Why You Don’t Want to Have Sex Anymore with Dr. Jenni Skyler

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1:19Emily Morse: You deposited it in my erotic piggy bank. I love it. Okay. The more deposits we put in, we don't have to use our deposits. That is the secret crux to sexuality. That's what turns us on. It's like, oh, you want me.

1:34Emily Morse: Jenny and I first met this year at a sexual health conference. And we kind of fell in love. Yes. We did. We were like, are we related? Are we sisters? What's going on here? We had such a good time. I felt we were like very connected and aligned with our mission. And you have just so much wisdom. I love just from the things we've talked about, listening to your show, how you help your clients. So first I want to know what inspired you to become a sex therapist? I'm asking because I get asked this all the time. How did you get into the business? And sometimes I'm like, oh, this question again. But I actually really want to know.

2:06The shiny story is my dad's an endocrinologist and he raised me solo. And so he just, and he's lovely, but all his eggs are in one basket, which is his medical basket. So he sees the world medically to include every topic on planet Earth, including sex. So very early on, it was like, here are sex books, like Peter Mayle, and here are, well, Alex Comfort, Joy of Sex was like on the coffee table, all these things. And so I didn't realize it was a taboo topic. I was just like, oh, these are things you learn in the world. Fast forward to high school, I became sort of like the Dr. Ruth of my friends.

2:45I think you probably get that too. And it's like, oh, you have all the sex books. I'm like, yeah, you don't? and so I think it was just a really natural conversation. Fast forward to college I was in the vagina monologues and I wrote my own monologue and that was when I knew I really wanted to be in this field because at the time Eve Edensler allowed for original pieces in her production so I wrote mine on female pleasure and my collection of toys that I had accumulated in my whole self-pleasure practice that I began and found very serendipitously at age five.

3:22Emily Morse: See, this is so brave. I mean, my story was the opposite because I didn't grow up with any of that and I had to discover it. But the fact that you had the joy of sex on your coffee table growing up and that you stood up in college and did the vagina monologues about your vibrator collection and self-pleasure in the 90s, I was like, girl, you were born for this. I was sort of born for it. I love it. I also, for better or worse, can be uncensored and unfiltered. So I was like, why not? I'm going to sit on this stage and talk about self-pleasure and just role model that, like, that's what I found at age five.

3:58And no one stopped me. Like, it's not like I showcased that, but I found it so early. I found my pleasure and my orgasm so early. And I was like, oh, this is kind of fun. And, like, I had that for years and years and years until I realized, oh, this is a thing. But then it was so dialed into my body. I was like, oh, this like circulates in my system. I think what happens for so many of us is that we hit puberty. All the hormones hit and we're curious and excited and erotic, but we get all these messages from society or parents or religion to suppress it. So we have this like duality of like, oh, all this excitement is surging through our system, but then we feel society and culture or parents push it down.

4:39It's like, what's going to win? And for me, I didn't have the push down. I had all the permission. Not to say I was hypersexual, but I just was able to feel the living circulation and embodiment of my sexuality from an early age. And so I shared that on stage and the vagina monologues, and then I decided to figure out how to make a career of it.

5:00Emily Morse: And you've done that. And what's so important that you're saying, and I think if there's parents listening or anyone who's listening, you're still walking around and feeling like there is some shame or there's not a permissioning, what you're really saying is you didn't have what most of us have is even if we don't mean to do it to our kids and our families the second the subject sex comes up we might just make it awkward or if our hands are down our pants as a kid our parents are like no don't do that that's private or just something becomes shameful around sex early and we adopt that but the fact that you didn't have any of that shows that you were actually allowed to feel your energy and and to to not yeah not suppress it which is what i think most people are dealing with is a suppressed sexual energy that somehow along the way through stress trauma or shame is keeping them from having the sex life that they really deserve because we all deserve pleasure yeah so you're doing you're doing life's work so i want to know that when people come to see you like what is happening in the office like how are they going to find you like what what do people actually come to see you for and i know that's wide ranging, but could you just give me an example?

6:11Emily Morse: What's common? Well, you use the word suppression, which I talk about that typically happens in puberty, but people come because their sexuality is suppressed. I mean, the whole topic of today is like desire and how desire has become suppressed. And whether we suppress it because we learned somewhere along the lines, it was dirty and dangerous and shove it down, or we feel our arousal and we don't know what to do with it because we have no permission. So again, we suppress it down. And if we have all these years of training ourselves to suppress it, and then suddenly we're supposed to unlock this and just feel it and be in this experience, it doesn't just click like that.

6:51It's a practice and it's a permission. So yes, most people come to me because in some way their sexuality is suppressed, usually desire usually heterosexual couples because i do couples and individuals and it's the desire discrepancy and they don't know how to navigate that the one high discrepancy god

7:11Emily Morse: low desire right low this is what's low d low d low d that's what i'm talking about the low d is low d the new low t is low d but i think low d has been here forever and we don't name it and i love that you just said this because at the end of the day people asking you what people come to for, it's usually desire discrepancy or mismatched desire, whatever you call it. But it's, yeah, explain. Most couples, you're not going to want to have sex at the same time, at the same rate, every single day. I mean, they come to me for other things, too. I mean, with sex therapy, it's the tip of the iceberg.

7:41I also work with my husband. He co-founded our institute together. And so the penis questions come in, too, right? My penis is broken. I can't get an erection. I ejaculate too quickly. I don't ejaculate at all. People get very anxious about this. So that comes in pretty frequently. But for couples, it's desire. For women, it's low desire. And they're frantic about where it went, how do they make their relationships work if they don't have it. And it's a stressor. It's a big stressor.

8:08Emily Morse: And so how would you even begin to unpack that? It's interesting you said it's women usually when they're coming to you. It's the women with the low desire because men can also have low desire. Yeah. They don't usually initiate the phone call though. So actually the person who initiates the phone call is usually the higher desire partner. Or so if it's a high desire, low desire couple heterosexually and the man is higher desire, either he calls because he's stressed out and wants to fix the relationship, which I can get into because that's mythical thinking. Or she calls and she's stressed out that he's on his way out of the relationship.

8:45And so she wants to fix herself. Again, mythical thinking. Yeah. But there are wonderful.

8:51Emily Morse: Say more about mythical thinking. Oh. Let's unpack that for a minute. Yeah, I want to unpack that. We're not going to fix it? Yeah. Okay, so I'm torn on this because if you have a diagnosis and you have a solution, which we have, right? We have diagnoses. We have HSDD, hyposexual desire disorder. And for so many people, that's so helpful to have a label. So they're like, oh, I fit in to a label. There's something to call what I'm struggling with. And there's a solution. There's medical solutions. There's relational and psychological solutions. There's so many solutions. Like I can talk about all of the above, right?

9:28On the other hand, people feel a lot of shame if they have a diagnosis. So I have to feel out where people are at. I don't want to just label somebody if they don't want to be a label, you know, if they don't want to be a diagnosis because that can feel very shaming. So it's tricky because I feel like all of us can have low D. Yeah. Like we can all have the space and permission to have higher desire. I have ebbed and flowed with my desire my entire life. I'm like, same.

