Dr. Emily Nagoski and Richard Stephens

Hey, gang, welcome back to another episode of. So I married a relationship expert. I'm so excited about this interview. I love Emily Nagasaki, who is my go to expert when it comes to all things sex and sexuality particularly comes to women's sexuality. But man, so many good things. Especially in her new book, for couples. I love her partner, Richard. He's my secret new best friend, and I want to hang out with him all the time. I want to hang out with them all the time. In this episode, we cover a wide range of topics, including Dungeons and Dragons, which is amazing. But overall, I think you'll really enjoy hearing from her and him and them about how they make their relationship work, especially being a sex expert and what that means in real life when it hits the ground inside your own home.

So. So yeah, check it out. And Melinda and her partner, Richard Stephens family is the first person that we've had back, although we're working on a different little project, which is I wanted to tell you about because now you're both here. It's almost like a series that we're building, and it's called so I Married an Ax Murderer.

You know, you actually did.

Not want to talk.

About that.

In this case, it's. So I married a sex researcher, which is why, Rich, you're, like, on the hot seat. Yeah, but we're we're collecting a bunch of interviews where we have a whole bunch of people kind of lined up, and eventually we're going to turn it into something exciting. But, we're really just excited just to kind of talk to you both and let you riff on what it's like to be you guys. That sound.

Cool? Yeah. I can't wait for you. Just might need to edit some of it. Yeah.

Okay. So I guess I'll get started. But I do want to know, like, how long have you been together? And we will definitely talk about also some really important stuff from the book. But we also want to get to know the two of you as you're.

Three weeks ago.

You just met us. Yeah.

Yeah, it's going pretty well so far.

Yeah, I'm still in.

So this is. No. We met, in August of 2011.

Okay. How did you meet?

August 2nd. Very. Oh, we met on the internet. OkCupid. Back before it was an app. And it was just a website.

Yeah. In fact, we just ran a newsletter about that last week. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. So how what were you doing back in 2011? Like, paints the picture of who you were as people in 2011? And how did you put it? What was your profile like?

Things have changed so much in the world of online dating since then. Yeah. And also, like, I have blacked a lot of it out because I was not a person who enjoyed dating. Especially you were just. I had been at Smith College as though Boundless Education director for about three years. I had been single for about five years, and really liked it, but, I was getting to the point where, like, okay, it's been a while. I do not want to, like, die alone. Eaten by my dog and have the neighbors call the police because of the smell. Good. So having someone that I lived with was a good idea. And I was like, but I can't find anyone. And my therapist was like, Emily, you're not really doing everything you can to meet someone.

And I was like, but I am. And she's like, but you're not. So I looked at OkCupid at the time, published research on effective strategies and tactics for using the website, and I followed their evidence, which meant that, I would make myself invisible. And then I would look at profiles, and if there was someone I wanted to message me, then I made myself visible and I looked at their profile. And if they wanted, if they saw that I had looked at their profile and they went and looked at my profile and they were interested, I could let them message me. Okay. And,

Yeah, I kind of learned all this recently. Yeah, yeah.

I was just like, using it like a regular person.

Regular ish.

So we we, he he so he messaged me because that's that's how the game works. Yeah. We texted for, we messaged on the app for on the, on the website for a while. And one day I just got home from work, and I was hungry, and I didn't feel like making dinner. He said, I'll come bring you some pierogies. And I was like, okay. Yeah. So my dog Greta.

Set up a pattern here, too, by the way. Yeah. Yes. Of you not wanting to go out and get dinner and, yeah.

Maybe you probably get.

To do an errand. Yeah.

So, it's my dog, Green bean. I had adopted in January, and he had been at the shelter for 4 or 5 years, because he was aggressive toward men.

Wow. Right.

And I had done a lot of rehabilitate with him, and he was in a much better mental state. But, you know, the people who got to the point of getting into my apartment a lot of the time green me, which is like pace and pants the entire time there was somebody else in the apartment. So I met Rich outside my apartment building with with green being my 70 pound hound lab mix. And I brought him upstairs to my apartment, and Rich sat down on the couch and Green bean lay down at his feet and I went, oh, litmus test.

That's pass.

Yeah. And I'm apparently a victim of circumstance and all of this green.

Green and green bean always did like you.

I mean, still have been mean.

Green bean died in 2018.

Okay. Quite old.

Very old, quite old. Yes. Having lived a wonderful life.

Yeah. Having had a yard to himself with a brother. Yeah. For, six years at that point. Yeah. We literally got married and bought a house.

So that we could have a yard with green bean.

We wanted to buy perfect, because renting was terrible. To have.

A dog, to have a dog and our three.

Cat. And she refused to buy a house with me without getting married because.

I had no health insurance. He was self-employed.

So. Okay, it all worked out.

Yeah. So we didn't get married with like, stars in our eyes. I mean, I was like, super in love and everything, but also like the marriage part was because of pragmatics, of.

Owning a home. I could have very happily just dated for ten years. Right? But I really wanted to live with the dog. Yeah, I mean.

And like the dog, green bean really liked you. And not just the pierogies we just got right.

Oh, he was wonderful.

