Episode 94: The “Start Here” Episode - Allow Us To Reintroduce Ourselves

If you're somebody who's brand new to us and is like, wait, what? What is everything that you do? I don't get this. Where do I start? We wanted to give you a pathway, but even if you're somebody who's been hanging out with us for a while and probably don't even know all of the stuff that we do because we do so much.

Yeah. We're about to hook you up with exactly, exactly what you want. Where to get it, how to do it. Yeah.

Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks Pod 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. Thanks to Green Chef for sponsoring Pillow Talks. Green Chef is the number one meal kit for eating well with dinners that work for you, not the other way around. Go to greenchef.com pillow60 and use code PILLOW60. That's six zero to get 60% off plus free shipping. Thanks to Dipsea for supporting Pillow Talks. Dipsea is an audio app full of short, sexy stories. If you're looking to light a spark or heat things up, there's a story waiting for you. And you can get an extended 30 days free trial when you go to dipseastories.com pillow let's start today off with a question. Who the hell are you?

Who are you?

I asked you first.

My name is Xander. I like long walks on the beach, but I would prefer to be. I'd prefer to be surfing rather than walking on the beach. Honestly, that's basically me.

So your description of yourself is an incorrect statement. And then I like to. To surf.

Yeah. The one thing I enjoy in life.

Wow.

The.

The one thing you enjoy in life. Excuse me, sir.

No, I'm just kidding. I love you.

Don't even mention your.

But I love you more. All right. My name is Dogs. My name's Xander. I'm married. I have a wife named Vanessa. She's the best. I have two pugs, Winston and Maggie. They are next best. Then I have a bunch of surfboards. They come next, I guess.

Wow. Wow. Well, what an interesting start to this episode. We have a lot of new people in our community and we thought this was a good time to take a little bit of a look back at who we are, what we've become, do an introduction to ourselves for these new people. So that was a very strange introduction to you. Hopefully someone's new is still going to continue to listen. You know what I just realized? We used to start so many episodes with, like, wow, that was a really weird way to start the episode. I hope people will keep listening. And we haven't done that in a while.

I know. That was.

Maybe we're feeling more confident that people are going to continue listening.

Look, here's the deal. To everyone who's brand new, we have this Journey joke where we love to say, God, that was a really weird thing to say, especially if this is your first episode and we're recording this episode for many people for whom it may be their first episode. And yeah, I guess we just kind of shot ourselves in the foot there. But hey, I mean, I think we're pretty cool. I think you should keep listening to us. We have a cool podcast. We're going to tell you about it.

Obviously, if they're listening to it, they know. Okay, well, this is gonna be a fun episode. And even if you're an og, if you've been hanging out with us for a long time, if you listen to every Pillow Talks episode, I think this will still be an entertaining episode. I mean, we're starting off on this front.

Yeah, I mean, I'll do my best to keep you entertained. You start.

You.

You say. You say that so much, and I have no idea.

Starting on this front. I say that a lot. No, like you're. I'm starting on this foot. Like it's the right foot. Put your best foot forward.

Yeah, that's. So that's it. It's put your best foot forward.

There's not a saying for starting on the right foot.

Maybe there is. Maybe. I don't know. We've been doing a lot of. We've been doing a lot of, like, book publicity stuff for our book Sex Talks. And there. There's something that you say a lot. It makes sense. I'm not gonna, like, stop you when we're in the middle of an Instagram live, but there's a funny thing.

Yeah, that's a saying. Starting off on the right foot.

I think that you often say, start off on the best foot, and that is a mix up of two.

Okay, fine. I'll give you starting off on the right foot. So we're going to start off on. I don't even Know why I was saying that to begin with. But anyways, this will be a great episode. If you're brand new, you'll get to learn a little bit of the lay of the land, get some sneak peeks and some hints from our OGs.

We'll see how many different, like, aphorisms or sayings Vanessa will conflate into one. That's her. That's. That's Vanessa's go to.

That's a good introduction.

She'll take. She'll take a saying or an aphorism or whatever you call it, and she will mix up at least two, maybe sometimes three, and kind of mash them up together. And it's fun to untangle, try to figure out what's going on in that little tiny five foot brain of yours.

My brain is five feet?

Yeah, your brain's five feet. Biggest brain ever.

We need to get our podcast editor Art to make us a whole super cut of all of them. That would be such a painful episode to listen to.

It would also be very, very painful to do the work of that. You would have to listen through every single Pillow Talks episode to find those moments.

So it's painful.

And then cut them together. I feel like that's. That's like, for whoever our biggest super fan is out there, like, that would be an amazing thing to do. You want to listen to every single episode and flag all. All the weird moments?

No, don't. No. All right, well, let's get right into it. Xander already introduced himself, so I will introduce myself. Yeah.

Who the heck are you?

Who the heck am. Hi. I am Vanessa. I'm the sex therapist here. We have a. Our whole little tagline is that we're the sex therapist and her regular dude husband.

Sometimes regular dud.

Sometimes regular dud. I have made that typo. I made that typo one time on Instagram. I wrote that he was a regular dud. And nobody has let us live that down.

Never gotten more DMs than that day. It was like 5 to 10,000 DMs of people being like, you wrote dud. Ha. You wrote dud.

I mean, it is pretty funny. It is pretty funny. So I originally got into the idea of sex therapy when my parents tried to give me the talk.

