Episode 40: When Your Partner Wants Sex But You Don’t

We go to these dark places of feeling. Like, what's wrong with me? Why do I have no sex drive? Why do I have a very low sex drive? Like, are we not compatible? 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. What do you do if your partner initiates sex but you're just not in the mood?

Hide. That would be my strategy. Just hide. Xander's not here.

They've already initiated. You can't. You're just gonna run in that moment.

No habloing glaze. Try that next time. See if that works. But I suspect that won't work. And you'll be right back to listening to this episode because we're gonna help you out, you know, real, real talk. Vanessa. Vanessa has taken a number of takes to in this podcast, and this is take four. There's been an interpretive dance. There's been a couple mumble fails where she's like, God, I gotta start over. So I'm taking over and kicking us off instead. So you could. You could try to run and hide. You could try to pretend you're not actually there. You don't speak the language your partner is initiating in, but those are bad tactics. And so we decided that we would do a podcast episode about what is going on when you don't want to, your partner wants to. What do you do? Because there's a lot of things that we do that are not very effective. Kind of like the things I recommend.

You took over for me. I just needed you to make a joke in the beginning. All right, problem solved. Yes. This is a really important topic because I think that this is a very common misunderstanding that we have in relationships. We feel like we're supposed to be in the mood when our partner initiates. We feel like we're supposed to be on the same page.

And if we're not in the mood, either something is wrong with us or something is wrong with our partner. They did it wrong. Or I'm doing it wrong.

So it can stir up so many different feelings. Shame, embarrassment, frustration, annoyance, anger. Like so many different things. Can come up. Interestingly, the reality is we are often not in the mood when our partner initiates. So this is a situation that's happening all the time in pretty much every relationship.

And.

And we're having a lot of feelings about it, but none of us really feel super equipped with, like, what to do in those moments. Today we are gonna be going over the surprising thing that most of us get wrong about initiation. Why it's crucial for you to understand your sex drive type, and five specific action steps to take that do not include pretending you don't speak the language when your partner initiates and you are not in the mood.

Yeah, because the reality is that when we are missing a ton of opportunities for connection and intimacy when our partner initiates, and what we tend to do instead are all these ineffective tactics that diminish this possibility of having more connection and intimacy in that moment. But there are ways to handle this so that it can actually be a positive thing. It's not just like, oh, no, everyone's disappointed. I feel bad about myself, My partner feels bad about themselves, and, you know, pity party for everyone.

Yeah, exactly. I think that hits the nail straight on the head. Is that because we have this misunderstanding understanding of how this is supposed to work, we are missing so many opportunities for connection.

Before we get into the meat here, let's go into our review of the week. Grateful to have found you. Someone suggested following you on Instagram a couple of weeks ago, so I did and was like, yay. Awesome. Good start. I was immediately intrigued and then found your podcast Double yay. I am pretty finicky about how I spend my time and which podcasts I follow. Yours is near the top of my very short list now.

Wow.

We have definitely been in a bit of a rut. So I shared the episode about sex positions with my husband. He got so turned on. So we went through a list, picked our favorites, and tried out a bunch last night.

Ooh, ooh.

And according to the emojis, it looks like they had some anal sex, which was awesome. And they loved it. Possibly. I see. I see the peach. I see an eggplant. I see some water droplets. Hallelujah and heart.

Well, thank you so much for this delightful review. We really, really appreciate your reviews. It seriously makes all the difference in the world for helping the podcast grow and reach new couples. So if you haven't heard us talk about this before, we have a review of the week. Give every week, write a review for us in Apple podcasts. And once you are entered, you are entered every Week. Going forward, we pick a review of the week, we read it over, you know, our latest podcast episode, and if you are the winner, you can come over to Instagram at Vanessa Marin Therapy, ask us a question, and we will give you a mini personalized free coaching session. So it's just our little way of saying thank you for taking the time to leave the reviews because seriously, they really, really mean so much to us. We love reading them, we love other couples and people finding the podcast through the reviews, knowing that they can trust this podcast, seeing good reviews, people are like, okay, this podcast is probably pretty legit. Let me check it out.

Yeah, you know, someone sees a good review, they go, yay. They see a really excellent review and they say, double yay.

Exactly. All right, so let's get into it. We turned to our beloved Instagram community and we asked the question, do you stressed out when your partner initiates sex but you are not turned on? And almost 70% of people said, yes, they do. And then we just kind of randomly picked the word stressed for that question. But we also asked people, like, what other emotions come up for you? Because we started getting all of these DMS of people, you know, describing their situations. And so we heard all kinds of other emotions that came up too, like annoyance, fear, frustration, anger, shame, embarrassment. So a lot of different stuff gets evoked if your partner's initiating and you're just not on the same page to.

Make it even worse. So many of these feelings can really turn into a self perpetuating cycle or a really vicious cycle where you start with one of them and it turns into a bunch of other things too. Like you might feel embarrassed when your partner initiates, but you're not turned on. So you say no, but you feel really embarrassed. You feel like, something must be wrong with me, there must be something wrong with my sex drive. And then you can start feeling frustrated. You might start feeling afraid, oh my God, is it ever going to come back? What's going to happen? You're feeling like, oh, I'd better try to avoid situations where my partner might initiate sex because I don't want to confront my fear that something is wrong with me.

And then that just creates even more complication around initiation. That first you started off with this problem of like, oh, we're not on the same page. But then it's like, there's this sea of other problems that start to emerge. So let's really get into it here. Like, what the heck is happening when your partner is initiating and you're not in the mood. So here's the thing that no one ever talks about when it comes to initiation and sex drive. And like, so many of the things that we say, this is going to sound totally obvious once we say it, but I think a lot of people don't really make these connections beforehand. So there is an extremely high likelihood that you are not going to be wildly turned on in the exact moment that your partner initiates. We're two different people. We are working on two different rhythms. And just the pure logistics. Like, forget about all those complex emotions that we mentioned a minute ago. Like, just from a purely logistical standpoint, the likelihood that you and your partner are both going to magically be super turned on in that exact moment, and that's the moment that they choose to initiate, and that you have the time and the space and the privacy and the energy to have sex with each other. That would just be too much of a coincidence for all of these things to line up at the same time.

