Is Porn Healthy or Unhealthy? A Psychosexual Therapist Tells the Truth | Silva Neves

25:33If they watch porn together, they tend to be in good relationships. If they watch porn not in secret, they tend to be in a good relationship. Problems come when partners have different values about porn, or when one is watching it secretly, or when they're just not talking about this. That's when relationships can deteriorate because of the lack of communication and the lack of shared values. Wow. So what I'm hearing then is whenever shame becomes a big thing in conversations, that's when it starts to break down. It's the shame and the stigma attached, I guess, to anything that you're bringing to a conversation is when it's broken down, really.

26:10That's right. And if the media keeps saying porn is bad, and if you watch porn, you're a bad person, and if you watch porn, you're going to be part of the manosphere or whatever, then of course, it's not going to be opening up the conversations for people to say, hey, you know what? I really quite like watching porn. I watch porn for 10 minutes once a day. It helps me sleep at the end of the day, or it helps me with my daily stress, just to reset, and, you know, all is good. You know, we don't have those conversations. Those conversations are not normalized. And if somebody was going to be saying that in a first date, or saying that openly, people would be like, oh, while you watch porn 10 minutes a day, you've got to be, you know, having a problem here, or the person will automatically be seen as not wholesome.

26:55But actually, some people watch porn every day for 10 minutes a day, and it's really well integrated as part of their sexual health, really well integrated into their lives, and that can actually help. Do you know what I think people will be fighting back on here? I always love two sides. And it came up a bit in the Laurie Mintz, is for women, and maybe this is more the manosphere type of porn, the misogynistic type of porn, where kind of women are devalued a lot. And I think when men can grow up watching one type of porn where women are kind of not showing the right types of pleasure or the connection isn't there or that type of thing it can allow this kind of substrate in someone's mind to be like that's how I should be performing in the bedroom or a quick orgasm which was really interesting when I spoke to Dr.

27:46Laurie Mintz she was like you know women are so different. And there's such a different, you know, version of what we might see in movies or in porn, like even in movies, it's very kind of like, you kind of have sex in three minutes and it's amazing. And so she was kind of like, how we depict porn is really important because if a man's watching that every day and getting that quick dopamine hit in 10 minutes, but then goes into the relationship with a partner and thinks that that's exactly how it's meant to be, That's where I think a lot of people are getting the breakdown. And where a lot of people were fighting in the comments under that conversation by saying, you know, well, that's where I think porn's gone wrong, because women are kind of devalued in it.

28:27And it's not shown the woman's pleasure as much. What do you say? What's your kind of thought around that with men watching porn 10 minutes a day? Yeah, I think this is also part of the lack of sex education and the lack of porn literacy education as well. We need that too. And for people to really make a difference between partnered sex and solo sex, masturbating, watching porn, those are two different things. And again, to get people to try to understand that, try to find some analogy of other things that we're more socialized to think about. So if you think about going to a restaurant, if you go to a nice post-restaurant, you're going to take your time.

29:04You're going to look at the menu. You're going to connect with the people you're at the table with, you're going to taste your food really slowly and really appreciate the whole atmosphere and the whole time. And you can be in a restaurant for, you know, a good two, three hours, having a great time. If you're going to a fast food place for your burger, it's just going to be your burger. You might not connect with anyone. You might be on your phone. It will be a two minutes, five minutes sugar rush. Okay? Those are two different experiences. And both are okay. There's a place for them. You know, we're not going to be banning burgers just because they give you a bit of a sugar hit once in a while.

29:39And we should be having that conversation as well with sex, that, you know, the partner sex is really different from solo sex. Completely different experiences. But when we don't have sexification, when we don't have porn literacy, people just mix everything up together, thinking that what they watch for the 10 minutes is going to be how they should be, you know, training their bodies to just react to what they're watching and to how they have an orgasm. That is one way of doing it. but also to make sure that they can still understand their bodies and understand how you connect with another human being and have some mutual pleasure with each other.

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31:25If you want to understand your body, not just through performance, but through self-awareness, then this is where I'd begin.

31:35Is there a, I don't know if there's any research here, because we've done so much on this show around dopamine, the kind of feel-good hormone, and the quick hits, and we've done it a lot with tech, about how much like we're in taking in a day, and I see it in myself, you know, I grab my phone, I'm trying not to in the morning, like when I wake up. TJ Powell, he came on, who's a neuroscientist was like, never take your phone to the bedroom or the bathroom. And I was thinking, oh yeah, whenever I go to the loo, I naturally just like take my phone. Think about being at dinner at a restaurant and you're like, take your phone to the bathroom with you.

32:07It's just like an ingrained habit. And we don't realize like how much on tap we have to this dopamine demand. And I'm thinking, obviously porn has changed so much. You know, like when we both grew up, the internet wasn't around. So it was very different to get your hands on that type of quick rush, very different. And obviously, porn's been around in different variables for such a long time, but it wasn't always on demand. And it's similar with any type of technology, but now it's on constant demand. Is that not having any type of negative effect on our sexual experience? We don't know, actually.

32:43So, what you're talking about is, yes, it's not just porn, it's social media, it's everything. And there's one way of looking at it is dopamine. But dopamine. Neuroscientists have very different opinions about the role of dopamine when it comes to porn. People say that it just reacts exactly as it should, because dopamine is not actually a feel-good chemical, it's a learning chemical. It's a reward chemical, right? It's a reward chemical and it's learning, but it's learning that there is a reward. So then when the reward is associated with a particular thing, then we form a habit to say, oh, this thing is going to give me some pleasure in five minutes, ten minutes, or at the end of the day.