9:56Emily Morse: I mean, I want to actually like break this down for people because I think that it's first off, people get confused between desire and arousal. Yep. So desire, just the want to want to have sex is how I say it. It's just like, do I want to have sex or don't I want to have sex? So what you're saying is women are coming to you and saying, I don't want sex like I used to have. I used to want it and I don't know what to do. And my husband is getting upset and I don't know where it went. Right. Okay. Yeah. And they're stressed out because they want to find it and they don't want their husband walking out the door or leaving for someone else.

10:27And what about for them? So that's where the therapy comes in. Yeah. This is what I want to know. Yeah. That's where it's like, okay, I want to inspire you to have the buy-in for the process. Because if you don't buy into your own process and you don't decide you want it for you, this process isn't going to work. If you're doing it for him, it's not going to work. Right? You have to want to find it for you. You have to have to figure out like if you're feeling that apathy or that inertia around life or your sexuality, don't you want to feel alive? And sometimes they've never felt alive or sometimes they've had these glimmers of feeling alive or they've had years or decades of feeling alive and it's just gone missing.

11:05So whatever the time frame is, the idea is to inspire them to take responsibility for their own apathy. And how do we move them along the spectrum to feeling alive again?

11:18Emily Morse: Okay. Let's talk about the woman who comes in and she, when you really break it down and you sit with her, she's like, you know what? I never really felt it that much. Like at the beginning, it was great, the honeymoon phase. But since, you know, we've been together now for five years, I just I could take it or leave it. Like, I don't know if I ever really like loved it. I've been orgasms. Would you say that's that's common? It's super common. Yeah. Because we have different reasons why we partner and different reasons why we marry. We might marry because that person is financially secure and that's really supportive to us.

11:54We might marry because they're emotionally our rock or intellectually inspiring. and you have intellectual intercourse, but there isn't like that sensuality or that chemistry necessarily. So I think we marry and women tend to be more flexible with that. They tend to let go of needing that sexual undercurrent as much when they pair together. So I think men are a little different. They need that attraction. It's top of mind consciousness for them because they have more testosterone surging, but we pair up for different reasons. So a lot of people, I hear a lot of people say, a lot of women say, yeah, I paired up without feeling my desire.

12:37Emily Morse: And you could help, how do you help those women find their desire? Because you said, what I'm hearing is like you grew up, like you always felt it. You felt the sexual energy. And for me, I had to find it. Mine was suppressed because, not so much because of shame or it It wasn't like in my home in that way. It was just growing up in a home that was unstable and I was anxious. I think my body was in like the fight or flight. And I think I didn't. You froze. I froze. I was in the fight or flight. Okay. And so then I think that sort of shut for me personally. That shut. So that was my discovery. I wasn't like uncovering layers of like I shouldn't do this.

13:15Emily Morse: It was more like my body wasn't able to feel it. So when did you feel safe to feel it? when I started on this journey, I would say my late 20s when I was like your first orgasm. No, mid 20s was my first. But I just still felt that my sex was mostly performative for my partners. It wasn't about myself. So I'm like, we're just wondering when you're working them, how do you get them to be like, this is the this is what sex could actually be. Because even though they married for they married, it wasn't a priority. How do you get women to just What's the steps how you get them to actually like feel it in their bodies, maybe for the first time ever?

13:53It's a beautiful question. And every woman is different, right? So it's not like one size fits all. So whoever's listening, I don't want you to be like, that's not me. That doesn't work for me. So I can talk about sort of the gamut of women. But I'll say for the woman who partnered with somebody that she's just not that attracted to, never was, be selfish. Find it for yourself. Have your toy collection. Feel the world. Like what gives you juice, you know? I live in Colorado, so I love to run up mountains and be in the fresh air and bike. For some people, my sister loves to go shopping. Everybody needs something different to turn on their soul.

14:34And so it's like, what turns on your soul? What can you inject yourself with that really gives you that oomph? Because the person laying next to you, you just have to kind of share that space. You don't have to be like, all right, you have to decide. I've chosen you for various reasons, and I'm going to take responsibility that those reasons are important to me, even if there isn't a lot of sexual oomph. However, I can bring my own sexual oomph. I can turn myself on. I like how I feel in my body. I like how I touch myself. I like the toys we use. And, yeah, if you're not.

15:08Emily Morse: Teaching her to feel the pleasure. Yeah, like pleasure other places in her life and then also pleasure in her body. And so it's tricky because I'm going to say, you know, stay in a relationship that you're not attracted to the partner. I'm not saying that. But if attraction really isn't there, there's other ways to feel that attraction. Like, are you attracted to their brain? Are you attracted to their bank account? Are you attracted? That was hot. You married for the bank account. Honestly, it was. I mean, like Hugh Hefner. I mean, are they really attracted to him, all these women? Or are they attracted to his bank account?

15:39Which is fine. Whatever, like, turns you on, turns you on. And just, like, channel that. enjoy your body be selfish with it find like the juice of life that like gives you umph and makes you feel alive will come to like some other ways to like add a little like bump to that um and use that to inspire yourself in the bedroom yeah i love this for for people who married that way

16:05Emily Morse: or partner that way but what okay okay that's it i mean i think that it's a subsect of people who marry that what about the people who are like no i love them i just don't i just don't feel it like I lost it I can't get it back or I I've had kids or I'm stressed I mean there's so much pressure and I think it's this pressure yeah that is really killing a lot of our desire it becomes duty sex to chore it's another item on our to-do list duty sex is the most common thing it's so sad it's so sad so sad it's so sad I know I know so if you're sitting there with a couple and she's like I don't want to you know this is duty sex give me some like so I'm in your office and like what how do we how do we work together okay how do we do it are you will you let yourself be selfish yeah okay yes with your pleasure yes okay do you know what you like that turns on your body i do okay do you know what turns on your brain do you know what kind of like fantasies yeah for me it's more of like i want touch it's not so much i'm not much of a fantasy person okay i'm more of a touch sensual person so if you give me a massage if my partner gives me a massage for like 10 minutes that's part of it i will feel more relaxed i just know that it's the pressure yeah and also having a conversation like date night going out and having like a really great conversation and a fun night together.

17:31Emily Morse: Like that will help me. So you like the emotional foreplay. Uh-huh. Emotional foreplay. Which we all do. Yeah. You like the sensual foreplay. Mm-hmm. So now you're, well, at least your heart and your body are turned on. You might not even need like the intellect turned on. You're like, oh, this is going. Some people need all of it. But whatever works for you, right? Yeah. And that's a key piece. Okay. And... So then my partner, so then I can be like my partner, like I don't... What happens now if I'm with a partner? or what might they say? Okay, so if I'm doing a couple, you're 50 % responsible for your desire and arousal.

18:08Desire, arousal. Let's say it's a male. He's 50 % responsible for your desire and arousal. And what is he doing to help facilitate that? If the 100 % burden is on him, that's too much. He's going to probably collapse with holding that responsibility because it's too much. If you're 100 % responsible, again, it's too much. So it's like, what part of the equation are we responsible for? So many of us, I have been guilty of this show up and I'm like, turn me on. I'm like a dead fish. Come on. Like the complacency of it versus like, how do I help myself get in the mood? And what is, what can he do?

18:44How can he invite me? How can he talk to you? Right. You're talking about going on the date, talking to you, creating the quality time. I mean, all of that is super important.

