Honest Sex Talks with Vanessa and Xander Marin

Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.

Susie Moore:

Are you obsessed with Vanessa and Xander Marin yet? I love this couple. I love, love, love them. I actually first discovered them on another podcast, and I just thought, "Wow, who are these two? Who is this couple that is just so real and relatable and generous when it comes to talking about sex?" Now, if you listen to this podcast with your little ones, we hear that often people love to play in their car with their kids, this might be more of an adult conversation, just giving you a little forewarning here.

But Vanessa and Xander are incredible guests. Vanessa's a sex therapist with over 20 years experience. And Xander's her husband, a regular dude in his own words, and together they wrote Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life. I loved this book. I thought it was very honest. I thought it was very refreshing. They break down their own experiences, they share her experiences as a therapist working with different couples. And I have to say, I learned a lot about sex and communication. These five conversations we all highlight here, plus a whole lot more for you. They're also a fantastic couple to follow on social media. They post videos every single day. And look, your love life is worth it. Intimacy is worth it. Having a good sex life is something that you deserve to have. And I can think of no better couple to follow when it comes to these types of conversations. So, my friend, I give you Vanessa and Xander. We have one of my favorite couples right here today, my friends, Vanessa and Xander Marin. Welcome to Let It Be Easy podcast.

Vanessa Marin:

Thanks so much for having us.

Susie Moore:

I'm so happy-

Vanessa Marin:

So happy to be here.

Susie Moore:

I'm so, so happy that you're here. I've been following you for a while. You two are hilarious and you make so many squirmy things accessible.

Vanessa Marin:

Thank you so much. Yeah, I think it's important with the topic like sex, we've got to laugh about it. There are a lot of funny things about sex. There are a lot of vulnerable things about sex too, but we've got to find some ways to laugh at it.

Susie Moore:

I completely agree. I think in general we could take ourselves a bit less seriously in life, but this is a topic that's kind of tricky to feel, I think really relaxed about. And do you feel like everyone just comes to you now with all of their questions and they're so bold, and are you just so utterly relaxed on this topic all the time?

Vanessa Marin:

I think in our own personal life we still have times that we feel a little awkward and uncomfortable, or I want to ask for something, but I don't know quite how to say it. And it's really important to us to normalize, even doing this work, talking about this every day for years, we still have those moments ourselves. But yes, people do come to us with all of their questions, and I think it's really just a sign of how desperate we are to have these open and honest conversations, that the second somebody hears me say I'm a sex therapist, they're like, "Okay, can I bring you into the corner? I've got some questions. Please, can you help me answer these?" And at this point, we've heard it all, so you can't rattle us.

Xander Marin:

Yeah, I think in our social life, it's been a really long time that all of our friends just come to us with everything that's going on. I mean, even soon after we started dating, I think once our friends felt comfortable, it's just always been something that people have been coming to us with. And I think that was just validation that, oh yeah, this is the right career choice. There's people who need help in this area.

Susie Moore:

It's almost like this is the book, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life is the book that we've needed. And the book that we've been waiting for, often without even realizing that we need it.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, I mean, it's the book that we wish we had had when we were earlier in our relationship and having our sex life slow down and not be as exciting as it was at the very beginning of the relationship, but also having no resources for how to talk about it and how to understand what was going on. So yeah, a lot of the book is like, "This is the book we wish we had had."

Susie Moore:

Yeah, and I have to really hand it to you both. You really go there in the book. You're so honest, it's so admirable to me to listen to people who are just so willing to tell the truth. And really, I think freeing up and opening up a conversation that makes everyone feel more comfortable, it felt so generous to me.

Vanessa Marin:

With the book we're asking the reader to have these conversations with their partner. And we know that feels vulnerable. And we feel really good that we've laid it out in a way and given you all the resources in a way that will make it feel so much more comfortable than it might feel right now. But it was really important to us understanding, we're asking the reader to do something that feels scary to them, so why don't we take the lead and try to be really vulnerable?

Literally the first page of the book opens with us going to therapy. We've told some just incredibly embarrassing stories that we've never told anyone or shared anywhere. And a lot of the lessons that we've learned, we've learned the hard way by doing the exact opposite thing and having that be disastrous. So yeah, we just wanted to show people that it's okay to be vulnerable.

Xander Marin:

Yeah, I think in this day and age it's really easy, you hear a lot of expert advice from people, and I think it's so easy to be like, "Okay, yeah, that sounds like great advice, but do you actually do that?" I think that it's so easy to get skeptical of like, "Okay, that sounds really hard though, and I bet you that you're not actually doing that." We just try to flip that around and be like, "No, here's everything that we've actually been through. Here are all the mistakes that we've made." I think it's great to have a balance of giving advice, but also sharing your experience.

Susie Moore:

Oh my gosh, absolutely. Because I think that we learn, and what we remember are your stories and your exact examples. I love the duo here too, Vanessa, you with your specific expertise and Xander, you're like, "I'm a regular guy." I would actually love to read a passage. I mean, friends, if you don't already have this book, you absolutely need it. It's absolutely a must read, even if you think, "I'm really good in that department." I mean, okay, we'll talk about the five talks in a moment, but I just want to share something that Xander shared in his other half about normalizing imperfections, if I may?

Xander Marin:

Yeah.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

Susie Moore:

Okay. This is how real we get my friends, okay? So, Vanessa and Xander wrote this book together, and Xander chimes in often with his just regular opinion from a regular person. And he says this, "Here's what sex looked like for Vanessa and me just last week, I initiated by casually mumbling, 'Want to do it?'"

Xander Marin:

Classic.

Susie Moore:

Note to self, you've got to stop saying this. You get into that later too. "Vanessa gave me the side eye in response, so it's pretty clear she would have appreciated a more enthusiastic invitation. Once we got started my erection wasn't as hard as it sometimes can be, and I found myself worrying at times about losing it. Vanessa wasn't particularly wet when we started having intercourse, and I got distracted wondering if I should grab the lube from the nightstand. We had an awkward dirty talk situation when I didn't quite catch something Vanessa said and responded with a loud, 'What?'"

