E253: Ask A Sex Therapist: dry spells, sex pillows, and morning sex

How to overcome feeling ridiculous in lingerie. My partner loves morning sex and I am not a morning person. How to navigate this. We're so tired after parenting and working that we're too tired for sex. How can we fix this? How long until a dry spell in a marriage is overly concerning? Pros and cons on sex pillows. Oh, sex pillows. Yes. Our new favorite topic. Hello and welcome to the Pillow Talks podcast. We're your hosts Vanessa and Xander Marin. I'm a sex therapist with over 20 years of experience and I'm just a regular dude. We share the ups and downs in our relationship while giving you step-by-step techniques for improving yours. Make sure you subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you'd had. Today we are back with another round of Ask a Sex Therapist. Oh, that was so lispy. Wow. It's really unfair. I was gonna let you go with this one. But I have a little lisp and it comes out the worst when I have to say my own job. Sex therapist. Great. Actually, the whole title is hard. Ask a sex therapist. You kind of, you struggle on the thug, the therapist. Okay, go ahead. Do it fast. Ask a sex therapist. Ask a sex therapist. That is really hard. That is hard. Ask a sex therapist. It's hard to crisply get all the s's. It's the sex because it ends with a sound and then you have to go straight into the therapist. Sex therapist. Have I told my lisp story on the podcast? I don't know. I think you should. If you have it, it's been a long time. Okay, so I did not know that I had a lisp. And to be fair, I have a very, it's a slight lisp. It's really just on the s's a lot of times. It's very slight. Yeah, it's slight. But here's the way that I found out that I had a lisp. We were at Xander's house. It's early, early year. This is like early days of dating in the late 2000s. Probably like two to three months into dating. Yeah, so 2007. 2008. Oh yeah, sorry. We started dating at the end of 2007. So Xander lived in a house with a bunch of dudes, all like friends from college. It was a pretty gross house. It was. And apartment. We were, they were having a party. So I was there and one of his roommates who has a very strong lisp was like, wow, isn't it funny that at this party there are two people with lisp? And I was like, two is the other one. And everybody looked at me. And that's how I found out that I have a lisp at 23 years old. So anyways, cool story today. Welcome to our podcast. Welcome to our podcast. I swear we talk about sex. Yeah, today we are going to be answering some of your questions. So we do an Ask Us Anything weekly on Instagram, although side rant. It's been hard to do Ask Us Anything on Instagram. We've been struggling on Instagram, you guys. I'll just be honest. I'll go on a little side rant here. Whatever the latest algorithm change and like, look, we've been on social media for over a decade. We get that you're always having to change and adapt and, you know, the algorithm changes. You got to learn new things. That's just a part of the game. But this most recent algorithm change, it really changed how stories get viewed. So we've discovered that if we post story, like we love showing up in stories, we like to do them daily. We like to do a mixture of helpful information, but also silly things and behind the scenes of our lives and pictures of our dogs. Yeah. And like we want to be able to go deep enough on helpful stuff that it's not just like a 30 second sound bite of why something is important. Like we want to be able to tell you why it's important, how that shows up and give some tips for what to do next. And that takes just a couple of minutes for us, but not 30 seconds. Well, and with these Ask Us Anything, I would answer, I think, 12 questions every week, 10 or 12 questions every week. But anyways, what we've discovered is that the more stories we post, the lower our views go. And so we've experimented with this. If we post one to three slides every other day, then we'll get way, way, way better. We're talking 10x difference. This is not like a little tiny like vanity, you know, difference. Like, oh, I wish it was like just a little bit higher. This is a 10x swing. So it's just been really frustrating that our decision is, do we do stories the way that we want to do, but nobody sees them. Yeah, like valuable stuff. In a way that is actually valuable for you if you happen to know that we have a story live, which is unlikely that Instagram will show it to you. Or do we play the Instagram game, you know, whatever this algorithm changed, however long it lasts, do we play the game and, you know, we're not really ourselves. We're not super personable. We're just sharing super short little things. But then people actually get to see it. It's really frustrating. It's like, I want people to be able to see it. I will admit it also feels demoralizing to work so hard trying to connect with our community and see that nobody's seeing it. So it's just really challenging. If you have any thoughts or opinions, we'd love to hear it. You can come over to Instagram at Vanessa and Zander. Yeah, if you work intimately at Instagram with the Instagram algorithm, help us out. Oh, we love that. Can you just like swing things for us a little bit? Put us on the good boy list or whatever. But yeah, so we haven't done ask us anything the last two weeks. So we're doing it here. Nobody sees it. So we're doing it here. We're answering some of your questions. We're going to be talking about sex pillows, dry spells, morning sex, body confidence, and so much more. So should we get into it? All right. Okay, sex therapist. That is me. That's you. Okay. How to overcome feeling ridiculous in lingerie? Okay, I have an answer, but I actually, I first want to ask you something as our resident man. Have you ever seen any woman in lingerie and thought that woman looks ridiculous? I am laughing at the how preposterous this question sounds. As soon as you started asking it, I had a feeling what you were about to ask, and I was right. And I was like holding down, like pulling a face. Because it's so absurd. No. The only exception is what is that? You follow that one account on Instagram that what they do is they make fun of the, they make fun of influencers doing ridiculous things. Was it like Celeste Barber or whatever? Or she intentionally wears? She intentionally wears ridiculous. She'll get some random like thirst. So like show like a thirst trap video, like someone like doing some stupid dance in some ridiculous skimpy lingerie. And then she will like wear like an over the top like version that like doesn't fit her. And yeah, she creates it with like household items. They're usually be wearing like, you know, rubber gloves, like cleaning gloves. So she's trying to look ridiculous in lingerie. So she does. But if you are not trying to look ridiculous in laundry, you're just wearing normal lingerie. I can't under, I can't even comprehend where are like how I could be like that looks ridiculous. There you have it. That's like, that's like, that's like, do you ever, do you ever like put your penis into a vagina and it hurts? Like, no, it feels good. What? What? It is such a weird comparison. Like in its paint, like like, but it's like, it doesn't make any sense. Like you do this thing because it feels good. I am not following your comparison at all. Yeah, I'm saying lingerie is hot. And if like you're going to put lingerie on for me, it's going to be hot. It's not going to be ridiculous. Like