How to Talk to Your Partner and Improve Your Sex Life feat. Vanessa Marin (Rerelease)

Whether you missed this one the first time or just need a refresh, it’s a must-listen for improving communication in your sex life! We have sex therapist and author Vanessa Marin walking us through how to bring up a sexual slump or frustrations in your relationship with the exact language to use and types of conversations to have, how to tell your partner to stop doing something you don't like and start doing what you do like, techniques for spanking and choking and how to get your partner to do these things the way you want it (and vice versa), the best way to 69, and more. Before Vanessa joins us, we have a short and fresh intro about Rayna’s recent travel nightmare. Enjoy! Follow Vanessa on Instagram @VanessaAndXander and check out her podcast Pillow Talks. Follow us on Instagram @girlsgottaeatpodcast, Ashley @ashhess, and Rayna @rayna.greenberg. Visit girlsgottaeat.com for more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Choking, a lot of people underestimate like how gently you can do it with spanking. A lot of people think that you should go soft.

• 0:06Rayna Greenberg?

  No, we know. Also, we, people, I can't tell you how many times I have been softly spanked. And it really gives me the ick.

• 0:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  This podcast is a Dear Media production.

• 0:32Rayna Greenberg?

  Hi, guys.

• 0:33Ashley Hesseltine?

  Hi, guys.

• 0:34Rayna Greenberg?

  Welcome back to a

• 0:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  re-release of Girls Gotta Eat. But fresh intro.

• 0:39Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah.

• 0:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  Just lock in for these hot, fresh two minutes.

• 0:44Rayna Greenberg?

  I hope you guys are having fun.

• 0:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. Not the best weather on the East Coast supposedly.

• 0:49Rayna Greenberg?

  I'm glad for the break.

• 0:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  So as this airs, I'm probably on a flight. I was taking a 6 a.m. flight from Boston.

• 0:54Rayna Greenberg?

  What are you saying to me? Why?

• 0:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  I just wanted to get home. I've been gone for two and a half weeks since this point. And that was the affordable Delta One option. And I'm back, baby.

• 1:04Rayna Greenberg?

  You're back in Delta One?

• 1:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  I've flown Delta One in so long.

• 1:06Rayna Greenberg?

  I don't even know what it's like up there.

• 1:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  The prices are like astronomical. So I saw one that was relatively affordable. I was like, I'll get up at 4 a.m. to get right back into bed.

• 1:14Rayna Greenberg?

  I don't sit in that part of the plane anymore. I'm in the back where the short people are. I rode back. I allowed myself one nice flight this whole tour because I was just like, it's too much. It's too much like flying and spending money, whatever. I allowed myself one nice flight. I missed that flight because this horrible TSA agent that was terrorizing me. And I had to fly home, row 37, middle seat, last row on the plane, next to the bathroom, no, no recline.

• 1:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  Being in the bathroom with no recline is so insane. And it's so shitty, no pun intended, because like there isn't anybody behind you. Well, they're on the toilet, I guess. But it's just like, then it doesn't recline on top of it.

• 1:55Rayna Greenberg?

  The guy next to me, there was no perfume left at the airport because he was wearing all of it.

• 1:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  No.

• 1:59Rayna Greenberg?

  And I just, I was like, how did this happen to me?

• 2:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  That should be illegal.

• 2:02Rayna Greenberg?

  That TSA agent threw out all my Skinceuticals. I was crying at the airport.

• 2:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Raina's finally ready to break her silence on this. Raina, when you left me that crying voice note about this, I was like, somebody has died.

• 2:13Rayna Greenberg?

  You know, when you call a friend and you have to say like three times, like, I'm okay, I'm okay. But like, I tried to leave you a voice note three times and I was gulping through crying. I was so upset. Like, this guy was so mean to me. I was so shaken.

• 2:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  For no reason.

• 2:27Rayna Greenberg?

  I lost all that Skinceuticals.

• 2:29Ashley Hesseltine?

  That wasn't over three ounces. Like, he just decided to terrorize you.

• 2:33Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, it was crazy.

• 2:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  I told that story to Shashank. There was more to it than just throwing out her products, everybody. It was just, it was a lot. It was a lot. It was just weirdly targeted and on you and said mean things to you publicly, whatever. I told Shashank, I thought I was gonna cry. He was just like, "I don't like her travel." I'm gonna get emotional. He was like, "I don't like her traveling alone." Like, if one of us would, if one of us, I mean, if one of us dunes would have been there. No, but he was like, "I wish I would have been there."

• 2:58Rayna Greenberg?

  But what are you gonna do, fight a TSA agent? I said that to a guy friend of mine though. I was like, I'll give you this, like a 30 second. I went through, they said that I had, my bag at first was too heavy and I was like, "It's a carry-on. It's not a thing." And he opened it up and all my stuff spilled out. My underwear was all over the table. And I was like, "Hey, man, this is kinda humiliating. Like, can we not?" And he was just like, "Oh, humiliating? You're humiliated. We're gonna humiliate you now." And it just went on for a long time. And I did feel like, really, like, if I was with a man, this would not have happened. It makes you feel like very alone in the world.

• 3:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Rayna Greenberg?

  And like, Brittany had flown home like an hour prior to me. And she was like, "Do you wanna just come to the airport with me?" And I was like, "I don't wanna get up, so you go." And she went without me. And I could've been with somebody. Oh, it was so sad. I, it is one of those moments, I very rarely feel this in my life, where you're like, "I am alone."

• 3:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  I know, but like, unless that guy clocked you as being alone and honed in on you, which, who's to say whether he did or not, but otherwise, it's hard to really jump in. Like, I don't know, what would I have done? Then we both would've gotten taken away. Just detained, you know?

• 4:00Rayna Greenberg?

  I would be like, "You are gonna talk to my friend, and she's taller than me."

• 4:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  I was probably taller than him.

• 4:04Rayna Greenberg?

  I think that people like that, that just get their kicks from like, embarrassing and terrorizing somebody, like, probably just would do it in front of a man. It, like, I don't think it has anything to do with a man, like, fighting him. I just don't think he would've felt empowered.

• 4:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  But who's to say? You're separated. Like, Nikki Glaser, she says, "When you go into the nail salon, you get separated at the border." I mean, you get separated from the belt. You might be over here, you might be over there. Like, you do kinda get separated at the border when you go through.

• 4:28Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay, but that was one time. Remember in Denver, Andrew Collin and I traveled home together, and I did have too much liquid in my bag, just too many bottles. And they were pretty nice to me about it. I was with Andrew.

• 4:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  Andrew is so intimidating.

• 4:38Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, it's because he's so mean and big. But anyways, if you guys work for SkinCeuticals and you wanna send me some stuff, and also to Ashley, you know, what I get it, she gets also, but...

• 4:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm good.

• 4:49Rayna Greenberg?

  Do you like skin cunicles?

• 4:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, I just, I got my, I got my own.

• 4:53Rayna Greenberg?

  You got your shit, okay.

• 4:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Anyway, guys, so we had this great episode today. So this was the very first time we had Vanessa Marin on. It's such a good episode about improving your sex life and being in a sexual slump. Raina, this was the one where she talks about spanking and choking. And I was just kind of reviewing it and I was saying how like when you smack one ass cheek, you kind of smack the other because they feel imbalanced. Like I kind of forget stuff we said four years ago. This was in New York in our old studio. So you can, you know, debate whether or not we've blowed up or not, but take a look. And so you can watch full video on Spotify and YouTube and just enjoy. I think this is like really great. We've done two episodes with her. Both of them are phenomenal and really popular and have been shared so much because there's just so much amazing advice.

• 5:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  So, you know, take a listen and revisit it if you have, if you haven't listened to it in a few years and improve your sex life this Memorial Day.

• 5:47Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, have sex today. Yeah, let us know if this has improved your sex life this week.

• 5:51Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 5:52Rayna Greenberg?

  This is about also how to talk to your partner about doing stuff and we encourage you to just, you know, maybe have sex in the car on the way home today.

• 5:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  In the car?

• 6:00Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, you know, maybe blowjob.

• 6:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  You guys be safe out there. There's a lot of cops out on Memorial Day weekend.

• 6:06Rayna Greenberg?

  Also true, don't get arrested.

• 6:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  There always are cops out because like close to the end of the month, they're trying to hit that quota, it's a holiday weekend. So if you're more Raina's friend or more Ashley's friend, if you're, if you're trying to suck a dick in traffic, you're more Raina's friend, if you're trying to not get a ticket, because you've had too many.

• 6:27Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, I'm not at my quota yet. Okay, well, you guys enjoy the episode. We hope you had a great weekend. We will see you on Thursday for the snack.

