Sex Talk & That Night in Miami: Sex Therapy with Vanessa Marin
April 4, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
All right. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things today. Every once in a while when I say, “We can do hard things,” someone says, “That’s what she said.” And it becomes sort of sexual, which I bring up today, because today we are going to do very hard things, which means we’re going to talk about sex. Since we are three people who… Well, I’ll speak for me and Sister. Since we are two people who don’t know shit about sex and one who might, we have brought in an expert today. So don’t worry, don’t just turn the pod off right now. We have someone who understands sex.
Abby Wambach:
You’re just implying then that I know about sex?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I just thought that-
Amanda Doyle:
No, she said you might.
Glennon Doyle:
You might.
Amanda Doyle:
The jury’s still out. It’s only been six years of marriage.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
Geez.
Glennon Doyle:
But I do want you to know that I got sexed up today. I have…
Abby Wambach:
What?
Glennon Doyle:
My fancy sweatpants on.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, okay.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I was very curious.
Glennon Doyle:
And I have lip gloss on. Did you notice that I have lip gloss on?
Abby Wambach:
I did.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
But I didn’t know that that’s what sexed up means to you.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, baby steps.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Baby steps.
Abby Wambach:
Ironically to me, lip gloss is sexed down.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right. See? I’m just…
Abby Wambach:
Sexed down.
Amanda Doyle:
All right.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a blocker. See? This is how little I know.
Abby Wambach:
These are the breaks, peeps.
Glennon Doyle:
Vanessa Marin is a sex therapist, an instant New York Times Best Selling author of Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life, which Abby Wambach and I have worked our way through, Vanessa, because we do not recommend anything to the Pod Squad unless we put it to the test first. It was co-written with her husband and partner in crime, Xander Marin. Vanessa is here to help you kick shame out of the bedroom so you can start feeling the connection, pleasure, and joy you deserve. First of all, hi, Vanessa.
Vanessa Marin:
Hi. I’m so excited to be here.
Glennon Doyle:
Before you say anything scary, I want to tell you why this conversation is so important to me right now. So I’m in this new therapy time of my life, where I’m having to fucking deconstruct everything. I’m at the point where it’s like everything’s pulled out of the drawers, and now I’m like, “I’m too tired to finish. Can we just stop now?”
Glennon Doyle:
Recently, I was having a challenge with a friend who I love, which is she was constantly interrupting me. We couldn’t have a conversation, really, because her way of communication was to get really excited when I started talking and then… Ask me a question, and then I would start and she would just blah, and then I couldn’t finish. And I understood it was a difference in how we two were approaching things, but it was a blockage completely for me because I kept just shutting down.
Glennon Doyle:
So I talked to my therapist about it and I said, “I think I need to talk to her. I think I need to say this thing.” And then she said, “Well, yeah. You do.” And I said, “But how do I know that I’m not just super sensitive? I’m going to tell her that she has to stop interrupting. What if I’m just the one who’s weird?” And she said, “Glennon, if 10 of her other friends think that her interaction with them is perfect, and you don’t, you still get to say that. You still get to express yourself because it’s blocking your relationship.”
Glennon Doyle:
I waited till I was totally unactivated. Usually I have to wait till I don’t even want to talk to the person anymore about it because I don’t want to hurt their feelings. And then, it is the right time. I talked to her. It went great. We have a better communication between the two of us now. It’s like this magical thing happened. It made me think so much about sex, because I tend to not express myself about things that I might want, because I think maybe they’re weird or maybe they’re too much, or maybe they’re whatever.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, like in the actual sex acts?
Glennon Doyle:
Or in general, I don’t know.
Abby Wambach:
You don’t like talking about it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Because it feels like, “Well, how do I even know that stuff’s normal or okay?” But then, because I don’t express it, our communication is blocked with each other. Like my therapist said, even if the thing is weird, even if 10 other people would not need that thing to orgasm or would not need whatever, it is your duty in that relationship and your privilege of the beautiful thing to get to express it so that communication isn’t blocked. Because isn’t sex, if anything, a place where your real self can live with the person that you trust the most?
Abby Wambach:
And it’s a form of communication.
Glennon Doyle:
Right.
Abby Wambach:
Of bodies communicating with each other.
Glennon Doyle:
So Vanessa, you’re here with two silent sex queens and Abby. Hi.
Vanessa Marin:
Hi. You guys have no idea. When I listened to those episodes, I was crawling out of my skin, like, “I want to talk to them. I want to help them be talkative sex queens.”
Amanda Doyle:
If miracles are possible, that will happen.
Vanessa Marin:
I think we can do it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
I think we can.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
All right. Let’s do this.
Glennon Doyle:
So I loved your book.
