--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, before we jump into our conversation today, I want to start by giving a huge shout out to my therapist, a woman named Ann Davin. This episode was inspired by a conversation that she and I were having a couple weeks ago. We were on the phone in the middle of a therapy session, and I said, "Ann, one of the things that I really want to work on in my life is my sex life. I would love to have a breakthrough with my husband, Chris. Here's the deal: I feel so connected to him. Thankfully, I am very attracted to him. But if I'm honest, I'm just not that satisfied with our sex life. And the truth is, neither is he. We've been together 29 years, so we both have our moves. We know what to expect. We'd both like to be having more sex and not feel so tired. And I would also like to think that I could make this next chapter of my life the best sex of my entire life. Wouldn't that be awesome if you knew that on the road ahead of you is the best sex, is the most pleasure?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: So here's what my therapist, Ann Davin, said: "Mel, you got to reach out to Emily Morris." I said, "Emily Morris? Who is Emily Morris?" She said, "Dr. Emily. She's been hosting the hit podcast *Sex with Emily* for almost 18 years."
--:-- Mel Robbins: So guess what, everybody? Thank you, Ann Davin, because I reached out to Dr. Emily, and Dr. Emily is here. Not only does she host that hit podcast, *Sex with Emily*, she has a PhD in human sexuality. She is one of the most respected and cited sex experts in the world. Her new book is *Smart Sex: How to Boost Your Sex IQ and Own Your Pleasure*. And you and I, we have an appointment with her today.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Don't you worry, this is not going to get embarrassing because I am going first. I'm your friend. I'm the loud mouth embarrassing one. I'll ask all the questions that you're afraid to ask, and I will share way more information about my sex life with my husband than probably you or he is comfortable with. Here's why: because I'm on a mission to help both you and me create a brand new relationship and an amazing chapter with our sexual health and pleasure, period. You and I deserve more pleasure in our life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What I love about Dr. Emily is that she says better sex isn't about complicated positions or messy lube or getting kinky, unless you're into that kind of stuff. Dr. Emily says better sex is really about your relationship with yourself. Because great sex begins by taking responsibility for the fact that you're responsible for your own sexual pleasure.
--:-- Mel Robbins: In order to prepare for the conversation with Dr. Emily today, I first talked to my husband, Chris, and I asked him for permission to speak openly about what is missing in our sex life other than sex. That's a joke. Chris graciously said, "Mel, if it is going to lead to better sex, you can talk about whatever the hell you want."
--:-- Mel Robbins: But I also reached out to all of you. I wanted to know: Do you have questions? Would you like to have better sex and more pleasure in your life? Of course you do. Do you feel like it's been so long since you've had sex that you can barely spell the word sex? Of course you do. You're not alone. Whatever questions you have, whatever desires you have, whatever shame you feel, whatever hangups you're holding secret, I'm telling you, there are other listeners around the world dealing with the exact same thing. I know this because within 24 hours, 3,500 of you sent questions. This is why we need this conversation today. You and I need to bring more pleasure, more fun, and more confidence into our lives, into the bedroom, and into our sex lives. Dr. Emily is going to show us how.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So please help me welcome Dr. Emily to the Mel Robbins podcast. Dr. Emily.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Hello, Mel Robbins. I'm so excited to talk to you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I am so excited to finally meet you and to talk to you as well. It's been a long time coming.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: I feel that. I do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Awesome. Well, as a woman who's been married for 27 years, I feel like my sex life could use a reboot. It's not that there's anything wrong with it per se, but I just feel like at any moment in time, any one of us is capable of creating a brand new chapter around our sexual health, around sexual pleasure. That's why I wanted to talk to you.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Well, I think this is a great conversation to have. Just so you know, that's completely normal and typical. Most people in a relationship could use a little tune-up when it comes to their sex life. It's funny because if you think about it in other areas of our life, we want to optimize our health. We'll start lifting weights and doing cold plunge. I know you do sauna. But with sex, we kind of are in the dark, literally, and we don't really know what to do to make it a little bit more interesting and vibrant. So we'll certainly get into all of that today.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, I want to bring in the listener because they are our kind of co-pilot on this episode. I asked 5 million of our Instagram fans, "Do you want to create a new chapter in your sex life? And what would that look like?" So I want to read some of them to you, Dr. Emily.
--:-- Mel Robbins: "Hot and steamy." "Just feeling like having sex would be a good new chapter." "How can I be more in the mood and want to do it more?" "Adventurous." "No reminder of being a mom." "Feel great about my flabby body." "Having sex in public without getting caught." "Less angst, more fire." "Having more passionate sex." I mean, we've got pages and pages. "Safe and calm." "That once in a while would be with a person rather than a toy." "Soul connection." "My husband could be more active and enthusiastic about seducing me to do things." "No judgment." "Feeling comfortable." "Spicy, passionate, or even some kink." "A twist of humor." "Build a connection where the partnership has been distant." "Feel sexy with the light on." "Build fun connection." "I'd like to feel safe and be able to express myself." "I'd like to get out of my head and communicate my desires." "I'd like to have great sex, period, because at the end of every day, I feel out-touched, out-talked, and out-done. I'm too tired."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can we create a new chapter despite all of these things that so many of us feel, Dr. Emily?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Absolutely, Mel. In fact, I think that we're going to address so many of your listeners today. I know that we will be able to create a new chapter. We all can. It's all available to us. It's a complete myth that we all believe that great sex happens automatically. We should magically always have great sex. And that if we talk about sex, if we have to work on sex, we're going to ruin it. It's magic.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So then we go through life thinking, "Well, it should be as wonderful as it was in the beginning," because that's why we mate, right? That's why we pick a partner, because we have this really, you know, NRE, or new relationship energy, in the beginning of a relationship. Then we get into the relationship and we know that something's off. It's not as interesting as it was. Maybe we want something different from our partner, but we don't know how to talk about it. We don't know how to ask for it. And when we look around, there's not a lot of great information. A lot of us just decide to remain silent, and we silently suffer through really disappointing, not pleasurable sex.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So that's really my mission: to make sex easier to talk about and to normalize that we're all having these challenges. Your listeners were so articulate and vulnerable and real about it, but that is more common than not. If we're in a long-term relationship, we're going to have some challenges, and we want to keep it hot.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, I also want to pull in all of you who are single, because you're writing in too, saying, "How can I be self-expressed and feel safe when I'm having sex as a single person? How can I get rid of the shame I feel based on being raised Catholic that sex is supposed to only be enjoyed in marriage?" One of the things that I saw consistently from all of you who poured in questions and comments about what you wanted out of your sex life and what's holding you back is shame, overthinking, and the inability to ask for what you want. Is that basically what you see, Dr. Emily, in your work with people and in the books that you're researching?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Yes, absolutely. These three things—stress, trauma, and shame—are the biggest killers of our sex life, our sex drive, our ability to be adventurous and connected. Stress, for example, is always really surprising. We tend to silo sex. We put sex over here, and then we think about our overall health and our wellness and our relationships, but we just kind of think, "Hopefully the sex will just fix itself," or "It's not really related to everything else going on in my life." But if we have stress and anxiety in our life—and who doesn't, right?