Transcript
This episode of Group Therapy is brought to you by CoverGirl. Say hello to your Real-Life makeup filter in a bottle. CoverGirl simply ageless skin perfecting essence, a skincare makeup hybrid that makes your skin look plump, refreshed and provides an instant burst of hydration for up to 24 hours. You won't find this formula from any other drugstore brand only from easy, breezy, beautiful CoverGirl. DoorDash use code OTV to get 50 percent off up to $10 value when you spend $15 or more at convenience, grocery or select retail stores on DoorDash for eligible users, only terms apply. Dime go to dime beauty SEO dot com to unlock your discount. Peloton get moving with a Peloton biker bike plus rental at one Peloton Gqom slash bike slash rentals terms apply. Way go to T H E O U I dot com and use promo code Vine for 15 percent off any product and quince go to Quint's.com/ find for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. I'm Kaitlyn Bristol. Your session is now starting. I want to. Hey, everybody, welcome a Grape Therapy, I'm your host, Kaitlyn Bristowe, and after recent headlines about my sexuality and sexual health, I had so many of you dmy and people reach out saying that I wasn't alone. So thank you for that. And I decided I needed to bring on an expert so that you didn't feel alone either. So I brought on Shannon Boudreau to unpack the topic of libido and all the different things that can impact your libido and how to talk to your partner about it and what you should do if you are feeling frustrated around your sex drive. So please enjoy this conversation with Shane. I am very excited to talk to you about this because it's so hard for me to sometimes navigate a conversation around this because I'm not an expert. I think because I'm The Bachelorette, even though it was eight years ago now, I was so pigeonholed into being the sexual bachelorette or the controversial one that had sex, and I was shamed around it so much. And I feel like my sexuality is like an easy headline for people. So I'm excited to talk to you around the conversation of low libido and sex drive. And for listeners, I think you know this butler back story, as I had mentioned on a previous podcast to my friend that towards the end of my relationship, I started kind of questioning if I was asexual because my sex drive was, I want to say, low, but it was gone. I didn't want to be romantic with anyone. It wasn't like I was, you know, emotionally cheated and thinking of somebody else and being turned on. And I just I was like, I think I could just be OK on my own forever. I don't feel romantic. I don't feel sexual. I mean, it was a lot of things that were combined to make it feel that way. But of course, media picked it up, and all of a sudden I've seen headlines about it and my poor dad, he was like, I just keep seeing headlines about your sexuality is all over Facebook now, too, and I'm like, Gosh, this is a conversation that clearly needs to be had and talked about. And, you know, then I have people making jokes around it. But I had multiple people in my DMs sharing that I wasn't alone. So I wanted to start off by asking you why you think there is so much shame attached to libido, especially for for me, it feels like around women. Yeah, I think that femininity isn't as fragile as masculinity, but in that I mean that we don't have to wake up every day and try to be a woman the same way that men have to wake up every day and like dmaa and try to be a man. Are you being men enough today in language like that? So I do think, though, when it comes to femininity or being a woman, one of the qualifiers, one of the few qualifiers is to be sexually available is to be sexy. And I think that dates back to, I would say prehistoric times is really not, you know, 50 60 years ago when women weren't allowed to be equal, contributors or women didn't have a say. Our value was how sexually available we could be to our partners. Our value was in our sexiness. And so our ability to influence and to have leadership was heavily tied to our ability to seduce. So when you don't have that, I think a lot of women feel like less of a woman. I actually know a lot of individuals who identify as non-binary now. And the major reason one of the major reasons why is because loss of libido. And they're like, Oh, I don't even I don't feel like a woman anymore. That word doesn't feel like it belongs to me anymore. It doesn't feel right when I when people, you know, I hear it on my ears. And I think that again goes to that social stigma that exists. And so I'm curious for you. I mean, as somebody who has gone through that night in disclosure, I have also gone through a period of low libido. But for you, how did it make you feel about yourself? Yeah, I felt so much shame around it because I was already questioning, am I in the right relationship? But that made me question like, am I ever going to be in the right relationship? Is this just who I am now? I know I didn't have this before. So again, my antidepressants. Is that a perfect little mix for it to be in here? So then I feel shame around my depression, which is adding to the low libido. I just felt like obviously there was something wrong with me because, you know, I talked to my girlfriends about this. And even if they have low libido, they still like would have sex once in a while where I was like, I emotionally, I don't have the capacity to even feel intrigued to have sex. And so I felt like there's something wrong with me. Yes, where the truth of the matter is, I'd say ninety nine percent of women are going to go through a period of low libido within their lifetime. So it is very feminine and it is very woman. It is very normal to go through these dips. And I was speaking at this conference and there was a bad smell in the bathroom, right? Let's say like unpleasant vaginal odor that was existing there. And we were having a Q&A afterwards and somebody raised their hand and they were like, I just have a question around vaginal care. If there are some people who haven't really figured out how to keep themselves in check and work with all of that, how can we help them? And then I was like, Can we just have a moment to stop trying? To find the smelly vagina bogeyman, because we're also afraid of that, right, so we're all like, oh, like, who stinks, who stinks? And then men all have a story about the one woman who stunk and then we're like, I'm glad I'm not that woman, but you've been that woman before. I promise you. And if you haven't yet, you will. You'll go through a period of time where your hormones are off or you're extremely stressed or a certain time on your cycle or about a vagina, a vaginismus. I say that to liken it to low sex drive because there are a million reasons why your sex drive is going to drive, why you will experience low libido. Some of it may have to do with a change in orientation. You might have, you know, it could be that you are asexual, discovered