Bisexuality, Religious Shame & Might-As-Well Relationships

Happier Couples

Bisexuality, Religious Shame & Might-As-Well Relationships

42:15

 

Sexologist Ashely Cobb joins us to talk about her new program Hoe and Tell as well as to answer a ton of sex & relationship questions including:

• What is pegging?
• What sexual secrets are your friends and neighbours harbouring?
• How do I get my shy partner to make noise in bed?
• How do I introduce something new?
• Does everyone need lube?
• Can you get good sex ed on Tik Tok?
• How do you let go of sexual shame that is tied to religion?
• What are might-as-well relationships and what can we do about them?
• How to ditch pressures related to family and cultural expectations.
• Should a couple really operate as a unit?
• What questions should you ask before you get into a committed relationship?
• Is it okay to not like blow jobs?

Follow Ashley on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter. Also, check out Ashley's podcast, Hoe and Tell.

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Rough Transcript:

This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health or other professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.

Bisexuality, Religious Shame & Might-As-Well Relationships

00:00:05 - 00:05:05

You're listening to the sacs with dr jasser podcast sacks and relationship advice you can use tonight Welcome to the sex with dr. Just podcast i'm your co host brand. Where here with my lovely other. Half dr jess hey. How's it going very good. Are you feeling good today. I like the sound of your voice. In my headphones. It's even hotter than just in the general atmosphere. Lots going on today. We're going to be talking with another sexologist. Sex educator sex influence her and new podcast host sex with ashley. And i'm a big fan of tiktok and instagram's gonna want to check those out very excited here. What she has to say about her upcoming podcast. Before we invite ashley to join us. I want to answer a few questions. I know we have so many questions coming in from the podcast. And i'm not good at keeping up with them and i'm working on it but this first one is dear doctor jess please. I need to know if you can give me. Oh this person wants to pay me but you don't have to pay me for this answer. All right. I want to formerly know if all men like to receive fillet xio or is it more of a personal preference and then it says i'll pay for such service and i think the answer not the felicia so i think that it's different for everyone. I think most penises. Enjoy a good suck. I would have to concur or some form of touching generally. But i mean every body is different so i just want you to know that if you don't enjoy it that's perfectly fine and if you've got a penis or a dickel in your life i really liked that word. The best if you have a penis in your life. That doesn't really like being sucked. That's also okay. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing it wrong. It doesn't mean that they can't enjoy other types of pleasure. So i want to be really clear that whatever you experience is perfectly valid. Now if you don't If there are certain types of sexual pleasure that you associate with distress that might be something worth exploring but generally speaking everyone's different so we'll we'll leave it at that and you don't have to pay for it all right. I have some more questions here. This person says hello. I have a shy wife who doesn't scream or moan during sacks. I really need to moan for me. How do i achieve this well. I think there's some layers here that i'd i'd want to explore So some people stifle their sounds. Because i don't know we don't feel comfortable letting them out or be self conscious And we really are shy Sometimes we hold our breath because we're nervous sometimes. It's a matter of not wanting you know the neighbors or the kids to hear. And if that's the case. I always find that turning on music that sort of sensory overload of the same sense. The auditory sense can help to assuage some of those concerns and how to lower your inhibitions the other pieces. You can't really make her moan but you could make noise so if you make more noise if you breathe more deeply if you are if you sit in your expressions of pleasure a partner and again this is regardless of gender. I don't know the gender of this person a a partner is going to be more inclined to do so if they see that your comfortable doing the same and then i do wanna bring up. Have you talked to your partner about your desires. Have you talked to your partner. But their desires about what feels good for them. I am not suggesting that what you're doing doesn't feel good for them but this sounds like something Near the conversation for the two of you as opposed to my having the capacity to give you a solution that will work so if you can talk about like what you like to hear and why you like to hear it and also ask what she wants. So i posted on instagram the other day this three part approach to talking about difficult subjects or asking for something when it comes to sex and i divided into these three sections of starting with the positive making an inquiry or offer and then making your specific aquatic request so highlighting the positive would be like. Oh i love when. I hear the sound of you in my ear. It just really turns me on and when you start with the positive you're laying the groundwork for a conversation as opposed to a criticism and then you can make an inquiry or an offer like well what are you into or what can i do for you or do you wish that you know. Is there anything that you'd like to explore. And then you make your specific request and you don't frame it as a complaint but you frame it as a request. which is you know. I would love if you know tomorrow when we're doing this that or when we're having sex or when going down you when we're making out if you would just like let your sounds for flow freely. i do worry a little bit about you. Know the language of making her mon for me You are framing it as solely about you so i would just encourage you to make sure that you're putting a focus on her needs.