—we somehow think it's not going to creep its way into the bedroom. But we can't live in a state of spiked cortisol and also live with pleasure. It's really hard when we are in our heads and we're worried and we're anxious to also feel arousal and desire. They cancel each other out.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Until we can find practices to learn to calm ourselves and calm our nervous systems and just address it—and I've got a lot of tips in my book *Smart Sex* and in my podcast; I talk about this all the time—the big number one is stress and anxiety. We have to understand that our physical health and our mental health directly impact our ability to have pleasure in the bedroom.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, I want you to stop right there. I think already you are starting to get at really important things that we need to accept as fact in order to really reimagine what role sex is playing in your life and what you want out of it. I resonated with what you said because I think about my own situation with my husband, who I love. I am still extraordinarily attracted to him. We are both very much healthy, sexual, loving human beings. We even are sexting more than we ever had after 27 years of marriage.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But here's the problem: I'll wake up, I'll be thinking about him, and I'll literally be like, "Alright, tonight, you and me, close off. We are having fabulous fucking sex." And he's like, "Yes." Then the whole day goes by. Chris climbs in bed first, and I'm like, "Alright, I'll see you in another minute." Then he falls asleep within five minutes. By the time I walk in there, I'm freaking exhausted, and he's got his eye mask on and his retainer in, and I'm about to put mine in, and I'm too tired. That is the killer of why I just don't feel in the mood, and it's killing the amount of times that we have sex. So maybe we should start at the top. Is there a secret to having the best sex of our lives on the road ahead of us? How do we do this, Dr. Emily?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Oh, absolutely. Okay, so first, that is so relatable, Mel. We think we're going to do it tonight, and we get in bed and we're all exhausted. We have kids, we work. But again, what we're going to get into shortly is that everything we know about sex that we've ever learned—if we've ever learned anything—is pretty much untrue, not accurate, not healthy, and not really how we're supposed to have sex.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So we have to troubleshoot here, because a lot of couples get into the situation that you do where they think, "Well, we're going to do it on date night," or "We're going to do it this night." What I really talk about is I get people to say, "What time of day works for you and your partner?" Because you really have to hack it. One of my top tips is scheduling sex, but in a realistic way.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: In the morning, you are super gung-ho. You're like, "We're going to do it tonight." Then the day gets ahead of you. You could say to your husband, "We prioritize sex. We think it's important. So let's take the time to figure out maybe it's Saturday mornings. Maybe it's when we know the kids are out. It's before our workout or before lunch. We're going to do it on Saturday." The beautiful thing about scheduling sex is you don't have this guilt on Wednesday evening and on Thursday when it didn't happen, because you know that it's going to be Saturday morning, or whatever time you decide is the optimal time for both of you to have sex.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: I find in relationships, there's usually a higher desire partner and a lower desire partner. The lower desire partner does kind of hold the power in the relationship because they're the one deciding when the sex is going to happen. If that's the case, just having a conversation saying, "Listen, I know that I want you. I don't want you to feel bad and rejected," because eventually the person who's always initiating starts to feel that they're not desired, that there's something wrong with them, that their partner no longer finds them attractive. We create so many stories in our head because we don't really want to say to a partner, "Hey, can I check a story with you? I've been feeling like you're really not in the mood lately."
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: We're going to get into some tips about that, but really it's just about being practical, being realistic. And Mel, here's the thing: most couples believe that sex is this magical thing that we don't really understand. We're going to close our eyes in the dark and hope for the best because we don't really understand arousal and desire. What has to be in place for sex to happen? There are so many factors. For me, if my house is freezing, if the dishes are still in the dishwasher, if we hear the kids in the next room, if we haven't texted our boss back—there are so many factors. We just have to really look at it and be realistic.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Dr. Emily, my head is spinning. This would be a great place to hit the pause button. Everybody, just absorb what she's saying. Let's listen to a word from our sponsors because they're bringing us all of this amazing advice and inspiration at zero cost. We'll hear a word from them, and we'll be right back. Don't go anywhere.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins, and we are here with Dr. Emily, a renowned sex expert, a PhD in human sexuality, and a bestselling author. We are talking about how you, yes you, can create a new chapter—the best chapter, I will say—filled with pleasure and enjoying sex in this next leg of the journey called life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So, Dr. Emily, I love what I've already taken away: it's nearly impossible to get yourself into a high arousal state if you're in a stress state right now. That is a really big takeaway. And there was something else you said: everything that you've been taught or learned or absorbed about sex is basically wrong. So what do we have wrong about sex, Dr. Emily?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: The first thing that we have wrong is that we should always automatically be turned on and ready for sex when our partner is, and if we're not, we are broken. I often hear this in my book. I call men and women "vulva owners" and "penis owners" because our body parts don't necessarily dictate who we sleep with. But this typically goes for women. They'll say, "I am not really ready to go with my partner." What we've found is there are different ways that we get turned on. There is spontaneous desire and there is responsive desire. Typically, men are like frying pans, and women are like slow cookers.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So you use the term "penis owner," which would be Chris, and "vulva owner." I thought you said "Volvo," and I was thinking, "Wait, the cars we drive?" But you're talking about the vulva. Can I ask a question about that term? Why are you saying "vulva" and not "vagina"?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: That is such a great question. The vulva is the external part of the vagina. That is where the magic happens for so many vulva owners. That's where we're going to get more arousal. We are not going to have the most orgasms from a penis going inside of us, or really from anything. Now, some women do, but it's only 20% who are going to have an orgasm through a penis going inside of them.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, hold on. I just want to stop there. I know I'm now going to get criticism for interrupting you, but I have to have every single vulva owner hear that. I feel like we have been sold a bill of goods that you're supposed to orgasm when there's something inside of you. What you are here to say, Dr. Emily, as the expert in this area, is that only 20% of vulva owners actually have an orgasm when there is something inside of you, and that the erectile tissue is on the outside. Correct?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Correct.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, thank you for clarifying that.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: A lot of them start on the outside. There are a lot of sensitive parts inside. There are internal clitoral nerves—we call it the G-spot. But the magic is on the outside. It's like how you have to warm up your car. I know we're both from Michigan, grew up in Michigan, right? I always think about how you had to warm up your car and scrape the ice off the window before you could start driving. So when something just goes inside of us, we're not warmed up yet. We're not turned on.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: I want to go back to the orgasm thing, but first, to finish the responsive and the spontaneous: what happens a lot for vulva owners is our partner, who has a spontaneous reaction to seeing us naked or to seeing us in the kitchen or whatever we're doing, maybe your partner Chris will grab you and say, "I'm in the mood." And you're thinking, "I just have 16 windows open on my computer. I was about to walk out the door. There is nothing about me that is aroused and turned on right now." Sometimes women, feeling like we're broken or we should do something, acquiesce and say, "Okay, let's get to it." Then how the sex goes down is usually the partner's like, "Okay, well, I'm turned on. I'm erect. I spontaneously have this erection, and I'm going to put it inside of you. And we're going to have sex for seven minutes until I have an orgasm."