33:20So you get dopamine at that moment, because your brain has learned that there's going to be a reward coming up. And that happens with everything. It happens also with the phone. We take our phone. If we have enough good experiences with the phone, you know, we look at Instagram and we see some funny videos of cats, then suddenly the phone might be associated with that. Or the phone is associated with connections with friends and families and so on. So the dopamine in that way actually works as it should. And a lot of people as well in the kind of porn addiction side, they might say that we get addicted to dopamine, but also the lots of neuroscientists are saying, we just don't get addicted to dopamine.

34:01It's just a brain chemical that we create ourselves. It's not an external chemical that is hijacking our brain. We make it ourselves. So our brain can sustain the dopamine as it normally does. But the thing is, like when we do get habits of this, and that's the difference between the dopamine and habituation. We are habits people, okay? We create habits all the time. The way that we shower, the way that we have breakfast, the way that we live our lives is through habits. And habits are not problematics. You know, habits are just what we do. But again, sometimes we have to really think of how have we made some habits with phones, with porn, with social media, with our phones, and how we can change those habits.

34:43So it's not about saying it's bad, but it's more about thinking, how can I make it better for me? How can I integrate that into my life in a different way? That is not always the habit of grabbing the phone each time you wake up or whatever. And that goes into the area of what we call digi-attachment. And digi-attachment is basically the attachment to technology. And if we think about it, we always attach to objects. We attach to comfort blankets when we're children. We can attach to a teddy bear. And our phone is just the same thing. We're attached to it. And it's okay, again, to normalize that we have an attachment to our technology.

35:22It's part of our lives. It's every day in our lives. Everyone, well, most people know where their phones are at any given time. You know, it's that kind of attachment, okay? And so it's precious. But it doesn't mean that we can't look at it and change it if it doesn't work for us. So if we think, okay, I'm spending way too much time on my phone when my partner's just here. watching TV, I'm not connecting with my partner because I'm on my phone. OK, pay attention to that. And then you can put the phone down and create a different habit to say, OK, from 6 p.m., it's going to be, you know, connection with my partner.

35:58OK. And by doing that on a regular basis, then you create a new habit. So the conversation is really about keeping paying attention to how we want our lives to be, rather than thinking something is a disorder, something is a problem, Something is unhealthy and I have to get a cure for it. I don't think that's a very helpful conversation. No, but I do think it's so interesting in how just such a short space of time, we've had so much at our fingertips. Because I think about, you know, I've got a niece and nephew who are teenagers now. It makes me feel really old saying that. But yeah, I do. And they've grown up in a world that is so different to a world that I grew up in.

36:38You know, I might I've had a phone at 14, but it was like a Nokia 3210, where literally I'd play Snake. Yeah, I remember those. And text someone. But, you know, I wasn't obsessed with my phone because I didn't have everything at my fingertips. And I even remember trying to go on the internet and dialing up, you know, like it took so long for the NTL broadband to kind of like come on. But whereas I think like kids now today can access anything at any point. And I think, especially even us as adults like I would love us to all have that self-awareness of like oh wait I'm on my phone too much but it's so easy and it's so easy to access anything that our self-awareness can kind of subside and our reward centers can go in full mode because obviously we want to have a reward we all want to feel good but we don't always sometimes realize when that's become unhealthy unless you're like an obsessively self-aware person but I don't think most of the nation are.

37:32Like, even if we want to be, I still do things that I know are bad for me. And I feel like I'm constantly checking in with myself, but I'm still doing it. And so I think, like, when it comes to, like, porn, it's such an interesting area because we've gone into a landscape that we've never had before. And we even think now about, you know, I think about AI with porn, think about GOK, everything that came out recently about, like, where does that boundary lie with undressing people without their consent. That can also tip into the porn conversation. How do you look at that? Yeah, I think in the issue of consent, it's really important also to look at the DigiHealth principles.

38:14So there are some principles of having healthy relationships with our technology and with what we watch. One of those principles is consent, absolutely. Consent and privacy are really, really important. So if you are doing something online that is non-consensual, or if you're watching something that's non-consensual, just stop straight away because that is just not part of the DG Health principles. But with everything that you say, you know, the young people, we observe the young people. I agree with you. Like, I'm the same. I've got the analog brain. And so when I watch young people who just never held a pen, I'm like, what?

38:48You can't hold a pen? Yeah, I know. As a psychotherapist, I always try to see about the blind spots that we have and the landscape that we don't always see. Because all of us can have a blind spot, all of us, okay? Young people, but we can too. And a lot of the research at the moment that is being done, or the discussion, not even the research, but the discussion that's being done, is from people of our generation. And we look at young people and we think it's a problem. But maybe for young people, it's not a problem for them. Maybe their brain is actually going to be different from our brain.

39:22We have an analog brain. Maybe they'll have a different brain. And is it necessarily bad, or is it just going to be different? Are they going to relate differently? Is that okay to relate differently? Or is it not? There is now a new— it's not a new, but it's one of the sexual orientation identities that we call digisexuality. And digisexuality is people who connect the best through a screen online. And this is really booming at the moment. A lot of people identify as digisexuals. Young people identify as digisexuals. Is it a problem or is it an emerging new thing because technology is with us?

40:01So I think sometimes we do need to just not ignore the problems, but definitely keep an open mind, because otherwise we can so easily start to problematize something that might not be or might be for some people or maybe a small group of people, but not generalize it to everyone else. And also this technology, you know, that is in our lives, it's still very new. And we have not been able to do research yet on how the young people today that grew up with the technology from, you know, year one with a phone, how they're going to be when they're in their 40s or 50s. because we're still too early on, so we have to really see what these populations are doing.

40:43At the moment, we're just making assumptions, and we're making assumptions based on one way that we relate, one way that we know that we relate, but there could be other ways, and we just don't know how it's going to go. So, yes, sure, look at it. It's okay sometimes to look at young people and sometimes think, oh gosh, you're spending too much time on screen, but also to keep an open mind on, And, you know, we don't know if it's going to be a problem or not. I'm interrupting for one moment to ask one small favor. Please subscribe to the show. This helps it grow more than you know. And I'm so bad at asking this from you.