18:53Emily Morse: It's all about really, yeah, exactly. Learning about what does it actually look like for both of us? Like, let's explain the desire part, because I think also there's probably people coming into you who say, I just expect that I should just be spontaneously turned on. I should just want sex like I used to. And it doesn't happen. Right. So I think that's also, right, a big learning of, like, teaching, like, what's the runway to get us to. A long runway. Well, I think part of what I do, what you do all the time in sex education, I have to do at least for the first few sessions because they need to understand responsive versus spontaneous desire and the myth of spontaneous desire.

19:31Or as Ian Kerner says, like, spontaneous sex is the best sex you'll never have. I feel like that is his quote. That is such a good quote.

19:39Emily Morse: It's a great quote. It's the best quote. Oh, my God. Spontaneous sex is the best sex you'll never have. Yes. It's so true. It's so true. Because we are waiting for it to be spontaneous. Yeah. And it's just going to, we're both going to want it at the same time. And it's so funny. I want to like double down on that because I did this years ago. It's Ian's quote. It's Ian's quote. Thank you, Ian Kerner. We love Ian Kerner. He wrote She Comes First, which is one of the best. Yes, best. Best-selling sex books of all time. But this is such a good counterpoint. So I remember once I did a poll with my audience, it was like a survey.

20:09Emily Morse: And we got hundreds of responses. This was probably 10 years ago. And it was like, what is the best sex you ever had? and nine out of ten answers were like the time I didn't know was going to happen and it did or something unexpected or I met someone in a parking lot and I think it was more like it was more like they're saying it was spontaneous it was they didn't know it was going to happen but it was the kind of stuff it's like if I could have drilled down on that like but was it really great like it was in a car or in a parking lot or the the barista or you know the bartender I just met that night it and it was like it wasn't was that and if you if I drilled down in my professional was it really the best like or was it just a great memory because it was spontaneous unexpected so but that doesn't mean from our business it wasn't like did you have an organ it's more like they remember it makes the spontaneity thing makes you crazy makes you crazy too I think there is this idea if it's spontaneous there's more passion and I would argue that it's actually not about the spontaneity yes it's about feeling alive if you drill down into your audience When they tell you their best sex, it's when they felt most alive.

21:14Yeah, say more about that. You want to feel, that is, what is, yeah, what is great sex? Well, I think there's an idea that the spontaneity, when you're caught off guard, because if you're caught off guard as a human, all your adrenaline is going. If your adrenaline is going, you're going to feel really alive. Like, that's the function of adrenaline. Yeah. So that makes sense that we've now paired spontaneity with adrenaline with amazing sex. But there's different ways to get at that bump and that adrenaline. One of these things, like it's literally like a bump in your brain that makes you come to life, that electrifies your brain.

21:46So there's different ways to electrify the brain. Let's talk about that.

21:49Emily Morse: How would you, with a couple, like how would you, this is such an important distinction that all these couples are. Can I add one more thing though? Yes. Because about the spontaneity, because I think it's so important. No, keep going. The two biggest mythical things are we must have spontaneous sex and we must have synchronous arousal and synchronous orgasm. And this is what Hollywood shows, the irony of that we're sitting in Hollywood. And I want to, like, no offense, throttle Hollywood on this because none of us. They probably like it. Okay, good. None of us really. I mean, the reality is you don't have synchronous anything.

22:22Like, if I'm having sex with you, Emily, and I'm getting turned on and my arousal is a five or six and you're still like, Jenny, you just don't do it for me. I'm at a two. Or maybe you're at a nine and I'm at a five. Like this is the reality of couples having sex is like their arousal is asynchronous. Their orgasms are often asynchronous. So the synchronicity and the spontaneity should go in the garbage, in my opinion. And we should instead talk about asynchronous pleasure and tracking and attuning to each other with that. And how do we like electrifying and come to life instead of like hoping for spontaneous sex?

23:03Like instead what the conversation is, what makes you come alive?

23:07Emily Morse: Mm hmm. I love this. So that's that's really important. So what you're saying is this whole myth of it should be spontaneous and we should have orgasms at the same time and we should want sex at the same time. Right. Yeah. It's just like we have to bury that like that is just I would say that that's a myth. Yeah. So really, when you're working with people, it's about teaching them what's the possibility, like what how they could actually build a sex life that they're still getting that same adrenaline and excitement, but they're building it in a way that works for both of them. Yeah. You know what?

23:37One person might really love the penetration if that's what you're doing. And the other person loves the foreplay. One person might not even like as much the penetration or even the orgasm, but they're like, oh, I just feel your heart next to my heart and we're connected. And I feel such like deep electrical connection. And that's what does it for me. or they love their orgasms or they just love the fact that they pulled it off. Can I just say with my husband sometimes when we just pull it off because we got two young kids, we're like, we did that. We squeezed that in. That was fun. High five.

24:12Right. So our motivations. Our motivations are so different. What makes us come to life is so different. How we get turned on and our turn on process is so different. And what I try to teach all these couples is the permission for all of that, the messiness and the diversity and not one size fits all. And it doesn't have to be a home run every time. It doesn't mean that you have to be like throbbing and on fire when you say yes to your partner. You could just say yes because you're like, I love you and I appreciate that you invited me and I'm not turned on at all. But I trust that if I lay here with you long enough, maybe my on-ramp, we can move up the on-ramp and I will get turned on and we'll have a good time.

24:52and if you have a tool side box of amazing things to support you let's talk about your favorite

24:56Emily Morse: toys then for a minute because you you are like you were early with these toys like you're like you think every woman we're gonna post this too we did a little thing in my garage as i going through my toys but you're you are very specific case about what every woman should have yeah in her toolkit like let's talk about the sexual toolkit okay okay go talk to me go i wanted i'm usually the one i need to know your sexual toolkit i like having as many toys as possible diverse toys, right? So if you think about all the ways your body can be turned on, let's just go head to toe, right? Okay. Blindfold.

25:28Great. Blindfolds are great because then you turn off one of your senses and it accentuates the other. I always feel like touch is heightened if my eyes are not involved. Love it. I don't know if you had music in your boxes last night, but I always tell people use music, like set and setting matter. You know, if you like bright lights or a disco So I had one person that likes a disco, like a strobe light. Fine. Other people like salt lamps. But like bring in the sensuality of your five senses. Nipple clamps or things for your nipples or ice or nothing. Like what does it for the nipples? And all - Nipples are underserved.

26:03Not only are they underserved, men's nipples, I think, go underappreciated because we, again, socially forward women's breasts and women's nipples. And then men are like, well, I've got nerve endings in those nipples, too. Yeah. So, like, men bring to life the nipples.

26:21Emily Morse: I think so, too. I think there's, like, nerve endings that have been, like, surprised. Like, I can't feel things in my nipples. It's just for women. But you can. Yeah. Yeah. So bring back the nipples. Yeah. Okay. I love this. You probably had massage oil. So, like, the hands are super central. It's really intimate. This is a great way to, like, just, like, if I can't read you. But, like, if I was to massage your hand, just think about this. Imagine me massaging your hand. Right. You relax. By the way, arousal can't emerge unless we're relaxed. Talk about your childhood, right? You froze because you didn't have space to feel safe and surrender.

26:55There wasn't safety to feel arousal. So of course you froze. And that's the case for so many women. So many humans, but women for sure. So we freeze and we suppress because there isn't safety to surrender. So here we surrender. I love this. Even just a hand massage.

