Sex Therapy 101 with Cami Hurst
Welcome to Sex Therapy 101 with your host Cami Hurst. This is the sexiest podcast in the west for all the right reasons. Cami sits down with amazing experts in the field of sexual health and counseling to learn, converse and add her own expert voice to the conversation. Cuddle up with your partner and get ready to have your love life feel more complete.
Sex Therapy 101 with Cami Hurst
The Psychological Impact of "Duty Sex" with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson Fife
What happens when we say yes to sex we don't actually want? In this deeply insightful exploration of "duty sex," I sit down with Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fyfe to unpack the profound psychological impact of consenting to unwanted sexual experiences in long-term relationships.
My research has uncovered troubling patterns: when partners (particularly women in this study) consistently consent to sex they don't desire, it creates harmful dynamics that damage both individuals and their relationship. Far from being a simple matter of compromise, these patterns often stem from cultural and religious teachings that frame men as having sexual "needs" and women as responsible for fulfilling them.
Dr. Finlayson-Fyfe brings her expertise as both a PhD in counseling psychology and an LDS relationship coach to challenge our assumptions about sexual desire. She eloquently reframes sexual avoidance not as a disorder but as potential wisdom—your body signaling that something fundamental isn't working in your relationship. We examine how psychological control can create trauma-like responses even without physical coercion, and how both partners often unknowingly contribute to these dynamics.
The conversation takes a hopeful turn as we discuss pathways toward healthier sexuality. We explore how desire naturally thrives in freedom rather than obligation, and how developing what Dr. Finlayson-Fyfe calls "sexual integration" requires cultivating an internal compass rather than merely following external authorities. For couples caught in these patterns, change becomes possible when both partners can honestly examine their contributions and take responsibility for creating something mutually satisfying.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife is an LDS relationship and sexuality coach with a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. Her teaching and coaching focus on helping LDS individuals and couples create greater connection and passion in their emotional and sexual relationships.
In addition to her private practice, Dr. Finlayson-Fife has created five empowering and highly-reviewed online courses. Each course was designed to give LDS individuals and couples the tools requisite to creating healthier lives and stronger intimate relationships. Dr. Finlayson-Fife also offers many workshops and retreats where she teaches these life-changing principles in person.
Dr. Finlayson-Fife is a frequent guest on LDS-themed podcasts on the subjects of sexuality, relationships, mental health, and faith. She is also the creator and host of Room for Two, a popular sex and intimacy coaching podcast.
Hello, sex Therapy 101. Friends, you notice I might have taken a break, but we're back and we're excited and I'm really passionate about this new series that I'm going to be offering to all of you. I haven't disappeared. I've been working on some projects that are really meaningful to me, and one of those is a book for the public about my research about regarding long-term outcomes of consenting to unwanted sex, or duty sex as we sometimes call it, and in doing that, adding to my own research over the year, you'll see my hair change, my face change, because these were all recorded over the course of a year and I wanted to talk to experts about the cultural implications or cultural beliefs or the cultural ideas among different communities in the US that might protect people against negative outcomes and that might actually kind of promote people into some of the more negative outcomes. And that is the series I have to offer you. I'm really excited. It's been really meaningful to me, it's been enlightening to me, it's really helped me make sure that this book is what I want it to be for all of you.
Speaker 1:So, with no ado, here we go. This is going to be the intro for the whole series. Now I'll give you a little bit of a bio for each and then we'll jump into the recording of the interview. This interview was really fun. It was done with Dr Jennifer Finlayson-Fyfe, who's an LDS relationship and sexuality coach. She has has a PhD in counseling psychology. Her teaching and coaching focus on helping those in the LDS community, both individuals and couples, create a greater sense of connection and passion in their emotional and sexual relationships. I really wanted to talk to Dr Jennifer about this because I appreciate her thoughtful approach. She's brilliant in my mind. She's creating movement in a group that it's hard to create movement in, and I respect her incredibly. So I hope you enjoy the conversation I had about duty sex with Dr Jennifer Finlayson-Fyfe.
Speaker 1:So, first of all thank you. Sure you, yeah, really yeah and um. So I think you watched that 10 minute video that I was just distilling down the findings um, lisa diamond and I are hoping to publish it, but in the the meantime I'm going to write a book proposal, but the sample is so homogeneous that I want, and I don't want, to be having this discussion in my own echo chamber of my own creation?
Speaker 2:Sure, sure, no, definitely. Can you just tell me how did you get your sample? What was the thing that drew people to it?
Speaker 1:I tried to do a couple versions and the random selection, like using MTurk, which is like Amazon research, where there's people who are doing getting paid to do surveys. That didn't fly. So it was all social media, which means it probably was an algorithm of somebody liked this, and so then they showed up. It was an invitation on social media, so I think that's why it stayed really homogeneous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And were you looking specifically for Mormon women or you were just looking? No, it just happened to be a lot of Mormon women.
