I Love You (Don't) Touch Me with Sex Therapist Vanessa Marin

*This transcript was auto-generated*

Kim:

Hello. What are you doing?

 

Travis:

We are driving.

 

Kim:

So listen, I've got a quick question in. Keep it real, no pressure, but we've got a sex therapist on the podcast today. She's coming on, like, in 10 minutes.

 

Travis:

Absolutely not.

 

Travis:

Whatever it is, it's a no.

Kim:
No, no. Let me just. Can I just ask you a few questions, please? I'm tell you why.

Travis:
This is a prank.

Kim:
This is not a prank.

 

Travis:

This is such a prank that you're calling on phone and with Zac and this is a prank.

 

Kim:

This is not a prank. Zac is sitting here listening. This is. You're not on tv. This is not a prank. This is a true story. It's being recorded. It's not being recorded.

 

Travis:

This is like the AT&T call. Got the other day.

Kim:
This is not so my. He just hung up on me. I'm about to call him back now. Gurje Lloyd, Here comes the Kim Gravel Show. Hey, y'all. I'm Kim Gravel, and welcome to the Kim Gravel Show. I'm joined, as always, by my right hand, my ride or die, my producer, Zac.

 

Kim:

Hey.

 

Zac:

Hey, Kim.

 

Kim:

Hey. I'm so excited about today because we're talking about sex baby, I'm talking about you. Huh? I joke around a lot, and I tell my husband, I love you. Don't touch me. We actually are doing a whole series of, like, in real life sweatshirts. Sweet. Zac and I love you.

 

Kim:

Don't touch me is the number one ask for sweatshirt.

 

Zac:

Are you serious? On qvc?

 

Kim:

Yeah. Cranky. And I love you. Don't touch me is what people are wanting the most of. So I have a feeling, y'all, that this guest today is going to be telling me that's the wrong approach to intimacy. I bet.

 

Zac:

But if it's on a sweatshirt, it doesn't lie, right? I mean, that's.

 

Kim:

No, you know what? I'm just saying, like, hey, those kind of sweatshirts. Listen, my guess is Vanessa. She's a sex therapist. Vanessa, if we can sell a sweatshirt with on, that's what we gonna do, honey. We'll talk about it. To be. See you later. So if you're like me and the spark is just not, you know, catching fire in the bedroom anymore, and I can't believe I just said that to all of y'all.

 

Kim:

Listening, or you want to find more enjoyment in sex, then I think, you know, this episode is for you, basically. Zac, when you talk about sex, there's a stigma around sex.

 

Zac:

Yeah, big time.

 

Kim:

Wait a minute. I'm taking a step Further. And I want to talk to Vanessa about this. Especially married sex. Okay. That's a different vibe altogether. Would you agree with that?

 

Zac:

Oh, 100%. I. I think it's. It's a totally different thing. It's.

 

Zac:

And Vanessa.

 

Kim:

Different thing.

 

Zac:

And Vanessa's so good at talking about this. Like she.

 

Kim:

She does. Good, good. She.

 

Zac:

She does the show. Her. Her pod husband, and they just talk about sex all the time.

 

Kim:

Well, this is the thing. I think a. Sex is overrated. That's my. That's my opinion. I'm curious to see what she thinks about it. I think it. Is it.

 

Kim:

Overrated might be the wrong word. Let's. Let's. Let's step that back before I get a million emails and calls about that. But let's just step that it is hyped to a level that is unrealistic. Is that a better description?

 

Zac:

And I also think this is how so many people feel about sex. It's not this mind blowing thing that our culture wants you to think it is, especially when you're married or you've been married for a long time.

 

Kim:

But it is. Sex sells. You hear that all the time. And I think it's that way because it's instinctual. I think God made us to be sexual beings to procreate and also for amazing intimacy. Right? So, I mean, there's a lot of, like, foundational principles that. How human beings were created that, you know, it's instinctual. But at the same time, we have hyped it to the point of if you don't have this sex every single day with 17,000 orgasms, then you know, you don't have a good sex life.

 

Kim:

So I'm telling you, Travis and I. I love you. Don't touch me. We are so tired that, I mean, it is to the point where it truly is our. Our intimacy and our fantasy is just falling in bed and sitting there and having eight hours a good night's sleep. I mean, that is just as good as sleep sometimes.

 

Zac:

I think we need to save all of this. Vanessa's in the waiting room. We should let her in. We should talk to her. Let's get her in here.

 

Kim:

All right, y'all. My guest today is a licensed psychotherapist with over 20 years of experience in sex therapy. Yep, I said it. Sex therapy. And you know what? Her mission is? To make the conversations about intimacy a little bit more approachable and less intimidating. I know. I can't wait to talk to her. And her new book is a New York Times bestseller called Sex Talks.

 

Kim:

Five conversations that will transform your love life. Everybody get ready to talk about sex. Baby. Let's welcome Vanessa Morin.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, my gosh. I've never heard my name like that before. I might need a snip of that from you guys.

 

Kim:

We're definitely. That's your new ringtone.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. I love it.

 

Kim:

So sex.

 

Vanessa Marin:

You did it. You said the word. Good job, Kim.

 

Kim:

You work with your husband and y'all talk about sex. And you. Let's. Can we just break it down? Because let me. Can I just start with just. I'm gonna start with a personal testimony here. Vanessa, Sex is so hard when you're married.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It is, isn't it?

 

Kim:

Isn't it? And I was telling Zac earlier, I was like, you know, we live in such a hyper sexed culture, you know, where it just glamorizes bodies and passion and chemistry and all that. And when you're married, it's just. It's just. I don't know, it's just sex.

 

Zac:

Wait, tell. Tell her what you were literally just telling me, like, right before she came on, we were recording, and you were saying that the most. What was it? The shirt that people want to see and the phrase you kept saying on qvc.

 

Kim:

I often say I'm making these kind of ironic in real life sweatshirts because I always say to my husband, I love you, don't touch me. Because he'll stick his little toe over on my little calf or something, and I'm like, no, I love you. Don't touch me.

 

Kim:

And so that's probably the number one sweatshirt that everybody wants is the I Love you, don't touch me sweatshirt.

 

Kim:

So, Vanessa, needless to say, I need you. So take over. Tell me what I need.

 

Kim:

I need therapy.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Honey, I'm so excited to chat with you, and I'm really grateful that you were willing to open up this conversation. And you know what? I can relate to you. Like, I've been with my husband, Xander. We're coming up on 18 years together this year, which I don't feel old enough to be in a relationship that.

 

Kim:

Well, you are not old enough. I can look at you and tell.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I got married when I was 10.

 

Kim:

You were child bride.

 

Vanessa Marin:

But, you know, like, yeah, I really. We've been through our own ups and downs, and I know that feeling of, you know, I feel like we should be having sex. It seems like everybody else maybe is having more sex than we are, but I don't know how to actually get things going. You know, so we've been there in our own relationship too. I really get it. And that for me is the first step of this work is normalizing this for people. I know we all see like all the TV shows, all the movies. It seems like sex is so effortless, so easy.

