What Women Really Want In The Bedroom - Emily Morse

most of the things that you are worried about when it comes to sex your performance your penis size your body shape the way you're performing oral sex your left boobs bigger than the right baby whatever the things you're worried about have like literally zero to do with any sort of pleasure or satisfaction and people will tell you they have the best sex it was never because of like the shape of the penis the all these things it's about connection it's about intimacy it's about feeling safe it's about experimenting it's about really being with someone where you want them to have the most pleasure and they want the same for you have you looked at how much sex people are having in the modern world are we having more or less sex than previous generations apparently we're having less sex than previous generations media can't get enough of these studies that they're doing that people are not having sex the young people aren't having sex and it turns out people in relationships are having the same amount of sex that they've always had but younger Generations are not doing it interesting that's I mean that's one of the first things that I learned when starting to look at this which is almost all sex it's something like 95 of sexual activity within any given year occurs only within relationships so people think about The Singletons that are spraying it all over the place and it's not it's the people that are in relationships that have almost all of the sex it's true and it is that's been that way for a long time it's just that yeah like you said but people and people aren't just out there dating as much or they're not having sex as much and they're just more you know Finding satisfaction elsewhere and not prioritizing it which is really interesting well it's less of a it's less of a sex problem than it is a Singleton problem in that case what about okay what have you looked at to do with the relationship between uh having sex and people's happiness to people that have regular access to physical touch are they do they live longer are they are they happier in other things everyone who has more touch more sex more connection are definitely happier in life they report having more pleasure more life satisfaction they live longer you know touch is a requirement it really is there's there's something called Skin hunger and that's a real condition that we need physical touch we require it and as animals like we just we want to cuddle we want to touch and I think a lot of times we talk about sex but something that I always talk about is like sex is just part of it I think a lot of times think we we think we're craving sex and how we Define sex as like penetration but really we're craving intimacy and that could be holding hands it could be kissing cuddling massage you know but sometimes you just if you are feeling lonely and we know we also have a loneliness epidemic and a sex epidemic apparently but just getting a massage and finding cuddling up holding a puppy we require that as humans to thrive and it boosts our serotonin our moods everything I remember reading during the pandemic about women who were touch starved or touch isolated trying to find a way to not risk covid but to also be able to get a hug off of off a friend or off a stranger and there were these support groups for women on the internet who hadn't touched another person for ages and it was affecting their mental health yeah no I'm sure I I didn't hear about that one but I did have a massage therapist call into my show during the pandemic saying there was all these women coming to him and they were like you know asking for like a little something extra a really happy happy ending yeah yeah see ya what a time to be alive these are the real costs of the pandemic I don't know about GDP and national debt I want to know about the masseuses that have to do Happy Endings that's what we're about he wasn't complaining but well yeah maybe um one of the other things I'm British right so our sensibilities when it comes to opening up and talking about sex are basically non-existent we're way too stiff upper lips and stoic for that to be the case what's happened in your experience over the last since you began researching this around the conversation of of talking about sex like are people more open or less open are we having a Resurgence of new Puritans at the moment you know it's a great question because when I started this almost 20 years ago there really wasn't anybody talking about sex you could really just point to Dr Ruth and you know she was in her 90s now and she started talking about sex probably in the 80s and there was a lot of resources people weren't talking about it online now since then there's definitely more people there's more information available online there's more podcasters talking about I was definitely the first podcaster talking about it however so there's two things happening yes we're more open and more comfortable talking about sex you can buy a vibrator at you know Walmart and and and you know we see more nudity on television and we're just more open right sexually there's more TV shows with the word sex entitled on Netflix which wasn't even a thing five years ago however what hasn't changed at all is that we still live in a very pure technical Society where we are just truly not comfortable getting into the specifics around sex I mean if you look at what's happening in like in America with like Roe v Wade so now we're like you know and then there's also we're limiting sex education only 17 states require sex ed to be medically accurate in America but yet we're rolling back rights too so it's just it's really pretty backwards that people just don't have the information but yet there's a proliferation of porn so now we have all this pornography without sex education and that's just lethal to be honest because we know porn is not real it's fiction someone wrote a script and it's not how you accurately have sex so there's a crisis in that sense that well sex is ubiquitous and the internet and you can see it when on your phone when you're like eight years old kids are seeing porn but yet they're going out in the world having sex and there's not information so it's not so in a way there's we're in pretty much the same place where people still don't have information about pleasure which is what I talk about a lot and I got to be honest that even when I was my publisher is probably going to kill me and I I I but this is what it made me think of that so I have a major publisher of my books coming out smart sex I don't know how to say this but they really came at me in like December and we're like we can't have sex in the title because it's going to get buried in the algorithms and I was like I've been doing my show for 20 years to make sex more accessible I have to put sex in the title it's like I'm sex with Emily so this is what we're up against right it's still we live in a world we are not as safe and comfortable talking about sex right so if it's not the sensibility that we have and the concern that everyone has about opening up about sex it's getting keywords hidden on the Google search algorithm okay um what is it have you ever looked at why humans are nervous about talking about sex just generally why is that adaptive why would that be an evolutionarily Adaptive reason well because evolutionary speaking I would say that there was a time when we weren't but if we go back about 500 000 years we look at religion's impact on sexuality if we look at the change in women's roles and men's roles and how sex sort of became more about procreation and women became the property of men and we started to police sexuality and so um we