that about yourself. But there's a whole other host of things of medical reasons of mood disorder, reasons of medical medication, reasons like you mentioned. And so for myself, it was related to pregnancy and it was so low to the point that I wondered if you'd ever come back. So rather than us being like, Oh my God, she has a low libido, it's champion her. Yeah, embrace her. Ask her questions. Because this is going to be your story one day in a different way, and you need to respond to that woman the way that you want to be responded to. You need to show the world and teach the world how to love on, accept and normalize this for this woman, because one day you're going to be that person. And I wish that every woman who took this as an opportunity to try to elevate themselves above you in this case to say like, Oh my God, like, I do not have that experience like at a yet behind that and see how that changes how you interact with this topic. I didn't expect it to be a headline no one, but I didn't expect kind of the conversations to be so 50 50 where some were like, you know, shaming and others were right behind me. But I also didn't want that x to feel shame. I didn't want him to feel like it's his fault and he did something wrong or he wasn't good enough. And what really upset me was he had posted like a shirtless photo and you know, he's got abs. And another man commented underneath it and said, Nothing asexual about this, and it made you know all these lakes and yes, and whatever. But it made me feel so icky because I'm like being sexual to me is not about how many abs this person has. That's not it's not something to joke about. Like, to me, it felt really personal and I was embarrassed about it and somebody else said, You know, Well, you made a joke about it on your own podcast, and I was like, because I was so uncomfortable. And I think we have this like like, I am even feeling like this shame around it that I don't even know enough about it to obviously explain myself, which is why I'm bringing you on. Like, I don't even know how to break it down into terms to say what even is libido. So the two different conversations one, it was pissing me off that the man said that about me because I'm like, That's not what this is about to how do we break down in simple terms what libido is? I would love to do that, but I also want to go back to what you said about making a joke because you were uncomfortable, because that also lends a place of empathy for you for others who have felt so uncomfortable by this or so triggered by this that they had the wrong response. And I'm a very big fan of B, the change that you wish to see in the world. So if you could have a do over and bring up this topic that you now know has so much more weight to it, sensitivity to it, how would you have done it differently? I would have talked in a way where I was talking to my community to say, who else has been through this? This isn't like a joke to me. This is actually serious, and I would like to talk more about like what contributes to it. I think I would just wish I was more knowledgeable about it, but I wish I would have just reached out more to my community to say, like, who's with me? You don't. We don't have to feel this certain way. Like, Let's talk about it. Yes, and that's what we're doing now, which is a big part of the do over. I just want to say is a note, too, because sometimes we can use terms like asexual to describe a period or a phase that we're going through and that could be really harmful to people who that's not a period or a phase four. Because when that is your reality and you're living in it, there might be people who are expecting you to come out of it because I'm assuming that you're talking about this in hindsight, like or let me ask you, I may not assume. Do you still feel like you identify with the term having low libido? No. And that is another thing that was causing me a bit of a shame. Spiral was even labeling myself as asexual because I do know people. I have one friend who is. And so I don't want to like, you know, you know, how people use buzzwords. I didn't want to use it like that. It was just almost like a fear that I was. But I feel like I go through so many dips and for a full year, I could be fully like, Oh yeah, I'm I'm feeling very like high libido and excited. And then the next year could be like completely low. It's I don't want to say concerning because I'm sure that's just because we've been taught a certain thing, but it does feel concerning to me about how different it is. As for getting into another relationship, like for my next relationship, which of course, like how do you even have conversations around that, you know, because that's a healthy thing to talk about. It is a healthy thing to talk about. I mean, to address that you have gone through dips or that's something that you have experienced before. I guess I just want a little clarification when you mean like talking about the next relationship. All of my relationships, I've started off very much like attracted to them. My libido is higher. I'm excited. I feel like that's quite normal for new relationships. You go through the honeymoon phase, all of these things. But I guess what I'm saying is when I get into that dip, how do I have a conversation around it to not like, you know, emasculate somebody or make them feel like it's their fault? Or just maybe explain to them because I think and correct me if I'm wrong. But I think that women, it's more emotional attachment, and maybe I'm mislabeling this as well. But I feel like women need more like emotional attachment to have sex and men. It's like they can just have sex to have sex, and I could be wrong. This is why I have you on. I would say that majority of people would tell you that it's true because it's socialized to be right. So in different cultures where that is not the social norm and they do examinations on women's sex drive in what turns them on, and they don't just ask for verbal assessment, but they also do like physiological testing to see how their body is responding arousal wise. They might even say, I'm not aroused by this because they feel shameful to allow yourself or your primary sexual attraction to be something visual. They feel you have to have something more where their body is telling a different story. So absolutely, if you feel like that's true for you, that's really true for you. But that may not be like across the boardroom. So, yeah, I just want to get to your question about libido, which is a really, really great one because I had this epiphany only through experiencing it myself, because actually the campaign just before I really experienced it, that was about. And that is hypersexual active desire disorder. And it's one of the most diagnosed sexual dysfunctions that women can have. And the key indicator as to whether or not this is the sexual dysfunction or it's a detail of your sexual self, is the word frustration. And