it, it's like it does not compute type of thing. It's supposed to not compute. Well, just leave it as does not compute. Okay. Now I want to answer this question. So I think that there's a bunch of stuff wrapped up in this. Obviously, I think there's some body confidence stuff that's coming up. And I'm guessing that you feel ridiculous in lingerie because you feel like your body isn't perfect because we the only images that we ever see of people in lingerie are supermodels who are six feet tall and ridiculously thin and have huge boobs and huge butts. And of course they look perfect in lingerie. And you know, I, yeah, I'll admit there have totally been times that I've put on lingerie and thought like, Oh my God, I do not look like that. So I get it. Like of course so many of us struggle with body image. Of course lingerie is like some of the most, it is the most vulnerable thing we can wear. So it very easily brings up that body insecurity. So obviously there's going to be some like deeper body image work to do here. But I just want to say that I don't think this will make a huge impact. But like your body is perfect and beautiful. And I can promise you that your partner would just die to see you in lingerie. And truly like men do not. This was such an interesting thing that I learned from Xander that honestly took me a little bit of time to fully internalize. But like as women, we have been socialized and taught to pick our bodies apart and pick other women's bodies apart. And we look at ourselves and other women as a series of body parts. Oh, her stomach is too flabby. Her arms are wobbly. She doesn't have a thigh gap. But or like comparing their body part to your own like her boobs are better than mine. Her, you know, oh, like my stomach is larger than hers. Yeah. Men see the full package. They don't see body parts and they really don't see these flaws in our bodies. I'm putting that in air quotes if you're not watching. By the way, our videos are podcast episodes are on YouTube if you want to watch. You want to see the air quotes? Yeah, they don't see these quote unquote flaws that we see in our own bodies. Like your guy and I'm assuming that you have a male partner because I don't think you'd be feeling this level of insecurity with a female partner. But I could totally be wrong about that. But your role, let's just say your partner is not looking at your body thinking like, I wish I want to change that. And that could be a little bit better. Like they're just looking at the whole package and thinking, wow. Unless you are that asshole on love is blind. What's his name? I don't even want to say. Chris, I think, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like it's... Let's be real. People like that are out there unfortunately, but they don't deserve to have sex with you. They don't deserve to see you in lingerie. Yeah. So yeah, if you have a partner like that, then don't wear lingerie. Break up with that partner. Yes. They do not deserve to see you in lingerie. But yeah, if your partner wants to see you naked, I can guarantee you they want to see you in lingerie. Like how would if they like seeing you naked, how would they not like seeing you almost naked in lingerie? Okay. There might be another dynamic coming up. A lot of times we hear from women like it feels stupid to put lingerie on because I'm just going to be taking it off like 30 seconds later. Just like I think it feels stupid to wrap a present for you because you're just going to rip the wrapping paper off and open the present. Like the outcome is the same. You're going to get the present. Sam's wrapping paper, right? Like you're going to get it no matter what. You're going to get it. Yeah. No, that's always my favorite comparison, the wrapping paper. It's like, yeah, of course it's coming off right away, but who doesn't it looks nicer. It looks nice for a moment. And it's fun to unwrap. Helps you get excited. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. Look at this. Look at this packaging. So if that's part of it for you where you're like, this is so silly. I'm putting it on and just to take it off. Like don't worry about that. That's it's part of the fun. It doesn't matter that it comes off right away. Also, sometimes women feel self-conscious about putting the lingerie on. And I think this really ties into people feel a lot of shame around being intentional about sex. We hear this in so many different realms where they're like, oh, I don't want to put the sex playlist on because then it'll make it obvious that we're going to have sex. Or I don't want to let the candles because then we're going to have sex. Should I put the music on? Yeah. Like it makes it too obvious. But that's part of ensuring a great experience, like preparing for it, putting effort into it. Like we have these crazy expectations that we put on sex that we don't put on anything else in life. Like imagine having a date night and then telling your partner like, no, don't, don't talk out loud about the date night. I don't want to acknowledge that we're going on date night. That it's too awkward. You're making it weird. You're making it weird. Don't talk about restaurant. Don't make a reservation. Don't look at any menus online. Don't decide where we're going to go. Like no, we just have to magically show up at the same restaurant at the same time. Like we never do that. That's insane, right? Though we do that with sex. So if that's what's coming up for you, then yes, like preparing for sex is a good thing. It's a necessary thing. And we actually did do it a lot at the beginning of our relationship. When you were dating, you didn't, you did not feel self-conscious or stupid or awkward about putting on lingerie at the beginning of your relationship. You were like, oh, we have a, we have a hot date night tonight. I want to look my best. I'm going to put on my cute new little set. So, so reframes there. I will also say most guys get excited when you acknowledge that sex is about to happen. Like it's fun to talk about. That helps get the juices flowing, so to speak of like, you know, like if you were to say, hey, how about I go put something sexy on one, I'm like, hell yeah, two, then I have a couple of minutes of anticipation, not only because I know we're going to have sex, but also the anticipation for what you are going to be wearing, what you're going to look like when you come out of there, what it's going to be like for me to get to take it off of you. Like, yeah, you are creating more excitement by doing this. Another little trick is you can just wear the lingerie all day if you can deal with the discomfort of it, but that can actually be fun. A fun thing to play with on your own, just knowing, hey, I'm wearing my work clothes or, you know, I'm just at home wearing my like yoga pants and sweatshirt, but I got something cute on underneath. Like that could be a nice way to help you feel sexy in your lingerie. And then one final thing I'll say, who knew I could go so deep on lingerie? I know all this time on this one question. But the other thing I'll say about lingerie is you have to find your own style of lingerie too. I think most women hear lingerie and we just think like Victoria's Secret, like some super over the top, really strappy, sparkly, pink, glittery, shiny. A brand whose all the product images are those types of models, super skinny, huge boobs type of models that don't look like 99.9 percent of real people out there. But that's not the only lingerie that exists. And if you look