264: How to Create The Sex Life You’ve Always Wanted with Vanessa and Xander Marin

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 264. 

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Amber B 00:49  

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host Amber Brueseke and boy, do I have a fun episode for you because I have two of my friends, Vanessa and Xander Marin on the podcast today to talk about a topic that we haven't had on the podcast yet and that is sex and having a better sex life. So I brought my two friends on here because Vanessa is a sex therapist and her husband, Xander, helps run her business and gives the perspective of a “Regular Dude” when it comes to sex and building the sex life that you want to have. So if you're someone who feels like maybe your sex life could use a little oomph right now, or maybe you're in a phase of life where it feels like it's you're just like having a roommate and not really an intimate partner and you're wanting to put some more pizzazz into that part of your life, this is a fantastic episode for you to listen to, and during that episode talk about the fact that Vanessa and Xander have a new book that is coming out a week from today. I already have mine pre-ordered. It's called Sex Talk and we'll talk about the book during the episode and the the five different conversations that are listed in the, in the book that goes way more into depth. But if you're wanting to pre-order your book, you can go to www.sextalksbook.com and all the information is there about how to preorder your book, how to get all of the fantastic goodies that Vanessa and Xander are throwing in if you pre-order the book before it comes out on February 7th. OK, without further ado, let's jump into the episode with Vanessa and Xander. 

Alright guys I am so excited to be able to have two of my favorite people Vanessa and Xander Marin. Hey guys, how are you doing and welcome to the podcast. 

Vanessa 02:38 

Hey Amber, thanks for having us. We're so excited to be here. 

Amber B 02:42 

Oh man, this is going to be an awesome podcast. I don't think I've told you guys this story so for everybody listening, I know Vanessa and Xander because we're in a business mastermind together and they joined the mastermind last year and I remember when you guys joined, my Integrator, Carley, she was like, Oh my gosh! I've been following Ness and Xander for years, you're gonna get to meet them in person. 

Vanessa  03:07  

Oh my God! 

Amber B 03:08  

Yeah, she's like, I've been following their Instagram for so many years, like they're amazing, they're awesome and she was like so starstruck that you guys were in the mastermind, so.. 

Vanessa 03:15  

Oh my God! I didn't know that's so cool. 

Amber B  03:18  

Yeah. She was a fan way before you guys even joined the mastermind, so. 

Vanessa 03:22  

Hey Carley. Shoutout to Carley! 

Amber B 03:24 

Shoutout to Carley! That's right. You guys are phenomenal. 

Vanessa 03:27  

Oh, that's really cool to hear. Thanks for sharing that. 

Amber B 03:29 

Alright so I wanted to have Vanessa and Xander on the podcast because here on the podcast we talk about a lot of wellness topics, we talk a lot about fitness, we talk a lot about health. But I haven't I mean, we're 200 episodes in and I've never done an episode about sex before. And I'm kicking myself because sex is such an important part of our overall health and wellness, and so that's why I want to have you guys on the podcast today to be able to talk to us with some open honesty about sex and how it can make our lives better, so I'm curious from your guys’ perspective since this is what you talk about all day, every day. Why do you think it's so easy for so many of us to just kind of ignore that part of ourselves or pretend like it doesn't exist or not talk about it, even though it's such an important part of our health and wellness? 

Vanessa 04:16  

Well, you're definitely not alone in that. I think there are a lot of people who are really into health and Wellness and taking care of themselves and neglects the whole sex aspect and you know there are a lot of reasons why it might be that might be true that it's so easy for us, and I think a lot of it just boils down to the messages that were taught about sex. It's really impossible to grow up and not get negative messages about sex, whether that's coming from TV, from the movies, from your parents, your religion, society as a whole. But there are a lot of shameful messages that make us feel like it's something that we shouldn't talk about, it's very secretive. And so a lot of us just hesitate to even acknowledge that something going on, you know, for ourselves, because we just feel so embarrassed and we don't have great examples either you don't see a lot of people talking openly and honestly about sex that contributes to this feeling of oh, it's this dirty little secret that I'm not supposed to talk about. 

Xander 05:11  

And yet at the same time we have this idea that it’s something that we're supposed to be wildly good at without ever really talking about or not or without, really even having a lot of practice per se and so yeah, so it can be challenging to talk about if you're like, well, I'm supposed to be good at it, but maybe I don't feel that good about it like I don't feel that good at it. I don't feel that good about it. Like where do I, where do I go for help? Like I don't want to raise my hand to be like hey I need help so, yeah, it's just challenging. 

Amber B 05:44  

Yeah, that's so interesting, you guys I'm the worst podcast host because I like dove, straight into the first question and I like to didn’t you have to introduce yourselves. So Xander gets on the mic and we're like who's this dude, that's talking to us the podcast. OK, so we're gonna keep going on that because I had some questions about sexual shame that I really want to talk about. But before we do first introduce yourself to my audience, so in case they're not Carley and they haven't followed you for years, tell us a little bit about you and what you guys do? 

