7 Wildly Underrated Benefits of Sex and Pleasure: From Cognitive Health to Confidence with Dr. Nicole McNichols

Dr. Nicole McNichols, you are a sex researcher, professor, and educator, and you are deep in the research around this. No pun intended. No pun intended. No shade on this either. You're not a coach. You're not somebody who's out there who's just thrown out pop culture terms around these topics. You actually know what you're talking about. And you're here on the podcast today to remind us that if we wanted, we could be having better sex. Why are you on this mission and why should my audience care about this topic? I am on this mission because pleasure is important, especially sexual pleasure. We are at a place in our lives where we feel a sense of disconnection, a sense of overwhelm. And I'm here to tell everyone that sex is something that can be your pathway back, that if you are able to prioritize pleasure, that there is so much research showing that it can lead to better life satisfaction, more resiliency in the face of setbacks, more creative thinking to help you solve those inevitable life challenges that are thrown your way. pleasure is critical and sex is one of those major pathways back to reclaiming pleasure in your own life. So almost everyone I've talked to out there wants better sex in their life. But I feel like part of the problem is that we have to remind people why it's both selfish and selfless to want it into your life. And there's nothing wrong with being selfish and wanting that pleasure, but it's not just about the pleasure. There's so many other ramifications. So I have seven big ideas that I want to touch on just to start this conversation off so that you can help remind our audience about why this matters. Let's talk about health first. Okay. So a fascinating fact from your book, sexual activity is associated with better cardiovascular health markers and healthier aging. Talk to us about that. Yes. Healthier aging, sex protects against cognitive decline. It improves immunity. It leads to better cardiovascular outcomes. There's even a very famous study showing, particularly among men, that orgasms are correlated with longevity. And we would expect this finding to be true of women too. We still need to do. Unfortunately, we haven't done that research yet. But yeah, it really predicts just about every important health outcome that we care about. And yet it's something that we never talk about in our culture. We're so used to thinking of sex as something that's extra or a treat, right? That we get lucky. But I'm here to tell you that sexual pleasure needs to be part of your repertoire when you're thinking about your overall health. And that's not even getting into the psychological benefits, right? It increases our sense of well-being. It increases our relationship satisfaction, right? Sexual satisfaction, there is just decades of research showing that it is a very strong predictor of relationship satisfaction. And yet, just like you said, Drew, we tend to think of it as something that needs to be siphoned off into another part of our lives or where it just shouldn't be prioritized and it's just going to kind of fall from the sky when the time is right. Well, you jumped ahead and I'm glad you did because you said that sexual satisfaction reliably predicts future relationship satisfaction. But here's the one that kind of blew me away a little bit. And I want you to expand on this because it's related. Sexual dissatisfaction predicts relationship decline earlier than other markers. Talk to us about that. Yes. So sexual satisfaction is a huge predictor of relationship satisfaction. And to me, what's really interesting with this data is that it's not the case that relationship satisfaction just seems to naturally lead to more sex, right? Which is what we might think. Like, oh, if we're in a good relationship, sex is just going to kind of start to happen. What tends to happen when you look at longitudinal data is that couples who are prioritizing intimacy and enjoying satisfying sex later go on to report higher levels of relationship satisfaction. Meaning that that improvement of intimacy, specifically sexual intimacy in your life, is a real catalyst for improving relationship satisfaction. Working on your relationship is obviously critical. Developing those skills where you feel seen and heard and loved and cared for, that's really important. But just doing that alone, that's not going to lead to better sex, right? We need to be focused on sex for pleasure's right? Improving pleasure, increasing the sense of connection that we feel sexually to our partner, because that is really what the catalyst is for building this relationship satisfaction. You know, two key words that you mentioned here that are going to be themes throughout this entire conversation and are themes in your book, which, by the way, is fantastic. We have a link in the show notes. You could be having better sex. Yes, you could be. The two words that I want the audience to listen to are, number one is prioritize, right? This is really a conversation around prioritization amidst this milieu that we all live in today of a bunch of factors that are having us deprioritize sex, intimacy, and pleasure and are having all these cascading effects. Exactly. And we'll expand on this a little bit more because you're the expert. You have all the thoughts about this, but the other word that you said is connected. And that's the other theme around this. You know, you said that earlier you were talking about men who ejaculate more frequently are individuals that have better cardiovascular health. Well, my cardiologist, who's been on this podcast a few times, he always says that ED is ED. Erectile dysfunction is endothelial dysfunction. And endothelial dysfunction is the first signs of those break in our arteries that lead to these little cavitations that plaque can then form in. So if you are not healthy enough to have sex, that's actually a canary in the coal mine. Exactly. That's out there. But on the flip side is if you prioritize your health and you also prioritize your communication, you're going to be in a situation where you're going to desire more sex with your partner. I'm just speaking from a man's perspective. but then you're also going to have the metabolic health to actually continue to function. So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy inside of that. It truly does. And that's why, you know, on our quest to have better sex, this is why I really developed this McNichols hierarchy of sexual needs, because essentially what you're talking about is there's that physiological piece, right, which is really happening at an individual level. And in conversations that I have also had with numerous doctors, a lot of the reason that men are coming in and reporting that they're struggling with ED is because they're not taking care of themselves. We live in this culture where we're always on this productivity treadmill, where we're all hamsters. Our nervous systems are out of whack. We're not taking care of ourselves. We're not eating well. We're not getting sleep. And if you're not taking care of yourself, if you're not minding to your own central nervous system and physical health, you are not going to be able to show up in a sexual context and enjoy it and perform and feel at ease and have connected sex no matter how badly you want to. So in other words, the foundation of that hierarchy is really getting connected to your body, taking care of your body, clearing your mental load, calming your central nervous system so that we can get to that second level of the hierarchy, which is really about developing the skill set to meet your partner and to come together with your partner and to find time, like you were just talking about, to plan intimacy into your lives. Yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, we're going through these seven big ideas. We're jumping around a little bit, which is perfect. This is why we have podcasts, by the way, that should be free-flowing. We talked about health. We have a couple more for health. We touched on relationship, both idea that satisfaction is a great predictor, sexual satisfaction in a relationship of relationship satisfaction. And there's also the opposite, that dissatisfaction is a great predictor of decline that's there so we can look at it. Let's go to the self. And the reason that I want to also go to the self is that if you're listening to this podcast, I bet there's a huge percentage of the audience, just like if I was watching your videos in preparation of interviewing, right? We had our nanny over a little bit earlier. I feel like I have to go to the other part of the house to listen because I'm thinking like, okay, what are people going to be thinking about me if I'm watching a video preparing for a podcast about, you know, how to have better orgasms, right? So there's a little part of people that feels like, okay, this is a taboo subject. It's a little bit selfish. I got to keep it a secret. Maybe I even got to keep it a secret for my partner that this is something that I want. So many couples are in that position. We know. So part of this conversation, especially in the beginning, is reminding people why this is so important to prioritize beyond, even though pleasure is super important, there are so many other benefits beyond it. And when we don't have great sex in our life and great pleasure, whatever definition that is for you, there's all sorts of downstream consequences. So let's talk about the self. People who prioritize sexual connection report higher life satisfaction overall. Can you talk about that? All right, let's talk about the cleanest, most nutrient dense meat on the planet. It's from one company. It's called Maui Nui and they have something brand new that I want to tell you about. If you're a fan of this podcast, you know I'm a huge fan of Maui Nui's venison sticks, and they're one of my favorite high-protein clean snacks. Now Maui Nui has something new. They have their Maui Nui always summer sausage. And this sausage, it's not deli meat. It truly is the cleanest, most nutrient-dense meat on the planet, made from 100% wild harvested, not factory farmed, wild harvested access deer meat for Maui. I'm not joking. These animals live freely on Maui's mineral rich landscape. 