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Lost Libidos, Mismatched Libidos, Out Of Control Libidos: Libido problems are the most frequently reported sexual struggle. If you struggle with your libido or sex drive, join us for an intimate conversation with renowned sex therapist Vanessa Marin. We explore a new framework of understanding libido, desire and passion: one that puts each of us in the driver’s seat of our sex lives.
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Podcast Transcript for Episode #350: Libido, Lost and Found: An Interview With Vanessa Marin
Chris: 00:00 Welcome to Speaking of Sex with the Pleasure Mechanics. I’m Chris from PleasureMechanics.com and on today’s episode we are joined once again by the fabulous Sex Therapist, Vanessa Marin. Vanessa joins us to continue the conversation about rethinking libido. Last week, Charlotte and I dove in and tore apart some of our common attitudes and perceptions about libido and sex drive. And we introduced the idea that the concept of libido is a place that we package a lot of different sexual and emotional and relational and lifestyle concerns and struggles into. And so Vanessa and I continue this conversation and talk about what is a more useful attitude towards the idea of libido and sex drive. How do we actively cultivate our interest and desire in sex if that’s what we want? Do you want to want more? Is a key question in this conversation. If you want to want more, I highly recommend you join Vanessa in her free online training that’s coming up.
Chris: 01:19 She’s going to tell you all about it. The link is in the show notes page. We love Vanessa. We always love talking to her. I hope you enjoy our conversation with her. Here is my conversation with Sex Therapist, Vanessa Marin. Vanessa Marin. Welcome back to Speaking of Sex.
Vanessa Marin: 01:38 I am so glad to be back, Chris. I just have to tell you before we even get started, I get so many amazing emails from the people in your community who find me through you. So I’m just so excited to be here yet again. And to be able to share with your community. They’re really, really amazing.
Chris: 01:57 Definitely. We definitely resonate on so many of these issues. We’ve talked on the podcast before about performance anxiety, about female orgasm, and today we’re going to dive into this capital L libido topic.
Vanessa Marin: 02:11 Oh, yes.
Chris: 02:13 And I always think of this as, you know, I get emails every day, as I’m sure you do, about desire mismatch and mismatched libidos, low libidos, high libidos, libido is out of control, lost libidos and I feel like it’s almost this place we project so many different sexual issues and struggles, but also lifestyle and context issues.
Chris: 02:40 And one of the things I was so excited about with this conversation is that you arrive at this conversation about libido with a lens that it’s not really one problem but a confluence of a lot of different factors. So how do you begin to think about libido and desire?
Vanessa Marin: 03:01 Yeah, I do think of it. I think that most of us, we hear the phrase sex drive and we just think it’s about our interest in sex. It feels very singular to us. But I think that it’s actually about so much more than that. And I think that it’s a trap that a lot of us fall into about thinking that it’s just about our interest in sex. It makes it feel like we don’t really have any options for changing it, for improving it, for having the kind of relationship with it that we want. So I really think of our sex drive as a reflection of everything going on inside of us and in our environment. And I really like to think of it as an invitation for us to take a look at how we’re relating to our sex drive, what various factors might be playing into it, what’s decreasing it, what’s increasing it, and try to get really a sense of curiosity about all of those different dynamics.
Vanessa Marin: 03:58 So in particular, I know that’s a really broad answer, so in particular, I do like to think about it. I’ve created this model that I call the five foundations model of sex drive, where I’ve come up with the five general categories of factors that I think can affect our sex drives.
Vanessa Marin: 04:17 So they’re the physical foundation, the mental foundation, the emotional foundation, relational foundation, and the sensual foundation. So that was my way of taking this really big concept and trying to boil it down into a specific structure.
Chris: 04:33 And this is one of the things you do so well. You operationalize overwhelm. You walk us through all of these different points of inquiry and intervention and then kind of guide us into possible points of discussion with our partners, with ourselves or physical practices perhaps that give us a new experience. When I think of sex drive, and I do want to ask you about how you feel about that term. I know Emily Nagoski talks about we need to stop using the term sex drive because it’s not a physiological drive. And yet it is so convenient and so many people experience this feeling of being driven by a longing, by a desire. What do you think are some of the longings and desires we pack into this feeling of I want more sex or I want a better relationship with my sexuality?