Yeah. Richard rubbed pierogi on his, like, ankles at the bottom of his pants just to make sure. You guys, I this this may change our relationship forever, but I'm anti dog like I don't do dogs like. It's just not my thing.

I'm sorry.

I'm yeah I did I did have this thought yesterday. Every once in a while when I'm, when I'm, when I'm agitated by something I start to imagine having a dog. And I did it yesterday I started imagine having a dog. And I decided that if I get a dog 100%, that dog's name will be Fido.

Okay, okay, because I just.

Type of dog.

Now, I do crosswords a lot and one of the clues is always this is a popular dog name, but almost no dogs are named this.

Yeah, it's a short for a dog name. Yeah. As opposed to a dog name. Yeah. There you go. Not your life or anything like that.

One day I will have. Maybe I will have a dog named Fido. If I have a dog named Fido. So, wait, what was your version of that? How? What were you doing when you were like, in 2000?

I was just a rando who worked alone. I'm making making comics and mailing packages on the internet, and I was just looking around today. I was just not even predatory or coming up with strategic ways to get people to look at me. I was just talking. If you hadn't.

Read the research about how to leverage OkCupid, right?

I mean, I did look you up.

Was it embarrassing to meet online in 2011? Like right now it's a no brainer. Everybody's like, that's where we met. And it's 20 different apps. But was that a did you have to cross a threshold? No. Emotionally or practically to do? No, not even slightly.

It made sense for my life to be dating online and everybody, like, if you met me and I was like, I'm dating online, you'd be like, yeah, that tracks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every almost every friendship relationship and work relationship I had goes was to about the 90s was online. Yeah. And my oldest friends.

Actually turned out we knew people in common.

Really who.

Josh and Cassie.

Oh, right. Okay.

But we would never have met in real life because I don't like going places.

Somebody she knew from high school. Yeah. Married to a friend of some of my oldest friends who I've been to parties with but didn't know.

And it just so happened that they lived, like in the next town over.

Wow. Weird. Okay, okay.

Wait.

So guys.

Yeah.

We talk.

Over each other all the time.

We're like I want to but I do want to get this part. You Emily had this experience of watching green being laid down at Rich's feet. Rich what'd what was your green light like. How did you know. What was the moment that you were like, oh, yeah, this person is different than all the other randos that I'd been dating.

I don't know, I don't have a moment like that. I just didn't have to do a lot of things.

You had it. You didn't enjoy it. But presumably you've had it since then.

Yes, absolutely. But I don't have, like a little snapshot in my head of the moment. Yeah.

It wasn't. Health insurance was the green light. You're like, oh, you're my person.

Oh, I would have happily just walked in front of a car at that point. It would have been fine. Green would have been fine.

Okay, so Mary, are you met in 2011?

We married a year later.

And. Oh, you married a year later? Yeah. When would you say, like, did you were you doing sex research at the time? Were you telling stories like an I sell it to say, tell stories. But were you teaching and educating? Was that a part of who you were?

Yeah, I worked at Smith. I was the director of wellness education, which included, being a lecturer, teaching a class called Women's Sexuality. And I was writing a blog at the time called The Dirty Normal.

Awesome. And you had some e-books?

Yeah.

So what was that like when you learned when when you're like, so what do you do? What's what lights you up? What interests you? And Emily's like, I'm so glad you asked. I have a lot to say on the matter. What is that like as a partner? Or maybe, like, even just dating and getting to her?

Yeah, I just, I really like experts. I've always enjoyed hanging out with and or dating people who are really good at something, and it was just refreshing that it was something that I had absolutely no aptitude for. Science, you know what I mean? Like, not not sex science, but I mean, like, it was it was different.

Because no aptitude for it, you know, science. Definitely science.

Yeah. I mean, I spent a lot of basically 2000 to 2010 doing cartoons on the internet, knowing people through that and most of the people being vastly technically superior. Yeah. And and to be around people who do different things, like you. But are also clearly really good at it. I just find that stimulating. I, I like to separate things.

You know. What does it mean. I did cartoons on the internet.

Posted comic strips onto web pages and sold things. Okay. And was briefly in the newspapers too, which was terrible.

Oh, if you okay, if the two of you did not have your expertise and what they are currently in, what would you do otherwise?

I think I'm doing it. Plants.

What are you doing? Well, I would do plants.

I'm mostly like, reading contracts and, doing email and managing things and learning how to save money. It's weird. I was actually telling somebody yesterday. I was like, I was reading a release form for a podcast, and I was scratching things out, and I was like, I should have gone to law school, not art school. Yeah, because this is more fun.

Oh, you enjoy that? Because you just described that. And it was like, that sounds disgusting to me.

Well, I have my own values for it, though. Like every page of your release form, I'm less and less interested in giving you anything. So like if you need a release form to begin with, I'm like.

That's already.

Yeah. I'm like, yeah, oh man, what it was. So thank you for this. Homework is really where I'm going through. So if you're going to give me a lot of homework, I'm going to be real meticulous okay. So what would you do? A very wonderful personality. I know.

I probably would have become an English professor.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. So you have, like, being an educator is in your blood that's interested. That is like that was.

That was always going to be. Yeah. Reading books and teaching are two things that I cannot stop doing.

Okay. I taught college for a few years. And what's not for me?

