Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Rhett. And I’m Link. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we are continuing Sex-tember. Tember! That’s when it falls. What does the tree symbolize? A large penis? It’s a phallus, yes. Okay. It’s a phallus of some sort. Just making sure we’re on the same page. Last week was great. This week is gonna be great. We got another guest to just Enlighten us. to keep us in on proper information. Dr. Emily Nagoski, so excited about this, is a sex educator, speaker, and award-winning author of the New York Times’ Best selling book, “Come as You Are”, and the “Come as You Are” workbook and co-author with her sister, Amelia, of the New York Times’ best seller, “Burnout: the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle”. Dr. N., is what I’m gonna call her right now, That stands for Nagoski. is director of wellness education at Smith College, where she teaches a course on women’s sexuality. She combines sex education and stress education to teach women to live with confidence and joy inside their bodies. We’ve actually already had this conversation that you’re about to listen to. I gotta say I learned a lot. Yeah. She instructed us to call her Emily. That’s why we call her Emily, although she is a doctor, and as you will see a very well qualified one at that, continuing to enlighten these boys that are just hungry to learn about sex. If you don’t wanna hear specific and explicit talk about sex, don’t listen to this episode. That’s your warning. Midterm elections are coming up on November 8th, and across the US, people are gonna be voting on some pretty crucial spots in Congress, governors, and special elections, and we want you to vote too. Yeah, so Vote Like a Beast is here to help you. Go to votelikeabeast.com. You can check your voting status there. You can register if you need to, and you can stay informed on midterm elections. We’re also selling some stickers over at votelikeabeast.com and 100% of our profits go directly to our partners over at vote.org. This is a website that we created to help you. So be your mythical best by supporting a great nonprofit that helps all Americans exercise their right to vote. Go to votelikeabeats.com. I noticed that you are, and I listened to the will lack of sleep kill you, by the way, yes, it will, and you had a conversation about Link’s glasses, and I’m wearing very similar glasses, and I thought, oh good. I see that. I’m not gonna have to explain about your glasses, and now you’re not wearing those glasses. Do you have ’em? Oh, now you want me to wear the glasses? Well, I mean, Of course, I have the glasses. Hold on, hold on. I feel like making guests feel at home. We don’t always have guests. It’s just when we want to talk about something where we want an expert involved, even a sexpert involved, I want them to feel welcome. Mmhmm. So I wear mine because I get migraines, and the light from my screen is a trigger, and this filters out the blue light that activates it. So are yours also for medical reasons or you just wanna look like Elton John? Yeah, well, I can’t wait for this answer. You’re wearing those for medical reasons? Yeah, because I mean, feeling good is medical, right? Absolutely. These make me feel good. They make me feel good. I’m glad that we’re cohorts now, Emily. Yeah, we can share this. Look at that. We’re seeing the world in an orange tint. I gotta say, now– Boy, and you look cool. I don’t care about medical reasons. You can just do it for the cools. Can I just say that now that this has happened, I feel very left out. You’re damn right, and you are left out. Hold on one second. I’ll be right back. Look what you’ve done. I feel like he’s gonna come back in year 2000 New Years Eve glasses. I’m just mad that he was giving me nothing but about my glasses, which I don’t care about that. That didn’t make me mad. That’s his problem, but now, because he respects you so much, Emily, I guess, or wants to impress you, he’s totally switched sides. I know he’s gonna come back with something, yep. If nothing else happens, I have made your life easier. Oh my gosh. Those are prop glasses. You’re not gonna wear those out in the real world. I’ve been meaning to. I didn’t know it was gonna happen this soon, but. Battle of the glasses. I kind of feel like I’ve been forced into this. Okay, so you’re making fun of me and Emily, because we’re doing this sincerely. No, I– She had my migraines! You don’t think this is sincere? She has migraines, and I’m cool! You never know when migraines might start. You’re not, you’re neither. You never know when migraines might start. I mean, You’re nothing to us. things start happening when, you know what? I think We are not the same. we’re all basically the same age. Let’s talk about sex. Yeah, I am. I was born in ’77. You’re a ’77 baby. ’77. ’78 baby. This is supposed to be about sex. Things start happening. You get migraines. I’m gonna find a way to make this relevant to sexuality. I’m getting so sexually frustrated right now. The blue balls are real. I feel very sexy, and you know what? Let’s talk about that a little bit because– About blue balls? Well, we can talk about blue balls. Oh, we can talk about blue balls. Are blue balls real, because– Hold on, I was about to ask a question before we got to blue balls. No. We don’t care about you and your glasses. And that is how you feel about the way that you look can have an impact on what happens in the bedroom, so to speak, right? Oh yeah, body image and stress are the top two things that hit the brakes, which I’m sure we’ll talk about the dual control model, but body image and stress, top two, trauma not far behind. Okay, so yo, but to get the blue balls outta the way, because everything you just mentioned is where we’re going in this podcast. Are blue balls really a thing, because I, or is it just something that sexually frustrated people with balls dangle over others to get what they want? I actually don’t know. I think I’ve experienced it. Tell me what you mean by blue balls, because people mean different things. Like I am– You talking about avatar? My body is ready. If things continued another, let’s say, five or 10 minutes, then I could ejaculate or one, let’s say, let’s not make this about me. One could ejaculate. Yeah. One with balls could ejaculate, and then, so physically, there’s a pain of all the soldiers lining up to go into battle, It’s just a drill. but yet at the last second, it’s like, you know what? We’re calling it off. Back to the barracks. It’s just a war game. Back to the balls barracks. You’re not coming out to the war games, and it hurts, No, it is war games. And the balls don’t actually turn blue, but they hurt. It hurts. There is a physical discomfort that can come with experiencing a really high level of arousal and then having that stop, especially if it stops suddenly, and there is nothing dangerous about it. Nobody has ever died or even suffered an injury Death by blue balls. as a result of, yeah, and the problem arises when someone takes the discomfort of a sudden interruption of a high level arousal as entitlement to orgasm like, you have to, cuz I don’t feel, I need that. You don’t need it. Nothing bad is gonna happen to you. If you really need to keep going, go be by yourself for a couple of minutes and get the job done if you want to, and mostly what you’re experiencing is sexual frustration, which no one has ever suffered injury due to sexual frustration. Right. Okay, good to hear. So don’t dangle the blue balls as some sort of ultimatum. And don’t worry that next time you get blue balls that you might die. Yeah, literally nothing bad will happen to you except that your partner, who is like, you know what? I’m not ready to go any further. You can be like, okay, we can stop now, and they’ll have mad respect for you. Well. Let’s talk. Can we talk about the book? Let’s talk about the book. I’m taking it back out. Let’s talk about the book. “Come as You Are”, this is an amazing book. I know it’s been out for like seven years. The fact that it, I mean, it’s a testimony to how powerful this book is as a resource to people. I love it. This is our recommendation today, “Come as You Are”, Emily’s book, one of many. What’s the name of your new book, by the way, the stress one? “Burnout”. Oh, “Burnout”, yeah. Burnout, we’re gonna shout out that one too, but– Shout out to “Burnout”. So my daughter, Lily, when she went off to college last year, a mentor of hers gave her this book, and I saw it around, because I noticed the cover. This is a brilliant cover. I mean, it’s eye catching pink, and then there’s an open zipper that is very vulvic. I mean, I don’t know if that’s what you were going for, but I’m pretty sure it was. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think it’s just a purse. That’s right. That thing’s gotta be on the shelf in Barnes and Noble. You can’t be just having a vulva out there. This is one of the best book covers I have ever seen, but I gotta be honest. I’m glad you like it. There’s a dark side to it. It’s a little visceral when you think about putting your wiener in a some, Something that can zip. something that can zip up. I get a little something about marry promising. During my teenage years, there was very few things that I wouldn’t place my wiener in. The ways that– There’s whole Reddit communities that love that. The ways that you could find to masturbate as a teenager was just, I feel like I could write a book about that. I mean, zipity-dooda, zipity. It probably wouldn’t sell as well as yours. I have a friend don’t screw up hers. who had been masturbating since he was like a little kid, and the way he masturbated was to line his stomach and hump his mattress and have an orgasm and just feel like done. I lost my virginity to a mattress, to my bed actually. I’ll tell you about that in a second. Go ahead. No, you just told her. And then one day, when he was about 13, he did his usual humping the mattress feels really good and all this stuff came out of his penis and he panicked. He was sure he had broken something. So he ran to his mom and was like, this, oh, I don’t know what happened, but I’m really worried that there’s a disease or, and his mother was totally cool about it. She was like, this is just a normal part of what happens. Let’s go run the laundry, and you’re gonna be just fine. This is probably gonna keep happening. That’s one of my favorite stories of an early masturbation experience that didn’t reinforce shame but was just like, yeah, that’s normal, that happens. Because it could have gone another way. Well, it did with us, we come from– I never ran to my mom and told her anything about my jizz. Right, well, we come from a conservative evangelical Christian background that gives you a certain set of beliefs about sex that then you have to deconstruct as you grow older, but yeah, the first time I masturbated, I definitely thought I broke my dick. I was not about to tell my mom about it, but then– You were pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t powder, you told us last year. The discovery of the having sex with the bed, which if you’re listening and you need any tips, I will say that you just find something like a shoe, and usually two shoes, the thing about shoes, now, just roll with me here, is that a shoe has like a gradation, like if you get a converse all-star, if you take the mattress and the box spring, right? So you’ve got the mattress and the box spring, you can put the shoes in, and the further you wedge the shoes in, it changes the size of the opening between your mattress and your box springs, and that’s the thing that you’re screwing, by the way, is that opening, and you just dial it in– So you’re penetrating the gap between the mattress and the bedspread? Yeah, yeah, so it’s like a sideways vagina. I hope you’re using a lot of loob. He didn’t use any. Well, here’s the thing, I definitely don’t recommend this, cuz there was a, I mean, I was like a 15-year-old kid that– I mean, what happens when you flip your mattress? My hands could have been made of sandpaper, and it wouldn’t have stopped me. I mean, as a 13-year-old boy, I was religiously flipping my mattress every month, rotate, flip, there’s a flip. No, there’s a towel in there. There’s a towel in there. There’s a rotate, then there’s a flip and rotate. There’s a towel in there, because you don’t want your mom to find that situation, and don’t use your favorite shoes. Again, the friction just feels like it’s gonna be really high. Oh, I’m sure it was. It was probably not healthy, but nothing could stop me, nothing could stop me. You like pleasure spiked with pain and music is your aeroplane? One of my favorite things about your book, which we would actually like to do right now if you don’t mind, is we would like to actually take the sexual temperament quiz. Okay. On page 54, I mean, it’s only 10 questions, but before we– You can take it along with us, Well, we’ll walk through our answers. Listener. That way you can get to know us. Oh yeah, yeah, as you’re listening, I thought we could read all the questions, give our answers, then Emily, you kind of know where we stand. Then we can kind of talk that out and then talk about people who are, maybe, if we’re the same, different than us or different than the two of us, even, if we’re different, but give us some context for the sexual temperament questionnaire. Right, so this is a little Cosmo quiz version of the actual scientific instrument that researchers use to assess what’s known as the dual control model of sexual response. So the idea here is that humans, like all mammals, have a mechanism in their brain that controls sexual response, and it’s a dual control mechanism, which means it has two parts, and the first part is a sexual accelerator that a lot of us are familiar with. It notices all the sex related information in the environment. That’s everything that you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, or crucially, everything you think, believe, or imagine that your brain codes as related to sex. It takes all the information in, and it sends the turn on signal that many of us are familiar with. It’s working at a low level right now. Here we are talking about sex. This is just a tiny little bit of sex-related information. So you’re getting just a little tiny bit of activation of the accelerator at a subconscious level. Fortunately, at the same time, you have the second mechanism, the brakes. Noticing all the good reasons not to be turned on right now. That’s everything that you see, hear, smell, touch, taste, think, believe, or imagine that your brain codes as a potential threat, and it sends the turn off signal. Both of them are functioning all the time. So your level of arousal at any given moment is a balance of how much the ons are turned on and how much the offs are turned off, and people have different sensitivities of these mechanisms. Most of us are piled up in the middle. We’re just medium in the sensitivity of our accelerator and our brakes. Some people have a really sensitive accelerator, which if you drive a car that’s got a really sensitive accelerator, that’s gonna be an experience. You’re gonna do a lot of jerking, like your head’s gonna jerk back. You’re gonna have a high, exactly, high sensitivity. Yeah, and if you have a really low sensitivity accelerator, like it takes a lot more gas and a lot more time to get you where you wanna go, and some people have a really sensitive brake. These are actually the folks who are the most prone to sexual dysfunction, because it turns out the best predictor of sexual difficulties is not not enough stimulation to the accelerator. It’s too much stimulation to the brakes. Ooh. So as we go, so I see that there’s– This is a very helpful way to think about it, because you talk about this as well, just the misnomer of sex drive. Well, let’s get back to that. I don’t wanna talk about it yet. I know, it’s great. I wanna do the test first. I super wanna talk about that, but so, and then some people have a really low sensitivity of brakes, which even if you’re driving a car that just has like a regular level of accelerator sensitivity, if your brakes are not responsive enough, some not so great things can happen. Hmm, right, okay. So for us, but most of us are in the middle. Well, let’s find out. I see that there’s an inhibitors page five questions, and so we’re supposed to add up our numbers here, and then on the other page, there’s an exciters five questions. So let’s just go through ’em, and then we can, kind of, flesh this out. Okay, on a scale of zero to four, zero meaning not like you at all, and four, exactly like you, answer this. Sometimes I have so many worries that I am unable to get aroused. Sometimes I have so many worries I am unable to get aroused, zero, not at all, four, exactly like me. This is complex, because, okay, so as someone who thinks about these things in the context of a 21 year marriage, I think about the fact that stress often makes me want to go and, but not necessarily have an encounter with my wife, because that can sometimes be like, or in that scenario, I’ve really gotta think about her, and I’ve got to make it an enjoyable experience for her, and that can seem like work sometimes when you’re already stressed out. Right, but– So you’ve already just told me something about the sensitivity of your accelerator. About 10 to 20% of people find that when their stress is increased, their interest in sex is increased, and it will not necessarily be for partnered sex or for their relationship with their long-term partner, but it will increase their interest in sexual release, in porn, or in a higher risk kind of sexual behavior. So my guess already is that you’re gonna score on the higher end of the sexual excitation scale, which is the accelerator. Yeah, so I think– Because I relate to that, but then also, when I’m in a stressful zone, like, oh this week or these couple of weeks have really piled up, I realize that I haven’t thought about having sex. So definitely in high stress times I’m like, oh yeah, now I’ll call this a sex dry spell, Oh, the ol’ dry spell but neither one of those is this. This is like– This is about arousal. I have so many worries that I’m unable to get aroused. I think that I can always, I mean, when I’m in go mode, it’s like, I can usually compartmentalize and overcome it. It’s just a question of do I want to come it at all? But once I’ve engaged in being there, I don’t get two in my head. I’m going with one. So I’m gonna put a one, too. Next one, unless things are, quote, just right, it is difficult for me to become sexually aroused. Zero. Yeah, I’m a very meticulous person and I– Your house could be burning down. I, yeah, I’m not gonna, I mean, you think someone could be pummeling your, a boxer