• 6:33Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes, let's get into it.

• 6:34Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay, guys, we are really excited to welcome our guest today. She is a licensed psychotherapist with 20 years of experience in the sex therapy field. You don't look old enough to have 20 years experience. We'll get back to it. She's featured in hundreds of articles in places like Harper's Bazaar, Allure, Oprah Magazine, and the New York Times. Her weekly podcast Pillow Talks covers all things sex and intimacy and you can pick up her book in early 2023, Sex Talks, The Five Conversations That Will Transform your love life. Please welcome to the show Vanessa Marin.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Thank you guys so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

• 7:04Ashley Hesseltine?

  We're so excited to have you. We just found out that you have two pugs.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  I do.

• 7:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  A black and a tan and it's

• 7:10Rayna Greenberg?

  Takes me back.

• 7:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  Raina, the only type of dog she likes is a pair of pugs that are different colors.

• 7:16Rayna Greenberg?

  That's really

• 7:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  And they cuddle and it's so adorable.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  Well, when you guys come out to the West Coast, you can come meet them.

• 7:22Ashley Hesseltine?

  We absolutely will.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  They're definitely the most interesting thing about me.

• 7:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  Stop.

• 7:28Rayna Greenberg?

  And we also learned that your husband had two last names and you have obviously a last name like everybody and you picked between the three and you both changed the last names. I love everything about you guys.

• 7:36Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you. Yeah, I didn't want to just have to default change my name because I'm the woman. And so he had that hyphenated name. We said, okay, we have three options. Let's pick. And I thought Marin was the prettiest.

• 7:47Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. And you let us know that it's a lot harder for a man to change his last name in general. So anybody that's listening, make your man do that.

• 7:55Rayna Greenberg?

  If you want to make his life harder.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:58Rayna Greenberg?

  We fully support it.

• 8:01Rayna Greenberg?

  Well, we found you because actually we were looking for people to do some sex and intimacy videos for the app and we had a couple of listeners who suggested you and your husband who do a podcast together. So I would just love to hear a little bit more about you, introduce yourself to the listeners, who are, what you do.

• 8:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. So my name is Vanessa. I'm a sex therapist. I have a business together with my husband Xander and we really focus on helping couples keep the spark alive in long-term relationships. So we've got, yeah, all sorts of stuff. We're on Instagram. We have the podcast. We're writing the book. We are just really passionate about this topic. Like you guys know, like, you're like, what do you want to talk about? I'm like, here's a list of a hundred things that I would be so stoked to talk about. So I just love doing this work and I'm really glad to be here.

• 8:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm curious, we want to hear the story about you and your husband too. And you share this in the book and I think it's probably a lot of people's story too, that people will be able to relate to. But I'm also just curious about you working together and like living together, being together, like live, work and play together.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  It's a lot. I mean, you guys know, it's a lot.

• 9:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, we don't want to sleep.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  We have like a friendship and working together, the business and you know, it's like. A lot of stuff, but yeah, I mean, it is a lot, but you know, we love spending time together. I think that's really what makes it work and we have really good communication as well. So that's made it work, but we kind of fell into this. He was working for Google. He had like a long career in tech and HR and we ended up moving. We were in San Francisco at the time we moved to Berlin and he just wanted to take some time off and kind of figure out what his next move was. And I just asked him to help me put together an Excel spreadsheet for tracking some things. And that was sort of how he fell into helping out with the business. So he was doing all the behind the scenes stuff for a couple of years. And I kept bugging him saying, you know, we're a real couple and we go through real struggles of our own.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  Like, I think we should talk about this together because it's one thing for me as a professional to be like talking to people. I think sometimes it's easy for people to say like, well, yeah, you're a sex therapist. You have all this training, of course, that's easy for you. But I just thought there's something really valuable about being able to share as a real couple. So it took me a few years to convince him to like, come in front of the camera and do the podcast with me. But now we get really great feedback from people saying like, I appreciate your vulnerability. And it just normalizes all these things that all couples go through. It makes me feel like I'm not alone and it just opens up the conversation between partners easier too. When they see like another couple talking about it.

• 10:26Rayna Greenberg?

  Absolutely.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 10:28Rayna Greenberg?

  So you guys were in a place where you were dating, you were not married yet, right? And your sex life just like took a steep dive off a cliff and you went to therapy about it.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:38Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Yes, you know, I tell the story in the book and I'm like, there's nothing very unusual about this story. I feel like everyone in a relationship has some version of like, things were hot and heavy. And then life kind of catches up to you. And so we just got into this phase of, we were both working really late. We had a lot of responsibilities. We weren't making time for each other and we were having very little sex. And when we did have sex, it was very boring. It was kind of predictable. It wasn't very pleasurable. It just felt kind of icky and disconnected. And we had never had to talk about sex before because things were so great.

• 11:12Rayna Greenberg?

  So they were like hot and heavy at the beginning.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:14Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay.

• 11:14Speaker 00

  And I think it gave that impression of like, oh, it's so good. We don't. Don't even have to talk about it. And I think that's what a lot of us are going for in relationships. Like, we think that if I don't have to say anything, this is a good sign. And so we got into that tough point in our relationship and realized we had no skills or like techniques to draw upon because we'd never talked about it before. So all those initial conversations that we had just immediately went into fights. Like, you never initiate. Well, you don't seem to care about me having an orgasm. You know, because we just didn't have any communication foundation to fall back on.

• 11:49Rayna Greenberg?

  I'm so intrigued by it. I mean, not intrigued because it's just so normal. I just feel like people are listening like, same, that's me.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. So I dragged his ass to therapy. I was like, you know, this is a deal breaker for me. Like, we are not resolving this. So he very begrudgingly went to therapy. I mean, he was not into it. And I start off the book talking about that first session of just even sitting in that therapist's office realizing, I don't even know what to say. Like, I don't know how to describe this. I don't even fully know what I want. I just want not this. So it was really hard to just like figure out where to go from there.

• 12:25Rayna Greenberg?

  We have done some really great episodes with Ian Kerner and Emily Morris. And everybody, every time we poll people, what do you want to hear from a sex therapist? They say, I have either a mismatched libido with my partner, or we used to have this hot and heavy sex life and we just don't anymore. And I don't know how to approach it. I think the advice so much, not from those people or you, but the advice in general is like, well, just talk about it. And it's like, but I don't know how to talk about it. I don't, is scheduling sex weird? Is it weird if I'm just like, let's throw on a porn? Have we've never watched a porn before? A lot of these things aren't actionable. They're just like, just talk about it.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the idea of like, we need to talk about it. Everybody knows that already. There's nothing new about that. But what really bothered me and what drove me to write the book, we actually wrote it together, was that there's so few pieces of advice about like, well, what do I say? How do I say it? When do I say it? And so I really love getting very nitty gritty and practical with people. I think like, that's the most important thing. Because if you give that generic advice, it just makes people feel even shittier. They're like, oh, all I'm supposed to do is like, just talk about it. Or like, just relax and stop thinking about it. So I really wanted to give people much more actionable, like, specific things to do. So that's why the book is really full of specific conversations to have and conversation prompts

• 13:37Speaker 00

  and examples of how to say things.

• 13:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  So what would you say, if you don't mind, like, sharing a little bit more? Was there one underlying issue? Was it just that, like, life got in the way? And then you didn't have the tools to figure out? Or, like, what helped? Like, is there a way to just give the short answer here? I mean, I know, we know it's all in the book, but...

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, there really wasn't anything in particular that was going on.

• 13:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Azul, come on.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  Cutie.

• 14:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  My sneakers smell really good. Oh, he must smell the dogs, yeah.

• 14:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, hi. Azul! Yeah, there wasn't anything specific that was coming up. It really was just a classic case of, like, life got busy. We weren't prioritizing it. We didn't know what to do. And, and so I think that really is the case for the majority of people. It's like, there's not one thing that goes horribly wrong. It's just kind of like a cascade of tiny little things that start to snowball and really become a big problem.

• 14:27Ashley Hesseltine?

  How many years into the relationship did you go to therapy for this?

• 14:31Speaker 00

  We went for a couple of months.

• 14:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  But how long have you been together?

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Oh, we had been together for about two years at that point.

• 14:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  Because I think some people are like, yeah. I think some people are like, well, is it, is this weird that I even think about this after two years? But I'm sure a lot of people hit that mark. I have, after two years, like, I just don't, fucking, you sound like fun anymore, you know?

