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
Cultural Perspective on Consenting to Unwanted Sex with Bat Sheva Marcus
Bat Sheva Marcus is a sex therapist in private practice. She was founder and served as clinical director of one of the largest sexual health centers in the US for 25 years. She is also the author of Satisfaction Guaranteed: How to Have the Sex You've Always Wanted.
Dr. Marcus immediately challenges our conventional understanding of sexual desire, suggesting that what we often label as "coercive sex" or "low desire" might actually stem from unrealistic expectations and misguided narratives. With refreshing directness, she proposes reframing how we think about sex entirely—comparing it to an exercise program rather than something driven by "magic pixie dust." Just as we don't always feel like going to the gym but usually feel better afterward, she argues that waiting for spontaneous desire might be sabotaging many relationships.
The discussion delves into fascinating territory when exploring Orthodox Jewish communities, where theoretical support for sexual pleasure clashes with practical pressures and expectations. Dr. Marcus shares eye-opening stories from her clinical practice, including a poignant example of a woman who believed sex needed to be a profound spiritual connection every time—"If every time you have sex, it had to be a Shabbat dinner, sometimes you just want a sandwich," Marcus quips, illustrating how our expectations can become burdens.
Perhaps most valuable are the three harmful narratives Dr. Marcus identifies that undermine healthy sexuality: expecting sex to be driven by spontaneous desire rather than conscious choice; believing you must be "relaxed and present" to enjoy sex (unrealistic for most busy adults); and expecting your partner to be what turns you on, rather than taking responsibility for your own arousal. By dismantling these misconceptions, she offers a path toward more satisfying sexual relationships based on choice, communication, and realistic expectations.
Whether you're struggling with desire discrepancies in your relationship or simply curious about the complex dynamics of consent, this episode provides thought-provoking perspectives that might transform how you think about sex. Share your thoughts with us—what narratives about sex have you found helpful or harmful in your own life?
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 this 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. So with no adieu, here we go. This is going to be the intro for the whole series. I'll give you a little bit of a bio for each, and then we'll jump into the recording of the interview. Batshiva Marcus is a sex therapist in private practice. She was the founder and served as the clinical director of one of the largest sexual health centers in the U.S. for 25 years. She's amazing. She's been on my radar for several years. She's the author of Satisfaction Guaranteed: How to Have the Sex You've Always Wanted. And I think you're really going to enjoy her perspective. I know that I did.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, Cami.
SPEAKER_01:How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing good. I really appreciate being able to meet with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00:I'm happy to do this. I feel like I may draw a monkey wrench into some of your narratives, but I'm happy.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's what this is about. Why don't you give me your little elevator pitch? I think it'll be easier for me that, yeah. Okay. So what we did is we re uh did a survey with uh 1300 respondents was amazing. Um, and we were looking at are there any long-term outcomes for women who do consent to sex that they don't necessarily want.
SPEAKER_00:They participated, and so and so they were doing everything retroactively, right? Like what they remembered participating in was they don't want to, but now they feel correct.
SPEAKER_01:And so then we had one qualitative portion and one quantitative portion. And we quoted the comments and we scored the assessments and were like, I think it's amazing research.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's amazing research. I do think it's amazing research.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm so glad you'll help me figure out what some of it means from your perspective.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, I don't know. You know, it's your, you know, everybody has their own groups they work with, and that's definitely true.
SPEAKER_01:So, first question was just using your own clinical lens and your expertise of relationships and sexuality, how do you interpret these findings? What what how would what would you explain as happening from your background?
SPEAKER_00:So I think there's two responses. And I I I did the one thing I did not look over is your questions. So they may be a little, I may be a little tad kind of out of your the way you want things, but that's fine. So I think there's two different issues. That's why I initially jumped in and said, Did you have a control group? Right. Because I think that in general, our expectations about women, um women's uh interests in sex, it may be not um correlated with reality, and that in general, women in long-term relationships or even not in long-term relationships may some of these words are very strong, anxiety, avoidance, aversion. I would soften those, but less interested, um having a harder time accessing, right? Um putting less value on sex that that may happen as hormones draw. Sure. And so that has a lot to do with our narrative about how we then define them and how women then create those narratives in their head.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so you're saying one piece that isn't being examined here is that lifespan piece and the biological components that create this for most women as we age. And the group I kind of snagged was that age group, and we can't look away from that possibility too. Correct.