I'll let you guess how well that went.

It was awkward, it was uncomfortable. And I remember, you know, I had no clue at the time that sex therapy existed as a career, but I remember in that moment feeling very struck by, why can't we talk about this? Why are my parents so embarrassed why is this such an uncomfortable topic? I did have questions. I wanted to be able to talk to my parents, parents about it. And I couldn't. I knew that I couldn't. Even though they were trying to have the talk, there was this underlying vibe of we don't really want to talk about it at all. So that memory really stuck with me. And it wasn't till I was about 17, 18 that I realized, you know what? I wanna be a sex therapist. I wanna be in sex therapy. So I started at, I think 17, started doing internships in the field. I was working on research projects, like being a very, very low level research assistant. But I started getting, went to Brown for my undergraduate and got my degree in human sexuality, also sociology and pre med. I thought I was going to be pre med, quickly decided not to go the pre med route and instead went into the psychotherapy route. So I was doing internships, I was doing research projects this whole time. And then went to grad school, got my master's in counseling psychology, became a licensed therapist, and initially started in this business seeing people one on one in that traditional psychotherapy model. But I realized very quickly that I wanted to switch to doing stuff online because my practice filled up quickly. I was sharing the same information over and over with people. And I realized there was a bigger way to reach people, to reach more people, like on a bigger scale. So I started building out online courses back in 2016. No, the first course that I built was 2014. And right around 2016 was when I started bringing Xander into the business. I kind of tricked him by first asking him to do help me build an Excel spreadsheet.

Did you really have that in mind when that happened? Were you like, I'm gonna like dangle this one project in front of him and then he's gonna end up on board?

Yeah, I didn't, to be honest. Like, I genuinely needed your help. Cause I couldn't build the spreadsheet. I mean, I was hoping that you would find it interesting and fun because the business was starting to take off right around that point. And I was feeling very excited by it. But I definitely didn't have this idea. I never in a million years thought that we would be working together in the way that we are today.

Okay. Okay, just. Just check in. I feel like I learned. I learn new things every day and I was just curious. You know, that would be funny, that would be funny if you were, if you, if it was your master plan all along. But it was, it was, it was not. It was not all right, so how the heck did I get to that point where. Where I ended up making a spreadsheet for Vanessa and then, you know, got tricked into joining. Joining our business? So I went to college at the tender age of 18 years old.

Most of us do.

Yeah, I was. I was a tender 18 year old. I was a tender 18 year old. And. And, yeah, I went. I went to. I went to a tiny liberal arts school called Claremont McKenna in east LA county. I ended up studying government and psychology. And to be really clear, the type of psychology that I studied or kind of like focused on in my major was Industrial Organizational psychology, which is really like HR or HR consulting, which is exactly what I ended up doing. I. When I graduated, I went and I got a job at one of the big HR consulting firms. And I totally thought that I was going to have just a career in HR or management consulting. Like, I was. I was really into that. I thought it was super cool.

And then we met. Yeah, we met right around this time.

We kind of had to very quickly after I got that job. Like, I was three months into the job.

Xander was 22, I was 23.

And so we were at the tender young age.

The tender young age of 22 and 23. I was between undergrad and graduate school. And so we started dating, and we had some of our own challenges with our sex life. Like, the first couple of years were amazing. We felt so assured.

Sure.

Wait, sure of our chemistry? Sure about.

Yeah, we felt sure. We felt assured and sure about it. We sure were assured.

We had great chemistry. There we go. We had great chemistry. Things went really well for a couple of years, and then we hit that rough patch that I think so many couples in long term relationships inevitably hit, where things slowed down. We weren't having very much sex. Neither one of us were feeling as much desire for sex. And we really struggled with how to reconnect once we started feeling more like roommates.

Yeah.

So we kind of mucked through it. It took a long time and a little bit of couples therapy. We mucked through it, and right around the point when things started getting a lot better between the two of us, that was a couple years later was like when you. When I tricked you into joining the business.

Yeah, yeah, basically, like. Like Vanessa alluded to, it was, you know, a little bit of couples therapy, a lot of individual therapy for me. A lot of that was me figuring out what the hell I wanted to do in life. I was, you know, I was pretty miserable in this consulting job. I was working my ass Off. I didn't have a lot of time or energy for Vanessa. I made a. I made a career move. I went. And where I got, actually, there was.

A long stretch of time. There's 10 years between when we met and when you started working with me. Nine years.

Yeah, eight. Nine years. Yeah, it was nine years. So, yeah, I mean, yeah. So, you know, I was. I was trying to muck through it. I was figuring things out. I was like, okay, I'm going to make a bit of a career move. I moved into doing HR at Google, worked at Google for four years, which was a really incredible experience. Also a very draining experience. But it was. I can't really complain about it. I had a pretty decent work life balance. I got really burnt out on the commuting and some of the repetitive nature of certain things that I was doing and felt like, I wonder if there's more out there. And so. But I didn't know what I was going to do. So Vanessa and I talked about it a lot. I was expressing to her how. Just how lost I was feeling. And Vanessa said something really generous. She was like, you know what? You took care of me financially when I went to grad school. Let me take care of you financially for a year or two while you figure out what it is you want to do. So I was like, great. Sounds like a great idea. Quit my job. We moved halfway around the world to Berlin, Germany, and spent two and a half years there. And that's when I started working with Vanessa. I was like, great. I'm really good at spreadsheets because I was a consultant, I was a Googler. I know everything there is to know about them. I built a spreadsheet for Vanessa and started doing more and more projects here and there for her. And slowly but surely, I kind of looked up and was like, oh, I'm like, managing the operations of this growing business.