didn't have a lot of again still didn't have information about it and so I think if we look at modern day why we're not you know evolutionary speaking I think there's been a lot of change in it but even if you go back to Adam and Eve which some people say that story isn't even real Eve was blamed and shamed for her body and what she did to Adam making him take a bite of the Apple so since the beginning of the time I would say there's been some shame around our genitals but if we fast forward to modern day I can tell you that we weren't even talking about sex in America until about 50 years ago right till the kids The Institute started doing research around it and um in the late 50s but so it's still a pretty new field and even that they still I mean even just yesterday I have a friend who works at Kinsey's student said they were being defunded so anyway there's that there's also just shame I have to tell you that there is so much shame around our bodies and talking about sex and I do think it goes back to more conservative environments we don't have information about it if you grew up in a household where you were told it was wrong to have sex in marriage or unless you were married and that's sexually for procreation you know and without so I think a lot of it is shame and we haven't normalized it that our parents parents don't want to talk to kids kids don't want to hear their parents talk about it and a lot of misinformation just leaves it shrouded in mystery one thing that is interesting to add into that is that I'm not convinced that the modern world is as sex negative you know we've got kids that are now 16 years old who were born in what 2007. you know 2007 wasn't pitch burning flag carrying you know like keep your I mean women's gay marriage legalized not long not too long after that right so it seems like a relatively sex positive world yet young people still have a lot of reticence about talking about their sex so you know there may be some of the older people the older generation perhaps my parents generation your parents generation who who were influenced by that conservative thinking I'm not sure I wonder whether there's just something more embedded I wonder whether it's something about I don't know the same way that you don't talk to your friends all the time about your bowel movements or about your athlete's foot or about like your chronic flatulence or something whether there's just something kind of sacred about or not even sacred shameful inherently shameful and I guess what you're trying to do opening up the conversation about sex normalizing it making it the sort of thing that people don't need to blush and look at the floor when they when they discuss well you know I and I think you're right I think there is some shame out like I don't want it there's things that we don't want it out but if I didn't have an example of in the Dutch countries like in the Netherlands it's the only place that I know of and that we've studied where they actually talk about they start teaching sex education when kids are very very young like even when they're pre-verbal meaning they name the body parts they'll say those are your toes and your knees and your thighs and your vagina your vulva your penis whereas in America we might skip right over and be like your knees your thighs your stomach or your private parts so at a young age they start to normalize that they name the parts they talk about um consent when it comes to touching like at a young age too they'll like say this is your body and you have the right to have people touch it or not and in their sex education which they have every single year as kids get older like literally from kindergarten to to graduation they talk about um they talk about they have sex education but where in America it's fear it's basically don't get pregnant don't get an STI basically don't have sex it's all very mechanical and fear-based in these Dutch countries they talk about pleasure and they talk about orgasm and they talk about yeah like consent and asking for what you want and I think that this lack of information here where we don't really talk about the female orgasm where there's like an orgasm gap or there's all these missing things that it just it just there's just a lot of missing information here where we don't talk about how it can be pleasurable and great but again when you look at these countries is they show that the pregnancy rate is lower the parents the kids talk to their parents about sex the parents will say well if you had sex I hope it was pleasurable I hope you had an orgasm like that might seem so cringy to everybody who's lived through this but that's just because the way we were socialized how much better is it to be in a free open world like your parents are like you're playing on a soccer league like how was your match did you win did you play it how was your sex did you pleasure cool did you use protection amazing what's for dinner like why does it have to be so shameful right because the the the the the problem with that is that we walk around having pain faking orgasms um like I did for many many years um about 80 of women have pain during sex at some point in their life some women always have pain but they never talk about it we're like well I guess we gotta have periods and give birth and have pain during sex um we don't there's an orgasm Gap where men have orgasms and 99 of sexual situations and women do not only 20 of women have sex during during penetrative sex we you know women and men take between like six and eight women so orgasm and women take between 20 and 40 minutes so like there's all these ways that if sex is really supposed to be this pleasurable collaborative effort where we're all having a good [ __ ] time then it'd be so great to have information about it so we could actually do it in a way that feels good so this is where the disconnect is like yes people are having sex or they're apparently not having sex but even when they are having sex I think the quality of sex hasn't changed and that is my mission to be honest my mission is to get people to have better sex and to and everyone gets to decide what that looks like and I don't even think that we know what that looks like and so that's what my mission is all about and what my book is about that I just like literally it was like I want people to know what's on the menu and what sex even can look like and here's all the tears of foundation for knowing if you're sexually healthy and what you need to know and then you get to decide like here's everything take what you like leave the fast but I think right now since there's so much disparate information we're just walking around like why is sex so great at the beginning of the relationship but it's not great six months in or year in like no let's just [ __ ] deal with it and have information and have a lot more pleasure in our lives that's what I'm all about it is strange that we exist in a world that's got more information than ever before we've managed to eradicate diseases we've mastered the climate we can fly across countries we can do all sorts of things communicate and yet the quality of sex by the doctor as she said doesn't seem to have improved you know the quality of our lives have improved by pretty much every other objective metric that you care to care about um I wonder whether part of it is this sort of current it is like a puritanical world where people are focused so much just on work and pleasure uh or enjoyment feels lazy it feels like unnecessarily luxurious you probably don't have time for it it's at the bottom of your list of priorities mm-hmm exactly that's exactly it and that's what I mean I this this is my work is basically about pleasure