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Peptide targets the visible signs of aging so you can support your healthiest skin now as you age. For limited time only, get 15% off with code DHRU at oneskin.co slash Drew. After your purchase, please tell them you heard about OneSkin from our show. It really helps to support our work. Yes. The beauty of that finding is that it's not that couples have to be having sex all the time, or if you're single, that you need to be having sex all the time to reap these benefits. Right? If you look actually at the data, the frequency as a mean comes out to once a week or more. But the finding is that if you're having sex more than once a week, you're not going to be reporting any higher level of relationship satisfaction overall than couples that are just having it somewhat regularly, right? And so this is really, you know, just based on, you know, it reflects the very basic point that sex is a form of communication with your partner, right? You're showing up in a way that is vulnerable and intense and really is showing an attunement to your partner's needs and pleasure in a way that communication in other aspects of your day-to-day life are just not going to meet those same needs, right? In other words, we're communicating and we're coming together with our partners in a really beautiful way when we enjoy sexual intimacy. And by the way, we're going to be better parents if we foster a healthy, intimate life. We're going to be better at our jobs because we're going to have an ability to handle stress. We're going to be better able to show up and do all the other things that we want to do in our lives if we are fostering our own sense of sexual wellness. Another one for the self. We're talking about health, relationship improvements, self-improvement mindset. So one is that it's inside of your book. Again, mind-blowing for a lot of people who don't know about these topics. Sexual fulfillment supports identity and self-confidence and helps improve overall mental health and lowers anxiety. Yes, it does. And this makes sense, right? When we look at, I mean, what originally sort of drew me into this work was a recognition that there is a loneliness epidemic among us. There is a mental health illness, a mental health epidemic among us. We are all dealing with low levels of anxiety, depression, right? It just, it's something that we aren't taking care of ourselves and sexual pleasure is the ultimate form of self-care. And so for that reason, it is going to lead to more self-confidence. It is going to lead to a better sense of being able to show up in your life and be present and be alive and have a sense of vitality that's going to serve you in every other element. And you're right. And I think that, You know, you've mentioned a couple times this idea that we tend to fall back on this idea of sexual pleasure as being selfish. And I think that this is something that especially women struggle with, right? Because women have been socialized, first of all, to be way more ashamed of their sexuality, right? If you think about one of the questions I poll my students on every single quarter is, do you have a pet name for your genitals? And I find that men are about three times as likely to say yes, right? Men kind of let it all hang out there. There's a lot more pride about their bodies. There's a lot more sort of emphasis on the importance of pleasure. But for women, right, we're taught to feel ashamed, right? We don't even often use the proper language to describe it. And, you know, the clitoris, for example, which is the main source of sexual pleasure, we didn't even have a full mapping of the internal and external structures of the clitoris until 2006, Drew. I mean, and the clitoris, the sole purpose of the clitoris is female sexual pleasure. But it doesn't play a role in reproduction. So historically, we've been taught it's not important. And I'm here to tell women that sexual pleasure is important, but yes, in order to be able to enjoy sex, it does take the first step of knowing that you are entitled to pleasure. right that you need to figure out how to feel turned on as a woman as a person right in life in other aspects of things that bring you passion and joy with your own body before you can feel like you can enjoy pleasure with another person so I really think it's you know for women especially we're so used to being socialized to take care of other people to attend to the needs of others to nurture others. Those things are important, but we can't do that if we're not taking care of ourselves first. It goes back to the metaphor we've heard. You've got to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can put that on of the people around you. And if we're not, as women, paying attention to pleasure, feeling turned on, and there are multiple ways we can get into in terms of how to do that, then we're not going to be able to feel like we can enjoy sex with a partner. But yes, there needs to be selfishness. There needs to be entitlement because that entitlement and selfishness has to exist before you can become the person that meets another person in a place where you can enjoy intimacy together. That's great. I think that reminder is needed. This conversation is so layered. There's going to be reminders for men. There's going to be reminders for women. There's going to be reminders for everybody that are out there. But I think it's so important to at least touch on because there are unique differences between the sexes that I think for a few years we were sort of trying to just put everybody together in one category. Exactly. But realizing anybody that has both a boy, like a son, and anybody has a girl knows that there's fundamental differences. Oh, yes. And it's okay to talk about those things, just like there's fundamental differences between, you know, my cousins that were raised in India and my cousins that were raised in America. And it's okay to talk about these things. And one, you know, just want to touch on that for a second. Yes. There was a really fantastic book that I read years ago. It's called The Female Brain. And there's an equivalent. There's the male brain. Yes. And it was written by this researcher, Luanne Brisbane. And one of the things she talked about is that fundamentally the brains have so many things of the same. And there are some key things that even from a young age that have women, like you're born biologically a woman. Your brain has more neuro connections from the left to right hemisphere. So that can lead to, in a lot of situations, young girls tend to have a lot more social skills. They're biologically wired to pay attention to other people. they're biologically wired have interest in people speaking generally yes boys tend to have a lot more of these neuro connections front to back i'm oversimplifying i'm not a neuroscientist i'm just sharing my bro science version so you tend to see why are boys interested in cars from a young age things trucks legos not that girls aren't too girls are also interested in those things and there are these patterns why am i bringing this up i'm bringing this up because i feel like Part of my layer and thoughts on this, especially, you know, being married, seeing my wife, having two incredible sisters who basically raised me. Love that. I see something interesting, which is that a lot of women feel judged by other women or fearful of being judged by other women or society for having interest in this topic and wanting to explore it and prioritize it. Yes. Do you think that there's any truth to that, especially that women are worried about being judged by other women? And and that can be one of the parts, not saying it's everything, one of the parts that can keep this conversation secretive alone and put women in a position where they feel like I don't even want to bring this up to my partner because it's been so ingrained into me that this is not OK to be able to talk about. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, we really have to look at this as, yes, there is the biology. And I agree with you, Drew. And, you know, we even know that male fetuses are more active in the womb than female fetuses. We know that males have more serotonin than females in their brains, naturally making them less susceptible to anxiety and depression. We know that women have more dopamine in their brains, which makes men more likely to suffer from addiction. So, yes, absolutely, there are these biological difference. But I think when it comes to sex, what's almost even more important are these gendered expectations around the importance of sex, right? And the idea is that many of us just grew up thinking that, oh, sex is just something you do for your husband, right? Or it's something you're, you know, or you're meant to be the sexual gatekeeper. And it's supposed to be the husband in the context of a straight relationship who's always trying for sex and is always ready for sex. And the woman is supposed to be coy and, you know, not straightforward and honest about her desires. And it's, you know, and it also just goes back to a larger gendering within culture of women being socialized to want to meet other people's needs. Right. And then you layer on top of that. Right. All of these different sociological factors that are going on. And, you know, I've been married for 22 years. I have three kids. I know what the emotional labor is like of trying to be a woman in today's society, right? It's you've got the, you know, if you're married, you've got the emotional needs of your children. You've got the planning of the dentist appointment. You have the dog that ate the crayons last night and puked and has to go to the vet, right? You've got the, you know, you're managing schedules of two people often who are in, right, the highest, most aggressive points in their careers. Right. And so we, again, don't ever question that because we think that that's just sort of our responsibility. Right. But this division of household labor is still very real. and yet we're not having enough conversations about how to balance that out so that women feel like, hey, my needs matter. And within that, yes, my sexual needs matter. And yes, as a woman, I have desires. I have kinks. I have fantasies. I have things I want to try. Because what's interesting is that women, actually, in long-term relationships, they get bored faster. We tend to think it's men, but it's actually women. And this is why novelty is so important, especially for women. And you have to have that sense of entitlement and be free from shame if you're going to be able to feel like I want to be able to bring forth my fantasies. I want to be able to tell my partner exactly what I want, how I want to be touched. You know, I always tell couples, sit down, have a conversation about the best sex you've ever had, right? Talk about what was that really incredible sex you've had that, you know, what happened? What was the emotional landscape like in terms of how you felt coming into it? Was it on vacation when you were away from your normal, natural, day-to-day lives? Was it when you had gone out to dinner and felt like they had listened to you about a dream that you had that you'd been afraid to tell them about Was it maybe when they just recognized that day that you were exhausted and worked extra hard to lean in and take care of all of these things that can make women so exhausted that we have to manage so many times in our lives? Find that, right? Focus on that. That should be your building point. That should be your launching point where curiosity then takes that incredible sex and builds on it to make it even more incredible and satisfying. I heard you give that advice on another podcast interview that you did. And I thought, oh, wow, you're going to talk about the best sex you ever had. And just to make sure people understand so that you don't cause a major upheaval within your relationship. Because I was imagining, I was like, okay, this sounds really great, But I will be sleeping not on the couch outside if we go through. You're talking to people about within that relationship. Very important detail. Within