27:12Emily Morse: Like a hand massage. I mean, anyone could do that. Be like, I can't do it. I'm not a masseuse. I'm like, I have couples do hand caress. Do you hand caress? Oh, yeah. Okay, show me. Okay, is it a specific move? No, I have them walk. I say, I want you to be robotic and terrible. Let's just start being robotic and terrible because people are very awkward about this and don't know how to start. So I'm like, start as terribly as you can. I give people lots of permission and I do lots of like in the moment exercises. So like, be very robotic. And they're like, okay, that's not great. I'm like, okay.

27:43and now soften it and now play with a spectrum of soft to hard and now imagine your hands are a paintbrush and be selfish let yourself feel the fingers let what do my fingers feel like on your hand versus just giving like what is it to give and receive at the same moment but all of that is super tender and super intimate and again opens your heart relaxes your nervous system and it's like, oh, the arousal can emerge.

28:13Emily Morse: That's it. I mean, that is so important for people to recognize it. It's impossible, nearly impossible for your arousal and your desire to live in the place of stress and not feeling safe. Completely. Like this is what we're trying to do, create safety and stimulate the senses. So we got to the nipples. I mean, you might bypass the nipples because that's more erotic. Like if we're talking about like the on-ramp, we want to like open and invite us in. Okay. Right. Slowly. We usually go around super stressed. super chaotic, going about in our day. Finally, we have a moment to connect and it's like, we're going to make this quick transition.

28:45We don't transition that quickly. We don't. We need like a transition period. So this is the transition period. Let me connect to your heart. Let's talk. Let's just have our hands be involved. Let's hang out while our hands are involved. Let's just like soften and settle to surrender and let the sensuality, the lost art that we don't practice or don't even know about and then sexuality can emerge then we can go to the boxes

29:11Emily Morse: of toys and yeah pick our collection we're going to get into but we can but what i want to say is what this is the opposite of what we're saying is how i think most people are experiencing sex is it's 11 o 'clock at night we've had a really busy day i'm getting into bed and my partner's like tapping me on the shoulder or gets into bed or gives me that look yeah and i'm exhausted i'm tired and that I feel guilty because we're not having it's not the right time of day it's not the right set and setting um it could even be in the middle of the day but if I'm in the middle of doing something I didn't have the on wrap I didn't have the time to feel safe like just because your partner wants it at that moment and I don't so how do we like those are the moments that so they sit with you a couple and you'll like say go this is like your homework like before you even make the bid for sex do a five-minute hand massage put on the right music put on the right like whatever it is.

30:03People come to me when they're really, they're not having any sex. So I'm starting from scratch usually. Okay. So, so there's that piece too. Yeah. I have a skewed sample, but yes, I like them to at least have this in their toolbox of a way to connect. If we have multiple, this is how I do it. I like multiple choice as humans. Okay. We do better with choice and the more choices we have, then we feel empowered, right? If I only have one choice, And this is what I say when you struggle with like people pleasing. If I'm only saying yes in the world, I don't actually have no. Yes. The second I say no, the second I say no, now I've empowered myself to also have yes.

30:40My yes means more. And so we talk about obligation sex. I actually want people saying no sometimes because I want them to feel the difference of no, I don't actually want to have sex. And yes, now I'm choosing. I can feel it in my body. I want to have sex. so I say that because that's just a two choices yes and no but then you have multiple choices you have affectionate kinds of connection sensual connection erotic connection kinky connection like there's so many different ways to like figure out your portal and path in and maybe it's a mix and match of all of it just like your collection of toys or your collection of tools or the collection of lube or your collection of medications that help you right there's so many things out there to like bolster our options and create the kind of sexual central experience

31:32Emily Morse: we want to have so getting them to a yes what is their full body yes whatever it takes because a lot of times the yes was sort of forced and then it became a duty it became another yeah chore yeah so fighting their finding a full body whatever the tools are one tip i say for that too is like invite your partner and we can talk about invitations in a moment yeah invite your partner and say, get back to me in 10 minutes. Invite him to. Let's say, let's say I'd love to have sex with you. Do you want to like give me an answer in 10 minutes? Like get back to me. So this is a few things. Okay, tell me.

32:05I want to hear about the tips. I want other tips, yeah. Okay, so here's my like, I'd love to have sex with you.

32:09Emily Morse: Okay. I'm going to go in the other room and do a few things. So maybe just think about that for 10 minutes and see if you want to, right? So you're giving spaciousness. You're not like a, here's part of it. We're caught like a deer in the headlights. We don't know when an invitation is coming. And then the invitation feels, you know, like a bombardment. So it's like, here's the invitation. Sit with it. And so then you sit with it. When I sit with it, I'm like, okay, is this something I want? Do I have space? I sometimes look at the clock. How much sleep do I want to get tonight? Right? I have to calculate that.

32:43My husband knows better. So he always does an invitation so I can make sure I have enough sleep because he knows that I safeguard that. She's going to prioritize his sleep. I mean, we do, though. This is the everyday woman. We prioritize our sleep. We have to. And so it's like considering that. But then I don't go in those 10 minutes, am I turned on? I go, do I have the capacity to settle down and be slow enough and be open to the possibility of starting on the on-ramp? Okay. Right? Right. So you're looking at your day and then what happens? my day i'll brush my teeth i'll think about it i'll feel into my body what's my level of stress like where am i where am i in those 10 minutes and i encourage my clients to do the same thing and then i can come back yeah i'm i'm here i'm i'm i'm open to this okay i'm not showing up like a sex kitten already turned on i'm saying i'm open to this okay or what i love you thank you for the invitation right because that's important too the gratitude not the rejection we gotta feel like we belong.

33:46Rejection just shuts everything down. So thanks. I love you. Tonight's not great for me, but let's rain check. Yeah. And I can snuggle with you until we fall asleep. Or if you need to have an orgasm, I can like lay with you. Or if you need to have an orgasm over there, that's fine too. Like, what do you need?

34:05Emily Morse: I love putting the words around it rather than just the rejection, rejection, rejection, which often happens. And then there's a lot of stories that are created around the rejection so i love the the practice of just saying no not tonight let's rain check i love you it's good i'm just tired tonight but let's try to plan it for saturday or another day yeah yeah what okay what other what are what are the other things that couples are missing that they could learn that they could do to get them in this in this like i just love all your i just i just see how stuck we are and how couples are they're coming to you like desire discrepancy is the biggest problem people I get this asked all the time what's the number one question you could ask I'm like desire discrepancy like and and actually did this huge poll my audience last year because I was like it's been 20 years I need to find out what's changed with sex what's their biggest challenge what am I gonna learn that's different yeah okay so let me give you nothing new let me get I know we talk about nothing new like people still so this is this is what I want people to know.

35:05Emily Morse: They don't have to live with painful desire discrepancy. It's something that you're going to have to prioritize and work on. But this is the point of this talking to you. You don't have to live that way and we can get through it. Unless you can't. We can talk about couples that can never, but let's talk about couples who want, they come to you because they want to. They want to. They want to make it better. They want to want to. So they have to have the education first. I'm going to give you my two key metaphors that I think are super important. These two metaphors are my favorite. I'm going to go heterosexually.