00:05:06 - 00:10:05

I'm just sitting here laughing and in my own head because you say thanks so much more eloquently and academically than i do i was gonna say lead by like model that behavior that you want meeting make noise but i was gonna say like a cow or whatever works i would say however you put it is better than how i too but then i love also the idea of like why are why do you want. Do you want it. Because it's self validating ms it because you need it or is because it it's what your partner you think they want And then also if you know that your partner is perhaps a little shy or uncomfortable or you know. There's too many other possible distractions. What can you do to help them. Get in to the mindset where they are comfortable doing that lay. Can you more foreplay. More touching more what they want so that they do get they express themselves and love. Yeah that that's such an important piece of the why like. Why is this so important to you. And i think then that brings me to another piece that i missed which is the reminder that porn becomes our model for sex education in the absence of comprehensive sex education that actually depicts and discuss says pleasure and important. It's just wild. You know you know cow. Sounds i say chimpanzee sounds but you're right it's both Out there is that a good new. It's super high her. I don't think so. I don't know what that i think. That's a cow. Okay sure. I once saw cowan a video so i know what a cow. So much of a city slicker. Yeah so do wishing you luck with this Wishing you the best And you know asking you to sit with your part in this and what it is you need and wise well so thank you for continuing to send us your questions. Please keep them coming. And we'll do our best to weigh in on all of them not that we have all the answers. But we're happy to share our thoughts and insights and that is all the time we have for questions today because it's time to get to ho entered with our guest joining us. Today is sex blogger. And sex influencers. From sex. With ashley ashley herself. Thanks for being here having me. What's on your sex radar today. What's showing up in your stories and your tiktok. Oh i want. I'm doing taboo tuesday. Because it's tuesdays. Every tuesday on my social media. We have a taboo topic in the day. We're talking about. Should you use lubar not taboo topic. It is because a lot assume that you should not be using lube us lou. That something's wrong with you and that is not true. Exactly lube is like. It's the answer. If you could spend any money on sex i'd say loop like toys are amazing all the different props are amazing but lube and i get a lot of questions like what i don't really need because i'm nationally. Wait i'm like okay. That's great but you still meets us liu. Yan your hands aren't naturally wet. And hopefully you're using your hands to unless you're really sweaty. Yeah and there's some even if you're nationally wet even with like the friction that happens during penetrative six. You're going that evaporates is going to you know not. You're not going to be as wet as turing the whole session so you need to do that. Way you can still be nice in moisturizer down there like so. That's your taboo topic and you're also you're really busy on tiktok. You're really avid tiktok user. I'm curious why tiktok is such a good platform for sex. Ed so i take talk mainly just to create videos to brain to instagram. The video the i do put on instagram. They are on tiktok. And i get likes. But i'm not really focused about tiktok because this is what i found too with tiktok a lot of like the adult sexual content like i have videos that got blocked because said the word sex or i don't wanna have a vibrator and so they have is community guidelines and stuff Because i think originally tiktok is just for originally post to be like songs and dancing and all that stuff so i use. It does to create more engaging content for instagram. That's really my main purpose to us. Tiktok i'm not trying to be ticked off famous like that but but you're getting there by accident. I mean you've gotta take if they're gonna give you by accident you have to have Have a hundred and thirteen thousand followers or something like that. I don't know. But yeah. I yeah i've seen some your video so tell me though about social media. Why is social media generally a good platform for sex ed because i think a lot of people if we go back to traditional views on learning.