Even if you rewind the tape and you go back to the time where maybe you felt the absolute horniest or, like, you know, you're. You're a teenager and your hormones are raging, like, how often throughout the day were you actually wildly turned on? The reality is you're doing all kinds of stuff on a given day. And, yeah, you think about sex sometimes there are moments where maybe it feels unbearable, but it's not like you're ever, ever in your life. Have you gone through the whole day where you're like, oh, my God, I just have to have sex right now? Like, the reality is it comes and it goes. And so even when it's coming very frequently, even if it's coming. Ooh. Even if you know it's the same for your partner, those moments of feeling that are never going to be totally lined up.

Absolutely. So, again, it's like. That sounds so obvious when we say it out loud, right? But I think so many of us, when that's not happening in our lives, we go to these dark places of feeling. Like, what's wrong with me? Why do I have no sex drive? Why do I have a very low sex drive? Like, are we not compatible? No, it's just the reality that you're different people. You're not going to be having the exact same experience in the exact same moment. Okay, hold on, Xander. Let's break this down a second. I'm curious to know, of all the times that I initiate sex, what percentage of them were you super turned on in that moment to? I will come up with my percentage too. And then we'll say them in the same moment. So the moment that one of us initiated sex that we were also super in the mood in that exact moment.

So it's like, I'm like, oh, my God, you read my mind. List. Go.

Yeah, let's say it at the count of three.

Okay.

One, two, three.

20%.

Wait, what?

20.

20. Okay, I said 25.

Yeah, like one in five times.

Okay. Yeah, one in four times for me. Oh, pretty low.

I mean, I think for myself, I'm curious what you think about the same thing. For me, I feel like I maybe finally reached a point in my life where I've gotten over a lot of hang ups that I had. And like, when I am feeling that desire in the moment, I pretty much without fail initiate sex with you.

Yes. I would say I don't, I don't.

Really give you a chance to like, catch me in that moment.

Yeah. You're not like, trying to give me the look or like, wink at me? You take action.

Oh, yeah. I mean, oh, there are definitely times in the past where I'd be like, what if it's awkward? Or what if she says no? Or like, that would be nice, but you got so much other shit to do. Like, you don't have time for that. I work through a lot of voices in my head, so to speak, that would discourage me from taking action when I felt something. And now I just take action. And then Vanessa gets to decide if she wants to say yes or no.

Okay, I have another question for you. If I initiate sex with you and you were not in the mood in that moment, like, what feelings come up for you? What is that like for you?

So what comes up for me now, which is very different from what used to come up for me, maybe in the earlier years of our relationship. What comes up now is genuine curiosity and maybe like some nervous excitement because I say, oh, this is an opportunity to get curious. Like, am I open to being turned on? Am I. What would it be like to be having sex 10 minutes from now or whatever?

You know, you, you just did a little spoiler of one of our upcoming.

Well, how am I supposed to answer? How am I supposed to answer this question without. Without a little bit of a spoiler. But for me, what comes up is a curiosity where I go, oh, this is an opportunity to have some intimacy and some sexy time with my beautiful wife. And what might it feel like for me to be wildly turned on very shortly?

Okay, well, that's a very nice response.

Well, yeah, what about you?

Mine is not as positive.

Oh, boy.

No, I mean, I think I. I do feel that a lot of the times now, but I also wanted to just be honest and speak to, like, some of the more challenging emotions that come up for me. So there are. Okay. No, to be fair, I do feel the way that you feel the majority of the time. But sometimes what comes up for me is a feeling of shame if you initiate. And I wasn't in that mode in the moment because I think it's so funny. It's like, we don't talk about sex, and yet we have all these internalized beliefs about sex, but we talk about it with ourselves.

We just do it with anybody else.

I definitely feel like it's better to be turned on and, like, in the mood and ready to go and all that kind of stuff.

Pretty impractical if you just live in life.

I know, but I think there are times, you know, when you initiate with me, and I feel this little rush of shame of, like, oh, I wasn't in that place. That wasn't what I was thinking about. And again, it's a very small feeling. I've done a lot of my own work on, you know, my relationship with my sexuality, so it's not very strong. But I can definitely sympathize with all the reactions and stories people were sharing with us, because I'm like, yeah, I can feel little bits of that, too.

I'll throw you a bone here, Vanessa, because I absolutely used to really, really, really struggle with this as, you know, like, we lived through it. I used to feel really down on myself. I used to think that there might be something wrong with me. I didn' to really confront, like, what was going on with me. Why wasn't my sex drive where I thought it should be? I was in a place where I was super busy with work. I didn't have a lot of time available for you, and I wasn't making any changes at work to make more time available. And so when you initiated sex, what I wanted to do back in the day was to just, like, I almost wish that I hadn't even heard it. I just wanted to forget about it, push it away and be like, I don't have time. I don't have space for this. Go away right now and, like, come back to me at some theoretical point in time where I have all the space and energy for it, which I kind of know doesn't exist.