41:20I'm so bad at thinking about this. But you know my goal is 100 ,000 to get to on YouTube. And I really want to bring you more content and bigger episodes. And we can only do that with your help together. So please do hit subscribe. Thank you. What age do you think it should be regarding exposure to porn? Because I think that's the big conversation, right? Because it's the unlimited access that they can have online. Yes. Pornography is an adult entertainment. So it is for adults. It is not for children. It is never recommended for children and should never be recommended for children. OK? Children under the age of 18, or whatever is the age of consent in countries, should not be accessing porn.

42:00It's for adults. just like horror movies. Okay, horror movies, there is an age thing on movies, you know, is because if you watch a horror movie when you're too young, you can actually get traumatized by the gore that you see. You know, horror movies can actually be really quite traumatic. Some people remember horror movies since when they were too young they were not supposed to watch. So it's just across all the media. There are some media that are for adults and it should stay for adults. It's just how we regulate that, isn't it? when it's just at their fingertips, and what that effect has on them when they are accessing it under the age of consent.

42:38Yes, and as you said, there's neither AI stuff, and we can find some sexy, erotic, pornographic material all over the place, even on social media, even on Instagram. And I think part of that, because it's out there at the moment, it is not well-regulated, we need to have this conversation with the young people. And it really goes back to porn literacy and to sex education, to make sure that the young people know what they're watching, when to stop watching it, and something to move away from if it's not appropriate for their age. But hopefully in the future, there's going to be more regulations for the young people.

43:18And I know there are some countries that even have banned mobile phones for under 15, I think, or 16. I'm not sure if that's really good. I think that sometimes young people need to be able to connect online with their peers, but just like everyone else, everywhere else, online spaces, they will have predators, they will have some unpleasant things. And so what do we do with that? Do we teach the young people how to navigate those online spaces the safest they can, or do we ban it? It's a big discussion. What did you think of The Manosphere, the Netflix documentary with Louis Ferreau? I really want to know your thoughts on this.

43:56I think the manosphere is definitely a problem. And again, the manosphere is here because of the online stuff, right? It's people getting together online and creating that type of manosphere. I think that a lot of it is really not so much about a worldview or a mindset, but it's actually something to do with making money out of it, because people do make quite a lot of money out of saying some really awful things for some reason. And the manosphere is interesting in terms of porn, because in one way, it's very misogynistic, so it relates to misogynistic porn and really unethical stuff going on there.

44:33But also another part of the manosphere is anti-porn, anti-masturbation. And that is with some forums that are specific for anti-porn and anti-masturbation, that kind of says if you're a real man, you can resist your urges. And if you're going to be masturbating to some naked women, then you're weak kind of things. And so there is this other side, and that is also part of those forums. Highly misogynistic too, because they will attack sex workers. They are anti-Semitic, they are homophobic, and they have now been categorized as an online terrorism activity. So it's actually really, really quite dangerous, but it is also part of the manosphere.

45:16Gosh, it feels like the opposite end of the spectrum. Yes. They're both quite extreme, aren't they? In their views. How do you think it's going to play out? You know, obviously, like, OnlyFans has become such a big online department now of where people access, but also, you know, I guess it kind of coming front, like, you know, coming online and having those stories exposed. I mean, I was really shocked watching the Louis Vuitton documentary. Shocked and not shocked, I guess, in a way. Not shocked by the fact that, like, I just know that that's what's out there. And it made me just really sad that people feel that they have to perform in that way to have respect.

45:51Because it's very, like, disrespectful, their behavior. And it's so extreme. And anything in extremism in any way isn't healthy. You know, any kind of real extreme way of thoughts and views is extreme. And, you know, there's obviously been a lot that's come out past this where people say, my lives have been ruined because of this documentary and I've been portrayed in a certain way. But like, are we creating a culture that is just kind of pushing this more, especially with the porn industry? The porn industry is so money making, right? It's only there purely for profit. So how do those two kind of go together?

46:29What do you think the evolution of that is? I don't know what the evolution is. And again, it's like, this is one type of porn. but it's really also important to know that there are millions of people who are accessing really good ethical porn. There is ethical porn, there is feminist porn, there is queer porn, there is platforms that show real sex with real people, with constant conversations. And so it's out there, it's accessible for men as well, for men and women. Women love it, men love it. And so this is also a very big part of the picture. When you look at the manosphere, even though it is unethical, dangerous, really unpleasant, misogynistic, and quite violent, even in some cases, it's also one group of people.

47:15I don't want to minimize it here, but I think it's also important to think that it's not… But it seems to get the loudest. …that it's all men. Yes, they're very loud. That's the thing. They're very loud. Yes. And when we look at… I don't know if you've seen in the UK, maybe a couple of months ago, when there was this headline to say that we're going to send boys to misogyny classes. No, I didn't. It was terrifying. There are some people who want to send boys to misogyny classes. As an intention, I think it's okay to be able to talk about misogyny with boys, but I think that if we're going to send boys to misogyny classes, the implied message here is that boys are inherently bad, unless they go to a class to learn to be good.

47:58And I don't like that message because this is not correct. What boys really need is to normalize being warm to each other, to normalize crying, to normalize hugging. They need more tenderness rather than going to a class. And I think that if we can do that with the new generations, maybe there will be less manosphere. Maybe there will be less demand for misogynistic porn. and maybe people can just be more kind of human and interacting in basic human ways to each other. I guess I feel like a lot of that also came from fear from them. I think when somebody can be so extreme, underlying that can be a lot of fear.