Oh my God, this is so good. "Overall, there were moments when things felt really good and moments when things felt a little flat or off. My orgasm was all right, but I've definitely had better. We got some bodily fluids on the sheets that had just been washed, and afterward Vanessa wanted to get up and do something together, but I was tired and wanted to stay in bed for a few minutes to collect myself." Is this not every married couple? Is this all the story of every married couple over the years just experiencing regular sex at home that isn't the fairytale that you guys talk about?

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, and here's the thing, this kind of sex is so common, but it feels like so extreme or so weird for us to be sharing it. Just because nobody talks about this kind of stuff. It's like we've all had sex like that. There's no shame in it, so let's talk about it more openly.

Susie Moore:

I mean, you have different intentions for the book to bring to the forefront this very natural conversation, but I think probably, well, maybe even without even realizing it, just how relatable and how you make everyone just probably take a bit of an exhale. Was that one of your goals?

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Susie Moore:

To be able to just go, "Hey, look, we're in it. We're with you." And you two are the expert. You two lead the charge on this, and you're not dressing up in a red lingerie swinging from chandeliers every five minutes doing all sorts of outrageous things. It's just you guys.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we just wanted to normalize. I think similar to what Xander was saying earlier about when you hear expert opinions, sometimes it's very easy for us to picture the experts as just living these perfect lives. And we get that assumption about us a lot. Like, "You're a sex therapist, you have this sex therapy business together. You guys must have the most unreal sex life." And yes, we have a great sex life and we've also put a lot of work into it, and we also still have sex. It's kind of like, "All right, that got the job done, but it wasn't earth shattering or anything like that." That's okay. And we have sex even to this day that sometimes we're like, "Ooh, that was not one of our finest." That's all normal and that's all okay.

Susie Moore:

And you also referenced so many different of your people who you've worked with in the book, their different situations, things that they want to try, their past experiences holding them back. I think that, oh my. As I read it, I'm like, "Wow, where has this book been? Truly?" I gifted two to my friends for us to just talk, to break it down.

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, that's so sweet. I love that.

Susie Moore:

It's so good. So, speaking about the five, acknowledgement, connection, desire, pleasure, exploration, these are the five talks. I'd love to kick off by just asking, which one was hardest to write and which one was easiest to write?

Vanessa Marin:

We wanted to take this topic, this huge topic of talking about sex. And honestly, everybody knows this already. You've heard the advice to just talk about sex, so it's nothing new. But what we really wanted to do in the book was give people a specific path, specifically have these conversations, have them in this order, say exactly this in this way. I hate vague, generic advice, so I'm all about really getting into the nitty-gritty details. That's why we picked the specific five and put them in that specific order. I would say for me, finding the first one was the hardest. Because that was the most important one to me. I knew I want to find a way to ease people into this. I know people are going to be feeling nervous and vulnerable, so it was so important to me to figure out what's that perfect first conversation.

And the big problem that a lot of us have with sex is that we don't want to talk about it, so we wait to talk about it until something is really bothering us, or really not going well in the relationship. And so it was a lot of work for me to figure out, what's something I can do that's the exact opposite where we're not going into the problems or the frustrations, but starting on a more positive note.

Xander Marin:

Also, aside from the five conversations, I think the other challenge was actually setting up the first part of the book, which is before you even get into the conversation. So we had kind of laid out, here are the five conversations that we think every couple needs to have. And then it was like, okay, so what do you need before that in order to be able to be set up to successfully have these conversations? And there's a lot of self-work and understanding that needs to happen in order for you to really be super set up to have those conversations successfully. And so that whole first part of the book was okay, we could have probably written an entire book on just like, here's all this stuff you need to know on your own before you even have a partner. And it was distilling that down into, these are the essential things that we want you to know, stuff that we want you to think about, kind of almost like conversations to have with yourself in advance of getting into those five.

Susie Moore:

So acknowledgement is simple. It's like acknowledging that this is something that happens even though it just seems like it's a secret thing that people do privately and shh no one says anything. Going on to connection, which I really, really love the chapter on connection, desire, pleasure, exploration, desire, especially after a long period together.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, I think that's one probably the biggest complaint that we hear from couples in long-term relationships. Is that spark just isn't there between the two of us. I don't feel desire for my partner the same way that I used to. And also it can feel like the natural mismatches and desires have really started to expand to the point where it might feel like we're on really different pages about how often we want sex. So that is a big problem for so many couples in long-term relationships and we set out to solve it.

Xander Marin:

But I think the interesting thing about that is so many people will quickly identify, "Oh yeah, I think I have a problem with desire. I think my partner does. Or we both do together," but they just want to jump in and fix the desire part of it. But the reality is, is you can't really do anything about that unless you actually address the things that come before it. Which is first just the acknowledgement, getting comfortable talking about it. And then two, building a baseline of emotional connection. We so often compartmentalize these parts of our sex life and go, ah, it's a desire problem, just fix the desire problem, and everything else gets fixed. But then it's like, okay, hold on. Before we talk about desire, let's talk about the rest of it. Do you have emotional connection?

When you do have sex, is it sex that's pleasurable? Are you doing things that feel exciting to you? And if the answer is no to any of those, then it's like, "Well, the desire, we can't fix the desire problem until we address all of these other things." That's actually why we put it in the order that we put it in.

Susie Moore:

As I was reading the book, I thought to myself, I almost wish that some couples got this book before it's kind of too late. Because it's so easy to go, "I don't desire my husband anymore, but you over there, Tom in the bar, or you, this coworker who's really exciting on this business trip that we're going on." It's like, it's so easy to place the blame on our partner to say, "Oh, it's just him. I don't desire him anymore." Or we're not meant to be together anymore because my body's not feeling it and I'm feeling it for somebody else.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

Susie Moore:

So, what would you say in that-

Vanessa Marin:

We've had a lot of people ask us, "Van I read the book even if I'm not in a relationship?" We're like, "Absolutely-

Xander Marin:

Yeah, please.

