is the question everyone wants the

answer to it

what is the single biggest killer of

relationships in the modern age

let's talk about sex today's podcast is

very very different but incredibly

incredibly important

today i'm sitting down with kate moyle

who is a sex therapist

and a relationship therapist to talk

about some of the taboos topics

which we don't normally discuss things

like erectile dysfunction

sexual inadequacies issues we all have

in our relationships and sex lives

the single biggest killer of

relationships in 2021

sexual anxiety how to keep a sexual

relationship exciting

and everything in between i'm going to

share some very personal sexual stories

that i've never shared before some of

the things i've gone well and some of

the problems that i've had that have

caused relationships that have meant the

world to me to end this is a very

very honest open podcast today you know

this is why this is called the diary

of a ceo and kate is the perfect person

to put them to

so i think you're going to enjoy this

conversation i certainly did

i feel very vulnerable sharing some of

these stories with you

but as i always say just keep it to

yourself so without further ado this is

the diary of a ceo

i hope nobody's listening but if you are

then please keep this to yourself

sex i think i think it's fair to say

that

everybody has some kind of

challenge with sex at least some point

you know at least at some point within

their life

and i am no different in fact my last

relationship

which was a very i thought i i genuinely

at one point thought that was going to

be my wife

um the reason that relationship broke

down was because

of a sexual issue and a sexual issue

that showed up about seven or eight

months into the relationship

and um long story short i know this

isn't a therapy session but it kind of

is as well

um at some point seven eight months into

our relationship she told me that she

didn't like having sex

and i didn't know what that meant and as

a guy that's never experienced that in

my life

um i read into it probably in

the wrong way but it definitely made me

insecure i was like what you don't like

having sex how's that possible

and i thought that was some kind of um

condemnation on me i thought that was

something negative towards me or

something that i was doing wrong and i

tried

various things i tried to to be a bit

more under you know listen a little bit

more to what she wanted and how she

wanted it

and then it you know it progressively

got to a point where

i was getting in bed and i was [ __ ]

