Busting Popular Myths about Desire with Dr. Lauren Fogel Mersy & Dr. Jennifer Vencill

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Have you ever suffered from bed death? Have you ever wondered what to do when you and your partner have different levels of desire? And is it really true that men naturally have a higher sex drive, which is why they tend to cheat more? We answer all of this and so much more in this episode with the authors of Desire.

Hello friends, future friends, haters, and ex lovers. Welcome back to another episode of Crimes of the Heart. I'm your host, Rory Uphold.

Happy holidays and see you guys in the new year. . I am going to take a couple of weeks off to be with my family and recharge, so I hope you all are able to do the same. See you in 2024.

I'm super excited about today's episode. It's one of my more important episodes, for sure. And since we will be talking about intimacy, I thought I'd share with everyone that I recently tried this brand, Haru, which makes CBD infused self care products. They actually sent me their Insatiate Warming Oil and their [00:14:00] Thrill Sex Drops. And if we're keeping it at 100, I was skeptical.

And then, I was totally surprised. Yes! I gave the warming oil to my partner, Dave, who gave me a really nice massage with it. It smells incredible, and the warming factor was really nice and, uh, Really fun precursor to what happened next. Um, next, I used their Thrill Drops, and wow, they live up to the name.

So, they have an icy hot effect, which sounds weird, but it really enhances the sensitivity. So much so, that I've just kept the bottle by my bed. plus, they're also compatible with latex and toys so it's not just partner dependent. Anyway, I will be giving the Insatiate Warming Oil and the Thrill Drops to one lucky winner. So you have to make sure that you've signed up for the mailing list, which is

Um, you'll just miss out [00:15:00] because that is how I will be choosing people and it's also how I will be notifying you. So you gotta do that. I sent that email out, I think a week or two ago. Anyway, for everyone else, you can use Rory10 for 10 percent off at checkout at harunmore. com. That's Rory10 at h a r u n more dot com. Okay. Now please welcome Dr. Lauren Fogel Mercy and Dr.

Jennifer Vensel to Crimes of the Heart.

Thank you for having us.

Happy to be with you.

I'm so excited about this. I'd love to kick this off with you guys just like introducing yourselves and then also maybe sharing what's one thing that you wish more people knew about desire.

I can go first. I'm Jennifer Vensel. I use she her pronouns. I'm a board certified clinical health psychologist and an ASEC certified sex therapist at the Mayo Clinic where I do integrated sexual health care. I will say off the bat, my views are my own. I don't represent or speak for Mayo Clinic. Um, I think the one thing that [00:16:00] I definitely want people to know, and this is.

It forms the basis of the book that Lauren and I wrote together, is that having differences in desire is a normal and predictable part of long term relationships. It is the norm and not the exception.

And I'm Lauren Fogel Mercy. I'm a psychologist and an ASEC certified sex therapist. I have my own practice, uh, where I see clients virtually and, um, that's out of my home in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I use she, her pronouns. And I think just. Right off the bat, one of the things we want to impart for folks is that there's not just one type of desire, but that there are, uh, sort of many ways to experience desire and pathways to desire.

And so that's something that off the bat is really important to note on top of, uh, what Jen just shared.

Yeah. I know Jen really took the takeaway that I had from the book, I didn't realize that actually going into a relationship and not expecting there to be desire discrepancies is kind of setting yourself up for failure. [00:17:00] I'm just like, not 100 percent sure why that is not shared and talked about by every dating coach, every anything. Because in the same breath, we all know, sex or intimacy and finances are the number two reasons, like the top two reasons why people split up or divorce or whatever. But no one ever talks about the fact that actually like you are meant to face some hurdles when it comes to Desire or libido.

Yeah.

That blows my mind.

It's funny, I think the thing that those two things have in common, finances and sex right, is that we do poor education around both of them.

What a theme.

That'll probably come up again today as we talk, I suspect.

I Also feel like that might come up So one thing that I read in your book was that Desire is not like eye color It's not like, the color of your skin. It's not like your body type. It's not like, whether or not you think that cilantro tastes like soap or not, [00:18:00] could you expand a little bit about that?

Because I kind of also thought you end up on the planet. You're born with what you're born with. And, You just sort of like deal with it. And so if I'm in one relationship, like I might be the person that wants sex all the time, but in the other relationship, like I might be the person that my sex drive isn't high enough, you know, and that there's nothing I could do about it.

You know, desire is so dynamic and that's something that, you know, we really like to educate, first and foremost, it's very contextual and it can shift both within a relationship and within yourself over a lifespan. There are so many variables that can influence your sexual desire. And so, you know, part of our mission is to help people sort of know that because, to your point, Some of this stuff is maybe underrepresented in messaging around relationships and sexuality, that there's this sort of myth that's still very strong in our culture, that there should be a match in [00:19:00] libido among partners, and that should be consistent across time.