48:38Of course. Right? Yes. And so when you kind of look at it from that angle, when I looked at kind of OnlyFans, just because I'm referencing it because I think it's like the kind of biggest thing that's happened in the kind of porn sex evolution of our time at the moment, I was like, what are people going to OnlyFans for? and the biggest thing that they found is that men are going to OnlyFans not for sex but for someone simply to talk to. Yes and it is before OnlyFans it was sex workers in person sex workers a lot of people that go to see sex workers they don't go for sex only sometimes they only go for a conversation sometimes they go for a cuddle and with OnlyFans it's the same thing some people go because they want to have a conversation they want to be able to talk about anything when there's no judgment, where they can even express some of their erotic turn-ons that they might not want to do in real life, but sometimes it's just nice and fun to talk to someone about it.

49:30And so there's a big, big, you know, a lot of men will definitely go for that, for the connection. And, you know, it's important to really think about this, that sex, even if it's just a five-minute sexual experience, sometimes it's to do with connection. It's not just men wanting to ejaculate. I think connection is such a big part of it, right? So we spoke a lot about shame and stigma, about why people don't kind of have this conversation on as forthcoming with themselves, maybe with their partners, kind of maybe even like clicking onto this episode, they're scared because it's got the word porn in it, right?

50:08And then go, gosh, imagine my partner so that I'm listening to a porn episode, hopefully because it's live well be well that you know that it's a good thing. But I'm going to flip now. I'm going to flip to the extreme end of someone that doesn't have the shame and stigma because I think that is a big subset but not everyone has that right and so I'm going to name somebody now who is I think is the opposite that and I'd love your thoughts on this person so Bonnie Blue she's someone who's made 2.1 million dollars a month and slept with over a thousand men in 12 hours and she represents that extreme end where you know for her shame is removed from that equation she speaks so openly about it she says that her parents are involved in the business and they're really proud of her and she thinks it's great.

50:51Like, what's your clinical read on what's happening there, on how she speaks about it so openly and does big podcasts and kind of wears it with a badge of honour that she can sleep with this many people in such a finite amount of time? Yeah, it's interesting because I think here there's different things. There's the sexual practice and there's also making money out of it and there's there is being part of an industry. So if you are making so much money out of something that you are known for, then it's really hard to be honest and to actually figure out what's going on for that person. You know, not meeting that person myself as their therapist, I would just not know what's going on for them.

51:33But I think it's important to separate those two things, because as a sexual practice, it can be quite dangerous to have sex with so many men in such a short space of time. No, because the body sometimes just needs a rest, OK? Yeah. And it depends how much lube you take, it depends what are the agreements around it. I hope there was some actual proper contract around it so that she did not attract some men who were just wanting to abuse her. And she believed it was just part of the porn scene, because that can happen quite a lot. So men can just be attracted to someone that says, oh, great, it's an open door, I can come and lash out on however I want to.

52:13I hope there were some safety guidelines around this. But even so, I think that as a sexual practice, it's not a very safe sexual practice because it can really cause a lot of physical problems, a lot of physical injuries to do that. In terms of the business, if she's known for it, she is going to amplify it. She's going to make it look like something wholesome and something wonderful because that's what brings the money. But behind closed doors, it doesn't mean the same, It's true. A lot of people that will say some things out there just for the clicks or for the likes for finance is really quite different from what they feel or believe behind closed doors.

52:57So, who knows? It's such an interesting landscape because I know Chris Williamson did a podcast with her and someone else in debate with it. And she was on the Manosphere very briefly. but it's it's interesting because i think you know a lot of this conversation has maybe been dominated by the man's view and she's someone who is kind of the woman stepping up saying look at me i'm doing all of this stuff and this is like great and i'm gonna screw this person and that person and i don't know there's just kind of a there's a different degree of how she speaks that is very opposite to the conversation that we're kind of having around porn and the ways that it maybe can helpful for some people, it feels that she can put this very kind of like negative connotation that if you're not that way, she will be that way for you.

53:47And it kind of puts this like negative thing. And as you said, you know, I've listened to those conversations with her and she'll talk about, you know, how she gets turned on and how she can do that with a thousand men. But like, from human anatomy, that doesn't feel normal. You know, it's like questioning like, Is that normal? Is that healthy? It doesn't feel healthy. It feels quite worrying. But kind of the explosion of the business for her is, you know, that's the worry that I have with the messaging around it. I think everyone should be able to do exactly what they want to do. Absolutely. And this is it.

54:25I'm really all for women to be able to be out there really with a vibrant sexuality because female sexuality is shamed so much and locked up somehow. Society doesn't like having women with big sexualities. I think it's great that women can be that, that can be out there and say, this is me, I do what I want, I'm in charge of my sexuality, and I don't care what society tells me. I'm going to do what I want to do. And that is great. But as soon as you go into a space of saying, I can do those things and other people can't do it, therefore I'm better than others, then that's when the message starts to becoming problematic here, because it will make other women feel like not good enough, or maybe, oh, I should be able to do all these things.

55:09No, it's just, again, you know, what she does is a very, very niche practice that is risky. And as you say, with the anatomy, it's just not recommended. It's interesting. I've kind of followed her, but I just feel like the scale of demand that that's had gives the whole context of this conversation such a negative spin, because it looks like that's what men are seeking, you know, from the high demand and the influx and the variety that it's had. And then I think that, you know, what does that tell us? Is that what men are seeking or not? Well, again, it's good to have nuanced conversations here because, as I was saying earlier, there is alien porn, there is vampire porn, there's all sorts of types of porn here.

55:51And what that shows is that people watch porn for fantasies. They don't always watch porn because they want to translate it into their real life. They just want to watch something kind of different and that can be quite attractive. Just like sometimes we watch sci-fi movies just because it's fun to get out of our own mundane life. And so people that can be attracted to gangbang scenes or to the stuff that this person does, does not mean that's what they want to do in real life. It doesn't mean that's what they want to partake in. It doesn't mean it's what they are mostly attracted to. It could just be entertainment for them, something different.

