anything goes with emma chamberlain - psychology of sex, a talk with lori beth bisbey [video]

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

[video available on spotify] today, we're talking about sex, which is funny because i am not known as a super sexual person. i'm somebody who could not have a more cookie-cutter sort of sexual experience. i'm a monogamous dater. i'm also somebody who doesn't love casual sex. i've never experimented in any open relationships. and this is why i’m excited to speak with lori beth bisbey. lori is a sex and intimacy expert and psychologist. she also hosts the podcast, “the a to z of sex.” we’re gonna talk about non-monogamous relationships, kinks, fetishes and more. so let’s welcome lori beth bisbey. you can listen to lori's book, "dancing the edge to reclaiming your reality" here: https://open.spotify.com/show/7mXEAidEahV3sjuUzEt17r?si=ff7e879691af4f18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today we're talking about sex, which is funny because I am not known as a super sexual person, especially on the internet. I don't necessarily have a screaming sexual energy in my opinion, which is something I've actually always kind of been self-conscious about and kind of bummed about. I've always been like, why don't I have like a sexy vibe? Why? Like, please. Like praying to just whatever's up there.

Come on, give me a sexy vibe. It's not something I'm known for. I'm also somebody who, to TMI and share too much information with you, I'm somebody who could not have a more cookie cutter sort of sexual experience. In the sense that, number one, I'm a monogamous dater. I'm also somebody who doesn't love casual sex.

It just does not work for me. It is not my thing. I don't like it. I've never experimented in any polyamorous open relationships. So that's a completely unknown world to me. And then to really get down to it and to get really technical with it, sexually I'm pretty, I guess you could say, vanilla. I'm very vanilla with sex.

However, being somebody who is not super sexual, but alas, okay, still a sexual person to an extent, I am excited to be talking to a sex expert today who's not just an expert in like sex, like how the orgasm works, blah, blah, blah. That's exciting, I guess. But we're talking to an expert that understands fetishes, that understands kinks. And I'm very excited because there's a lot that I don't know. And maybe I have a fetish in me that I don't know about. And this is when my parents should turn off the episode.

Definitely my grandparents. Basically all family. But anywho, today we're gonna be talking to Lori Beth Bisby. should turn off the episode. Definitely my grandparents. Basically all family. But anywho, today we're gonna be talking to Lori Beth Bisby. She is a gender, sex, and relationship diversity therapist. She's also a sex and intimacy coach and registered psychologist.

She helps people discover their authentic, intimate self. Maybe by the end of this conversation, I'll have some really strong epiphanies. She has a lot of experience. She's been in this industry for 30 years. She's helped people explore sex and intimacy and recreate healthy sexual identities following trauma. She's helped people create and maintain

consensually non-monogamous relationships, as well as deepen their awareness and understanding of intimacy and relationships. She's also the host of the podcast, The A to Z of Sex. I'm so excited to learn more about sex. And maybe one day, through education and through prayer, I will one day kind of have a sexy vibe. Probably not.

All good. Maybe I'm just sexy in my own way. My own little way. Anyway, let's welcome in Lori Beth Bisbee. This is gonna be a fun one. So sit back and relax. Love you. This episode is brought to you by Secret.

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do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or shoppers drug mart today. Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your team to your Uber account today. Did you grow up a really sexual person? Like I feel like there are types of people and maybe you would actually disagree, but I feel like there are some people who are more sexual than others. Like I feel like I'm not super sexual. Like I'm actually on probably the less sexual end I am,

but not as much as others. Where did you fall on that scale? And do you think that that impacted where you are now? Yeah, and so there are people who I think are naturally more sexual, just like there are people who are naturally thinner or people who naturally enjoy sport more, things like that, right?

They have a tendency towards something. There are also people who naturally enjoy sport more, things like that, right? They have a tendency towards something. There are also people who become more sexual because they've been exposed to poor boundaries. And so therefore they become sexually precocious. So I'm certainly on the more sexual side and I certainly always was, but what was more interesting for me was that I was different sexually.

And that was the thing that led to me ending up doing what I do now. Because I knew I was different pretty young. And there was no internet, you know, I would say to people, I'm like, I'm 61 years old. We didn't have a community. As far as sex is concerned, if it exists, somebody's into it. And now if somebody's into it, there's a group on the internet. But when I was growing up, there wasn't that. So you went to the library and you looked up things. You really didn't have anybody to talk to about being different. And so I think that's how I ended up going along this path because I was trying to understand

who I was and get my needs met. How do you think that young people's exposure to sex for the first time impacts how they've used sex for the rest of their life? For example, how does the overexposure or the lack of exposure or the perfect level of exposure impact the way that we develop sexually? Does it even impact? So I'm not sure it's the amount of exposure that impacts, but the quality of the information and the type of exposure that makes a difference.

The problem that we have is sex education sucks. Yeah, yeah it does. In the United States, in particular, because over the last 30 odd years, the move has been towards not even teaching, but teaching abstinence, people don't have the information they need to make intelligent choices about sex.

But what we know is, is that the more information you have, the less likely you are to act. Yeah. And so kids who get good sex education growing up tend to have sex later, not earlier. Interesting. They have an understanding of sex in the context of relationships.

And so they make better decisions. Interesting. Whereas if your whole sex education is on pornography, because nobody's speaking to you, you have a completely skewed view of what sex is like. But the thing that's so important, which I bang on about like a soapbox is we need proper sex education. And we need it without the shitty judgments that we put there. And unfortunately we have judgments from both ends of the political spectrum. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. You know, we need unbiased education that not only talks

about the body and how the body works, but that talks about pleasure because sex is about pleasure and also about relationship. Do you think the sex education is so bad because it's sort of coming out of being like, possibly the most taboo topic ever? Like, you know, do you think that the taboo of sex makes it so uncomfortable for adults to talk about in general that then they're just trying to keep it the bare minimum. Like, why do you think the sex education is so bad?

Because it's politicized and it's subject to the whims of religion. And so it gets taken over as a power issue. If you were to go in and change the sex ed curriculum, give me like a spark notes version of what it would include that it doesn't include now. First of all, it's not a thing that you have a class on when you're in ninth grade, or eighth grade or seventh, whatever it is. It should be part of health education that goes on from a young age up through high school. And the reason is because you should be preparing young women for periods.