Vanessa Marin: 05:29 That’s another good question. I mean, I think that ultimately at the end of the day, sex is really about connection for us. It’s about connection to ourselves and connection to our partners. And so I think that’s what we’re really looking for. So we all have different relationships with sex. We’re all looking for different things out of it. But I do think that that’s the root desire.
Chris: 05:53 And when that connection starts to be lost, we start feeling … I’ve been really thinking recently about how it manifests differently in some people. For some people it’s a longing and for other people it’s a frustration. Some people it starts tumbling into kind of a sense of worthlessness and self doubt. Why does our relationship with sexuality spiral like this? Like when we’re in a loving, healthy, happy relationship, but our libido starts to change or our context starts to change and sexuality isn’t as available to us anymore. It becomes this projection screen of like all of the possible issues in our life.
Vanessa Marin: 06:39 Yeah.
Chris: 06:39 How do you [crosstalk 00:06:40] to that as a Sex Therapist and like help people unpack what is true for them?
Vanessa Marin: 06:46 Well, the interesting thing is that I think that people really compartmentalize their sex lives and they just start thinking about it as, you know, “Oh, I’m not having enough sex or my partner thinks we’re not having enough sex.” So I talk a lot about couples tend to play the numbers game of you know, “How often are we having it? And did we have it last Wednesday? No it was the Wednesday before that.”
Vanessa Marin: 07:07 You know, we really get fixated on the frequency aspect and I think that’s because we’re so overwhelmed and it’s such a big issue, such a big topic that we try to shrink it down into something that feels like a manageable way to talk about it. Like numbers are easier to talk about. So a lot of my work is helping couples realize that the numbers are actually one of the least important things about your sex life. And then it’s really about getting a sense of the kind of connection that you want to share with yourself and with your partner through sex. So a lot of times when I share that with people, they make sense in the moment. They’re like, “Oh yeah, of course.” But they just haven’t really thought about it on their own before.
Vanessa Marin: 07:51 And I think thinking about it through that lens can also be really useful for partners to talk about, because it’s very easy if you’re feeling like, “My partner wants to be having a lot more sex. I don’t, this is so frustrating. I feel like something’s wrong with me. I’m bothered by my partner always wanting sex.” You know, it’s really easy to fixate again on those numbers. But if we think about it as, “My partner wants to feel more connected with me, my partner wants to experience playfulness or exploration or curiosity or sensuality with me.” I think that really helps us soften into our partner’s desires. Because connection is something that we can experience in so many different ways. It doesn’t just need to involve a penis going into a vagina or a body part being touched by another body part. So I think it’s really, really transformative to start looking at it through that lens.
Chris: 08:44 I love that so much that in the specificity of naming what we are longing, what we are desiring, we can start being met more fully and more specifically. The itch just gets scratched when you know where it is.
Vanessa Marin: 08:58 Exactly. Yeah. I’m just creating this brand new model that I’m calling The Sexual Personality Types model, where I’ve been taking just notes from years and years and years of working with clients and trying to identify what’s our main motivation for sex. Like what’s the main thing that we turn to sex for. So I’ve been having a lot of fun playing with this model and I think it can be super useful for us to think about it. We all love personality tests. I mean, I totally do too, but kind of being able to talk about it with our partner of, you know, for me the exploration is the most important part of sex, that we’re trying new things and kind of exploring our boundaries with each other. Or maybe for another partner. The prioritization of sex is the most important thing. So I want to feel like we’re carving out time for each other. We’re putting sex at the top of our to-do list instead of the bottom. So I think that’s another fun framework to look at it as well.
Chris: 09:58 How do you think about, when we think about libido and sex drive, some people experience it and their struggle is very internal. Like they don’t have enough interest in sex or too high interest in sex and it’s kind of about who they are as a person. And then other people experience it as a relational issue. Like, “I’m fine, but my partner isn’t meeting me where I’m at.” And this is where we get the mismatched libido narratives. The relationship isn’t holding what I want. Do you approach it from both like how do we take inventory of ourselves and then what we bring to the relationship?