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: The things that are untrue are thinking that we should have an orgasm every time like our partners. But we have a lot of inaccurate information. We don't even think to do the research. My career started because I was in my mid-thirties thinking, "What is wrong with me? Why aren't I having orgasms? My partner is, he's always having a good time, but what's going on with me?" I found there wasn't a lot of information out there.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: I think once we get the accurate information and we all educate ourselves—because again, there's so much misinformation—what I mean by that, Mel, is that we don't require sex education in America at all. Only like 17 states require sex education to be medically accurate, if we teach at all. So we're all walking around with misinformation about even how we get turned on and our bodies. We grew up with movies where you see the man and woman come together, they make out, they fall into the bed, and they come at the same time. And it's only heterosexual couples we see having sex. I think the definition of sex being just based on penetration goes back to religion and society. We were told that we should only have sex if we want to have a baby, and this is the only position to have sex. You can see how fraught sex has become. That's just the tip of the iceberg of the information that's really not correct.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You know what we need to do? I think we need to say that this conversation today is going to hit the reset on all of that. My mission is to arm us all with the information that you need that is factual, that is driven by your health and self-expression, and by having more connection in your life and more pleasure in your life. Because as you were just talking, I was thinking to myself, even if you do have sex education—which I believe every human being needs—you're literally learning about the physical piece of it. You're not learning about the pleasure, the self, the confidence, the boundaries, the communication piece of it. Pleasure is left entirely out of the mix.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because we don't talk about our bodies or about sexuality openly in our culture, and this conversation is going to reach people in 194 countries around the world. Anyone who's growing up where there is a shaming or a "should" or a set of rules around what's right in your culture versus what you as a consenting adult may want to create for pleasure—that is going to make you feel shame. So let's start with the actual basics so that we can all, from this point forward, own our relationship with sex and pleasure in our life, whether we're single, married, in our late teens, or nearing our deathbed. What is the purpose beyond having babies for having a healthy sex life, and why does it matter?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: It's really important to have a relationship with ourselves, our bodies. We can give our bodies so much pleasure and connection. It's really part of our overall wellness, our mental health, our physical health. Sex is important because if we're in a relationship, we want to be really intentional and conscious and really giving lovers. It's why we're with somebody romantically. Otherwise, we're just roommates. We require intimacy and touch. All this stuff is really great for our nervous system. With all of the shame and misinformation, we're all not really sure what to do. We know that it's important, but we don't really know how to make it happen in a way that feels good.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So masturbation is a huge part. I call it "solo sex." I love that. Solo sex is a really important part of being sexually healthy. It is the most primary relationship. The more we get comfortable pleasing ourselves and experimenting with what feels good, then we know our turn-ons, what kind of touch we require to get in the mood. It's really creating the owner's manual for our own bodies so we can share that with a partner.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: I often hear people say, "Oh, well, I don't need to masturbate because I'm in a relationship," or "I'll wait till I meet a partner. But right now I'm just going to sit home alone and do nothing." The problem with that is, number one, we tend to associate sex with a partner. We're giving our sexual power away. We're saying, "I can't feel any pleasure in my body until I meet somebody that's going to give it to me." But I always remind people: we are responsible for our own pleasure and our own orgasms. That's number one.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Number two, we often feel that it's shameful. We grew up in an environment where we were told that masturbation—maybe you're going to go blind, you're going to go to hell, you're going to feel bad about touching ourselves. So we have to get over the shame around masturbation. Let me just say this, whether you're in a relationship or not, because I also hear people in relationships say, "Well, I don't want my partner to masturbate," or "Masturbation feels like cheating," or "I hide in the basement."
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: The third thing, why it's important to have a relationship with our bodies in this way, is self-acceptance. If we're walking around all day and we're not loving our body, we're sending it negative messages. "I can feel my thighs rubbing together. I've gained weight. I don't feel sexy." Then we're not touching our bodies at all. Then we get into the bedroom with somebody, and we're wondering why we can't be present, aroused, turned on, intentional. It's because of the negative self-talk.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Those are some reasons why it's very important to connect with our bodies and give ourselves pleasure. It's sex with somebody we love, and that is ourselves. I have a lot of tips for that too, to get started, to learn, to feel good about it. I encourage couples to do it together.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, let's stay with this. But I want to take a quick pause. We need to hear a word from our sponsors who allow us to bring this amazing content to you for free. So let's take a listen. When we come back, it's Dr. Emily answering your questions and mine. Don't go anywhere.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm here with Dr. Emily, the renowned sex expert, and we're talking about how you can have the best sex of your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Dr. Emily, let's jump back into the topic we were talking about before the break. For everybody listening, the access to a brand new chapter in your life filled with pleasure and the kind of sexual experiences that you want begins with you and solo sex. For me personally, I will speak very openly about this. I lost my virginity when I was really young. I think part of the shame around sex comes from feeling like we were going to get caught. Like it was something that you have to squeeze in, and you do it in secret, and nobody can hear you. I carried that into college years and law school years. I was never somebody that understood that masturbation was important. I didn't know how to do it. When I tried it in my 20s—as lame as that sounds—I actually could not make myself have an orgasm. So I basically just kind of gave up.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It wasn't until I was given my first kind of vibrating thing from my bachelorette party that I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. This is easy. Okay. Wow." I'm 55, and there just wasn't the information available. There was so much shame, so much secrecy around it. I even feel that way about solo sex now. I feel like I'm not cheating on Chris, but like I'm doing something wrong if I'm in our bedroom alone and I'm using one of my vibrating toys. Like there's something wrong. I literally wait until I hear his truck leave the driveway, and then I'm like, "Oh, okay. It's okay to do that now."
--:-- Mel Robbins: I just saw your eyes go wide.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: No, I did. Thank you for sharing that, Mel, because that's so relatable and so common. I was much like you, Mel. I didn't masturbate or have an orgasm until I got a vibrator in my mid-20s. There's literally no shame in having a vibrator. Vibrators have also been shamed. Male partners will say, "Well, I think it's going to replace me," or "It's somehow cheating on me," or "We should just be having it the natural way, which is penis goes in vagina." But we've already debunked that, how it doesn't work.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: The glorious thing about having a vulva is that we have 12,000 nerve endings externally and internally in our clitoris, our clitoral network. Mel, here's a funny thing. When I was in the middle of writing my book *Smart Sex* just last year—for years, I've been doing this for 20 years—I've been saying the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings. We all say 8,000. The circumcised penis has 4,000. Come to find out, because we finally are studying women's sexual health and women's bodies, we've got 12,000 nerve endings. So of course, with a vibrator, it feels amazing. The cool thing about it—we can get into this—maybe you and Chris could play together with it. It could become a really intimate act that couples share together and actually enhance intimacy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I really think this is a deep point, everyone. If you don't know how to delight in your body, and if you don't know what turns you on, is it fair to say you will almost never be able to communicate what you need and what you like with whatever partner you end up having?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Yeah, absolutely. Until we understand our own owner's manual, what actually feels good, and take a mirror and look between our legs—
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh my God, I don't want to do that. Why do I have to do that?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Because then you understand like, "Oh, wow, look, the left part of my clitoris is more sensitive than the right."
