Leading Sex Expert Tracey Cox on How to Have the Best Sex of Your Life!

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0:58Sex is like one of my favourite topics that we're never allowed to talk about in this country. And if it has got a little bit better, it's because of you. Most women don't orgasm through penetrative sex. If there's one myth that drives me insane, it's that women want romantic sex on a beach. No, they don't. They want explicit sex. Way more explicit than men. Great sex starts at 50. The thing is, 30 % of people who are in a long-term relationship aren't having sex after two years. OK, so what are your top five things to have great sex? Well, number one, also know any sex problem can be solved if you can talk to your partner.

1:37Yes. How often would you say, should we have sex? So what would be a reason for scheduling sex? The more you have sex, the more you want it because your body remembers it, right? The idea is to make sex a habit. But then how do you keep a marriage full of desire? What you cannot do, you mustn't do is... Oh, wow. I think that's so interesting. I'd never really thought about that. This chat was an absolute must-listen-to for anybody that is in a relationship and is worried about anything to do with their sex lives or not in a relationship. Whether you're young or old, you must listen to this pod.

2:22I learnt so much. Tracy Cox is just, she is brilliant at being understanding, inclusive, thoughtful. She will make you look at it from a man's point of view, a woman's point of view. This is a must listen. I can't stress that enough. Oh, and like and subscribe. You must do that as well oh i mean tracy i have been like literally waiting patiently for this interview i am so excited um i've got to say i'm half french so sex is like one of my favorite topics that we're never really allowed to talk about in this country without being shamed badly i feel It's got a little bit better, surely. Do you feel like it has?

3:21Yeah, I do feel like it has got a little bit better. And if it has got a little bit better, it's because of you. Thank you. No, honestly, how long ago was it that you were writing for Cosmo, right? Yes, back in Australia. How long ago was that? Gosh, well, I'm now 63 and I was writing for Cosmo in my 30s. Yeah, so in my 30s I was writing for Cosmo.

3:50hot crazy amazing okay yeah so writing for cosmo in my 30s yeah um so that was when it all started really was was writing a um a sex column for cosmopolitan and then i became associate editor of cosmo and cosmo is all about sex yes so that was the fascination but the fascination was before that actually because my sister used to work for family planning so well you know every other kid was reading dolly magazine and sort of looking at doll she was like slipping these leaflets how not to get an std or back then called stds and how to put on a condom i was like deb i'm like 10 yes i was in my blood what i think is quite interesting is this is this is a really good way to start actually for anybody that might be listening or watching that's a parent um I think often we think as parents we do not want to tell our kids about sex because it's going to make them do it because it's so much fun yeah so can you explain the kind of the the thinking behind why is it completely opposite and what how how can it help kids by talking about it rather than not we remember when you're a kid you want to do something that you that's mysterious and you don't understand.

5:08The more children are taught about sex, the lower the age of when they lose their virginity, the lower the unwanted pregnancies, all that sort of stuff, because you're taking away the appeal of it. If you say this is what's going to happen when you have sex, there's no curiosity there. But what you're saying is not the lower the age that they have sex because they're having sex when they're older. But the lower the interest, but the higher the age. That's right. So let's start that again. So the more information children have or teens have about sex, the earlier you talk to your kids about sex, the better.

5:49And you don't want to have that big sit down and have the birds and the bees conversation. You want to talk about it and just drop it into the conversation like you would, your hair looks nice today, or are we going to have a banana for breakfast? just little snippets about sex and um and in fact somebody was telling me the day I know we got a letter for the podcast and this woman had written in and said I've been really open with my daughter she's 12 because my parents were really close with me and it took me a long time to go to a sex therapist to discover how to orgasm all that sort of stuff but she said to um her 12 year old there's a place on a woman's body that gives you pleasure and that you know we can talk about this later on the girl turned around and said, Mommy, when we get home, can you show me where this is, please?

6:36And show me what to do with it. So she goes, maybe later, darling. And then writes to me and says, oh, my God, what do I do now? And it's like, well, you obviously don't have to show her where her clitoris is. But, you know, don't back away from it. Like, just say, you know, we can talk about that later on. You'll probably discover it yourself. But the thing is, it actually protects children because they know that if kids know the correct name for their genitals like vagina, clitoris, breasts and you know it's not like my moo moo or my whatever. Yeah. Anyone, any sex predator is going to be frightened off because they're going to think to themselves well they know this is true.

7:13They think this kid knows what's going on, she's not going to be the one that I can pretend we're just playing a game or whatever. So you protect your children by giving them information about sex. What's interesting you talking about that in terms of a sexual predator the language that they might use or the danger that we're putting our kids in by not telling them the appropriate wording for their genitals I think that's so interesting I'd never really thought about that. In terms of online or trying to find places or ways to teach kids online are Are there any kind of things or is it mostly you have to kind of tell them?

7:55Can you steer them somewhere for anybody that finds it hard to have that eye to eye conversation? Yeah. Speaking of eyes to eye, if ever you're going to talk about sex to a teenager, do it in the car. Do it when you're cooking. Do it when you're not just sitting here like this. That would be the worst thing to do. But there are there's that website called OMG Yes. Oh, my God. Yes. Which which is actually not for teenagers, probably might be a bit much. But for anyone else who really doesn't understand how to masturbate, how to touch themselves, it's kind of like a self-help thing with lots of videos, full on videos of real women, you know, not actors, masturbating, showing you their masturbatory technique.