SPEAKER_00:And the secondary layer on that is how we create narratives around that, right? If my interest in sex is less than it was when I was 22, right? Is that because I'm avoidant? You know, am I anxious because I feel like it should be like when I was 22? Am I anxious because it's harder to get turned on than it was when I was 22? Right. It's not necessarily a reaction to the relationship or the situation we're in, which I think everybody jumps to. Do you know what I mean? That is where I get like when couples come in and they say, our sex life sucks. And like, what is going on with our relationship that our sex life sucks? Yeah, I'm like, that is a big leap. Do you know what I mean? And that leap gets worsened when they walk into a couples therapist who says somewhere on their website, Oh, I do sex, right? And they are like, you know, I think we're kind of getting along sort of okay, but like we haven't had sex in a year. And, you know, I'm and I'm I bunch of them thinking, well, yeah, most relationships would not do well if you haven't had sex in a year. And the couple therapist is saying, Well, I'll tell you what, let's get all the communication in order, let's get the relationship going well, and then your sex is gonna follow.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm like, Yeah, that doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so are you okay with that language? Because I'm like, Oh, yeah, you're great. Not only does it not happen, but you can get the relationship to a pretty damn good place, and that that therapist is never even gonna address their sex life because the therapist is uncomfortable with it, whether they realize it or not, or because they're not good at it or they don't know what they're doing. And sometimes if you get the sex life in order, the rest of the relationship falls in place. Like there's so much more multifactorial than I think people give it credit for. Absolutely. Well, that's narrative one. Yeah, narrative two has to do with our expectation that our interest in sex will be visceral rather than cognitive, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yes. People have people have called this, you know, spontaneous versus, you know, whatever. Like that is the buzzword of, you know, spontaneous, responsive. But people don't understand what that means. Do you know what I'm saying? Like people do not understand what that means. So I think again, when a woman says it was coercive sex, it's only coercive if you're in starting, starting gambit is I should have wanted this to start with, right? I should right. Right, right. Women go into the spiral, and I think our whole society has gone into the spiral now where it's like coercive and then it feels like pressure. And then how am I going to get myself in the mood next time? And I don't really want to do it if I'm doing it, what I don't really like. My choice wouldn't, my choice might not be to have sex right now, but I need to have sex because he wants to have sex. Well, that feels pretty coercive. But if you like reframe it and you say, Well, he would like to have sex now in your relationship. Can you get yourself in the mood where you are willing to have sex now? Well, then does that feel coercive or that means like a decision that I made that I'm going to want to have sex?
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:The the the and now I'm just going. Can I keep talking or absolutely this is great? This is great. Yeah, absolutely. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:The black and white of consent and the black and white of coercion is absolutely a problem. We've got to put this on a spectrum.
SPEAKER_00:I was thinking, I think a lot about it because I always say to people, stop. This is my first piece of advice. Stop thinking about wanting sex is like Magic Pixie does this coming on and think of your sex life as like an exercise or a movement program, right? I know it so it sounds so unsexy for a sex therapist to say that, but the reality is that most of us feel like exercise makes us feel good. It makes us feel like the rest of our life works better. It makes us feel healthier. Um, we're often glad we did it. If we found a way to do it that we like, we feel great even while we're doing it. But that does not mean we want to get off the couch and move every time, right? No matter how much you love, right? So I guess it pushes my buttons a little bit when people say coercive sex, because I feel like, and sometimes it is. I believe me, I get that there's a whole other piece of this, but uh, that's not what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01:I'm talking about long-term being about like look at like a collaboration, negotiation, this how do two people work through together.
SPEAKER_00:Let's say you joined a basketball, you love to play basketball, you feel great when you're playing basketball, and you joined a basketball team. And then like you don't feel like going to practice. Like, or I don't feel like going to that game that day. Like, we wouldn't say like that was okay. It's your choice to say, I don't want to play basketball anymore and I don't want to be on the team. That is a hundred percent your choice. If you say, like, really, I don't enjoy sex, I don't like it, and I don't want to be in a relationship where it's expected of me. I'm like, you go, girl. You do not need to do that. But as long as you are committed to a relationship where you have that, it seems like an expected expected part. Then the question is, yeah, you don't want to get off the sofa. Like, how do you make it more fun? How do you say to yourself, okay, well, I'm gonna be happy because I love it when I'm at the games. I really love playing the games. I just don't feel like going to the practices. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, you know, and and it's legitimate for your teammates to expect you to show up. Do you know what I mean? Like, so, and that might say, you know what? Like, I always feel more like going to the practices if I do a run beforehand, or I feel more like going to the practices if somebody gives me a foot massage beforehand. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, but I feel like that's where the narrative gets completely screwed up. It's like there's something about sex where we feel like it should be this magical space in our life where we always kind of want to do it, or we should only do it when we feel like it. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it's it's like it's this bizarre. I feel like there's a few areas where we have as a society just completely like missed the point. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, you shouldn't have sex if you don't want to have sex. I'm the first one to say that. If you, if you're like, my knee hurts today and I am not going to practice, do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's great. Or you know what? I'm really wiped out, guys, and I need I need two weeks off because I just I'm wiped. Like, that's fine, but not like, well, if I don't feel like getting to practice, do you know what I'm saying? Like, right, yes. Okay, so now I'm guessing we saw that in our research. Why am I saying that?
SPEAKER_01:Like, I no, no, no, I'm not horrified because we saw that in our research where there was like 40% of women, and they were like, Well, I didn't want to at first, but once we got going, I had a good time. And even if it was bad sex, it was fine, it didn't bother me. And then there was this other portion with that scored on like severe trauma on the PCLS, um, of saying, Well, I cried during and after, and I was like, uh, you know, like the in its different, like we're seeing some different patterns within the research. And you're saying, okay, we gotta really not treat this as one group here.