I love that because it puts the power back into the woman's hands. And that essentially means that if this is a place of frustration for you, it's a problem. It's a disorder. If it's not frustrating to you, it's not a disorder. If you wake up every day and you don't feel that drive, and I think that libido is an easy way to put into the drive category. It's like hunger. You know, you know, for a fact when you're hungry, but when you're not hungry, you're a little vague on whether or not you could or could be. You might have zero appetite at all. Or you might be like, I could, but I just I don't feel that drive. So the difference is when you are hungry, it's very clear to know that you're not when you're not hungry. It can be a lot more vague to really identify how you're feeling or what you're up or not up for doing. And some people might find who have lower libido that engaging in the activity kicks up the drive. Some people may feel the exact opposite. It makes them feel very repulsed by the word. Frustration is so important because, again, giving that power back to you to really think about it. Does my low sex drive frustrate me? Is it a detail of my life that really bothers me? Do I wish that it was higher? Do I yearn for a past experience or version of myself? And if the answer is no, you don't have to do all of the troubleshooting here. You're allowed. I mean, there are, you know, a host of benefits when it comes to intimacy. Of course, when it comes to sex that you know your body can get from it and your relationship can get from it. That's not the only way to find those. And so if you're aware that this is just not your way right now for whatever reason and you're willing to honor your body on that, you can find other activities to give you intimacy, to give you bonding and to give you some of the biological and physical boost that you would get from it. So when I was going through it, I did not feel frustrated by it. I felt like this is a detail of my life and a part of my bodily experience right now. I obviously had like a bit more. I don't want to use the word hope, but I was pregnant, so I was like, OK, this could be my body forever because I have no idea what my body looks like on the other side of this experience. But I also know that I'm going to be single occupancy again in a few months, and so then I can reassess. So I didn't really feel a need to like troubleshoot right now, and that really helped a lot. But it sounds like in your experience, it was a point of frustration. Yes. So and it's it's crazy how this conversation just triggered a memory for me and my very first boyfriend that I ever had when I was probably 15 years old, got so frustrated with me that I wouldn't like do things with him that I wasn't ready for. And that just like, I think that's still trapped somehow in my body as well, because I think I. Feel shame around making the other person frustrated and that they're going to be frustrated with me and think there's something wrong with me and get annoyed at me and think that they can go somewhere else and get it. And I think that's a lot of fear around it for myself as well. And that can actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fear that you won't have the drive and that you won't be available puts your body into fight or flight kicks up your stress hormones, which is going to decrease your ability to actually get aroused and respond. Because majority of people, there are some people who do obviously like in a state of fight or flight. They can experience arousal confusion, but majority of people need to be in common connect. They need to feel safe. They need to feel healthy because you're engaging in an activity that could potentially lead to procreation. So from a survival standpoint, yeah, you want to make sure that you're in a safe environment with a safe individual and you do want to feel relaxed. So most people are going to respond or feel more aroused or more horny when they do feel safe. So when you feel panic because you're abandonment issues are coming up or you're your memory is coming up that you haven't yet healed from, that can actually also be like a major inhibitor to actually wanting to be there, even if physically it's something that you you're telling your body to do. You guys did. You know you can use DoorDash for more than just restaurant delivery? I know because I do it all the time. But if you need the perfect gift, not a problem, wipe out a toilet paper they've got you forgot drinks for the party. Don't sweat it. DoorDash is here for you. They have a wide range of items from your favorite local stores, from fresh produce to pantry staples to gifts to pet essentials, all literally in one place. 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So wherever you're starting, get moving with Peloton Bike or bike plus rental at one Peloton.com/ bike slash rentals. Terms apply. I think this is so good for people to hear, it's good for me to hear that. I think libido is often seen as something that's solely physical and like there's there is so much more to it. And I think that helps me process it a little better is to think like there's emotional factors. There's certain things that will impact one's sexual desire. Isn't just physical. I think a lot of times like, you know, growing up with the magazines and certain things saying like, this is how to get a guy. And it was all about physical appearance and, you know, being desirable. And I think we have that trauma in us as well. So it's really helpful for me to think like it. It really isn't just physical and there's a lot of emotions behind it, too. And then I'm curious as that's probably a stigma for men too like that. Maybe I even have about them that they don't have emotional trauma around it, that they just want. Like Pansy, you're like, that's me judging them when they probably have some emotional trauma around it too, like you said earlier in the podcast, like, that's part of showing up as a man and what they've been conditioned to think. Yeah. Well, that's another side conversation that it would actually be great to have with the male sex expert. But majority of sex listeners, and we can just call that like consistent discrepancies in sex drive between partners for a long period of time to the point where it feels sexless. There's no number on that, but there's a major discrepancy in there. But majority of like sexless couples, it's usually the man who has the lower libido, and I don't know if you'd even call it that, but less drive to have sex. And often that's tied with their function of erection, because that is the fear of being found out, of not being able to produce the shame that comes with that. They just don't even want to take part at all. And because they don't know how to even have that conversation, they just brush it off. And often that makes the woman feel as if she's the issue. But truly, it's like something again, like you said, that just