that relationship. Very important detail. Now, in my book and in general, I do also have a lot of advice for people who are single and navigating sex in new relationships or casual sex or friends with benefits. Right. I'm different than a lot of other educators and, you know, people talking about this subject who are out there who are suggesting that the only type of satisfying sex is that which can happen in the context of a long term relationship. That's not true. Right. We're especially taught, you know, back to this shame that is often cast upon women. That shows up doubly true in the context of casual sex and women who are single and trying to carve out sexual experiences that work for them. But yes, in the context of building on your sex life with your partner, when you use that launching point of the best sex you've ever had, I'm talking about that with your partner, of course. Going back to our seven big ideas. Yes. I had a couple more on the health side. You know, this is a health podcast. Yes, absolutely. We talked to the top researchers on longevity or autoimmune or this thing or that thing. And obviously this conversation is well within those things that we talk about. But two other important things in our top seven big ideas that I wanted to cover. Sleep quality is strongly correlated with sexual satisfaction. Talk to our audience about that. Exactly. Isn't that fantastic? Yeah. So, and it's interesting because the direction of causality, forgive me for the nerdy speak, goes both ways, right? Which means that sex, particularly orgasm, leads to higher quality sleep, but also being well rested leads to better quality sex and orgasms. So it's definitely something, you know, with there is so much research coming out just showing how critical sleep is to our mental health. We all know if you're walking around and you're exhausted, that that's just not going to be good for you in your life in general. That's not what leads to thriving. So yes, sex, orgasm, those are very effective paths towards that kind of deep level sleep that we need to feel refreshed every day. And it's a virtuous cycle because if you feel more well rested, you're going to be more likely to want to have sex. Last one on the health side. Sex is correlated with improved immune function. Cleaning, honestly, for most of us is one of those habits that run on autopilot. You grab what's under your sink, you spray, you wipe, and you move on. But the truth is what we clean with becomes part of our environment that we live in and can even impact our health in major ways. That's why I switched my family to Branch Basics. Knowing that what I'm cleaning my home with is actually safe for my family has been huge. Their premium starter kit comes with one powerful concentrate. Yes, one. 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You know, we are working against this wave of things that are having us deprioritize sex, intimacy, and pleasure in a way that's so central to our health, our mental health, our mindset, and also the happiness of our relationships. And we didn't really say it bluntly, but one of the things you talk about at the beginning of the book is just straight up the fact is we're having less sex than ever before. Yes, we are. And I think that that is for, you know, all of the reasons that we've been talking about in terms of the stress and anxiety and the state of the world that's sort of weighing on everyone's minds. But, you know, that finding is particularly driven by Gen Z surprise that are, you know, which is, you know, surprising to many people because we assume that they're all sex obsessed because of the amount of sex we see in our culture. but Gen Z and millennials tend to be really driving that decline. However, it is present among all age groups. And when we talk about, okay, well, what's the solution to that? This is where I really believe in, and this is based off of just robust data showing the efficacy of planning intimacy, right? Which many couples think, oh my God, like I don't want to have to plan sex. That just seems like it's the most unsexy activity in the world. But I'm not saying that you need to create a contract where you're going to go have a sex date where you just mid dishwasher emptying, go and jump in bed and expect your body to instantly turn on and have sex. But it's about carving out time for connection and intimacy with your partner and creating an environment where intimacy is likely to happen, right? There can be flexibility built around it. But like I mentioned before, we all, you know, we could manage usually 30 minutes once a week in our schedules to plan that intimacy, right? Ideally, more time around that, though, in terms of connecting with your partner, right? Non-sexual physical touch is one of the best avenues into that, right? Like cuddling, handholding, right? Lying, you know, next to each other on the couch, if you're, you know, watching your favorite Netflix show or whatever it is that you're doing or reading, but being able to plan out and carve out that time for each other, where you're coming to that space, having worked on that initial, you know, first layer of the pyramid, calming your nervous system before you connect with a partner, that is really going to do wonders Because once we have, you know, once we focus on pleasure and once we focus on coming together with our partner in a mindset where we can connect, we're more likely to enjoy the sex while it's happening, which is going to make us more likely to keep having that sex, right? Because pleasurable sex leads to more desire for more sex. So it's really about prioritizing that time to lean into your fantasies and lean into, again, using that what's the best sex we've ever had as a launching point to explore what might be satisfying in bed. I think that's such an important reminder. You break down all these myths in the book, and that's one of the top ones that you talk about is that people have this myth. If the sex is good, it should be spontaneous. And really, that goes two ways. And I can't remember who said this. It might have been Esther Perel, who's a friend of mine, been on this podcast before. I think she said, you know, everybody thinks it should be spontaneous. But think about this question that you asked, which is think about your partner and the best sex you ever had. You think it was spontaneous, but it was probably in the early days. And actually, you knew it was happening and it was planned for. You had a date night. Yep. You did all your grooming. Yep. You took a shower. Yep. You did everything. You wore your nice underwear. Yep. Right? You made sure you smelled great. Exactly. And you knew that more likely than not, the two of you would be having sex that night. Right. So what is spontaneous about that? You planned. Both people planned. In fact, there was way more planning. Yep. That was back then. And you thought of it being some of the best sex. Yeah. that you and your partner had had. So just remember that, that the conditions were created through a protection. There was a protection in that environment that you two were deciding to give each other attention. Yes. And that you were going back to what you said, you were prioritizing each other and prioritizing the space for intimacy. And I thought that's a great way to look at it. Yes. Yeah. And to help people burst that myth that you talked about. Exactly. Yeah. And even layered on top of that is so much science showing that sometimes we don't start out fully in the mood to have sex with our partner, right? We might start out in a place where we've calmed our nervous system, we've carved out time for intimacy, and we kind of feel like maybe I could have sex, but I'm not totally sure if I'm into it, right? And what we see is that for a lot of people, it's the physiological arousal that precedes the psychological subjective sense of feeling turned on. And so what that means is that it's through once you begin touching your partner, right? Once you begin, you know, whether it is non-sexual touch or if it's just making out, right? I highly recommend just making out with your partner without necessarily it having to lead to sex that then your body kind of thinks, oh, this is hot, right? I want this. This feels good. Suddenly you are in the mood for sex. And what we know, again, is that when couples have this sex where they start out like, am I in the mood? Well, I know it's important. I know sex is healthy for me. I know sex is important for our relationship. So I'm going to really give this a try and really each see if we can make, you know, you know, have have a good, satisfying sexual experience that afterwards it's just as incredible and orgasmic as the sex where maybe they started out thinking, oh, I want to have sex tonight. I'm really, you know, driven by desire. And I think that can be an especially helpful message for many women who feel like, you know, I have to kind of just be lying next to my partner. and it's not, you know, I'm not going to, if I'm not turned on right away, it means I don't want it. That's not necessarily true, right? Sometimes we have to kind of get into the mood and start physically touching our partner before that subjective sense of, oh, I really want this kicks in. I love that. So we're at the portion of the conversation where we're touching on some of these myths you identify. Is it okay that I go through a few other that I pulled from the book? Yes, I would love that. Educate our audience and me on. So you talked about, we already talked about two. Number one, if the sex is good, it should be spontaneous. That's a myth. You addressed that. The second one was, you should want sex before you start having it. That's a myth. And you addressed that. Let's go to the next one. Number three, loss of desire means loss of love or attraction. So many people feel that. I've felt that at different stages in a relationship before where you feel that your other partner or maybe the person who's listening here today feels that about themselves, that they have a loss of desire, and they're like, what does this mean? Does it mean that I have a loss of love or am I just not attracted to my partner? Why is that a myth? Yeah, so we, again, it goes back to this idea that we assume that, first of all, if we lose that sense of attraction to our partner, that there's something wrong in the relationship, right? And this is why a lot of people will kind of panic after that initial honeymoon stage is over in a relationship where you don't want to tear their clothes off every time they walk into the room, right? And there can be times in the relationship even further down the road from that when you're maybe not feeling that hot for your partner all the time, right? And so there are a couple of different ways that we need to address that, right? And the first is to look at the actual sex that you're having Because the reality is that no one craves bad sex. And so is it just that you and your partner have gotten into a rut, right? Is it that you need to go read chapters two and three of my book where I talk about the types of sexual techniques and touch and ways to turn each other on that will lead to better sex, that will lead to more pleasure? because pleasure is