Does Better Sex = Better Health? The Truth About Sex, Stress, & Satisfaction - With Dr. Nicole McNichols

30:23And that's okay. By being educated about it, we can learn about these people, embrace them, and also learn something about our own lives, right? No matter how different it may seem, most different types of sexuality can still lend some kind of teaching to the very types of struggles and questions that we have about ourselves and our own relationships. Yeah. Thank you for that. I feel like I'm in class right now. That's so awesome. You said this in the book very explicitly that better sex is connected sex. Yes. Talk about that. Why is that? I mean, what does that mean? So better sex is connected sex, right?

31:03And connected sex can take place in any kind of context, right? So I argue that you can have connected sex in a long-term monogamous relationship, but you can also have connected sex in a one night casual sex experience where both people come to the experience wanting just a sense of adventure and pleasure. You can have connected sex in the context of an open relationship. You can have it in the context of a sex dungeon. You can have it in the context of what we might term vanilla sex, where it's just slow and connected and intimate. Connected sex is authentic sex. It means showing up as yourself, being honest and mindful.

31:47Most of all, connected sex implies a sense of presence and authenticity about what you want and what's turning you on. I love this. Let's talk some of these myths. now when it comes to pleasure, specifically when it comes to female pleasure. And so we already covered one of those myths, which has to do with the G-spot and the CUV. But I want to ask you about the difference between sexual arousal versus sexual desire. And specifically, one of the myths you talk about is if you're not wet, you're not turned on. Exactly. So this also blows people's minds, right? Because we tend to think that what's going on in our minds in terms of how turned we on we are is going to be directly reflected instantly in our bodies.

32:45This is not always true, right? A prime example of this is imagine all the boys that we know going through puberty who just get spontaneous erections, right? Like in the middle of history class at really inconvenient times. It is not always the case that when you become aroused and your body is showing those signs that subjectively you're thinking, I want sex right now. And at the same time, oftentimes we do really desire sex, but our bodies just kind of aren't quite cooperating, right? And so this can happen for a variety of different reasons. And typically it becomes problematic in the personal sense if you feel that subjective sense of desiring sex, wanting sex, but you're not able to lubricate or you're not able to get an erection, right?

33:39And so that can be for a whole host of different reasons, right? If we look at women and lubrication, for example, there's been so much research on the impact of perimenopause and menopause, that just with that decline in hormones can really compromise the vagina and the ability for the vagina to lubricate, right? This is why things like HRT, which thankfully just got the black bottle warning removed, as well as different types of, you know, estrogen creams can be hugely helpful for women who struggle with lubrication. And for men, right? Same thing, whether it is going and talking to your doctor, and maybe it might be as simple as a Viagra prescription or dealing with underlying anxiety, or with your cardiovascular health, like we talked about in the beginning of this podcast, so many health outcomes are directly related to our ability to respond.

34:39But perhaps most importantly, the fact that our minds and bodies don't always perfectly sync up points to something else critical about pleasure, which is that sometimes our bodies respond before we subjectively become turned on. And this is called responsive desire. And what it means is that you might be in a situation where you're with, let's say, your long-term partner. And you might be in the mood for sex or you might not be. You're not really quite sure. And so you decide to give it a try, right? You decide to start kissing, to start touching. What might happen is that your body then begins to get turned on sexually.

35:27And it's only after that physiological response that your brain then kicks into thinking, oh I want this right this feels good bring it on so understanding that sometimes our bodies if you really boil this down kind of have to decide at a physiological sense that they want sex before our psychological sense of wanting sex kicks in can really give people a sense of relief because it means it's okay if you're not starting out in sex totally turned on and really wanting it which can, you know, for a lot of couples can be kind of cause a lot of anxiety, right? Like, why don't I want sex all the time?

36:07And the reality is that that's okay because another pathway into an amazing sexual experience is allowing your body to physiologically warm up and get turned on before that psychological sense of desire kicks in and is on board and leads to the orgasmic experience you're looking for. So you said that sometimes the psychology can be out of sync with the biology, which again, this is another Captain Obvious thing, but this speaks to, and I would love to dive into this, the impact of stress and just the overall kind of stress load in the psychology, especially with women today and the influence that that might have on sexual desires, sexual wants and needs.