And so then the next stage of the business was me convincing Xander to come and find front of the camera and work on, like, creating content with me. He was really nervous for a very long time, thinking, like, I don't have anything to say. I don't have this training. You're the expert. Nobody wants to hear from me. But I kept telling him, I think that's the whole point, though. Like, we could have this vibe of, I'm the expert, you're the regular person, and we can talk about our relationship. We've been together for so long. We've had so many ups and downs. We've struggled with so much. We've been together for so many years. We've had so many challenges in the bedroom, and we've also worked into a really incredible place with our sex life. So I think all of that is valuable to share with people. So it took me several years, but right around the end of 2020, beginning of 2021, was when Xander finally started doing some Instagram stories with me and then became more and more involved in front of the camera. So now the two us are very much focused on creating content together. It's not like my business that Xander's supporting operationally. It's like the two of us, the sex therapist and the regular dud.

That's us. That's us. It's our. Yeah, it's our business now. It's our world.

And what really drives everything we do is this deep desire to make the world a better place. And I know that might sound a little bit cheesy, but it truly is what's in our hearts. It's like we just want to help people. We've been through some really tough stuff in our own sex life. We've been to some incredible places in our sex life, and we want to show people that this epic, extraordinary love and sex is possible for us. So that's like kind of that guiding factor that we always come back to in our business decisions and, you know, making moves and stuff like that, is thinking about how can we help the most amount of people in the most profound way.

I mean, because honestly, I think the world can become a better place if all of us are in better places in our own relationships. I think, you know, the, the relationships that we are in, especially like an intimate relationship, a marriage, a long term relationship, whatever type of relationship configuration you have, when you are in a good place there, I think you show up more positively in the world. You're a happier person, you're more motivated, you're more motivated to do good in the world. So, yeah, like, let's try to get. Let's try to get as many people in feeling as good as possible about where they're at in their, you know, most kind of fundamental relationship unit and then see what happens from there.

Fundamental relationship unit. That's your analyst coming out.

Well, I was going to say our.

Next course I was improving. Optimizing your fundamental relationship unit.

Wow. Yeah. Sorry, guys.

Or fru.

It came out. It came out. I was going to say family unit, but then I was like, well, I'm not talking about like your, like, parents or what? I don't know, man.

Okay, so another Important thing to know about us is that we are extremely passionate about this work. Like, we just. This is going to sound weird. I'm like, we eat, live and breathe sex. That sounds weird. But like, we just love talking about this. And so we've created so much content. So part of why we wanted to make this episode is to kind of help guide you through where to start. So if you're somebody.

Because there's a lot.

If you're somebody who's brand new to us and is like, wait, what is everything that you do? I don't get this. Where do I start? We wanted to give you a pathway. But even if you're somebody who's been hanging out with us for a while and probably don't even know all of the stuff that we do because we do so much.

Yeah. We're about to hook you up with exactly, exactly what you want, where to get it, how to do it.

Yeah, great. Thank you.

You're welcome. Just. Just in case that wasn't clear.

So let's talk about the podcast first, because you're obviously here listening to the podcast, as Xander pointed out earlier. So the podcast, I think, is probably the most comprehensive free resource that we offer.

Oh, hell yeah.

We go deep every single week. We have never missed a week with this podcast giving you practical tools and strategies for creat exceptional sex, life and relationship. So let's roll through. Maybe we'll share like the top 10 most listened to episodes people are curious about. I mean, there is no right or wrong way to go through the podcast, but here are the most popular episodes if you're curious.

Here's what the people think.

Okay. Episode 37, the Truth about why We're Child Free. We were very surprised that that early on became the runaway number one episode.

Oh yeah.

Definitely worth listening to that one far and away.

And then next, epis 49, the truth about squirting and why Men are Obsessed With It. That is a very interesting one. Squirting is definitely one of the most commonly dmed topics that we get over on Instagram. Just, you know, regardless of how much we talk about squirting, there are still more and more questions. And I won't answer any other questions about squirting right now. You're just gonna have to go listen to the episode to figure out the truth.

Number three is episode 71, Ask Us Anything, part three, Extra Spicy Edition.

Yeah, so clearly we did two, two more Ask Us Anythings before that. They were not as popular. Clearly people like extra spice. Then we have episode 69. Kind of a shame that 69 is not our number one most listened to episode. You'll notice we love the number 69. Why not? Seriously, why not? So the episode is what do men really think about? Insert the blank.

Well, this is part two.

Yeah, part two. We. So obviously we did another episode, a part one, where, yeah, we just talk about what do men really think about, and people send in questions and I try to respond for all men. And then there's a parenthetical here. Lingerie, boobs, money, queefing, and more. A lot of good stuff there.

Next is episode 68, the previous one, the ultimate but. But stuff episode.

And then 64, are you roommates or romantic partners?

58. The sex act you should be doing but probably aren't.

Oh, my God.

What is it gonna leave that one a mystery? You gotta listen.