SPEAKER_00:Even the ones that are crying. So here's the interesting one. Even the ones that are crying, what I want to sort of start parsing out with them was what made them cry. Because I have some people who like, I hate my partner, I don't want to be doing this. He's totally insensitive to me. Okay. Then there's one group where he's trying and I get no pleasure, and it makes me feel like a like I'm I am a failure every time I have sex. That is a huge, huge piece here. And then the question becomes how do we work with you so that you feel good about your sex life? I'm happy about it. That's okay. Then there's the ones who are like, I'm crying because I'm it's not supposed to be this way. I'm supposed to want to act, like it's because their narrative is all broken, also.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I think that 40% could probably be I'm I could guess, but at least cut in half if they had some actual, practical, good, useful, supportive advice. Do you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01:Like these long-term expectations about how sex usually looks with the that some of the pain is the narrative and their belief.
SPEAKER_00:And and pain, and when you use the word pain, can I just tell you the number of women I see who are like you know, when I'll say, Well, you know, they come in because they have a low desire, and I'll be like, and what about the pain? You know, is there any pain? And they're like, Well, you know, a little bit, but it's tolerable. And I'm like, do nothing like it's like expectations. So what would be fascinating to me is for you to take that 40% if you're ever up for it, and then start striding that one even down further, because it would be so interesting about how many of those things also have to do with our screwed up narrative, our not understanding of things, our unrealistic expectations, and how much of them really are really coerced. Because that really is. It's a terrible feel. Like when I have a client who's like husband expects to have sex every day and like is completely not sensitive to her needs, like that's horrible. And yes, that's traumatic. And yes, that's I can't imagine them having significantly long impact. Yeah.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:No, I appreciate I just dumped a lot at you. No, I'm glad. I want to hear it. These are and even those women who are like in the other 60% of what have would however broke down, were like, it was fine when I got started. The narrative that your husband or your partner in the bed should be what turns you on, as opposed to you having responsibility yourself for getting yourself turned on before you even come into that. Unhelpful. So unhelpful.
SPEAKER_01:No, I appreciate this part where there's this the narratives, the beliefs, our expectations, our lack of education. A lot of that is at play here. And also you recognizing some of the words we use get in our way too. That the language needs to adapt here or change because we can be having a conversation and think we're talking about one thing and have, you know, what is coercion? What is consent? Yeah. What is trauma? What is uh, yes, how yes, that's even up for debate. Yes, absolutely. Um, I appreciate this. I love your thoughts. Um what about aspects of community culture? Since the group was homogeneous, and if you are an expert in, you know, with your community in um the Jewish community, what do you have thoughts there for us?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, that's really, really interesting. Um so I do see a variety variety of clients, but it definitely it definitely gear, you know, leans towards being monogamous, monogamous. Um gears towards being um heteronormative, not monogamous, um and and I have people out of that group, but um long-term, early marriages, um, heterosexual kind of goes kind of without saying. Um I mean, I have some gay couples, but mostly not, and I usually refer them out because I feel like there's people who are that are with that population. Um and the coercion piece is quite interesting because there are, especially as you move into the more religious factors of the Jewish community, there are there are a lot of expectations. Um, some of them good, some of them less good. So um I think in the Jewish community and the let's call it the observant or orthodox Jewish community, and you do get it's a huge span, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's a huge umbrella.
SPEAKER_00:It's like to me, like in the modern Orthodox community, and then there's like more observant, more religious, and then there's the Hasidic community, and they're all slightly different. But in a theoretical world, sexual pleasure is considered a positive thing, as opposed to in the Catholic world, where I think it's a little bit more questionable. Now, I sometimes get irritated when people say this because it's kind of simplistic. Because even though theoretically, when you look at sources, and there's hundreds of thousands of Jewish sources on this, most of them, not all of them, most of them are sort of pro-sexual pleasure. Yeah, that's that's de jure. But de facto, the girls go sure. The girls and the boys go to yeshiva's where like they're told that their bodies are, you know, that there's a split between the you know, the holy spiritual realm and the the um physical, the physical, yeah, like less good, dangerous realm, right? And so where does sex end up with that? And then what that ends up doing for some of these women, and I'll give you a great story, which I think just was such, I have so many of these, but this one was just encapsulated. It they get caught in this space, this like space between like, well, I'm supposed to be having physical pleasure, but really the I'm supposed to be like in this better realm of like holiness, and like how do you navigate those two things? And so so this I think will illustrate this really well. I have this amazing, I loved her to pieces. She came in, she was like having pain. They hadn't had sex in like six months to a year. She was 30s and had like three kids, two