getting people to prioritize pleasure and not put conditions on Pleasure like it's only once I work out could I have dessert or once I check everything off my list can I go do something that's fun for me and my thesis hypothesis that really that sex that sex well that pleasure is productive that the more pleasure you have the more pleasure you work into your life your schedule your planning you know as you're planning your workouts or your times with friends or all the other things you're prioritizing put pleasure on the map put pleasure on your calendar like whatever that is and I actually have in my book a a pleasure percentage that I help people figure out like their pleasure formula of how many if you look it up there's like a formula of how many minutes in the day how many minutes in the week and you divide it up and you figure out like all the the formula literally for how you can insert pleasure into your life and like look ahead and be like these are the things that make me me feel good because otherwise they just don't happen to your point you're just like I don't deserve it I didn't do enough and the next thing you know like weeks go by months go by you're like when was last time I did something that was just fun for me what is fun like what is pleasure really yeah we work on so much we all work so hard and we we're on our phones we're on our lap like we're always available but we're not we're not scheduling in we're not scheduling that pleasure time okay you said you said before something that's an interesting question which is why is sex so exciting at the beginning of a relationship and why does it Wane over time what have you come to believe about that Well I this is the there are biology speaking there's something called the honeymoon phase which is a real cycle a biological condition less anywhere from six months to two years and what they show is that you know when something's new and exciting and we you know the novelty of being someone new we actually have looked at the brainwave patterns of people falling in love or in lust and it's it's it's it looks like the people on cocaine like if you look at people falling in love and lust it's the same exact thing you've got the dopamine the serotonin that's the most delicious cocktail of feel-good hormones flying around and we feel amazing but just like everything that feels great it also has to come down right it comes up it comes down so then it stagnates and then we're like okay well I'm not riding the waves of the fumes of the newness and excitement meant what do we do about it how do we keep it going and what we do crave after this period is you know if we start the sex started Flatline is we do crave like novelty and newness and variety and so you know but that's why that's why it happens and then that's when people usually come to find me when we're like okay now what do we do and since we don't have a lot of information about sex and we're not comfortable talking about sex and we can compartmentalize sex we really do we kind of put it over there we're like let's close my eyes get naked and hope for the best hope it's good and then when it's not good we don't know what the [ __ ] to do so I help people kind of figure out what they can do to make it keep it hot keep it interesting keep it fresh and keep it going pivoting from that I think it's the passionate to the companionate those are the two systems in Eve psych speak and uh you have the one that is all-encompassing you're concerned about why they've waited so long to text you back you can't wait to see them again it ruins your day because you can't not think about them and then things do pivot but they pivot for an Adaptive reason right that you go from mate retention to family building you're no longer focused as much on trying to be obsessive to make sure that they're invested in you you're both invested in each other and now we need to move forward but I imagined that given that pleasure is something that needs to be prioritized given that it's something that determines our quality of life it makes us live longer etc etc these two things almost kind of work against each other so one of the most common Dynamics I think that people will see especially those that are in relationships are sex becoming routinized the the type of sex that you have when you have it where you have it the way you have it how long it lasts the things you do what are your pieces of advice for people who feel like sex is the same as a trip to McDonald's now I know my order I know what to expect I know how long the wait's going to be and I know what I'm going to feel like after I finished what should you do well I think the first thing to do is to if you're in a relationship is to start to talk to your partner about sex really my whole thing is communication is a lubrication and the more that we talk about sex the better sex we're gonna have so really it's finding out what what kind of sex do we like having what's interesting to us like let's do a little bit of research a little bit of digging a little bit of reflective you know talking about what has worked in our relationship and what hasn't so you can talk about for example okay so here's the thing I'm going to go out on a limb and say the majority of people in long-term relationships haven't really talked about their sex life in a way that is useful in a way that can help them answer this question of what can we do to keep it hot and interesting and so you know I actually in in this book smart sex I write about these five pillars which are sort of the foundation and the tools of the way that people can check in with themselves and understand their own sexuality because when I started writing this book it was like okay I've got 20 years of knowledge here's all my best tips and tricks and then I thought like you know everybody wants a quick fix when it comes to sex like what's the toy what's the lube What's the sex position and I give that like I give that in droves and smart sex I literally put everything in there but then I realized that people really need an organizing principle around sex I want people to understand there are five pillars and that's going to help them understand who they are as a sexual being they don't see the relationship between their sexual being their emotional being their mental well-being their physical well-being their spirituality their their um you know their self-confidence or self-acceptance all the things so there's all these factors that come into play so when I tell couples to talk about their sex life there's a lot of different things going on there's all the tips and tricks like try this position try this toy but then there's what's going on with the individual with with you and I really feel like I what I said I was people what I help people do is understand who they are sexually so then they can relate to a partner and they can figure out these like five pillars together for example like what like the first one is is embodiment right how in our body are we during sex do I know what makes me feel when I'm having sex with someone am I present am I feeling my partner's body my hands do I do I you know feel my feet on the ground like in any moment how embodied are you is this a conversation when it comes to embodiment in these five pillars is this something that someone's supposed to approach with a partner is this a is it best to do it with a partner is it best to journal it is this supposed to be part of my morning meditation practice what am I doing I love this that you're asking this so I think so I mean because I'm getting into the pillars out but really for couples this is just well first of all there's a text IQ quiz if you can take on my website it's