Vanessa Marin
Appearances
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Yeah, yeah. Two people who have responsive desire can often feel like a standoff. Like you're kind of waiting for the other person. Like, well, I want you to start. Well, I want you to start. And you're both not thinking that often about sex. It's not popping into your mind that often.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
You might have the idea of like, we should, it's been a while, but you're not feeling that like, ooh, it feels super exciting to me mentally right now.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
All right. First though, I want to ask, why do you think you're going to be blamed for something?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I appreciate the vulnerability so much. And you're going to see in just a minute, there's some shared similarities that you and Chris have here. But what you're illustrating is one of the most common dynamics that comes up for couples. Most of us are really afraid to talk about our sex lives. Even Xander and I struggle to talk about our sex lives for years.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And when we don't talk about it, our brains naturally go to this negative place. oh, he thinks I'm doing something bad. He's going to blame me. He's going to call me out. It's all my fault. And you'll see in a second, like Chris is actually thinking some of the same sorts of things.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Yeah. So we need to talk about sex more openly in our relationship.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Can you play the videos? Because I don't know what he asked. Let's go to the first video. So you don't have to be nervous. They're very sweet videos. I'll tell you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And what I hear behind that question is a little bit of worry. Like, am I doing something that's not good? Can I be doing something that's better?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So let's go to the tactical thing first. What I hear you describing is another classic mistake that I see most couples making, which is that we leave sex to the very end of the night. We just have that idea in our heads like, oh, we're all teeth brushed, all cleaned up, crawling into bed. That's the time for sex. That is the worst time for sex.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
By the time you're crawling into bed, you are exhausted. You're thinking about the next day. You're thinking about the crazy day you just had. You're doing that mental math in your head of, okay, if I fall asleep in the next five minutes, then I can get this many hours of sleep. That is the worst time to get excited about sex.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So I always encourage couples, try to have sex as early in the evening as you can. Obviously, everybody has different schedules. We have different things going on. But try to prioritize it as early as you possibly can. So if it's, we're not going to watch TV until we've had sex first. Maybe it's even, we're going to have sex and then we're going to have dinner.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Or we're going to have dinner, have sex, then we'll come back and clean everything up. But do it earlier so you actually have the energy to have that intimacy with each other.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Okay. If you really think back on it, In the early days of a relationship. So I'll talk about me and Xander. When we started having sex and then we're planning dates with each other, we're scheduling sex.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We're planning dates. I would know. He'd ask me out on Friday. Hey, you want to go hang out on Friday? We'll go to dinner, come back to my place. We're having sex. That's scheduling sex. It's not that we've never had to schedule sex before and now we're old and boring and we have to do it. We've been scheduling sex our entire relationship. We just looked at it differently.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
That's such a great question. And it's something that every person has to think about for themselves. A lot of us will throw these phrases out to our partner. I want more emotional intimacy. But what does that mean? The things that could feel emotionally intimate to you, to me, could feel like, I don't like that. That doesn't really work for me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So we all have to take that time to think about what is it? What are the specific things? And I'm really practical. So I like to think about what are the things that my partner could do on a daily basis? I Obviously, if my partner wants to sweep me off on a two-week romantic vacation, yes, I'm going to feel very connected. But like, what could he do on a Tuesday at 8.30 p.m.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
to help me feel 10% closer to him? So what are those little things? And that's what I hear from Chris, too, is wondering, you know, do you want more emotional intimacy from me? Do you feel close enough to me? And there's also a question in there of what comes first for you? people tend to be divided into roughly two camps.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
There are some people who want emotional intimacy before they feel open to physical intimacy. And there are some people who want physical intimacy as a way to help open up more emotional intimacy.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We're scheduling those dates.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And the interesting thing too, like, so think back to those early stages of dating Chris. If he called you and said, hey, do you want to go on a date with me on Saturday? You're not thinking, this guy, we have to schedule it. Wow, the romance must really be dead if we're having to schedule. No, you're excited. Like, wow, he wants to spend time with me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