And that if it's not, that's usually then a sign that you're incompatible or that something's wrong with the relationship. When what we know as sex therapists and part of human sexuality is that it, it shifts and changes just like so many other parts of us, over time. So like you said, you could be in one relationship where maybe you have a partner who has higher desire than you, and then you're in another relationship and now your desire is higher.

And. Those are two, you know, different contexts that maybe evoke different parts of you, or that sort of hit different, you know, parts of your, you know, desire system, some things can kind of hit the brakes for us, and really stunt our libido, there's other things that really accelerate libido. And so it's really dynamic.

And so like you said, it's not just a fixed thing, like you're eye color or, you know, what style of hair, you know, curly or straight. It's something that can shift over time. And that's something that I [00:20:00] think is news to a lot of people,

 Especially given the way we talk about sexual desire or libido, using those words interchangeably, oftentimes people are talking about being lower or being higher, right? Those very terms in and of themselves are referent terms. They're referring to some sort of... standard, right? And it's an important question to be asking if you're labeling yourself, or somebody has labeled you, right, the higher or lower libido partner, compared to what, right, compared to what are you lower, compared to what are you higher?

Oftentimes we use our partner or partners as a referent, but sometimes people are referring to compared to earlier in their life, compared to what they think their libido is supposed to look like, compared to things they've seen on TV, and so When we're using those labels lower and higher libido in and of itself we have sort of this embedded sense of well we we aren't meeting some sort of arbitrary standard.

Right. And there is none.

Correct.

I mean, they're, you guys are the experts, but correct me if I'm wrong. There is no one study, one fact, one whatever [00:21:00] that says actually you should want to have sex this many times a week. So is libido, are libido and desire the same thing?

We use those terms interchangeably in the book and we talk about how libido tends to be a more historical term. It's It's a Latin word, Sigmund Freud is actually the person that popularized the term libido in his writings about human sexuality, um, and it has really stuck around. And so I would say sexual desire, interest, libido, we tend to use those words interchangeably to talk about being interested in right?

So just at baseline. but I, I think it's important if you're talking about these topics to define it as well, because people might mean different things.

Yes. Yes. And my second question would be, well, I guess my second question is, what's the difference between desire or libido and arousal?

you know, desire is really just the mental interest, the wanting of something sexual, the interest in sex. Whereas with arousal, it's more of a physiological process. So it's part of your body that's getting turned on, whether that's lubrication or erection or [00:22:00] blood flow, um, you know, nipple hardening, some of those physiological signs of arousal, often in response to some sort of pleasure or sexual stimulation.

So it's really just sort of a difference between what's happening in your body and what's happening in your mind.

Mm hmm. Yeah. So there is this conception that I grew up with that men want sex more than women. it has been personally perpetuated for me in media, movies, TV, pop culture, magazines, Cosmo, whatever, but then also. men that I know in my life, you know, like the stories that we hear. And it's only after I started this podcast and started to really get like really invested in just learning a lot more about sex, sexuality, relationships, all of that, that I started to see pushback on that.

And I would love to know what your guys thoughts on that is.

Yeah, it's an interesting cultural narrative that doesn't seem to want to go away. You're correct, Rory, in that we don't have large epidemiological research studies and data that show, you know, this is the [00:23:00] average amount of libido that a single human has, right? So we don't have that research that doesn't exist.

We do have research, though, that compares subjective reports of sexual desire levels, especially spontaneous sexual desire levels. And I think most folks... Folks are really surprised to find that that research shows that changes in libido and people who designate themselves as quote unquote low libido partners, that cuts across genders, right?

We don't see that that happens more to one gender than the other. And so this cultural script and narrative we have that it is always, you know, women sort of guarding the sexual experience and not wanting to be sexual and feeling like they need to be convinced to be sexual, right? This very kind of sexist narrative that refuses to go away in our culture, and that men want to have sex every single moment of every single day.

While that certainly can be true for some individuals, that is not true for everybody in a big way.

Yeah, I know. I feel like there's a lot of dudes with podcasts who have used that as justification. Like, I hear a lot of things about like, well, men are biologically [00:24:00] designed to want and need more sex, which is also why they're less monogamous. And I can't seem to find those studies.

Yeah, I don't know where they are either.

Okay. Well, I don't have, that higher level of education. So I was really, I was waiting for you guys to be like, well, here it is. So the answer is they just probably don't exist.

I mean, yeah, if we're talking about infidelity, again, there are not really differences here across genders, even though we have this cultural script that is not based in science and not based based in research data. Women cheat. Men cheat. Lots of people are unfaithful in their religion.

Yeah. And that it really is, but desire is not something that. You feel like goes back to the hunter gatherer days that is now. Yeah. Okay, great They're shaking their heads if you if this is a podcast, but they're shaking their heads now

You know, what we do know is that there is, you know, socialization based on the gender that's assigned to you that can influence how you [00:25:00] experience some of these things. And so there was a study a couple years ago that talked about sort of heteronormativity. So when men, women are partnered together, what happens in those relationships is that there has, you know, overall a tendency for women to carry more of the mental load and that domestic labor in the household.