8:35It's not salacious. It's just a really informative educational site. I would heartily, I should have shares in this because I recommend it all the time. That is absolutely brilliant. and there are lots of places where, I mean, there's almost so much information out there about sex now, the opposite to when I started out when there was nothing. But I think if you, I'm trying to think of any other good sites, WebMD is quite good. I mean, just all the medical sites now have sex sections for them, but I would heartily recommend that. But the thing is that's different about when we grew up to kids now is that they will have seen porn by the time they're 10.

9:13I mean, even little girls. This is low blocking, isn't it, when you think about how protected we were. Yeah. We saw magazines making. Yeah. I remember finding the joy of sex in my sister's drawer, you know, and looking at that and going, wow. I mean, they were like funny old things with men with hairy outfits. So funny. It was just ridiculous. I remember finding the joy of sex diary at someone's house and each day had a different sexual position. And that's basically, that was the kind of beginning of my education. I thought this is hilarious. I was like oh wow you can do that oh wow and that um yeah it's so different and it's really not helping our like young adults because um I interviewed a girl recently about choking and and the prevalence of that and she said she was 23 very articulate and she said you know I feel like you guys got to grow up with if you look at the songs of the generation she said you guys grew up with like songs about love and happiness and they were all like light and airy we grew up with drill and rap and misogyny and she thinks that now we are in an age of you know really toxic masculinity where she said masculinity before meant chivalrous and putting down a coat to walk across a puddle and now um it's you know the viler the better the more masculine you are and she sees as a real and chokings come from that where men feel like you know this is what's expected of them and this is how to be masculine I mean how the hell do we get from that from that to that really but it's this is why it's even more important to talk to your kids about sex because if you don't talk to them about it Andrew Tate will you know I mean come on now you've got to try and get that in because it's friends that you you know get most of your information from sex about really so look at your kids friendship group make sure that's good as much as you can influence it and you know you put in your odd bit but I think the main thing for parents is to just if so they know they can come to you they know they can say mum I'm really embarrassed about this but you know this has happened and to know that you're not going to overreact you're not going to scold them you're just going to listen and perhaps help if needed so to be open and talk about it as is often and as easily as you do what did you have for breakfast you know and to talk and to do that say things like you know darling I just read in the paper today or you know heard online that that um you know choking is a really prevalent thing is it happening at your school yeah do your kids talk to you about yes okay so not specifically about them just about general general maybe not choking i might be a bit but it is i feel like yeah i hear about that on the grapevine a lot from other parents who are nervous about it or their daughters who have kind of mentioned it, you know, or somebody mentioning it to one of my daughters.

12:04It feels like it's around a lot. And this idea of a girl crying in pain during sex or that somehow upset is better than desire. And it seems like such a weird world we're living in now. I mean, the thing about choking, it's interesting, is that it's often sometimes it's the it's not any men who ask for it women ask for it too and it's a but do you think that's because they've that was their first early experience of it maybe it has become something that they think is normal yes and the lower the self-esteem the more likely they are to to ask for it because they they think that that's what men want want um and it's so interesting about sex isn't it because when I was starting out writing a sex column when I was in my 20s women were very you know I went for Cosmo and it was very much that we can have whatever we want and we can be whatever we want and we're not going to kowtow to men yet we were still very people pleasing in bed still like that maybe certainly not like our mothers but I feel like we were I'm going to have an orgasm and you're going to give me one and you know this is how you do it and I feel like we've now gone back to my mother maybe not my mother's not a good example because she's quite sexual but um to where it was sort of lie back and hope they hit the spot and there's less feedback now with women they're still in that you know i want him to like me so therefore i must do this in bed forget what she wants actually i'd quite like some oral sex or some direct clitial stimulation or maybe we could invite a vibrator into bed with us none of that all about worshipping what the male wants in bed and it's always been like that and I thought this was the one thing that maybe we got rid of but no I think it's interesting um that we haven't got anywhere and I just heard you say well your mum quite enjoyed sex and my mum enjoyed sex and my mum was French um she she was an alcoholic but I think that just like was a side problem um but I saw her as being very liberated sexually she loved her body she loved having sex she would talk about enjoying sex so I always grew up thinking that it was something great you know that we could enjoy and and have fun with um and I and I wonder if you and I are not embarrassed about it being a lovely thing because of that yes so it's up to us to be those mothers to our children yes that's exactly to help them enjoy their sex life without guilt completely i mean this is the sort of and you've got to start doing it very very early i mean the amount of mothers who do the complete opposite they catch their kid i mean i have to say once i was at a friend's house and she had a sofa with an arm and her little girl was probably about four got on top of the sofa and started rubbing against her.

15:07And I was just thinking, I'm going to be interested to see what happens now because I know this woman very, very well. And she just sort of looked at me and laughed. And then the perfect reaction, she just went, does that feel nice, darling? And she went, yes, it does actually. My life feels lovely. And she was like, well, that's great. But maybe next time, that's the sort of thing that you do in private. That was all she had to say about her. Now, if she'd gone to her, what are you doing? You know, why are you doing that? That's disgusting. Don't you do that? Don't you? You know, what do you think you do?

15:37How is that going to help? You know, that kid's going to go on and just think sex is dirty, sex is bad. I've just written a piece for The Mail Online about Catholic religion and just, you know, very, very strict religions and how much they can ruin your sex life. Because if you're told that sex is bad and dirty from a young age, it's very, very hard to shake. And these women were like, intellectually, I knew from the age of 16 that it wasn't bad, but my body seems to have absorbed this message that it is. So it's very important to give the right signals very early on. I also know that an orgasm is so good for you, for men and for women, and that certainly for women, it relieves stress, anxiety, burns calories.