--:-- Mel Robbins: I don't think I would do that.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: You got to look at it. You got to take a look. It's a way of connecting. Once you do that, you're like, "Oh, wow. I noticed when I start to stroke my clitoris, my vulva, my labia, it becomes more swollen. It engorges with blood." That's when you start to see it changes. And you're like, "Oh, wow. And now I'm learning how to give myself an orgasm, what makes you feel good." We want to be our own best advocates for everything, right?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: In our life. We like stand up to our doctors or our bosses or whatever, but with sex, we're like, you can figure it out.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Or just go a little up to the right there.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So you're inching them down or you're like trying to gently position their face in a different direction.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yes. Right.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: But honestly, I used to believe, Mel, someday my prince will come and so will I. That was my motto. I'm like, he's gonna ride up on a horse. And that's when it's gonna happen until I took it into my own hands. Then I was like, okay.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think it's really important to unpack the discomfort I feel on behalf of everybody listening. Because when you say I'm down for understanding my body, having solo sex, understanding which side, where, what feels good, what doesn't, so I can communicate with Chris, there's something about the idea of watching myself do it or letting Chris watch me do that. That was a hard no. And I don't know what that's about, but it's clearly I'm not the only one that feels that way. Anybody here in the studio? Do I see hands raised? I also have heard a lot of younger women because I've been around my daughter's friends and they speak very freely about how they tolerate lame sex and how they don't actually know how to ask for what they want. So can we just stay on the solo sex thing for a minute? I mean, I have hundreds of pages of DMs and emails and comments from people talking about the fact that how do I make somebody do this? How do I communicate what I want? How do I get over the fact that I don't feel like it because I don't know what feels good? I personally feel like this solo sex relationship with yourself is the place where we all have to start. So let's talk about the fact that I don't want to look at the vulva in the mirror. I want to turn the lights off. I want Chris to drive down the driveway and I want to explore in the dark and then tell him hit two o'clock and hit like 10 o'clock on the clock.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Oh, Mel, it's so real. I love it. Listen, you are so not alone.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, at least you got to tell time with your vulva now. See, that's progress.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Some people don't even know that, Mel. Some people don't even know the 10 and the two. So you're getting somewhere.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh my God, Mel. Everyone feels like this. This is more common than not. I mean, I've been married 27 years. This guy has seen me deliver three children. He has helped me get over the flu. I mean, he has seen me at my worst. I'm sure he would love it. What the fuck? Why am I so inhibited?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Because we don't have any models of this. We tend to glorify male masturbation, right? We see it in movies. We tend to say like, oh, I know they're going to do it. Female masturbation is silent. It's wrong. We shouldn't have to do it. It makes us easy or slutty or whatever that old language is. But Mel, I have to say there's been some interesting science and research that have shown that when women actually look at themselves in the mirror, when they are in the state of arousal, when they're pleasuring themselves, they actually tend to get more turned on. First off, I guarantee that Chris would probably find it to be one of the hottest things he's ever seen in his entire life. And I have researched from my listeners over 20 years, they can't believe that they hadn't done it once they do it. What I'm talking about now is a little bit of mutual masturbation. And this is one of my top tips for couples that I just love because while it's all awkward and weird, so much of what I do is literally get people over the hump, literally so they can hump.
--:-- Mel Robbins: All right. So walk me through it. What am I doing?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay. First, I would love you to have a conversation with Chris on your next date night. Because I don't think it's something that you just kind of start doing in the bedroom. I think it's great to talk about it first.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. And so we're talking about like over a salad or something. How do you bring this up? Because we got a lot of questions about this. How do I raise the fact that I want something different or I want to try something when I'm uncomfortable talking about it?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: We're going to work this into your mutual masturbation with Chris tonight.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. So maybe tomorrow.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Tonight.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Let's go.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Well, I'm tired. Maybe tomorrow morning. So this is the thing. It makes sense that everybody asks, how do I get my partner to blank? That is really one of the top questions. I have a formula that people can remember. It is the three T's: timing, tone, and turf. And you will use this for any awkward conversation you have around sex. So the first one is timing. You want to have this conversation when you're both in a more parasympathetic state. So you're relaxed. You're at ease. Maybe it's date night. Let's assume it's not date night because most people don't have a date night. Let's just start with that. That's also probably part of the problem because you're not prioritizing. Let's just say you're sitting on the couch. You're relaxed. The kids aren't around. That's perfect.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're sitting on the couch. I love it. But I know about date night. I know that most couples don't, but there has been so much research that shows that couples who prioritize date night have more pleasurable, satisfying sex. But I know it's another hurdle and it's another thing on your goddamn list. But we all have a couch and we all go for walks, perhaps, because the next thing is your turf.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: The conversation should not happen in the bedroom, believe it or not.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: We love the bedroom to be left for sleeping and for sex. Keep it a sacred space. The conversation is happening outside the bedroom, on the couch, on a walk, on a road trip when you're in the car, because that way it's less awkward because you're not making eye contact, but it's still intimate.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, I love that.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Plus they're trapped. They can't go anywhere because they're in the car with you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Exactly. They're trapped. You're walking the dogs, you're hiking.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: And then our tone is curious and compassionate and open. Just saying, you know what? Hey, Chris, I realized we haven't had a lot of talks about our sex life. And I would love to see if we could start to talk about it. Dr. Emily was on the show today. She encouraged that everybody has a growth mindset around sex. And I realized that this is one area that maybe we could work on together. We could start to learn some new things. We could start to talk about it. Is that something you'd be interested in? Let me say this, Mel, I got to warn people. This might not go well at first because we don't talk about sex ever. We don't hear about it. So sometimes after 27 years, our partner brings it up in that way. We automatically assume that we must be doing something wrong, that I'm going to get some negative feedback. You don't want to be with me. You don't like my body. All these things go in our head that it's going to be judgment. And you have to keep taking it back to this is about us. I want us to have more pleasure. You're not doing anything wrong. Let's learn together. So once we get past that and he's like, okay, Mel, I'm down. Let's talk about it. Then you could say, so we got the timing, tone and turf. We've just covered all of those. And then you could say, you know what? You could even be honest. I masturbate when you leave the house. And I think it would be really hot to masturbate together. Or you could even say to him, what's your masturbation practice like? Do you know what his is like, Mel?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have no idea because he doesn't do it in front of me.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay. So I guarantee you he's doing it. Maybe in the shower, maybe in his truck.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's why he's so tired.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Maybe in his truck. He's leaving, going down the driveway and parking down the street and you're in your house. You could be together. Why are we so embarrassed about this? Because we don't have experience of people talking about it because when it is, we're shamed. And you think that there's some magical fairy dust unicorn rainbow thing that's just going to make it magical and feel good. But that's not how sex works.