• 14:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think we've all experienced that. And it's this sense of grief, almost, like, what happened to us? It was so great at the beginning, like, the chemistry seemed good. I do want to say, like, some people don't have that hot and heavy stage, and that's normal, and that's okay, too. But I think for so many of us who do, it's, yeah, this sense of loss, it's a confusion, like, what happened? And it used to feel so effortless, and now it feels like it takes so much work. And I think that's another thing that scares us, too. Like, in the book, I call it the fucking fairy tale, that this is what we see of sex in TV, movies, porn. Like, sex always seems completely effortless. It just happens, it's spontaneous, nobody's ever talking about it. And so we all crave that feeling of effortlessness.

• 15:33Speaker 00

  And when it starts to get trickier in our relationships, it starts to feel really scary of, like, well, this isn't what it's supposed to be. And this can't be, like, this maybe isn't my person. So I think a lot of us end up ending relationships at that time, too. I mean, I definitely thought about it at the time.

• 15:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. Place now where obviously relationships are work forever. Did you feel like it was just a lot of work during those few months and now it is a little bit easier? Or do you feel like it's a constant? We need to communicate, see where we're at, check in. Or has it gotten back to a place where it does feel a little more natural? Less work has to be put into it?

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm laughing because it's making me remember this meme that I saw last week. It was, I'm not even sure who it was, but it was like a couple of lesbians and they're like, heterosexual people are always talking about like relationships are so much work. Totally mocking us. So, yeah, I mean, I do think.

• 16:28Speaker 00

  They're like, you signed up for this, Richard.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  So like the difference that we came across is like, how do we find ways of working on it? That like can feel fun. So it doesn't need to feel like this.

• 16:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  Got it.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Heavy like, okay, let's go work on our relationship again. But like, what are simple things that we can do like every day that take very little effort, very little time, but it keeps that thread going between us so that it doesn't feel like it's always this heavy like.

• 16:55Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, and it's sex, so it should be like the reward is great. You know, it's not that like you sit down and work out your finances. Like you're working out your sex life.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  The reward is right.

• 17:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Rayna Greenberg?

  So let me ask you, so you know, for couples that are, I would say like quote unquote, just ordinary, like there isn't a parent hasn't died. There is an extreme panic over like money or job security. It's just day to day, like, I'm just a little tired of this or a little bored of this. Like, where do you start the conversation? Because I want to say that like, I understand that certain real traumas in your life and stress make you, of course, not want to have sex and that's a different conversation.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let me start off by telling you guys what typically happens. So people don't have these experiences talking about sex in relationships. We wait until things get really bad and it gets to the point where we've got all this anger, resentment, frustration, confusion, fear boiling over. And we end up doing exactly what Xander and I doing is like, the first conversation is a massive.

• 17:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Is a fight.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Right? And of course, that only reinf. Forces like, ooh, sex is a bad thing to talk about because if we have to talk about it, it's bad, we're gonna get in a fight, things are not going well. So instead, my recommendation, which is the first conversation in the book, is to start with just the acknowledgement that you guys are having sex. Like, it is wild how few couples have been together years, even decades, and never really had an honest conversation about their sex life. Like, we just do not talk about it. So for so many couples, it's literally just got to start with having that topic be a more comfortable, like, part of your conversation. So that's some of the feedback that we've gotten about our Instagram account, because we show up in stories together every day and people say like,

• 18:41Speaker 00

  you know, it actually really helped us just to start talking about sex in a more general sense, rather than starting to talk about our sex life specifically. So having those conversations where you're not trying to solve anything, you're not making any requests, you're not giving any complaints, you're literally just talking about sex and getting comfortable with it as a topic of conversations. That's the best starting point.

• 19:03Rayna Greenberg?

  Like, what is talking about sex?

• 19:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  How do we talk about sex?

• 19:06Rayna Greenberg?

  I can't not talk about sex, so I can't relate. Yeah, like, what are we talking about?

• 19:10Speaker 00

  I know, for you guys, are not going to relate with this conversation.

• 19:12Rayna Greenberg?

  No, we do, we do.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  You're like, um, we do this for a living.

• 19:14Rayna Greenberg?

  I've had these problems in my life, of course.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Okay, so my favorite starting point is literally just with compliments. So I lay out in that first chapter to bring up, just randomly, out of the blue, like, one of your favorite sexual memories with your partner. So like, give them a compliment, say like, you know what just randomly popped into my head the other day? Or, you know what I had a dream about last night? That time that we da, da, da, da, da, you know? And so you're recalling a memory, you're reminding each other, like, hey, we have had really great sex. Remember we do it and we can be good at it?

• 19:45Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay, that's perfect.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  It's a positive memory, you know, it's going to create like a positive experience. And then, so keep that going for like, every day, every other day, for like, a week or two weeks, where you're just giving your partner a compliment, like, you look so good today. It doesn't have to even be explicitly sexual, you look really good today. I was thinking of that time that you did this to me. I love the way you kiss me, the way you hold me. So you're just, like, laying That groundwork. And again, it's not any sort of like, don't do that, or I need you to do this. It's like just putting the conversation on the table.

• 20:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  And hopefully they're receptive.

• 20:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  If someone's like not validating you.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Wait, why are you bringing that up? And that's fine. Like, the point is not that you're like trying to catch them off guard and they don't realize what they're talking about. But you can just say something like, it just popped into my head and it was a fun memory and I figured I'd share it with you.

• 20:32Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, and we always say things like that. You can fib a little. You can say a dream. And you can say, like, I walked by that movie theater today where I blew you.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 20:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  Something that reminds you, you know, so and so called and it reminded me of the time at their wedding when we, you know, had that hot sex or this hotel or vacation or anything like that.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  You just want to create this positive association. When we start talking about sex, it's a good thing. I feel good. I'm getting compliments. I'm remembering good memories that we shared.

• 21:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 21:02Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay. And then if they're not picking up what you're putting down, if you're like, this is a little more broken than I thought it was. What's the next step?

• 21:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  Or what's the next step in general, if it's going well?

• 21:12Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. When do you kind of start to repair?

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it's really going to be dependent on where each couple is. Like, are they even in a place where they're like, there's something going on that I don't want to be doing? Or, you know, I think in general, it can be a lot better to start with making like positive requests rather than immediately going into the like complaints. And we can get into like the nuance of like, some complaints are more urgent than others. And we can get into those first. But I think going into like making any sort of positive requests of like, you know, I really love when we go so slow. Like, this is one of the biggest complaints I hear from women is like, we just jump right into the intercourse and there's like very little in it for me. So making a request in a positive way of like, I love when we go so slow. Can we do that next time?

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Something like that.

• 22:00Rayna Greenberg?

  You told me something on the phone that I want to validate. You said that like some women are like, I don't like that we just jump into it. You said that you told people and that, what, 90% of women said their favorite part of sex is not the penetrative part of it? It's like everything else?

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, 91% of women. We said like, is intercourse like your favorite activity that you guys do together? Of women who have sex with men and 91% of them said, no, there's something else that I prefer. And this is, I mean, it's so important to recognize like our bodies are not really wired to feel a lot of sensation or to have orgasms from penetration alone, but it's something that most women don't know. And so they feel like something is horribly wrong, horribly broken with them. And they're having sex that feels like there's nothing in it for me. I'm not enjoying it. It's just kind of, I'm laying there staring at the ceiling while my partner is jackhammering away. And like, what's wrong with me that I don't love this?

• 22:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's very funny because I'm thinking of some men learning this stat and being like, what?

• 23:01Speaker 00

  There's a lot of heartbroken men out there.

• 23:04Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like I'm thinking of if you polled 100 men and they'd be like, what do you think the best part of the sexual experience is for you and your partner? He'd be like, when I'm fucking her, when my dick's inside of her. And women are like, no, honey.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  No, sweetie. No, Richard.

• 23:21Ashley Hesseltine?

  Sorry, Charles. It is so true though. I mean, even what we do with our erotic app, we have these erotic audio stories. And if there are 10 minutes, two minutes of the story is that, you know? So much of it is like the buildup and the foreplay and all those types of things.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. And so that's not to say that intercourse can't be pleasurable or feel very intimate and, you know, enjoyable. But I think it's so important for us to recognize it's just not how women's bodies are really wired to work. And the foreplay, what we, I actually hate the word foreplay because I think it implies like, these are the things we do beforehand. Like intercourse is the main thing and we just do like the quick little foreplay beforehand. But I know everybody uses that word. So.

• 24:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, do you have another word?

• 24:02Speaker 00

  I don't. I keep trying to think of ones. I'm like, other people use core play. And I'm like, okay, that's all right. But yeah.

• 24:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  That sounds a little like hardcore.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  It sounds really like a workout to me. I went to the core play class.

• 24:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 24:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  Solid core class.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  If anybody has a better name for it, let me know.

• 24:23Rayna Greenberg?