36:56Can you talk about that relationship? Absolutely. No, and I'm so glad you brought that up, Sean, because it's really in the foundation of my McNichols hierarchy of sexual needs, right? Which is this idea that if we want to be able to come forward with our partners and be present, which is what's required to have satisfying sex, we first need to almost get turned on by ourselves. In other words, feel sexy, feel a sense of you look in the mirror and you're like, I'd want to have sex with myself. You kind of want to get into that mind state, which can feel selfish or egotistical, especially to women who have been socialized to think that your role is really about nurturing and taking care of the needs of others, Getting into that really selfish mindset of, yeah, I'm hot can be a challenge.

37:49And one of the things that really provides a roadblock to getting into that phase of, yes, I would want to have sex with myself is stress. And so we see stress in so many different avenues. It might be stress from our career. It might be stress from the exhaustion that comes from managing a family, keeping track of dentist appointments, keeping track of the tutor that you've got to schedule for your child's math exam coming up, to the dog that just ate the kid's crayon set overnight and now needs to go to the vet, right? All of these different forms of emotional labor and stress, right? Where you just feel a sense of depletion, right?

38:36There's so much research coming out showing that the number one thing robbing of women of desire right now isn't necessarily even menopause or hormones or biological. It's the mental load of feeling this level of distraction in midlife. And it's sort of interesting at this time because women really feel empowered to be set out on their careers and to really be going for it. And, you know, I mean, this is something that I can relate to, right? feeling really ambitious and having the permission to be ambitious. But the reality is that nonetheless, when we look culturally, the data suggests that even almost especially among women that are hyperachievers in their career, they're actually doing more of the household labor, more of the child rearing than in situations where it's more equal.

39:29Why that is, that could be a whole topic. But the point is there's so much stress and learning to be able to dismantle that and just sort of leave it, check it so you can achieve that place of presence is so critical, but is often the biggest challenge, I think, especially for women trying to enjoy a good sex life. All right. This is so major because as you just mentioned, this can supersede so many of the other perceived issues when it comes to sex and sexual pleasure and having better sex. And yet we don't know what to do about it. We don't know what to do. Right. There's so much stress today that we just we're being born into it.

40:14Yeah. Just the dynamics of our culture, you know, tech, social media, all the things to do, all the things to be. And, you know, the paradox of choice as well. You know, there's just so much going on. And I relate this to an overall stress load because I know that, you know, when I was in college and a conversation around stress, it very much seemed like pseudoscience, like what? But in reality, and just a little sidebar, and we'll put this study up for everybody to see, this was published in JAMA like 15 years ago now, maybe longer, but upwards of 80 % of all physician visits today have a major stress-related component.

40:57Stress is making us sick, but we don't talk about it because it doesn't have calories. Sometimes you can't see it. You know, but that overall stress load, this could be, of course, diet goes into that, lack of sleep, exercise, these kind of big pillars. But when, for myself, when I thought about stress, I only related it to work, right? But that goes into the stress load as well. Yep. Relationship stress, spiritual stress even. Yeah. You know, just feeling like maybe I'm, I don't matter. I'm not on my purpose, whatever that might look like. and obviously relationship stress, right? Which might be the biggest of them all.

41:37And you put all that together for one human to deal with. And it's kind of stacking conditions against us. And there's like, you want me to have pleasurable sex too? You know, so how do we do this? How do we fix this? Let's focus on women right now. How can we possibly start to reorder our life structure to process some of this stress? maybe offload some of the stress to open up for more. I love that. And I mean, you know, Sean, the thing is, it's not even just that we dismiss or ignore the stress. We kind of worship it. I mean, if you think about it, everyone loves to be crazy busy, right? We're all quote unquote crazy busy.

