Episode 3: Should Sex Happen Naturally?

Sex in and of itself is natural, normal, healthy. But the reality is that having a great sex life in a relationship, there really is nothing spontaneous or effortless about that. Hello, and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts, Vanessa and Zander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with 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.

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Foreign. Do you feel like sex should happen just naturally? Do you feel like having to talk about or plan or work at your sex life means that you're doing something wrong? And if you do feel that way, does it make you worry that maybe you're not with the right person or maybe not even in the right relationship?

These are some big questions we're tackling today.

Oh, yeah.

So I will give you a little spoiler alert right here at the beginning. I like to say that sex is the most unnatural, natural act. So, yes, sex in and of itself is natural, normal, healthy. But the reality is that having a great sex life in a relationship, there really is nothing spontaneous or effortless about that. So in today's episode, we're gonna be debunking this very common myth, telling you why it does more harm than good and hopeful, convincing you that communicating about and putting effort into your sex life is the key to a successful relationship. Okay, so my first question is, what the hell does natural even mean? So does it mean that sex should be something that we just do involuntarily, like breathing? Like, breathing's natural, right? Or does it mean that we should be born just, like, naturally, knowing what sex is and how to do it?

Well, yeah, I think that most people, when they say this, haven't really thought about exactly what natural or naturally means. I think as we'll get into later, it tends to be a deflection of, like, I don't really want to talk about it because I don't feel comfortable with it. But I feel like most people would start to say, okay, well, I don't mean natural like instinctual. Because if you. If you think back at, like, you know, how animals have sex or probably how, you know, humans from many hundreds of thousands of years ago had sex, that's not exactly what you want your sex life to look like. So I think that for most people, it probably gets back to that thought of, like, I want it to happen without having to talk about it, without having to do any work, and I want it to be exactly the way I want it, and I don't want to have to communicate that.

Okay, so we actually asked this question to people on Instagram. We asked people, what does the word natural mean to you? What is natural? Sex.

Yeah, so some of the responses that we got, we're both horny at the same time, and there's no effort to get started.

We go to bed together, cuddle, kiss, and it leads to more something different.

From the usual Saturday or Sunday.

It's like movie sex. It happens out of nowhere. It's intensely passionate.

Like, you can't help it.

Having a perfectly enjoyable experience without having to say anything at all.

I don't have to think about it.

Our needs and desires are perfectly in sync.

And the kicker, it doesn't feel like work.

Okay, so the first thing that we noticed about this list and about the hundreds of responses that we got is that, well, yeah, sure, a lot of these things sound good, but they also sound very different.

Yeah, it's like each person has their own definition. And I would venture a pretty high, high wager that if you ask. I got these people that responded, if we ask, okay, what's your definition? And then we ask their partner, what's their definition? That they would not agree on that definition.

Absolutely.

Herein lies the problem.

Exactly. So I think, you know this phrase natural sex, or it should just happen naturally. It ends up being kind of meaningless since we all have very different definitions. So let's, like, break this apart a little bit more, and let's take a look at one particular dynamic. So initiation. A lot of these responses that we got to this question mentioned initiation, but they mentioned a lot of different specific things. Like, some people said, oh, sex feels natural if it's initiated out of nowhere, but other people said, it feels natural if they have this buildup all day long. So how is your partner supposed to know what natural means for you if the two of you never talk about it?

Yeah, that's interesting, because I'm also. I'm just looking over the list right now of those comments, and a lot of them kind of imply almost no initiation. Like, there's no effort to get started. Like, that kind of implies that no one is initiating. It's just happening. Or like, you know, the movie sex, it happens out of nowhere, but it's intensely passionate. That's kind of interesting, you know, like, you can't help it. That implies, like, we just can't help ourselves, or not even. No one is even initiating it, you know, this enjoyable experience without having to say anything. I think it's so interesting that people kind of don't want to initiate. It's like they almost like this idea of this instinctual aspect of it.

Well, some people do, but a lot of people mention, like, they specifically did want their partner to initiate in, you know, using their words or at the beginning of the day or having this foreplay around the initiation. So it just winds up making it feel kind of meaningless if you don't have the same definitions of what natural means. And I think there's even a bigger problem than that, that a lot of the responses that we got were people saying, well, I'm not sure exactly what it means, but, like, I just know it when I feel it. So it's like, you know, how can your partner know what it is that you want if you can't even describe what it is that you want?