Vanessa Marin:

Please do. It's so great to prepare yourself with this information and to be able to go into your next relationship with all these tools and resources. That being said, though, we know that most people are likely going to be reading the book when they've hit a tough point in their relationship and they're desperate for, "What do I do?" So we put a lot of tools and communication scripts in the book for couples that are in a tough place. And in particular, one of the things that I'm really proud of in each chapter, at the end of it we have a section about navigating conversational pitfalls. I've guided couples through these conversations enough times to know all the places where they go wrong. So, each conversation has a section of like, "Okay, if your partner says this, then you do this. If they say this, then you do this." It's like creating a little choose your own adventure no matter how challenging it might get.

Susie Moore:

Yeah, it's so practical. I mean, I feel like there's a quiz. I mean, you give so much away, I mean. Especially for a book that you can read this in a couple of days if you're committed. There's so much here. With a desire piece, there are a couple of things that you said that I really liked. You said, "See your partner with fresh eyes." Could we talk about that for a moment? Because I think that that is such an amazing, I don't want to say trick, but it's something that you can do that can just really make you feel desire inside of you. Could you just talk to us about that for a moment?

Vanessa Marin:

When we've been with our partner for years or even decades, there's just this complacency that settles in. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I know everything about you." And the annoyances start to come to the surface a lot more than the things we appreciate. It's so easy for us to just be annoyed and frustrated by our partner and forget about all of those things that even attracted us to them in the first place. And so we talk about seeing your partner in new ways in a couple of different places in the book. One is actually in the connection chapter where we talk about expressing gratitude. Gratitude is actually found to be the number one predictor of marital success. It's that important. And gratitude is all about those little moments of seeing our partner.

And I can take Xander for granted that he unloads the dishwasher. Yeah, that's his chore. He's supposed to do it. Or I can take a moment to say, "Hey, I really appreciate you for doing that." Or I can take a moment to see something about him as a person of, "Thank you for making me laugh yesterday. That was so fun to have that little moment with you." That's one way that we can see our partner in a new light.

And then another way is actually in chapter five, exploration of us trying new things in the bedroom together, because your relationship probably feels boring right now, because you're doing boring things. You're doing the same thing over and over again, so why would it not feel boring? People always love to talk about the early stages of a relationship. And we have so much fun it's like, "Oh, it was so easy and everything was so exciting."

But what were you doing? You were doing new things, new exciting things with your partner all the time. And then you start doing the same old boring things with them and wonder what happened to all that excitement. So, doing new things with your partner inside and outside of the bedroom is one of the best ways to keep that spark alive.

Susie Moore:

Isn't that so interesting how we just assume that things should just magically be working? It's like, "Well, we used to take fun trips and we used to go out cool dinners. And we used to ask each other really curious questions." And now we're just like, "Pass the remote. Do you want the same Domino's order?" And then we're like, "Well, why isn't it red-hot passionate," right?

Vanessa Marin:

Obviously, it's not. I know, but most of us, we just don't. It makes so much sense when I'm saying it right now, of course, but most of us just don't make that connection in our heads, and instead we just sit here feeling scared and worried, like, "Oh, what happened to us?" And "Oh, I missed those early days." It's like, "Well, take a look at what the relationship actually looks like."

Xander Marin:

I think some of the ways that we talk about relationships from a societal perspective or the stereotypes or tropes that we see on TV and in the movies of, "Oh, are you going to lock it down or are you guys going to settle down?" There's sort of this idea that necessarily once you get serious, then you stop doing the fun stuff. You stop doing the exciting things. That somehow you're locked in now to like, "This is the routine that we have. This is who my partner is, this is who I am. These are the things that we do for date night. These are the things that we do in the bedroom." And we don't really communicate about it. We're just locked into, this is how it is. But the reality is, throughout the course of our lives, and definitely throughout the course of a relationship, we all change a lot. Vanessa and I talk about how I feel like we've each kind of been three or four different people over the course of our-

Vanessa Marin:

Xander 3.0

Xander Marin:

Yeah Xander, maybe 4.0.

Vanessa Marin:

I think you're on 4.0

Xander Marin:

All right. But yeah, and so it's instead of feeling scared that we have to be in this box that we've somehow agreed to without ever actually saying anything about it. Can we be open to, "We each get to change, we each get to grow." Can we reframe this perspective of like, "Oh, we're not supposed to change, because this is who I'm supposed to be," to like, "Oh yeah, we're changing. We're growing." I get to meet a new person in my partner and grow with that person and learn to love that new person.

Susie Moore:

And this is what happens when you guys are connected, right? This is kind of the second talk. So you acknowledge it. Connection is, it's almost as if what I got from your connection chapter too is everything is almost like some form of foreplay, everything, and not in some intentional, but everything that happens before, anything that happens outside of intimate acts is still part of the experience.

Vanessa Marin:

Exactly.

Susie Moore:

Is still living.

Vanessa Marin:

How you interact with each other and how you treat each other throughout the day. That is either going to keep that connection alive and growing or take away from that connection. And so most of us, like Xander was saying earlier, we compartmentalize sex. We think of like, "Oh, yeah, well, once the door is closed and the lights are off, that's when sex happens." No, sex happens. We like to say, "Foreplay for the next time starts the second that sex stops."

Susie Moore:

Right. But that's good news. If someone might go, "Oh no. Oh my gosh, I have to be like a purring kitten." You're like, "No, this is good news."

Vanessa Marin:

And I think it's really just about treating each other kindly and with love and wanting to connect with each other too. If you're crawling into bed at the end of the night and it feels like there's a stranger crawling in bed next to you, that's going to be very hard to get excited about being intimate. And unfortunately, most couples these days will tell us, "Yeah, we don't really feel that connected. We feel like we're roommates rather than romantic partners. We feel like we're ships passing in the night." So, we wanted to create that chapter to help couples recognize the emotional connection between the two of you feeds into the sexual connection and vice versa. We have to keep both of those things alive.