goes way, way back. I was smiling, though, when you were talking because you said, most of us think that it's something physical when we have low libido. And I think that's really cool because I would say that even 10 years ago, maybe even less than that, people thought it was a choice like, Oh, you're just not fun or you're not trying hard enough. Like, Why can't you do this? So the fact that we've gotten to a place now where we acknowledge that, hey, as much as I can move my leg right now if I want to, I can't tell my pancreas to stop pancreas ing, right? I can't tell my appendix to stop doing its thing. There's a lot of my body that I'm not in control over, and that's frightening, but it's also freeing at the same time to accept that. And so it's going to want to just quickly go over. We do have to go in-depth on these. The one thing I want to say is that please, if you feel that F-word frustration with your sex drive. Stop watching this podcast right now and go talk to a doctor. And I know that that in Twenty Twenty Four doesn't feel like great advice anymore because people have gotten, you know, a certain stigma and it comes to the medical system, right? I think a major issue, especially when it comes to sexual issues, is that your primary health care provider, the amount of information that they have to get in medical school if they want to be physicians or, you know, primary care is very low. So their own feelings of inadequacy, their own s**t that they got from the church and from their parents and whatever else that's showing up in the doctor's office. So they may brush aside your concerns, they may make you feel very uncomfortable and weird about it. That doesn't mean that all doctors will do that. There are some incredible doctors out there who are going to work with you, and not all of them are going to push a pill down your throat, either. I want to say that because even if I can talk about natural supplements that you can take, ashwagandha is a great option for somebody who has like adrenal or stress issues. But for somebody who has low testosterone or hormonal issues, Kakao might be better. So you might have a girlfriend who's like a cow saved my life. That's not actually what your primary issue is. So even that supplement is not going to work best for you. So talking to a doctor who understands your medical history, if again, go on a site like ZocDoc to find somebody who is rated and reviewed that is going to have this dialogue with you and be comfortable about it because you might have low estrogen, you might have insulin intolerance, you might have high estrogen, you might have high testosterone like PCOS. People do, or you might have low testosterone, which is a major cause, an issue for a low libido, thyroid related issues. And I think that the list goes on. But in order to figure out where on that list is your thing and what is your best next step? Somebody who knows your into medical history is going to be the best place to go. And that's what I will say to as I think identifying yourself as asexual once you have one come to peace with it. The frustration that has gone to you have gone and done medical due diligence because also too, even aside from sex being important, sometimes loss of libido is actually a really good early indicator of other medical issues that are happening in your body. So you can take that to find out that, yeah, I really do have a. I read issue, I wasn't aware about her, I I do have issues with insulin or I have experienced a ton of weight loss recently, which I said our other host of issues on my body. So I think it's important to have that conversation. So yeah, well, that's good too, because now it's like, well, it's not. It's not just physical, it's not just emotional. It also can be medical as well. And I do think that gives people a lot of hope to know that there is a system out there, a resource like that where you can find somebody that you know can actually help you with that. Because, like you said, there's a lot of people who have lost hope in that system. So I think that's really helpful information. And then I also wanted to say, you said like how far we've come in 10 years. I do have a question about like breaking barriers and getting, you know, different conversations happening and how people evolve. So like back in caveman days, it's going to be obviously so different from now. But are people still wired a certain way from back in those days? And like, do we just have to kind of understand that side of it too? Yeah, I would love to hear more about that from you because it sounds like we're going to go on the same train of thought right now. So I'll jump on your train once you get it going. It came to me when you said, we've come so far in 10 years, and then I thought, Well, how about hundreds and hundreds of years? Because yes, it wasn't for even for pleasure. I don't think it was to procreate, and this was just how it was. And that I I don't really know much about that other than I just think how far we've come and where do you think that we could still go in the next 10 years? Absolutely. I mean, that is the short of that is that we have existed in the way that we do or as Homo sapiens for like if we think about the total existence of Homo sapiens is like this. And then what's think that the umbrella term for all human types, but the humans as we know it today is like this? And then the society that we live in right now where we don't have to worry about predators or food, the basics food, water, shelter and safety from larger prey like we've existed on our timeline history as that for like this amount of time. So naturally, I love I think everybody should watch life on our planet on Netflix. I think it just a it was a one that they should teach that in school, just a history of planet Earth. Like, did you know that it rained for a million years, once a million hours of just raining? I'm just going to watch what that's if it's I live in L.A. and if it's raining for two days, I'm like, What is this life? That's a million years of rain. So it just teaches do the history of it. It gives you so much appreciation for how much time things take. And so like the evolution from amphibians to you having to be able to crawl and from birds. Birds are actually like the only living dinosaur ancestor. Like all these things that we didn't know, but when you just watch how slow it takes for things to really change, but when you look at the large scale of it, it's moving rather quickly. And if we have respect for that, how long it takes to change and we think about how much we've changed our circumstance, such a short amount of time, how could our DNA catch up? How could our genes catch up to that? So you're absolutely right in that of having an appreciation that our body is in a completely foreign land as much? You remember that movie, Encino Man? Yes, we're like a caveman was dropped into the real world and he didn't know how to