myself

because you don't want to once you get

rejected i've never been like i've never

gone to have sex with someone in my life

and been rejected in that way and so you

get in bed and you don't want to

even ask them for sex because you might

take an l and you don't want to take

that l

and then how how the hell am i meant to

get an erection as a guy

when i'm that [ __ ] scared of

rejection

and eventually long story short we're in

um we're away one time and

the same issue happened and she we were

having sex and i clearly i was looking

at her thinking she clearly isn't

enjoying this at all

and we stopped she started crying she

said

um i've got a problem um she said like

uh you know i just don't enjoy sex i

need to like address it

i said to her you want to talk about it

she said i'm not comfortable talking

about sex with you

even though we've been in a relationship

for a year and i left and then i broke

up with her

and i do regret breaking up with her

because

um i did so maybe too flippantly

and i didn't understand it and i didn't

think it was fixable and i didn't know

how to fix it and

yeah sorry for my brain you know my

dumping that on you but good place to

start no i think and

you know so much of what you've just

said there's so many points there that

you know i hear all the time so

difficulties with desire

struggles with communication struggles

with knowing like where to start in

terms of talking about it

anxiety you know all of these points

which can kind of get in the bedroom

with us or be in bed with us

and we just don't know how we're

meant to address them we don't know what

we're meant to do about them

and we all feel that sense of what am i

doing wrong here or what's wrong with me

do i have a problem am i broken you know

all of these phrases and actually

working with all of the information that

you've just given me

you know as an example we can kind of

target or work with

each of those problems in an individual

way which isn't

terrifying for people which doesn't

create more anxiety which doesn't damage

self-esteem

but we don't have those conversations in

a bigger

more normalizing way yeah and i think

one of the biggest things that i talk

about

is this idea that sex like everything

else across our lives has good days

bad days average days variability but we

expect there to be this

constant and we expect it to be

protected from everything else that we

have going on in our lives and that just

isn't the case but and somewhat

automatically right like we kind of

expected to take care of itself

yeah and relationships as well we kind

of expect that

you know once they're good they're

always good that they

shouldn't falter that we shouldn't have

to work at them that

they shouldn't struggle and i think that

there's such

a problem with that as a basic

foundation message around sex and

relationships

how do you refrain that then how do i

reframe my thinking in order to make

sure that

i'm i guess that is a reframing of my

thinking if i think that this thing

isn't going to take care of itself

and it needs to be worked on like

everything else in my life i guess

that's the answer to keeping it exciting

yeah i mean i think there's just a

normalizing of the fact that

our sex lives and our relationships are

in the context of us

they're not isolated they're not

protected they don't have their own kind

of

special area where they aren't impacted

by

how we feel about ourselves stress

anxiety our health our mental health

you know physically what's going on for

us um psychologically what's going on

for us but

why don't we just give ourselves a break

and but you know what

we're not perfect or good or great at

everything else we do

all the time so why would we be here i

don't

think you know i think as professionals

we often talk about like why aren't we

applying the logic

that we apply everywhere else in our

lives

to this this part of our lives and in

that particular case with me and my

this this particular person um she

turned to me i remember we were away one

time and she said to me

you know there's loads of people that

are like me that don't have like a high

libido or whatever

and i have just never encountered these

people in my experiences so i thought oh

that's rubbish

was she right yes yes and how right is

she

very right and you know we understand

that you know this is a huge part of the

conversation

around sex lives at the moment and

sexual wellness at the moment is

this idea about desire desire's not a

fixed concept

that we're born with we're not kind of

given or

holding a set amount it's not like we

kind of have an amount and we like use

it up

it is context dependent it's responsive

and

we understand that it changes but

actually how we can change that within

kind of take power of our own i suppose

or change that within the context that

we're in how we can feel

in control of that is based in

almost how we define it or how we

understand it ourselves and there's a

huge

problem we're just thinking okay well i

had it now i don't have it in the same

way anymore

so what's wrong with me or

what's broken or what changed or what's

not working here rather than

if i reframe my understanding my

thinking about this it makes a lot more

sense and it takes the pressure off and

when the pressure's off

then i can work with this in a more

pleasure focused enjoyable way

rather than an anxiety provoking and

stressful way

what should i have done so the first

time she turns to me she says

steve i'm just not that interested

because what it was is we're in bed

and we're away on a holiday and i like

you know just i don't know what i do

whatever i do to

to let someone know that when i have sex

i don't know stroke their arm or

whatever

i did whatever i do and she was just

like

nah and what should i have done then

because you know

i think a lot of people would take that

as a

bit of an l and i certainly did i was

like what i was and i was angry as well

not like visibly angry not like you know

hitting with a pillow or anything but i

was like i turned i remember turning

away and thinking

you know like because i'd never

experienced that before i've never

experienced that like

it is a form of rejection it's like a

form of it's a

kick in the self-esteem what should i

have done

well i think you know i can't talk to

what was going on for you two

like kind of in in that moment then but

you know

the biggest problem that couples in

situations like that have

is assumption so as you said like this

is the kick in the teeth for me like

that hurts i feel rejected

so we internalize and actually the best

way for us to deal with something like

that

is to try and explain to try and move

away from assumption

to explanation to understanding because

actually if we can have a conversation

which

opens up and you know we you hear sex

next relationship experts talk about

communication being

you know the kind of biggest pillar of

sexual wellness or sexual well-being and

assumption kind of and the gap between

expectations and reality

is actually the biggest place that we

have a lot of these problems and i think

that it

feels like you know that's a good

example of that happening

fast forward four months uh the same

sort of

issue happened and she turned to me and

this is when i thought it was completely

over

is she said to me i'm not comfortable

with talking to you about sex

right and we've been together for a year

and i thought well if we can't talk

about it

and i don't really understand the issue

and you're not willing to talk about it

then we are [ __ ] and i thought and

that's when i left

i left that country um soon after and

i broke up with her maybe like i don't

know two three weeks later

because i thought if we can't talk about

it then how do we fix the situation

but i do regret it because i think i

reflect and i think

i don't want to be the type of guy

generally that when they care about

someone will walk away from it so easily

and i think i should have made a more

active effort to try and support

as you say and understand maybe but

i would say sometimes the hardest person