  Can I ask you a question? I want to know your answer. So when you masturbate, is it to thoughts of penetrative sex? Or is it thoughts of like other stuff besides like, Ashley, tell me you masturbate.

• 24:35Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's, I mean, sometimes it's like the full circle experience, but the way that I would start conjuring up a memory is not with being penetrated right away. It's like the pushing me up against a wall or something like that, or something that like got me in the mood.

• 24:48Rayna Greenberg?

  Oh, yeah. Me too. So I'm like, that's how I feel. Like so much of my masturbation is

• 24:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  like my head, the thoughts going through my head are not like dick and vagina.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  It's swimming away.

• 24:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 24:58Rayna Greenberg?

  Thirty years you want to masturbate to dick and vagina.

• 25:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  I don't even want to put anything in my vagina.

• 25:03Rayna Greenberg?

  I don't know.

• 25:04Ashley Hesseltine?

  Even in my fantasies, you're just on my clit.

• 25:07Rayna Greenberg?

  My porn was all clit. I only incorporated a penis into the porn I watched during the pandemic because I just missed it so much.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  And here's one of like the terrible things that happens in heterosexual sex too is like when we start having issues, a lot of guys think like, okay, you know, we're not having sex that often. Maybe she's turning me down a lot. So when you do get a yes, a lot of guys are like, well, let me get right to it before she changes her mind, kind of thing. And so a lot of couples end up like just shortening that time of the buildup and it just goes straight to the intercourse, which just creates even more of this negative cycle of like, I'm not enjoying this sex that we're having. So why would I crave it? So we're going to have less of it. You know, it's just a really awful cycle.

• 25:49Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, and if there's weird stuff going on in your relationship where there's tension or resentment, it makes you want to be so intimate even less. It almost forces you to have that mechanical, quick intercourse as opposed to like touching and feeling and all the romanticism when you're kind of resentful of your partner as it stands in the first place.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  For sure. It's really easy to be like, oh, just do your thing.

• 26:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  I'll just get it over with type of thing.

• 26:12Rayna Greenberg?

  Do you hear that a lot from couples that like it becomes a little robotic after a certain amount of time? Like I remember thinking of my longest term ex, it was like the same menu all the time. I would like wake up, I'd blow him, I'd get on top, he'd get on top, we'd both be done. I'd have to do it again for seven days.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 26:25Rayna Greenberg?

  I was thrilled.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. You can like script it out to the moment. Like he's going to touch my breast in this way for like 10 seconds and then like you know exactly what's coming. So of course like sex drive is one of the biggest complaints that people have. They're always like, I have no sex drive. What do I do? And the first question I ask people is, well, tell me about the quality of the sex that you're having. Is it something that's worth craving? And I think so few of us make that connection between our enjoyment of it and our desire for it. But for 95% of people, it's like, you described to me what your sex life looks like. Okay. Makes perfect sense why you have zero desire for it. Why would you?

• 27:02Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right. Yeah.

• 27:04Ashley Hesseltine?

  So, I mean, again, we don't, we don't have like all day with you and people can read your book and they can also seek therapy themselves. But the book is about these conversations that you have about sex. Can we just discuss like another one that you really love?

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the second one is what do we need to feel connected? And I think this is another really important piece that gets left out of this conversation. Like we talk about sex and we go immediately to thinking about the physical act of it. And I think a lot of people don't realize that like emotional intimacy and physical intimacy are so deeply intertwined. And so most couples these days, like you're leading lives that are so busy and full. Like most couples will say, we just feel like ships passing in the night, like we're roommates more than lovers. And so it's so important to recognize, like if you're feeling so disconnected from somebody all day long, it's like, I don't even know who you are anymore. You're just kind of like here in my space. Why are you

• 28:02Speaker 00

  going to feel the desire to be wildly intimate with them later that night? So that conversation's all about like uncovering practical ways that you can still feel connected to your partner. So it feels like you're not starting from ice cold and trying to get yourself to boiling, but there's like a simmer going between the two of you.

• 28:20Ashley Hesseltine?

  And can that be things that aren't sexual at all?

• 28:23Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think that a lot of couples are just missing any sort of emotional intimacy, like little non-sexual touches, compliments, like, you know, spending quality time together. A lot of like love languages type stuff can come up here. So that's a great one.

• 28:39Rayna Greenberg?

  Compliments are such like, I feel like I see so many couples that don't do that with each other. And the couples that I like the most, like it's our friends' husbands that are like, my wife looks so hot. Look at the way she dresses. She's a fucking fox. Like I feel like I don't see that in so many couples. And when I do, it's like so nice and refreshing.

• 28:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm like, I don't care. You just have to tell me I'm funny.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  I mean, it's nice to like, get a compliment personally, but I think there's also something special about the way your partner talks about you in front of other people.

• 29:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, my gosh, totally.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  I mean, we can all, I'm sure, think of examples of couples where it's like, they're just ragging on each other the whole time, or like, you know, complaining or ignoring each other. And then when you see somebody, exactly like what you were saying, like, "My wife is so fucking hot," you're like, "Oh, that's so cute."

• 29:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  We love to hear what people say about us behind our backs, like, nice stuff. Like, I feel like that's a turn-on.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  Cute turn-on. Should we move on to how to tell someone what you don't like what they're doing in the pictures, how to redirect? And we want to discuss actual, actionable language and things that you can do when you're like, "Stop doing that. Why would you do that?"

• 29:45Speaker 00

  Okay, so let me set a little groundwork here. So I like to divide these into three categories. So at one end of the spectrum, we have what I actually call like, sexual perfectionism territory, and I'll get back to that in a sec. The other end of the spectrum is like, actual boundary or safety issues. And then we've got this like, delightful gray area in the middle, where I think we'll spend most of our time. But, so the sexual perfectionism thing is, I've actually found that a lot of people, because of the fucking fairy tale, we have this idea that every moment of sex should just be passionate and intense and feel so good. But the reality is, like, it's totally normal for your pleasure and your connection to kind of rise and fall throughout an interaction. Like, let's say, for example,

• 30:30Speaker 00

  if Xander is going down on me, and there's a moment where it's just like, it's not feeling as good, I'm not gonna jump in right in that moment and be like, "Stop doing that. Go back to this. Go do that instead." Like, that's gonna feel intimidating for me, because then I'm gonna feel like I'm having to correct him every two minutes. It's gonna feel shitty for him, because he feels like he's getting, like, you know, jumped on. So instead, I think those can be good territory to just kind of like, wait it out for a minute. So not put this pressure that every single moment has to be wildly pleasurable, because like, you don't want that pressure for yourself either. Like, I have to do such a good job to my partner that like, the connection never wanes for a second, right? So it's like, just wait it out in those kinds of situations. And just, nine times out of 10, it's gonna get better

• 31:13Speaker 00

  in that moment, you know, in the next couple of moments. So that's one category. And the one time out of 10, it'll go into the gray area. The other end of the spectrum is if something's happening that's like a boundary or safety issue. So let's say it's something that you don't feel comfortable doing. It's causing you pain in the moment. Have you guys done a sexual pain episode?

• 31:31Rayna Greenberg?

  No.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. You guys, I have a, I have a good guest for you.

• 31:35Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Um, 30% of women were in pain the last time they had sex. Now, isn't that wild?

• 31:41Ashley Hesseltine?

  In different ways, are we talking about just that they have like vaginal pain? Or something that their partner was doing was causing them pain or both or either?

• 31:49Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, usually something their partner was doing, like it's typically with penetration. But 30%.

• 31:54Rayna Greenberg?

  Can that change? Cause I, I feel like when I was a little younger, I used to be in pain a lot during, sex not excruciating, but it, I don't feel like that anymore.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, it can change, but there are a lot of like sexual pain conditions. Okay. This is another thing that does not get talked about.

• 32:07Ashley Hesseltine?

  We should definitely do an episode on this and then also of course, sometimes just high level. It's just, you need lube.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the quick solution fixes for it, but yeah.

• 32:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's not everybody's problem, but I mean, I've been in pain where I'm like, oh, I just need more lube. And that's why we sell a great lube.

• 32:22Rayna Greenberg?

  It was probably because I didn't like the sex I was having, honestly. Probably could have been part of it.

• 32:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. There are a lot of potential causes for it, but I think as women, we're kind of taught to just like let it happen and just continue. A lot of us think that like pain just is a part of sex. That just is what it is. So I just like to be super clear of like, no, you should never be in pain and you're going to destroy your sex drive. If you're having sex where you're in pain too. So if you're in pain, if somebody is crossing a boundary, doing something you don't want to do, that's a moment where it's just like, you just have to speak up in that moment and say something like, I need to change something up. That's not on the menu for me tonight. Like, that's not something that I feel interested in doing tonight. Something like that, but be really clear and directive. And it doesn't have to be a, you know, a slap in the face, like fuck you for doing that kind of thing.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  But just like, yeah, that's not really something that I'm open to doing tonight or I'd like to switch things up right now.