navigate like your genes are kind of like that, right? So have some respect for them. It is interesting and I've said this on my podcast before. I've I've always been so shallow towards myself with how I look at my body, you know, back in my 20s and it took so much work. And then when I decided to freeze my eggs, learning about my body and what it was capable of changed my whole perspective and gave my body. I gave my body so much more love and grace and appreciation just from, you know, just a tiny little bit of research knowing what my body was capable of. So it's like, it's kind of that it's this is a funny, random example, but I was just at a wedding in Hawaii and it was such a beautiful ceremony and they started it by really having us appreciate the lamb that we were on and it really changed the whole. I just got goosebumps. It just the whole wedding just became so much more beautiful because you understood the lamb that you were like sharing it with, with getting married and associating it with love and peace and all these things. And it's kind of like that. You can think of your body as your land and what it is actually doing compared to like, you know, physically what it looks like. And that's just a really cool thing. Yes, I'm going to make a weird tie in right now to libido. Do that because it gave me an AHA. As you said, that was more talking about love and marriage and partnership. We, you know, talks about mood disorders or like the mental things that could be locking you past trauma that could be blocking you bodily or biological reasons, physiological risk that could be happening, that causes low libido could also just be your partner. Right, like reciprocal determinism is a very real thing. We're not like fixed individuals. I am with you in relation to how you are with me. So you can't say, Oh, is like this, she's like that because around my kid, I'm a very different person around the person just piss me off in traffic. I'm a very different person. And so our relationships, the way the fabric and the culture that we created also creates versions of ourselves. So there is relationship dependent low libido. And as we were talking about before with stress even and I even gave this example because when talking about female hygiene or women who have stinky vaginas, sometimes they're stinky vulva. Sometimes you always hear men who tell those stories like, Oh my god, it was awful. My whole room stunk. I'd open the windows. I had to get a cleaner. DA da da da. And more than likely, they were the cause of the funk. Because when women are stressed out, so if they're in an unstable relationship with, I'm going to use to use gendered terms like a boy. You're not sure they're going to call you afterwards. You're unsure in that situation. You're unsure about your sexual health because you don't have any partners that they've had. It is likely that you will start to produce stress hormones, and that is one of the things that mixes with our natural vaginal scent and causes like a foul odor. So the problem is probably you. So I do want to mention that just to say that many people may find that they have relationship dependent low libido. Your body may not feel safe enough to express itself in that way, or it may be reacting to chemicals that is caused by the way that person makes you feel. I say this so many times on podcast, but if you think about how your body can create life, like we sit there and we think it's just so simple, like, Oh, I have low libido, I must not be attractive or attracted to this person when there's like literally chemicals involved and all these different things that are like, How do we not think our body is that intricate that it, you know that it can do that. It's it's so interesting that we just go to one thing when it's so many different things that can contribute to it. And I was going to ask you a few debunking questions, but you've kind of already done it where some people think like low libido equals relationship issues when that's not necessarily the case. And I did want to talk about masturbation because some people have thought that it decreases libido. And I don't know if if it increases it or decreases it, but what is your take on that? I think that's body dependent, but majority of people, if you don't use it, you lose it, right? Right. So if you're not using testosterone, your body is not creating testosterone. And that is one of the key factors in sex drive. If you're not creating pathways for your brain to see the benefits of orgasm because you're not frequently engaging in it, your body's not going to have or develop a need or desire for it. So I would argue that the opposite is true. And it's interesting that they would say that because, you know, people who masturbate very frequently, they have this like, Oh, you're a sex addict, you have this problem. No one's like, you're not going to want to have sex. Like, that's the last thing that we're thinking about. But right, I just think that we're looking for oversimplified answers to this. And it could be that because I've absolutely spoken to men who really believe in semen retention. They genuinely believe that if they don't have sex or masturbate for a month before they get a better physical performance in something else that they do where their health improves. And so I haven't seen tons of glaring evidence based research on that. I mean, nobody has or else we would all be utilizing these principles. But heck, if you're telling me that works for you and you're OK with that tradeoff, if you're telling me that when you masturbate a lot, you feel less desire for your partner and you're OK with not masturbating enough because you've made that connection, then that's great. And that's your answer there, right? But you might find that if anything, it actually helps you to experience higher libido just because you're teaching your body the benefits and then you're also creating more testosterone. I thought you were going to say that I feel like I've heard I feel like I've heard you talk about this before, or maybe we talked about on my last podcast, but that's what I thought. And then, you know, talking about relationships and how there's such a roller coaster, you know, you're not always going to be in that honeymoon phase. You know, there's different stages of intimacy in a relationship. I saw on Instagram the other day somebody was talking about how after three years, love is a choice and then you get the seven year itch and all these things that seem to be common patterns. But have you noticed any common patterns in how being in a relationship can impact our libido? Or do you think it really is body dependent for everybody and every different relationship? Yeah, the it depends answer. I used to really hate so much, but it's not. It depends, period. It's it depends. And here's what it could depend on. So you don't have to be like, Well, there's no answer. Everyone's different. We're obviously