56:25So let's break down fantasies because we haven't got there yet. um so I was having a conversation with a few people before this conversation that we had because I kind of wanted to speak to different guys and women and kind of say you know like what's your thoughts around this and in the inner circle conversations like some guys were like yeah well I have these fantasies but I obviously don't want to do that to my wife which is really interesting for me to hear so they have this fantasy but not that they didn't want to tell them but they were like I also just don't want to do that to my wife so it's different which was really interesting, which I thought was a good kind of thing to come into the conversation, that it wasn't that they didn't want to share it and they didn't feel safe, but they actually just didn't want to do that to someone that they loved.

57:06So let's like, depict like fetishes, kinks, fantasies, like, because people might be confused, like, oh, maybe I don't want to tell somebody or maybe I do, but I don't want to do it to them. So let's try and like, uncover this because there's not that much conversation around this, I guess, like on podcasts and in research and things like that, because again, it's stigma and shame. That's right, yes. A lot of people that have some fantasies, they feel shame about it because they think, Oh, what does that mean about me? Sometimes it means nothing. It's just a fantasy. And so some people might just wondering what it would be like to live on Mars.

57:39Okay, it's a fantasy. We can have that fantasy. A lot of people have the fantasies of winning the lottery. And what would they do if they win the lottery? Okay, it's fantasies. It's okay to have them. But it doesn't mean necessarily that it has something to do about your character. And when it comes to sexual content, it's the same thing. There are some things that we want to do in real life, there are some things that we've never done, but we might think that we want to do. For example, if we watch porn and suddenly there's a scene that is with, oh, the woman kept the stilettos on. Oh, great, I found that quite arousing.

58:14Maybe I can try that with my wife. Maybe I can try that with my girlfriend if I ask. Maybe not, we'll see, I can ask. And that can be something that can be translated into real life, if someone has a real interest for it. But there's a lot of other people that watch porn only just for fantasy, and it never crosses into real life. A lot of our fantasy mind stays in fantasies, never wants to be in real life. Those are two different parts of our erotic brain, the erotic brain that wants to do things in real life and the one that stays in fantasies. And some people in fantasies can literally fantasize about anything.

58:48Fantasies are not wrong. They're just fantasies. It's not illegal to have fantasies. it's not bad or wrong. It's the behavior, okay? If you have some illegal fantasies that you translate into behaviors, behaviors can be illegal and non-consensual and criminal. But fantasies aren't. And in fact, one of the most common fantasies with women is the rape fantasy. And that is very, very confronting to think about it, but it is what shows up in research as well. And what is that? Well, we don't know, but part of the theories is that having the fantasy about rape means that you can control the scene. You can make it your own because it's in your own fantasy.

59:25You can create the story. And so in some ways, it's almost kind of like reclaiming a control that you wouldn't have if you were raped in real life. But a lot of women think, oh, what's wrong with me to have this fantasy? You know, it's a very arousing fantasy. There's got to be something wrong with me. It might not be wrong. It might just be that it's a story that you're making up in your mind, either for a purpose and sometimes for no purpose. There's a lot of fantasies of people have gangbang is another fantasy. Outdoor sex is another fantasy. Outdoors sex. Oh, outdoors. Outdoors, yes. And you know, some people do do outdoor sex sometimes, but for a lot of people, it's just a fantasy.

1:00:02And you name it, you can just fantasize about anything, including having sex with an alien. Wow, the alien and vampires and porridge is like blowing my mind today. Yeah, tentacles as well, you know, tentacle pawns. What's tentacle pawns? What, tentacles? Like an octopus? Wow. Yeah, there's tentacle porn. And even that's really big because there's even some sex toys that are of the shame of tentacles. Yeah, it's a big thing. I know. Wow. I'm learning so much. I really want to hear people's fetishes in the comments. I'm like, please, can people just write down in the comments what their fetish is?

1:00:42I mean, that is going to be very strong if you're going to do that. But I'd love to. And this is wild. Yes. Tentacle pawns. Okay. So what are the normal things that you'll see in clinic with people that come to speak to you around this topic of fetishes, kinks, fantasies? I think a lot of the time it's to normalize it because most kink and fetishes, if it is practiced consensually between adults, then there is no problem. Some people can just really practice a lot of things, it's got to be if it's a practice that can have some risks just to make sure that it's done within the awareness of risk and that's part of the BDSM kink community's kind of message here.

1:01:22But a lot of the fantasies a lot of the kinks that we have are really harmless and they can actually really enhance people's sex lives it's just that a lot of the time people think they're wrong or bad or broken for having those kind of kink and fantasies, even if they're, well especially if they are niche. So for example, fetish of feet, a foot fetish is really common. A lot of people have come across with people with foot fetish, so it's not... I mean, it can still be shameful for some people, but it tends to be accepted that people will have a foot fetish, for example. But if you have a fetish for porridge, then that becomes a little bit more niche and people think, oh, I'm not going to say that because my partner might just think I'm weird.

1:02:04And so because of the fear of being perceived as weird. People just don't talk about those things. So most of the time in my clinic, it's just really to talk about it openly, to unpack it, to look at what is really going on for them. But most of the time, with most of my clients, it's to help them normalize it and help them practice it, if they wish, to be moved away from the fantasy into real life, practice it consensually, well-integrated into their sex life and their relationship with partners who have, you know, a shared fetish and a shared fantasy. Well, it's interesting because Esther Perel, who I love, one of my favourite people to listen to, she talks about sex with long-term relationships dying because couples never share their fantasies, which I found really interesting.

1:02:52And so I was like, that's maybe a big one to talk about. I think the common theme that's run through this conversation is shame and stigma. and so how can one another have the confidence to bring this up without one feeling maybe humiliated by saying what they believe maybe they've never said it out loud before and two maybe not worrying about that rejection with their partner because i think like hearing esther say that was really interesting and i remember we had that conversation when we spoke last week and you were saying a lot of the things that happens in long-term relationships is the sex kind of dies because they're not turned on by one another.