I know we didn't learn about periods at all. We did, but we all, more than half of us already had them when we learned about them. So it was pointless. So you should be not just focusing on reproduction and disease, but preparing for life changes and the emotions that go with that. Because the physiological stuff is the easy bit.

Puberty is emotionally difficult on all genders. And so you should be preparing for that. So for me, it would always have a portion that has to do with anatomy and physiology and disease. It would always have a portion that has to do with pleasure and enjoyment, and always have a portion that has to do with relationship. And teach them the skills that go with it as well,

because we don't teach emotional skills, emotional management skills in school. You learn that by watching. So we pass down shitty emotional management skills through the generations, isn't that nice, right? So teach shitty emotional management skills through the generations isn't that nice, right? So teach them emotional management skills, teach them relationship skills, communication skills, alongside all of this.

That for me, Very important. Would change society. I feel like a lot of young people growing up feel very shameful about sex. There's so much shame around sex. I vividly remember, and even to this day like I feel like I

am not Supposed to be having sex or something like I feel like Weird about it or like bad about it sometimes and I think that's rooted in sort of just this like intense taboo nature of it all and and not only that but also and sort of just this like intense taboo nature of it all. And not only that, but also like how many rules there seems to be like, you know, about how sex is supposed to happen, right? Like, and everything's contradicting, right?

Depending on who you're asking or where you're looking. Like if you were to, you know, listen to what they say, you know, at sex ed, it's giving you a very specific, very technical, very not necessarily very pleasurable way of having sex, right? And then you watch porn telling you something completely different that also can make you feel shameful in a way because you're like, well, I don't look like that and I don't really want to do that.

And so that feels bad. So it's like everywhere you look, you're finding contradicting information about what sex is, what it's supposed to look like, what it's supposed to feel like, what it's supposed to sound like, all of these things. And I think it can be very intimidating and it can make it hard for people, young people, especially I think to find their place in it. And a lot of that,

I just feel like that comes with a lot of shame, just the feeling of like imposter syndrome almost, like, am I supposed to be having sex and how and like, whatever. How do you help people get through that sort of challenge and find themselves sexually, you know, trying to sort of ignore all this noise and all these things that were planted in their head as children? I mean, so we spend a lot of, I spend a lot of time with people working on shame. Um, and because I, I have a specialty, I have two specialties, one of which is working with treatment of trauma and the other is working with, um, alternative lifestyles essentially. So non monogamy, kink, BDSM, LGBTQ. And so shame can be exciting. One of the most common things I get are

people who are excited by shame in the moment, but afterwards are ashamed that they were excited by shame. And then you're like kind of unpicking all of that. So part of that is figuring out what the messages were that they got in childhood about wrongnesses. And actually giving some better information will help with shame. And then digging out the shame, you know, some, so many people can hear their parents. Yeah. You know, they just internalized everything their parents said about sex. Yeah. And starting to educate about pleasure. And I, I've stopped using the term sex a lot because people argue about what the fuck sex is,

right? Like, what is this you know and you see this in the king community that's not sex we don't have sex it's separate from sex and that's because they only think of sex as something that happens genitally oh interesting right I always think of sex is like anything if like there's a if there's genitals out to me and it's being, and they're being used in some way, I guess it's sex, but to me. But you can have no genitals out and be stimulated and it's still, and it's still sex. And so I say to people who, for example, you know, somebody who engages in impact play, so they enjoy being flogged, right?

But they don't have sex. They don't, nobody touches their genitals. They touch nobody's genitals. But there's, so they're saying it's not about sex. And I'm like, so if you don't enjoy this, why are you doing it? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like, why would you be beaten by somebody if it isn't fun for you? And if you unpick it, you discover that yes, it's pleasure. They get pleasure out of it. Of course they do. Otherwise you wouldn't do it. So to me, that's still sex, right? It's just that because sex is so taboo and as you were just saying, there are so many rules about what you can do and

when and with whom. I just like get rid of the word. It's like, okay, so let's talk about how you experience pleasure. Which of the different ways that you experience pleasure? Like there's self pleasure. There's pleasure with others. There's pleasure from watching. There's pleasure from eating. And we can broaden it out that way and that starts to lower shame. Like is it bad if you're enjoying eating something so much

that like your mouth is watering? That's not shameful. So why is it shameful if you're enjoying being touched so much that your body is, you know, awake and alive and start unpicking it that way? Human beings are built for pleasure. I guess that's like a great thing to remember is like it is to be sexual is just to be like to be human.

It's to be human. And also like maybe even you know for people who are maybe less sexual, it's like to not be super sexual is also to be human, but to be on any level sexual is inherently human. And there's, to fight that is to fight, like anytime you're fighting something that is just biologically like inside of you, you cannot fight it. You're fighting a losing battle.

You're gonna lose that battle. So I think that's a great note is like, you for people who do feel shameful about being sexual even in like not even like a kink way like we're not even there yet. Just in like a baseline. Like ordinary sex. Yes like it's like so important to remember that it's like this is quite literally just being human. This is part of the human experience just like eating is part of the human experience and the fact is some people have really sensitive taste buds. They really enjoy eating. Other people don't. It's the same with sex. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Some people really enjoy sex. Some people enjoy certain

parts of sex and not others and some people could like I don't care. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And neither is right or wrong. It's just human variation and starting getting people to understand that actually we come into this world in a physical body. And so as you've just said, to fight living in your physical body makes no sense. We should be using this machine. Sort of stemming off of like, you know, feeling shameful, feeling weird about being sexual. I also have found, and this is sort of me projecting in a way, there's a lot of ego in sex,

I've noticed at times, not even ego, but maybe vanity. Maybe vanity. I mean, people worry about how they look when they have sex. Well, that's what I'm about to get to. It's the funniest thing. Oh, I, well, see, okay. Like, I think that there's a lot of people

who get in their own ways, actually, myself included. Like, I'm literally speaking about me right now, because I'm so overly concerned about looking bad or embarrassing myself. Like, even like, if I'm like, during an orgasm, I like get embarrassed sometimes, because I'm embarrassed sometimes like fuck this is like too much, but it's like this is genuinely what's happening to me But I'm like embarrassed to come because I'm like person might think something. Yeah, I'm like is this embarrassing like I like it's you know I guess my question is Why do you think people?