Oh, damn. Cliffhanger. Clickbait. Cliffhanger. Episode 53 is next. How to spice it up in the bedroom. Kink for beginners.

You had a little bit of a Vanessa Lisp on spice.

I did, yeah. How to spice it up?

You're like, spice.

How to spice it up in the bedroom. Kink for beginners. There we go. I got it.

Then episode 67, hot takes. How we really feel about your most requested topics.

And finally, episode number one, Old Faithful. Old OG Faithful. The secret to hot Sex. Talking about it and. Wow, that is. That's very appropriate, that. One, that's our first episode. And two, that. That rounds out our top 10. And we'll tell you why that's so appropriate in a minute.

So I think the podcast is probably the best way to get to know us on a deeper level, just because it's. It's so much longer. You know, we really go in depth on these episodes, and I. I think we may have been more vulnerable here than maybe anywhere else. Like, we share so many experiences and thoughts, challenges that we're going through. So it's a really great medium if you want to go deep. And we also have so much fun with it. I mean, obviously this episode is, like, ridiculous already, but it's just a lot of fun to sit here in our office together to shoot the shit, to make each other laugh.

Like, it's a good window into our. Our everyday life. Yeah, this is. This is the life that we live. This is the. The life and the business that we've built that allows us to get to show up like this with each other. And yeah, I mean, this is just a true window into how Vanessa and I operate together. That's Kind of why we started the podcast, because it was like we were starting to really grow on Instagram. And it's really fun to do Instagram stories and get to interact with people, but the Instagram stories are short, you know, like 30 seconds, 60 seconds. You can really only do so much unless you put up like 30 minutes of story content, and who's going to actually have time to watch that? And so we were like, like, let's just do a podcast, and we can just go really deep on specific topics.

And we wanted this to feel like we're just friends sitting down for, like, we're going on a double date, you.

Know, except we're the only ones talking.

But that it could feel that way for you listening. So one of our favorite tips with the podcast is to listen with your partner. We asked people on Instagram, like, share success stories with us of listening to the podcast. And so many people said, just getting my partner to listen opened up all, all of these conversations. So one person said, simply having an excuse to talk about sex has made our life better. If your partner does not want to listen, a sneaky little trick is just listen to the podcast kind of loudly when your partner is around, so they might get intrigued. One person on Instagram said, if you're unsure of how to start the conversation, listen to the podcast and stories loud, where your partner can hear them. I mean, it is a great little trick because your is going to hear some sort of word or phrase, something that we say, and be like, wait, what are you listening to?

Yeah, and I just. I just want to call out like, it's. It's very normal that someone might initially go, I don't want to listen to a podcast about this. I don't want to talk about sex. That's one of the most common things that we hear to be. I mean, just to be honest, we've all been socialized to feel like sex is just supposed to be this natural, effortless thing and that, you know, once we are in a committed relationship or we're married or whatever, like, we're just supposed to be good at it and not ever talk about it. And so it's very normal that one person in a partnership is. Is going to be hesitant. However, when you just kind of hear it in the background, I mean, I think the reality is the way that we talk about sex is really approachable. It's not this, like, remedial thing, like, hey, you suck at sex. We gotta sit you down and walk you through this uncomfortable thing. Like, we try to Have a lot of fun. And so sometimes you just gotta put it on in the background and let your partner overhear, like, hey, this isn't what I thought it was. This is actually a fun, like a safe, fun and exciting topic.

So we asked our audience on Instagram, we said, if you listen to the podcast, what advice do you have for somebody who's maybe a brand new podcast listener? So here are a couple of things that they said. Said there is so much to learn from episodes of the podcast you are going to skip for being not applicable. Every episode, regardless of topic, will have something in it that you can apply to your own life.

Someone else said, listen to the mental load episode, which is episode four, and get curious and remember, you and your partner are on the same team.

Scroll through and flag episodes that sound the most exciting to you and your partner. Make a date to go for a drive or listen to them on a road trip. And a different couple said that they actually split up their AirPods and they listen in the car with their kids in the backseat.

So interesting.

Very, very great tip for squeezing in a little listening even when you have young ears around.

Yeah, I think listening on a road trip is such a good idea. You and I listen to podcasts very often on road trips. And, you know, one of the podcasts that we used to listen to nonstop was Dan Savage's Savage Love Cast. And that was. Gave us so much inspiration for doing this because we would listen to that podcast, we'd hit pause frequently. We'd talk through stuff, you know, like, people would ask a sex question. We'd pause it before he even said anything. We'd be like, all right, what do you think? Okay, well, this is what I think. Then we'd listen to him, and it was so, like, it's so fun to be able to do that. And it makes a drive go, like 10 times faster. Oh, yeah, Podcasts make the drive. For me at least. Podcasts make drives go so much faster than listening to music. So I highly recommend that. And you're gonna come out of that road trip, like, feeling way more connected and excited to get. To get sexy.

What's that voice?

I don't know. I was about to say in the bedroom, but then I was like, well, I don't want to be telling people you can only have sex in the bedroom. And I was like, you're gonna be real excited to fuck. I don't know. Then I just sound like a creepy old man.

Super creepy. I don't like that.

That voice. Yeah, I don't know. So sorry. That was awkward.

Why don't you just move us along and read the last piece of advice?