Somebody could be actively intruding. could be pummeling your face. There could be an intruder taking my television and be like, well, hold on now, priorities, man. Yeah. I’m gonna put another one there. So people who score four on this are there people who like, a stray piece of grit on the sheets, a stray fingernail, a stray thought, a stray sound in the hallway can just shut everything right down. Those are the people who are fours. For me, I’m like, if the dogs are still in the bed, that’s their problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? That is their problem. I am not gonna live in a world where my dogs dictate if I’m able to get nooky or not, and Cristy and I have discussed that. You haven’t trained your dogs? Barbara knows. They know something’s up. Barbara knows that mommy and daddy are doing special time, and that’s when she just goes into her house. She like, just so she kinda like, okay, and then goes in there and then just kinda lays down and waits. Jade, kind of, looks away, and I’ll pick him up and put him on, we have couch in our bedroom. The eye contact is a problem. I’ll put the dogs on the couch and then– So they can watch? If they want to, I do not care. You’re an exhibitionist. That’s my thing is that like, and yeah, Christy is fine with that too, but if the dog is trying to crawl up in there and get in somebody’s face, you’re like, what’s going on? It’s like, Jasper– We have a dog like that. She wants to participate. Right, so you gotta set her outside. You just gotta close the door, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, participate. Yeah, that’s a lot. All right, so– She just wants to be right up in there like, hi, everybody. Yeah, she sees love happening. She wants in on it. Yes, it’s like, this is not. Yes, this looks like a fun game. Yeah, my dogs, they do tend to know that something’s up. They do face away. I think that, I don’t know. They can see and smell a lot of things we can’t. Right, I think the smell has a lot to do with it. If I’m uncertain how my partner feels about me, it’s harder for me to get aroused. Okay, I can I’m gonna move up this one. If I’m uncertain, it’s like, is Christy mad at me? Or have I done something? Yeah, I mean, I want this to be like us both to be at the party. You know what I’m saying? Well, I have this thing that happens. And I get concerned about that. Emily, help me understand this. So I’m gonna put a three for that. I’m gonna put a one for this because sometimes, Jessie, first of all, we have a, what I call, a high frequency, low amplitude, conflict situation in our marriage, right? You fight a lot, but it’s never really blowout. We don’t build up the resentment, and then it blows out. It’s just like, we’re constantly, kind of, in love and also arguing with each other. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s lasted for 21 years, Yeah, and we’re not like that. and sometimes when she gets mad at me, it turns me on, and I don’t know what it is, but she’s got an opinion about something, and she’s really getting into it, and then we’re having an argument about something, and then I’m just like, oh, and just something happens, and I’m kind of turned on. I don’t know what it is, and we don’t do the dom stuff where we don’t, we haven’t experimented with that. I’m not saying I wouldn’t, we just haven’t done that yet. So it’s not like, oh, dominate me, but it’s more you’re a little getting a little feisty. That’s a little sexy right now, and then she starts laughing, and then it usually diffuses the situation. That’s not why I’m doing it. It’s just my natural response. Am I okay, Emily? You are. You’re normal. You’re fine. There could be a couple of different explanations for why it happens, and I think a big part of it is the fact that your anger is not escalating to a high level. You’re just a little irritated or annoyed, and then she is irritated and annoyed in response, and first of all, that’s a connection. That’s an emotional connection. You haven’t escalated to a place where you’re no longer connected. John Gottman’s research shows that when people’s heart rates get above 100 beats per minute, they lose their ability to listen to each other, but you’re not allowing the stress levels in your body to escalate to that point. You’re just getting a higher level of activation than usual together, and am I wrong in thinking that you enjoy your wife as a person? You’re not wrong. So here she is being her full personhood. You are connected together at a high level of intensity that is not disconnecting you. It makes sense to me that that would be arousing. There’s also– And that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with her too. When we were dating was that she was passionate about stuff and it was like, damn, I like that. So I think I’m just continue to be attracted to her in that way. Yeah, there’s another piece of it. Yeah, for me, it’s more about connection than it is about, the conflict, to me, is like, the resolution is what brings on the horny for us. It’s like making up is that very fun? Yeah. So that’s very much about attachment. So the biology of love is human attachment. It originates in the fact that our infants are entirely dependent on their adult caregivers. If you leave ’em by the side of the road, they will just die of exposure if they’re not eaten by a bear first. Human babies are ridiculous. They’re heavy. They make a lot of noises. They smell weird, right? They’re also adorable. They’re uglier than we care to admit. I know, adorable, yes. But, and yet, when somebody hands you a baby and is like this one’s yours. Keep it alive. No matter how frustrated and resentful you feel, there is nothing on earth that will stop you from showing up to help that baby when that baby needs you. That’s attachment and around adolescence, that infant caregiver system gets co-opted into peer-to-peer relationships. Now, when you’re an infant, your life literally depends on your adult caregiver coming back when you need them. When you’re an adult, that’s not literally the case, but your body doesn’t know that. So when there is a threat to your attachment object, a threat to this attachment connection, one of the strategies adults have to reconnect when there’s a threat to the attachment is sex. So that’s why makeup sex and even break up sex can be so intense is it’s fueled by this desperate, oh my God, I need to fix this attachment or else I could die. Wow, damn. Well, so I gave that a three. I gave it a one. You gave it a one. Okay, if I am worried about taking too long to become aroused or to orgasm, this can interfere with my arousal. If I’m worried about taking too long to become aroused or to orgasm. I feel like I’m watching two guys grapple with a question that women would be like, oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. Well, the interesting thing, and when you have a penis, obviously there’s lots of signals that are happening with a vulva and vagina and everything down there, but there can be this like, am I at full mast, half mast, because there’s such an obvious like, you’re either on or you’re off. I do think that there could be times like, oh, this is not happening as fast as I expected this to happen or oh, I’m about to, I’m trying to go longer tonight. I’m really trying to go for it tonight to show how great of a lover I am and oh gosh, I’m about to lose my erection. You know? Yeah. Those kind of things can get into your head at times. So I think I might go with a good two on this one. I’m gonna give it a one. Sometimes I feel so shy or self-conscious during sex that I cannot become fully aroused. I’mma put a zero for that. Yeah, that doesn’t happen for me. Okay, so that’s all we have on that side. Again, women are all like, really? Okay, so that was total four there. Oh, you got a total of four. And, both of those are for cultural reasons. There’s nothing innate in being born in an it’s a girl kind of body that makes a person self-conscious about their body or feel shy about sexuality. That’s entirely cultural. It’s cuz we’re trained from birth to hate our bodies and feel ashamed of our genitals. Mmhmm. Boo. I know, right. Boo, let’s move over to exciters. I got a total of six there. You got a total of four for inhibitors. Did I win? Same scale zero to four. I’m very competitive. I was gonna say, I was like, dang, cause I took the test too just to see the female perspective, and I was like, dang, that’s what they got. I have a 12 from mine. 12, okay. Okay. Yeah. So we’ll come back to that. So you know what? You win, unless this is golf and I win. I win. And Jenna wins. If it’s traditional sports, Jenna wins. All right, keep taking it. Somebody’s gotta win. On the excited side. In my zero sum world, Seeing a partner doing something that shows their talent or intelligence or watching them interacting well with others can make me very sexually aroused, zero, not like me, four, exactly like me. Oh, this is a big one for me, man. I think somebody can become much more attractive when they are demonstrating their intelligence. You’re talking about hot for teacher? Yeah. The tot for teacher dynamic. And also someone– Well, maybe that’s a different dynamic. Well, likewise, someone can become very unattractive when there’s nothing there except the external. Yeah, Mr. Bryant was a great physics teacher, but there were other things that, and I liked his sense of humor, but there