Well, I'm glad that you're mentioning that, because I think it's important to Recognize that we're talking about one very small piece of a much bigger picture. So we wanted to focus this episode specifically on what happens in that moment when your partner initiates and you're just not in the mood. But of course, this takes place in this bigger context where couples might be struggling with, like, it feels like that happens every single time we initiate. Our sex drives feel wildly mismatched. We're arguing about sex. There are, like, really unhealthy dynamics coming up. So there are so many other pieces of this. But again, we're just gonna be focusing on the small aspect of, like, what happens in the moment. So when we went over to Instagram and we were asking our polls, what questions do you have about this? How can we help? By far and away, the number one question that we got was, do you just take one for the team in that moment? Or, like, am I allowed to pass? Am I allowed to say no? So before we get into the steps that we wanted to talk you through, we first of all wanted to acknowledge you are always allowed to pass. You are allowed to say no to sex anytime you want for any reason. Bottom line, it's your body. You get to decide what to do with it. So we wanted to make that abundantly clear because we got a lot of stories, you know, frankly, from people that just broke our hearts. So, for example, this one woman reached out to us, and she said, anytime I turn my husband down, he becomes emotionally abusive. That was a hard one to read, because on the one hand, it is not okay to be emotionally abusive for any reason, and certainly not because somebody is not willing to do something with their body that they don't want to do. But also because she really internalized it. Even the way the question was phrased, it was like, what? What's wrong with me? How do I make myself want to say yes to him? How do I make myself have more desire for him? And it's like, no, he's emotionally abusing you. This is not about you.

Yeah. And of course you don't want to do it if you know that that's what happens.

Of course.

I also just want to acknowledge that there's also a lot of bad advice out there on this topic, to be honest. Like, we see this out in the world, people recommending, like, oh, well, it's important to just have sex even if you don't want to. I feel like we this so much, and I think the big problem is that people don't want to acknowledge that there's a lot of nuance when it comes to sex, there's a lot of gray area and there's a lot of, like, needing to feel into your emotions and a lot of communication that needs to happen. And so a lot of people who aren't really experts in this field will give very generic, simplistic pieces of advice, you know, and oftentimes I think this advice gets passed off in the context of, like, you're already in a really healthy marriage. You're already communicating really well, and every now and then, you aren't, like, super wildly in the mood. And so it can be a good idea to just say yes in those cases. And then that gets generalized for everyone without, like, all the caveats of, like, 99% of everything else is great. And the 1% of the time this happens, like, yeah, just maybe go along with it.

No, no, we hear just do it in the, like, the worst circumstances of.

Like, I'm trying to throw people a couple bones here that maybe they don't deserve.

No, I hate when people give just do it advice because you're right that there is a lot of nuance. And we will get into some of the nuance in just a second. But so often we hear, you know, people will share stories with us of they're like, oh, I told my doctor that I feel pain during sex, or I never want to have sex, or my partner gets so grumpy and is emotionally abusive to me when I say no to sex. And the doctor or even the therapist is saying, oh, you just have to do it. And sometimes it's like a, oh, sex is just a fake it till you make it kind of thing. Even sometimes we've heard people, they're. Their fucking doctor has said, oh, well, if your husband's not satisfied with you, he's gonna go somewhere else to get it. Like, it's so fucked up. It's terrible advice that everybody in the world should just do it. Just do it anytime. Just do it. So that is not what we are gonna tell you to do in this episode.

No, just don't do it. In fact, and we'll tell you how.

End of the episode, we're gonna just gonna stop it here. The episode will be called episode 40. Just don't do it.

Yeah, we're quickly pivoting.

No, just don't do it. Okay.

We're joking, by the way.

So let's get into the real heart of the episode here, how to consider your partner's initiations. Consideration is the word that we use to describe everything that happens after your partner has Initiated sex. And because so many of us have this idea that, like, we should just wildly be in the mood in that exact moment. There's no other, like, part of the equation here. Most of us don't realize that consideration is even a thing.

Yeah. Like, it's an option.

We made up the word because literally we've never heard anybody talk about it before.

Yeah. And I really like consideration of the word because it cues you to mentally think, like, oh, I need to consider this. I might need to take. I need to consider this. Let me take a second or a minute it. To think about this, consider it and actually respond rather than react. Be like, oh, my God, I'm on the spot. I. No, I can't do it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It creates a little bit of spaciousness around it. Right. It's not a just in the moment, like right now. Gimme your decision. It's like, ah, let me take a moment to consider.

Oh, yeah. I mean, like, we're not playing jeopardy here. It's not like you have three seconds to answer the question. And then there's like a loud buzzer.

Oh my God. Could you imagine? Could you imagine we were just playing a game with my family over the holidays where you have to like, flip over a little hourglass timer. Could you imagine if I just like, came up to you with a little hourglass and I'm like, do you want to have sex? Flipped it over. You have 15 seconds to decide.

Oh, my God. Talk about bad sex advice. We will not be selling a sex timer in the near future, I promise you.

But we do sell a masterclass called Initiation 101. We have taken some teachers tips directly from that masterclass. So in that masterclass, we walk you through both sides of the coin, like, exactly how to initiate with your partner. We give you 22 different ideas for how to initiate. We really talk about how to set yourselves up for success, and then we talk about the consideration aspect of it and walk you through all these different steps, different techniques to use. We picked a couple of our favorites. But if you're interested in learning more, diving into this a little bit deeper, then definitely check out that Initiation 101 masterclass. We'll put a link to it in the description. It's super inexpensive, like $19. So it's a great, great resource for you and your partner to use.

Yeah. Especially if you've fallen into a dynamic or perhaps a gendered dynamic where there's this feeling like only one party in your relationship is allowed to do the initiating. And that can Be a whole problem in and of itself. But this is a great way for you to be. Like, hey, I want to get better at this. I want to take a more active role in how I initiate or how I consider and, you know. Yeah. Invest in yourself and do it.

Okay, step number one. Very simple one. When your partner initiates, if you're not in the mood in that moment, remind yourself it is normal for me to not be turned on in this moment.

Yeah. And in fact, you are not the one initiating sex, so it's very likely that you are not turned on. Like, of course.