 

Vanessa Marin:

If you're with the right person, it should just be spontaneous and wonderful and perfect every single time. And I want to normalize that. When we get into long term relationships, it's just not like that. It can feel like a herculean task sometimes to imagine, like just trying to get turned on, trying to get excited about being with our partner. Let's start there. Let's start with normalizing. If you're looking over at your partner thinking like, I love you but don't touch me, like, you are not alone.

 

Kim:

Well, can I just say that it's. I. Like when you said it had ups and downs and ebbs and flows. Like, are we too conditioned to like, with our bodies too? Like with our bodies with anything in business, anything really. Social media, everything is so. It's hyper sexualized. It really is. It's like it's supposed to look a certain way, feel a certain way, make you react a certain way.

 

Kim:

Like, what is the reality of that? I mean, I wasn't even getting into porn yet. I mean, that's just. I mean, lord, that is probably. I don't know, I think it's the devil. I think it's just absolutely torn relationships and people and sexual relationships between partners apart. But that's a whole nother podcast. But tell me, like, if someone is in the rut period, because when you say ebb and flows and ups and downs, what does that mean?

 

Vanessa Marin:

A lot of us think about sex drive as just this inherent quality that we have. Like, I have a size five shoe. You know, I should have. I know I'm a tiny little person. It's hard to find shoes sometimes.

 

Kim:

I'm a nine and a half. So I'm. I'm loving your five right now.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So, like, that's. That's just my shoe size or that's just my sex drive. Like it's just supposed to be a part of us. But the reality is that our sex drive flows. It ebbs and flows throughout the course of our life. And it's really sensitive. It's not just this fixed value. It can be affected by so many different things.

 

Vanessa Marin:

By the emotional connection in our relationship, by physical health, stuff that we have going on, by how we view our own body, by shame. Shame or trauma that we're dealing with so many different things. And so because of that, like, our connection with our partner can ebb and flow too. You know, we have periods of, of the relationship where it feels so much easier to connect inside and outside of the bedroom. And you have seasons of the relationship where you're like, don't look at me weird or you're breathing too loud, right? So that's another part of what we have to normalize. But unfortunately, so many of us get to these places where we feel the spark starting to fade and we freak out about it because you don't ever see that on TV and in the movies or like when they, when you do see it, it's like a sign of doom. Like, oh, yeah, now they're, you know, they're really over. And so we don't know any tools, any resources for how do I reconnect with my partner.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Once we're starting to get into a dry spell, once we're starting to feel more like roommates and romantic partners because we don't have those tools, we don't have those resources, we don't know how to talk about it, it actually makes those dry spells last. So that's what I'm here to do is like, let's normalize that. It's okay for it to happen in the first place, but then let's jump in as quickly as we can and give you the tools and resources to understand how to actually reconnect with your partner.

 

Kim:

Well, so most of people listening to this are women right now. And I bet you a large percentage of women either are in or have dealt with this situation. Because I know for Travis and I, the challenge is with two teenage kids, work, you know, here and there, everywhere. Running the kids around, being a involved parent, that's a full time job within itself. It's hard to make time for each other. And really, sometimes we don't want to make time with each other. Sometimes we just want a long time where we're not having to think about responsibility and having sex and having a hot sex life and all of that seems like date night and la la la la. It seems like it's just more work.

 

Kim:

It's more flipping work. Vanessa.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It is. It absolutely is more work. But what I want to try to convince you and the women listening of is that that work is valuable and we can find ways of doing that work that feel fun and playful and doesn't feel like you're doing homework. Like, who wants to. I don't want to do, like homework for my Relationship, Right. No, but like, we have to start with that central belief, you, that the connection that the two of you share, that's special, that's important and it's worth the two of you pouring into that because let me put it for you in a different way. Tell me, have you had a season of your relationship where it feels like you're just not connected, you're not on the same page and everything feels like such a slog? Like you can't even have a conversation about, you know, can you unload the dishwasher without it feeling tense and heavy? Like everything. So much more time and energy.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Right? Okay. So yeah, when our relationships are in a bathroom place, they take up so much more time and energy. But think about a time when you guys have been in a good season of your relationship where you are feeling connected, you're feeling like a team. Life is so much easier when you have an actual weight.

 

Kim:

Yeah, we're in that now. But I will tell you the slog of it all. It's not because we didn't love each other or didn't care about each other or we're not even. Not that we weren't attracted to each other. It was the responsibility, it was the heaviness of life.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Life. Life is always going to be life in. Right. And so it's, it's. I don't want to set the expectation that you're going to be 100% connected, super hot and heavy for each other every moment of your relationship. Like, that's just not realistic. Life happens.

 

Vanessa Marin:

But I think getting into the mindset of recognizing, hey, when my partner and I actually feel like a team, life feels easier. Even the hard stuff that it's going to throw our way. It feels easier when I have a teammate. So I'm all about being really practical, coming up with like, what's the bare minimum that we can do to keep that connection going? Because actually that bare minimum is going to save you so much time and energy in the long run, it's really going to feel worth it. So let me give you a couple of practical examples here because like this idea of feeling close to our part, that's so huge, it's such a huge topic. It's like, where do I even start? How do I start rebuilding intimacy with my partner? I don't even know. So I want to give you some super practical things that we actually have research showing that they make a really big difference. So number one, we have some form of non sexual touch every single day.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And my Favorite form of this is a 20 to 30 second hug. So tell me even how busy, the busiest of busy days, you have 20 or 30 seconds that you can give your partner.

 

Kim:

Let me ask you something, Vanessa, my husband come and going, honk, honk. Does that count?

 

Vanessa Marin:

No, thank you. That's not a hug. We are not fans of the boob honk. I've actually, we've polled our audience about this before because I'm like, there can't be any women who actually like this. Right? That's quite often, actually.

 

Kim:

I'm getting tickled. I'm being a little bit on myself, getting tickled with that. I'm like, yeah, that's. Yeah, that's.

 

Vanessa Marin:

No, no, no. Yeah. Out of. Out of like, three quarters of a million people who will follow us on Instagram, two women wrote in and said, like, I think it's kind of funny. I don't mind it. Well, that was it.

 

Kim:

I'm sorry to interrupt. All right, so that does not constitute.

 

Vanessa Marin:

An actual good hug. And what's really interesting about this is you can actually feel the moment that your body relaxes. Like, you'll be holding. You'll be holding them. It feels a little awkward. You're like, this is a really long hug. Okay, I'm going to keep going. 20 more seconds and then you kind of feel that, like, oh, where you, like, settle into each other.

 

Kim:

I wanna hug right now.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I know, right? 20 seconds. Tell me we don't have time for 20 seconds.

 

Zac:

Yeah, that's a long. That's a pretty long hug, though. I'm thinking about 20 seconds is not nothing.

 

Vanessa Marin:

No.