Sort of get in their own ways sexually and like can't fully express themselves to their fullest potential? What is that? Is that even a sexual thing or is that actually more of just like that's a deeper rooted thing? That's deeper rooted. It's part of the way we're indoctrinated. And one of the things about being older, post-menopausal is a thing, right? Is that your body's changed and I'm vain

and I don't like some of the changes, I'm honest about that, but I don't give a shit of what I look like when I'm in bed. Like I no longer care. You know, I'm gonna have a good time and I'm gonna have a good time and that's all it is. In your 20s, you're really worried about like looking attractive.

Nobody has an attractive orgasm face, it doesn't exist. This is where porn has a lot to answer for. Yeah. Pornography is entertainment only. Mm-hmm. It's just like the movies, you know. They come and they touch up your makeup in the middle of it. Yeah. They do certain camera angles to make you look better. You don't see the people holding up the woman's leg in the back because she can't put it up over that level. The fluffers trying to make sure a man has an erection. It is entertainment, meaning it's not real.

If you don't remember that, then you can get complexes about how you're supposed to look. The airbrush vaginas, they whiten. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. Your orgasm face. Nobody. Nobody looks good. Nobody looks good. And I would venture to say not looking good means you're out of control.

And being out of control is the point. You cannot maintain control and have an orgasm. Whoa. That is why. Oh, my God. That is so me, because I'm the biggest control freak, and I think that that's why I have sort of sexual mental blocks in certain ways, where I'm like, I wanna do this, but I'm too nervous to do this,

because I feel like it's gonna be embarrassing, or it's almost too vulnerable, whatever, or oh my God, I don't wanna come right now, because what if it's big, and then my face looks weird, and then I don't wanna get on top because what if it's big and then my face looks weird and then I don't wanna get on top because what if they see me? It's all these things that. You're not alone.

I know. The thing about control is that people really fear being out of control. Depending on who you are, it's more or less. I am the biggest control freak on the planet. And in my sex life, I'm out of control deliberately. And a lot of people have trouble having orgasm. Particularly a lot of people have trouble having orgasm, particularly a lot of women have trouble

having orgasm with a partner. And invariably, it's not about the partner doesn't know what they're doing, because you can fix that easily. What it is is you cannot have an orgasm and maintain control. And the fear is about, for some it's a vulnerability thing, for some it's a fear that they'll be injured,

for some it's a fear of what they'll look like. It doesn't matter what the actual fear is, but it is this they cannot let go of control. So when you're masturbating, it's not a problem because you're with you, right? Nothing bad's gonna happen to you. You don't care how you look. Yeah. So you're fine, but when you're with a partner, you're giving up control. No matter how you feel about it. You absolutely can't come and maintain control. Yep. Well, I think that's also why it's so important

to be with a partner you trust. Cause I think like, if you don't trust them, if you do trust them, then you can sort of, you can slowly but surely, I think as a person who is like that, begin to sort of let the, Yeah, you get there. You know, you get to let go. But if you're with somebody you don't feel safe with emotionally,

even if they're like, they could be a really nice person, but if you don't feel, like if you feel like they're gonna judge you, if you feel like, you know, they don't love you enough or they don't care for you enough, you can't do it. If you're someone like that. On the other end of things, like, you know, cause we kind of just touched on people

who are maybe more shameful, more nervous more nervous more anxious maybe more like me There's you know people who are more just Naturally like not shameful just open like comfortable. It's it's easy for them. I feel like people like that though Maybe tend to at times. Let's say struggle have a different array of struggles They do but I will tell you that there are very there are not that many people. Yeah That are there to begin with. Really? Yeah. I mean there are people who are less hung up about sex, but then sex isn't a big deal at all. It's like, it's not like they're doing more of it or less of it. They're not really thinking about it. It's not, right? Unfortunately, societally, we are hung up

on our bodies. What is a healthy sex life? What is a balanced sex life? And is that is there no way is it just so unique to every person? It's like a snowflake. It's like a thumbprint. It's like one of one to you. It's to me. It's one of one. A healthy sex life is enjoyment or you don't feel shame, negative shame, could feel titillating shame, that's fine, where it's part of the way you relate to your body and the way you relate to others. Because people can have casual sex

and have it be perfectly healthy. Yeah. And people can have long-term sexual relationships that are perfectly unhealthy. I think that there's a lot of people that like to say conclusive things about different sort of sexual lifestyles. So people like to be like, monogamy is the only way.

Other people say, no, it's impossible. It's impossible and polyamorous, like you have to be polyamorous. And then there's some people who are like, we should just not do relationships at all. It's not meant for us. We should just all be having casual sex only. I feel like people get very like hooked into their camp

because it's what works for them. And then they like start saying, this is what works for everyone. You know, what's the truth of that? Like is it- So humans like to put things in boxes. We like to categorize in order to make sense of our world. And that's actually problematic

because many more things are gray. Like people want it to be black and white and certain because sitting with uncertainty is uncomfortable. But half of our emotional pallet is on sitting with uncomfortable feelings. So monogamy is fantastic for some people all the time and for some other people, some of the time. Non-monogamy fantastic for some people all the time, for other people some of the time and for some other people, some of the time. Non-monogamy, fantastic for some people all the time,

for other people some of the time. It really is very individual. But I do believe that people in some ways can be wired for it. Like everybody, some people like to say, well, everybody has the possibility of being non-monogamous. No, there are some people for whom non-monogamy is just excruciating.