Susie Moore:

Yeah. One thing I love that you shared in the book too is even small things like acknowledging the other person when they come into the room. It's really easy to not do that.

Vanessa Marin:

Oh my God, yeah.

Susie Moore:

Or even when someone comes back from Iran or comes, you're just like, of course your hear.

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, yeah I think we have this tendency to think of emotional connection as the big gestures, like, oh, going on a romantic trip or celebrating our anniversary. And those things are great, but it's really the small daily things that we do that really sustain the connection. And so something like acknowledging your partner's existence, which you just said that, and I was like, "Ooh, actually, I think I've been slipping on that one a little bit lately." It's these little things that we forget to do. It's so easy to forget to do. But I really like a lot of the tips in that chapter, because they're easy, they're free, and they're fast. It doesn't take that much effort to look up at your partner and make a little eye contact and smile at them, but it has a really big impact.

Susie Moore:

I know. How about just not reaching for your phone in the morning before just actually saying good morning. I think these things really, really happen. One thing I learned from you, which I thought was really fascinating, especially as it kind of pertains to different, just people's natural inclination, is the reverse and the drive. And spontaneous versus responsive. These two things, as I was reading them, I was like, "Well, how do we need to learn to reverse before we can drive? And how do we know if we're spontaneous versus responsive?" I think that this makes so much sense. Because sometimes we can place a judgment. We can go, "Someone's not interested, or the way that their body reacts isn't how it should react in this precise second. Could we speak about those two? Actually, could we start with spontaneous versus responsive first, because I think it's fascinating?

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, let's go there first. This is really important information about sex drive that most people do not even realize exists. There are actually two sex drive types. And again, this is so important, because low sex drive and mismatched sex drives are the biggest complaints that we hear in long-term relationships. Most of us just don't even realize how sex drive actually works. There are two places that we can get excited about sex. Mentally, like the idea of sex sounds good, it pops into our head. We're just thinking about it. And then physically in our body, our body is getting physically aroused and ready to have sex.

So that's things like getting wet, getting an erection. The two sex drive types boil down to where you feel desire first. I'll start with spontaneous, because this is the type that we see on TV in the movies. It's how everybody thinks their sex drive is supposed to work. And so spontaneous desire is when you feel the mental desire first and then the physical arousal second. It's like you're just randomly going about your day. Sex pops into your head, it sounds good. You go find your partner, and it's on.

Now, responsive desire is the second type, and it's the exact opposite. Your body has to be aroused and excited first, and then the mental desire follows second. So one of the classic ways to know that you're responsive sex drive type is if you've ever found yourself in the middle of sex or even at the end of sex thinking, huh, this is fun. Why do I not seem to want this more often? That's a classic sign. So, responsive desire is especially important for us to recognize and respect, because it doesn't mean your low desire or no desire, and that's what most people think when they have responsive desire.

And of course, the majority of people who have responsive desire are women. And it's very easy for us as women to think, "Oh, something's wrong with me. I never want sex. What's wrong?" But it's not that you don't have desire, it's just that you don't understand how your desire works. So your desire is there. It's just that you need to start with your body first, and then mentally the desire will follow from there. So if you were to find, just grab a random desire or a responsive desire person at a random moment of the day and say, "Hey, do you want to have sex right now?" They're going to say no, because there's nothing going on with their bodies. It's just about understanding what your types are and what part of the body you need to appeal to first.

Xander Marin:

Very often in a relationship you might have someone who is spontaneous and someone who is responsive. And someone who's spontaneous is probably way more likely to just spontaneously initiate sex. And the reality is that it turns out you're asking the wrong question. If you're just like, "Hey, want to have sex?" Of course, the answer-

Susie Moore:

Always going to be a no.

Xander Marin:

... the answer is going to be no. Because I mean, even the phrasing of it, do you want to have sex right now? It implies right now. It implies there's no other activities to do that might kind of get the person there. There's no timeframe associated with it. And so we just so often are not setting each other up for success. The spontaneous person is asking the wrong type of question, and then the responsive person sees the spontaneous person just spontaneously thinking about it, and they're like, "Oh God. They're just always thinking about sex." And so it's like they kind of write off sex as this not very meaningful thing because partner's always thinking about it, and then we're just totally missing each other.

Vanessa Marin:

You can see how this gets complicated very quickly.

Susie Moore:

Yes, because no one's doing anything wrong, but the person who's spontaneous probably doesn't feel that desired because their getting rejected. Because they're not putting in the groundwork that's required because they don't understand that they need to, because for them it's happening. And then the responsive person probably feels a little cold or a little, just, is there something? Why aren't I just always in the mood? Or why can't I just ... And because we don't talk about this, because no one's acknowledging anything. It can probably just feel like over time, does this just get worse? Do you feel like it's when people are then like, okay, now I need some help. Now I need a professional. Now I need-

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. So typical what happens is there's usually one partner who initiates more often in the relationship, usually the spontaneous desire person, and then they get turned down and none of us likes feeling turned down. It's always really vulnerable. So they start initiating less and less. And then just the moments that they do initiate feel so much more fraught, and there's so much more tension. So it feels awkward. And sometimes there can even be fights that come out of the initiation. Over time it just can spiral down to this place where you're really not having much sex at all.

Susie Moore:

Speaking of initiation, I know that you love to talk about this.

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, yes. One of our favorite topics.

Susie Moore:

I know that you speak about bristling, and I think that sometimes you're not even aware of how we're reacting or how we're acting when we're initiating or how we're acting when someone's initiating with us. And we are just, I don't know, we're feeling a bit like unsure. Could you talk to us a bit about initiation and what we need to know that no one's ever taught us?