Yeah, it's not for everybody.

Oh.

And you stuck with it for a few years.

Yeah, because it was fun. I was just doing stand up. Really. You know, it was. It was true graphic design class. And it was a lot of just getting people to do their homework, walking them through their assignments, and then trying to get them to critique each other's stuff in a positive way. So it was, yeah, interesting, weird job.

I had assumed that I would end up with someone who also went to grad school, probably someone who also went to grad school for science. And, I married somebody, went to art school.

Oh, and even better, they took away three of my credits in the last semester, so.

He didn't technically graduate.

I was second in my program, I didn't graduate, and the same guy who denied me my diploma asked me to come teach.

Oh, that's, That's right.

So I've still never got his last three credits just to prove a point. Yeah, it's good that.

I know somebody like that. And, you know, these days, too, you don't have to, like, my, I have a 17 year old, 21 year old. And of course, I want them to get their education. But anymore, you don't have to have an education to be good at something or to lean into that thing and and then learn how to master it, you know?

Okay. So we we get this question a lot, which, it was I remember sitting down, it was a Halloween party. People were not sober. And they came up to me and they're like, you guys don't really have the best relationship, do you? This is all a show just because you're a couples therapist. So I think the assumption is that as a couples therapist, we're going to have the best relationship. Or if we're out in public, we're going to show like we have the best relationship.

You.

You know, people are probably assuming that you guys have, like, you know, chandelier sex that you're hanging off of the shore and that. Right, like this, the assumption has to be there.

The assumption absolutely. Is that. Yes, yes.

Oh, okay.

And and you did actually just by kind of a chandelier.

You mean the.

The ceiling fan. Yeah. Which is weird.

Did you check were you like, I'm going to need somebody install this and make sure that.

He can hang 400 pounds.

That's right.

Yeah. And the origin story of Come Together. Is that writing? Come as you are was very bad for our sex life because I was so overwhelmed and exhausted. And again, we got married in 2012. I started writing that book in 2013. So it was like we were still newlyweds. And yeah.

You don't seem to do anything halfway. So if you just sit down to write a book, that's kind of what's happened.

It's like, what's happening? Yeah. And so I tell the story in the book, and I have heard from a lot of people, especially from a lot of other sex educators and sex therapist, who how grateful they are for that transparency, for normalizing that, like just because you, like, are an intellectual, an expert and you like, know all the things, that doesn't mean your body is always 100% ready and on board. Yeah, like you, we struggle. We also live in like a late capitalist hetero patriarchy that interferes with our access to pleasure. And our lives are not always organized in a way that makes it easy for us to overcome those barriers.

Yeah, somebody just called me brave last week.

Really?

Oh, article with you? Yeah. I'm like brave. I was brave, I felt so brave. Yeah.

Did you ever have the assumption that by partnering with Emily that you were going to have the most amazing sex of your entire life, that she was going to touch all of your pleasure zones, and that she was going to be super in touch with her own. I'm just kind of curious, like, was that an assumption that you had?

I did not make that assumption. No, that's pretty amazing. I mean, you're just people. People have specialties, but that doesn't mean that thing. Well, that's exactly stereotype. Yeah.

That's exactly it. That's actually what I was thinking about in this series. Like, so I married an ax murderer or whatever. Yeah. It's like people have these labels with it. You're a couple's therapist, you're a TV star, you're an athlete, you're a sex researcher.

But we're all just all that people.

Yeah, but we're all just people, right? We're all just trying to make it work. So. So let me ask you that question. Like, how do you how do you guys make it work? Like, what is that's the what's the yeah. What's the secret? If you have.

One secret sauce, you have a.

Healthy.

Relationship.

The relationship or the relationship thing.

Either one. Oh yeah.

But I mean, how does the relationship how do you guys make the relationship work? You clearly are fond of each other. I'm just. Yeah. I guess I'm wondering, how do you make how do.

You describe.

It? A topic of conversation. Because I have been asked so much about, like, sex in long term relationships because of the books. And the message of the book is really clearly you have to like each other, like really good friends who admire and trust each other. And it turns out that is more controversial advice in particular for heterosexual type relationships people than I ever expected. People truly have a conception that sexual attraction is, like, not mutually compatible with friendship. Like, you either want a person or like a person. You can't like a person and want them interesting.

And yeah, I think a stare, she says you can't desire what you already have.

Right? Correct.

Yeah. Which is true. That is the nature of desire is it is the form of dissatisfaction.

Yeah. You have a whole thing on desire not being the issue. Yeah.

Desire is not the when you talk to you. Y'all have talked to Peggy Klein. She is, one of my favorite brains alive on earth. There she is. Interviewed dozens of people who self-identify as having extraordinary sex lives. And when she asks them, like what? What makes sex extraordinary? They don't talk about desire. They talk about authenticity and vulnerability and pleasure and empathy. Empathy is the meta factor in amazing sex. They just don't talk about desire. Desire barely scrapes in at number ten in the like. The characteristics that some people describe as being a part of optimal sexual experiences. Yeah, people who have great sex talk about pleasure, not desire. And pleasure is all about what you have right now, in the moment, savoring and joy ING, deepening pleasure and connection.