1:03:29And then that reduces intimacy. And then, you know, obviously from there, it degrades more and more. But I can imagine as that's happening, you're way less likely to be more open and vulnerable about things in your sex life. So how do we balance that without also crossing a boundary and also not wanting to feel rejected? Like, I guess if that's what a big thing of dying couples is, it's important that we speak about it. And again, for me, I think it's really about how do we normalize it. And having a podcast like this goes a long way with that. But to normalize talking about sex with your partner openly, like we would with our taste for food or whatever.

1:04:07Okay, we can, we are now socialized to be able, for me, I can tell you that I hate oysters. And if oysters is your favorite food, we can just accept each other. And you won't shame me for hating oysters, that is your favorite food. And I'm not going to think you're weird because you love oysters. Yeah. And we just need to have exactly the same conversation about our sex life, about our fantasies, about some kicking fetishes, if we have any of that. Anything that's in our erotic mind is part of that taste as well. And so, how can we be normalizing to say, hey, for me, I just really want to watch people's feet, I get turned on.

1:04:43Oh, when I see a hairy chest, I get turned on. Oh, bold men for me is a turn on. Oh, you know, whatever. Lycra is a turn on. OK, we can talk about this and we can accept that people have differences and people will get turned on by different things. And so first, that's it, you know, to normalise it. And if we normalise it, then maybe people will feel more comfortable talking to their partners about it. And then with your partner, you don't have to have completely a matching erotic mind. It's not possible to have a complete matching of an erotic mind. There are some things that might turn you on that's not going to turn your partner, but you won't know until you actually spoke openly about it.

1:05:20And if you speak openly about it, then you're also likely to find quite a few matching turn-ons. And then you have to maintain them and you have to practice them, keep talking about them and water them, you know, like for the plants to grow. And our erotic mind is fluid as well. Sometimes we have different turn-ons at different times in life. Sometimes when our body changes, we have different ways that we want to have sex or different ways we want to be touched. So that needs to be an ongoing conversation as part of the relationship culture. And this is what I do a lot in my clinical, my consulting room as well, is to really help couples have those conversations and to maintain those conversations for life.

1:06:03And I do that with them because it's not affirmed in our society. If it was affirmed in our society, they wouldn't need to come and see a therapist to learn to talk about these things in that way. So I think we need more of that, more and more of those kinds of conversations, because that's when you have a good sex life. Those couples who don't have a sex life anymore, like Esther Perra was saying, is because they just don't know how to even say it. They don't know even how to express it out loud, something that they believe, maybe their partner will think it's weird. And then people stop making efforts, okay?

1:06:33So it's not like, you know, we can say in a relationship, we can say, hey, tonight, let's just dress up nicely, go to a lovely restaurant, a really nice, posh restaurant. We can do that, but we don't do that with our sex life. We don't say, hey, let's just lose the pajamas and let's just wear something really sexy for each other tonight in our own bedroom and just create something sexy for a different atmosphere for the night. You know, long-term couples don't think of doing that. So then they just lose the erotic energy. They lose attraction to each other. They don't know how to talk about it.

1:07:07And then they just end up in a sexless marriage or success relationships five years down the line. So I think about relationships. We've had so many different conversations on this show about communications of relationships. And so, you know, Paul Brunson said, write down your virtues or write down your values to one another and share them very early on. Alan de Botton said, ask that person why they're weird on the first date and pronounce yourself as an idiot. You know, we're all weird. We all have weirdness within us. And if we don't, then you're not being honest. Yes, we are so weird. We're so weird.

1:07:39We're so weird. And I think sometimes we all just think that we're just the weird ones. And actually, all of us are weird. And, you know, he, Alan has this amazing way of making everything that feels weird really normal. And what even is normal? That isn't even like a context really, because we're all on some type of weird spectrum. But we all kind of have, especially English, like, you know, keeping up appearances, you know, the perfection on the outside. And so I think, you know, when people start relationships, if they're self-aware and they want to really work on them, they might write down their values or virtues.

1:08:14They might write down what their boundaries are. They might write down what their non-negotiables are. You know, people are really forthcoming with this stuff. How do people look at this in terms of our sex life? Because we've never really spoke about that on the show. We spoke about female orgasms, which was amazing. And that did so well about women being able to voice more about clitoral stimulation and like women's needs and what a woman's orgasm looks like. But in terms of like the two people coming together, how should we be looking at having that conversation around our sex life and like things that we want to be speaking about and like maybe our non-negotiables?

1:08:52Just the same as every other boundaries that we talk about in, you know, when we first meet, the boundaries of, you know, do we want monogamy? Do we want an open relationship? Do we want to live in a city? Do we want to live in a country? Do we want a pet? Are we going to be vegan? Are we going to vote in a particular party? All those things are value-based boundaries. And we need to have exactly the same conversation with sex and our erotic mind. We already know how we have these conversations because we're already having it in other topics. It's literally replacing the word vegan with my life for porn.

1:09:30or my fetish, my turn on. But I feel like people are really closed off because they feel like it's so much easier to talk about food, right? Because it's so universally acceptable. But I think maybe until you connect trust with someone, then you can maybe have that. But I think if you don't trust them, it's really hard to open up maybe about that side of things. Even if you have that conversation, people can still maybe not. They might give you the answer that you want to hear because they think that's acceptable. Yes. And that is a big problem. We're going back to the shame. We're going back to not really being comfortable to talk about this on the first date or early on because it's not affirmed in our society.

1:10:11But we can change society. We have to change it ourselves because it's not going to be happening just out of nowhere. And we have to be able to... That's when social media can be good. Social media, when we have those individuals now, women who are a lot more sexually vibrant and men who can talk more about crying and showing emotions and being vulnerable, those things are out there as well for us to access and for us to learn from. And if we just continue and continue, it's going to be an uphill struggle, but we have to continue to normalize those conversations. And to say, look, what if you tried?