 

Kim:

But when I get my kids to do that with me, too, I'm just like. I feel so connected. You are so right.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. So that's number one. I've got three for you. Number two is gratitude. There is actually research showing that gratitude is the number one predictor of marital satisfaction. And I know all of us have heard gratitude before. We kind of roll our eyes at it a little bit, like, oh, let me get on my gratitude journal and, like, write my things. I'm grateful for today.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Like, we have actual research showing the number one predictor of marital satisfaction. Gratitude. Gratitude is free. It's super fast. It's easy. It feels good to both give and to receive. So if every day you could take three seconds to tell your partner, like, hey, I really appreciate that you're on top. You're on top of pickup duty today.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Or, hey, have I told you lately how much I appreciate, like, you're always so goofy you're always making me laugh, like, I really appreciate you. That doesn't take any effort. But if we did that every single day, it would make such a huge impact in our relationships. And number three is perhaps the simplest of all, eye contact. It is really wild how little eye contact couples in long term relationships make. And if you really think about it, like, think about the last time your partner walked into the room. You're probably on your phone, maybe on your computer. I bet you, you didn't even look up.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And I say this because I do this all the time too. I don't even look up sometimes. But like, what? Think about what that really feels like when you're on the receiving end of that. It's like you don't even acknowledge my presence. I don't even have to be here and you wouldn't even notice. Right. I think one of the greatest tragedies of relationships is that choose to spend our entire life with somebody and then we wind up feeling invisible to them. So just that simple act of practicing seeing your partner, make that eye contact with them, give them a smile.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Heck, you can even combine the last two. Make the eye contact and give them a, you know, compliment. Show them some gratitude. It really will make such a big difference.

 

Kim:

You know, you're sitting here talking about this. This really has nothing to do with sex. I mean, it's.

 

Vanessa Marin:

But it has everything to do. We have this tendency to compartmentalize sex. We think of it as just this physical act, just body parts going into other body parts. It's this thing that happens like at the end of the night in our bedroom. The door is turned off, the doors closed, lights turned off. But it's not, it's not this act that just we can silo away like that. The connection that we feel to our partner or don't feel to our partner is going to heavily impact our desire to want to connect with them in a physical way.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And it sounds so obvious when I lay it out like that. But most of us just forget about that connection. We feel like I'm just supposed to want to have sex all the time. We're just supposed to be having it effortlessly and spontaneously. But you're not going to want to have sex with your partner if you don't feel connected to them. If they're feeling like a stranger, like you guys are getting into bed at the end of the night and you feel like there's a stranger pulling back the covers on the other side of the bed, you're not going to want to have sex with them. So it is these little experiences of creating more connection. It's like creating a thread that keeps us connected throughout the day so that when we are getting into bed together, it doesn't feel like, whoa, who the heck are you? Where have you been all day?

 

Kim:

Well, I want to talk about this too, because Travis and I. I've been married for 25 years. 25 years.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Congrats.

 

Kim:

And so that's a long time. Yeah. But let me say this. We. We did not have sex before we got married. Okay? So that was a personal decision we made. Plus, I. It was a long distance relationship.

 

Kim:

And the intimacy was so fantastic because, you know, we fooled around and did our thing. And so, like, I even miss that. Like, what I'm trying to say is, is that we were. Him and I were talking about the other night. We're like, we're so tired all the time. And I. I said I miss the anticipation of the actual sexual act. I mean, and I'm over sharing big time here.

 

Vanessa Marin:

No, I love it. I appreciate it.

 

Kim:

But this is the thing. Like, we would go in, it would be like we would get excited to see each other just so that we could fool around. Cause we knew we weren't gonna have a. We weren't gonna have sex. And I'm thinking, how important is fooling around the anticipation? Cause they say date night. I'm like, who's got time for date night? I ain't trying to go out and have just a dinner. Cause by the time we go to dinner for date night, all we're doing is talking about what we gotta do with the kids, blah, blah, blah. Like, how important is setting the stage of that intimacy? Because to me, that's what I miss.

 

Kim:

Making out. Like, I miss that which leads to sex. But I think if you get the connection and then you get the fooling around parts, you get to the sex part, right?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, yeah.

 

Kim:

Are there steps to that? Because I miss that. Vanessa, I'm telling you something. There used to be massive passion with Travis, and I like the anticipation of just some. Am I the only one here, Zac.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Nobody can spot on?

 

Zac:

No, I can totally relate.

 

Kim:

Yeah, I'm getting excited talking about it, actually. Good. This is perfect.

 

Vanessa Marin:

This is what we want. So there's some really incredible research that's done on the power of anticipation. Did this study on people using slot machines, and they were looking at when do people feel the most pleasure? When the whole. With the whole process of the slot machine. So you would think you'd feel the most Pleasure if you are winning money. Right. Like, what's more pleasurable than free money? But actually, what the researchers found was that pleasure was the highest when people were pulling the slot. It was that anticipation of maybe this is going to be the time that was most pleasurable.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And I think that has some really interesting relationships with sex, too. For so many of us, it's that anticipation of a great yes.

 

Kim:

For me it is.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. That feels even more exciting sometimes than, like, the actual experience itself. So let's go back, if you don't mind. I want to ask you a few questions about those early stages of your relationship with Travis. So for you, what did you do to create or to stoke that anticipation in those early days?

 

Kim:

Well, I would. You know, that was way before texting was hot. But when we would talk on the phone, I would. We would almost talk out the scenarios of how we were gonna make out. So we would.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Ooh, fun.

 

Kim:

We planned it verbally.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. And what about, like, when you were about to get ready for a date with him, like, you were about to see him? What would you do to kind of just like, oh, girl, play with that man?

 

Kim:

I had the push up bra, decked it out, smelled like, you know, a fresh, you know, picked flower. I mean, Yeah, I mean, I put on the dog. That's what we say in the South. I put on the dog. I put my best foot forward.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, I love that. Okay.

 

Kim:

You know, I wanted to be. I wanted him to. I wanted to be irresistible for around him.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I love this.

 

Kim:

And also, I wanted to be pursued. So I put, you know, I wanted. I wanted him to, like, oh, my God, I can't take this. I have to have it, you know, I have to have her.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Zac:

Wait, I don't want to hijack this. Like, keep going, Vanessa. But you have a date night hack that I saw on you posted online, which was, like, so wild. Like, what some people do before they go out on a date to have.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Sex before the date night.

 

Zac:

Yeah. Yeah. Which was like, blew my mind.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. That's one of my. One of my favorite tips is so many of us, we think of the order as being like, date night. And then you come home and have sex. But let's be real. Like, if I'm going out to a restaurant meal, I'm probably overeating. I'm probably going to get a little dancing. You know, people who might be drinking.

 

Vanessa Marin:

You're drunk, you're kind of tipsy. I get tired. By the time I come home after a day, I'm tired I want to out my PJs on..

 

Vanessa Marin:

I'm like immediately taking my dress off the second we're walking through the, like, I just want to go to bed. And so instead, I think it's so much better if we reverse the order. Let's have sex before date night. That way you have the energy. You're not like just wanting to go to bed and you get to go onto your date night having this sexy little secret between the two of you of like, oh, I remember what we just did. So that's, that's a great tip in general, but like going back to the, the piece of about anticipation, you know, so people will tell me. I miss those early days of our relationship where everything felt so spontaneous and effortless and natural. But if you really think about it, there was nothing spontaneous or effortless about those early days.