And why would we wanna work to make them non-monogamous? The same as we wouldn't wanna work to make somebody monogamous. We want people to play to their strengths. The only time I don't want people to limit themselves in that way is when they're not playing to their strengths, but they've limited their world because of trauma. And so they're trying to protect themselves

so they make their world smaller and smaller and smaller. It seems like in every category too, there's their own set of challenges. So let's go through all three of them. Let's start with monogamous relationships. I think the biggest, like, sort of challenge where it, there's a lot of cheating. A lot of cheating happens. Do you think that that is you know somebody not in Their right type of dating style or do you think that there's more to it? I think there's more to it I mean sometimes people cheat because Really truly they're not monogamous, but the vast majority of time That's not what it's about the vast majority of time cheating is about what's going on in the relationship Yeah, so the pressure is built up in the relationship for whatever reason. They're not talking, they're not communicating, they've had problems, whatever it is. And cheating is a way of, it's a pressure release valve. I'll just take this over here

because I'm not getting my intimate needs met here. And I mean emotionally intimate as well as physically intimate. Yeah. A lot of it is really about emotional intimacy. So it's, you know, they can't figure out how to work it through here. So they just kind of divert off. There's a lot of it is really about emotional intimacy. So it's, you know, they can't figure out how to work it through here, so they just kind of divert off. There's a lot of cheating. There's a lot of dishonesty, even when there isn't cheating. And dishonesty really kills relationships. And I don't mean you need to be, you know, when people talk about radical honesty, like,

do I look good in this dress? No, honey, you look horrible. I mean, that's just cruel. Yeah, we don't need to do that. No, there are ways of also telling somebody that you're not fond of something that aren't cruel and hateful. Yep. The challenges of monogamy are about mystery and newness and excitement because a good portion of sex and arousal is about that kind of I don't know what's gonna happen next. Yeah. And when you're with somebody for 15 years you fucking know what's gonna

happen next. That's true. It's a challenge to make it new and make it exciting again but you can do it. Absolutely. But you also get benefits when you're having sex with somebody you've had sex with for a long time. Yeah. That you don't get with somebody new. So, you know, there are trade-offs, but so it's boredom, it's people not growing together, and the emotional intimacy going, and when you don't deal with the problems

in the relationship, then there's sex. Yeah, yep. What about, you know, I feel like when I think of the main challenges of an open relationship, I think of it ending up backfiring, you know, because someone falls in love with someone else, someone, you know, someone feels jealous. I've seen that a lot just in, you know, people that I know and in various stories that I've heard online. However, I've never experienced it.

So I'm curious, does it not work for people because the wrong people are doing it, similar to like monogamous people cheating? Should people who experience those things, maybe being in an open relationship isn't for them or is there something else going on? So you need skills. Now you need skills for monogamous relationships too. But we have a set of expectations that

are drummed into us still about monogamy. And so when somebody is non-monogamous, they can have, I call it a monogamy hangover. I actually went and trademarked that in 2011. I love that. And that's when your programming kicks in, even though you're non-monogamous. So you said something really interesting. You said someone falls in love with someone else. The whole point of some types of non-monogamy, polyamory for example, is you can fall in love with a bunch of people. You don't replace one with the new one. Right. They're just two different

relationships. But monogamy thinking says you can only be in love with one person. So that's a challenge for people to get past that. Yeah. Also it's a challenge not to feel like you need to be on that relationship escalator. Like, you know, you date and you become exclusive, then you move in together, then you marry. Yeah. then you have children, however it is. And like, I'm in a relationship, so I'm polyamorous. I've got 15 years with my husband, and I have a girlfriend that I've been with in various forms of relationship for about 10 years.

And we will never move in together. We will never become exclusive. And that's great. But you have to get to a certain point in understanding polyamory to feel comfortable with that. To know that what we have is so wonderful and I love what we have. And she loves what we have. And that what I have with my husband is a different kind of relationship. And I equally love that. I guess it really comes down to, number one, like understanding what you're getting yourself into when you're in an open relationship.

Like, if you still have a very monogamous mindset, it's gonna be very challenging. Unbelievable. You're not gonna be able to do it. But also, if you're not communicating, like I feel like the level of, almost like rules that need to be set, like I feel like in all relationships, there's sort of like not enough attention on like

sort of figuring out the set of rules. Like where does everyone feel okay? It's not the rules. It's not the rules. It's not the rules that's the issue. The issue is boundaries and expectations. And so I say like if you're straight and heteronormative, so like you're not kinky, you're just, you know, an ordinary person and monogamous, then you go to the shelf when you meet somebody and you take the box set off the shelf that says, and they all lived happily ever after on it. And inside that box set are a whole set of expectations about how your life goes. And you never talk about it. Because you both have taken that movie

that you've watched seven million times, and so you think you know it. So I had the experience on the television show that I do in the UK, it's edutainment. So it's a retreat, and I help couples open up their relationships. And so there are individuals there that they couples open up their relationships. And so there are individuals there that they can open up with if they want to.

And I had one couple in the first season, they'd been together 15 years. And I asked this same question to everybody. So I said, so what are your conversations about pleasure like? Well we've never talked about sex. And I cannot tell you how common that is for heterosexual people who are not kinky, not right. I was in, yeah, I've done that. Unbelievably common.

Yeah. They go 30 years together and never discuss with each other what gets you off and then you wonder why there's no orgasms, right? I mean, it's just amazing to me. Whereas if you are different, you have to communicate. Yeah, that's true. It's not that you need rules. It's that you need to talk about what you like, what you don't like.

Yep. You need boundaries. This part of my life, I don't really want you in. My friends are really important to me. I need time alone with my friends. Yeah. So it's not just about non-monogamy, it's all relationships. But if you're going to do non-monogamy, you need really good emotional management skills and

really good communication and negotiation skills and relationship skills. Otherwise, it won't fly. And there are a bunch of different types of non-monogamy. Polyamory is the most complex because you're bringing your feelings into it in a big way. To suggest that your feelings don't come into it elsewhere is bullshit. But in polyamory, you're saying saying I can love more than one person at the same time. But even if you're going to be swinging or something like that, or even if you're just going to be occasionally going to sex parties or whatever it is, or having booty calls and

a partner, you really have to think through what are the end goals for you? What do you want? What are the no-go areas? For example, in your 20s you might be doing whatever you're doing and then you want to have a child. Are you okay with other people around being partly parenting your kids? Yeah. Right?

Or do you want to become monogamous long enough for your kids to go through zero to six? Some people do. They're like, I love you and you can still be chosen family, but we wanna bond in this sort of way. Other people, that's not how they do it. So there's a conversations you have to have and that's where people fall down. Yeah, I think it's because it goes back to sort of

the taboo of it all. It's like, it's very uncomfortable to talk about these things and you just kind of want it to happen. You know, I think a lot of us go into these things and want it to happen. And then we just assume that we're reading each other's minds and all this. And that's where it all falls down later.

Because you think, at the beginning of a relationship, you're amazed at how much they understand about you. That's because you're telling them, you talk constantly at the beginning of a relationship. You also lie, right? Right? True, we're embellishing the story. Well, and embellishing in ways that aren't helpful.