00:10:05 - 00:15:00

It's like it has to be academic. It has to be in a in a classroom. It needs to be kind of shared by the gatekeepers of of education and knowledge. But that's all changing. People are consuming good content from from instagram. From book from tiktok. So and you're a part of that like i'm looking at your your content. You pump out content constantly there like and i like that you mix the professional with the personal what. You're thinking what you're feeling studies. You're coming across stories. You're coming across a wide social media. Because a lot of people use social media you know From young children to like middle school all the way to my mother. My mother is on facebook and our little friends and my mother's sixty so there's people from generation that use social media and everybody does it. I know this probably. I shouldn't say this out loud. But like i don't watch the news or i don't know i allow have cable at my house. I have just like net flicks and amazon prime. So it's not all one of those two channels. I'm probably not going to see it so anything that relates like current news topics. Anything i need to know. I go to twitter. Or i go to like instagram and facebook sometimes too and defcon aware. I get my information on what's happening in the world. I'm not sure that's a good thing or not. But that's where i get. My information and a lot of people are the same way for a lot of people may not know about the different advances in six or like the different Studies about why. You should shouldn't be doing this or you. Why should be doing that or different sex toys. Some people get all of their information. Also she made you so it's salute way to you know to to educate people absolutely. I mean when. I saw that ruth bader ginsburg past. It wasn't because i was on the news sites. It's because it popped up on my social media field probably three minutes before it even hit the the main news sites and so it makes sense and the other piece is that it becomes accessible and you can produce contact that you believe in whereas if you were trying to do that on a on a tv network it has to align with what the advertisers want. I remember back in high school learning about the filters of the media and the big issue being that it is entirely driven by profit and so they won't speak out against or they won't do anything that's going to upset the advertisers. We're seeing this with covert right. We've been talking a lot about how nobody is really talking about the risk. That airlines are putting us in up here in canada. We have one major airline air canada. And i fly them all the time or used to but You know they're selling every single seat in their plane and we're seeing dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of flights come in with cova cases. And they're not required to report it and the media's not running it as headline news because air canada's too big of a media buyer big of an advertising spend budget that could be lost so whereas on instagram. Yeah okay sometimes you have sponsored posts but you're not just doing sponsor post you're doing content that's of value and that you believe in and i saw this article. I think it was on twitter or something. Well this person had wrote about how the airlines of it in america are putting us at risk and then i know people who are still flying and they'll share like pictures on their social media of like. Oh yeah we're definitely not social distancing because there's somebody to my left into my right so that is you know that is a good thing. That's why like podcasts. And stuff like that are also good outlets. Because it's not censored yuki premiss they what you want and learn information. That's not censored by the government or third by the power. That'd be exactly well. speaking of podcast. You have a new podcast launching ho intel. I need to know all about this concept. These are anonymous stories but tell us more so home until is a pocket. I thought about doing If anonymous story. So everybody calls in. And i don't know who they are some people i do know because they hit me up so like i know who they are for the most part. I don't know who they are. Because you have to go to like a link to schedule and kinda give me like a brief synopsis of what stores on being out and then you call me over. There's no video and then we talk about your story so in production production. The voices of each collar is changed. The pitches change in distorted disguise. That way people won't be like. Oh i think i know that voice. That's tammy Are saying so because people are no the and we've had really good story. I have a story about a man who was cheating on his wife So stuff like that.

