SEX RECESSION: The Dangers Of Modern Dating & Why NOBODY Is Having Sex Anymore | Emily Morse

So, in 2021, 26% of all adult Americans did not have sex even once in the entire calendar year. What are we getting wrong about sex? I think that what we're getting wrong, we're talking about the sex recession that's happening. Yeah, I like that. I've not heard people use those words before. Yeah, the sex recession. Facts. And I think what we're getting wrong about sex is that we don't really understand how to prioritize it, why it's important. There's a lot of things that's keeping us from having sex, stress, anxiety, worry about the economy, worry about a global pandemic. I think there's a lot of things that are replacing our um desire for connection and intimacy. And I think these studies that are showing this 26% aren't having sex is they're also focusing a lot on young people, too. I think so. more terrifying in my estimation. Do you feel differently? I think it's all terrifying when you think about mental health that we're not having intimacy and sex. I I define sex differently. Like I think of sex sometimes as intimacy and connection. And I think that that's what we're really missing, like this whole loneliness epidemic. But yeah, I think it's really so I think anytime you hear something like this with the young people, our future, it concerns me for like procreation, it concerns me for the mental health and wellness of people that will be running this country and this world because I think that sex is an important part of our well-being. So yeah, it's concerning. Obviously, I'm taking a more heterosexual approach here, but talk to me about that decline, the difference in males and females. I I have a hypothesis that that's going to be a big part of this. And one of the things you talked about in your book is polarity and the difference between men and women or the difference between partners cuz I think you carry it on far deeper than just men and women. But I feel like there's something going on there. So, when I think about like the boss [ __ ] phenomena, so Lisa went through her own transformation going from a stay-at-home wife, like very traditional, and then stepping into being an entrepreneur, stepping into that sort of boss [ __ ] role. And it was hard to navigate. Mhm. And so when I think about all the cultural winds that are celebrating that, which you one could very easily read as the masculinization of women, Mhm. and dare I say that I see trends that I would call the feminization of men. Could that be playing some of this role in the sex recession? It it might be. I mean, there are some people who say we're going more toward an androgenous culture right now, like that we're going away from the the the matriarchy to the patriarchy to more of a an androgenous place. to the patriarchy? saying well, there wasn't really I mean, well, we talk about matriarchal societies, but there wasn't really women who were the goddesses as we heard. Yeah, so the idea that polarity becomes an important part of connection, which you talk about in your book, that you need difference. It's a requirement. And that when you have that difference, then you get the attraction. Mhm. But if we are masculinizing women and feminizing men, you're eliminating a lot of that potential polarity. Mhm. And my instinct anyway is that that is a big part of it. Not that it's good or bad, just that it is going to have a very predictable outcome as we have to refigure out what is that attraction, what is the drive, what's my role? Mhm. So in fact, I'll I'll give a quote. I think this quote is really brilliant and is I'm very interested to hear what you think about this. So Oscar Wilde said, "Everything is about sex except sex. Sex is about power." Yeah. Now, when you polish the edges off of that dynamic, that power play, Mhm. I worry that you diminish the polarity and you make sex a far more confusing thing of who's leading, who's following, who initiates, etc., etc. Okay, so sex is about power. And so what we're talking about is sexual polarity in the bedroom. So what happens outside the bedroom, women are becoming more masculine and men are becoming more feminine. So in some ways I think it's great for people to be more in touch with their feminine and their masculine. So let's just I think we should maybe just first break down what that is because I can tell you that and then we can talk about sexual polarity and where the masculine and feminine matters. But when we talk about the masculine, I want to remind everybody that we all have masculine and feminine energy inside of us. I have it, you have it. I think right now I'm probably I'm in my masculine. I'm talking to you, I'm talking business, I'm directed, I'm purposeful, I'm driven, I have a mission, I'm talking to you, right? And the feminine is more ethereal, it's creative, it's nurturing, it's, you know, sensual, sensuality. And so and it's feeling and it's emotional. So throughout the day, you know, we all sort of go in and out of it. I'm going to assume that sometimes you find yourself you have emotions and femininity and you you even talk about it on your show. You you show those sides of yourself a lot. been learning how to masculinize myself. There's no doubt about that. Yeah, okay. So so I think that we all go in different places and they play a role in it. I mean a a role in our development and I think that the more that we talk about it is just so important to recognize and it's not good or bad and the feminine isn't just inherently weak and the masculine isn't inherently like just strong and I think it's okay. I think the healthiest people know how to lean into to either side when they need to and when they want to and I think that a lot of what we see with if you talk about like toxic masculinity, if you go back to that, I think that that's like the repression of a lot of the sadness that men feel and a lot of the inability like men told to buck up and don't don't show emotions when they're young and I think a lot of that can get can sort of become this way of not knowing how to express emotions and I think through the feminine men learn to feel and to be sad and to be to feel a lot of things which hasn't been okay growing up for many. It wasn't okay to express their emotions. So, I think that when we're talking about the feminine that it's that it's I guess it's giving all sexes the permission to feel everything is a masculine and the feminine, okay? So, but when we talk about polarity, sexual polarity, and we talk about the sex recession and how that relates, we can just kind of go into that for a minute. For any kind of attraction to happen, somebody has to be leading and somebody has to be following. So, let's think about it like a magnet, right? The the polarity. Like if you have the positive and the negative you have two opposite sides of a magnet, right? There are two two similar sides of the magnet, there's no they can't right? They're going to repel. And that's what happens when you have two a couple who's but they're both in their feminine or both in their masculine. Now, I'm also talking about same-sex couples here, right? If you have two gay if gay men, lesbians, you need the masculine feminine to create that attraction in the bedroom. You need those the opposites. And so, I think an understanding of how that runs sexual energy is in power is what is so important because I think what happens is when I'm like in my boss [ __ ] get it all done, whatever, and then my partner comes home and he's in that work, there's no one's going to and you know, if we're both initiating the sex it's going to happen. If we're both waiting for we're both in our feminine waiting sex isn't going to happen there either. So, you need to understand how to tap into to your masculine, how to tap into your feminine when you want to create sexual attraction. And I think that the understanding of that is what's really missing. So, there's been a lot of messaging in culture where, you know, I think that men got kind of afraid of a lot of things about being sexual or making being attraction or hitting on women. And I think there was a lot that was happening with Me Too and Harvey Weinstein where perhaps it was a culture that got sort of a lot of men who were like fearful. Like I don't know the right thing to do and I don't know how to to lean into how to ask a person out or in a heterosexual relationship to ask when I'm just there I'm just going to shut down or I'm going to not do anything cuz there's fear that women were like, well, okay, I didn't want you to be lecherous. I didn't want any that, but I still want to feel like you're a man. I want I want to feel that I want to feel you leading so I can follow in the bedroom and create that attraction. So I think that's where we got really, really confused and maybe where we lost Wait, I don't think that people really ever really understand this to be honest, but I think that if we're talking about the reasons why there hasn't been as much sex happening is because we're not understanding that you need to create that dynamic to create attraction and arousal. So that feels very intuitively correct to me. When all of the Me Too movement kicked off, it was like, word, like we need a lot of this. There's a lot of mayhem out there, but at the same time, I can see how as you begin to polish all the edges off of the dynamic that you get to this point now where people are very confused. They don't know how to do the approach. When you have pornography ready at your fingertips, it becomes a much safer way. There's no rejection. There's no fear of something bad happening to you. You also have a cultural message around guys just by being aggressive, you're being very toxic. And so as I was thankfully, I mean, as this all kicked off, I'm I'm already married 15 years at this point, you know, it's like none of that was really affecting me, but when I thought back to where Lisa and I were for people that don't know our story, I was her teacher at a school for adults. I'm going to be very clear. She was in her 20s. Uh but as her teacher, that was already sort of that inherent power play. Mhm. And when you think about sex as being this I mean, to it it is clearly, I think we will both agree, it is an oversimplification to say that sex is about power. As somebody who's in love with his wife and has had extraordinarily tender sex and it can just it can be a whole other thing, but I think if you fail to understand that it is also about power, that is certainly one of its gears, that there is a a giving and receiving and without understanding that dance, there can be some real awkwardness. Um that's where I started looking at that going, "This isn't going to end well and this is going to end where you have like Lisa said to me really understands this dance well, which she says, "Look, I want to be a boss. I want to come in and do my thing, but I also want to be small in my husband's arms, right?" And so she is very able to switch gears. Mhm. And I wonder, do you get like when you talk about it like that? Like, "Yeah, like go be a boss [ __ ] but at the same time, like understand the power of the feminine energy, understand" I'll say this, this is not you, these are my words. The necessity if you're certainly if you're with somebody who's more masculine, if Lisa met me with masculine energy, I'd be turned off. Zero sex is going to happen. It's just not interesting to me. I want her to be very feminine in those moments. I want her to follow. Doesn't mean I don't want her to initiate, but I want her to initiate in a feminine way, not an aggressive way. Right. And do you get pushback from the younger generation is certainly my instinct around that framing that it should even be set up that way. Mhm. You know, I I think that we're still all wrapping our heads around all this because when we say that it's power and I don't want to say cuz I think people when they think about power and sex, they think like maybe they think more of like a kink play or BDSM or it's really aggressive thing, a dominance. But what I'm really just talking about is like there has to for anything to happen, someone has to lead, someone has to to follow, right? So I think that what we're getting is that like I think the younger generation is and it's funny cuz I was out even talking to some people who work with me, they're young and they're in their 20s. They're like, I'm asking guys out and we're going into the bar and I'm making the moves and I'm I'm initiating and it's very very empowering for them. And I think a lot of the guys are saying what they're saying to me is like it's such a relief that women are asking me out and that we're we're that that I don't have to make that move because a lot of it there's I think there's been also been a lot of fear around or there's been a lot of um you know, everything is a muscle, right? Like learning to ask so it's a habit. So if you were home during the pandemic and you were staring your screen and