Moment 19 - This Is Why Your Sex Life Sucks: Kate Moyle

00:04this is probably the most you know popular question i'm sure you get which is like how do you keep it fresh what advice would you give me to keep my sex life with a partner i've been with for x amount of years still fresh exciting and uh yeah exploratory um yeah i think it's it's the question everyone wants the answer um it's it is about a first thing acknowledging that it might be different to how it used to be. So again, one of the biggest hurdles people can get kind of tripped over on is it's not the same as it used to be or it changed.

00:41Now, why does that mean it's worse? You know, actually perhaps the quality of the sex that people might be having might be better because they know each other better, they understand each other's bodies better, they feel more in tune with each other. so it's understanding that you might be in a different phase or stage and that's okay it doesn't have to be you know that famous phrase the honeymoon period that kind of everybody quotes or goes back to so I think that is one thing and I think actually kind of carving out the time and the space and the effort and not seeing that as a bad thing not seeing that as problematic that we have to be a bit more conscious of that part of our relationships is a huge, huge factor because what the kind of common narrative we see in society, I suppose, is if I have to make an effort for this, then there must be something wrong with that because sex should be spontaneous, should be something that just happens.

01:39That's what it says in the movies. Which is part of the problem, right? Because that's one of the most easily accessible visual versions of sex that we have. we don't see into other people's sex lives in the same way now what we do see is social media or pictures of couples or images of couples or and we make assumptions about them super naive question but i'm sure it's one of the most popular questions you get asked which is like is there a healthy amount of times for a couple to have sex per week or whatever and you know one would assume that changes over time right because i think i know just judging by my relationships it start we start like fucking energizer bunny rabbits and then you know life happens but is there you know and i hate these questions because that again they're so like unnuanced and so like narrow but is there an average amount of times that couples you would you know if you had to answer this question and not swerve it in this for the sake of nuance what would the answer be i would like to know what you think the answer is i think again context like i'm gonna go into nuance in here but context matters like if you live on opposite sides of the world then obviously there's there's

02:57barriers but if you're living in the same if you're cohabiting living in the same house i think like at least twice a week you know once in the weekend tuesday i don't know but where okay so where do you think um that idea of twice a week would comes from just looking at my schedule wait a minute oh look where can i find time probably like once in the week and then and on the weekends i have a bit more time so um yeah but i mean it obviously changes over time i feel like i'd probably have sex every night but if i you know but just energy levels and yeah what's the answer then so someone i um interviewed talked about the amount of sex we have as a red herring so the kind of regularity of sex doesn't determine like the satisfaction of it or the kind of pleasure of it or the enjoyment of it and i think what it feels like we've been trying to do is find an objective way of measuring sex so it's this idea of okay well we're all trying to find the answer to sex like how to be good at sex like what that looks like how to know where we pitch ourselves against everyone else and regularity is one of the only kind of objective measures we have of that so it's the one that we kind of will lean into or we want to know the answer to whereas what i would say is i don't think we do have an

04:26idea of i don't know what kind of modern like surveys say there's a big survey that's done um kind of every few years but i haven't actually seen the results of that one yet but what about the monkeys how often are they doing i feel like they were like i haven't asked them what are the orangutans doing um i haven't got a clue um to find out maybe your next guest yeah um but i think that the the thing is is working out again and what it what we're looking for is a measure of like how we're doing yeah by knowing that um answer and i think one of the things is for some couples it might be as you said they might kind of work in different countries it might be every time they see each other they have great sex and that's enough like that's works for them for other couples it might be we have sex once a month and it's really good you know we're both enjoying ourselves and we feel like our needs are met great for other people it might be once a week you know i think it's about determining like what your normal is or what your what is right for you but again the kind of worries and anxieties and stresses come from a we're not having enough sex why is that yeah you know is it because my partner is no longer attracted to me that tends

05:42to be the first thing people go to and what's going on um is it because our relationship isn't working is it when we don't have a clear kind of obvious answer like we've just had a baby for example um so there's the assumptions that go with that why has sex changed what's going on but also the well everyone else is having sex once a week and we're having sex once a month so that we must have a problem there must be something wrong with us what is the single biggest killer of relationships in the modern age in 2021 in your view if you had to say this one thing is the the single the biggest killer of relationships what would it be unrealistic expectations one of the big problems you you talked about it earlier this idea of like what we see in the movies so we're like oh that's what it's like so then when it's not like that we're disappointed our partner fails us they haven't met our expectations they haven't met all of our needs you know we talk about this idea lots of relationship experts talk about this idea of how we shouldn't expect one person our partner to meet every single one of our needs but we do and so they're kind of doomed to fail then in that way so how do we change that how do we start to kind of like open that up how do we you know we have other

07:09relationships in our lives we have family we have friends we have colleagues you know we need to start to think about like how we can do that for ourselves and then our we work with our partners to create something together and lastly just to wrap sort of loop around from the from the start what are the if you were to say that they were there were similarities in couples that do enjoy great sexual relationship just principles top-line principles what are those sort of key distilled top-line principles um such a big question communication yeah is like top of the tree and i think i think it's top of the tree and i think it's the one that people don't want to hear because it's less actionable and it's quite scary yeah exactly it's like in a way i think talking about it is the hardest thing to do and but it is you know any relationship kind of expert any expert in the sexual kind of well-being health space will say to you like communication is that and then it's like okay but how do i yeah do that and you know we talk about these communication exercises things like kind of speaking from your own position so like i say so there's a place called the gotman institute and they have you know done so much

08:24research on couples but it's this ownership like my feelings are i'm feeling my perspective is because actually what you're not saying to your partner is you yeah it's not blame it's not blame exactly so i think that the communication part unlike positive communication is a big part of that but it's that break away from assumption it's like clarification on assumption assumption is what trips us up so much of the time because we're mind reading we think we know what our partner's going to say before they say it so we don't even give them a chance