Oh, this sounds like the old. I think it was like, a Supreme Court thing where it's like, what is pornography? And it's like, there's no good definition, but I know it when I see it.

Exactly. All right, so our next big problem with this idea of natural sexual is that natural also changes. So, you know, we're not robots. We don't want the exact same thing every single time. So I'll give you an example here. Like, there are some days where I want Xander to be really dominant and aggressive, and that might feel totally natural to me. But then there are other days where I want him to be sweet and romantic, or some days where I want him to be, like, really goofy and playful. So all of these things can feel natural to me on different days, and they can also feel completely unnatural to me on different days. Like, if I'm in the mood for romantic sex and Xander starts spanking me, like, that's gonna feel really unnatural and unwanted to me. So it's an issue because it's constantly in flux. It's not this one set definition.

Yeah. So for all the people that are like, I don't want to have to communicate it. I don't want to have to do anything, put any work into it. It's like, that's great. That's great. Especially if your partner, you know, let's say maybe you did have one really horribly awkward, heaven forbid conversation about it where you're like, this is the kind of sex that I like. And then your partner just knows to do that, and so you never have to talk about it again. That's great. Until your preference changes one day, and it's like, you know what? I just had that type of sex that I. That I like 20 times, and now, like, I want something different. But if you're not willing to communicate about it or initiate the thing that you want, then how can you actually expect to get it?

Exactly. And I think you bring up a really good point, too, that, like, you know, it changes over stretches of time too. So I was just talking about, you know, day to day changes, but something that might have felt natural to me when you and I started dating in our 20s, might not feel natural to me anymore now that we're in our 30s, and definitely won't feel natural to me when we're in our 60s. So this idea, like, doesn't make any space for changes or differences.

And we see something like this in so many of our clients and social audience and stuff where someone's like, you know, like, when we started having sex, like, we did it a certain way, I wasn't comfortable giving feedback to my partner that, like, maybe that wasn't really what I like. And then all of a sudden, like, fast forward 10 years and that lack of feedback after every single sexual experience, it feels like basically like your partner assumes that they're doing sex the right way in a way that you like, and you're like, well, I'm like, it's 10 years later. I actually don't like this at all. But because it's 10 years later and I never said anything any of those 10 years, like, I couldn't possibly say anything now because it's gonna make those last 10 years seem like they were fake. Ooh.

So your partner thinks they're doing the natural thing, but in reality, it's not something that you like at all.

Yeah. Like, it can become horribly unnatural for you very quickly.

Yeah. Okay. So a lot of people described the sex that they would see on TV and in the movies. When we asked them what natural means.

A lot of people also brought up the fact that on TV and in the movies, it appears as if sex just happens or it happens naturally or it happens completely spontaneously.

Yeah. So many people brought that up, and they said, I just want sex that looks the way it does on TV and in the movies.

Yeah. Okay, so let's break this down. I've got a couple questions for you, if you're listening. So when you're watching tv, when you're Watching a movie. When let's say they start in, you know, it's taking place in one side of town and they gotta get to like a restaurant on the other side of the town. That takes like 10 seconds. They're like, oh, it's time to go to dinner. And then they like appear at the restaurant. You aren't seeing them driving across town, all that boring stuff. They. But your brain automatically knows, like, oh, they just condensed like 30 minutes of activity into like 5 seconds of on screen time.

They can condense an entire week or a year of activity down into like five seconds in a movie.

Yeah. And so your brain just naturally accepts that and go, it goes, oh, okay, this isn't horribly unrealistic. This is just like, they're just showing like they're skipping. Yeah, they're skipping the boring stuff so that we can get to the exciting stuff. So your brain does that for so many aspects of TV shows and movies, but for whatever reason, when it comes to sex scenes, why is your brain incapable of making that same leap? Like, they're doing the exact same thing in those sex scenes. Like, they can't show all of it. They're just showing the good parts. They're just showing little bits, you know, little snippets that you might argue are like, representative of a broader. Yeah, you know, they show you a couple of two minutes of activity that's meant to represent an entire 30 minutes or something.

