What is Great Sex: Myths About Sex, and What Separates Good Sex and Bad Sex!

0:00Today on the James Altiger Show. I'm a human sexuality professor here. I'm in the psychology department at UW. And yeah, I teach a really large class, 4 ,000 students a year, all about sex. Let's face it, a lot of people are watching a lot of porn. And that can kind of give this idea that you have to have all these, you know, 8 million style Olympic positions in order for it to be hot. That you are meant to be having multiple orgasms and having a sexual response that is completely exaggerated and not representative at all of how real bodies work. That you're meant to have rough sex, right? Creating this sense that you may be somebody they're interested, but they're not quite sure.

0:47We can get into that chase mode. We can get into that almost obsessive partner where it almost has more to do with, frankly, unresolved childhood wounds where maybe you never felt like there was a full sense of conditional love from your parents. But without even blaming our parents, it can just get into almost an addiction to that uncertainty. That is not chemistry. The number one sexual fantasy is passion and romance, feeling wanted. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.

1:54But I did it and I got great answers. Episodes with Dr. Nicole McNichols. She just came out with her book, You Could Be Having Better Sex, The Definitive Guide to a Happier, Healthier and Hotter Sex Life. And there was so much great content. We're dividing it into three episodes. Episode one focuses on what is great sex and all about the different myths of sex and what separates good sex from bad sex. Episode two is the science and mechanics of pleasure, or in other words, how to have great sex. And episode three is keeping the spark alive, how to maintain great sex. And so this is the first episode, and I hope you enjoy.

2:44It was really fun to interview Dr. Nicole McNichols. And again, her book is You Could Be Having Better Sex, the definitive guide to a happier, healthier, and hotter sex life.

3:01Where are you calling in from, by the way? I am in Seattle, Washington. Okay. And you're a professor there? I am. I'm a human sexuality professor here. I'm in the psychology department at UW. And yeah, I teach a really large class, 4 ,000 students a year, all about sex. So I have to say, this was a great book. You Could Be Having Better Sex. Thank you. You know, it really was eye-opening in a lot of ways that it wasn't like too much about the science, but it also wasn't, you know, too much just like... Floss. ...ology effect. We kind of really back everything up, and then there's real-world examples, but you also give incredibly good advice.

3:44And I have to admit... Thank you. Out of 1 ,500 episodes that I've done, It's an overly personal kind of, not personal. The nature of the topic is personal. Yes, absolutely. And I'm so happy to hear you acknowledge that up front. I think that's so helpful. But it is. It's a difficult, vulnerable topic to discuss. But thank you for your kind words about my book. That means a lot. I put so much effort into trying to balance the science with the humanity of it all, right? Which is really kind of the approach I try to bring to my class. Do they have all sorts of expectations about what your sex life is like?

4:18Oh, yes. I mean, my students are so disappointed when they learn that I don't leave class at night and come home to my husband tied up in a dungeon. I mean, it's like they're sort of shocked to hear. But I think it sort of gives me a special vantage point. You know, I've been married for 22 years. I'm not married to a dominatrix. I'm married to a finance bro. and yet I know all the data about sex and how good it is for you and how undervalued it is in our culture. But no, I'm not a porn star. I don't have an OnlyFans account. And yeah, no, people are. And I assume, I know that with my social media, I'm sure people project a lot of that onto me and that's totally fine.

5:03You know, if that's your fantasy, go for it. But no, I'm just a normal person who kind of fell into this career by accident and it kind of blew my mind open. And that was kind of what motivated me to want to bring all this information to a broader audience. So, yeah. I've been trying to figure out like what questions to start off with, but I'm just going to ask like just random, probably the most questions and we'll start from there. That sounds great. One thing I want to understand is, and first off, for everybody listening, this might really expose my naivete, but what would you say is the difference between bad sex and good sex.

5:43It seems like, at least for a man, when you have an orgasm, that's just great. No matter what, like, orgasm. So what, like, on a spectrum of, like, 1 to 10, what is 1 and what is a 10? And what kind of people are 1s versus 10s? Okay, so if you were to boil it down to a single word, great sex is defined by pleasure, right? Meaning that you are authentically embodied. You're not taking this third-party perspective where you're judging yourself, comparing yourself to some script you've seen in porn or in the media, even on Netflix, and where you're authentically coming to the experience, able to communicate what it is that you want, what feels good to you, as well as being really attuned to those of your partner and being responsive.