Vanessa Marin: 10:35 Yeah, I definitely think we need to take a look at it from both perspectives. And I think it’s super crucial to make the distinction between are you a want to want or are you a don’t want to want? So there are some people who are perfectly happy with their sex drives as they are. Maybe their sex drive feels like it’s on the lower end. Maybe it feels like it’s on the higher end, but they’re saying, “I don’t want to want anymore. I’m happy with where I am.” And so I like to be super clear that I don’t think there’s one right sex drive that everyone needs to have or work towards. I think you can be perfectly content and happy with any kind of sex drive and we really get to choose what feels right for us.
Vanessa Marin: 11:17 But on the other hand, I take a look at a lot of people who will describe themselves as, “I want to want. So I don’t feel much desire. Maybe I don’t even feel any desire, but I want to feel that. Maybe I felt that strongly at a different point in my life and now I feel disconnected from that part of myself or I want that back. I want that energy and that vitality back.” So that’s a really important distinction for me is what are your own goals and desires? Even if you’re not actively feeling the desire for sex at that moment.
Chris: 11:51 And I feel like so many individuals and couples find us and find you at this juncture of wanting to want, wanting to experience something different, but then they sometimes get stuck in that place of not really knowing the next step forward. How do you think about those first conversations and the first moments where you’re choosing to prioritize your sex life again if you are raising it up in the list of your priorities?
Vanessa Marin: 12:20 Yes, I’m a prioritizer type. So that was one that came to mind right away for me. So for me, it really boils down to like the most central fundamental belief that I have about desire is that it’s not something that comes barging in your front door. It’s something that you have to invite in. So I think if you’re in that space of feeling, “I want to want sex more often, I don’t know what the next step is, but I know that I want to want it.” I think looking through this lens of curiosity. So it’s really easy for us to feel like something’s wrong with us. We’re broken inside, we’re stuck. There is no hope, we can’t change. But I think it’s really important to recognize there are so many different factors that can affect your desire and this is, wanting to want is an opportunity, an invitation to take a look at what those factors might be.
Vanessa Marin: 13:18 So we can take all this energy that we might usually spend feeling like we’re broken, something’s wrong with us, and instead try to get in touch with our sense of curiosity. What is it that might be blocking me from feeling to desire that I want to feel. And understanding I need to create the right kinds of contexts, environments for me to be able to feel that desire. And so I love looking at it through kind of two different modes of like what are the things that are actively blocking me from feeling desire and what are the things that really get me going that rev up my sex drive? So looking at it in both of those phases.
Vanessa Marin: 13:58 But if we can start with that curiosity where we know nothing’s wrong with you, you’re not broken, but instead can you take that energy and think about getting curious about yourself?
Chris: 14:11 This is one of the lessons from massage we sometimes map into relationships, is that a tight muscle takes energy to maintain that knot. And that actually takes energy from the body to stay tense. So in the release, you not only get the relaxation, but you get that energy back. And sometimes couples don’t realize how much relational energy they’re putting into their stuckness. And I’m curious how you think about if one partner is feeling ready to take those next steps and explore, have new conversations, open this up. How do you start assessing your partner’s willingness so you’re not risking another big rejection? Or do you just have to be brave and show up and put your wants on the table?
Vanessa Marin: 15:03 Such a good question. And I’m going to have to think about that, the massaging analogy too. I have some back pain issues from a really bad car accident, so that’s, I’m going to have to be kicking that idea around a little bit. That’s really interesting. So when it comes to talking to your partner about your sex life, I do think the second part of your question is true that there is no way to protect ourselves from ever being rejected by our partners or from our partner just not being on the same sort of page that we’re at, we’re on.