Vanessa Marin:
Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
I love the conversations. I was hesitant about it, but we did the conversations, or are doing the conversations. So just know, when you walk us through this, we have some specific questions that arose for us.
Vanessa Marin:
Cool.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Vanessa Marin:
Love it.
Glennon Doyle:
The premise of your work is that there are several conversations you can have with your partner or partners, or self even, that will make your sex life richer and better.
Vanessa Marin:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Is that fair?
Vanessa Marin:
Yes. Yeah. I think we all know that we should be talking about sex when you’re up late at night Googling your secret sex questions, like, “Why don’t I ever want sex?” Mismatched sex drives, you see that at the end of every article. “Just talk about it with your partner.” But the articles always end there.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
And there’s no advice for, “But what do I say? How do I say it? When do I say it?” And so, I really wanted to create a very practical guide to walk couples through these conversations, exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it, and really lead you through so you’re not feeling lost.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. It’s cool. It’s good. So one of the things you said was to try to set a foundation before you start these conversations.
Vanessa Marin:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
So in terms of asking the big questions, like, “What is sex? And what is even the point of a sex talk adventure for us?” So when we started asking each other those questions, we had some interesting things arise. Number one, even the question, “What is sex?” That took us a fricking week.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
When people ask you, because before we go on the lesbian tangent, we understand, Pod Squad, that most of you are not lesbians.
Amanda Doyle:
Yet.
Glennon Doyle:
Yet. I’m working as hard as I can. All right? But we do feel excited about centering the lesbian experience in this, because you can learn from us. And also, that’s not always the way that sex is presented. So when you ask people, Vanessa, and you work with couples, and you ask them, “What is sex to them?” Do you get a lot of different interesting responses that are not predictable?
Vanessa Marin:
Most people respond the way you did, like, “If I don’t even know how to start to answer this question.” I think it’s really fascinating that we all feel this pressure to have an amazing sex life, to feel like we’re keeping up with everybody else, and we’re so great in bed. But a lot of us haven’t taken the time to examine some of these very basic questions of, “What does sex even look like for me? And what does great sex look like for me? What is this goal that I’m even working towards?” So that’s why these questions might seem deceptively simple. “What is sex? What do you mean what is sex?” But if you really sit with them in the way that it sounds like you guys did, there’s a lot of interesting stuff that can come up from that.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. You talked about sex being a wider thing for you.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, for me. It’s not just laying in bed with you and doing the sex act. To me, when Glennon hands me coffee in the morning, that is the beginning of foreplay for possibly something to happen at some point during the day. For her to be in tune with what I love, what is really important to me, and to deliver those things without me asking, that to me, is the beginning. And so, it’s creating this feeling of love and connection. To me, I can’t get into bed with you unless the connection has been developed, and that takes sometimes days. And I’m more emotional in that way. I don’t do it just for the orgasm. For me, it’s the full experience. And so, sometimes it takes a while, a week or something, before I feel that real drive, that real connection to actually be in the bed and do the thing.
Glennon Doyle:
And from my perspective on, “What is sex?” is that I’m getting, in this point in my life, where I am trying to be in my body more and experience desire and joy and juiciness and softness more. And I don’t want sex for me to be about, it’s all about the end orgasm. I swear to God, Vanessa, I feel like I’m in hustle culture when I’m in bed, like, “We got to, we got to,” like success is this orgasm thing. It feels like a very masculine framing of the whole thing. All I do once we start is stress about getting to the end goal, which is this orgasm thing. And so, we just talked about sex being a lot wider for us than that. And I thought, “Well, oh shoot. Maybe that’s just a lesbian thing.” And then I thought, “No, I bet it’s not.”
Vanessa Marin:
No.
Glennon Doyle:
“I bet it’s like a woman thing or an everybody thing.” We don’t want to have these talks so we just orgasm more, but so we connect more into our little pocket of the place we fall into that is just for the two of us.
Vanessa Marin:
I love both of these definitions. I love orgasms. Orgasms feel delightful.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Marin:
They’re great. But we absolutely can get into this hustle culture when that’s the only goal that we’re aiming for, or that’s the only way that we define if it’s been a satisfying experience. So I do talk a lot with women about orgasm and that so many of us struggle to even receive. A lot of women will tell me, “Well, it feels like I take too long.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
“It takes too much for me to get there.” And I’ll ask them, “Okay. Realistically, if we set a stopwatch when you started getting stimulation, how much time do you honestly think goes by before you start to worry that you’re being too much or taking too long?” And most women will respond, “Two minutes maybe.”
Glennon Doyle:
I know.
