, and we're disconnected, and our Our plates are so full, but like, please tell us, like, what can we do to get there? And so we wanna devote our energy and our time to giving those people tangible tools and resources and pep talks and empathy and compassion, rather than spending so much time and energy trying to convince people like, this is important. You need to care about this. Your relationship's really gonna struggle if you don't. So I just really want to emphasize that word want. It does not mean things are already perfect. It does not mean this is easy for you. It does not mean that it's always been incredible for you. It just means that you want it. There have been seasons in our relationship where it has felt like such a struggle. So we have not had a perfect sex life for the entirety of our relationship.

We don't even have a perfect one now, babe.

We don't. I don't think there is such a thing as a perfect sex life. perfect sex life, but that's a separate conversation. But what has been there is the recognition that sex is important. Yes. So going back to this question, you know, it made me think of that, because if you're, you know, if you're wanting to have a great sex life and feeling like, oh man, it's just, it's feeling so tough right now, it's only, we're only doing it 4 times a year, it feels so awkward, we have X, Y, and Z on our plate, like, that's what we want to speak to. But if you're, for people who are just feeling feeling stuck, just feeling like all they want to do is complain about it, people who just want to settle, like then that's— yeah.

Yeah, if your sex life isn't very important to you, and it's not very important to your partner, and you're good with 4 times a year, go on with it. You should also probably stop following us because our content is only going to make you wonder if something is wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you.

Unfollow. Yeah, unfollow if I mean, I always encourage people, like, people should be more discerning about who we follow. Like, if somebody, if an account doesn't make you feel good, if it's not teaching you anything, if it's not making you laugh, like—

Or it's not stretching you, it's not pushing you. You're like pushing you in a positive way, like a coach might, you know, like in a sport where it's like, ugh, I don't want to do that, but I know that this is for the best.

Yeah, but I think it's okay. Like, sometimes people have told us, I'm in a season right now where I can't I can't do your tips. You know, maybe it's like they have a child going through an extreme medical condition or a parent has gotten sick or their partner's really, you know, there are all kinds of understandable reasons why you might be in a season where you just can't prioritize this right now. But a lot of people will tell us, I keep following you for a reminder that this is just a season in life and a reminder that like eventually it will get better and I will know like Here's what I can do. So I'm like, I'm filing the tips away to use in the future. So that's a good reason to just say following. But anyways, yeah, I thought it was important for us to talk about that. Okay, let's go to the next one. I know my wife enjoys sex because she says so, but I don't feel it by her actions during sex. Is that normal? Should I just take her word for it?

This is a really good question. This kind of line that, hey, my partner says that they enjoy it, but I don't really see that, especially also adding in the gender aspect of it. Like, my female partner says she enjoys it, but I don't really feel it by her actions. I feel like that is a fairly normal thing because of the way that we have been societally conditioned around sex. I think that it is fairly normal to feel like, well, I'm supposed to tell my partner that sex is good. Whether it is or not. And then also it is fairly normal as a woman to feel like you're not really supposed to do that much during sex or that it's kind of something that happens to you or you are kind of doing the pillow princess thing. And so I think that it is normal to have this experience. Now, it is important To be able to talk to your partner about this. I don't think that this is a situation where it's like, hey dude, she says she enjoys it, so stop doubting her. I think it's not about whether she enjoys it or not. It's more a question for you. Are you looking for a little more participation from your partner during sex? Let's forget about the enjoyment part for a minute and just think about What do you want your sex life with your partner to look like? Do you want to be having a sex life where it seems like where your partner is a little more involved with you? If the answer is yes, then that is an important conversation to have. Then the second conversation is, okay, so what can we do to make it as enjoyable as possible so that you can feel comfortable or feel like in integrity with really Yeah,

there are just so many layers here. So I do want to acknowledge we women have been socialized to be caregivers and to pay more attention to our partner's experience than our own. So a lot of women will tell their partner, oh yeah, it's great. I love it. Yeah, I totally had an orgasm. That was so wonderful. So there is a decent likelihood that she's just given lip service here, that she thinks her experience isn't as important as his, that she thinks it's her job to just soothe his ego and make him feel good about the sex that they're having.

And to be clear, I don't think that in a situation like that, it's not like she's actively lying to you. This is like, This is like a, we think we are doing the right thing. We think we are doing the thing we're supposed to, because that's all that we've seen on TV and in movies. I mean, yeah, have you ever seen, like, in a romance film, like, the couple finally has sex, and then he's like, oh, how was that for you? And she's like, actually, I didn't really feel very much because you didn't touch my clit.