Speaker 1:It did happen to be a lot of Mormon. The only requirements were, like, I think, english as a first language, because none of the assessments had been validated in any other languages Over 30, because we were looking. Any research we have now is for co-ed women had been in a relationship longer than three years, because we were wanting to get data outside of the limerence phase and long term and they could say I think I've consented to unwanted sex, like yeah, so those were the criteria. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you just happened to get I mean you're in Idaho, I think. Did you post it? Did we post it in the group, Like my?
Speaker 1:group yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not critiquing that, I was just curious. And you were basically saying those were the criteria you have to be over 30.
Speaker 1:Basically saying those were the criteria you have to be over 30. You have to be married more than three years, you have to have consented to unwanted sex. And then you were looking at that. Okay, good, I just want to kind of get a sense of was it like the population I mean like? Was it like women who are? So? I mean, we had people all across the country, but really centralized idaho, oregon, utah, colorado, this, this corridor.
Speaker 1:We've got over here in the inner west that's really influenced by yeah, religion, you know yeah, right exactly okay, I mean so, so that first question is when you watch that video and you've got what were my responses to it, I mean there's so many.
Speaker 2:It's just a bad idea in general to say yes to sex that you don't desire, because it sets off a whole set of patterns that are very bad. And and when I say you don't desire it, what I would say is that you can't choose honestly, that you can't say like I want to be here, because women's desire is more responsive than it is spontaneous. But when women say yes to something that they resent or they feel that they have to, or they have to manage his arousal or they have to, they are the ones that have to take care of his sexual needs. And of course, this all goes to our, to this LDS culture. But, um, that it's very, very bad for long-term outcomes, for sexual happiness for both people, and so so the my and we can talk about this more in the follow-up questions, but it fits a lot of the work that I've done around the culture kind of teaching men that they have sexual needs, teaching women that they are the ones that ought to take care of those sexual needs, that men are the ones that have desire women are desirable needs that men are the ones that have desire, women are desirable, and you know, just kind of teaching women a an orientation of, of duty around sexuality.
Speaker 2:You could argue, you teach men duty around providing and you know that they also have duties in the marriage. But you know, I have lots of women who felt like, okay, he's providing and he's, he's, he's creating the home. And this is my job is to create a home and to be kind of the one to handle his sexual needs. And that just doesn't go well. I mean it. Just it makes women hate sex, hate. Hate it because it's not about desire, it's not about play, it's not about pleasure, it's not about self. I mean, we can get to this, but there were mormon women in my dissertation who didn't do that, who saw themselves as equals, who enjoyed their sexual relationship. So that's, that's a group we can learn from.
Speaker 2:But yeah yeah, no question that, that's just just a bad idea and you weren't too shocked.
Speaker 1:Then you're like oh yeah, I probably could have guessed that that this has this isn't a good idea it's not a good idea.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that the thing that I would take issue with in your framing.
Speaker 2:Thank, you, it is now this is me just going through that twice, that 10 minute video twice, and without looking at all your questions how you made sense of them. But is there's, in my view but this is also the framing in which I think about life and working with clients and so on is the idea that? Well, a couple of ideas. One is the question of coercion.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of reasons that women have unwanted sex and coercion is just one of them. Right, and for me the question is like how much psychological control does the partner have? Because if he has high levels of psychological control over the woman, I would imagine the PTSD element of it would be much higher. That is to say, the PTSD element of it would be much higher. That is to say, they're going to have a much more high anxiety, high aversion, high stress response to the sexual experience because they really do. It's like borderline abusive. They don't feel like I mean there's no physical trauma as you're saying, there's no physical trauma, as you're saying, there's no violence sexually, but because they see him as having psychological control over her sense of worth, over her financially. I think that's a big variable in understanding coercion, because a husband pouting I'm not saying that's pleasant and that it doesn't impact a woman's choices. That's still different than coercion, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And in terms of its impact. So men and women do lots of manipulative things in intimacy of marriage. Right I would be interested in is saying yes to unwanted sex and how much sex you actually have. If you are saying yes and you're having a lot of sex, that's about coercion. If you're not having a lot of sex, it means the low desire woman is winning, that is to say she, she's not without agency. Now I don't mean to say that she likes the sex she's having, or this isn't a hundred percent unpleasant. I mean a hundred percent unpleasant for her.
Speaker 2:That, but that's different than having a traumatic effect in my view, in my view, because there really is the question of how much agency psychologically does she have? Yeah, yeah. And I would even say in my clinical Go ahead, you want to?