Yeah. This is really, like, if we had to boil down the entire episode into one line, like, this is it, like, it's normal. It's okay to not be turned on. So I think just reminding yourself of that in this moment can actually create so much more spaciousness around this whole thing. It's like giving yourself permission rather than you immediately going to this place of, like, beating yourself up, feeling like something's wrong with you, feeling guilty and frustration and anger and all the other stuff that we talked about before. Take a breath. Remind yourself it is totally normal and totally okay for me to not be turned on in this moment. Step number two is another reminder to yourself. This one is to remind yourself your partner wants to feel connected to you in that moment. I think one of the big mistakes that we make around sex is that we tend to write off sex as just being about pure physical pleasure. Yes, of course, sex feels good. Hopefully you're enjoying it. You're having a good time with it. But sex is also about emotional intimacy, too. Wanting to feel close to each other, vulnerable with each other, carving out time for each other, feeling important to each other, prioritized by each other. Like, there's so much, much emotion that gets wrapped up in sex, too. But I think in the moment, so many of us just leap to, like, ugh, my partner, they're so horny, and they're just, like, wanting to get off. Or we even feel like they're not initiating sex with us. They're just initiating sex because they want to have an orgasm. I know. I felt that. When you've initiated with me, sometimes it's like, it feels like I depersonalized it. I'm like, oh, he just wants to get off.

Yeah. And of course, that's something that your mind does. If you have these other big feelings coming up for you. Like if. If you're feeling embarrassed, you're feeling ashamed, you're feeling scared that something might be wrong with you, a really easy way to deflect from those feelings because, yeah, it's uncomfortable to feel those feelings. I'm not saying this is right, but this is what our brains tend to do, is like, if we don't want to feel something, we figure out a way to feel something else. And so in this case, we depersonalize it and we go, my partner just wants something for themselves. It has nothing to do with me at all. And then that's a way to insulate yourself from feeling those very real feelings that are coming up for you.

Yeah. So just take a second to remind yourself, my partner loves me and wants to connect with me and see if that shifts the energy that you feel in that moment. Our next tip is a one word swap that can make such a huge difference. Literally one word. Most of us, when we think about, like a direct initiation, we think of like, do you want to have sex? Right. Do you want to have sex with me? Do you want to go upstairs? Do you want to get naked? Do you want to fuck?

Want to do it?

Want to do it? And when our partner is the one initiating, we turn that question around on ourselves too. Like, do I want to have sex right now?

Yeah. And the word want is a kind of.

It's a strong word.

Yeah, I mean, it's a strong word. It implies that it's not like, I'm so. So it's like a yes or no desire. Like, yeah, I really want that. This, or I really don't want this.

So here's the word swap is use the word open instead of want. So ask yourself, am I open to being intimate right now? Am I open to seeing if I could get turned on? Am I open to connecting with my partner right now? Just that word, it really sends home the message to you that you don't have to be turned on in that exact moment. Moment. Instead, it's just, are you open to the possibility that you could get there, the possibility that that interest, that excitement could build, that you could like, give yourself a little bit of time instead of having that immediate expectation of yourself?

Yeah. So whether or not your partner asks you, are you open to sex, try to change want to, to open in your own mind first. Just try to always hear it that way. Second, you know, if you're initiating sex or you're having a partner, if you're having a conversation with your partner about this, suggest that we stop saying, hey, do you want to have sex? And instead rephrase it to explicitly, are you open to having sex?

Yeah. So listen to this. Episode with your partner and be like, oh, what a great little idea. Why don't we try using this as our way to initiate instead? All right, Step number four is to see if there's something different that you want instead. So another huge mistake that we make with initiation. We tend to view initiation in this, like, all or nothing way.

Yes. No.

Yes or no. Are we doing this or not doing this? And especially for male and female couples, we tend to default to intercourse. It's like when we're asking our partner to be intimate, to have sex with us, we're really talking about intercourse. Like, we're using those words interchangeably. Right.

And sadly, in many hetero relationships, intercourse is not particularly pleasurable for the woman. That's the other layer to put on top of this when that is what you default to. Of course, if you're not wildly turned on in the moment and you're a woman, you're probably like, oh, God, we gotta do that thing again. That sucks for me.

Yeah, it feels like a really high bar. And if it's not the activity that feels the most pleasurable for you, it's like, I gotta take all this energy and all this effort and this time, and I'm not even in the mood, and it's not even gonna feel that good. Good for me.

Maybe I have to put on a show for my partner too.

Like, who would want to say yes? So, you know, our advice is to put more options on the table. One of our favorite things to say is that everything counts as sex. Intercourse is not the only way to have sex. And so it's part of this larger piece of advice that we always give to couples to, like, shake things up. Put more options on the table. Let everything count as sex. If you have more options on the table. If you feel like you're able to pick and choose from things, Things, it's an easier question to ask yourself. It's not like, do I want to do the whole shebang? It's like, oh, maybe Am I open to, like, some making out? Maybe Am I open to, like, us using our hands on each other? Maybe I'm just open to watching you masturbate and I'll keep you company, and we can make it a little sexy, you know? But it's like, there's so many more things that you can choose from. Yeah, if it's like choosing from a whole plethora of options rather than, like, a buffet. Who doesn't love a buffet, Right?

Non hetero couples. This is such a much more common thing. First when you meet someone, it's like, hey, what are you into sexually? Like, there's a whole range of things that we can do, and we acknowledge everyone has their own preferences. So, like, what are you into? What feels good to you? If there's not this one singular act that's like the be all, end all of sex, then it's like what we call sex can be whatever works for us, and that's allowed to change and in any moment. Like, an initiation is an opening for. For a negotiation, if you will, about, like, what. What is going to be on the menu today?

Sexy negotiation.