Vanessa 06:11  

So we're Xander and Vanessa Marin. I don't know why I led with your name first, but Xander over here. I'm a sex therapist and so I've been working in the sex therapy field for about 20 years now and Xander is my “regular dude” husband who join the business so that the two of us could talk about sex and intimacy and relationships together as a real couple. So we have a business where we have courses, guides, we have a podcast and a big Instagram presence where our whole mission is to help couples keep the spark alive in their long term relationships.

Amber B 06:44  

And Xander, you joined the business only recently, right that was kind of a shift for you. 

Xander 06:47 

So I joined the business a while ago in like 2016 or so. But I was really just doing the back end operational stuff. I wasn't really in front of the camera. I was, I was the Carley for a long time and slowly but surely, Vanessa was on was on my case saying, Hey like it, wouldn't it be fun to do some course stuff together, to do some social media together like people would love to hear from you and I was just like, Oh no one wants to hear from me like who am I? I don't have any training, I don't have any licenses you know, I don't have any experience in this area. Yeah, and slowly but surely Vanessa was like no, no like that doesn't matter, like people just want to hear from a regular person, like it's one thing for Vanessa. Yeah, it's one thing for her to be the expert, it's another for me to just be, you know, the husband, like the other half of a relationship and being able to just talk about like hey, here's how this stuff works in our own relationship. Here's you know how someone that doesn't have any experience or training in it can go through this stuff and get better at it and and stuff like that. 

Amber B 07:54 

Yeah, I think it's one of the things that makes you guys so unique and I and I love that Vanessa you're able to get, kind of coax Xander to come out onto social media with you but I do think it makes you guys unique in that it's it's not just like the sex therapist who knows all the have all the book knowledge and read all the studies, and that's all great and good, but having that other pair of, you know, just the “regular dude”, because that's what you call yourselves Xander, is, is a really fun dynamic to be able to experience as a follower as someone you know in your community. So I'm I'm glad that you guys are a dynamic duo together. 

Xander 08:27 

Thanks. 

Vanessa 08:27  

Thank you yeah. It was really important to us, especially the topic as sensitive as sex, where we all kind of have this feeling of like am I doing it right? Am I not very good at it? I shouldn't really be talking about it. It was really important to us to be able to lead with vulnerability and to share our own stories of like we've been together for 15 years. We know what it's like to fall into a little bit of a rut, for sex to start to feel kind of predictable, to feel in our relationship like are we feeling more like roommates rather than romantic partners right now? So we've been through all those ups and downs ourselves, and I think that when we can be brave and honest and vulnerable and show people like this is all OK, it's all normal. It doesn't mean anything's horribly wrong, but let us show you how we pulled ourselves out of those places. 

Amber B 09:10 

Yeah, it's so good. So one of my favorite topics that I heard you guys talk about on your podcast and I think it's so and you talked about the beginning as well is this idea of sexual shame specifically how damaging it can be for so many of us to move past. So can you give us a brief because I know you have a whole podcast on it, so we'll definitely drag people to listen to the whole podcast, but can you give a brief synopsis of what sexual shame is? How it's manifest and then for people who feel like they're experiencing it, how we can work our way through it? 

Vanessa 09:39  

Absolutely, this is a huge topic that comes up basically for anyone who grows up in this society. We are taught to be ashamed of sex and whether that's we're getting direct messages. Maybe it's things like you know, you need to wait until marriage or sex. Is this sinful thing? Or it can be something that we pick up indirectly. Maybe there's just ways that we overhear our parents talking about sex or our friends, but we all grow up with some amount of shame. Some belief that there's something wrong with sex. That there are rules that we must follow with really bad consequences if we don't follow them and that shame can feel really damaging to us like it's hard to get a lot of enjoyment out of something if you feel a lot of shame about it as well the comparison that pops to mind right now that might resonate really well with your audience like food. You know a lot of us have a lot of shame around food. So it's challenging to also have enjoyment of food when there's so much shame in the way. 

Xander 10:34 

Yeah, but I mean it's like it's you know whereas food is something that you know we we eat on a daily basis. We see on a daily basis, we talk about on a daily basis. Sex very often is not something that we are talking about on a regular basis. So it's like, yeah it, yeah, you know there it's. 

Vanessa  10:51  

Contribute for that shame. 

Xander 10:53  

It's bigger because it's something that we we keep inside so often for, you know for so long, before you know it turns into an issue or you know, boils over and we have a big argument about it. 