16:28um it feels amazing you feel fantastic afterwards um and yet there's so much like you said shame built into society around more so the female orgasm than the male like I feel like males kind of were congratulated or expected or you know I think there's something about the fact that a man has to release or he gets blue balls you know that kind of do you know that kind of thing like we don't have to so why should we yeah have the pleasure and I've always felt quite angry about that but I know you're quite interesting around we don't have to orgasm either of us when we have sex like we should maybe stop focusing on that so much it's lovely if you do but you don't have to it's quite interesting because on one hand you want the man or the you know your partner male female or whatever they are to want to give you pleasure and obviously the which is not really obviously but one pinnacle of pleasure is an orgasm but so you sort of want that so the opposite you don't want somebody who doesn't care less whether you have an orgasm or not yeah it can go the opposite way and that men pressure women or the women feel pressured by men to orgasm and it's almost like it's a it's a sick you know sort of proof of their prowess you know I gave her an orgasm.

17:53And it's so funny because we've known since Cher Hight, like what's that, a long, long time ago, that women don't orgasm. Most women don't orgasm through penetrative sex. The clitoris is rather unhelpfully outside of the vagina. So you have to have, you know, extra indirect stimulation or direct stimulation of the clitoris. So, and most men, even I would say sexually savvy men are like, yeah, yeah, I knew that, I knew that. But not all women, right? And it's like, well, 80 % of women, it's like, yeah, but I don't think I've ever been with one, really. So, you know, it's like, just extraordinary.

18:29And women play along with the game. They play along with this game. So, of course, if you play along with the game and pretend that you have an orgasm through intercourse, you're not doing yourself a favour. You're certainly not doing the next person that comes along a favour. and then by the time you sort of to have a real orgasm with somebody you've got to teach them the technique that works for you it's generally during oral sex or with a vibrator or maybe using fingers it's certainly generally not through intercourse and and it and the noises that you make and how you look when you're having a real orgasm is completely different than the one you faked so no wonder the poor bugger's you know confused no wonder men are so confused by it all I don't blame them so we play this game and it just continues and it's you know women wouldn't need to fake orgasms if they weren't expected to have one and men wouldn't expect women to have an orgasm if they knew how to actually give them one so it's a bit of both of our faults really you know have you ever thought um like or met men that would be prepared to let go of their orgasm no that's quite interesting but it's so easy i was honestly i think whoever built our bodies mustn't have must have been really worried about women enjoying sex which makes sense because of the procreation thing doesn't it because if we enjoy sex as much as men we would be running about populating the earth and women are there to have the babies and stay at home because if the clitoris was inside the vagina we would be orgasming like that through intercourse like men do i mean if we could have an orgasm as easily women can orgasm easily if you know how to do it but through intercourse i mean imagine what the world would be like we would both be having orgasms running off procreating all over the place it's like be amazing wouldn't it yes just think how wonderful the world that would be but we'd be having sex probably too often there must be a reason there must be an evolutionary reason why the clitoris is not inside the vagina there must be um but yes men have sex so easily and orgasms if you can have them so easily are an amazing thing look at you know if somebody said to me you're not allowed an orgasm with your vibrator I wouldn't like it but I have in my I probably have yes I have met one or two men in the whole of my life and I'm talking about personally I'm just talking about letters everything and I get a lot who can't orgasm um I can I can talk to men who can't orgasm yeah so yeah so you can get men who find it very hard to orgasm but I can't imagine a man who would be interested in having sex if there wasn't an orgasm at the end of it so I have heard of men young men who can't orgasm that's also becoming a thing is that pornography do you think in what way can't they order they just can't achieve orgasm can you become numb from pornography oh yeah it's often you can become like it's not it's sort of like desensitized yeah they need more and more and more yes you know stark images and and graphic images then nothing does it for them um yeah you can you can i mean porn can be an addiction most men don't have an addiction to porn by the way just watching porn a lot when you're young does not make you addicted to porn the main addiction to porn is when you have a sort of a disparate thing where like often people who are deeply religious who watch porn have a porn addiction they don't watch it half as much as somebody who's not religious but when they do they feel terrible about themselves and it um it becomes this sort of toxic cycle so that's more a definition of porn addiction than something obviously somebody who watches it eight hours a day is addicted and I heard a story about a man um from a doctor who came to see him because his penis was just blistered and sore and he could not stop masturbating that's that's that's a masturbation addiction okay yeah you know when you're in pain when you're masturbating but you're still doing it that's so great but um i don't know whether porn is quite the evil we make it out to be i think most men see porn for what it is it's a it's they don't take it seriously it's a bit of entertainment they like having an orgasm it's quick it's easy what's wrong with it you know so long as it's not interfering with sex in real life yeah that's the way they think right i guess that's interesting isn't it because people are often really down on pornography generally aren't they they're so yeah i mean there's obviously things with porn but yes generally think in most relationships and i don't understand why women get so funny about it i mean why women would get funny about their partners watching yeah yeah i mean pornography him going off and taking care of himself when he feels like sex and you don't that's a terrific way to cope with you know um mismatched libidos or him just wanting sex when you don't i mean porn's a great way this is how what i recommend to people you know if you feel like sex and your partner doesn't go off and and have sex with yourself why and they worry because they think oh he's looking at this girl on the screen she's nothing like me men change the way that you know the images that they look at that you know if you looked at them two seconds later they'd be looking at some other girl you know he's he's got a different vision of somebody wants to see when he's just about to ejaculate then somebody wants to take home and meet his mother or be the mother of his children it doesn't it's it's sort of just mainly harmless for most people i think what's interesting that you touched on there was this idea of um what happens when you want to have sex and your partner doesn't and a mismatched libido that potentially at the beginning of your relationship was matched and then for whatever reason i mean lots of people around our age now are you know 20 30 40 years into a marriage and you know you've got to keep how do you keep a marriage alight or on fire or full of desire what what keeps you together you don't is the answer to that and I think that if we kind of accept that we are human beings are built to basically you know there's no such thing as monogamy in the rule book of evolution you know there's no there's a point to keeping you together for probably five years and then after that there's no point so they're really not interested your body's not interested and what happens at the beginning is that you're flooded when you meet somebody um and it's all new you're flooded with all these sex and love hormones and your brain goes crazy it's better than heroin you know it goes completely crazy and you could be you know going out with trump you wouldn't know it's just like you're you're completely under this intoxicated illusion and then when they wear off it can be anything from a month to nine months if you're lucky suddenly then you see the person in front of you and it's like oh god you know you've got orange hair suddenly and that's when you need technique to kick in and and um and that's when people go well i'm with the wrong person no you're not it's just that lovely rush of sex and love hormones has worn off but then you know nature's clever and then you go into the cuddle stage and dopamine kicks in and then you have babies and All sorts of things keep you together in terms of love.