Speaker 1:Oh, I was going to give you a little bit of answers for that. So we used we used a post refusal coercion scale. That's putting verbal and emotional coercion on a scale with examples of how what their partner did after they said no so that was one scale we did measure to look yeah, yeah. And then another scale was trying to figure out, um, your idea of why they say yes. So there's a scale. That's uh reasons for the person moving towards versus moving away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And we did find, with how frequently they're having sex, that there were both high levels of these PTSD or psychological, emotional, sexual responses, for those who were frequent and also infrequent. It was interesting to see the scatter plot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have. I mean again, this is without me really looking at the data in a cold way to really understand but the questions that were coming up for me was is that a good PTSD response? If it's just sexual avoidance, that's not, is that meaning that would be a questionable variable for me, because you don't have to have PTSD to not like the sex you're having right and to avoid it right.
Speaker 2:So I mean. So I would care about that. There's also, in my view, in my experience of working with women because we're not idiots and we look for control in our lives right that a lot of women will have it to like get him to get a week of freedom you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So they'll have the sex right, but they do it resentfully they do it while feeling like they don't have a choice, even though they do okay, like that is to say, they're kind of participating in the idea that they don't have choices when they really do and and and I don't mean to say that they're how to say it, I don't know. Let me see if I can explain this better. Um, they're kind of actually participating in the sense of victimhood, through that choice.
Speaker 2:And so then they feel like, like I'm the good one, I do this. Yeah, I'm the, I'm the kind of self righteous martyr. That's what I'm trying to get at.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, they're doing it, but it's, it gives them more psychological control in the marriage. Now I mean, I really work with the spectrum of women. There are women who are genuine. I had a client where she, genuinely her husband, was so like he saw her as the broken one sexually. He would give her such a hard time about not wanting to have it. He would know that she didn't want to have it. He would have it with her anyway the whole time and he's like I need to feel close to her. I'm like, okay, you know she doesn't want it, you know, and you're saying this makes you feel close to her. You're like you're, you're whacked, like this is crazy, right.
Speaker 2:So there's that, and she would always want to make it her problem because in a way, that was less scary for her than standing up to this bully. Okay, so that's one end of this and it's like pretty normal. I mean, they're no longer Mormon, but like how to say it? Like this, this is not an unusual presentation for me, right? The woman who's managing the superior, critical husband who hates sex for good reason because it's just managing a child. But then I worked with women who, like they, married into a sexual partnership. They knew it was a sexual partnership. I don't mean to say that obligates them, they can still say no, but they treat it like they're the righteous one and he's the imposition with his needs, and so they, they have the psychological control and he has all this sexual anxiety. He's also learned in his Mormon culture and she has him by the balls in a sense, through kind of shaming that he has this desire, right? So she's saying yes, but she uses it to accrue her own sense that she's owed in the marriage.
Speaker 2:So do you see what I'm saying Like. I don't see it as somebody who says yes is participating in their own trauma, is being coerced. It's like and I know you're not making it that simple- I just think it's a lot more complex right and what I was seeing in the model and I'm again.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying that without knowing all the details of what's in your no, I appreciate it, because I I feel like I'm in the learner position, kind of of feeling like, oh, I found this thing, what's everybody think? Instead of taking the position of I found this thing and this is what it is. I'm just like okay, are we having this conversation and if there's some long-term outcomes and wanting to know what's everybody think this is from, and you're saying it's more complex, we can't look at it that simply.
Speaker 2:Yes and and you're saying it's more complex we can't look at it that simply yes, and what you're pointing to is real. I mean like that is to say yes. It's true that there are women who I've worked with, lots of these women who have learned that they shouldn't say no, that if they do, their husband is going to. You know, I have lots of women whose mother said to them on their the night before their wedding don't ever say no to them, because oh yeah yeah, there's 100, you know so they're.
Speaker 2:They go immediately into low desire because it turns from I want to be close to you, this is exciting into I have a job to do, and it kills the whole ecology of desire and then it gets more and more miserable and they feel more and more without a self in that dynamic and they absolutely hate it.
Speaker 2:And their husband's unhappy too because he never feels desired. And you know, and sometimes men try to handle that by having more of that bad sex and it just doesn't go well. So it is real and it certainly. You know the hypo. I've never liked the hypoactive desire diagnosis because Me either, I'm not a fan, it's just like you know. Yeah, it's a really nice idea that.
Speaker 2:Look, there probably are women out there who have a more biological, not aversion to sex, right, or just something that's more innate in them.
Speaker 2:Either they're high anxiety or they have a low sexual response. But the thing is it's so contextual, most sexual desire and a lot of women have been taught and are participating in meanings that make sex undesirable for women, and so so much of my work is about helping women actually look at the meanings and what would be sex worth wanting and how could they create something more desirable in their lives where they get to be a self, that the sexual relationship doesn't reflect just their husband's sexual interests but theirs as well. And so, anyhow, I think that I often am saying to women. Low sexual desire is often very good judgment. It's like you know this is about not desirable is often very good judgment. It's like you know this is about it's not desirable. Wanting like let's look at what's happening, um, because this belongs to you also, so, um, so I would just be careful with the causal element. You know, like calling it a syndrome, sometimes I feel like the wrong people take those diagnoses and run with them.