42:24And if you're not crazy busy, what the fuck is wrong with you, right? What are you doing with your life? And, you know, where does that come from? We live in this culture that is just this puritanical upbringing, hard work equals virtue. It's just ingrained in all of us. Right. But I do think there's some certain core things that contribute to the exact type of stress that can be especially problematic when it comes to our sex lives. And I think almost chief among them is social media, because, you know, you think about it, you get home, you're exhausted from work. you're trying to unwind you again going back to this theme of presence right that's really the goal is to become present and yet what do we do we grab our phones right and we start mindlessly scrolling through tiktok and instagram and you know especially take a platform like tiktok for example it's just so easy that algorithm is way too smart and it just starts feeding you you know, videos that are primed to kind of keep that stress component going because it wants your brain activated so that it keeps wanting to watch videos on whatever the thing is that you're anxious about.

43:40And so it also just sets up this comparison, right? So you just get bombarded with messages, whether it's skinny talk, right? For women, which is just going to be overloading all of your body image concerns, which research shows really is weighing on women so much when it comes to being able to enjoy your sex life, right? Or seeing all the perfect photos in this beautiful Instagram feed of your friend that are, you know, of course not showing any of the real or hard moments. But I think that that, you know, frame of mind and that that particular breed of stress can be especially harmful. But then it also just comes down to our inability to prioritize any kind of pleasure in our lives because we tend to think of pleasure as superfluous or as extra.

44:30But the reality is that pleasure builds ego resilience. It makes us think more creatively. And the more we can foster pleasure in our lives, the better we're able to cope with those many of those stressors. Because look, some of them, like social media, you might be able to control, right? We can all get off our phones earlier. But the reality is that your family is there, right? Your work is there. Your, you know, relationship is there. So how are you going to fill your own bucket to be able to deal with those stressors? And the answer is sexual pleasure, but also fostering other sources of pleasure in your life.

45:09Whether that means taking a hot bath, going for a walk, being in a book club where you get together with friends and discuss things you're excited about. going out for cocktails with a friend and catching up who you haven't talked to in a while, right? An exercise class, whatever it is that just brings you pleasure, we need to be prioritizing that because it's going to be giving us the coping skills to put in place the stress that otherwise is going to kill our sex life. Pleasure appreciates. Exactly. Pleasure appreciates. The overall nutrition in our food has taken a nosedive in recent decades.

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47:55Absolutely incredible. Go to wildpastures.com forward slash model. That's W-I-L-D-P-A-S-T-U-R-E-S.com forward slash model. 20 % off for life, free shipping and$15 off your first order. Head over there, check them out. Wildpastures.com forward slash model. Now back to the show. So I don't want to leave guys out of this conversation. is just speaking from the experience of living this life this way. You know, we tend to have a higher percentage of us who are, our love language is physical touch, right? And so stressed out, tough day, give it to me. Totally relaxed, chill day, give it to me. You know, got into, you know, an altercation.

48:51It doesn't matter. You know, hungry, not, I'm totally full. give it to me you know and so for a lot of guys it tends to be that whereas for women it is definitely more complex there's more psychological factors and so with this being said not to negate that obviously again stress can have major ramifications for men's sexual health as well but in the context of actually getting together and having better sex one of the things that just again, based on your work and lived experience as well, is looking at ways, you know, instead of adding another thing for our significant other to be feeling guilty about, or, you know, just having this extra pressure of what I should be doing, because especially social media and the media at large is telling me I'm supposed to be Omega woman and do all these things, looking at how can I help to offload some of these stressors?

49:51And as you mentioned, having a career tends to lead to, I'm doing even more, taking on more stuff at the household potentially. And so one of my favorite things to do in practices is to take things off my wife's plate. Sean, did you know that there is actual data showing that men in relationships who vacuum have more sex than men do? I mean, does that say it all? Talk about a love language. Wow.