Vanessa Marin:

Initiation is one of the biggest areas where we get tripped up in relationships. And it makes the desire issues feel so much worse. Initiation is supposed to feel like an exciting invitation to your partner. The problem with it is that it's very vulnerable to do initiation in this way. Most of us feel really uncomfortable asking our partner to be intimate with us. Most of us feel uncomfortable just asking for what we want in general. So then add, we're asking for sex on top of, and it's so much harder. And so most of us respond to this vulnerability by we try to dance our way around it. So one of the classic ways that this comes up in a lot of male female relationships.

We'll see men just doing groping touch. Like the boob honk is a classic one just comes up behind you, squeezes your boobs, grabbing them, and he's actually trying to initiate sex like that. But then what happens is she's like, "Oh, no, get off of me. That's so gross. I don't like that." And he's like, "Oh, I was just kidding. I was just playing around." They try to frame initiation as a joke so that there's a way to back out of it-

Xander Marin:

Plausible deniability.

Vanessa Marin:

"Oh, I wasn't actually initiating, no, I was just playing around."

Xander Marin:

Yeah, I've got nothing to feel bad. I don't need to feel disappointed, because I didn't actually do it.

Vanessa Marin:

But still, everybody knows what's going on. You both know that he was actually trying to initiate. And so it creates so much discomfort. And then sometimes people go to different directions about just trying to be really subtle about it. You're trying to give your partner the look, but they're like, "Do you have something in your eye? What is going on there?" Most of us are just not good at initiation. But how are we supposed to get excited about sex and want to be intimate with our partner, and even start sex on a good foot if it's not being started in the right way? This was an area where we really dive into a lot of detail in the book about how to make initiation feel like the exciting invitation that it should be.

Susie Moore:

Could you share with us a couple of your favorite ideas that people just seem to connect with or that seem like the easiest place to start perhaps?

Vanessa Marin:

The best place to start is actually this model that we developed called the Initiation Styles. It's really similar to the love languages, if you've heard of that model, this idea that we all like to be loved in different ways. And we need to understand what our partner likes, because otherwise we're just going to do what we would like and maybe we're going to totally miss them. The Initiation Styles model is the different ways that people like to be initiated. I love creating models, because it just gives people a framework to talk about. It's a little personality quiz. So there was always fun to talk about, oh, I think I'm this type, or I'm kind of a mix of these two. I can't decide. It just makes opening the conversation so much easier.

For example, I'll give you a couple of the different types. One of the types, we call it the take care of me type. This type likes to feel genuinely taken care of by their partner. Let's say if that's my type, I would really like if Xander offered to draw me a bath, or maybe if we have kids, he would say, "Hey, I'm going to handle bedtime. You have a little bit of alone time, and then I'll meet you in the bedroom later." But it's just a sense of, "I've got it. I'm taking care of things. I'm giving you some space for yourself."

Then we can contrast that with a different type is the play with me type. And for these types of people, they like sex to feel kind of sillier and more playful and goofy. So you might, "Maybe we make a bet on something on who's going to win the football game tonight, and the winner gets oral sex."

Or we have a funny little emoji that's an inside joke between the two of us that we text to each other to say, "Hey, do you want to be intimate?" Or even a funny song that we'll just play on the speakers. So it's like you can see those two types are very, very different. If we start there of understanding, "Yeah, what's the general approach that I like around initiation," Then you can get into more specifics.

Xander Marin:

Yeah, I think it is so important to understand what your type is and what your partner's type is. Because so many people ask us, "Oh, well just give me the list of the three best ways to initiate sex." And the issue is, there aren't three best ways. There are best ways, depending on what initiation style the person is that you are trying to initiate with. And so yeah, I mean, definitely don't watch TV and movies and try to do it the way that they do it there. But the problem is we see very specific types of initiation portrayed way more often.

Vanessa Marin:

Well, there isn't really initiation in TV and the movies, nobody actually-

Susie Moore:

It just happens.

Vanessa Marin:

It's just on. That's the problem of why we never learn how to do it, because we never even see that it's necessary.

Susie Moore:

And with the reverse and drive, I thought this was really interesting, because it's kind of laying a bit of a foundation too, that you can become familiar with that's important to you. Could you speak to us about that about when it comes to getting prepared yourself.

Vanessa Marin:

This is another aspect of sex drive that we talk about in part one of the book, understanding yourself a little bit better. I talk about these two different modes of sex drive where we think of desire as all systems go, I'm cruising ahead, I'm feeling turned on, I want to have sex. But there's also another mode of it too, which I call reverse mode. And those are the things that get in the way of us feeling desire that cut the desire off at the pass. And in my work with clients and in looking at research that's been done on this, I've found that it's actually much more effective to address the blockages to desire first before we address putting it into drive and all systems go.

So, taking a little bit of time for yourself, and this is something that somebody could do after listening to this episode, just take a couple of minutes to think about what are the things that tend to get in the way of me feeling desire.

So some of them could be very practical. It might be things like, well, we don't have a lock on the bedroom door, and I'm always nervous about the kids barging in, or we don't really have much sound privacy in the house, and I'm worried about kids overhearing.

Xander Marin:

Or it could be like, "Oh, if the room is messy, then all I can think about is, 'Oh, I got to do the laundry. Oh, we're almost out of that. So oh, I have to get the liners for the trash can at the store." Oh, okay, so maybe it's important to make sure that the space that we're going to have sex in is clean and comfortable and everything is settled so that I don't get distracted.

Vanessa Marin:

So often you can find really practical things that you can do to just set things up for success. Putting a lock on the door, tidying things up, but just understanding, "Yeah, these are my ideal circumstances for sex to happen within."

Susie Moore:

So that allows you to put yourself ... So this is your metaphorical reverse. Remove anything. Remove any obstacles or blocks. It could be very physical, like literal. And would this also include perhaps any behavior to cut out if, because you know what it's like if I know that if I can be nagging about something, if I'm stressed out and I'm nagging, that's a big no, that is not hot at all. And I feel as if even when I'm nagging, I don't like myself if I'm also always making somebody wrong, that's not sexy for him or me.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. Yeah. That's the other part of it too. I started with some of them can be very practical, and some of them can be much more complex and bring in emotional dynamics and stuff like that. I mean, even initiation could go into this as well. If I get the boob honk, that is an instant. I'm in reverse mode. It's going to take longer to get me turned on, then it would if you hadn't done that. Really, you can think about all sorts of different types of dynamics, but the general idea is, what is the best way that I can set myself up for success for connecting with my partner?