Speaker 2:And the ones who they actually fit are less likely to take them. You know what I'm saying. Like that is you know, like, oh yeah, I'm married to a narcissist and in fact they're the narcissist you know.
Speaker 2:So I mean it's just it's we like those ideas that kind of make us feel like victims often and powerless. And I'm about helping women and men. But you know, women in particular claim, get a hold of the meanings, to claim what actually will forge the life they want. Because those are the women who do well in sex, those are the women who do well in life. Right, and going to that other question of like, so the women, what was the second question? I'm like what does it? I want to make sure I've hit all the ideas there.
Speaker 1:You're okay. The second question is about aspects of LDS community that might keep this going, that might promote this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to the degree I mean it's improving in the LDS community, but just the whole idea of like promising in the temple. It's changed. But you're going to you defer to your husband as he defers to God. It's just setting up a hierarchy, a dependence. You're supposed to not have a career. I mean, this is so many of my clientele. You are supposed to basically hitch your cart to his horse, and so it makes it. And so when we turn women into caretakers of men's sexuality, you are absolutely working, in the meaning that is, 100% against sexual desire for women. Women want the opposite. If anything, they want to be taken care of. Women who like sex.
Speaker 2:They are surrendering into pleasure. They are not. The nurturing muscle that's saved for children is not operating in a sexual relationship at all in good sex for women. So, um, so we, we educate men and women exactly into the meaning frame that kills desire forever more.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. That's kind of one of my questions is that we're playing with. Is this a U S thing? Is this a religious thing? Is this a gendered thing? And I hear you saying this is a dynamic thing of hierarchy, yes, which removes choice and leaves the woman feeling choiceless, even though that's almost a fantasy.
Speaker 2:I mean the more and more that we have laws that allow women to own property, to vote, to drive. Okay, like you know, women have had more and more structural equality, which is a big deal, because when you didn't have it, when you couldn't divorce him, I mean it doesn't even matter how autonomous you were in your head, you were economically dependent. Now we have created a reality in which we're becoming more and more structurally equal. We can provide for ourselves, we don't have to be married. But there is a psychological lag, and I think it's true inside the church and outside, and probably more pronounced in Christian religions and fundamentalist religions, because they often teach a narrow view of femininity and masculinity, which is about men as head of the house, women as support, and very narrow views of that are much more utilitarian in their focus and not about equality and collaboration and mutuality and so on. So I do see it outside. I mean like even even in my view, the sexual revolution and so on, it's still not gone great for women. Okay, like women are still trying to get.
Speaker 2:One of the challenges is biological. I think women are much more attuned to the desires and feelings of other people than men are as a group in the reverse. That's probably good for keeping babies alive. Women are good at mapping what other people want and feel, but then adolescent girls are trying to prove themselves through being sexual and often having unwanted sexual encounters in high school that look like freedom but are not about their desire. They're not referencing their desires, their desires. They're trying to prove that they're sexually free and liberated and cool and not taking their own desires seriously, which is a problem, you know, and so I don't know yet. I think we're doing better as a culture as a whole, but I think women taking their own desires seriously is is a challenge, and one that's really essential to good sex.
Speaker 1:Anything else on thoughts about how modernism specifically may hurt that?
Speaker 2:Let me think you know just all the object lessons. I mean I think these things are happening much less now but these sort of the desirability elements and that you'll lose your desirability through being sexual. In my own dissertation research there were women who were masking how much desire and arousal they had from their husband because they were afraid that that would make them seem less virtuous, less spiritual. Yeah, I mean, I think the pornography challenge too is that there's just women who feel like they're in this duality of like. I don't want to have sex with you because you are engaging sexual energy elsewhere and I resent that and I resent your dishonesty or whatever, but then I feel like I should because you have these sexual needs and if I don't take care of them then you will. I think you had a quote in a similar vein to that.
Speaker 2:So I think that those are all elements that I see as problematic. I think to go to the next question, like who are the women that we can learn from? I think the women who were the minority in my dissertation research, but they were still. They were actually fine with the idea of different family roles, like they didn't really. They were fine with thinking of their husband as the head of the home in a sense, but when it came down to how they actually made decisions, they were collaborative. They made decisions together. They worked together. There was no inequality. There was no doing what your husband thought.
Speaker 2:They also had economic capacity, whether or not they were working full-time, they could be if they wanted to be. So they were not dependent economically. They had choices. So they were choosing the marriage and they took their desires seriously before they got married and while they're in marriage, both sexually and just on every front. So they were their own force to be reckoned with in the best sense. They were a self and they chose a partner, not because they needed a man, and these women often were virginal before marriage.