at that stuff and you're like, that's not my vibe. I don't think that's cute. That's not sexy to me. Like, don't buy that stuff. Look for other kinds of lingerie. Yeah, there are brands where the models that they use are much more regular everyday people. Yeah. And there's so many different kinds of styles. So maybe you don't want to wear a thong, but you can find some cute little boy shorts that you feel super sexy in. Maybe you don't like a bra, but you like a little silky nightgown or you like a one piece, something that covers your stomach. You know, there's just a million different styles, colors, shapes, everything. Like it doesn't have to just look one way. So I think it's worth spending some time just searching around the internet looking for like, hey, what looks cute to me? What feels like me? So Xander is out of town right now on a surfing trip and I'm feeling a little lonely at the house. And this is why I am extra grateful to have a very cozy bed to crawl into at the end of the night. And a lot of that is thanks to cozy earth. They make some of the softest, coziest, most luxurious bedding. It makes our bed feel like an absolute sanctuary. Makes me so grateful to crawl in at the end of the night. They also make a ton of other incredible products. They have towels. They have clothing. If you want extra comfy jammies, they even make comforters and socks. Xander loves the socks. They're super cushy. Their bedding comes with a hundred night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty. Discover how care in every detail transforms simple routines into moments of true comfort and ease. Head to cozy earth.com and use our code pillow for up to 20% off. And if you get a post purchase survey, please be sure to mention that you heard about cozy earth right here on pillow talks. Experience the craft behind the comfort and make every day feel intentional. That's cozy earth.com code pillow. All right, Vanessa. Mother's Day is right around the corner and I always struggle with a Mother's Day gift because my mom is such an unbelievable badass. And she just shows up for both of us in like, I will get emotional just like thinking about what an incredible mom my mom is. And it's hard to find a gift that really matches how meaningful that relationship can be. But fortunately, we discovered Storyworth. We gifted this to my mom last year and she absolutely loves it. If you've never heard of Storyworth before, they give your loved one a year long experience and give your family a book filled with the stories that only that person can tell. So every week they send your mom like a question about her life. She responds however she wants. You can write back over email, voice recording, or even a guided phone call. They make it really easy. And then they compile all those stories into a beautiful keepsake book that you get to look at for years to come. One of my favorite stories that I learned about my mom was about her cars growing up. Her low riders. Yeah, never would have thought to ask about that. Storyworth has over 50,000 five star reviews this year. Give mom a gift that helps her reflect on her life with fresh perspective and gives your whole family the gift of her stories. Mother's Day is Sunday, May 10th order right now and save up to $20 at storyworth.com slash pillow. We're so tired after parenting and working that we're too tired for sex. How can we fix this? Okay, so let's start with acknowledging that parenting is the most exhausting job in the whole world. I've definitely gotten, I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for parents. I've always had a lot of respect for my family. I've always had a lot of respect for my family. I've always had a lot of respect for my family. I've always had a lot of respect for my family. I've definitely gotten, I've always had a tremendous amount of respect for parents and how hard and just all encompassing and consuming your job is. But especially since my sister gave birth to our niece Poppy, this is the first like grand baby in the family. I've, you know, gotten a renewed appreciation for just how hard it is. My sister and my brother-in-law are exhausted. So I don't want to downplay it. I think it's really important to normalize it and validate it. Like it feels hard because it is hard. And you're also talking in this question too, it's like your parenting and work gave, you have two jobs, maybe even more than two jobs, right? So it's that juggling act. It's trying to like, you know, do so much. So it feels hard because it is hard. So let's start there. And then let's talk about a couple of things that you can do. So the very first thing that I want to recommend is to talk about it openly with your partner. Even if nothing changes, just acknowledging the situation makes such a big difference. And most couples do not do this. Most couples, they will get into a dry spell. We have a question about dry spells coming up next to them. But most couples will get into a dry spell and they'll feel embarrassed about it. They won't want to acknowledge it. So they kind of bury their head in the sand and they don't talk about it. And that just leaves so much space for misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Where the partner is left wondering like, hey, it's been a while. Does my partner know it's been a while? Are they missing sex? Are they missing me? Are they still attracted to me? Do they still want to have sex with me? It's very easy to spiral out. So at the very minimum, just being able to acknowledge to your partner, hey, we are in such a busy season right now. I know we are both so exhausted. We are giving it our all and it doesn't feel like enough. This is so hard. I just want you to know. I need you to know that I miss you. I miss us. I miss that quality time that we used to have. I miss the intimacy between us. I know this is just a season and I want us to work on trying to get out of it as soon as we can. And I also just want to acknowledge this is our reality right now. And I want you to know that I miss you. That one little speech repeated often seriously makes such a big difference. So at the very least, start there. Okay. The next advice that I would give you is to try to prioritize intimacy as early in the evening as possible. And again, I'm not saying this is easy. This is challenging for sure. But very often, and this is true honestly for couples who don't have kids either, it's very easy for us to get sucked into this evening routine of chores. So we're like, you know, we're having dinner and then we're cleaning up after dinner. And then we've got to fold that load of laundry that we didn't get to. And then we need to write back to those emails and we need to pay those bills. And then we need to put the kids to bed and then we need to do all these other chores. So we often get swept up in just doing chores. And like again, we have to be realistic chores have to get done. Right. It's not like we can just ignore all of this stuff. But try to prioritize intimacy as soon as you have the privacy. Like so as soon as the kids are down, you know, down for the night, try to spend some time with each other then because here is the secret to sex. Sex gives you your time back. I know it does not seem like that. I know it seems like we don't have the time for sex. There's literally not a spare second in our day. But when you are connected with your partner, when you are on the same page, when you're feeling close and intimate, you are a team, a true team and a team blasts through