like a figure out where you're at and where to start but I do this I if I'm not in the mood for sex or I don't want something I write down the five areas and I think about an out Journal at the top of my my notes my phone and I go around I'm like have I paid attention to all of these pillars do I how's my health and wellness have I been working out what's my blood flow like have I been communicating with my partner that's another one of the pillars is collaboration have I talked to you about what my turn-ons are what makes me feel good in the bedroom what doesn't maybe I have some resentments too so you're just a way of kind of analyzing where you're at say your sexual health and then you know figuring out then then talking apart about it so so really it's just yeah you could do this on your own you could read this with your partner you could figure out like what so the first thing is I have and if you want to start more like at a base level like if you're in a relationship with someone and you've never talked about your sex life a great place to start like if we're just talking quickly like if before we get into the psychological and emotional part of it and you're like right now I want to know what's going on talk about the three most memorable times you've had sex with each other not with somebody else but be like what's our most memorable times we have sex and then you look at that and you think okay what is what what was happening in those moments what why was it so great was there a new sex move was it was there a lot of foreplay was there a lot of build up had we not seen each other in a while was there a lot of oral sex what did someone almost walk in the room and we thought we almost got caught like what elements were happening so we can kind of reverse engineer what great sex feels like when did we feel the most connected what was happening so that's a great place to start I have a yes no maybe list on my site that lists all of like the 80 sex acts out there that couples can kind of take a little quiz together and figure this is more like what what are we into are we into kissing spanking dirty talk like what would be great but at the end of the day Chris at the end of the day we have to understand when do I get turned on when do I get aroused what time of month what time of day what conditions need to be present for my arousal do I need to have it like if it's freezing in my house and it's a mess I am shut down I have no blood flow I'm freezing I'm shivering I can't relax because the dishes are in the sink if I'm resentful with my partner because he hasn't like he didn't come home he said he was going to or we got in a fight last week like there's no way that I'm in the mood for sex if I'm in pain if I'm having my period if I'm right so there's just and we don't we just think it's a magical switch that's going to flip on at any moment because it did early on in the relationship so through this book through these pillars you can learn at any time it's kind of like your health if you're not feeling in shape you don't just go to the J if you let's say you want to get in shape right you have to just go to the gym you're going to like if you want to be healthy right you're going to go to the gym you're going to change your diet you're going to get your blood work done maybe you're going to amp your Connections in your community and try to have your mental health so the sex is the same way but since we compartmentalize it we're disconnected from it I don't feel to realize it's there's a holistic approach to understanding your overall wellness and that includes your sexual health [ __ ] blocked by the dishwasher what a scenario to get yourself into yeah I think I think that you're right you know not being intentional about sex is um something that's super common it's tied into by this Shame by the fact that it's more difficult to speak to other people about you know you're not gonna I applaud you and I thoroughly hope that people can have a more uh organic relationship with talking about sex but I don't see a world in which I want to open up to my mom about whatever's going on in my sex life so you know given the fact that that's the case it is one of the more challenging things for you to do um talking about stuff that gets in the way what are the most common emotions that get in the way or stop people from having pleasure um on the things that get in the way of pleasure so I call these the pleasure thieves and the first one is stress anxiety stress worry if we're at a place where we are worried all the time and anxious and we're in our heads and we're worried about money our jobs Our Lives we we're not going to be able to prioritize our pleasure and make as much time for it we're going to be in our heads which means we're not in our bodies so that's that's just a huge factor and again I think that people don't often see that connection between their lifestyle and their mental health and their sexuality there's also shame as we covered that if we have shame around our bodies around our sexuality around how we show up thinking that we shouldn't be having sex it's going to be really hard to have connected intentional sex it really is and then trauma if we have unhealed trauma any kind of trauma big tea trauma Little T trauma that our body is in fight or flight and we are disassociate during sex also going to make it difficult for having sex those are some of the things all of these uh well no trauma trauma to me feels like something especially Big T trauma is the sort of thing that it's not just enough to speak to your partner about right you probably won't be going there yeah listen we all need therapy we all need I believe that we all could use therapy at some point in our life I mean it's just like getting a second opinion on your life we do it in our business right we get a business coach or your car breaks down we go to the mechanic like if our relationship or our mental health it just it just yeah I'm just a huge fan of therapy I really can't even believe it's something that people still don't realize that they could use and it doesn't have to be like a traditional once a week therapist people can find other ways to kind of do that internal work I just think it's so important I mean another thing that's really keeping us from pleasure is medications I don't think that we realize that antidepressants birth control pills um some blood pressure medications will directly impact our libido our blood flow our ability to get aroused turned on erect lubricated wet and so again the disconnect with lack of information I mean nobody's reading the side effects on the side of a pill bottle but they probably should or maybe they heard it and they're like oh but it doesn't really affect me it absolutely does and these are also things we have to pay attention to so you can talk to your doctor about it your medical doctor and you can say I'm not okay with these side effects are there other things that I can do these ssris are causing me to be basically impotent have you had Dr Sarah Hill on your show no lady that wrote this is your brain on birth control no but I've had a few other birth control people on but I'll no I haven't but I'll write it down it'll be similar stuff to what you've seen but she's phenomenal and she looks at it through an evolutionary lens which is great and she's got some ovulatory window shift stuff in there which is which is interesting too but they did a study with natural cycles you know the thermometer under the tongue people so they actually worked with the company to have an in-app study that was done all of the women who are on the natural cycles app are currently off birth control because why the [ __ ] would you be