EPISODE 109: This ONE Thing Is Secretly Affecting Your ENTIRE Relationship

Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Zander 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 relationships 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. Thanks to Dipsea for supporting Pillow Talks. Dipsea is an audio app full of short sexy stories. If you're looking to light a spark or heat things up, there's a story waiting for you. Get an extended 30 day free trial when you go to dipsystories.com pillow we need to talk about something very important today.

Yes, we do.

Very important conversation we need to have. We did this very casual Instagram poll a few weeks back. I think it was in the midst of a bunch of other polls about different things. And we just asked, like, is initiation working in your relationship?

And we were shocked.

We were shocked. I remember swiping up on that story to see the results and discovering that only 17% of people said yes.

Less. Less than one in five people.

Yeah. So if we do the math real quick, 83% of people felt that initiation was not working in their relationship.

Did your heart sink a little when you saw that?

It did. I mean, I've always known, like, initiation. Of course, it's one of the challenges that so many of us couples struggle with in relationships. Like, it's a huge part of sex, but I didn't realize how bad it was.

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people just don't think of initiation when they're thinking of kind of sex or maybe what their issues might be when it comes to sex. Like, people go like, oh, I don't feel very confident, or like, I'm not really enjoying it.

I don't have much desire. Yeah, yeah. Really think about.

Yeah, yeah. Like our. Our desires are mismatched. But 17 of people, only 17% of people say initiation is working. 83% of people say the initiation is not working. Like, this should be one of the number one things that people are talking about, but they aren't.

So we got really curious about this and we decided, you know what, let's dig a little bit deeper. Let's put together a whole survey and see what is coming up for couples around initiation and the results from that survey. Shocking. Absolutely shocking. And not in a good way. So we knew right away. Okay, we've gotta do a whole episode to break this down. Look at these surveys. Survey results. Take a look at like, what are we getting wrong about this? And what kind of impact is it having on our relationship? So that's what this whole episode is about. How initiation is killing your sex life and killing the intimacy in your relationship. And we know this sounds very dire. Like we know we're talking about this as a big concern and something that we're worried about. But we promise we have some incredible solutions for you. So stay.

Yeah, I mean, and you're gonna have to stay tuned because first we gotta get into our review of the week.

Oh, look at that.

Yeah. So tune in for the review of the week right now. Just kidding, you're already here. Sex, humor and psychology all in one. I'm so glad they called out the humor because I was trying to be really funny with that transition. Wow. Rude. Rude. I mean, hey, I'm okay. I'm okay with self deprecating humor too.

Just continue on, babe.

Yeah, okay. I'll keep. Followed them on Instagram for years and this is what the people need. Other than expanding how we think and talk about sex and relationships. Their words and lessons have improved my self image, worldview and the way I speak to myself. Highly recommend on your own or with your partner.

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Okay, so let's get into it. Like Xander was saying in the intro, I think initiation, it's just something that most of us don't really think that much about outside of those couple of moments when it's actually happening right there. We don't even really see initiation on TV and in the movies. If you think about it like whenever characters are about to have sex, it's either it just cuts immediately to them having sex or maybe it's like they just give each other the look and it's on. So I think that leaves most of us with this feeling that initiation shouldn't really be necessary. Like it's supposed to just happen spontaneously. Like the initiation isn't even a part of it. We just like skip right to the sex.

Yeah. I mean, and the other problem with this is that often at the beginning of a relationship or at the beginning of you starting to have sex with a new partner, and it can actually feel a bit like that. Like it does feel like it just happens or it feels like you don't really have to put that much effort into the initiation either. And one of the reasons for that is that like, let's just kind of rewind the tape a bit. Like, you know, you're dating someone. You know, obviously if you're dating, you don't live together, you meet up, you go on a date. Then maybe you go back to one of your houses. Like there's sort of this logical structure or like logical time when you would initiate, when you would have sex. And so it's kind of like both people. There's this almost like unspoken thing of, okay, like we went on a date, it was a good date, now we are going back to someone's house. Like, we are probably going to hook up. And so it can feel like it's. It just happens because it's going to. Both people just kind of know what's going to happen. So you might feel like, okay, I don't really need to say very much like we just kind of do it. The thing is, is that that's not how initiation ends up looking once we get into long term relationships. Right.

Yeah. So then when you get to that phase of a longer term relationship where initiation does start to feel more complicated, more annoying, more frustrating. Just feel like it's not really working. It leaves us completely unprepared for how to handle it. So as we mentioned, we put together this survey. We wanted to take a deeper dive into what's really happening for people around Initia. And we were shocked to discover that almost 10,000 people filled it out. And we only shared this like two times. I think like we didn't push it very much at all, but 10,000 people wanted to fill it out, which is just a bananas number. We've done other surveys in the past and have not had that level of excitement and engagement around it. So people were clearly very passionate about this topic and really wanted to talk about it.