to talk to about sex is the person we're

having it with

yeah because of it's so loaded

it's so like intimate it's so vulnerable

and also

the fear of getting it wrong or making

it worse

or leading our partners on or going in

the wrong direction or

us not being able to unhear what we've

heard or unsay what we've said

so actually you know that natural human

response to

feeling anxiety around something is

avoidance you know we don't tend to

approach the sources of our anxiety

unless we're trying really hard

to hone in on it or focus on it our most

natural instinct is

i don't want to go there you know like

it's just easier to keep the status quo

even if that status quo

isn't working and so it's

it's about thinking about how do we how

do we help people

to approach that source of anxiety or

feel empowered

to change their conversation around sex

because

it's really it's really hard it's like

talking in a language that

we've not been taught you know we're not

taught how to have these conversations

we're not taught to be comfortable about

these conversations we're not taught

that sex is normalized as a topic and

then

we're expected to all be experts and

that our partners

are going to be experts and we're all

expecting that from each other and then

when it doesn't work

you know we have no solutions or ways of

knowing

how to deal with it now some of us

muddle through we kind of work it out

we're like okay well

let's try this or think about this or

take expert advice or listen to a

podcast or read a book or

get the information and we can kind of

work our way through it but for a lot of

us that's way too intimidating you know

sex feels

like an off the record you know off the

table topic

how do you bring on the table how do and

i'm presuming that

couples that are successful in the

bedroom are those that

bring it on the table to some degree is

that a fair assumption or

yeah i think that's definitely a fair

assumption i think that

you know it takes the courage to do it

it takes the kind of sitting in the

uncomfortable it might be quite anxiety

breaking obviously some people kind of

seek out therapy or external advice or

someone that can help them

manage those conversations or they might

do it in their

own way so it might be kind of reading a

book and sharing that with each other

or listening to a ted talk and then

sharing that with each other and using

that as a

springboard to have that conversation

but i would say it's

talking about it outside of the bedroom

is the biggest way to

put it on the table and is it possible

to be just like sexually incompatible

with someone yeah i think it is and the

way it's think you know impossible

possible to be incompatible with

anything else

but what we can also do is you know when

we have different interests or different

preferences in other areas of our lives

we can work together to negotiate that

to manage that to kind of

work to each other's kind of preferences

or and kind of switch that around or

manage that

manage that kind of relational bit that

kind of bit in between

and it is possible to do that with sex

but also for some people

they might have deal breakers and they

might not be able to meet those for each

other

this is i don't know if this is too much

information but i don't think i care

um i i remember one day as well i tried

to introduce because i typically when i

have sex i typically use

a lot of additional apparatus so i'll

use all kinds of stuff i don't care like

i'll use handcuffs and all kinds of

ropes and toys and whatever else and i

remember trying to introduce something

like that because i thought maybe it

would make it a little bit more

interesting for her

and um she was like absolutely not she

she said to me that she thought i think

it was a vibrator she

thought a vibrator was for old people

and you know i'm already up i'm really

up against it here that's so i'm trying

to

like do something to help and when she

said that i just thought like maybe we

are just like sexually incompatible

maybe

just we just speak two different

languages here so

i don't know but you know like sometimes

one part nina

what i would say is it's actually more

common for couples to not be perfectly

sexually matched

yeah than it is for them to be like

perfectly sexually matched in every way

and for some people they are more ready

to try something or you know

they might be the one that leads

something and then the other partner

kind of catches up or

it's really in about also kind of like

how we perceive what our partner is

suggesting

or how we what we think that means

because one of the things about

sex is we have this idea as humans about

like metacognition like we think about

our thoughts

we think about what that our thoughts

mean and

i think it's really really apparent when

it comes to sex and relationships

because we're trying to constantly

analyze what's happening or as you said

kind of looking out for like the risk of

rejection or the fear of rejection we're

trying to understand

what that means about us or what that

means about them or what it means about

our relationship and so we're

always trying to i suppose think about

like what's going on

and the wider context or meaning of that

now when it comes to sex

we're already in a culture and a society

where it's a bit

taboo where it's quite stigmatized where

we don't necessarily

want to kind of step outside the norms

or the expectations because what does

that mean about us

as a person i you know since that um

whole

event i you know we we spoke a little

bit after we broke up and she she told

me that was actually the first time she

told me that she had like a low libido

and i actually didn't really understand

what that meant so i googled it

but then i started talking to some

friends about it specifically some male

friends

and i had another male friend say to me

one of my best friends said to me that

he also had the same problem where he

just lost his um

sexual desire um in you know when he got

to a certain age which i i was

shocked about because you don't people

don't have these conversations so you

don't think it happens

so when we encounter it whether it's in

the bedroom or wherever else

um yeah it really feels like a real

anomaly but

how how common is low libido and also

what are the

what are the typical causes of someone

having a low libido i think really

common

and i think you know like so much of the

stuff we don't

have huge and huge amounts of at least

up to date like sex research so you know

it's something that people are really

trying to kind of develop in the space

but what we understand when we think

about

desire so we've got desire and we've got

arousal so arousal the body's physical

ability to kind of prepare for sex the

desire the want to be

sexual and what we understand is that

it typically changes across

relationships

and what feels really difficult about it

is that at the start of relationships

when everything is new and exciting

we're getting to know each other we're

exploring

it feels like desire is very high we're

kind of leaning into that because it's a

way of getting to know each other a way

of connecting with that person

and it's kind of what we understand is

it's triggered i suppose

a lot because a lot of the situations we

find ourselves in

are novel are kind of tuning into also

the area of our brain that likes the new

things that likes the excitement

and we have that sense of wanting to get

closer to that person wanting to get to

know them now

also what we see particularly this is

with a relationship focus

is there's like exchange of kind of like

novelty newness the unknown exploration

for like routine security safety getting

to know someone so we kind of see these

things

switching out almost and so

it's just actually that as we get kind

of more used to each other

there are less of those kind of

triggering like exciting moments which

are where desire can tend to thrive and

what we need to do is

perhaps just slightly more consciously

or with a bit more of an effort

put in the time to create those spaces

now chuck in i mean you know the year