were just things about him that didn’t make me horny. Well, I think it’s the kind of thing that like, Sorry to bring you into this Mr. Bryant. you’re scrolling through Instagram and it’s not uncommon. It’s not uncommon to see a beautiful woman on Instagram. Oh, well, on your for-you page. Yeah, and yeah, and I think the algorithm knows that I like beautiful women, but then when you go to the profile and see that, it seems that the– The algorithm knows what you think a beautiful woman is. The extent of this account is beautiful woman. At that point, it’s like, I’m not as attracted to this person at this point, but if this person was like– Couldn’t you have a video of you solving some physics equations? Yeah. Mr. Bryant was a physics teacher. I don’t know if I said that, but yes, okay. Dissecting a frog. Mr. Bryant was hot. So seeing exuding talent or intelligence or interacting well with others, I’m gonna put a three. What’d you put? I put a four. Okay, when I think about someone I find sex, what’d you put, Jenna? We’ll go one by one this time. Oh, I put a three, yeah. Three, okay. Intelligence and passionate is, yeah, I like. When I think about someone I find sexually attractive or fantasized about sex, I easily become sexually aroused. Oh yeah, four. I mean, if I’m gonna– Yeah, what else? Why would I be fantasizing, what do I expect is gonna happen? I mean, what else could happen if you fantasize? Help us understand someone, Emily, who might score that low. Did you score at low, Jenna? I did not score low. Actually, I’m a high accelerator more than– Don’t skip ahead. I’m just saying, but. What number? I put a three. All right, three. You got a Tesla Model S up in there? Emily, what were you gonna say? So people with low sensitivity accelerators are less likely to fantasize in the first place, and when they do fantasize, it’s more a traditional experience of daydreaming where they’re just imagining that something could happen without it necessarily being a really visceral experience. I don’t know that I’ve ever sat around and just had a fantasy. What do you mean? Are you saying that you’ve had a fantasy for the sake of the utility to be able to masturbate, and you don’t consider that a fantasy? Because obviously, you’ve done that. Like when you’re walking down the street or you’re sitting in heavy traffic, you’re daydreaming letting your mind wander, and it goes to sexual things that could happen or couldn’t happen. That’s, okay, yeah. Okay, well I’ll change my to three. That happens quite a bit. Yeah, but yeah, yeah. That makes sense. If it is possible someone might see or hear us having sex it is more difficult for me to get aroused. Watch the numbers on this one. It’s reverse-scored. Reverse-scored, four means not like me at all. Zero is exactly like me. So the scale goes down the more you relate to this. If it is possible someone might see or hear us having sex, it’s more difficult to get aroused. That’s not like me at all. I mean, we were in the car going at it and a hiker walks by and then I was like, just get down, How close? Just kinda hide. We were both down, but right on the outside of the window, but the sun had gone down, and I think the hiker will probably see a reflection of themselves, not of– Were the windows steamy? Potentially, yeah. It was early on, though, in the festivities, but then another hiker walks by and another hiker. It was a freaking cavalcade of hikers. They were in like a chain. Well, you should never hike alone, really, because that’s when you get in trouble. But the more hikers that came by, the more I was, kind of, into it. Especially when it’s dark out. What are these? I don’t think they were hikers. I think it might’ve been It was dusty. Scavengers. a hookup spot. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It was dusk, and they were wearing hiking attire. Hiking gear, okay. They had spent a day on the mountain. Maybe that’s their kink. I don’t know. So for me, But your experience with people walking by, I put a four. That’s not like me at all, because that does not make it more difficult for me to get aroused. Whereas another person in that situation, the first hacker goes by, and you’re like, ah, and the second person goes by, and you’re like, oh no, we’re done. Yeah. Yeah, I put a three on this one. I downgraded from a four. We talked on a previous podcast about how sometimes you’ll be staying in one of those hotels, and I don’t know what part of the conversation on the previous podcast was edited out. So I don’t know. I don’t listen back to it, but all I was saying was that you’re in a high-rise hotel, and you realize that you’ve left the window open, and then my disposition is just like, okay, there’s a little bit of an exhibitionist in me, right? And then recently speaking of hiking, We’re entertainers. Jessie and I went on a hike, and it’s Los Angeles. So you can’t get alone on a hiking trail, but there was offshoots No banks on these hikes. on this particular trail, and I was like, hey, what do you think about taking a little offshoot, finding a big rock or something, and having a little fun, and she was like, okay, that sounds fun, but we did not realize that we had gotten ourselves in a situation. Now, first of all, also, I’m 6’7″, she’s 5’3″. You do the math on that, and a– What would that be, subtraction? Yeah, yeah. What’s your, Okay, go ahead. If we were both standing up on like a creek bank, and that was when we realized that the main trail looped back around and was like 20 feet from us and saw three heads walking by, and at that point, I would say that the reason I immediately was like, oops, get up, get up, and she was also like that was just I just don’t want to be, what if I get recognized man? And it’s just, I don’t want that to be the memory that someone has of me. So that’s why I’m not putting a four because– Right, you don’t wanna educate like a family of. Yeah. Somebody calls from the trail, hey, Rhett. Exactly, yeah, Awkward. that’s the situation that I’m not interested in, but if you’re staying at a hotel that’s got thin walls, and you know that the people can hear you, my disposition is to get louder and put on a show for the people in the next room, not in an impositional way, but just like, don’t let that be The reason that you get quiet. Do you know what I’m saying? So I’m gonna go with the three. All right. I do wanna point out that there are a lot of people for whom the idea of potentially being caught or seen is arousing, but the reality of being in a situation where they could be caught or seen is not. It just shuts everything down and that’s totally normal. It’s because the context of actually being in a situation where you could be seen and potentially not safe is different from the fantasy world where you can control the idea that you actually are totally safe the whole time, Yeah, that’s a good delineation. But you get to have the idea. All right, so I’m gonna lower mine from a four to a three for that reason. That’s helpful. Jenna, what did you put? Well, we have slightly different editions of the book. So my quiz is a little different than yours. So I don’t have that question, but I, What would you say? as someone who has done those things and also been caught in those situations, Do tell. I’d say probably like a three. If I don’t get caught, is really fun. Okay. Is really fun. Okay, all right. Really like it, but yeah, getting caught, I’m like crap. This is very embarrassing and mortifying. The quiz changed from edition to edition, because people requested that I put in one that was more inclusive of people, of every gender and hormone combination. Therapists in particular wanted me to make it so that anybody in a couple could take the same quiz. Gotcha. Is that the one that we have? So that’s why they’re different. We’ve got the new one. Yeah. We’ve got the superioral. I spent my pandemic rewriting “Come as You Are”. Yes. Here’s a straightforward one. Two more to go. Particular scents are very arousing to me, four, exactly like you, one, not at all. You go in a bed, bath, and body works, and you gotta, That’s not a place. what? It’s Bed, Bath, and Beyond or Bath and Body Works. Oh. I mean, you said Bed, Bath, and Body Works, which first of all, great colab idea, because I think that would work. I think the Venn diagram is just a circle there. I’m saying this is not much like me. I don’t really think about, I mean, we’ve said on the show that stink makes me horny. Maybe think more about body smells. I about to say, dude, I put a four because– I was talking about candles. No, man, the smell of this, I mean, let’s just, you know, my biggest disappointment in goop, and I have many, is the fact that the candle that’s supposed to smell like a vagina doesn’t smell like a vagina. It’s just a gimmick. What does it smell like? It just smells like a good candle, right? Like, I don’t feel like there was much effort put. We had one on the show, and I’m not saying I’ve smelled a lot of vaginas. It was candle fragrant. There wasn’t any like human scent in that I could detect. I’m sure no two vaginas smell the same, That’s correct. but there’s a general sort of undertone that I think is, I mean, that’s the best smell in the world, and– When we talk about stink make me horny. there’s this subversion of this is an interesting scent unlike any other scent, whether it’s a vagina or any other scent, it’s like, oh, this is provocative versus