chores and responsibilities so much faster. We have experiences in our own relationship countless times where we thought. It's like time travel. We thought it's magic. Yeah, we've thought like we do not have the time. There is no time for sex. And we've said, nope, fuck it. We're having sex for prioritizing us. And then we just jam through all the stuff that we have to get there. And we're like, whoa, how did that happen? It's truly magic. So I want to encourage you to give this a shot. Another thought here as well is you're talking about like prioritize it as soon as you get the kids down. And I guess, well, one, that's assuming the kids are young enough where it's like, there's this whole putting them down type of routine. There's another scenario where the kids are maybe older and a bit more self sufficient. And there, you know, they're sort of a, hey, you know, maybe we need to get creative about getting ourselves some alone time in our own room with some music on with white noise machine, with the TV on, whatever is like, can I increase my tolerance for having sex in my home with the door locked even when the kids are awake? But going back to the other scenario, which is like, you got to get the kids down. Can you consider moving up the kids bedtime a little bit? That is one option to get a little time, move it up by half an hour. Is that, is that in the realm of possibility? That is definitely, you know, I think a lot of us are like, oh, well, you know, but it's whatever. It's eight o'clock, that's bedtime. That's what it's always been. But we know lots of parents that put their kids to bed at, you know, the kids don't know the difference if they're young enough, like an hour that objectively seems a little early because they're like, you know what, the kids don't really know the difference. And it's, they get into this pattern and that gives us more time back. So that's an option. But regardless of the timing of it, I think one big mistake that people make is that it's like, okay, we just put the kids down. I need to relax for a second. And I think that is the mistake that most people make is the, now, if you want to like sit alone and try to like kind of come back to your own body and tune back in to yourself, that is a different story. But what most people do is they go, huh, I'm going to sit down on the couch. I'm going to pull out my phone. I'm going to open Instagram and I'm going to start doom scrolling. And that turn on that. That yeah, or you turn on Netflix. That is not going to get you into the mood for having sex. We think, Oh, I need to like recharge for a minute. My suggestion is unless you are super, super touched out. And in that case, you just need a couple of minutes to yourself in like a dark room, not with a screen. So that's a different story. But I would suggest you two get together, get into the bedroom, get naked, get together into the bed, and have that be your moment to relax and start touching each other, give each other a massage, let that be your transition time rather than the getting on the couch. Because once you get on the couch, you're just sucked in. And once you open Instagram, you're done. You're done. You're totally done. How are you going to be getting in the mood from watching Instagram stories? It's not like you're going to reach a certain level of relaxation and all of a sudden be horny. You have to create the desire yourselves. Like I hate to say it, but after a long day of parenting and working, the vast majority of people are not going to feel strong desire. You have to go co-create that together. So just get in the bedroom together and be like, we're going to lie together for 10 minutes naked before there's any like, you know, move towards actually having sex. And let's just see how we feel. Do we maybe we talk, maybe we check in, maybe we rub each other's shoulders, see how that goes. I think that's going to make a huge difference. Absolutely. I mean, the reality is the average American watches, I can't remember the exact step, but it was between it's bad. It's between five and six hours of have on their phone and then three to four hours of watching TV every day plus time gaming. Like it's crazy. So I know we all feel so busy and overwhelmed. And again, I'm not trying to detract from the fact that parenting is exhausting and all-encompassing. And the reality is, I think a lot of us aren't, most of us, probably all of us, we aren't fully honest with ourselves about how we're spending our time, that we are wasting a lot of our time relaxing with our screens when in actuality, it's not relaxing and it's not bringing us any actual intimacy, happiness, connection with the people that actually matter in our lives. So that's, it's a really good point to bring up. Um, I will also say another tip is to take the bar down, especially with male, female couples. We have this tendency to think that intercourse is the only thing that counts as sex. Yeah. But if you're exhausted, overwhelmed parents, that's a pretty high bar to intimacy. But if you can think of like that everything counts as sex, any sort of physical contact between the two of you can count as sex, then you're going to have a lot more sex and you're going to feel a lot closer and more connected. So even if it's just like, hey, all we have the energy for is just to get naked in bed and make out. Maybe it's, hey, we can masturbate side by side. That's all I got in me. Or we're just going to use our hands on each other. Or one person's going to go down on the other person in that. Like the more options that you have on the table, the more sex you're going to have. I think, yeah, I think one of the easiest, like if you're, if you're shooting for both people having an orgasm, one of the easiest and most underrated things to do is use your hands on each other. You know, you give him a hand job, he fingers you. If I know a lot of guys are weird about hand jobs because it seems like really juvenile. But if you check out our ultimate four play guides, there are some techniques in there that really elevate hand jobs. I like, I think that men would be surprised at how good a great hand job can be. And it is very low. It's like, you don't need to be super energized to get a hand job. You don't need to be super energized to give a hand job. I know I definitely don't need to be super energized, you know, to finger you can be something that is, you know, you get done fairly quickly and both people come away feeling good about it. And that can be a way to introduce like, you know, oh, just, you know, prioritizing making an orgasm happen as soon as possible after the kids are down. I bet you, if you start doing that more regularly, you both might, because I think what happens is once you start to get a little turned on, then all of a sudden you're like, Oh, I could be, I could be down for more. Right. And so once you build that trust that, Oh yeah, once we start doing this, then we actually are kind of both ready to go. Then you can jump more quickly into, yeah, you know what, we do trust that once we get into bed together, within a couple of minutes, we're like itching to go. Yeah. But bottom line is do not save sex for the very last thing at the very end of the night. That is the worst time it is so hard to get excited about being intimate with each other when you are already in bed, you're already exhausted. You already like brushed your teeth, because you've already you've programmed yourself to okay, this is my wind down routine. I go into the bathroom, I start brushing my teeth, I floss my teeth, I wash my face, whatever your bedtime routine is, whether you've, you've, whether you've explicitly thought it or not, you've trained your brain to be like, once I start doing these activities, you can start turning off the light switches, you know, figuratively inside the head. So by the time you get into bed, you're like pretty much ready to fall asleep. And that's when most people leave sex too. And that's, that's, it's, it's not smart. Yeah. For years, I have known that I wanted to eat more seafood, but I've really struggled to find high quality, sustainable seafood, which is why I'm so glad that Wild Alaskan became a podcast sponsor. They sent us a box of their wild caught perfectly portioned, nutrient dense seafood directly to our door for us to try out. 