You know, hey, bottom line, people, I'm going to bottom line this for you. Listen to the podcast even if you're not a podcast person.

Well, that's what somebody else said, but.

That'S what someone else said. I say that too. If you don't. If you don't want to be listening to this podcast, but you're listening anyway for some reason, just keep listening. Even if you're not a podcast person.

You're on one today, okay? And let's just wrap the podcast section up with a success story. So one person sent into us your free content and more specifically, your podcast helped save my marriage. We were at a point where I was considering moving out and separating from him. He and I both had different needs that the other wasn't meeting and didn't understand. I wanted emotional connection. He needed sex. A friend of mine reposted your stories about mismatched sex drives and I didn't know what the heck you guys were talking about or if it was even a thing. Little side note on this one, whenever you share some of our content to like your social media accounts, it is such a freaking gift that you are giving to your friends. Oh yeah, because a lot of us are just scared to google this. We don't know what to look for, what resources to trust. So. So even something as simple as sharing to your story, you don't even know the impact that you're making. I wonder if this person ever told their friend like you pointed me to a resource that saved my marriage. I mean, that's wild. Okay, let me get back into it. So I found your page, found your podcast, listened and learned. I couldn't even blame my husband anymore. Your content held me accountable for my part in our struggle. But you didn't stop there. You gave me the tools to fix it. It. I eventually showed him where I was learning everything, and he started following and listening too. Together, we made a conscious decision to move forward and apply what we learned from you guys. Bonus. You make us laugh like clockwork. Every new episode was our next step. Eventually, we got out of the hole and have been stronger than ever. We're still learning, still growing, and still have work to do. But anything is better than being where we were. X and V. We can't thank you enough. We oddly feel like we know you or that you're our friends who just gave us really awesome advice one day. You saved us. We have incredible Sex now too. So. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Oh my God. That just. I like, I am smiling so big right now because that's why we do this, is to have this kind of impact. And it's so cool to hear that. And if you are the person who sent in this story or a couple other stories that we're going to read, email us@infomtherapy.com because we have a of lot surprise for you.

Oh yeah.

So we just had a Green Chef meal this Friday. We invited my parents over for dinner. We made one of our meals and they were very impressed.

They were.

We had like a honey harissa glazed chicken with like turmeric cauliflower rice with some veggies in it. My dad was very into it.

He was very into it. He was asking me a lot of questions about how I was preparing it.

It was so cute.

And I was like, it's. It's all on the instruction card.

We've teamed up with Green Chef, the number one meal kit for eating well, and they have a really great deal for you. You can go to greenchef.com pillow60 and use code PILLOW60 to get 60% off plus free shipping. So here are some of the things that we love about Green Chef. The variety and the customization. There are so many different meals every single week. Like, tons of options to choose from. So we actually have a hard time every week debating which ones we're gonna pick for the week.

We do it. It's a challenge. I have to pick a couple, Vanessa picks a couple. We hopefully have some overlaps, and then the negotiations begins. Just kidding. No, it's really fun.

They also have options for every lifestyle. So we are both gluten free and we can very easily just filter the menu to give us gluten free options. And it's not like it's just, oh, you're gluten free. Here's your one sad option for the week. We have like, like, I don't know, 15 options to choose from.

Yeah, it's like, here's your 15 or 20 options. So, yeah, if you have, you know, know fewer dietary requirements, there are even more options.

It's also convenient, easy, and sustainable. The meals are very fast and easy to prepare. We are going to have Green Chef for lunch today. We only have a short break in between meetings, but it's just very easy to have a flavorful meal from them. So you can go to greenchef.com pillow60 and use code pillow60 to get 60% off plus free shipping. Shipping. Let's tell you a little bit more about Dipsea. So I think I mentioned this the very first time that Dipsea was a podcast sponsor. But I found out about them originally years ago when I was working in San Francisco with clients, one on one. And one of my clients discovered it, she came in and she said, have you heard of this app? And she was so excited to share it with me because she had really been struggling with desire, struggling to like, get in the mood to feel turned on to be intimate with her partner. And she had been recommended, Dipsea by a friend and she tried it out and realized that she got very, very turned on listening to audio stories. I think, you know, a lot of us just have not had the experience of listening to a sexy audio story. Like, Dipsea is really the first app of its kind that's doing something like this. So it was just such a fun discovery for her to realize, like, there's this brand new way of connecting with my body, of getting turned on, of getting excited. So I was very grateful that I learned about it from her, started recommending it to lots of clients. And now, years later, Dipsea is a podcast sponsor, which is so exciting. So if you've never heard of them, they are an app full of hundreds of short, sexy audio stories designed by women for women. They really bring these scenarios to life with immersive soundscapes, realistic characters, and there are all sorts of fun stories like second chance romances, adventurous vacation flings, hot and heavy hookups. It's just really such a fun thing to explore, especially if you've never tried anything like this. And the best part of all of this is you can try it for 30 days free. So if you love it, great, you can continue using it. Maybe it unlocks something within you like it did for this client of mine. If you don't, you haven't lost anything. You got a free 30 day trial. So this is a special deal just for you listeners. Dipsea is offering an extended 30 day free trial when you go to diploma dipseastories.com pillow that's 30 days of full access for free when you go to D I P s e a stories.com pillow dipsystories.com pillow okay, so let's move over to another major part of our business, which is Instagram. And I will be honest with you guys, we created an Instagram. I created an Instagram account probably back in 2013 and I hated it for like seven years. I think.