00:15:00 - 00:20:01

We have to keep under wraps one-storey. I did yesterday about this lady. Who lost her rigidity to a threesome. She lost her duty to a whole threesome. And she's like no one knows his but you and my therapist. I'm like okay great so we have some very interesting stories. One person they like older women and by older. I mean like fifty nine sixty plus women and they are in their thirties and this and they started doing this probably when they were in their twenties So if some very interesting six lorries. I love it. And i like the concept of creating an outlet where you can share kind of your deepest darkest or even most people. Although they shouldn't necessarily be shameful you might be experiencing shame around them. This could be a really important outlet for people. i'm very excited to to listen to these episodes. I can't wait until you launch. Sounds amazing do you. The story you could tell. I have stories. I could tell yeah. What's the number again believe now. Where do i sign up. I wasn't jessica my calendar late and then you can go in there and then you can change. His voice is he. Wants to sound like t pain talk. Talk to my my editors kermit the frog would do as well just losing change. Okay so what is the most exciting story that you're going to be launching on this podcast. Tell us just a little bit more detail. Tease for us. Let's see the most exciting one. We think i've heard about six far. Oh the most exciting to me was about the woman who picked her bisexual lover because she said she no heels by it. i But he just late with her cousin who was male and our coven told her. Oh that's your you know your new beau or whatever. And he was like oh a him you know. We've had an an tangle mid before entanglement and she was like oh really he was like yeah info so she was like okay. Well let's see what happens. And so she kinda gradually express she always wanted to pay someone and she says she is so she's like well. I think this'll be easy. No good i to do it on so she gradually introduced the idea. He doesn't know that she to this day. He doesn't know that she knows that he slept with her cousin. So he doesn't know that As he often doesn't know that she knows that he he's with me and too so he never he never said it. They never had a about it. She just knows but he does. He never told her so like she was like one day. She said you know like. Would you be interested in me doing pegging or anal play. And he was like only you wanna do that. He was like all the rave of course and she was thousand first time ever pegging on one and she said it was so it felt so great. It was a great she likes. It was very orgasmic and it felt so liberating to like you know to put peanuts. It's real man burqas the other way around and she was like this is my new thing. I have to keep doing this. Okay now i wanna pick someone. She makes me now the he tells the story is like really okay. That's all my book. Lists of twenty twenty one. Twenty twenty one. I actually really. I've never pegged anyone either. And so just to clarify for people pegging usually usually refers to putting on a strap on and putting inserting ainley in a man and oftentimes. It's in the heterosexual context. Where a woman does it to a ma'am. But you know this story brings up a few interesting issues of for discussion here. So the first of course is pegging and why people might like it and how to do it and various approaches on. And i think the way that pegging subverts systems of kind of gendered power but also You know you. You certainly don't have to be a vice actual man to be into being pegging being being pegged you can certainly be a straight guy and it brings up issues of Male bisexuality and how invisible stories like this aren a we just recently Saw the andrew gillum case where he talks about how he identifies as bisexual and it sounds as though they also identify as being in some sort of ethically non monogamous relationship.

00:20:01 - 00:25:00

But we don't talk about these things and it actually. I don't. I don't know if it's the month of the week because i do get confused by different dates but we're dealing. We are celebrating bisexual awareness as we hopefully are all time but this is an opportunity to really talk about the fact. that by polity isn't phase it. Isn't you know something that's going to pass. It's totally totally valid and valid for people of all genders and Oftentimes i think bisexuality is assigned as compulsory for women and disallowed for men. So is that something you also talk about on the show. Are you starting just with the stories. Are you doing a debrief as well. So i am on debriefs so me and my i have a co host on the show. The how it works is the story. And then we debrief after two story me and her talk about east story individually. So that's something we probably will break up on the debrief. Once we record that park we have a record. The debris segments some of love. That record those parts yeah. That's something that i will bring it up. I love that. I think about people getting so much out of hearing real people's stories. That's that's something we probably don't do enough of on our podcast. When we have some people get really mad about them. Because there's a lot of. There's a lot of personalization right people here. A story and then they create their own narrative around why somebody did something when we don't really know why did they can share but I think this is so valuable to create an outlet for people to kind of have a peek into other's bedrooms. Because we all feel so. I think alone and lost in concerned that we're not normal so so this show Tell opportunity to normalize a broader range of experiences. I love it right in the girl on the lady there i recorded yesterday and she was talking about She related to me. I was on another podcast. And i talked about how i grew up in the church. And that's pretty much like my my my childhood right so i was is very religious base and so forth longtime six four years because i was doing the whole church and she was like totally relate to when you said that on the podcast because i thought you know that this is what i thought my life was like. I thought you know we'll be doing that. And all this and she said it wasn't until she had six relied like. Oh you know that is not that bad you know. She had to live to let go all of that The things the church and all this was telling us and she said when she when she had six for the first time she really had anybody by the talk to because all her friends were still kind of like like how she used to be and so she joins a like a website or something like swingers because she was swinging and she realized okay. This is not. This is not so abnormal. There are people who do this. Mike yes there are people who do what you want to do or or doing their somebody out there who to that. And it's the line every level wants to hear it's not that bad. I love the. I love the idea though of sharing stories because i feel like it. Normalizes people's behaviors thoughts and people get to. I think to your point. I think people want to know what other people have done. I think this is great. I'm very excited to listen to their stories. And your podcast. Because i feel like people wanna know what goes on behind closed doors. You and i really am interested in your journey to go from the church to being a sex educator. So i'm interested in. How did that happen and also how did you let go of the shame. Attached to to religion So i think what happened was i went to college. College is a whole new world Their parents went four hours away from my house. So i was like totally out there by myself. You know i'm grown really. And so was the first place where actually got introduced to like sex in men in dating and learn some very valuable things when you're eighteen and you associate sex with love you realize. Oh this is not how this works. This is just not how this works. The real world on that hugh aspects then. The person cannot still love you the next day so i went through that phase and then after college. I was like okay. I'm just tired of doing this. And i kind of went back to what i was. I came home and i kind of went back to my My my my upbringing. And so i was like syllabus for like three years after college and i was like okay. What are we going to do do it the way i was taught because when i was in college i was like i guess it just did repo a reward enough for me. I'll say okay. So maybe this is what they because college.