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. So here's what I'm taking away so far, which I think is really important for everybody. Number one, it has really hit me like a sledgehammer how profound it is that we just expect sex to magically happen and actually be good and pleasurable. And two, that if you think about every other area of your life, whether you're single or you're dating or you're in a committed partnership, we talk about everything from finances to your kids, to who's walking the dog, to where are we going out to dinner, to this, to that, to the other thing, to what's not, you need a pair of khakis, I'm going to the mall, like everything. And we don't talk about this other than do you want to do it? And even somebody like me who has a really great marriage. We go to therapy, we work on it. And yet it's not translating to a more frequent and robust sex life. I feel very, very deeply connected to Chris. And this is an area of our marriage where we would both say we do not prioritize it and we both wish it would be more frequent, it would be more adventurous, it would be better. And I love that your point is if you expect to change this and have the best sex of your life on the road ahead, which you can, number one, you have to lose the shame around solo sex. You have to learn and be responsible for your own sexual pleasure, which you will never know how to do if you're waiting for your partner to do it for you. And so it is a mandate for all of us to take this seriously. What do you do when you feel like the desire isn't even there, whether it's because of menopause or trauma or stress that the libido is gone and you don't even feel the desire for it? How do you overcome that?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: First, I want to say that it's okay if you don't have desire. And I hear it from menopause, perimenopause, but even I hear from women in their twenties all the time who are like, I don't want it anymore. I wanted it at the beginning and I don't want it. What I realized after all these years, Mel, that everyone wants a quick fix to get in the mood. They're like, what's wrong with me? I'm not in the mood. Tell me one thing. They're like, okay, Dr. Emily, what's the position? What's the thing I can say? What's the thing? What vibrator? What lube? And those are quick fixes, Mel, and they all work. Like I could send you a package of vibrators. You make, oh my God, that really helped today. We have to understand that all these factors are going to contribute to our ability to have pleasure, to feel desire and be turned on. And we have to hack them. I created these pillars of sex IQ, sexual intelligence, I call it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Tell us what the pillars are to having great sex and increasing our sexual self. Sex IQ. What are the five pillars?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So the first pillar is embodiment. Embodiment is the practice of being present during sex. And the opposite of embodiment is, am I in my head too much? Am I dissociating during sex? Am I naked with my partner and I'm thinking about that email that I didn't send to my boss, how my thighs look in the bedroom, that I should probably turn off the lights. And am I doing it right? So embodiment, am I present? Am I breathing? Am I connected to my partner? Then we have our health, and that is our mental health and our physical health. Now we think about our physical health. Are we moving our bodies? Do we exercise? Are we eating foods that make us feel good? These are all going to contribute to our ability to be aroused, turned on, have the right amount of blood flow. Then we have to talk about the big thing here is medications. There are so many medications, Mel, that are going to impact our ability to have orgasms, to be aroused. It's going to kill our libido. And these are antidepressants, SSRIs, blood pressure medications, the birth control pill. They could all contribute to our ability to not be aroused and turned on. And we don't tell ourselves that. If we've had trauma, we need to go to therapy. Most people have had trauma and I'm not just talking sexual trauma, big T trauma, little T trauma. We have a way of coping that doesn't allow us to feel safe in our body and present. We're going to have a hard time getting aroused, turned on and feeling desire. Then we have collaboration. And this is really how well do I collaborate with my partner and communicate my needs and let them know what my turn-ons are, what feels good. Do I understand our sexual dynamics, our energy? Do I understand what I need? And do I talk to my partner about it? Or do I have shame about it? Have I remained silent around it? The next one, the fourth pillar of sex IQ is self-acceptance. This is a big one, Mel. This is confidence. Do I feel good in my body? Do I accept my body where it is today? I get that it's no longer what it once was. It's always changing. But do I accept it? And then the fifth one is self-knowledge. Do I know what turns me on and do I know what turns me off? I have a desire inventory in my book *Smart Sex* that can help people understand this and hack this because most of us have zero clue what we like, what we don't like, because we've never talked about it or thought about it. So those are the five pillars and all of them are in the bedroom with you every time you're having sex and they all matter. I work on these as well. You don't get to a place where you check it off. I am sexually intelligent. It's a lifelong process, just like our health. So these are just all the things I'm going to go through that we should be mindful of that are all contributing to us being sexually healthy and well.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can you give us some tools or strategies for getting out of your head when you're being intimate with somebody else?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: A big one here is breath. Our breath anchors us in the present moment. Maybe you're counting to five or six, and then you can squeeze and do a little kegel. Maybe everyone can do that with us right now. If we count to five and the kegel is those P muscles—and men and women can do them too. I just want to say all genders get to do kegels. It's the pee-stopping muscles. We stop and start the flow of urine. When you're doing this exercise and you want to be more connected to your sexual energy, we can do that right now. So we take a deep breath in. One, two, three, four, five. Do a little squeeze kegel and then release. One, two, three, four, five, six. And hopefully you'll feel a little bit of stirring something between your legs. You'll feel like you're getting your awakening. You're connecting. And you can do that as many times as you need to to feel grounded, pleasurable, and stoke your pleasure. And then just sort of ground in it. You can ground in your body. You can do this with a partner. You can do this with yourself. There's a lot about breath work in my book that's not sexy, but a lot of us hold our breath during sex and we're not present. Even with my partner sometimes, I practice. I'll say, you know, I'm really not grounded right now. Can we breathe together? And there's nothing like looking into your partner's eyes, taking a few deep breaths and resetting. And then you just find that now we're on the same page. We are in this together. A lot of us do this shallow breathing. Maybe we learn it in porn. We think that's what feels good. But really, when you learn to deeply feel your breath move through your body, you find that that's when you feel more connected to your sexual energy, who you are as a sexual being. Another quick thing, Mel, really easy. If you don't want to breathe with your partner and you actually don't want them to know you're so distracted, I focus on my five senses. When you are present in your senses, you can't be in the past and you can't be in the future. You have to be there. So I'll be like, what am I seeing? I'm seeing my partner's hot body. What am I feeling? My hands on their shoulders. What am I smelling? Oh, that vanilla candle I always light when we have sex. Because that anchors me in sex. So I have all of these things in the environment. Sometimes I have to do that a few times during sex, but it completely brings you back to the moment.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love that tip. Especially the deep breath in and the kegel. It just moves the shopping list right out of my mind and brings you right back. No, I'm serious though, because the number of people that wrote in both about libido and the lack of libido, which you just addressed by basically saying, just like exercise, you don't feel like exercising, but you set yourself up to do it. The way to deal with a low libido is to set yourself up to do it without waiting around to feel like it. And to understand that that is something that will be in your way until you make a commitment to make this a priority in your life. And you realize that by scheduling it, by creating more intimacy in your life, by having solo sex so that you are in touch with what really makes it pleasurable for you, you are starting to take the steps to push through the fact that you have a low libido. I would also love to talk about, because you've mentioned it a few times, what exactly is an orgasm?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay. An orgasm is essentially the most pleasurable muscle spasm. So it's a point where we talk about arousal and blood flow and we start to get turned on. And then at the point, at the plateau, the point of orgasm, we have a release in our body and we start to feel that through our genitals. And that's what an orgasm is. It's really a spasm in our body. Now there's a lot of different kinds of orgasms, but basically it is the height or the peak of sexual arousal where the body is going to release a lot of pressure and a lot of tension. And you're going to have pleasure in your genitals and throughout your body.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Is it true that you had 23 orgasms in one night?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: It is. It was actually a long day. It was away with a boyfriend, but it is true.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can we talk about that? Is that even healthy?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Well, it's funny you should ask that because here's a wonderful thing about having a vulva, being one of these vulva owners here, is that we are built for pleasure and orgasm. In fact, we have something called the refractory period. That is the amount of time that you can go from having an orgasm to having another orgasm. Ours is very short. So the majority of women can have multiple orgasms. We just, again, don't know it, don't have that information about it. If you've got a penis, your refractory period is a little bit longer and as we get older sometimes you got to wait 24 hours, maybe you got to wait a week. But it takes a little bit longer. And it's not just our genitals. Our nipples, we can have orgasms in a lot of different ways that again we don't often celebrate or prioritize or center on female pleasure. So I was away with a partner and I brought my toys and my lubes and we were playing around and I just started to count. And I was doing all the things, some was with him, some was with fingers and mouths and toys and just water. And we were just having fun. And I ended up having 23. We were counting.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Holy cow. And then it was definitely time for dinner.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Yes, I'd say.
