Is Stress Killing Your Sex Drive? w/ Dr. Emily Morse

We all get naked. Close your eyes. Get in the dark with our partner and hope for the best. What made that sex particularly hot?

I spent a really long time thinking that I was broken.

There are steps we need to take to get to our arousal and our desire. I used to think that my partner was responsible for my orgasm. People like, when are you going to get to the tips? The things I'm like, do, I will get there. But let me tell you what's happening today could be the first day of the rest of your sex life.

Have you lost your libido and wonder how or if you can ever get it back? Has your sex drive and your sex life gone down the damn drain? And when it comes to intimacy and pleasure and sex, if you are definitely not living your best life, this episode can and will change the game. Emily Morse is a doctor of human sexuality and the host of the number one award winning podcast, Sex With Emily, which has been on the air for nearly two decades.

She's been profiled everywhere from The New York Times, The Today Show, Men's Health, glamor, and more. Her goal is to liberate conversations around sex, and her fantastic book, Smart Sex will help you reframe your relationship to pleasure and learn how to have the best damn sex of your life. One of the things that you say, Emily, is sex and pleasure.

I should say pleasure specifically is productive. Now we got a lot of Type-A humans, specifically women who pay attention our show, and I can hear them already. What they're saying, like, are you kidding me? Like, I'm already exhausted. I have so much on my plate. You're going to now want me to prioritize pleasure. So why is pleasure productive?

And what would you say to the women out there listening right now, going, like, I don't need one more thing to fix in my life. I don't need one more thing to put on my to do list.

Okay, so first let's define pleasure. I am sex with Emily, so some people think I'm talking about. You should be having more sex. I'm not necessarily talking about sex. I'm talking about pleasure. The things in your life that make you feel good. It could be. And I and I offer people to make a list of those things. What are the things that are to make me feel good this week?

I know that I'm Type-A. I know that I have a million things going on. My to do list just keeps growing and going and growing. So is it a walk with a friend, playing with my dog? Is it getting a massage? What are the things that I'm going to do for myself that's in that pleasure under that pleasure umbrella.

And the reason why it's productive to include these things in your schedule is because pleasure begets pleasure. The more pleasure we have, the more pleasure we want. But also it releases all of those feel good chemicals in our brain. Like pleasure is good for us. Yeah. And so when we are hustling and we're working and 24 over seven and I am there, I am one of those women.

But I have found that when I don't make that time, that is, you know, for me, for connection, for intimacy, for whatever it is, you know, that I'm just the stress person working 24 over seven, it doesn't work. And again, I'm going to go back to the pleasure begetting pleasure. The more dribbles of pleasure we put in drips of pleasure here.

So now, for example, what I do is I'll look at my, you know, my overly scheduled schedule. And I have learned now that if I don't have something in there that's like, when's my dinner with friends? Because to me that's pleasurable. When is my nature walk? When is it time that I'm just going to like, you know, read?

You know, I have to make sure that those things are included because I know what it does for my overall well-being.

I love that, and I love that you extended it beyond just sex because, there have been many times in my life like, you know, Josh and I have been together now for over 20 years. And, you know, generally speaking, you let me know your sex with Emily. I am not sex with marriage, right? It's like I'm in a whole not.

Yeah, yeah. No, I don't think we're going there. However, you know, there's times it's like, babe, I'm, you know, let's me and I have such a hot. I'm like, do you have any idea what I got on my shoulders right now? Like, I can't even go there. I love you, you're hot. He's amazing. You know what I mean?

I don't want anyone else. I'm just like, dude.

It's just last thing on my mind, right?

Yeah. So that's why I really appreciate you saying and broadening out that umbrella. Because for me, more pressure on myself does the exact opposite to my libido. Yeah, you know what I mean? Absolutely. And broadening it out to more pleasure. I will say this for myself, that when I am having more fun and I probably that's maybe a word that I use, you know, rather than pleasure.

It's fun. I'm a lot more creative. I'm nicer, my ideas are better. And to be perfectly honest, my health is better. This is one of the things that I've discovered. And again, I'm talking to all my super Uber ambitious, Type-A humans out there. stress has almost like taken me out a few times because the levels of chronic stress, I mean, we know from all the research, it's like either the cause of or amplifies up to 90% of all diseases.

But even more importantly, like I've thrown off my gastrointestinal, you know, I've gone off a lot of it being a stress mess.

Yeah. Well, and also the thing about pleasure is, I mean, there's so many ways into pleasure, it can be sort of triggering to people because they think it just. But it is joy. Where's the joy? Where's the fun? Where's the pleasure? But also the spike in cortisol that you have when you're stressed. Yeah. Cancels out pleasure. They can't live in the same moment.

So even if it's pockets of of fun pockets of air, in those moments, you'll just know that this will just be my time of day. Time of week where I'm not in stress and that will build upon itself.

And it's a good practice because, I think it is a practice. Like I'm thinking back over the decades of my life and my career, and when I have prioritized fun, pleasure, good times. it becomes easier, you know what I mean? I have less and less pockets of me just being like a stress monster, not just for a week or a month, but like six months at a time.

Yeah. You know, we surveyed our audience because we've never had a show about sex on TV before the podcast. So this is the first time we're really diving into this. And we said, how's your sex life right now? Right. And here's the answers that we got back. Oh, so the majority 38%, you guys said their sex life was non-existent.