Yeah, no, we've done a number of surveys and you know, over time we get a lot of results responses. But for the first time of running a survey and for only mentioning it a couple of times, we have never had this many people, you know, like banging on the door basically to answer the survey.

So one of the questions that we asked we did kind of a combination of quantitative and qualitative answers. And so one of the first questions we asked is what does initiation really look like in your relationship? Like what's coming up for you and your partner around it? So we're going to read you some of the responses. We just feel so awkward about it. Neither of us wants to do it and we both feel attacked and get defensive when the other person tries to bring it up.

My partner initiates in the worst times. They never read the room and it almost always winds up turning into a fight.

Both of us wait for the other person to initiate, which just causes no one to initiate. And sex doesn't happen as often. Also, as the partner who more frequently initiates, I'm just frustrated that it's usually me. I want him to want me and as a woman, it makes me feel like something is wrong with our relationship. Isn't he supposed to want it all the time? Aren't I supposed to be swatting him away? I know other women complain about their husbands initiating all the time, but I find myself feeling jealous of this.

I'm terrified of rejection. I just can't bring myself to even try.

My partner's initiation is so do you wanna. Or sometimes he'll just start grabbing at me out of nowhere in a really unsexy way. It makes me feel like a piece of ass. Like I'm just there to take, take care of his needs.

My partner's expressed that they're not comfortable initiating and they don't know how. I get burnt out from carrying the mental load of keeping track of our sex life and the responsibility of keeping the flame alive.

There's no way of telling when my partner is in the mood. It feels like a shot in the dark every time.

I absolutely want initiation to feel easier for both of us. But how?

I wonder how many people are listening to this being like, check, that's me. Check, that's also me. Check, that's also me.

Yeah, I think there's something for nearly anyone to relate to in those because, yeah, I mean, those, those were the most common types of responses that we got. And I think that really just encapsulates, like, what is going on in at least 83% of relationships.

We also asked, how does it make you feel when you hear a no from your partner? So, obviously, initiation, like, we're trying to figure out, am I going to get a yes? Am I going to get a no? And we wanted to dig a little bit into what happens when your partner not open to it. So our survey responses covered things like rejected. It makes me not want to initiate in the future. It affects my self esteem negatively. He's no longer attracted to me or wants me. Like I'm not good enough. Deflated. Sometimes I'm just embarrassed, and sometimes I feel insecure.

I feel not attractive. My confidence is shot. Shame. Like I shouldn't want to have sex. Humiliating. It feels weird and somewhat heartbreaking.

Now let's get into the more quantitative responses that we got to the survey. So one of the things that we wanted to get a sense of is like, who is really initiating sex in our relationship. So, Xander, I'm gonna turn these all over to you. As our resident data guy, you spent an entire day going over these survey responses. You got hooked. Like, I had to tell you to stop.

It was, it was fascinating. I mean, when we brainstormed, like, what the questions in the survey were going to be, you know, obviously whenever we do a survey, we, we want it to be a situation where we get the results back. And there are fascinating results. There's a lot of ways to slice and dice and a lot of observations and trends to notice. But when you're doing surveys, like, you don't always know. And so we had the question and we kind of came up with, okay, these are the questions that we want to ask. And we didn't really know what it was going to look like when we got the data back. It was like, you know, I thought initially that it might just be, you know, a more simple matter of reporting, like, okay, well, this number. It's, you know, it's like, evenly split. In this number of relationships, most people say yes, these people say no. And you would just kind of be like, check, check, check, check. Like, go through each question and kind of report the results. But there was a lot more in this one, so it was. It was very exciting for me.

Okay, so data nerd, who is initiating sex in relationships?

Well, first of all, I want to say initiation was evenly split or fairly evenly split in very few relationships, in just one of five relationships. So, you know, this is kind of similar to those numbers we were talking about. Not. I'm not trying to say that if it's evenly split, it's working well, but, you know, this is sort of the same type of number as the, you know, the 17% that was saying that initiation is working well. So it's not. It's not evenly split in the vast majority of relationships. Now, gender plays a huge role in how often sex is initiated or who is initiating sex. So we found men are initiating sex way, way, way more often than women. So men were over five times more likely to say that they were the one to almost always initiate than women. So that's, like, a huge difference right there. So you might be thinking, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Like, you know, there's all those stereotypes of, you know, men always want sex. They're. They're up for it whenever. Right? So, like, of course men should be initiating sex more if they're the ones who always want it. Right. But we know that that's actually not true. In fact, it's pretty split when it comes to who wants sex more in male female relationships. Like, we've polled our audience before, and we know that 48% of women in our community report that they have a higher sex drive than their male partner. So you can already see that there's. There's some big issues if, you know, five times as many men are the ones that are almost always initiating. But we know that it's not like five times more men have a higher sex drive. It's totally evenly split. There's a huge gap. And clearly there are people who are wanting to have sex but are not initiating it.