you were you don't you're like kind of losing the ability to go out and like maybe face rejection or to to to initiate to approach someone. So anyway, I think that there's a certain relief like it's so nuanced so there's a certain relief that women are making the move, they're asking me out. I love that. I love I love that freedom or I love that that's happening and yet if the women are continuing to do that but then in the bed like but then they're still waiting for the the guy to make the move because that's where the the masculine comes in. It might be a little bit confusing. I think that they're still trying to find their way. I don't think I'm getting pushed back but I think even using gender here is what's going to be confusing to people but I can ask someone out. I can even pay for the bill. I can lead, I can drive, I can make the plans but ultimately sex isn't just about that act of sex in the bedroom like we think it's about procreation like we're like penis goes into vagina. But if I'm asking somebody out and I'm paying for the bill and I'm leading and all that, it's going to be really hard to get in the bedroom be like, okay, now I'm passive and now you lead. So it's very very nuanced to find where in the relationship one person is leading and one person is following. So I guess the best way I can explain it is to give you like a personal example because I think otherwise this gets really can get very lost and I think I'm just going to be real here with it. So I run a business, I'm busy every day, I manage people, I'm talking about sex although funny enough like I'm not sitting around having sex and being in my feminine and all day like I said, I'm running a business. However, I'm stressed, I've got a lot of I got a lot of responsibilities and you know, my partner, too. He runs a business and he's busy. But, I know that for us, our intimacy and our connection is so important. You know, sex is part of our mental health, our overall wellness. It's really important to have sex. I think that side note, a lot of couples are concerned because their sex life goes away, takes a nosedive, they wonder why they're no longer connected. And I think it's because they don't understand this polarity. So, what happens is when I know that, for example, I want to be like it's been days, you know, and I've been in the stress mode and my partner I haven't connected, I have to make a conscious effort to say, "Okay, I'm going to get into my feminine and I'm going to start to move my feminine energy and cultivate it so I can feel connected to my partner because when I am more in my feminine, then he is able to be more in his a masculine and that's where our attraction starts to to build and to circulate cuz it's all sex is all energy, right? And it all originates like in our you know, in our brains, but also when you think physically, a way to think about it is in our pelvic floor. Like, anytime you have a ting or you know, even if you're like watching porn or you're aroused or turned on, it's all happening in our pelvic floor, which is our power source, which is where the energy starts to flow, for example. So, if I've been in my If I've been in my masculine all week or all day, I'll do some practices that allow to circulate this. So, I will turn off my phone. I will step aside from work. I'll slap my I'll shut my computer. And I will go into my bathroom and I've made that more of like a sacred space for me and I will take a bath or a steam shower and I will get myself and I'll start to breathe. So, I will you know, no one's coming in the room. I don't want to see my partner and I just sort of light some candles. Now, this is the feminine, okay? So, I don't want any like eye rolling or go wooing like of course like candles and flowers, but that is the feminine. That is the nature that is grounding, that is the source. I need to get back to that place. I need to feel that space. I need to tap into that space for me to start to feel more grounded in my feminine. So, I will do some breath work practices. So, like I'll get in the shower. Like I'm exhausted. I've had my day just like everyone else. I'm exhausted. The calls, the Zoom meetings, like oh my god, if I have to see one more person on Zoom, all the things, the bills. And then I get in the shower, I turn off, I play some music, and I will start to breathe. So, I'll just Sometimes I just can barely Sometimes I don't want to do it either, Tom. Sometimes I don't want to do this. I don't want to do that. feminine. anything. I don't want to think about anything. I don't want to have sex anymore. Like I don't want to do it. I don't. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. But I know that for me to stay connected and once I do, I'm really happy. Like I'm thrilled that I do and I feel better. But I'm saying this for the people and the people listening who are sometimes and this happens to men too where they just don't feel like they want to have sex. They just feel like cuz we're so in our heads and what's keeping us from feeling sexual and true authentic connection, why we're in a sex recession, it's cuz we forget to be in touch with our sexual energy, okay? So, I get in there and I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to do some breath work, some really deep breath work where it's just like I'm breathing, you know, my inhales are my exhales are longer than my inhales, right? And I'm breathing in. So, I'm starting to move my energy, right? And maybe I'm making some noise and some sounds and I'm breathing I'm sitting and I'm meditating and breathing. I'm in the shower I'm feeling the hot water. And when I start to do this, what I'm doing is this is just the first thing that anchors me in and it doesn't have to be that long of a practice. Sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's shorter. But when I'm breathing and I take a deep breath in, when I get to the top of my breath, maybe it's five or six counts, I do a Kegel exercise. I do a I pelvic floor like clench, okay? And so, that's just the pee stopping muscles when you stop and start the flow of urine, that's a Kegel. And I want to remind you that men can do that as well and men should do that as well because men are often disconnected from this. They're in their heads, they're thinking about porn, they're thinking about other things. But how you stay connected to your sexual energy is by this tensing. So I'll do like a a Kegel a a pelvic floor clench and release. It's almost like I'm pumping. I'm pumping. I'm stimulating that my my energy. And then I'll start to move, right? And I'll start to move back and forth and I'll do some kind of like body sways or going in the in the like a circular motion where I'm telling you if I started to do this right now, I could probably do this in this room. I could start to circulate my feminine energy where I've done this before in restaurants and bars when I've been studying this like where you can feel women starting to get in touch with their energy. I would just start to breathe. I start to kind of circulate in a in a in a clockwise and then counterclockwise motion moving my pelvic floor and breathing and clenching. about anything at this point? I'm not even really thinking. I'm just breathing. And this is connecting you to feminine energy specifically. Specifically. To the feminine. And and I'm I'm I'm moving. I'm breathing. I am I'm doing the things that make me feel the most connected to myself. And I'm letting go from the day. I'm letting go from worry and I'm into the it's the nurturing. It's creative. And so this is one way that I do it. And I get out of the shower and I'll put some like lotion on and I'll slow down. The masculine is fast, purposeful, directed. Remember the feminine is creative and nurturing and softer. Maybe I'll lay down on my bed. I'll just kind of maybe I'll go outside for a walk too. Like nature is grounding. Like nature is also part of the feminine. It also helps the masculine. But all of these factors are the things that allow us to get more connected to the source. So I'll do these things and immediately like, you know, I will feel like I'll get dressed or I'll like change thing. I'll change the music. I'll put have the scents going on. So again, your senses also are a big part of this. It's like, what am I smelling? What am I hearing? What am I tasting? And I use everything around me to kind of envelop to get me more into my feminine and I sort of start to circulate that energy, become more in touch with it. I can do this in 5 minutes, I can do this in 3 hours, but either way I'm just sort of more connected to it. And then my partner will come over or come in and I'm much more softer. I'm breathing. I'm not meeting him with like, "Did you Did you pay this bill? Did you call thing? What's going on? How was your day?" I'm not coming at him with a to-do list. I'm not coming at him with everything that we need to do. I allow him to lead. What are we doing tonight? Where are we going? Have you made the plan? Like I'm not being purposeful and directed. We've already agreed to this that I need him to make the plans. Like this night. Now, there's some nights where I might make the plans, but on the nights where we want to have like our date night. And this is something that I like I highlight I know that you and Lisa do this. I believe you do when I've talked to you that you have a purposeful night that you say like, "This is our night." Or "This is our weekend where we shut off our phones and it's about us." And I'm telling you time that if more couples did that rather than living in this amorphous masculine I'm in the masculine you're in the feminine I or I'm I'm in my ma- I'm the wife for example. And again, this is gendered, but this is the best way to do it. Where I'm telling you what to do when I'm giving you all the errands, I'm taking care of the kids and the house and the things and I'm I'm the one in charge. Like there's no room for both of the energies to flow. So, I've had to learn to let go of control in ways. So, I let my partner know like, "I need you to pick the place we're going. I need you to decide what we're doing because that is the masculine." So, when I'm in my body embodied and I'm breathing and I'm grounded, then I allow him to be purposeful and mission-driven. He decides what we're doing, where He is leading, I am following. We've started to line up our energy and circulate that so we're in a more connected erotic place. Are you familiar with the idea of hypergamy? I don't think so. Oh god, this is so interesting. So, as you were describing all of that, I'm literally shocked to my core that you don't get pushback from younger people, which is amazing. I'm very grateful. So, I may have just have a misread. Um but what resonates with me there is So, hypergamy, just to define that quickly, is the female tendency to date across socially or up. Mhm. Women do not date down. Mhm. So, they want a guy that makes more money than them. They want a guy that they perceive as smarter than them. They're always trying to go across or up. Mhm. So, at least as smart, at least as much money Yeah. or more. And they're perfectly fine with that. You don't Guys don't do that. So, guys could not care less uh how little money you make. In fact, you probably make them feel awesome if they make more money than you. Um but because women date across and up, as women go more into the workforce, as women realize, "Hey, we're just as smart as the guys. We're just as capable." You're now setting the bar higher and higher, making it harder for men to lead because you never want to say to somebody, "Slow down so I can lead." Mhm. Right? So, the guy then needs to outperform. But I think this is part of what's creating this problem is that one, it's just taboo, at least from where I'm sitting in the social media circles that I run in, it would be very taboo to say, "Women, you want to find a guy that can lead." That Like if I sent that tweet out right now, I would get just mauled. I'm talking about sexually. I'm talking about creating that energy for for the dynamic. And I'm telling you this is happening in same-sex relationships, too. So, I I mean, honestly, like I I see what you're saying with women dating up. So, biologically speaking, that's what we're attracted to. We want a caregiver. We want all of that. But I think some of that's changing. Like I I do, too. And I think that's why 26% of people did not have sex in 2020. I don't know. Like I I'll say this, but like I probably shouldn't say this, but I I do I'm not looking for those things in a partner. Like I'm not looking for the Like I'm not looking for the money, and I'm not looking for someone who makes more than me, and I never have. I've never been that person, but I've been looking for somebody, and I don't and I don't know how to explain that. That's like upbringing society. I was raised. My mother said never rely on a man to take care of you. So, I've always been about like making my own living and doing my