Yeah, no, that's such a great point. Yeah. A lot of people said, you know, I know that movie sex isn't real, but I still want it. And I think that that's, you know, it's just so important for us to recognize the ways that TV and movies hurt us. Like, of course everything looks better on TV and in the movies, of course. And it's natural for us to, you know, if these are the scenes that we're seeing over and over again, to sort of internalize that. But we also have to be clear in recognizing this is entertainment, this is not real life. Now our next issue with natural sex is that it really takes all the individuality out of it. So if we think of natural sex, it turns into just like a script that we're following. So we got a response from somebody on Instagram who said, you know, my partner wants sex to be smooth and free flowing and really natural, but I'm awkward.

Oh, I have a question for you then.

Yeah.

If you are awkward, if that is who you are, why can't you lean into that and just be awkwardly natural? Like that's who you are.

Yeah. I think we have these scripts in our head of this is what natural is, and this is what natural isn't. And it cuts out any space for us to be individuals. And not only that. Like, it doesn't allow us to bring our full selves into the bedroom. So I know for me, if I focused on just trying to be natural, like, I would never allow myself to be goofy or playful or try something new. Like, it would just feel like this very narrow window of acceptable activities and, you know, emotions and things that I said and did. So it just feels really restricting. And I think it can turn into, you know, like, a trap, too. Like, it just feels very narrow and constricting. Like, oh, I can't do that because that wouldn't be natural, or my partner wouldn't think that would be natural. It really taps into this perfectionism. Maybe I'm just picking up on that because I have my own personal history with perfectionism, but it just feels like it gives us this very narrow window of what's acceptable and what's not.

Yeah, I think so. I think that a lot of times we like to. We kind of conveniently forget our own sexual coming of age when we're thinking about sex. And you forget that your first couple times doing it, like, it was awkward, it was weird. You didn't know what you were doing.

First couple, first many, however many, I don't know. Still feels awkward to this day.

Sometimes I did it twice, and then I was perfect. Not at all. But, you know, that first, many, many times, you're still figuring it out. And I think a lot of us get so caught up in this idea that we need to be good at sex that it was like, once you started feeling like, okay, I got this down, you kind of, like, cut off room to try new things or to be awkward again because there was such this premium placed on, like, someone who knows what they're doing and is confident.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's such a great point, too. You know, this idea of natural sex, it cuts out the possibility for experimentation. You know, it's like we just want to find what are the things that work and feel natural and they're good, and we don't want to try anything else because maybe that wouldn't feel natural or it wouldn't work. And this is a huge issue because trying new things in the bedroom has been scientifically proven to improve the connection between partners, to increase your sex drive, to make sex feel fun and exciting, even in the long term. So if we cut out that possibility. We damage our sex life in a huge, huge way.

Yeah. I mean, and you really just box yourself into the same old. The same old stuff. Like, what if. Yeah, what if you have a certain fantasy that, like, you want to try out or play, you know, you want to play around with doing a certain scene or trying something different that you're not sure about? It's like, well, yeah, it's definitely not going to be, quote, natural. It's going to be, you know, you're going to have to talk about it. It's going to maybe be weird the first time. If you want to try new stuff, you got to be open to putting some effort in and also open to, like, it not being perfect the first time, probably never being perfect.

Exactly. Now, I want to bring up another really important point. That this whole idea of natural sex, it really ignores safety. And I think safety is something that we do not talk about enough when it comes to sex. But it's really important for us to, like, be able to have our boundaries around sex, to feel like sex is, you know, feels safe to us. So I think that this idea of natural sex, especially with heterosexual relationships, it kind of feeds into this script of, like, men are the leaders of sex. They take what they want. This sense of, like, desire is so strong, it just overcomes you and you can't do anything about it. Like, so many of the responses that we got mention that. Right. But that kind of sex doesn't leave any room for boundaries and consent.

Yeah, definitely not. I think also this idea of, like, the desire being so strong that it just happens. I really think that that is only something that happens early on in your sexual experience where, like, you're not really sure what to do. You're having all of these desires, your hormones are raging, and, like, you don't know what's happening. And all of a sudden it's like in the heat of the moment, things just happen. And we romanticize those times that that happens if we have a good experience. Definitely not if we have a bad experience, but if we have a good experience, we really romanticize that. And then we set the bar that high and it's like, oh, well, I want it to always be like that. And the reality is, once you're used to something, once you have some familiarity or some experience with something, you're probably not going to be overcome anymore because, like, your body and your brain are familiar with that experience.