--:-- Mel Robbins: How can you switch up your energy for what you call hot sex? And what is hot sex?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Well, hot sex is really subjective in a way. I would define hot sex as consensual, mutually pleasurable sex where everyone's communicating and having a good time and feel safe, cherished, adored, and hot.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That sounds pretty hot. And how do you switch up the energy, whether you're in a heterosexual, same-sex relationship, committed partnership, or a safe one-night stand? Talk to us about the importance of energy exchange with your partner.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: This is where I think for some people who feel that they are not sexually as connected anymore, it just feels like friends or whatever. So I'm going to talk to you here about a concept about energy in my book where I talk about the masculine energy and the feminine energy. We all have masculine energy and feminine energy within us, whether it's men, women, whatever the combination is. And so there is something called sexual polarity. The feminine energy is more nurturing. It's more supportive. It's creative. It's more fluid. And the masculine is more purposeful, directed. It's like, I'm getting shit done. I have a mission. I'm going to go. I think now we might be similar on this way, but I live a lot in my masculine energy. I am a woman in the world who's very independent and I've got a lot going on and I live in my masculine a lot. And so do obviously my partner's masculine. For me personally, and for many women, I think to feel the most receptive to energy and to sex, I need to be more in my feminine energy.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: And I've had to learn to tap into that and what that feels like and to cultivate that. I have to allow my partner to feel like he can sort of bring the energy. He can initiate, not that I don't always initiate, but I need to feel more grounded. I take a bath. I do breath work. I move my body. I dance. I create something, even if it's in my bedroom. I do something that can wash off the day so I can start to move my body and feel more present and connected. And that is the state of energy. Now in some relationships, when I realized when I'm bringing more of my feminine, I'm breathing, I'm just moving, I'm talking slower. I'm moving in a different way. Then he starts to react with his energy. And then we know that the attraction starts to build. And so it gives him space to take up his masculine when I'm more in my feminine.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Is dropping into that type of energy for yourself something you could do to increase your chance of having an orgasm tonight?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Absolutely. If you can learn to cultivate that energy, because remember, sex is energy, orgasm is energy. And I'm telling you, Mel, the thing that has been the most useful for me is remembering to do breathwork and meditation and letting the day fold. Because if I just get into sex without any of that, it's not going to happen. And so when I'm in my feminine, which is when I feel the most sexual and aroused and turned on, I absolutely will have more orgasms. I'll have more pleasure. I also want to remind people though, that the goal—I know I'm talking a lot about orgasms—but it's important for people to remember that orgasm is not necessarily the goal of sex.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What is the goal of sex?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: It could be connection. It could be experience, intimacy. So I think a lot of times, yes, orgasms are amazing, but even when we don't center sex on orgasm, we find that we might actually have more because when we're constantly thinking about it, is it going to happen? Is it going to happen? A lot of times it doesn't happen.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's so true. If we all took a moment and we thought about what we know to be true about the most memorable times we've had sex, even if there's just one or two, they were like, oh yeah, that was really hot. I like to think of that as our sexual DNA. There's a lot of information in there. Like, oh, it's because I just came from yoga class. It's because we were on vacation and we had this beautiful sexual experience. The kids had just left for college and it was the first night we were empty nesters. You say that a lot of us really get it wrong when we start to ask for what we want. Can you tell us some things not to do when, because I'm thinking right now for the women or vulva owners that are listening, that when you start to realize, oh, it makes a lot of sense. I'm a crock pot. I'm a slow cooker. It takes a while for the heat to come up. And what's missing in my partnership and in my sex life is any kind of foreplay, any kind of stimulation on the skin, any kind of warm up whatsoever. And I don't know how to even ask for that.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: The first thing is we talked about timing, tone and turf. We've already decided with our partner that we're going to start to have some conversations about our sex life so we can have more pleasure, have a growth mindset, continue to grow as a couple. Again, in *Smart Sex*, I've got so many—I literally have a whole chapter that's just scripts because I know, Mel, that this is so hard. People are now going, yes, I want to let my partner know, but how do I do it? So one way you could say is the compliment sandwich. Basically, you got two compliments as the bread and the meat of it is your request. So I'm going to say, you know what? Let's start with something positive. I really am loving the last sex we had. I really loved how we slowly made out. That was really hot that we were kissing. I thought it was really great. I realized we haven't kissed in a while. And then you could say, and I've noticed something. I've learned something about myself that making out and foreplay and touch is a really big part of my arousal process. And then you close it with, and I feel like if we could do more of that kissing and slowing down, more oral sex, playing with my toys, that I know that we would both have more pleasure and it would really benefit our sex life. So how would you feel about that? And then you have to listen. Now, again, I can't say this enough. A lot of times they're in fight or flight now, perhaps. They're on the defensive. You've never talked about it. They're like, oh, babe, let's go.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, right. Some might be like, right, like, oh.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: But some hopefully they're like, oh wow, I hear what you're saying. Tell me more about that. We have to remember that we don't want to be defensive. We want to listen and then we just explain and give them the facts. Because again, Mel, foreplay is not just a light suggestion. It's actually a requirement. Let me remind you that if you have a vulva, it's going to take you between 20 and 40 minutes to have an orgasm typically with a partner.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wait, what? Hold on. Hold on. I want to make sure everybody, vulva owners or not, just heard that. We're slow cookers and on average, we're talking 20 minutes of arousal. And I like these terms because it's making me understand my body and it's making it less about what you do, what I do, that this is literally how my body and my sexual system works, that arousal is a massive part of it. And if your partner's like game time and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I need 20 minutes to really get the arousal engine going. That's not unique to you if you are a vulva owner. And it's important that we all understand that and embrace that fact. And look, I know we're now going to get all kinds of emails and be like, I can get aroused in one minute flat. Okay, great. Congratulations. I'll ship you a medal. But for the rest of us, embracing this and being able to not feel shame around it. And I like what you said. How do you feel about that? How does that sound to you? That's the way you serve up the sex compliment sandwich. That you then ask them how they're feeling. And that conversation in and of itself, if you start to talk about it, probably begins a little arousal.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Yes. Now that's the thing. Once we get over all this stuff that's holding us back, couples are going to find that they actually enjoy talking about sex. I mean, like you're planning your summer vacation, you're planning we're going to dinner and let's plan our sex.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love that. What about a script for someone who has been in a relationship that has not been having sex for a long time? And as a sex therapist, what do you define as a normal, healthy amount of sex that doesn't include penetration, everybody. We're talking about actual moments of consensual pleasure with one another. How often should we be shooting for in order to have a healthy sex life, Dr. Emily?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So I'm not able to give you a number. I can't be prescriptive here. People always want to know, am I normal? We have sex one time a week. Is that okay? Is it three times a week? So first I want to say in your relationship, you both get to decide what feels good for you, how many times a week. And then we find that sometimes those numbers don't match up. It's not enough for one partner. It's too much for the other partner. This is where it takes some negotiating, some compromise. I would say that overall, once a week feels pretty good to a lot of couples. And that seems to be common. Once a month, not usually. I don't think that that's as great. And if we're talking about even just intimacy and connection and touch, I don't believe that that's enough time for many. I think that we need to find out other ways to connect. But again, I don't like being prescriptive here because couples like we do it every 10 days and it's great and we feel wonderful and that's great. But again, people are asking me usually because they have a suspicion that it's not enough or someone's not as satisfied.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What do you say to somebody who hasn't had sex in years with their partner? How do you even bring that up?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So again, using my timing, tone and turf, you just say, hey, I think it's time we talk about our sex. Are we okay with that? I know it's been a long time that's gone by and it doesn't feel good to me or it does feel good to me. I mean, really, if the goal of that is to reconnect, listen, we get married to someone and we commit to somebody. There's sort of the unspoken agreement that we're going to continue to be intimate. You can't opt out of your sex life, right?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: I mean, it's just unless without talking about it, certainly. I think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people stop having sex for whatever reason. They're pissed off. They have trauma. They're stressed out. All of this stuff. You go through body changes and you suddenly are embarrassed by the weight you gained or your libido hits the shitter like most of us in menopause. And then all of a sudden you look up and you're like, holy shit, it's been three months.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. I mean, Chris and I have gone through a period where we didn't have sex for several months. And, you know, when I look back on the times when that's happened, it's when we were really struggling financially or in a lot of stress. And I thought about it all the time. There must be something wrong with us. Will we ever have sex? Is he not that interested in me? Like all of that stuff. But I think it becomes easy to opt out of having sex. And so how do you broach that for real in your relationship? Because there were a hell of a lot of people that wrote in about it.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay, Mel, that's great. And I'm glad you, thank you so much for like sharing your real authentic vulnerability and stories because I also want to say this, there's no sex police. No one's going to be knocking on doors. Like I heard you guys haven't had sex in three weeks. What's happening over there? Like what's going on with you guys? So it's okay that you're not having sex. Like literally months go by. It's very, very common. Okay. For couples. But what's missing from that is saying, "Hey babe, I'm acknowledging that right now I know we're not being intimate. And I just think we're going through stuff. I'm not feeling great. My body, my hormones are out of whack. I know we're going through this money thing. So let's just, you know, maybe we should like, maybe we can do some cuddling or maybe we could just do some..." Just acknowledging it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Mel, I had this vision that if you were to find the courage after listening to this, to go to your significant other and be the one that just calls it out loud, that you're just going to say it out loud. "We're not having sex. It makes me very sad. I would love to talk about it. I would love to connect with you." That you're kind of hitting day zero on a new chapter because you're actually no longer ignoring it. You are doing what Dr. Emily says we all have to do, which is we have to be responsible for our own sexual desires being met. And that begins by having the courage to say they're not being met and that it bothers you and that you want to do something about it.