1:10:45What if you tried on the first day to just talk also about one of your turn-ons? And how over time you can make some boundaries over what you like and what you don't like. And those boundaries have to be reviewed because we're not always turned on with the same things forever. So you keep talking about this. And how can you create that culture? How can you normalize it? Sometimes we have to take a risk. We have to risk shame. We have to risk rejection. But if we don't take a risk, then we might end up in a relationship with someone who is completely different from who we want them to be in terms of our erotic mind or our erotic lives.

1:11:22So to not waste anyone's time, you know, I think let's just take the risk at the beginning. Let's just try. If it goes wrong, you're going to learn something from this. But if you don't say anything or if you just pretend that you're someone that you're not, then it's just going to go wrong. There's more chance for some things to go wrong. And what if people just aren't in that space? What if some people are listening to this and they're like, but I just don't have any of that stuff. That's just not who I am. What would you say to those people? Well, I think if you have sex and if you're interested in having sex, you have something.

1:11:53What do you think about people that are asexual? People who are asexual, it's a sexual orientation just like any other sexual orientation and And there's no issues with that. But again, a lot of asexual people feel that there's something wrong with them, because the word asexual is not out there a lot, and there's not a lot of conversations about it. So they feel there's something wrong with them, and then they're going to pretend to be sexual, or they're going to pretend to... they're going to try really hard to try to be sexual. And that can be very bad for them. So I think with asexuality, it's the same thing, to be able to talk about this early and to find other partners who are also asexual, or other partners who have a sexual boundary, where asexuality is part of it, not a problem, but part of it.

1:12:36So some people might be in an open relationship, for example, so have the romantic connection with one to be the primary relationship, but the person that is not asexual is able to have sex in the way that is well-agreed by everyone. Or it could be just two asexuals together, where they just enjoy a really fantastic, thriving relationship with no sex or very little sex. I feel like so much of what this kind of comes down to is the self-awareness of the person feeling comfortable in their self to really knowing what they want. That's kind of what I'm grasping from this conversation, not on what's good and what's bad, on actually finding the right person for your fit as opposed to fitting into what that person wants from you.

1:13:23That's right. Which is, I think, where sometimes dating subculture can go wrong, right? Like, especially maybe a woman being like, oh, well, this man's not ready to commit, so I'm gonna hang around until he's ready and fit and shapeshift into what he wants. And then maybe a man being like, well, I'm not ready for her until I'm a provider and all these things, so I'm gonna shapeshift into what she wants. You know, it's like both ways. And actually, rather than coming and being like, I'm really self-assured and I really wanna meet somebody who is aligned on these things with me, that's when I think these conversations naturally flow more because you've got a very receptive person on the other end of that conversation.

1:14:03Whereas I think a lot of us in all types of relationship conversations have sat against someone who feels very restrictive in their mind process. And so automatically that makes you not want to have these types of conversations. Absolutely. That's right. And the in-between, when you can have those flowing conversations, honest flowing conversations, then you can also band some things and adapt some things, because sometimes you can change some things about yourself to meet the other person as well, to have that kind of compromise in the middle. Not compromise the entire sense of self, not compromise some things that are really important for you erotically, but there are still some things that can be adapted and compromised.

1:14:42My partner is gluten-free, and as a French person, it's really hard to be with someone who's gluten-free. I know, right? But I've made that compromise, and it's okay, and it works. I went through a phase of being gluten-free when I lived in Paris, and I honestly couldn't survive. No, in Paris, you can't survive. I could not survive. No, exactly. And when I got married to my husband, my vows, you know, again, that's the thing. Even in marriage, vows sometimes can be embedded in some scripts that can be unhelpful. You know, the thing of promising to somebody something forever is problematic in the first place because we change all the time.

1:15:23And so my vows in my wedding day with my husband was, I promise you nothing other that I will change and I will keep in touch with you with the change. And those were my vows. And they were vows because they were really truthful to me. Wow, that's beautiful. And that's all I can promise my husband. I guess that's a big thing that I've learned. I mean, this podcast to me, I've learned so much. I have to say it's been like the university of life where every week I'm speaking about something with emotional, physical, spiritual, mental health. but I think the thing that I've learned from relationships that and and Alan said this really well it's not just on whether you're matched correctly it's on the commitment to growth and change like are you committed to growing and understanding and changing actually that's really what you need because if the other person isn't then you're going to be stuck in the ground in the mud and not being able to move if you can't pivot or change directions or have self-awareness And so I guess, you know, the biggest thing is not just have you met your soulmate or have you met your best friend.

1:16:34It's like, is that person committed to growing with you? Absolutely. And that's the same conversations with the porn conversation. If people on the two sides are really unflexible, it's just going to be hard to resolve issues or to stay together. In anything with the sexual mind, the erotic mind, king fetishes or any turn-ons, if people are unflexible, it's just very hard to, you know, to meet in the middle. Well, I guess what happens there, and this maybe could, it can be from porn or it can be from, from anything within a relationship, whether it's someone wants to do something and the other one doesn't.

1:17:11I think if you create so much friction, then the person maybe just goes behind your back anyway. Or if you can't communicate with that person, because you're going to be met with so much resistance, the person learns to not communicate with you because it becomes exhausting. That's right. And then conversations are shut down and then people just meet their needs elsewhere or in a different way. Exactly. And I think that's the one thing that I think every relationship wants to try and stop is stop not having honesty. Because honesty really is, if you have honesty, even if you don't like what the honest answer is, at least you're prepared to deal with and make your own choice from that honest conversation.