21% said boring AF, 21% said it was 100% self-service, and then only 20% said their sex was in Fuego on fire. So what do you say? to the 60% that either have no sex life or who feel bored? Like, is it possible to get passion back in your life, especially if you're not 22 anymore and your hormones aren't raging and driving you there?

Absolutely. So that tracks your audience is online with most of the world. I mean, truly, I would say that most people who are beyond the knee or the new relationship energy, a.k.a. honeymoon phase of a relationship, feel that their sex life has gotten a little bit stale. It's boring, and they don't know what to do to dig themselves out of it.

And so I'm so glad I'm here to talk to you, because what you do is people might be in a slump in their business. They know to go to you, they're going to take the B-School. They're going to they go to business coach. They figure it out. Right. You have a you have something wrong with your teeth. You're going to go see your dentist.

You have a problem in your sex life. And it's slumped and you're like, well, I guess this is just my lot in life. It's just going to be miserable. I'm not really sure what to do, how to get that back. And it's because we have siloed sex as this as this part of our lives that we can't really talk about.

We don't really understand. And we all get naked, close our eyes, get in the dark with our partner, and hope for the best. And so without all this information of understanding that all the things that need to go into making sex hot and desirable and exciting are just sort of a mystery. So I want to like unpack that for people first.

Say like, this is completely common. A lot of people get to this place, but let's understand what might require us, what what we need to feel more connected again to our to our sexuality. So the first thing it's going to come down to communication and something that I have repeated as much as you probably talk about everything before you figure out.

Yeah.

Is communication is a lubrication. And I've been saying that for almost 20 years, because the more that we communicate about sex and we talk about it, even saying to our partners, we're both in a slump right now, what could we do about it? Let's talk about our sex. Life is a game changer. That's actually where you start. But the thing about it, while we might be more comfortable talking about literally everything else in our relationship, maybe we're talking about, you know, definitely we can talk about our business with our partner, we can talk about how we're going to raise our kids and you know, how we know we want to live and how we're going

to save money. But sex, again, is this thing that's just very uncomfortable to talk about. So it's this, it's this. It has no place in our relationship other than God. I hope it's going to happen. I hope I get my drive back. So communicating to our partners about our sex life and just saying, hey, you know what? Let's just call it?

It's the elephant in the room. Our sex life has been a little bit lackluster lately, and I think we can both agree that it would be incredible to kind of get that passion back. Would you be open to going on a journey with me and talking about our sex life, like just and and the reason why this is so frightening?

Honestly, a lot of what I do is talk. A lot of my book, Smart Sex is scripts. I'm giving people permission to talk about sex, and also how to talk about it, because the problem is, when we go through our whole lives of not talking about sex, and I'm not even talking about it in our relationships, I'm talking about we don't talk about to our parents.

A lot of us don't talk about it to our friends. And if we grew up in an environment where it wasn't okay to talk about sex, or we were shamed for sex, it's sort of we don't even have the skill set to talk about it. So just saying, would you be open to exploring it and a great place for couples to start is what are some of the most memorable times you've had sex?

Like, let's just write down the three most memorable times we've had sex together. Yeah, let's compare this. Let's look at that. Because also something amazing happens in our brain when we go down memory lane and we look at old photos, we talk about things. We get that spike in those feel good hormones that make us feel more connected to our partner.

So even just reliving that. So that's fun too. But then to be like, that was hot. What made that sex particularly hot? Like there's a lot of information in that. And then you can start to relive it. Where were we? What was going on? And I have a lot more to say about that, but those are some good places to start.

But I would say that, and we can unpack this for the entire show about how couples can spice it up. But when we first name it and we acknowledge that it's just not as great as it was, well, then we can start having fun.

I love that, and I love the fact that in your book you do provide so many scripts because anything in life, again, going back to everything, is figure out a ball. If you don't know how to do it, you can learn how to do it. It's a skill set, right? And so the skill set of not only enjoying your sensual and sexual life, that is a skill set, but we've got to break it down and go back to talking about it, and it can feel so awkward.

And I think no matter who you are and no matter how confident you are in other areas of your life, especially, you know, whether it's a significant other, it's your husband or wife, it's a partner to be able to talk about it in a way that doesn't put the other person on the defense. I think that that's huge.

You know, Josh and I have had conversations over the years, and I remember there's a point again, like super stressed out Marie. Right. Like just running on empty, pushing so hard. And my own lens, when he brought it up, I was like, I cannot do one more thing like I am, I, I can't like, I can't do it, I love you, I don't know how to fix this.

I don't want to be with anyone else. But it's like I can't make myself feel something when it's not there, right?

Do you know I'm on empty? Yes. I don't, that's.

What I felt like. I felt like it was like I was, You know, the love was never in question. His attractive ness was never in question. Our commitment to each other was never in question. But I'm like, I can't be a charged battery if I'm on empty. And it was really, really difficult because my perception was that he was criticizing me, but he was just trying to open up a conversation.

And, you know, so.

I'm glad you brought that up because I was one of warned people, which is why I give all the tips, is that people typically when you bring up sex to your partner, maybe for the first time, or maybe every time they go into fight or flight, they literally feel attacked because we don't have, again, a lot of experience talking about it.

And so that's why you have to be like, this is you have to start with, I want to talk about something that I think is going to be so great for both of us. I think the more we can have a healthy conversations about our true desires, our turn ons, what's really hot, what's sexy for us? You know, I'm not blaming you, not shame you.

You have to like crimes. Keep doing that over and over again. Because that's a great example. Of course you felt threatened. You're like, I this is something that I do not know how to do. And so we have to like, say we're in this together. It is not the responsibility of one person to fix it in the relationship.