Speaker 2:They were conservative in their decisions, but it wasn't to earn a future man's approval. They were like no, because I care about sex being in a commitment context. For me it was like in line with their own desires and so they actually saw the culture as supporting ultimately what they wanted. So again, it wasn't in like trying to defer so that they're good enough and that people say that they're good. It was more like this fits with what I want. And so they were pretty conservative at times and disappointed the men. They were dating and things, but they were like unapologetic and that's really the way I would describe these women is. They didn't apologize for their sexuality, for their desires in general and their specific desire and their sexual desires specifically. They really had men that respect they married men that respected them and cared about their desires, and so they saw and they also saw. They saw men and women as just fundamentally equal. They saw the body and sexuality as good, like they had no issue with that. They saw the doctrine of the body as validating of sex.
Speaker 2:They saw the law of chastity not as a way to earn your value, but more like a way of elevating the meaning of sex in a way that they thought was good for them, like they were, like I feel some of the women would say, like I feel sorry for women that are sort of in this post they didn't use this language but like the post-sexual revolution culture where men don't owe you anything and like women are out there just like they're, like I don't want that, I want a man that's committed. So they saw the culture as sort of supporting their interests. They they separated sexism from sexual conservatism and a lot of times we push those two together, like you know to be, for women to be free they should be as free to have uncommitted sex, as men are.
Speaker 2:You know that kind of idea, that's sort of a right cultural idea, and I think that they rejected that idea. They were, like you know, women and I think the research shows us as women as a whole prefer more commitment because it's more biologically risky to be sexual and so, psychologically speaking, women tend to prefer a committed partner, that's, that's even sexual fantasies are often around a man who actually values the woman as a whole person and so so, anyway, so they were. They were clear that what they wanted in the sexual realm counted and they could ask men to meet it.
Speaker 1:I think in the research. Right, we've got to look at both, not just this 53% that had negative outcomes, but then that 47 that was like there weren't negative outcomes. And I hear you saying like the solution or the difference is that degree of internal authority or internal legitimacy, exactly the degree between your decision and your because I was going through it and I was talking to my husband.
Speaker 2:I'm like I bet you've had unwanted sex sometimes.
Speaker 1:Just like I have.
Speaker 2:That is you know it's like I'm not really that, but yeah, okay, I'll rally like, okay, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:But if you can back up your choice, cause I think a lot of times people make choices but then they resent their partner for their choice, right, and that's different Like somebody who's going to make it so miserable, okay, your sense of choices is dissipating, okay, but like if a lot of times we were like, oh yeah, somebody asked us to do something, we say yes and then we resent them Even though we said yes.
Speaker 2:I mean, like out of the sexual realm people can do this kind of thing. So, yeah, like I think, if somebody makes a choice and they can back up their choices, like, yeah, I can do that. You know, I don't think it's going to have a negative because you feel, ultimately, it wasn't my idea. If it was up to me entirely, I'd say no, but like, since I love my partner we're a partnership Sometimes we do things that aren't our first idea for each other, but I can back it up, I can choose it, I can say yes to it sincerely. Other, but I can back it up, I can choose it, I can say yes to it sincerely. I think that's not going to have negative impacts.
Speaker 1:That's a protective factor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What would you do with your lens? You've got this couple on your couch and you see this dynamic. I mean this kind of explains your whole shtick. Yeah, what you know, you, you, you. You've done a fantastic job of making it clear in your career and your work of the theoretical orientation. You have right, some. You're really clear on your lens and in all of your work you're very clear. So got this couple on your couch. You've might have done this, had these, this couple, on your couch every day for the last 20 years, I don't know, but you've got. You've got this couple on your couch with your lens. How are you going to work with this couple who's experiencing this dynamic?
Speaker 2:Well, we're like the specific one where she's saying yes because she feels so coerced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she's got high anxiety, high avoidance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she's got high anxiety, high avoidance, a product of purity culture, and he's, he's ready to kind of diagnose her as being fundamentally flawed and have you liked my office Like is there a?
Speaker 2:yeah, exactly yeah. And so he's basically like saying you need to solve your issues so that we're okay. And the problem, of course, is not only is he doing this in the sexual realm, he's doing this in every realm, which is I know how things are, and he patronizes his wife, and usually then this woman if this has been a marriage that's lasted a few years is on some level complicit. I don't mean to say that she's like evil or something, but she's like complicit in a dynamic where she's trying to make him be okay with her and so he can readily put pressure on her and she will tend to yield to keep him happy with her, to prove she's trying to prove, she's enough to prove whatever. And so my first goal in that would be to dismantle his illusion about his wife and himself like who's actually got the problem, because she's so ready to attach to the idea that she's got a problem, rather than her dislike of sex makes perfect sense with this guy, and so I'm challenging that.
Speaker 2:You know he is asking for a kind of sexual experience that would make any smart woman recoil, and I you know I try to say it as nicely as I can, but I'm trying to show him how undesirable the sex on offer is, because this is about trying to earn a self, prove a self, manage him like another child in her life, and that that is completely the opposite of anything close to desire. Now, the other thing is that a lot of men in this sort of archetype here don't. Now, the other thing is that a lot of men in this archetype here don't actually want a wife that is full of desire and has her own ideas and thoughts and passions, and they're scary those women for a weak man like this.