I think that's so that's so common for people in sort of like small businesses like ours, like online, online course or coaching businesses. Instagram or social media in general is like, it's like a necessary evil for a lot of people. They're like, like, I don't want to do it. Like, I want to show up and teach. I want to show up and coach. I want to serve. I don't. And you know, they. And people look at social media like it's marketing or sales or something. And that was, yeah, that was such a struggle for you. But I'm just normalizing the fact, like, if you're out there and you do something similar, I think the majority of people think, oh, God, like, I got, I got a post on social. I got a post on social.

It just felt superficial. Like, you know, I'm on Instagram, but it's all, you know, just pictures. And I, you know, it just felt like, how am I gonna help anybody on social media? And I had this big hang up that nobody would want to follow a sex therapy account because they would be embarrassed that maybe their friends could see it or something like that. So the page was very small. The account was very small for many, many years because we just kind of like threw up random stuff there. And even when Sandra joined the business, we were like, how do we, you know, we hired other people to do it. It was terrible. We just really struggled with it. And it wasn't until around the time where I started convincing Xander of like, let's do some stuff together. I thought, you know, Instagram feels like, like a more approachable first step. It's not like creating a course or like recording some official video. It's just. And I think I sold him on stories. I was like, it literally is just up for 24 hours, then it disappears. We have hardly anybody following us, so who cares?

And I think what you would, what you would do is you would be talking about something like you would be recording a story and then you would, you would, you know, stop that slide. And then, and then you'd bring me over and be like, hey, like, what do you think about that?

Yeah. So we started in 2020, was when we started. I think we kind of even had this, like, fuck it, like, this account sucks. We have, I don't know, maybe we had like 5,000 followers, 10,000 followers at that time. We just figured, let's just have fun with it and let's just use this as an experiment, get Xander more comfortable doing content.

We also, we also hired a new social media person that Was. That was assisting. Yeah, that was assisting us. And she did an incredible job. Absolutely. Of helping. You know, she took on all the stuff that felt really tedious to you, and she brought some really fun energy.

Yeah.

Really, I think, helped you come out of your shell.

Yeah. And we really. We both came out of our shell. We stopped. I think another piece of it is for many years, when I had this business, I had this idea of, like, this is such a taboo topic. I need to be very professional about it. You know, I need to be the therapist who's been trained and I have all these degrees and. And my therap taught me that I don't share anything about myself. It's all about my client.

Yeah. Because as a psychotherapist, when you are giving psychotherapy as a service to someone, you are. You are not supposed to share about yourself. Like, that's kind of like what the therapist patient relationship is. And so, of course, you brought that with you into. Okay, well, I'm a therapist. That's how I identify. So I'm very limited in how I'm able to show up. Up on social. And I think it was at a certain point you were kind of like, well, what are, like, the things that I'm selling? You know, the. The courses that we're selling? Like, I'm not giving psychotherapy. Like, I am coach. You know, it's a coaching thing. And so why the hell am I showing up as a psychotherapist? Like, I can show up as a coach and a person, like a human being who also goes through this stuff.

Yeah. And so that's when our social media account exploded. Obviously, now we can look back at it and we're like, of course. Obviously, once we started being. Being real human beings and sharing our own stories and having fun with it, that's when people wanted to follow, not when we were treating it like this boring, terrible thing that we hated. So stories are such a great way to get to know us, to have fun with us, to get more comfortable with the topic of sex, and also to feel like you're a part of this community. So we do a lot of audience and community participation on Instagram. We do polls. Would you rather games? A lot of. Of, like, do you relate to this or what's going on with you? We also have regular features that we do. Like, we have Spill It Saturdays or Funny Stories Ask Us Anything Sundays. Would you rather on Mondays? So it's just a really, really fun place to be, and it's a great way to start opening up Communication with your partner. So if the idea of listening to a whole podcast episode together maybe feels like too much, just watch stories together. Like, we're there every day, but it's just a couple of minutes. Minutes. You can also use the same trick of just listen to it loudly when they're around. Or you can use it as a way to open up a conversation with your partner. Like, oh, I just saw this on stories today. Like, Xander and Vanessa were talking about this thing. So we asked our Instagram community for advice, like, what would they tell to somebody who was just starting to follow us on Instagram? So one person said, start at the funny sex positions. Highlight light makes things less serious and not intimidating going forward.

Yeah, that's. That's a really good one. You. If you're gonna start somewhere, you might as well start somewhere funny. Start on the right foot, right, Vanessa?

Start on the right. I'll not tell you what's in that highlight, but it is pretty hysterical.

Also, watch the female orgasm highlight. I think that is a huge one. Whether you are a vulva owner yourself, your partner is having sex with a vulva owner. It is just crucial, crucial, crucial information to have regardless of who you are.

Another person said, read the captions on the post. So we like to have a lot of fun with our reels and with our posts that we have, but we do have a lot of, like, meaty content in the captions themselves. Sometimes people skip over that.

Also, always pay attention to Vanessa's dad's sex tip of the day. You won't regret it. He doesn't actually give one every day, but Vanessa's parents live, like, 10 minutes away from us, so we see them very often. Often. And whenever we see them, we. We like to ask your dad for a sex tip. He's. He's got some interesting ideas.