Vanessa  11:05  

So a lot of people tell us that shame it gets in the way of their feeling, desire for sex, like I start to be interested. But then it feels like this bad thing that I'm not supposed to want, even if I feel like I'm following the rules like I'm married and it's just with my partner. A lot of people will tell us that it prevents them from enjoying sex. They're in the moment wanting to connect and feel pleasure, but there's this sense of oh God, I shouldn't be doing this. What's going on? I shouldn't want that, so it really gets in our way. So one of the big messages that we have to share about shame is that shame is always external. We're not born feeling ashamed of sex. We are taught to be and so we have that podcast episode that you mentioned like our seven step process for walking through sexual shame and getting rid of sexual shame and a big part of that episode is identifying what are the specific shameful beliefs that you have about sex, so we actually encourage people to write this down like get really clear on what are the specific things that come up for you. Because sometimes even just seeing it written in front of you on a piece of paper can be really powerful. Like wow there there's really a part of me that feels that, that I'm not supposed to want this, I'm not supposed to enjoy it. My body is not for my own pleasure, so write it down and then with each belief that comes up for you, try to take some time to explore where did that come from? So was that a direct message that somebody taught you? Was that something indirect that you picked up along the way? Where do you think it came from? So that process of searching outside of ourselves and thinking, where might I have picked this up from that really starts to help us realize, like yeah, I was not born with this. This is not my shame. This is something that's been put on to my shoulders. 

Amber B 12:47  

It's so important and I think I think it normalizing it a little bit too obscene at some level we all kind of have some sexual shame because we live in a society that you know there's a lot of sexual shame that goes around, and so just understanding that we can start to address it and hopefully make our sex lives a lot better. So what have you seen with your clients and the people that you've worked with like where how does sexual wellness fit into an overall healthy well person. 

Vanessa 13:16 

I think sex we tend to think of sex as this thing that just happens in the bedroom like it's just just that thing that happens over there and we don't really think about how sex affects the rest of our lives and how the rest of our lives affects sex and the the reality is it's not just this little thing that we can compartmentalize over here, and especially in relationships you know so how we are interacting, Xander and I, how we're interacting with each other throughout the day that affects our desire to be intimate with each other. Our openness to being intimate with each other and then our intimacy, that physical intimacy that we share with each other that affects what happens you know in in day-to-day life how connected we feel and how we're interacting with each other. So I think it's really important for all of us to start thinking of sex as part of our Wellness as part of our, you know, just overall lives rather than putting it away in the bedroom and thinking it just happens there. 

Xander 14:11 

Yeah, we get DM’s from so many people saying something along the lines of like, oh like my partner and I haven't  had sex in weeks we're feeling super disconnected what can we do? Oh, by the way we just had we just had a kid and we're both working 80 hour weeks and we're arguing about money. And like people can throw that in as an aside. Like oh this is also going on, but it's not really related to the sex and it's like hold on a second like all these things are totally related like you're feeling disconnected, you're you know you're kind of like in fight or flight mode like why? Why would you be wanting sex? Why would you be feeling really connected sexually, right now. 

Vanessa  14:54  

And interestingly, I think most of us have had the experience of when we're having really great sex and we feel connected to our partner. We've had that experience of how much it impacts every other area of our lives you know, like oh, I'm feeling more confident. I have more energy, it just feels like things are easier between the two of us. We're acting more like a partnership, so we've had that experience. We get how powerful it can be that it's so much more than just this physical act that we do with each other and yet so many of us just tend to forget that. 

Amber B 15:24  

Yeah for sure. So if if people are listening and they are saying OK I'm kind of where you're where you were talking about, like I feel like we're in the roommate status or we're in a funk, or we're in a dry spell or you're someone who you're like yeah, my sex life is pretty good but I know it can be better. Where do we start in in creating the sex life that we actually desire that we're excited about that that changes our whole day. How do we get to that level? Where do we start? 

Vanessa 15:53  

The place to start is by talking about sex and this is the perfect segue into our book because we just wrote a book, it's coming out on February 7th called Sex Talks. The five conversations that will transform your love life. And we wrote this book because we have had so much personal experience with how powerful it's been in our relationship to start talking about sex you know, we in that transition of Xander starting to come more in front of the camera with me we started talking about sex a whole lot more than we even did before that and realizing how much more connected we felt, how much more excited we felt how much better sex was becoming and we realized that this is the result of how much more we're talking about it. So this idea of talking about sex is nothing new. Everybody's read that in an article you know you're you're Googling how to fix your sexual problems and this article pops up. It always says, talk to your partner, but the articles always end there. There's no advice for like OK how do I talk about it? 

Amber B 16:53  

Ok, yeah about how? 

Vanessa 16:54 

Yeah yeah, but how? What do I say? When do I say it? What if I don't even know the answer? What am I supposed to tell my partner? 

Xander 16:59 

Yeah, how do I make it not awkward or what if my partner thinks I’m weird?  What if they laugh at me? 

Vanessa  17:06  

So we wrote this book to give couples this step-by-step framework of exactly how to start having these kinds of conversations. 