Speaker 2:They want the woman to slide underneath them.
Speaker 2:They want that kind of control. I want your sexuality to thrive under my control, and that doesn't work. And so it's just helping both of them see what's actually happening and why it makes sense that she doesn't like it. Because I'll say very clearly like women well, this is true for men too but like, sexual desire thrives in freedom, in the sense of freedom. And if you don't feel like you are free whether that's real or imagined, that is, whether or not you have a coercive person or you just can't tolerate being a disappointment, like some people need so much to be needed that, even though they're married to a nice guy, like they make themselves say yes because they're so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Disappointing yeah Right that they're saying yes, the fear of disappointment is so high.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah exactly, are not good for them and not good for their partner, and so um so anyway, so this idea of freedom and that this is not a marriage in which freedom is yet happening, um and you know, then I would be about her working.
Speaker 2:I'd be helping her to look at her need and and fear of not pleasing her, kind of revolving her sense of self around his approval, which is a, is a tough go because he operates in disapproval like as a way to get control, so it's approval is not something that's on offer really. And so helping her to see um the situation better and to you know, if, if this is a marriage she really wants and she wants sex that she would also enjoy, then it's about him stepping down from his superiority, looking at his own anxieties about sex, which are often a lot of anxieties also in my clientele.
Speaker 2:But when they can frame it on the lower desire partner, they don't have to look at their own anxieties right, they've already decided.
Speaker 1:The problem isn't here. Yeah, it's not me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you exactly, and if you want me sexually, then I don't have to worry about whether or not my sexuality is legit or not, and so it's just an easy target. Um, and being high desire doesn't mean you don't have sexual anxieties, just it just means you're higher, it just means you have a lot of testosterone. So it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how accepting you are of yourself or your sexuality, so anyway.
Speaker 1:but then it's about You're right, that is always framed that way that the higher desire partner has less hangups. But that's absolutely not true. 100% not true in my experience Tons of hangups tons of anxieties and insecurities and still desire.
Speaker 2:Because I think of, of sexual integration, which is like a, a variable that I'm writing about, which is is this ability to really be at peace with yourself as a sexual being, so your capacity to be sexually intimate, literally like show up, share your sexuality, care about your impact on a partner, care about them. You know that's about sexual maturity. High desire is just. I want to have an orgasm.
Speaker 2:And that's not necessarily anything to do with maturation and ability to love anybody, or comfort, even with sexuality, because a lot of people can't be intimate with it. They have to have their sexual experience be in non-intimate situations. So I would you know. And then like figuring out, like how she can show up more in the marriage and her ability to say no, like she can't say yes if she can't say no, she can't disappoint, she can't hold her own.
Speaker 1:If she can't get a hold of what she actually wants, then this is not a marriage that's going to be capable of collaboration and intimacy. That's a much different take right than someone. A woman made a quote that their therapist had told them. You know, sex is like the dishes it's just got to get done. Yeah, that's a terrible terrible idea. Yeah, not where you're going to start or go with this.
Speaker 2:No, oh gosh, never. Yeah, that's a terrible, terrible idea. Yeah, not where you're going to start or go with this. Oh gosh, never, never, never. And you know, yeah, I mean there's a lot to say about all that, but no, I would as soon as you put it into duty, you've killed it. Ever being about passion, and most people show up talking about frequency with me, but what they're really trying to get at is passion. They're to get at. I want to feel desired again that's helpful.
Speaker 1:So that's you know what you do if this couple landed on your couch. The next question is what would you do? It might be culturally for the you know, uh uh, the lds folks. It may just be outside of that dynamic even. But if, if you were in charge of making a prevention plan, what do you see needs to?
Speaker 2:happen this is in the book I'm working on really is is, first of all, with kids. If you're talking to kids, you want to talk about sexual integration, not sexual repression, nor sexual indulgence either. I I think both are bad. It's like either anorexia or compulsive eating Neither one. Are you actually at peace with yourself?
Speaker 2:What integration is is being able to accept your sexual nature as a human being. And then how do I make choices that accrue to my wellbeing and the wellbeing of my relationships? How do I use my sexuality to create goodness in my life and in my, you know, most important relationships, so on? So it's, it's more of a. I have this capacity. That's legitimate, but it needs a kind of cultivation to be something capable of really bringing happiness into my life.
Speaker 2:And so it's so much in religious culture is fear of like. It's kind of almost like Satan is in our sexuality and that sensual pleasure is not legit for the religious person, and that just sets us up into a constant tug of war internally. And a lot of men think the tug of war is going to be solved when they get married and then their partner is not interested because she also has anxieties about the sexual part of her, and then he starts talking about his needs, and then she's trying to fulfill his needs, but nobody's needs are getting met, nobody's happy, and so it's like breaking the whole framing of needs and instead about how do we learn to create something mutual through our sexuality, how do we learn to love and care about each other and to share our erotic nature with one another in a way that creates beauty and happiness for two people? So like what? That's?