They've come a long way from their awkward sex talk with me. They have grown as well. And they're. Yeah, they actually have their own highlight too.

They are. Check them out. They're an honorary part of this business. You know, we. We are healing generational shame and trauma.

We are. Don't laugh at that.

I mean, yeah, I'm just laughing because it's. It's true. It's fun now. It's like a. It's a fun thing that we get to do with them.

And the last. The last person said, Instagram is the window to open communication about sex with your partner. Open it in all caps. Okay, let's talk about our newest project. Our book, Sex the Five Conversations. That Will Transform youm Love Life. It came out on February 7th.

Maybe that's why you're here.

Yeah. That might've been your first introduction to us. So that book, book was all about helping couples talk about sex so that you can create an amazing sex life. And you go through those five conversations, you learn how to get comfortable, even have fun talking about sex. Stay emotionally connected, turn each other on, make each other feel good and keep that spark for life.

And if you want to hear more about how we wrote the book and some of the behind the scenes detail and dirt, Check out episode 87, which is called Sex Talks. Sharing all the secrets Behind Writing Our First Book. Because it is no small feat to write a book now that we are.

Oh, no.

Now that we are. Yeah. I can just say straight up, wow.

It was a lot.

We.

But we're very proud of it.

We did it. I'm so proud of it. Yeah, I mean, I'm really proud of you. I'm proud of me too. Vanessa Robin wrote significantly more of the book. The book is With Xander by Vanessa.

Okay. And let's talk about the last big branch of our business, which is our guides. So if you're ready to go deeper, we have a whole suite of guides and courses that you can sign up for online that are absolutely life changing investments in your relationship. So we have a wide variety of stuff. You will find everything from comprehensive weeks long courses that will transform your entire relationship. We have Better, hotter, More. That's like our most comprehensive course that will give you everything you need to have better, hotter and more sex. But we also have really snappy quick win guides that you can implement ASAP, like Initiation 101, our masterclass.

And we have a lot of different price points too. We really try to make stuff as affordable as possible. So we have a ton of options of stuff that cost under $30. So if you go to vmtherapy.com courses, you will see all the options. It's really important for us to be accessible in that, you know, financially as well as, you know, accessible in terms of a range of topics. So check out all the good stuff. These are, these are not, you know, thousand dollar courses. These are really, really cheap, practical things that you can get started on tonight.

So if you look at that page and you're like, oh my God, you guys, guys are right. You're nuts. There are so many things here.

We are a little nuts.

We love, we love this stuff. But if you want a starting point, my favorite recommendation is our ultimate foreplay. Guides. And these were our best sellers in 2022. Like, the most popular things. They're a great entry point. And when we asked our audience, like, what would be your first recommendation for somebody who's brand new, like, what's the course that they should buy? Why so many of them said the foreplay guides? So the guides teach you exactly how to use your hands and your mouth on your partner to absolutely blow their minds.

So we have those separated into Vulva Pleasure Edition and a Penis Pleasure Edition. Or you can get a great deal by getting both together. The guides have really tasteful illustration so that you can have a visual reference. Like, we're not. We're not just going to try to describe things and let you try to figure it out on the fly. Like, you can actually see these tasteful, tasteful illustrations. That's very important to us. There are a lot of very untasteful illustrations or pictures out there on the Internet. But, yeah, we try to do it differently. And I think the key thing about the foreplay guides is just you're gonna get that confidence to really pleasure your partner in exciting and unexpected ways. I think a lot of us think that we know how to do this, or you know, and you probably do know how to do it. But what I want to say is there are a lot of different. There's a lot of different options out there, a lot of different techniques that you may or may not be aware of. And we just get such good feedback on this. Everyone's like, I thought I knew how to give a blowjob. I thought I knew how to go down on a woman. And I tried one or two of these new things out, and let's just say it was a lot better.

Just go over to that page. We'll put a link to this in the show notes. Like, it's worth just going there to read the testimonials. Like, we have so many DMS from people sharing their experience. So our community also had some other advice about our courses and our guides in general. One person said, if you're struggling, know you're not alone. So many other people are taking the same course you are. V and X created them for a reason, and that's because they are needed.

Give it a chance. It can be uncomfortable even hearing about sex sometimes, but you will benefit, benefit from vnx. And it does get easier to hear about and use the advice.

And finally somebody said, if you're thinking, I already tried this or that or that won't work for me, try it again. Have an Open mind. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

Yeah. What we always like to say is try to go into all this with the mindset of what's here for me.

And let's share a few more success stories from our audience. So one person wrote, At 35, I had never had an orgasm with a partner. After much debate, I bought the foreplay guides as a surprise. Husband and I had a very honest conversation and he was very excited to try everything. Had my first orgasm using the Endless scroll. Going on a full year of having an orgasm every time we engage in foreplay or sex. Love this account and another one.

We are married 10 years and have two kids. I found your account last spring and pitched a guide to my husband as a Father's Day gift. We ended up starting with the Connection Challenge, which was a game changer. Then moved on to next level, intercourse, Dirty Talk 101 and the Sexual Bucket List. Our connection is better than ever and we have more open communication. My husband told me tonight that since we started the challenge and the guides, he is more hot for me than ever, even before kids and can't stop thinking about me. I'm so happy I came across your account last year. This has been a game changer for our relationship.