Yeah, Sexy negotiation. I like it. It could be a little role play.

I was just singing that.

Sex negotiator. Sex line Negotiator. Wow. Wow. You know what? I actually haven't heard the Priceline negotiator jingle in a while.

Is Priceline even around anyway?

Yeah, Priceline's around. I haven't and used it.

Should we try to see if they could be a advertiser for the podcast? We'll get Zazzle. We'll get Pricelines.

Yeah, but only if we can change their jingle. The Sex Line Negotiator.

I like just Sexy Negotiation.

Keep saying it and it doesn't sound like a Priceline so much.

It's fine. We're making it our own thing. And then we'll make Zazzle tote bags that say, sexy Negotiation Negotiator. Yeah, Sexy negotiator. Okay. Anyways, if you need more resources and tools and tips and techniques for shaking things up, for putting more things on the table, for enjoying those things more.

Because sometimes we don't have a lot of practice with them. Sometimes we don't really even know what those things are or if we would like them because no one tried them on us. We didn't know they existed. We never felt comfortable, et cetera, et cetera.

What's the buffet? Yeah, what's in the buffet?

Well, I mean, yeah, it's like this. You know, you travel, like. Okay, you. Oh, I know what's in the box.

There you go.

I can't remember the name of the movie. This is, like, Vanessa's favorite movie.

It's literally the only line from a movie that I know. My brain does not have any space to remember, like, popular lines from literally just what's in the box.

Help me help you.

Help me to help you. Help me to help you.

What I was trying to say is. Yeah, everybody loves a buffet. However, if you go halfway around the world and show up in Vietnam at the buffet, you're probably not gonna recognize a lot of the stuff on the table, and it could be delicious. It could not be delicious. The only way to find out is to try. Maybe you need someone to help explain to you what these are. What does it taste like?

Okay, so what are our options for understanding what Vietnamese buffets are comprised of?

We got a couple things. We have a 30 day sex challenge where we.

30 day pho challenge.

A 30 day pho challenge. Wow. Wow. This was not pre plan, I promise you. The buffet thing just came to me right now. But we have a 30 day pho challenge. 30 day sex challenge. Pho sex challenge. And we give you. Oh, my God. Wow. This works so well. We also have some foreplay guides, AKA pho play guides. The third one that we have does not fit anymore. But. But we also have a sex position playbook. But the idea here is, you know, we can. The 30 day sex challenge has a ton of different ideas of a whole range of sexy things. It is not intercourse for 30 days. There are 30 days worth of sexy activities to do and 30 days worth of sensual things to do.

I'm appreciating your sales pitch, but I just can't get over the fuck.

Like, yeah, our pho play guides will just teach you what the hell pho is. How to make it, how to enjoy it, how to play with your pho.

Okay. We will put links to all of those in the description with this episode. But yes, lots of great resources for helping you shake things up in the bedroom. Try new things, have more excitement and intrigue around sex. And that brings us to tip number five.

Five. Fuh. Five.

This is so bad. Oh, my God.

Wasn't expecting we'd end up here today, dad.

Joke level cheesiness. Oh, my God.

Okay, you know what? We're also. We're going to get a lot of messages from people that are like, what's pho? What do you say? I know.

Oh, God.

Let me just tell you. Pho Pho is Vietnamese noodle soup so that you don't send us a DM on Instagram because I don't want to end up with like a thousand DMs where I'm like, fuzz. A Vietnamese noodle dish. It's really good. Go to your local Vietnamese restaurant and try some, because it hits the spot, especially on a cold day.

Oh, my God. Okay. All right, we got to get it together for tip number five. So tip number five is where we really get into some nuance here, because tip number five is get started. But this is very different from just doing it. Yeah, sounds similar, but give us a second here. So what Get Started is all about is really referencing the fact that there are two sex drive types. We need to make a whole episode about the two sex drive types. We have it on our list, but for now we have a free guide. We will link to that in our description where you can go and find out the two different types, figure out what type you are, what type your partner is, how your types work together. What we quickly want to say here is that one of the types of types is responsive sex drive. And this is a very misunderstood sex drive. Most people who have responsive sex drive think of themselves as having low desire or even no desire. And most people who have responsive sex drives are women. So the thing with responsive sex drive is that you are not going to feel mentally interested in sex until you are having some physical stimulation.

And it's almost certainly never just gonna, like, strike. Strike your mind out of nowhere.

Strike your mind.

I kind of mixed up my metaphors.

I think, oh, you're turning into.

It's never gonna, like, hit you in the moment, like, oh, my God, sex.

Yes. You are not gonna be mentally interested in sex. It's not gonna pop into your head. It's not gonna sound good.

It's not a lightning strike.

Okay, there you go. Until you are getting some sort of physical stimulation, your body has to get turned on first before your brain can get turned on. So if you have ever caught yourself in the middle of sex or even at the end, like, huh, this is actually really fun. Like, why do I not ever crave this? That is the telltale sign of a responsive sex drive.

Yeah. I just want to jump in here and say I can absolutely relate to this one, because for a long time in my life, I've really identified with being a responsive sex drive type. You know, when we were at a point in our relationship where we were struggling with sex drive and mismatch sex drive drives, that was kind of like when I think you first started learning about the different sex drive types and talking about it more. I really discovered this at the same time Vanessa was learning about it, and we were talking about it a lot in our relationship. And yeah, I realized, oh, it's not that I don't have a sex drive. It's just that I need some time to get turned on. And so what I really needed to train myself to do was that I needed to allow myself the opportunity to get turned on. I needed to give myself some space to not just Be like, oh, I have to give a yes or no answer right now. I need to feel into this. I need to give myself a genuine chance. And I actually need to have enough spaciousness in my life so that I can feel like I have time to give myself a chance here.

And even time in the moment.