Understanding how to create a context that makes it easier for your brain to experience pleasure, to interpret any sensation is pleasurable. Yeah, and the reason you need to be friends is because you have to collaborate to make that context, to be able to explain to your partner. Here are the aspects of our current context that are hitting my brakes and making it impossible. So for me, perimenopause has been a big challenge with, my sexual functioning. And also I have long Covid, which is basically just insert the phrase chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis.

And both of those things are wrecking your sleep.

On top of that, they're wrecking my sleep. They're like, my health is been a problem. And fixing my health is like, I have to get up to a baseline before I can get to the sex part. Right. And of course, writing come together did the same thing to my sex life. They're writing. Come as you are. Did.

Awesome.

But the best thing I can say is that, So I get done with writing, come together. Long Covid and I'm perimenopausal, but we are following my own advice. I like I wrote a hundred thousand word book on how to fix the problem I just created.

Yeah, how to fix.

And it's like, hey, it works. It helps so much.

I just like not being the problem. It's great.

Yeah, you 100% super. Not the problem. But I feel like even though, like my body is the one that's like blood, like I'm not the problem either.

No, no, the problem is a little third guy like situation.

Is this, like we're in and we're collaborating as a team to fix the situation? Yeah, yeah. It's because we are both motivated. We know that, our sexual connection matters. Like it contributes something important for our relationship. And we we both want to get there, and we know that there's this, like, we just got to, like, hack our way through the stuff so we can. And the most important thing is that, so he you might have noticed that he's he's quite silly. I have I have a slight tendency to take myself in the world very seriously, and especially early on when my interest in sex was gone because I was so stressed out. I would, like, beat the shit out of myself for not being able to solve this problem because, like, I'm an expert and I should be able to.

I was having shooting, and when I learned to laugh at it, the way he could laugh at it, it was so much easier because now we can talk about it when things are going badly. And yeah, we don't feel bad. We can laugh about that badly way. That thing is, things are going,

That was that was actually my question was when you're experiencing something that feels pretty darn internal, right? Like perimenopause or chronic fatigue, how do you get over the hump or shame or the shoulds to be able to communicate to your partner who's supposed to be your collaborative partner? How do you get to the place where not everybody has a partner that is as lovely as you reach, where you're full of like, humor and fun and playfulness, but like, how would you share with our listeners of, okay, so I'm supposed to collaborate, I'm supposed to share what's going on with me. But I also am, like, steeped in shame and disappointment in myself.

So how do you do that? You know, with having the shoulds.

So it's not that the schedule is I'm going to give a general answer to start with the the basic difficulty is that people struggle with and communicating about sex, or either they're worried that if they say a thing that they want or like, their partner is going to respond with like horror and disgust, and they'll never be able to look at them the same way again, or they're worried that, their partner is going to hear what they say and take it personally, like they're going to have their feelings hurt. And the goal with the conversation is to invite greater closeness and like collaboration, problem solving. And so I recommend that people have the conversation about the conversation, talk about why they're not talking about it, like talk about like our sex life is in this way. We're maybe both feeling like it could be different if only we could figure out how.

And we're not talking about it. And let me just tell you a couple of the reasons why I'm not talking about it like I can. Because I am beating the crap out of myself for the way I feel. And I think if you struggle to say to your partner, I am experiencing a lot of like, I mean, from my point of view, it is internalized ableism, my sense that I should be able to be well enough to have the energy for frequent chandelier sex.

Yeah.

The reality is, I don't. And I need to embrace my body as it is because my body still deserves pleasure. And like whatever pleasure I have access to in this body that I have now is a gift and is going to help me heal. In fact. So I think part, like another sort of a deeper barrier that people have to these conversations is they I mean, we live in a world that literally punishes us for pursuing pleasure for its own sake instead of being productive. Right. And so a lot of us don't feel like it's a worthwhile task because it's effortful to have these conversations. And what's the point? The point is like to go to this effort so that we can share pleasure together. And it has to matter to you that pleasure to be worth the effort of having the conversation.

Yeah.

It's, I think you're touching on one of my favorite parts of the new book, which is and I've been using this on my clients a lot. It's this idea of when people don't want sex, what don't they want?

Yeah.

Isn't that isn't that what you're talking about right now?

It wasn't as far as I in my brain, but tell me more about that.

Well, I mean, like, I don't want to feel. It's not that I don't want you or I don't want sex. It's. I don't want to grapple with all of these. Let's let's call it shame or internalized ableism or whatever. It's like, and and teasing those things out. It's challenging for a couple sometimes because they, they have these really binary or kind of it's like singular thoughts. If you don't want sex, that means you don't want me.

Right?

And having that conversation that you're inviting sort of says no. When you when you say you don't want it, what is it that you say that you're saying you don't want?

Yeah, I see no way. I wasn't making the connection. It's because for me, it's not that I didn't want sex, I, I do.

I, I want and I'm like.

You clearly have sex. It's worth wanting, right?

Yeah. That's one of the. Yeah. So there's sort of like two default couples I use as an example. There's the couple where when they go into therapy, partner says, you know, I used to be really into the sex, but the thing is, I'd be perfectly fine if we never had sex again. Yeah. And those are couples who. When the Peggy Klein Platz is their therapist, she says, well, tell me about the sex. You don't want. And the sex they describe. Is not sex worth having? Like it is not sex. That is a better use of their time than watching reruns of Parks and Recreation.