not all different. Or else you wouldn't be able to have an organized society. It would be total chaos and we wouldn't have a subway sandwich and McDonald's on every other block. So obviously, there's a lot of consistencies in the human experience and what our desires are and what our needs are, how to satiate us. We're living in a zoo. So it's not like we're not all totally unique and so different, and it all depends on each unique individual. There are major consistent patterns and themes, and so it depends. And here are some of the things that it could be based on that man. Do I love a good hair day of my new hair bob ski? I've had so much more confidence. I don't know what it is. My mood is just instantly boosted when I'm having a good hair day, and I feel like some of you may relate to that. If you do and you are one of those people who want a quick solution, you can get on your way to a good hair day in just five minutes with ways new hair gloss. And not only does this hair gloss give you immediate shine straight from the shower, but it helps treat damage and enhance your color vibrancy to get your hair looking and feeling healthier. You know that like fresh out of the salon coloring? I love it. 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It's a major accomplishment for survival. And of course, for your chance of fitness, it really wants to do that for most people. Some people, for example, people who identify under the asexual umbrella may not experience life in that way. But for most people, your body and your brain really wants to do that. And to incentivize you to get into these relationships, it's going to make it feel so good, right? Like there's a reason why our bodies love sugar so much and they're going to incentivize you to eat more and more and more. Again, that's based on that outdated system. So when you first meet somebody, your body is like, Yes, I want to do this thing, get on the roller coaster rollercoaster strap in. I'm going to make it so easy for you. But it's actually very stressful on your body to undertake that task. It requires a lot of adrenaline spikes. You know, those butterflies in your stomach is actually damaging your tissue. So if you continued to stay on that roller coaster for 10 years, it would shorten your life expectancy. So for your own survival, your body has to be like, OK, we're done with the roller coaster. Can you help now? Like now that we're in a place of safety, now that we have done the thing and we've created this pair bond, now that there is commitment between us, I can't keep this up anymore. It's not healthy for me. So now we need to exist at a base homeostasis level. And once in a while, can you put in the effort to get that spike up to get that rollercoaster running, but we can't live on that. Twenty four seven, like, can you imagine living with somebody every time that you walked by them, you wanted to jump their bones. Every time that person talked to you, you shuddered or you jumped your appetite with suppressed wet for 40 years like that does not even seem fun to me. So I think if we just accepted this as a norm, an exciting norm like, wow, it's fun to be on the roller coaster, but I don't want to spend my whole life at Six Flags. I want to come home eventually and decide when I get to go back there, that is so good. That advice is some of the best I've ever heard because I get in my own head about that honeymoon phase and how it goes away. And but you're right, and the fact that you say butterflies like are tearing up your tissue and for doing that, you would your life expectancy would be lower. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's so good to know. Like, that's just, you know, I was going to say, there's so many people that will listen and be like, OK, what's the one piece of advice for getting that libido back, keeping that spark alive? But I think there isn't just one answer. I think it's this whole podcast that you could listen to even as a couple or get your partner to listen to this with you and and just understanding the human body even a little bit better and knowing that you don't have to keep that spark alive all the time, you can go through that roller coaster, and that's OK. That's why it's actually, you know, yourself and myself included. I genuinely feel like such a perfect person to be the spokesperson of it because I'm a sex educator, baby, and I got involved in this field because I was horny. You know, I want to say the word horny from the time I was born, but I was somebody who was always precocious. And I don't look at that as a negative or deviant thing. Just enjoyed my body. I enjoyed the experience of connecting with others as I got older that got, you know, more age appropriate. But that's been a consistent for me when I first met my now husband. We started out as buddies. I don't even say friends friendship benefits because we weren't even friends. I was on the threats of deportation and just came out of a toxic relationship. I knew what I required was just a sexual release, and that's all that we were. We didn't have anything beyond that, but we had sex nonstop. The only reason I chose him was because of sexual chemistry. When we first moved in together, we had sex every single day. Baby, that is not my story anymore. You know, I mean, like and I went through periods of time where it was in my story, literally at all. And you who was like the poster sex girl, right? For The Bachelor, you're the horny. When you're like this, you read Lolita. And for you to have this experience and admit that it happened to you should be a sigh of relief for everybody. OK? If I didn't even start out on a level five thousand way that these women did, my sex drive has always been manageable or my sex drive has been in line with whatever society's expectations are. And now I'm having this dip or if they experienced it too. That must mean that it's not just about people who are prudish, people who are not freaky enough or willing enough or interesting enough, or people who are in the wrong relationships that actually gave me an aha to because you were talking about that, like you get into a new relationship and you have that spike in libido in the spike in desire, you might immediately want to say, Oh, I guess it was my other partner. But wherever you go, there you are. So once again, you're in this new relationship, your body is like, amazing, we really want this. This is great for our survival. Let's incentivize Kaitlyn or Shane in this case to stay in this connection. So we're going to pump you full of chemicals that we weren't giving you before to give you this high. Then once you get off that roller coaster and you're back to that normality level, your levels might drop back to the way they were in your previous relationship. And then what are you going to do if another partner and growth that whole cycle again? Or then are you then going to actually address what the genuine issue