So if you are a new friend, we just want to say we're so glad that you're here and that you are now a part of this community.

You are. You are.

You are part of this.

You belong here.

We know that even just listening this episode may have felt like a big step for you. And we're just so thankful that you're here, that you're listening. And we hope you hang around for a long, long time.

And for our old friends, friends who've been with us from the very beginning or just from last week, we wouldn't be where we are today without your support. Like, seriously, we love you so much. We appreciate you for following along, for purchasing something, for being open to our suggestions and our tips. So thank you for being willing to better your relationship and have us help.

You and just laughing with us like creating this community, it's just. It's really been such an honor. This business is here to change lives, to help people. And we're so grateful to even be a tiny part of your life. And so grateful every time we hear stories like some of the ones that we've shared in this episode, it truly has never gotten old. I've been doing this for so long and it has not once gotten old. So thank you so much and cause.

We appreciate you all so much. We figured we'd leave you with a couple listener questions. Why not, right, babe?

Why not?

All right, so first question is, I'm in a same sex marriage. Can we benefit from your content?

Absolutely. Inclusivity is one of our core company values. So we design all of our content to be as inclusive as possible.

Yeah, obviously we, you know, we are in a male, female. I am a, you know, I'm a man. Vanessa's a woman. We are in a male, female relationship. We, obviously that's the experience that we have. We, we see the world through that lens. But like Vanessa said, it's really important for us to be as inclus as possible. So we really do our very best when we are talking about male female dynamics specifically to really call that out. We're not just talking about things and assuming that's just how it is for men and women. Pretty much everything else we talk about when we don't give that disclaimer, our hope is that it's as applicable to as many people as possible. All right, how much time do you spend per week creating things for your business? Business?

Oh, my God, I don't even know how to go about answering that. Like all day.

I mean, I guess I would, I would say for the most part, it's the hours that we spend working because, you know, we, we have a team. We have a team of employees. We have a number of full time employees who, you know, manage the operations of the business and also help us with content. So most of our day at this point is spent either we are directly creating content, like showing up on Instagram, recording a podcast, or we are reviewing content that we will be delivering or.

Yeah. Doing like interviews with other people. Podcasts with other people. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty much all day.

Yeah. Or. Or meeting with our team.

Stuff for you.

Yeah. Or meeting with our team to brainstorm content or brainstorm, you know, the plan for a new offering or whatever the case is. So I would say pretty much, you know, it's a full time job. I think we have a, you know, we really strive to have a positive balance of things. We are, you know, we, we work. This is, I would say this is a comfortable full time job for us. And then finally. Have you ever created a guide you decided not to release?

There's only one that comes to mind for me that we. It was called From Conflict to Connection. We created it like Peak Covid. And we realized, you know, a lot of couples were struggling. Like, you know, we were arguing more often. There was so much tension. Obviously, we were all going through this, like, worldwide trauma, and we wanted to give couples practical strategies for fighting fairly and reconnecting. So that course, I mean, we. Yeah, it's basically finished, but we. I can't even remember why we decided not to release it. I think it just felt.

I think that we actually started. We started creating the content before the pandemic hit. And then the pandemic hit, and we were trying to figure out, like, is this. Is this the right time for this? There was a lot of stuff happening in the world that you may or may remember or may have blocked out of your memory. And I think it just kind of felt like not. Not really the right time. And then our business evolved, and we started. Started. You know, we started doing more, like, smaller courses and guides and more technique focused and trying to show up comprehensive.

Like a big, big course.

Yeah. And it felt. It felt a little heavy. It was focused on, hey, you're having a lot of conflict. And instead, nowadays we really focus on trying to, you know, show up with as much fun and positivity as possible. And obviously, we. We, you know, mix in a lot of stuff about how to handle conflict. But instead of showing up like, hey, you're really struggling with conflict. You're just arguing constantly. Take this course. It's like, you know, we try to show up with fun things and be like, hey. And, you know, if something goes off the rails a little bit, here are strategies for. For dealing with that. So I think probably that course won't come out ever in its entirety. Yeah, we definitely have a lot of stuff that we created a long time ago we used to offer, and we no longer offer.

Oh, yeah, we've retired a lot of stuff, so there's a. There's a little graveyard of old courses.

I'd like to think of it as a back catalog. How about that?

Okay. Okay. That's a nicer way of saying it. All right, well, we are going to link a couple of things for you in the show notes for this episode. We will put the link straight to the ultimate foreplay guides that we mentioned, and we'll also put a link to the courses page with everything listed out there. There.

All right, well, that's it for today's episode of Pillow Talks. Thank you so much for listening. Join us again next week when we take a deep dive into the nuances of mental load.

Oh, yeah.

Gonna be a good one.

I hate when we do this. It's like I can't stop myself from saying, like, I should just let you finish it. That's the end of the episode. Next week we're talking about mental load end. But I always.

There's a reason. There's a reason is called outro.

And then it comes out sounding weird like your creepy voice from earlier. I'm like oh yeah.

And then. And then you have to justify it. Yeah, I know. And then you have to justify it. And here we are. And now we have to close this podcast again. So.

So what's a not awkward way?

Hopefully this isn't your first episode you're listening to cuz this just got weird.

Bye. Bye, Sam.