tracking a cycle on birth control right they surveyed a bunch of the users and asked whether whether they met their partner when they were on birth control or when they were off birth control they then asked them to rate their current level of sexual satisfaction with their partner and I think in the app there is a journal entry that asks you to put your current level of arousal or like sexual desire or something like that they were then able to compare the level of sexual satisfaction from women that had met their Partners when they were on and are now off or met their Partners when they were off and are now still off women who met their Partners when they were on birth control and are now off had a lower level of sexual satisfaction with their partner but both groups had the same level of sexual desire and arousal so no difference in terms of sex drive but a marked difference in terms of how much they were attracted to their partner and you go okay has anybody ever told any girl ever when they go to go and get birth control at age 16 or something beware that the partner that you end up with if you then decide to get off birth control maybe you're married maybe you've been together for four or five years and you've never released yourself from this hormone-induced stupor and you go holy [ __ ] I'm in a relationship with somebody that I'm not that sexually compatible with when I don't have a ton of progesterone flowing through me um it really really it's like terrifying and fascinating yeah no it is I actually talk about the study in the book and I didn't know I think it was I wonder if it was the same study with Sarah hell I don't I don't know that that's the name of it but I this is a known study that's been around that we do talk about a lot that it's just there are so many factors that when women take a birth control pill at 16 17 they don't realize that it's going to impact their that they're more at risk for depression for anxiety um for yeah reduce libido for concentration problems diet for their for their you know just everything I mean I just yeah I mean I took the pill for a year I don't remember and it was almost like a non-pill like back now there's more information this is why I'm so thrilled there's so many of them talking about this but I remember going to the doctor I was on it for like you know 10 years and they'd be like are you on any medication Maybe not just the pill like it was never no one ever talked about side effects ever it was just that's what you do you don't talk I mean it's just crazy to think now with all the information we have how harmful it is well that's that's one of the pieces of advice that I definitely give to people which is if you and your partner are thinking about getting married and your misses has been on birth control for the entirety of your relationship you you really really need to get her to come off this before you commit to buying the house getting the dog doing the marriage starting the family because and it's brutal to say like you know we are inexorably linked our psychology and our biology work in tandem with each other and you just don't know how different the texture of your partner's mind could be if she comes off birth control and you go [ __ ] like this doesn't work and and it's a non-zero number it's like not an insignificant number of people to whom this happens so yeah I think that's important so going back to the communication thing someone's listening to this and they go that's me and my misses I we we don't talk about sex as openly as we should do this sex IQ thing sounds like I I've never even considered it what is the best process for beginning a conversation opening up this world of talking about sex with your partner find a space and time to talk about it I talk about the three T's of communication I have a communication guide on my site it's like timing tone and turf I mean this is a great tool for any kind of sexual conversation that you want to have but you want to make sure that you are first off that you're entering any of these conversations from a place of curiosity and compassion and being intentional that this conversation is going to be about our collaboration and about us coming together in a place where we want to learn more about each other rather than defensive like why don't you ever hit why don't you ever go down on me why aren't you initiating sex there's so much anger and hostility around sex so timing tone interface pick a time when you guys are hanging out and it's chill it's not when you are you know not any good chills but it's like now when you've been like fighting or whatever it's like date night and the time you're saying that immediately after a rampant argument saying why'd you never go down on me that's terrible it does never receive well people but then they throw over there people throw it in man they throw it in at the times that you shouldn't and then the turf that's the most important thing to remember is it's outside the bedroom people do not have these kind of conversations when you are in the bedroom uh when you are in a heightened state of arousal already or you're upset about something I would just love everybody to keep their bedrooms before sleeping and for sex uh what about tone the tone is light and curious and it's open and it's it's collaborative and I give a lot of tools in the book for actually I mean I give scripts upon scripts because what I know after 20 years that people are like I still don't know how to do it like even though I talk about timing tone and turf like it's a light it's open you're not defensive you're learning how to be you know I some active listening tools for people to learn to how to actually reflective listen a lot of us we just don't listen we talk and we don't actually hear what our partner's saying so there's methods to repeating back to what your partner says to make sure that you are hearing each other and the other thing to remember is that it's not a one-time conversation my vision is for couples to have this conversation all all the time I mean you're just giving yeah yeah it doesn't have to do when your parents are on the table but when you're like you know yeah wherever because like you talk about date night right like what are we gonna do tonight where are we going to go on our vacation what what don't you talk about your own personal goals or your work go I know my partner I talk a lot about like what our goals are professionally and personally and health goals and all those things but like we talk about our sex life like we're like okay we're going away what what Toys should we bring what should we do what's our like thing that we're into this week this month should we like I know when there's times that I'm turned on or not or he's like should we have sex we literally talk about and it's so hot because it's not confused there's no confusion around my sexuality there's no like resentments or are we gonna have sex We're not gonna have sex because we're like just like are we ordering in are we cooking dinner are we having sex are we not like and then we clear all the confusion and upset stuff around sex the weirdness and the things that we just know like when we want to do it it's kind of like going to the gym you know like for your workouts you optimize it like a great hack is to put your shoes out the night before sign up for your class have a trainer keep yourself accountable is that what you're saying that you leave you leave cues around the house so the butt plug is next to the NutriBullet just in case my assistant charges my sex toys I'm not kidding you they're always ready to go right I hope that you pay your assistant unbelievably well they're already clean she just turns them yeah