Vanessa Marin:
So it’s this real struggle to receive and to be present in that experience, rather than so hyper-fixated on the one end goal and how bad of a job we’re doing at getting to that one end goal. So I always encourage people to have more of this type of description of sex that you guys are sharing, especially what Abby was saying, this idea that sex can be all throughout the day, that it can be this experience that we share with each other throughout multiple days. We’re getting into conversation too, a little bit, like, “What do we need to feel connected to each other so we’re not crawling into bed at the end of the night feeling like disconnected strangers and thinking, ‘Ooh, I’m supposed to have sex with you now? What?'”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
So conversation one is that idea of acknowledging that sex is a thing and we would like to have it, or you’d like to have it. A lot of people are in different places. A lot of people are in relationships where they’re not having sex.
Vanessa Marin:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
What is the statistic of relationships where they’re not having sex? A quarter of the partnerships haven’t had sex in a year. It’s a real phenomenon that’s happening.
Vanessa Marin:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
So some people are coming to this because they want it to get better. Some are coming to it because it’s like, “Oh, it’s just the elephant in the room and we’re no longer talking about it because it’s so awkward.” I like that idea of even just acknowledging that it’s a thing. Because if you’re in a partnership and you want to be financially stable, you want to be raising your kids in a certain way, there’s no other world in which we just think those things are going to spontaneously generate.
Vanessa Marin:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
You sit down and you have conversations about budgets and about your goals. You have conversations about your kids and the struggles they’re going through. And sex is the one thing that’s like, “No. If that was going to happen, it would just happen.”
Vanessa Marin:
It would just happen. I know. Yeah. We wanted to start with this place that just felt a little bit easier, felt like a way of of easing into it. Because the mistake that most people make with sex is, we all have this belief that we shouldn’t have to talk about it. It’s a bad thing if we do. And so, we don’t talk about it until things are really frustrating or bad or we’re not having sex. And then, it all comes spilling out. We have a big fight. It just makes sex feel like an even scarier, more intimidating topic of conversation so people retreat even more.
Vanessa Marin:
So instead of going right in with, “Here’s what I need you to change. Here’s what I’m upset with. Here’s what’s not working for me.” What if instead, we started with just getting comfortable with it as a topic of conversation, not even necessarily addressing, “This is what sex looks like between the two of us,” but just, “Can we get comfortable saying these words out loud? Can we get comfortable talking about it?” So that’s what that first conversation’s all about.
Glennon Doyle:
And the specific ways that you suggest we do this is important. We noticed this, because sometimes throughout our relationship, we will think, “Okay, we should talk about sex. We haven’t been having it enough. We should be having it more.”
Abby Wambach:
I just think it’s crazy that we all do this. It does such a disservice to all of us when we say, “We should be having more sex,” because that’s based on fucking what?
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Culture is telling us we should have it once a week. We should, we should, we should… It’s horrible, because we need to be talking about fulfillment. What actually is fulfilling us and what is not fulfilling us?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And shoulding is not fulfilling us.
Abby Wambach:
Exactly.
Vanessa Marin:
Shoulding all over ourselves.
Glennon Doyle:
But the thing that I liked about the way you recommended having this conversation is that I have noticed if either of us says, “We need to talk about sex,” immediately it’s icky. I feel like…
Amanda Doyle:
I’m in trouble.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
“I’m in trouble. Are we in trouble? Are we not doing…” Or I will notice that Abby will feel defensive. So you recommend that the way this conversation starts is by bringing up a good old sex time in your life with your partner, probably. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
That’s going to be important. It’s got to be that person.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. I think that would be important. “I want to tell you about this great sex time I had with the boyfriend-“
Vanessa Marin:
Good old sex time.
Glennon Doyle:
“… three in front of you.”
Vanessa Marin:
Sex is supposed to be a joyful, pleasurable, connecting experience for us, a way that we experience true intimacy with the person that we love the most in this world. And if the only time you’re talking about it is in negative ways, “We should be doing it more. Why are we not having sex?” It’s not going to feel great. And of course, it’s going to put both of us on the defensive immediately, feeling like something’s horribly wrong. “It’s broken. We have to fix it,” rather than, “Can we talk about the joys that sex brings us and what we want to work towards having more of in our lives?”
Abby Wambach:
It’s revolutionary.
Glennon Doyle:
It worked. It works.
Abby Wambach:
It did. Because here’s what would happen. Glennon would say, “Do you think we’re having enough sex? I think we should have sex more.” And immediately, because she’s brought this to my attention, I go into, “Oh, fuck. I’m not craving it enough. I’m not actually initiating enough.” She’s having a problem with me, so then psychologically, I go down this little rabbit hole. And different to this idea, where she’ll bring up a fun time that we’ve had sex before, and I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. Yes.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s like, “Ooh.”
Abby Wambach:
It’s like, “Mm-hmm.”
Vanessa Marin:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
It’s calling us into a higher self, our highest, best self, rather than…
Glennon Doyle:
It activates desire instead of shame.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Q, Vanessa. I want to ask if this is just a weird situation that we have, or if you’ve ever heard this before.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, God.