Oh, you know, that just reminded me one thing that we forgot to mention before we got into these responses is how we looked at gender in relationships, because inclusivity is one of our core company values, and we do not make any of our content, assuming people's genders. So in the survey itself, we asked people, you know, like, what is your gender? What is your partner's gender? And we didn't want to just look at male female relationships. But maybe Xander is our data scientist over here. Can you explain, like, what happened when we looked at the responses that we got in terms of gender breakdowns in relationships?

Yeah, absolutely. So we did not get a ton of responses from. From non male female configured relationships. We did not get enough responses to be able to break down the data in a meaningful way, to be able to show, you know, to compare trends of, say, like, oh, well, like two men together versus, you know, a man and a woman together versus non binary versus, you know. Yeah. So when you look at all the different gender configuration options for a relationship, we were not able to, you know, get a high enough number of responses in order to. In order to be able to report on trends. So we are. We are mostly just looking at male, female relationship. We're not just looking at. We are only able to draw conclusions or to report on trends for male female relationships. However, we did ask, you know, what is your gender and what is your partner's gender? So whenever possible, we are. We are kind of. Instead of. Instead of just saying, oh, well, if you are a man, then we are going to assume your partner is a woman, we were actually looking at, okay, well, like, what are men saying? Or what are partners of women saying? What are partners of men saying? So that's, you know, that's our best way to be able to use all the data that we have. But when we are talking about dynamics in male female relationships, we are not talking about that because those are the only relationships that exist. Those are the only relationships that we have enough data on to be able to safely report on.

Okay, so one theme that came up in you analyzing all of this data was this idea of, like, do we actually initiate as much as we think we do?

Yeah. This is super interesting because we asked, how often do you think you initiate sex? And how often do you think your partner initiate sex? And because we also ask, like, what is your gender and what is your partner's gender? We are able to look at, like, how often do men say that they are initiating? And then how often do partners of men say that those men are initiating? And the same for women as well. And what we found was so interesting. Both men and women were way more likely to take credit for initiating a lot more often than their own partners or then partners of men and women Actually gave them credit for.

So we think we're doing better than we actually are.

Yeah. And, I mean, is this really that much of a surprise if we think about it? I think very often we tend to give ourselves a lot more credit for things, or we kind of are. We're quicker to let ourselves off the hook for something, and, you know, we're easier to kind of point. It's easier to point the finger at somebody else than it is at ourselves. So it's not a huge surprise. Once I saw the numbers and I was like, okay, yeah, we maybe we juice the stats a little bit for ourselves and, I don't know, take the juice out for our partner. I don't know the opposite. I don't know the opposite of juice the stats. But it wasn't just a difference in, like, who's doing it more. In fact, women were actually twice as likely as men to perceive initiation as pretty evenly split. So it may be a matter of, you know, women more women wanting to think that it's evenly split than. Than men were kind of willing to acknowledge. So that was also an interesting finding as well.

Okay, what about, like, how often are we saying yes to our partner? What did you find in the data?

So, again, there was a big gender difference here. Men were over twice as likely as women to be saying yes more than half the time their partner initiates.

Okay, so do we have a similar perception issue with saying yes as we do with initiating sex?

Yeah, so there are absolutely some big perceptual differences when it comes to, like, how often we feel like we are saying yes versus how often our partners think we are saying yes. And again, there is a big gender difference here. So men were way more likely to think that they were almost always saying yes, like, oh, yeah, I always say yes. However, partners of men were less likely to say that their male partner was always saying yes. On the flip side, partners of women were more likely to say that their female partner barely ever said yes. Thank you. Actual women reported barely ever saying yes. So, you know, more women were saying, oh, no. Like, I don't barely ever say yes. I say yes more often than not. But partners of women are more likely to be saying no. No. They are barely ever saying yes. So, you know, we. We tend to feel better about ourselves than we do about our partner when it comes to either how often we say yes or how not often we say yes.

Okay, so to make this, like, super simple, basically, the findings that we are getting is we all think that we are initiating a lot more than our partner thinks we're initiating.

Or at the very least, we think it's more evenly split than it really is.

And we also think that we are saying yes a whole lot more often than our partners are hearing a yes.