25:36But what we need for love and what we need for sex are two different things. So that sort of what we love about love is the security and contentment and snuggling up and watching Netflix and the predictability and the security. But what you need for sex and eroticism is danger and excitement and feeling vulnerable and insecure and not knowing if they like you or not. so how do you keep the two together most people choose love over sex because you can only have sex for so many hours of the day so you know and then and this is why you know the people who get on the best often have the least sex because they're too close you know you need a bit of separation tracy what if you want both i think that if you want both you have to put a hell of a lot of effort into it.

26:28And the way to get both is to both want to do it, right? Number one, that is sometimes harder than you think, because you've grown up wanting sex. I've grown up wanting sex. So we're probably going to be the women who've gone through menopause and still want sex after menopause. Plenty of women get to menopause and go, you know what? I never really did like it. And now I've got a great excuse not to have it. So there's that sort of thing that goes on in long-term relationships 30 of people this is horrific 30 of people who are in a long-term relationship aren't having sex after two years and we're talking about young people as well people in their 30s at all and their 40s they don't have it at all they don't even have it after two years it's much more common than you think i know that's extraordinary that is extraordinary i was like really but i know that that's true because i've talked to people of all ages there is and women are the ones that tend to go off um in off sex and long-term relationships because what we were talking about earlier with how easy it is for men to orgasm and all they have to do is like you know put their penis inside the vagina wiggle it around a bit and they have an orgasm right for women women need interesting sex erotic sex to stay interested otherwise it's like Well, I often don't orgasm.

27:46So what really is in it for me other than, you know, sex? Desire isn't the only motivation for sex. It makes your partner happy and there's great health benefits. Right. But they've got less motivation to have it. So women tend to go off sex earlier than men do. What constitutes erotic sex? Well, it's up to you what you find erotic and what I find erotic would be different things. but it's sex that's not i mean most people have the same sex every single time in the same order they do the same things the same period of time and it's just in it and if you're lucky it's efficient sex you know if you know the way to make your partner orgasm it become you do shorthand sex you just go cut out all the middlemen and just go straight for the things that you know are going to work very efficient you know you can both have an orgasm in five minutes but it's not really that interesting so but that's better than nothing i'd much prefer people still had sex but what usually happens is you lose a bit of interest because all the hormones disappear other things come along and the you know as you get older your testosterone drops your estrogen drops as a woman and it does in men as well and the less you have sex the less you want sex and suddenly you're having no sex at all and then it all becomes a bit awkward and it's the sibling effect thing where it feels like you're having sex with your brother you know like because you haven't done it for so long and that's happened to people i know yeah time it happens all the time and then we're best friends yeah and most couples are best friends so it's the only way i think that you can have hope of still having good sex is to really tap into the dark side you know that really the stuff that you only tell you know you sort of maybe that weird porn category that you masturbate to or a fantasy that turns you on you're like christ i'm glad no one could read my mind do you know that sort of weird shit that is your thing if you can get to the point with your partner where you can tell them that stuff and they tell you that stuff that's what kicks you past the darling put the bins out you know i'm having sex with my brother type thing and puts you into wow you know because you need something like that that's why bdsm is actually very popular yeah because it gets you anything that preps you out of that role like if you if you're into bondage or dress up or you know you know mild whipping or something you're not going to do that and you're you know casual clothes that you wear watching this you know on the sofa you're going to go and you're going to put on a corset and you're going to get that whip and you're going to put on your high heels and all of this stuff puts you in the mood it's all about triggers in the brain that go aha right okay i know what's coming now like you know and so your body gets into it but you've got to move out of that role that you're in most of the time of mother of sister of you know like best friend and you know oh darling you know you're you know that cuddle mode and less of the dopamine and more of the testosterone stuff i'm just thinking about you know couples that have been together for a long time and how scary it is to talk fantasy for fear of being shamed again yes um because it's one thing to enjoy sex and everything but then to talk about a fantasy where you're a bit like i'm not sure how you're going to react to this but i think like maybe if one person is brave enough to do that the other person might then feel brave enough to come back but what happens if they go what are you talking about like yeah yeah how would you well it does happen that does happen and this is why i'm often i'm i don't know i mean i i know that that's the only way you're going to keep it going but i also know that you especially if you say you've got a fantasy about you come home and the workmen across the road six of them all come in and ravish your own so you've probably had this fantasy for five years before you end up telling your partner now you've had five years to get used to this they haven't they haven't had any idea so if you see me come in and say actually darling i want to tell you my fantasy about the work when you see those women across the road well i often imagine he's like oh my god she thinks this is this is what's going to happen when i'm going she wants this is what she wants you know and And also, what does that mean?