And that when that continues, even though we're trying to progress past that and, and form more gender equity in the household, when women are carrying more of the domestic labor and the emotional labor, that can influence the sexual dynamic between that woman and her partner. And so when you see some of these gender dynamics play out often.

It's due to socialization and the ways in which we've been raised in the messages that we've received, because we've received heavy messaging, even in this day and age about how women are supposed to act, how men are supposed to act, not to mention that trans and non binary people get erased from that conversation.

And so when you [00:26:00] see some of those tropes play out, You know, from our experience and again, based on the fact that there's no data to support it, that's pretty heavily socialized within us rather than something that's inherently, you know, genetic or a part of our, uh, physiology.

I would add to that that at a really young age There is more positivity towards exploring your body and exploring sexuality for those that are socialized boys Masculine men as opposed to those who are socialized as girls or feminine for girls and women They are often shamed. They're told, you know, girls don't do that.

You don't touch your body. You don't explore that slutty. It's shameful. It's negative. And boys don't tend to get the same messages around that or there's a lot more kind of leeway for that type of exploration. So even how we sort of approach people learning about their bodies and their sexuality from an early age, that is gendered and very distinct and Clearly outlined in the research literature ways over decades of work on human sexuality and sexual health and gender socialization.

Those [00:27:00] data definitely exist.

Yeah, I heard you guys on a, another interview where I can't, I remember who said it, but it was like boys learn about their sexuality through self exploration and women tend to learn about their sexuality through men. And that really struck a chord with me because that was my experience and it does seem to.

Be part of the reason why I think things start to go wry and why, it, we have a lot of flawed learning in this category for 51 percent or 50 percent of the population. Like that's a, that's a crazy way to learn about your own desires.

It certainly sets you up for a lot of potential barriers, right? If you're taught from a very young age that pleasure is bad and that Touching yourself, or even looking at your own body, is shameful and negative. That really sets you up for if you are having lots of spontaneous desire, what are you going to do with that?

Generally, you're going to shut it down, you're going to repress it, you're going to feel an internalized shame about those experiences. So even if you were somebody who had just [00:28:00] as much spontaneous desire as the guy next to you, if you're socialized that as a girl, as a woman, that that's not appropriate, it's not okay, that plays out differently over the long term.

 So you've now said spontaneous desire a couple of times and for people that haven't read your book yet or don't really know what we're talking about, I think what a great thing to set up for listeners is when most people talk about high or low libido, that's actually not accurate, right?

Yeah, most people, when they think of desire, are thinking of spontaneous desire, and that's what's represented most often in the media. This idea that desire just emerges on its own, it comes on quickly, as if out of nowhere, and is just this sort of strong urge to be sexual or, The arousal just kind of comes on, you know, spontaneously.

So it sounds a lot like, you know, what its term, uh, suggests, but that's only one type of desire. And we know that lots of people experience desire that way, and it's a valid pathway to desire. And yet it's not the [00:29:00] only one. The other, uh, you know, common pathway to desire is called responsive desire. And it's one that most people don't.

know about haven't heard about it's not reflected as much in the media. And so, this is something that was popularized a few years ago in a groundbreaking book by Emily Nagoski called come as you are. So folks who are familiar with that work might have come across the term, but I'd say in large part, most people are unfamiliar with this concept.

It's basically just saying that it's desire that emerges in response to arousal or pleasurable stimuli, instead of in anticipation of pleasurable stimuli. And so that is also a very common way to experience desire and yet. So many people feel shame about that, feel like something is wrong with them, because often when you hear people saying low desire, what they may be experiencing is responsive desire.

And when they don't have enough of a context for responsive desire to emerge, then they may not be having a [00:30:00] lot of desire at all. And in that, they may be feeling like something is wrong.

well, if I'm responsive. And I have nothing to respond to, I'm going to seem like I have low libido or no desire when the reality is my buttons just haven't been hit. Or there's another concept that you guys talk about, which is like gas and break. And I think that, you know, at least for me, and I'm sure for a lot of women, you already touched on it with like the disproportionate amount of emotional or physical labor that women typically.

Women, women identifying, take that role in relationships. And so it can be, those can be the barriers to, being able to let go or turn on. Because if you hear your kid crying in the other room, or you are the type of person that doesn't feel like you can let go until you know that the sink is clean, that can be very, very hard.

And your partner might just be like, I don't understand. I've been making out with you for. You know, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever, and nothing's happening.