but she organizes my whole life she charges my laptop she charges my iPad she oh yeah everyone here she's got a doc we've got everything we've got the airpods we've got the butt plug we've got everything in the nice clean line yeah get Tactical for a second what a what are some of the favorite scripts that you have for how somebody should Broach a discussion about sex with their partner uh see one of my favorite ways to do it is once we because that timing tone and turf conversation could just be hey I realize we've never talked about our sex life I was listening to this great podcast and they said that couples who talk about sex actually have better sex so because it's because literally you're like if I you have to remember this when you approach your partner if you've never talked about sex there's a pretty good chance they're going to go into fight or flight they're going to be like why are you bringing this up to me what am I doing wrong oh my God my penis really is as small as I thought or not as hard or not oh you don't like my breasts there's just a million things we go to this place not like oh great you want to talk about our sex life that is I've been waiting for that too babe no it's usually met with like animosity and fear so that's why the tone is so important and the timing and just saying listen I realize that this is something that you know we haven't talked about but I want to have a growth mindset around our sex life and I hope that you do too I hope that this can be a place where we can grow and learn together and evolve you know would you be down for that so that's just that's just the general conversation but let's say there's something that you really want to you know you want to give feedback too you want to give some constructive feedback I love the compliment sandwich the sexual compliment sandwiches when you start with you know a compliment you start with something that you'll really love about the sex life like oh God last night was so hot I love when you you know maybe my desire is to kiss more right do you know that in long-term relationships kissing is one of the first things that goes we stop kissing we stop making out remember like early on like you have those long makeup sessions and sex that's a lot longer well maybe I've learned that kissing is a big part of my arousal process so I would say you know I really love the sex we're having it was so hot last I love the way like you solely and dressed me and it was so the orgasms and it was um that butt plug you really like used that really well last night babe but I realized and this is when you get to the constructive part is that you know I really miss our kissing and for me I know we kiss a little bit at the beginning but I think it would be so hard if we could kind of bring back in some of those makeout sessions and then you end it with why it would be great for both of you because I think the more we kiss the more connected we're gonna feel and I know I'll be way more turned on and down for more sex so you just sort of yeah well one of the things I guess almost everybody has performance anxiety in one regard or another right guys for how long they can last and girls for whether or not they're doing it right and I think that trying to work out a way to dampen The Landing to to just make it a little bit more gentle is is probably pretty important because you don't want to trigger a response in somebody that worsens the situation I think that that's one of the reasons that people fear bringing this up is well how's my partner going to respond exactly I'm trying to improve our sex but what if I make it worse what if I make them more self-conscious yeah well I think that if you if you're in a relationship where you can be super vulnerable about your insecurities and your challenges and you know I hope I mean my hope that everyone's in a relationship where they can they're able to talk about other areas like oh my boss at work didn't treat me you know so so well today or I'm feeling you know I didn't get that raise or I didn't get that thing and You're vulnerable but sex is the same way so if you have Instagram hopefully your partner is coming it from like a loving in place like if you're giving feedback and you're trying to grow into the sex life and try to evolve it so it's interesting and hot for both of you that we can take some of the shame and trust and know that your partner is with you because they love you and they're attracted to you and they find you sexy and hot and that all the things that I want people to take a moment here and really hear what I'm saying that most of the things that you are worried about when it comes to sex your performance your penis size your body shape the way you're doing giving performing oral sex the way your breasts your left boobs bigger than the right baby but whatever the things you're worried about have like literally zero to do with any sort of pleasure or satisfaction and people will tell you they have the best sex it was never because of like the shape of the penis the all these things it's about connection it's about intimacy it's about feeling safe it's about experimenting it's about really being with someone where you want them to have the most pleasure and they want the same for you it's a collaboration it's a beautiful dance and so if I can leave this planet and let have people realize that like all of this is okay you're normal your fantasies your desires it's all fine that you have to make peace with yourself and then find a partner that's open to collaborate with you on this and have these conversations like that's the biggest roadblocks is our own fears around sex and worry what are you hearing from women about what they wish that their Partners would do more or less of in the bedroom I'm aware that this isn't a one-size-fits-all I'm aware that every woman's body and fantasies are individual but are there some common trends that you're hearing from women about things that are commonly do's and don'ts more than lesses um say that they knew that women want more they want sex to be slower I say they go five times slower than you think slow everything down kissing undressing making out if you're going down on your partner like don't be like the one like Wonder stayed down there a little bit longer if you heard me earlier it takes women anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes to orgasm I think that women want slowness I think they want intentionality they want compliments they want to feel adored they want to feel worshiped they want to feel beautiful compliments go a long way the brain is our largest sex organ so you know besides our skin people always get on me for that but find our skin also is important you know so I think that the more that we can connect sexually I often say foreplay all day or foreplay starts after the last orgasm so what can you do in the times in between sex to stay connected and hot and keep it sexy whether it's like sexting sending pictures telling your partner what you want to do next what you remember about the last time you had sex keeping sex top of mind keeping your pilot light lit because when you just like think about I'm always gonna use the analogy at the gym like you start working out every day you're feeling great right and then you don't go for a while you don't go for a month and it's a lot harder to get back in there the same thing goes for sex so I think that we all not just women remember we want to keep that fire going we want to keep it lit so I think that I just hear that we want more like we don't want to just be going about our lives and then there's this expectation we should just want to go and have sex because our partner does so I think that