Yeah. So, I mean, you can imagine that this is a big problem because, you know, it's like if your partner is complaining about, you know, kind of the state of initiation or how much sex you're having, like you hear them complain, you're like, no, like, that's, that's not true. Like, I'm like, I'm saying yes way more, like more often than that, or I'm initiating sex more often than that. And like, but then your partner is like not agreeing with you. And so it's like, yeah, this is a big problem. If we don't talk about it openly, we all kind of assume we're doing better than we really are or we assume our partner is doing worse than they really are.

So you've been talking about the differences between men and women. And I think one of the things stereotypes that we have about men is like, oh, men are just easier to please. Like, they'll take whatever they can get. So what was the data showing? Like, are men actually easier to please when it comes to initiation?

The data does show that men are much easier to please when it comes with initiation. So that, that stereotype is kind of.

It does hold true.

It does hold true. Yeah. So actually 78%, so nearly four in five men say that they enjoy their partner's initiations more than half the time.

Okay.

Whereas only 41% of women. So like, basically double.

Like, men are twice as, like almost twice as likely to enjoy the initiation.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So like 2, 2 in 5 women enjoy their partners initiations more than half the time. Now let that one sink in for a minute because that is a, that's a, a big number. What we're saying is 59, like basically 60% of women are enjoying their partner's initiations less than half the time.

That's a big issue. Yeah, I mean, like, really big issue.

I mean, if you think about it, like, shouldn't the goal, the goal cannot be that you love it a hundred percent of the time because that's just not practical. But I do think that the goal should be that, you know, in a long term relationship, like, we know each other well, we understand each other, we want what's best for each other. Ideally, we should be enjoying each other's initiations the vast majority of the time. Right. Like Almost all the time, at least, usually. Right. But you know, 60% of women are actually enjoying it less than half the time. Like that's a big problem.

We also took a look at are people actively disliking it? So is it an issue of like, well, I don't really like, love it, but it's fine, or are people saying like, I actively dislike the way my partner initiates? So what did we find here?

Well, very, very, very few men said that they dislike their partner's initiations. So that, that's one data point. Women, however, are disliking initiation a lot more than men. 49% of women so half dislike their partner's initiations half the time or more.

Ooh, that's another bad one.

And, and, and 27% more occasionally dislike them. So like, basically that's a lot of disliking. So that's like, that is what, that's 70. I'm just doing the math here. That's 76%. That's over three quarters of women at least occasionally dislike or more their partner's initiations. Like that's pretty bad, guys. That is, that's horrendous. That is absolutely horrendous. Like, do you want your partner occasionally disliking your initiation? Like that doesn't sound good.

And you definitely don't want them disliking it half the time or more?

Oh no, no, no, not at all. So the bottom line with all of this, when it comes to disliking initiations, male initiations were three times more likely to be disliked than female initiation. So to all the men out there, regardless of who you sleep with, better work on your initiation.

Well, I think there's something to be said on both ends of it. And I am going to talk specifically about like male female relationships here. Like, yes, men definitely need to improve the way they initiate, but women need to be partners of these men and help them learn better ways to initiate too. Because I think there are, and you know, we hear from this, we hear from men every day. Like I'm trying but like, I don't know how, I don't know a better way or I feel so vulnerable, I feel so scared of rejection. I get rejected all the time that I just, you know, I go for these dumb jokey ways of initiating that I know aren't going to work. But at least I can kind of preserve a little bit of my dignity by saying like, oh, I was just joking. So it's a two way street here. Like, yes, men need to get better at it. Women also need to do more initiating, and we need to do more coaching of our partners. We need to work together as a team to understand how initiation can best work in our relationship.

Yeah, I mean, I think the other. The other thing kind of takeaway from this is that, you know, men are clearly saying, like, for the most part, I pretty much almost always, like, when my partner initiates, I pretty much always say yes. Like, I don't really ever dislike the way they initiate. So if your experience is, hey, whenever someone initiates sex with me, I'm pretty into it. It's easy to assume that the same will be true when you initiate with someone else. If your experience is that, like, however your partner does it, you're, like, pretty cool with it. Then without any feedback from your partner, without any clear, specific, like, hey, this is what I like, then you. You can't really fault your male partner for thinking, well, hey, I like it however she does it with me. So, like, you know, shouldn't she like it however I do it with her? Like, when we don't talk about it, we just kind of tend to. To see the world through our own eyes and kind of do the things that, you know, do the things that we would like done to us.