Susie Moore:

Oh my God, so many favorite parts of your book. Okay, What else? I've got my notes here. I mean, I had to really limit them. Oh, here's another takeaway I got from your book that I really liked. Don't hide requests in questions. Oh, don't hide. Oh, did I get that the right way around? Yeah, if there's something that you want, sometimes we're a bit too subtle about it.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

Susie Moore:

Could you elaborate?

Vanessa Marin:

I think the interesting thing about the book, we've been getting a lot of feedback about this, is that it's really just a book about communication too-

Xander Marin:

In disguise.

Vanessa Marin:

In disguise. Yeah, you're going to learn communication tips that will help in every relationship. It's kind of like if you can learn how to talk about sex, you can talk about anything.

Susie Moore:

It's true. Yeah.

Vanessa Marin:

We have some general communication tips that we share in the first part of the book as well. And this is one of those tips. So, it's like I was saying earlier, a lot of us have a hard time expressing what we want. And so we often ask questions that aren't really questions. And this is a perfect example of something I learned the hard way that I was doing. One thing that I used to ask Xander in the early stages of our relationship, he worked in the corporate world. He had a pretty stressful, demanding job, and he often worked late. And so I would ask him, "Are you coming home soon?" And Xander would answer it very logically, like, "Probably not for another hour at least." But what was actually happening in those moments is I was feeling lonely. I was missing my partner.

And it was like, this is day 10 in a row that he's been working late. We haven't been able to have dinner together. We haven't had any quality time. So, really what I was wanting to say to him is, I miss you and I want to spend time with you. Can we spend some time together? And so when Xander would answer, I'm asking him a logical question, when are you coming home? He's giving me a logical answer, but I would feel so hurt in those moments, man, he doesn't see me. He's just going to stay another hour. He doesn't care. And I had to realize like, oh, I am not being clear about what it is that I want and need in this moment. I'm asking him a logistical question and he's giving me a logistical answer, so I'm setting both of us up for failure here.

Xander Marin:

And then I'm picking up on like, "Oh, it seems like she's upset. Why is she like-:

Vanessa Marin:

Like you are doing something wrong. You're doing something wrong, and you're not doing anything wrong yet. So you're feeling like-

Xander Marin:

Yeah. And then once you pick up on that, oh, there's some annoyance, or you're trying to read between the lines, and then at that point, then you might be picking up like, "Oh, well, maybe she misses me, or maybe she would like to do something, but then it doesn't feel good to drop everything and go do something with someone that's already upset with you. So it's just like you're missing that opportunity to actually ask for the thing. And then I could have made the decision of, oh, yeah, I do have these five other things to do, but what's more important to me? Oh, okay. It sounds like she really misses me. Maybe I could do some of these tomorrow. So it was like I never had the opportunity to kind of at it and make a decision for myself. Instead, it was just like, "Huh, God, she's really upset with me and I'm not sure why?

Susie Moore:

Which can also make Xander want to sit at the office longer, because he's upset. And he's like-

Xander Marin:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like she's already, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's actually a really good point. It'd be like, "Well, okay, well, she's already upset, so we're not really going to have any quality time tonight. I might as well just get this other stuff. I am already here. I might as well get this other stuff done so that maybe tomorrow I can leave at five o'clock when she's in a better mood." So it's like we're supposed to.

Susie Moore:

Yeah, that makes Vanessa more upset because she's like, well, he didn't hurry home, even though I said, when are you going to be home? So we should know. It's such a common dynamic, isn't it? And people aren't actually just saying what they need. It's like a hint. It's like you said, setting up your partner for success. And if you said, I would love to see you, and I just want to give you a hug, I mean, that's very different.

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Susie Moore:

When we..

Vanessa Marin:

We frame our requests in positive ways, that makes our partner actually want to follow through on them. And of course there are circumstances in life sometimes that are challenging, but it's just being able to share a request in a positive way. There's so much higher of a chance that it's going to get fulfilled.

Susie Moore:

And you also talk about that a lot in the book. Also, ways to bring up sex that's really fun. Oh, what's your favorite memory? Or tell me about a really fun ... And will you tell your safari story, which is so awesome. Could you share some of those pieces of advice? If someone's like, I'd love to have a fun lighthearted conversation, but not go, well, tell me what you like and what you don't like right now?

Vanessa Marin:

What's your fantasy?

Susie Moore:

Yes, I'm going to have one all mapped out. Yes.

Vanessa Marin:

This is the acknowledgement conversation. This was our antidote to jumping straight in with, "This is really bothering me, and I hate this about our sex life, and this needs to change." Oh, no, we don't want you to go there. Instead, we want you to start your sex talks journey with the acknowledgement conversation. Which is simply having general conversations about sex in a positive way, or even just a neutral way. It's really easing into it. One of our favorite starting points, and this is another thing that somebody could do right after listening to this episode, is take some time to think about one of your favorite sexual memories with your partner. And then share that with them today. And so you're not doing anything with the conversation. You're not initiating sex, you're not making any complaints, you're not making any criticisms.

It's literally just like, "You know what popped into my head today? That anniversary trip that we took and that hotel that we stayed in, we were in bed all day long, just popped into my head. It was a really fun little memory to think about," and I just wanted to share it with you.

What you're doing by having these positive conversations about sex is you're really starting to create this foundation for communication. And helping you and your partner recognize that talking about sex, it doesn't have to be scary. It doesn't have to lead to a fight. It doesn't mean there's an underlying motive behind it. Like, "Oh yeah, my partner's going to say, 'We haven't done that in years.'" You're just trying to talk about it in a positive way.