I like that you mentioned that I don't understand peace because I [00:31:00] think that that's often a truly genuine response, not that somebody's trying to shame somebody for not having responsive desire or spontaneous desire, but that if you have partners who one is more spontaneous in their style of libido and one is more responsive in their style of libido.

it's going to be really hard to understand what that other person is experiencing. And so we want to, and Lauren and I talk about this extensively in Desire, our book, we want to be validating and normalizing that that confusion is very real, especially if you've never heard of different styles of libido and maybe don't know that you and your partner have different styles or different types of libido.

course it feels confusing.

Yeah. So let's imagine that I am with my partner and we do have different styles of libido and it, it's an issue. I mean, this, this was my life. I ended up breaking up with somebody because. I was more responsive and there were real factors that I look back on now. And I'm like, Oh, so I guess I'll just, it's my show.

I'll, I'll get personal, but, I own my own home and so I'm very particular about things [00:32:00]because I paid for the glass in my shower and so I like to keep. That glass maintained a certain way, because when it was installed, the person said, take care of it in this way. And I'm like, well, I don't want to have to pay for this again.

So, when my boyfriend moved in, he was really irked about the fact that he didn't want to clean the glass after the shower. And every time he would do that, it felt like he was disrespecting me. And he thought it was just something that was... It's me being a nag or like a little thing. And I say that example and that's not the only thing, but it gives you an idea of over time those things started to build, like my fuse got shorter and shorter and I started to feel like disrespected.

And then when there was a discrepancy in libido desire, I felt really shamed by it. I felt pressured and I was in what you guys outlined the pursue with. Drawn pattern. And it was just like a trap that we couldn't get out of.

It's such a common thing, and I think for folks who have more spontaneous libido, [00:33:00] your example is something that they might intellectually hear and understand, but maybe not have some personal lived experience with, whereas more responsive folks are probably going to have more of an understanding of what that's like, because on the surface you look at, you know, opening the glass.

And then you look at your sexual desire and on the surface, you might think, what does one have to do with the other? But you so beautifully got to the heart of that matter, right? That over time, how that lands to me, this, contextual cue. lands as you don't think about me, or you don't value me, or you don't respect me.

When I feel that over time, that erodes my sense of fondness and connection and the willingness to be vulnerable with you, to get naked with you, to share pleasure with you. And so on the surface, Someone might not understand how those two things relate, but when you start to sort of sift that apart, you can really see that over time, I'm starting to feel [00:34:00] disconnected and resentful, and I'm not as willing and open about getting, you know, vulnerable with you and, and doing this very vulnerable thing with you.

And so it makes a lot of sense. But I think for some folks who lean more spontaneous in their libido, part of this is sort of learning that. Those two things can now be related, even though it may not be related for them. It is related for you.

Yeah. I mean, I think like the best way that I can think of it is. If you are newly in a relationship, that like new relationship energy is probably the closest you're ever going to be to spontaneous desire if you are a person that is more responsive. And, and also it's like, so yeah, in the beginning, those things wouldn't matter.

Right? Because A, I had enough time hadn't built up where I started to feel resentful or disrespected, but then also there's like so many hormones and everything pumping through my body that I'm like way more spontaneous. but if I had met you guys and read your book sooner, what would you [00:35:00] recommend?

One? Can I fix it?

Or is it if the problem is there, is it too

Not necessarily. I think, you know, as Lauren was pointing out here, this isn't a matter of just like, I can't have responsive desire because physically it doesn't feel good and my body's not getting aroused, right? You've identified a deeper relational dynamic that would have needed to be addressed in order to heal from this, right?

A relationship rupture that had occurred on a micro level, dozens of times, hundreds of times, maybe over the course of your relationship. And that is something that Likely would have needed to be dealt with and healed in therapy in relationship therapy because this isn't just okay Well, we need to figure out how to increase pleasure with physical touch to get your response of desire going Right, which might be what somebody is dealing with.

It sounds like what you're talking about is this relational rupture that's hurt this disrespect That really never got repaired

Real. So, okay. So then for me, when he would say I need more sex, or this is, I don't want to be the one that's always pursuing this. I felt well, I [00:36:00] don't know. I felt like kind of pushed up against the wall. Like, I didn't really know what to do. And it's only hindsight, and now obviously I talk about this all the time, that I'm able to like see it for what it is.

And be like, oh, there were way other, there are like so many other issues. But it kind of sounds like in your book, That that's always the case. Whether it is cancer related, hormonal related, lack of pleasure, which like, look, if I'm not having fun, obviously I don't want to do something. Why would I want to do something that isn't fun for me?

Which does seem to be a huge factor. And then kind of what you just said, like the relational or the relationship dynamics that tend to build up and then bleed over. So how do you start to identify What might be the root cause of, desire discrepancy?