35:35Okay. Man, woman. Now you can have same sex, have the discrepancy in their desire as well. And so this metaphor can apply, but higher drive person, lower drive person. Let's just use that, right? One person is driving along the highway at 60 miles an hour. And the other person, the lower drive person, is parked in the parking lot. And maybe the keys are stuffed between the couch cushions, or maybe they were lost somewhere else. It's like, I don't even know where my keys are. So this discrepancy of speed, right? So when we start a sexual experience, it's so important to understand the lived experience of the other person.

36:11So if I understand, and this is the utility of me working with my husband because I deeply understand both personally and clinically the lived experience of the man. And he's like, yeah, our car is on the highway going. Like if we just kind of like coast at 45 or 50 and you're like sex is on the table, boom, I'm at 60 already. Right? Immediately. And I'm like, well, my car is still parked. I said yes, but my car is parked and I'm looking for the keys. This is great. And so if men can understand the lived experience of the woman, like the car is parked. Right? Just because we said yes, just because you want to like jump to the genitals doesn't mean we go from like zero to 60.

36:51And by the way, please don't jump to the genitals. please start with the lighting and the music and the emotional connection and the hand massage and the kissing and the eye contact and like the how are you and if you want something a little more passionate like I'm going to push you against the like bathroom counter and be a little more aggressive if that's what you like or we can do the blindfolds or the nipple clamps like whatever is your like thing that's fine but like warm me up don't just assume that I can drive that car immediately. So I think that's so important to just understand that experience.

37:23Emily Morse: So important. So what's his next step? He has helped you look for your keys. Like what is it? Yeah, I know it's different for everybody. But you said some things that I think are just because I think there's a lot of people like, okay, but fine. But what am I supposed to do? Like, I don't put you tell me not to just go for a gentles. What? So sometimes it's pushing. Yeah, I'm gonna turn on that ignition. Yes, right. I'm gonna turn on the ignition on the ignition. And what turns on your ignition might be different from my ignition exactly and from our ignition exactly let's talk about the push we were talking about this the other day about you teach actual clients you're like what i actually wanted to do it but like do it yeah can we can we do it yeah show me so this is like so helpful maybe this would turn on my ignition so i was like it would turn on my ignition okay so what i actually do around for a second turn around okay pretend you're doing the dishes emily okay and i literally walk couples through the scenario because i'm like what would turn me on.

38:16I'm like, oh, if I was doing the dishes, I'd want my husband to come up and be like, I always like, use your hands and your hips. Like, oh, okay. You want him to do that? Well, he'd be stronger. So you follow me, but I might come up to you. Let me get real stable. I'm like, oh, right. Like, yeah. How do I use my hands on your hips? Like, how do I pull you into me? How would I like take your hair, caress your neck? I like that. Yeah.

38:43Emily Morse: And drop dishes. is then, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go like this. I'm gonna walk away for a moment. Oh, and you're gonna sit there and just like feel that in your body without the pressure that you have to respond immediately, that you have to say yes. That was like - Mic drop that, here you go. Here's a little - Mic dropped the touch. Yes. That didn't make me feel like, because when you first did it, I was like, I finished the dishes, I gotta put the food away, and now you're behind me doing this. Or maybe like, let me finish those dishes. Oh, that would be good too. Give you a kiss, do the dishes.

39:19That would be really great too. Right. But the idea is, okay, here's metaphor number two.

39:24Emily Morse: The idea is that you walked away. You didn't make me feel, you made me feel like, oh, and I probably would have allowed that moment to feel good knowing that you weren't expecting it to go into full-on sex. You were just like, I'm connected to you without. Deposit in your erotic piggy bank. You deposited it in my erotic piggy bank. I love it. Okay. It's the somatic nuance of how do you actually approach what feels good to your partner? Like, yeah, this is the work that is so crucial for literally everyone. You could be in a relationship. You could be dating single. It doesn't matter. But do you know what works for you to get you in the mood for sex?

40:04Emily Morse: What is your requirement? And how would we all know when for a lot of us it's been pressure or duty or riding the fumes of a new relationship which is just manufactured feel-good hormones it doesn't last right so then they're like i don't know right they don't know so okay so back to our piggy bank thing too right yes i want you to imagine you have a piggy bank for your emotional intimacy okay you can even have one for affectional intimacy sensual and erotic like you can have all these different piggy banks but if you want to just keep it really easy. Let's have emotional and erotic. Let's just make it easy.

40:40If I'm going to take you on a date and I'm going to talk to you and I'm going to connect with you, boom, deposit into the emotional piggy bank, emotional foreplay. If I'm going to kiss your neck or grab your hips or flirt with you, boom, deposit into the erotic piggy bank. And then we might just want to hang out with putting in deposits. The more deposits we put in. We don't have to use our deposits. Every time I came up and grabbed your hips and you thought this is sex, now it becomes a duty. Yeah.

41:10Emily Morse: That was the key point of that you were touching, but there wasn't the pressure that it had to lead to something. Right. Yeah. I mean, that is the, because I would say the follow-up to the desired discrepancy is like that couples have the discrepancy, then they stop having sex and then they stop having sex because then their partner like shudders when the low desire partner starts to shudder when the high desire partner touches them because they're like, oh no, now it's going to lead to sex. Right. So then because her piggy bank is usually in the red. So if you think about our bank accounts, nobody feels safe when we're in the red.

41:48But if we're flushed, if our bank accounts are flush, we're like, oh, I'm flush. This is pretty awesome. So think about that for your erotic piggy bank. If I came and I just kissed your neck and rubbed your thigh or grabbed your hips and expected nothing of you, but I did that for a month straight, hypothetically. Boom, deposit, deposit, deposit. Now I'm flush, right? Now I'm like, well, yeah, you can invite me and you've been inviting me and I feel connected to you and I feel that erotic energy between us. Now we can use it. Now we can go take a withdrawal. I love it.

42:22Emily Morse: Yeah. Because again, sex is so focused on this actual act of penetration and rubbing the genitals together. And like, this is the nuance part that a lot of us are really missing for sustained, healthy, wonderful sex. Well, we assume sex is just like this frictional dance of the genitals versus like, we just want to feel desired. I mean, come back to desire, right? And like this social problem of low D, which is we want to feel desired and desirable. Like this is what most of us in our field talk about because that is the secret crux to sexuality yeah that's what turns us on it's like oh you want me yeah right tell me you want me or i and i want to want you at the same nothing sexier than you want me nothing sexier yeah how do we so what it feels like it should be so much easier and we treat it we don't we don't give it enough like the fact that we even are like defining it for people the difference you can like how how important it is like I want to feel desired but I also want to be desiring so even if to break that down like if my partner desires me and I know that but it's become distressful because I want to want like I love my partner we're best friends everything's amazing I want to want to have sex with you but I actually don't feel it no matter what in my body so then because that's like the shutdown part that is also common.

43:51Emily Morse: Like maybe I'll want all the deposits in the bank, but when it came to actual sex, it might never get. That's also common too, right? I didn't think that. Yeah, I think there's like we should have sex versus I want to have sex. So if I want you and you feel that, you can either get scared by that or you can get turned on by that. Or I guess you could feel nothing, right? Like there's a spectrum. But if you're going to get turned on by that, if I'm going to like throw this lob into your lap and you're going to pick it up and it's going to be a contagious energy, it's because I'm actually wanting you without expectation.