32:14And so you've almost got to prepare the person. You take baby steps. You don't come out with that fantasy. You would be leading up to things and saying to your partner, God, I feel like we've got in such a rut. Remember when we, in the beginning, we used to be really adventurous. Isn't there, you know, maybe we should go, remember that used to turn us on. Maybe we should try that. Little inch forward, inch forward. And then you can move yourselves along to go, God, have you ever thought about anything really weird? Do you have something that really turns you on, but you've never told anyone because it seems really weird and you sort of don't give them the big thing, you give them a little thing?

32:51Yes. And that's how it all, you know, comes out. But you've got to have a partner who's also good at talking about sex. Yes, which is also difficult sometimes. I mean, I feel like it's also quite a good thing to say to somebody when you're just broaching the subject is that fantasy is called fantasy because it is a fantasy and that if if they do say something don't worry you're not going to read that as them expecting it to actually happen in true life because those kind of things would be marriage ending if they happen in true life the whole reason why they're so erotic is because you know it's not going to happen that's exactly yeah yeah yeah you must say that yeah it's exactly the first thing i say if you go to share a fantasy you've got to say what you want done with it do you want to role play it do you want to use it as titillation or do you want a partner to surprise you with that sex worker and you have the threesome you know because yeah don't let them know they might surprise you yeah sex worker and you have to end up i mean it's like what is this going on i mean that's happened so many times yes it's not just the cliche jokey thing but if you broke it beforehand maybe somebody would want it like it's you know there's nothing wrong I guess with that like if you both um I mean the other problem I think if you are in a relationship where one person is trying to reach you as a couple if there's couples watching this and someone's broaching it then know that they want to improve or connect with you on some level and I always think if you don't try and reach out and connect then if someone else connects with them on the outside they're in danger that's right um yeah that if you love somebody it's really worth trying to stick close in that way and if somebody i mean it's really hard even somebody who's really good at talking about sex you are vulnerable when you're saying to your partner i'd like to have sex more often and actually i have this thing i wish you know would you mind doing for me or whatever i mean that's you know they they risk ridicule being judged they risk their you know that person going down the pub and telling their mates or you know you turn your girlfriends or whatever and and it's a highly vulnerable moment so even if somebody you partner suggest something you think what the hell i have no interest in that ever don't react like that yes never react like that just say wow that's really brave of you to tell me that and you know i'm not quite sure whether that's my thing but tell you what let's try it if you would be prepared to or how about you know is there anything how about we role play it how about we i've always wanted to do this are you interested in this if you're going to say no you say i'm not interested in that but how about this because then it's not a rejection yes but you've got to offer something else up or else you know and i'm also a great believer in low effort sex and no effort sex because honestly if you have reason that you really don't want sex and maybe your partner's got a way higher libido or you're post-menopausal and i mean plenty of women would love to still have sex and they literally can't because of you know painful sex or dry vaginas or just their desires just gone through the floor so that doesn't mean that you can't be sexual with your partner so if your partner say i don't ever want sex again and my husband says to me right what are we going to do you don't want to have sex you can say okay well I don't necessarily want to have intercourse but you could give me oral sex I could give you oral sex you could not touch me in the slightest but I could give you pleasure yeah pleasure or I could even watch you give yourself pleasure yeah there are ways to be sexual without actually putting yourself out in the slightest and I think that that's what we need to embrace more I mean self-pleasure is amazing and how people don't do that enough really like You think, God, if you just self-pleasured in front of each other, it's very erotic.

36:52You know, you talk to each other and say how gorgeous you think each other look. Or I love what you just did. You just said, oh, wow. When you were saying, if you're a bit like, well, not on your nelly about the fantasy that they just told you. But you go, wow, that was really brave. To congratulate the person that's really stuck, you know, put themselves out there by telling you something that you can see they're nervous about telling you. rather than shaming them saying well done well thank you yeah thank you for trusting me with that yeah i appreciate that so much yeah because that's exactly i mean that's exactly intimacy isn't it and i'll tell you who's really bad at this is men to women when women suggest something that they want to try that's a little bit out there it's like number one who've you done this with them who've you done this with oh god i mean so there's that yeah yeah that's right yeah or there's well you know and especially if they're if you're more adventurous than they are then they feel because it's the man that should be more adventurous so then they feel like you know god she's obviously done more than i have and so then they'll you know yeah how many lovers have you had and you know all this sort of stuff it's it's a really bad thing to do it's a really bad thing to do it takes a lot of guts to sort of say what you want in bed to even just say you know can you move your head there or put your finger there or or whatever I mean meeting someone who meets your sexual desire is quite important but like you said your sexual desire can match at the beginning but you know after you've had kids or and you've mentioned a couple of times about dry vaginas and painful sex after after menopause I'd like to just put my hand up and say I take vaginal estrogen and when I started taking hormone replacement therapy I was 43 and I didn't really have vaginal atrophy then which is when you're just in case people watching or listening don't know um it's when your your vagina gets drier but I did get it kind of in my early 50s and started using vaginal estrogen and it has revolutionized my whole life because I felt like my vagina was getting shorter.

39:13Yeah, I know. And it was painful and it was, I got even masturbating or using a toy or something like that, it just wasn't, it wasn't the same. Anyway, Vagina Estrogen has reopened my shop and it has been. My vagina feels like it used to. I it's comfortable I enjoy sex again I find orgasming easier because I'm lubricated down there it's all better so I just wanted to say that as a point of yeah I agree but also for STIs any kind of infections because you're lubricated more you don't get so many there are so many benefits to it and go and see a menopause specialist if you're nervous about it or a doctor, but it is safe.