 

Vanessa Marin:

We were actually putting in so much effort, talking about it beforehand, getting ourselves ready, getting so excited, thinking about it, playing it all out in our heads. So it's not that all of a sudden we get into these long term relationships and, oh, now I have to put the work in. We've always been putting the work in. We just had a really different attitude about it in the earlier stages of the relationship. So, like, I want to be realistic. There is nothing like falling in love with somebody for the first time, like somebody brand new. Like, you're never going to get that stage of the relationship back, and that's okay.

 

Kim:

There's the realism, Zac. There's a realism.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It's never going to be.

 

Kim:

I think that's the dopamine high everybody's trying to hit.

 

Vanessa Marin:

But we can put in, like, put that energy and that effort in, in the same sort of way and feel excited about it. And not to mention, I do think there are benefits of having sex with somebody that you've been with for a long time that you have that trust and intimacy with that you don't have at the beginning of a relationship. But yeah, it's a really, it's a huge mindset shift for people to make, to realize, like, oh, it's not that I was never doing anything, never putting any work in in the beginning. Like, there actually was a lot of effort. So we got to think about how can I engage with that anticipation, that excitement again, how can I get myself, like, fired up and that we can be planning for intimacy in the same way that we were in the beginning stages of a relationship.

 

Kim:

Now when you say fired up, something came to my mind that I want to talk to you about. Because I will say arousal. Now, this is. Here we go. This is Kim Gravel Show After Dark. So you write about people having different arousal types. And like, can you break that down and what that means?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, this is incredibly important information, especially women, and especially if you think of yourself as low desire or no desire. You have to know this. So there are two different types of desire. They are called spontaneous desire and responsive desire. And what they boil down to is where we feel desire first. So there are two places we can feel desire. Mentally. That's like, the thought of sex sounds good.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It might just pop into your head randomly, like, oh, yeah, sex sounds good to me. And then we can.

 

Kim:

When you said. When you're saying the thought, are you talking about like. Like when you watch a sexy movie or read a book that you know, is that what you're talking about? Or you just say, is it just random?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, it kind of random. Like the thought of it just popped in your head.

 

Kim:

Okay. Just. Just. Okay.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. And then we can also feel arousal. Physically. Our bodies start to feel good. They start to get turned on and ready to have sex. And so the two types boil down to where we feel. At first, if you're spontaneous, you're going to feel that mental desire feels like it's kind of out of nowhere. It's random.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And then the physical arousal follows. So every sex scene that you see on TV and in the movies, that's all spontaneous desire. It's kind of that, like, just comes up randomly in the moment. The partner's, like, looking for their stranger people crazy. So that's how most of us, you know, think that desire is supposed to happen. Yeah, but responsive desire is the exact opposite. We have to feel arousal in our bodies first before the idea of sex starts to sound good. And research shows that about 85% of women have responsive desire.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So one of the classic ways of knowing that you might have responsive desire is if you've ever been in the middle of sex or even at the very end of sex, and you catch yourself thinking, this is fun. Why do I not seem to want this more often? That's responsive desire. Now, the problem is most of us think that we're supposed to have that mental interest in sex out of nowhere. And that's how the vast majority of couples initiate. Like, when your husband's initiating sex, he's probably asking you, hey, do you want to have sex right now? That's appealing to mental desire. But if you're responsive, 99 times out of 100, the answer is going to be no. Because you haven't had any sort of physical stimulation yet. Your body is not going yet.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So it's not that you have low or no desire. It's just that we have to think about that desire in a different way. We need to initiate sex for a responsive desire type instead of for a spontaneous type.

 

Kim:

Yeah, I think I'm responsive.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, Most. Most women are. Yeah. So again, like, if you're. If you're asking the question or you yourself are thinking, like, do I want to have sex right now? It's always going to be a no. So that's another thing that we have to normalize. Nothing's wrong with you. It's just you have to get your body going first.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So I like to think of doing that, like, the physical touch. That's the most important thing to do for responsive desire. You have to give your body something to respond to in order for the mental desire to kick in.

 

Kim:

Yeah. And you write about creating, like, a personal user manual. Like, what is that? Like, I like that. I think sometimes Travis are very open. We're very raw and real with each other. Probably too much. And so I just called him and asked him. I said, can we call you and talk to Vanessa and she can ask you a few.

 

Kim:

We can ask a few questions about sex. Absolutely not.

 

Vanessa Marin:

No.

 

Kim:

So maybe a user manual. Can I give him my manual? What is that?

 

Zac:

He thought it was a prank, by the way, because we played it as a prank. We prank Kib's family. And he's like, this is a prank. This isn't real. What are you talking about?

 

Kim:

I'm like, no, it's really real. Vanessa's coming on, like, in five minutes.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, that's too funny. Well, maybe I'll have to come back. He'll have to listen to this episode.

 

Vanessa Marin:

We'll come back to part two. Yeah. So, yeah. What I write about in the book there is helping us get to know ourselves better before we are able to share that with our partner. Because so many of us are trying to create this connection with our partner right now, but we don't really know what it is that we want personally. So understanding your desire type, that's part of the user manual, so you can share with your partner. Like, here's how I like sex to be initiated. I need there to be, you know, some physical stimulation in my body first.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Or I need you to feel more emotionally connected with me first. So it's helping us understand ourselves better, because most of us have never really taken that time to think about, like, what is it that I really want? What is it that would feel good for me? So here's a super practical and simple exercise that people can do after they finish listening to this episode is think about three words that you would use to describe your ideal sex life. So most of us, like most of us, want to have a great sex life. If you ask people you do you want to have a great sex life? Most people are going to say yes. Most of us have never really taken that time to think about what does that mean? And it could be really different answers for different people. So what does it mean to you? What three words would you use to pick your ideal sex life? Life.

 

Kim:

I'm sitting here trying to answer that question, Zac. Do you want to answer it too? I, this is, these are good questions.

 

Zac:

Do I want to answer it? No. Will I answer it for you, Kim? Sure.

 

Kim:

No, I'm just saying, like, what? Because to me, the first thing that pops into my mind when you're saying the three things. I'm. I'm sorry. Hijacked the whole episode. Just make it about me. No, I, I, I, I. Spontaneity. Seems that that's the first thing that came to my mind.

 

Kim:

I would just love for it. We used to be so spontaneous. Like I will tell you a story, like Travis, he's gonna kill me, I swear. We'd go on trips and it would just be out of middle of nowhere in random places. It was always spontaneous. So I'd want a little bit more of that. Not too much cause I'm older, but a little bit more of that. And I think I miss just the talks we would have before and after.

 

Vanessa Marin:

That's great.

 

Kim:

That's great. Oh my gosh. I'm getting a little. I'm getting a little teary eyed because it was so. It was so I'm gonna say this word which Travis would give. It was so sweet. It was so. To me, the sex was a result of those conversations.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Exactly, exactly.

 

Kim:

It was the next level of communication.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So your bodies are continuing the conversation, correct?

 

Kim:

Cause we would talk before and then afterwards, but before. And I miss that. That's one thing I want. And then also I just want. Good Lord have mercy.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I love that. These are great. And they're so personal, right? Like these are not going to be Zac's answers. They're not going to be my answers. But they're really, they're really illuminating. Right? And that's something. There's such a great, like so much information that you can bring back to Travis and share that with him.