we've found

ourselves in where no one's had any kind

of personal space or independence

or ability to go away and come back

together kind of change of context but

technology the kind of well third and

fourth if there's two people in the

relationship

wheels that are constantly taking our

attention kind of demanding us

you know distracting us so we're missing

signals from our partners we're missing

those kind of i suppose quality time

moments we're constantly notified or

we're distracted

and actually then it's harder for us

to give each other our full attention to

kind of sit down and focus on each other

to have the things that promote

connection eye contact touch we're

constantly kind of

looking around and connecting i suppose

with everyone apart from the person

actually that we're it creates a barrier

and so how do you know you get five 10

15 20 years into relationship

um and you've started to get you know

secure and

things are predictable how do you this

is probably the most

you know popular question i'm sure you

get which is like how do you keep it

fresh what advice would you give me to

keep my sex life with a partner i've

been with for x amount of years

still fresh exciting and uh yeah

exploratory

um yeah i think it's i mean it's the

question everyone wants the answer

right it's it is about

a.s first thing acknowledging that it

might

be different to how it used to be so

again one of the biggest hurdles people

can get kind of tripped over on is it's

not the same

as it used to be or it changed now

why does that mean it's worse you know

actually perhaps the quality of the sex

that people might be having might be

better because

they know each other better they

understand each other's bodies better

they feel more in tune with each other

so it's understanding that you might be

in a different phase

or stage and that's okay it doesn't have

to be

you know that famous phrase the

honeymoon period that kind of everybody

quotes or goes back to so i think that

is one thing

and i think actually kind of carving out

the time and the space and the effort

and not seeing that as a bad thing not

seeing that

as problematic that we have to be a bit

more conscious of that part of our

relationships

is a huge huge factor because what

the kind of common narrative we see in

like society i suppose is

if i have to make an effort for this

then there must be something wrong with

that because sex

should be spontaneous should be

something that just happened

that's what it says in the movies which

is part of the problem right because

that's one of the most easily accessible

visual

versions of sex that we have we don't

see into other people's sex lives in the

same way now what we do see

is social media or pictures of couples

or images of couples or

and we make assumptions about

them we make assumptions about they look

happy but they have great sex yeah in

porn it's just like the gardener's like

outside and then

eli comes in and the husband's away and

then like it's just

boom perfect lasts an hour everyone

looks like they're having a great time

but one of the one of the best phrases

that i heard and you know um

is trying to learn about sex from porn

is like learning to drive from watching

the fast and the furious

and it's one of the things that i go

back to i wish i knew you said it and if

you know please

tell me so you can claim it um but

porn wasn't designed as an educational

tool

but a lot of people have used it as one

and that's again i mean like every man

ever and also women to be fair like i

think men have this bias where we think

women don't watch porn

but then you ask a woman you know and

i've asked several of my ex-girlfriends

if they've watched porn and oh yeah

they do some of them do but i'd say and

this is a general

and i'd love you to correct me here

because i i'd love to not be i love to

be corrected on

things like this where i'm so naive i i

tend to believe that like 90

of my male friends watch porn and then i

think it's probably like 50 of my female

friends

do you know the numbers is that i don't

know the numbers but i

you know we know that women watch porn

we know that there are also a huge rise

of like female-friendly female-focused

pornography platforms kind of coming

forward and i think that

a lot of those ideas again tie into

these old stereotypes and narratives

about like male sexuality and female

sexuality

and then you know we're trying to change

the conversation around this and i think

that it's also about

recognizing that they're not these kind

of like two like

so separate entities and actually that

we can understand

that we're all sexual creatures and we

all have our

own versions of sexuality and what that

doesn't mean is that

it has to again kind of line up with the

narratives that have always been there

which is like men do this women do this

but are there distinctions between um

sexual appetite and the type of

representation of sex that

men and women typically want to see i

was going to ask you a question which

kind of

alludes to the same answer but it's like

if you were to create a point because

you said there's men there's now

sites emerging which are like female

friendly i'm like what's the what's the

what's the difference what what's how do

they

i suppose well you know one of the

things that um a lot of these sites

they're creating

is a focus on kind of female pleasure

in a way which is that what we know for

example is that the majority of women

um or like the most common way of

bringing women to orgasm is through

direct literal stimulation but for

example in

not necessarily porn but in the movies

we never see that

and so then everyone is kind of

replicating what they see in the movies

and no wonder it's not quite working so

i think that there's also

educational elements starting to kind of

come forward and a lot of that kind of

content as well

i guess that makes sense if the demand

for pornography has

been skewed male then what you're seeing

in the pornography would also be catered

to what a male

likes to believe is

you know men as you like alluded to that

men typically get their

arousal from like what do they call it

vaginal penetration

i guess that's not intercourse yeah or

intercourse whatever but

women would typically get reach like an

orgasm via

clitoral stimulation so porn tends to

reflect the

the former um so

has has porn been a a a positive or

negative impact on

um our perceptions and images of what

our

own sexual relationship should be like

do you think oh that's

such a big question is it again it's the

one that everyone wants to know the

answer to i think

that the problem that we've seen is when

people have used it as an educational

resource and that's not how it was

designed

um now what it has offered

is people who are exploring their

sexuality and feel that it doesn't fit

for example the

norm or expected norm you know however

you want whatever terminology you want

to use for that

it's offered those people a sense of

community

or safety in exploring or belonging or

knowing that they're not alone not

isolated in their experience

and so there are you know like

everything in life there's going to be

huge pros and cons and like anything in

life is how people use

anything but i think for me

you know working with people with sexual

problems and relationship problems

isolation or feeling alone in your

experience

is probably the biggest side effect or

negative side effect

on mental health or on the problem

itself

of what they're experiencing of what

they're struggling with

and so combating that which in a way is

where therapy helps you know we're kind

of

sharing that conversation we know that

shame thrives in silence we're starting

to externalize we're starting to talk

about these things

is making people feel they're not alone

is massive i am

one of the things you said i read that

you had said before

which i thought was really good advice

especially as it relates to keeping sex

like fresh and exciting was just to

change one thing every time

um and i wanted to for you to tell me

why

you think that's important and how that