thirds of the kids. And you know, so we kind of worked through the pain. I got them back to having non-intercourse sex, um, which is a complication in this community because you're not really allowed to ejaculate outside the vagina, although that could be worked around. Often the rabbis could be helpful with that again. Um, and they were going, but they were having, they were having good sex. We got the intercourse back in, no pain. Um, and you know, she got the idea that she kind of had to get herself turned on before they went in. We were scheduling it so that it was like less pressured for her. She would get herself turned on before she went in. And it was really working really well, but something was missing. And I couldn't, I was having a really hard time with her. Like she still was, I was feeling like she was like, I still feel like it's very stressful. She was using this word stressful. And like she kept being afraid she would not be able to sustain it. Like I could feel like there was something like going on here. And, you know, at some point she's like, she was masturbating once a week or twice a week. And so I was like, Well, what's let's dig a little deeper into what the difference is between your masturbation and your having sex with your husband. Like, how does that? And she said, Well, I sort of feel like I need to be focused like on him entirely when we're having sex. I need to like make I need she didn't use these words, but she was like, There needs to be this like deep, deep religious, emotional, spiritual connection. And I'm like, What the fuck? Like, you know, I felt like I had to do that every time I had sex. I would never have sex. I'm like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm like, like when she's alone, she has the freedom of her own thought world, but when she's with a partner, all she just somehow, yeah, these things enter and and it has to be this meaningful spiritual experience. That's you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that is a lot of weight to put on every time you have sex. Do you know what I mean? With her, I said, Are you Jewish? You're not. No, but I I have a I have a minor in world religion, so it's kind of a thing of my we do the, you know, our Shabbat, our Shabbat, our Sabbaths are not like, you know, I don't use electricity, I don't, whatever. So we have Shabbat dinner. That's a usually a big thing. It's like lovely, you know. I put out my China, whatever, we have company, whatever. And I looked at her and I'm like, if every time you have sex, it had to be a Shabbat dinner, like with your China and the cooking. Sometimes you just want a sandwich. Do you know what I mean? Like sometimes you just, it's okay to have an ice cream Sunday or just have a sandwich. Like, it's okay to just be getting the pleasure that you're getting out of it and the weight that dropped off this woman. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, now I don't know if we could have had that conversation three months earlier because there were all these other stuff, but like some of the feeling of coercion and is because our expectations that these women put on themselves are outrageous. Do you know what I'm saying? Like again, it goes back to like the you know, it feels like, well, I don't want to have sex. I wouldn't want to have sex either if every time I had sex, I had such enormous expectations being put on me. Right. Right. It has to be this meeting of the soul. Like I'm just like, are you like that, you know? I mean, you know, and I'm laughing. I said to her, you know, if you have regular sex once in a while, it will feel like that. And that's amazing. And if you don't have sex, you're never gonna feel like that. But like, so so this feeling of I have to have sex once a week or twice a week, feels like it's not overwhelming if you don't put overwhelming expectations on it, right? So that's what I see in this community. Yeah, I see um I see in a really good way that I feel like, and again, I have a skewed perspective, right? I never did a research study, I only have the women I'm working with, but it feels to me like when the sex life is not working well, they're quicker to come in for help somehow. Like it feels like they think like it's a value in the house. Okay, which is interesting, right? And I've had in the chasidish community, I've had guys dragging his their wives in. They're like, I'm getting pleasure out of this, and she's not getting any pleasure, and I don't know. That's more my experience, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, from the um, no, just over here in the west, but see more of the men bringing in the women saying that in your community, the women are saying, I need to change this, they're they're the one driving.
SPEAKER_00:Right. But I also in the more religious, in the really when you get more fundamental or the more orthodox. Yes, yes. So then then you are seeing the men dragging the women in because the women sort of don't even get, I think, that they're there's what's supposed to be happening there, right? Like you're not exposed to boobies, you're not supposed to books, they don't get and whatever. So um, so I think that that's I think a big piece of it. You know, it's a really interesting question. The when you move into more ultra-orthodox communities, the early sex is often a nightmare. And that does feel very coercive. But to be fair, it's coercive to both the men and the women. Like that first night, like in some of these cases, they've met each other once or twice. Then they meet under the wedding canopy, the chuppa. And then they're expected that night to go to have intercourse. And like everybody's often focusing on that poor woman, which is it does. Sometimes it feels like rape. But for the guys, it also feels like they don't want to be doing this. They don't know what they're doing, they're nervous as anything, they're hurting this person, they're scared to death. Um, and I do think that has that can have long-term gains. But I don't have numbers on any of this stuff. Is that answering your question at all?