40:06They now know that vaginal oestrogen, even if you don't want to take HRT, women in their 80s, 90s can start taking vaginal oestrogen. It is an amazing medicine. Yeah, because it's difficult, so it's only on the area. But I think that does make a huge difference. But I also think, I mean, no sane woman over the age of 40 should have sex without lube. Yeah. I mean, and that was the other thing I was going to say was this is something I was shocked about is that some men think that lube is somehow cheating and women have to hide the lube because like what's wrong with, you know, what does that mean?

40:46I don't turn you on. It's like, oh, for God's sake, so many things affect vaginal lubrication. You can have drunk too much alcohol. You can be dehydrated. It can be the time of the month. It can be menopause. It can be so many things. And the same things that affect how much semen they produce. But it's okay for them. But for some reason, it's a big insult for you to have to use lube. It is absolutely pathetic. I hadn't thought about that, that men create less or more semen. But we don't go, oh, you didn't produce enough of that. Can you imagine men going off and secretly kind of getting more semen or something inside their penis so they can look like they ejaculated enough so that we don't shame them about it.

41:31It is ridiculous. I had never thought of that. Yeah. That is mad. It is completely mad. That somehow our wetness is an indicator of how hot they are. Yeah. Oh, my God. The thing in reverse is women are guilty of thinking how hard he is is an indicator of how much he fancies them. Oh, right, yeah. And so we're just as bad at that. So if ever you're with a man who gets an erection problem, please just be kind and just go, oh, well, it happens to me, it happens to everybody, you know, like, and then good, you can pleasure me now. You know, give me a bit more oral sex. I'm sure that'll fix things.

42:08Just keep it light because honestly, the amount of men who've ended up completely not, you know, with ED problems for the rest of their life because a woman or a male partner has shamed them. They're like, oh my God. And they're anxious the next time. And of course, then of course, the minute you're anxious, penis is, don't want to know it just you set up and then it happens again and then it's even more psychological and and it's it just is terrible all for one thing i mean we're not machines we are human beings sometimes his penis isn't going to work sometimes your vagina is not going to lubricate sometimes you'll have an orgasm sometimes you won't it's just yeah we're normal it's interesting i i probably have been guilty of that like it when i was younger that it was me in some way not yeah that's quite interesting that yeah you think never thought of not fancy that is basically what yeah happens the other way around and do you know what often men often men of course in especially when they're younger have um can't get an erection because they fancy the girl too much they're like oh my god you know this is really important this is really important for Christ's sake you know make sure you work and then you know they're the girl and these poor girls who are you know who who don't think of it looking at it from that through that lens and thinking oh my god everyone keeps telling me i'm really pretty and hot but why don't men think so because whenever i get with a guy i can't get an erection it's because you're almost too hot in some ways so you should never ever take it personally for either way no men or women that's really interesting they aren't indicators you can be as turned on more turned on than you've ever been in your entire life and still not be wet.

43:43You can be as turned, you know, he could be as turned on by you more than any other female has ever seen and still not be hard. There are so many other indicators. They are not the indicator that we should, you know, they're not as the sort of be all and end all as we think they are, particularly past a certain age for men and women. But even before that, even before that. And in terms of desire, I always think desire is such a wonderful thing. And I think in a long-term relationship, if you've been with somebody for a very long time, it can get to the stage where it's like, are we going to shag tonight?

44:23You know, it's like that. It's like, you know, you were talking about taking out the bins and, you know, doing and sort of while you're cleaning up dinner, it's like, shall we shag tonight? And that's what it gets down. Yeah, that's what it gets down to. um and I interviewed Paul Brunson you know Paul Brunson and he um was talking about um foreplay starts straight after the last time you had sex yeah and I love that idea so what do you think because I'd like to hear this for men and for women what do you think are the think of the things that sparked desire in women um i think i think women are more turned on by words and i mean the big thing now is audio porn have you ever listened to audio no audio porn has has completely come into its own now and so you can have it's there's so much out there you say generally you you you can either have somebody reading a it's all somebody reading dirty stories another yeah you can get classic ones you can get really filthy ones you can get did you um listen to that podcast dirty diana with demi moore no my god you've got to listen to it ah it's what it was made during covid now this is a sign that we have like got a little bit better about sex so it's klaus bang demi moore they're the two main characters and it's all about this demi moore plays this woman called diana and she records audio porn and she's making a fortune on the side but her husband doesn't know and at the beginning of each episode she got all these famous people um women to talk about them so they come in and they tell demi moore their fantasy and she records it for this um audio porn channel that she does and all these quite famous um actor actresses are talking about quite explicit fantasies and then men or women pay to listen to this so but it's not just the podcast i mean this is a fictitious thing obviously but there There is tons of audio porn out there.

46:26Tons and tons of it. If you look up audio porn, and you can, it's brilliant. You can look up audio porn. Yeah, just look up audio porn. You go into it. There's millions and millions of ones to choose from. But there's probably about, I've done lots of stuff on this on my website, which is tracycox.com. But how it's great, how it's great is that you can, because when you said what turns women on, words and stories turn women on. So have your earphones in, be listening to audio porn. and he could be giving you all sex and you're in a completely different world. So not with the person, which is nothing against the person, but, you know, the whole point of monogamy and making it good is that, you know, it's the monotony of monogamy in a way.