own thing and leading. However, I have also made sex the study of sexuality my business because my greatest fear was getting to a relationship. When I was younger, I would date people, and then the sexual energy would wane after a while. We would no longer in the honeymoon phase where it was exciting. I was like, "What is the secret to keeping it still hot? Like, what do you do?" Cuz that just seems really awful to be with someone for the rest of your life and you no longer want to have sex with them anymore. And what I'm talking about is the sexual polarity, which I think is the key to it. So, I don't I don't want my partner to lead all of the time. In fact, I think I'm way smarter at so many things than he is. Like, I think with business I'm better. I think I'm better at marketing. I think I have a lot of ideas that I'm like really, you know, I I lean into, and then he's got that I'm In some ways I'm I am leading a lot of things. But when it comes to attraction and date night and intimacy and connection and and and touch and all the things that are really really important for me, I know that I'm more of submissive and I need somebody more dominant. And so, in order for that sexual energy to happen, just enough, whether it's once a week, once every 10 days, whenever it is, hopefully more often than that because the more you do it, it becomes a habit, I am softening into what I need to be sexually satisfied and fulfilled. So, that's where I want him to lead. Like, I want him to Maybe it's for that night cuz we all, you know, it's for a few hours. So, because that's the only way the sex is going to happen. You can reboot your life, your health, even your career, anything you want. All you need is discipline. I can teach you the tactics that I learned while growing a billion-dollar business that will allow you to see your goals through. If you want better health, stronger relationships, a more successful career, any of that is possible with the mindset and business programs in Impact Theory University. Join the thousands of students who have already accomplished amazing things. Tap now for a free trial and get started today. This nuance is exactly what I think is creating the issue. And again, I'm not saying whether it's good or bad. I'm saying it has consequences. Mhm. And as So, even going back to hypergamy. So, one, obviously I'm talking averages. No one person is going to fit perfectly into anything. I'm also not passing judgment on that. I don't think it's problematic for women to have a certain set of things on average that they look for. Um and nobody wants to be in a relationship with somebody that they aren't equals. So, I want to be very clear that the reason I think that we're seeing a decline is that once society So, I mean, really a lot of this starts with the pill, right? Once women are no longer they can deal with having a period from a sanitary perspective and they can have sex without getting pregnant, a lot of things begin to change. We see women flooding into the job market, absolutely crushing it because of course, women are incredibly intelligent like like anybody. Intelligence is evenly distributed across men and women. I mean, it's there's some weirdnesses, but whatever. Just As an average, it's it is a wise way to approach the world to assume when you meet a man or a woman, to just assume they could be just as intelligent as anybody else. And so, that isn't going to be the problem. Where we run into a problem is that there is this nuance between are you able to shift gears, yes or no? Are you able to understand that I'm good at some things, my partner is good at others. And that's good, right? In the beginning of my relationship, I thought Lisa would only find me sexually attractive if I was better than her at everything. And so, that created all this friction until I realized, "Oh, wait, who would want to be in a relationship like that?" But, if you don't understand that when it comes to sex, the dynamic's going to be different. So, Lisa and I, for instance, I have to go from she is my business partner, my equal partner, that she is very good at business. And so, it would be very wise of me to know when to follow her, but that when it comes to sex, that there is a different dynamic. And my whole thesis, and admittedly I'm just beginning to explore this, but my whole thesis is that this is really what's beginning to break down. That this is opened up this incredible amount of nuance, where people have to really understand that there is at at a at a high level, there is a tendency for women to date across and up. As they make more money, that narrows the pool. And so, when you do these like street surveys, where they ask women like, "Okay, what are your non-negotiables?" My guy's got to be 6 ft tall. Uh he's got to make at least $100,000. Uh he has to be somewhat in shape. It it ends up being I saw one recently, and the list was pretty basic. It wasn't crazy. I mean, it was what I just said, plus like one or two more things. And it was like 0.35% of men meet that qualification. And nobody would look at the list and go, "That's that's absurd." It wasn't like, "Oh, they have to be worth a million dollars or what." I mean, it was really like some pretty straightforward stuff. And that was still 0.35% of men. And so, if you don't go, "Oh, wow, all of these things have consequences. And thus, I need to figure out how to address those consequences." When I think about you, or I think about Lisa, it's people that have figured out I both want to at times be assertive, but then at times understand that there's this whole other gear, where from her perspective, she finds it compelling for me to lead is the easiest answer. Not all the time, of course not. She's a fully realized human being. But if people don't contend with these things, I think they will forever be surprised that there is a sex recession going on, that modern dating is disrupting something, something is going wrong. To give you an idea, 46% of Japanese youth Mhm. say that sexual contact they they despise sexual contact. Despise. Despise. So, I'm just saying something is breaking down. And what I'm trying to walk through is what is that? And it is really like I know even trying to be thoughtful and think through this. And again, I'm not judging any of this. I just want to understand what's going on, how do we navigate it well, what are things that we want to change about the setup? Like, "Hey, maybe people should be more thoughtful about how much time they spend on social media. Hey, maybe people should have open conversations with their partner about sexually, do I want to lead or do I want to follow?" Mhm. And that when you start trying to cuz I I think if I were going to boil this all down to one thing, I would say the big problem that people are making is that they approach people as if they are blank slates. And one thing, you mentioned it already, you talk about it in your book, I and I think it's very smart sex, is to understand that the brain is the largest sex organ. Mhm. And if you fail to understand the brain, if you fail to understand that there are sex differences in the brain, if you fail to understand that hormones, which are driven by sex, are meaning what sex you are, male or female, that you are going to be very confused. And what I'm always trying to get people to understand is that the brain is a prediction engine. Mhm. Your brain is constantly trying to predict. And this is going to get complex very fast. But so, when you understand that your brain is creating a simulation of the real world. So, to give you an idea, we see point point .0032% of the visible spectrum of um light. What we call the visible spectrum of light is only .0032% of electro uh magnetic radiation. So, we're already we just assume that what we see is everything when in reality it's less than half a percent. Mhm. So, your brain is reconstructing a simulation to try to help you navigate through the world. What people ought to be doing in my estimation is going uh I predict that the outcome of my behaviors will be this. And if it is that, then you're close to ground truth. If it isn't that, there's a flaw in your model. And you should be trying to figure out what truth is. My whole hypothesis is that the sex recession is a sign that our model's broken. There's something we don't understand that no one predicted this. We're headed towards population collapse. Like, for real for real. For real. And so, when you have 46% of Japanese youth saying they despise sexual contact. When you have 26% of American adults adults this I'm I'm not saying like 15-year-olds, adults not having sex in the entire calendar year, and that was before the pandemic. So, I have to imagine that number's been hammered even lower. So, there's something flawed in our model. And what I want to better understand, and the reason that I find this topic so interesting, I'm on the other side of it. I'm married, I have a thriving sex life. I've managed to navigate the transition from my wife being a housewife all day feminine Mhm. and then migrating into something where it's now feminine is one of the gears, but she can also show up in a business context hyper-masculine. And having to navigate that. So, it's like I've done everything I can to refine, refine, refine my model to get to where I'm like, "Okay, I can still predict the outcome of my behaviors." But, as I look at the next generation, I'm legitimately worried that we're not thinking through the right problems. And just to summarize, the problem I think is that they think we're blank slates and they're not recognizing the differences, I'll say, between men and women. I think that's the most foundational category to understand because of its impacts on the brain. There's a lot there to unpack, town billyu, because Yep. Yeah, I mean the fact that Japanese are saying that it's dis- What is it? Disgusting? Disgusting? sexual contact. sexual contact. And that And that we're not having sex here in this country. Just points to the fact that we grossly misunderstand what the purpose of sex, why we have sex, why we get turned on, why we get aroused. What like what is attractive to us, what why like why it matters. We've been fed a whole bunch of misinformation and we have lack of sex education pretty much everywhere in the world except for in the Dutch countries. That is the only place where sex education, I think, makes sense because we talk about pleasure. And we So, So, Give me a rundown. What do they do? Okay, so here So, here's what happens. Well, okay, we can go there. So, in America and in most countries when we talk about sex it is mostly fear-based and there's a lot of judgment, there's a lot of fear, a lot of danger. You're going to get pregnant. You're going to get an STI. You're going to be a [ __ ] You're going to This terrible thing's going to happen if you sleep with too many people. No one's going to want to marry you. Like, there's all this negative messaging. The only place where they don't talk about it is if you go to the Dutch countries. They will talk about you're going to get pregnant, you be careful, STIs, all the things, but they also talk about pleasure and they talk about joy. They talk about orgasm, they talk about arousal, they talk about connection, they talk about intimacy, they teach emotional intelligence in schools, and they say like, "Oh, you say talk about puberty in a real way that's like this you're going to start to get these emotions and feelings for somebody and here's what it means." And they talk about it and it's not like it's once a year in gym class, your gym teacher's teaching you sex is what happens in America, right? Like you put roll out a picture of like the ovaries and the fallopian tubes and like that's it. They literally start pre-verbal like when there's a kid like they talk about it like when there's like a toddler, right? So, let's say in America if there's a baby, right? And they're like, "My parents are cooing and they're like, okay, well, here's your toes and your knees and your thighs and your stomach." And we're like, we jump over the genitalia. It's this part that has no name. But if we're in the countries like in the Netherlands and these countries, they'll they'll say like this is your They name the part. So, they'll say this is your your knees and they'll say your thighs and your penis, your testicles. They'll say your vulva, your vagina. There is no fear in naming the parts. Is this like on their version of Sesame Street? Like I'm really trying to imagine the children's songs. Yeah, this is it. This is this is their Sesame Street. Like but this is just like there's no because there's no shame. So interesting. There's no shame about it. There's no like that's private, that's wrong, that's that's something that you should ever express to anybody. Touching your body parts is wrong. I mean, there's just they just really like it's open and then when the kids get older, they talk about consent. They talk And this is