--:-- I'd love to pivot and talk about core desires, which is a huge concept in your book when it comes to taking responsibility for pleasure in your life. Can you talk about what a core desire is? And I read that our best sex begins with a childhood experience. What does that mean?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay. There was a guy named Jack Morin in the 70s. He started talking about this. He started looking at desire and he started looking at what is actually our turn ons. What's going on in our minds and our fantasies, there's probably something that we want to feel during sex. Maybe we want to feel adored or worshipped or beautiful, or we want to feel some more transgressions. Maybe we want to feel we have some fantasies about being like spanked or being a bad person or a bad girl, bad boy. And a lot of it does stem from our childhood.
--:-- So for example, perhaps we grew up in an environment in our family where we felt we didn't have a lot of attention, our needs were ignored, maybe we were emotionally neglected. So when it comes to sex, what makes us feel aroused and feel safe is, you know, when I fantasize or I think of my partner, I want them to spend time sort of worshiping my body and giving me praise. So that could come from something that happened in our childhood.
--:-- Another thing to look at is let's say we want to feel fully accepted during sex. We want to feel like safe and accepted. Now, perhaps we have this fetish. Now we often, again, conflate. That's another word, fantasy and fetish. A fantasy is like a nice, like something that you think about, like, "I really love fantasizing about threesomes." That's like a common one for men and women in America, like threesomes, groups, like it's very common. We don't necessarily need it to happen, but we like it to fantasize about it. A fetish is actually a requirement for arousal. So unless I see feet, like I will not be turned on and be able to have an orgasm or any sex. So that's just a quick side note, fantasy and fetish.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I never knew that.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Yeah. We tend to use them a little bit different. So core desires are not wrong, right? They really just are. So what comes to mind when you think about this? If you think about the hottest sexual moment you've ever had, how did you feel emotionally? What was going on in that moment? What was happening? Did you feel humiliated? Were you feeling worshiped? Desired? And so that's where you can kind of start. And so the feelings that turn you on the most tend to be your core desires. It's just another way to kind of open this conversation so you can learn to be your best sexual self.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so let's just say that your core desire is being cherished or cared for or worshipped, some of the words that you just used. How do you translate that into creating the best chapter of sexual pleasure in your life?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So you would tell your partner, "I realize that I love to feel cherished and adored during sex. So maybe we could have a night where we light some candles." I love massage candles, Mel. They're like regular candles. You light them for like 20, 30 minutes and then they go out and you pour it on your partner and it turns into the most luxurious, warm massage oil. It just, the heat, it feels amazing. You could say, "I just would love to have a night where we light the candles and you massage my body and we really spend time and you could tell me all the things that you like love about my body." And maybe what you're seeing in the moment. That could be a way that sexually you want to be cherished. It could also be surprising you with a decadent meal at your favorite five-star restaurant. They knew that it was your favorite restaurant, your favorite meal, which made you feel loved and nurtured that evening. This was a date night. And then you'd have this sex because you were feeling relaxed and you were feeling taken care of.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I want to ask you some rapid fire questions from our audience. We asked our audience, if you had five minutes with one of the world's leading sex experts and doctors, what would your question be? So Dr. Emily, here's one. How can I orgasm more?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Being brought up Catholic girl who was taught sex is for marriage. Masturbation, have a solo sex practice where you practice mindful masturbation. And every time you're having a thought, you go back to the feelings that you're having in your body and you learn to give yourself pleasure. Pleasure is our birthright. We are all deserving of pleasure.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Dr. Emily, I'm going through a divorce. It's been two years since I've had sex. I'm scared to jump into the dating pool. I was married for 30 years. Where do I start?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: First, you start with knowing that you need to take some time when you're ready. I would say don't force yourself to go out and start dating a million people. You want to start having connections with people. You need to have the practice of dating, of flirting, of being out there. I would say if you're looking for a date, this is not sexual advice. This is just say yes to every invitation you get. Like even those neighbors that you think are a little bit weird and you don't actually want to hang out with them. They might have some friends that you like. Get into the practice of connecting with people around you so you can find someone that you connect with again. And I don't want to make this show all about masturbation, but we have to keep our pilot light lit. And it's important for you to connect your sexual energy with yourself and not just wait for someone to come along and flip the switch.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Dr. Emily, I'm single. I've been sober for a year and I'm timid to have sober sex. How do I get over this feeling?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: That's really, really common. People who often become sober realize that the alcohol was a crutch and that's the only way they've been sexual. So first, compassion to yourself. You're learning a new skill set. Lots of self-love here and compassion. And just go slow and find partners that you feel safe with, that you can let them know that, hey, it's been a while. And this is a new chapter. My sex life is starting right now. And I want to go slow and I want to be able to communicate. And I'd love to like make out and start to feel comfortable again. And I want it to be okay for me to like stop and start. And I think it really, all of this is about being honest and open and authentic where you're at in your journey and to also take the pressure off yourself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It's beautiful. This is a really interesting question. Why can I not handle how good it feels? And I always have to stop in the middle of sex.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: This person could really benefit from some deep breath work and allowing the feeling to move through their body. This could be a few things. This could come from shame, feeling like you are actually not supposed to have pleasure and from losing control. So maybe they feel the orgasm is coming up in their body and they're so afraid of what they're going to look like, what it's going to sound like. They actually don't know what's going to happen. And so it feels so good, but it's an out of control feeling, I think. And maybe it's a little shame. So 100% practice on your own, letting that feeling move through you so you could have an orgasm and you know what it feels like. And then you'll be able to let go with a partner more easily.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I have a ton of questions about past trauma, whether it's religious trauma and how it impacts your ability to enjoy it or sexual assault trauma or childhood trauma. What should somebody that knows that past trauma is inhibiting their ability to experience more pleasure and feel safe with sex? What are the steps that they need to take specifically?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay. Well, the first step is acknowledging that you've had trauma and it's something that you haven't had the opportunity yet to explore the impact it's had on your life, your sex life. You probably know maybe something's happened. But here's the thing now with trauma is that a lot of us just think that as time passes or if we just bury it, it's going to go away. But unfortunately it becomes more exacerbated over time. Like whatever we resist persists. I highly recommend that if you've had trauma of any kind, but in particular sexual trauma, that you get into some therapy. I'm a huge fan of EMDR therapy, eye movement desensitization reprocessing. You could do it online now. This is a therapy that helps you rewire your brain, the neuroplasticity in our brain. We can really rewire our brains in this way using this kind of therapy.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What are some simple signs based on your experience, Dr. Emily, that unresolved past trauma is impacting your sex life? Because I don't think a lot of people, unless it's sexual trauma, realize how past trauma and however it's impacted you in a moment of arousal, you're losing control and your old coping mechanisms can kick in. So what might someone be experiencing in the bedroom that could signal that there's an underlying issue with trauma that's impacting their ability to fully express themselves and be open with their partner or themselves?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: So there's a few things that might happen, behaviors that might signal an underlying trauma, and that might be disassociation. So meaning you leave the room every time you have sex, you feel like you are up above looking down at your body. You might feel that you might not feel anything. You might actually feel like I know that sex is happening, but I feel numb. You might actually even have pain. There's a lot of women, more than we'd like to, more than is necessary, that have pain every time they have sex. Something called vaginismus or vulvodynia, which means that every time something goes inside of them, they have pain. It could be a tampon, it could be a finger. And it's not always the cause of trauma, but for many women, they had some kind of assault until their body has literally clenched and their muscles, their vaginal muscles have tightened. And so, and that could be as a result of trauma. So anytime sex happens or something comes near them, they feel pain.