Yeah, so we talk in the book, and this is, you know, starting with sort of the assessment of do we think you're more spontaneous, do we think you're more responsive in your style, recognizing that that can change and shift over time for many people, so starting from that point, if we sort of ascertain that somebody is more responsive in their sexual desire, Lauren and I [00:37:00] outline in our book kind of four foundational tenets or pieces of the relationship dynamic that really must be in place in order for responsive desire to occur.

and oftentimes we find that one or more of those four tenants are missing, are not happening, need some attention, and that is often where we're able to sort of individualize treatment and sort of get a sense of what is getting in the way of even building responsive desire. It's okay if you're not more spontaneous in your style, but if you're struggling to build responsive desire.

Are any of those four pieces missing? Are there other things, you know, everyone's a little bit different, right? Are there breaks that we need to attend to? Um, those four tenets for the record are consent, pleasure, focus, and time, right? And so for many people, one or more of those things are not happening the way that they really need to in order to create responsive design.

Hmm. It's fascinating. It is fascinating

so if somebody is listening to this and relating to what we're talking about and realizing like, uh oh, I might be headed down a path, uh, with my partner that I don't want to go down, do you [00:38:00]suggest someone might bring this up to their partner?

You know, one of the places that I often like to start is using something like this. Like I was listening to a podcast

as a jumping off point, or I saw a social media post, or I read an article, or I heard a conversation. So starting off with something that you, Kind of brought you to some of this knowledge or awareness, right? And then maybe using that as a springboard to bring up Hey, I learned a couple of things that I think really speak to my experience or our experience, right? so we find that some really pivotal information is just in sort of learning some of These, uh, basic sort of skills or,

the language or the, concepts that we talk about here.

So things like, um, responsive desire and spontaneous desire.

So let's just assume again, I'm the quote unquote, low libido partner or I'm the responsive one, but I, there are some breaks or there's some obstacles between me and feeling desire for my partner.

Why should I [00:39:00] not have sex with them just because they want to have sex with me,

Oh, that's a good question. And something that comes up a lot, I think in our work, you know, one of the things we've noticed over time is that if your main or only reason for having partnered sex is to satisfy your partner, which in and of itself and some of the time can be just fine, but when that becomes the dominant sort of motivator or reason, that actually ends up lowering libido over time because what happens is you start to pair sex as something that's for the other person and really not for you. And so pleasure is often something that takes a hit because that kind of sex ends up being sort of a let's just get this over with kind of feeling and sentiment. And so then what we end up doing because we're not into it and we may not be wanting it, we bypass our own pleasure. We bypass the things that we would enjoy and we just try to get to the outcome and check the box. And so it ends up being, [00:40:00] um, less pleasurable, less motivating, and then we feel less interested in it again.

Not to mention building potential resentment and hostility with our partners over time. Right. For people who are much more responsive in their desire, in a very kind of classic way, approaching sex like that at the like, let's just get it over with, let's focus more on my partner and not me, it actually short changes the opportunity to build responsive desire as well.

Yeah, I I loved when I read that because I was like man. I think there's a lot of people who do that and Instinctually, it makes sense. It seems like a nice thing to do, but it's really like hurting you twice It's shortchanging you and potentially building up, I call it like muddying the water. And it's like at a certain point the water gets too dirty, you just can't clean it.

And so you gotta like snip these issues in the bud. for people who like one of their breaks or their obstacles is pleasure or not like feeling like they actually get satisfied. You guys said something that I, really resonated with, [00:41:00] and it was that part of that is, like, taking stock and taking accountability for your own pleasure.

Mm hmm.

That, like, everyone is responsible for his, her, their own pleasure. And that's another thing I don't think we're,

 Not generally, no.

no, like, we walk through life thinking, oh, I need to find the person that, like, Turns me on as opposed to being like, all right, I got to figure out what turns me on and then try it with these different people.

That's right. Yeah. Generally, it's, you know, uh, when we ask folks, particularly with more responsive desire about their pleasure and what they like and what they desire and what, uh, an enjoyable sexual encounter would look like. Very often we're met with some blank stares or, you know, big question marks because for many folks, it's like, wow, I've, I've never really thought about that.

Or I've never taken the time to investigate that. Or there's all of these blocks in the way to experiencing pleasure because of insert all kinds of variables, right? Because I am, you know, [00:42:00] completely swamped day to day and just don't have the energy or bandwidth to explore this or. I've been taught that doing that kind of exploration is wrong or dirty or, you know, you name it. And so one of the things we really like to start off with, with folks, especially with responsive desire, uh, leaning folks is what brings you pleasure and can we start to take note of that. Part of that is also a bit of mindfulness and awareness, right? Can we slow things down so that when your body is experiencing something pleasurable, whether that's sexual or otherwise, can we take the time to notice it? Because so many of us might bypass even noticing the pleasure sensation because we're just on overdrive or we're, you know, kind of operating at lightning speed. And so exercises that we often. assigned to the folks that we work with are, you know, whether it's a mindfulness based exercise to just notice your breath and notice your surroundings, or it's, you know, maybe kind of [00:43:00]exploring some non sexual pleasure as a starting off point before we explore more sexually based pleasure. So just kind of slowing down and taking notice when you eat something delicious, can you just slow that down for a minute and actually taste what you're eating and allow yourself to notice what that's like for you.