Yeah.

Like, you don't ever see that played out. And so it's like, you think that you are doing the right thing, the thing that you are supposed Supposed to do. And in reality, you're actually hurting both of yourself, both of each other, both parties. Both of you. Both of you. There you go.

So there's that aspect of it. There is also, so he says, I don't feel it by her actions during sex. Women also have the tendency to be a little self-conscious during sex of like, oh, I don't want to make a weird noise. I don't want to make a weird face. I'm supposed to let my partner dictate the experience. And some women, maybe they— some women are just really tuned into their experience and trying to soak up the sensation, the experience.

We've had that between us.

We have had that between us. We've talked before about Like, when I orgasm, I tend to go a little bit internal and focus on the sensations. And early in our relationship, we had a really big misunderstanding where Xander thought I was totally checked out. So that could be a possibility too, that she genuinely is into it but for whatever reason isn't super participatory during sex. So the only way to know is you gotta ask her. And so I want to give this person some language for how to approach it because this is a conversation that could go off the rails so easily and you could make her get defensive really quickly.

Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Do you think that he might be focusing on the wrong question here?

Is this normal?

No, no, not the is this normal. Or should I take her word for it? Yeah, no, no, like the wrong— not the wrong question. Is he focused on the wrong aspect? of the situation. Like, I— he's focused on the enjoyment part of it, but is that maybe like the wrong thing to be concerned about? Because I worry that, like, I'm assuming what's behind this is like he's asked her if she's enjoying it. He's maybe brought up to her like, hey, I don't totally see that you're enjoying it. Like, do you really enjoy it? And she's like, Oh, just take my word for it. That's why earlier I was saying, ask about the enjoyment second. I would focus first on like, I'm feeling a little alone when we have sex. I'm not really— it often feels like I don't really have an active participant with me in it. Because I think that what he is— what's under all of this is that he would like to see her more involved. He would like to see her enjoying herself more and being involved in the situation, in the experience with him.

Well, we don't totally know. But I think what I would do actually is I would first try to ask her questions about what are her favorite parts of sex? What are the things that she wants to do the most? Because those are more— if you go in hot and heavy with like, It feels like you're not there with me. Mm-hmm. It depends on how many conversations. If they've already talked about this a whole bunch and it feels like it's getting nowhere, then I would go in that direction. If they have not talked about this at all yet or very minimally, then what I would do is I would focus instead on what— like how to make the experience the best for her. And there are like more positive questions that you could ask her in that regard. Like, what are your favorite parts of sex? What are your favorite things that we do together? If I wanna give you the best ever experience, what could I do? If we were to have a night, you know, a night of sex that was all about you, what would we do? Mmhmm. What's something I could do tonight to help you feel the most pleasure and connection, right? So focus on that, trying to get to know her a little bit better. What is she really like? What does she enjoy? What is she wanting? And that'll feel good for her because she'll feel like, oh, my partner really cares and is trying to give me a great experience. So I would go that route first. Then if you get a lot of answers from her like, oh, what we're doing is great. No, I don't know. I can't think of anything. If you get that kind of stuff or it's just like the same thing all over again, then I think I would go a layer deeper and say something like, hey, I wanna check in about this. I know, you know, you've told me that you enjoy the sex that we're having, and I think I'm feeling a little— and I, you know, I believe you, and I'm feeling a little bit of a disconnect in the moment sometimes because I don't really, like, feel you fully there with me. And the connection that we share is really important to me. It's so— like, I feel so close to you during sex. It feels like this incredibly intimate, very connecting thing that we do, and I want to, like, I want to feel that, and I want us both Both, you know, to feel super connected to each other. So I want to know like what we can each do to really feel vulnerable and present with each other and open with each other in those moments.

Yeah, I mean, I think you could even add like, you know, I'm finding myself starting to feel a little self-conscious in the moment of like, I really want to kind of let myself go and like show you how much I'm enjoying this. You know, I'm feeling a little hesitant because it's like I can't I can't really see you doing the same thing. And so, you know, it makes me wonder if I should be, you know, maybe not censoring myself, but like, you know, holding back a little bit because I don't want to be the only one that's like making a lot of noise or saying a lot of things or telling you how much I love that. That feels like a little one-sided or weird. Mm-hmm. And it's like, I don't want to be. I want this to be— I want us to have a sex life where we both feel like we can really let go and be vulnerable with each other.