He's willing to carve time out of his busy life to make time to be with me. Like, we looked at it in such a positive way. And people get so freaked out by the scheduling sex thing. I actually say, like, leave the scheduling sex, that phrase behind because it freaks people out too much.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Let's just think about it as planning for sex. I like to say intentional intimacy. Or even just call it a date night if you want to, if you like those feelings of date night. But yeah, we can think of it as a positive thing. My partner cares about me. They want to spend time with me. They've got a million things going on, but they're telling me you're important.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I want to make sure you and I have that time together.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
What you're saying, it goes back to what I was saying at the very beginning of this interview. The things that we need to fix intimacy in our relationship are so simple. And a lot of us know what they are already. We're just not doing them. You know that you feel really connected to him when you do those things. And it's not that difficult to do it. No.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
It's just getting ourselves to do them again.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Yeah. And I think that the cooking is such a great example, too, because it can create what I like to call a transition ritual.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So many of us try to go from the chaos of the day straight into, okay, now I'm home and we're supposed to be super sexy and intimate with each other. That is too rough of a transition to make. We need a little bit of a ritual to help us land, like ground ourselves and know, okay, I'm here. I'm in a different state. I'm doing a different thing now. So is there some little activity?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And again, all about being practical. What is something that you could do, you know, super simply in just a couple of minutes to help the two of you reconnect? Hey, we're here with each other. It's our time now.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Interesting. Yeah. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
. . . . . . . . . . a Laboratory the
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
,,,,,, in P P P P P P P P ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac ac P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P Gobra gener laст gener laст gener laст e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e , gener e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e 100 e in a ,,,,,,,. P P P P P P 19 PD.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
, ,, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a en in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in a en en en en la P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P gi g� la� la� la� la� la� la� gi,:" gi,:" gi,:" gi,:" gi,:" gi,:" gi,:" gi,:" g,:" g,:" g,:" g,:" g,:" g,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
,,,,,. P P P P P P G實, ac ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P la實實實實 la� la� la� la� la� la� la� la� la� la� la� ,G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G .G . ,G . ,G . ,G . , g .
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
, g , g , g . , ,,,,,, P P P P P P G實, ac, ac ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac, ac a in P P P P P P P P P P P P
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So we do do it in the bedroom, but you could absolutely do it in another place. And if you're worried about it feeling like it needs to lead to more, I actually would recommend starting it in a different place. But we made that rule that for that first month, no sex afterwards. We have to leave even if we want to. And the rule was all that has to happen is there has to be a little tongue contact.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So it could be 10 seconds. It could be a couple of minutes. We just do like a minute every night. And it's just this really sweet little moment of connection for us where we get to enjoy kissing just for the sake of kissing. It's a really great way to bring that romance back.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
That is the name of a term that I coined to describe when your partner reaches out to touch you and you feel your whole body recoil. You feel yourself tense up. You just don't want to be touched. And what that's often the result of is actually bad initiation. So like I said, a lot of us have started to make that connection that touch leads to sex.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And because so many people do feel vulnerable initiating, most people won't come out and directly use their words. So they will do that. The hug that lingers a little bit longer than it should be. hand on the thigh that's lingering. And we have such interesting radar. Like I can tell the split second that Xander starts to initiate. I'm like, I know what you're doing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And so a lot of us have then become on guard to our partner's touch because we're so worried like, oh, I don't want him to touch me. And then it leads to more. I don't want to touch him. And then he'll get turned on. He thinks I want it to lead to more. So we start cutting ourselves off from that touch. And our whole body will react to it. And it feels terrible in the moment.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Like this is the person that you love the most in this world. And even if they are just trying to give you a casual little pat on the back, like you feel yourself like, get away from me. So actually the solution for getting rid of the bristle reaction is again, more non-sexual physical touch. We have to break that connection that touch is supposed to lead to sex.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
as a licensed sex therapist what would you counsel someone to say exactly to their partner to shift this dynamic and call it out to use this podcast to open up a conversation say i heard this interview i'd never heard of this term before but i realize that's what i'm doing and i don't want to be doing it and i'm sure that it doesn't feel good for you either
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And so what I'm realizing with the advice that she gave on the episode is that I want us to have more touch in our relationship. I want you to be able to reach out and give me a hug or stroke me on the back whenever you feel like it without me having that reaction. So what I want us to do for now is to practice having more of that touch, but just enjoying the touch.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So if you want to initiate sex with me, tell me with your words. Let's be, just for a brief period of time, let's practice being more direct about it so that I can relax when you're touching me and know that you're just touching me because you want a little connection in that moment, not because you're wanting to push it for more.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