Speaker 1:a collaborative process, and you have to be two people that take yourself seriously to cultivate something mutual I'm hearing you say let me see if I'm getting this you're hearing and I hadn't necessarily thought of it in this term that mutuality hinges on both people knowing who they are clearly. Yeah, and in religious households we're really skipping. We're not encouraging people to know themselves sexually. We're really bypassing that first step that you're saying. Mutuality hangs on both people's ability to see themselves clearly and know who they are and what they want. That's right.
Speaker 2:And what I would also say and I'm writing about this a lot is that to the degree that, depending on the household because in religious households there's quite a wide variation in this but to the degree that you are taught to reference outside of yourself versus internally. So how much is it about do what authority figures say versus okay, here are the rules. And how do you feel about this? What is your response to this? So you're learning an internal compass to be able to know yourself sexually, but also emotionally and otherwise you have to cultivate a strong internal compass.
Speaker 2:That's really the only way you're capable of intimacy, because I think up until that point it's more in terms of duty and roles and maybe cooperation even like I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine but not really collaborative or intimate. And so you have to learn to know who you are, and just a lot of people don't. They are so used to deferring to what others say they should do or should believe or should think that they haven't really cultivated an internal reference point. That's really quite necessary to have the best kind of intimate relationship.
Speaker 1:Quite necessary to have the best kind of intimate relationship. Why, and you said, why do you not see this as a desire disorder? They're on your couch. She's avoidant, anxious, developing some aversion. Why is this not a desire disorder as outlined in like?
Speaker 2:the clinical DSM, because I would just say it's not a disorder, it's a completely congruent response, it's orderly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that was a really, really acute way of saying that. Yeah, because it's not a disorder. This is rational, this makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's sensical because, again, desire and freedom go together. That's why a woman can be low desire, low desire, low desire in a marriage where she feels pressured and she's got it. And then she meets some handsome guy at the gym and all of a sudden she has a ton of desire. Because it's connected to freedom. And I would argue monogamy is arguably tough on the sense of freedom, but the more you have forged a self, the more you have freedom, even within a choice of monogamy. So that is because you can belong to yourself and your thoughts and your desires, and you can be honest and authentic when we need people's approval too much or we need them to do what makes us feel good too much, then we start feeling trapped by the marriage, and so freedom is.
Speaker 2:Lots of women don't feel that in their lives. You know, men have their own versions of this, even like, you know, p, e and E, d and so on.
Speaker 2:It's like about anxiety and about the invalidation they are confronting. In sex, Like for men, it's. It's brutal to feel like I am an intrusion, she does not want me here. I have no other legitimate outlet Like, so they also have their own. I really don't want to frame it as just like women are being acted upon because men have their own deep anxieties about this and it's painful and difficult and I don't want to be an intrusion on her, but I also feel so alone and unwanted and it's all very confusing. How do I actually create something better?
Speaker 2:And so a lot of people are undereducated, I mean, I think. And so again, just going back to the previous question, the more that we can create like what is it we're actually aiming for and what is it and not, you know, shaming and a lot of fear, but more desire-based like what am I actually striving to create in my embodiment as a sexual being? That's going to have much better outcomes for us than fear-based.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're kind of aligned. Well, we're fairly aligned on that, because in the back of my head I was thinking a similar thing of this might be things going right, not things going wrong. This is her internal wisdom, saying not like this, I don't want it like this. You know, yeah, and and that that anxiety and that, uh, avoid. You know, the avoidance is probably a coping mechanism for the anxiety, but the anxiety being, yeah, not something going wrong, but something going right, being like right, wake up.
Speaker 1:This is not working yeah, you don't want it like this yeah, the body's signaling.
Speaker 2:This is not working for me and you know, I think, where some women get stuck or low desire people get stuck, is kind of like what would work for me, like what would I want I don't mean to say anybody has to want sex or has to create a sexual relationship again everybody gets to choose what they want to do in their life and create in their life, but too often it's just like avoid, avoid, rather than what is it that I would actually find like to be a good part of my life or what I would like more of?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. That brings us to the last one, and I'm just interested you've you've given a lot of thoughts. Are there additional ones where you You've given a lot of thoughts? Are there additional ones that are just op-ed, commentary, complimentary or not? As we're looking through this and we're sitting, what is this thing that is showing up in relationships?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think the thing that stands out as important in the work you're doing is just how important it is to not say yes to sex you don't want. My only caution would be not to you but to anybody who takes that idea is that I've said that a lot. And then I have women who are like, well, I don't want it, so you know, I'm just not going to say yes to it. And again, fair, they really do get to decide, but not like how to say it. But on the other hand, I am in a partnership and so, yeah, I shouldn't say yes to something that is not pleasurable and I don't want because it's not, but like, how am I going to handle the fact that I'm married to a man that wants a sexual relationship with me? And so what is? What is my response to that? If I am making the response of I don't want a sexual relationship full stop, then I should be honest about it and claim it and then let him figure out what he's going to do with that. But if I don't, because I I find a lot of women I keep saying women but just like lower desire people, you know where they they can be low desire because their higher desire partner is always revolving around them and so they know that they're secure where.