Oh, I have one last idea too. You could also get our Ultimate Sex Positions Guide and present it in a really fun, playful way. Like, hey, I found this really sexy guide online. It looks super fun for us to do. If Your partner knows that you follow us. Maybe it's like, oh, you know that couple that we follow on Instagram? I'm always sending you their stupid reels. Like, they have this really fun-looking guide and I decided to grab it for us. A lot of couples tell us that one of the best benefits of getting one of our guides is that you can like blame it on the guide, that it helps open up conversations. It helps you try new techniques, but it doesn't feel vulnerable.

Yeah, 'cause you have to try them and then talk about them. Like, oh, you know what? I didn't actually love that one. Oh wow, that one was really great.

Yeah, like we walk you through in all of our guides, like there's a specific structure for it. Like here's how you try the thing, here are the questions that you ask each other about, here's how you talk about it afterwards. So it doesn't— it feels so different from you saying like, hey, I want to do this different thing in bed, or I want to try this position. It's like, oh, we're just— we bought the guides, we might as well like try the suggestions.

Yeah, especially if she is thinking that she's soothing your ego by being like, oh yeah, it's good. Then it's like, no, here, like, we're actually gonna try a bunch of things that I didn't even know about that this weird couple on the internet told us to try all these positions. So in her mind, she's already thinking, oh, this isn't about his ego. This isn't about his ego. They're telling me that there are— I don't even know how many positions we have in there now. It's like over 50 or almost 50, something like that. Wow. Where it's like, oh, there's these 51. They're telling us That some of them we're not going to like, but some of them we might really like, right? Like, it's a personal preference thing. So that's going to kind of flip that thing in her head where all of a sudden she's probably going to feel more naturally comfortable being like, oh yeah, you know what? That wasn't for me. Or like, oh wow, that was actually, that was really cool. I didn't, you know, that angle really worked for me in a way. And then you're like, oh, okay. I love hearing it. Then you can start giving positive feedback. Yeah. Ooh, I'd love to know that. It's so hot when you tell me in the moment that that's feeling really good. It's just that little avenue that gets you started being able to positively reinforce the things that you're looking for.

Yeah. So if you want to check out Ultimate Sex Positions, you can go straight to vmtherapy.com/positions. That's vmtherapy.com/positions. And we will also put the link to that in the show notes. If you want to just navigate over there and tap.

All right, let's do one more. Is it normal to never want to try a position or a blowjob again after having one bad experience? How bad of an experience are we talking?

That's the first question.

Is this like big T trauma or a little t trauma?

Yeah, and that's a— it's a really important and very serious question, honestly. So if you've had a really traumatic experience with sex that felt boundary-violating, that felt unsafe, that felt scary, it makes perfect sense to not want to do that thing again. I think it's so important for us to recognize that our bodies are hardwired to avoid physical and emotional pain. And if something is unpleasant, scary, painful, traumatizing for us, it makes perfect sense to not want to do that thing again. Now, that being said, I think it's really important for you to make a conscious decision about whether or not you want to avoid that thing going forward.

Versus, oh, just can't do that ever again.

We haven't mentioned this in a while, but we have a resource for female survivors of sexual trauma trauma. If you go to vmtherapy.com/free, scroll to the bottom, it's called A Survivor's Guide, and it walks you through reclaiming your sex life, honestly, like making sex feel safe, fun, and pleasurable again. And one of the things that we talk about in that guide is this exact topic, is, you know, you deciding for yourself what you want your sex life to look like. So having a lot of compassion, empathy, understanding for yourself of like, Let's use the blowjob example. Like, yeah, I had a really violating experience with a blowjob. It makes sense that I don't wanna ever do blowjobs again. And I want blowjobs to be a part of my life, and I wanna find ways to make them feel safe and enjoyable and pleasurable again. And I think that process of reclaiming your sex life, of deciding for yourself what you want to do or not do, That is so important. So I would highly recommend working through that guide. So that's kind of one end of it. The other end of it would be like if it was just like awkward or maybe unpleasurable or unenjoyable. So it's not that it was traumatizing. There was no boundaries violated. There was no lack of safety, lack of consent. It's just like, oh, I like— we tried to do doggy style, but he couldn't get it in and it kept slipping out and it felt really awkward.