we have to remember that women are slow cookers typically and men are like frying pans so if you can just remember that that we've got more bells and whistles and buttons and things that have to happen for us to be aroused again not one size fit all there's some women who feel differently but overall in my 20 years of work this is what I've found that we need a little bit more a little bit more of everything to keep us to keep it to keep it hot and keep it interesting and collaborative you mentioned about instigating sex and I think that initiating sex from you know all of the I used to run an event business so I saw a lot of 18 to 25 year olds that were in and out of relationships making up and breaking up and stuff like that and one of the most common disagreements that was had around sex seemed to be who was initiating it how it was initiated communication about about trying to start it a lot of the time I think girls not instigating which can sometimes cause guys to feel not desired that's kind of a bit of a lame thing for a guy to admit to because you go well if I don't feel desired that what even is that that's kind of a bit of a feminine trait that undermines my masculine confidence and Essence that makes me less of an alpha or a high value man um what if you come to believe or learn about instigating sex philosophically tactically what do you think I think that we all need to initiate and integrate sex I think that it has to be a two-way street I think that there's I also want to say that I get why usually in relationship there's one person initiates more than the other that's just how it is usually there's a high desire partner and a low desire partner and typically those people get together in a relationship and so one person's always initiating but what happens is there's just this yeah what happens is that then they get into this challenge where if you're always the one who's driving if you think it gets exhausting you're not even sure that your partner wants to and then they're the one who has the power the low desire partner has the power in the relationship they're the one who's deciding is the second going to happen is the sex not gonna happen so that could be exhausting too to be like well why am I not desired am I not wired why aren't you you know making an effort but I think again like everything we get into these patterns right we get into patterns and we're like well this is how our sex happens you make the move and I follow but the challenge around it is yeah someone feels rejected they feel like they're doing all the work they don't know that they're desired and it does seem like it's a feminine thing but we all have feelings and emotions and want to feel loved and adored and safe that is just blurs across gender lines so the thing about initiation is it's really important to realize that it's a skill set that you might not be as used to it you might not have done it you might not know what it looks like but it's okay to tell your partner too because these are the kind of conversations I want people to have I know that you want me to initiate more I mean this could be one of our conversations if you're in a relationship and say you know I feel like babe I know I love the sex that we're having but I feel like I'm always making the effort and I would love to know that you're down with sex too doesn't ever just strike you don't you ever just want to grab me like I grab you like I see you I walk in the door and I want to throw you down on the bed but you never do that to me and I would just love if you did would you be done with that right but you do it in a much more you wouldn't say never and you would do a different way however the problem is I might hear that and to be honest I will be real You're vulnerable I'm not the initiator as much in my entire sexual history I typically rely on my partner to initiate but I've had People Partners say to me you know again it's my life work but still I need to initiate so what I've realized is that what I need to do is it's just not in my habit I don't get struck by it like like my guys do that I'm with um I'm just not that person I am somebody who is more responsive I respond to stimuli so there's like we get there's people who are spontaneous arousal and responsive arousal and again I hate to do this stuff with gender but usually men are more spontaneous and women tend to be more responsive so I'm responding to my partner's kids on my neck he came and he grabbed me he did something he sent me sexy text I'm responding to that okay so knowing that about myself and my partner saying he wants to initiate more I had to then do a trip in my brain and say okay since I know it's not going to strike me over that I have to think about when am I going to initiate and then I'll plan it I'm like okay well I know that the house has to be clean the dishes have to be the dishwasher it has to be warm I have to have worked out feel good showered the bed has to be made my toys are charged the Lube's out right I mean there's things that need to happen I I don't want to do it early in the morning because I don't want to miss my workout I got to get up and work out so like there and I think that in saying this hopefully people are thinking about this too because what I encourage what smart sex is all about is about getting smart about your arousal your desire so you can hack it and you know like this is exactly what needs to happen so then I have to think about it so that's one thing I'm like these are all things that happen and then literally another thing to do is saying to your part if you're still like but I still can't do it I still can't initiate another piece of advice I give is ask your partner I thanks for letting me know babe I know you want me initiate more what would that look like to you what would a really hot initiation look like because maybe my head's the imperfections I'm thinking has to be like some elaborate thing where I'm like naked on the bed wearing lingerie with rose petals everywhere right and maybe I invited up another woman over like I don't know what's hot if that's your fantasy who knows but literally you might be like I just want you to um grab me and just kiss me I just want you to make out with me I want you to come behind me kitchen put your arms around me I want you to send me a naked photo like and then I have some fodder then I know I'm like oh that's easy right and then it's less fearful it's less scary it becomes a habitator then you realize that's no big deal it's literally no big deal I did it and I'm done let's move on to some other sex problems so it's really again I just try to get into the Nuance nitty-gritty of where people get stuck and that's what after all these years I realize this is a really common thing the initiation thing is huge and the thing is it might not sound like it's a big deal but when you realize that you when you think you're the only one pulling the sexual weight in a relationship it builds into resentments then those resentments get out of control and there's a lot happening so like let's just nip it in the bud the second you start having sex with someone is when you should start talking about all of these things right if you haven't yet that's cool too but start to understand who you are as a sexual being here's something else that I noticed a lot especially throughout my 20s which was conversations uh that I had with some of my close guy mates about how it was always expected and almost resented I think sometimes from the girls if they weren't hot to trot at all times that there is an expectation that the man is the sexual protagonist and that the woman is the sexual gatekeeper and she's going to respond when you are forthcoming