Well, I don't know, I gotta noodle on that one a little bit more because I do think like, one. I think about, okay, all these men who are like, oh, I'll take it whenever, wherever. Like, is that actually true? Because there is the stereotype that that's how men are. So how much of this is like, men being like, well, I'm supposed to be this way, versus this is how I actually am. I also wonder, have these men told their partners, like, I like when you initiate, like, you know, I'm pretty easygoing, or, like, anything you do turns me on? Because we do hear from so many women who are like, I don't know how to. I don't know what would turn my partner on. I don't know what they like. So sometimes I think if you hear your partner just say, like, oh, whatever, I'm fine. Do whatever you want. Like, that doesn't actually feel like a teammate. Like that.

Yeah.

You know, and I think that can even make some women feel like something is wrong with us if we do need something specific. I mean, we've. We've kind of talked about this in. In other contexts. Like, you tend to be a more chill, laid back person outside of the bedroom.

I was just thinking of this and.

Like, that can be really Frustrating for me because I, I can sometimes turn that around and judge myself for like, oh, I should be more chill and laid back and easygoing when the reality is like, yeah, sure, there are certain moments where I could work on more patience or more grace. But like, also, it's okay to be a human being who has needs and preferences and, you know, likes and dislikes. So it's like, just because you're more chill doesn't mean that's the only way to be or the best way to be. Just the same way that, like, even if your partner's like, you could literally slap me over the head and say, wanna fuck? And I'd be down, like, you know, that doesn't mean that that's, that's the right way or the only way or there's something is wrong with you if you want something more from your partner.

Yeah, it's not helpful to just be like, just do it. However, because then that puts all the work on your partner of, then they still have to figure out how to do it. You haven't actually been helpful by being like, it doesn't matter to me. They still have the brainstorm then all the ways and then they have to think, well, God, what would, like, what would feel authentic to me or what would feel good to me?

You know what else this makes me think of is like the classic, like, what do you want for dinner? And your partner's like, oh, I'll do whatever. It's like, that's not actually a good response. Like, that puts all the pressure back on me to say, like, okay, well now I have to think of what are the options and what do I like and am I going to suggest something and then you're going to be like, actually no, I don't want that. But I'm like, well, you said that you didn't care. You know, it's like, it doesn't help to just tell your partner, like, whatever you want.

Yeah. And I think the other thing that we didn't, we didn't get into this level of detail in the survey, but I would just venture a guess that despite men saying, yeah, pretty much, like, I'm into it pretty much however she does it, that doesn't mean that men like all those ways equally. Like, men still have preferences, things that turn them on more. The bar shouldn't just be like, oh, are you like a little bit turned on and ready to go. Like, if you're in a long term relationship, you love each other, you want to be turning each other on as much as possible. You want to be having, like, the best orgasms, right? Like, you don't want to just be like, yeah, sex should just be pretty darn mediocre. Like, so, yeah, like, think about what actually would turn you on the most. And, like, let's have our partners trying to initiate with us in those ways rather than just, like, I don't know, slap me in the face. Like, that's not a real initiation.

Patented technique. Vanessa and Xander's patented technique. Just. Just slap your partner over the head. Okay, let's get back to the data. One of the questions that we almost always get whenever we do any survey is like, okay, but what about parents? Like, does having kids change this in any way?

Nope. We looked at, you know, in terms of how often who's initiating, how often people are saying yes, looking at those perceptual differences, and we did not see kids affecting that, having kids or not having kids affecting that in any kind of meaningful way.

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Oh yeah. So, okay, two major, major takeaways. Two like really clear relationships that we saw. Now I just want to caveat this with saying like, because of the way we collected the data and this isn't, you know, like a proper, like double blind scientific study. I can't tell you that one like causes the other one. Just that there is a very clear relationship with these two things. So the first one is there is a clear negative relationship between how often people say yes and how often they dislike their partner's initiation. So people who tend to dislike their partner's initiations more often also say yes far less often.

That makes sense. Like if you're actively disliking your partner's initiations, like of course you're not going to want to be saying yes all the time. Yeah, that wouldn't make sense.

Yes. So yes makes a lot of logical sense. But there's also a very clear positive relationship between how often people say yes and how often they enjoy their partner's initiations. So people who tend to enjoy their partner's initiations more often also tend to say yes more often. And that's not just like a binary thing. It's like looking at the, the spectrum of, of how much you enjoy your partner's initiation or how often you enjoy it and how often you say yes. So like, the more often that you enjoy it, the more, more often you tend to say yes. So it's, you know, it's very clear. Like the more skillful you can get at initiation, the more likely it is that your partner is going to want to say yes. And the same for you. The more skillful your partner gets at initiation, the more often you are going to want to say yes.