Right? Because if you start to do it in other areas of your life, when you come to sex or, and when I say sex, I, I mean sex as like a whole activity, not just penetrative sex, which is what I think most people think of. Then it's not so weird when you're being asked to like, can you focus in on this or can you zero in on like, When and what exactly is turning you on

Right, there really is a different, a shift in mindset, and we see these as cognitive skills, behavioral skills, right? They get easier with practice, we can practice them, we can become good at them with time and practice. This mental shifting into noticing and awareness that so many of us are not encouraged to do in this sort of busy hustle and grind culture and lifestyle.

And that shows up in the [00:44:00] bedroom in negative ways oftentimes.

kind of flipping the script a little bit because I do feel like we've focused a lot on responsive or what most people would term like the low libido person for the person that has the quote unquote higher sex drive, even though sex isn't a drive. how, what are some tips for that? Person, because I think that that must be a very frustrating position to be in.

And I also think it must be very hard to not take it personally or think that your partner is just no longer attracted to you.

yeah, I think that, you know, it can be incredibly frustrating and underneath a lot of that frustration is often some, you know, feelings of rejection, feeling, um, you know, uh, hurt. Feeling alone or disconnected and unfortunately, what we tend to do, as humans is we share a lot of our frustration and sometimes we kind of hide our hearts and the hurt that's really there. You know, there's, there's a few things that I like to, you know, kind of let higher libido partners know. One [00:45:00] is their desire for more sexual contact is perfectly fine. It's lovely wanting to be connected to your partner that way. Having that desire on a, you know, more frequent basis, there's nothing wrong with it. Having spontaneous desire, nothing wrong with it. The challenge is how do you convey that desire to your partner? How does that come across? Dynamically, right? When that comes out as criticism of your partner for not desiring sex as much as you do, when it comes across as you know, pathologizing your partner, like there's something wrong with them, or putting a lot of pressure and really, you know, kind of doubling down on I need this, I want this, you should be doing this. That leads to, you know, pretty ineffective outcomes, right? It doesn't get you closer to what you're really wanting. So, we often are kind of looking at how do you convey that desire and how is that showing up relationally and is there something that we can do to kind of share what's really in your heart and what you're searching for?

What's usually, you know, part of that because, you know, we could very easily say if you need to be [00:46:00] sexual, you know, you can be sexual with yourself. Most higher desire partners will say, well, that's not exactly what I'm looking for. What they're looking for often is connection. What they're looking for is some sort of like tender relational experience together. And so one of the challenges, that I, you know, offer to higher libido partners is to explore more about what it is they're looking for, what they want to feel. And if there might be potentially diverse ways of achieving that, right?

So if it's, yeah, yeah. So if it's, you know, you know, if it's not just about having an orgasm and getting off, what you can do for yourself, what is this really about for you?

And maybe there are different ways that we can reach for a partner intimately. Right where you realize that? Oh my gosh, we slowed down We explored some things and I realized that all I really wanted is to just have some skin to skin contact or all I really wanted is to have this moment in bed looking into my partner's eyes and screens put away and just I'm going to be [00:47:00] there and let our hearts beat together and to just feel their presence. These are things that we wouldn't maybe otherwise experience if we don't kind of slow down and explore what's underneath some of that desire. The desire for sex is fine, but usually there's also some other longing in there.

Yeah, I just got a crazy idea for your guys next book. Okay?

Let me pitch you. you know the love languages? We need the sex languages. Because as you were talking about it, I was like, Oh my god, the This is the sexual love language. I would buy that as a stocking stuffer, that's all I'm saying. Um, because kind of like what I'm hearing you say is, okay, so, when we want sex, it's rarely just about, I just want this orgasm.

and by the way, just, quote unquote, just an orgasm, what is that even? That is, is that, Is it the feeling afterwards? Is it the release of the dopamine and oxytocin and all of like, what exactly is it? Right? Or is it the pillow talk after? Is it the sense of calm that you get? Like, not everybody has that.

That we don't all have the same kinds of [00:48:00] orgasms. So, it really is, like, what is your sexual love language? Anyway, I'm so hyped for this.

The genesis of an idea.

Yeah. Um, I got a question from somebody when, um, I was talking about interviewing you guys. It's a woman who has the higher desire drive. She is more spontaneous. Yes. And... Is the one that often has to initiate, but being in the dynamic with her male partner, having to initiate makes her feel like he is not attracted.

It makes her feel less wanted and desired, and she doesn't really know how to reconcile those things. Do you have any advice for that person?

mean, if this was somebody who was sitting in my office, the first thing I would ask her is, have you said that to your partner? And if so, how did it go? Right. So just right off the bat, right. I would want to know if and how that had been communicated and if it had been communicated, what did that conversation or conversations look like?