Vanessa Marin: 15:38 So I think we have to, you know, we have to recognize that sex is a tricky topic for most of us and we just aren’t given a lot of resources to learn how to talk about it, how to have good conversations about it. So most of us really struggle. And I think it needs to just start with that recognition of this is going to be hard and that’s okay. It’s going to be hard and I’m going to choose to do it anyways. And so there are definitely ways to ease into a conversation. So if you’re wanting to talk about sex drives with your partner and the two of you, maybe you’ve never really talked about sex before, I usually recommend that couples start talking about sex in a positive context.
Vanessa Marin: 16:18 So sex is really, you know, it’s really vulnerable. It’s a taboo topic for a lot of us. So a lot of people jump in just talking about the problems or the issues or the complaints or the frustrations. And I think that just sends our walls right up. So instead, can you see if you could open up a positive conversation with your partner, where you’re not trying to accomplish any goal, you’re not trying to get any sort of agreement from your partner, you’re just talking about sex and getting a little more comfortable with it? So one of my favorite ways to open up that conversation is to simply ask the question, what’s one of your favorite sexual memories with me? And being able to kind of rehash and share like, “Oh yeah, that time that we went away on that trip and we stayed in bed the whole day and it was so great.”
Vanessa Marin: 17:04 So again, you’re not going into anything after that. It’s just a single conversation sharing a fun memory between the two of you and what specifically made that time so great. So I think that’s a great starting point is just making it a topic that’s not taboo, that there’s some more openness around and that you now have some positive experiences discussing. And then from there I think we can start to talk about having that same sort of curiosity with your partner. So again, it’s not about complaining to your partner or telling them they need to fix things, but maybe it’s saying something like, “You know, I’m noticing that I’m feeling a lot less desire than I used to or I’m feeling less connected to you than I used to or our lives are really full and busy and it just feels like there’s not really as much space for us. And I’m just getting curious myself about what I can do to create more space for us or to have more energy for our relationship or prioritize us more often. What do you think? What do you think might be some ideas?
Vanessa Marin: 18:04 So it’s, yeah, I really keep coming back to that word, curiosity. I think that’s our best friend in these kinds of conversations.
Chris: 18:10 Well, and I want people to feel the difference in their body when they hear that conversation starter versus, “You never touch me anymore.”
Vanessa Marin: 18:19 Exactly.
Chris: 18:20 [crosstalk 00:18:20] lead with an accusation or blame. I love that we call it like a peak erotic experience conversation. Some of those conversations might bring us back to the beginning stages of our relationship. When things were fresh and new, we were in new relationship energy. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. And sometimes, especially in long-term relationships, there’s a recognition of there’s no going back to that, it’s a new curiosity because it’s not who are you? It’s who are you now?
Vanessa Marin: 18:54 Yes.
Chris: 18:55 Who are you becoming? And who are we becoming together?
Vanessa Marin: 18:58 Absolutely. And I think new relationship energy and couples reflecting back on that early days of their relationship. I think there is something really interesting with that as well. So, yes, new relationship energy, it’s a very special thing. We cannot fully replicate it. You know, your relationship is never going to be what it was in those early stages. Just because we’re always different, we’re always evolving, we’re always changing. But I do think that a lot of couples, they believe that, “Oh, in the early days of our relationship, sex was so easy. It just happened. It was spontaneous and there was no effort involved.” And so when I’m working with a couple who tells me that, I will kind of trace back to the beginning of their relationship and point out like there actually was a tremendous amount of effort involved in those early stages.
Vanessa Marin: 19:49 So you’re talking to each other all the time, you’re planning dates with each other. When you have a date scheduled, you might spend hours getting ready for that date. Maybe you go to the gym or you go on a run to get yourself pumped up. Maybe you’re taking a shower and really touching your body and feeling really sexy. Maybe you’re listening to your favorite music and dancing around. You’re doing your hair, your makeup, picking out your perfect outfit, or talking to your friends about how excited you are. So there’s a ton of effort at the beginning of a new relationship and I think that, you know, so what needs to change is not that all of a sudden it used to be so easy and effortless and now it takes a lot of effort because it’s just not true.