44:30And you can feel that. So it's not like we should have sex or we need to have sex. I think that's where the obligation gets built in. And whether it's social, sometimes it's just imagined, right? Sometimes it's like, oh, I just imagine that my partner needs to have this and I have to like meet them where they're at. And when they learn, this is what I do with couples all the time, when they learn that, like, oh, actually, he just wants to, like, feel connection with me. Yeah.

44:54Emily Morse: A lot of times we just want to feel connected. We just want to feel intimate. We want intimacy. But it doesn't necessarily have to be anything more than that. I'll say, do you need to put your penis inside of her to do that, to feel what you need to feel? And he's like, absolutely not. I just want to know that I matter. And that she likes me. Yeah. And then she's like, well, of course you matter. And of course I like you. And he's like, okay. Sometimes like we're done. Not we're done, done, but like we're kind of done because we like to feel that. So it's like, can you feel that I want you in my hands and with your hips without you feeling the pressure that I have to now go act on it immediately?

45:34Yeah. Right. And that's changing the conversation completely.

45:37Emily Morse: I haven't been feeling a lot of desire yeah it's been fluctuating for things for reasons just who know I mean all stages of life but I just no to be honest I'm gonna be honest I've never been somebody who always had high desire like it was definitely something that I I never went through a stage where I was like wanted sex even when I was younger I was like oh I want sex all the time it was always something like I had to learn what gets me in the mood for sex and then once I'm having sex I'm really happy and I'm attracted to the partner but what was so interesting about this lately I've been going to this period I was like I just don't want it take it or leave it well what I loved about by Zootly Z is that this is something I've never felt so I I took it and I started to feel this arousal like this this this just happened and this is what I actually what I want sex like I want to go to my like where I mean I can use my vibrator yeah I had one thank God you had one and a collection can I just say something though I think it's so important for your listeners because you are a huge role model in society around sexuality.

46:35I mean, to me, you're my role model too. Like, I love you. I love you as a human, but also as like what you're role modeling around sexuality in society. And what you just said, I think is so essential for women to hear, which is your desire was really never all that high, but definitely in this chapter of your life, it's like low and missing. And by the way, Emily, me too. And I feel like we get projected onto as sexuality professionals that we must be walking around with high desire and crazy sex. And we swing from the chandeliers. And, like, we must be, like, these walking sex kittens. And we're not.

47:09Ladies, we're not. We're not. And I want so many women to hear that because that's the normal, like, woman experience. We're like normal women with, like, no, our desire is not through the roof. And we need help. And it's so fine and normal not to have high desire. And that's you asked me originally, like coming full circle, like sometimes I'll give people a diagnosis of HSDD, hyposexual desire disorder, if they really want it. And sometimes I'm like, I'm just going to give you the diagnosis that you're normal. Yeah. I'm like, your desire may not be through the roof or it's like bottoming out, but that's also normal.

47:44It's totally OK. Be where you're at. Like, that's OK. Like, that's fine. Let's meet you where you're at. We don't need to go solve. You're not a problem that we need to solve and fix. Yes, there's fun solutions to like play with, but it's not because you're a problem we need to fix. It's not because you're inherently broken. It just means you're normal. I'm there with you. And let's figure out what you want to inject yourself with literally and metaphorically to like just feel a little more circulation of like aliveness.

48:15Emily Morse: But not because you're a problem. Yeah. Not because you're broken. And I think that that's the thing. I think that, I mean, this whole desire conversation is really just, I really, and I think it's all ages. truly, though I know there's a perimenopause and later stage in life, but I actually think like, I can't tell you how many women I know in their 20s and their 30s who are like, no, I just, either they're on a antidepressant or they had kids or they're just really stressed. Like, can we just, I don't think I can say it enough that if you were walking around in an anxious body, I mean, there's a reason why that book, The Anxious Generation, was at the top of the bestseller list for like over a year.

48:52Emily Morse: Like, these people are the anxious generation. and if you are walking around anxious all the time, it's going to be really hard to just magically feel desire, no matter what is going on with you, and this goes on for men and women. And so to think that there's something that you have to do, and since sex is still taboo, we think we're broken if there's a problem with it. Like if we had a blood pressure problem or we weren't feeling whatever else we weren't feeling, I don't know what else are we not feeling. Like we have any kind of problems, we've solved it. But with sex, it's like we somehow think this desire, like we said earlier, should be spontaneous, should be magical.

49:26Emily Morse: But we're talking about all the tools and the toolkits so you can feel it again. And you can start to want to want to have sex because I think what we're missing is that there's whole generations of people now, and especially women, but men too, who are just like, they're just not enjoying it anymore. They've convinced themselves they never want to have it again because either they were never liking the sex they were having or they just really don't know that there are solutions. You can only redline your anxiety so long until you fall off the cliff into like disassociation or numbness. And we walk around really numb.

50:00We're either super anxious or we've fallen into like the numb, like the screen. Imagine how numb you are when you're just scrolling through a screen like for an hour. Like I feel numb, right? In between the anxiety and the numbness is where we feel alive. But there isn't that space for that. Like that's where our sexuality and our sensuality live but that getting access to that either for like the permission or just the somatic like all of it is so difficult well i want to put i think that that's

50:29Emily Morse: that's such a huge point is that we are so numb and we don't realize it so our screens and our phones we're always on our scrolling we're screening we're liking we're we're on our phones we're always attached to something we're always looking at something and that is mimicking the same kind of dopamine connection. Like we're feeling like we are busy and we are like doing something, but we don't realize that that's really depleting us and keeping us from allowing desire arousal to build in our body because we are always being, we don't have time to get bored. We're never like looking around. We're not, so, and so that's also why I think we, there's like a sex recession or a sex problem or why this has become a huge, I actually think it's a crisis because I'm also hearing from so many younger people too it's like all ages it's a it is and I think a lot of it has to do with this feeling of never having the space to allow desire and arousal to build in our body right and so we have to if we really care about it and we should we should care about connection and and how and sex is actually good for us orgasms are good for us right so I think it's sort of becoming like this feels like urgent because I feel like it is a crisis that there's so much low D.

51:48Emily Morse: We always hear about low T, but of course we don't hear about low D as much because maybe it's women. So since we've already established that, yeah, the low D is a problem, what about people come to you and it really, and you said there's a diagnosis or it's really distressing, what do you do for them? There are solutions, right? So I want to spell out all the solutions available for them. Some people don't want better living through modern medicine, And so then we're just working with the psychological and the relational fixes. And the people who are willing to take a stab on modern medicine, especially with HSDD, there's two options.

52:22There's Addy the pill and then there's Vilesi the injection. And they work really differently. Yeah. But they can be in your toolbox. And I'm biased, but I love Vilesi because I like that it's on demand. I don't have to, like, take it. And I tell my women this, like, whether they're single or coupled, by the way. I'm like, just take it and enjoy the bump in your brain and the electricity that makes you feel alive again and get to be in familiarity with that. Feel your relationship to desire because what's missing is your relationship to desire. Your relationship to desire has been suppressed. So if you take this injection, you feel this bump, right?

52:59Addy, it's kind of like a continuous slow drip, which is nice. And that's fine. And that's for some women. And that's great because they just want consistency and reliability with that. What I like about Valisi is I can take the injection and I can develop a relationship with my desire. I can be like, oh, that's what it feels like to be alive again. That's what it feels like to come tingling in my brain and let it like seep down through my throat and my chest and my core and to my genitals. And I'm alive again. And by the way, if I'm single, then I don't even have to go. I just go find my toy.