Glennon Doyle:
Annoying thing I notice.
Abby Wambach:
Annoying thing?
Glennon Doyle:
About both of us.
Abby Wambach:
Uh-oh.
Glennon Doyle:
When we start talking about sex, an old sex time or whatever, first of all, it only lasts like 11 seconds because then I can’t take it and I’m out.
Abby Wambach:
The conversation.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. No, that was…
Vanessa Marin:
Good clarification, yes.
Glennon Doyle:
That was another time of life. This annoys the shit out of me. I feel like when we start talking about sex, I go into this annoying baby voice…
Abby Wambach:
Oh. Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
And Abby goes into this freaking Pat Sajak, Wheel of Fortune voice. It’s like she’s selling a car and I’m a baby suddenly. Is that a thing, and why?
Abby Wambach:
This is the first I’m ever in hearing this B.S.
Vanessa Marin:
Oh, that’s a thing.
Glennon Doyle:
It is?
Vanessa Marin:
That’s a thing. That’s your discomfort.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Vanessa Marin:
So it sounds like you’re able to do the 11 seconds of conversation. You can do it. You’re experiencing the positive benefits, which is great. I love it. It’s working. But then, you’re hitting the limits of your comfort zone, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
And so, that’s when we start to go into the baby talk or the car salesman. I do this myself, too. Don’t worry.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Vanessa Marin:
There are times where I feel uncomfortable, too. And so, that’s just our way of trying to kind of protect ourselves. We go more into a jokey mode, like, “Oh, I’m not really being serious. I’m just doing the cute little baby talk voice.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
So the task for you guys is to see, “Can we extend that 11 seconds to 15, and then maybe to 20, and then maybe to 25,” where you can sit in that energy with each other for a little bit longer every time.
Glennon Doyle:
Cool.
Abby Wambach:
I didn’t know that I went into a car salesman.
Glennon Doyle:
It does work. You’re saying to your partner, “Hey, do you remember that time in Miami?” Or whatever. You just say that thing.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, yeah, I do.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you remember that? Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s not… It’s so different, because when I think about when I would bring up sex to you, and I would say, “I think we should have sex more.” It’s not like I was saying that, or trying to have sex. It wouldn’t be in bed. It wouldn’t be at night. It would be at 3:00 when the kids were there. So clearly, I’m not really trying. I’m just checking a box.
Abby Wambach:
You’re pointing out.
Amanda Doyle:
“I have done the audit of our life, and this is an area in which we’re failing. And I want it to be noted for the record.”
Vanessa Marin:
And so, that’s really challenging for Abby to hear, because you’re sharing it at a time where you guys can’t really do anything about it, and you’re sharing it in a way where you’re not making a request. So she doesn’t know, “Does Glennon want to be having more sex? Is she trying to initiate right now?” And when we talk in terms of should, it’s like we bring in this whole audience of other random strangers and what everybody else is doing.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
Or we’re comparing ourselves. “Oh, well, everybody else is having more sex than us, so we should be, right?”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
And then, Glennon for you, it’s disconnecting you from your own wants and desires and needs. It’s easy for us to say, “Oh, we should be,” or “Is it bad that we’re not?” And it takes a lot more work to turn inwards and ask ourselves, “Well, do I want to be?”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
“And what is it that I want more of?”
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Vanessa has been talking to my therapist.
Abby Wambach:
That claims a lot of responsibility in it. That would be an interesting way to start a conversation. “Hey, I want to try this,” or “I want this.”
Glennon Doyle:
She would say to me, Vanessa, “So are you feeling disconnected? Do you want…” And I’d be like, “No. I’m awesome. Everything’s great. I just feel a shouldness from the world.”
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Wow.
Vanessa Marin:
And that’s a really big thing for all of us to sort through, too. We all feel like we should be having more sex. We pulled up, at this point, about 70,000 people have filled out this survey that we created about how much sex are people really having. And we looked at what are their satisfaction levels? Do they want to be having more sex? Everybody across the board said, “I feel like I should be having more sex.”
Glennon Doyle:
Really?
Amanda Doyle:
Regardless of their frequency?
Vanessa Marin:
Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
Wow.
Amanda Doyle:
Fascinating.
Vanessa Marin:
But what’s why there?
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Marin:
Why should we be having more sex? What is this idea that we all have of, the more and more and more and more and more we do it, the better? Versus again, that turning inwards of, “What is it that actually feels good for me?”
Glennon Doyle:
Sister, do you have anything to add as the token hetero?