Yeah. Fantastic show, by the way, themselves.

Right. Exactly. Like, let.

Alone watch 30 Rock.

I mean, versus couples like us, where, like, we would come in and we didn't go to therapy, but, like, as a couple, we'd be. I'd be like, I want to. I just can't get there. I know that if we could get there, it would be really be fun, pleasurable, connected, loving. I like all the good things, and I just like I can't. And so for the first kind of couple, they needed to find out what kind of sex is worth having, like, what pleasure actually looks like when they shift. Yeah. And folks like us need the emotional floor plan, which like that for me, was the answer of, like, truly understanding. Oh, you're excited about that?

Oh my gosh. No matter. It's it's the other thing that I really wanted to ask you about today, which is like, okay,

And other is the other thing people are afraid to look at and do.

They are tell me, tell me, Rich, tell me about the emotional floor plan.

What do you want me to tell you about it?

All the do you know? How do you understand it? How do you understand? Because I think this is the most fascinating part of the new book is. And and I would be. I would love to hear what you think.

I think you should be able to answer the question because the illustrations of floorplans. Rich did those.

You know. Okay, well, I'll tell you this much. I mean, I mostly was just drawing what you put in front of me, but the part that I loved about it was that you put the silly play next to the other good stuff. Yeah. And I felt quite vindicated in that because I'm kind of either out of most days. I would like to be in the silly play, and the silly play leads to the other good stuff, and seeing you put that next to each other in your floor plan, just is very validating. And actually it showed you changed. Yeah, it showed that maybe you may be the expert in this, but you observed me. And whether I was a lab rat or a fellow, participant in the study or whatever, but you pick something up and and grew on your own, and I love that.

Yeah, I'm really sad. I take myself too seriously.

Yeah. You've been influenced you. You allowed yourself to be influenced.

Oh, I'm. Yes. And what was in fact.

What was pretty cool about that is I had a huge block against wanting to draw because, you know, dial back 20 minutes in this conversation to being around extremely good artists and not being one. Yeah. And you assigning that to me. And I had to problem solving and work through it was kind of like building a floor plan except for drawing. Yeah. Which is weird. I got some pleasure out of doing the drawing after being really mad that you wanted me to do it. Oh, and now I'm actually kind of enjoy doing that. It's weird.

Well, yeah, it's supposed to be a secret that when you understand your emotional floor plan, it actually impacts a whole lot of domains of your life, not just your sex life. Yeah, it's just a sexual, though.

It's. Yeah, yeah, it's just fun to visualize each other.

Okay, so Laura and I, we know what you're talking about in terms of the the floor plan, but, just for the layperson. And let's have the layperson describe it. Rich, what is it? What is this theory that Emily is if I'm.

Understanding it correctly? And please correct me if I'm wrong, it's, people deciding where things like their lust and their play and their shame and their anger are in relation to one another, using the metaphor of like a house, because we understand how houses work. Yeah, you understand how apartments work. You know that the toilet is, you know, next to the tub and that the electricity is in the basement. Right. And I mean, I don't.

And our emotions work the same way.

Right. Exactly. So you're trained. I'm not in this. Yeah. You were very good at explain.

So there are so I use, York Penn accepts model of seven primary process emotions. There are it's 20, 24, and we do not have one unified theory of human emotion. There are at least three major competing theories I chose the one that includes sex and.

Yeah, sure.

So that's so that's why I'm using the one that I'm using. And, in order to make the neuroscience of these seven primary process emotions useful, I applied this metaphor of the floor plan that you have these seven emotional states that you can be in, and some of these states, it is easy to transition from one into the other, like it is very easy to transition from a care state, which is attachment, love, affection into a place, state, place, mammalian motivational system of friendship where you engage in behaviors for their own sake because everyone likes it and there is nothing at stake.

These are two fairly similar states. It's easy to transition from care state to a place state from play state to a care state. It is not easy and and from a player care state into the lust state. And then there and these are what I call the pleasure favorable spaces. The last is seeking and I can talk about that in a minute. It's curiosity. And then there are the pleasure adverse spaces, which are fear, rage and panic, grief. So fear and rage are very straightforward. It's, fight or flight, right?

Yeah.

Sure. The mammalian motivation to destroy something that's in your way is rage. And the mammalian motivation to escape a potential threat. That's fear. I was when I so my my advice from responsive desire, the advice I was trying to follow, when things were falling apart, was the response is, are you put your body in the bed, you let your skin touch your partner's skin and your body goes, oh, right, I like this. I like this person. And that's when you're in a state that's like right next to lust your body gets. The stimulation is like, let's go to the last space. I was in the fear space. I was like, bouncing around like anxiety and worry and stress. And so what would happen for me is I put my body in the bed, I would let my skin touch my partner's skin, and my body would go, oh, I'm with my favorite person.

I'm safe now. I can move out of the fear state. And so I would cry and fall asleep.

Boner time.

So yeah.

It's not the sexiest thing to have. No happen. And the thing is, there is no pathway directly from the fear space into the less space. There just isn't one.