helps it goes back to some of the themes

you've talked about

but it was one of the things that i

thought

i could immediately do in my own sex

life to keep things

continually fresh yeah and what are

those small things that you're referring

to when you say

i suppose what i like about that is it's

actionable so it's this idea

that we can all be like empowered and in

control to

do something in our sex lives and you

know like

one of the the phrases we hear kind of

all the time is that mixing it up

spicing it up and what i think people

get intimidated by

is the idea that they have to do

something massive to do that that they

have to

you know go out like buy a whole new

wardrobe

yeah exactly or try something that

they've like never done before

or you know buy 25 sex stories or

um you know try everything like and

that in itself then becomes a barrier to

people trying it because they're like oh

god that sounds scary

expensive as well but you know like

that i it's that um god like how am i

gonna do that there's no stepping stone

to that it's a whole like bridge a whole

jump

and that puts people off so again we're

back to that avoidance thing you know

what i'll just stay in my safe zone i'll

stay in my comfort zone i'll stay where

i

am like the idea of trying that and it

not working or trying that and it

failing

feels way scarier than where we're at

right now and so i think that idea of

like changing one thing every time

is it's also that routine doesn't

kind of help or promote or um

kind of encourage desire because we're

like oh i know what's coming

i know how this is going to go and what

we're then doing is we're more likely to

kind of let our thoughts wander or be

distracted and we see that with people

you know they're like i know it's going

to go so actually

i wasn't really noticing what was

happening in my body or that experience

i was thinking about like everything i

need to do tomorrow

and so what it does is it works

as a way of encouraging breaking up

routine now these are small things

like having the lights on or having the

lights off starting with your clothes on

or your clothes off

keeping your underwear on or underwear

off using lube or not

you know taking intercourse off the

table for that

evening and just focusing on

non-penetrative sex trying a sex toy

or you know putting even something

simple that i talk about is

putting like your pillows on the other

end of your bed so your room feels

different

like lighting candles changing your

smell having a shower or not you know

doing it in the street you can get

arrested for that

but um you know it's that idea of these

are all

accessible within range non-intimidating

things

that we can try to create

shifts and changes my journey with huel

has intensified

a lot over the last six to 12 months the

the untold story of a healthy diet and a

nutritionally complete diet is how you

feel and really that's a much more

important thing because actually how you

feel

is the sort of precursor to you having

the motivation the discipline and the

state of mind

that will help you go to the gym and

follow through on your goals

and i feel amazing i don't think i've

ever felt better i've never had more

energy i've been sleeping amazingly well

my sort of mental cognition has been

sharper than it ever has before

but i just feel good right and you often

just get to see the physical effects

that having a nutritionally complete

diet could have

but there are all of these other impacts

and other effects which are so much more

important

and as i said are the precursor to the

positive physical

um effects you see so yeah you know it's

one thing

having a podcast sponsor that pays you

money but it's another thing having a

podcast

sponsor who you genuinely believe can

help people change their lives for the

better

is it possible for some you know because

i've got this one friend and i'm sorry

for just rinse one of my friends here

i've got this one friend

yeah this is a problem with being

friends with me you always appear in the

podcast if you've got any slight like

peculiarity about you um and like i feel

like all of my friends

have been mentioned in this podcast at

least once they just don't know where

they're being mentioned

but i've got this one friend who is a

guy

and he i've known him maybe 10 years and

i've

i don't think he's ever had sex and he's

maybe 27 28 years old whatever

and i don't believe he's ever had sex

i've never i've never seen him in a

relationship

he doesn't talk to girls at all or guys

for that matter um and i don't it's just

so unusual because

in our in our friendship group we talk

about sex a lot so we're always talking

about you know who we're sleeping with

in various things

and we've basically just learned to just

not have the conversation with him

or when he's there you know if we're

just like joking with each other as

friends

we will never joke with him because it's

just this big question mark and none of

us know the answer

um and i think my conclusion has been

maybe he's just

asexual if that's the thing yeah that's

the thing

and what is that thing and what and if

you i'm sure you've heard about this

before right

what is what's going on well i mean like

we we don't know what's going on for

that person but you know asexuality is

is some is an identity you know like

people who don't experience sexual

attraction

and what that also doesn't mean so we

have asexuality and aromanticism

so those are two different concepts so

what we can see is that people can have

successful relationships and be

asexual because they can have connection

and

friendship and intimacy and we can see

that people who

um are so we can understand that

it's not a kind of like pairing

necessarily and something i also talk

about is

we can have intimacy without sex and sex

without intimacy now

what a group that i've also worked with

is lots of people who have

such bad sexual anxiety and this is in

no way me saying what's going on for

your friend but

that that limits them in sexually

exploring

or taking their sex life to where they

want to go or dating or seeing people

because

what it can feel a bit like is if we get

on the ladder of for example

meeting someone or dating then we get

closer towards

the source of our anxiety which might be

sex and i think that

people who haven't had sexual

experiences and i suppose bear in mind

you're only

viewing this from your perspective

rather than speaking to the person

you've been speaking to um is that

that kind of it can feel like a snowball

effect of a new

something that i talk a lot about in

therapy with people that i'm working

with this

this snowball effect of okay well the

older i get

the more i feel that this is a worry or

the more i feel other people will judge

me or the

more i feel that i won't match up to

what's expected of me

or that i will get kind of found out and

i think that

these anxieties around sex are also

because what we assume

is sexuality in people so we kind of

assume everyone's sexually active it

goes back to that point about

feeling isolated or alone in our

experience

everybody else is doing it so what's

wrong with me

and that the problem we have when it

comes to sex

is we can't know with people until we

check it out

we can't know until we we're judging

someone's

inside world based on what we see from

the outside and actually what we know

with sex is that

they don't always match up there's no

way of really knowing until we for

example

you know sit down with a therapist and

unpack it or sit down with a friend or a

family member or whoever that is we

share

you know a partner that conversation

with

i think there's also like i was just

thinking then about there's also this

like wider philosophical question of

like what is the purpose of sex

because if you see sex as being you know

just to ejaculate

then you know you might encounter a

bunch of issues there because

the the role that sex is playing for

your partner

might be a completely different one so i

guess at first you have to

understand what role sex plays in

relationships uh to your partner but