Amber B 17:15  

It’s so good and I have preordered my book so  I will be getting my book and we'll be talking about how you guys can get your book as well at the end of the episode, but will you kind of just list out what those you said. There's five conversations, correct? So what gives us the highlight of that, those five conversations? 

Vanessa 17:29  

OK, so the first one is called acknowledgement. We have a little AKA name for each conversations acknowledgement, AKA sex is a thing and we have it. So a lot of couples have just never really talked about sex in a productive way. Some couples just straight up do not talk about it at all. Other couples may have tried to talk about it when things were really bad or awkward, and it just turned into a fight, made it feel like something you know even less of a topic of conversation that they wanted to approach. And so we start the book off by creating this foundation of communication in our relationship and helping couples get comfortable with this as a topic of conversation so you can talk about your desires, your interest, your feedback, as comfortably as you can talk about like hey, what do you want to have for dinner tonight? That's really the goal of that conversation 

Xander 18:21  

So conversation two is connection AKA what do we need to feel connected? And I think this is a super important conversation because it's all about laying the groundwork for feeling connected whether or not you're having sex, because the reality is, is that connection is so important for so many people to feel comfortable even even starting to have sex or even talking about sex and so this is all about figuring out the different ways that each member of a partnership likes to feel connected and so so that you can kind of speak each other's love language, so to speak. 

Vanessa 19:00  

Yeah, this kind of goes back to what Xander was saying earlier about you know if you're feeling really disconnected from each other. If you're feeling like roommates, or you're arguing all the time, why are you going to want to have sex with each other? It's trying to understand how can we create that thread of connection throughout our days so that going into physical intimacy feels easier. 

Amber B 19:20  

Yeah well it becomes like this self perpetuating cycle too, because it's like, why do you want to have sex if you don't feel connected? But then if you don't feel connected, you don't have sex and then you like it's just like it's just repeating cycle that like you gotta, you gotta break the cycle somewhere. And and once you do that, then you feel more connected. You have more sex then you have more sex because you have more connected and then we want that spiral to go upward not downward 

Vanessa 19:42 

Exactly. 

Xander 19:41 

Yeah, and this and this conversation is all about figuring out how to create that connection without it being like OK, we'll just have sex and then you'll feel connected. 

Amber B 19:51 

Right, because that doesn't really work either. It's like the chicken and the egg. 

Vanessa 19:55  

Yeah, so that actually leads straight into the third conversation, which is desire AKA what do we need to feel turned on and so those those two conversations are kind of like sister chapters with each other. Because it's like, yeah, we need to feel that connection to each other in order to open up the space for there to be desire. So this is a another really interesting chapter because especially in long term relationships. So many of us feel like God at the beginning of the relationship it was so easy, like sex just felt so effortless. I felt like I wanted to be with my partner all the time and then you get a few years a few decades into it. It's like what happened to that spark that passion that I used to feel from my partner like I used to feel that urge to be intimate with them and and the fact open to that. So this is all about reigniting that spark and feeling that desire for your partner again, feeling that excitement that energy, that enthusiasm and it's really a great chapter for understanding yourself too. So if you've ever grappled with like God, I just feel like I have no desire. Where did it go? What happened to me like this is a great self exploration chapter two, but it will, it will really help you and your partner understand how to get each other turned on and excited. 

Xander 21:07  

And then the 4th conversation is a pleasure AKA what do we need to feel good? And this is a super important chapter because you know not only you know, do you want to be feeling a lot of desire in order to be having better sex, but making sure that both parties are actually feeling a lot of pleasure really enjoying the experience is is another way to really going to create that virtuous cycle of like we're feeling connected. We're feeling that desire and we're feeling good. And so like we want to keep doing this stuff and so this Chapter really, really make sure that everybody understands the way that pleasure really works I think. Unfortunately in in our society women really get the short end of the stick in terms of female pleasure is not something that is really talked about very much or really understood by by everyone and especially by men. There's a lot of misconceptions as to you know what women need, what sex should look like? And so we try to dispel a lot of those myths in this chapter and really make sure that both parties are able to identify what really feels good for them and be able to communicate that with each other. 

Vanessa 22:15  

 And this is such an another important connection that a lot of people don't make you know a lot of people will tell us, oh, I have no desire for sex and one of the first questions, so we'll ask them is well, tell us about the sex that you do have, and then they'll describe it. We'll say well that makes perfect sense that you don't desire that. 

Amber B 22:33 

It’s very logical.  

Vanessa  22:34 

Why would you create that but yeah, it's it's so logical when we say it that way, but so many of us just don't put it together in our heads because of the shame. We feel like you know, just supposed to want sex all the time I'm supposed to be so excited by it so into it, but if we really look at like if you're not enjoying the experience, if there's nothing in it for you. If it's predictable or boring or routine, why would you crave that? But we just don't make that connection in our heads, so I think that this will be a really powerful chapter for a lot of people, and especially in male-female  relationships and then we wind things up with chapter 5. It's exploration AKA what should we do next? So this is another thing you know everybody's heard the advice trying new things in the bedroom. 