something that people have tried to talk about in America and people make fun of them, but like there are some places where like you have to consent to somebody touching you. So, they'll tell your kid, "If someone wants to touch your your your penis or touch your body like you get to decide like it's a much more embodied culture where they're understanding like where they're giving consent to anyone touching them or even like dressing them or changing their diapers or saying like I'm going to now I'm going to change your diaper. I'm going to touch you in this way. And I know that people are going to be like that just sounds awful but they are connecting their brain and their body their mind and their body and their sexuality and there is no shame around it and so what happens if you go to America and a lot of countries probably in Japan what we don't remember is when a kid is like very young, right? You might be like a toddler. You might not even remember this but some of our earliest messaging around sex is like as a kid we might as a toddler we might soothe ourselves by putting our hands on our pants. Boys and girls do this all the time. But what might happen is a parent's reaction which we might not even remember might be like don't do that. That's dirty. That's wrong. What are you doing? And so our very first message around touching our genitals is that that is wrong. That is shameful. That is dirty. Now, what if we grow up in a home that was very very religious, right? We grew up in a place that said like you know, sex is dirty. It's shameful. It's wrong. You can only have sex for procreation. Um you know, and if you do you're if you don't you're going to go to hell or if you touch yourself you're going to grow hair on your palms. It wasn't that long ago that we had this messaging. You're going to go blind, right? And so if this is the messaging that we got, right? And then all of a sudden we're like told we don't know and then all of a sudden we go off and have sex. It's like we're having it's like we're given the keys to the car without having drivers education. We're saying like go off and have sex but all we have told you that it's shameful, it's wrong, it's distasteful and you might go to hell for having sex. So this all this really mixed messaging around sex which is more common than you think and in places that we don't even realize. Like it's very insidious, right? It but even if you didn't grow up in a religious home which I did not. I still had some shame around it. I still was like it's you know, to be be sexy but not too sexy. Be sensual, you know, but be be into it but not that into it. You know, don't just There's just all these mixed messages, right? So then you go off and you have sex and there's not a lot of information about how to do it right, how to do it correctly, right? But then you have the advent of porn. Now, porn's been around since the beginning of time. We have the cave drawings of people. But what I'm talking about is the porn in your pocket, like porn that's available with a smartphone. So that's been almost like When did the first smart Maybe almost 2018 years, 19 years. So now porn is ubiquitous. It's available everywhere. Children are seeing porn at 8 years old now. Jeez. They're like on Candy Crush and then there's like boobs and they're like, "Mommy, what's this?" right? And there's like Or they're not even telling their parents and they're seeing pornography at an early age without sex education because let's remember what's happening in America right now. We are like Roe v. Wade, we're rolling back rights, but yet there's also no sex education. Like only 17 states require sex ed to be medically accurate now if they teach it all. So now we're saying like you can't have sex and It doesn't have to be medically accurate? Meaning that like that's Yeah, there's sex that's not accurate. It's not medically accurate. It's not even factual. In a lot in 17 states only require it. Maybe it's Maybe that number's changed to maybe 20 something, but for many years it was 17 states require it to be medically accurate. We don't really care about sex education. In fact, in most of the states in America, we don't really prioritize it. We kind of hope it doesn't really happen. We think if we teach sex ed that kids are just going to go off and be sexual. But going back to the Dutch countries, what we see is when kids have accurate information about the dangers around sex, maybe and some of the fears around it, but we also talk about pleasure and joy and connection and intimacy, which is all a really important part of our being alive and being human. Like we need connection and touch and intimacy. Like that is a requirement for a healthy life. When we're told about that and how to do it responsibly, we have much better outcomes than here where we're told we're not really told anything. So, there's this dangerous thing that's happening which I think that maybe we could unpack here is that pornography without sex education this is one hypothesis is dangerous. And it's what we're seeing is maybe we won't be procreating as much, we won't be having as much sex. We'd rather just stay home and maybe look at our screens because I at least I had an orgasm or I had some pleasure and that felt pretty good, but there was less risk. I didn't have to be rejected by a human. I didn't have to go out there and embarrass myself. I didn't have to try to do something I'm not comfortable with, but I still felt pretty good and now I can go off and like play video games or go see my friend, but I don't have to have that risk. So, how do we begin to back out of that then? Is it blocking porn? Is it uh, educating kids not to watch so much porn? Is it teaching them not to death grip? Like, what what do we do here? Death grip doesn't help. I think there's a lot of it. I think there's a lot we can do because again, I am not bashing porn at all either. Here's the thing, porn has a purpose, a utility, but porn is also, let me just say this, most of the porn that you see is created by men, for men, under the male gaze. Like, this is what men want to see. And so like that when you search porn and you look at porn like that's that's what you're going to see. There is nowhere in that equation that we're even taking into consideration what women find sexy or hot. Like, women's eroticism. Well, let's talk about that. What do you What do you consider the porn that women consume without um, having to encourage it? Because I would say they consume porn, it's just not the same kind of thing that guys do. kind of thing. So, there is some more porn they do and women do consume they do they do it. I'm not saying again, we are not speaking for every woman and every man at all. But there has been an emergence of porn that we call now ethical porn. But do women really watch ethical porn? They do. If they know about it, they do and they love it. But it's not as easy to find. You have to pay for it. to find? Because women are making it and you try to give a [ __ ] and it's never going to make any money, but there is a porn industry for women that makes a lot of money. A lot. Okay. Erotica. That to me goes back to your brain is a prediction engine. Once you understand that men are visually inclined, they want to watch visual pornography, and so of course the pornography is for men by men. And and look, I get women saying like, "Oh man, like I wouldn't want to be in any of those sex acts." Respect. I totally understand that. And when AI comes online, trust me, real women won't be important anymore. But Well, that's a whole other conversation, right? That is what guys want women to want. Fair. Erotica is what women want men to want. Which is, you know, 400 pages and uh you know, in the end they finally have sex and he tears her, you know, Exactly. uh her dress off of her, but it it is very, very different. And when I when the whole um Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon happened, Mhm. I had no idea how intense that book was. And Lisa was reading it and all of her girlfriends were reading it. I was like, I got to read it. like a slice of this. I picked it up and started reading it. I was like, "Oh my god! Like this is This is pornography." Mhm. But for women. And there's a book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts. Have you read it? I've Yeah. Parts of Yes. Emily, read the whole thing. Oh my god, you're going to love it. It's so incredible the way that it breaks down the difference between male porn, female porn, what they're interested in. Mind-blowing. Yes. So, anyway, so you're saying for men by men Mhm. fair but women just have a whole different schtick. are attracted to many more things. So, we're so we're also more open in our desire and arousal. Women find a lot of more things more attractive than men, too. They do. That women are more open, but I think it's also because women have been permission to be sexual. And so, for women, they might show pictures of Even if I'm attracted to men, I might find women attractive, men attractive, both attractive. had Men have a thing over their penis to tell if it's getting engorged and women have something that measures vaginal moistness? yeah. Their clitoris, their engorgement in their clitoris. And so, and then for men, it's like they are attracted to what they state they're attracted to. So, if a guy says, "I'm straight." You show him images of straight sex, he's about it. Show him images of gay sex, not about it. Mhm. A woman on the other hand, cuz this study is fascinating, what happens? Then women, they're attracted to everything. They're more open. They're more attracted to different kinds of sexual acts, different kinds of people, sometimes like animals and things. Like things just turn them on. They They're They're sexual. One reason could be is that that women also haven't had as much permission to be as sexual and to be have to even stoke their desires and to even think about what turns them on and what arouses them. Because most of our sexuality has sort of been co-opted by by what men think is hot, what men think is sexy. So, I think there's a certain biological money to Just in pornography, you mean? Well, I think just everywhere. Like I think that women are told that they are that our sexuality has been more policed. So, the from a societal narrative Got you. more policed. We've been more told that it's not okay to express desires, that we have to be more passive, we have to be more receptive, and that what we find no one really ever asked what we found hot or attractive or sexual because for so many years we would be persecuted for being sexual. We would be We would were see We're We're slut-shamed. We are You know, I mean, this is not that long ago that like women I mean, really really when marriage at women are the property of men or like I know like in the '70s like my mom couldn't get a credit card and before the birth control pill really we didn't have a lot of options. We really weren't looking at We weren't free to say, "What does feel good to me? What is my turn on? What might I find hot?" So, we're a little bit more open, a little bit more liberal. We can talk about hormones and biology, but then there's also this cultural narrative, cultural structures as well, and it's all sort of this melting pot of attraction, arousal, sexuality that we're still trying to unpack, I think, to really understand like what is at the core of desire and attraction. So interesting. I want to go back to that study. So, I forgot about that study. I read it a while ago, and what absolutely had my brain melted, I remember going to Lisa and being like, "Oh my this is crazy." So, I have no idea what the stats are. I only have like uh the the sort of subculture whispers, but when I was a kid in the '80s, it was like the joke was oh women all women experiment with same-sex when they're in college. But you start reading these studies and you go, maybe like obviously not all women experiment with women in college, obviously. But that becomes the mythology for a reason. So, going back to that study and women's I'm not even sure how to categorize it, but the fact that they are sexually responsive to a broader array of things than men is very interesting and I had a an evolutionary biologist on the show one time and my parting question to him was why on God's green earth is the clitoris on the outside? Because Emily until you understand that women from an evolutionary perspective may have used sex as a way to bond for non-procreative reasons it doesn't make any sense. And then you hear that and you're like hold the phone. So bonobos if two women get in a scuffle to apologize to the other one she'll walk up and start rubbing her clitoris which is crazy but from a human like everyday perspective seems insane. But it was the first time where I was like oh my God is that why the clitoris on the outside? Because if you think that evolution will end up on the thing that is most likely to ensure that you have kids that have kids you're like hold on. So you're telling me that penile thrusting which by your own admission something like 20% of women can orgasm from penile thrusting alone. 