is? What are the deficiencies? What are the medical causes, the traumatic causes and start from that point on? So I would just beware of thinking that it's partner dependent and then looking at the fact that in a new relationship, you no longer feel this way as proof that it was your partner who was the problem. That's really helpful. And there's so many DMs and questions that came in for you when I posted that I was having you on and we've I'm sure we've answered a lot of them. But this one was interesting because you said something earlier about feeling safe in a relationship. And I think this person has a question about that because they said, is it common for people to lose sex drive when in a safe relationship? It worries me that I'm not supposed to be with him and wondering if that's normal. Yeah. As to pro Esther Perel, I always mispronounce her name. It's like a stare. Oh, well then I bet your parole, right? I actually met somebody who knew her very well, and they said, and I was like, I think that this person knows I spent like every day together for a year. I think that they had they're onto something. Yeah, but she's so great. She's not going to correct us. That's like how much of an expert on connection that she has, because that's not a detail. But Esther Perel talks about this. You know that in order for love to grow, you need companionship. You need safety. You need like me. Think about that Venn diagram. The closer that we feel to somebody, the more I mean, look, I'm making a heart right now, right? But desire requires the opposite. It requires space. It requires distance, it requires the unknown. So safety can absolutely be a turnoff. But the good news is, is that once you identify that, you're like, Oh, great, it's not. That's not you. I love every part of our relationship, but I do feel like I need a little bit of risk. I mean, what makes sex fun sometime is the risk and reward element. And I actually did like a really big deep dive into this theory that I have. I'm not really ready with it yet, but thinking about erotic ambiguity as being so important and erotic ambiguity is that space between yes and no between sexual partners when we actually don't know whether or not this is going to go anywhere or this is just sexual tension that's going to live and sit unanswered. And when we're in long term relationships, there is no erotic ambiguity anymore. Like, I know, if I make an advance on you, more than likely you're going to be willing. And if you're not, it's because you're tired. It's not because, you know, I'm not sure about the attraction level, so you can manufacture that, which is the really great thing if you're aware that that is what your pain point is. Try doing more adventurous things together. Try going on more dangerous dates, do new and novel things, and be aware of what the new and novel has to be. Because it's more useful, I think, to try a new sex act in your same bedroom than to get a hotel and have the same sex in a different place. Hmm. It might be more useful to go to a bed and breakfast where you think other people can hear you, then to go to somewhere remote or send the kids away for the weekend and have the house to yourself. So be aware of what the new thing has to be, because I think about this when it comes to dates, people are like, Oh, we should go out for dinner and you're like, So you're just going to sit across from each other and talk about bills while someone else do the food. What's so different about that environment? The only new stimulant that you have is like new food to bond off of. Like that doesn't sound like a great precursor. So be aware of what that new is and and try to attack that to bring in the unknown between you guys and keep the known and that safety ness where it matters most. And just be aware that in this area, you have to work a little bit harder to create an X Factor. That's such good advice because she already has like the problem in front of her. She knows what it is and you. You just gave perfect advice like I. I know that I get that way. Sometimes relationships or I'm like, Oh, I feel safe, and sometimes I feel like I want to feel safe. And other times I'm like, Is this boring? Am I? But that's really good. Advice is like a simple thing is thinking about what dates you're going on, what you're doing, why you're feeling safe and change something about it. Kaitlyn, I've just been getting into role playing like recently, and it's I know it is because it's so silly, but I actually had a male sex expert who I'm going to mention to you and his name is Alex Grundy. I just love him. I think he's so smart. I think your audience really enjoy him. It's really fascinating because he's so smart and knowledgeable, and he's a male sex coach, so he works better as a tenant inside. On them, but if you go on his social media profile, he has no followers. And that is because men won't follow him because they don't want to admit that they're getting help. They know, right? Isn't that interesting? Yeah, but he's very successful. Very awesome. But he was telling me about role playing and how much he loved and how much fun it was. And it was a weird, but I guess hearing a straight man give that permission made me feel like, Oh, I could try this. It's not going to feel lame, but it does, because I require erotic ambiguity. So even in role-playing, when we do it or attempted it, I'm like, If you don't sell me, it's not going down like we're not role playing to have sex. We're role-playing to see where this goes. So if you don't really like, bring it as the Amazon delivery guy, I wouldn't have sex with you in real life. It's done, really. So I need that. That's so interesting, because years ago, somebody had brought up roleplaying on my podcast and again, kind of the similar way I made fun of my own sexuality, laughed about it because I was uncomfortable. I made somebody feel uncomfortable for them roleplaying, and I kind of jacked their Yum. And so I had Emily Morse on my podcast to talk about Role-Playing, and I got inspired and then I tried it, and I was like, That was actually really fun. And so took my whole perspective. And now I'm so open to it. OK, tell me, tell me your role very quickly. What was your guys scene? But that was the whole thing is my whole problem was I'm going to laugh and be silly. So we we put that into it where I was like, I was like a silly like couldn't pay attention kind of girl. Like, I just like added that because I'm like, I'm going to laugh. I'm going to think this is funny. So I was just like, Well, I might as well embrace that. And then of course, it turned serious that turned into something more fun. And I was like, Oh, I was just being like, insecure, obviously. Yeah. And it's like, Don't get me wrong, I think if we all again sort of normalized these changes, that can feel like failures. And so when you have to try to be someone else to get those feelings, people are like, Oh, that's a