Yeah, I mean, if anything, it actually is more natural for us to lose that sense of desire. Because research has shown that the chemicals, the hormones in our brains, when we're first being intimate with somebody, they fade after about a year. So we can't have that natural intensity. But, you know, looping this back around to safety, like, if we think of sex drive as something that's, like, so strong, we can't have any control over it. Like, what does that mean? That men just get to go out and have sex whenever they want to with whoever they want to, because it's so strong, they just can't do anything about it. Like, it very, very quickly leads into a really dangerous place for so many of us. And I also think it shames sexual abuse survivors, too. So if we have this idea that sex is just supposed to unfold natur. You're not supposed to need to talk about it. You're not supposed to have any sort of boundaries. You're not supposed to need to give consent. Like, that makes somebody who's been through sexual abuse and needs to have boundaries and consent in order to feel safe. That makes them feel really shamed. Like, oh, something is so wrong with you or broken with you that you have to do it. I mean, I think, to be totally clear, like, everyone, regardless of if you've been abused or not, we deserve to have our boundaries, and we deserve to have active, enthusiastic consent. I just think it adds this extra layer of shame on top of a sexual abuse survivor who may be trying really hard to create the right environment for them to experience healthy sexuality.

Yeah, And I think it also would add a lot of shame to someone that, looking back on a sexual experience, wasn't very happy with what happened because they weren't saying anything because, you know, things were happening naturally. It would give you some shame because you're like, well, I didn't say anything, so I guess I deserved that.

Oh, yeah. So it gets really complicated really quickly here. Right. So it's like, again, I understand that desire that we all have of, like, oh, I just want sex to feel easy and effortless, But I hope recognizing some of the ways that it gets really complicated and gets into really serious issues like that, I hope that helps us all sort of reconsider. So, on a kind of similar vein, I also want to bring up this idea that natural sex actually distances us from our own sexuality.

Ooh, what's that mean?

Oh, I think what it means is that it creates this feeling that sex is something that happens to us rather than sex being something that we actively create and engage in. So it is tied into safety in that way. But I think it's even broader than that, too. Like, it makes us feel like we don't have any agency. Like, sex is just. It's just supposed to be natural. It's just happening without any involvement from us. And if we're not involved in it, then it's like, how can we have this connection to our own sexuality?

Yeah. I mean, and how can it change or how can it get better or get more pleasurable for you if it's just happening?

Exactly. And if you start having issues in your sex life, then it really screws you over. So it's like, if things are not happening naturally for you, then what are you supposed to do? So I have a really great personal example of this one. I struggled with my own orgasm for almost 10 years. I could get there on my own, but I could not get there with a partner. So my orgasm was not happening naturally for me. So what then? My only option was just to wait around for it to magically naturally start happening. I mean, that's how I got stuck going 10 years without experts experiencing orgasm with another person, because I was just waiting for it to happen naturally.

Yeah. I think we see this with so many people that we talk to where they are just like, yeah, I don't enjoy sex and I don't even feel sexual at all. I don't even know what I want because it's just been happening to me for so long, and I just assumed that's how it's supposed to be. And so when it wasn't very good the first time, and then the second and the third, I just kind of gave up because I was like, okay, well, I must be different from other people. It must not be the same for me. I must be broken in some way or, you know, like, the other parts of my relationship are great, so I'm not going to complain about this. And then it just is like something like we said before, it happens to us instead of us being an active participant in it.

Yeah. And it can get even more complicated if, you know, somebody in the relationship gets an injury, some sort of illness. Like, again, it's that same thing. Like, okay, well, if it's not happening naturally anymore, what? There are no other options. You just wait for it to all of a sudden become natural again. Okay. So I mentioned this idea of natural sex distancing us from our own sexuality. I also think that it distances us from each other, you know, in our relationships. So this is something that we hear about all the time from people. They'll say, okay, well, My partner says that they just want sex with to be natural, and they don't want to talk about it or they don't want to have to work on our sex life. So, you know, that person who originally reached out to us, they're like, I'm trying to learn more. I'm following your Instagram account. I'm reading your emails. I'm watching your YouTube videos. Like, I want to make changes. I want to get better at sex. And I'm just getting this brick wall from my partner saying, no, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to work on it, because that's not natural.