also to yourself

like is that how would you define the

purpose or the role of sex what is it

why do we do it and what's it for we're

going to make a sexual therapist have

you yet

are we having my job in a minute i know

you'll see tomorrow instagram page it's

like sex with steve

it's just everything you've said um

so one of my favorite pieces of research

and anyone who's listened to my podcast

or any of the interviews and stuff i

know is going to be so bored of hearing

me bang on about this is

a paper called why humans have sex um

and it was done in 2007

and it identified 237 reasons for why

humans

the motivations for why people have sex

and

there is such a wide breadth of those

and that might be um you know my

favorite my favorite one from that study

is um because i was cold

because i wanted to get warm but we can

understand that you know it might be

because

i want an orgasm because my partner

looked hot because um

i wanted to feel close to them because i

wanted to show them i loved them because

because because because

so the meaning of sex goes be

so beyond the what of what we're doing

but

we are so focused on the what all the

time and then we get so tangled up

in everything that's kind of

psychologically going on for us

and i think that you know sometimes

we're thinking about the why you know

what does it represent in our

relationship if we're in a relationship

what does it represent to us if we're

single

what does it represent to us if actually

the sexual relationship we have is

just with ourselves you know i think

that

thinking about that is such a big part

of us understanding ourselves sexually

there's definitely emotional elements

but there's also like a physical

uh prehistoric maybe evolutionary role

that sex plays right

and has that been somewhat lost upon us

now like

because my body my body you know the

chemicals in my body will start tickling

me and telling me that i'm horny

and then you know that will drive me

into action

you know i feel like the the role the

sort of prehistoric evolutionary role of

sex has been lost upon us a little bit

especially now that you know we have all

this contraception and we can swerve

having kids so i think it's become a bit

of a sport for many people

well sex is about pleasure isn't it did

you know you tell me

well you know i think you know well what

we see is that the majority of the

reasons that people have sex are not to

do with procreation

yeah and also the the problem is

i think something you kind of said

earlier um

was it's so gold it can be so goal

orientated

now again this is where

so many people struggle with sex because

if sex is goal orientated and as you

said like the goal is

to orgasm or to ejaculate or to

finish then what happens if that doesn't

happen

we feel like we've failed yeah and so

what it creates then is this

goal-orientated kind of

pass or fail model for sex now the

complete irony of that is if we're

struggling

and we're focused on where we need to

get to as a goal

the act of focusing on where we need to

get to is actually the thing that is

most

likely to not get us there because it's

preventative because

if we are in the moment enjoying what

we're doing

experiencing kind of pleasure and

sensations and

able to enjoy it then that's actually

the thing that's probably most likely to

get us there but if we're so distracted

by the negative thoughts that are going

on in our heads we're so distracted by

our concerns our worries that is going

to break down that kind of process of us

getting there

because i know a lot of people only

every sentence i say sounds so strange

i think i know a lot of people that

struggle with orgasms but i know i've

spoken to some of my girlfriends and

i've asked i've asked them

if they've orgasmed in fact my one of my

ex-girlfriends

she said to me that she had basically

never had an orgasm in her life

um which i obviously is a guy you find

quite well

well not obviously but as a guy that has

never had that problem i found that

quite peculiar and i wondered why

why some people can orgasm so easily and

then some people are

find it a lot more difficult um in this

particular case my suspicions were that

it was

an emotional thing in fact what you've

just described there about worry

this is one of the people that i know

that's very very tense about the topic

of sex and i just thought

you know my suspicion again super naive

was that they're not

knowing this person um they would

probably not be able to relax

in bed and then when i when they became

a sexual partner of mine

i thought yeah they're just like not

relaxed at all but i wanted to get your

take on why some

some people find it so easy to orgasm

and then some people just can't at all

well i think it also goes back to

almost like the first time you know

early messages about this stuff as well

you know early messages about what it's

like to have these experiences what it's

like to be

sexual you know is it something that's

never been talked about is it something

that's shrouded in shame is it something

that

we um think that we shouldn't be doing

or we think about ourselves a certain

way for doing and so

there's so many components to this as a

conversation

and you know probably um too many you

know longer than we have time for but

there's the idea of how we again think

about what we're doing

how we know and learn about our bodies

what we know and learn about our bodies

how we

discover what works for us and our

preferences so there's the physical

element you know we talk about an orgasm

as a peak pleasure experience

but also how we feel about it because if

we're feeling

shame or embarrassment or that we

shouldn't be doing this

that is going to be something which

again gets in the way of us

being able to fully let go and enjoy

ourselves or giving ourselves

in therapy we talk a lot about this idea

of giving ourselves permission

to be sexual or to let go

or to enjoy ourselves or to experience

pleasure

again this is super naive but an orgasm

is a pretty natural thing isn't it it's

like a

natural physiological reaction to

stimulation

so again super naive just i will just

disclaimer from here on out that

everything i say is largely naive and

i'll stop disclaimering every sentence

but

so one would assume that if you know if

we're struggling to orgasm then there's

something

maybe emotional maybe even physical

that's being going unmet

there might be something physical going

on but you know it's

there's probably like something

emotional going on but it's also about

you know have we learned

to do this like have we learned to kind

of

experience pleasure enough to take us

there and also once we do then we're

like okay i understand

how my body works now i understand how

that feels and

i think for lots the lack of sex

education here is

a huge part of the problem you know

pleasure has historically

been left out of the conversation and

particularly female pleasure

who are your who are your clients who

who comes to you with

the sex issues and challenges the most

normal people with normal problems you

know everyday people for

every difference um genders you know

both men and women i work with both

couples and individuals

i have a lot of younger clients so a lot

of my clients are kind of in that

sub 45 age bracket but i work with a lot

of people

in their kind of early 20s and i think

that the early 20s kind of

30s but also there's there's

a couple of things that are going on one

is that therapy has become much

less taboo in itself and sex much less

taboo and we have this kind of

corner of therapy which is psychosexual

therapy where

i think people recognize that it now

can be a solution or that sexual

problems aren't just

medical that actually there can be

something psychological or emotional

going on

and i think that the idea of accessing

help for this stuff now

has become much more normalized which is

brilliant i think you know and much

needed and there are some amazing

amazing

sexual experts and sexual therapists in

this country who

you know i hope are really being and i

know have really been used by people to