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Yes. Our new favorite topic. Our new favorite topic. Okay. Until about a year and a half ago we were pretty solidly in the cons area of sex pillows. So we have tried so many pillows. You know I get sent a lot of sex products. People want me to try things out and we have tried them all and never enjoyed it. Like we've only so the shapes that we've tried have I think pretty much exclusively been wedges or like triangle shapes. Most of them were very large and just felt kind of like unwieldy. It just it's awkward. They're so big. They take up a lot of space. They're kind of squishy. Yeah. They don't actually provide much support. So you'd like sink into it and you're like well this isn't really making that much of a difference. Most of them were so big that we'd have to you know like you didn't want it out on your bed at all. So you'd put it in the closet. Yeah well who wants like a big wedge or triangle shape on their bed anyway and then you have to like stuff this big squishy thing like into the corner of the closet where no one can see it and then if you're short like Vanessa you how do you get that down. It's just like so many problems. They were bad and also like a couple of them were hideously ugly colors too. Like it's always the bright like royal purple velour where you're just like oh I don't even I don't like looking at this. Okay until about a year and a half ago I was looking for Christmas presents for Xander because this man is impossible to get gifts for. Surfboards. And I got it. I got an ad for a sex pillow and I truly don't know what came over me because I we've never enjoyed them but I think it was just out of pure desperation. I was like you know what at least he'll get excited that I got him a sex related gift and if we hate it like we've hated every other one like whatever I'll at least get like a brownie point. You've probably saw it too and you're like well this one actually kind of looks a little nice. Yeah I saw one that it was a different shape. A like oval shape not a triangle not a wedge. More of a standard throw pillow shape. So we got it. We tried it out and holy crap did we absolutely love it. And so long story short through a series of like funny coincidences we ended up meeting the couple who creates these pillows and loved them so much loved the product so much their mission so much that we about I think two weeks ago we officially signed on to be advisors to this company. So now we are solidly in the pro camp of sex pillows but it truly is all about the specific pillow itself. So to like to answer what are the pros about it because a lot of people are like sex pillow what the fuck are you talking about I don't even know what that is. So a sex pillow is designed to help you create new angles on your old standby favorite sex positions and be able to try new positions. So you put the pillow under your body. The most basically under your hips. Yeah basically the most common usage of it is like under her hips but you put under his hips you can put it under different parts of your body there are a lot of different ways to play with it but it changes the angle it changes your flexibility. It supports your hips as well if you know if you have hip issues or lower back issues. So sex pillows decrease pain and discomfort but they also increase pleasure they create new angles like I said they create more a little more flexibility which can be very fun to play around with. It creates a better view for me for the penetrator. Yeah it's pretty pretty incredible. I enjoy observing the beautiful body of my partner my wife when I'm having sex with her and and this really it opens up a new perspective so to speak that is hard to get out of your head in the most positive way possible. It is seriously so fun. We do like I will be very honest we do not promote sex products like there's just so much crap out there. I take recommendations super seriously probably like too seriously. We have never shared a product we've shared this product in our stories before like we have never shared a sex product in our story like literally never in over a decade of being on social media because I just didn't like anything enough to like firmly stand behind it the way that I stand behind this pillow so I hope that that shows you something but I I think it's something that every couple should try so if you want to check out the specific pillow that totally changed our mind about sex pillows you can go over to vmtherapy.com slash pillow and there is a little code word on that page that will give you a secret discount I'll give you a heads up this is not a cheap pillow no you can find some crappy wedge on amazon for a whole lot less and if you want to go that route sure but you're probably gonna be back for this one you're gonna be back for this one so I would recommend just getting this one it's so good it's worth every penny I have had so many of my friends have bought it so many people in our community have bought it when we posted it like thousands of people bought it we were just at our friend's house and they have it proudly displayed on their bed I think that's the thing that like I mean that's the pro of this and the serious oh yeah most other ones is that yeah it's like you you already mentioned where do you put it but it but yeah it's like well if it's not already out then it's like it's just one more thing to remember and you would you'll find yourself very often not using it or or midway through being like oh shoot we should have grabbed the pillow but like do I want to like get up and walk through the closet and pull this thing out blah blah right is being able to just have it there make such a big difference and yeah so it's expensive because one it looks really nice two is made with really high quality materials it will not sink on it like it's very firm yeah it's a very firm thing so yeah it you're not gonna sink into it um it's got like because you can't use regular pillows either that's people always like well can I just like use my pillow yeah good luck try it you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna be like half an inch higher off the ground on so yeah no and it also yeah it has like uh it's like a linen cover that is a beautiful beautiful fabric but it can zip off its machine washable um the interior cover is also machine washable so um yeah really really friendly to using it frequently so yeah we absolutely love this one you can go to vmtherapy.com slash pillow to check it out and we will also put that link in the show notes yeah the only con I can think of about this pillow is that you might not want to stop using it is that okay guys I am so excited that