Like it is a collaboration. You're in it together.

Yeah. And I want to interrupt and say something. My nature is that I always take everything on my shoulders. So to be clear, he wasn't saying that. You know what I mean? This is on you to fix. I did that and I made it even harder on myself, which is horrible. And I say what.

I.

Love about what you shared about going through, like the favorite times, as you were saying, that I can literally think of the I have like a whole entire checklist that goes through my mind and I'm like, oh my God, I can't wait to go talk to Josh about this, because this is it's really cool because they were so unbelievably, memorable and also simple.

Yeah. Like simple things that happen. And I think the other thing generally in relationships, because I've spent oh my gosh, I've spent just y'all so much on couples therapy workshops just because I'm invested in trying to become the best human that I could possibly be to my soulmate, you know what I mean? And do everything that I can to live as fully as I can and to like, check out my own bullshit.

Yeah.

That's right, heal it. And I wanted to say this. It's like, one of the best things I've ever learned is, is I can't be a mind reader, and I can't expect him to be a mind reader about anything about my stupid little quirks, about you got to close this like I need, you know, this folded a I have this thing with freaking napkins.

I'm like, dude, you got to follow me, right? Because my OCD, like you know, it'll be crazy. but I just wanted to commend you and tell everyone, like, this is why it's so important. Because you can help your partner understand what is really meaningful to you. It's like a version of a sex love language. Yeah, right. The five of five love languages.

Once you know that, I'm like, oh, he needs words of affirmation. That's his thing. I'm Max of service. You know, it just takes it to a new level.

Exactly. That's it would be love. Like, just such a great starting point for people to the five things. But with sex too, it's like. And going back to that. So I'm glad that resonated. So now you know those hard moments, but there's so much information there because then you get to drill down like, what was it like? Maybe we can't recreate it, but like, oh, we were on vacation or yeah, we had a lot of time.

Yeah. We'd had the whole day together doing something that made us feel good. Maybe we were doing an adventure together or something new. We went to a new party or museum or we didn't know anyone. We had never seen this art before. And so our brains were stimulated. We were collected. So then you get to recreate similar scenarios that are going to be a precursor to the hot sex.

It's almost like free framing. Yeah, yeah. And you start to have Guideposts. Yeah.

Exactly. Because and like you said like it is it set. And I want to remind people that sex is a skill set to sex. Be like arousal is a skill set connection. It all is. So we don't born becoming great lovers.

So that's important to say. And I didn't I wanted to like, shut my mouth and interrupt you. But here's where I tripped up in my own life so hard and were beating myself up so long because my early experience of my own sensuality and sexuality was the opposite. It was so I sometimes I joke with my friends, I'm like, dude, I was like a ravenous animal.

Like just eaten up. And it was like, unstoppable, right? But no one really taught me about that. I think it was just raging hormones that many of us experience as we're teenagers and young adults. So I spent a really long time thinking that I was broken. I was like, wait a minute, why did this thing that I never had to pay attention to before?

Right? That happened so automatically, and I didn't even it was just like something was driving me and I was like, is that gone forever? Because I'm now my body shift idiot. I mean, it's just life has shifted. Yeah. More responsibilities, more stress. so one of the number one questions and I want to like, I know we can talk about so many things, but why am I never in the mood that was one of the other things that came up when we surveyed our audience, like, Can Emily, can Doctor Emily help us?

Like, why am I never in the mood? And what can we do about this in terms of it being a skill set?

okay. So this and this goes back to literally everything that you just said that your, your, your listeners, it just said to your audience is that why would I in the mood why would I want sex? Because we have to understand what's going to get us there. There are steps we need to take to get to our arousal and our desire.

And what I want people understand is it is not this magical thing that's going to hit you over the head like it did at the beginning. Sorry, everybody. If you've already moved out of the honeymoon phase or out of your teens and 20s or early 20s, you don't have the hormones, right? You don't have the newness and the excitement and the novelty of this new partner.

And we think about it. I've never smelled him before. I've never seen this person in this position before. It's all hot. New novelty. Exciting. Spontaneous. Nope. That is gone now. So now we get to actually do the work to learn about what? What does feel good to me? What does arousal look to me like? What are my turn on?

So I write about the five pillars in my book Smart Sex because I realize it for sex. A lot of people come to me for a quick fix. They're like, what's the toy, doctor? What's the loo? What's the thing? I'm like, we have to look at all of these areas. It's a bio psychosocial mythology method for learning about sex.

So it's like there's so many factors. And again, I am not telling people this to over to overwhelm them. I actually built this for myself and my listeners because what I'm not in the mood for sex might be a little bit different. Why? You're not in the mood for sex. But all we know is that we're not in the mood for sex.

And I let me tell you, I'm there too. I'm in a long term relationships, a long term relationship right now, and aren't out of the mood like I once was. I'm like struggling with it. And so I go through my five pillars and it's not just one thing. So let me give you an example. The first pillar it's for the sex IQ is embodiment.

So am I embodied during sex? Am I am I having sex and I'm feeling it? Or am I disassociating, staring at the ceiling, thinking in my mind with my to do list. Wondering if, like I left the oven on and like a million other things, if your brain has left the building like so has your body. You're not in your body.

So that's just the first thing. And I'm going to run through them quickly and then explain how we can work with them. Because if you look at this method of it, it's more complex. It's because it's not just one thing. It's kind of like in every like, let me give you another example. Before I get into it, let's say I say to you, you know, Marie, I really want to get healthy.