Yeah, time in time in the moment. Because it's so easy to be like, my partner's gonna get so bored. And if, like, we are not immediately doing this, like, I'm not allowed to take a couple of minutes to, God forbid, make out and see how I feel. And then over time, what that allowed me to do was really build trust in myself that I could get turned on if I gave myself the time. The trust that, oh, I can get started right now. I know I can say no whenever I want to, but I can get started right now. And in a couple of minutes, I know with near certainty that I'm going to be into this. And even that I could initiate sex in a moment when I wasn't really feeling wildly turned on, because I knew that I could initiate and we could get started and then I could get turned on.

Yeah. So it really comes down to this, like, understanding and respecting your sex drive type, because the way that most of us have learned to initiate sex really prioritizes the other type. And you'll have to go download that guide to find out what the other type is. But we initiate it like, it's sort of okay, are you in? Are you out? All or nothing. Let's go. Let's not, not go. And it doesn't create any space for somebody with a responsive drive to actually see if their body is going to get in the mood in that moment. It's like we're prioritizing something different. So the idea here is to really rejigger initiation in your relationship and create some space to start connecting physically and then at that point, see if you're interested in continuing further. So it's like it's sort of turning initiation into. Into a series of decisions rather than one big, are you in? Are you out? All or nothing? Tell me right now. You've got 15 seconds. The little thermometer, what is it? God.

I was on a roll timer.

Hourglass, little hourglass flipped over.

Why is it I feel like we do this so frequently in so many life things where we make it, this all or nothing thing? It's like, I can't make this decision until I make all the 20 other decisions that come after it. Ugh, so annoying. Like, how? Why do we struggle so much with, like, nuanced thinking.

Yeah, again, like, this is really nuanced around. How is this different from the just do it? The just do it to me implies, like, it doesn't matter what you're thinking or you're feeling. You just have to do it and see it through to completion. Whereas get started means, if you are a responsive sex drive type, start stimulating your body in some way, invite your body along to the party, and then see, hey, do you want to continue with this or do you not want to continue with this? So, very practically, maybe you and your partner decide that you're going to make out for 10 minutes, or your partner's going to give you a massage for 10 minutes and you're going to see, do I feel open to doing more? And then you actually have the choice there instead of the no, I already said yes, I've got to continue. It's like, do I want to continue with this or not? So I know what you might be thinking right now because I've talked about this with so many people, and the resistance that comes up around this, this is. Well, but then my partner's gonna get turned on, and then I'll feel like I have to continue even if I.

Don'T want to, because God forbid, my partner can't walk around with a raging boner. It's illegal.

So, yes, first of all, you are not responsible for all of your partner's needs or boners or boners or vulvas, whatever it is. Second of all, like, it is okay to turn sex into this series of decisions rather than one in or out, all or nothing type of decision. And even if you were to give, like, the in or out, all, you know, I'm all in decision, like, you still get to change your mind in the middle of sex and say, you know what? I'm not feeling this. I want to stop. I want to go back to what we were doing. Like, you always have agency, but also, like, your partner is not gonna die. They're not gonna die if they get turned on and they don't end up getting an orgasm or a release.

First of all, they have agency themselves.

They have hands. They have toys. They can get themselves off if they need to. To that I also think, like, let's say you were to tell me, okay, Vanessa, I have this responsive sex drive. I need a little bit of time sometimes, like, I want to get started. Sometimes I'm going to want to do more. Sometimes I'm going to want to do less. If you presented that to me, I would pick the like, you know what? I want to have more physicality with you. I want to have more connection with you. So I'd rather us make out. And sometimes you're going to say, you know what? That feels satisfying to me, and I'm done for today. And hey, I still had 10 minutes of making out with you.

Sure.

Sometimes I'm going to get turned on and be like, like, shoot, I really wish he had wanted more. But, like, I would rather have more connection than you just constantly turning me down all the time because you weren't immediately in the mood.

Oh, yeah. And then like, on the flip side, if I were initiating and you say to me, I'm really not feeling it, but I'll just lie here like a limp fish, like, do. You can still do it. If you put it in those stark terms for me, I would be like, like, okay, yeah, let's do something else. Like, what else would feel good to you? You know, it's like if you were really honest, like, yeah, I don't want to, but I'll still do it for you, but I'm not gonna like it. Like your partner, for the most part, your partner's probably gonna be like, yeah, that doesn't sound good to me either. We all want connection. Like, we want it to be a personal, fun, intimacy building experience. Not this impersonal thing.

Okay, so let's get into one final gray zone. So let's say you signed up for the Initiation 101 masterclass. You went through all the steps in there, and you are just still not really in the mood. You're just not interested in having any sort of physical intimacy. Should you have sex with your partner if that's the case. So we want to reiterate. Consent is always important, even in long term relationships. But the gray area here is around how enthusiastic your consent needs to be. Right? Let me use us as an example. So let's say you initiate sex with me. Xander, I've gone through the steps. I'm not in the mood. What I'm going to think through in my head is, do I feel good giving physical intimacy, like, as a gift to Xander, Where I feel like, you know what? I can show up in the moment, I can be there. Maybe I don't want any focus on my body. I don't want an orgasm or any pleasure, but I would feel good showing up with you. And that could look a number of different ways. Again, maybe it's like, I'm just gonna hang out with you while you Masturbate, maybe sometimes it's even like, I'll have intercourse, but I'm not really. It's kind of like, hey, you do your thing, and I'm good. I think that it's okay to occasionally give sex to your partner as a gift, but only. Only if I genuinely feel good about giving it. If I feel even the tiniest little w Of, like, pressure, guilt, like, this.

Isn'T gonna feel good.

I'm supposed to do this. I don't want to say no to him. I don't want to disappoint him. I already said no to him yesterday. Anything like that? Hell no. I am not giving him something with my body unless I feel 100% good about it.