Speaker 2:When the higher desire person says, you know what I'm going to take no for an answer, I'm going to stop trying to make this something you don't want it to be, then they get very activated, like wait a minute, wait a minute. Like I don't want you to give up, but you know they're not actually taking responsibility for the fact that I want this to be sexually exclusive, I want this to be. That's fine and good that you don't want the sex you've been having. But then there's this space like, okay, what is the sex I would want? What is it that I want to say yes to?
Speaker 2:So it's not just in this reaction to outside forces. That's the only way you're going to create something peaceful. So I yeah. So I think it's important because it has such negative impact but also helping women to, or low desire people to get to what is what would yes look like? Or thinking about, what is it that's happening that makes me not want this, and what impact will saying yes have on it and what impact will saying no have on it and what can I really stand behind? And so helping people take deeper responsibility for their choices is always the way out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right. I mean, I've seen that too, Someone taking the one up position of I don't ever want sex, with the attitude of and you should be cool with that, instead of realizing like I don't think I ever want to have sex again. That might not be cool with you. What would we do?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, right right. Or knowing that he gets to make choices too he gets to make choices too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and I appreciate the caution of, uh, not taking too simplistic of a view to see it as a complex dynamic, and I almost heard you saying in each of the questions when it gets too simplistic, people can use that to manipulate it, yeah. When we go too simplistic, we just manipulate each other and take the I'm right position. But when we're looking at it as a complex dynamic, there's shared responsibility.
Speaker 2:Right, and who am I in this and who am I in my life? And yeah, I always find that's the thing that helps people get healthier is just taking a hundred percent responsibility for themselves and their choices, and no responsibility for other people's choices. What I mean is I have to figure out if I'm going to be in a sexual relationship and if I am, how and in what form, and my spouse gets to make their own choices about that, right, so it's um it. It's just when we're less mature in our development, we get very, we co-construct our powerlessness in a way that keeps relationships stuck.
Speaker 1:I've got an additional question. I know we're right up against the clock and I didn't prepare you, but how often do you see people do this to take the responsibility to turn it around and to create a mutually satisfying sexual experience? I believe it's possible and I'm wondering I mean, it's so subjective, It's- very possible.
Speaker 2:It's very possible. I mean, it depends a lot. I see it happen quite a bit actually, but I think it depends on a few things. One is how unhealthy is the couple? So some people are just kind of trapped in a meaning and then they don't even work with me. They listen to podcasts, they take the courses and they're like they can see what they've been doing and they can start not doing it anymore, and so it just starts getting better and they start respecting each other more and desiring each other more and they just are given a new way of understanding what's happening and a new form of partnership is emerges and a new form of partnership emerges.
Speaker 2:I think there's people that are much more trapped in. You know, like talking about the kind of archetypal couple where he's very coercive and demanding and she's compliant. You know they both came from. I have a couple in mind. They both came from homes where the father was, you know, on his side, was demanding and the mother just did whatever. And she came from a home where her mother did whatever her father did, even though they were very toxic relationships. So they're very accustomed to this way of being and so it's a much harder lift.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying people can't make progress, but it requires if it's going to really change. It requires both people that are willing to look honestly at themselves and deal with themselves and really change what they're doing to create something better, freer, happier. And you don't have to go from zero to a hundred for the marriage, even when people are like in a really tough spot and they just start doing better. And they start, you know, like you don't come in with the criticism and you watch yourself and you like settle down, and she doesn't just run into, like comply, but she kind of settles down. You know things can get better. Um, even if they're not as good as maybe they might want, they still are operating in a marriage that feels freer, um, so, but for me, my experience with people is seeing themselves honestly is their best chance. Now people can take what.
Speaker 2:I say and be like, no, I'm not going to deal with that and I'm going to disagree with her and whatever. But when people will see it and say, okay, I see how I'm part of the problem and they deal with their half, they get clearer inside and they increase the chance that something better in the marriage will happen.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of people who are able or willing to do that part.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. I appreciate your intelligence and your experience and your lens and your time and the mountains you're moving in your own world and your own circle of influence has been really I'm not trying to blow smoke, I really hope you see the good you do for people, even if it is just a podcast or a course. I've seen the LDS world almost shifting on its access a degree or two from your influence and I think we're all grateful for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you I really appreciate it. Well, have a good day. Well, thank you, tammy, you too, and and good luck with everything you're doing. And so, yeah, thank you All right, take care Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thank you.