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And then I'm[00:49:00] not a doctor, but I'm still going to weigh in. I would try and think about, like, why is it that I have attached attraction or how much my partner, like, loves me or values me or cares for me to how much they want my body? You know, like, where did that come from?

this kind of gets back to what Lauren was just saying, right. That for Anybody, right? What is your motivator? What is maybe the underlying need or, core need, if you will, for wanting to be sexual, right? Is it to feel wanted, is it to feel attractive? Is it to feel desired, right? And it sounds like perhaps some of those things maybe click some boxes for this person.

Right? And so, If part of that sexual experience with her partner is, I feel desirable, I feel hot, I feel sexy, I feel attractive, are there other ways that her partner can do that for her?

And what, what are those?

Yeah. Yeah.

I also think it's important to how you bring up that conversation kind of going back to what Jen was saying. I would want to know, have you said that and how did you present that? Because the fastest way to [00:50:00] get entangled up in conflict or for that conversation to not go well is for it to come out as blame. Right? So like, what is wrong with you that you are not initiating sex? What, why, you know, and, and kind of going after that person in terms of like their character or something flawed in them. It's really different to bring your heart to the conversation and just saying, Hey, I've noticed that, you know, when I'm more often initiating and when I don't see you initiating, it really, you know, brushes on some tender stuff for me, I start to feel, you know, unwanted or undesired. And I want to have a conversation about it. Right. And can you bring forward some curiosity and be a safe place for your partner to talk to you about what might be blocking him? Um, from initiating sex more often because the only way he's going to be able to share that with her is If he knows that she's not gonna blow up at him that she's not gonna blame him that she's not gonna attack him But that she's really there with an open heart and open ears,

[00:51:00] Yeah. I think the more you can lead with vulnerability and coming from a place of like, hey, I. And feeling really insecure and then your partner seems like what, but you're so amazing and you say, well, uh, yeah, I love that you're saying that I don't feel that way because when I'm the one initiating, it makes me feel like I'm not wanted. And I understand that that's probably not it, but we need to figure out how we can approach this as a team.

 important.

Well, I've done this the wrong way a lot of times.

It's a learning process. Again, we are not given this education. Most of us, I would say maybe close to all of us in this culture and many other cultures, how would you know, right?

You don't know. You don't know unless it is something that you're either really interested in or it's been a quote unquote problem for you. And the second it becomes a problem, you either are so motivated to learn more about it, or you lock that away and you're like, well, never gonna deal with that again. You know, and then the problem just perpetuates and it's, uh, I mean, [00:52:00] it's so crazy the way that we are in like the most hyper sexualized culture and yet there is absolutely no guardrails or lessons or people shepherding others through this, which is like why I like to talk about it because I think everybody deserves to have a good sex life. I mean, it makes life a lot better.

Certainly can.

It certainly can. Yes, yes, yes, yes. so, this is very niche, but whatever, I'm gonna throw it out there. I had a health scare. I had an abnormal pap spear, and it ended up being fine. and by the way, like, I, the whole HPV thing doesn't... intellectually scare me at all. But after that, I noticed I was not sexual. And I'm guessing that that is something that is, because if it's happened to me, it's probably happening to a lot of people. And I was, as I was reading your book, I was wondering like, wow, I wonder what I could have done to help get myself back into my groove faster. Is there something I could have like, Asked myself or done, like, any sort of self discovery that I could [00:53:00] have been doing along the way.

I would even take it a step further and kind of challenge you because your instinct is I need to process that faster and I need to

be sexual faster as if that is the goal post or so I would be curious to explore with you why you would You know, need to do that faster.

So I would start there by just kind of giving you permission to. Feel some of those feelings and have some space where maybe you're not as sexually motivated and that that's okay.

Yes, I agree with you. I think it was that I just missed it.

You missed it. Right.

So then, if, if that's, if that's there, you know, and you're like, I really want to be more sexual, again, we might be then operating within responsive desire. That spontaneous desire is not happening for me. I miss being more sexual. What do I need to cultivate responsive desire?

And one of the things that I would bring us back to is pleasure, right?

What would feel really good? What would feel satisfying? What might be arousing? And sometimes when we're [00:54:00] faced with a lot of, um, variables that hit our brakes, you know, we can try things like, you know, relaxing, we can try connecting with a partner, but some, sometimes, and for some people, one of the most potent, Uh, stimuli for responsive desire is something that's explicitly sexually arousing. So maybe that's watching a movie or love scene or, you know, reading a book with some sort of sexual or romantic, um, you know, component or touching your body in ways that elicit arousal. So, you know, we talk in our book about a couple of different bridges for responsive desire. It could be things like, you know, that help.

To de stress your body. It could be things that help you to connect with your partner. But I think that third one that's, you know, explicitly arousing

for some of us, we might really need that to overcome some of the other things that are blocking us from experiencing desire.