quince is back as a podcast partner because they make the best high quality everyday essentials I was buying from quince with my own money long before they became a podcast sponsor so when they reached out to us I was like yes I am so happy to talk about how much I love quince the best part of quince is that their prices are 50 to 60 less because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen so you're paying for quality not brand markup I have gotten so many different products from them but lately I've been really into the clothing I'm trying to keep fewer things but get better like high quality ones that I'm going to keep for a while and one of my absolute favorite recent purchases was their 100% organic cotton gauze sleeveless maxi dress it's so comfortable but it also looks really cute I also just saw that they added a bunch of new colors so I would highly recommend checking that out it's I get asked about that every single time I wear that dress refresh your wardrobe with quince go to quince.com slash pillow for free shipping and 365 day returns now available in Canada too go to quince.com slash pillow for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash pillow like when you're traveling you can't bring it with you because that yeah it's not really it doesn't really stuff down I guess that's a that's a con it doesn't stuff down for it's not travel friendly so the con is that when you are having hotel sex you might miss your pillow yeah yeah sorry okay so let's assume that you are not using a sex pillow and you are in a dry spell Vanessa how long until a dry spell in a marriage is overly concerning so there's not a specific set period like you have six months but if it's six months in one day you're in trouble yeah like there's no specific timeline and it truly depends on the couple like if you were a couple who was having sex two to three times a week you know for you a dry spell might feel like two or three weeks but if you're having sex once a month every couple months like a dry spell might feel like six months right so it's it's really going to depend on what the what your typical frequency was before a dry spell I do want to back up for a second and say dry spells are very common in relationships like we just go through seasons of life where someone gets sick something really tough is happening at work kids you know there's so many different things that can come up so my advice that I shared earlier about parents really applies here like if you're in a dry spell the absolute best thing that you can do is to acknowledge that you're in the dry spell I will say though that I do think I do think dry spells are concerning because sex is an important part of a relationship yeah it's a relationship glue it is like we we really have this tendency to think of sex as this purely physical act it's just putting body parts and other body parts like it feels frivolous or unnecessary to a lot of people but it's not sex is such an incredible way that we experience intimacy and closeness with our partner it's a way that we play with our partners the way we connect with our own bodies it's a way we relax and co-regulate together it's this special thing that we only do with our partner nobody else like it's so much more than just the physical act so I want to try to strike this balance here of you know I don't want to shame anybody for getting into a dry spell because again it's really it's very normal and you know every couple is going to go through a dry spell so don't get it in your head like you know if we've gotten into a dry spell we've failed in our marriage so that's on one hand but and I also want to encourage you to put effort into getting out of and avoiding dry spells it's it's worth it your marriage is worth it your intimacy is worth it so we do have to put that effort in question for you might you say well the moment it starts to feel overly concerning to at least one partner yes then it is overly concerning for the marriage you know it's like like my problem is your problem like you know if it's you know it's it's us against the problem so you know that's not to say that it's been like three days since you've had sex and you're and one partner's like it's been forever since we've had sex I'm not trying to say oh my god now you have a serious marital issue but I mean this is in good faith it has been longer than it usually has been and one partner is expressing serious concern not just like you know and they've already taken the steps to try to re-engage to reconnect with their partner or you've already acknowledged hey it's feeling like we're in a bit of a dry spell like what can we do to to get things going again yeah and you know both and you know that partner is operating in good faith yeah and and and there's not I think the good faith part is is is important it's that you are actually doing the right things um you're not being manipulative um you're not pouting you're not like okay well I'm just gonna be waiting here until you're ready yeah you know like you are being a true partner and you know for whatever reason you are not coming out of the dry spell then I think at that point that partner is like hey I'm feeling really concerned about this I'm I feel like I'm doing everything I can to contribute to us solving this problem I'm not seeing the same thing from you then I think that at that point it is a serious problem and it's you know it's it's worth trying to get into some sex there some couples therapy sex therapist to talk about what is going on yeah absolutely yeah I I think it's really important what you just said like if it's an issue for one of you it should be an issue for both of you and that's not just about sex that's really anything in the relationship and it doesn't mean you know I have to agree with your perspective or I have to drop everything to fix it for you but it's like that's just a really healthy way of looking at a relationship if something is your issue it's my issue because we're a team and we're in this together yeah and I think once once one partner expresses a legitimate relationship concern that and and that is not heard by the other partner or the other partner doesn't engage with it at that point I do think that you I know how tempting it can be to be like okay it's all right everything else is all right we'll just I'll just wait this out a little longer and hopefully it'll solve itself but at that point where it's like hey I I tried to express how important this is to me and I'm not being heard by my partner they're ignoring it they're trying to you know redirect me or minimize it at that point I do think you are really you are playing with fire long term in your relationship you are creating the the the circumstances for resentment to build that can create all kinds of long-term problems whether that is you know divorce infidelity etc like that is where that is the breeding ground for that to happen I think a lot of us think oh I'm just going to be the bigger person by like giving it some more time if we ignore our own feelings we minimize to ourselves this like the severity of something that's when we open the door to all the stuff that really is going to burn down our relationship yeah absolutely you're probably bad at foreplay but that is totally normal we are not saying this to make you feel bad or ashamed even though I am a sex therapist I was bad at foreplay I was bad at foreplay too and that's because foreplay is a skill this is one of the most important messages about sex that