47:07So any way that can take you out of that is good. 80 % of people fantasize about other people when they're having sex with their partner that they've been with forever. It's not that the partner's not sexy or fantastic. You've just slept with them too many times and habituation's kicked in. or you can have the audio porn playing so he can listen to it as well and that's your backdrop so it's an alternative to looking at porn which is often what couples do which kind of does it for him more than her most of the time though there's great porn for women um so i would say that's one area that women could explore i mean look at the 50 shades phenomenon ah that was extraordinary the books were anyway you might no i just wanted to say something so i was reading 50 shades of grey A girlfriend of mine told me about it.

47:52I was getting on a flight. She said, buy it before you get on the flight. Read it on the flight. I was reading it on the flight. And I was like, because obviously I'm Davina McCall, so I was like, I'm reading this book and people are looking at me. And I kept putting the book down like that. So when people walked past my seat, they couldn't see what I was reading. And then I lifted it up. And then finally an air stewardess saw she was coming around. And she saw. And she looked at me and I went like that. And then she went. like I've read it like it's amazing I was like it's amazing but you know what it was yeah did you ever read Nancy Friday yes I mean Nancy Friday those books were fantastic they were fantastic so Nancy Friday is with real women I've got goosebumps from saying Nancy Friday that's how good it was she because she got she got women around the world to write in their fantasies and they she didn't edit them very much and they were hot hot and explicit and shocking and it completely it completely got rid of that image that women want romantic sex on a beach you know like with the wind and the and the waves crashing and no they don't they want yeah absolutely shocking explicit way more explicit than men yeah she was the first one who did that and um and yeah 50 shades but what i found interesting about 50 shades there are millions of 50 shades books out there but it just some it's all word of mouth and how things spread but what 50 shades did which I thought was quite interesting because I around that time I'd go to places or dinner parties and people would go oh sex darling who has sex we don't have sex do we and it was almost like a boast to not have sex and then that happened and women who hadn't felt like sex in decades suddenly I remember being on holiday once this woman said to me god I picked up 50 shades and I she said I actually woke my partner up at three o 'clock in the morning we had had sex for like 10 years and said can you have sex he was like what okay but because of that book so whatever you think about the books it doesn't matter it started this revolution for women because it's interesting sex it's naughty sex it's forbidden sex it's like stuff that's not this treating i mean i'm sorry but every valentine's day and people put rose pedals on the bed please we don't do it'd be like a bucket of cold water for me i don't want every day is valentine's day like every day is like a like i love you like i don't need to have one day sex should be a bit dirty not yeah romantic exactly and it's like say you have to like this if you're going to do it one day it's got to be this day it's like no i'm not going to do it when you tell me i don't know there's an argument for scheduled sex oh yes okay so you're so this is interesting because obviously in a long-term relationship like you said it's quite easy for it to go a month and then after a month difficult difficult to come back from that how do you instigate a month how do you instigate again how do you you know it's yeah it gets after that becomes awkward yeah how do you there's bed there's a i think i'm trying to think was it i think any couple who hasn't had sex for three years unless you have a massive discussion you you are never having sex again.

51:08Right. That's just, okay, that's it. That's just it. Yeah. So I've talked about this before and there was a bit of an uproar and I'd like to apologise now to anybody that's listening because I think I was wrong. That I said, if you are with somebody and you are not having sex, I would not count that as a relationship because I would be like, but sex is part of the relationship. That is what makes you boyfriend and girlfriend. Because in the back of my head, I'm thinking that your partner might go off and have their head turned by somebody who does want to have sex or you might. You're on very shaky ground.

51:48But lots of people were quite upset about that because it's also they are. Yes. Well, then I feel like I did learn something. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually not true. There are sexist relationships and sexist relationships and some sexist relationships. when one partner desperately wants sex and the other one doesn't that is a recipe for disaster okay and no one's happy okay but you can get relationships where couples just naturally evolve they're just maybe couples are just not that interested in it anyway at all at all with anybody no yeah buddy or they've done i mean i know couples that have had the best sex ever and they they talk about god remember when we used to do that but they've almost had so much sex at the start that they felt like well we've done all that now we're on a different phase now we're not we're not not interested but it's just sort of not important anymore so if there's nothing wrong with having no sex in your relationship so long as you're both happy with having no sex in your relationship and so long as the affection doesn't stop like if you're really cuddly you kiss a lot you you know you're affectionately playful you're intimate then it's not the same is just having a friend that's not roommate no living as roommates but if you've got one person who desperately wants sex and the other one doesn't okay and the other one who doesn't want sex is saying you have to stay faithful to me that's not fair that's not fair and that's completely a different thing but but I mean when I was younger I used to think that I used to think god you know why what sort of relationship is that but there are plenty of people when I wrote my recent book well not that recent but um great sex starts at 50 i interviewed um lots of um she's got it lots of um my friends about their sex lives i thought i'll start with them and i did also probably 2 000 women and men so interesting people that i know pretty well are not my core group of friends but my people i know pretty well who haven't had sex in years you would never tell you would and and sort of people who you think who talk the talk yes who just are they're the ones that are not interested not the women they're the ones that are not interested always the way always the sort of way isn't it the people who the boasty ones down the pub are the ones that aren't having sex and the people who are quiet usually are but the amount of couples who have been together for a long long time who were just really not fussed about it and the ones who were the less the most comfortable with it had had good sex at the start yeah i think if you if you know that it's there if both of you and that's the other thing if you're going to not have sex you don't ever want to say we're never going to have sex again you want to leave it open so that because sometimes something can happen in somebody's life most often when they do fancy someone outside the relationship and it gives them the spark they don't want to cheat but suddenly they do want to have sex again so you need to be able to be open to that as well you know so so you never say never but i think so long as you have the conversation but what you cannot do you mustn't do is just take it off the table and don't talk about it yeah and so many people do that so then you don't know if your partner's really happy about it and you know and they don't know if you're really happy about it so then both of you are slightly nervous thinking well is somebody else going to come along because of course you're going to be more right for an affair if you're wanting sex and you're not having sex of course you are so what would be what would be the reason for scheduling sex like surely it would just happen if both of you were interested so what okay go on tell me right of course it doesn't happen in the beginning right but that whole spontaneous sex thing it happens in the beginning because it's fueled by hormones habituation sets in very very fast within two years your body goes well i'm not going to get spontaneously turned on by you because i've done you hundreds of times it just is the way the human brain works it makes it because otherwise if we were suddenly so excited by things all the time we'd be exhausted in life so it happens with everything not just sex so what happens after that is that if both of you get like that the more you have sex the more you want it because your body remembers it right the more orgasms you have the more your body is going to go hang on a minute you haven't had an orgasm for a while so the idea is to make sex a habit so you can do that by going I mean my partner and I used to have like Sunday sex and we'd have this we knew that sex was like Sundays was sex day and it would be like great we've got sex day but you wouldn't just do the same thing you had to come up with an idea of something different that you would do and it'd your turn one week and their turn another oh that's a great idea so you can't just say we have to have sex tonight at 10 o 'clock and we're gonna have the same sex we've had for the last because that's really boring terrible yeah terrible terrible but if it's a bit of a playful thing yeah and it's like you know okay well this week we're going to do this and you know you can take it to it could be a tiny little thing or it could be something big where you have to plan for it or it's up to you but it's you know people rattle on about spontaneous sex la la la anticipation is just as good it's just as good and if there's one myth that drives me insane it's that we had so much spontaneous sex at the start we never planned anything we never planned sex you plan sex more at the start than you do at any other time what am I going to wear what you know what we're going to do you change the bed linen you look at your underwear you think about what trick you're going to do you go you know you pick the restaurant you're lighting music Exactly.