50:28So yes, for sure. Right. And there's so many different levels that you can approach this at, but if we're just going to go to that, you know, division of household labor for a minute, Yes, leaning. And look, reality is that it is rarely going to be exactly equal in a relationship, right? But there should, to the extent that both partners can be having conversations about what can, you know, what's my responsibility? What are you going to do? What do you have time for? And it might be fluid throughout the relationship, right? There might be times when one partner is going through something that the other isn't.

51:06And so the one partner has more time to give and there's sort of a trust that things will even out, right? And so that's really critical. But we can all kind of take a lesson from queer relationships because what's been found in queer relationships is that because they're not up against that sort of ingrained heteronormative script that the woman is going to do all the household labor and the man is just going to go to work, that they have higher levels of relationship satisfaction because you don't have that blueprint in place, meaning you've got to talk about it and have a real conversation.

51:39So couples should absolutely be talking about how do you lean in to help each other not feel overwhelmed. But the other piece of this is simply gratitude. I think people really underestimate how much of an aphrodisiac gratitude is. And yeah, right. Exactly. Just feeling like if your partner sees you and appreciates everything that you're doing and really leans into that, that's a huge turn on. Right. And then I would also say just at the more immediate level, right. For the guys that are like, okay, like, I feel like I have that part of my relationship figured out, you know, like we, I lean in, I help with the kids, that's not so much an issue.

52:28It's more this issue of, I feel like I come home from work and it's give it to me, or, you know, we get into bed and it's give it to me. So for a lot of people, and I think especially women, you have to understand that a pathway into feeling desire isn't to just go straight to sex, right? And this is where emphasizing non-sexual touch really comes into play, because if you can just be cuddling together, right, foot rubs, hugs, right, the, the 60 second hug, I think is what the Gottmans, you know, defined through research as being so critical. The seven second kiss, couples who kiss each other more, right, have been found to have higher levels of sexual satisfaction.

53:09So if you can really lean into these types of touch that or regular parts of your relationship and where they're not always leading to sex, you're going to be, you know, doing two things, connecting to each other in a really profound way, but also not setting up this expectation that every time your partner touches you, they're just looking for sex, right? I think that that's, what's really key. You're calming your nervous systems as well. You know, by touching your partner, you're kind of calming each other, which is again, going to bring you into sync, which is really what needs to happen to lead to a really amazing sexual experience.

53:49But most of all, it's communicating that love and affection and intimacy continuously, not just at the times when you're having sex. This is great advice. Gratitude is an aphrodisiac. Yes. That is the title of this. So powerful. mystery is not the secret to desire. Gratitude is telling you. Yep. This is something that I, I know this, you know, I've worked with countless people, but just in my own life, it's, it, it might be, you know, just our wiring, but we get acclimated, we get jaded, we get used to things. And so we got to train ourselves to be grateful and that can become a habit as well.

54:32And so a good example is last night, My wife did the most. She did a lot of stuff during the day. And then she still decided to make dinner instead of doing a door dash. Because I would have did a door dash because all the stuff she did, but she really wanted to. And so, you know, I have an opportunity there of, you know, the Brussels sprouts. They, you know, they taste pretty good and just keeping it to myself or being like, baby, these are the best Brussels sprouts I've ever had in my life. I love that. And I've trained my son, which he doesn't know this, but he does the same thing. My youngest son, he's just like, mom, dad is right.

55:13Just like encouraging her, offering these words of affirmation. It's true. Yes. It's true though, but sometimes we hold it in. Exactly. Right? And also it's being more mindful on the complaining. And if there is something off, because my wife will tell you, I'm a kitchen hoverer. All right? I want to, so what do you, what is that? What are you doing? Or like, babe, it's like, it's starting to get like, I don't know if the timeline is like, so I've got to like be able to keep myself from expressing those things because they're usually extremely minor, but they can just be adding to that stress load for her.

55:49Exactly. Exactly. I love that. It sounds like you really have this, you're living this principle beautifully, Sean. Because I messed up a lot. Yeah, you learn how to. So I want to ask you more about this hierarchy of needs that you've created because it's so good. And the foundation is what? And then let's build up from there. Yeah. So I built the hierarchy of sexual needs because kind of circling back to what we were talking about in the beginning, we all have these blueprints of what we think great sex looks like that are pretty much determined by culture and the media and porn. And so I wanted to say, look, to have incredible connected sex, we need to throw that script out and rebuild a new blueprint for better connected sex, which is really what this hierarchy is trying to be.