So bottom line here is that we all need to learn the specific, specific ways of initiating that are really going to turn our partner on, that our partner is actually going to like. So I like to say initiation should feel like an invitation. You're inviting your partner to be intimate with you, to share an experience with you. So you want it to be an exciting, enticing, alluring, tempting invitation. And if we can get to that point, then we are going to be getting yes from each other a whole hell of a lot more often. Now, in our own relationship, we have had all sorts of challenges with initiation. I think I've mentioned before that for a long time, I didn't feel comfortable with initiation. I didn't feel confident with it, so I struggled to do it. We have definitely done plenty of bad initiation. We have definitely, like, rolled our eyes at each other. Like. Like, wait, really? That's how you're trying to get things going?

Yeah. I mean, I think we've also. We've also kind of, like, unsuccessfully tried doing the thing where it was like, there was, you know, there was a time where Vanessa had a much higher sex drive than I did. So it was like, okay, well, then, you know, if Xander doesn't want it as much, then Xander should do all of the initiation. So that.

Yeah, we've tried, like, putting one partner in charge of it.

Yeah, that didn't work.

Yeah, we've been through the ringer. We've had a lot of different stuff come up in our own own relationship. And so we know firsthand that it can feel really tempting to sweep initiation problems under the rug. And in particular to, like, just be annoyed in the moment. Like, either I don't like the way my partner initiated or like, I wish they initiated and they didn't. Like, we can get annoyed in the moment, but then we just, like, ignore that moment, and we don't actually do anything to try to fix the bigger issue.

I think the sweeping under the rug, I mean, that. That's just so common amongst, like. Like the whole gamut of. Of sex issues. Right? Like, we just desperately want to be normal when it comes to sex. And so anything that feels a little abnormal, it's so easy to just sweep it under that rug and be like, ignore it. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up different or things will Things will change magically.

And in particular with initiation, which, like we were saying earlier, is something we don't see examples of, we feel like we're not supposed to actively have to do it. Sex is just supposed to spontaneously happen. Like, it makes it so much EAS easier to just ignore it. And especially with initiation, which, like we mentioned earlier, is something that, like, we don't see examples of. We feel like we're not supposed to have to do it, or we didn't used to have to do it. Like, sex is just supposed to happen. We skip on past that step of actually initiating. Like, that makes it so much easier to just ignore it or sweep it under the rug. But what happened for us in our relationship is, and we realized if you don't get initiation, right, it can actually affect your entire relationship. It goes so, so much further than just that actual moment of initiating or not initiating. So the most obvious thing that can happen is that if you're not doing initiation well, you're going to have less sex.

Right.

I mean, we already talked about, like, how the data is showing that. But yeah, if your partner is initiating it in a way that you don't like, it doesn't work for you.

Like, you're saying, no more, you're saying.

Lot more, so you're having a whole lot less sex. It can also start to affect your level of attraction to your partner. And this is a complaint that we hear from people all the time. They're like, what do you do about the loss of attraction in a relationship? How do you get it back? Can you get it back? Like, does that mean the spark has.

Gone out and it's kind of twofold? It's like you. You can feel less attracted because your partner is initiating in very unattractive ways. And you can also feel less attracted when you're having less sex. Like, I think sexual sex is one of the huge things that can really supercharge your attraction.

Yeah, I would say, like, the first part of that is the more common thing. You know, a lot of people will say, like, I hate my partner just grabbing at me. Like, it turns me off so much. It just, like, makes me very unattracted to them. So I think that's a really strong dynamic that can come up for so many people. Then, of course, it can start to ripple into your libido. So if you're having less sex, if you're. You're just not liking the way that sex gets started, you're not feeling attracted to your partner, sex is going to start to feel less and less and less tempting. So you're going to have a whole lot less desire for it. And the natural like differences in your desire that every couple has, like every couple has a mismatch of libido in one way or another. But I think the differences between your libidos can really start to grow. So it gets, gets to the point where you feel like, oh no, we just have like genuinely mismatched libidos or you're even starting to worry about your compatibility.

Now we also know just from, you know, our survey and also just from talking, getting so many dms from people. It's not just this simple matter of like, of like, oh, well, I only say yes if I'm super turned on by my partner's initiation. There are a lot of people, you know, that get subpar initiations and still say yes. And that often leads to unpleasurable or unfulfilling sex. Right. And then surprise, surprise, if you are saying yes to sex, it, you know, after your partner initiates and you're not totally loving it, like you're not starting on a very good note. Right. So that can, that can often lead to unpleasurable or unfulfilling sex.

Yeah. So it's like bad initiation. It's not that you, you know, if you get a yes, oh, it was great. It was like, no, the initiation was, was still bad. Maybe your partner begrudgingly said yes or was like, oh, it's been a while. I guess I should say yes. I feel guilty saying no. Like, it doesn't mean that, oh, you got a yes. It all worked out. It's all great. It's like, no, your partner's not going to enjoy the sex that you're having when it gets started in a bad way.