Susie Moore:

I wonder too, if you brought up something like, oh, remember that hotel room or remember that time outdoors, is that also warming up a responsive person?

Vanessa Marin:

It can be, absolutely. Yeah, it's like giving them some stimulation to get going, something to think about.

Susie Moore:

Yeah, that's what I was just thinking as you were saying it. I'm like, "Huh, does this get easier, do you find." The more you do it once you get stuck. I mean, because I can imagine couple people reading this book going, oh my God, I've got to have these five talks. And then it feels daunting. I wonder, number one, does it get easier? And then also secondly, is this, I mean, even if you did this alone, just say your partner isn't a great communicator. They are who they are. Are there still benefits to doing this and just reading this yourself?

Xander Marin:

Yeah, let me start with the first half of that, which is does it get easier? And yes, it absolutely gets easier once you've been through these five. I mean, once you start with the acknowledgement one already, it will be getting much easier. But yeah, once you've gone through these five, then on an ongoing basis, this will be so much easier. People always ask us like, "Oh, well you guys talk about sex for a living. You're obviously talking about it all the time. So does that make it boring for you? Or does it feel like sex is a chore?" And we kind of look at people like they're crazy because for us, the reality is the more you talk about something, the more you have fun talking about something, the more fun that thing feels, and the more likely you are to want to do that thing.

And so it's exactly the same for anybody listening to this. The more you talk about sex in a neutral to positive way, the more likely you are to be thinking about sex on a regular basis. The more likely you are to be desiring your partner, the more likely you are to just be having more sex and then having better sex, and then having more better sex to think about and to talk about. It's a whole virtuous cycle. And so it does get so much easier. The one thing that stays the same the whole time is that you do need to continue talking about it. It's just that it gets more easy and it gets more fun.

Vanessa Marin:

And I think our story is an example of that. The book starts with us being in therapy. We share so many stories in the book of like, "We did the exact wrong communication stuff." And now we're at this place where we wrote a freaking book on it. Xander's story coming from the corporate world. Never in a million years did he think he'd be a part of this business. And he's got so good at talking about sex and now it's his job.

Susie Moore:

What a blessing.

Vanessa Marin:

[inaudible 00:47:41]you can. You come such a long way. And the second part of it, sorry, you're asking such good questions. I just jump in, I want to answer them.

Susie Moore:

I'll talk to you forever. I love this topic. I love you both. But a friend of mine, I said to her, "I really think this could be a good book." I didn't get it for her because I know that there's some stuff going on in her marriage, which has been long-term, but I suggested it and she was like, "Oh, he would never read it." And I'm like, "Well, you could still read it." And I'm like, "It's not what you think. It's not intimidating conversations to have to save your marriage. It's fun, flirty, like honest, practical." So is it still beneficial for a person in a relationship, even if their partner is just, I don't know, very uncomfortable with talking?

Xander Marin:

Well, we have heard from a lot of people who have written in saying, "One of us just bought the book, assuming that my partner wasn't going to read it, and I started reading it, and the book is just lying around on the nightstand or whatever, and then I'm catching my partner-

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, we have pictures.

Xander Marin:

... Peeking and starting to read it.

Vanessa Marin:

Pictures people have sent us of like, look at, my husband has never read a book, and they're hiding behind the corner. Put the camera in the room and you can see the husband flipping through like, oh, this is looking interesting.

Susie Moore:

It's so good. Sneaky sex talk reading.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, sneaky. But also we do in the book, we have a separate kind of path throughout the book if you're not reading it with your partner. So, we do give you tips for if your partner, if you're just too nervous to bring it up with your partner. Or even if your partner outright refuses to read it with you, we still give you tips for how to have these conversations.

Xander Marin:

And you can absolutely have these conversations without your partner knowing exactly what you're doing. There are ways to talk about these things that don't require you to have both read the book at all.

Susie Moore:

So, the final two in the book, Pleasure and Exploration. What good words, pleasure and exploration. If you had to, of course the book is a much purchase. Friends, if you haven't already got it. It's such a much, much a must read. But if you think about pleasure sometimes I think that it can feel kind of transactional, very temporary pleasure is kind of more in the giving. What's your philosophy around pleasure in the bedroom? Because I feel like this isn't also something that we're taught, especially growing up because we're just taught not to get pregnant or whatever. It may not get. What's your take on pleasure in summary?

Vanessa Marin:

You're absolutely right. Most of us don't really know how to experience pleasure. We know, "Okay, sex is supposed to be pleasurable. It's supposed to be this good experience." But when it comes down to it feels very difficult. And I think particularly for women, that's really true for us. And there's so many things that can come up for us. All the body image crap that we've been taught. We're so much more in our heads about, "Do I look weird in this position? Is my partner concerned about the way I smell or taste," or anything like that? Even things like just having distracting thoughts coming through our heads. We feel like we can't slow our brains down and be present in the moment.

We do talk in that chapter about how to actually let pleasure in. It is an active process. It's not just to just lean back and it's just going to be pleasurable. We have to be active in allowing pleasure in. So, there are techniques for understanding how to be in the moment and really connect with your partner and pay attention to what are the actual sensations that I'm feeling in my body.

Susie Moore:

Do you think that pleasure is something that in general, in life we don't even think about. It's get it done, and it's like, do you even enjoy your coffee? Do you even taste it? Do you even smell your or feel your nice scarf? When you put up all these moments. Do you find that the more pleasure you seek out, the more you just kind of notice it's available and the more you're just tuned in to it?

Vanessa Marin:

Absolutely. Yeah. That's actually one of my favorite exercises for learning to get more comfortable with pleasure. Sexual pleasure can actually, can feel pretty big and overwhelming and intimidating. But if we focus on the pleasure that we can get in those little everyday moments. That can feel a lot less intimidating. And it's also this incredible discovery of how much pleasure is available to us. Literally in every moment of the day pleasure is available to you. And so it's little things like, can I notice what it feels like to have the warm sunlight just touching my skin? Can I notice the smell of this amazing cup of coffee? Can I notice the feel of the feeling of my clothes? Or just the way I move my body? Noticing my hips kind of sway side to side. That's a really cool thing about pleasure is we can experience it in every moment if we choose to.