Xander 23:16 

kind of like talking about it like, but how? 

Vanessa 23:17 

Yes, yeah. But how? 

Amber B 23:20 

And what? 

Vanessa 23:21  

And what? Exactly, a lot of us will get really nervous when we think about like I, I don't know I don't mean wild fantasies I don't want to do anything kinky like what am I supposed to do that's new and so we keep doing the same boring routine even though we're bored to tears by head and we're not feeling any desire for it because we feel so embarrassed about trying anything new. So this chapter really lays out for you what the options are sometimes it's a lot easier to just choose from a menu of options rather than feeling like you've got to come up with all this creativity yourself and also walks you through exactly how to try something new in a way that takes the pressure down doesn't make you feel like you got to get it perfect right off the get go and just helps you guys feel like teammates and exploring together because research actually has found that doing new things together is one of the best ways to keep the spark alive in our relationship. But again, we're all about the practical, how do we actually do that so that's what that chapter is all about 

Amber B 24:18 

That's so awesome. OK, so out of those five, I know it's like choosing a favorite child. But which one of those is your favorite? Both Vanessa and Xander I want to hear if you guys have a different opinion.  

Vanessa 24:29 

This is so hard for me. You're totally right. I mean, I think for me conversations two and three. They're so entwined with each other, and I I really love that. So it's hard to pick a favorite out of those two, but I just I love that interconnection between like how do we stay connected all throughout the day so that we also feel that that level of desire for each other, and I think there's just there are a lot of concepts in those two chapters that I think a lot of couples have never really figured it out before. There were a lot of you know in our own relationship when we made these realizations, it was such a light bulb moment for us, so I'm really excited about those two. 

Xander 25:08 

I’m gonna say that my favorite is actually chapter 1,  the acknowledgement chapter. And that's because you know, I’ve seen in in our own, you know, in our own community, just how much of an impact simply being able to start acknowledging that sex is a thing that you do has in relationships. I think that was one of the most eye opening things for me when I started getting more involved you know, in social media and in our course content was just seeing people like hey like we watch your stories. And by watching your story, seeing you two talk about this, it gave us the courage to just to almost like comment on what we were talking about and that was sort of a way to back into starting to acknowledge that sex is a thing is like OK well, it's easier to talk about these guys that are talking about it. And then we'll slowly ease into talking about, like us, doing it, and just seeing how life changing that was for so many people like oh, like we've been married for 20 years and you know, we never really said anything about sex other than like should we do it? And now we're talking about like, oh, we do it. And like, here's what we like to do and it's just like light bulbs going off for people. So I really love that conversation I think it is a I think it's one that people should not sleep on. 

Amber B 26:25 

That's so awesome. OK, I think one of the things that we like to know, and especially when it comes to something that a lot of people feel like it's so awkward to talk about and and discuss is that we're not that we're normal right that you talked about this Vanessa like you're normal. All those weird things that you think are the things that you do, that you think are am I the only one like it's most of it is normal, but what do you hear as the the biggest challenges that you hear over and over and over again? What are the biggest challenges so that people who have those challenges can feel a little bit more normalized in those challenges 

Vanessa 26:57  

Absolutely so low sex drive, which kind of goes hand in hand with mismatched sex drives. It almost always feels like you know one partner has very low or no drive and the other partner wants it more so it feels like there's this tension. And how often do we have sex? Who has to compromise? Who loses in this situation? So that's a huge one. We hear a lot about orgasm problems for women kind of like what Xander was saying when he was describing that 4th conversation because there's so much misinformation and lack of education about female pleasure. There are so many women who do not experience pleasure during sex. Never had an orgasm, rarely have orgasm, so that's a huge thing that comes up, performance anxiety for men kind of rounds out the the top three concerns that we hear about so men who are struggling to get hard to reach orgasm feeling just a lot of anxiety. I think we we have all these stereotypes that women are just easy when it comes to sex, they'll just they'll take whatever they can, whenever they get it. But men are a lot more complex, and so that's something that comes up for us a lot but yeah I think so those are the three main things that we hear about, but there's this general feeling for so many couples of like shouldn't there be more to it than this like it just feels it's kind of lost its luster. It feels kind of boring. It's the same thing over and over again, and and even if you feel like your sex life is fine, it's not terrible, but it's this sense of am I missing something? like shouldn't there be more to it than just this?

Amber B 28:29  

Will you talk a little bit about high desire, low desire and because I think I mean I think in any relationship, whether someone is it's all it's all relative, right? But I think there's always going to be like you said there's gonna be some mismatch. It's really unlikely that we're going to be completely in sync with one in sex at the exact same amount as our partner all the time, right? So there's likely gonna be a mismatch, so if that's a dynamic that most couples, heterosexual, homosexual, like any sexual, have to deal with. Like how do you recommend couples navigating that dynamic? 