help them improve this part of their

lives and i think that

again a part of it is any other aspect

of our life

we would go and see a doctor

or go and see a physio or go and see a

nutritionist or whatever it is

you know if another part of if a part of

our body wasn't working

we would access help for it without

feeling embarrassed you know if we'd

injured our knee

we wouldn't feel embarrassed about going

to ask someone about that but why when

it comes to sex

do we feel that we shouldn't access the

help and then

the longer we're struggling with that

the more of a problem that becomes

because we don't just have the original

problem but how we think and feel about

it

but is there like is there like an age

range where

people are more likely to go into a

sexual therapist

no i don't think there is then i think

evenly distributed from like

20 to 80. yeah really i mean

and i think you know again it's a bit

about life stages

isn't it you know what are people

looking to explore at different stages

we see for example people might go after

a

cancer diagnosis or cancer treatment or

for example around menopause

or that there are certain health

conditions that impact sexuality or

you know common side effect of a lot of

anti-anxiety medications and

antidepressants are an impact on sex

lives

or it might be that someone is starting

their sexual experiences or they've

had a relationship where sex has been a

problem and they don't want to carry

that

on into their next relationship i think

that it's about

understanding like what has brought that

person to therapy

at that time is a big part of

for me as a therapist anyway kind of

exploring what's going on for that

person what's the trigger

for dealing with it now polygamy

um do you have a lot of people come to

you with

in polygamous relationships so you mean

like polyamory like multi-part

multi-part relationships and what are

the issues typically that um

you'd see with yeah polyamorous

polygamous relationships

yeah i think that it's something that

people have a lot of questions about

um it's something that you know i've

talked about on

my podcast because it's what people are

curious about

um because it's also a breaking away

from our

kind of heteronormative like

mono-normative model

of relationships and i think the big

questions that people have

are how do we do this you know how do we

navigate this how do we manage it and

that's about working out what the rules

are for those people you know

how do they hold what are the rules for

them

that work for them how do they

understand the rules you know rules

around things like disclosure rules

around

things like how much detail do we go

into how do we manage this

but actually communication for lots of

those relationships

is really good because they have to be

really good in order to

manage that different style of being or

you know also just the practicalities of

there being more than two partners in a

relationship

i've always wondered if it would cause a

lot more problems but i guess you've

answered it there it's about studying

selling clear rules and

having effective communication my next

my next question again which i was

really excited to ask you was like

what's the and this is a super hard

question

so just get ready yeah what are what are

the things that

men don't and typically don't understand

about women when it comes to sex and

vice versa it's a hard question isn't it

it is a hard question i was just

thinking i was thinking because i know

men are super naive and we watch

we're exposed to a certain type of media

and content and then we like rush into

the bedroom thinking that

i don't know our partners want to be i

don't know

tied up or dominated or whatever else

and then from the other perspective

you know when you speak to a woman about

sex and what she's looking for

there's obviously she's experienced a

certain type of media but she also is

i think typically again with being super

binary here

typically a woman is is is um

has a slightly different expectation

from the man from my experiences anyway

i think part of the problem in that is

that binary approach

is that if there's something that i

would want everyone to understand it's

that

we can be different but we are also so

similar um

you know and like this idea about like

performance

when it comes to sex is hugely

detrimental to

everyone um and

again probably like what is one of the

biggest things i want everyone to think

about is

the assumptions you know what are the

assumptions that we're making about each

other based on

gender norms and expectations based on

historical messages

how do we break away from them and it

might be that that's a conversation

between those two people

and that's the best way of doing it but

also there's

you know all of these kind of so many of

these ideas about sex is so steeped in

history but we've never asked them we've

never had them challenged so

an assumption being you know a really

historical message that we hear all the

time means something i hear all the time

when i'm talking to people about like

myths you know what are the sexual myths

or what are the sexual rules that you

think are kind of applicable to your sex

life

a really common one is that men initiate

sex

like men are the initiators the sex and

women are the responders now

how does that fit people then when

they're like oh but that's not how it

works for us

or you know a for example male partner

if we're talking about hetero

heterosexual relationships

who is less confident and a female

partner who is more confident

and so actually it's the other way

around but then they're thinking okay

but this isn't

what we think everyone else is doing so

maybe there's a problem here

when there isn't because that's what's

working

for them and you see big distinctions

between the issues that

heterosexual and and homosexual

relationships

have i think that

what same-sex relationships don't battle

with as much

is the gender assumptions the gender

narratives the gender norms

that kind of idea of like men do this

and women do this

but you know there are also kind of

every relationship

struggles in some way with that dynamic

of we're two individuals

how do we work on our differences and

our similarities together that

interrelational part which is what

happens between us

you know how what are our triggers

what how do we kind of what makes us

both anxious or what makes us both feel

secure or what makes us both feel closer

and also navigating that you know that

that's really

the battle that all couples have again

super naive question but i'm sure it's

one of the most popular questions you

get asked which is like

is there a healthy amount of times for a

couple to have sex

per week or whatever i used fiverr

once a month before they became a

sponsor on this podcast

and since they've become a sponsor on

this podcast and i've delved into what

the site does and how all the services

work and the

vast array of things that you can

achieve on fiverr using freelancers

around the world

i swear on this dog's life pablo my dog

here who sat on my lap if you can't see

i swear in his life that i've used

fiverr

at least once a week for the last three

months we've built so

many websites we've designed so many

decks we've had

video clips edited we've had subtitles

produced if you haven't checked out

fiverr before

hit the link in the bio fiverr.com ceo

go to the website check it out and every

single time

i do this podcast one person who dms me

with a service from fiverr that they

need doing for their business

for their podcast for whatever project

they're working on i will pay

for that service to be done for you so

find a service on fiverr that you you

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me

super naive question but i'm sure it's

one of the most popular questions you

get asked which is like

is there a healthy amount of times for a

couple to have sex

per week or whatever and you know one

would assume that changes over time

right because i think i know just

judging by my relationships it starts we

start like [ __ ]