what leads to more sex, more desire for sex. So you need to actually look at the sex that you're having already and increase the amount of pleasure there. And also knowing that we don't all crave the exact same type of sex every single time, right? No matter how much you love tacos, no one wants to eat tacos every single night for dinner. They're going to lose their appeal. So what we, again, see in the literature is that couples who introduce something new about once a month tend to enjoy higher levels of sexual satisfaction than couples who introduce novelty less frequently than that. But novelty doesn't mean that you have to be swinging from the chandeliers or, again, going and getting that dominatrix getup. It just means that you need to introduce, maybe it's a new position. Maybe it's a new technique. Maybe it's a better understanding of your body. Maybe it's introducing a sex toy, right? All of these things that can just, maybe it's having sex in a different room or at a different time of day or before you go out for that huge eight course meal, not afterwards, right? So if there are these sort of smaller ways that you can improve pleasure, that's going to bring back that desire. But But what's also important, again, goes back to this idea that if we don't want to have sex with ourselves, we're not going to want to have sex with another person. Right. Meaning if you've lost attraction, if you're not feeling sexy because you're burnt out or because you have resentments in the relationship that you haven't been able to address with your partner or because you feel sort of overall stuck in life. You know, again, we tend to think that our sexual desire exists in this siphoned off area of our life that's not tied into that. But all of those different sources of joy and pleasure, if they're not being fostered, you are at risk for losing that passion and zing in life. Right. And so it's, am I really losing attraction for my partner? Or is it just that my central nervous system is completely over activated? I feel stuck. I'm a little bit resentful of my partner, but don't know how to tell them because society has taught me that I should just be putting up with how I feel and not raising my voice at all. You know, it's just sort of digging into what are those other factors that have nothing to do with your partner at all, but really are more about yourself. I love that. I'd love to share a little anecdote about novelty. So I have a men's group. We've been meeting for almost 10 years. It's called Man Morning. We get together every Thursday here in Los Angeles, and we're all entrepreneurs. So we meet at 8 a.m. exactly on time, and we get together and we talk about things in our life that we're celebrating and navigating. As you know, there's an epidemic of male loneliness that's out there, and men often feel that they can't talk about stuff that's in their life. So it was just an opportunity to get together. And we share, you know, everybody shares different stories. So one of the stories that was shared was one of the guys was mentioning he had just gotten married and they had their first kid. And they were noticing, like a lot of couples notice, that a year in, I think it was two years in, that they were a little bit in this sort of rut. And they both felt it, but they weren't sure. They didn't have the tools. They didn't have your book to help them sort of navigate through that time period. And they probably didn't even have time to feel like they could read a book. Right. And everybody has that stage at some point in time, especially if you have kids. And so they were like, okay, we're finally a little bit more stable in our relationship. We can do date nights. We're not worried about, you know, the kid being so young that we're going to leave them with the nanny by themselves. Let's get, let's do a date night. And so what would happen is he shared that they would get a nanny. they'd be running around all day taking care of stuff working doing everything for everybody else doing stuff for the kids making sure the kids are fed or the kid was fed and then now it's the evening right the nanny shows up and they're like dude all we want to do is sleep exactly and they were like let's just sleep and we'll do a real date night next week right and then they sat together and they said you know and i don't know who initiated him or his his wife said something is missing. We, we both used to love to connect physically. What kind of conditions can we create to sort of bring some of that back? And I said, let's try something new. How did we originally connected? And they've originally connected when they liked to, um, they, they both liked working out. And they said, what if we instead do a date morning, a brunch? Love it. And they, they didn't even know what it was going to lead to. And it wasn't even to have sex that they we're setting the situation up. It was just like, let's have a date morning. So we actually go and we're not just sleeping at home. So they'd have a date morning. They go for a little walk to a local cafe. They'd have brunch or they went to a workout and, and then they went to brunch and they came home, they would shower and they had so much energy and they just spontaneously saw themselves, which wasn't spontaneous. It was the right conditions that were being created where they actually wanted to have sex with each other. Exactly. Because they reconnected in a way that they were familiar with and they weren't doing it at the end of the day after everybody else was being prioritized. And that's a form of novelty that is so simple and so beautiful. Not that the other ones that you mentioned are also beautiful too, that people can think about just a different navigation of the calendar, being a little bit exploratory with your partner and saying, what about this? Or how about that? Or what if we, you know, did X, Y, or Z? And something so simple became now a regular part of their routine when they get a chance to, you know, have one of those date mornings. Exactly. And that's precisely what I'm trying to say is that it's those forms of micro novelty. It's not getting the whole paddle and the whole get up. It's about carving out that time, right? They tried a different time of day that was carving out a time for them where they were, you know, their central nervous systems were calmed. They had come together in a way where they could really connect and they weren't exhausted. I think that's one of the biggest things for couples who are just, you know, have young kids and are in midlife and have so many responsibilities is by the end of the day, you're just simply exhausted. If you're going out for the night and you have a nanny coming, have the nanny come a couple hours earlier, right? Spend time getting together. Dan Savage has a very famous phrase, f*** first, right? Which is this idea literally that you have sex before you go out for the evening, that you don't try to do it when we're all taught is the time of day to have sex, which is, oh, at night when we're falling asleep. Why are we designating the time of day when we're the most exhausted, the most spent for intimacy, which is so critical to our happiness, right? Just because we happen to be in bed and we happen to also be going to sleep at that time. It's just ridiculous. But it goes back to this point that we don't prioritize sex. We expect it to happen and that we don't think of it as something that we need to plan or really prioritize in any way in order to enjoy it. Any other big myths that you want to touch on that I didn't bring up as part of this stage of the conversation? I really, you know, back to this idea that mystery is what breeds desire. I think that what kind of gets conflated sometimes is this idea that, yes, we don't want to become so over familiar with our partners that we don't have any boundaries at all. Right. It's, you know, yes, things can become stale in a relationship, but only when we're not continuing to sort of dive deeper to discover new aspects of each other. And what's been shown to really drive passion in relationships, you know, there's new research from Dr. Amy Muse and her lab showing that when couples are able to focus on their own individual growth and then have time to come back and reconnect, that that is going to drive passion more than if couples are not invested in their own self-growth. And so this kind of comes back to taking care of yourself individually, falling in love with yourself individually before you can connect with a partner. Because if we are developing aspects of ourselves that are new that are driven that are passionate and then we coming back and sharing that with our partner because that what was critical Right In these same studies couples who are off and you know investing this was looking at people who had just started new jobs and relocated The couples who are just sort of focused on that new life that new job, that new passion, but not coming back and sharing that, that's going to lead, that risks kind of spinning off into separate spheres and losing your sense of connection. But if both people can be developing a sense of passion and interest in life and then coming back and sharing that, it's almost like you're seeing each other in a slightly different light each time, right? I mean, that's novelty. It's like you're continuing to fall in love because you're seeing more and more aspects of each other, learning more and more about each other in ways that you didn't see before. And especially if one person is investing in their personal growth and maybe the other is, but most importantly is showing appreciation and gratitude and recognition for how the other person is developing rather than becoming threatened by it or scared or closing off. That's really critical, right? So it's really just, I think, those larger dynamics where we tend to think, oh, you know, the solution here is for us to spend more time apart. I see a lot of social media influencers saying that one of the biggest problems with couples who lose passion in long-term relationships is that they become too enmeshed, right? It's not about being too enmeshed, right? You should be enmeshed. You should know your partner. You should understand what they want, what they're driven by. You just need to keep changing individually, right? You need to keep growing because when that growth stagnates, that is going to impact your relationship and your level of sexual intimacy. So we've covered the myths and you've sprinkled some possible action items that people could try on, right? Stepping into the hat of you could be having better sex. Well, how? You've sprinkled a few of those in. I want to talk about a couple that you feature in the book, and there's plenty more that we won't have time to cover. So please, audience, check out the book. So let's touch on at least a couple that I pulled out for my audience. So create erotic space by removing friction. Yes. What do you mean by that? Really carving out both your individual erotic space as well as the erotic space that you are sharing with your partner, right? And so realizing that you need to close off what Masters and Johnsons termed spectatoring during sex, which means so many of us, it's just so tempting