• 33:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  Or I need to take a break and not do this.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. So that's that. And then we've got the gray zone, which is, you know, a lot of different stuff can come up in that category. So in general, the advice that I have, when your partner's doing something that you're not loving, is you're always Is gonna get better results when you're making your request if you frame it positively than if you make a negative complaint. And that's true inside the bedroom and just generally in life. So try to figure out what is a way that you can give some positive feedback to your partner instead of making a complaint. If you're at the early stages of a relationship or you're just starting to have more communication about sex, give your partner a ton of compliments is where we like get back to the compliments thing.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  Like a lot of times, if you're giving your partner enough good feedback, you might not get to a point where there even is something like super negative that they're doing. Cause you've given them feedback of like, I love when you go slow like that. I like it when you touch me. I prefer you going down on me versus fingering me. So that kind of stuff, but in the moment, we want to think about what's a way that I can kind of positively redirect somebody. And I will say, people get a little bit resistant to this because we have that fucking fairy tale in our head thinking like, our partner is just supposed to know what to do, just supposed to magically figure it out. And sometimes we feel like, I don't even know what I want or what to ask for. But I do think it's really important for us to recognize like that responsibility is on us to figure it out.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  We can't expect our partners to be mind readers and we wouldn't want to be expected, you know, of that in reverse either. So really trying to think about, okay, how is a way that I can frame this? So it might be something like, oh, that softer pressure that you were using a minute ago, like that felt so good. Will you go back to doing that? Something like that. So you're giving them a compliment, but you're giving them a little bit of a direction with it as well.

• 35:03Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay. So something, and we do want to, we want to give like better techniques for doing some of these things. Something that I've struggled with, with a couple of guys is they want to stick a finger in my ass during sex and I hate it. Like I really, it takes me out of the moment. I don't like it. But if that's going to like really turn them on, I want to find ways that like, maybe I could find it more pleasurable, you know? Cause like, if that's really where you want to be, for the finger in my butthole, every time you're coming, fine. I could figure out how to enjoy this more, but like all I've ever conjured is like, stop doing that. I hate that. Don't do that anymore.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, that sounds like it's a pretty strong feeling for you. I don't like that. I don't want that to happen. So I can appreciate. Appreciate that you're wanting to be like a generous partner. You're like, okay, if this is something you're really into, let me see if I can find ways to enjoy it. So there could be a compromise, like maybe there's something like your partner's just touching your butthole instead of going into.

• 35:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 35:54Speaker 00

  So that could be something, but if it's, if you're keep coming up against this like, don't do that. I hate it. I don't like it. Like I would say, don't force yourself to push your boundaries. Sounds like you have a pretty clear sense of like what you like and don't.

• 36:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  That's, I guess, obviously that's a turn on for them, but like, it's probably more of what they think you want. Like what guy is like, really just love to stick a finger in the butt? Like they probably just think that's what you want, or they think it's hot in some way, but they can definitely do without it. It's not like they're getting off by their finger.

• 36:22Rayna Greenberg?

  Sensation in your fingertips.

• 36:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

• 36:24Rayna Greenberg?

  Oh, it feels so good up there.

• 36:26Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm just like, I feel like you can, if they're also, I mean, I, I slept with a guy that was like such a butt guy that I was like, do you even know that I have tits? Like, or do you know that I have anything else going on in my body besides my butt? Like all he wanted to do was like be back there, everything to do with it. So I feel like if it's that, they, they could like spank you. They can like, you know, be kind of in the crack a little bit. They can do more stuff with your butt than stick a finger in the hole.

• 36:50Rayna Greenberg?

  I like the rimming idea actually, cause like they can still feel like they're like butthole adjacent or like around it, but I'm not having. Also, I have no problem telling somebody, don't fucking put your fingers there. Like I'll draw a boundary anytime I need to, but I was trying to compromise. And I feel like a little butthole play, I could get behind a little more.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Okay. So if there's something that like your partner's doing in the moment and you just cannot figure out a way to like, how do I redirect or like change this into something positive? You can do the like, hey, look over there technique that I like to call it.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Just tell your partner, hold up, let me focus on you for a second. So you're changing things up. It's just like giving you the opportunity for a total reset.

• 37:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  Wait, but listen, I just feel like men are like, some of their dumb brains would be like, okay, so every time I put a finger in her butt, I get a blowjob? Like they're gonna think that they're being rewarded.

• 37:39Speaker 00

  There's not classical conditioning going on here. You just do it sparingly.

• 37:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Have a bigger conversation.

• 37:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  This is the last ditch effort.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  It's a little bit of last ditch effort, but it can be like a great, if you're just really stuck in that moment, like, let me just focus on you for a moment, because that feels really sexy. Who wouldn't want you to focus on them for a second? And it just gives you the opportunity to like, reset the moment.

• 38:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  And you might be able to figure out some positive feedback or some coaching to give to your partner while you're doing it. So you might say something like, let's say you're going down on your partner, he's a guy, and you can like lick the tip of his head and see like, hey, do you like the way I'm licking you? I want you to do this to me next. So you're actually like, teaching him.

• 38:21Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  A little technique in the moment. Or it could be more broad, like, do you like when I go nice and slow like this? I want you to do that to me next.

• 38:29Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  So it could be super specific, or it can be general, but.

• 38:33Ashley Hesseltine?

  I like that.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  It's a very sexy way of giving your partner a little bit of information.

• 38:37Ashley Hesseltine?

  I think we, I'm just trying to think of what we see the most. Questions, complaints, emails, messages about, I mean, a lot of it is oral sex and either that they aren't going down there, or they're doing it totally wrong, they can't find the clit. I mean, I think that that can be like, I love what you're doing, it just needs to be what, higher up? Like, I don't know, I feel like, I've never really experienced where a guy really has no idea what is going on down there.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, it's not pleasant.

• 39:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  I mean, so one great resource that we have is we have these foreplay guides where we have super specific and detailed illustrated techniques. And so we love recommending couples get those together because it really levels the playing field. You feel like you're both kind of like, learning new techniques together. And you can try things out together. It makes it feel fun to learn new techniques, rather than like, oh my God, now I've got to teach you what to do.

• 39:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  But another technique that you can do, I call it the eye exam technique. Like, you know, when you go get an eye exam and they're like, okay, what's better? Like, this one or this one, kind of thing? So compare two techniques against each other. So it gives you a little bit of information to go off of, because like, if you ask. Somebody tell me what you like, like that just feels like a really big question. It's hard to answer. Like, I can't give a super step by step, like do exactly this and then exactly that. Like, it's just, it's too big of a question. But if Xander's going down on me and he's like, okay, what do you like better? If I lick like this or I look like that? I use this pressure with my tongue or I use this pressure with my tongue? Then it's like I have options to choose from. And he's not feeling like I'm criticizing him because I'm picking the one that's better.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Right? And it's like this fun kind of, we're exploring together, trying different things. So you can switch off, like, I'll do it to you and then you do it to me. But if you compare your different techniques, and again, it can be specific stroke. It can be pressure, it can be speed, it can be like two completely different activities. Like, do you like it better when I finger you or go down on you? But it's just a more fun way to explore and give that feedback to each other.

• 40:39Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, I love that. I'm assuming also, I'm thinking of other things. I bet there's a lot of like guys putting their finger inside of you because they think that's what they're supposed to do.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  So I like that a lot. But you mean during when they go down on you?

• 40:50Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, there's, especially younger, I feel like we, we have talked about this, like the term fingering. Some people don't know exactly, I mean, it can mean putting your fingers inside. But some women don't like that and they're like, you're supposed to be like playing with my clit or like the outside as opposed to like just jamming your fingers inside of me. So I feel like that can be a little difficult to redirect.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that can be a fun one of like, oh, do you like it better when I put my fingers inside of you on your clit? Or I do both at the same time? You know, so that could be something to explore. But yeah, I think a lot of men, I mean, and they're, again, they're conditioned by TV, movies, porn to believe that the penetration is like the be all, end all. So the funny comparison that I like to make is like, it's really important for us to think about it from a nerve ending standpoint of like, what are, what parts of our bodies are actually wired to feel a lot of pleasure? And it, the interesting thing too, is that our genitals, we all start off basically as one gender in the womb and our genitals don't differentiate until like eight to 11 weeks. So different parts of our genitals actually match up with different parts of like male genitals. So the vagina, the

• 41:56Speaker 00

  The equivalent of the vagina in a woman is actually called the prostatic utrical in a man, which is like where no man is out there expecting like, where are my prostatic utrical orgasms?