You might say to me, you know what, Emily? You should, you know, look at what you're eating. You should start exercising. Maybe get some blood work done.

Get some more.

Sleep, get some more sleep. The same things that you take, do the things. And I'm like, okay, I would do that. But if I said no, you know what? I'm just going to go to the gym. That probably wouldn't be enough. The same thing goes for your sex life. There's a lot of factors that we have to look at so we can troubleshoot what we need.

So for example embodiment. Now this is a practice I'm not always embodied. But the the secret to embodiment is knowing when you're not and learning to bring yourself back. Right? Right. Well we can talk about that. The second pillar is health for for your overall for getting in the mood. And that's your mental health and your physical health.

If I'm not moving my body, I'm not exercising. I'm going to have a blood flow problem. If I have a blood flow problem, well, then I'm not going to feel arousal. My genitals are going to be dead in the water. That blood flow is not happening. We require blood flow to get erections, to be wet, to be aroused or not.

So that's one. That's one part of it. The other thing is we have to look at medications. If I'm on birth control, if I'm on an SSRI and I depressant blood thinner, all of those things could dampen our arousal. So just know that like, no, our mental health, you know, have I been in therapy. Have I looked at traumas?

Okay. These are all the things that are going to be factors. The third one is collaboration. How well do I communicate with my partner about sex? Are we in this together or am I just kind of hoping they're a mind reader, which a lot of us do, you know, like how do they not know this? Like, can't they see.

No, no one is. I've never met a mind reader yet. So how will my collaborating and talking about my sex life? And the fourth pillar is self-knowledge. Do I actually know myself as a sexual being? I've been having sex for however many years, and what are some things I know? I know that the temperature has to be a certain way.

For example, if it's freezing. When I started dating my boyfriend, every time I went to house, house was freezing and it was like he just had this thing. I'm like, you have to understand my blood flow. I just shut down completely. And so now I'd go over there would be hot. The fireplace is going, I know that I need foreplay, I need some kissing making out.

I also need to have a great conversation beforehand. If we haven't talked in a while, I'm not going to want to just jump your bones. Yeah, so just knowing yourself, right. And I bet tools for people to know themselves better. And then the final one is, and this is a tough one is self acceptance. And this is the confidence piece.

How do I feel about my body right now. How do I feel about my experience sexually if I am walking around all day in this body, not loving it, my thighs are rubbing together. I feel like I've gained weight, I don't feel good, but then I'm like, so maybe I'm bashing my body all day, then expect that I'm again to the bedroom and I'm going to feel good, naked and.

Free and playful or open.

And because so much of the best sex happens when we can let go. Yeah, but this is like a trap. I feel trapped in my body. So these are the pillars we never get to a place of sex IQ where we are off the charts and done and check it off. It's a way for us to sort of monitor what's going on with the sexually so we can figure out, like, where do I need to work on This Week, today, this month to feel more embodied and more pleasurable?

I love that, thank you so much. And you know anything important in our life? It is nuanced, right? There's no easy fixes. And if this is an area of your life where you're like, damn, like, I need to turn it up again. Yeah. your book is amazing for that. So speaking, we talked about the brain a little bit, but I love this.

You said our brains are the largest sex organ, and desire is really a mental game. So you talk about two types of desire spontaneous and responsive. Can we unpack that distinction.

So spontaneous desire. And I don't like to really gender things as much. We've come such a long way to say that men do this. The women do this however typically okay. So in the long in in a in a in a relationship where it's new spontaneous desire is when we are in a new part of a relationship and I like we can't wait till we repeat.

Yeah, there's clothes off. We don't to think about sex because it's so friggin hot that's spontaneous that I'm spontaneously getting aroused, turned on like a you are your 20s, are you? You know, it was happening. Okay. That that and typically men have more of that. Again it can wane in relationships. But they kind of might see the partner get an erection.

That's their sign. I'm ready to go. Responsive desire means that I'm responding to things in my environment, in my relationship that are going to turn out. It's going to take a little bit of work. So for example, I'm in a relationship, I'm on my phone, I'm answering emails. It's really busy. And my partner walks in and he looks at me like, let's like, oh my God, he looks so hot.

And I'm like, I didn't even see you walk in the room. There is no part of me that feels sexual right now I am in. That would be so. I need some things to happen before I can get turned on. And this is where the the pillars of the sex can come into place. Well, what would I need?

Okay, I look around my environment. A house is a disaster. There are dishes in the sink. I have not finished my work. It's, you know, cold, I haven't showered, I didn't work out today like it's not happening. Right. But if I know that. You know what though? It is date night. So maybe, like, are we having a date this week?

I might say to my partner tonight, start the night. But I think Saturday night could be a great time for us to go out and have sex. Then I have time to respond knowing that we and people can get. Scheduling sex is like the key to.

It's not.

Have to.

It's I feel like we have Josh and I have had different like rhythms where it's like either sexy time Saturdays or sexy time Sundays. But the planner in me, yeah, it works. It works. You know why? Because it's like I can clean up. There's not other shit happening, right? The whole thing, I'm like, oh, give me give this woman a task.

And it's like, oh, you know what I mean? Like, I have a mission is on. So yeah, kind of like, is it you're learning? For me, it's like learning my own mechanisms. Does that make sense? Like my own mechanisms for if I have a challenge or there's something that I need to figure out in that sense, and it becomes either like a game or I plan for it and it's something it sounds so weird, but this is just me.