some other response. I would go a step further and say that I’m still gonna put mine at a two. I regret the fact that in modern society we’ve become so cleanliness obsessed, because that whole idea of somebody stinking a little bit and it making you horny is like, that feels like that was the norm for most of human history until we started deciding that we had to always smell completely clean, right? Aren’t we just washing all our pheromones off? Isn’t that what’s happening these days? Humans don’t have pheromones. Oh, snap! That’s why we bring people who know what they’re talking about on this, well, actually we don’t very often, but– Well, let me say that there is no evidence, yet, that we have pheromones. So, ugh, so I can’t say, yes, it’s because of pheromones, What is a pheromone? people do smell different. They’re like tiny chemicals that communicate information about sex, by which I mean which one you are, and like for a whole lot of other animals, the varmora nasal gland is actively functioning and perceiving pheromones, but there’s no evidence that humans actually, we have a varmora nasal gland, but there’s no evidence that we’re excreting pheromones for it to detect. What we can smell when you smell t-shirts and you can tell which one is your spouse. Correct. What we’re smelling is a combination of things, but in particular, MHC, which is a factor in your immune system that says something about how similar to you this person’s immune system is. Interesting. Whoa, and the more similar, the more attracted? The opposite, because the more similar, the more likely you are related. Ha! Oh wow, because we did the thing on the show a while back and we did a very tame version of it, but it was based on that study, which I’m sure you’re familiar with, which is where they gave people the shirts to smell, and then what you’ve found attractive through smell, lined up what you found attractive physically or I’m sure I’m giving a bad interpretation of it. Basically, you could anticipate who you would be attractive to– Everybody gives a bad interpretation. You could anticipate who you were gonna be attracted to reliably by just smelling the shirt. Panties. And maybe that. It wasn’t panties in this particular experiment. I don’t know if a study that does underwear. I think that would be a really interesting experiment, but I don’t know of one. Hey, there we go. Yeah. Let’s see if we can get bed, bath, and body works to sign up for that experiment. I mean, certain people– funded by bed, bath, and body works. People who put a four would be lined up around the block. So what number did you put? I put a two. I put a four. Jenna? And let me say, this is one of the single best predictors of having quite a sensitive accelerator. Yeah, I’m a four. Smell is a big, yeah, mmhmm. He who smelled it, dealt it. I think about sex a lot when I am bored. This is the final one. Make it count. Zero, not at all, four, exactly like me. When I’m bored, I definitely think about sex more when I’m bored than when I’m not. I would say three, a lot like me. I’m gonna put a four just because I feel like this has been since I went through puberty, it’s my default. If I get bored, it’s the first thing that my mind goes to. Jenna, what’d you put? Let’s add these up. I’m a somewhat, yeah. I think that one isn’t in my quiz either, but, yeah, I think I’m more, if I’m bored, I usually make up whole entire romantic scenarios like the perfect date someone would take me on, the whole romance of it, and I never really get to just the sex part, I guess. All right, so let’s go through totals. So on this side of exciter, I got a 14. Rhett? I got a 19. And Jenna, you’re up there. Oh yeah, I’m an 18. Oh damn, you’re an 18. Okay, so I’m, just to say these one more time, Emily, and then maybe you can lump us into categories or just tell us how to interpret this. Make just gross generalizations about all of us. I’m six, 14, Rhett? I am four, 19. And Jenna, you are? 12, 18. Wow, these are all, that’s my wife’s birthday. It is. So what are you gonna do with that data? So you look up in the graph. There’s an answer sheet that tells you where your score lies in terms of low, medium, high for each of the two scales, because one of the important things is the two do not co-vary. Just because your accelerator sensitive doesn’t mean you’re brake is sensitive or insensitive. Okay, so in the inhibitors side with the brakes, zero to six is low. So Rhett, both of us are low. Medium is seven to 13 and high is 14 to 20. So Jenna is medium. Yeah, so I’m on the medium, yeah. Medium. Okay, so give us a little bit about, if you’re on the low side, what does that mean if you’re in low inhibitor. Yeah, when you have a low sensitivity brake, what that indicates, mostly, it means that your accelerator, regardless of how sensitive it is, is gonna have an easy time overpowering your brakes, and so you’ll be motivated to do things and all the good reasons not to be turned on right now, your brain’s not particularly convinced that those are good reasons. Okay. So if you see a road closed sign, you just drive through it. You’re like, there’s nobody coming. It’s fine, yeah. To you to use a crude analogy. And then on the– Yeah, with the middle, the combination of a middle level accelerator or a middle level brake and a high sensitivity accelerator, that’s a good combination for when a person does not have adequate coping skills for dealing with, what I’m gonna call, maladaptive strategies for managing negative affect, when they don’t have good strategies for dealing with their stress, overwhelm, exhaustion, depression, loneliness, they might, because their accelerator is so sensitive and their brakes are like, meh, their accelerator will be like, well, let’s just go do sex because sex feels really good and much better than this uncomfortable emotion I’m currently experiencing, and that’s when a person is at risk for having a higher risk relationship with sexuality. Okay, and let’s talk on the other side, Rhett, both you and I are high. Jenna, what was your number again on the other side? She was high. I’m high, yeah. You’re high too. So both high exciter. You’re all high, dang. So maybe the best thing to talk about is what if there’s a mismatch with our partners? Cuz I know that Christy would be like, has much more sensitive brakes than I’ve established that I do. So it’s like, let’s just talk about that, I’ll call it an extreme mismatch, but what’s the dynamic there, and then maybe we can interpret some of those. Like if you’re in the middle of you’re the same, but it seems like if you’re both the same, then it’s like, okay, this is easier, but if you’re– Maybe, cuz even if you have the same sensitivity of both of these parts of your brain, what they respond to might be really different. Like one of you, your brakes responds very strongly, negatively when there is a risk of being caught, for example, and the other one, not so much, and you, sort of, wanna incorporate that kind of fantasy into your relationship. So it’s less about the sensitivity of the mechanism than what the mechanism responds to, Gotcha, but let’s talk about if you’re kinda opposites. but when people have really sensitive brakes and not very sensitive accelerator, those are the folks who are most likely to turn up in sex therapy offices, because the slightest little tap on the brakes can shut everything down, and what’s the first thing that happens in people’s brains when a slight little change hits their brakes and they shut down? Then they start going, ah, darn it. I hate when this happens every single time. When am I ever gonna get over this? And does that self-criticism, does it activate the accelerator or does it just hit the brakes more? Hits the brakes more. Yeah, so you can get into a spiral of a sensitive brake being activated, self-criticism and even relationship criticism, criticism from your partner of like, man, why can’t you just ignore it? Why can’t you just get over it? It’s not that big a deal. Let’s get back to it, and everything just shuts down even more. So simply knowing this person has a sensitive brake, a small distraction like a noise in the hallway, like kids rattling around in the hallway, there’s a sex researcher named Peggy Kleinplatz who interviewed an 80 something woman who said that the most important sex accessory was Vaseline. You put it on the doorknob. So if that tiny little thing is gonna distract you, just know that that’s true, know that that’s just normal for this person and don’t freak out about it. I was like, well, where is she inserting the doorknob? Your children’s tiny hands. Yep, but that is an interesting interpretation of it. I would not suggest a doorknob, but you know, who am I? Right, well, you’re tall enough to just bend over and the doorknobs right there. I could probably get one in my ass. Make sure it has a flange. Well, the whole door is the flange. Question, because I feel like– I had not been thinking that viscerally about it. Thanks for that image. Okay, Emily, question for you, because obviously, I scored very high on this at 19. However, and I think that my wife would be medium to high, and I think that, but she would also interpret me, sometimes, as, to use the misnomer, which we can talk about, as having a lower sex drive, because we have a healthy amount of sex. She does initiate quite a bit, and I think– Just for the record, a healthy amount of sex