Even if there was, that doesn't sound great.

So instead of like getting in the bed, letting my skin touch my partner and going, oh, sex my body, be like, oh, I'm safe. And I would cry and I'd get out of the fear space. But then where am I? Well then I'm just straight up physically worn out, exhausted. I need a nap, probably a snack. And and in the bath.

I have been trying to convince you this whole time that the eighth primary emotion is hungry. If we did mine, it would just be hungry. Hungry, hungry.

Like my belly is full. Then the maybe the sex space is available. The intimacy is.

Hungry, hungry. So I know it.

It was essential for me to recognize that the reason I was struggling to get into the less spaces, because I was in a space in my mind that had no doorway into lust. So how do I get into from here into a space that has a doorway into lust?

But is it right to say that you were getting closer, but you couldn't make that whole leap? Yeah. Okay.

So my process, like, if I'm really stressed out, my process is okay, get out of the fear space, then take care of my body, then get into either a seeking space or a place state, and then I can get into a less state. So like if people are like, it shouldn't be so difficult, it shouldn't be so it shouldn't be so much effort to get to desire. Yeah, right. Yes. Neurologically, of course, it takes deliberate effort if your life is, I don't know, stressful at all. It will probably require some deliberate effort to get into a state where it's easy for your brain to interpret sensation of the sexy.

I'm aware that as you're talking, you're talking a lot about you and what you needed to do and how you needed to get there. How much responsibility or collaboration is required with your partner. I'm like, can Rich take you into different spaces? Does he or is it his? Like, does he wait? Like what? How do you guys navigate that together?

But collaboration is absolutely essential. The extent to which it's collaborative is going to vary from situation to situation. But notice that it was when my skin touched his that my body. I'm safe now. So it's like inherently collaborative. My body was taking this social cue as evidence that I could relax.

Yeah, yeah. But also it's super helpful that you made the floor plans and you came up with the technology, I guess. Technologies. Yeah. Because if I could see how a person could take, oh, let's get in bed and have sex. Oh, wait, I'm crying. I can see how somebody might take that the wrong way. Yeah.

That was one of the wonderful things. Is that like he did not take it personally. He didn't even go like, oh man, he wasn't like, did make it worse. Yeah. No, he was so like kind of generous and.

No. But my point is like if you draw it out for people and you show people these things and that there's, you know, maybe it's there's a path. Yeah, maybe people can take it less. Personally, I think the biggest problem people have is taking it personally. Yeah.

And like, like I could show you the path and you wouldn't be like, but why can't you just get from here like, there? Just just make a door from fear to lust. Yeah.

Get a saw.

Yeah. No. And like. No, you just got to work on my brain the way it is. Right. And when you show people the map, the floor plan, you're like, here is the way I am showing you the way to get to the thing. If the thing that you want is for us to have sex, I am right, literally showing you the way. I'm wrapping it out for you.

Goddamn Candyland. You get to.

Play. How do we get to play? And, a lot of the experience that people have. So I am, my brain is different from other people's. I'm literally autistic. I'm neurodivergent. But for me, care, the attachment system doesn't have a direct path into lust for a lot of people. It really does. The feeling of like, being cared for, the sort of like cuddling on the couch in front of the fire, feeling really, like held and attended to. That's like really close to lust. And it's easy to get there. But care can also be the experience of like caring for, doing the laundry and doing the dishes and making the dinners and earning the money and like providing and making sure everybody's safe and having all their needs met. Speaking.

My last language, baby.

Yes, but if you're the one who's responsible for doing all those things and your partner and like your partner is one of the people, you have to meet all of their needs and they are not reciprocating. There's not a balance of energy. You can get caught in what I call the kitchen of care. Sure. Where you're just, like, doing all this work and your partner's, like, hanging out in the restroom and is like, hey, baby, come meet me in the restroom.

Once you've done my dishes right.

And it is useful to have the language of, like, I am stuck in this, like taking care of everything mode, and I cannot get directly from the kitchen into the bedroom. So we just need help. Like, come take care of some of these things. And not only like, pragmatically, will more things get done faster, but also I will feel cared for because you have noticed what we need in our shared household and you have met those needs spontaneously without me having to yell.

It's funny as you're talking, I'm like, I'm like, oh, I know you know who is kind of like this? It's, you know, who should talk to a Sarah Nasser's at it like she has a lot of the same. And I was like, actually knows you guys. That introduced me to her. So. Yeah, but it's this whole it's the same kind of model.

My book are like hers is the relationship to my sex book and my sex book to her. They go together amazingly well.

They come together.

Yes. Need to get it. That was a amazing bit of timing to like. Yeah, you read the early copy of that as you were doing your final copy edit of Get Together and yeah, to slip it right in there. Yeah, yeah. She wrote that exactly the right time. Yeah.

Okay. So if people have read come as you are, if they've read burnout, why are they going to or what are they going to get from this book that might be different than the first two that you've written?

Oh, it's like 90% different from the other thing. So the the emotional floorplan is brand new. I first of like I tried to shoehorn it into come as you are but come as you are was already too long. So this is science I have been waiting to share. So I'm really excited. This takes me two chapters. It's a big idea.

Why some,

All of this stuff about managing change in a relationship is new and different.

