In this episode, Dr. Rena Malik, MD is joined by Charles Duhigg to explore the intricacies of initiating and maintaining ...

improve-your-sex-life-with-your-mouth-it39s-not-what-you-think

Improve Your Sex Life with Your Mouth (It&#39;s Not What you Think!)

how do you bring up sex let's start in a new relationship how do you start having the conversation because this is sort of a challenging conversation and you have some tips in your book about how to have difficult conversations but sort of how do you approach that topic well okay so let's say let's say we're on our second date or our third date we're out um and hopefully your husband won't mind me asking this we're out we're out having having some drinks and and I say to you I'm just wondering like like tell me your thoughts on sex like is sex like an important part of a relationship for you is it something you enjoy is it something that that's been that's been a barrier in the past yeah I think that's a that's a actually a question I wouldn't feel intimidated by but I'm probably not the average person because I talk about sex all the time yeah but I think but yeah so so maybe another way to pose it like let's say let's say you're religious and and sort of mentioning sex feels kind of dangerous I could suppose it as intimacy tell me tell me like like how important is to you is intimacy in a relationship to you like have there been relationships you've had in the past where where intimacy has been a problem where it's been an obstacle rather than something that brings you closer together and they might they might very well not go into sex they might talk about emotional intimacy or they might talk about you know sharing values or beliefs but they might also say you know intimacy is really important like I have a pretty healthy sex drive and and like I think that's a really fun part of a relationship yeah that doesn't mean we have to have we're going to have sex tonight right it doesn't mean that like I'm seeing you purely as a sexual person although if that might be what you're looking for and that's okay but it does mean that what I'm doing is I'm saying by asking that question like tell me how you see the world tell me how you make sense of Life of yourself and of what's important in relationships and then as long as I show you that I'm listening and I reciprocate so what would be terrible if if someone's like look I love having sex it's the greatest thing ever I really like to you know bondage is fantastic if the other person goes huh that's interesting okay that's not a great response right there's no reciprocation there and there's something about our neurology about how we evolved where if we feel that we have shared something and the other person betrays that sense of intimacy that sense of vulnerability we disproportionately react negatively and this actually makes sense from an evolutionary perspective cuz you know eons ago if you had a bunch of moral codes in your village there's two ways of enforcing them one is to police everyone constantly look over their shoulders the other way is to say look we're we're not going to watch over your shoulders we're going to trust you but if you violate this code if you betray our trust then we will be really really angry with you this is why for instance if you're walking in the subway and someone kicks you by accident you're like oh that that's okay don't worry about it and have they kick you on purpose you're like you're a jerk I hate you yeah so the same thing happens if I say something vulnerable if I say something authentic if I say something meaningful and you don't reciprocate in some way and that doesn't mean you have to share something about yourself it means you could ask a question you could show that you're listening you could show that you care but if you don't reciprocate somehow if you don't acknowledge what I've done it can feel like a betrayal MH and so that's what's really important is if I ask you that question and and you're willing to go there and you're willing to say look this is what I'm into like like this is what intimacy means to me this is what I like this is what I like in bed this is what I like in a relationship then you should share something at the very least to say that's so interesting I hear you I I like that's things that I'm interested in learning about as well or to say it's interesting you mention that cuz here's what I like in bed yeah right here's what I like in a relationship and then you're starting to feel conected to each other so now let's move to like long-term relationships right because I think this is what I hear a lot about in my clinic and with some of my audien is okay I have a long-term relationship I my partner doesn't want to have sex anymore or we don't have a lot of sex or libidos are misaligned or whatever the case may be and whenever I bring it up she or he or whatever sort of shut it down and so I think the the question is how can you approach those discussions in a way that will allow people to maybe not shut it down maybe not get so offended and see it as more of a dialogue to improve their relationship yeah so I'm guessing and I'm curious I'm curious what advice you give people because I'd love to I'd love to learn from you on this I'm guessing one of the things that's happening in that conversation and tell me if you think this is wrong is it's starting in a way that's making one person defensive and so it doesn't feel like a conversation it basically feels like either an attack or a a campaign to get me to change my mind and so I'm coming in I'm saying you know like I'm just wondering like why don't we have sex anymore and what you're hearing is you're doing something wrong right like like you I I I have a complaint and instead of voicing my complaint I'm going to pretend like it's a question but it's actually because I want to encourage you to have sex with me even if you don't want to yeah that feels like an attack that doesn't feel like a conversation that doesn't feel like you want to understand me that feels like you're trying to persuade me so a much better way to do that is to just start by acknowledging to start the conversation by saying look I'm going to bring up something that I know it's it's been hard for us to talk about and and I might say the wrong thing and I totally apologize in advance if I do because sometimes the gap between my brain and my lips like things get screwed up and by the way if you say the wrong thing like that's okay I promise I'll forgive you but I just want to make clear like my goal here is not to convince you of anything it's not to blame you I I honestly just I care about us and I care about our relationship and I care about your happiness and so I want to understand better how you think about sex and and why sometimes you want to have it and sometimes you don't want to have it and could we make it better for you if I start with that little Preamble where I'm saying just to be clear my goal is not to attack you my goal is to actually understand you then I think if that conversation is going to go a lot better yeah I think I mean I I say something similar I tell them to sort of set it up in terms of like give them a moment to say hey I want to talk to you about this maybe we can set up a time where you're in the right mind space to talk about this because the thing is that people don't really feel comfortable talking about sex unless you groww up in a very Progressive household or you've had a lot of experience talking about it like you are a very open person you talk to your then for you it may be very scary and so I think one like setting up some time to say like look I I know this is not I don't want it to be a negative conversation I want to talk about our sex life in a way that we can work on it and maybe we can set up some time where we can go on a walk or we can um sit together and talk about it like I tell them you