Like, oh, hey, I really love blowjobs. Oh yeah, I love giving blowjobs too. Six months down the line, you're like, I actually hate this. And your partner's like, well, what happened to the blowjobs you giving me yeah yeah it's cuz I actually hated it I was just doing something nice for you yeah and you know we have biochemical things going on at the beginning of a relationship that make it

easier for us to do things to bond you know that go away after a while so yeah the other thing you mentioned was jealousy and in my experience jealousy comes from two different places. One place is a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. That's the, I think you're going to fall in love with somebody and replace me. Right? The other one is a lack of confidence in your place in the relationship. So I might be perfectly confident about who I am and know that I'm amazing, but I don't

know if you want to actually live with me. So I'm worried not that you're going to replace me because of me, but that actually what you're looking for, for example, I'm past having kids, right? I'm post-menopausal. You actually want somebody to have kids. Then I might get jealous. Doing your own personal work is what makes polyamory and stuff like that easier, and it's what deals with jealousy.

I mean, I can give you 100 techniques to deal with jealousy, but ultimately the easiest way to deal with jealousy is to actually become confident in you. Or just also know too, like what's gonna make you, what triggers you, what upsets you, like what doesn't naturally work for you? If you're like, again, if you're in an open relationship and you're probably just not

supposed to be, like that's just not what works for you. That's not your natural inclination. Sure. So it's like, then you shouldn't be in one. Right. So it's like forcing as well. Don't force yourself into things that don't work for you. But if you're actually confident in you, then you're able to say it's not, you don't even,

you won't get triggered because you're not worried about what that other woman or that other man or that other person is going to take away from you. Then you can have compersion, which is, compersion is when you have joy out of someone else's joy. If you can have joy in your partner's joy, that's the best. And that doesn't mean necessarily that you want to see them having sex so that's where knowing what's good what's comfortable for you and not comfortable for you is important. Yeah. My husband is a voyeur. My

husband loves seeing me do things with other people. That's kind of nice to have and it's kind of works out. You know it works out for me. Yeah. I like seeing him do things with certain other people. I don't get off on it, but I don't get upset by it. Yeah. I just don't like being on the sidelines. It's not about watching him with someone else. It's about, I want to be in the action. Yes.

I'm not watching from the sidelines. Yes. Right? Yes. Totally. Now some people don't, it's about they don't want to watch. Like they don't even want to know. They don't want to know the details. They know you're having sex, but they don't want to watch. Like they don't even want to know.

They don't want to know the details. They know you're having sex, but they don't want to know what you're doing because that's upsetting for them. And that's okay. Like you can discuss it. Some people want to be friends with everyone. Other people it's like, it's enough to know this is your other partner. I don't want to have dinner with them.

I don't want to, you know, have to have long conversations with them. I just want to go, with them. I don't want to have to have long conversations with them. I just want to go, hey, and that's it. Others of us, I mean, my people are all close. That's what works for me. And so anybody who gets involved with me that can't make friends with my people, it's not going to last.

Yeah. What about people who are like, I don't want to be in a relationship at all. I don't want to be in like any type of anything. Relationship anarchy. Yeah. like I just want to be free and have casual sex with everyone and whoever and that's sort of the vibe. What are the benefits and challenges of that lifestyle?

So for some people, relationship anarchy means that they don't prioritize romantic relationships over friendships and things like that. For other people, it means that they don't want to have romantic relationships. They're just not interested. They're not interested in that level of emotional connection, and they get their emotional intimacy from their friends. And some people, just like you were saying, some people aren't that sexual, some people aren't that emotional. There are people who actually are really happy with their own company, and they, you know, only want limited

interaction with other humans. One of the big challenges of choosing to do that is that there are so many societal pressures that say this isn't acceptable. So as a polyamorous person, you can have societal pressures, but you can kind of dodge them and pass by, you know, like bringing a partner to an event, right? Like it doesn't matter which one I bring, but I have a partner to bring to an event. But if you're somebody who doesn't want those relationships, you're always coming solo. And so if you have friends who are couples, they're less comfortable with you because they're worried about what your designs are. The numbers never even. I mean, that's like a trivial thing, but it actually is, it can interfere with your social

life. But also we all have times in our lives where we need more support and if you're only having casual relationships you can find it difficult to have get physical support from people at times of illness, an emotional support from people at times of great you know great emotional stress unless you've developed really good friendships, so you're really getting it meet there. But if you don't have those either, there are people who don't, quite a few people who don't, then when you do find yourself in need of support,

you're kind of stuck. It's interesting too, I feel like the dating app sort of hookup culture thing, yeah. What are your thoughts on that? Because it's interesting, because it is like, sort of, there's like this weird contradicting thing happening where it's like what you just mentioned where people are sort of, like they're put off by people who are not in relationships or who don't, you know, prefer to live their lives that way. But then simultaneously, like, young people are all just like cannot commit to anything at the same time. I mean, not all of them, but like there's sort of this hookup culture happening where it's like no one wants to try to build anything.

You know, I think it's a, it's an interesting time because there's so much craziness in the world and every generation has something like, and most of us have had lots. There is this thing about, you know, not wanting to bring kids into this, not being sure how long the world's gonna be around. There's like a nihilism, you know, going on. And I think that that contributes to hookup culture,

but also you're not learning the skills. And it makes me so sad, they don't have the self-care skills, they don't have the relationship skills, they don't have the communication skills, they don't know who they are and they don't know how to go about figuring it out. So right now what happens is that people pull an identity out instead of actually doing the exploration and not giving it a label and figuring out who they are. So instead you meet somebody and you get their 16 identity labels which tells you

fuck all. I can give you 10 identity labels for me right now and you'll still have to ask me what do you mean by that. Yeah. There's a lot of looking to the world to accommodate all these different identities but that's not how the world works. Yeah. Like I don don't care how forward thinking and how much more accommodating we're trying to be, ultimately, there are too many individual accommodations for the world to work that way. So people don't have the skills to manage when things aren't going their way, when somebody has a totally different way of viewing the world.