Or me. Maybe it could be even a little further, like, oh, we tried to do this other position, we were fumbling around, he lost his erection, and then we kind of like got into a fight about it. Because like, in that case, I can understand a lot of people are like, oh God, that was so embarrassing and felt so bad. We just cannot do it. We cannot risk that happening again. Yeah. And that is the cycle that so many people get into. Like, that's literally why we wrote our book. book, Sex Talks, is like, I feel like 90%, 95% of people have had that experience where there's a weird, icky, kind of like weird sex thing that happens, and then there's an argument that happens, and they feel icky about it. And their takeaway is instead of, hey, we need to figure out a better way to communicate about this, their takeaway is better not communicate about this ever again so that this doesn't happen.

So yeah, we We have a couple of thoughts about this. One thing that we usually say is do the third time's the charm rule for new things that you try in the bedroom. Give something 3 tries before you fully decide it's not for you. Well, because we also have another rule we call the first pancake rule. When you're making pancakes, the first one always turns out a little weird. You don't know why.

The griddle's not hot enough. You didn't put enough butter on, whatever.

Yeah, it always turns out a little bit weird. Sex is the same way. The very first time you try something, it often feels weird and awkward and it doesn't go exactly how you planned it to be. So if you give something like 3 solid tries, and I want to be, I want to be super clear, like if something causes you pain, it feels like deeply uncomfortable, you have this strong sense of like, I don't ever want to do that again. Like let's say you explore with some sort of kink or something like that and you're like, absolutely not. That's okay to have like a one-and-done kind of thing. But for most Most things, give it 3 tries.

Especially a sex position or a sex act, like something like a blowjob, I guess a standard sex act. It's so tricky because like—

It is tricky. I don't really know what is standard or not standard.

We're talking about normal and like what is normal and what is not normal. But I mean, I think it is fair to say that oral sex, manual sex, intercourse are fairly, are generally expected and accepted

Those are tough.

I know. It is really tough. But most people, those are things that are normally on the table that are— unless we are really talking about it, it's like, yeah, we don't want this to really be a part of our sex life. In most of what we talk about, these are the things that we focus on.

Yeah. I can't fully co-sign the language there because I don't like defining certain things as standard or not standard. Okay, so like, yeah, if there is something— let's say like you haven't— it's not like you've pushed yourself out of your comfort zone to do something, then give yourself 3 chances. Basically, all we're doing here is we're trying to normalize things do not go perfectly the very first time. That is okay. Like, give yourself that permission to be imperfect in bed, to have to like figure something out. Yeah, especially with something like sex positions. I mean, that's why we made freaking Ultimate Sex Positions with the level of detail that we did, with like how to get into the position, how to move in the position, what positions transition well into, you know, other positions from it, how to get out of the position, like because positions can be tricky. I think most of us feel like we're just instinctually supposed to be so good at it, but it's not. It's a skill. It's something that we need to learn and develop. So I just want to normalize things not going perfectly the very first time, and I think a blowjob is really similar. We've never learned how to give blowjobs except in Ultimate Foreplay Guides, our other guide.

Where Vanessa and I will teach you.

That one's at vmtherapy.com/foreplay. We'll put that link in the show notes as well, but we like, you know, walk you through step by step, but if you don't If you don't know the technique, it's very easy to feel self-conscious, to feel like you're messing it up. I mean, the first time that I gave a blowjob, my boyfriend said, Vanessa, it's just called a blowjob. You have to suck. I didn't know what I was doing.

Whistling a dick.

So I just want to normalize that, and it's such a human experience for us to do something To like, if we feel like we've done a bad job or we feel embarrassed, to like not want to do it again. It's like, I don't want to make a fool out of myself again. I did such a bad blowjob. I don't want to do it again. But again, the bottom line here is I want to normalize like sex is a skill. It takes time for us to learn and develop and refine that skill. So be patient with yourself. Be generous with yourself. Like, give yourself that space to learn. If you have that attitude about your sex life, you will have an infinitely better sex life. I promise you. All right. Wow. That was fun. We only got through 4 questions, but that AI one was— that deserved the deep dive. That was a doozy. Oh my God. That absolutely deserved the deep dive. So we've got a ton of other questions that we did not get to. We'll save 'em for another episode. Please always feel welcome to reach out to us on Instagram if you have an is this normal question. You can find us @VanessaAndXander on Instagram. And yeah, that's all for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week. We release new episodes every Thursday. Bye.