53:34And if I'm partnered, I don't even need to go find my partner. I can just kind of like hang out with that. I mean, because the box has like four shots in a box. You usually get eight a month. You know, you get to take up to eight a month. So you could just like hang out and be in relationship with your desire. So whether you take that or not, the invitation though is what is your relationship to your desire? Whatever it is now is not a problem. But if you want to change that relationship, great. let's figure out how to change that relationship and feel a different level of excitement in your

54:08Emily Morse: system yeah yeah well i also i like vileci too we talked about is what i like about vileci when i take it so we're talking about it's the only fda approved peptide for hstd for low sexual desire in pre-menopausal women right so i have tried everything i like to think i'm a guinea pig i I mean, we get like 20 pounds of sex products delivered to my house a week, which as you would know, you sell my garage. I'm like, come take things. Every time someone leaves my house, they leave with a box of pleasure. Always. You're there. That's what I do. It's a fun field trip, I got to say. It is a fun field trip.

54:44Emily Morse: Like you might have to get another suitcase. Yeah. And so when I first heard about it, I was like, first I was nervous at the time. I never injected anything. I know now everyone's like on a peptide and now I'm taking other peptides. So I'm like, great. but I like that it was as needed and it's something that you can just take so I had it for a while and I hadn't tried it so here's what I did so I was like okay I really want to give him feedback because like do you like it do you not and I was like okay I'm just gonna I'm gonna try it and I tried it I like injected myself which like it doesn't I kind of like it I don't know but yeah it's kind of a fun sensation do it comes all like in your abdomen or your leg then that night you know I'm not dating anyone now but I was having girlfriends over for dinner so I was having girlfriends over for dinner and I picked it probably like a half hour before and I'd forgotten that I did it because I was like it takes about 45 minutes so you start to like feel that in your body yes so my friends were over wrapping dinner and I'm like we had ordered like you know I just ordered in because I'm not a chef so it wasn't going to be like a long night it was like a Tuesday or something so they were there and I'm like oh my god I'm starting to feel this like my genitals started like tingling again.

55:50Emily Morse: I started feeling like I was so like excited that I felt excited again because usually that would only happen if I was with a partner or with my toy. But just to have it come out of like my body was telling me that I like I was I was like ready for them to leave. I wanted to go use my toy. It's probably the closest thing to spontaneous desire. It's the closest thing to spontaneous desire. Yeah. You're still responding to Right. You know, it's your it's responsive desire because you're responding to the injection. But it's kind of spontaneous because it's like just electrifying you out of nowhere.

56:25Emily Morse: Right. And it was actually I think for me, I had the perfect situation because I literally I wasn't like going on a date or planning it. And I think that some people are like, well, I don't want to have to take something before. I was like, but how is not taking something going? Like, how are you? You're not going to be it's not going to be spontaneous. And this way it's kind of guaranteed that you'll feel something. in your tendrils. I mean, no, I'm saying like, how is it like for people who are thinking like, I don't want to do anything to deal with my desire. Obviously, there's hormones and people take like testosterone.

56:55Emily Morse: There's a lot of things you can do for female desire right now and arousal and all the things. But I just like the idea of something that's on demand. On demand and electric, you know, makes you electric. I mean, I took a two. I'm with you. I get a lot of solicitations and I was like, well, this is interesting. I'm going to try it as well especially if I'm going to suggest it to my female clients and so I'll be honest the first time I took it I felt a blend of nausea because it does and I'm pretty sensitive so I had the nausea and I had the flush okay the flush I had the flush and then I remembered I was like okay there's other peptides I think the GLPs make you feel nauseated as well is the juice worth the squeeze and the juice is definitely worth the squeeze.

57:45So it's like moving through that window or knowing like the second time I took it, I took an anti-nausea med. Okay, that's what they say to take. That was super helpful. Yeah. Because the first one or two times you can get nauseated. I had flushing too. But so what? So you flush.

57:57Emily Morse: I'm not going anywhere. Right. But then I wanted to masturbate for the first time in like a while. I was like a little bit flushing. Yeah. But I think it's important to... Just to normalize it. Like, yeah, that may happen. But like that happens with so many other things too. And like, I don't know, I'm sort of like, so what? So you flush a little bit. Nausea, a little different. Like, that's not fun and comfortable. But if you kind of know that ahead of time, and I feel like that's the doctor responsibility when you sign up for this and you get your prescription, like, get an anti-nausea med just for the first, you know, two times, you know.

58:27And then you're off to the races. And then it has a great half-life. And it lasts in your system, which is awesome. And then you can just, like, use it to feel your sort of semi-spontaneous desire.

58:40Emily Morse: Yeah. Did you feel like you wanted sex more with your husband in that period? Like over the 12 hours it lasts? For me it lasted for 24. I don't know if I can. Mine? Is it supposed to last? It's like 12. But for me it lasted longer. Yeah. Well, I'll be super honest. So the answer is yes and no. So when we took it together, for instance, I was like, okay, I'm going to go have the best sex of my life. And I think I told myself a story that I should go have the best sex of my life because I'm taking this. Right. Yeah, but it's not about before. I know that. This is what I do for a living. I'm like, I'm being so honest with the listeners.

59:21I love that you're being honest. Even though this is my profession. I've been doing it for 17 years, right? Like clinically, I can tell you all the right things. And I still stepped into my own trap. I still literally stepped into my own trap with the tool that I love dearly that I advocate for. And I was still like, I'm going to take this and I'm going to have the best sex of my life. And I put that pressure on myself. My husband wasn't even like, he was like, I don't care. Zero pressure from my husband. He's the best. But I put that pressure on myself just to show that we just can step into our own society pressures and myths so easily, even when this is our profession.

59:58And so like I stepped into that and I'm like, okay, we're gonna have the best sex. And I like set it up in my brain as a story that I had to like do that. So I sort of sabotaged myself for the first like hour or two. Okay. And he could tell that. And he's like, hold on.

1:00:13Emily Morse: Meaning because you were having sex and it wasn't. I couldn't even like get there. I was like stressed out about like, okay, it's going to be great. And like where are the other toys? And like how is the lighting in the hotel room? And like, you know, should we text the others? We were on a text thread. We're like to like track our bodies. Right. And we're like, how's everybody feeling? And he was feeling great. And so like I got in my head though of like, oh, we're going to have this great sex. And so I needed to actually settle down and take away all the expectations of the sex I should be having and just let the organic nature of the medicine circulate within me and let it do its magic and settle down without a story.

1:00:53And he's like, I don't think we should actually have sex right now. I think we should just like let it be in our bodies and we'll cuddle and we'll go to sleep. And I mean, he's such a gem. He really is. And so we did that, went to sleep because it has a great half-life, right? I think we woke up in the middle of the night, to be honest. And I'm still feeling it. But again, without my own like self-sabotaging pressure. And I'm like, I'm ready. Now I'm ready. Now I'm like calm and out of my own way and I'm letting the magic of the medicine circulate within me.