It's like something I can crush. I'm like, oh, I got this. Like, I got this.

No, but this is you. But this could be all of us. For people who are stuck and going, it's over. It's abysmal. Yeah, I'm telling you that. We have to reverse engineer it. Then they go, okay, if sex is happening later, unresponsive. So what are all the things that need to happen for me to be really turned on for sex when it does happen?

So now we've got like, for me, I let go again. We talked about the house, all the things, but I want to move my body that day. I want to make sure that maybe I've taken a bath, I've shaved, maybe I'm wearing something that makes me feel sexy. We've planned a date going somewhere that's sort of stimulating. Maybe it's music or a concert or a show or I'm dancing.

I'm in my body. Like that is going to make sure that that that is that night. I'm going to feel the best I can. I have all the knowledge I have myself when I've been the most turned on. It's when I have a whole day. It's a Saturday. Maybe I wasn't working and the sex is going to happen.

And so and this is like, I know we can't always build up. Like not every sex is going to be like, I was able to do all of these things, but if we at least have dialog around it and we can say like, I am not as spontaneous anymore, I'm going to require a few steps to happen. And even just having this conversation with your partner saying it's more responsive, it's so healthy because again, then you troubleshoot with your partner.

He's not going to feel rejected like you don't want, because what happened is so when we reject our partner. So in this moment, if I my partner, I didn't have these conversations, I was like, we're not having sex. So like, no, I'm going back to work. Well guess what? He walks away. He feels bad. He feels rejected. What have I done?

She's not attracted to me. I'm feeling terribly guilty.

Yep.

I'm feeling like, oh, my God, I wish I could. Where's my desire? It's dead inside right now.

So I've made jokes. I was like, is it on a spaceship? Did it get shot out of the universe? Because you know what I mean? I'm like, I don't get it. I don't get it.

Yeah, no, but I'm like, listen, this happens to so many of us, and that's why we haven't even started with, like, we'll get to this, but like, we have to keep our own pilot light lit. So I used to think that my partner was responsible for my orgasm, that he I used to do that he had to do everything to get me there.

It was his job. And it kind of pisses me off too, because I was like, that was so nice to have to blame him to be like, it's his, his idea. He's not doing all the things. But so even for this date night, I need to do the things that are going to make me feel aroused and turn on.

And so I if I want to be in a sexual relationship and I do, because also what you get going with sex, it's it you're like, oh.

Yeah, you're like, this is the best thing ever.

Getting there is the hardest part. It's kind of like going to the gym.

Is like going to the gym. Most of the time we don't want to do it, and once you're in it, you're like, this is awesome. Like, I feel like so powerful and great. And you leave and you're like, skipping around. Yeah, yeah. No, it's the same thing.

Same thing for sex. It's like. And even if, like, you know what? Okay. So to get you go to the gym, you're like, I'm going lay out my shoes. Yeah, I'm a sign up for class. Yeah. Because then they're going to bill me if I don't show up for the class like I do all of these hacks and I get out the door.

So what for your sex? If you decide and you schedule Saturday night tonight, you know, or Tuesday.

Night time Saturday.

Can sexy time Saturday. Thank you for sharing that. Because that that norm okay I'm going to make sure that that all the days leading up to there I know that sex is important. And then what can we do to get in our bodies? I have found that breathwork, even if I get in the shower and I do some really deep breathing, because we have to connect to our bodies to awaken our sexual organs, our pelvic floor.

Yes, that's where it's all living in there. And if it's dead inside, we're disconnected. So there are some exercises there too.

Yeah. And I also think this is one thing I've heard you say, and I want to peel into it because I didn't realize this. I feel like I spent all of my 30s not knowing this. And it wasn't really a thing, but it could have helped was, lube, that everybody. I was just here. Can we just talk about lube for some?

Oh, are you shitting me?

No, no, I bought you a gift package.

Talk to power of lube. And just for everyone, like, I feel like I had a misconception in my brain.

You do what people do.

Most people do so my misconception was that, okay, I'm going to get to my 70s, and then I'm going to go, I'ma start like, bring it in the loop, right? Like put it on Amazon, subscribe. Whatever. Not true. Not true. No. Okay. Talk to us.

My dream worry is a lube on every nightstand. Okay.

I was like, what was it? Was it Steve Jobs wanted like a mac into one of an apple on every one.

That's like a chicken pot.

With some, like Peter. Now it's like lube on every night. Let's go for.

Lube. Has gotten such a bad rap because like you said, we feel shame around it because, okay, the reason why lube helps is because our wetness level, like I could be really wet and not turned on. I can be turned on and not wet. And so lube is just a safety measure. When you add a few drops of lube to any sexual situation.

And there have been studies, many studies have shown this. The women are 80% more likely to orgasm when you add just a few drops of glue because the clitoris is not self lubricating, okay, we're not going to lubricate itself and it just feels good. And all those nerve endings okay. So we see to understand that, that if you just add lube to your masturbation routine, your solo sex, your partner, it's going to change it, it's going to change the game.

And men love it too, okay. Because it's a guarantee. So that the reason why there's shame around it, though, is because again, we don't talk about sex. So let's say you're with the guy and he says, you know, oh, she's not wet. So I must have done something wrong, right? That like, clearly my penis didn't do the right thing.

She's knocked her down because we were told wet turned on. Then women feel bad. They're like, well, I don't know what what.

What what is broken.