00:25:01 - 00:30:01

My experiences with men in college was probably lockable. Experience with many people do go to college. They're not really trying to like you know wife anybody. They're trying to go to college there in there to have fun. You know having includes sex with random. People have been better prepared if someone had like. Set me down and be like okay. So you're gonna call this what you should expect like. Don't then you're gonna like you know people love your life and some people do but even with even with the ones that i know personally who met their husbands and wives part of in college. It's a whole lot of bullshit that were between college into now. There's a whole lot of stuff that it between the people talk about. So i did the also be at the college for years old like. Why am i doing this. I was like i. This is not making me happy either. So let me just leave and leave the other hours getting of pleasure before now the sitting here you know unhappy and all of my life if i kind of started having fixing just haven't gone in heaven went back. That's pretty much how it was. When i think about young people and giving advice not that they need my advice. Okay but. I don't think i would recommend that people just like settled down with the first or second or third party now. Having said that. I i've been with brandon forever but i don't think that it's worked out because of that. I think it's worked out so well because of the we invest into the relationship so whether we had met a year ago and invested this effort or we met almost twenty years ago and invested that effort. But when i look at look back. I just i see i don't know maybe like like i'm sort of fricken exception. Okay but with so many my friends. Who did mary young. I think it felt less like a choice to them like they met someone they committed. They invested the time. It's like i've had this car so long. I met his keeps. You might as well just throwing money at it. Sort of thing and i think a lot of i call them might as well relationships modest will like people feel like well. We've we've been dating for ten years. I mean i might well mary. You have a kid. So i might as well mary you. So that's a lot of people have is away all marriages that's true. I think there's this prescription though. I think that there's this path that we've been told not we. I felt that there was a path that i was supposed to follow and even though i wasn't religious actually you said you know that there was the association of sex love and i felt the same way or i was at least brought up in the same with the same sort of attitudes me. Well i also went to and i'm not faulting. I'm not faulting education system. But i also went to a catholic school so i wonder if that had any influence on my you know how i how i approached sex and love and whatnot but i do think that there's this path that everyone is supposed to follow like you meet someone you fall in love. You have a kid or you get married. You have a kid you buy a house and so on and that's where the might as well comes in without actually thinking about. What is it that you really want to. You is this. Is this the path that you want to take. And it's okay if it is and it's okay if it's not you know what you both put that much better than i could have. That's yours though. No that's no that's exactly. It might as well marriage. Do i really want this and my really opting in or is it just the next stepping stone that i think i need to take so ashley. How the hell do we break that. I saw post on your facebook on advice. Cheer twenty five year old self to f that last guy ho longer data men that want to date. You quit acting taken to a man. That's acting single. Live your life for you and nobody else. So how do we get people to not fall into these might as well patterns. I don't know. Because i this. Because even sometimes i struggle because i was talking to a friend just yesterday i was saying. I don't know if i want to get mary like to get married to. I want to have a winning right. I that i know but i am. I don't know if i want to get married because it's something that's been ingrained in me my whole life or which is supposed to do or if i really wanna marry like i. I'd like a partnership with someone. But i don't know if i really want to get married because a lot of people are doing. Good job of you know advocating for mayors. Oh no way of lovers uk. Or if if if joe never get married again. I'm like well. Dang if if he died you never get married again. That's not doing. That's not helping me want to get married. So i don't know i think it's the thing you have to learn. Have to learn as you go honestly. I just got to the point at thirty five. Where i'm this kind of like you know abbas. I'm no longer try lynn. My life for other people i do.