Vanessa 28:59  

Yeah. So the 1st place to start is understanding your sex drive type. And this is something that we share in the book. We've shared it before on social media and I think it's some of the most life changing information that we share. So I'll just share really quickly like there are two sex drive types and they really boil down to where you feel desire first in your body or in your head. And so all of us think that we're supposed to have one of the types, which is spontaneous. We're just out of nowhere the idea pops into our head it sounds good. It sounds exciting. We want to go do it. That's how you always see it in in movies and TV. 

Xander 29:34 

Yeah, like you look, you look at your partner, 10 seconds later, you're tearing each other's clothes off and you're just doing it in like 30 seconds later you're like, you know, laid out in bed. 

Amber B 29:45 

List out on the bed, yeah. 

Xander 29:45  

You just have the the biggest orgasm ever. But that's not really how it happens? 

Vanessa 29:50  

For a lot of people, yeah. So the other type is responsive desire, which is where you feel turned on in your body first. So the classic way to know if you're a responsive type is if you've ever gotten to the end of sex and you thought yeah, that was actually really fun. Why don't I ever want that more? So the responsive desire people, it's not that you're low desire or no desire, it's that you need to feel turned on in your body first. So if you ask a responsive desire person like hey, do you want to go have sex right now? Hey, do you want to do it? They're going to tell you no 99% of the time. Because in their head it doesn't sound like a good idea until their body is already turned on, so. 

Xander 30:29  

Yeah, it turns out want to do it is not the right question. 

Vanessa 30:30 

So again we go into a lot more detail. 

Amber B 30:34  

Hey, what is the right question? You can't just leave us hanging like that. What is the right question then Xander? 

Vanessa 30:39  

So if if one of the partners is responsive, then that needs to be kind of worked in the sexual initiation, so they're not going to be mentally interested in it. They need to have some sort of physical stimulation first, so it's figuring out what is the kind of stimulation that feels safe and that feels good. So sometimes you'll hear people say just have sex and then then you'll want to do it. We don't ever want to say that we don't want people pushing themselves to have sex, but maybe it's that you guys are going to make out for 10 minutes or your partner's going to give you a massage for 10 minutes without there being pressure of it like leading to more, we all know how massage goes. 

Xander 31:13 

Yeah, I think I think that's that's really the key because you know we got so many DM's from people where it's like, Oh well, when if he says like if he says he wants to give me a massage, I know exactly where that's going. So yeah, it's it, but yeah, we talked a lot in the book about how about how to initiate these things in a way that doesn't feel like there's an obligation or a pressure for it to go any further. 

Vanessa 31:36  

But there's this understanding on both partners behalf, but the responsive desire partner needs some time for their body to get turned on and excited before their head is going to think like Oh yeah, sex sounds good right now. 

Amber B 31:47  

It's really helpful. Yeah, definitely dynamic that I think most people have to to navigate. So those I mean that was some really great, like tactile things that people can can start to to use to be able to move past that and I think what you said just even understanding yourself and how you get get turned on and and which which type of desire you have can really help you to feel like, oh again, I'm not broken. This is normal, it just means I need to go about it a little bit differently to to get to the place where I I do desire that. 

Vanessa 32:17  

Exactly and another super practical thing that couples can do is like Xander was saying but like wanna do, it is not a great question because that puts that pressure on you of you feel like you have to be turned on in that moment. Do I want it? No, I don’t really want it right and then  

Xander 32:35 

And then if you don't, then you might even feel some shame because you're like, wait, they just they just asked want to do it? I'm supposed to want to do it, I don't wanna do it. What's wrong with me? and that's like they're just just another way that shame can can creep in without anyone like really telling you, you should be ashamed about this. 

Vanessa 32:53  

Exactly. So we have a one word swap here. Instead of using the word want, use the word open. Are you open to being in like that and for you to ask yourself that too am I open to being intimate? Am I open to connecting with my partner because it's it's this subtle but powerful reminder to you of it doesn't mean that you have to be wildly turned on. You want to whip your partner's clothes off in this moment it's just am I open to it, the possibility of it maybe I'll get turned on if we get started it just it really lowers the bar and helps you feel like connection is a little bit easier. 

Amber B 33:27  

That's really good. The second thing that you talked about was female orgasm and since we have a very female audience that is listening to this podcast. I think that would be a good one just to dive into for just a little bit because I think that like you said this is a topic where a lot of women don't have, don't have the pleasure that they want to, or even know that they they could have. And so we speak a little bit to female orgasm and for somebody who maybe is struggling in that doesn't, doesn't know how to orgasm, hasn't figured that out. Can you give some helpful tips or tricks to be able to to work through some of that experience, for someone who's new to it. 