may get a response that you don't like you may get a response that makes you unhappy and then your response immediately will be to be defensive but I say you know just realize that it's hard for them like try to sit in their shoes for a second and and then it's going to take time and practice because it's something we don't know how to talk about and I don't know if that's completely 100% right but that's sort of what I tell people to do no I think it's great because I what I hear you saying and tell me if you think I'm getting this right is give the other person agency in addition to having agency yourself right a conversation should never be a one-sided thing it should never be something where I have something to say and it's your job to listen a conversation is an exchange it's a back and forth and and so if I come into this conversation saying here's something I'd like to talk about with you let's do it at the time and place of your choosing then I'm giving you agency I'm giving you control in that conversation now the other thing I think that happens and I'm and I'm curious how long have you and your husband been married 13 years almost 14 13 years okay so I I we're my wife and I are married 20 years this year and we actually met in college so we were had dated for like eight or nine years before we even got married so so the other thing to keep in mind is sex is a conversation right it's a dialogue if you had the ex exact same conversation with your husband every single day you would both get incredibly bored of that conversation right y one of the things that makes a conversation great is that it changes over time it evolves it deepens now that doesn't mean that if your husband wants to talk about Dungeons and Dragons that you have to talk about Dungeons and Dragons you might say like look Dungeons and Dragons is not interesting to me you got to go talk to like your like nerdy friends about that but on the other hand if your husband says says hey I'm interested in talking about learning to you know cook Italian food and we've never talked about that before you can say like oh that's not the first thing that occurs to me but but Absolutely I'll I'll see if I like to talk about cooking Italian food yeah and I think the same thing happens in our sex lives where where often times we I mean look we fall into ruts we fall into patterns we fall into you know Wednesday night is date night and and we're always asleep by 10:30 finding ways to evolve that conversation and it can start verbally it can start by saying look I know that usually like we try this but I'm just curious if we were to try that this might not be the first thing you think about but is it something you're interested in if if instead of going on on date night on Wednesday night if we went on Thursday night if it if we went to actually my wife and I did this I hopefully she doesn't I don't think she'll mind me sharing this but we we went on vacation and we decided that we were going to try and have sex every single day that we on vacation great and after about five or six days we were like o that's a lot like let's let's take a break right like like this is it's just a lot going on and and we were also like you know running and stuff like that but it but the point is it was a conversation we were trying things together we were experimenting together we were we were in dialogue with each other yeah and and I think that makes I think that that is what makes a conversation Rich right when it goes to S to some places you didn't expect and some places you did expect when it changes over time that doesn't mean you have to talk or do things that you don't like but it does mean that you're kind of open to the possibility of of things that you might not have thought of yeah to see if you do like them and just like sometimes you're having a conversation and it goes in a weird Direction and you're like let's bring it back it's the same thing that can happen during sex right you might do something that's a little uncomfortable or you don't like it and you're just like H let's bring it back right and I think that happens on a regular basis I think in every relationship where it's like oh oh yeah no no that's not that that doesn't work for me it's but I'm glad we tried it out absolutely yeah the other thing is what about when there's a lot of emotion behind things like so talking about sex yes there's definitely emotion behind it but sometimes that emotion can be like years and years of stress and anxiety about your sex life right and so then it's really emotional for the person and the person receiving and it's not just like let's try some you know let's let's try this new experiment where we you know use handcuffs or whatever it is right like it's sort of like more there's more behind it than just play or communication there's there's like a lot of pent up emotion so how can people sort of use the tactics you describe in your book to sort of get through those emotions without getting really defensive or angry or upset so I think the first thing is to recognize that there are emotions behind it every conversation right whether we acknowledge them or not every conversation that we have is influenced by the emotions that we're experiencing and so so we can try and pretend those emotions don't exist but if they're big emotions if they're real emotions they're going to leak out in other ways and handcuffs is a great example right for some people saying like hey let's play with these handcuffs might seem just like a fun kind of frivolous thing but there's another person who might say like actually I was arrested once like this feels dangerous to me feels scary even if I wasn't arrested I just I don't want like you're bigger than I am you have more power than I do like I don't I don't want to be forced into submission so I think it's worth having the and the key is that if there are emotions particularly around sex everything is kind of a little bit emotional at least if that's true let's create space for it right let's create space for like hey I've got an idea let's let's try this how does that make you feel like do you feel okay with that that creating space for the emotional response it does two things first of all it brings us closer together it makes us feel more connected because of that emotional and vulnerability reciprocity I was talking about that's really important but the second thing that happens is I am signaling to you that I want you to speak I want you to share with me I want you to communicate and I want you to communicate about emotions and some sometimes the emotion feels very very acute when it's unspoken and when we voice it it becomes less of a priority right this happens with anger a lot that if I'm feeling angry if I'm able to express my anger if I'm able to tell someone that I'm feeling angry or that made me feel unsafe that actually makes me feel less angry it makes me feel safer makes me feel like I have more control and agency and so the voicing of the emotion if it's a negative emotion can oftentimes make that emotion easier for us to handle and to deal with yeah I I I do uh feel that that's that's really helpful like to say I'm angry right like when you're angry you're like oh I've said it it's it's sort of like okay I can now you know there's no like I don't have to fume around and stop my feet or whatever it is that I show you uh nonverbally that I'm angry I just said it and now you know and when that person says I hear you saying that you're angry and like I understand that you're angry and like I promise I'm not going to like I'm not going to pressure you to have sex I'm not going to pressure you to have this conversation until like you feel okay having it and we get a chance to discuss that anger that's the first step to making the anger go away yeah yeah I think that's really powerful

Dr.

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