And so I think that's part of what leads to some of the kind of hookup culture is they don't know how to create relationships. They haven't a clue. They don't know how to have a conversation. We joked when my son, my son was born in 2002. And there was a period where we joked about him and his cousins sitting on the settee speaking via text. It's not a joke anymore. I know, I was born in 2001, I understand. Okay, so you're an absolutely same age group. And it's like, I don't know,

y'all don't know how to talk in person. And that's really a problem. Don't know how to look at your own feelings. I mean, he does, because he grew up with a therapist who was absolutely insistent that he could label his feelings and communicate them. And he's a really good communicator on some areas. There are areas where it's fine.

And he's a boy, so it's, again, a little more difficult. But he's a pretty good communicator because I work on that with him. Because I said, you don't get, you know, closed mouths do not get fed. You have to ask for what you want. If you don't know what you want, nobody's gonna figure it out for you. You know, I get away with talking about this because he allows me to. But he's also not big in the relationship game yet.

He's taken his time, he's taken his time. So it's not that he doesn't have an interest in sex. There's a lot of people like him in your generation. He's taken his time. So it's not that he doesn't have an interest in sex. There's a lot of people like him in your generation. Not that you're not interested in sex. You're not ready to figure out where it goes in a relationship and to figure out that pattern of how you move forward together

with another human like that. I think that a lot of that comes out of the fact that you guys grew up living your lives on the internet and social media. I actually am curious and I'm shocked we haven't gone to this sooner, but I had to lay the groundwork for almost myself, but I have the most normal sex. And I love it. I have nothing.

I actually, well, I've wondered this about myself like is There's something in me that I'm not aware of or like I just haven't unlocked it yet Or is it just not in there and like maybe so anyway just for history about me. I'm like Completely I know nothing about kinks fetishes. I know nothing for one. I know nothing, so I'm completely starting from fresh here, like you can really get into it with me. What's the difference between a fetish and a kink? Great question, it's one of my favorite questions. Yes!

So a kink is simply anything that is outside the norm. And so whether something's kinky depends on your culture, where you live, what time you live in. So 30 years ago, 40 years ago, anal sex with the exception of anal sex with gay men was kinky, right? Interesting. Okay. And now it's common.

Yeah. Spanking. Yeah. Kinky. Now more common because unfortunately, 50 Shades of Grey. Um, yeah. But that opened a number of people's eyes, so now spanking is, you know, in some research surveys,

30 to 40% of people have either thought about it, tried it, fantasized about it, so it's become more common. Whereas 40 years ago, very kinky, right? So that's a kink. A fetish is when somebody is turned on by an activity, an object, a part of the body, a smell, a sensory experience, and they need that in order to reach orgasm. Oh.

So if you have a fetish for feet, you have to have feet present or you won't reach orgasm. Oh. So you might have to fantasize about it if you don't have it in front of you. So the problem with fetish is that if you have a partner who doesn't share your fetish, then you're in your head while you're having sex

and not fully present. And the best sex, the best sex tip I can give everybody, the best sex is when you're 100% present in the room with your partner, no matter what you're doing. If you're not in your head, you're in the room with your partner, you're in the experience, that's the best. So what we do, because we're really shitty about getting rid of fetishes and kinks, like

I tell people, you don't try to get rid of a fetish or a kink, because it's really hard to do. And most of the ways that people try and do it are very conversion therapy-like. They're not ethical. So what you do is you work with the partner on getting pleasure out of their partner's pleasure. So even though they're not sharing the kink, they're still so excited that their partner is excited that everybody's present in the room.

How does one figure out what theirs is? Like, I'm so curious. Like, is there something in me that I don't know? Maybe, maybe not. How you figure out what you desire is always an interesting one for me Some people figure it out because they know they just know right they they Find themselves in situations and they know other people not so much and So there are different ways of going about it. And exposure is a great way to figure out

what you might be into. So not pornography because pornography is, and the reason I say not pornography is there's no art in pornography. Pornography is very graphic, and so it's kind of hard to concentrate on what bit's turning you on if you're having to see cum shots and things like that.

Now, if it happens to be the cum shot turns you on, well, there it is. Right? Lucky you. Yes. But things like that. Now if it happens to be the cum shot turns you on, well there it is. Lucky you. But things like erotica, so reading erotica, there's a wide range of erotica out there. Now there's a lot of really badly written erotica, but there's also a lot of good stuff. Audio erotica is great, listening to somebody read stories and talk stories and you observe yourself. What does your body do? Does something strike you as hot? Something else doesn't? Then maybe you decide to kind of check it out

and not just listen and observe. Maybe you decide to engage in self pleasure and see what happens. See where your fantasy goes, or go talk to a partner about it. Read stories to each other. Write stories eventually if you're adventurous. But there are ways of introducing it

without having to take the risk of saying, ooh, I'm into this and the other bunch of them going, ugh, right? I have on my website and my free stuff section a book called, I think it's up to 103, 103 movies that are not X rated because somebody many years ago said well what if you don't want to watch porn but you want to explore and I said well there's loads of erotic movies that are not X rated so I made a list with links and stuff of things that you can watch to give yourself

an idea of what might turn you on. So you do it as an exploration, just like you might explore a hobby. I love that. And you do it yourself and with a partner, but you do it yourself first. I have a colleague who during May is masturbation month. Her name is Martha Tauer Lee. She is a sexologist out of Singapore, Dr. Martha Tauer Lee. And when a sexologist out of Singapore, Dr. Martha Tauer Lee. And when she came on my show once

to talk about masturbation and self pleasure, and she goes, she has masturbation dates with herself, she takes the whole day. Cause people self pleasure, they do it like in an offhand way. They like take minutes or seconds. And it's like, if you treat yourself that way, what does that say about how you see sex with someone else?

For me, it's like, if you're not willing to take time with yourself, if you're not willing to do it in the light of day, so you're showing that much shame and that much of an offhand attitude, well, what does that mean about sex with someone else? What are you saying about that? Yeah.

I think it does start with you. I've never thought of it like that though. I always have thought of it as like, it starts in the room with another person. Like, you know, your own experience on your own is your own thing. But that's such a good point. It's like the more... Like, before I orgasmed for the first time,

I had never masturbated. My first orgasm was from my first boyfriend. I was like, I don't even know what's happening. I don't know what to expect. I knew nothing. And it was like, I was so a fish out of water. I had no idea what was going on. And it was...