Vanessa Marin: 20:31 What needs to change is our attitude about the effort that we’re putting in, that we can recognize that effort felt so fun at the beginning of our relationship. And again, it’s going to be different because relationships are different at every stage, but can we get back to the same sort of place where we can respect that effort involved and enjoy that effort involved too?
Chris: 20:53 Oh, I love it so much. Sometimes we’ve talked about it as having an affair with your spouse, like again, thinking of the effort you would put into having an affair-
Vanessa Marin: 21:04 That’s good.
Chris: 21:05 [crosstalk 00:21:05] and then freshness. So when you think of libido, one of the things we’ve come to and reflecting of it as like really thinking of it as something that changes over time in the context of our lives and embracing that changeability really fully. Sometimes I hear you think about it as like we each have kind of a natural range. And I totally resonate with that because I know people and it’s like food. There are people who don’t stop thinking about food. They plan their next meal as they’re eating. They read a cookbook while they’re having breakfast. And other people that would take a pill if that would give them the nourishment.
Chris: 21:46 And that’s, you know, as natural part of our human lives as sex. And so there are people who are so highly driven by sex and love sex and sex’s their hobby. And then there are people that it’s like, you know, it’s a contextual part of their relationship and the way they enjoy their body. And then there are people that have no interest in sex. Do you, from all of your work with people, like do you imagine this spectrum is something like we each slide this whole spectrum or do we have a fixed window within the spectrum? How do you imagine the changeability and flexibility within our lives?
Vanessa Marin: 22:23 I tend to think that we have our own sort of fixed range that we are capable of moving within. So I think that yeah, we all have different relationships with desire, different amounts of desire, different ways that we experience it. And so I think that, but it’s definitely important to recognize that it’s not a fixed value. I think that’s kind of another myth that a lot of people think is that you just have your sex drive and it is what it is and it’s unchanging. So I think it falls within a range and I like to think of where you are in your particular range may be a sign of other things that are going on in your life.
Vanessa Marin: 23:05 So again, if you are happy with where you are in your range of feeling good, great, stay there, that’s awesome. But if you’re feeling like, “Wow, I’m just really you know, it feels like my sex drive is so much lower than it was at other points in my life. Or I’m feeling like disconnected from my sense of desire.” Then I think that’s the invitation to take a look at what might be some things that are blocking you from feeling your full desire potential and what might be other factors that you can add to help yourself get closer to your full desire potential.
Chris: 23:36 I want to push back a little bit, because I’m sure especially with your finishing school program and teaching so many women to have orgasms, like I’m sure you have seen the women who like they identified very strongly as a low libido person. And then they prioritized it and something opened up in them and a new range of possibility was available.
Vanessa Marin: 23:59 Absolutely.
Chris: 24:00 I guess what I’m asking is like how do we imagine kind of like keeping the possibilities open for ourselves, but also accepting our present circumstances. So like not striving but also keeping possibilities and windows open.
Vanessa Marin: 24:15 Yeah, it really comes down to us being really, really honest with ourselves. And this is tricky sometimes, I know, because sometimes we can have so many defenses built up that it just feels like, “No, no, no, I’m just a low desire person. That’s just the way that I am.” So I think first thing is can we start with-
Chris: 24:36 Or, “I’m so broken there’s no going back.”
Vanessa Marin: 24:38 Exactly. Exactly. I see that so much. And definitely in finishing school and around pleasure and orgasm, like my body is just not capable of responding, that kind of thing.
Vanessa Marin: 24:49 So I think it’s really important for us to be honest with ourselves about is that fear talking or is that genuinely how I feel? And that’s again, it’s really, really tricky sometimes to peel back those layers. So a couple of interesting questions that you could ask yourself to maybe help wiggle the layers out a little bit is, you know, one might be, okay, so let’s say I just gave myself full permission to just be a low sex drive person. I really and truly just made that, okay, I accepted that. What does that stir up for you?