20% 20% That's insane. But I can't wrap my head around it. So as I well I can but it it ends up with that sexuality from an evolutionary lens I've no idea if this is true of like modern humans but from an evolutionary lens it starts to click into place if that was used for female to female contact. I mean well the clitoris it's interesting because the clitoris is not just external it's also internal just to say that that there is Yes but if 80% of the orgasms come from the one on the outside it gets a bit dubious that the main event, as you call it, is putting the penis inside. That's Yeah, well, that but yeah, but it it it's true, but the clitoris well, it's all it's all a complex web of nerve endings, but the clitoris has, we know, just It looks like a neck pillow or a cowboy sitting bow-legged on a horse. Yes, exactly. It has a head, it has a Most people haven't seen it, though. And it goes around the vaginal tube. exactly. And it has 12,000 nerve endings now, not the 8,000 nerve endings that we thought, because they just started to study it more intensely. to find another 20,000 here in a minute, I'm sure. And you know, like it's uncircumcised A circumcised penis only has 4,000 nerve endings. So, there is a lot of magic in there. See, they get all the magic, too. You guys, there's an orgasm gap where men are having orgasms like 90% of the time. What's up, guys? It's Tom Bilyeu, and if you're anything like me, you're always looking for ways to level up your mindset, your business, and your life in general. That's exactly why I started Impact Theory, a podcast that brings together the world's most successful and inspiring people to share their stories and most importantly strategies for success. And now, it's easier than ever to listen to Impact Theory on Amazon Music. Whether you're on the go or chilling at home, you can simply open up the Amazon Music app and search for Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu to start listening right away. If you really want to take things to the next level, just ask Alexa. Hey Alexa, play Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu on Amazon Music. Now playing Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu on Amazon Music. And boom, you're instantly plugged into the latest and greatest conversations on mindset, health, finances, and entrepreneurship. Get inspired, get motivated, and be legendary with Impact Theory on Amazon Music. Let's do this. It is so strange to me that evolution said, "Well, we tested it on the inside." Because, as you know it does extend inside the woman. It wraps around the vaginal tube, but like 20%. 80% of the time you got to be on the outside. Mhm. That's just strange to me. Like just thinking about the thing that makes sure that you have babies Mhm. is it would make sense that it be inside. Which So, guys, I'm sure you know this, but when you're having an orgasm, you have an intense desire to push as deep as you can. Why? Because it makes her more likely to get pregnant. So, one would think that the woman would be pleasured the deeper you go. But it isn't the main event. She may, but it isn't the main event. Going back to that idea. Right. Yeah. It's so fascinating. Do you So, my hypothesis is very simply, you're more likely to have social cohesion and thusly other women looking out for your children if you have an external way to uh trigger the release of oxytocin vasopressin. I'm guessing that's certainly what it would be in humans. Um so that women have a way to bond with other women. That's my hypothesis. I've no idea if that's accurate. That's my are supposed to be able to get each other off and we can grab each other and that that women because we were all taking care of each other's children in the village purely evolutionary. By the time we get to humans, it may be totally irrelevant. But I'm saying coming up for millions of years as other animals, it's the only thing I can make sense to my overly simplistic mind. really thought about that notion, but I don't I don't I mean, I think that though for men though, too, I think that we see back in time, I think that it's more cultural. I think that men would be with other men, too, if they weren't feeling so policed around their own bodies and their own orgasm. Like, why do men have a prostate? Studies don't show that. But why do men have a prostate? To make sure that your semen have something to thrive inside of. it feel so good when you're penetrated and why do say many men and I've been doctor I wouldn't you know it was the wrong place wrong time. Context fair enough and look it may and it may be wonderful and and there may be other hypotheses around that but going back to men develop sexual fetishes and they're unlikely to change in a way that women don't which is already interesting so going back to female flexibility and male inflexibility when it comes to sex and then there's also the study that we were just talking about where if if a guy's straight he's going to respond to straight images if he's gay he's going to respond to gay images but women just have a broader response. I don't know enough about it to know what's real. right right we do have a broader response but I think that and that that is true and that has to go with our biology and maybe it's our our our evolutionarily speaking but I also think there's a way that women's I mean yeah women's sexuality has been more policed and there hasn't been as much permission to explore and I think that men too that some way men are also told that like it's not okay to to experiment or to deviate at all and that maybe men would find other scenarios and things more attractive if there wasn't this fear of being you know being gay or being whatever like just to explore their other body parts I think that we've been policed too much. Going back to the reason that the porn thing I think is important is I want to understand how we begin to unwind this so how do we get out of this death spiral of the people feeling uncomfortable fearful of making the first move that the dynamic between men and women is now becoming it there there is a price to freedom let's say it like that because never in a million years would I want to see women move backwards would not want them put back in a box I would not want their sexuality policed I would want them to be the CEO of the biggest companies in the world if that's what they want. Like watching my wife self-actualize has been one of the most beautiful, amazing things I've ever seen in my life. But we had to learn to navigate it. Mhm. And so when I think about I had to go through a mourning process when she really started finding that masculine gear. And we had to talk about it. And look, I I I will just be very honest. My wife and I are very high-level communicators. And when I think that it was still hard for us, I'm just like you you have to put that on the pile of all the things that we're going to have to work through. And so I think people have to acknowledge that men and women are different. I think people have to realize that you're you want a partner that you must contend with, which means you want them to be everything they can be. You want them to be your intellectual equal. And at the same time, women, on average, want a man that can lead at least sometimes, right? And so that means that the bar is being raised for men, but men are being trained to rise as women rise. They're being trained you're [ __ ] toxic and back off and create space and don't mansplain and all this stuff. I'm saying I don't think that's the play. I think the play is women be everything you can be. Men be everything you can be. And it's going to be two very different things. And look, I don't have the answers. I'm just saying I don't think that we've taught men, I don't think that we've given men enough permission to explore their range of of of emotions and to feel who they are. Like so I think that we're not like I think that we're not saying to men you are I mean I think that hopefully you've heart to men and saying like we're not saying you're you're so toxic and we don't want you to do these things. I think that we have to give permission to men. I think that men need to lean more into their feminine. I'm going to I'm going to say that there's a book I actually brought for you that my my friend just wrote this book called her name's Elise Loehnen and it's called On Our Best Behavior and it's about the seven deadly sins. It's called the the price that women played to be paid to be good. And she goes through all of the seven deadly sins, and she talks about this way, and there was actually an eighth one. These actually weren't even in the Bible, and the eighth one was sadness, and it was left out. But sadness is sort of I think what her she she says in the book is she talks about her theory is that sadness has been this emotion that men have learned to repress, that it wasn't okay, going back to little Bobby don't cry, man up. Don't be a girl. Don't, you know, man up. Don't feel your emotions. And that when we repress our sadness, and we're not told how to experience emotion, that can come out as personality disorders, as toxic masculinity. And I think the more we teach little boys and little girls how to experience the range of emotions together, I think that that maybe we'll move into a different kind of world, but I think that that's okay. We'll still always have the someone leading, someone following, attraction, desire, arousal. We still have to unpack that. And that we're so men are so afraid of being seen as feminine. And that we're told little boys they can't feel, and so that comes out in other ways. It is not healthy not to experience an an emotion as we know. They stay into our body. They stay in, you know, the issues are in our tissues. The body keeps score. All these books and all these their you know, psychologists that have talked about this stuff for a lot, trauma work, and trauma therapy. I know you've talked about some of this, but I do believe that when we repress something, no matter what age it happens, it stays with us. Then it comes out in ways that is not the most healing and productive to our culture. think the whole world has went through a collective trauma with the pandemic, where we were kept from other people. We don't have connection as much. We're staring at our phones. We're staring at our screens. We are not, you know, we don't have the experience of connecting and touching other people. We require touch and connection and intimacy. That's part of being alive. That's part of being healthy. Like if you go back to evolutionary speaking, we had the tribe, whether it was women with other women and to in raising each other's babies, but we had community. If we don't have touch by somebody else, we start to experience more anxiety, more depression. There was that study at Stanford. I think it was a study about the bunnies. I don't know if you know this the study might This is kind of what I remember about There was this study about these There was these um grad students, I believe they were at Stanford, and they were doing a study around bunny rabbits, and they found that the bunnies that there was like bunnies on the bottom shelf and bunnies that were on a harder to reach shelf. And the bunnies that were the the the students would come in, and they were doing this experiment, and the bunnies who actually got touch and were held, they got cuddled, and they got held by the bunnies on the top shelf the bunnies on the bottom shelf fared much far better in the study because they had more touch and connection. There's been many more studies around this, but that was the first one that I remember was one of the most impactful ones that's showing that we can't issue the importance of that. Our hand can only do so much. Computers, visual stimulation, uh AI, all of that, that at the end of the day, we won't be able to replace that, but I think that since our brains have created so much fear and anxiety around touch and connection and confusion around sexuality. What do you think about AI and sex robots, which are going to be real? Yeah. I think that there's a use for sex robots. I think that for people who can't have sex, who have who are um differently abled, um who are craving connection and intimacy, you could learn from that, you know? I mean, an AI robot you could have give you connection or could like perform oral sex for like hours at time. Like that might be awesome. But I still think that we're going to need, you know, maybe this is very I haven't gone as far into it as you have, but I do think that we're still going to be we can't replicate human connection and touch, but I do think that robots are going to take over, and that people are not going to even maybe remember what it was like. So, I think maybe we're already seeing that. That's what