Bad initiation can also lead to just less physical intimacy overall. Like non sexual physical intimacy as well. And that's because if you are really disliking the way your partner is initiating, you're probably going to be more on guard or more vigilant when it comes to any kind of touch. Because like, you don't want it to lead to more. You don't want it to lead to that bad initiation that doesn't feel good to you. Right?

Yeah. I think this happens in particular for women. Women will say like, I don't want my partner to get the wrong idea. I don't want them to think I'm open to it. So. So they will really start pulling away from any sort of touch or kiss. I mean, we did a whole podcast Episode about the bristle reaction. This concept that we came up with around really flinching when your partner comes in to touch you. You can scroll back if you want to listen to that one. But that's a huge dynamic that can come up if you're not doing initiation successfully.

Yeah. And then, I mean, building on every single one of these dynamics that we have just mentioned, of course, resentment starts to come out of all of this. Arguments start to come out of this. Disconnection starts to come out of this. If you're feeling like God, like, my partner never says yes, like you get into fights, you feel resentful, you don't feel connected, or if you feel like God, like, why can't you just read the room? Like, you're always doing it at the wrong time. Like resentment argument. Yeah, Disconnection. Like it doesn't really matter who's doing what. Like, if it's not working. Like. Like these three just really come up. And these are, I think, the big long term ones that are super, super problematic. Like, these are. Yeah, these are like cancers to a relationship. Like, these are the types of things that over time really can. Can lead to relationships breaking up and dissolving. Right.

I think one of the central themes that winds through all of these is this idea of feeling unseen by your partner. It's like initiation is supposed, like I was saying earlier, it's supposed to feel like an invitation. It's supposed to be the beginning of us sharing a moment of being connected with each other, doing the most intimate things that we can do with each other. And if your partner's doing stuff that you dislike that doesn't work for you, they're like grabbing at you or saying crude things. It just leaves you with this feeling of like, do you even know me? Like, why would you think I would like that? Or why would you think that's the way to get us to have this really intimate, beautiful, special moment together? It just. Yeah, it leaves you feeling very unseen by your partner. And I think that's one of the hardest feelings to have in a long term relationship. It's like, you're supposed to know me so well.

Yeah. Like, how many years has it been?

Exactly. So the bottom line here is that initiation is increasing incredibly, incredibly important. It's hurting our relationships that we're not getting it right. And we don't say this to shame anybody or make you feel bad. Like, we really do believe that this comes down to not seeing initiation portrayed in the media, not being given the opportunity to learn this really important and Crucial skill. So if this is something that you're struggling with in your relationship, like, this is not your fault. And like I was saying earlier, earlier, like, we have been there ourselves, like, we've struggled with this too. So there's absolutely zero shame here. But we just want to leave you with the importance of learning this skill. It is a skill. It's something that we all can and should learn. Our relationships, our love, our intimacy, they deserve us learning this skill. So let's transition because we have some news to share with you as well. Like we've been saying, like, we got so fired up about this whole topic, starting with that initial, like, only 17% of people saying that initiation is working with them through all this survey data that we gathered and analyzed. And we really felt like we want to help couples. We want to help you get better at initiation and realize, like, what a huge, huge impact it can have on your intimacy, on your entire relationship to learn how to do initiation properly. So we took all this energy, all this excitement, and we funneled it into our brand new course, the Art of Initiation.

This course is for you if you want to feel genuine excitement when your partner initiates, and if you also want to feel confident and sexy when you yourself initiate. And if you want to know that no matter what happens, like, you're still going to feel like you're on the same team.

So the course is for all different kinds of situations. So whether you are cringing when your partner initiates, whether you get turned down all the time, or maybe you're too afraid to initiate because you're worried about being turned down, if you have rarely or maybe even never initiated, if you never want sex and are always saying no, but you also don't know what you want your partner to do differently. If you would be so happy to change up your initiation if only you knew what your partner wanted, or whether you're ready to stop having initiation, be a source of tension and start actually enjoying it, all these situations are covered within the course. Then we really flip this concept of what you know as initiation upside down. Like, 83% of you said that it is not working for you right now. So it's obvious that we need to take a new approach. And that's really what we've done in this course.

Yeah. So one thing that we address that no one ever talks about, like, how do you respond to your partner's initiations? Like, we tend to think of initiation as like, oh, it's just this thing that we do. But there's an entire Other side of it, how do we consider what. When our partner initiates with us and we call this the consideration process, there's a lot more to it than just like, am I horny or not? And therefore, should I say yes or no?