Amanda Doyle:
If I could go back, I would say that starting this conversation in the same vein that you talk about, “Do you want to have kids? Are we going to go to a church?” Just acknowledging it as a factor of life, as, “What do you imagine and dream sex will look like for us in our relationship?” Because I am very sensitive and defensive and insecure. And so, even when people suggest, in all aspects of my life, when people make suggestions, I take them as criticisms.
Glennon Doyle:
That is the truth.
Amanda Doyle:
And so, I find even beautiful overtures of… Introduction of new things, I take as, “Oh, you must not have been happy with before.” Whereas if there had been the level setting conversation of, “What we want sex to look like is ever-evolving and trying new things and going on this journey together of seeing what’s possible,” then that framing and taking that framing into your relationship, then adding things and trying new things becomes like, “Oh, look. This is consistent with what we’ve said is our mission,” no pun intended, “to try this throughout life.” Instead of, “Oh gosh.”
Glennon Doyle:
Something’s missing.
Amanda Doyle:
“This exciting new thing is exciting, but I am taking it as a secret shame of my prior failure to satisfy, or else you wouldn’t need this new thing.” And I don’t think it’s ever too late to have that conversation. I’m actually excited to have it. But I think it sets a framework where you can get off the, “Oh, this is personally about my failing, that we’re doing this new thing.”
Vanessa Marin:
Right. Exactly. Yeah. And you’re actually speaking to a very common dynamic that comes up in hetero relationships, where actually, the man is the one that takes on that perspective. A lot of women say, “I don’t want to suggest that he try anything new because he takes it as an insult that he hasn’t been doing a good job previously.” So that’s definitely a dynamic that comes up.
Vanessa Marin:
But yeah, if we set this foundation of, “What is it that we want to experience together, that we authentically, genuinely ourselves, want to experience together?” Then that helps reset all these other conversations down the line. So that’s why we start with this one. And it also has the added benefit of these conversations start to feel like flirtation.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
It does. It awakens that desire and that energy, because we’re like, “Yeah. Oh, you remember Miami?” The second that you guys said that, both of your faces lit up.
Glennon Doyle:
Ooh.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
Like, “We remember Miami. Oh, yeah.”
Abby Wambach:
Uh-huh.
Vanessa Marin:
So it makes it just feel fun.
Amanda Doyle:
They’re so excited, I’m almost remembering Miami.
Vanessa Marin:
It’s like, “Oh, yeah, Miami. That time.” So it brings this lightness to it.
Glennon Doyle:
A lightness, yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Like a zing.
Abby Wambach:
And a reminder.
Glennon Doyle:
It brings a zing.
Abby Wambach:
It’s like a reminder.
Vanessa Marin:
Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
So it brings it to the top of your mind. Sometimes if you haven’t done it for a while, you forget, because you get busy. Life is fucking…
Glennon Doyle:
And it gets scary once you haven’t done it for a while.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
And there’s questions in here that you can ask each other. “What does great sex mean to you? What’s your absolute favorite part of sex?” And if you are bringing it up, it’s scary because, to take Sister’s example, if you’ve never talked about finances and then suddenly you bring up finances, it feels like you’re pointing out something that’s wrong.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So you can just have an excuse and be like, “My friend gave me this book, so now we’re going to talk about the thing.” Right? You can just use that as an excuse. What do people do who have never had great sex with their partner? If there’s no Miami, if we are missing Miami in our relationship, if we have nowhere to point back to, how does one begin this conversation?
Vanessa Marin:
That’s a great question. And I want to normalize that not all couples have that hot and heavy stage at the beginning of a relationship. And not all couples have these incredible experiences to look back to. So if that’s the case for you, I just want to assure you, I’m a believer that great chemistry can be created. It’s something that we can actively work on. But what you can do is think about things, smaller things that you enjoy that your partner does. Maybe it’s the way that they kiss you. Maybe they just give really good hugs. Maybe it’s an outfit that they look very sexy in. So you’re still talking about it positively, but we’re just talking about smaller acts rather than some amazing, incredible Miami sexual experience.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God.
Glennon Doyle:
And you have to give yourself grace. Everything doesn’t work, right?
Vanessa Marin:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So I’ve tried all your things.
Vanessa Marin:
You’re a good student.
Glennon Doyle:
I am. So I would walk in the bathroom and be like, “You look great in that.”
Abby Wambach:
You did it yesterday. I put on a new suit and she was like, “Wow. You look really good in that.” It actually touched me.
Glennon Doyle:
Really?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I noticed. I was like, “Huh.” Before this book, you were never talking about what I looked like. And every single day, I comment on the way that I like your beauty and the way that you’re doing something different. And so, since reading this book, “Oh, I should wear that suit more.”
Glennon Doyle:
Right. And that’s complicated, too.
Abby Wambach:
I’m not trying to judge you.