but that if the reverse happens and you're not immediately just ready to go or you don't fancy it this evening or you are whatever that that's much more accepted typically from the woman you know you've seen it in a million comedy shows if the guy rolls over and tries to sort of fondle with the girl and she's like I'm babe I'm sleeping I'm tired tonight I'm on my period I'm a blah blah but the reverse I don't think that we have a particularly good positioning for guys there's a lot of Shame around that around fine you know what it is like I've had a hard day at work like I don't want to do this but if I say no maybe initiation is rarer uh maybe it makes me feel like less of a man maybe I've got concerns about performance if I do try to have sex during a time when I'm not as in the mood for it uh that's that's something that I think is a lot less talked about yeah absolutely and I love that you're bringing that up because I want to normalize that too I mean my heart goes out to men men have so much pressure they're supposed to be turned on ready to go hard erect making the moves and then knowing what exactly what they're doing to turn their partner on and doing all the tips and tricks and sometimes guys are not in the mood for sex just as much as women are and in fact I found again to go back to to this that I've hear from just as many women who want more sex than their male Partners so I just want to normalize that as well that that's really really really common and so um yeah just having compassionate for your partner if they don't want it again this is where the normalizing the sex conversation comes in if if in just understanding that just because your partner doesn't want to have sex tonight it can be not tonight it doesn't mean not ever it doesn't mean that now and then putting some words around and say babe you know what I tonight I've had a long day I'm not feeling it but I can't wait for this weekend like Saturday night like let's do something let's go out just the two of us so then your partner's feeling a little bit less you know rejected or less you know attached to that outcome I just think that we don't again put words around and then we get to we create all these stories you know in our head if we could just kind of say not now we're just like here's why and let's talk about it later let's do it later looking at the reverse of this what are the most common reasons that you hear from women about why they're not reaching orgasm during sex usually well during penetration if we talk about that penetrative sex typically does not hit women where they need to be hit there are clitorises external and internal but the orgasm starts with the clitoris being um you know the most common orgasm is a clitoral orgasm which is you know women being taught usually the majority of orgasms are going to happen from a fingers a mouth or toys that's how the female orgasm happens so women aren't having orgasms when we when it's just penetration without any foreplay or orgasm or pleasure or stimulating the clitoris beforehand because you're just missing all the hot spots like the inner third of the woman's vagina is the most sensitive and so those are some of the areas we need to pay attention to and so that's one reason is that we're just we don't really know how to advocate for that we don't know how to move during sex now penetrative sex could elicit an orgasm if we had more stimulation first if we use the toy if we used fingers you know then we could have one in conjunction with penetration so I would say just a really about understanding our anatomy and how it all works is one factor um another thing is yeah just like it's not having well it's kind of the same thing but not having enough build up not having enough arousal not having enough foreplay and then it could be also medications birth control pill never here's another one never having one before with a partner but just having one during masturbation so that's like a new you know everyone's body is different so it's not feeling safe with a partner not feeling that I'm with a partner that I can actually communicate my needs and let them know that this these are the steps that need to happen so one of the one of the most interesting stuff that I'd seen about this was initiated by the declining rates of not having an orgasm compared with how many times you've had sex with that person so I think it's like 80 percent of women don't have sex on the first date or the first time that they have sex not on the first date uh and then it like relatively reliably declines as you get with somebody more now there's something going on you know physically you can start to communicate more about compatibility and blah blah blah but really what that suggests is that it's more about Comfort it's more about feeling relaxed it's more about being um comfortable with the partner that you're with and I saw a really fascinating study this is a little while ago now that said the most common reason for women not reaching climax during sex was recursive self thoughts about not reaching climax during sex yeah our head was absolutely that makes yeah we're in our heads performance anxiety am I not going to orgasm I'm not going to orgasm I think I'm going to orgasm is not going to happen so absolutely and the same thing goes for men and their erections or their orgasm the same thing am I going to get hard am I going to come too quickly oh [ __ ] am I going to come so yes when we are in our heads during sex the blood is leaving our genitals and going through our brains to fuel all of these thoughts that are not serving us and that are not advocating for our pleasure at all so yeah the worry that we're not going to get there which is why I teach a lot of mindfulness okay meditation meditation I'm telling you meditate and learn how to learn the skill set of bring yourself back to the present moment and I also give a lot of tools and smart sex to how to bring yourself back to the moment during sex so you can be present so you can breathe so you can connect with your partner I mean there have been times too where I'm just you know when I give these examples too it's like I just sex sometimes starts to happen and you lose your weight you're like you're in your head or you're like did I turn the oven off did I and it's okay like here's everything sex is not so precious you're allowed to say you know what let's stop for a second I'm gonna run to the bathroom or I'm gonna do something or let's breathe for a minute sometimes again it's just going I'm like oh God I I'm not here I'm not present I've left the building and then I'll just stop and I'll and I advocate for this I'll do this my relationship but I'll say can we just look each other and breathe can we just like dude five deep breaths for our inhales or as our exhales a little bit longer than our inhales and we breathe and we look into each other's eyes and like we reset and then you start again so I think again this misinformation that sex is sort of of a Sprint and not a marathon and that we all it's very linear we make out we take our clothes off we have sex it's just not the case and it makes it so Less Fun Emily Moss ladies and gentlemen if people want to check out the stuff that you do where should they go definitely the release of podcast called sex then we twice a week my all my social media text to Emily and my new book is smart sex you can buy it wherever you buy books and uh you can take my sex IQ quiz on my website that will allow you know where to start on your sexual Journey Emily I appreciate you thank you appreciate you too thanks for having me what's happening people thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks and don't forget to subscribe peace