That's scary. It was. It was scary. And it was like, it was weird. And I think it also made me Weirdly emotionally attached to him. I know that was like unhealthy. I think because I was like you gave me everything You know, yeah, like I this is this amazing. Yes, you've given me it's like I associated with him It's like no. No, I should associate my or it's your body. It's your body my organ Yeah, but what's so interesting to me about that when you say something like that is

It's scary Hmm. You're now attached to that person to bring you pleasure. You have no idea how it ticks what it is You might be ashamed of it because what just happened? Yeah, maybe I wasn't supposed to do that Yeah, right, but also you were lucky supposed to do that. Right? But also you are lucky because so many people have trouble orgasming with a partner, not because of trauma or stuff, because our anatomy differs. There's another thing. I was about to ask about this. Yes. So different. So the size of the clitoris, first of all, most of the clitoris is in the

body. It's not outside the body. So the horns of the clitoris we think is what the G spot is. You're just stimulating from the other side. Yeah. Clitoris is actually big, about five inches long, but some people the external part is big. Other people it's tiny. Yeah. And it's very hidden. Yeah. If you have a tiny external part and you also have any body padding there. And so that doesn't necessarily have to do with whether you carry extra weight or not. There are like really thin women who have puffy vulvas.

It's much harder to reach orgasm. Oh, interesting. Because getting the pressure, because that's where it stems from. Yeah. Going back to more like fetishes and kinks, how do you sort of, it's, that's a really,

it's a lot easier said than done to tell people about those things. It's hard. Especially because there are so many different stigmas around it. Some being really positive, like, oh, that's really hot. And like, you're boring if you're not. Or it's like, it's almost like you can't win because sometimes if you say like or you show I

Don't I like things pretty simple like this is what I'm this is what I like That can be frowned upon at times because people are like this is not cool You're a loser and you're lame because you're not you're not experimental at all And then on the other hand you have people who are like very experimental and they're very much, in touch with who they are in that area. And that's really heavily judged, because it's like, well, this is weird and you're a freak. So it's like, what is the way to have these conversations

that's effective and also like, how do you get better at having them? When I try to imagine what the conversation looks like, it's almost just something that is almost like lighthearted in a way, like is that the way to do it? Like what's the way to do it? Whatever makes you comfortable. Yeah.

Right, and so here's the thing. You may be really ordinary right now, and if you're in a relationship with somebody for 20 years, I guarantee you're gonna get experimental. Absolutely. Okay? Because the repetition of the same thing with the same person is going to make you want to try something

else because that mystery is gone. Right. But if you have lots of different people, you may always stick within your thing because it's new with every person. Yeah. Right. Same thing with kinks though, like your favorite kink. If you're with the same person for 15, 20 years, you're going to move different kinks. You might get very ordinary. You might get even more kinks because the repetition with the same person with the same thing is eventually going to be too dull. So there's that. Having the conversation should be in the beginning of dating. It shouldn't be something that you leave. To be fair, some people don't discover a kink or a fetish

until they're way down the line with a partner, and then it's a whole different ball game. You're having to introduce something, and it's scary because you're already attached and all of that. But you should be talking about your sexual interests, not in great detail, but the things that are important to you at the beginning,

because if you're not compatible, it's pointless going forward. Yep. I have a lot of empathy for people who have more, just sort of like, I don't even know what word to use, maybe just more uncommon, unusual. Maybe even to the common eye would be like, maybe disgusting or like maybe something involving bodily fluids

Like like feces like whatever like these these sort of you know kinks like that or that's a fetish I think but Oh, no, it's it's a kink unless it's necessary for orgasm, right? You're right people will play with that and they're fine. Yeah, and they don't do it all the time, but other people like They definitely want to do it all the time. But other people, they definitely want to do it all the time. And then there are people where they don't need it for orgasm but they really like it. And so if you weren't gonna offer it, they wouldn't wanna be with you.

How do you, okay, it's one thing to have a conversation if you like, let's say something, I would say maybe a more common. You like spanking. Yeah, yeah, you like spanking or even you like feet or something. Those, you have a fetish. That is much more common talked about it's also like it's just like it's pretty easy to you know

It's nothing too crazy spanking can get kind of painful, but like as long as it's the more relaxed Maybe it's like more chill, you know, so it's people know about this talk about it But there's things that I think that for the average, you know person person, it's like, I can't even comprehend this. Like whether it's, you know, somebody. So scat is the one that actually, you know, feces. That is the one that actually I think is probably one of the more hard, difficult ones for people to introduce. But you don't start from nowhere. Yeah. So like when you're starting to talk with somebody, if you're somebody who's into scat, you're probably not talking to anybody who presents as vanilla at all. Right's into Scott, you're probably not talking to anybody who presents as Vanilla at all.

Right. Right. So you kind of know your audience. You're looking in communities where there's already king. It's much easier nowadays because you can find- I was gonna say, what were people doing pre-internet if they were interested in that? I'll tell you. I will tell you what you were doing pre-internet

if you were interested in anything different was you were like having to bring it up, you were fly, I mean I remember flying, flying completely blind. CompuServe and AOL, when we started talking with each other, that was where you started at least being able to say, on bulletin boards, at least being able to find people who were hinting they were interested in something,

at least you had that. We put ads in the village voice Single whatever female you know Wow you know seeking that it added another there's like a bazillion websites for every different That's right, so just beautiful actually much nice. Yeah, but I don't I've never liked meeting people online I meet people in the world yeah, so let's say you meet somebody and you connect in the world you start with If you know yourself you start out with Let's have a conversation about sex and relationships, you know I would put it out there like I want to have a conversation about sex and relationships Yeah, because I am NOT ordinary and I'll just say that like I'm not ordinary And so if we're not gonna align on certain things this isn't gonna go anywhere. Yep, so I

Personally always started with the non-monogamy. It's like I'm not monogamous. I won't make a monogamous. I've done it Yeah, but I won't do it now, but I won't make a monogamous commitment with my relationships now. It's like I'm not monogamous I am married. Yep. I am NOT looking for a relationship at that level Yeah, because I know I'm not, and I have a girlfriend. So I've got two partners. If you're monogamous, we're not gonna. Yep. It's not gonna happen.