 

Kim:

Yeah. I love that.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. Like, he might be thinking something totally different. That's the really interesting thing about what happens with couples is I'll ask. Ask the, you know, the couple separately, and they just have such different expectations. They're thinking, oh, my. My wife wants me to be doing this. And the wife's like, no, I don't.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Where'd you get that from?

 

Kim:

Right.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So it's like, just these basic conversations are so important.

 

Kim:

I gotta tell you something, Vanessa. You know what turns me on the most is true story. Like, I'm not a woman that likes flowers, chocolates, all the gifts. When he cleans out the refrigerator.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Oh. Oh, yeah.

 

Kim:

He gonna get lucky.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Have you heard the word chore play?

 

Kim:

No. What's that?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Chore play. It's doing chores as a form of foreplay.

 

Kim:

I'm into that girl. I am way into that.

 

Vanessa Marin:

A lot of women are like, I know there's a lot of, like, silly jokes about it, but that conveys that you have a true partner. Like, they're being an adult. They're seeing, hey, I see there's dirty dishes in this thing. I'm just gonna go ahead and wash them instead of leaving them there. Oh, right. Yeah. So when we feel like we have a partner, when it. When we don't feel like everything in this house is my responsibility, I'm the only one who sees all the things that need to be done.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I'm the only one who's doing the things that need to be done. That's exhausting. And that. Honestly, that feels more like you have a child than a partner. And so when you have a partner who's doing their fair share, and I think, like, Xander and I, we like to be kind of, like, goofy and silly about it, you know? So he'll get out the vacuum cleaner, and he's, you know, doing a little bit of thrusting motion as he's doing the vacuum cleaner. So, like, we make it funny and playful, but for a lot of women, it's a huge turn on to see their partner, like, just taking care of things.

 

Kim:

Well. And can I tell you, there's something that you've just. You've sparked something else in me. But, like, Travis and I used to laugh all the time. Like, there was nobody on the planet that can make me laugh more than him.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Kim:

And. And it just. There's something about being silly together and not taking ourselves or sex or your relationship too seriously. Right?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. That's actually one of my Words. One of my three words is playful. I had a huge realization years ago. Right. I realized, like, I have been taking sex so seriously.

 

Kim:

Me too.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And it's putting this, like, weird pressure on it. But when I really think about it, my favorite sexual experiences with Xander have been when we were silly. Like, we're really silly, goofy people outside of the bedroom. And so it felt like real intimacy when we bring that full, full version of ourselves into the bedroom too. So, like, we've. And a lot of it has been for work, too. Like, we, you know, we make ridiculous reels on Instagram. We're always, like, making a fool out of ourselves.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And that laughter that we share with each other, it's so connecting. It's such a turn on. And that really feels like intimacy to me again. It's like, it's not just putting body parts and body parts. It's like having this experience of fully seeing each other and being our full selves in front of each other.

 

Kim:

And don't you think, Vanessa, at the end of the day, that is what sex is all about. It's the. It's that. It's just that next level of.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Kim:

Seeing your partner. Like, to me, you know, and I'll be honest with you, Travis and I, waiting to have sex before we got married was really, really a. An amazing thing. I mean, it. It's something that. Because, okay, I say this as a vocalist. I used to sing, and I still sing, but I used to sing professionally. And so I would say to, you know, the group I was in and some people, young girls, I would teach and myself, that if you can hit.

 

Kim:

If you can hit a note, a top note once, you can always. You can always get back there. It's the same thing with sex. If you've had. If you and your partner have had an amazing sexual life and really had a fulfilled sex life, can you get there again? Because a lot of people are just living on the fumes, honey. They living on the memories.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. Yeah, we absolutely can get back there again. And I also want to give hope to the people who maybe it never really was all that great to begin with. Like, a lot of. A lot of couples will tell me, you know, everybody talks about the honeymoon stage of the relationship, but, like, we never really had that. And, like, that's okay, too, because, you know, one of the realities is that we never learn how to have sex. Right? Like, where. Where do we ever learn that?

 

Kim:

Right.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So that's what I do now is teach people, like, the mechanics of It. The technique behind it, because it.

 

Kim:

Do you really teach the mechanics?

 

Vanessa Marin:

We sure do. Yeah. We have guides. We have our ultimate foreplay guides. We have our ultimate sex guide. And we teach the logistics and the techniques in ways that feel really fun and playful and not at all intimidating. But you can. Absolutely not in the book.

 

Vanessa Marin:

We have other guides. Yeah, No, I went on.

 

Zac:

I was just on Vanessa's website, and it was like, oh, learn this new sex position. Download this.

 

Kim:

Yeah, okay. Okay. So you're full service.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Full service, yeah. We teach all this stuff, but, yeah, I mean, I love teaching that aspect of it, too, because all of us feel like we're supposed to be amazing in bed. But again, where do we ever learn? But that makes sense. Yeah. It's like picking up a guitar and thinking you should just magically know how to play a song. Like, of course not. You understand that with other skills, like, it takes the technique. It takes a little bit of practice, but we don't recognize that with sadness.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Cause there's so much shame and embarrassment around it.

 

Kim:

Agreed. Where should a couple start? If I've got women listening to this right now, and they're in, you know, in one of the categories we had talked about, you know, during this, where should you start? What's the first move we should make besides getting the book?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Kim:

Do you know what I'm saying? Like, where should we start?

 

Vanessa Marin:

We have to start with talking about it. That's actually the first conversation of the five conversations in sex talks. Because if we can't talk, talk about sex, if we can't even say those words out loud, you can't improve your sex life. Like, we have to be able to talk about it. And so for most people, like, that brings up a lot of shame and embarrassment. And the mistake that most people make is they don't want to talk about sex. So they wait until something is bad, something's wrong, they have a complaint, a criticism, and they go straight into that. And I did this myself with Xander, like, early in our relationship, when things started going off the rails for us, one of our first conversations about sex was me saying, why do you never seem to want to have sex with me anymore? And of course, that conversation did not go well.

 

Vanessa Marin:

He was really upset. He got defensive. We got into this big fight. So that's what we do not want to do. So instead, what we teach you to do in sex talks is build a positive foundation of talking about sex. You have to show yourself and your partner that you guys can talk about it. And it doesn't have to feel overwhelming or scary. So my favorite way to do this is to actually talk about sex more as a general topic rather than talking about your own sex life.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So on Instagram, like, we design most of our content to open up conversations between partners where watch us trying out a ridiculous sex position and just, like, giggle over it together. Or maybe you see a post where we're giving advice to a different couple who's dealing with something that you guys have never dealt with before and just have a conversation about, like, oh, what did you think about that? Oh, that was interesting. I didn't know there, you know, people have experienced that. So it's just, you're recognizing, like, this is something that we can talk about and it doesn't have to feel big or scary.

 

Kim:

What are, what are those five conversations? Because I know the book is about that. So I just want to give people a teaser about what they're going to discover.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, yeah. So the overall concept of the book is helping couples talk about sex so that we can create the sex life that we've always wanted. And everybody's heard the advice, like, oh, yeah, you should talk about it with your partner. But the advice always ends there. So you're left wondering, like, and then.

 

Kim:

How do we do that? Right?