Is broken. Something's wrong with me. So all this misinformation or literally zero information we get about our sexual health, hopefully that's changing now and changing a little bit. Not as much as I'd like it to, but. But we are told that we should always be wet, but our wetness cycles change throughout the month with our menstrual cycles, so certain times a month you're going to be wetter than others.

You might take a medication that's preventing you from being as wet. So lube is just a safety measure. It's literally like, you know, when it's cloudy outside and they say you should still wear sunblock. Yes. It's kind of like that. Like like lube is your safety measure. You might be wet, you might not be wet. You might be a little bit wet at the beginning, not at the end.

It just makes everything smooth. And it's also preventative from UTIs, STIs. You can get tears when we're too dry. So yeah, like a lube is a safety measure. I love playground, I brought you some. It's like a, It's a lubricant that I made that safer melon for women that has, like, all these feel good and got cut like a facial facial for your vagina.

Oh, it has like, it has, like, ashwagandha black cohosh. It tastes good. It has an essence. And it's like, it's a beautiful bottle.

Bring it. It's going to be on my nightstand later. I text you with my favorite text.

Me.

So, this is big because I think that this is really important. you talk about the pleasure thieves talk about them a little bit, but I want to really call them out because this is big for us. You know, I just went through, six months of fucking hell in my life with, around, like, a family crisis, and I'm knocking on everything that we're kind of seeing the light of day, but I'm not taking off my robe or my seat belt yet because we don't know.

So it's stress, trauma and shame and how stress and pleasure just don't mix. So can you talk to us like, for anyone right now who may be in the trenches like I've been for the past six months, and thankfully again, Josh and I, our communication is so good and he's been so supportive. But I just remember in like these times of extraordinary trauma, extraordinary stress, it's like you can't beat yourself.

Up, you know, let's give people permission to that. Like this whole notion that we should always be ready to on for sex. It's okay to take a pause. It really is. So like we if your relationship is healthy, you're communicating like it's okay, no one's going to die without sex as long as you're communicating about it. The problem is when it lives in shame and it's shrouded in mystery.

So I call these the pleasure thieves. And I actually start the book this way when people are like, when are you going to get to the blowjob tips? This is I'm like, dude, I will get there. Yeah, but let me tell you what's happening. Stress, trauma and shame. The three biggest killers of our street sex drive. So we sex drive.

So we also we talked about stress. We talked about anxiety. Like, listen, if you are living in a chronic state of anxiety and stress, there is is literally no room for pleasure. It's just not going to be able to live in the same state so in the same space. So giving yourself permission that like I'm in a I'm going to state right now that feels, you know, pretty stressful.

And that's why I'm not aroused. Now there are things that we all know, the things we can do for stress. We can breathe, we can meditate, we can journal, we can do all the things. But I just want you to normalize the fact that if you're super worried about your job or money or your family, yeah, it might not happen right now, but that just going to be one of the factors, is stress anxiety.

The other one is trauma. So trauma, big trauma. You know, you've had some kind of assault, sexual assault, any kind of trauma or little trauma. It all lives in our bodies. It is living in our bodies for a lifetime. And so any kind of work we can do, trauma work. There's so many great trauma informed practices right now that are really, really accessible for people that can help us learn to get up to, like literally every, every memory, everything we ever had lives in our body.

So we can do some kind of like eMDR therapy.

Is done before is incredibly.

Changed. Changed my life, changed my life too. And that's basically a reprocessing of your of traumatic memories. So they no longer sit in your body in the same way. And you can actually approach situations much differently because you sort of. Yeah, literally the neuroplasticity in our brain allows us to reprocess it. dancing, trauma work, shaking. There's a lot.

But if that is just just recognizing the fact that if you've had a trauma and it doesn't have to be just sexual trauma, but that is a huge one. that could be allowing you to put that what that might look like is you disassociate during sex when you go in the bedroom, you don't actually feel anything. You feel numb, you leave your body.

So that might be a sign that there's some trauma to work on. And I'm a side note here. We all would benefit from therapy. Yeah. It's like literally getting a second opinion on your life. Okay.

And having just a place to flush it through like these last six months. I remember a couple friends calling to check in on me, and I'm. I'm just so used to shouldering everything. It's just my, you know, it's like a habit. It's my way. And a couple of friends are like, I think it it would be really important for you to talk to someone.

I was like, you're absolutely right. Like, oh my God. Like, how did I not think of that? And it was so incredibly helpful. So, you know, all of us.

And just like we teach you, you need to learn to write like I, my friends, like, have you breathe today? Like, oh, yeah, you can your therapy. Same thing. Yeah. I mean, we know it, but we're, you know, we're teaching it.

So it's also it's just why it's so wonderful to have conversation and to have friends where you can be real with and you can tell the real, real thing, and you don't have to pretend or have a facade up that everything's all hunky dory. Because for most of us, it's like there's beautiful parts of our life that are going really well, and there's other parts of our life that are a total can show and both can coexist.

Do you really mean at the same time? It's it's like it's funny. You know, this is a little tangent off of Zach's. But, you know, sometimes in these past six months, people would text near call me that. I don't I haven't talked to in a bad like, hey, how are you doing? And I was like, you know, in one respect, I'm, I'm totally fine.

I'm here and I respect I'm like, I'm miserable. Like I'm a mess. I'm crying. You know, it could jillion times a day I'm more stressed out than I've ever been in my life. But it's like my family. And what do you do? Yeah, I know, hang in there.