Yeah. And I think this is. This gets into some gender dynamics as well, where you have, you know, men typically don't like to not know what they're doing. We like to. You know, we like to feel like we are leaders. We like to feel confident. We don't like to ask for directions or help. And we can get into a dynamic in our relationships where our partner might be asking, like, let's talk about this. Let's try something new. And, you know, like, a male partner might just kind of put up that wall, and they're like, if I acknowledge that we need to talk about this, if I acknowledge that I need to work on it, I also have to acknowledge that I'm not perfect at it. I have to acknowledge that I don't know what I'm doing. I have to acknowledge that maybe I do need some help in order to get better at this, or at least have to acknowledge that, like, the way it's been for the last couple years has maybe not been as good as I led myself to believe. Yeah, it can be a tough pill to swallow. But I can tell you from experience that once you do swallow that pill, it gets a lot better, a lot quicker. And that type of, you know, just trying to acknowledge that as a guy, you know what? I might not know everything here. Just acknowledging that it can impact the rest of your life in so many other ways. Life gets a lot better when we acknowledge that we do have stuff to learn, that we can change, that we can. You know, we can be open to new ideas.

That's a really good point, because I think that oftentimes, you know, when we hear our partner say, I don't want to talk about it, it feels really aggressive or cold or mean. And I think it's important to recognize that people shut down when they're dealing with something that feels really challenging to them. So I think the vast majority of the time, it's not that the partner's trying to be a jerk and say, no, I won't talk about it. It's that they're having their own struggles, and it's just really scary or really hard for them to think about having to, like, be honest about that. So I think there's actually an opportunity for couples to have really beautiful, intimate conversations about this. But it might be challenging at first because your partner may not be willing to, you know, really address or confront the challenges that they're having. I think the bottom line here is that people who have truly healthy relationships with sex are going to be willing to talk about it and work on it. So the word was willing there. It was not excited or never having a problem, Perfectly confident. It's okay for a whole bunch of different emotions to get stirred up from us, but that we can also still be willing to do that hard work. All right, so I want to make one final point here, which is that nothing in life happens naturally. So it is totally understandable to wish that you could just have this amazing sex life without any communication, any sort of work. It's natural to want anything in life that just comes perfectly easy without any sort of effort, but it's just not realistic. I wish that was how life works, but it isn't.

I feel like most of us understand this intellectually and apply this to a lot of areas of our lives, but have trouble applying it to our sex lives. Like, all of us fantasize about getting that perfect job or, you know, getting straight A's in school and without having to really study very much or whatever. The thing is, you have that car that you want, that house that you want. And I think that a lot of us have a, you know, varying degrees of healthy fantasies about that. But at the end of the day, most people understand, okay, it's not just gonna happen without any work, effort, trying, etc. You know? And so, like, we make a differentiation of that would be nice, But I know that's not how the world works. But when it comes to the sex life stuff, most of us just go, yeah, that's what I want. And I'm just gonna keep waiting until I get it.

Yeah. So, I mean, let's think about, like, other major things in life, like even finding a life partner, maybe, like, getting in shape or having the body that you've always wanted, even work, you know, if we go back to these statements that people were saying that we shared at the beginning of the episode, like, could we use any of Those to describe, like, you know, oh, I just want to find a partner, but it doesn't feel like work at all. Or I just want to have the perfect career, but I don't have to think about it. So it's, you know, it's just funny to think about it in that way. Like, again, it makes sense to wish that everything in life just fell into your lap and was perfect and effortless and wonderful, but it just doesn't happen that way. And I think, you know, even smaller things. Let's imagine that, you know, I want to go on a little weekend getaway with you next. You know, next weekend. It's not just gonna naturally happen. Like, I've got to figure out where do I want to go, or do I want to ask Xander to surprise me, or, you know, what hotel are we gonna stay at? Are we gonna rent an Airbnb? Like, everything in life requires effort. And so I keep saying this. I'll keep saying it again, you know, like, it's okay to wish it wasn't. That way we can be gentle in ourselves and say, yeah, I really wish I had a life where things just fell into my lap. But don't stop yourself there. Allow yourself to recognize, you know what? These are the things in my life that are important to me. And so the way that I show myself that these things are important to me is by putting in effort.