• 42:09Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  How do I get that? So that all sounds a little complicated. So I like to boil it down and just say like intercourse for a woman is basically like stroking a man's balls. So like, sure, that might be fun. It could be pleasurable. If you have balls that are really sensitive, great, explore that, play with those balls. But would we expect the vast majority of men to be wildly orgasmic from a little ball stroking? No. So why are we setting this expectation for women that we should be wildly orgasmic from a part of our body that just does not have very many nerve endings?

• 42:41Rayna Greenberg?

  Uh huh, uh huh. That's interesting to think about.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  So guys, get that a little bit more. I'm like, let's imagine an alternate universe where intercourse is like a guy rubbing his balls on a woman's clitoris. You know, like I'm getting the stimulation of the most sensitive part of my body and you're getting stimulation of a very insensitive part of your body. Like, why is that not working for you?

• 43:01Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, I would get off instantly. You could rub anything on my clit, even your balls.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Rub those balls.

• 43:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  And I also like just taking someone's hand gently, but I think it can be hot. I mean, I don't know, maybe I think that to do that in like a sexy way, just like moving someone a little bit from like where they were previously. Sometimes I think you can do it without words, but if it's, you know, you gotta feel the moment out.

• 43:22Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, I like, I like a request. I love stick your fingers inside of me. I like when somebody goes down on me and is like sucking on my clit and fingering me. I like the whole shebang. But what if, what if somebody is like, my man just doesn't go down on me at all?

• 43:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's where it's going to be time to like make a direct request of them. And so I always like to start again with framing it in a positive way. Like, you know, it sounds so hot to me. Or again, we can do a little bit of fibbing. Like, I had this incredibly sexy dream last night about you going down on me. I can't get it out of my mind. Like, I would love for you to do that. You can even turn it into this fun thing about like, you know, why don't we have a little oral only night tonight? Like, I'll go down on you, you go down on me. So you make it feel playful rather than coming in hot with the like, you motherfucker, you never go down on me. I'm so pissed. You don't care. You know, like make it feel more fun.

• 44:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  And I I'm sure there's also a world, especially if we're talking to younger people that they just are intimidated because they don't think they know what they're doing and they've heard women say like, he's so bad at this and he can't find the clit. And so they've gotten in their head and they were never really taught. I don't know how you really learn. I don't know how guys learn. I don't know if it's like actually like American.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Another story that I tell in the book is at this same time, I was noticing that like Xander just really wasn't paying very much attention to my pleasure. It was very intercourse focused. He wasn't really like, he'd touch me or go down on me for like 30 seconds and then we'd move on. And I kept getting the sense of like, God, this was actually a bit earlier in the relationship. I'm like, God, this guy seems so amazing in so many other ways. But like, he kind of seems like an asshole in the bedroom and I don't understand what's going on. And so I finally got up the nerve to talk to him about it. And it turned out his last girlfriend before me had said, like, she had a lot of orgasm issues. And she's like, actually, it really puts women on the spot if you like finger them and go down on them for a long time.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  So like, it's the more polite thing to do to just move ahead. And so he was thinking he was being this nice guy of like, oh, I've got the cheat code to women and I know what women want. He thought he was being so kind and sensitive. And I was over here thinking like, God, this guy is such an asshole. So again, this is like why I'm so passionate about communication. Like I could have very easily broken up with him. Like this guy is a selfish asshole in the bedroom. I'm over it. But instead, by just opening up that conversation, I realized like, there was this awful miscommunication. I don't know why this woman said that to him in the first place, but like, it was very easy for us to reset from there and realize like, oh, you want me to go down on you? Oh, my God, I'm totally happy to do that.

• 45:51Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, we say that all the time, that people are just a product of their, the partners they've had before you. And what pleasured, if we're talking about a man, what the, what his girlfriend girlfriends before you liked. I mean, Raina doesn't like guys going down on her for some insane reason. So if a guy dated her for a long period of time, especially very seriously, especially if, you know, it was of his first serious relationship, but you just didn't like it. He absolutely would think the next.

• 46:16Rayna Greenberg?

  Partner just didn't like it. So I'm glad that you brought that up because we have discussed that before.

• 46:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:22Rayna Greenberg?

  And how they're just going off the last one. And sometimes I think what we like to hammer home to especially any men listening is like every woman's body's different.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:32Rayna Greenberg?

  Just because you blew some woman's mind doesn't mean what you're doing is going to blow the mind of the next one.

• 46:38Speaker 00

  And I think it's important for women to recognize too, like it's very sexy to tell your partner what you want.

• 46:45Rayna Greenberg?

  Yes.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  You know, like we are all desperate for more feedback and in the bedroom, like we all want to know, am I doing a good job? Do you like this? What do you, what could I do to be the best that you've ever had? Right? And so we get so scared on the other end of that of like, oh, I don't want to give feedback. I don't want to tell them anything. But like it's so valuable to hear.

• 47:03Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  And a lot of people are just desperate to hear like, I would love for you to do this to me. You would turn me on so much if you did this.

• 47:11Rayna Greenberg?

  Yes, it turns me on to turn another person on. I mean, that's what I really enjoy. And I think kind feedback is great. I don't mind it all. And I think how I would want it if I was like giving a blowjob to somebody and they stopped me at any point, I don't think I'd love that. Or if, you know, right after sex, they were like, I didn't really enjoy that experience. Like, it would really hurt or upset me. And I feel like there's just kinder ways to bring it up. But I am happy for the feedback because then I'm like, how great is this? I get to like be even better at this for you?

• 47:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. Another great word that you can use to when you're making requests is like, just use the word curious. I'm curious about trying this. I'm curious to see what this would be like. Because sometimes when we give feedback, like it can set up this dynamic of like, I'm the teacher and you're the student and there's this power imbalance of like, now I'm coming in here and like teaching you what to do or telling you what to do. But if you use the word curious, it just kind of, it levels that playing field again. And it makes it feel like your partner's not being judged. It's like, oh, well, they're just curious to see. And it gives you a little bit more space too of like, well, I don't have to guarantee that I'm going to like something in order to ask for it. I just have to like be curious enough to know what it's going to be like.

• 48:17Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay. So we wanted to talk about a little bit of like technique and we'd have on our list, spanking, choking.

• 48:25Rayna Greenberg?

  I sent her an email with this.

• 48:26Speaker 00

  And I was like, this is our work emails.

• 48:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah. Well, so I, it's funny because I've been doing a lot of just research in my stand up of asking guys if they're choking. And I have this whole thing that like Gen Z is just not choking like millennials do and older guys do. And I don't know if they're scared or they're timid or they're not sure what to do.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, which consent, we can't, you know, we of course consent, but I just, I think it's intimidating too, you know, and I think of course not all women want a hand on their neck, but I've been kind of interested in this topic of guys that are like, I would never do that. And it's like, you should try to get into it.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  That's Xander. No, it was so funny. I got your email and we were having breakfast this morning. I was like, let's run through the topics that they want me to talk about. So we're like loudly talking about spanking. He got all excited, like, oh, don't forget to tell them to do da, da, da, just like yelling about spanking and choking in the middle of this restaurant.

• 49:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, my gosh, great. And spanking, I mean, I, I love it. I've always loved it and I'll tell someone to do it and I, I usually get what I want, but I also see a world in which a guy, for example, has never done that. And he's like, you want me to hit you?

• 49:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, like Xander got really nervous about the choking and he's like, you know, I've only ever seen it in porn where it's like, it's really aggressive and it feels like violating and creepy and gross. And like, I'm nervous. I don't want to hurt you. It just like, doesn't sound right. So let's start with choking. So.

• 49:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  Which also we do choking tutorials at our shows too. So we're, Raina and I are out on these streets really, we're choking pros. We know all the different kinds. If you've used two hands, you have gone too far.

• 49:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  I also, I always tell guys, I'm like, don't go top two hands. Then you're just strangling and that's, maybe someone want it? I don't.

• 50:05Rayna Greenberg?

  I have, I was surprised we've had to tell people, don't come from behind with both hands.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  Oh, gosh. No, no, no, no.

• 50:12Ashley Hesseltine?

  At the show, we were in Phoenix and we brought these guys up and Raina was like.

• 50:16Speaker 00

  The waiters at the venue?

• 50:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, there was not enough guys. So we brought the staff up and this one guy, Raina was like, why don't you show, show us how you would choke Ashley? And he was like, okay. And he came from behind with both. And we have this image to be like this. And the way he thought he knew exactly what he was doing.

• 50:31Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah, he stepped right up to the plate and he ran there.