Susie Moore:

And you give such good exercises in this book, and you share your own rules that you abide by that are a little different. You suggest, "If you're going out on a date, have sex first." That's it. I mean, I love that. I mean, it just feels like, yes. It also feels like kind of early relationship vibes too, right? When you can't wait almost.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, you can't wait until you go out to dinner.

Susie Moore:

Can you share with us a couple of your rules, because they're different? I know you guys make out often, you have your own rituals. I feel like if we even copied one of them 50% in our relationships, we can see a huge boost in our happiness and how connected we are.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, so having sex before a date night, that's definitely one of our favorite. And so practical and just straightforward. But yeah, once you go out to dinner, you're full. If you've had drinks, you're tipsy or you're outright drunk, maybe you just feel uncomfortable. It's hard.

Xander Marin:

It's late.

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, it's late. You come back at the end of the night and it's like, "Oh, okay. I just would rather go to bed." If we can prioritize having it before, you're going to have such a better experience. And then you get to go to your date having this sexy little secret between the two of you, so just so much more fun.

And then our making out rule. That was something that we decided to do, because we realized that the only time we were making out was in the lead up to sex or during sex. And that made me sad to realize that, because we used to make out all the time. The first night or that we met, we made out for hours. It was just so fun to make out. And so we decided to turn that into a special little ritual between the two of us where every night before bed we make out with each other. And it can be 10 seconds on nights that we're tired or not really feeling it. But it can be longer if we are. But it's just having that special little ritual of connection, a moment that we know we can rely on to connect with each other and being able to experience making out just for the sake of making out again.

Susie Moore:

I'm so happy that you two exist and that you're together and that you do this work. I mean, I can keep you forever, obviously, I won't. But the exploration chapter, gorgeous, fun. There's a checklist. Enjoy your lives, enjoy your bodies. What fun, what's next for you guys? What's coming up? Anything exciting you can share with us?

Vanessa Marin:

We're focusing on all of our guides and courses right now. We had to take a little bit of a break from those with the book. The book is all about communication, and then we have guides and challenges that are more about sexual technique. We have our ultimate foreplay guides. We have next level intercourse. And we have two challenges for couples like a sex challenge and an emotional connection challenge. We're getting to focus on those more now, which we love. We also love getting really practical with that area too.

Xander Marin:

Yeah, just like no one teaches you how to talk about sex. No one really teaches you all the options.

Vanessa Marin:

How to have sex.

Xander Marin:

Yeah, all the options that are truly available to you when it comes to sex, when it comes to oral sex, intercourse, dirty talk, all the various things. No one teaches you what the options are, and certainly not how to do all of them. And so we just like to have really practical stuff that takes the shame away of like, "Yeah, it's not like there's nothing wrong with you for not knowing this. How would you know this? Let us walk you through it."

Vanessa Marin:

Even if you do feel comfortable or confident with your technique, there are always ways that we can get better and have the best experience ever. And you can keep topping your best experience ever. So, we love sharing techniques for that really step-by-step. Like illustrated, exactly what to do. It's very fun.

Susie Moore:

It's a menu. We're sticking to the two orders on the menu, right?

Vanessa Marin:

Exactly.

Susie Moore:

We're like, "Oh, I know I got my cob salad." And we're like, "There's a menu. You're illustrating it for us in all of the ways, figuratively, literally." Okay, so where does everyone go to find out more about you? Of course, Sex Talks is an absolute must read. Have a book club. Give yourself the gift of this book. It will pay off in endless ways for the rest of your life. Actually, final question that came to mind as you were talking before. Is it ever too late to do this? You're like, "It's been 25 years. Jono isn't changing." Jono is like, "Oh, Katrina. She's just, she is who she is." Is it ever too late to-

Vanessa Marin:

I don't think it is ever too late. And we have heard stories from couples who said, "We thought it was too late, but we read this book as a last ditch effort and it really changed our lives." It's never too late. Just pick it up. Read the first few pages. It's going to be a lot less scary than you think it is, I promise.

Susie Moore:

And you'll laugh. That's the best part. And do you think that we're worth it? We're worth this pleasure in our lives?

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Susie Moore:

We're worth it. We've got this body on planet earth. Let's enjoy it.

Vanessa Marin:

Let's enjoy it and let's enjoy each other. You've found this really special person and let's enjoy each other as much as we possibly can. Yeah, we would love to connect with any of your listeners. We'll give you a couple places where you can find us. You can find the book at sextalksbook.com. We have links to all the major retailers. And if you come back to that page after you've bought the book and put in your order number, we'll send you a workbook for free that goes along with the book. And then we are most active on Instagram. We're @vanessaandxander. We share stories every day. Lots of great conversation openers, lots of funny stuff to just make you laugh. So, you can shoot us a DM and let us know you found out about us through the podcast.

Xander Marin:

And then you can get all the guides and courses, all the fun stuff on our website at vmtherapy.com.

Susie Moore:

Vanessa, Xander, what a joy. I hope you'll come back. I could talk to you forever about this. And I can't wait to see. I can't wait to follow more and learn more from you. And thank you for being who you are and all the generosity that you share with us, both of you.

Vanessa Marin:

Thank you so much.

Xander Marin:

Thanks for having us.

Vanessa Marin:

It's been such a great conversation.

Susie Moore:

So much love my friends. Until next time, so much ease. Hey friend, I've got something really cool for you. I want to give you free access to my signature course called Slay Your Year, which typically sells for $997. You can check it out, all the details at slayyouryear.com. All you have to do to get access is leave me a review, leave review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Take a snapshot of it and send it to info@suzy-moore.com. That's info@suzy-moore.com, and we'll get you set up with access.