--:-- And I just want to say, side note, if anybody is having pain during sex, 85% of women will have pain at some point in their life during sex. For many women, it's chronic. It's every single time they have sex. And I just want to say that you do not have to silently suffer through bad sex. See a pelvic floor physical therapist. I have a lot of resources on my site at sexwithemily.com. But you know, Mel, we all like women. I think we're like, we can handle it. We can give birth. We can have our periods once a month. We can have sex that hurts. And we just don't have to. I mean, that's just a few that could be sexual thoughts that are disturbing. It could be avoidance of sex, flashbacks. A lot of it is body stuff. So those are some signs.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You have a PhD in human sexuality. You're a sex expert. You've been studying this for decades. Is it possible for women to have sex and not get attached?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Yeah, I think so. It is possible for us to have sex and get attached in the way of like, I have sex emotionally. Yeah, I absolutely. It's possible for everyone to have sex, not get attached if they are self-actualized, they're feeling good in their bodies and they know that like they are connecting with a partner and they just want to have pleasure and orgasm and connection, but they're not necessarily looking for a life partner. I mean, I think that's, again, that's a societal thing. I think I hear from this woman all the time. "Well, every time I have sex, I fall in love. Every time I have sex." And I don't know if that's true. I've looked at people and say, "I really like, is that just something that you've been told or that's been your experience to date?" What I love is younger generations now are saying like, "I just want to have sex and experience different people." How do you know what you like and who you are as a sexual being if you haven't tried some different things and tried some different people? And so we get to a place where we're all talking about sex in a really honest, open way. I don't think that sex has to lead to attachment and commitment. But what I love to see is that now we're having these conversations and young people, even though the sex is kind of lame, I think that they're getting to them. And so, yes, I think that we can have great sex and it doesn't mean that we have to walk down the aisle with somebody.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What do you say, though, to all the presumably mostly vulva owners that are writing in saying, "I would love to be able to have more partners and more casual sex. But every time I do, I feel like a slut."
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay, well, the first thing to do is to look at what those feelings are. Write down, what are the messages that you're getting right now? Like write them down on a note in your phone, wherever you journal and say, "Okay, well, I think it's going to make me a slut. I think it's going to make me a bad person. I think I'm going to go to hell." I mean, wherever the thoughts are. And then you get to look at them and say, "Is this really true?" I actually have an exercise in *Smart Sex* called "Flip the Script." And you get to flip the script on whatever your negative belief is. "What if that wasn't true?" And you're like, "Okay, well, what if it made you feel sexually empowered and gave you more pleasure when you're the person and you actually are practicing getting to know what you want?" And so once you sort of dissect the messaging, you get to decide what's actually true. And so really, once you start to surround yourself, whatever it is, watching sex positive films on Netflix or wherever you watch TV and surround yourself with people who are actually doing it in a healthy way, you can start to rewire your thoughts around this too. So I think I really, I love that you're asking that because there's so many women, it is vulva owners mostly, who think, "I just can't and this is what's true." And I just say it's a limiting belief and it doesn't necessarily have to be your story. You can learn to have sex from your vantage point and be the best advocate for your pleasure. And that's your responsibility. That's Dr. Emily's huge message here is that you are responsible for your own sexual pleasure.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Two final questions. You talk about a "Yes No Maybe" list. What is it and why do we all need one?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay, so the "Yes No Maybe" list is a free downloadable guide on my website. And why I love the "Yes No Maybe" list is because you know how we're talking about mixing things up and trying new things. It essentially a list, it has about 80 sex acts on it and it's everything. It has like kissing and cuddling, but it also has spanking and dirty talk and biting and using sex toys and couples massage. So you and your partner can sit together and say, "Is this a yes? Is it a no? Or is it a maybe?" And I promise you on this list, you're going to find some yeses. And that's where you start playing.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I'm printing it out and bringing it to date night. Christopher Robbins, get ready. He's not going to know what hit him or bid him depending upon what's on the "Yes, No, Maybe" list.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: People love it for date night. I've heard a lot of great stories, Mel, so let me know how it goes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Now, can we bottom line five hacks for creating the best chapter of sexual pleasure in our lives?
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Okay, the five tips. The first tip would be communication. Communication is a lubrication. Talk about your sex life and you will have better sex, more satisfying sex. The second one is solo sex. Understand your relationship to your body and learn to give yourself more pleasure. The third thing is if in your relationship, when you're talking about sex, I would say just a quick way to start is to try one thing new in your relationship. It could just be one thing. It could be the "Yes, No, Maybe" list. It could be a bottle of lube. It could be a sex toy. It could be having sex in the living room instead of the bedroom. Like I don't care. Try one new thing to mix it up. We crave variety.
--:-- I'll also say scheduling sex, prioritizing your sexual relationship, whether it's date night once a month. I think when couples have boundaries around date night, we're not bringing our phones, we're not talking about our kids and we're not talking about work. It's just about us. A really powerful thing happens to couples. And then I would say work on your limiting beliefs around sex, whatever's holding you back, your shame, your thoughts, and keep a journal of them and learn to flip the script and learn how to be your own best advocate. I would say, well, I would also say maybe this is six, but take the focus off orgasm and focus on connection and touch and intimacy and center your sex life on that.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. Dr. Emily, I think on behalf of all the vulva owners and penis owners, I want to say, wow, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for helping us create the best chapter of pleasure and sex of our entire lives. I am so excited to report back in detail, not on the podcast with you.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: I'm here for you, Mel.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I know you are. I know you are. Thank you so much. It's just been a real honor to be with you. And I learned so much. I know everybody's going to love it.
--:-- Dr. Emily Morse: Thank you, Mel, for having me. It really is an honor to be here. This was wonderful. Thank you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: All I can say is, holy cow, I am going to hit print on that "Yes, No, Maybe" list. I am going to sprint out of here and I'm going to go find Christopher Robbins because I want to do whatever it takes to take responsibility for my sexual pleasure. I want to communicate more openly. I'm actually empowered and inspired. I hope you are too, because feeling more pleasure in your life and having a fantastic relationship with your own sexual desires and arousal and pleasure, it's a big part of you enjoying your life. And I now know that you have simple tools you can put into place to start enjoying solo sex, partner sex, whatever sex it is that you want to have, you're responsible for it. So go create it.
--:-- And in case nobody else tells you, I want to tell you, I love you. I believe in you. I believe in your ability to create a life that you love. And that includes apparently getting a mirror and standing in front of it and enjoying some time alone. Alrighty. I'll talk to you in a few days. Bye.
--:-- [Sound of Mel getting up, walking away]
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay. Hey, here I come. Okay. Hold on a second. Oops. Can I have the thing? Chris sees you. He walks in the room. And again, I don't want to hate. This is why I don't speak in gender. I don't care. This is great. I almost had sex with him last night because I was afraid you were going to ask me when was the last time we had sex. And of course, I was too tired. So I'm going to have to say it was a week ago. Not last night. I was going to, you know.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right. Okay. Yay, everybody. How fucking awesome are you?
--:-- Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write, and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.