It's not gonna happen. And then as far as what I like to do in bed, like the sex that I enjoy, you know, I start out, you can say I'm kinky without saying what the kink is. Yeah. And a person's like, oh, I've always wanted to try that. If you have a really severe kink,

you probably wanna bow out at that point, right? Right. Yeah. Because I've always wanted to try that and you say, well, I'm into scat, they're gonna freak out and run. I think, well, tell me if you think I'm wrong, but I think the reason why there's sort of this dark cloud,

if you will, societally over these, over various fetishes, kinks, whatever, is I think because some of them are dangerous. What happens when someone's fetish is potentially, or kink is something that's potentially harmful to other people who what then? Okay so let me be clear about this. So in the in the old days kinks and fetishes were were paraphilias and were considered mental disorders and it's

only in 2013. Oh yeah. So it's only in 2013 that they declassified most of this and so as long as what you're doing, it's now considered you know normal variations on a theme right, but as long as you're doing stuff with consent and you're not harming somebody without consent and that's not harm it's hurt right as opposed to harm yep nor or yourself right then we don't consider them mental disorder at all. So that's fine. It's a totally different thing when what you're doing is causing harm to another where they can't consent or where they don't consent.

That is a problem. That's not a sexual orientation. I mean, you may, the reality is you may not be able to do anything about it, but that is like, has to be dealt with in a different way because that's where somebody commits sexual violence, right? So we can't accept that. So a sadist who beats the crap out of people who say,

yes, I want the crap beaten out of me, that's fine. But a sadist who wants to go and beat the crap out of people and rape people who don't say this is okay with them, that's not fine. I don't care if that okay with them, that's not fine. I don't care if that's your orientation, that's a problem. And so I identify that as a problem. So we make that distinction.

Yeah. Like if, I mean, what happens if, you know, your partner's turned off by your, like, is that, well, two things. Number one, is that wrong of the person to be getting turned off? I guess you can't control that, so no. No, you can't control that.

I guess it's only wrong if you're being like, ew, what the fuck? You should always be warm and loving. Yeah, if you're being an asshole, then it's wrong. That's really easy. You have preferences. Preferences are preferences. You cannot prescribe people's preferences. You can't say, if you don't like this thing, then you're wrong and you're not okay and

you're a bad human. Whatever you like, you like. So there's that. If you're talking with somebody and you know what you like already, it depends on whether it's something you like to engage in sometimes for fun, or it's really important to your sexual orientation. Mm-hmm. So I don't get off unless the person is dominant. Yeah. Period.

It goes nowhere. Yeah, I so get it. So then you're kinky, believe it or not. You know what? Okay, actually I took, you know that quiz that you can take online? It's like the Rice P purity test or something like that. And you like answer all these questions

and it gives you sort of a grade of like how kinky you are. Anyway, it might have came back like quite literally the most vanilla ever, however, but not quite. Like I had like, I think- Cause dominance is power dynamic. Absolutely. And I definitely have that. So you can do that in a ordinary way,

because classical relationships between men and women have the man dominant and the woman submissive. So whatever you do with that, you can make it really kinky or not really kinky, but it is a kink. If that's the turn on, right? If that's the turn on, then it's a kink. So you don't have to call yourself Vanilla

if you don't want to. Yay! Finally! That's the thing, you know, I just always think it's so funny. But for some people they like dominance, but they don't need it all the time. Or for some people they like spanking, but if their partner never wants to spank them, it's not going to ruin their sex life. So I know what I need. Yeah. And if you can't kind of come into that bailiwick, it's pointless for us to go any further. I've been in certain situations where I've not felt

attractive to the person I was having sex with. I mean, I've dated people like that, where I'm like, you just don't, do you not care? I feel like you don't care and And it's not even necessarily that they didn't or I don't know I'll never know for sure But it's like that feeling only closes you off. Well that feeling for me now Yeah, I learned if I feel like someone's not into me and They were you know, I question it and I'm the answers I'm getting they're not into me, I'm gone. Oh yeah. Because like, why?

But see what's weird is when someone like will, like people will be like, oh I'm into you and like we're dating and like we love it, but then like they don't, they can't, it's doesn't, you don't feel it? You have to feel it. And sometimes when you don't feel it, it's you, but a lot of times when you don't feel it, it's because either they're not into you or they don't, they're tied up. So I remember saying to somebody, you know, I thought you were into me and it really doesn't feel like you are.

And it turned out that he was so worried about his own attractiveness that he was locked in his own head. So it had nothing to do with me. No, no, I'm really into you. I just, you know, I'm so ugly. And I'm like, what? Yeah, see, yeah.

And people don't talk about this. They get so fucking self-conscious. It's one of the things about sex when you're older, past menopause, you don't have to worry about pregnancy anymore. And as long as you get your libido sorted, because sometimes it isn't. Like, you don't worry about what you look like,

you know what you like and what you want. So sex is a lot more fun because it's like, all the demand characteristics of being perfect and being you don't give a shit anymore. Yeah. You know and so it's like you just go and you have fun. That's so promising because I think that there's this like stigma it's like have sex when you're young because you will not want to have it later like it's it's over when you hit this age or this age it's like there's so much of that. And I think that that's so, like talk about why everybody's like, you know, so,

it just adds to the nihilism of, you know, growing up today. It's like, well, you have nothing to look forward to because of this, this and that. And also you're not gonna enjoy sex anymore and you're gonna be, you know, and you're gonna look. It's like, it just doesn't end. Like, but I really think, you know, and you're gonna look. It's like, it just doesn't end.

But I really think, I mean, it's crazy, because so many people that, like even my dad, for example, he's having so much fun in his 50s. He's like, I'm surfing now, I just learned how to surf for the first time in my life. He's like, this is the best time of my life. Like, I've never been happier.

And it's, I think in reality, getting older actually comes with a lot of, it's not this like treacherous, horrible thing. It doesn't have to be. I mean, one of the things is that, you know, it's, yes, there are challenges. There are sexual challenges that have to do with your body. Okay? So there are challenges, but there are workarounds for the challenges.

Yeah. And the headspace It's so much better. Yes, and you know, I I I'm gonna have sex until they tell me I can't do it anymore Yeah, like they're put you know, I'm gone. I'm no longer breathing. Yeah, I have no intention of giving sex up And why would you it's fun? It's fun And it and the closeness that it brings I mean, why would you? It's fun. It's fun. And the closeness that it brings. I mean, why would you ever give that up? Amen. Oh my god, thank you for doing this. Oh, my pleasure. I mean, I like I had nothing else to do other than this. Amazing. Okay, great. This is great.