56:44And it has three different levels. So the bottom foundational level is this idea of connecting to your body as well as your individual mind, meaning you need to learn what feels good to your body, leaning into all those pleasure diversity principles that we talked about. What gets me going? What leads to me having an orgasm, not what I'm being told by porn or Netflix. And then it gets into this idea of before you're even able to start leaning into a partner, you need to get yourself into a mindset, whether it's dealing with stress, like we talked about, or dealing with your sort of assumptions about sexual shame that you grew up with, or body image issues, which we know can really get in the way of people's ability to feel sexy, right?

57:36This bottom layer, it's really about that idea I talked about in the beginning of being able to look in the mirror and feel like I feel sexy. I would want to have sex with myself because we need to have that entitlement to pleasure, that feeling of vibrancy if we really want to be able to show up in the best possible way with our partners, right? We also need to know our bodies because when we get to that second level where we're trying to figure out the dynamics of whether it's keeping passion alive in a long-term relationship or entering into a new relationship and navigating new sexual experiences with a new partner.

58:13We need to know how to communicate. It's going to be a lot easier to communicate our needs if we start out knowing what it is that we want to begin with, right? So that's why this is the second level built on top of getting in touch with our physical needs. And then once we've figured out everything about communication and connecting and those dynamics of long-term relationships, we get into questions of, you know, this final layer of understanding the dynamics of kink. Because even if kink is something that you would never really think of yourself as exploring, Sean, all of us are kinky. Kink is a continuum.

58:51We all exist somewhere on this scale of playing with erotic power play in our sexual experiences. Even if it's knowing that we love it when our partner takes charge and really ravishes us versus we love it when we feel like we can surrender in the moment or that we take charge in the sexual experience, right? Even just understanding the psychology of kink can be so helpful to bringing the heat in your own relationship. Or if it's understanding the dynamics of open relationships, if that's something that you're interested in exploring, which even if you're not, are important to know about because today having an open relationship is about as common as having a cat, which people don't realize.

59:37It's much more happening, a lot more than people realize, and can also teach you about the inherent challenges of monogamy and ways in your mind to understand that, for example, it's okay if you're in a long-term relationship and feel attraction occasionally to other people. That doesn't make you a bad person. That doesn't constitute cheating, right? So we go from this place essentially in the hierarchy of building a foundation of knowing our body, becoming present, sexually present, to then moving into this middle need of our emotional and social needs of how we communicate, connect with a partner, to this third final place of self-actualization and exploration, which is really where we lean into this idea of curiosity and continued growth as being the key for keeping that spark alive.

1:00:28I love it. I love it. So with this being said, and again, that kind of pinnacle or top layer of this hierarchy, you know, you're bringing to bear something that some people are not going to want to hear, that humans are freaky, you know, and just have all these different expressions and ideas. And what tends to happen is, you know, our programming is like, you shouldn't be a certain way. You shouldn't think certain thoughts. And what happens when you do those things is the guilt and the shame. And I feel that without having an awareness of what's going on in yourself would lead to abnormal behavior and maybe taking action on some things that are dangerous or illegal or whatever the case might be.

1:01:20And instead of understanding oneself and having these conversations and even understanding like, you know, not just in the freaky sense, but just our minds are so expansive and bonkers. Some of the stuff that we think about. In the most beautiful ways. In the most beautiful ways, but understanding that we, we have an infinite mind and this does not make us a bad person or unusual. As a matter of fact, everybody around you has the craziest thoughts you can imagine. And what tends to happen is, especially if we're indoctrinated, is to beat ourselves up. And instead of being more aware and honest about the way that we feel and having good interpersonal communication, self-awareness, the ability to self-assess.

1:02:06Yes, exactly. No, No, I love that idea. And what it's really kind of highlighting is just how much we need to start celebrating our imaginations, not shaming them. Right. And if you think about it, you know, human beings, I mean, this is kind of fascinating when you think about it. We are the only species that's capable of having a fantasy and even getting turned on by something or someone that's not even physically present, right? And so our minds, right, have evolved to be able to think of all these, right? I never thought about that. There's like a deer out there, like, I wonder what time she, you know, Bambi's getting, whatever.

1:02:48Right. Exactly. And so, you know, that's part of our evolution. We are wired to be able to imagine these complex, incredible scenarios in the future that may or may not ever happen, right? I mean, You know, if you think about it, this was really the secret to our survival as a species. Homo sapiens were able to imagine different scenarios where they would come up against different species of hominids. And it was only by having these imaginations that could envision all these crazy scenarios were we able to predict how we would respond so that we could win, which is essentially what happened. So now we have these imaginations and we need to be able to lean into the fact that sexual fantasy is part of what makes sex beautiful.

1:03:39It's part of what leads to our self-expression. And, you know, if you look at research on what the top five sexual fantasies are in America, they're freaky in your words, Sean, right? I mean, things like, you know, public sex, threesomes, BDSM, power and control, sex, you know, sexual coercion, which is, you know, can really bring, put people's, you know, get people prickly. Um, you know, having a sexual fantasy with, uh, an alien or a unicorn, right? If you walk into any sex toy shop, you'll notice that all the dildos are, you know, have sprinkles and unicorn shapes and alien tentacles. I mean, we're capable of dreaming up all of these, you know, very fantastical images and that's okay.

1:04:34It's nothing to feel ashamed of because the reality is that fantasy can be a great thing to leverage to help you think of new ideas for things you might want to try. But sometimes our fantasies don't necessarily perfectly map on to what we desire in real life, you know, and that's okay. That's, it's sometimes it's just fun to enjoy a fantasy in your head that, you know, take home our eroticism, right? If you think about, you know, there's a very viral scene in White Lotus 3, season three, where Gary and I can't remember the name of the other character, but they have a whole conversation about how he's realized that after sleeping with hundreds and hundreds of women in the last year, what he really fantasizes about is being a woman and having someone else who's himself, as he says, f***ing him, right?

1:05:31Like that blows our minds. That was sort of a, oh my God moment. But the reality is that that type of gender bending or imagining that you're having sex with a person that's not your normal sexual orientation that you're attracted to, that's actually more common than people think. So we are freaky. And to the extent that we can just accept that, it's going to help us have better sex. It's not going to, you know, this idea that we need to suppress that or ignore it or shame it, that's really not doing us any favors. Yeah. And also, this doesn't mean that we necessarily are going to act on these things because I don't personally know any aliens, but I don't know.

1:06:10I don't know for certain because some, you know, some people. They could. So I want to ask you about this as well before I let you go. You know, I mentioned this a little bit earlier, just about the context of sex and sexual desire. And again, you said, and this is a quote from your book, pleasure diversity exists between people, but it also sometimes varies in the same person month to month, depending on mood or circumstances or energy levels, unquote. And this brings to mind a question, which is, can a woman's desires change based on where she is on her cycle? A million percent. Yes. So during the menstrual cycle, after ovulation, that's known as the luteal phase.

1:07:01And during the luteal phase, the cervix will actually be lower in the pelvis. And instead of being opened and feeling like a mouth, it'll feel like the tip of your nose, which means that if it is lower in the body that those types of hot sex positions that might lead to really deep penetration might bump up against the cervix and can feel a little bit less comfortable right or it might be that you need more lube during certain parts of the month like the luteal phase when you're not lubricating quite as easily right lube is your friend the wetter the better. So there can be those fluctuations during a person's cycle that will lead to different types of sexual positions or, you know, different activities being sort of more or less desirable.

1:07:54There's also just going to be a difference in desire, right? So right around ovulation and especially right before ovulation, when estrogen levels are high, that often leads to a high level of sexual desire and interest in sex. Interestingly, a lot of women also get a spike in sexual desire right before they get their period during what we call the late luteal phase. And the reason that happens is because all women have testosterone, obviously not in the same level that men have. But during the end of your cycle, when estrogen levels and progesterone are decreasing relative to that, testosterone is higher.

1:08:37And so a lot of women can experience sort of that burst of sexual interest right before their period. So yeah, it's really cool how desire really can change over the month for a person's cycle, as well as like the different positions and techniques that might feel good, which is why communication is so critical. What about the, I guess, intensity of the sex maybe at some phase of the cycle? And this might vary from woman to woman. Maybe things that are more quote vanilla versus things that are more, you know, bed squeaking, you know, whatever. Exactly. And that's why it's so important to lean into this idea of not every sexual experience should be the same, right?

1:09:19And so there are going to be times when you might really desire slow, connected, intimate sex, right? Research coming out showing that especially when there's kissing during sex, that can increase the chance of orgasm for women. And that might be, you know, let's say, you know, I've had women tell me, for example, that that's the type of sex they really crave right before ovulation. And then maybe you crave the kind of the freakier types of sex where there's maybe a little bit of bondage or a little bit of light spanking or maybe freakier than that, closer to that time when it's right before your period and that testosterone spike relative to everything else is happening.

1:10:00I'm not saying that that's what the pattern looks like by any means for every woman. It's just an example of what can happen. But yeah, expect to crave different types of sex depending on the time, the day. Also, how connected you're feeling to your partner in the moment, what you're both in the mood for, what is going to make you feel sort of emotionally satisfied. That's kind of the beauty of sex. This is so good. You know, I just appreciate you so much for putting this together. I know that it's a labor of love to write a book in the first place and to really share this message because I asked you before the show even got started and we were just talking why you would do this.

1:10:43Why would you put yourself through writing a book? you know and it's because you do have a message to share and to really open up this conversation around sex and unfortunately again we're surrounded by sex but it's such a taboo thing and it can be incredibly healing it can be incredibly connective and also as you mentioned we start off the episode all the benefits right and we see multiple studies on increasing longevity on improving cardiovascular disease, cognitive function, the list goes on and on. But how do we actually, like what constitutes good sex? How do we make sex better? And so thank you for unpacking some of this for us today.

1:11:25And again, this is just a little slice of the full meal, the buffet that's in the book. So as of this release of this episode, it's available everywhere that books are sold. So can you let everybody know, is there a preferred place to pick up the book where can they follow you get more information yes thank you so much um yeah you can buy my book at whatever your preferred retailer is i always encourage people to buy from their local bookstore if that's an option um and if you'd like to follow more of my work please do so on instagram or tiktok my handles are nicole the sex professor and get in touch thank you sean this was incredible thank you i appreciate you The new book is You Could Be Having Better Sex.

1:12:10Dr. Nicole McNichols, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. Conversations around sex still, for me, jumps right into the forefront of my mind. Salt and pepper. I'm not talking about what might be on your dinner table. I'm talking about the historic female rap group. And they had this song, Let's Talk About Sex, Baby. They had this incredible song. That was the most education I got. They talked about it. All right. The good things and the bad things that may be. All right. I didn't really get to know about the good things from my conventional education.

1:12:49It was all fear based. Stay away from it. There's sharks in there. You know, all these crazy propositions. Now, not literal sharks, of course, but just having fear when it comes to this part of being human. And so I'm grateful for these conversations and to be able to have this platform to elevate the conversation around sexual health because as it said, sexual health is health. And so we've got to do better than these catchy tunes from back in the day at this point. and so I'm very grateful for you being a part of this conversation with me today and if you enjoyed, please share this out with your friends and family.

1:13:37Of course, you could share this on social media. Take a screenshot, tag me. I'm at Sean Model and tag Dr. McNichols as well. I know she would absolutely love to see that and listen, we've got some incredible, incredible masterclasses and world-changing guests coming your way very, very soon so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.