• 50:34Ashley Hesseltine?

  But then like Andrew Collin, for example, a friend of ours, I did his podcast like years ago. And he was like, can you just show me like how, how you do it? And at first he did too much pressure with the fingertips. I was like, you gotta do like a cuff.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 50:46Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like not like a

• 50:47Speaker 00

  Don't want to take your Nothing on the front of the throat. It's only the sides of this. And you can do this to yourself, like the sides of your throat are pretty tough. But even the slightest bit of pressure on the front of your throat and you're like starting to choke.

• 50:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah, I'm like, it's my windpipe blacking out. Okay, so anyway.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  Okay, so if you, if you're a guy who's nervous about it and you've never done it before, like a really great way to ease your way into it. It's just like, start to caress your hand up the neck. And you don't even have to squeeze. It's just like putting a little bit of pressure there. And that movement of like, you can move from like the breasts up to the neck, like that's super sexy. And you can see if your partner is like responding to that. So that's a great way to start. But then, yeah, if you do want to squeeze, you want to do it really lightly. Like, I think people underestimate how gentle you can go and still make an impact. But again, the pressure is only on the sides. It's never on the front of the throat.

• 51:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  I just love everything in my neck area, like kissing, like hands, all the things. So I think you can even do that making out, like I love.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:43Ashley Hesseltine?

  So we always say like, if a guy's got his hand on your neck, when you're making out, you're like, it's a lot.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  So I think The back of the neck too. Very underrated, but the nape of your hair.

• 51:52Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yes.

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, so sensitive.

• 51:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  So I, I think that this is, these are the, the things we want people to know. And I know, you know, mostly of our audience is women, but them even relating to their partner. And of course, like slipping them this episode is just, it's not as intimidating as you think. And it's can, you don't have to go zero to 60.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:10Ashley Hesseltine?

  If you've never choked somebody before, it can start, yeah.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Use your way into it.

• 52:14Ashley Hesseltine?

  Soft touch at the neck, yeah.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  I mean, this is another sneaky way that the sexual perfectionism comes creeping into our sex life. And that we all feel like we have to go zero to 60 immediately. And it's like, there's something really great about taking small steps and easing your way in. And there's a lot to explore too. Like a little gentle caress up your throat can be way more pleasurable than like a tight squeeze. So it's like, don't, don't downplay them as like, oh, they're little baby steps. It's like, no, they're really sexy, fun, exciting things that you can do.

• 52:44Rayna Greenberg?

  And it's not easy for everybody. I've had like experiences where somebody's choking me and their arm is lying.

• 52:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:49Rayna Greenberg?

  A little bit and it really, it feels, I mean, nobody's trying to be violent with you, of course, but it feels a little violent or it hurts. And I don't know how to stop them because the point is to like be a little bit scary and dangerous.

• 52:59Ashley Hesseltine?

  Well, that's what happened to me in Greece. I was like, I'm in a chokehold.

• 53:02Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah.

• 53:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm just gonna let him finish.

• 53:08Rayna Greenberg?

  I'll tap out.

• 53:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'll partner.

• 53:10Rayna Greenberg?

  I'll tap out if I need to.

• 53:11Ashley Hesseltine?

  When he comes, are you faint?

• 53:13Speaker 00

  A little safe word might be good to use too, if you're gonna do some like intense choking.

• 53:17Rayna Greenberg?

  For sure. Okay, so I like these choking tips. Let's go to spanking.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  Okay, so spanking is kind of the opposite where choking, a lot of people underestimate like how gently you can do it with spanking. A lot of people think that you should go soft.

• 53:30Rayna Greenberg?

  No, we know. Also, we, people, I can't tell you how many times I've been softly spanked and it really gives me the ick.

• 53:41Rayna Greenberg?

  When somebody winds up like they're gonna spank you really hard and you just get a tap. It is so ick.

• 53:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Wait, Raina's turn offs include too light of a spank. That's what gives you the ick.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  I completely resonate. There's nothing worse.

• 53:56Rayna Greenberg?

  There's nothing worse when you think they're winding up for like a real hit and they just graze your butt cheek like they caress it. We do this in our live shows.

• 54:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  But I get it. I get that they're scared to hit you.

• 54:08Rayna Greenberg?

  I know. Well, some guys are. Other guys go way too hard. We do this in our live shows sometimes and like I'll be bent over the chair and they will knock the chair over with me in it.

• 54:16Ashley Hesseltine?

  Raina falls into me. I'm like, you should get his number.

• 54:19Rayna Greenberg?

  Yeah. Actually like catches me. I've walked 10 feet from this spank.

• 54:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  I don't know. I think that your butt can handle a lot. And I, I mean, I've been at points where I'm like, I'm about to come and it does hurt. And I'm like, I'm sure my ass is like bright red, but I'm, I'll tell you to stop if I don't want it anymore. But I have kind of like gritted my teeth and taken it because I'm like close and it's like that pleasure and pain. I mean, I just think not everybody can handle that much, but I.

• 54:46Rayna Greenberg?

  Ash is a high pain tolerance.

• 54:48Ashley Hesseltine?

  Our asses are equipped to handle, to handle it. But then sometimes I'm like, can you just get the other cheek? Like I feel so unbalanced.

• 54:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, switch it up a little bit.

• 54:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  That's the one with the dent in it. Like, just do their left cheek focused. Okay, also, you have to spank me like you mean it. Dirty talk too. I feel like I can tell if you don't mean it. You know, like when somebody calls me a slut and they don't mean it, I can tell.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  We get very fixated on technique with sex, but the energy behind that technique is just as important.

• 55:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, we have totally derailed you. How do you get guys to spank you or anyone to spank you? Well, talk about the energy of spanking.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  So if you're in a relationship, I recommend that you have a little spanking session outside of the bedroom so you can get a sense of the level of pressure that you guys each like, because it's too much in the bedroom. It's like in the moment, or it's either too soft and it gives you the ick, or it's too hard and you're like, tears coming down your face. So do it outside the bedroom.

• 55:45Ashley Hesseltine?

  I love that.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  And have your partner like start kind of soft and work their way up and then tell them the level of pressure that you like. So it's like getting a sense. This is also a really great trick to use for hand jobs, because a lot of women underestimate how much pressure you can use on a penis. So you can like grab it and like squeeze and have him, like you slowly squeeze tighter and have him tell you like, that's the level of pressure that I like.

• 56:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  Wait, I love that. Yeah, that's a fun exercise.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  It's so valuable. You will be, I promise you.

• 56:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  We're doing handjob squeezing tonight after we watch.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  You'll be shocked by how hard you can go. A lot of women are doing like the sad spank equivalent of a handjob, just like barely, barely.

• 56:23Ashley Hesseltine?

  They're lightly grazing it.

• 56:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:25Ashley Hesseltine?

  So squeeze it like you mean it.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  So, okay, other things with spanking is like the location is important too. Like if you're too close into the crack, like you can hit the tailbone, or you can hit the hip as well. So when you're in the moment, one thing to do is like use your hand to kind of like caress the butt. So we're not spanking yet, we're just caressing it and like use that to kind of find the medias area. That's where we want spanking to happen. So you use your hand to kind of like find it and then once you've found it, like then go in for the spank.

• 56:56Ashley Hesseltine?

  Got it. Yeah, not that I'm the one that's spanking, but totally. I'm thinking of when guys have done that. Like, yes, they're finding where they're about to just wind up.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Because if you don't know your target, like it's very easy to go off.

• 57:08Ashley Hesseltine?

  That's so funny. You do have to like find your target first.

• 57:11Speaker 00

  The fleshy part of the butt.

• 57:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  And it doesn't, when they do it in the wrong part, it doesn't even make a good sound. You're like, ah! That felt flat. You just smack your side. You're like, there's no pleasure zones there. You're just punching me on the side of my body.

• 57:30Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay.

• 57:31Rayna Greenberg?

  Okay, I want to talk about energy for a second though. Like, what if you're like, I just know his energy doesn't say I want to spank you.

• 57:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, that's a tricky one. Like, so you might have to have this conversation with them, like, asking him, like, or just giving him that positive feedback of, I love it when you spank me. I think it's so hot. It turns me on so much. A lot of guys like get worried about hurting you or like, I don't want to do that if it feels like degrading to you. So you might just need to lead with that.

• 57:55Rayna Greenberg?