6:32When we ask people, thousands of survey participants about what defines great sex to you, and there actually have been academic studies looking at this, yes, pleasure is a component. That is one of three things that does when you boil down all the data get mentioned, but so do these elements of caring and connection. And, you know, what that means is, you know, my book takes a bit of a different approach because I am not saying that amazing sex can only happen in one certain context. Amazing sex can happen whether you're in a 22-year marriage like I am, or if you are newly divorced and single and navigating dating for the first time in your life, or if you're in a friends with benefits, and even if you're in a stage in your life where casual sex is what makes sense for you.

7:25But great sex is really defined by an ability to show up, commit to communicating what it is that you want, what turns you on, and being truly responsive to your partner. Because that caring and chemistry, that can occur even if it's just for a night. It does not need to be something that is only found in the context of a single long-term relationship. So I just want to give hope to everyone out there who's listening to this. No matter who you are, what you're into, what your vibe is, what your sexual orientation, gender is, it does not matter. You are capable of this. It's just about giving you the tools that no one ever gave you about how to have great sex.

8:08So, and what's really fascinating about your answer is that it has nothing to do with, let's say, the traditional or even like Hollywood answers to this question, where it's like everybody's throwing each other around and there's a lot of athleticism and all these wild positions, which I'm sure, by the way, is, I don't know, I don't know where that fits into the answer, but you focused on caring, you focused on communication, and those are the things you focused on, and pleasure, but, you know, that's kind of part of it, but what do you mean by caring and communication, and when is it not great sex then?

8:45Right, so it's not great sex, going back to all those Hollywood factors that you just listed off, right? Let's face it, a lot of people are watching a lot of porn. And that can kind of give this idea that you have to have all these, you know, 8 million style Olympic positions in order for it to be hot. That you are meant to be having multiple orgasms and having a sexual response that is completely exaggerated and not representative at all of how real bodies work. That you're meant to have rough sex, right? That it's meant to and got involved choking or slapping or hair pulling. And I want to be clear, all of those things, if there are things that genuinely turn you on and bring you pleasure, and you're approaching them from a source of authenticity and your partner also is consenting and also wants to try those things out or enjoys those things, go for it.

9:42That's great. But one of my most popular TikTok videos is literally labeled in defense of vanilla sex, right? Defining vanilla sex as anything that's not kinky or involving rough sex. Because I almost feel like a lot of people have believe now, right? That in order to be hot, sex has to have that element of danger and risk. And it really doesn't, right? And then I think your other question was about caring. And I talk about this in sort of two domains. There needs to be an overall element of caring. Let's say if you're in a long-term relationship, right? where the sexual encounter isn't just about meeting one person's sexual needs, where it doesn't feel transactional or obligatory, where it feels like something that is committed to both of your pleasure and where there's a leaning in and understanding of the whole person, which is why, right, it's so important for couples to be planning sexual intimacy, but also all these other types of intimacy that exist in our lives that when fostered feed into sexual intimacy.

10:53Like what? Okay, so happy you asked. So there are different types of intimacy that connect us emotionally that feed into sex in an indirect way. Perhaps the most important is simply non-sexual physical touch, meaning sex should not be the only time that you are touching your partner. If it is, then on those few occasions when you do touch your partner, it's going to feel like this transaction, like, oh no, this person's asking for access to my body now. And that can bring up sort of a horrible, you know, feelings of guilt or feelings of where you then turn the person down and there's this pattern of rejection that can start to occur that can really serve to drive couples apart and create real problems in their sex lives.

11:46But the antidote to that is if you are cuddling, hand-holding on the couch, even just having your arm or your legs draped across your partner's lap, if it's the Gottmans, incredibly world-famous sex and relationship researchers found that if we even are just hugging our partners at the end of the day or at any time of day for a long period of time where it's not meant to be leading to sex or kissing our partners, right? Where again, it's not a prelude to sexual activity, but it's just an expression of affection. That is powerful. But we don't give a lot of credence to that because we just think that sex is sex and it exists in this separate domain of our lives.

12:32when in fact, it's very much our desire for our partner is very much going to be fed by just our overall ability to engage in all types of touch. So that's really important. But beyond that, there are all these intellectual ways that we create intimacy with our partners too, right? It might be sharing a sense of, you know, we both read an interesting book or we both saw something on the news or all of the crazy political events that are happening throughout the country and throughout the world, being able to share ideas on them and create a sense of hearing and going back and forth in a way where you're both interested and receptive to each other's ideas, right?