I think. But I I think they're happening. They're here. There are sex robots. We're seeing that with porn. We're seeing that too that you have like the interactive porn that the virtual reality porn. I mean, have you tried any of that? No. Yeah. Don't. You'll never leave your room. I can't believe That's so funny. I I if I had had that when I was a teenager, I would legitimately be terrified. So, I remember getting a porn magazine when I was like 17 and literally for an entire weekend, nothing existed but that porno. And I can't fathom if I had access to porn then like I have access to porn now. Like that would be crazy town. You don't have a developed prefrontal cortex. You have no impulse control. It would feel so awesome and your brain would begin to hardwire for that, which I I am legitimately afraid. You can add that to the list of reasons I don't have kids. When I meet parents now that are like, "Oh my god, we just had our first kid." All I can think is your kid isn't going to get a driver's license because cars will drive themselves and their first sexual experience will certainly be with a robot. For real. And I mean that. And they're literally already building real human skin over robot exoskeletons. That's now without AI. So, like when you flash forward 15, 20 years, it's crazy town. crazy town. It really is crazy town. Yeah, I've decided to be child-free as well for many reasons and I do not my It is It is It is quite a challenge what's going to be happening to the kids today. That's true. They're not They're already seeing them. They're not getting their driver's license or leaving the house, which is very different than when we grew up, right? So, now these kids who grew up with porn without any education, they're thinking that's actually sex right now. They're thinking that that what I see in porn is how sex goes down. They're not realizing it's scripted. I know I don't talk to like 18-ish year olds. I By the time I get to them, they're usually in their early 20s. Um What What impact is porn really having on sex? Like are I can't fathom that guys think, "Oh, I can roll up on my first sexual encounter and act like they do in porn. Do they actually? They actually do, Tom. Because where else if I make it and in fact I I have I've talked to my friend's son who was 18 years old. Very smart kid. He got all A's in school. I think he was literally going to Harvard in the fall. And you know, I'm become that person like that aunt or that everyone's kids talks to me about sex. And and he said to me he was having sex with his girlfriend and he was having some problems in the bedroom. In fact, we're seeing more and more young men and performance anxiety and erectile dysfunction which we never saw before and there's a whole bunch of other reasons for that. But he said to me, I I want to know like I and I was we're talking about porn. Do you watch porn? He said, "Yeah, sometimes." I said, "But you realize that that's not real sex. It's like scripted." And he goes, "Yeah, no no, I get that." He's like, "But where can I see real sex then? Like like I get that you're telling me that porn isn't real, but where do I go to see what actually happens?" And the truth is there really isn't I mean, that's been like a kind of a a mission of mine is I really want to reform sex education and make it much more realistic, but it's as it makes it much more understanding for kids so they they can um whether it's like an app or it's it's you know, there's all these different ways to do it. it like being porn? Like how do you ethical porn but still porn? Like how do you back it off? Like I remember when The Joy of Sex came out. Because of what it was just you didn't get porn porn. I was like that might as well been porn. I was super excited about The Joy of Sex. Hell yes, count me in. So what would you do that isn't going to trigger parents? about your bodies. I would talk about connection. I would I'd actually show that sometimes sex is funny and awkward and like you make different noise. I would show someone putting on a condom. I would show lubricant. I would teach about um which is the word I already do. I teach kids about consent. I teach about puberty, their bodies, or you know, I would I um show that how you know, I would teach about the women's bodies and how we need more arousal and more foreplay and more like, you know, it takes us a while. Like I often say that men And again, this is we're very men and women It's harder for me to speak in the binary like this, but it is true that women are more slow cookers and men are more frying pans. Men are going to get aroused and turned on right away, where women take a little bit longer. So, I would like teach about all of that. I would teach about how our bodies work and I would touch teach about that like a woman being wet isn't really just mean that she's definitely on. You can be wet and not turned on and turned on and not wet. And there's all of these misinformation I would teach about biology. I would teach about psychology. I would teach about everything. Give me Give me some of the hits here. What would we teach about biology and psychology? I would teach about hormones. I would teach about what happens during puberty that you have like this surge of hormones that are going to like going to you're going to go pubic hair. You might have a wet dream. What that means when you get an erection. Do you understand how many boys and girls right now start to have sexual feelings when they're like 12 or 13. I talked to a lot of parents and kids who are more who are sexually aware and know a little bit who know more than, you know, many. But they still do not talk to their kids about masturbation. They do not say, you know, "Hey, you're going to get these." So, now kids are having Guys are having erections or girls are having orgasms or they're masturbating and they're feeling guilt and shame and they hide it from their they have to hide it from their parents. They don't understand puberty. They don't understand the horse surge of hormones, what's happening to their brains, what's happening to their bodies. Um it's still sort of this like amorphous thing. They kind of get it, but they don't. But mostly it's laced in shame. And it's wrong and it's dirty. Cuz parents are so terrified that they actually give kids the accurate information about what's happening. To like matter of fact, your body's changing. You might have these desires and they're totally normalized it, which is what again, going back to the Dutch countries. If there's other places, please let me know. I think that, you know, but this is what we all study in my field, sexologists and you know, human sexuality, that there really aren't that many places that are teaching this well, that it's just normal. It shouldn't be so mysterious. So, you would just kind of talk about it as it happens. We're not saying that you're teaching kids at 5 years old how to have an intercourse or where babies are made, but you're teaching them as they come up what's happening to their bodies, their emotions, and just about their their parts, and what it all means. So, I would just talk about the reality of it, and I would do it all the time, ongoing. It's not just a one-time thing, it's not a one class. So, that's that's how I would teach it. I would infiltrate into the entire system of education and what we teach about like history and math and science and and and sexual health and wellness. Talk to me about the slow cooker versus being a frying pan. That mismatch is hysterical, a very cruel twist of fate. Uh but, walk me through people in a relationship. How do they navigate that? How do you do that well? I mean, okay. So, I also for my audience and my listeners, I would get in trouble I I would be this is where I would get backlash, because the truth is there are just as many men who are take longer to get aroused and turned on, especially in a longer-term relationship. Yeah, I would say not just as many, but many. Many. Have more So, what we're talking about is And why especially in a long-term relationship? Well, I think in long-term relationships is when our sex drive starts to to wane, because we no longer have the newness and the the novelty and the desire and we don't have as much um variety. I mean, that's what we crave, okay? So, when everything's new at the beginning. equally? Equally. Interesting. I would have said men have a way higher desire for novelty than women. Well, you know, there have been some studies. I have a friend named Wednesday Martin who wrote a book called Untrue, basically everything you want to know about sex is untrue. And she actually has has studies that show that women in long-term relationships actually crave more variety than men. Interesting. So, there had she's you would love her book cuz there's a lot more like science and studies and evolutionary psychology and biology in it and she talked a lot about this fact that that that and that I think that's fascinating, too, that women actually crave that. We want something that's different and new and novel. So, we we've learned a lot. You have to remember that the study of human sexuality is still very much in its infant stages. I mean, we have like the Kinsey Institute, right? I mean, which came out in the late '50s, at least in America, and a lot of what Freud did was harmful, right? There's different kinds of orgasms in women that have hysteria. There are different kinds of orgasms. kinds of orgasms. Sorry, but there was one superior to the other ones that like like the a a clitoral orgasm was like an infant orgasm and an internal orgasm was a more mature orgasm and that women would go into their doctors' offices and they would feel like they had this something going wrong and they called that women's desire was a hysteria and men would start to think their doctors would use vibrators to bring them to orgasm that was sort of the advent of vibrators. There was like a whole misunderstanding about female sexuality, so it's still a very much an emerging science and study. We don't spend a lot of time or money of our resources studying sexuality, which is why when I was halfway through writing Smart Sex, the study came out that there were 12,000 nerve endings and not 8,000. I mean, this is what I mean, I'm working with somebody who just invented the clitogram. This The same what? Dr. Marashi just invented the clitogram, which is studying the it's it's studies the clitoris. It's like kind of like a sonogram or a but it's for your clitoris. You can go in and have your clitoris studied. Like it it maps it? It maps your clitoris, yep. Is it imaging or Whoa. Yeah, so I still want to get that done, Alisa. Don't you? I know, me, too. I'm going to New York. I'm going to go do it, really. So, we we really haven't studied it at all. It wasn't until 1998 that the clitoris was even in in medical in manuals and in medical school. In fact, doctors up until 98? 1998 98? 1998 Woah. The clitoris wasn't even on the map, literally. That is shocking. what I'm saying. It's still very, very, very new. 98. I'm really glad that I read a lot of Cosmo as a kid. My mom gave me really good advice and it was like, "Hey, look, men and women are different. You need to go learn about women." So, I started reading everything I could get my hands on that was like behind enemy lines stuff and Cosmo was just like, "This is joke. Guys don't even know where the clitoris is." So, I was like, "Yo, I'm going to know where that [ __ ] clitoris is." And look, I will pat myself on the back. My wife was like, "Well, I'm just never going to have an orgasm. I guess it's not meant for me." And then she met me and I was like, "Homie, I'm telling you this this is the only spot we have to pay attention to." This is my life's work. Yeah, literally. And she was like, "A round of applause for this young man, please." And yeah, look, there's still some great differences in terms of time to orgasm. So, men typically are more spontaneous, right? So, maybe you see Lisa walk in the room and you are spontaneously turned on and ready for sex. You're like, "She's hot. That's my wife. I want to go." She bumps into my penis. I'm ready. Exactly. It's hilarious. That doesn't happen for women as much. Women are responsive. I know. We respond to things happening in our environment. Now, and there's a lot of factors and this is the pillars that I write about in Smart Sex. I talk about this pillars of sexual intelligence because what I get to in my book is that there are all of these factors and we need to It is our It is our duty as sexual beings, I think, to understand all the factors that have to come into play to make us ready for sex, to get us in the mood for sex and all the things that's keeping us from being in the mood for sex, that's keeping us in the mood for desire. So, for men, that's where we are very different. Like, you see her, you're turned on, you're ready to go, it's external. Your penis reacts, there's an erection. Well, for women, we're a little