SPEAKER_01:Or did I go too field? No, it's great. Yeah. Right. The next couple of questions are were just what parts of the community culture do you think are protective of this and which are maybe lean into promoting it, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Um protective of the of the inclusion.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, of women consenting to unwanted sex, though. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So they are taught, especially as you move into the more religious communities. There's it as you move into the more right-wing fundamentalist communities, the women are definitely taught this, like you have to have sex whenever your husband wants to have sex message, which is not helpful and not good. Okay, so yeah. Yeah. Um, there's also some you get into some of the ultra-orthodox communities where there's actual expectations about how often you're supposed to have sex, and it could be a lot, right? There's a passage in the Talmud. It says I make it makes me laugh a little bit because people, you know, most things in this album people do not take literally, like the the legal tractates all sort of develop them. This one is like, how often are you supposed to have sex? So if you're um, if you if you're a student, if you study full time, it's every day. If you're um like a businessman kind of thing, it's like uh twice a week. If you're like a sailor on a voyage, it could be like once a month, right? Now, to a certain degree, these things were developed as like I think seen as protection for the woman. Like if you are a sailor and you're traveling, you need to come home at least once a month. Okay. Yeah. Like your wife is is entitled to conjugal visits, right? But the flip side for all these guys who are sitting in their yeshiva studying is like we're supposed to have sex every day, or and some of these girls are learning. Like, if your husband wants it, you gotta say yes, right. Um another place where you see this, which is insane to me, is are you at all familiar with the ritual bath or the mikveh? Yes. Yeah, okay. Yes, yes, right. So that's a very fundamental central principle to pretty much all of Orthodox life, right? Like, even when you get to the modern Orthodox community, we keep that. Um there is an idea, not a Jewish law, but an idea that after you've been separated for two weeks and you go to the mikvah, you should have sex that night.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That causes so many problems. I cannot even begin to tell you because um, there's this sort of joking saying that wouldn't say have a fight on mikveh night. Like you try to have a fight because you don't want to have sex that night, right? It puts this, it's so funny because I feel like when you I'm a big phone of scheduling sex, right? That I think is like pretty useful for most couples. There's something about the fact that like you haven't really touched each other, in some cases, not touched each other at all for two weeks. And then you're expected to like go home and have sex and have intercourse specifically. And there's something about the feeling I think of being um not having a choice with that, that it goes so deep for so many women that there's just this level of resentment. And the funniest thing is there's really, I'm telling you, there's zero Jewish law about this. I for six years I did a podcast with a rabbi. It's called The Joy of Text. It was where real text meets Jewish law. And we dug into so many things like you know, masturbation and kink, and we did, you know, at least one, maybe more episode on having sex on the midfly. There is no law saying you need to do that. Like nobody says you have to do that. And yet it has become so endemic in our lore that people do it. And it's so, and as soon as I say to women, listen, you don't have to have sex the night you come back from MIPFA, you can fool around, you can kiss, you can make out, whatever you can if you want, but you do not have to. If I tell you the difference with and when you're looking at coercion for women, as soon as you take away the element of you have to, yeah, it changes the world. It's like I can't tell you, I would say probably 80% of them will have sex then. And 20% may choose not to. They're too tired, they don't want to, they'll do it the next night, whatever.
SPEAKER_01:The power of having a choice matters a little bit more than if you would opt out. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, yes. That was very eloquent. That that's why I hear you say it. No, it's actually extremely eloquent. Yes. The power of having a choice for most women is really, which is why when we talk about scheduling sex, I will often say to women, like, it has to, it has to be them, it has to be coming from them. Like they need to like, look, what works for you? What would you like? How would you do that? And and and and and you know, what happens if you can't do that? Like women have to feel like they have a choice. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So anyway, so that's those are places where I really see it does affect the community. Um let me just think. Let me also think about because I I tend to see more women than men, and I just want to make sure I'm not leaving out the guys on this one. No, I mean, I think just the issue of not getting good sex education, which I think is, you know, I think the orthodox community gets blamed a lot, but I don't see such great sex education anywhere, to be fair.
SPEAKER_01:So it's like no, we can lay a lot at the feet of purity culture, but then I'm like, okay, but isn't that Cosmo article the same thing?
SPEAKER_00:No, yeah, 100%. Absolutely. So I just think I just think our culture is sort of Victorian. I don't know what other cultures, but I do think um I I I'll throw one other thing in, which again, I don't know in terms of communicate, like the pressure to have sex from intercourse, to have orgasms from intercourse, I think adds to the feeling of um pressure to the women in a way that's not helpful. And I think again, I do not think this is unique to the Jewish community or the Orthodox Jewish community. Like I think our whole society is blown this, but but it is worse in the religious communities because the sources, when they sources use the word sex, they mean intercourse. And there's thousands and thousands of sources on this Talmudic sources, Mishnac sources, you know, biblical sources. Um, and so that's a whole project, like uh, you know, saying to people redefine sex. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And that does make it sometimes women feel like both of them, I think both the men and the women feel like there's again, as soon as you take choice away, it feels coercive, right? Right. And this whole this whole religious idea of not ejaculating outside the vagina is a big one because that means you have to have intercourse every time you have sex. So, you know, again, those of us who are in the community and have rabbis, we can work around that to a certain degree. Because the truth is the rabbis are pretty, the smart rabbis who actually know their stuff and have all the range of sources will be very quick to say if the woman's having pain, you absolutely 100% can have other kinds of sex. Okay. But the lower level rabbis, you know, the ones who aren't as knowledgeable and who just, you know, it's easier to be strict about something than to start looking for all the internal loopholes, make it very hard, which is why these a lot of these women end up having intercourse even though they're having pain. And that is very bad and coercive and damaging. And I in this case, I would use the word traumatic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad, yeah, I'm glad you're helping us stratify out how the reasons for not wanting it impact the outcome too. And if it's enduring physical pain, that's expected of us. That's gonna score a lot higher on your uh trauma uh scale. For sure, for sure, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Um tell me if you're comfortable a little bit more about that, because I have worked with Orthodox Jewish company or couples, and that is the difficulty about what do we do without a course and um ejaculation and masturbation.