Yeah, you do. You get through it. And the fact that you could be real and the friends that, you know, support, you got to tell them, right? Yeah. And then the more we normalize that, like, don't be like, I'm great. How are you? But like.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like two things happening at once. And that's and that's totally it's okay. So let's talk about one of your fun rituals okay. That's magic. Tell us what that is. Okay. Where we can, how we can play with that.

Yeah. Okay. So what we haven't talked about yet, which is we have not yet talked about solo sex.

Yes.

Listen, if we want to get more connected, and I would actually say I talked about the communication with a partner and how to get your sex drive back. But the most important sexual relationship we have is with ourselves. We are responsible for our own pleasure, our own orgasm, and understanding our body. And so the practice of masturbation. I'm in the process of rebranding everything sex because masturbation doesn't sound as you know, people don't love the term masturbation.

But that's what I'm talking about here. Getting to know your body, what feels good. That is the magic. I mean, I and I'm going to get to sex magic and that is the magic. But the magic too, is that I never masturbated for a long time, like in my teens and 20s. It just never occurred to me.

It never occurred to, you know, did even.

And I didn't even grew up in a shameful environment. I was just like, I think I had, I had a stressful environment growing up and maybe some I could have thought that that would be soothing. I just didn't think to do it. And so I would blame my partners. This is it might even I didn't masturbate to my 20s.

Like I didn't even really know it was a menu. So once I started to learn masturbation, I blame my partners for not like giving me an orgasm. And then I realized if I don't know how my own machinery works, how is anyone else going to figure out? Because we're all different. So the practice of just keeping your pilot light lit, understanding your body, giving yourself pleasure, that is where the magic is, and that's where pleasure begets pleasure as well.

If you're feeling like my sex life is dead in the water, I have no desire. I don't even know if, like, if it left on a boat. Started the practice of just touching yourself. Get bring yourself to pleasure, an orgasm and then repeatedly doing that. It is another practice that is going to help you feel more connected. And again, sex begets sex too, in that same way that the more orgasms you have, the more you're going to want sex.

And it's helpful. So sex magic is a practice of, you know, this our our sexual energy is related to everything. It's our creative energy. It's our connective energy. It's our source. This is like our source here. And I'm pointing here to like my pelvic floor to the pelvic region. Like this is where it happened. So the practice of sex magic is when you are pleasuring yourself and you're and you are and you have a something that you're looking to manifest right now in your life, you maybe you want you're looking you're very clear, right?

We know manifesting has to be clear and specific. You have a goal. You've been working on a manifestation project. There are some incredible magic and synergy to when you're pleasing yourself at the point of orgasm. When you are going over in your releasing, to be building, in that intention to merge your pleasure with your intention. Because that magic like it is the most powerful source.

This sex source is life force. And when you do that together in unison, it's like watch your dreams come true a lot quicker than before. Because you are so connected with source, you.

Know it and it can't hurt anything, can it? You know you're not going to break anything if we're doing this. If you're like thinking about your dreams and you're make yourself feel real good and I'll say this for myself in the times when it's like my libido, I'm like, it's on another planet. Like it literally got in a lock box and, you know, got shipped off to Mars or who knows where those times, you know, I feel myself being a lot more brittle, not as much fun, probably more frustrated and angry.

And the points and the periods and the seasons of my life where I am more in touch, sensual and sexually, and I am having more pleasure and more fun. It's like I'm just a whole lot more fun to be with, you know what I mean? Like, I enjoy me more. I make me laugh more. I'm coming out with some good ass jokes.

You know? I'm just doing things. Life just as a lot more 3D and more magical and and more colorful. so one of the things that you mentioned in your book, and I just want to give a shout out here because I've had them on the show, and I honestly believe it is necessary for any human who wants to be in a relationship.

Imago therapy.

so good, right?

So horrible. And Helen love them. They literally have saved our relationship kind of multiple times. what's been your experience with that?

I love Imago therapy. I mean, most of us, it's it's basically the practice of learning to listen.

Yes.

Some. I used to think that I was a great listener. Now it turns out I'm a great talker. I'm a great communicator. Like, oh, are we communicating? No, I'm just I'm just talking. So the practice of actually deeply a deep listening practice, I mean, this is such a game changer in relationships to be able to. So my experience of it and how I, how I talk about it is and we can even do an exercise here if you want to show people what it is.

But it's it's like the practice of allowing your partner to state something. So let's say your partner says, I really feel like our sex life, you know, we haven't been having enough sex lately, and I'm feeling really?

Yeah. Emily, let me see if I got that. Okay. You want to let me know that we haven't been having enough sex lately, and you're not feeling so great about that. Did I get that? Oh.

Yes. But one more thing I want to say is, it's not that this rebate, the correction, I am, Yeah. We're not having enough sex lately, and I don't feel yeah, I don't feel great about it. But I also want to say that I know that, you know, I feel like it's really impacting our relationship. I feel like you're not feeling great about it, either.

You're not really saying anything about it.

Emily, let me see if I got that. So you really wanted to let me know that you've been thinking about it and that we're not having a lot of sex lately, and it's not just impacting you, but you feel like I probably don't feel so great about it, too. And it's really it's having an impact on our relationship.

Did I.

Get that? Yeah. Is there more about that? Well, I think that if we the more that we, you know, well, I'm glad that we're talking about it. And I'm feeling like it's really been impacting other areas of our life as well. And I think that's why maybe I've had more of a temper and I've been like, you know, not really connecting with you and feeling accessible in our relationship.