bit more complicated. I've been saying the vagina's like the Rubik's Cube of life. It's very confusing, like buttons and knobs and things are happening, and there's like so many things to understand, which again, lack of information, 1998, the clitoris gets on the map, we don't really even understand all this stuff, and there's a lot of different There's always new theories coming out all the time, but this theory of responsive desire and sponta- neous desire is one way to start. So, we respond to stimuli. So, what I need things to happen, and what we even understand is brain being the largest sex organ next to the skin. I get pushed back for that sometimes. The skin is also a sex organ. But the brain, when you think about what I'm trying to say is Yeah, that's right. our brain has to be on board for sex. going to say, like your skin can be as exposed and touched as it wants, if the brain isn't on board, you're dust. You're dust. We have to keep our old pilot light lit, and we got to keep ourselves So, let's go back to the brain. So, I need to understand that what's going to get me in the mood for sex. So, I'm not respon- Well, let's say you, okay, so you're turned You see Lisa, you're turned on. I, you know, or Lisa, maybe she's finishing an email, she's still in a meeting, she's got stuff going on. Her brain doesn't work that way. She's not ready to go like that. But what might need to happen is she needs to remember earlier I was talking about my feminine energy, like I know now that for me, if I walk into a room, like my partner's house, and it's my boyfriend's house, and it's cold, this is just a And I think it is better to give solid examples to people get what I'm talking about. If it's cold in his house, for example, I completely shut down. My blood flow stops, because blood flow is a huge part of orgasm and arousal. I'm cold, I'm shivering. If it's messy in there, if we have an unresolved issue we haven't talked about, I am nowhere near ready for sex. I don't care what he does, or how hot he looks when he walks in the door. My brain has not done all of the has not worked all the factors and all the pillars I talk about in sex queue are not lined up for me to be ready for sex. We just don't work I may I need to be built up towards sex. So so those are the things that are going to keep me from sex. What I need to understand as a sexual being who wants to be a great partner is I need to understand well what do I need to be what how do I optimize my desire and my arousal? My desire like how do I get myself and we often conflate desire and arousal so I kind of use them interchangeably but the desire is the wanting to have sex. Like I want it or I don't and the arousal is how our body's responding to sexual stimuli. But I need to know in my slow cooker self like what are this is why we always say like foreplay like oh god foreplay again is your biggest is your number one tip? Well we it's I always say foreplay is not a suggestion like oh maybe foreplay would nice it's actually a requirement. We need the things that are going to build us up for many women to get us towards that. Here here's the difficult thing. Foreplay for a guy literally just touch my genitals. Like that's that's all. guys that's it. Yep. So but with women to you for some guys not all. Yeah give me give me a rough percentage. I'm going to say 94% of guys if you go straight for the bull's-eye you're going to be in good shape. I would say you not every single time if he's feeling stressed anxiety in a long term relationship but yes I would say overall I just have to be very careful of speaking in absolutes in my in my uh Yeah the profession. The same thing has said just if I'm freezing I don't want to have sex. So no doubt there are things that have to be right But you might get a you might be freezing and then Lisa walks in the room and you're ready to have sex. But for me there's a lot of different things are things that like will matter to me. I'm just saying once like once there's no sort of obvious barrier you're still not in the go zone with a woman. You still need more buttons to be pressed as you say. Right exactly. the question becomes are there universal buttons to press or is it going to be just completely different and you need to Well, here's the thing. It is different from person to person, from woman to woman. We're going to want different things. But some of the things that are universal, I would say, is we want to feel safe. Safety is a big part of our arousal process. Like, is this someone that I feel safe with that I can trust? Not that I can't get turned on with someone new and the bad boy, that's something different. But I think there's so many different ways to answer this question. But like in your longer-term relationship or in any relationship, I think if we feel safe, if we feel we want a slower build-up. That's why we love like making out or kissing or going slow. Is it just slow or is it those things? Kissing, touching, eye gazing. I think it's all of those things. They're all like kind of connected, but I think slower is better. And in fact, when guys often ask me, "What's your top sex advice?" in a pinch, I would say like if you remember I'd say go five times slower than you think. Because you're aroused, you're turned on, you're frying pan, you're ready to go. I didn't even see you walk in the door and now my clothes are off and you're ready to go and you're pounding away. A guy is pounding away at me. I'm like, I there is no way that I was ready to go. I needed all of these things. I needed to feel safe. I needed to have my breath regulated. Maybe I wanted to make eye contact. I wanted to start to get my body on board for sex by like slow touching, maybe touching over my clothes because again, stimulating all those nerve endings, maybe my nipples, my vulva. Like there's all of these feel good places on the body that when stoked or stroked will start to kind of build the And assuming the person knows you well and you have trust and you're warm and all of that, is it and they know the exact places that you like to be touched, is it still just it it's a matter of time and like the the energy begins to transfer like in these slow waves and there is no way to speed it up or is it um like once those things are taken for granted because this is a long-term partner and you know them well, does it shorten? That's just part of it though. No, because listen though, if we're in a relationship, cuz this is one of the pillars, but let's say we haven't communicated about sex. We haven't communicated about communicated about anything, but particularly, you know, maybe I have some resentments and I'm really mad at you because you said you were going to come home early and you didn't come home early or like last week you did something that pissed me off. That's also going to build up and that's going to keep me from no matter what you do to me. You could do all those moves that I love. My partner could do everything that he knows that turns me on, but if I'm pissed and I'm holding on to the resentment and I have something that I've been wanting to say to him or I I feel, you know, or I haven't been in Here's the other thing, that that that I won't be as turned on. Or if I'm not in shape, I haven't been moving my body, I haven't been exercising, I've been eating foods that make me feel bad rather than feel good. I've had an unhealthy diet. I haven't been exercising. I don't feel confident in my body. You could be doing all the things and I'm still not going to be turned on. So, it's multi-layered, it's complex, which is why after to almost 20 years of doing this work, I re- went down to write this book and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to write down every single tip I have on sex because I have many." And one of my sweet spots is literally anybody who call me, I'll come up to me and say, "I've got this sex problem." And I could give you the next thing to do. I could say, "Have a A lot of it is communication. Talk to your partner about this thing. Try this, you know, maybe you should go off this medication. Maybe you should deal with your shame. You had a religious upbringing. Let's look at that." But what I realized at the end of the day, people, when it comes to sex, they want a quick fix, they want to be out the door. But it's not a quick fix for sex. There's not one thing that's going to happen every single time. So, I put together these pillars of that's going to help people boost their sex IQ and understand what's going to make me feel sexually intelligent throughout my lifetime. What do I need to understand? And so, I actually broke it down into five pillars and they all are going to contribute to this slow cooker frying pan stare, especially for women the slow cooker. And even the frying pan, because you're not going to be able to get erect if you have been if you're on a certain medication, let's say. If you haven't been exercising, if you've been eating foods that aren't aren't healthy, if you might be have a lot of anger, a lot of stress. I think people will understand that there's bio-individuality when it comes to arousal, your sex life, and that there are all these factors that are contributing. How embodied you are, your overall health and wellness, your mental health and your physical health, your confidence level, your self-knowledge. How well do you know yourself? Do you know what turns you on? And then your ability to collaborate and communicate. Can you give us the breakdown of the five pillars? So, the first one is embodied. How in my body am I in life, during sex? So, when I'm having sex, am I feeling my partner's skin against mine, or am I in my head disassociating thinking about the last porn I had? That level of embodiment, which fluctuates. You never get to a place where you're always embodied, but that's the first pillar. Do I Do I feel connected to my body during sex? The second one is your health, your overall mental health and your physical health. So, that would be Do I Am I exercising? Am I moving my body? Have I had therapy to deal with any untreated traumas? Because untreated trauma doesn't go away, it just gets more progressive and worse over time. The third pillar is self-acceptance. Do I accept my body where I'm at, my penis size, my breasts, how my body's change over time, the sexual experience I have till now? Do I accept myself, and that's really confidence. That's linked to confidence, how confident I am in my body. The next one was self-knowledge. Do I know, after all my sexual history, what I actually require to be turned on? Do I need dirty talk? Do I need the room to be at a certain temperature? Do I need the dishes to be out of the sink? Do I need to feel safe with the partner? For a lot of For a lot of people, and I guess I here I could use gender cuz we're doing that more so, but for women, if the house is a mess, and maybe for men, too. House is a mess, the dishes are in the sink, I haven't finished my tasks, there's no way in hell I'm having sex. But, if I know that about myself, I'm not worried that my partner's mad at me, doesn't find me attractive anymore, because I know that like the dishes were in the sink, and that didn't make it hot. And then the fifth one is collaboration. How well do I Am I comfortable talking to my partner about I what I want in bed? Do I need to tell him like, I don't like it when you do that move, or I actually require 20 minutes of oral sex, or I'm going to need a vibrator tonight. I need lubricant. Um I need you to slow down. Most couples, and I will say this, I would say that 98% of couples do not have healthy conversations about sex, if at all. They don't know how to do it, they don't have any models of it, we don't see it in our culture. So, every time someone has a sex question, in my head, I run through these things. And I wanted to give people permission and the power to figure it out, to kind of look at this and say, "Okay, what's actually going on in my body, in my mind, in my spirit now, so I can figure out what I need to be sexually turned on." So, those are all the contributing factors, which, again, for many people that might seem like obvious, or of course, but after I figured out for all these years, I'm telling you that people are shocked to find out that a certain medication they're taking, like an antidepressant, is going to impact their ability to get aroused, or that if they're eating a shitty diet and unhealthy food, that's going to impact their blood flow. So, they might not have as erections like they like to, or you know, if they've trauma, or they don't talk about sex, or they grew up in a shameful household, that's going to impact their ability. Being a great lover doesn't have to do with how much sex you've had. And how, you know, the mindset around sex is not about like, you know, I always say like, you have to be with somebody and you appreciate that has a growth mindset around sex. If you're with somebody, and most people, I would say, have a