Vanessa Marin: 25:27 So if that stirs up like, “Okay, good. Yeah, I feel good about that.” Maybe that’s a sign that you truly are someone who naturally has a lower sex drive and that’s okay. But if you get the sense of like, “Oh no, wait, wait.” Even if it’s just the teeniest, tiniest little voice inside of you, maybe that’s a sign that instead those are just, you know, protective mechanism. And then I think another interesting question could be, let’s sort of assume that my partner would completely accept and acknowledge and respect my sex drive as it is. How would that feel?
Vanessa Marin: 26:03 So if we kind of take any pressure that we feel about our partners experience, that can be another great way to eliminate, is it truly how you feel about yourself or is it potentially just some fear that might be talking?
Chris: 26:18 That’s so beautiful. I’m noticing a theme here in like all of the courses and of course how we work with sexuality is like when we relieve the pressure what becomes more true?
Vanessa Marin: 26:31 It’s so true. And you know, it’s one of those things that just sounds really simple and obvious when you tell people. But when I really start digging in with people and saying, “Okay, what are the dynamics that are getting in the way? What are the ways that you’re pressuring yourself that you’re putting these expectations on yourself, that you’re closing yourself off?” There’s just so much space that’s there that can emerge from there. So we really, it’s easy to write it off as, “Oh yeah, yeah, I know, I could have less stress in my life or I could sleep more or we could go on more date nights.” You know, it’s so easy to write those things off, but if we really give ourselves the space and the curiosity, there can be some very, very powerful transformations that emerge.
Chris: 27:14 So as you said in the beginning of the episode, you’re one of our communities favorite guests, our members who have signed up for your men’s courses and your female orgasm courses. Like I always think it’s amazing they write to me with gratitude for you. [crosstalk 00:27:29] “Thank you for introducing me to Vanessa,” which I always think is like next level.
Vanessa Marin: 27:35 That’s so awesome.
Chris: 27:37 It’s like, “Thank you for the referral.” And that just is really meaningful to me because I know that people who really commit to your courses and go through have beautiful, meaningful experiences. And you also are so generous in opening up these video series and your email list if itself is like a sex therapy program. If your not on Vanessa’s email list and reading it every week. Please do. It’s a practice for me because you’re so generous in sharing the wisdom you’re gathering from your community in your work in this field. Can you tell us about this next offering that is opening right now and is inviting couples into a new conversation about libido?
Vanessa Marin: 28:22 Yes, I would be thrilled too. So we are just about to release this brand new, a free video series called Bring Your Sex Life Back to Life, Overcome Mismatch Sex Drives and Create a Sex Life Worth Craving. So if this podcast has been interesting to you, you will definitely love the free video series. So the really interesting kind of journey that we’ve actually been on this year is starting. We’ve released a couple of these video series this year and we’ve started to get really, really personal in them. My background is as a licensed psychotherapist. So my training was that it was not about me. I wasn’t supposed to share anything about myself. It was just supposed to be about the client. And so when I started transitioning into doing online courses and more of a coaching type of role, I started out like that. And what I’ve realized is that I need to be a part of the conversation that I’m opening up. I need to share more about my own experiences and my own stories to help people recognize that we’re not alone in the struggles that we’re having.
Vanessa Marin: 29:29 So if you are a couple who feels like you have mismatched sex drives, I know it’s so easy to feel like you’re alone. You must be the only couple going through this. Everyone else is having so much more sex than you. So we really kind of approached this series trying to have this foundation of how can we help people recognize that they’re not alone? So I’m sharing a lot of personal stories about my own relationship with my husband, Xander and the very first video, which you know we’re releasing on Sunday, the 15th, is going to be about the lowest point in our relationship, when we were really struggling with mismatched sex drives and wondering if we were not compatible, if this amazing chemistry that we’d had, you know, was just something temporary and fleeting.
Vanessa Marin: 30:18 So I’m going to be sharing that and then getting into the three main mistakes that most couples make in the bedroom, all three of which we made in pretty serious ways. And then the second video will be about the two different sex drive types and why it’s so important for you to know which one you are, which one your partner is, and how your types fit together. And then we’re doing something that we have never done before, which I’m really excited about. We are doing three live trainings, so we’re meeting over Zoom, it’ll be private, no one will see you, your name, anything like that. But you’ll be able to join me live and I’m going to go through a training all about couples who are really, really busy and struggling to make the time for intimacy. My specific step-by-step process for how you can create that time for your relationship.