is any amount of sex that feels right for you and your partner. That’s why you’re here. Thank you for clarifying that. For us, we feel like it’s a healthy amount of sex that we’re both satisfied with, but I think the thing that happens often, because we’ve established that I’m thinking about sex quite a bit, and I’m pretty much ready to go at any time, but she may not at times interpret me in that way, because once we are engaged with one another, and I want it to be something that’s not just a quick, obviously, I can be satisfied and done very, very quickly if I wanted to, if I wasn’t taking her into account, but we don’t ever, I mean, very rarely do we do that. Do we have, what I would just call, a traditional quickie. We’ve had conversations about this where she’s like, well, if you want to do that, then we can up our frequency of quickies, but I just never feel right about it. So we go through the process and then it becomes incredible, but sometimes there’s a barrier to entry, literally, of me wanting to engage in that way, which then is interpreted by her as a me not wanting to have sex. Yeah, so it’s like, let’s face it. It’s kind of a project to get to the part where two people are both in the mood and ready. Can we talk about responsive and spontaneous desire? Yeah. Yes. Cause I feel like, especially with a high excitation score and a medium to low brakes score, you’re probably people who experience spontaneous desire for sex where it just, sort of, out of the blue, Erika Moen is the cartoonist who illustrated “Come as You Are”, and she draws spontaneous desire as a lightning bolt to the genital. Just kaboom, oh, I would like to have some sex, ah, and you’re like, you take your lightning bolt to your partner, and you’re like, ah? That’s spontaneous desire, and your partner may or may not be there at that time, but that is one of the normal, healthy ways to experience desire. Another healthy, normal way to experience desire, the research calls responsive desire where instead of it being just a lightning bolt out of the blue, you setup date night, you get childcare, you go to a bed and breakfast, you make plans, you show up in the moment, you put your body in the bed, you let your skin touch your partner’s skin, and your body and your brain go, oh, right. I really like this person. I really like this, and then you get the kaboom, and that’s responsive desire where spontaneous desire emerges in anticipation of pleasure, responsive desire emerges in response to pleasure, and what you’ve done is you’ve created a context where your accelerator is activated and your brakes, all that stuff that hits the brakes, the body image stuff and the stress and being stuck in parent mode or work mode or whatever else you do mode that is very far away from erotic mode, you can leave that all behind. You close the door and all those other parts of your identity stay behind. That creates a context where your brake is freed up and your accelerator can go, and we are busy. We have a lot of other things to do, Yeah, for real. and it generally takes preparation and effort to create that context where you don’t have to be in parent mode and distracted and in house-holding mode and distracted and work mode and distracted. So when it feels like a project to get to the like, I wanna be really present for my partner, I wanna be able to like pay attention to the ways we’re connecting, it actually does take effort. That is normal. You are doing it right if that is the way you experience it. And okay, I relate to this in a number of ways. First of all, talking about like vacation getaway sex is like it can be absolutely amazing and there’s like, okay, we set aside this time, we’re looking forward to it, we’re going away for two nights, childcare’s taken care of, this is about us connecting, we know like the moment we get in the room, we’re gonna have at it, and then we’re gonna have at it a few more times as many times as we can. This is like the focus of our getaway. Back-to-back? How long do you have to wait? Front-to-front, back-to-back. No, how long do you have to wait in between? I mean, we’re not teenagers anymore. The perfect amount of time for us, Rhett. The healthy amount of time for us. Come on, but if it was a competition. I just think answering that question doesn’t help anybody. It’s not a competition, but I will say it is actually true that around 18, your testosterone levels peak, your sensitivity to it peaks, and so your refractory period, which is the amount of time it takes you to get an erection after the last time you ejaculated, that refractory period begins to lengthen, and then the reliability of your erections gradually begins to go down as you get into the, sort of, menopause age. Right. So that’s real. So yeah, as you move through your 40s and into your 50s, and hopefully you live a long and erotic life deep into your 80s and 90s, your erections are gonna become less reliable and that’s fine. Erections come and go, and they are no more important than you decide to make them. But back to the vacation sex for a sec. Right, just saying. All right, so it’s like, we can have this amazing experience, and then it’s like, okay, why can’t we just have that when we’re back at home? Every night. Of course, the answer is the context of life, but one of the things that we’ll do is sometimes we’re like, we’ll be having sex, and we will have a conversation about how great it is. We’ll be like, why did we put this off? This is the most amazing thing that’s happening right now, and then I start saying things like, let’s commit right now to doing this again tomorrow night, and I’m having this like– But you also do that with things other than sex. Anytime you’re in a group of people that are having a good time, you stop and make everyone acknowledge how good of a time we’re having and be like, we have to plan the next one right now. I just think it’s like, let’s make our decision about the next time we align based on this moment. Let’s remember to factor this moment in, and let’s weight it properly. This is one of the most amazing experiences that we can have. Why did it take longer than we both– And I listened to your virginity episode, it’s free. Yeah, oh, you did. Yeah, okay. I did my research. Hey, look, I read your book. We’re all on the same page here. You didn’t have to do that, but it’s free, and it isn’t, right? Yeah, so there’s actually an evidence base to what you’re doing, which is the research on savoring, and there are parts of what you’re doing that actually do increase the pleasure that you experience in the moment, and it shapes your memory. You’re creating more of what in “Inside Out”, the Pixar cartoon, they call core memories where you stop and you talk to other people about how great this is. You notice the sensations that are happening and how enjoyable they are. You compare it to like, man, those other poor saps who don’t get to experience that. I feel so sorry for them. There’s all kinds of skills that you can employ to make this moment. You capture it in a photograph so that you can return to it really easily, and that means that when you look back on your life, you’ve just, sort of, accumulated peak moment after peak moment after peak moment, and your life feels, both, like it has been more worth living and like it has been longer. A part– Nice, I love that idea of a mental photograph and like I have a whole pornographic drawer of that. A movie in your head. Yeah, from my practice. Yeah, and the part that’s not evidence based is we need to start planning the next one now. Yeah, I– What about scheduled sex? Oh, we do that. Monday night is sexy time. There’s lots of, we don’t do it every single week, but we’ll do it. I mean, there’s lots of times where it’s like, if I’m like, hey, you want to go for it? And then there’s like, well, we’re not in alignment, or sometimes it’s like we feel like it’s been a while, and we’re like, I feel like shit right now. I’m not in the mood, but let’s set a date that we can look forward to two nights from now or whatever. We do that all the time, and I feel like then we’re each able to prepare in our own way, and also, the expectations are aligned. So it’s not like me walking up with a lightning bolt and springing it on her. That’s what you call it? That’s what a Emily calls it. There’s two answers, really. I recommend scheduled sex all the time. Like I said, we are busy. Anything, not on my calendar doesn’t happen. So I schedule sex, cuz especially when I’m traveling a lot on the road, and also, just because you scheduled it doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen. There have been times when I was on the road traveling, and I would get home, and I have this little window of time with my husband, and it’s scheduled, and I show up, and I put my body in the bed, and I just cry and fall asleep, cuz I’m so stressed and exhausted. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. And fortunately I’m married to one of the best human beings on the face of the earth, and he’s just like, No you’re not, I am. she clearly needs that more. Gotcha. One of the best human beings on the face of the earth. They’re tied for the best. They’re all tied. Maybe there’s somewhere deep inside him a part of him that’s like, oh, I don’t get sex, but he has never expressed that to me, and he’s always really kind and considerate, and the fact that he is so kind and considerate in that moment, that builds a like, next time, I’m gonna be even more ready and enthusiastic, because he’s so understanding and kind. and sweet and affectionate That understanding is so sexy. and loving. It is so hot the way that he doesn’t criticize or judge me for being too tired to have sex. Oh, that’s great. Well, and you know, cause we schedule, I think, and I’m not a scheduler in general. So I think there are people who think like me, and my wife is even less of a scheduler than me, would be like, oh, that takes some of the spontaneity out of it, but the fact that is that Absolutely, yeah. The romance out of it. we schedule fun things all the time. Like you say, we are going to Disneyland on Saturday, and it doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy Disneyland because you have a ticket and you’ve set aside the day. It’s like the only way I can enjoy Disneyland is if we make a decision right now to go and like, I don’t know! Do we have tickets? I don’t know, let’s figure it out! In some ways, that can be Pull your pants down! a horrible experience. So I definitely don’t think scheduling is not sexy at all, even as someone who has difficulty scheduling things, including sex. Yeah. You should see Christy’s planner. Boy, I think that might make her more horny than anything. I mean, just a well appointed calendar. Yes, that was the joke in 30 Rock when Liz Lemon wanted to get pregnant, when she was like, if I schedule it and plan it, and the way she could make trying to get pregnant sexy was like the fact that she had to manage so many calendars in order to get it done. Right, yeah. But scheduling can backfire. So suppose you set the date, Saturday at three o’clock, you me and the red underwear, and one person sees that date coming and is revving up to the time, and the other person is like, ugh, it just feels like such an obligation, and I’m gonna show up, and they’re gonna expect me to perform in a certain way, and just it’s too much pressure, and it doesn’t seem like it’s gonna work. So scheduling does not work for everyone, but I do have a friend who the couple was very stressed. They were working on a political campaign, and it was approaching election time. So they were both just like, and they would never have sex if they didn’t schedule it, and it even got to the point, so they got these dice, like the silly dice that you roll, and it tells you to do something, and it did not cause them to have more sex, but it caused them to spend an hour and a half on Saturday morning playing together and talking about intimacy, and that sustained an erotic connection through this incredibly stressful season of their lives, and that’s worthwhile too even if you’re not having genital contact or doing something that counts in your mind as having sex. Erotic play together, play is the primary friendship social behavior. Playing together in that way helps to sustain the connection even when other things don’t feel available. Well, that’s good. That’s context. Let’s get back to the sex drive thing that you mentioned at the top. So sex drive is not a thing? Yeah, so I am not delusional. I know that sex drive is a very pithy, easy thing to say, but a sex drive means a very specific thing. Biologically a drive is like thirst and hunger. There is an uncomfortable internal sensation that is like, aooga, aooga, red flashing lights as it pushes you out in the world to go solve a problem, and if you don’t solve the problem of getting adequate hydration or adequate food or even, yes, adequate sleep, you have have a sleep drive, what happens? You die. You die. You literally die, yes. That’s a drive. Sex is not one of those. Nobody ever died because they couldn’t get laid. Nobody ever even got sick, because they couldn’t get laid, but what sex is is a sexual incentive motivation system, and I know sex drive is so much easier to say. We’re gonna keep saying sex drive, but let’s understand in our hearts that we mean an incentive motivation system instead of an uncomfortable internal state that pushes you to go fix the problem. It is a pleasurable internal state that pulls you towards some attractive external stimulus. I always think of bugs bunny being pulled on a hand of steam toward an apple pie in a window. Woo, woo, what’s that? Woo, I would like to go get more of that. Sex is one of those, and it’s important, first of all, to recognize that no one is going to literally die without sex. People do literally die of hunger, for example, which is why if someone steals a loaf of bread to feed their family, we can feel like, yeah, I get that, but if someone touches someone else’s sexual body, because they hadn’t gotten laid in a really long time, it is not because they were starving. It’s because they were really curious. So that’s invalid. About the other person’s sexual body, yeah. That’s a great way of clarifying exactly how you parse that from a moral ethics standpoint too. That’s very helpful. Right, an incentive motivation system is just as natural, it can feel just as urgent. We’ve all, but curiosity is the ultimate analog to horniness. You’re just like, I just wanna know more about that. I wanna get closer. I wanna explore it with every sense that I have. That’s curiosity, and we all know, also, that there are times in life when you are more curious and times in life when you are less curious, and that’s not a problem. That’s just the impact that context has on which motivational systems are most important right now. Wow, I want to get your, since when you speak, unlike when Link speaks or when I speak, you say things that are informed and based on extensive education. So while we got you here, we’re gonna keep asking you questions. Yeah, and it’s strange to me because we’re the same age. I think about what my life trajectory has been in parallel to your, like, we were in college at the same time, and then y’all got married, and I stayed in school until I was 29. Well, you know what, it’s paying off. For all of us, it’s paying off. Okay, asexuality, which has become something that we’ve heard so much more about that. When I was a teenager, I didn’t even know it existed. So one interpretation of it would be like, okay, well, is someone who considers themself asexual, are they just someone who is just, they’ve got the parking brake on on the inhibition scale? Or is that not a helpful way to think about that? Because that feels like it’s some, like in other words– Like it’s a problem. That is, in fact, factually incorrect. That’s what I thought too the first time I was beginning to learn about asexuality, but there’s research on this, about the sensitivity of the accelerator and the brakes of folks who identify as asexual, which is about 1% of the population in North America, and it turns out it is not that they have a more sensitive accelerator, or not that they have a more sensitive brake. It is that they have really insensitive accelerators. Got it. It takes so much sex-related stimuli to get their accelerator going. In fact, there’s an asexual sex educator named Aubrey Lancaster who uses the analogy of Disneyland. Oh, well, just like we can’t get enough of that. Just like me. Yeah, if you are married to a Disney fan, God help you. and they just love, love going to Disneyland. They could go to Disneyland every day, and you’re like, oh. You can go to Disneyland sometimes. Now I really relate to it. Now I completely understand, cuz I’m a Disney-sexual or whatever the proper term would be. But because it matters to your partner on a limited number of times, you will go with, because it’s fine, and then you need a long break before you go back again, because that’s enough. Asexuality is– But I have been to the corn dog castle, and I will say that that can turn a trip to Disneyland, that can completely turn the day around for me, the corn dog castle. I don’t know what that is. It’s just a place that sells corn dogs. It’s not a ride At Disneyland? It’s literally just corn dogs. It’s the best part of Disneyland. They’re giant. They’re wonderful. I’m sure that fits in the metaphor somewhere, but I’m not exactly sure how. Yeah, I don’t know. It could look like a dildo. I don’t know. I’m working at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know what’s happening. But asexuality is very varied. There are sex favorable ase folks who are like, I mean, okay. The main thing about asexuality is you don’t feel sexual attraction to people. It’s not that your sexual response mechanism doesn’t function. A lot of ase folks masturbate. Some don’t. It’s that you don’t feel that attraction. So you’re not drawn to the person, but if your partner really wants, you’re like, yeah, okay, and it’s fine. Other folks are sex-averse where the idea of having sex is actively disgusting to them, and they don’t want any part of it. So it’s a very diverse community. My favorite thing about ase folks is that they’re entirely non-judgmental. They’re very much about like, let me explore what feels right and good for me, and they often come up with great terms, demisexual, gray-sexual as well as asexual. Quasexual is my favorite term. Qua as in the french what, like, or you’re just like, I dunno Quasexual. Okay, if we go back to people who they’re like, I don’t know. We talked about those categories, but if we go back to like, all right, I’m in, again, I definitely don’t wanna use the term normal. I know that’s not what I’m looking