Glennon Doyle:
Because I don’t necessarily feel that it makes me feel seen to have someone constantly comment on the way to look.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s not like I’m trying to be mean back to you. It’s because…
Abby Wambach:
I absolutely don’t think that.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. So Vanessa, we’re going to need a private consultation. Okay.
Vanessa Marin:
We’ll talk about it afterwards.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, great.
Glennon Doyle:
I know we’re still on conversation one, but I do think in some ways it’s the hardest one for people who haven’t talked about sex before. So can you tell us about the post-game, too? Because this is a way of entering the sex conversation if you are a couple who already is having sex, but you want to talk about it more. You can launch the conversation in something that you call the post-game.
Vanessa Marin:
The post-game.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
Yes. Abby will be very familiar with these, right? So we always recommend starting with talking about sex outside of the bedroom first. Again, it’s just setting that foundation like we’ve been talking about. But then, the next step is to start talking about sex closer to the act itself. And I think that the best starting point for that is right after you’ve just had sex, because it’s fresh on your mind and it gives you specific things that you can talk about, like specific data points.
Vanessa Marin:
So we don’t need this to be a full 60 minutes, we’re going through every single play-by-play type of thing. But it can be something as simple as, “That was really fun. I liked that position that we did. Ooh, I liked the way that you touched me in this place of my body.” So it can start very, very simple, but you’re just using that recent experience to keep talking about the things that you liked, the things that worked for you, and the things that you appreciate about your partner.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. That one’s harder.
Abby Wambach:
How does that feel, thinking about it?
Glennon Doyle:
It feels sweaty.
Vanessa Marin:
So can we start simple?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
Even if it’s something as basic as, “That was really fun. I liked that. I feel close to you right now.”
Glennon Doyle:
We do those things.
Abby Wambach:
Mm-hmm.
Vanessa Marin:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the specificity that does it. I don’t know why that’s so scary, the specificity.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
So saying something like, “I liked the way that you were touching me.” Something like that, that feels scary?
Amanda Doyle:
No. I think I could get behind that. I think I could do that.
Vanessa Marin:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I think it’s just… Maybe it’s the during it that I… It’s like, shut down, someone has pushed the master power cord, and I’m like, “Whoop.”
Glennon Doyle:
Vanessa, can you talk to Sister about that?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. I feel like we need to figure this out.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Why is this the case?
Glennon Doyle:
I just want you to talk to my sister about this, because she says the things. She is out in the world saying the things. She walks into a room, everybody waits for her to say the things. She says all the things. Why is she quiet? Can you just talk to her, Vanessa?
Vanessa Marin:
It’s one of the most vulnerable times to be vocal. And that’s why we set these conversations up in this order, where first we’re talking about sex totally separate from sex. Then we’re talking about it right afterwards, and then we can work up to talking about it in the moment. So I want to normalize that. I’m a sex therapist, and there are times that I catch myself. I want to say something, but I don’t know how to say it, or I’m worried about being awkward or it’s going to come out wrong. This just happens. It feels very nerve-wracking. But it’s an incredibly intimate experience to be in that moment with somebody and communicating with them. It forces you to be very present in that moment, very connected to somebody. So if we can sit with that feeling and get a little bit curious about it, if you picture yourself in the middle of sex and imagine, and let’s again start with something simple, like, “That feels good.” If you picture yourself saying that, what gets stirred up for you?
Amanda Doyle:
I think, “That feels good” feels totally fine, because that is an affirmative endorsement of what’s going on. The, “What do you want?” or “Something like this,” that’s when I go mental lockdown. What is the underlying thing? For me, the most vulnerable thing is, “I need you. And can you do something for me?” And so, it feels like the most concentrated distillation of that is in this moment, where it’s in a sex moment. Because then it’s like A) am I supposed to know what I want? Why do I lack this encyclopedic knowledge of the things you’re supposed to want? I don’t even have the menu that you talk about to know. And B) so I’m supposed to say it, and then what if it doesn’t work?
Abby Wambach:
Control.
Amanda Doyle:
And then, what if… All of this.
Abby Wambach:
No control over getting over what you want.
Amanda Doyle:
No control over anything.
Glennon Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Doyle:
Mm-hmm.
Abby Wambach:
Wow.
Vanessa Marin:
Okay. There’s so many things that get wrapped up in this question. And actually, in the book, I talk about how I think that, “What do you want?” is a bad question for us to ask.
Amanda Doyle:
I appreciate that. Thank you.
Vanessa Marin:
It really puts you on the spot, yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
I appreciate that.
Vanessa Marin:
And it gives this idea that there is supposed to be this super specific answer.
Amanda Doyle:
Right.
Vanessa Marin:
“Just circle my clitoris 10 times with your left index finger, and I guarantee you that I will have an orgasm immediately after that.” Right?