That's another central theme in the course too. I think most of us think of initiation and really think of sex just as a matter of like, am I horny? Like, if I'm horny, I initiate. If I'm horny, I say yes. If I'm not horny, I say no. And initiation is so much more than that. Like, your horniness, your level of desire actually plays a much smaller role in initiation than you might realize. So it's really obvious from all these survey results that people are feeling stuck, frustrated and confused when it comes to initiation. So the art of initiation takes all of the guesswork out of the process. Like the way that we set up the course, we have done all the work for you. All that you have to do is just follow along. It's a really, really very cool and innovative course in that way.

Yeah. So in terms of logistics, how the course actually works is, is we present everything in both audio and written format. We know some people kind of love listening to like a podcast style audio. Some people prefer reading. You can do that a little more discreetly or in, you know, different situations. All the lessons are short and bite sized, so you can kind of listen or read whenever you can. And it can also be completed in one weekend if you're super motivated or you can take your time, listen to a lesson here or there, you know, over a couple weeks, or, you know, whatever works for your schedule.

And we're there with you, guiding you through it the whole way. We talk about our own missteps, all the things that we've gotten wrong, the lessons that we had to learn the hard way. And we really help you feel normal and not alone. And I think the bottom line is, like, the course is just really fun. We had so much fun making it.

We did.

It was such a blast creating it. And, and I know we talked about this earlier, it's like this big, heavy topic of like, ooh, we are really getting this wrong in our relationships. It's having some pretty big impacts, but the course itself is super fun and exciting and playful. Like, it's not this heavy. Like, oh, we've got to fix this, this big thing in our relationship. Like, I think you're really going to be surprised by how much you enjoy it. So here are some of the things that you're going to get in the course the tools to feel connected and desired again, practical ways to create and sustain more emotional intimacy. Because here's the thing. When you are feeling like roommates rather than romantic partners, which unfortunately is the case for the vast majority of couples these days, like going from roommates to having sex, that feels like a huge leap. But when you have more emotional intimacy in your relationship, which is, which also is something that most of us desire more of, like even totally separately from initiation, like that's going to help it feel so much easier. You're also going to get an understanding of each of your sex drive types. So different libidos do not stop you from experiencing the intimacy that you both deserve. So yes, even if you feel like you and your partner's sex drives are mismatched, skillful initiation can actually bridge the Gap app.

You're also going to get our super comprehensive initiation styles model which will show you exactly what turns you on and help you understand what turns your partner on so that you can understand those differences and kind of, you can each learn to cater to each other a bit more.

So if you felt like, like I have no freaking clue what I want. Oh, you are going to learn. Don't you worry.

You're also going to get some game changing initiation questions that you never knew to ask, including how your, what we call your ideal conditions can turn a no into a yes please. And this one is such a game changer. I don't want to tell you too much about what this means, but this is. Nobody talks about this. And this one, this one changes everything.

I think this workshop was the most fun one that we had recording. Oh yeah, it was so great.

And I think this one, that one workshop is going to like make the most, have them like move the needle the furthest, you know, I'm so excited.

For people to learn about this. The ideal conditions. You're also going to discover how to access the most confident version of you. The version that can ask for whatever you want, whenever you want it, free of shame, embarrassment or guilt. You are also going to get 61 creative and exciting examples of how to initiate and our step by step guidelines for alluring initiation.

We're also going to tell you the secret to staying connected even if one of you isn't open to having sex in a particular moment. I think that one is so huge. So many of us think like no means that you just turn around, walk away from each other. You're just inherently disconnected and that is not how it needs to be. You're also going to discover your real reasons for saying yes. Because like Vanessa said before, being horny actually has very little to do with it being horny. You know, that's one data point that's, you know, one thing that can be important. But there are a lot of other things that are also very important that we never talk about. And there's an entire step by step process for figuring out what those things are and how to work with them. And finally, you are going to be creating a custom user manual, we like to call it, but tailored to your partner's unique desires. So you can finally stop walking on eggshells when it comes to initiation and start walking on cloud nine.

Oh, look at that imagery. Beautiful. So if you're ready to completely change the way initiation works in your relationship and experience higher libido, more compatibility, more attraction, more and better sex, more non sexual physical intimacy, more joy and more connection, more everything, more everything. And then check the art of initiation. I'm sure you can tell we are super excited about this course. I don't think we've had this much fun putting something together for you in a long time. So we can't wait for you to check it out. And you can go straight to vmtherapy.com initiation and that's spelled I N I T I A T I o n vmtherapy.com initiation to check it all out. And we'll have the link to that in the show notes. Notes as well.

All right, well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we talk about the most harrowing, the most hilarious and downright unbelievable sex stories that we've ever heard.