So I feel like it's something that we could really, you know, start to work on and maybe be good to, to see a therapist together. That's really what I think we should do.

Let me see if I got that. So because we haven't been connecting sexually, you feel like that's also impacting other parts of our relationship as well. And that perhaps that could be the source of you feeling like your temper has been a little shaky. You're angry and that maybe it would be a great idea if we handled this together and thought about going to some therapy.

Did I get that?

Yeah, I think you got that.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for listening.

So that was just like a brief in the moment demo. We didn't do it perfectly. But part of show is like asking, is there more.

Is there more.

And then having the practice of doing your best. And I didn't get it perfectly right, but I was doing my best to really listen to Emily and mirror back what she said, using her words and doing my very best to get the essence of what you are communicating so that you feel heard and seen and understood. and it's like it is hard.

It is hard to do, but it's so transformative.

Transformative. I mean, I do I do this with my, my partner as well. We we practice it a lot because we just because our, our default for many of us is just I'm going to keep talking. I want you to hear me. And then a lot of the way we talk to our partners puts on the defensive. We say things like, you never do this and how come?

And why doesn't this happen? And always you always you always be speaking these like extremes. Yeah. And the extremes, even if you know our partners, they can't hear us. They literally shut down. So this process of taking a deep breath, listening back and repeating it. And then we get to switch. So then and in this case, if we were actually doing this, then I, I, you know, you start talking, I repeat back to you.

And it's just a way of like slowing everything down, being intentional. I mean, everything I'm talking about here, we're talking about being intentional about intimacy.

It goes so well there. It's such a complimentary skill set, you know, especially when there's any type of heated discussion and there's can be besides money, the sex is another heated discussion that you can have with your partner. And if you don't create the container and have the skill set for the conversation, it can just go off the rails really, really fast.

And you're like, well, I'm never going to do that again. So you just shut your mouth and you watch the relationship degrade, where if you have these skills, the scripts that you talk about in your brilliant book, Smart Sex, along with a practice like Imago Therapy, it's called dialog. It's really, really powerful. All of a sudden, you set yourself up for a chance of not only having a beautiful relationship, but a beautiful, rich, full, rewarding, sensual relationship that can continue to evolve in the different stages and seasons.

You know, especially in the long term. One.

Absolutely. I mean, I think this is and the thing is, it's pretty it's quite simple.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what I love about Imago is that it is quite simple and you can use it for any, any situation like you could, you could use it with, you know, your in.

Business and yes.

Being a listener like yeah, I mean this is just and I have to always remember this and teach this. It's like when people we all want to be heard and we all want to be seen, and we can give that to people. We want it, your partner wants it. And so it is an incredible practice. And now I found that my partner and I, we regularly do this now like he'll catch a break.

So what I'm hearing you're saying and I laugh because I'm like, oh yeah, okay. I guess we weren't doing that. It just you got to keep practicing. But it's as you said in your relationship too. It's a it's a game changer. I mean, you know, what we're talking about today is like, these are so many things that we just we walk around feeling broken.

Something's wrong with us. We never learn the skill. So I want everyone to go easy on themselves, that today could be the first day of the rest of your sex life, the rest of your life enhancing your relationship like it doesn't have to be over yet. And I want people to have compassion for themselves, knowing that you just weren't taught the skills totally.

Really weren't like none of us. What you've told about sex, that you should always be ready to go. Well, my heart goes out to men were like, I should be hard, hard, ready to go, know what to do. And then women should be wet. Ready? No, my turn ons like we. It's just couldn't be further from the truth.

Like there's so much personal work to do around it, and there's just a lot of misinformation. And then there's porn everywhere, which, you know, the proliferation of porn, people think that that is sex. So then we have to like like the proliferation of porn without sex education is a disaster. So, you know, that's what we're saying. Like everyone, it's okay if you don't know, but you can start today.

I love that. Is there anything that if there's one piece of advice that you would want folks to put into action, if this is kind of piqued their interest or given them that shred of hope, what would you want to tell them that their next step could be?

I would encourage everybody to practice if you're in a relationship, have a conversation with your partner about your sex life tonight. I mean, do it tonight. Like, really, you know, just say I was listening. you know, Marina, Emily, I always tell people to blame me because this is, you know, I know it's been hard and no one else, so maybe encourage you this, but say, I realize we've never talked about our sex life, and I would just love to know, like, do the three things that were the most memorable start there.

that would be one thing. If you are somebody who hasn't spent a lot of time pleasuring yourself, I highly encourage you to take a bath, take some time, buy a vibrator, get a bottle of lube. I've got this some great about website sex with emily.com I just launched this. This, store, this marketplace. Because Marie, in my job, like 20 years, I get like 20 pounds of sex toys delivered to my office a week.

Okay. Like, literally. And I, I used to be the one trying them all out. Now I have a great team, but they're everything is sourced and tried out and tested. Tested. And I know the best products and sources and things. I wouldn't go there, buy yourself something special. I bought you an adorable one that I love toy. So find something that's like new for your sex life pleasure yourself.

Take a look. And also, like, I don't often have to remind men to go masturbate, but for women, I do. So get to know your body again. Reignite that relationship with yourself.

Thank you so much! This was so fun! I can't wait to go play with my toys in my room and for anyone out there, if you don't have this already, get your hands on smart sex. It is a phenomenal book, and give yourself every opportunity to gain the skill sets you need to live the richest, fullest, most rewarding experience of life that you have.

Love you. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

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