SPEAKER_00:So if there is pain, then in almost every case, you can they can go to a rabbinic authority. I I want to, again, you know, it's very important to understand that the rabbinic authority as post in the Catholic religion is not about saying something's okay or not okay, like sort of from God, but more like finding sources to support their position, right? Understanding. So if you know a thousand sources on this, you're gonna be a lot more knowledgeable than somebody who knows four sources on this, right? So that's okay. So, which is why I loved working with this rabbi because he was so incredibly knowledgeable and he would start egging sources from all over the place when I did this podcast. Yeah. Um, so much fun. But um, so there are myriads of sources that will allow you to ejaculate to not have intercourse when you're having sex if there's pain. Now, there are tons of sources as well, not tons, there's a few sources as well, that say as long as you're in the context of your normal, monogamous long-term relationship, you can do whatever you want. You can have anal sex, you can have oral sex, you don't have to ejaculate in the vagina. It should just not become your primary way of having sex. That's honestly, that's pretty the mainstream position, honestly, in the more slightly modern communities. But even in you go into the more ultra-orthodox communities, if there's pain, there's always going to be a knowledgeable person who will say to you, hold off, ejaculate. Some of them may say, I want you to ejaculate on vulva. So it's kind of in the area as opposed to, you know, between her boobs or, you know, on her hand, whatever. Okay. But but there's 99% of the time there is somebody who would who can help the, you know, the woman and the husband navigate that.
SPEAKER_01:And there's not an expectation of celibacy or like not at all. Abstaining from an ejaculation from the city. Not at all.
SPEAKER_00:Now, now that's the reality of the rabbinic situation, but that doesn't mean that this doesn't like I I was seeing a couple where he wouldn't hear of it. He wouldn't even go talk to anybody. Like he, you know, because there are some sources that say, you know, masturbating is equivalent of murder, right? You're killing all the sperm, right? Well, once you get that into a 15-year-old boy's head, it is very hard to change that narrative, right? No matter what I say to him or what other rabbis say to him, do you know what I'm saying? Like it's just it is. Yeah, I had one guy who felt he was sure that his son's his son was having some terrible urinary problems, and he thought it was because he had masturbated, right? And so now, if we hadn't if he had been willing to work on it with me, we probably could have dug deep, but he wasn't. Like it was like he was being punished, right? God was punishing. So it's it's you know, once you're working in that situation, it becomes very hard to work around that, right? Then the best you're doing is trying to work with the woman to figure out how you can mitigate the pain or tell her to stop having sex altogether, which is, you know, and sometimes they do. Like I've had couples, religious couples, who the guys have just not had any kind of they have masturbated and they haven't had sex in a year or two. And that's terrible, also, because then you know I'm always concerned they won't be able to ejaculate when the time comes. Do you know what I mean? Like it's just it creates sexual problems, right?
SPEAKER_01:What I'm hearing is like this context could some may define as, oh, the woman has low desire, or some may say, oh, this couple has a desire discrepancy, but I'm hearing you define it more as advocating for choice and collaboration, or put it into your own words, that instead of framing it as like a diagnosis of low desire or a diagnosis of or not diagnosis, but oh, they have a desire discrepancy, you how would you describe this happening?
SPEAKER_00:No, I would say they have a desire discrepancy or she's suffering with low desire, but let's understand what that means. Because is it does that does that mean that she has unrealistic? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I I agree with the diagnosis, right? The question is just what I don't agree with is the responses. So so what I think is like, is that coming because her ideas? So is that coming if you have low desire, is it because the sex itself is bad? So then we gotta figure out that's a separate bucket, we gotta move that out, right? Is it because and this is I think is a big piece of it, our narratives and our expectations of what desire can should look like within the long conversation, is distorted, and you're working with a very broken model, right? So I kind of feel like it's those I would bring it into those two, you know, or do you have lone desire because your physiology is such? And I will throw this in because I I shouldn't let this go, right? Women's men's and women's testosterone, I don't know how much you know about this, goes down as they get older. Okay. It is like a it is like it is totally ignored by the therapeutic community in a way that enrages me. I just had a couple, I just had a couple where their sex life, they have they used to have a great sex life, second marriage, they've been married 20 years, they had a great sex life, and about three or four years ago, it kind of started petering down, petering down, and now it was like close to nothing when I saw them. Super, super if like high-level architects flying all over the world, like really smart, right? Like really smart, interesting, intellectual. And like, I'm like talking to them, talking to them. And he was the initiator, and it was really important that he be the initial. So her