00:30:01 - 00:35:03

What makes me happy. And it will a long journey to get here. And sometimes i still. You know i still stumble are still alive. Maybe do that because people will look at me differently or people or you know. I'll say well. Maybe you know at reason why i'm probably not in a serious relationship. Term is because maybe. Because i do talk about six a lot Sometimes those docs do keep creeping. Then i'm like well no f- that because The right person you know is going to find what i do. Be perfectly fine with it. So i think that you have to gradually get to a lot of trout. Ara- at no. That's my that's my i agree with you. I think that the person that you find who supports you is just gonna add so much more fulfillment to your life. You don't need someone. Who's i don't want to say intimidated because it's okay to feel intimidated. But if they're really threatened and they're not gonna work through their own feelings. That sox 'cause i always get that question we talked about this the other day You know like oh well. I intimidate manner. You know because people will say men intimidated by you. I'm like i don't know 'cause i don't i. Don't mess with men right. So but i say if someone's intimidated by you if someone's first of all it's okay to be intimidated. We all get intimidated. But if someone's really threatened by you it's their job to work through their feelings not your job to make yourself less or be more diminutive or you know be less powerful or be less successful or be less anything like you. Don't have to dim your light. And i think you'll find someone who shines bright. And i know that sounds super frigging cheesy and i think it also rhymed poet and i didn't even know i was you just. You didn't want to get married when we first were talking about it. It was me that wanted the the wedding. And i think if you wanted the dress i wanted to know pink dress but i think that the roles have been reversed initially or more so in in the in the in the sense that i was the one that wanted the more traditional path of getting married and doing those things and i don't know today that it would necessarily be as important actually talked about finding a partner and just somebody that whatever works works. I don't know that you necessarily have to do anything to find that happiness. I i gotta tell you if i could go back. I'm not against getting married and the wedding was really fun. But it doesn't matter to me whether or not we're married now. I think i have to like acknowledge my privilege in that because there are benefits financially to being marriage married. Although i don't even where legally married because we got married abroad. But i really really appreciate your framing ashley of the might as well marriage. So before i let you go What advice do you have for people to have better. Sex lives to open their minds to think beyond what they think they need to do. Because you live your life for you. How did you embrace that to begin with You have to be open to exploring like you can't really be close off until some people like you don't really know what you what you like if you haven't really tried it like for me. For example i didn't know i was into electro play until i went somewhere and tried it. You know in my mind. Like i don't think i want to do that. But then i actually went somewhere in though in and try something different and like you know what this is pretty cool i have to do is when i get home and you have to. You have to be willing to try different things And that can help you to find out what who you are the person and what you like and what you don't like and have to be also okay if other people are not into that okay. Well that's fine. But i'm into an invest perfectly. Okay well i wonder if You know hooking up from a really young age and getting into a relationship encourages you because our model of relationships is that a couple operates as a unit. And i wonder if you get into that relationship really early if that closes you to some of these experiences because you have to get two people on board right. I'm not into it. Therefore we're not into it. Like i've heard that with my friends where they say like oh. We don't really like thai food or we don't really like those type of movies. I'm like well do you. We really not or is it. One of you has decided. I'm not saying that it's not possible that you probably don't like thai food. But i do think we start to operate as food. Yeah when you operate as a unit. I wonder if if if you stay single for longer if it encourages you to know you know what you like more. Be more open to asserting that. So and i'm not suggesting you can't have a happy relationship when you meet young. Obviously i feel like we have one. And i also think we have a great degree of independence but an and i'm also not suggesting that everyone needs this degree of independence.