And the way that you show your partner that those things are important is also by putting in effort. Because if you're not putting in any effort, then what? Your. Your partner doesn't really see that it looks important to you.

If you really want to have this natural sex life with your partner, but you never see them putting in any effort. Like, that wouldn't feel very good. You wouldn't feel very loved. You wouldn't feel like your partner really cared about your sex life. So we have all this pressure on wanting things to be natural, but at the same time, I think that reality wouldn't actually look or feel very good to us.

Yeah, that's a really good point. All right, Vanessa, it is time for your favorite part of the podcast.

Oh, I have a favorite part already? After three episodes.

You do? Listener questions.

I do love a good listener question.

All right, so the first question is actually more of a comment. Sex did used to feel natural at the beginning of our relationship, but it doesn't anymore.

Oh, yeah. So this is something that we hear about from couples all the time. I think we all romanticize, like, those early stages of a relationship, the honeymoon stage. Where it felt like everything was so effortless and easy. So I think the thing that we need to remember is it actually wasn't that effortless at the beginning. There was actually a ton of effort that went into things. So, like, think about, like, I'll use us as an example. When you and I started dating, there was so much effort that I was putting into our budding relationship and sex life. So you and I were flirting over text messages or their little T9 texting. That's how old we are.

G chat.

Yeah, we were flirting over text messages for, you know, days at a time. We were planning date nights out. We were planning, like, fun activities to do with each other.

We were deciding like, oh, whose house are we going to stay at?

You know, when, like when you and I had a date, I would spend so much time getting ready. Like, I would go to the gym, I would listen to all my favorite pump up jams. I take a shower and shave my legs and pick out my outfit, call a girlfriend and get her advice on what the outfit should be.

It's so nice to know that you put in all this effort, effort, effort, guys, effort.

So, you know, it feels. Felt really fun, but it wasn't effortless. So it's not that all of a sudden we went from no effort into lots of effort in a relationship. It's instead that our attitude about the effort changed. So I think that is so important for us to recognize. There was never a time where it was perfectly easy and effortless. You just had a different attitude about the effort that you were putting in. You actually had fun with it.

Yeah, it was exciting because the alternative was that you're hanging out at home.

Alone, just doing nothing, watching the clock tick by until I was supposed to meet up with you.

Yeah. So you know what? Maybe this is what we need to tell people is that it's like, okay, well, if it's not happening naturally, then go into separate rooms in the house every night and just watch Netflix by yourself until you have had enough. And you are, you're ready to put that effort in and talk about it and try something new. I bet after like a week or two of that, you'll be like, okay, all right, fine. It's not. It's not. It shouldn't just happen naturally. Like, what do we need to do to get this back on track? All right, question number two. Again, not exactly phrased as a question, but that's okay. I understand that sex may not always happen naturally, but I hate the idea of scheduled sex, so I Guess this person assumes that the opposite of natural sex is scheduled sex.

Okay, so we are actually huge fans of scheduled sex. We will definitely do an upcoming podcast episode about why and how to do it. But I don't think that the only option is scheduling sex. I mean, all that we're talking about here is that it's important for you and your partner to talk about your sex life, to try new things with each other, to put effort into it. But scheduling sex is just one way to put effort into it. So I do give scheduling sex a try. It can be way more fun than you think. But it's not the only way.

Yeah. All right, so the last question is, I'm a woman who's been in a relationship with a man for five years. I feel like by now he should know what I like. It kills the mood for me when he asks me questions about what I want.

Oh, yes. This is another question that we get all the time. So I think what I'm drawn to with this question is kind of calling out the gender dynamics. I think that a lot of times when we think about sex happening naturally in heterosexual relationships, we have this idea in our head of the guy is the one who's taking the lead and taking charge. And I think that there's a way that a lot of us women, like, we put all this pressure on our male partners to be the one who just knows what to do and executes it flawlessly. And I think this relates back to a couple of the points that we talked about. Like, one, it gets back to that safety issue that, like, do we really want to create this atmosphere where men are the ones who are in control of sex, and they've got this, you know, desire that they. And, well, and they have this desire that can't be controlled and just has to be acted on? But also, it's a way that we women distance ourselves from our own sexuality and take away our own agency. Like, if sex is just something that our male partners do to us whenever they want it, and however the ways that they, you know, feel like it, like, it's, you know, we're not connected to who we are as a sexual being.