Vanessa 34:06  

Absolutely. It's one of my favorite topics to talk about conversation four. It's also, it's also a good one. So the most important thing to understand about female orgasm is that it's all about the clitoris, so the clitoris it's almost a dirty word and you know in our society there's a lot of dumb jokes about it, like oh, the clitoris even exist? Where is it? Why is it so hard to find? But the reality is that that is the pleasure center for us women and it's the biological equivalent of the penis for men. So as women, the way that we see sex is very penetration focused, right? It's like intercourse like Xander was laying out in that the classic scene in a movie. It's like, you know, you always see the little scenes of intercourse and then she's orgasming, both parties, you know, slow back on the bed you've had a great time, but the reality is when you're having intercourse, there's very little sensation, very little stimulation on the clitoris. You're getting sensation in your vagina instead, which does not have a lot of nerve ending, right? 

Amber B 35:07  

Doesn't have a whole lot of nerve endings. 

Vanessa 35:10  

Yeah, right. 

Amber B 35:10  

For very good reason because that's where babies come out. And so the reason we don't have a lot of nerve endings there. 

Vanessa 35:14  

Exactly. Imagine if that was the most sensitive part of your body and that's where babies are coming out of It would be a tough time, right?  

Xander 35:22 

People wouldn't be having kids. 

Amber B 35:23 

No, no one would have kids. 

Vanessa 35:25  

So, but you know, so many women feel like something is wrong with them or broken with them. If intercourse isn't wildly pleasurable if it's not making them orgasm immediately, but it's just the reality of how our bodies are made. The clitoris is the center of the universe, so sometimes I like to make this funny comparison if like when we expect women to orgasm from intercourse, it's like expecting a man to have an orgasm from having his balls played with, it's like..  

Xander 35:50 

It's nice, yeah, but but yeah, it's.. 

Amber B 35:54  

Probably not going to finish. 

Xander 35:54 

Just, it's just nice. 

Vanessa 35:58  

Yeah. There might be some lucky men out there who can have orgasms from having their balls played with, but for the vast majority it's just not going to happen and it's the same thing for women. It's like we might enjoy it. It might feel very intimate and connecting. But it's not enough physical stimulation to lead to orgasm. So if you want to experience more orgasms, it's all about getting more attention to the clitoris, so we have this like silly rule in the book our ABC rule that's always be touching the clitoris. Unfortunately it's really easy I mean it's you know we just want to have a stimulation of the clitoris the same way that you know when we go into sex. I expect that there's going to be some penile stimulation on Xander's behalf, I don't think it's weird that he needs stimulation on his penis. I don't think it’s like some horrible difficult thing I have to do. I'm just like, yeah that's the most sensitive horse I want you to feel good. Like let's get that penis going so it's the same thing with the clitoris. It's just we want to go into sex with that exact same expectation, there's nothing difficult, complicated, and mysterious challenging about female orgasm. It's just giving us stimulation of the sensitive part of our body, just like we're doing for men. 

Amber B 37:09  

That's awesome. The other saying that you guys always say that I really like is everyone who wants an orgasm, gets an orgasm. We kind of speak to one. 

Vanessa 37:16  

Yes, that is another one of our big rules. We think it's really important for partners to be partners in orgasm. I think that you know a lot of us because we have been taught to have such an intercourse centric view of sex and because a lot of men are experiencing their own anxiety and you know performance issues that come up a lot of times we just get very in our heads about, you know, just our own experience, and so there's a lot of a lot of male female couples who are having sex where it's it's very intercourse heavy and the 2nd that he finishes, it's over and she hasn't gotten any stimulation. She's nowhere close, and so we talked about you know you guys got to be teammates and make sure that somebody's always touching the clitoris, making sure that you guys are both having orgasms. Then there's the you know whoever wants one is part of the rules, so if there's a particular day where you're like, you know I'm fine with it being all about you you know I feel good with that one, that's fine, but you want to feel like you're each invested in each other. Having a good experience like I care about your experience. I want to make sure you have a good time. I'm here with you to make it happen. 

Xander 38:22 

Yeah I think, I think the key with this one, though, is that, like you this tip can't really be put into practice if you aren't talking about sex. If you're if you're not comfortable even acknowledging that this is the thing and so they get just, this just gets back to like why we even wrote this book in the first place. We've been giving like so many of these tips for so long, but then you know, people get in their head about well, well, how could I ever put this into practice because I would have to tell my partner that I want an orgasm and then I might have to tell them that Ohh, actually what we're doing doesn't feel very good and actually I'm not really wanting that very much and so it can just feel so difficult. And that's why you know we try to kind of turn it all around with the book and be like, let's start from the very beginning and building up your ability to talk about it rather than your very first conversation needing to be a Oh well, we're actually five years in and I hate to break it too but the sex we're having sucks, and you know, I'm not feeling good. We need to make all these changes. 