57:30Thank you. And the other thing we need to talk about is spontaneous versus responsive sex desire and how we desire sex. Oh, yes. So what do you mean by that? So spontaneous sex drive is two thirds of men where it's like nothing particularly happens, but it's like I feel like sex right now. These girls walk past, I feel like sex or, you know, I'm looking at your legs, feel like sex. A gay friend of mine, I thought this was so good. I said so what's it like being gay like just for the sex drive and everything and he went basically sex is my screensaver so when when when his computer in his head just switches to kind of it's been dead for three minutes you think the screen the screensaver comes on and it's like rabid sex hilarious and I was like oh I completely get that yes you'll just be sitting there for three um he was 27 28 yeah gay man 27 I'm gonna go back to gay man of 27 yeah yeah because I I reckon they're having the most fun.

58:24Amazing. Aren't they? But that's true. That's true. So spontaneous sex is just out of the blue feeling like sex, right? Responsive sex is I don't really feel like sex at all. But if somebody touches me in the right way and I start having sex, suddenly I'm in the mood. And women, two-thirds of women, are responsive. And this is where people get all confused about sex because women think, I don't have a sex drive at all because I never spontaneously feel like sex. Sometimes I quite like sex. once we start going but I never spontaneously feel like it so therefore I have no sex drive no you have a different sex drive it's completely different and also if if men understood that like because men shouldn't be insulted if women don't want sex spontaneously because that's not the way they work we're not made like that biologically so if you could have a kind of agreement where you could start having sex if she was up for it and then maybe after 10 minutes five minutes whatever we want to put on it if she says you know what it's still not working for me then it would be fine and he can masturbate in front of you or go off and whatever then that would work a lot better the way that men initiate sex pretty much guarantees that women say no all the time because it's they know they don't understand yes or you know what get you know if your partner knows that you're you've got responsive desire they would you know they could say well what what do you need to get in the mood so they you know run a bath talk to me yes you know give me a glass of wine so I've got something interesting to ask you have you ever heard about the five love languages yeah have you heard about that book and it's um I've been around ever and ever so I did the love languages test I mean there's no guessing what my primary love language is obviously it's touch yeah um and then it's acts of service and then it's words of affirmation so in that order so if i get touched um six or seven times a day and i just mean like a an affirmative knee rub shoulder rub face stroke something yeah i feel loved yeah so that's quite interesting yeah and if if say we do something like a cleanup and he helps me and that turns me on like I feel loved if you know what I mean so all of those things are like foreplay for me yeah and and you're saying running a bath that's an act of service yeah that's saying like I've been a bath shall we have a bath together that's like definitely you know you know what I mean I feel so cherished and I always thought that acts of the love languages were a complete tosh and then when I did it I thought oh god actually I think that does speak to me and I also thought sorry but if anybody's watching this is quite good for Mother's Day as a child if you know your mother's primary love languages touch you know you say I'm going to give you a hug every day for the next year yeah My God, that would be the greatest.

1:01:25I don't need gifts. I just need cuddles from my kids. I think that most people are a mix, a good mix, and sort of try and think that they should be one of those things sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I know that I'm a mix of words of affirmation, acts of service and touch. Yeah, most people are. But if you, yeah. So if you... Well, actually, some people don't like the touch bit, do they? Yes, they don't. I'm a touch person. Yeah. And words are my... And if you're with a touch person. So... I know a couple who one is touch one isn't and I'm worried about them because he does the five touchy things every day because that's what he needs to do to feel but she's like stop stop stop pouring me then you think that's not going to work.