It's.

The way I approach gender is different, and I think more practical than in either of the other books.

Awesome.

So it's, there's there's a whole lot of new stuff. And it's really specifically whereas Come as You are is very much about like an individual being able to like think about their own sexuality. This is very much about like a couple collaborating regardless of your relationship structure, regardless of the gender combination or anybody's identities, like, how do we work together to make a sexual connection that will sustain over the long term?

It's actually really amazing to how hard you fought to get singular they and to come as you are and then to be, you know, do the revision and then to come do the new book and it it's not even majority heterosexual. Yeah. You know, it's just amazing to me. It's like almost a map of progress in a way that you were allowed. Yeah. To write. Yeah.

That I, I get I the book is as inclusive as I could possibly make it. Yeah. Except for one chapter where I specifically address people in heterosexual type relationships because the research is so consistent for a couple of decades now that people who are in non-heterosexual type relationships have like, higher quality sex, they have more orgasms, their sex last longer, they kiss more, they have more oral sex and more manual sex. More sex play the role of the to kiss and say I love you.

Yeah.

So I'm I'm but and yet heterosexuals have more frequent sex.

Yeah.

That they like less. So I, I'm worried about the straights.

And worried about the story more of something that's less good.

Yeah, yeah, more of something that's less good, I think.

I think this isn't come as your, Yeah, come as you are. But is that whole bit that you were just saying about the sort of the, the, the what do you call them. You know, call them non straights but like is that they have LGBTQ plus. Okay. They have spent a lot more time actually talking about their own sexuality or thinking about it or working it out more than the heterosexuals have. Because we I'm heterosexual, we just have these assumptions built into this is how sex is and the, the these, you know, folks that are not having those assumptions. They have to work those assumptions out. They have to like, actually think about them. And by the time they get to an actual other person, they're practiced in some of these spaces of conversation and, and exploration in ways that I never was for sure.

Well, I mean, if you were the default culturally, you don't think about things. Yeah. That's why whenever a white man doesn't get a job, he blames somebody as opposed to just, you know, I.

Want to oversimplify it, and I do talk. I give examples of ways that, queer couples can struggle with this, too, because subcultures often recapitulate the dominant culture. So there are many ways that patriarchy manifests in LGBTQIa two plus groups and relationships and individuals. But yeah, when you are cis and or straight, it feels as if the myth that you've absorbed of what sex is supposed to be is attainable. Whereas if you are not that, then you already know that you have fallen short. Well of the cultural ideal and have to invent something that is real for you.

The wow, that just.

Sounds more fun. Yeah, yeah yeah, I okay.

Just because.

Well, it sounds more sustainable too. Yeah.

Lgbtiq Shia wait, Lgbtq+ yes. What is the two? That's the first time I've heard.

Two spirit.

Two spirit, two spirit.

We're bringing it back. I mean, we haven't used that language for a long time, but that's new in Canada.

They actually started with the two.

Really? They do very.

So. All right. Okay. We're gonna run out of time here, but I want to ask you questions. You, You. What do you guys do for fun? You watch Parks and Rec, you watch 30 Rock. What's your what's your gym?

We watch you dine in.

We do dine.

In, I retrieve things. That's my hobby. Yes.

Rich loves errands. You love it? We have two dogs. We watch them play in the yard. There is a YouTuber called Steve, 1989, who eats MREs from different time periods and different nations. And that is.

He will be bafflingly entertaining. He will disassemble a World War One breakfast and try to eat it and get sick very rarely, very rarely. Oh my.

Gosh. Well, I know what we're going to be binge watching together this weekend.

Zach.

And but I'm not recommending it.

I just feel like I've kind of given up on television. Except when you watch old BBC mysteries.

Yeah, I have, got him into both Poirot and Agatha Christie. There you go. Mysteries.

I'm partial pilled. Yeah, I just love them. Okay. Right.

And, Emily, you said there's two things you can't stop doing. One is, what are the two things you can't stop doing? One is reading things.

Reading and teaching.

Yeah.

So what are you reading? What? What are you reading right now?

Currently, I have gone back to some research that was originally published in 2010 that I used in both Come as You Are and in Burn Out and has become relevant again as I talk to people about Come Together, which is basically the idea is that pleasure is a cue in your brain that you can now stop paying attention to something because it's not a problem anymore, to free up your attention, to go focus on solving some other problem. One of the things people have, like one of the big ideas, then the challenging ideas in the book is that desire is beside the point. Like because people who have great sex don't talk about desire. Pleasure is the center. Pleasure. Pleasure is the measure. And people struggle with it. And I was like, what is like what makes it so difficult?

And I think part of it is that it takes deliberate, intentional training and effort to learn how to keep your attention on pleasure, because our brains would sort of innately want us to be like, oh, that felt good, and now I can move on, move on to fixing some problem.

People do love fixing problems, though.

It's really. Yeah. And as you said, that that was the first thing I thought of was how much we focus on the negative, how much we focus on, like our critical brain is constantly seeking, seeking and searching to find things that need fixing. So that makes so much sense. What how did this research, the 2010 research on pleasure.