00:35:03 - 00:40:02

Everybody's different. But i appreciate that. The open nine mindedness Being willing to try things that you may not like. And and as i think you're might as well marriage i think about just questions that people might want to contemplate in relationships rather than just feeling in love really thinking about the expanse of what forever means but really excited for your podcast really excited to have a listen ho intel. It's going to be on all podcast platforms highly encouraged people to ensure. They're following sex. With ashley and Yeah we're gonna chat soon and i. I can't wait to tune into the podcast. And maybe maybe. I'll have a listen and do some commentary to if you if you give me permission. Yeah come on. that'd be great to have you do a commentary. I all i i got. I got a disguise my voice and tell my stories to do really i will send you the link. Irate write i write most shared. Thank you so much again for joining us. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me I love actually's beckham excited for this podcast. And i've been thinking just in the last few moments about might as well relationships and how you avoid these might as well relationships and i mean ultimately comes down to actually reflecting upon what you want right instead of just following in the path that your parents expect you to or your religion. Expects you to or even self-imposed stuff and i. I was thinking about this questionnaire that i give to couples on relational desires and values and it sort of comes from our book the ultimate guide to seduction for play. Check it out. Wherever books are sold. I shouldn't say our book. It's not your book. It's me and marla marlin i wrote it But it sort of adopted from that that book because that book is really full of different exercises and prompts and the relational desires in values exercise. involves a series of questions. And i don't have them in front of me. But i remember some of them so beginning with just before you commit or at any point in time. I think it's worth contemplating. Why do you want to be in this relationship. Like what do you want to get out of this relationship. What do you want your partner or partners to get out of the relationship What is your definition of a fulfilling relationship. What does it look like In earlier podcasts amira and jeannie talked about the fact that they wrote down everything they wanted in a partner and i think also it might be useful to write down what we want from a relationship. And we're we're obviously a big part of that. Maybe a bigger part than our partner. And so what do you try to remember all the questions. What do you consider the most important components of the relationship from a practical perspective So that could be like time in how you interact and shared values etc or having kids or money or any other things that you need to discuss and what you consider to be the most important components of relationship from an emotional perspective right because we talk about emotional literacy but there's no universal definition of that like there's not one way you engage with your emotions or one way you communicate your emotional needs or your feelings I think that. I've noticed that cross culturally. It can be very different. And westerners we tend to kind of use this more clinical model of his. Say what you feel and speak your truth and it's not that there's not value in that but there's also times where you know you shut up and you can't tell everybody everything you think And you have to weigh the consequences and again. I'm not suggesting you stifle emotional expression. But there isn't the only way to do it and then of course. What do you consider to be the most important sexual components of a relationship. So i don't know how many questions i've listed here but i'll i'll post them in the show notes while if people want to print it off and have these conversations with themselves or considerations with themselves and then have conversations with their partners. But i do think we'd find ourselves in fewer might as well situations if we stopped and reflected upon these deeper layers of a relationship. Not just i'm in love. I'm attracted to you. This is fun. You'd make a great life partner on paper but really like what are the practical. What are the emotional. What are the sexual. Even what are the spiritual for many people components of a relationship. But i also think that we. We are encouraged to do that. Like i didn't grow up where i was encouraged to reflect on what it was. I wanted it of my life and a life partner. And i think that could be really fun though to look back at how your answers change over time to like what i want today versus what i wanted ten years ago In comparison to what. I want in ten years from now But having those questions. And also i think when you first get into a relationship the idea of sitting down with your partner and having a really deep conversation is not what most people want to do.

00:40:02 - 00:42:09

I think when you really realize that this could be some that you do want to spend your life with if that's what you choose that flushing some of these topics before you jump in is only gonna make the relationship better over the long haul absolutely and also it's never too late in fact. I think it'd be interesting to sit down and do this Recorded and have this. Conversation will remember us answering the thirty six questions Over the course of a couple of dinners on multiple occasions over the last ten years. It's talking about the thirty six questions from erin and erin and it ran the headline in the new york times a few years ago. Thirty six questions to fall in love with anyone but they're ultimately questions that are intended to generate interpersonal closeness. Thank you but. I also remember how my answers. Although similar in nature are perhaps principles the they were different and they changed and it was a really interesting conversation that we had. I remember it being a new york city and having this chat over two dinners i remembered miami. Okay maybe maybe. I don't remember it as well. Maybe i don't remember being booed. That's why i remember. Nobu nobu miami. I thought it was just sound like snotty people. Was it a dennis ontario. Sonny's yeah no i. I actually thought we were down south. But i totally could be wrong. The point is we had the conversations and eat fish. Yes and those two things make me happy. Hopefully it wasn't a denny's if we had sushi we had raw fish. Hopefully it was not. That's true. But i do. I would like smacks. I'd be like eggs and pancakes so go to food know. It's on my mind anyhow. Yeah i'll share these relational desire and value questions in the show. Hope you folks have listened to ashley's new podcast and wherever at have a great week. You're listening to the sex with dr jess podcast. Improve your sex life improve your life.