One way ticket to resentment, Phil.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you are doing something with your body that you do not want to be doing because of pressure, guilt, expectation, shame, anything like that, like, you are absolutely going to create resentment. Resentment. It's a really murky area here, and it's so important for you to be 100% honest with yourself. Can you feel good about it? And for me personally, because we have so much goodwill in our sex life, because I trust you, our sex life feels safe. You've never pressured me or made me feel guilted. Like, we've built up a really solid foundation. So there are times where I'm like, yeah, you know what? I can have sex. Exits for Xander.

I've definitely, like, I've heard people convey that advice on social media, which is kind of what I was talking about earlier on when someone tells their story and then generalizes it. Like, I've heard people give that advice of, you know, my partner and I went to a therapist, and this was our situation. And, like, everything is really good, but we're just, like, struggling in this one area. And they talk through, like, when it feels good for me to sort of give sex as a gift and then, like, give that information to other people. Of, like, yeah, this is what therapist told us to do. And it's like, wait, hold on. But, like, you didn't tell, like, the whole story about everything else that went on. Yeah, like, that's a really dangerous piece of advice to give without any of the other bits and pieces, for sure.

Yeah, we definitely don't want anybody, like, listening to this episode and taking home the message of, like, oh, they said that I should just have sex when I'm not feeling it. Absolutely not. There's so much nuance here. There's so much gray zone. And honestly, like, we talked through this episode before we recorded it. And I was like, God, I want to be so careful with this because I know women especially, like, we get this message drilled into us that we are responsible for our partner's satisfaction and this is our wifely duty and all this bs. And I'm like, I don't want anybody walking away from this episode thinking like, oh man, I really should just have sex with my partner. Or even like Vanessa has sex with Xander sometimes when she doesn't want to. It's like, I don't want any, anybody internalizing that. And at the same time, like, I also want to be honest. Yeah, there are times where this can come up. But again, it really just comes down to being brutally honest with yourself and asking yourself, am I giving this with an open loving heart as a gift? Where I guess also another piece of it is like, well, maybe I mentioned this is like, that I feel like I could be present. I am never going to have sex with you where I'm like, I'm not into this and I'm just gonna check out and let you, like, fuck me. You know, if I feel like I can show up in this moment with you, I can make eye contact with you, I can touch you, maybe I kiss you, it's like I'm present, I'm engaged with it. Maybe I don't want an orgasm, but I'm in that moment with you. That's the only way I'm gonna do it again. I know we're like repeating this because it's so sensitive and I just wanna make sure we're coming across really clear. But be very, very honest with yourself. Is this something that you can give with an open heart, that you can participate in and give willingly? Or are you doing this because you feel pressure, obligation, shame, guilt, embarrassment? Because don't do it. In that case and last note, going along with all of this, if your partner is pressuring you to have sex when you are not in the mood, that's just fucked up, not cool, completely unacceptable, not okay to do. That's a one way ticket into therapy. No pressuring, no guilting, no setting up this expectation that you have to, like, that's just not okay.

Yeah. And like, if this is very early on in a relationship or dating someone, like, if. If you see signs of somebody doing that, like, that's a huge, huge, huge red flag. Get out while you can. If you have a pattern of this happening in your relationship and you want it to stop, you're gonna need to go to therapy and talk this through. Because it's a deeply ingrained thing and it, it's going to take some time for your partner to even have a chance to kind of understand how messed up what they're doing is and like, where it's coming from and how they can even begin to start undoing it.

Yeah. This is reminding me of episode 36. Can we come back from this? The woman who's, I think it was her husband said like, she was in excruciating pain and he's like, you need to just suck it up and give me a blowjob. Go back and listen to that. Because we had, we gave some advice in that one too. But yeah. Any sort of pressure? Hell to the no.

I was actually thinking of that when you were talking about the sort of the gray area example of like, giving it as a gift. That only applies, like, when you are in a good place, you are feeling good. Like, you're feeling really good about doing it. If you are in pain because you're sick or you have like an injury like that, you are already not in a situation where the giving it as a gift is even on the table table.

So if your partner initiates, you're not really in the mood. You walked through these five steps and you're still not really into it. Like, be really brutally honest with yourself. Do I feel good giving some sort of physical intimacy to my partner or am I doing it for some not so good reasons? It's so important to be honest with yourself.

And if you find that your partner is really pressuring you to have sex a lot when you're not in the mood mood, and they aren't able to hear you saying no, they aren't able to empathize with what is going on for you, that's messed up. That is not cool. If you're early in a relationship, this is a huge, huge red flag. And if you are, you know, in a long term committed relationship and you're just realizing this is something that your partner is doing, like, this is something that is really important to talk about. This is something that you might need to go to couples therapy to, to address. Like, it's very possible your partner has some growth and learning around, like, what it is that they are doing and why that is not cool.

Yeah. We just got a DM yesterday from a woman who is saying, you know, if I ever turn my partner down for sex, he gets emotionally abusive. But she turned it around. She was beating herself up of like, why do I have such a low sex drive? And what do I Do to feel more desire. And. And it was like, she didn't even understand that her partner getting emotionally abusive when she said no was fucked up.

Oh, yeah. And I mean, and also, like, why would she ever want something that she is, like, when he is being emotionally abusive to her, like, if she doesn't do it, like, why. Yeah. Why would you ever want that? All right, so let's get into some listener questions. First question is, I hate the way my partner initiates. Help.

Yes. This was a very common question that came up.

Oh, yeah. Hopefully they're not doing the boob honk. Maybe they are.

Oh, yeah. We made a whole reel out of some of the worst ways to initiate with your partner.

We also got flagged by Instagram before doing the boob Hong in a video. Apparently, that is not okay on Instagram. Sorry, Instagram.