Abby Wambach:
One, two, three…
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. It’s the implicit…
Vanessa Marin:
So it’s all this new pressure.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. It’s an implicit promise on delivery on my end.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
That I can’t guarantee.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s a request. And it’s usually made without any vulnerability on the other person’s side. “What do you want?” Is like you say something super vulnerable, but the person who’s asking it isn’t saying anything vulnerable. They’re just requesting that you do.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, that’s true. So how do we fix this?
Vanessa Marin:
So instead of asking your partner, “What do you want?” Which puts all the mental load and effort onto their part, give them options, and give them two options. Because I think when we have two options to choose from, it narrows down the choice so much faster.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
So if I ask you, “What do you want for dinner?” That’s one of our least favorite questions, right? But if I say, “Do you want Mexican or do you want sushi?” You’re like, “Sushi” or “Actually, neither one of those sound good. What about Thai instead?” It’s just easier for our brains to focus in that binary. So your partner can give you options of what to do.
Vanessa Marin:
And the other piece of this, though, is that when we think about it in this way of, “Oh, well, now I’m supposed to tell you something specific and I’m supposed to guarantee that it works,” that’s when we’re getting into that very goal-oriented, hyper-fixated on orgasm thing that we were talking about earlier, right?
Vanessa Marin:
So rather than thinking about it as, “What do I want? What’s going to make me orgasm?” I like to think of it as, “What’s something that I’m curious about experiencing right now?” So maybe it’s just, “I would love for you to kiss me a little bit softer” or “I would love for us to pick up the pace a little bit.” So it’s not about, “What’s going to bring you the maximum level of pleasure in this moment?” It’s just, “What’s something that sounds kind of good right now?”
Amanda Doyle:
I actually love that.
Vanessa Marin:
And then, one other piece of this that I have to mention too, is I make this comparison in the book that when we go into a restaurant, when I go order the chicken salad, I’m not telling a waiter, “I guarantee you that I’m going to love this chicken salad. It’s going to be the best chicken salad I ever had in my entire life. I promise you I will finish every single bite.”
Amanda Doyle:
You will not regret delivering this chicken salad to me.
Vanessa Marin:
What we’re doing is, I’m thinking, “This chicken salad sounds good. I think it sounds good enough for me to give it a try. But I don’t know. Maybe I am going to like it, maybe I’m not going to like it.” And requests in the bedroom can be the exact same way. “I’m curious enough to try this. I have a sense I’ll probably like it. But I don’t know. And let’s see.”
Glennon Doyle:
I love that.
Vanessa Marin:
“Let’s see what that experience is in the moment.”
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so much less stressful.
Abby Wambach:
Great.
Glennon Doyle:
I love it.
So conversation two-
Abby Wambach:
I’m so excited for the rest of the day today.
Glennon Doyle:
… is a question that you begin to have, which is, “What do we need to feel close to each other?” Am I saying that right?
Vanessa Marin:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Vanessa Marin:
So it’s going back to what Abby was saying, of sex starts with the coffee cup. That connection starts, and we can feel it throughout the day so that we’re not feeling like strangers at the end of the night then trying to all of a sudden be intimate with each other. And this is something that a lot of people really underestimate. We tend to compartmentalize sex. We think of it as it’s just this thing that we do in the bedroom with the lights off at the end of the night. It just happens over here.
Vanessa Marin:
But we can’t compartmentalize our sex life. The level of connection that you feel or don’t feel with your partner all throughout the day is going to affect whether or not you want to be intimate with them at the end of the night or whenever it is that you are having sex. So this chapter is all about, “What do we need to experience that connection, that closeness, so that intimacy doesn’t feel like this huge leap?”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I have a couple questions about this conversation, because you did make it very clear that there seems to be people who need emotional connection first so that they want to have sex. And then, there’s another type of person who wants to have sex so that they can have that emotional connection. And one of the things I think is cool, and you just took a stand in this chapter and you said, “Sorry, the deal is that the emotional connection first people win.”
Vanessa Marin:
I did. And that was hard for me to say, because I am somebody who experiences connection and closeness through physical intimacy. My husband, Xander and I, we can be not in a great place. We can be feeling disconnected, and I can still want to have sex with him and know that I’m going to feel closer to him afterwards. And so, I did not want the emotional intimacy people to win. I wanted my thing to go first.
Vanessa Marin:
And this was something that Xander and I had a lot of conflict about in our own relationship before I finally put words to it. I kept feeling like in tough times in our relationship, I kept feeling, “Why doesn’t he want to have sex with me?” And what I eventually was able to realize is that he was feeling so disconnected from me that the idea of having sex didn’t feel safe to him. And so, I realized this really does come down to an issue of safety.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
And it doesn’t mean that emotional connection is better than or more important than physical connection. So I want to be clear, that any level of intimacy, they’re equally important. But it’s that issue of safety.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
If one partner doesn’t feel safe having sex with another person, that’s a problem. So that’s why I took a stand and I said, “I think we do need to focus on the emotional intimacy first.”