to start judging yourself during the sexual experience itself. whether you are, you know, I've had my students, for example, show me TikToks of social media influencers who will show you the particular positions that you should assume during sex so that you are hiding your stomach or your fat, floppy thighs, which is, you know, these body image issues just really feed into our sex lives in ways that are profound and that are often not talked about. Right. So I tell women, especially, you know, look in the mirror each day, look at yourself and find something that you love, right? Maybe it's your breasts, maybe it's your eyes, maybe it's your fingers, right? But the idea is that if we can overcome our tendency to want to rip ourselves apart, we enable ourselves to achieve something called mindfulness, right? And so sexual mindfulness, lots of research about this from Dr. Lori Brado, is this ability literally to bring the kind of mindfulness that we have in the rest of our lives into ourselves during sex. So that means focusing on your breath, focusing on the sensations in your body, how you're feeling, right? How your body is responding to the touch of your partner. And then also being present in a way where you're looking at how your partner is responding during sex and using those sexual cues to guide what's coming and what you're going to be, the direction that you're going to be taking the experience, right? So again, so many of us just get so in our heads, we're literally turning on the prefrontal cortex, that part of our brain responsible for judging and decision making that needs to quiet in order for pleasure and orgasm to occur, right? But in order to lead into that area, that ability to achieve sexual mindfulness, we need to address things like body image issues. We need to address things like mental load and different types of stressors that are impacting us. We need to influence things like sleep, like we talked about. We need to make sure our body is getting regular doses of movement and activity, which is so important for our well-being. All of those things are going to lead us to carve out that erotic space in our minds, in our bodies that allow us to be truly present during sex so that we can experience pleasure to our utmost ability. And then there's the carving out the space with your partner, like we talked about, which is this idea of planning intimacy, right? Having sex earlier in the day, getting the nanny to come earlier so that you can have time and perhaps fit in some intimacy before you go out for the evening. You know, finding ways to introduce micro novelty like we talked about, right? Whether it's, you know, encouraging your partner to sign up for that book club or go for it in the next step in their career or volunteer for whatever that organization is that they're excited about and that lights them up. But it's really acknowledging that we need to be able to come into our own as people, carve out our mental erotic space in the moment during sex, allow ourselves to get there, and then carve out this space with our partner where we can meet them in an authentic way that's deliberate and intentional, not just falling from the sky, which, as we talked about, is usually not going to happen. It's not going to work. Okay, here's another one you have. Another on the how, a tip, something that people can take home or take to the bed even tonight, use communication that works during sex. Yes. What does that look like? Yes. So I like to give a few, I give a few phrases in my book, right, about different types of conversations. So we've talked about what's the best sex we've ever had, right? I really believe that's a big one, you know, to use as a launching point. but there's going to be you know we think about sexual communication there's the conversations that come before during and after sex right and so we've talked about that before with finding out what are what kinds of fantasies do you have what kinds of things could we try out what you know times of day should we experiment with having sex but then there's the communication that happens during sex which we assume shouldn't need to happen but the reality is that even in a long-term relationship, we need to be able to ask for what we want, right? And so sometimes using phrases like guide me, show me, tell me what you want. Does this feel good? And or behavioral types of feedback, right? Initiating something that you want to do, showing a person with your hand where you want to be touched, right? Using both verbal and nonverbal cues, using noise, moan, sighs, Things that allow your partner to understand how is this feeling and paying attention to those verbal cues of your partner and behavioral cues, the rate of their breath, right? How are they responding to what's happening? Because that is all part of sexual communication. People have different sexual communication styles, right? Some people are going to naturally feel very comfortable using their words and being very forthright about exactly what they want to try. Other people might feel a little bit less comfortable with that, right? And that's where these more behavioral and nonverbal types of communication can come into play. And then there's the communication that needs to happen after the sexual experience, which is kind of the debrief, right? Talking about, wow, that experience was amazing, right? What felt really good? I loved it when you did XYZ with your tongue. I loved it when you initiated that new position, right? Really talking about like what felt amazing, that's going to then build desire for the next time that you have sex. Because like we talked about, pleasure is what invites desire for the next sexual experience. It's focusing on what worked, what brought you a sense of feeling amazing in your body and a sense of connection to your partner. that if you can identify those factors and articulate them, that's going to lead you to feel desire for the next time you have sex. Totally random thing that I want to throw out there that somebody shared on this podcast one time, a woman who I think that, you know, didn't have, that wasn't her expertise, but she was just talking about some of her own research in Senate Space, a medical doctor, and she was saying to my audience that women need to have more frequent orgasms than men, especially if they care about their mental health. And it's a huge part of, her explanation was, it's a huge part of them de-stressing from the world. It's a huge part of them feeling safe in their body. And it's also, if they have a partner that they want to have more sex with, it's also something that is, not that you're doing it for that specifically, but that it's connected to that pleasure that's there. Is there any truth to that that's out there? I think that's an especially important point when we consider the orgasm gap, right? Which is when you ask couples or people who are straight, did you have an orgasm the last time you had sex? Only 67% of women will say yes, whereas 95% of men will say yes, right? And so what is happening in the sexual experience that is leading to fewer orgasms for women? It's probably this emphasis on penetrative sex as sort of the main course, right? Meaning that because of what we see in the media, in porn, in Netflix, we expect women to, you know, have an orgasm within five minutes of penetration just from, you know, penetration. The reality is that only 18% of women can have an orgasm from penetrative sex alone. So yes, it's really important for women especially to explore their bodies and to understand the types of touch that help them to have an orgasm, which for the 82% of women who are not able to have an orgasm from just penetrative sex alone is clitoral stimulation. It all comes down to figuring out what types of clitoral stimulation feel the best to enable you to have more orgasms. There are so many incredible toys that are on the market, whether it is suction technology or there are even toys that have AI sensors that adjust to the specific rhythms of your body and that can sense when you are more aroused and change themselves to adapt to your particular body. There are ones that stimulate the G-spot. There are all different types of creative toys as sexual wellness has become more prioritized in our culture. Use those tools, right? Don't be afraid. Yes, you should be masturbating, right? Everyone should be masturbating, but especially women, to figure out what feels good so that you can, when you're in the context of having sex with your partner, be able to communicate what are those types of touch. And maybe it's about bringing a toy into the bedroom that worked especially well for you. But yes, you need to be masturbating and figuring out what helps you to have an orgasm so that when you're in bed with a partner, you know your body. And that's what leads to that sense of sexual self-confidence that's going to enable you to have more orgasms and a more satisfying sex life, which in turn will cause you to desire sex more. Yeah. And I think even it's beautiful to obviously do things to desire sex more in the relationship, but just looking at the health benefits of an orgasm. Exactly. And I will say it even if I'm not fully accurate, but I've just noticed for myself, like in my own relationship, like I feel like I tell my wife in a very beautiful way, like there's this cycle that I feel human beings can get into, but I think that is a little bit more common for women and men have their own version of this. Yes. And that is, it's so stressful, I'm not taking time for myself. Right? Again, that's not a uniquely woman thing, but there are aspects, just like you were talking about, even if a woman makes more than a man, still, a lot of the household responsibilities fall on her. And even more of the household responsibilities fall on her. So just like that, there's dynamics. So one of the dynamics that I've seen, talking with also the guys in my men's group, your wife or your partner, she is stressed out. She's not taking time for herself. She doesn't have an orgasm either through sex or through her own time through masturbation. And now you're even more stressed out because it's been so much time that's been there. And having those regularly, even on your own time, is just a great way to take care of your own body. Exactly. People in relationships who masturbate actually have more sex and higher levels of sexual satisfaction than people who don't. masturbation is so important just for its own sake, especially for women who tend to feel like they should be ashamed of it and should not be entitled to it. So I want to zoom out real quick and ask a question that our audience, if they're hearing about you for the first time, are asking themselves, which is who the F are you and why should I be listening to you? I'm nodding my head, but as you know, firsthand, there's a lot of different people inside of this space. Yes. That talk about this subject. And it's one of those things that even though it's pretty private for individuals, it's some of the most popular content online with all the extremes, both on social media, all the way to pornography and everything else in between. Yes. So who are you? I mentioned in the beginning, you're a sex