we really try to drill in like none of us are ever taught how to have sex how to do foreplay well so it's kind of like basketball like I know generally how basketball works I could kind of like muck my way through playing it but I'm not going to know how to actually be good at it unless somebody teaches me how like how to actually play the game yeah and that's exactly where our ultimate foreplay guides come in want to take your foreplay game to the next level and actually have fun doing it these guys are all about exploring experimenting and discovering exactly what makes your partner melt so we give you step by step instructions like there's no vague or generic advice here we literally lay it out exactly what to do for you and we cover hand jobs blow jobs fingering and oral we also have tasteful custom illustrations and gifts that show you exactly how to do each move you're a podcast listener so clearly you like hearing things so we have in your ear we have an audio version of the foreplay guides we also give you a written version too it covers over a hundred different techniques secret hacks precise spots to maximize pleasure seriously it's everything you need to feel confident playful and adventurous in the bedroom yeah this is our number one top selling guide so head on over to vmtherapy.com slash foreplay that's f o r e p l a y to check out the guides we're also going to link to it in the show notes get ready to laugh play and discover new ways to turn your partner on and yourself too all right another uh another hard 180 my partner loves morning sex and i am not a morning person how to navigate this is this why you're there in the dry spell they're like we just can't have sex because i can't do it in the morning and my partner can only do it in the morning oh i forgot to mention something about dry spells we have a whole podcast episode that's all about like how to prevent and how to get out of a dry spell and prevent them from happening in the first place so i'm sure if you just wherever you're listening to podcasts if you just type in pillow talks dry spell you'll find it you will find it so definitely go check that out because there are a ton of specific tips for what to do okay for real though these two questions are not related at all this is just morning one person loves morning sex other person is not a morning person i mean i could have written this question xander loves morning i mean you're well you like morning sex i actually you don't you don't love it it's more of a like a novelty like you know if i got a nice morning boner and it's can be fun to be like oh like let's just let's just do it right now why do you always make that gross voice when you're talking about it you never use that voice in real life thank god hey let's do it right now that's horrible i don't know i don't know i don't know i might have to do some self reflection where does that come from i don't know it's that's that's the like me being not entirely comfortable with what i'm saying at least you can know that you know i'm talking about having morning boners and wanting to use them on our podcast even i can get a little uncomfortable sometimes um but uh but i personally i have found it is not quite as like i can never last for very long first thing in the morning and it's sort of like it's it feels to me it's like more of a fun novelty i personally like i don't want to do that every single time i feel like i would be i would be end up the result would be i would end up missing out on a lot of better sex yeah okay so you like you like morning sex more than i do yes i'm not i'm not really a fan for me um interestingly like my body just doesn't feel very sensitive in the morning doesn't wake up your your body's not a morning person but your morning person like i i'm usually up and at i'm ready to go but like physically sex doesn't feel as good it almost feels like like especially my clitoris the sensations are like kind of dulled it's harder for me to like get wet in the morning it's just yeah it's not as enjoyable of an experience so i get i get it i get it um there are a couple of things though so i mean well i always want to start with like validating and acknowledging like if you're not a morning sex person that's totally fine we don't all have to love morning sex we're all different and unique right there are though a couple of things that you can do and it depends on like why you don't like morning sex so we do hear from a lot of people i don't like morning sex because of morning breath so if that's the issue for you then you can just jump up and brush your teeth and come back to bed or maybe you can do something like have some breath strips or have a mint by the bed by the bedside table so you can just do that like really quickly also shocker to all of you this is going to be hard to hear if you hey morning breath but after about five seconds of kissing you cannot you can't tell that there's morning breath anymore yeah just do it you can just go ahead and do it you will yeah the morning at first you're like well we both got it and then it just i don't know it's like that was a great discovery when i realized i feel like we early in our relationship i was like oh that's morning breath and then like within five to ten seconds i was like it's gone yeah i was like okay um yeah so like you can just just get over it's like it's also like you can just get over it i don't we should i'm gonna lean into a little more of this and podcast it's like it's tell them how you really feel i said that because i was thinking a different thought in my head but i like short circuited being able to say it it's it's like when you both have garlic breath you know like if just one person person wow if just one person has garlic breath you're like whoa that's garlic breath but if you both have garlic i like garlic breath bring it on girl uh onion breath let's say something different okay bring it on i don't care okay so if it's a breath issue breath mints little listerine strips those can be really helpful also you don't have to kiss to have sex no you can do it in like doggie style or spooning where you know your faces aren't like in each other's faces you can do a little like friends with benefits role play like oh we can't kiss it's too intimate you could also just take care of your partner but if you don't want anything in return that could be like a fun thing to do like take care of your partner and then you're like okay i get to call in the favor whenever i want later today yeah and you can kind of like play around with it in that sense i would well i would also ask you say my partner loves morning sex and i'm not a morning person i think that often we hear our partner express something like this and what we hear is my partner only wants to have sex in the morning now is that truly the case here i think that this is a very typical male female misunderstanding a guy expresses an interest in something or a desire to sometimes experience something and what she hears this is all he wants this is all he out he not only is this all he wants he actually hates doing it yeah during the middle of the day he hates doing it at night and he hates me too unless i do it in the morning like it's like you know the the the train has left the station and all of a sudden we're at the next stop i would kind of back everything up there and be like maybe have a conversation and be like hey so i know that you were talking about enjoying morning sex i would love to hear a little bit more about