Kind of lastly, like I know that I could have done an entire episode on this with you guys, but [00:55:00] what if I'm listening and I'm like, I don't know if I'm responsive. I think I just might be ace or asexual. does one even begin to process kind of where they might be on that spectrum?

One of the places I like to start is information seeking and gathering. One of the books we often recommend is Ace by Angela Chen. And just kind of reading about some different folks experience with their asexuality because, you know, what's tricky about this is it's not a monolith.

And so there's not one sort of descriptor that's going to fit for everybody. you know, the good news is that. Even if you, and your partner have very different, not just libidos, but maybe even orientations where one's maybe more asexual and the other is allo, which is the opposite of ace. there are still ways in which to navigate these differences.

And so I always like to give people sort of that little bit of reassurance. that even if you find that it's not just a libido difference, but an orientation difference, there's still so many ways that we can bridge those differences over the [00:56:00] course of a relationship, assuming that there's some flexibility around, you know, what sex looks like, what intimacy looks like, what touch looks like. and so I think this is part of, you know, as you learn about responsive desire, it does kind of bring you to some of these other questions, right? Like about your own sexual orientation and what you like and what you're interested in. And so I think the great place to start is with just learning, reading, gathering as much information as you can.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I, I am very new to talking to people who identify as asexual and it does seem to be a very, confusing path because it's so internal and it is so individualized.

It's also so misunderstood.

Well, anything that's going to be individualized is going to be misunderstood.

Yeah. Yeah.

In thinking of this conversation, there are a few takeaways that I have, and one is like accountability and, and also, and when I say accountability, that can sound like harsh or like a teacher, but it sounds to me like the two greatest things that I need to. Our, well, three are [00:57:00] one self discovery, the ability to constantly investigate what am I into?

What am I not into? And why? Like peel back the layers of my sexual and relational experiences to try and get back to like, what is causing this or what do I really want? The second is the ability or the courage to communicate it. And I think the third is really patience because it sounds to me like a lot of these problems are problems that can be worked out if both parties come together and agree to take the time to really hear each other and work on this. Together.

Patience and permission to do the exploration both individually and with partners, right? And recognizing that If we don't take a team based or partner based approach to this Things are not going to shift in a drastically positive way, I think it's a very common experience for both Lauren and I to see One member of a relationship who's saying, I've been told I'm the problem.

I need to get this fixed because I have a [00:58:00] desire difference with my partner. And I'm often pretty blunt in saying to those folks, yeah, we can do some work, but this is a relational dynamic. And if we're not working on this together as a team, movement will be limited in a significant

I, and it's so hard when you feel jilted or you feel guilty. Right. but I do love that there's like this positive takeaway that it does sound to me like, you know, whether it's just you and your partner committing to doing the work, or if you have the ability to reach out to sex therapists, or there's like so many resources out there now, like you really can get through these, but more importantly, you're gonna have to get through. Some quote unquote problems so buckle up.

We know that most partnerships have a whole host of differences that partners have to navigate over time. So it's just a matter of which challenges, differences, dynamics that you can sort of work with long term. And desire differences are no exception, right? That this is actually really common to have these differences among partners, either [00:59:00] some of the time or more perpetually in a relationship.

And the good news that we want to share is that that's something that is, you know, manageable and can be navigated, uh, more effectively. And so it doesn't have to be a problem. It's, it's only becomes sort of a problem when we don't have maybe sometimes the information or the resources to navigate that well.

Yes. I love that any kind of Disagreement problem quote unquote or fight is just an opportunity to bring yourselves closer. If that is the mindset

Right.

So I ask every guest this, and it's what's the best love or dating advice you've ever received?

I, you know, the first thing I think of is actually thinking about Gottman work, right? So attuning to bids for connection. And for your listeners who maybe aren't aware of that, this is referring to when our partners are trying to connect to us in an emotional way, in an attentional way. you know, I think learning about bids for connection, certainly as a graduate student was like a game changer for me as a therapist, but also a game changer for me as a partner because I pay attention to those things now.

Make sure that any partner I have is paying [01:00:00] attention to those things too. so that remains like a solid day to day thing that I use all the time.

I love that.

I would echo that. I think bits for connection is one of the most important concepts. Um, and if it's something that folks are not familiar with a quick Google search, I'll give you some great sort of soundbite blog post information about that, because I think it's pretty pivotal for relational, um, attunement and, and success.

Well, I will, I'll link to something in the show notes, and I will also link to your guys book that I suggest anyone listening by. If listeners want to learn more about you guys or find you guys, How and where do they do that?

Yeah. Folks can find me, um, on Instagram at Dr. Jennifer Vensel.

And you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at drlaurenfogelmercy.

Thank you so much for doing this.

Well, thank you so much,

and thank you so much for having us.

Yeah. Thank you. keep doing what you're doing.