failure, that. That's what I thought to each other. Right, exactly. And it's just a literal like fact of life. It's a detail of connection, a beautiful, detailed connection. And we could talk about all of the benefits to getting over that insecurity, to getting over that risk and reward that feeling of danger, that casino effect that you get a new relationships. There's incredible amounts of benefits that we should really lean into. But yeah, one of the downsides is is that there is less unknown, which sometimes you have to manually put that in and pretend that you're somebody else. So leave us alone. Yeah, exactly. Don't knock it till you try it. Yeah. Well, that was my I had to give that advice to myself because I was like knocking at night and try it. My last question is, Well, it's not for me. Somebody said, How do you know if you're a sex addict or just have a high libido? And what do you do if you have a high libido but your partner has a low one? I would say both of these are questions that are best answered with a medical professional. And I think a way that I would think about sex addiction is if I feel like in my cycle I have the drive to have sex, I engage in sex and then afterwards I experience shame and I also experience a degradation of other priorities. If you're in that flow, like all the things that matter to me, my relationships, my work, my health time with my kids, my if I'm seeing, you know, my other priorities degrade because of this compulsion. And even though I acknowledge that it's degrading, I still feel that need that triggered that circle goes back again. I would then say that, OK, this is something that even if it's not a medical issue or this something that bothers me that I want help on, yeah. So I think if you get to that place, it's good to go and ask for help. Differing libidos is just a very normal fact of relationships, and that's not even libidos. You're going to be a different financial places at different times. You're going to have different priorities. Some people are going to be in the achievement portion of their journey, and some people are in the attachment portion of their journey. And that's a weave. It's also hard to get on the same page in a long term relationship because I may have dreams of doing some things for myself. And you may be going through a phase where you really want to be close. And then when I finally want to be close, you now have an individual achievement goal. So you're just going to go through different coils, different times. And if anything, look at the times that you're lined up as like, this is the lottery. Like what? We just hit the sevens all at the same time. Like, that's rare. That's amazing when it's not there. There's sometimes minor disparities that you can manage or figure out if it's feels bigger than that. There are medical interventions, as a matter of fact. It's also important because one person might go get a medical intervention for their low libido, and then that's spikes a little bit so high that the other partner, whose libido was partner dependent, became very low because they taught their body. This is how they relate to this person. They. They go through a shock of like, well, how do I interact with this individual, even if they're the ones who encourage them to get medical attention? So. And that person need to go and figure out their situation, too? So I think you don't feel like I don't want people to feel like this is out of my hands the same way that you're like, Oh my God, my liver's acting up, you're like, Well, I guess that's my new reality. You're like, I think I there might be another way. Right? So there's options. Explore that other way. Yeah, before you throw in the towel or throw away a perfectly good relationship. Yeah, OK, I lied. This is my last question. It could be short and sweet. It could be whatever you want as a sex expert. How does one have the best orgasm that they could possibly have? I think not. Not asking for a friend stimulation of multiple erogenous zones at once. Really, I think that that gives, you know, those like head massages that are like claws. Yeah. So I've been playing with those during sex, and that just brings something new. It's just it's just stimulating different parts of your body simultaneously. Yeah. Yeah, it just gives you. And I don't want to say better or worse, because it's not to say that I get into this debate a lot with people who experience orgasm from penetration alone and those who don't, and people who experience from penetration alone are like, I just feel so sad because like, they'll never really know the full body orgasm. I was like, Show me the scale that tells me that your experience is greater or more euphoric than the other person's. Maybe your clitoral orgasms are subpar compared to theirs, and that their clear orgasm is similar or greater than yours. We just don't know. So I don't like to say like, what's a better orgasm? It's just like new feelings, right? It's almost like. Can you tell me what's better, sushi or pizza? You're like, well, depends on the spot, depends on the day. Like, I've had really great pizza and really great sushi. I love all of your analogies. They all make it really easy for me to like. It helps me understand it better because I'm like, Wow, that is such a good point. I just appreciate all of your insight and you obviously are an expert. So I you were the first person I thought of to have on for this. My gosh, I just I appreciate you so much. You always help me and obviously my listeners and thank you for helping me navigate that whole conversation. The last person I just want to say before we go is Dr. Jolene Brighton. If you feel desire to have more competition this topic, she is an MD. She specializes in hormones, and she works with patients directly. And I know that she could provide like a wealth if people are really wanting to ask more about the medical side of it. I'm not an expert on that by any capacity. I am interested. But yeah, she's a great person to chat with. Mind you, I don't want anyone to like wait for the podcast to give you a magical answer to a question that this important if you're asking the question, please go ask a doctor. But if you are curious and I think it's also good to be informed when you go to go see doctors, that could be somebody who could help your audience just get a little bit more information to arm them for that next important personal conversation. Yeah, you could never be like too knowledgeable about something like there's always more information for us to learn. So I just appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for doing this with me. Thank you for having me. I'm Kaitlyn Bristowee. Your session is now ending. And if I'm being honest, I wouldn't mind a rating and review. Pluto TV is TV the way it should be free with over 300 channels, thousands of movies and TV shows costing zeros of dollars. 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