like about what that like what do you love about it that's a great opportunity to get to hear what it is that they love about it i would love you know in your ideal world like how often are we having morning sex relative to any other kind of sex like you know how much morning sex versus nighttime sex versus middle of the day sex would you like to have in an ideal world i think you would be surprised that your partner's probably not going to say yeah ideally it's 100 but even if they say ideally it's 100 it's like well do you not enjoy sex like like literally go through all the scenarios and actually understand because yes if your partner is saying to you the only kind of sex i'm capable of enjoying is in the morning well that's just that's going to be a serious mismatch an incompatibility that's an important thing for you to know but i think the chances of that are highly unlikely so yes if you find out from your partner hey something i would love to experience once a month then can you think about that changes the question for you can you think about how you can accommodate that once a month and then think about okay well if i like sex at a certain time of day how about i try to initiate that more often if you start initiating the sex that you like more often too you might also find that your partner is less desiring of the morning sex so have the conversation please absolutely all right venessa bring us home with do you have to be horny to initiate oh great question um this is a great misunderstanding that i think a lot of people have i feel like this person already knows what my answer is based on the way that they phrase the question no you do not have to be horny to initiate and yeah i think this is a huge misunderstanding that so many of us have we think that the order of things is supposed to be get horny and then initiate and that can work for some people who have spontaneous desire if you find yourself getting horny all the time but a lot of people women especially have responsive desire where actually the it's flipped where we need to be feeling something physical before the idea of sex starts to sound good if you have no clue what we're talking about listen to last week's episode right i believe we talked about our four desire types yeah you got to check that episode out it's very good one so for some for a lot of people especially women this is just straight up not how our desire works but also i mean my hot take on desire is that we put way more pressure and emphasis on desire than we really need to i do not think that you need to have wild uncontrollable desire in order to have sex now to be clear i am only talking about relationships where there is emotional safety there is no coercion there is no guilting there's no abuse certainly where you can say no at any point for any reason then that no is respected this is the only context that i'm talking about this in but if you have a relationship like that i think that there's something to be said about not sending the bar so high like if you really think about it where else in your life do you put that level of pressure on yourself to feel the desire to do something i think the truth is that most of us feel pretty ambivalent about a lot of the things that we choose to do i mean the example that i've been using a lot lately is having a like a date night with a girlfriend who has not had the experience of i don't even have to say girlfriend you have a you're supposed to hang out with your friend you haven't seen your friend in so long you're so excited to see them great we have this plan but then the day rolls along it's been a long day it's raining and you're tired and that new show new episode of that show just came out that you really want to watch and you're already sitting on the couch and you're just so cozy and you're gonna take my PJs off and put real clothes on again man like i really wish my friend would just text and cancel that would be so great but we get ourselves up we put on our hard pants we go see our friend and we're so fucking glad that we did we're there having dinner with them and we're like i cannot believe i wanted to sit on the couch instead of hang out with my friend yeah it's like within two minutes of arriving you're like okay yeah i made the right decision like this it's always a good idea to see my friend because what we're focusing on it's not how we feel about it beforehand we're focusing on how i'm gonna feel in the middle of it and how i'll feel afterwards i know when i'm sitting with my friend and we're laughing and we're sharing stories i'm gonna be so glad that i was there i know that when i'm on my way back home after i saw my friend i'm gonna feel like my cup is so full i'm so glad i did that i feel so energized i feel so good why can't we expect the same from sex why can't we say you know what yeah i'm not like wildly horny right now but i know that when we have sex it's always a good time and i know that after we have sex i feel so close to my partner we feel so connected everything's lighter we feel like a team like why can't we look at sex in the same way yeah right i i'll be totally honest here i like i have i have spontaneous sex drive i think you have spontaneous sex drive not i think you have spontaneous sex drive i don't know what they i'm curious what your answer will be here but what what percentage of the time that you initiate sex are you feeling horny for me i would say maybe it's only like 10 of the time honestly it's more often like when we are like on vacation on a trip where i'm like where like i'm like let's fucking go like at home during the course of like normal day-to-day stuff with like we're working we're out doing our various things you know friends activities workouts etc there are limited convenient times where sex can happen even though we run a sex therapy business talking about this shit all the time it's not like we're just having sex willy nilly on as much as some people think we do but yeah i am wildly horny like the times that i'm wildly horny are i'm i'm not finding myself wildly horny most of the time lesbian real but i will find myself a little bit horny at various times most of those times are not convenient like venezz is not there it's not a convenient moment so i will store that up essentially i will think okay you're you're finding yourself feeling horny you should probably initiate some sex today and then i will make a point to do that later on or you will immediately say hey i'd love to have sex with you later yeah i was just thinking about you yeah you all gave her a detail what i was thinking about i would love to do that later right i'm queuing up okay yeah let's do that later but for the most part i initiate sex because i know that i am gonna have a good time i know that we're gonna feel closer i know that we're both gonna have an orgasm and i know that it's good for us just like why go to the gym like it's the same kind of thing and i'm really fucking glad i did it every single time i'm never finishing i never walk out of the gym i never finished sex and be like oh god that was such a mistake absolutely yeah i mean i'm about the same i'd say like yeah 15 maybe 20 of the time that i initiated i'm like actually feeling it the other times it's i'm more focused on how i'm gonna feel during and how i'm gonna feel afterwards all right well that's all the questions that we have time for today thank you so much for listening to this week's episode join us again next week we release new episodes every thursday