13:14That kind of going back and forth and listening to the person's perspective and then responding to it, that's building a sense of appreciation and allowing partners to feel kind of seen and respected within the relationship. And that dynamic directly feeds into the bedroom, right? If you feel like your partner is seeing you and hearing you and respecting your ideas and responding to them, it doesn't mean they have to agree with everything, but people don't realize that feeds into our feelings of sexual attraction. There are some people where that level of intellectual intimacy is so important that they identify as sapiosexual, which literally means they're turned on by your brain.

13:57They don't care about any other aspect of you, which is an extreme form. But I'm saying this is a continuum. And to a certain extent, yeah, hearing what your partner thinks about what's going on in, you know, am I allowed to say Minnesota? You know, whatever's happening around the world. Yeah, that, believe it or not, that's relevant to your sex life. I will say, just given my own personal presence or how I look, whenever I've dated someone in the past, when they say to me something like, oh, I'm a sapiosexual, I kind of take it as an insult. Like, oh, they think I'm not good looking. And so they're trying to communicate to me that they like smart people because I look smart.

14:39So I've always doubted that's a real thing, whether it's sapiosexuality is a real chemistry related thing. Okay, I think it is, but I'm actually going to reframe this for you. I think when you are dating people and they tell you they're a sapiosexual, I would guess it's more that they're maybe a little bit intimidated by how smart you are and they want you to know that they also have that value. So I don't think that they're saying to you that you're not good looking. I think they're saying to you, I am also a smart person who values ideas and I'm so excited that you're talking with me. I would actually frame it that way.

15:17I bet that has more to do with it. Thank you very much for doing it. And there's a lot to unpack in what you said about both communication and care. But I do want to ask about what is the role of just direct, like, what does it mean we had chemistry? Like, what does chemistry mean in this as well? Yeah, chemistry is so unpredictable, right? And it's one of those things where it gets confused with a lot of other factors that go into relationships. One thing, let's just talk about first what chemistry is not. It's not that feeling of insecurity and confusion and anxiety that can come at the beginning of a relationship, particularly if there's one where the person you are dating is inconsistent, creating this sense that you may be somebody they're interested, but they're not quite sure.

16:07We can get into that chase mode. we can get into that almost obsessive partner where it almost has more to do with, frankly, unresolved childhood wounds where maybe you never felt like there was a full sense of conditional love from your parents. But without even blaming our parents, it can just get into almost an addiction to that uncertainty. That is not chemistry. And so a lot of people have to understand that just because a person is making you feel a little bit obsessive, constantly checking your phone to see if they texted back, that's not chemistry. Chemistry is when you're actually connected to the person and around them and genuinely feeling a sense of attraction, right?

16:56It's a sense of sexual attraction. But remember, the pathway into that sexual attraction isn't just looks, right? It's all these different aspects of, Does this person make me feel seen, validated, chosen? We all, at the end of the day, want to be desired. The number one sexual fantasy, when we look at research of Americans, the number one sexual fantasy, it's not BDSM, power control, even though those do make the top 10. The number one sexual fantasy is passion and romance, feeling wanted. So I think that when a person genuinely feels wanted, that's really what creates that sense of chemistry.

17:39Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It would mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

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19:55but there's also kind of the cliches or myth that if you make someone feel too wanted they're not as interested there's essentially this whole philosophy of the game behind you know sexual attraction like you were referring to which it isn't that you know there's this kind of give and take that happens a lot in the chase? There can be a big give and take, but I think that when you're on the receiving end of that, where you feel like the person just kind of keeps coming and coming and coming, not in a good sense, but in a dating sense. As I explain this, it almost feels like this person is chasing a dynamic, not me.

20:37In other words, I don't think when you feel like a person is just coming at you over and over and over again, it's almost like they've projected this fantasy of who they think you are onto you. And you get this sense that maybe they're chasing this fantasy, right? Or maybe they're chasing, again, this addiction that they have to, it's almost like they're eroticizing the pain that can be involved in sort of this constant feeling of rejection, right? So in other words, when people feel truly wanted and desired, it's usually because they've sensed this person is truly responsive to who they are and how they're responding.

21:18And what I will say though is just to put this in simple terms, if you are with someone who is making you feel like it's inconsistent and you're really not sure where you stand, you're not sure how they feel about you. Yeah, playing the game, absolutely. You don't call them back for a little while. You take a while to text back. Yeah, that probably when we look at attachment style and particularly this anxious avoidant trap, we do see this push-pull dynamic where the avoidant pulls back as the person who's a little bit anxious advances. And then as soon as that anxious person forces themselves via playing the game to pull back, the avoidant naturally comes back because that's the dynamic.