 

Vanessa Marin:

What do I say? How do I say it? When do I say it? And I made so many of mistakes that I now tell you not to make. So I learned this all the hard way. But the five conversations are really laid out for you. And we tell you, like, exactly what to say, how to say it, all, all the details that their acknowledgement, which is simply getting comfortable with sex as a topic of conversation. Connection, which is that emotional connection piece that we talked about, that you need to feel more connected to each other in order to even want to have sex with each other in the first place. Then we have desire. So what do we need to feel excited about? Sex. How do we get sex going? That's where we talk about, like, the different sex drive types as well.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Then we have pleasure, which is something that we haven't really talked about too much yet. But pleasure and desire are really connected because one of the most important things that people don't recognize is that if the sex that you're having is not very pleasurable, it does not make any sense for you to crave it. And unfortunately, a lot of us are having sex that's not particularly exciting, especially us women. A lot of women will say, like, you know, it feels more like it's for my partner than for Me, there's not really anything that I'm getting out of it. You know, it's predictable, it's routine. So it makes perfect sense for you to not be craving that experience. That's not super fun. So we get into how to make sex more pleasurable, more enjoyable.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And then the last conversation is exploration. How do we keep things interesting? How do we bring the element of novelty into our sex life? How do we keep wanting to have sex with each other even when. When we've been together for decades and decades?

 

Kim:

Oh, that's so good. Is there. Is there seasons for sex for the different genders is like, do make. Because for me, I mean, I'm. I don't know why I'm saying all this. Here we go. I'm.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I appreciate your vulnerability. You're really helping your community by being willing to.

 

Kim:

I'm past menopause, and honestly, I, you know, I could have it a little bit more.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Kim:

Which I'm gonna tell you, back when I was in my 30s, I was like. It was like a chore. And, like, does it change for men and women? Do we desire it different? Like I always say, why did God make men so horny so young, and women so horny, so old? I mean, it's just bizarre to me.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It's not the most.

 

Kim:

Did I just say horny twice? I'm just. Okay, Zac, we've crossed a new threshold here.

 

Zac:

I mean, look, I put this on the soundboard just for this episode, so you could just.

 

Kim:

But you know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm asking a genuine.

 

Zac:

See.

 

Kim:

Because, I mean, I can tell the difference. I mean, we're not going to get into the actual body parts and their functionality, but it does change for a man as he gets older.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It does. And there are seasons to it, too. And it's a really important point overall, because we have this idea that men are just supposed to want it. It anyway. Anytime, all the time. Whatever they can get, they'll take it. And the reality is that I see men struggling with sex drive just as much as women. I think we're heading in a direction where men are going to be struggling with it even more than women are.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And so we have to recognize, like, men are human beings, too, and they go through challenges in the exact same way that women do. They experience changes to their sex drive.

 

Kim:

They do.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And they're not always going to be the partner in a male, female relationship with the higher drive. Like, we've actually told Our audience, we asked if you're, you know, in a male, female relationship, who has the higher sex drive? And 45% of people said that the woman does 40. That's.

 

Kim:

What age group was that, Vanessa? I'm curious to see what age group.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Across all age groups. Yeah. We even looked at different age breakdowns, and we didn't see a difference in that. So men. Yeah, men go through that. And with. So with Xander, what was going on for him early in the. In that stage of our relationship was that he was dealing with incredibly high work stress.

 

Kim:

Stress.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I was going back to grad school at the time, so we were solely reliant on his income. And he was really feeling that pressure, that responsibility. He was working long hours. He wasn't taking care of himself. And he felt, like, all this horrible pressure on top of that, where it's like, you know, he's not really wanting sex very much, and then he's feeling terrible about himself as a man because he's not really wanting sex all that much. So it was like this horrible double whammy for him of. Of feeling like something was really wrong with him.

 

Kim:

But, Vanessa, that just. You saying that really is gonna wake a lot of women up, because sometimes I think. We think men are supposed to just shoulder it all. And let me tell you something. I'm a girl's girl, okay? I think men can't get out of a rainstorm without a woman. I think. You know, I believe God created Adam and Eve, and he created Eve to be a helpmate because. Because he knew that man couldn't make it without her.

 

Kim:

But I will say we put a lot of pressure on men.

 

Vanessa Marin:

We do.

 

Kim:

To never. To never feel anything.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Absolutely.

 

Kim:

And that includes the sexual responsibility of a marriage. I really believe that.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. I'm in complete agreement with you about that. Like, there's so much pressure put on men. We expect them to just be so stoic, to not react to things, to be that strong, silent type. And there's an. It's just really dangerous. Damaging to men feeling that way.

 

Kim:

Vanessa, we're a lot. We are a lot as women.

 

Zac:

Yeah. Men have it really hard. Thank you, everybody.

 

Kim:

I'm just saying, like, I just know. I'm just thinking about my own relationship, Vanessa, and you don't know what you've meant. What's meant for me to say when you said you were that honest with Xander, so why did she want, you know, questioning your sex relationship with him? And I thought, oh, my gosh, I've done That. And he's done that to me, too. But as a wife and as a mom and as a, you know, a partner, his wife, I thought, lord. Well, he was going through a lot.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, yeah. And that's why I say, you know, that was one of the biggest communication mistakes that I made, because he was already going through so much, beating himself up so much. And then here I come in to just really kick him when he's down. Why you never seem to want to have sex with me anymore. And what was missing behind that, too, is I didn't share any of the emotions that I was feeling. Like, I just went straight into the criticism, what's wrong with you? That you never want to have sex with me anymore? And what I didn't share with him is like, I miss you. I love you. I miss us having quality time together.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I miss us having talks together. I miss us being silly and goofy and laughing. I just fixated on the sex aspect of it because I didn't even know how to describe all the other stuff.

 

Kim:

Correct. Right.

 

Vanessa Marin:

So that. That's the stuff that we really have to talk about. It's like the emotions behind it, because that's really what's going on.

 

Kim:

What I'm hearing you say is sex is so much more than just the act.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, absolutely. It's so much more than that. It's really like. I think of sex as like the canary in the coal mine, you know, It's. It's letting us know what's going on in the rest of the relationship. If you guys aren't feeling connected, that's. That's your signal to. To take a look at, hey, what else is going on in our relationship that we're having such a hard time connecting physically? And I love the way that we were talking about it earlier, too.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It's like your sex is. Your body's continuing that conversation of intimacy and closeness and connection. So what's going on that our bodies are not able to get to that place?

 

Kim:

Well, I mean, full disclosure, I'm sitting here talking about it now. I'm going to have sex with Travis. I'm getting ready.

 

Kim:

Just talking about it has really made it more interesting.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. Because it brings it out into the light of day when we feel like things are normalized, when we don't feel that shame or that embarrassment, like, oh, my God, something is so wrong with me. When we realize, like, oh, no, this is normal. Other people are experiencing it too. It just feels like this huge weight off of our backs. And when we realize, like, hey, there are some simple, practical things that I can do to start reconnecting with my partner, like, it makes us feel excited again. We get that same kind of the anticipation, the excitement of, like, anticipation. I miss my partner.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I miss connecting with them. I want to, like, I want us to have more fun together. So for you in particular, I get really curious about how can you guys bring some more fun back into the relationship? Of, like, yeah, life is busy. Life's always going to be throwing curve balls at us. But it sounds like you guys have this foundation. You built this foundation together of, like, so much fun with each other. How can we bring some of that back? Like, even when you were talking about date nights, you're like, oh, date night. Going out to the restaurant.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Not. My brain goes, that's not the only date night to have. Yeah. If you're going to the same old, like, oh, that dumb Italian restaurant we go to every time, I always get the ravioli. Like, who's excited about that? But you guys sound, like, more fun than just the same old, like, dinner date night every time.