researcher, professor and educator. So tell us a little bit more about that. And also like, who are you not? You've been in a long-term monogamous relationship. You've been married over 20 years. Yes. Yes. Congratulations. Same man. Yes. Same man. Same man. You have kids. I have three. You have three kids. Yep. You've gone through the different life stages. You were chatting earlier. You're not a dominatrix. Oh, sorry. I know that's so disappointing, especially to my students. Maybe disappointing to them, but actually there's a lot of people that are here that are listening. They're like, okay, this is building a little bit of credibility because there's something about wanting to learn from somebody who's married long-term, especially for my audience, that has kids, that is in a monogamous relationship, and that is also coming from the evidence space. So expand on that and tell us a little bit more about Dr. Nicole. Who is she? And who at 50 can say she's honestly having the best sex of her entire life. So first of all, I really want to give a message to women that you can be having incredible, passionate, connected sex, even if you have three kids and you've been married for 20 years. It is just about having the tools that society so far has been denying you. So that is really, you know, I mean, in terms of who I am, though, I am a, so I'm a human sexuality professor. I teach at the University of Washington. I have the largest class in the history of the university. I bet. It's pretty popular. It's pretty popular. Although to be fair, it is sex. I'd have to be doing a pretty bad job if it wasn't popular. But it's 1,200 students a quarter, 700 in person, 500 online. And so that means that one third of the University of Washington undergraduates takes my course. And my perspective, right, I have a PhD in psychology. And so my perspective in this class is that I need to be giving you what the research says, right? So I am devouring journals like the Journal of Sexual Medicine, like the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the Journal of Sex Research, as well as going to conferences and talking to people who are at the absolute cutting edge in this field. that many of us aren't getting access to, right? That I think people need to hear from. And if you look at sort of what's happening, I think in the sexual space in general, it's a lot of people who are putting forth opinion that's not necessarily backed by science. And what happens with that is when we teach people something based off of our opinions around a topic that is so stigmatized like sex, It just feeds forth a lot of misinformation. And so I just I feel like I'm here to dispel all of the myths and all of the misinformation that so often floods this this space and really delivers sort of inadequate advice. advice. My class sort of pushes the limits because I'm talking not just about what you see, you know, sex education is not something that is federally mandated. It's, you know, left up to the states. And very few states are offering comprehensive sex positive sex education that's truly covering all of the topics that are recommended by the CDC. And so I find that students are coming into my classroom just with a complete lack of knowledge, right? They have the curiosity, but most of what they've learned about from sex is coming from porn, right? Because they've grown up with online porn everywhere. And so there are all these sort of myths about what makes sex satisfying that I'm trying to slowly dismantle and fill up their heads with the truth about what we know about sexuality in a very positive, honest, vulnerable, science-backed way. I'm an educator, and I am a communicator, and what I love to do is take the research and translate it into a way that can be helpful to people, where it's better understood, and where it just gets out there in a way that feels accessible and not overwhelming. Yeah, that's really beautiful. This is why I was excited to have you on because I want to learn from people like you. And I think that also a lot of people today have this, there's this extremes that are there that we want to have a sex positive culture and talk about stuff. And also, too, we want to honor that every family might have different ways that they want to talk about things. Exactly. And they might not want to have their kids learn about X, Y, or Z. Not that you can prevent kids. They're Googling everything. They're researching everything. So I don't know if that was a question more than just an acknowledgement of the space and how I appreciate your voice. And I know your voice is one of many, and I want all the voices that are there. And I have a feeling that my audience, which listens to me, probably feels very similar to some of those ideas. Absolutely. And I'm so glad you brought that up. And so first of all, I want to say that, Obviously, I am a very sex-positive, open person, but I do have a little bit of beef with the sex positivity movement. In essence, in some ways, has sort of put forth this new standard of what it means to be sex-positive, and that if you are not a dominatrix, if you're not kinky, if you're not choking your partner in the bedroom, if you're not in an open relationship, that somehow you are not leading an evolved life, right? That you're not self-actualized. And this is why, you know, in my hierarchy, when we get to the topics where I talk about those aspects, it's, you know, I say you do not need to do any of these things to reach the top of this pyramid. But Drew, I do think there's value in learning about them, right? First of all, the reality is that being in a consensually non-monogamous relationship today is about as common as people who own a cat. So it is, there are a lot of people out there who you may not know that they're in open relationships or consensually non-monogamous relationships, but they are. And here's the thing. We don't have to say to ourselves, okay, I, you know, in order to be a happy person, this means I need to go be in an ethically non-monogamous relationship, right? I absolutely don't want that to be the message. But learning about ethical non-monogamy it can teach you about some of the inherent challenges to monogamy, right? Because we aren't taught how to do monogamy right when we're growing up. We don't get that education, right? We don't learn about the fact that if you look at anthropological evidence, we did not grow up in these tribes as hunter-gatherers who were in these long-term monogamous relationships for 50, 60, 70 years, right? And so that doesn't mean that you can't have an incredibly fulfilling, sexually connected marriage for that long. I certainly hope to, but it means that you're up against certain challenges, right? Like specifically, a lot of people come to me confessing, oh my God, what happens if I feel attraction to someone outside of my marriage? What happens if I have a sexual fantasy about someone who I'm not married to, right? That's human. That fantasy, that's what's going on in your head. That's just part of what leads our desires to be able to ignite us. And those fantasies are okay. Now, what you do with those fantasies in terms of coming to your partner, whether it's role play, whether it's something that you just keep to yourself, but it's something that's just needs to be normalized because it's an inherent challenge. Same thing with something like kink, right? Even if you have no desire to act out some extreme form of kink, erotic power play is at the foundation of almost every sexual experience. Even if we're talking about what I believe is the most underrated sexual act of all time, which is kissing. There's a leader. There's a follower. In every sexual experience, we're surrendering. We're taking the lead. There's a shift back and forth. There's also so much we can learn from kink practitioners about communication, consent, taking care of each other's needs after the sexual experience so that we feel cared for and not neglected. So my idea with really introducing these topics towards the end of my book is to allow people to understand them because they exist, right? There are a lot of people who are kinky. There are a lot of people who are in these ethically non-monogamous relationships in some format or another. And so we need to be able to normalize and educate them, but also borrow from those types of interests what we can to improve our own relationships, no matter how monogamous or vanilla they are. You know, one of my most popular TikToks is called In Defense of Vanilla Sex, right? And so I do think, again, going back to this idea that because porn is featuring so much aggressive sex that is very, you know, scripted according to gender stereotypes, we lose sight of the fact that slow, intimate, connected sex, where we really are just understanding and, you know, showing up authentically, you know, there's a reason that kissing during sex is one of the most predictive things you can do to induce orgasm in for, you know, for women. Why is that? Kissing probably lowers the speed of sex. It also increases that feeling of emotional intimacy, which is particularly important for women when it comes to orgasm. But, you know, we, again, And a little bit because of the sex positivity movement, one of the side effects has been that, you know, at least among my college students, and I think young people through their 30s today, there's sort of this feeling that that kind of sex is boring, right? And so I'm here to say all of it is good. We need to accept all of it. We need to learn from people who aren't like us. We need to have an open mind because all of it is going to inform what we choose to make our own sex lives better. You can learn from these different situations. And I give a perfect example One of my earliest friends that got married and I really put his marriage on a pedestal I was young and I was like wow this is the type of love that I looking for And it seemed from the outside, like him and his wife were so connected. They had kids really early and, you know, he was successful. She was successful. And it just looked like from the outside, we've all been there before and had, you know, maybe some person listening is they're that family. And I thought, wow, this is the type of, you know, family marriage that I want to have in the future one day. And then because he got married pretty young and he was a little bit older than me, he was also one of the first friends that I had immediately that got divorced. And I hadn't talked to him for a little while. And he was busy. I didn't even know he got in divorce. And then we connected one day and he was in L.A. after, you know, a year and a half after the divorce. And we were just catching up. And I was just saying, like, how are you? and he said, you know, I'm, you know, going through all the stages, and I've been going through all the stages of, you know, grieving the relationship, and why it ended, and other stuff, and they had three kids, and what does that look like? He said, but I want to share something important from you. I think there's something very important that married people can learn from divorced couples. Absolutely. And one of the main things is, I can objectively say for my ex that there is a level of happiness