22:06You can do that if that's the game you want to play, but you will be miserable. And it is no more likely to lead to a long-term relationship than if you just from the get-go say, I'm going to express a little self-love here, a little self-care, and know that this is a dynamic that's not making me happy. And I need to find somebody who's, as excited and willing to show up consistently as I am. And that's something you need to do yourself. Yeah. And I 100 % agree with you. And by the way, this isn't necessarily the topic of your book, but it's kind of a lot of a prelude to relationships and sexual activity and so on.

22:45Your book is really focused on kind of in people who are sexually active and with each other, how to make it even better. Right. But of course, this is prelude. So I'm just curious, How would you recommend expressing want without necessarily what's called love bombing or whatever, or playing that game in the beginning of a relationship or pre-relationship? So I actually do get into this a little bit in the chapter on singles and casual sex because we live in this culture of chill, first of all, right? Where you have to, you know, in answer to your question, take a step back and understand that, you know, with social media, online dating, we've gotten to a place where communication is really efficient and easy, but at the same time, it is information poor, meaning it's really easy to put a heart or a fire flame on somebody's Instagram story or send them a quick text back.

23:41But that doesn't require picking up the phone and putting in the effort to call them and actually put a date on the calendar. So I would say that, you know, if this is really about, again, intentional dating, where you're, you know, being mindful about, is this person putting, you know, the talking stage, as people now call it, which drives me crazy because even just the language around courtship today is just so devoid of intimacy, like you're just talking. You can apparently, it's been explained to me by both my students and people who are dating that you can be having a regular sex with somebody and still be in a quote unquote talking stage, right?

24:23So it's like just this craziness of not wanting to put labels on things because that's depicted as being needy and that you're expecting, you know, there's sort of this saying out there, if they wanted to, they would, which just is kind of a battle cry against this dating culture that's inviting situationships, that's normalized ambiguity in dating where nobody knows what the hell is going on, what other people's intentions are. And so no wonder we're all incredibly anxious around sex and dating, right? And so the key to that is to really be intentional, right? First of all, if you want some quick guidelines, I would say get an actual face-to-face date on the calendar quickly if that's what you're looking for.

25:10Because, you know, when we look at survey data, people who are engaging, for example, in online dating, about a fifth of them report that they're really just on the app for validation, for fun, because they're bored, that they really have no intention of following up with an in-person date. And so you're going to encounter people like that. And for them, you're just a game. And it's easy. We all turn into sort of little narcissistic sociopaths on these forms of communication, because as soon as you introduce this dimension of anonymity, we kind of treat each other sort of horribly, meaning we don't really feel this sense of, again, going back to what makes a great sexual experience, this element of caring for the person who's on the other end.

25:56So it's your job to make that caring a necessity. Make them, you know, if they're not willing to put a date on the calendar, that's giving you the information you need. If they are not really writing back consistently or taking days to text back, guess what? Like that's not something, if you are looking for a real relationship, that you should be tolerating. Move along, right? Go to the next person. Don't get tricked into feeling like, oh, well, now I'm feeling anxious and a bit confused. And so therefore that's chemistry and I should keep chasing this person. So it's really about having a sense of boundaries, right?

26:35Meaning I'm not going to tolerate the inconsistency, the ambiguity, the not knowing what you're thinking. And if you're face to face with someone, right? And you're now in a position where you are dating, right? Or maybe you're sexually involved with a person. Can we please normalize just confidently saying to someone, I'm not quite sure where we stand, or I'm not quite sure what you're looking for. Can you let me know? And letting that hang in the air for a second, right? Let the other person tell you that is not needy. That is confident, right? To be able to say something like that, not with an accusatory look on your face, not with the scowls, just smiling, put it out there, take a beat, right?

27:22That's confidence. That's saying, I have boundaries and I'd really like to know where things stand so that I can make a decision about whether this is something I want to keep staying involved in or if I feel like I just am wasting my time. And you know, the use of the word boundaries is very interesting here because often you think of boundaries as like a line where if they cross that line, you say no. But really, it's not about no or yes. Boundaries is your own confidence too, so that you don't say you want to please someone. So you don't say yes to too many things though, because you also have your needs.

28:00Exactly. Exactly. Boundaries is not just about saying, no, I'm not going to do that. No, I'm not going to meet you. It's also about saying, I don't like how I'm emotionally feeling in this dynamic right now. And so I'm going to kindly step away. And that's self-care. That's confidence.

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