Yeah. Spoiler alert. If you just leave it up to the guy, you are probably not going to get very much or any clitoral stimulation. And that's not enjoyable.

No, it's not. So I think, you know, I resonate with this question because I totally understand. Like, sometimes it sounds really nice to just give up control and have your partner do everything like that. Does sound nice sometimes. But I also think it's really important for us to recognize we deserve to be sexual beings, too, who are in tune with our own needs and desires and able to communicate them, able to advocate for them. And you know what? Like, you can have conversations with your partner where you agree that you will take turns with each person taking the lead. So you could still have an evening where your partner is that more dominant or assertive one, but it still just involves a little bit of communication beforehand.

Yeah. So let's actually flip this one around and get really stereotypical. So let's say if. What if I'm like, okay, Vanessa, you're supposed to do all the cooking for me because you're a woman. Oh. And I don't want to have any feedback as to, like, what you're making for me because you're my wife. You should just know what I like. You should know what I want.

That's such an interesting one. Like, I feel my heart rate just going up as you said it.

I saw your face, and I was like. I was like, oh, that Vanessa's gonna tell me we have to cut this part out of the podcast.

I am triggered. No, that just sounds like so much pressure to know this is on me to do all of this and to have no feedback from you about what I'm supposed to do. Like, it sounds, like, awful. I'm very triggered right now. I don't want to do this. So I think that's a really interesting little exercise for people to try out on their own. See what that feels like to imagine yourself having that much responsibility over something with no feedback.

Yeah. I mean, I guess this is not really on topic, but it's kind of interesting how it's like, you know, if that feels so triggering to you, you know, as a listener, maybe flip that back around to Sex on Men, if that's a. You know, if that is. Or that was your perspective that, like, he should know what I want, and it's on him to deliver that. It's like, that's how performance. That's how male performance issues come out is like, you don't deliver.

Yeah.

And then you're like, wait, I was supposed to know how to do that, and I'm not. It's not working. Like, what's wrong? Like, I'm alone. I have to fix this on my own. That is the cycle that spawns male performance issues, whether it's premature ejaculation, having trouble getting it up, etc.

Oh, yeah, that's another episode in and of itself, too. All right, so that is where we stand on this myth of sex needing to be natural. Hopefully, with our many, many reasons, we have convinced you that although it makes sense to wish that sex was effortless and easy, the reality is that it's not. And it's up to each and every one of us, if we want to have an active, passionate and enjoyable sex life, to be willing to talk about it and put a little effort into it.

Yeah. Because the more you come around to that idea, the more you're willing to put effort in, the more you're willing to talk about it. I promise you, the more you are going to get out of this podcast. Like, this is how you start to really transform your relationship. And your sex life is just having that little bit of, of willingness and be like, okay, I am. I am willing to be open to the possibility that the way I have been thinking about this is maybe not serving me. There's probably reasons why I think this way. Based on movies, society, based on the ways that we do or we don't talk about it with each other and just being open to it and being open to what, you know, some advice that we have. I think you're gonna be really excited about what can happen for you. So that's all for today's episode of Pillow Talks. We want to thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we talk about the concept of mental load and why it's eating away at your relationship.

This is another big one. We picked some big topics for our first few episodes.

Yeah, we got the heavy hitters for the beginning. We want to get you guys just super excited to be following the subscribing recommending our podcast.

And speaking of that, it would mean so much to us if you could follow, review and share this episode as a brand new podcast. It really means so much to us. It helps us out so much to grow this podcast to reach more couples and just be able to help more people. So it would really mean so much to us if you could just take a quick second to do any and all of those things. And we are actually trying to make this feel really fun. We are doing a special giveaway, so if you leave us a review before June 20, we will enter you in a drawing to win any one of our courses for free. So that is up to a one thousand dollar value. All you have to do, leave us a Review before the 20th. Seriously, thank you so much in advance for taking the time to do this. It really helps us out so much. Thanks so much for listening.

We will see you next time.