fixed state. They believe that sex is one thing and one way and that's what's harming people's sex life and why I think we're in a sex recession. Mhm. It's really interesting. Communication is a very big deal. Um speaking to the erectile dysfunction thing, one thing that I heard really early on that kept me quite sober as if you have erectile dysfunction, it is it could be medication or something like that. People should definitely get that checked, but it it could also be a sign the of vascularity problems. Mhm. Which could be a sign of heart disease. It's not a coincidence that Viagra was discovered when they were trying to make a heart medication. Mhm. Um so very very interesting. The psychological components around the body is also very interesting. People getting in their own head. How do I look from this angle? I've heard you say that before. Mhm. Um yeah, that's very interesting. So how do you help people pass that? When somebody has a hang-up about themselves, how do you help them get to the other side? Like if they have a hang-up about their body, like we're talking about like the self-acceptance part. Yes. Hang-up or anything. I mean, the thing is is working on their their their confidence, which again seems, you know, we all know like that's an inside job, but it's the first it's like kind of decoding what are the messages that I'm telling myself about my body. Well, first let me talk about, you know, penises, okay? I think that your listeners are going to appreciate this, Tom, is that men I have found are way more obsessed with their penises than women are. Yes. I was almost certainly sure. are not like literally Well, we already talked about it the fact that only 20% of us are going to have an orgasm with anything that has to do with your penis, okay? So that's one thing. So I think just kind of education, knowledge, understanding like what really matters in the bedroom and what doesn't. Um it really helps to have more power to realize like if you listen, so if you're walking around all day, I hate my body. I don't like the way I look. My left boob bigger than my right boob. I've gained weight. I don't feel sexy. I'm stupid. I'm going to And all day long you're telling yourself specifically let's say negative conditioning around your body. And then you get into the bedroom with someone you're supposed to be naked and you're like, "How am I I'm What How am I going to be turned on right now? How would How do you can you expect to be turned on when you've been having these negative messages?" So, you have to flip the script. And flipping the script is replacing it with more body positive body And I even don't even say body positive. I say body neutrality. At least try to be neutral cuz to say you're going to love your body is a far stretch for many people. But even being accepting of it and saying like when you're walking past the mirror like what is something that I love about my body? What's something that I even like? Do I appreciate that my legs are getting me, you know, or allowing me to walk through my home right now? Does my hair look good today? Like what is something, you know, I like my ears. I You know, I got pretty eyes. What can you do so you can What can you find on your body that you love? How do you change Unfollow people on social media who make you feel bad about yourself? Um you know, I think it's having affirmations in your phone. Like even writing positive like I am a sexual being that's deserving of pleasure. My body is built, you know, I can I I deserve to be, you know, sexual health and wellness is part of my overall, you know, well-being. You know, continuing to like replace negative conditioning with positive conditioning, picking partners that make you feel good about yourself, not bad about yourself, finding other penises and vulvas. There's some amazing artwork out there that actually shows I mean, listen, if we're young people now are just seeing what they see in porn. Like it makes sense that a lot of men aren't feeling great about their penises and a lot of women aren't feeling great about their vaginas or their vulvas. Their vulva is external part of the vagina because you only see certain parts, but everyone is a little bit different, right? So, I would say like Find so it's Surround yourself with sex positive voices, affirmations, realizing and also here's the other thing is masturbation. Masturbation is a huge part of being sexually well and healthy and when you start to realize that you can learn your own body. And I I tell this I don't often have to remind men to masturbate, but for women, I think like I they're often like, "Oh, I didn't it didn't occur to me." Again, we're slow cookers. I don't just get hit over the head by it. But for women, if when I realize when I teach them or talk to them about it, like start to masturbate and start to understand your own body, become the expert in your own machinery, you be responsible for your own orgasm. You're responsible for your own pleasure. And once you start to do that, it's the most empowering thing in the world because not only do you realize I can give myself pleasure and orgasms, but then when you're with a partner, you know exactly what to do. You know what to tell them. You know how to feel more confident. You know what feels good and what is actually possible. So then you're not, you know, I think that really helps with the the lack of confidence part because you know I know how this thing goes. I know what I need to be turned on. So it's a bunch of the few of those things really help. I would imagine so. Going back, I'm going to ask you directly, how is it possible that size doesn't matter? I mean, for some women, it feels really great to be filled up and it would be great to have a a a large penis. That's a preference thing. It can impact all of the nerve endings and that can be great, but really for the woman, the vagina, the the inner two thirds of the vagina are the most sensitive. So if anything, like girth can be important. But when we talk about the way that there's women are going to have more pleasure and more orgasms, I think having a lover that is more attentive, pays attention, is focused on pleasure and arousal, and understanding all the things that make us feel good, I think we would prioritize that kind of lover way over penis size. And for some women, what I've heard over time, in the almost two decades I've been doing this, I hear from way more women who are with someone who's way too big and it's painful. And they can I hear from more men, too. They're like, "I literally can't stick it in cuz it's so painful then then from like this penis was too small and what am I going to do about it? And I'm not saying that it doesn't matter for some, just like large breasts. There are some men who only want to be with a woman with large breasts because if someone has small breasts, that's just not attractive to them. They won't get turned on. That's not interesting. So, for some women, a guy with a smaller penis won't be interesting to them. Won't be hot. Won't be their partner. But for others, I think it's preference, really. I have a theory on this. Okay. I'll bet. You've got a lot of theories which I love you to divide them. on life. Anyway, I'm always trying to fix my prediction engine. I love it. Uh I have a foot shoe model of penis vagina compatibility. Okay. And I have a theory. I I don't have enough personal data to know for sure, but I've got enough to know I'm I'm on the right track. Uh that there probably just as many insides of vaginas as there are outsides of penises. And while it may not be exactly one for one in that you have somebody that is literally your mirror. Uh that there's going to be somebody who fits whatever you have. So, if you're Captain Gigantor, there's going to be somebody who's perfect for you. And if you're on the smaller size, there's going to be somebody for you. Now, whether you find that person is a whole 'nother thing. Um but I have a feeling that that's closer to the truth than just it doesn't matter. Mhm. But I agree with you. So, I learned very quickly that at least my wife is not as interested in penises as I would like her to be. I got out of the shower and I was standing buck naked. If my wife just got out of the shower and is naked, guaranteed I'm checking everything out and I'm happy to do it. And I wouldn't like I wouldn't even have to think to check her out. I just would. My eyes would just naturally wander. And so I'm standing there talking to her buck naked and she doesn't even glance down not once. And we're just having a normal conversation and I'm tracking her eyes cuz I'm like she's going to look, she's going to look, she's going to look. And uh she never once looked down and my heart broke. And in that moment I I said to her at the end I was like, "Wow, you didn't even glance down." And she was like, "Oh, jeez, I didn't even think about it." And I was like, "What? I'm like standing here naked and it did not even cross your mind." And I was like, "Wow, she's really not kidding." Like it just isn't her thing. She is not wired for the visual side of this. Now like I said, when I was young my mom gave me great advice. So I already knew focus on the brain, focus on the mind. My mom gave me the best piece I've said this so many times to my audience. My mom gave me the best piece of advice about sex I've ever gotten. You said it here today which is she my mom said point blank for a woman to have an orgasm she has to trust you. And I was like, "What? I'm sorry." That just it didn't make any sense. I didn't understand like how those two were related what they it it it would be like for a woman to have an orgasm Walter Cronkite has to be on TV somewhere. And you're like, "Why? What do the two have to do with each other?" I was very confused by that. Obviously I'm not anymore but at the time I really did not understand that. They just seemed like two totally unrelated phenomena. Uh so yeah, for anybody out there with insecurities around that I would say probably not the first thing on her mind if you make her feel loved, seen, desired, secure, etc. etc. Exactly. And yeah, it is true. That's like really there's so many other factors that are involved with with sex but I it's interesting your lid for every pot or your penis for every vagina analogy cuz I'm thinking about that but it's just it's funny cuz I I just again that hearkens back to the fact that sex sex as we know it, has been so focused on procreation. And when really, I think of sex as eroticism and sex is touch and desire. And one of my missions is to make sex less about procreation and less about procreation, less about penis and vagina penetration, but more about exploring and more about eroticism and touch and and like, you know, so many times couples are craving sex, but I really think they're craving intimacy or connection. And sometimes massage can be a great connect and maybe that will lead into sex. But we're just focusing on this penetrative act, this is when we're seeing so many women just silently suffering through this problem or not having you know, having low desire, not having orgasm, faking orgasm, this orgasm gap. So, we can expand our definition into of sex into like eroticism and pleasure overall, I think that we'd have a lot more, you know, satisfied women. And so, maybe there is a, you know, penis rubber vagina, but I just I I just think once we give more information to women, like that's really just I'm going to say again, like size not about that. I mean, it's a nice to have, I think for many, but once you have you start to understand more, you realize that it's just it's a nice to have, but it's not everything. Sex in our 20s is different than sex in our 30s and our 40s and our 50s. And sex week to week is changing, especially for women that are 28-day cycle. I mean, if women start to track this and understand that for many during ovulation, they're more aroused and turned on when they actually get their period, less so. We all get to decide who we are as sexual beings and track it. So, I think once you realize that it's not that that there's so many things involved with sex, so that it's going to change over our lifetime, that there's all these factors like I talk about in the pillars that to pay attention to. Like I think everything is realizing that sex is changing and growing and so are our bodies and it's about our hormones and it's about connection and intimacy and it's an important part of our health and wellness that we have to constantly be continually be monitoring without resistance um and thinking that it's some magical magic bullet thing. There really isn't one except for some vibrators work really well. I love it. That's smart sex everybody. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Want to know why most relationships don't last? Check out this episode with Matthew Hussey. Today on Impact Theory, relationship expert Matthew Hussey walks us through why the majority of relationships do not succeed.