Charles Carver, the guy who developed the, discrepancy reducing increasing feedback loop, which I call the little monitor in come as you are and the monitor in burnout. Like I love this research. I love the discrepancy reducing feedback loop. It explains so much. It's also closely linked with, Dan Wagner's research on the ironic process. So the ironic process is this like the problem that the harder you try to do something, the more difficult it becomes? Like, don't think about a white bear.

Right? Thought about an elephant.

Of course.

I think.

Even in like, physical tasks, like, if you're, if you're just holding a weight over a target on a, it's like on a string, like, just hold the weight. Still, the more you feel like you have to hold the weight still, the more the weight moves. And it's because there are two channels. There's the channel that's doing the task and the channel that's monitoring the task. And the more you're monitoring, the more resources are being pulled away from your ability to do the task. So if that sounds like struggling with orgasm, that is also what that is.

It's just thinking about the worry and concern about sexual functioning, that the more you become concerned, the less you're able to function, right?

Yeah. Erectile dysfunction has a similar like if you put a spotlight on a penis and are like, get an erection, get an erection, don't forget erection like yeah, yeah. But then if you're like, whatever you do, don't get an erection. You're not allowed to have an erection. Like I'd like, we're going to do these sensations, but don't get an erection.

Okay? Yeah. So you. Right.

It's basically the blood flow is like, okay. Yeah. Because inherent in the phrase don't get an erection is get an erection.

Yeah, yeah. Oh.

Sometimes when I'm trying to finish an interview, I ask a question. That's a throw away question because I'm hoping I'll get a throwaway answer. But then you had to go and, like, blow my mind again. I thought a little bit, you know, I like to read.

And then.

You. I thought you were going to say I like reading, mystery novels. I'm reading a little Agatha Christie, some Jodie Pickle, and then, like, I'm just trying to figure out. Yeah, get through my days.

Do you do you read romance novels?

Yeah. Good for.

You. It's good. I can give you.

A here's my throw away. I am watching a lot of dimension 20 on drop out TV, which is live, Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying.

All right.

And it's. It sounds incredibly comfortable and fun to watch.

Do you, do you guys play Dungeons and Dragons?

I have never played dungeons.

I did as a kid, and, Emily is now interested in it. I have not seen any of these shows because they're just on your phone. Yeah. It's like.

Yeah. I do have a couple that said that Dungeons and Dragons changed their relationship because it entered into the play, and they said it was a game changer I know. Yeah. So yeah.

Okay. But here's what I want to do. I think what we should do is we should start our own little game that we play when we when we figure out how to organize our schedules well enough. But you had to throw away their rich. What was your throw away answer.

I was going to say I have been obsessed with reading old Nancy comics strips. Just the Nancy.

Nancy that's not Kathy.

Nancy and Sluggo.

Okay, no.

No no no, I'm a little hobo friend. Too deep cut. And they're just so they don't make any sense. And I love them. They're they're so almost some symbols. Right. They're they're not even people. It's it's beautiful. It's so simplistic. And I've just been obsessed with finding scans of the old artwork too. Yeah. And seeing how they did all that manually. So what, you been watching people play role playing games? I've been reading Nancy and Sluggo. Yeah.

You guys have been alone together side by side. Yeah, yeah. Little play.

It works really well for neurodivergent people.

And it. Well, it works very well for me. I love to do a little solo play next to my partner.

Maybe Laura.

Oh, well, we're still trying to figure out a lot of things that happened. We've been dancing around this, am I? Do I have ADHD? We don't know. I never finish my sentences. So it's mysteries out. Okay. We have to land this plane because we have 10 a.m. clients on this end. Rocket taking lots of your time. Double the time because both of you showed up for this interview, which we just so appreciate. It's made it a lot of fun for us.

I'm glad to talk to you both. I'm glad that you were able to and that you were brave enough to come on the podcast.

Oh, you're so, so brave. So brave.

I think this is only the second thing I've done, I think.

To where do we send people, though? Like, do you have anything interesting that you want them to go to, to buy to like know about.

Apart from the books?

Clearly they should go grab come together wherever. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. I am particularly proud of the audiobook for this one. That's true. I, I make silly voices and Amelia, my sister, wrote silly music for it, and I really then we try to work into it.

You made the producers cry.

I made the producer cry so hard he had to turn off his mike.

Oh, that's no joke. You guys out there and listener land like when I recommend come as you are, I almost 100% of the time recommend the audiobook. Be careful how, how delightful you are and your reading. And so I we'll look forward to the audiobook of Come Together for sure.

And then also not my work, but just a thing I think is going to change the world. The more people read it. The Nap bishop at the Nap ministry at the net Bishop on social media. Tricia Hirsch's book is called Rest is Resistance. Her work changed my work irrevocably and vastly for the better.

She got me, like, take a nap, a nap.

Take a nap, like, lay your ass down.

Yeah.

The nap. Yeah, Bishop.

The nap. Yeah. So the worship is about, rest as the ultimate act of anti-capitalist, anti-racist action.

Love it. All right. I'm glad I.

Only occasionally feel bad I'm not working until midnight now, thanks to you.

David are also open to influence. That's amazing.

Yes. We have. We have learned a lot from each other.

We have a lot. Well, we really appreciate you guys. I'm so glad that we were able to make it work.