vagina's a mess, and we're cleaning up her vagina, right? She's got a child with the doctors, whatever. But you and I know you can have a great sex life even without intercourse. And it's not like they're religious, so that wasn't, you know, a problem. His desire has just slowly, slowly, slowly gone down. And I'm like, you need to get your testosterone checked. Like, this is ridiculous. So he, I have a urologist I love in New York that I work with. So he walks in there and she says to me, You know what's going on? His testosterone was it wasn't even low. It was probably on the higher end of normal that we call normal. But there's no question. Harry's story, his testosterone was lower than it used to be. I don't know what his testosterone used to be. Right. So this, I don't know how much you know testosterone. Testosterone for men are looked at 300 to 900 something. So he was like at 600, which nobody would look at and say low, right? But believe me, 300, he'd be like lying on the floor. So anyway, so he says to the doctor, she said, he said, you know, look, I've been married for 20 years, and like, you know, it's just one of those things kind of thing. And like I call, she's my friend, so I call her up and like, just fucking put him on testosterone, get him to 1200, which is like a very reasonable dose level to be on, but it's on the high end. You have to keep an eye on you want to make sure we're on things, whatever. I if I don't do this usually, I say to people I supervise, you can't want this more than they want it. But like in this case, I just wouldn't love them and whatever. And I'm like dragging him and get him with this testosterone shot. Two weeks after those testosterone shots, he's like, Oh my god, I'm like so in like I I see I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about it again. And then a week or two later, he says to me, You know what, Cheva? It's kind of like when you're you sort of sort of floating out to sea and you're comfortable and it's very gradual, and you look up all of a sudden and you don't even remember the horizons out there, but you don't even you don't remember what it was that you don't you didn't notice, you know what I mean? And it's like, no, I could have talked to them until I was blown the face, they were having some issues, I helped them with some of those issues, but his libido was his libido, right? And so, and for women, estrogen and testosterone also, then they do not have the same magic. I will just say with men, it's almost like a light switch. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I just you get them on a decent amount of testosterone and they want to have sex. And my hunch is if we did that enough with women, we would feel that also. But that's you know, there's some hair loss, there's some acne, there's some reasons women don't want to be on testosterone. I totally, totally get that. So you got to go other venues, but acknowledge the fact that your libido is gonna be lower, and that may be part of it. And do you want your sex life to die? Right, that it goes back to the basketball team, right? Like maybe you decide no more basketball for me, but is that really what you want in your life? Will that make you happy? Or do you feel like I'm gonna start playing volleyball? Do you know what I think? Like so, I think the physiological piece, and so I will recommend to women that they either go on DHEA or they go testosterone, or just get more sunlight. Like there's other ways to fight this, but there is a physiological reality. Or just read yourself, like, I'm not gonna spontaneously want sex the way maybe I did when I was 18, but I still can have good orgasms. I still feel good when I'm doing it. So I feel like I have no idea what your question was and whether I'm answering it. I'm laughing. Did I just go totally haywire?
SPEAKER_01:No, you're great because I gave you only two options and you were great and said, I don't really like those two options. I said, you know, low desire or desire discrepancy, and you said which was great, which is you're they are those are right, those are positioned uniquely in the biopsychosocial world that you're able to say, you know what therapists aren't leaning into enough is let's first check the bio. Let's first check the hormones.
SPEAKER_00:This is well, let's do it at the same time because sometimes you okay, therapy I had to do to get this guy on his desk. Do you know what I'm saying? Like because I don't love the medical model either, because they just toss the hormones at them. So you the diagnosis is fine, low desire, discrepancy desire, those are fine, whatever people come to. It's figuring out what is causing that. And that is like to go in with a one size fits all. Oh, with discrepancy desire, we're gonna do sensei focus. Right. But I mean, like you're not gonna do it. So um, that's like start parsing it out. Is it because the sex itself is bad? Is it because um, you know, there are serious issues in relationships? Sometimes that comes up, you know. Is it because there's a physiological piece, or is it because they have completely unrealistic expectations about what sex should look like at this point? Are they not been willing to shift their expectations as I gotten older? Like to my mind, it's like what that there's the layer that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Say that again. The layer that's really interesting is sparsing out these five options that all more. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This was helpful. And you almost answered the next one, which is what approach would you take? And it's like you have like a decision tree of well, let's look at this and this and this, and usually it's more than one thing.