1:01:29Emily Morse: And what did you start to feel? Like you started – because for me it was like just tingling because it was like a liveness. Yeah. It was – I started my legs. I actually felt the tingling even when I was like in my own self-sabotaging pressure story, which is so ridiculous. We all do this. We all self-sabotage. So ridiculous. But I felt – I did feel the tingling in my legs and in my like inner thighs close to my vulva. And I felt like a little jello-y and it kind of felt like a little bit of like a psychedelic feeling, if you will, in your body. And it was just like loose and flowy and like and then it kind of like rose into my core and I kind of felt this like sensuality of it.

1:02:07And that was like juicy and sexy and yummy. And then it ended up being. Then it ended up being awesome.

1:02:14Emily Morse: Like when you said the pressure to have the best sex ever, I think of all these things are like, oh, it has to be swinging from the rafters. Like, how would you actually define that now? I mean, I guess you could say for yourself, but also for like for everyone. We don't understand desire. We don't understand arousal. I think we certainly have notions around amazing sex that might not be what. I know. Such a good question. And we probably should differentiate arousal versus desire. Yeah, let's do that. Vilesi does desire. Yeah. And that's so important because it turns on the pathways in the brain.

1:02:46That's the desire is the want to want to have sex. Right. Okay. And when all those pathways in the brain come alive, it can be circulated through your whole body. It can impact arousal. Sometimes you have to get turned on in your body for your brain to boot up and be like, oh, yeah, I'm glad I'm here. Because it can go both ways. And that's responsive desire. Like you're responding to the stimuli. And I always say, like, great. That's how most of us have sex. Back to Ian Kern. Spontaneous sex is the best sex you'll never have. Like, fine. Go to the gym. Start on the treadmill. Your body wakes up.

1:03:19Your arousal wakes up. We're on the on-ramp. And then your brain goes, oh, I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I came to the gym.

1:03:24Emily Morse: Yeah. Never regret going to the gym. That's the same thing. You're probably not going to regret having sex with someone you like. I'm glad I'm here. Yeah, I'm glad I'm here. So, I mean, I just want to differentiate arousal versus desire. Right. So arousal is, so I always say, yeah. Turn on the body. And the arousal is actually the swelling and the blood flow and erection, lubrication. Yes. Your nipples harden, your breath quicken. That's arousal. Exactly. That's actually the physical manifestation of that desire. Yes. Yes. Okay. Important distinction. Yeah. It's your body coming to life and all that it means in terms of heat and blood flow and tingling and electricity.

1:04:03our desire so much more complex so complex because there's all these things that are involved in it but when you have a bump that helps dilute some of the complexity and the suppression like what

1:04:14Emily Morse: a gift i mean that's why i love it it dilutes the complexity and the suppression which is like and by complexity it's like what when you when you say that what i hear is like oh my god everything stress maybe a medication you're taking um you know not feeling great in your body you have so many things on your to-do list yeah uh you know have resentment maybe at your partner for something you haven't talked about whatever it is like it's sort of it's like a kid up you kind of bypass it right oh yeah totally actually do want to have this thing right that sex is something that is good for me and good to connect with yeah another human it's kind of like so do you know when you're turned on like let's say you're with your toy for instance yeah right yes and then like right when you start you're like okay I'm here but I can still like think about my to-do list yeah but you get to a point with your toy it's true where your to-do list falls away out of your brain yeah and it's interesting because I do ask my clients this I'm like what was the best sex you had and why so that we have a roadmap of where to go right and again for some people it might not even be genital it might be like oh my god my heart opened to your heart and I feel oneness and that's awesome it's a connection and again it could be with yourself or another person or a collection to people or a toy or whatever but like you feel that sense of like connection and I'm gonna use the word oxytocin like there's a sense of like yumminess and bonding to the experience like when I have sex with myself it's like oh I like I feel the juiciness I come to life and I'm like I'm on this planet and I get to feel my body going through this experience called orgasm in a delicious, juicy way that most living things don't actually experience.

1:06:00What a privilege.

1:06:01Emily Morse: We are so privileged. We're so privileged. And we forget how good we can have it, how we can make this happen for ourselves and how good it is for our – that's a great answer. Good for our nervous system, good for our brains. Yeah. But I was actually asking too also because I think I love hearing that because there's so many ways that I think a lot of us are aspiring to this great sex or kind of sex that is what we see in Hollywood or porn or all the things that we don't even know what we're looking for right now. We don't even know what's possible because it's become so fraught. It's become like a chore.

1:06:37Emily Morse: It's become a duty. It's become penetration. So I just love like everyone. and ask yourself, like, what would great sex be to you? And go make that happen. Right. It could be just like, I know that the handsome guy at the grocery store wants me. And I'm like, oh, that's awesome. And now I'm going to go use my toy and think about that. Exactly. Yeah. Whatever's going to inspire you to have more desire. Exactly. That's what we're about. Yeah. Okay, Dr. Jenny, thank you for being here. I'm going to ask you the five quickie questions I ask all my guests. Oh, shoot. I didn't practice. No, these are so great.

1:07:10Emily Morse: These are so easy. Ready? you just can't overthink it okay i'm not gonna no no it's like one more whatever biggest turn on confidence biggest turn off insecurity what makes someone great in bed it's boring to say confidence um i mean yeah confidence with sensual zealousness something you wish you knew when you were younger about sex that the body does keep the score trauma gets stored and that's for real and to yeah what's the one thing you wish everyone knew about sex Not one size fits all and bushwhack to the beat of your own drum. Thank you for being here. Can you Dr. Jelly work? Can people find you and do all of your things and listen and hang out with you?

1:07:52You can hang out with me. You can hang out with me on my podcast. Okay. It's a different kind of flavor than your podcast, even though we both work in the field. And I want to really differentiate that because I love you and your podcast. I do mine slightly differently because I have my husband involved. And he brings a like man perspective, which is awesome. And he also does these like super long deep dives intellectually because that's just how he works. He can't get out of his own way there. So we call it sex in the psyche. I think I'm more than just sex, but like I'm sex. He's a psyche. But we have fun conversations and we use our marriage as sort of a, you know, we we use our marriage as a metaphor for other people to figure out the dynamics.

1:08:33We talk about relationship dynamics. And then we role model the relationship dynamics. And it's just, you know, if you like what we're up to, that's what we're up to. Sex and the psyche. We're making an app. Coming soon, Savvy Sex, the app. And our website is the Intimacy Institute. Great. I like all of that.

1:08:50Emily Morse: Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I adore you. You too. Thanks for listening to Sex with Emily. Was it good for you? Follow me on all social media, Sex with Emily. You can also check out my website, sexwithemily.com. And please subscribe to the podcast, which is available on all podcast platforms. As I head into my 21st year, you can find them all. Also, I'm going on tour. If you want to check it out, go to sexwithemily.com slash events. Don't forget to check out our website for all my favorite sexual health and wellness products and subscribe to our newsletter. Thanks everyone for listening.

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1:09:54Emily Morse: Miss me? Monopoly is back at McDonald's with millions of prizes. a 2027 cheap charity a carnival cruise vacation gift cards from DoorDash and Best Buy He'll then play in the McDonald's app Get your bag! No purchase necessary 50 US and DC age 18 plus See play at mcd.com for rules and play at mcd.com slash AMOE for info on playing without purchase by mail by November 2nd Chance card game ends November 8th Game ends November 22nd, 2026 See rules for prize details Monopoly is a registered trademark of Hasbro