You're not allowed to have any sort of boob grabbing on Instagram.

We should have. Yeah, we needed, like, a slide that was like, this is consensual, but it is a joke. We're trying to prove a point. Yeah. They don't understand that.

It was a little too nuanced. Okay. So, yes, obviously, the way that your partner initiates with you plays a big role in this. And there are so many different initiation styles, initiation techniques, and it's really important for us to learn what works for each other. So this should be a conversation that you guys should have of sharing with your partner. Like, what are the ways that you would like them to initiate? Then we'll point you again to our Initiation 101 masterclass. It's really inexpensive, and I believe we go over 22 different ways to initiate. So it's just such a great thing that you can watch with your partner and you can go through that list because some of them you'll really like. Some of them won't sound super appealing to you, but you can go through that list and have specific examples to have a conversation about.

Yeah. I think so many people who ask this question don't themselves have a great idea of how they would like to be initiated with. I think it's very common. There's this dynamic of just like, I don't like that. Do something else. And it can be really hard as a partner receiving that feedback where you're like, wait, so, like, I don't know what's wrong with this. I don't know what else to do. Like, you can feel kind of stuck. So, yeah. Yeah, that masterclass will be super helpful whether you are initiating or being initiated with But I would also recommend that both of you initiate sex. And maybe what you could do if you don't like the way your partner initiates, try initiating in some ways that you might like and see how your partner likes it. And that might show your partner, you know, like help them learn by example, so to speak. All right, next question is, my partner is a high sex drive, but is unlikely to initiate because he's worried it will trigger me instead of turning me on, on. And then it leaves the initiating to me. And I'm very shy in that department. Are there strategies non verbal maybe that we can use to communicate openness to sex or just to gently feel each other out?

Okay, so a lot of different things come up in reading this question. The first thing that jumped out at me was this person saying that their partner is worried that initiating will trigger them.

Yeah, I want to know what that's about.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure if they're speaking to a history of sexual abuse where, you know, initiating can feel unsafe.

Yeah.

So that's definitely something that I would encourage you to explore with a therapist, to do some couples therapy around. Because if somebody does have a history of sexual abuse, initiation can feel very triggering. So that's a bigger picture issue to take a look at with a therapist.

Yeah, I think it's important to do that work because long term, you don't want it to be set up where it's like, I will never initiate out of fear that maybe it's going to trigger you. Like, I think that the goal in your relationship, I would. I would hope the goal is that, you know, either of you could initiate sex in a safe, non triggering way.

There's also this question of, like, this person doesn't want to initiate because they're saying they're shy. Their partner doesn't want to initiate because they're worried. And so I think there is just kind of a bigger picture piece of advice that we give here that I don't think we've really said this yet in this episode, but it is. Is the responsibility of both partners in a relationship to initiate. Of course, there might be some rare relationships where both partners are super on board with only one person ever doing all the initiating. That's fine. But in the vast majority of cases, like, it really is important for you guys to share that because it is a very vulnerable thing. And it's okay for you to feel shy, for you to feel nervous, for you to feel worried about being rejected or whatever kind of comes up for you and to still do the initiating. And then there's this last part of the question where this person is saying, are there strategies we can use to communicate openness? So there's my favorite word, that tip that we already gave earlier.

Yeah, they know the answer subconsciously.

Exactly. So change the question around to are you open to intimacy? And we also do discuss nonverbal initiation tips in that Initiative Association 101 course, too.

Yeah. In general, though, I would not recommend that your goal is that it's fully non verbal out of fear of, like, stirring up this dynamic that you're discussing. I think that, you know, you should do is work on getting more comfortable with verbally talking about, hey, are we open to sex? Are we open to connection and seeing if it leads to sex, rather than being like, oh, it doesn't feel good when we talk. So let's try to find. Find non talking ways to do it.

Yeah.

All right. The next question is, how can you keep initiating when you already aren't comfortable doing it and your partner turns you down? It's a major blow to my confidence and only feeds the they don't want you, something's wrong with you self talk in me.

Ooh, this is a good question. So you need to go Back to episode 13 of the podcast where we talk specifically about this, like how to handle feelings of rejection that come up if your partner turns you down for sex. So little spoiler alert, rejection is unavoidable. Rejection is part of life. Yeah, it's the price of admission for having a sex life. You are never going to figure out a way to set up initiation in your sex life where you're never going to get rejected. So it's all about learning how to feel more comfortable with that, recognizing that it is always going to be a part of your sex life. So definitely check out episode 13.

Another little thing that you can do is, you know, if it feels really uncomfortable for you and you're feeling like, oh, God, I just can't do it is think about, you know, you probably turn your partner down sometimes. Think about what that might feel like for your partner. Try to have some empathy for them. I think oftentimes it's really easy to get really focused on ourselves and be like, ooh, this doesn't feel good for me. I can't do it. And the reality is it doesn't feel good for anybody. And can you have some empathy with your partner? It probably doesn't feel good for them when they get rejected as well. And that's something that we just all have to deal with together.

All right, well, that wraps up our tips for navigating that moment when your partner initiates and you are just not really in the mood. So we hope this has been really helpful and given you specific things you can do the next time this happens in your relationship. Because it will, it absolutely will happen in your relationship.

Sorry.

So we've mentioned a ton of resources in this episode. We really wanted to focus it on this specific moment, but it's tied into so many other things. So we will put links to a ton of stuff in the description. We'll have the link to episode 13 to that free guide about the two different sex drive types, the Initiation 101 Masterclass, and also our sex position playbook for play guides and the 30 day sex challenge. All the things.

So much good stuff. All right, well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week and if you're not following us on Instagram, check us out at Vanessa Marin Therapy. We are always posting behind the scenes moments, tips and lots of audience questions and polls.