have sex before you go out on a date night.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Most people get this wrong. They get the order wrong. We have this idea of we go out on a date and then we come home and have sex. But let's be real. When you're having date night, you're having a big meal. Maybe you're having a couple of drinks. You're in your cute outfit that maybe is a little tight and uncomfortable. Like when I get home from a date night, I want to get my bra off.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I want to take all my clothes off. I want to get into my pajamas and I want to get on the couch and watch TV. I do not want to go have sex. I'm too full. I'm bloated. I'm gassy. All of the things. So if we have sex before date night, then you're more excited. You have more energy.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And then it gets to feel like the sexy little secret that you have between the two of you when you're actually out on the date night.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
It's so much fun. It's a totally different kind of experience when you do it first.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I have a really different way of looking at this, actually. I want people to expect that you are not going to be in the mood when your partner initiates. You're two different people. You're thinking about sex, or not thinking about sex, in two totally different ways, two totally different times.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Like, when Xander initiates with me, I'll catch myself thinking, wait, wait, wait, you want to have sex? I wasn't even thinking about sex. It feels like I'm behind, I've lost already, and so I have that knee-jerk reaction to just say no. And so when I finally recognized, like, no, no, no, why would I be in the mood in that exact moment? That would be too weird.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Then that really brought the pressure down for me. And I realized, okay, now, rather than putting this pressure on myself to feel like I should be in the mood, now I get to decide, is this something that I'm open to doing? And we actually even changed the way that we initiate. Rather than saying, do you want to have sex? Xander will ask me, are you open to being intimate? I love that.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Or are you open to me trying to turn you on? And just that one word, changing it to open, that reminds me in the moment.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Or even are you open to connecting later today? That could be a nice way too. But yeah, just that one word, it totally changes the vibe and it helps you recognize, no, this is just about like, do I want to create that space with my partner? Do I want to show up in this space with my partner? It really changes the energy.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Here's a great first question that you could ask somebody. And this actually works whether you're dating or you're in a long-term relationship. Ask them, How would you describe what great sex feels like? Ooh. What do you want to feel? Like, let's imagine you've just had great sex. You're lying there in bed afterwards. What are you thinking? That was so fill in the blank.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I actually asked Chris that question.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Do you think you can guess his answers? And I'm curious your answers too. What is it that you're wanting to feel in those moments afterwards? So it could be like excitement, connection, vulnerability.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
You got one of them. I only got one of them? He gave me two, connected. Okay. And it was one of them. Well, what was the other one? Playful. Oh, really? And that's one of my favorite words, too. That's something that I Xander and I talked a lot about. Another great question is to ask each other is what makes sex worth having?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And for me, I realized when I really thought about my favorite experiences with Xander, I realized they were the moments when we were playful, like playful. I am such a goofball. We're really dorky with each other. And I think a lot of us tend to take sex very seriously. We feel like, you know, we have to seduce each other and be so serious.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And I realized like, no, the times that I've had the most fun were when we were laughing in bed, when like awkward things happen and we laugh together, when we made silly jokes in the middle of sex with each other. Like for me, playful, being playful makes sex worth having.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Maybe let's change that one to like maybe blissed out.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
That's really cool. So I would think about those words and then back into, okay, what are the specific things that we could do during sex or in the lead up to sex to create that kind of experience with each other? And I'd go back as well to, you know, we talked so much about feeling taken care of.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And while yes, I do encourage you, like I would encourage you that you guys should split that responsibility of initiating, but in this kind of more planful way that it's going to work for the responsive sex drive types. But you could also really take turns like doing those specific things to take care of each other. Like tonight's my night to just relax and let you take care of me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And then the next time I'm going to take care of you. But what are those specific things that could make you feel like, I get to leave, you know, the Mel Robbins business wonder woman. I get to leave her in the office and I get to show up in the bedroom with you and just let you take care of me and cherish me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Ooh, I'll give you three. First one, gratitude, which you might not expect. But research has shown that gratitude is actually the number one predictor of marital satisfaction. And we talked earlier about how emotional and physical intimacy are really deeply intertwined.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So if we want to feel closer to our partner and get the maximum bang for our buck, gratitude is the fastest thing that you can do. It's literally a few seconds to say, I appreciate this about you. I saw that you did that. Thank you so much for this. Second thing is some form of physical contact with each other. We talked a lot about non-sexual touch.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