1:17:46I think what I found from relationships and from conversations on this show is that when you don't have honesty, you then don't have control. So you actually then can't make the right judgment because you don't have all the information. That's right. You know, that seems to be such an important part of whether it's porn, whether it's sex, whether it's commitment, whatever way relationship you decide to have, honest is like the biggest thing. So, for you, if you could redesign how we speak about sex and porn, what would you want the conversation to be like? I would like to be a conversation with so many different people, with so many different views in one room, and talking to each other and learn from each other, rather than just people believing that their feeling is true and other people's is wrong.

1:18:37And this is really what I find, what I notice in our society today, that we've lost the art of debating and having those conversations. And I think we need to really bring that back, because it's just so important, especially on topics where there's no one clear answer. The topic of our erotic mind, the topic of our turn-ons, the topic of porn, the topic of how do we conduct our relationship, is so individual and so diverse. and for one thing that works really well would not work for somebody else. And all of it is part of the exploration and all of it is part of the picture. And we need to be able to talk about those things with each other, not against each other.

1:19:19Somebody who hates porn is totally fine. They don't have to have it in their home. They don't have to be in a partnership with someone who does. But it doesn't mean that someone else watching porn is bad, okay? And I think it's important that we don't impose our own moral values onto other people, because people will have different moral values. People will have different ways of interacting with their partners, with their sex life, with their erotic mind, whether it's through a media or in person. And all of it can be good and it can be part of the thriving experiencing of being human. It doesn't always have to be bad.

1:19:55I think that's like the nuance in every conversation, isn't it, around anything that can feel taboo. I think having it, one, in a safe space is so important. And then anything, I think about it, from drugs, from sex, from alcohol, from anything that can feel that it can tip into something that could be problematic. Because all of those things can lead to problems. But if they're dealt with in the right way, then it doesn't have to be. Yes, everything can be a problem. Going to the gym can be a problem. Eating can be a problem. Working too much can be a problem. Anything, we can just overdo pretty much anything.

1:20:36So we do have to always think, why am I overdoing this? What is going on for me? It's the person that needs to be self-reflective, not the, you must do this and that as a blanket instruction. There's no instruction. We have to be introspective and to think, you know, why am I overdoing it? What is the consequence? What do I need to change to have a more balanced life for me? You know, somebody working 40 hours a week might be totally normative and totally fine and healthy for one person, and he can be overdoing it for another. So we just need to just be going back to ourselves and really thinking for ourselves.

1:21:15So Sylvia, thank you so much for having the first conversation in Live Well Be Well about porn. I'm I feel like it's also a great time because there's so many things happening right now. And I'd love to hear in people's comments below what they feel about this within themselves. Maybe this is a safe space for people to share their thoughts around this. And there's always going to be people for and against. But I think that's also what keeps it healthy. Yes, absolutely. We have to keep the conversation. And it's changing. like we were talking about today, the landscape of our lives with technology is changing.

1:21:51And we don't have enough research to be able to make a real kind of opinion about it. So we just have to keep talking to each other and not demonize each other for doing something that someone else finds distasteful. Totally. And I hope that people within themselves have enough moral compass. That we all deep down, we have a feeling when we know we've done something that's potentially not right. And I think, you know, as long as you use that moral compass within yourself, then that's kind of an important validation. And that doesn't mean that everyone has that, because I know not everybody, but our listeners that listen to the show, pretty sure all have that.

1:22:25And I think that's kind of their gauging point on anything and any behavior that they do. It's for them what fills within their moral rights or what's correct. And the tricky bit here is to differentiate between your actual moral compass that you have for yourself, or are you feeling something because of shame? Something that you actually enjoy doing, but shame tells you not. And sometimes it can be really tricky to find out, to find this, you know, is it me, my own moral compass, or is it something that I'm feeling it's wrong because someone else is telling me it's wrong? And in the area of sex and porn, this is one of the tricky bits that often I spend a lot of time with my clients, really helping them figuring out, figuring out what is what.

1:23:10And so for your listeners and for anyone else out there really wondering about these things, I would say spend more time with yourself. Spend more time with yourself. Try to just not listen to all the noises around and look at what is for you inside, what is right for you and not right for you. Giving all the options that sometimes right is watching porn as well as having an in-person relationship as well as having different types of sexual experiences. And for someone else, it might not be. So just really stay with you. Just like some people are fans of horror movies, other people hate them. It's also part of the same picture.

1:23:47And I'd say actually get a therapist. Get someone who's a sex therapist, who can understand, who can help you navigate. Because I think sometimes trying to figure everything out on your own is also overwhelming. But I know that that is another barrier of shame. So, you know, I say like, if you can get to a therapist to try and explore this, I mean, incredible, because you've just overcome that barrier of stigma and shame. And I guess that as you do, you help these people normalize their own thoughts, like help them understand what's going on. And I think as soon as people understand and feel seen and heard, that's like, that's huge.

1:24:23That's everything. So it leads me with my final question, which is what does live well, be well mean to you? I think we've talked about it already, isn't it? It's just really about having a balanced life, the best that you can with yourself, but also allowing that we are just weird as humans. So it's not just about being perfect. Let's just not ever be perfect, but just embrace being weird in a way that really works for you. Yeah. I can't remember what this line was, but it was something like the stress of perfectionism ends up leading to the and perfectionism and can kind of like, that's the thing that ends up destroying you.

1:25:01It's miserable. It's miserable. And it's so much about what I talk about with self-compassion in my work, which is like the big thread through everything that I do. But it's weird, like, it is a very British thing of keeping up appearances. You know, it was a very famous TV show and I think sometimes we just need to like shake that off. And I just love when Alan said, we're all just weird and everyone connects to it because we do go home we just think am i the weird one but we're all weird yes and i think that's the beauty of it and i think the more that we can express and show our individual selves the more actually you stick out and the more you normally shine exactly and when you're weird and when you embrace being weird then you can just find your other weird people yeah it really matches with your tribe it's so true um well thank you so much for coming on speaking about some so interesting and yeah i mean i'm interested to see i'm interested to see the response to this episode so thank you thank you