Vanessa Marin: 31:07 So we are really excited about the series. We’ve been like putting our heart and soul into it. I’m still feeling a little bit nervous about this first video going out on Sunday, but we’ve just had such a great response to us being vulnerable and sharing our own stories. So I know that it’s going to be met with a lot of just support and encouragement and many of them, people from your community as well. So we’re very excited for that. And if you’re interested in signing up, I believe you’ll have a special link probably in the show notes that they can just go directly to, to sign up.
Chris: 31:42 Definitely. And I want to encourage you to not only sign up, but to kind of schedule this in and consider this a really generous offering from a world-class sex therapist who will join you in your living room. Like sometimes when we think about online courses and I’ve been talking to the couples who are having the most success with our online courses about how they’re using them, they really make an event of it. So they like order in food, or open a bottle of wine and sit down and pretend like it is a session. Not even pretend. They experience it as a session with us or with you. And by taking it seriously, you’re placing your attention on it. And giving yourself that gift of the conversation. Because the video will end and then you will go into your conversation about it and then we’ll open up conversations for days.
Vanessa Marin: 32:34 Yes, yes. I love that. I think it’s so great to make it, you know, feel like that’s really special. I know there’s always a challenge when there’s something that’s free that you’re sort of like, “Oh well yeah, we’ll watch that later. You know, we’ll get back around to that.” So I definitely recommend scheduling it and almost imagining that you paid $1,000 or $2,000 for it so that way you really feel invested in it. And we also, you know, if you’re listening to this right now and wondering, “God, I want to watch this, but I don’t know if my partner would,” when you sign up for it, we automatically send you a free guide about how to talk to your partner about participating in this series with you, even if you’ve never talked about sex with them before.
Vanessa Marin: 33:16 So we definitely want to support couples in starting to open up these conversations and get back on the same page and be able to get just so much value out of this free series by participating together.
Chris: 33:31 And there will be links in the show notes page. I really recommend you join Vanessa and we will be there too learning along with you. So I want to end this conversation and imagine in 10 years, when you and I are doing our 25th episode together, what do you hope has changed about the cultural conversation about libido?
Vanessa Marin: 33:53 That’s such a good question. Can I say everything? Yeah, I think that, I guess I come back to that fundamental idea that I have, which is this desire is something that we invite in and that we make an active effort to cultivate. One of the greatest pieces of feedback that I ever got from some clients where they were saying, “We now know that our sex life is something that we work on. Not something that we rely on to just work.” And I think if we could see, yeah, if we could all see desire and that same sort of way that it’s something that we work on and that that’s a beautiful thing to cultivate desire to invite it in, to be curious about it. I think that could make all the difference in the world.
Chris: 34:40 Beautiful. Vanessa Marin, thank you so much for joining us once again on Speaking of Sex.
Vanessa Marin: 34:44 Thank you so much for having me. It’s been great.
Chris: 34:47 Cheers. And folks, check out the links in the show notes page and even if you’re listening to this down the road, the links will work to bring you to the best of Vanessa Marin. Thanks again for joining us, Vanessa.
Vanessa Marin: 34:58 Thank you.
Chris: 35:00 Thank you so much for listening. Those links to Vanessa’s upcoming free video training are in the show notes. You’ll also find them at pleasuremechanics.com/libido, where we are gathering our entire Rethinking Libido Podcast mini series. We are going to keep this conversation going. There is more to talk about when it comes to libido, including what to do with sexual urgency, what to do when you feel so hungry for sex. Let’s talk about that and more on upcoming episodes of Speaking of Sex. If you have something to say about libido, come on over to pleasuremechanics.com/hello and record us a message, or come on over to pleasuremechanics.com/libido and you’ll find the full conversation and opportunities to participate. I’m Chris from pleasuremechanics.com, wishing you a lifetime of pleasure and curiosity. Cheers.