 

Kim:

Well, I'm going to tell this on Travis, and it's. I'm going to say this with complete confidence, because I used to say this on the Steve Harvey show, bless his heart. There was one time my husband was at his job. He managed a group of people at his job, and I was on Steve Harvey Vanessa. And we were talking about sex. And do you remember this, Zac? I do. So all the women on their lunch break would go to the little cafeteria area and turn on Steve Harvey and watch the show. And on this particular show, I said that Travis and I.

 

Kim:

Sex life is. We have a lot of fun, like you said, Vanessa. Cause he would dress up like a rest or wear leopard underwear.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Ooh, Travis.

 

Kim:

But the thing was, I was saying it on tv, and all of his employees were watching me say it. So he walked in, and he was like, oh, my gosh. So he still brings that up to this day. But, like, how important is to remember the times that you've had with your partner? Like, to me, just going home and talking to him about this tonight, he's going to crack up. We're gonna have the best laugh about it.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Kim:

And that might lead to something fun. And the bedroom.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, that's actually part of. You know, we talked about how conversation one was just getting comfortable, more comfortable as a positive topic of conversation. That's another thing that you can do is, like, reminiscing about positive Memories with each other. Okay, so think back to, like, what were some of your favorite sexual experiences with your partner? And you can bring it up to them. You know, this is a fun way to bring it up to them is just say, like, you know what popped into my mind the other day? It was so random, but it just popped into my mind that that vacation that we took to Greece and remember that hotel that we stayed in and that thing that we did that night.

 

Kim:

Yeah.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Just randomly popped into my head. Fun little memory, so you can be playful about it. Or another little trick is you could say you had a dream about it. You know what? I had a dream about last night. I haven't thought about this in so long. But it's just, like. It's a fun way to bring it up. So it doesn't feel quite as random.

 

Vanessa Marin:

But it's fun to reminisce about those experiences with your partner. It reminds the two of you that you have this great connection, that there is a place that you can get back to. And it can also be really educational, too. Like going back to that exercise of the three words. If you start thinking about, like, yeah, what were my favorite experiences with my partner? What are the common threads in between those experiences that helps you get to those words?

 

Kim:

Okay, everybody, you gotta go get the book. You have to get the book, because I am already. I mean, I feel invigorated. I really do. I feel like, okay, okay. Cause we've been in a rut. I mean, I hate Travis, but we have. I mean, you just get in a rut with the kids and everything, but, you know, that's a whole nother book.

 

Kim:

Write that book. How do you get rid of your kids so you can have more sex? So I'm just saying, like, you know, before you leave, though, Vanessa, you've got to do. We do this thing called rapid fire where we just throw things out and you're just going to throw it back. But that's normally what we do. But we're gonna do it a little bit differently because I want to base it around your new, like, sex talk card deck. You've got an actual deck of cards. I think it's so cool.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, we have a card deck. It has 90 different prompts on it, and they're broken down into those same five categories. So it's just yet another way to make it feel more fun and playful. So, like, bring a couple of cards out on a date night, or you can pick one in the morning and think about your answers all day. Maybe build up that a little bit of anticipation and then share them with each other at night. But it just makes it feel like more fun and playful.

 

Zac:

It's super cool, by the way. I have it right.

 

Kim:

I love it. Bit. We're going to be asking those rapid fire questions from the cards. Okay, Zac, are you going to do it or am I?

 

Zac:

I'm going to. Oh, I'm doing it. Okay, so. All right. So, Kim, I didn't tell you this part though. I want you to answer these along with Vanessa because I'm just. I'm going to put. I'm going to throw you both on the spot if I could do that.

 

Kim:

Okay.

 

Zac:

Okay. So, Vanessa, you already told us about what the deck cards is about. Can you remind us what the five categories are? Because I'm going to have you pick a category.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Ooh, yeah. Okay, so the five categories are acknowledgement, connection, desire, pleasure, and exploration.

 

Kim:

Ooh.

 

Zac:

Okay.

 

Kim:

Okay.

 

Zac:

So, Vanessa, which one do you want to start with? Which category?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Let's go with. Let's do desire.

 

Zac:

Desire. Okay. Oh, I have a good one. Okay, here's the first Desire. What kind of music turns you on?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Ooh, Ooh, this is such a good one. We've actually, I have to tell you, we polled our audience and the vast majority of people have sex within total silence, which I think is so strange. Music is such a great element to add to it. And also, Kim, going back to the kids in the way, having a little bit of music on a little background noise, even a white noise machine like that can create a little bit of sound privacy. So my favorite kind of music to listen to during sex tends to be like hip hop. For me. I just feel like super sweet. A little bit of break, you know, just gets me going.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It feels like a nice kind of slow pace to it. That's the music that gets me going.

 

Kim:

Oh, my God, I love it. For me, music would be, I mean, like Marvin Gaye. I mean, it's something funny with that. With Travis and I. The let's get it on. I mean, anytime we hear that, I don't care where we are or the song from Tony, Tony, Tony, Tony. It's our anniversary. That's a funny one for us too.

 

Zac:

Oh, my gosh.

 

Kim:

We have a humorous relationship.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, it's great.

 

Kim:

Yes. I love it. Oh, my God. This is getting me thinking about all this. Girl, I remember anniversary.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Get a playlist started. That's the best thing to do.

 

Kim:

I think we should get a playlist started.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, yeah, that's actually.

 

Zac:

That's a Fun thing to do with your partner. Right? Like, do like a group. You can do like a playlist together. That's like your, you know.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. And just keep adding to it. Cause I can never sit down and like think of a ton of songs right in one go. I just get one. And then just to do it when.

 

Kim:

You think it, you gotta, you know.

 

Zac:

This is what constantly happens on my Spotify, though, which would be really upsetting in this context, which is I have little kids. I have a four year old and a seven year old, and so, like, I'll like a bunch of songs on Spotify and then I'll just go in and play random stuff and it will be like, I'll listen to my music and then all of a sudden it will be like a song from Pokemon.

 

Vanessa Marin:

And I'll be like, you got like a baby shark song playing?

 

Kim:

Yeah, Baby shark. Oh, my God.

 

Zac:

You know, some other, you know, right now it's like Disney's Descendants, which, if.

 

Vanessa Marin:

You love it, you have to have a playlist.

 

Zac:

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we have to have our own siloed playlist. Okay, here's ready for the next. We'll do the next desire card. I have two desire cards that I.

 

Kim:

Want to choose my own category. Excuse me.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, okay.

 

Zac:

Choose a category, Kim. Okay.

 

Kim:

Exploration. Thank you.