  I love being degraded.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. So you literally say that to your partner, like, that turns me on when you do that, when you get into that kind of energy. But I think even just talking about, like, what is the kind of energy that you most like to experience during sex? So it's different for everybody. It can be different in every moment or like in every interaction. But like, what is that vibe that you're going for? I mean, this is another thing couples very rarely talk about, but I love picking, like, pick your five favorite words that you most frequently, you know, want to experience during sex. Is it like curiosity? Is it exploration? Is it romance? You know, it can be totally varied. But I think one of the most important ones is enthusiasm. Like, somebody can have the best technique in the world, but if you can tell they're

• 58:40Speaker 00

  just not into it, maybe they're not even present in the moment, they're just going through the motions, like, that's some of the worst sex ever.

• 58:48Rayna Greenberg?

  Yes, I dated somebody like that. Perfect dick, great body, good looking guy. I was just like, am I bothering you?

• 58:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Right, and I feel like you hear that with blowjobs, where guys just say, I just want you to be enjoying it.

• 58:59Speaker 00

  And that's the number one technique for a blowjob. If you are enthusiastic about it, you can have really shitty technique, but if you're really into it, he's going to be into it.

• 59:09Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, can we just go back to spanking really quick? I'm ready to do our spanking whole episode. You know what I think is funny? That when guys vary in technique, it's a quick and they pop back out or they kind of hold their hand there. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's either like, they slap and they hold it, or they go.

• 59:25Rayna Greenberg?

  It is funny when they just like, they leave their hand there.

• 59:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  But it's also kind of like, I think, tell me if it kind of compares, you wouldn't really understand, but like, when you do, when you get bikini waxed, and the second they rip a thing off, they put their hand there to like, kind of like curb the pain.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, that is a technique, is it kind of helps dull the pressure. So if you're doing a really intense spank, that actually is a good way to like dull it. But if you want to feel the pain of it, then take the hand away and you'll feel it more.

• 59:49Ashley Hesseltine?

  Like, it's funny, when you're having sex with someone new, you're like, oh, that's their technique.

• 59:52Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 59:53Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's more the quick pop pop.

• 59:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  Maybe we just end with sixty-nining?

• 1:00:00Speaker 00

  I gotta be honest, guys, I'm just not a sixty-nine fan personally.

• 1:00:03Ashley Hesseltine?

  We're not really either. I just kind of like, we wondered if you had any.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  No, no, I can, I just always have to be honest about that. I'm like, I like the giving or the receiving at one time or the other. Okay, but a great technique for sixty-nining is try going on your sides instead of top to bottom. So a lot of people don't like sixty-nining because they're like, somebody's face is always in somebody's ass. And it's just like, it's hard to, if you're the one on top, it's like, it's kind of hard, you're like hovering, but you need to use your hands to brace you up, but you also want to use your hands to like, do a blowjob or a handjob or you know, whatever it is. So it can be a little bit tricky, but if you flip over onto your sides, you can still have that configuration of like, heads are in genitals, but it's a more comfortable position to be in for some people. You've got like, an arm that's a little bit more free to help you work.

• 1:00:49Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, I love that. Great. That's a great tip. I like just side sex anyway, aside from sixty-nining. Like, wake up in the morning, yeah.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:57Ashley Hesseltine?

  It's the best. So lazy. So just kind of take that into your sixty-nining.

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. And also with sixty-nining, you can do just your hands. So I think a lot of people feel like you have to do oral sex, but like, you could do just your hands. Because hands are a lot easier to do as well. And some people just prefer that. So it's fine, it counts if it's just hands.

• 1:01:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm excited for the next person I date to do this handjob night.

• 1:01:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:19Ashley Hesseltine?

  Where I'm just like harder, harder, how much more? It's just like so funny to me.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  I think hand jobs are one of the most underrated sex hacks. People write them off, but like

• 1:01:28Ashley Hesseltine?

  No, we love them.

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  I love them.

• 1:01:29Ashley Hesseltine?

  I love to stroke a deck.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  They're fun to do and a lot of people are like, oh, he can do it better than, you know, than I can. No.

• 1:01:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  No.

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  It's very fun to have it done to you.

• 1:01:38Ashley Hesseltine?

  He doesn't have to do it, isn't he?

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:01:40Ashley Hesseltine?

  And then he teaches you how to do it.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  He teaches you.

• 1:01:42Ashley Hesseltine?

  And then, yeah.

• 1:01:43Speaker 00

  It's very fun.

• 1:01:44Ashley Hesseltine?

  Oh, my gosh, Vanessa, this was so wonderful. Love you. I love this conversation so much. Do you feel like anything was left out? You're dying to say.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  I mean, I could sit here and talk.

• 1:01:54Ashley Hesseltine?

  Okay, I know. We'll have to have you back. We'll, we'll do it in LA.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  I would love to.

• 1:01:58Ashley Hesseltine?

  I'm so excited that you guys are coming out.

• 1:02:00Speaker 00

  We are too.

• 1:02:01Ashley Hesseltine?

  We can't wait. Yeah, we'll do, I love all, your episodes are great. So people are looking for a podcast to listen to about, you have a 69 episode. You have a squirting episode. I was, you really get granular.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  We have a child free episode too. I know that that was something that you guys did. That's our most popular one.

• 1:02:13Ashley Hesseltine?

  Wow.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Zander and I.

• 1:02:14Ashley Hesseltine?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Are you guys?

• 1:02:15Ashley Hesseltine?

  We're gonna be child free.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  Good for you.

• 1:02:17Speaker 00

  I loved you.

• 1:02:18Ashley Hesseltine?

  Love to see you. I, I really want to listen to that because we came at that from obviously two single women. And so I'm definitely going to queue that up and listen to you guys discuss it as a couple. You were so great. And this is wonderful. I'm sure everybody's going to want to find you everywhere they can, your website, your Instagram, everything. So tell them and then tell them when the book comes out and everything else they can find.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I would love to connect with your audience on Instagram. We're at Vanessa and Zander. Shoot us a DM. Let us know you found out about me on Girls Gotta Eat. We have a ton of information on Instagram too. Like we do stories, like I was saying every day. So it's a great way to just like get the conversation going. Sometimes we even do stories where we say things that like, okay, you watch the story and just crank the volume up. So your partner is like in the background and they hear it. Like, wait, what, what are you talking about? So it's a great way to get it started too.

• 1:03:05Ashley Hesseltine?

  I love that. That's great. I mean, we, we always say use our podcast as a gateway to a discussion that you want to have. And I like that, that just like crank up the volume on something.

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  We literally do the same too.

• 1:03:17Ashley Hesseltine?

  What was that?

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  We put up a question box. It's like, what's something that you want us to say out loud so you can play it when your partner's in the room?

• 1:03:24Ashley Hesseltine?

  I love that.

• 1:03:25Rayna Greenberg?

  Your partner comes around the corner. He's like, what was that about choking you harder?

• 1:03:29Speaker 00

  It's a great, like, great way to teach your partner something without having to say.

• 1:03:33Rayna Greenberg?

  Just play it in the apartment. That is so funny.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  So come say hi on Instagram. And we have a ton of information on our highlights about all of our different guides and courses, the foreplay guides. We have like next level intercourse, all kinds of fun stuff. And then we're also online at vmtherapy.com. It's my initials. The book Sex Talks comes out February. We're so excited about it. And yeah, our podcast Pillow Talks on all major podcast platforms.

• 1:04:00Rayna Greenberg?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:04:00Ashley Hesseltine?

  Love a February release.

• 1:04:02Rayna Greenberg?

  We do. We love February.

• 1:04:03Speaker 00

  It's my birthday. I love February, too. The 13th.

• 1:04:06Ashley Hesseltine?

  Love it.

• 1:04:07Rayna Greenberg?

  And also, I just want to say, this episode is pretty heteronormative, people with penises.

• 1:04:11Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 1:04:11Rayna Greenberg?

  But you really do make an effort to be pretty inclusive with your business, I've noticed.

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:04:16Rayna Greenberg?

  On the book as well.

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  The inclusivity is really important to us. Obviously, Xander and I are male, female couples, so we try to like, call that out. But we, we think everybody's deserving of hot sex and deep love. So we make a really big effort to make everything inclusive.

• 1:04:31Rayna Greenberg?

  Good. Well, we loved having you. Thank you for being here with us. We really appreciate it. And Ash is just gonna take us out.

• 1:04:36Ashley Hesseltine?

  Hope you guys enjoyed this episode re-release. You can find us at girlsgottaeat.com, Girl's Gotta Eat Podcast on Instagram and TikTok. I am Ash Hess on Instagram. Raina is Rayna Greenberg, rainagreenberg.com for her tour tickets. And you can watch full video again on Spotify and YouTube. Subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and we will see you Thursday.

• 1:04:56Rayna Greenberg?

  Have a good week, guys.

• 1:04:57Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly, the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress, a hoodie slips beneath a blazer, an old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it, layer by layer, until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross.