What Is The Inhibition Effect?

Hey there. I'm Vanessa Marin, licensed sex therapist. And I'm back in the bathroom to talk about the inhibition effect. And if you hear a creepy little licking sound in the background, that's my pugs. They insisted on being in here today. Just so you believe me, this one's Maggie. Okay, so basically, I like naming things. Very easy for us with sex and relationships, to feel like we're alone. We're the only person going through something. And so I think naming things is really powerful. It helps us know that we're not alone. In fact, there are enough people experiencing this thing that there's a name for it. So. So the inhibition effect describes the way that we tend to get more inhibited the longer that we're in our relationships. So you would think that once we really get to know our partner, we develop this comfort, this trust with them, that we would be willing to push our comfort zones a little, try new things, get more exploratory in the bedroom. But as a sex therapist, I've actually found that the reverse is true. The longer couples are in relationships, the more we start to get a little self conscious around sex. We stop trying as many new things, we stop suggesting new things. We kind of like find our routine and we really stick with it. There's just kind of the devil we know is better than the devil we don't vibe. Nope, he wants to get up now. So we keep repeating the same routine, even though it's getting really, really boring. The inhibition effect is so common that I actually talk about it in my book, Sex Talks. It's in Conversation five Exploration. But let me know if this is something that's happening in your relationship and if we should talk more about it.