that she has and that I have because of this new schedule that we've created, right? And the schedule is, when we were married, we both were on all the time, every week, everything was always 50-50 down the middle, which is truly, it's exhausting for each person all the time. We have one week where I'm on with the kids and I tell everybody in my company, hey, this is my week with my kids. I can only do X amount of meetings. I only have X amount of bandwidth. This is the boundaries of my schedule. This is the time where I am just completely unavailable unless if you need me, this is the bat phone. You don't call it unless there's an emergency that's there. And I'm present with my kids. I love that. And the week that I don't have my kids, I load up. I take on more. I'm doing more meetings. I'm doing more stuff. I might be traveling during that time period. He said, I know that this is not something that translates immediately to a married couple. But could you take themes of that? Yes. And I don't know what that looks like, but can you take themes of that? And with your partner that you're married to, and especially if you have kids, can you guys carve out situations and time periods and other things? where the person can actually self-actualize and they're not losing who they are in the relationship and everybody's sacrificing so much that nobody ends up winning, which is not what anybody would want. So that's something that surprised me. I was pretty young at the time. I probably was 30 years old when he had shared that information with me or somewhere around there. And I thought, wow, that is a unique and interesting perspective. And if we didn't have this conversation, I would have never thought like, wow, that's something that I absolutely, What would that look like to take into my relationship? No, I absolutely love that. And I think what that really, how that really translates for couples in long-term relationships is that, look, there are going to be times in your life where one partner is maybe more focused on career or has older, you know, aging parents that they're, you know, trying to attend to or who has some sort of other focus that's taking a lot of time and energy. And maybe during that time, the other partner could sort of lean in and take off a lot of the burden. And then in a really healthy relationship, that happens because you know that you might transition to another time where the other partner is given a freedom to be able to explore whatever they're currently passionate about. The idea is that there needs to be an ebb and flow. But what I don't think works is if couples feel like there has to be a hard and fast rule that it is 50-50 throughout life and that there's never any – I mean that's just not realistic, right? I mean, in so many couples, one person might have a career that takes more time or they might have, you know, a personal thing they're going through that's taking up a lot of their energy where they need the support of their partner who is going to be leaning in. But I think what we're up against in this culture is that what the data shows is that for women who are in long-term relationships where they out-earn their husbands, those women are actually more likely to be doing more of the household labor. It's almost like this effort to assure their male partner that they're still a woman and their partner is still a man. And so I'm just saying in those situations, there just needs to be an acknowledgement, right? There needs to be an intentionality and thoughtfulness like your friend was forced to develop through being divorced where it's much more clear cut about whose week it's on and whose week is off. But there's always going to be some kind of unequal load, which is why I tell people that secret to passion in long-term relationships, I think it really comes down to two things. And the first is gratitude, right? It's knowing that it's not going to be a 50-50 split all the time, but just being able to appreciate everything that your partner does for you, right? I mean, this is based on decades of research by the Gottmans showing that we have to have love maps of each other. Love the Gottmans. Yeah. Oh, my God. Love the Gottmans. We need to have love maps, meaning we need to understand our partners' interests, dreams, hobbies, what keeps them up at night, what they're interested in, what's frustrating them, what they're up against. Right. Because if we can have that, it's often not so much about, OK, you're doing the dishes and I'm vacuuming. Although there is research showing that men who vacuum have more sex in their relationships than men who don't. But sponsored by Dyson. Exactly. But there, you know, there's never going to be a perfect split. But when there's gratitude and a development of I want to know what your love map is and I want to know what drives you and what you're passionate about, that's going to lead to better intimacy, right? We all, at the end of the day, just want to feel seen. We all just want to feel validated and acknowledged and appreciated. And if we can just offer our partners that, that is the most important step. Yeah. What do you say to a person who's saying, okay, I was in a relationship. We had that, people use the word chemistry, that connection, that spontaneity. And it feels like there's a lot of mismatch, right? You made this funny reel with your husband where you were saying you're going to answer these top questions and you're jumping in the pool. And one common one that's there is that, you know, somebody wants to have sex in the morning and somebody is more of an evening person, right? So somebody saying, we used to have this chemistry. We used to have this. We used to have that. But now it's just there's so many things that are in the way besides life getting busy. They're a morning person. I'm an evening person. They want to try. I want to try new things. They don't want to try new things. What do you want to say to that individual who's having that loop in their head as a justification to say, I get it, Dr. Nicole, that this works for everybody else. But me and my partner are different. So first of all, normalizing that, right? There's going to be a certain level of sexual desire discrepancy in every single relationship. Yeah, that's 100% normal. That's 100% normal. And it's, you know, it starts out as, you know, looking at there's sort of different types of discrepancies that exist, right? So if it is something about you're a morning person and they prefer having sex at night, it's about understanding that not all of the sex that you have has to be the same. And so it's just sitting down and having a conversation with your partner about that. And again, if you're planning intimacy and you know that each of you has different times when you're more likely to feel turned on, that person who is an early morning person, maybe their partner is never going to want to feel like they're up for sex at 7.30 in the morning. but maybe they go to brunch like your other friend did and they find that it's a before noon thing, right? And that's a compromise that they can both kind of reach. It's about having these creative solutions, right? Or maybe it's that one partner wants to try out a certain type of sexual activity that the other one feels uncomfortable with, right? So I'll give you an extreme example. I had a couple who described to me where one of them wanted to, you know, tie the other one up. And they felt really uncomfortable with that. And they kind of felt like, why does my partner want to tie me up? What does that mean? What does that mean about how they feel about me? What does that mean about our relationship dynamics? You know, do they just want to take control of me in the rest of my life? And if you can have a conversation and understand that what you do in the bedroom, your erotic life in the bedroom is very different than your erotic, than your mental life outside the bedroom. And oftentimes the things that we fantasize about and the people that we become in the bedroom are politically incorrect, are the opposite of the people that we are during the day. And so again, this kind of circles back to the topic we talked about earlier where it's often not the sex act itself that feels so scary, but the meaning assigned to it. And so if couples can talk about, in this instance, where they were able to understand, you know, it's not that, you know, the one partner wants to, you know, literally have her husband dominate her in other areas of the light, her life, or, you know, you know, be at all aggressive towards her. But maybe it's that in the rest of her life, she feels like she has all these responsibilities, has to be very dominant in other aspects. And so when she comes into the bedroom, she likes that kind of taboo position of being tied up or being, you know, having a little bit every now and then more of a sort of spicy, aggressive type of sex. It might be that that's just part of her sexual repertoire and that by simply understanding that her husband can kind of feel more at ease with it. And maybe it's that there's not full on, you know, tying up, but maybe there's just a blindfold. Maybe there's just, you know, tying hands together or pinning hands together above your head. There can be elements that are brought in, but oftentimes it's just feeling like our partner understands what we want and cares about what we want and can introduce ingredients that allow couples to meet each other. And then, you know, you have to consider, of course, in extreme examples, what if it's something that you are just really not up for, right? What if it's, you know, there is one couple I talked to, you know, the husband wanted to have his wife wear a strap on And she just could not get her head around that. Right. And it's like that's the kind of situation where the person who has that strong sexual desire, you know, is that very specific sex act something that feels like, oh, that'd be fun to try? Or is it something that you really can't be happy without? Right. If it's something that you truly can't be happy without, that's a question about larger issues of sexual compatibility in your relationship. But a lot of times it's more about feeling seen in that desire and finding creative ways to introduce elements of it without having it to be this binary like we do it or we don't. I just want to still touch upon this desire discrepancy idea, though, because a lot of the discrepancy that I think that couples face is just frequency, how often they want to have sex. And again, in this situation, sometimes it's the creative solution, right? It's almost a typical negotiation. My partner wants to have sex five times a week or every day. I'm really OK with it once every two weeks. Maybe the compromise is you put it on the calendar for once a week, right? Or twice a week. Plan intimacy. Talk to each other. Find the ways that allow you to feel sexy and want to have it. But oftentimes, it's really about what's the underlying need? Does the person who wants more sex, is it about sexual release? In that case, again, back to masturbation, very healthy solution, right? Or is it that the person who wants much more sex just wants more time to connect with their partner, right? Are there