energize the bunny rabbits and then you

know life happens

but is there you know and i hate these

questions because again they're so like

unnuanced and so like narrow but is

there an average amount of times that

couples

you would you know if you had to answer

this question and not swerve it

in this for the sake of nuance what

would the answer be i would like to know

what you

think the answer is i think

again context like i'm going to go into

nuances here but context matters like if

you live

on opposite sides of the world then

obviously there's there's barriers but

if you're living in the same house if

you're cohabiting

living in the same house i think like at

least twice a week

you know once in the weekend tuesday

but where okay so where do you think um

that idea of twice a week would comes

from just

looking at my schedule

wait a minute where can i find time

probably like once in the week and then

on the weekends i have a bit more time

so

um yeah but i mean it obviously changes

over time i feel like i probably have

sex every night but if i you know but

just energy levels and

yeah what's the answer then so someone i

um interviewed

talked about the amount of sex we have

as a red herring

so the kind of regularity of sex doesn't

determine like the satisfaction of it or

the kind of pleasure of it or the

enjoyment of it and i think

what it feels like we've been trying to

do

is find an objective way of measuring

sex

so it's this idea of okay well we're all

trying to find the answer

to sex like how to be good at sex like

what that looks like how to

know where we pitch ourselves against

everyone else and

regularity is one of the only kind of

objective measures we have of that

so it's the one that we kind of will

lean into or we want to know the answer

to

whereas what i would say is i don't

think we do have an idea

of i don't know what kind of modern like

surveys

say there's a big survey that's done um

kind of every few years but i haven't

actually seen the results of that one

yet

but what about the monkeys how often are

they doing i feel like they were like

what are the orangutans doing um i

haven't got a clue

to find out maybe your next guest yeah

like a zoologist or something

um but i think that the the thing is is

working out again and what it what we're

looking for is a measure of like how

we're doing

yeah by knowing that um answer and i

think one of the things is

for some couples it might be as you said

they might kind of work in different

countries it might be every time they

see each other they have great sex

and that's enough like that works for

them

for other couples it might be we have

sex once a month and it's really good

you know we're both enjoying ourselves

and we feel like our needs are met

great for other people it might be once

a week you know i think it's about

determining like

what your normal is or what your what is

right for you

but again the kind of worries and

anxieties and stresses come

from a we're not having enough sex

why is that yeah you know is it because

my partner's no longer

attracted to me that tends to be the

first thing people go to and what's

going on

um is it because our relationship isn't

working is it when we don't have a

clear kind of obvious answer like we've

just had a baby for example

um so there's the assumptions that go

with that why has sex

changed what's going on but also the

well everyone else is having sex once a

week and we're having sex once a month

so that we must have a problem there

must be something wrong with us speaking

of my ex-girlfriends i feel like i've

slightly thrown

several of them under the bus but i had

another relationship

this go this goes back a little bit

further where

i just like fell in love with this girl

in every

other aspect non-sexual so

intellectually in every other way

and then when it came time to have sex

which is actually quite

a little bit later than it usually is in

the relationships that i have

like three or four months into knowing

this person um

there was i don't know how to say this

because it just sounds

i'll just go for it um

the

the

i tend to think especially when it comes

to like

vaginal penetration that it's like a

hand and a glove

and the hand in the glove didn't match

and

again i genuinely thought that i could

have spent the rest of my life with this

person but i saw that as

a like insurmountable object like my

penis didn't suit her

vagina and i thought we can't change

you can't change this um

yeah is this something that people come

to you about

often they talk about like the

practicalities the practicalities

like the hand in the glove yeah i think

it is and you know there are for example

like

conditions that mean that people

can't have sex for numerous reasons so

like sexual dysfunctions

or you know particularly for women there

is a condition called vaginismus which

is where

there's an involuntary contracting of

the pc muscles the pelvic floor muscles

where

they're unable to have sex and that we

think affects about one in 500 women in

no way am i saying that's

necessarily what was happening here but

you know we also know that

that it's about how we

work together as couples how we work

with bodies what would make

things more helpful how we can look for

kind of practical advice

but it's about understanding like okay

how do we help ourselves here rather

than again that assumption of like

something's going wrong because it made

me believe in this like idea of like

there's a physical compatibility to sex

as well

not just like a a desire compatibility

or like you know an experimentation

compatibility but there's like a

physical

um compatibility as well to having like

good sex

where you can just like physically not

be

compatible but i suppose it's then where

how do you

if you want to like explore working

around a roadblock

you know how do you kind of

because that's build yourself so hard to

talk about like i could never bring my i

could talk about

the um libido issue with my partner but

i could never tell

that partner that i wasn't that i was

basically turned off by our lack of

physical

compatibility i could never mention it

so i ended up the end the relationships

i tried multiple times to like fix it in

various ways

and i just couldn't bring myself to talk

about it because i didn't want to hurt

the person

i didn't want to say something that

might hurt them and stay with them

forever

so i ended the relationship on the

grounds of something else but that was

fundamentally the issue i've actually

had two relationships in my life but

like sexual partners in my life that

ended purely because of that but yeah

and i think it's so hard again isn't it

because we just don't know

how to tackle these as topics as you say

like

how do we manage talking about something

or exploring something that we just

have no idea where even to start and i

don't offend the person which that must

be it must be a huge thing in the work

that you do

like not wanting to offend your partner

because as you said it's such a

sensitive topic

and i don't know how i could have

approached that situation without

offending the person

and i think that it's the fear of

judgment like the fear of offending the

fear of hurting our partners the fear of

us not being able to go back

once we kind of it feels a bit like

pandora's box for some people like this

idea of

talking about sex in a relationship you

know like if i open this up like how do

we

close it or i think a lot of people have

the fear of

if i open this up then every time we

have sex

we're both going to be thinking about

this and we're both going to be

completely in our heads and what we know

is when we're completely in our heads

when it comes to sex we're not

experiencing what's going on in our

bodies

and that is interrupting arousal you

know the body's process

of us kind of enjoying you know our body

kind of working with us the kind of

sexual arousal process

and so you know our thoughts are as

distracting as they're kind of being

like someone in the room

that's not the person wearing sex with

or someone actually like walking in or

kind of saying all of that stuff to us

just because our thoughts are not a

physically represented being doesn't

mean they're not as distracting as

something else

and you're completely right because from

then on i didn't say anything

but i carried on trying i thought maybe

you know one bad experience whatever

we'll try again we'll try again

and it got to the point where i was i

was

almost avoiding sex because i knew that

it was going to be an issue

and i started to overthink and as a guy

overthinking is not what you want to be

doing when you're trying to

maintain yourself so

i am so i started having issues keeping

my erection up because

i was just i was walking in i was

getting in the bed thinking oh my

god here we [ __ ] go again and i've

got a you know like are you gonna be

able to get it up because you you really

don't enjoy this and

and that all of that just became too

much i couldn't tell her because i

didn't want to insult her

and i was starting to have problems like

you know being aroused because

it was a big issue and you're right it's

a snowball and performance anxiety is

one of the key things that i work with

with men because

where there is not a physical kind of

indicator

or reason for why they might be

struggling for example with erections

because

getting into your head too much

again creates a speed bump for

sexual arousal because when you're

feeling stressed or you're feeling

anxious

you're in that kind of fight flight free

state your body is preparing not for you

to

kind of lie down and have sex and be

comfortable and relaxed but it's

preparing for

that kind of threat response and that

is not compatible with being sexual in

that moment so in a way

your body's kind of working against you

and so what you have to do then

is work on this kind of like frontal bit

of your brain you know your thoughts

like focusing on that in order to in a

way like reprogram

because sex has become not fun

exciting pleasurable connecting it's

become anxiety provoking

stressful fearful you know don't want to

be here would rather avoid

so in a way the way i describe it a lot

is the meaning of sex has changed so the

way we relate to it has changed

how does one give their partner good

positive

constructive feedback do you know what i

mean like

because i'm sure there's i was thinking

then i'm sure there's so many people

listening to this that are in

relationships

that would like their sex to be slightly

different

and they probably in the same way that i

was anxious about approaching it with my

xxxxx girlfriend