Amber B 39:22  

That's really good. All right, tell us about the book and how we can get our hands on it? 

Vanessa 39:26  

Yeah, so Sex Talks comes out on the 7th and we are asking people to pre-order the book because we have learned in the process of writing our very first book here, that pre-orders are really the only way to ensure that a book is successful. We had never pre-ordered a book, either one of us ever before. It was like, why would I preorder, I just wait till it comes out and then I get the book, but we realized now that pre-orders are the best way to get books on bestseller list, to get media appearances, to be able to promote it, so we're asking people to help us out and pre-order it. You'll still get the book you know exactly when it comes out and we are giving away, this really incredible bonus package for anyone who pre-orders before the 6th, the day before it comes out. So it's over $200.00 worth of some of our free guides. We have our dirty talk guide, so the book teaches you how to talk about facts. And then we've got this fun dirty talk guide to like kind of, take it to the next level.  

Xander 40:20 

Oh yeah, take it up a notch. 

Vanessa 40:21 

We have our sexual bucket list which helps you identify like fantasies and things are exciting to you. We have a workbook that comes along with it. Just a ton of stuff, so we have all the info at sextalksbook.com make it really easy with all the links of where you can order it and then just a quick little form that you fill out and we'll send you all those freebies in your e-mail. 

Amber B 40:45  

Awesome, definitely go and check out the book guys get it preordered. They have so many free gifts that you get alongside. But like I don't know how much you're spending on the book like 20 bucks on the book and then you get like $200.00 worth of other stuff. 

Vanessa 40:59  

So it's yeah, it's a lot. We really believe in this book. We want every couple of the world to read it and so we're just throwing everything that we've got behind it and trying to make it feel like why would I not preorder this book with all this stuff that I get for free and 20 bucks on a book like why would I not do it? 

Amber B 41:16  

Yeah, that's so awesome. Alright if people want to learn more or they want to hang out with you guys on Instagram, on your podcast, where can we find you? 

Vanessa 41:25  

On Instagram they can find us at Vanessa and Xander. That's our handle. We do stories together every day. So kind of like when Xander was talking about it's a great way to to ease into talking about sex in your relationship like watch our stories with your partner, kind of comment on what we're saying that day. Make fun of us, you know. 

Amber B 41:44  

Oh my gosh! My favorite one that you guys do sometimes is when you have people like message in and they want you to like say something so that they can be sitting next to their partner and they can play it and the partner can hear what you're telling them about the clit or about whatever it is that's my favorite. 

Vanessa 41:59  

We haven't done that in a while we got to bring that one back. That's one of my favorites too, yeah like say this so my partner can over hear it? 

Amber B 42:04  

Can over hear,  over hear it while I'm sitting next to them, playing it very loudly. 

Xander 42:09 

Yeah, we we definitely gotta bring that back. And then yeah, you can check out our podcast, The Pillow Talks Podcast and then yeah you can find us on the web at VMtherapy.com 

Amber B 42:20  

Yeah they have tons of sexual guides different, like the foreplay guides, the challenges you guys run. There's like the butt stuff like there's so many awesome resources to for anybody to up level your your your game in the bedroom. 

Vanessa 42:36  

Yeah, we are all about teaching people step by step how to have great sex and and taking the shame and embarrassment away from it like nobody taught us how to have sex. And yeah, we all feel this pressure that we're supposed to be so good at it. So we give you a really practical, actionable, very successful techniques, but in a way that feels fun and exciting. 

Amber B 42:56  

So awesome. Well thank you both for coming on the podcast and really excited about your guys book. Everybody will check out their Instagram, their podcast, and go get the book. Pre-ordered Sex talk. Sextalksbook.com? Is that it?  

Xander 43:12 

That’s it. 

Amber B 43:12 

Awesome. Thanks guys for coming on. 

Vanessa 43:13  

Thanks Amber. 

Xander 43:13 

Thanks. 

Amber B 43:16  

Wasn't that a fun episode? I loved having Vanessa and Xander be able to come on and talk about something that I think they're so right. So many of us feel so uncomfortable talking about, and I think when you can bring someone on who's confident like Vanessa and Xander to be able to talk about this really important topic that impacts us and impacts our day and impacts our lives and impacts our relationships. We can really start to come out of our she’ll talk about these things more so that we can all have a little better sex, and I think that's what a lot of us want and talking about it really is the way to be able to get there. So definitely go and pre-order your book sextalksbook.com and get all the goodies that to Vanessa and Xander have to offer for you as well. And definitely go follow them on Instagram and their podcast is phenomenal. Definitely highly recommend them. They're fantastic people. Fantastic resource and they're just, they're just the cream of the crop. I'm so glad to be able to have them on and share them with you guys. 

That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio, I'm Amber. Now go on and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything. 

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