other ways that the people can connect and carve out time for each other and hear each other and see each other and feel appreciated by each other that don't involve sex? So it's really just about kind of creative problem solving where you come together and you talk about the issue because that's the number one thing that couples don't do is they don't talk about it. And they just assume that these discrepancies are unsolvable and have a very sort of, you know, what we call a sexual destiny belief, which is that just is what it is. We're not compatible. No. Have a growth mindset. Believe change is possible. Find creative solutions where both of you can be satisfied. That's fantastic. I love that. What are your thoughts on this? This is like the hot takes section of the interview. There are different sort of memes that are out there in the world that are both coming from men and women. I've seen it from both sides. that say, hey, the same way that if you're in a relationship and you're making a commitment with each other and you want to build a household, a family, or even just a thriving relationship, even if you don't want kids or you don't have kids, you're making a commitment as a couple that says that I'm not one day just going to say I'm not working anymore. And that, hey, financially I'm not, have any responsibility in the household. Even if that's, you know, there are obviously times where people make a collective decision, say, hey, it might be better for you to stay home with the kids. You've always wanted to imagine yourself as like spending more time with the kids. You don't want work to get in the way. Fine. OK, there might there's we've deciding as a couple, as a relationship that, hey, you're you're going to be a stay at home mom who works at home. Right. Because kids is a lot of kids is a lot of work. Right. But you wouldn't one day just say, I'm not going to participate in the economic health of this family. And you wouldn't one day raise your hands and say, as a male, female, husband, a wife, you wouldn't say, I just am not going to participate in the child raising portion. We've had kids. I'm not involved in that aspect. So in that same way, the conversation goes, sex is a responsibility and a privilege in a relationship. And to just opt out of it is breaking a fundamental violation of the relationship. Unless if, you know, both parties agree and get a chance to, you know, say, fine, okay, that's what we're deciding on. What are your thoughts on that? 100% agree with that. And this is why couples should have conversations about sex and what their, you know, for lack of a better word, expectations are early on in a relationship, like when they're getting married. What do you both want out of life? What are your career goals? Who's going to, you know, spend more time with the kids? What's the division of household labor going to kind of look like. But also sex, right? What's our sex life going to look like? Is it something that we are going to prioritize? How are we going to make sure that we are putting sex on the calendar and prioritizing intimacy? Yes, absolutely, 100%. That is something that you should be agreeing to early on in the marriage. And I do agree with, I think what you're saying, which is that if one person just 20 years in the relationship is like, I'm opting out of sex. You have nothing to say with this. I'm just not a sexual person. I don't want as much as you. I don't want to talk about it. Exactly. And I've had so many people, men mostly, reach out to me over social media complaining about this. Right. And so, of course, I don't think that that is OK. Right. And I think that, you know, there's sort of two sides to this because on the one hand, my initial reaction is there's something going on with her, whether it is there's something deeper, right? There's some kind of deeper resentment in the relationship or so much research coming out about perimenopause and menopause. Maybe they've gotten to a place where she'd really benefit from hormone replacement therapy, right? Huge, absolutely huge. Um, but what's not okay is for one person to say, I don't care about sex anymore. You just need to deal with that. And end of conversation, not okay in a relationship. And so I do want to make the person, if you know, you are in a relationship and your partner has said that to you, you have a right to be upset about that. And that is something where you need to be able to feel empowered to sit down with your partner and say, intimacy is important. And this is something that I really want to build with you and find a way forward to foster in our relationship. And let's figure out what are these deeper issues that might be getting in the way. And if the answer is still no, I think you need to consider whether or not you still want to be in that relationship, right? Because it might just be, you know, that one person deciding it's going to be sexless and the other person saying, no, sex is still really important to me. That's not a happy relationship. That's not a good place for either person to be living in, right? And so I think you need to sort of honor sexual satisfaction as something that both people are entitled to if that's been agreed to up front. Now, I do want to say that there are couples that report high levels of relationship satisfaction where neither one of them really wants sex anymore. Totally fine. And that happens totally fine. But when one partner really feels like they do want it and the other person has just said no and said that part of our life is over, that's not okay, right? And you have a right to either sit down with your partner and really expect them to come to the table and have a conversation about how to work through that or to simply leave the relationship. And I know that might not be a popular opinion, but I do think that sex is important enough that if there's that fundamental, unchangeable element of compatibility, we need to honor that the way we would, you know, honor the fact if our partner was hellbent on not having kids and we really wanted kids, right? It's just as important a factor in a relationship that needs to be given attention. Yeah, or at least communicating to the person that this is so foundational. Yeah, exactly. I want to get on the same page. I want to be there, but if we can't, it threatens the foundation of who we are, and it brings up a whole host of other questions. Exactly. I think that's most couples where one person, you know, from friends of mine that have been in this situation, have shared this. And again, there's always something deeper going on. The other person may just not know... Right. ...how bad it is for them. But then, by that individual expressing how challenging it's been for them, maybe the other partner opens up about how something else has been challenging for them. That creates a whole other dialogue that's there. Exactly. Because usually if there was a thriving sex life at some point, and then it's just teetered off and it's died, there usually is something deeper going on, right? It's rarely just about the sex. There's usually either some other kind of resentment that needs to be addressed, or, like I talked about, different, you know, biological things that could be happening with hormones. You know, as we're winding down here today, and this has been fantastic, by the way. It's such a pleasure to meet you, get a chance to talk about this subject. It's not a topic that we cover super frequently on the show, so I'm honored that we get a chance to talk about it with you. And I think our audience has found a lot of value so far, and even more value you can find inside of the book. There's plenty of topics that we didn't get a chance to cover. You know, we started out this podcast by talking about the benefits and really sort of reminding people that even if you want better sex and if you want better intimacy in your life and more pleasure, regardless of whether you have a partner, you're single, whatever it might be, I'm imagining most people listening to my podcast are probably in a relationship. People are across the spectrum. Like everybody, our society gets busy and we can forget about it. So we're reminding you of the reasons to prioritize it, right? Yes. To prioritize connection in your life with your partner and with yourself. And we've talked about all the benefits that come when you do that and what it could look like. Sometimes I feel that another way to touch on this message is to also talk about when things go wrong. And here's what I mean by that. We know all the benefits for prioritizing it, but I'm sure as a researcher, as a professor, as an educator, People come to you with their darkest moments sometimes. Yes. What's at stake if this isn't prioritized for folks? What have you seen? I think it can lead to just all sorts of disconnection from yourself, from your body. If you're not addressing your level of sexual wellness, if you're not addressing the fundamental ability for you to enjoy sexual pleasure in your life, you're essentially abandoning yourself, right, at a really fundamental level. And lack of attention to your sex life is a profound form of self-abandonment in that it is saying this part of your life that ties into how you physically feel, how you cognitively feel, how you can connect with your relationship, how you can explore your curiosities, how you can really foster a sense of play and joy in your life, if you're not giving attention to that, you're kind of telling yourself at a certain level that you don't matter, right? That the world's needs come before your own, that everybody else's issues and all those responsibilities are more of an importance than your own happiness. So if you If you want to be the kind of person that is prioritizing your happiness and your well-being, you need to be paying attention to this very important aspect of yourself. Otherwise, you're really sort of leaving yourself in a disconnected, lonely, sort of unhappy place. Yeah. And we don't want that for ourselves. We don't want that for anybody who's listening. No. Yeah. And the truth is, it's never too late... Exactly. ...to start turning in the right direction, especially when you have resources. sources. I'm so thankful that I live in the day and age where I can listen to podcasts, follow people like yourself on social media, have incredible books at my fingertips that can guide us. And a huge part of that is understanding that everybody is going through this in some version of another. Exactly. Don't have to feel shame. And there's something that we can do about it. And you reminded us of all those things today. Dr. Nicole McNichols, thank you for being on the podcast. I so appreciate you being here. Thank you, Drew. This was amazing. Thanks for having me. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already subscribed, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share with a friend, share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy to digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free, and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This, or just go to DrewPerrowit.com, that's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-O-H-I-T.com, and click on the tab that says Try This.