Moment 19 - This Is Why Your Sex Life Sucks: Kate Moyle

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Talking about sex can often be an uncomfortable conversation for most of us, especially if it includes discussing our issues in the bedroom. This is why I decided to fire all of the taboo questions we all want to know the answers to at Kate Moyle, a Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist and host of The Sexual Wellness Sessions Podcast. Episode 73 - https://g2ul0.app.link/zstxzWwVOib Kate: https://www.instagram.com/katemoyletherapy/ https://www.katemoyle.co.uk/ 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.

• 0:04Steven Bartlett?

  This is probably the most popular question I'm sure you get, which is like, how do you keep it fresh? What advice would you give me to keep my sex life with a partner I've been with for X amount of years still fresh, exciting and exploratory?

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's the question everyone wants the answer to. It is about, A, I suppose, first thing, acknowledging that it might be different to how it used to be. So again, one of I think the biggest hurdles people can get kind of tripped over on is it's not the same as it used to be, or it changed. Now, why does that mean it's worse? You know, actually, perhaps the quality of the sex that people might be having might be better because they know each other better, they understand each other's bodies better, they feel more in tune with each other. So it's understanding that you might be in a different phase or stage, and that's okay.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  It doesn't have to be, you know, that famous phrase, the honeymoon period, that kind of everybody quotes or goes back to. So I think that is one thing. And I think actually kind of carving out the time and the space and the effort and not seeing that as a bad thing, not seeing that as problematic, that we have to be a bit more conscious of that part of our relationships, is a huge, huge factor because what the kind of common narrative we see in like society, I suppose, is if I have to make an effort for this, then there must be something wrong with that because sex should be spontaneous, should be something that just happens.

• 1:39Steven Bartlett?

  That's what it says in the movies.

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Which is part of the problem, right? Because that's one of the most easily accessible visual versions of sex that we have. We don't see into other people's sex lives in the same way. Now, what we do see is social media or pictures of couples or images of couples, and we make assumptions about them.

• 2:03Steven Bartlett?

  Super naive question, but I'm sure it's one of the most popular questions you get asked, which is like, is there a healthy amount of times for a couple to have sex per week or whatever? And, you know, one would assume that changes over time, right? Because I think, just judging by my relationships, we start like fucking Energizer Bunny Rabbits and then, you know, life happens.

• 2:28Steven Bartlett?

  But is there, you know, and I hate these questions because they're again, they're so like unnuanced and so like narrow, but is there an average amount of times that couples? You would, you know, if you had to answer this question and not swerve it

• 2:43Steven Bartlett?

  in this for the sake of nuance, what would the answer be?

• 2:45Speaker 01

  I would like to know what you think the answer is.

• 2:48Steven Bartlett?

  I think, again, context, like I'm going to go into nuance in here, but context matters. Like if you live on opposite sides of the world, then obviously there's barriers. But if you're living in the same, if you're cohabiting, living in the same house, I think like at least twice a week. You know, once in the weekend, Tuesday.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  But where, okay, so where do you think that idea of twice a week comes from?

• 3:15Steven Bartlett?

  Just looking at my schedule.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Wait a minute.

• 3:20Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, like where can I find time? Probably like once in the week. And on the weekends I have a bit more time, so.

• 3:28Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, but I mean, it obviously changes over time. I feel like I'd probably have sex every night. But if I, you know, but just energy levels and yeah, what's the answer then?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  So someone I interviewed talked about the amount of sex we have as a red herring. So the kind of regularity of sex doesn't determine like the satisfaction of it or the kind of pleasure of it or the enjoyment of it. And I think what it feels like we've been trying to do is find an objective way of measuring sex. So it's this idea of, okay, well, we're all trying to find the answer to sex, like how to be good at sex, like what that looks like, how to know where we pitch ourselves against everyone else. And regularity is one of the only kind of objective measures we have of that. So it's the one that we kind of will lean into or we want to know the answer to.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Whereas what I would say is, I don't think we do have an idea of, I don't know what kind of modern like surveys say, there's a big survey that's done

• 4:33Speaker 01

  kind of every few years, but I haven't actually seen the results of that one yet, but.

• 4:36Steven Bartlett?

  What about the monkeys? How often do they do it? I feel like they were like 90.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  I haven't asked them.

• 4:42Steven Bartlett?

  What are the orangutans doing?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  I haven't got a clue.

• 4:44Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, I need to find out.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Maybe your next guest.

• 4:47Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  But I think that the thing is, is. Working out again, and what it, what we're looking for is a measure of like how we're doing.

• 4:58Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 01

  By knowing that answer. And I think one of the things is for some couples, it might be, as you said, they might kind of work in different countries. It might be every time they see each other, they have great sex and that's enough. Like that's works for them. For other couples, it might be we have sex once a month and it's really good. You know, we're both enjoying ourselves and we feel like our needs met. Great. For other people, it might be once a week, you know, I think it's about determining like what your normal is or what you're, what is right for you. But again, the kind of worries and anxieties and stresses come from A, we're not having enough sex. Why is that?

• 5:38Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  You know, is it because my partner is no longer attracted to me? That tends to be the first thing people go to. And what's going on? Um, is it because our relationship isn't working? Is it when we don't have a clear kind of obvious answer, like we've just had a baby, for example. Um, so there's the assumptions that go with that. Why has sex changed? What's going on? But also the, well, everyone else is having sex once a week and we're having sex once a month. So that we must have a problem. There must be something wrong with us.

• 6:10Steven Bartlett?

  What is the single biggest killer of relationships? In the modern age in twenty twenty one, in your view, if you had to say this one thing is the, the single, the biggest killer of relationships, what would it be?

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Unrealistic expectations. One of the

• 6:29Speaker 01

  big problems, you, you talked about it earlier, this idea of like what we see in the movies. So we're like, oh, that's what it's like. So then when it's not like that, we're disappointed. Our partner fails us. They haven't met our expectations. They haven't met all of our needs. You know, we talk about this idea, lots of relationship experts talk about this idea of how we shouldn't expect one person, our partner, to meet every single one of our needs. But we do. And so they're kind of doomed to fail then in that way. So how do we?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Change that, how do we start to kind of like open that up? How do we, you know, we have other relationships in our lives. We have family, we have friends, we have colleagues, you know, we need to start to think about like, how we can do that for ourselves and then we work with our partners to create something together.

• 7:22Steven Bartlett?

  And lastly, just to sort of loop around from the, from the start, what are the, if you were to say that there were, there were similarities in couples that do enjoy great sexual relationship, just principles, top line principles, what are those sort of key distilled top line principles?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Um, such a big question.

• 7:39Steven Bartlett?

  Communication, I think.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Communication, yeah, is like top of the tree. And I think, I think it's top of the tree and I think it's the one that people don't want to hear because it's less actionable and it's quite scary.

• 7:51Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's like, in a way, I think talking about it is the hardest thing to do. And but it is, you know, any relationship kind of expert, any expert in the sexual kind of wellbeing, health space will say to you that communication is that. And then it's like, okay, but how do I?

• 8:11Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Do that? And, you know, we talk about these communication exercises, things like kind of speaking from your own position. So like, I say, so there's a place called the Gottman Institute and they have, you know, done so much research on couples, but it's this ownership, like my feelings are, I'm feeling, my perspective is, because actually what you're not saying to your partner is you.

• 8:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's not blame.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  It's not blame, exactly. So I think that the communication part and like positive communication is a big part of that, but it's that break away from assumption. It's like clarification on assumption. Assumption is what trips us up so much of the time because we're mind reading. We think we know what our partner's going to say before they say it, so we don't even give them a chance.