It's so important to have that non-sexual touch. And in particular, I like A six-second kiss and a 20 to 30-second hug. We actually have research showing that those are the specific timeframes it takes for our body to release oxytocin, the bonding hormone, the trust hormone, makes us feel close to each other. And then the third thing, eye contact.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
It is wild how few couples make eye contact with each other. And I think that there is no greater tragedy than being in a long-term relationship with somebody but feeling literally and emotionally unseen by them. So those three things, you can do those three things in under a minute every single day and those will make such a big impact on your sex life.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Well, let me say thank you so much for being willing to have these conversations. I think it's really important for us to recognize we are all a little squeamish and embarrassed. I've been doing this work for two decades and I get a little squeamish and awkward and weird sometimes. You know, we were not born being ashamed of sex. We were all taught to be.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
You can even multitask, do the hug while you're giving the gratitude. It's so fast. I know we all feel busy. We all feel overwhelmed. Sex can feel like this big, complicated, heavy thing. But if you can take those 60 seconds for each other once a day, it will make all the difference in the world.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
OK, I'll tell you these. And I have to say, though, that I have done all of these things. I learned a lot of my advice by doing the exact opposite thing. But these are things that I would no longer do. I would never fake another orgasm. I would never mock my partner for initiating sex, even if he's initiating at a time that I'm really not open to it, even if I'm thinking like, really?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Now you want to have sex right now? I won't mock him or make fun of him for that because I want to recognize the vulnerability it takes to do that. And the third thing is I would not take it personally if my partner is experiencing performance issues. It is really, really challenging for a man to have his body not be responding the way that he wants it to.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And unfortunately, so many of us women, again, myself included many times in the past, we make it about us. Like, you don't think I'm sexy. What's wrong with me? I did something bad. And that just creates so much more stress and anxiety for him in that moment. So recognizing like, hey, I'm going to be your teammate in this. I'm not going to make it about me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
The card deck is based off of our New York Times bestselling book, Sex Talks, The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life. We wanted to have a more fun and playful way to continue encouraging conversations. So Sex Talks is all about the five conversations that every couple needs to have that'll transform your sex life. And we thought, let's make it into a game too.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So we have this great card deck. There are cards broken down into five categories and it just makes it feel fun to talk about sex. Everybody's heard the advice, talk about sex. You know, you talk about it with your partner. But none of us know like, but what do I say? How do I say it? When do I say it?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So with the book and the deck, we really set out to solve that for you and lay out for you exactly what to say.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I love the would you rather format because it just makes it feel so much more fun to pick one example out of two. And that conversation about the length of sex is so important. Couples never talk about that. Like, what is your ideal length of sex? And we often find that couples are on very different pages. Like the woman will say, oh, like five minutes or so. And the man says,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And I think you're doing a really great service to your community by showing people, look, I can feel awkward and squeamish and weird and still choose to do it anyway.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Oh, I thought you wanted like half an hour, 45 minutes going all night, like we hear about in songs all the time.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We know that the average length of intercourse in particular, so I know we're talking a little heteronormatively here, but intercourse in particular lasts on average five minutes. So it tends to be pretty short.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Yeah, this is actually something Xander makes fun of me all the time for because there'll be times that we have sex and I'm like, okay, we only have a short amount of time. Like we got to really get to it. And he always laughs like we're usually pretty efficient if we need to be like, you don't have to worry about that. We need to get it done. We will get it done.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Is there anything else you want to add? Let's talk a little bit more about the pleasure around sex. So many of us get so focused on desire and feeling like we're low desire or no desire. And we don't think about the pleasure. If you're not enjoying the sex that you're having, it doesn't make any sense for you to crave it. Why would you want to have something that's not an enjoyable experience?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Remember that the pleasure needs to be the most important part of this too.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We need to start having sex that prioritizes female pleasure as much as it prioritizes male pleasure. The way that we are taught, especially in male-female relationships, to have sex, it is all about male pleasure. And so we women are having this experience that, sure, it might be fun, it might be intimate, but we're not getting the kind of stimulation that our bodies need.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And we're having sex on our partner's timeline. Once he has an orgasm, then it's over. It's all about his orgasm. So we need to write that balance and start having sex that prioritizes both partners' pleasure. And like I was saying earlier, the solution here is actually relatively simple. Female orgasm is not any more difficult, complicated, or mysterious than male orgasm.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We both know that.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
need the same thing we need stimulation of the part of our body that is the most sensitive for us that's the clitoris for men that's the penis and we totally accept that for men yeah you need stimulation of your penis of course but when it comes to the clitoris a lot of people think of it as oh it's so hard to find and it's so difficult and do you need that and it's extra why can't you just orgasm from penetration but would we ever do that to a man would we ever say i
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Why do you need your penis stimulated? Why can't you have an orgasm from that? That's so difficult.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
That's so much extra work, right? Exactly. So again, it's not that difficult. It's just we need that clitoral stimulation. And most of us are having sex that heavily emphasizes intercourse. There is no clitoral stimulation there. So I have this funny comparison that I always like to make because when we're having intercourse, we're getting stimulation in our vagina.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And the vagina does not have very many nerve endings compared to the clitoris, which has anywhere between 8,000 to 12,000 nerve endings in it. So from a nerve ending standpoint, intercourse for a woman is like playing with a man's balls. That might be fun for him. It might feel good. But would we expect a man to orgasm just from a little ball play? Absolutely not.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So we need to treat female pleasure the exact same way we treat male pleasure and then the problem would be solved. But really getting clear on what are the specific things that really bring you pleasure and coming from a place of recognizing there's nothing wrong with you. You're not broken if you're not desiring sex that's not pleasurable. Makes perfect sense not to.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Yeah, you're exactly right. We have to start at the level of the deservingness. We are all deserving of pleasure. Pleasure is our birthright. You don't have to do anything to earn it. You just deserve it for being exactly who you are right now. And so I would get curious with myself and I would think, where in my life did I learn that I didn't deserve this? Who told me that?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Where did I pick that up? And then I would ask myself, do I want to continue believing those voices? Do I want to continue believing that I'm not deserving this? What does it cost me to continue believing that I don't deserve this? What could be available to me if I allowed myself to see that I do deserve this? It's also a really beautiful conversation to have with your partner.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
The reality is like, we all want to please our partners. Chris asked that, like, what could I do to make it better? I know you're thinking that too. What could I do to make it better for him?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We all want to do better for our partners. So recognizing like, your partner's not sitting over there like, thank God, I don't know anything about what they want. This is great for me. Like, They want to know you. That's intimacy. I know you. You show me who you are. You show me all the parts of yourself that you're scared to show other people. And I'm here for that.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So being able to recognize that is so important.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Oh, incredibly, incredibly often. Unfortunately, especially trauma is far too common. Research says about one in every three or four women will experience some sort of sexual trauma. And of course, your body gets the message that sex is unsafe. It's scary. It's all about what another person wants, not what about you want. And so being able to reclaim that is really a journey.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
You know, I think so many of us in long-term relationships, if we're really honest with ourselves, we kind of feel like we've been lied to or cheated a little bit. Like we've grown up with this idea of romance and intimacy and this thought of what relationships are supposed to look like. And a lot of us are in these long-term relationships thinking,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Yeah, most people don't make that connection. People will say, it happened so long ago. We're taught to really downplay it. Oh, other people have had it worse than me. I've forgotten about it. I've moved past it. And so most people don't recognize that it lingers with us and it affects the sex life that we have now. So... First, it's validating it for yourself.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Oh, I can see that there are parts of me that don't feel safe during sex or there are parts of me that are performing something for my partner. And then being able to have that conversation with your partner where you make it clear, yeah, this is nothing to do about you. I trust you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I know that you would never do this, but I'm recognizing my body is having this experience of being stuck in the past.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So first, let me just say, we actually have a free guide that we created for survivors of sexual abuse that also includes a component for how partners can show up. And we give that away absolutely for free. It's not meant to be a replacement for psychotherapy. We definitely recommend anybody who's gone through trauma to do personal therapy. Like you deserve that too, that treatment container.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
But you can find it at vmtherapy.com slash free and we can link to it as well so people can find that. But I really wanted to create something that would give practical tools for people who are looking to reclaim that sense of safety and partners who want to support that as well.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
But a couple of things that I can say is it can be really helpful to let your partner be in control for a little while. So let them be the one who is initiating and really check in with them. Continue asking them, is this okay? Does this feel good? I actually prefer the question, does this feel good rather than just okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Another thing that you can do is if you catch them in moments, if you feel them tuning out, usually a lot of people can't. If you see them freezing, their eye contact is going somewhere else. You can just feel that sense of they're not there with me right now. Stop in that moment and take some time to check in with them and say, hey, where'd you go? You know, I'm here with you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
this is it, like this disconnection, this lack of sex, like this is really what relationships are all about. And so I want the listener to know that if you listen to this episode, if you put these techniques and tools into place, you can have the kind of intimacy that you've always wanted.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Is there anything you want to talk about? So really helping them feel like you're attuned to them. I see what's going on with you and I'm not just going to continue on. I want to really connect with you. Oh, I love that. I also love making a safe list. So a lot of other people will come up with trigger lists, which I think is super valuable as well.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Like let's come up with, are there specific, you know, I don't like being in this position. I don't like being grabbed in this way. I don't like you saying this phrase. It's really useful for your partner to know all of that so they can avoid it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
But I also like balancing it out by having a safe list or a joy list where it's like, I really love it when we're in this position. I love it when you say this to me. I love it when you bring this kind of energy into sex so that your partner can understand the specifics, the specific ways that they can support you.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I want you to start talking about sex with your partner. It is such an important foundation for us to lay with each other. There are no other aspects of our relationship that we don't talk about or that we would expect would function perfectly with zero communication. Imagine trying to be a parent with zero communication. Imagine trying to cook dinner with zero communication.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We don't do that to anything else other than our sex life. And so I know it can feel intimidating and scary, but I hope that you've learned some ways that we can ease into it and realize it actually can be super fun and really connecting to talk about sex.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Well, I'm so glad to have been here. I hope that this episode has given you at least one or two little tidbits that you can take into your life. And I feel so much hope for you and for everybody listening that they can create that kind of intimacy that they've always wanted to experience.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
You can have that intimacy that really leaves you feeling so close to your partner, connected to your partner, close to yourself too. Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Thank you so much for having me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Hey, Mel Robbins is talking about butt stuff. I never thought I would hear that, but now I'm kind of curious.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Fantastic! Yay! That was so much fun!
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
It's an incredible opportunity when you're single to learn these skills that you can then bring into your next relationship. Most of the couples that my husband Xander and I work with, they've been in relationships 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And when you're that far into a relationship, starting to untangle some of these dynamics can feel really challenging.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And so if you get to prepare yourself before you even get into your next relationship and know, okay, this is what I know about myself. This is how I'm going to communicate to my partner. This is the kind of partner that I'm looking for. You're going to be so well prepared to have an extraordinary relationship.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I stay up at night knowing that there are so many couples struggling with their sex lives when the reality is that there are very simple and practical things that we can all do to experience that incredible deep intimacy with each other.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
I know sexual issues can feel really big and really complicated when we're in the middle of them, but there really are simple things that we can do to feel closer to each other. It's just the fact that sex is still so taboo to talk about that leaves us feeling stuck, feeling like we're broken, something's wrong with us, and there are no solutions, but there are.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
because we're feeling disconnected in our relationships too. One of the big mistakes that people make when it comes to sex is we try to compartmentalize it. We think of sex as, oh, it's just this thing that happens in the bedroom at the end of the night with the doors closed, the lights turned off. But the reality is that the level of connection we feel or don't feel with our partner
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
all throughout the day heavily impacts our desire to be intimate with them at the end of the night. And the sad reality is most couples in long-term relationships feel deeply disconnected from each other. You know, we hear the classic phrases, we feel like roommates rather than romantic partners. We're like two ships passing in the night.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And so if you're feeling that level of disconnection in your sex life, it's actually in a funny way, an invitation to take a look at, well, what's going on in the relationship overall?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So I want to validate the exhaustion first, because most of us lead lives that are incredibly full, incredibly stressful, and that exhaustion is real. And it definitely gets in the way of us having intimacy. But one of the incredible things about sex is that sex actually gives back to us. How?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
When we have sex with our partner, when we feel truly connected with them and truly intimate with each other, sex actually creates more energy, more time, more of a sense of teamwork. When you and your partner are in a good place, and you could probably think of specific examples. Think of a time when you and Chris were not in a good place. Everything feels like a slog.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Every little thing that you have to do during the day just stretches out so much further because you're disconnected. But when you are in a good place, when you feel like you're connecting, you're appreciating each other, you're feeling intimate with each other, you feel like an unstoppable team, like nothing can get in your way.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Xander and I had a really interesting experience with this a couple of months ago. We were having one of those days. It was one of those days. Like there were so many things on our plate. Everything was spiraling out of control, taking way longer than we thought it was supposed to.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And it was probably around five o'clock and we were looking at our to-do list and looking at each other, just thinking, there's no way. There is not enough time left in the day for us to do all of the things that are on this list. And Xander reminds me, he said, you know, we had said earlier this morning that we were going to have sex today. And my initial reaction was, no, there's no time.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
We can't even get through all these things. There's no time for sex. And we started kind of negotiating with the schedule a little bit. He said, well, what if I, maybe I could do this first and maybe we push this thing off till tomorrow. And he stopped himself in the middle of that. And he said, this is ridiculous. You are more important to me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Intimacy is more important to me than anything on this stupid list. So screw the list right now. Let's go have sex right now. I thought he was crazy. My initial reaction was absolutely not. Are you kidding me? Look at all the things that we have to do. But that sentence really stuck with me. You're more important to me. You are more important to me than anything on this list.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And so I said, okay, okay. My mind is screaming no. Like we should do all the to-do list stuff, but let me do this. Let's go be intimate. So we went and had sex. Yeah. And then magically after that, we killed that list. We were so in sync with each other. We were a team. We're dividing and conquering. We got through everything.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
It was like magic that had happened when we had that connection with each other, when we were prioritizing what was actually important. Everything else fell into place.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Yeah. So what you're starting to talk about is actually the two sex drive types, which I'm super excited to share with you because what you're describing sounds like a classic responsive sex drive type. So what are the two different types of sex drives? So we have spontaneous and responsive. And where they boil, how we describe them is where we feel desire first.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So there are two ways that we get turned on, excited, ready for sex. Okay. Mentally, like the idea of sex sounds good. Yeah, I want to have sex. I can handle that. Yeah.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
Interesting. Okay. So the second place is in our bodies. We have to get physically ready. Things like getting wet, getting an erection, you know, our bodies are just preparing. So these two types depend on where you feel desire first. So if you're a spontaneous type, you're going to feel mental desire first. And it might feel like it kind of comes out of nowhere.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
You're just going about your day like, huh, the idea of sex sounds good. Where's my partner? Let me find them. And then your physical arousal follows from that. And that's how most people think sex drive is supposed to work because that's always how we see it on TV and in the movies, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
There's just that like all the characters have to do is make eye contact with each other and then it's game on. But there's another type, which most people don't even realize exist, and which research shows the vast majority of women, about 85%, have responsive sex drive. And it's the exact opposite. We feel arousal and desire in our bodies first, and then the mental desire follows.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
So the classic way of knowing you might be responsive is if you've ever been in the middle of sex or even at the end of sex. And just like you're saying, you catch yourself thinking, huh, this is really fun. Why don't I seem to want this more often? So most people who have responsive desire will think of themselves as low or no desire because they're not thinking about sex.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Your Guide to Better Sex, Intimacy, & Love From a World-Leading Sex Therapist
And if you grab a person with responsive desire on the street and just say, hey, do you want to have sex right now? 99 times out of 100, it's going to be no, because I'm not thinking about it. Right. But it's not that your desire is low or non-existent. It's just that it operates in a different way. You have to have some physical stimulation first before the idea of sex is going to sound good.