SPEAKER_00:One has caused the other, right? She's had pain, now she doesn't want to have sex and she's scared, and now he's furious, and now we need to like dig through that to get there, right? Like, so, but I do try to separate out. I just I'm seeing this couple who are 72 years old and they've been together like 16 years, and they hadn't had sex in like 10 years or 15 years, and they've been sent to three doctors, two other sex therapists. Somebody sent them to me, and I'm like thinking to myself, there's what am I gonna do here? Seriously, it was one of the I don't know if you ever end up with that, but like you're like anyway, they're having sex, and the reason it was all her fault. That's what that was the narrative. It was all her fault. She never had any interest, she was never that, you know, sexy. Um, you know, she didn't want to. They went to all these sex therapists, she never did anything. Anyway, she felt broken from day one on this, right? Like she felt like she was always not good enough, always, you know, whatever. So I needed to work with her to make sure that she didn't feel so broken anymore. And then she, do you know what I mean? Like, so trying to say, like, what what is it? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, what is it that's going to what is it that's causing the low desire? But so often it has to do with these. I mean, the low-hanging fruit for me with is this like narrative, like that was a more complicated one, but the low-hanging fruit is our narrative, our narrative that I always say there's three things in our narrative that are so so unconstructive. Like, I have an online course for low desire, and like this, I just basically it's based on these three things. One is this like think of it like a movement program, not like magic pixie dust, right? Which we talked about, which I'm you know, most sex therapists are into. The second thing is this you have to be relaxed and present. This enrages me. I can't even like I'm just jumping up and down, but like there is there is this narrative. It's all over the internet, it's all over TikTok, it's all over with the sex therapist. Women have to be relaxed and present. If you're not, if you're not relaxed and present, you're not gonna have good sex. And I'm like, you show me a woman who with who's got parents she's taking care of, kids she's taking care of, you know, a job. Like, if you tell a woman that she's going to have sex when she retires, if then, do you know what I'm saying? Like, it is so not. So I'm like, screw relaxed and present and start learning how to fill your mind with sexy things. Figure out what it is that you know what I mean, would be that fantasizing hijack your own experience. Exactly. Like you're you're not gonna empty your mind, maybe on vacation, and that's lovely when that happens, but like you're not really gonna empty your mind. So, so let's not empty your mind, let's refill it, let's just get on some literature, do whatever you need to do to change the channel. Don't try to turn them blank, like that doesn't work. Okay. And then the third thing is this idea that like your partner is supposed to be what turns you on, as opposed to like, come on, we've been married for 10 years. I adore my husband. Like, there's no way in the world that seeing that man in my bed is gonna be what gets me going. Do you know what I mean? Like, I have to figure out what turns me on. That's my responsibility and my job, not his job. So those three, I feel like those three fundamental truths, they're so distorted in our society that that so often leads women to think they have low desire when they are perfectly normal. They just need to shift their way of thinking and figure out how to handle those things. Now, again, they're having pain or they have an asshole for a spouse. Do you know what I'm saying? Right. That's different. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:No, that is fascinating.
SPEAKER_01:No, I love and agree with like everything you said, but I don't think I've ever heard that uh that succinctly with here are three ideas that are absolutely getting in our way.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know what? If I could figure out how to sell my course, I'd be so happy. But I think we're gonna sell courses at all. I did it more because I just thought it would be fun. So um, but those it is that's exactly I think those three things are so critical.
SPEAKER_01:Well, okay, all my people go take your course because these are amazing ideas. And I do think that these ideas are found for those who are religious, but I also think that those three things are found outside of religion, also. Is I need to you need to be the one that's turning me on. I you know, these ideas of I need to be relaxed.
SPEAKER_00:The relaxed and present one really drops drives me nuts. Drives me nuts, and also the sex therapists seem to jump into that also. And I do get that you have to learn how to feel what's going on in your body. I'm not negating that, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's maybe like one well, this is like off topic, but one of my complaints a little bit about Schnorch is this eyes open sex looking into each other. I'm like, wait a minute, what if she has to go somewhere?
SPEAKER_00:I've just got to think about some things. No, no, totally, totally. I yes. I mean, like all of these people, you take the good and you leave the bad. Like, yes, you know, totally. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, we have like one minute. What do you any additional op-ed commentary, complimentary or not, as your thoughts about just the beginning of a new conversation about consent and wanting and I love that you're doing this.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. I think that language is really important, as we talked about. And when I hear words like coercive, it's it scares me a little because it feels like it takes something which is gently a problem. It's like the same thing I have with the word trauma, where I feel like everything is into trauma now. And I'm like, this wasn't I mean, I guess it could if people could hear minor trauma, but this was like a disruption, right? This was a this was a problem. And but not everything is a trauma, right? And so sort of parsing out what is coercive sex versus what is sex that I don't kind of feel like having, or like what is sex that is like a pain in the butt? Like, you know what I mean? Like that feels a little different to me. So that's the only thing I throw in here in terms of when I think about research on this, but I think it's amazing, amazing that you're doing this research.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Do you have ideas for language? Like, what would what would you call it if someone was like, help me come up with some terminology here? What what would you call that?
SPEAKER_00:That's a great question. I I really haven't thought about that, but I will, Cammie. Okay. I will think about that and I'll send you an email if I have an idea. Seriously. Yeah. Um because I do think it's really interesting, and I do think coercion just feels this feels like half step before rape. Do you know what I mean? Here we're trying to, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And that's a concern because I've worked with a lot of men who are really good guys, and this pattern is alive and strong, and both people are coming by this honestly from these, you know, low education, unrealistic beliefs, and we've got a good guy, but the outcome is not great. And that word really isn't going to resonate with some couples, or you know.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It is really interesting. It is really, really, really interesting. Question. There has to be another word for this, right? There has to be. I just have to think it through. If you come up with something, pressured, even pressured feels pressured feels better than coercive. Uh-huh. But even that feels kind of ex maybe maybe focusing more on the expectations ends of it, right? Like the choice expectation piece may be an easier way to talk to people about it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I will.
SPEAKER_00:I will thank you. Right. Well, good luck for you. This is amazing. Thank you. I appreciate that. Take good care. Okay. Bye bye, bye bye.