for here. No, you’re just sexual. But if you like sex, if you’re more sexual, you talked about a bike analogy, which if I remember correctly, well, remind me of what the bike analogy is. Maybe you don’t remember either. Nobody ever needs to ride a bike? Yeah, yeah, but– Is it in the orgasm chapter? I think that’s right. I think what I took from it was everybody does. You don’t have to ride a bike, but if you want to ride a bike, you can, and if you want to really enjoy it, if that’s a priority of yours to ride a bike, well, you can learn how. You can enjoy it. You can experience the thrill of riding a bike if you want to and if you really– If you’re motivated enough. If you’re motivated enough. So, to me, there’s this thing about– What about a Peloton that just is a stationary bike. Sure, that too. Does that change it? But it’s like it’s not, oh, well, everybody needs to ride a bike, or everybody needs to experience bike riding in the same way, but there is part of the analogy that’s like, if it’s a priority of yours to experience bike riding, then there’s also a good amount of work that goes into it. You’re investing yourself to realize that enjoyment. That it takes learning. It doesn’t just happen spontaneously. The first time you try, so in the context, for example, of learning how to have an orgasm for the first time, cuz you’ve never had an orgasm, a lot of people judge themselves if they need to use a vibrator, for example, or just that it’s been so long in their life, and they still haven’t learned how to do this thing, that criticism and judgment of yourself, it just hits the brakes and makes it even more difficult to access pleasure. So you’re just gonna not judge and be like, you know what? This takes practice. I never got practice. People told me I wasn’t allowed to ride a bicycle, and now I am learning from scratch how to do this, and so hopefully maybe you’ll have a spotter. Maybe you’ll have training wheels, and you’ll go through the process of gradually learning, and when you learn to ride a bike, you might be like, all right, I did it, and then you’re done, or you might be like, this is amazing, and I’m going to ride a century now. Right, well– To me, just the investment in my sex experience, and that aspect of me and Chrissy’s relationship is something that we both learned that we need to work at. It’s like, okay, where is it? Where does that fit in our priorities? And sometimes you gotta analyze and make sure that your actions reflect that. So that’s why I love coming back to this for the second year in a row, as I think I said last week, is that acknowledging that it’s work, and then if you’re into it, and it’s a priority of yours, it can be worth it. I think regardless of where you are and what your particular situation is, I think one of the reasons that this, not only are these conversations fun and just lots of jumping off points for comedy, which is what we’re doing here, but also and more importantly, is that I think that information and communication are all, in my mind, they’re always good. Like when you talk about the subject of sex, and we’re getting the actual information from someone who, evidence-based approach to this stuff, this is ultimately, it doesn’t take away the sexiness to make it science-y, to make it scientific, right? Well, if you’re in my brain, it makes it way more sexy. Exactly, and so being able to learn these things, and then, what I hope comes from us talking about these things, is I know us having this conversation will lead to me and Jessie having a conversation about the things that we talked about and having those conversations that involve fact-based, evidence-based information. I’ve never seen engaging in that way lead to a negative outcome. It always seems to move in the positive direction when we get more equipped with more information, and we continue talking about it. That’s what we always talk about is that for us in our friendship, communication has been so instrumental and people are like, well, how are you still working together after all this time? How are you still friends since first grade? It’s like, well, there’s ups and downs, but you have to keep talking about it, and we approach our marriages in the same way, and hopefully you can take the information that we’ve gotten from Emily today and then apply it to whatever situation you are, and there’s so much more information. You’ve got this book. You’ve got your previous book. Where can people get everything they need to get from Dr. Emily Nagoski. Well, reading the books is always a great place to start. There’s “Come as You Are” and the “Come as You Are” workbook. If you find that stress is really interfering with your sexuality, that’s the reason I wrote “Burnout” with my identical twin sister, because she literally ended up hospitalized because of burnout stress, and I’m about to launch a “Come as You Are” podcast from Pushkin Industries that launches in November, and I’m currently– Nice, you’re working with that Malcolm Gladwell. He shows up at every meeting. He has some great questions about orgasm. Okay, cool. And I’m currently finishing a book about sex in long-term relationships called “Come Together”. Oh, there you go. That’ll be out next summer. Yeah, we’re ready for that one. I wanna see the cover to that one. It’s actually interesting. The very first chapter is called, Why Have Sex? And you were talking about like putting work into it and like, why put the effort into doing this, frankly, pretty silly, ridiculous, sometimes very important, sometimes a little messy, often very silly thing that we humans do? Why do we do it? Talking to your partner, why do we do this? What does it bring to our relationship? Can’t wait, Jenna, what about you, closing thoughts? My kind of closing thoughts were just how wonderful this book and just allowing the conversations about sex can be so helpful, cuz I’m in my 30s now, and I read your book when I turned 30, like right around when I turned 30, and it was one of those things I began reflecting on as a person who grew up being raised female and with that, all those connotations that come with it and how much reflecting I did on being a high accelerator, medium brakes and realizing the coping mechanisms I used in my early 20s because of those things and how I wish I had this kind of knowledge when I was in my early 20s, because there certainly was reckless and toxic behavior in my sex life and in my relationships in general. So I just loved reading this and yeah, I refer it to anyone I can, especially how Lily was given the book, Link, that you said, and I’ve given the book to a girl that’s, kind of, she’s kinda like a younger sister, mentee kind of thing, family friend, who’s in college as well, and we’ve had those discussions, and it just feels really nice to have those people and be able to express that in such a way, I guess, and I didn’t have that. I didn’t have that, and I really like being able to talk about it now and encouraging others to talk about it. So yeah, that’s my closing thoughts. Totally agree. I didn’t have it easier, and that is why I wrote the book. So I’m thrilled to hear that. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for your work. Doing great work, Emily. Thank you. Thanks so much for spending some time talking with us and putting up with our rabbit trails. It’s been a total delight. That was a splendid time. Yes, it was. I’m excited about that podcast. I mean, now I’m gonna have to have two sex podcasts that I’ve listened to. I’m gonna have to listen to sex with Emily and the Come as You Are podcast when that comes out, and that book about long-term relationships come with me. Is that what she said it was? Love it. “Come Together”? Cuz that’s what we’ve got, long-term relationships. Next week, we’re gonna be hearing from you. So let’s see how that goes. The sex talks continue for one more episode. Use #EarBiscuits now to give us responses or of course, you can always leave us a voicemail, 1-888-earpod1. Earpod1. See you next week. Hey, Rhett and Link. This is Amber from Austin, Texas. I just finished listening to the episode. How much do we know about orgasms with Dr. Emily Morris? I grew up in a very religious Christian home, and I was sexually repressed, which is something that I’m still struggling to overcome to this day. I had never heard of Dr. Emily before, and I learned some great things from her on your podcast. So thanks again. I love you all, bye. Hey, you guys, thank you so much for the episode with Dr. Emily Morris, and I wanna particularly say thank you to Jenna for speaking so openly about women’s sex. I’m a 49-year-old female and thought I was in a pretty good group, but she did make some really great points about the shame that you feel about certain things and the pleasure. That was one of the most enlightening episodes I’ve ever heard you guys do, and this is too long a message for you to put on the air. I listen to you all the time, but Sex-tember actually means something. I’ve learned a lot. Hey, Rhett and Link. You know what? I just gotta say I just absolutely love and adore you guys. You guys have been part of my life for 10 plus years now, and you are the greatest YouTubers that I’ve ever known, and I just love you guys for being true, down south, awesome dads, awesome husbands, great people, and I just love you guys and that’s all. 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