Amanda Doyle:
That’s such an important point to make, because I feel like there’s very few things in relationships that are quantifiable data points as to if you’re doing “well” in your relationship or not. It’s like you can’t quantify, “I just don’t feel real close, or I don’t feel real safe, or I feel like we’re missing each other.” There’s no check the box, “Yes, that’s going well,” or “No, it’s not,” where you can support it. But you can say, “Well, we’re still having sex.” But not all sex is created equal, right? So you could be doing the thing where both of you feel radically distant, but you’re still having sex. So, “Hey, it’s not like we’ve reached that point that a lot of relationships are going through where they’re not even having sex.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why the question, “What is sex?” is so important.
Vanessa Marin:
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why. Because it could be that sex, the act, without the intimacy and safety is not sex at all.
Vanessa Marin:
Mm-hmm. For one person.
Amanda Doyle:
And I think for Xander, I think that was so brave of him to say, because I think a lot of people in his position, they’re not only don’t want to have sex, they’re actually mad that you do.
Vanessa Marin:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Because we both agree that we’re distanced from each other, but, “You want me to hop in bed and pretend like we’re not?” That can feel really insulting to people’s souls, to be like, “How could I possibly do this with you when we’re not actually connecting at any other point in the day?”
Vanessa Marin:
Yes. So this dynamic in male/female relationships, Xander and I are actually the reverse of what I usually see. It’s usually the man who’s wanting to experience physical intimacy to create that emotional intimacy. And so, this can be really interesting because so many women will say exactly that. “It’s insulting that you want to be intimate with me, and it feels like I’m not even a person. You don’t even care about me. You just want to have a release with me.” And it can create a lot of tension in a relationship.
Vanessa Marin:
So one thing that I lay out in the book is that for a lot of men, we’ve talked so much about crappy socialization that people of all genders receive, but men are socialized that they’re not supposed to be emotional creatures. It’s not safe, it’s not acceptable for them. And a lot of men will tell me, “Sex is the only way that I feel comfortable being vulnerable with my partner, being truly intimate, being emotional.” So I think it’s really important for us to see that aspect of it, that even if it feels to you, “I’m just a piece of meat. How could my partner want to have sex with me?” Can you imagine instead that those might be the only times that they allow themselves to be vulnerable and let down their walls and truly connect with you?
Amanda Doyle:
And maybe they’re so desperate to connect with you. Like, “I am so desperate to connect with you. And I agree with you, that all these other times we’re missing each other and this is the one place where I can be assured that we are. So I need it even more because of that.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Vanessa Marin:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s a really different way of looking at it.
Glennon Doyle:
Before we end this conversation, I want to ask, if you are a person who is finding yourself wanting to say no a lot to sex in your relationship, you call it the bristle effect. I deeply understand the bristle effect, that every time your partner, not you, past relationships, that every time your partner approaches you, you just feel like bristling. And you can’t even control it. And you kind of wish you didn’t, but you feel bristling. You said, “If you are finding yourself saying no to sex a lot, maybe you’re not saying no enough in other areas of your relationship.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, my God.
Glennon Doyle:
Say things about that.
Abby Wambach:
That’s amazing.
Vanessa Marin:
Yeah. I find that if you have that knee-jerk reaction around sex, and to be clear, we are all allowed to say no to sex-
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
… whenever we want, however many times we want. Nobody should ever feel pressured or pressure themselves to have sex that they don’t want. But I have found that when you feel that knee-jerk reaction and it feels like every single time, that’s just the place that you go to immediately, there very well may be some relationship issues, some sexual issues for us to dig into as well. And it may also be a sign that you don’t feel the agency to say no in other areas of your life, and this feels like the one place that you can say no. So the no comes out so much stronger in this, because it’s that part of you that is not being expressed in any other part of your life. And when it gets a chance to come out, it really comes out.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Because, “Maybe I wanted to say no to making dinner five times a night. Maybe I wanted to say no to not being the only one that takes the kids everywhere. Maybe I want to say no to whatever, and then now you want this? No.” It makes a lot of sense to me.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like the buck stops here, people. Uh-huh.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
This is my body which will not be given up for you. Yes.
Vanessa Marin:
Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
When we come back in Episode Two, we are going to start talking about desire. What do we need to get turned on? Oh, fuck. Okay.
Vanessa Marin:
We’re going to do it.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re going to do it. That’s what she said. We will be back with Vanessa, who is amazing. Don’t you just think she’s so good?
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. We’ll see you next time, Pod Squad.
Glennon Doyle:
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