 

Zac:

Exploration. Okay. Ooh. I picked a lot of excellent. These are great cards, by the way.

 

Kim:

These are fantastic.

 

Zac:

And I didn't pick the spiciest ones, obviously, but there's some really fun. Ooh, okay, here's a good one. What's your favorite time of day for sex?

 

Kim:

Ooh, Vanessa.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Afternoon delight. I am a huge fan of the afternoon. Morning is like, a little bit too early for me. Nighttime, I'm getting too tired and sleepy. But afternoon, especially somebody who works from home and has control over her schedule. Afternoon is my best time.

 

Kim:

I'm an evening kind of gal. I'm like 7:30, 8:00. Because this is. I'm oversharing again. Because when I have sex, I feel I can go run a five k marathon. It energizes me. For Travis, it knocks him out.

 

Kim:

Like, he's like.

 

Vanessa Marin:

That's very common.

 

Kim:

Oh, is it?

 

Vanessa Marin:

It's super common. Yeah. Same thing for us too. I will tell people, though. One of my other, like, super practical recommendations is do not leave sex to the very end of the night. That is the hardest time to get excited about it. You're already exhausted. Like, you're already getting into bed.

 

Vanessa Marin:

You're doing that math in your head. Of, like, okay, if I fall asleep right now, maybe I could get six hours of sleep. That's the worst time for sex. So prioritize. I know everybody's schedule is different. We've got all got so much on our plates. But even if you can prioritize it over, like, one or two of your normal activities, like, just don't do it right before bed.

 

Kim:

Right before bed.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Kim:

And is it good to schedule it?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Oh, gosh, we didn't talk about this. Yes. I love scheduling sex. I know people get really freaked out when they hear that. It makes us feel like, oh, my God, our sex life is officially dead if we have to schedule it.

 

Kim:

No, I could see the.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I think, yeah, like, you know, we were talking about the early stages of a relationship and that all the anticipation building earlier, we were scheduling sex at the beginning of our relationships. Like, when you schedule a date and you're having sex with your partner, like, you're scheduling sex. You know what's gonna happen. You're actually excited about it. You're like, oh, yeah, I'm seeing him on Friday. I'm getting super excited. So I think that it's a great idea for us to schedule it. And I don't like to even use the word schedule, because I think that makes people think of it too clinically.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Like, okay, we'll have to look at our calendars. All right, how about Wednesday at 8:35pm like, you don't want to do it that way, but I like thinking of it as planning for sex or being intentional about intimacy. Thinking about, like, okay, life is really busy. How do we find time for it? How do we make time for it? So even, you know, looking at your schedules and seeing, like, based on what's going on for our relationship or our family, like, what are those ideal times for us to try to be intimate and really, like, carving out that time.

 

Kim:

To spend with each other, Prioritizing.

 

Zac:

Okay, wait, I have. I have one other exploration one. Because this reminds me something you said earlier, Kim, which was you and Trent Travis would maybe have sex in different places when you were early on in your relationship. So would you rather have sex in a car or in a plane?

 

Kim:

Vanessa, you go first.

 

Vanessa Marin:

You want me to go first? Okay, I'm gonna pick car. Because plane. The only place for it is the bathrooms, and those bathrooms are too small and they're too gross. Like, it's funny for the novelty of doing it, but the reality of being in those gross little bathrooms, I just can't. So to go with the car, yeah.

 

Kim:

I'm not part of the mile high club either. I would have to say car and. And Travis and I have in a car. And it was, like, really great. It was fun.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Kim:

It was painful, but fun.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. Not the most comfortable, but it's fun.

 

Kim:

It's worth it.

 

Zac:

All right, do we want to pick another category? We have time for a couple more.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, you go for it, Kim.

 

Kim:

Okay. I'm going to say pleasure.

 

Zac:

Pleasure. Okay. A lot of these were very risque. This was the only pleasure one I thought would be appropriate for the show. Would you rather have sex with the lights on or the lights off?

 

Kim:

Oh, that's a good one. That's a good question.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I'm a lights on kind of gal.

 

Kim:

You're lights on?

 

Vanessa Marin:

Lights on.

 

Kim:

Freaky freak.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I like lighting. I don't want it to be blaring light.

 

Kim:

No, no, no. You don't want fluorescence.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, I do. I like to be able to make eye contact with my partner. I like to be able to see what's going on. So I love candlelight. Can feel really sexy. If you have one of those, like, salt lamps. Those cast, like, a really nice glow on the skin. So those are really fun.

 

Kim:

Well, Travis likes it on. I like it off. So we do compromise. We turn the bathroom right on and close the door a little bit. So it's just peeking through.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, a little bit of.

 

Kim:

He is going to kill me for oversharing, but I don't care.

 

Zac:

Very specific. I was picturing, you know, you want it off. Travis wants it on. He gets, like, a headlamp.

 

Kim:

Well, Travis is always so fearful. The kids are gonna walk in, and I'll tell you why. I actually walked in on my parents having sex in my bedroom when I was a teenager.

 

Vanessa Marin:

In your bedroom?

 

Kim:

In my bedroom. In my bed. In my bedroom. And I walked in, I was. I flipped out. I'm like, what's going on? They're like, we wanted a change of scenery, and I walked out and said, wash the sheets. And I walked. I was a junior.

 

Zac:

How old were you?

 

Kim:

Junior in high school.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Wow. Interesting. Okay.

 

Kim:

In my bed. Now. That's disgusting. I would say, like this. Okay?

 

Zac:

That's something. You're a therapist, and you just did. So.

 

Vanessa Marin:

As a therapist, I do not recommend that. Stay in your own bed.

 

Kim:

My dad told me later, like, he's like, look, I paid for that bed in that room it was in. I'll do what I like. Yes, sir.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Get a lock on your door. So many parents tell us, you know, oh, we're so nervous. We can't enjoy it. We're worried the kids are gonna walk in. Just get a lock on the door. It's that one little change.

 

Kim:

Can I say something, Vanessa? Is it that traumatizing to see your parents frolicking around? It's really. I mean, honestly, it made me feel. I don't know. This is weird. I'm probably totally bizarre, but it grossed me out, of course. But then, you know, in the back of my mind, I was like, oh, my God, they really love each other. Other.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. Research shows that it's healthier for kids to see their parents being in love and being affectionate with each other. We hear from parents a lot of times that they don't even want to kiss or hug in front of their kids because they're worried it's going to be traumatizing. It's not. It's really helpful for kids to see healthy intimacy being role modeled. And of course, like, we have to be thoughtful about it. If you've got super thin walls and your kids are right next to you, like, don't be moaning every night or screaming. Yeah, be thoughtful about it.

 

Vanessa Marin:

But in. In general, it's actually healthier for kids to know that their parents are in love than for them to not.

 

Kim:

I mean, my dad did the boob honk, too.

 

Zac:

All right, should we do a couple more where.

 

Kim:

Yeah, let's do one more.

 

Zac:

Okay. I want to know the answer to this question, so I'm going to ask. This is one of the acknowledgement questions. What is the hottest sex scene you've ever seen on TV or in a movie?

 

Kim:

Oh, that's a good question.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Such a good one. I'm gonna go with the first one that I remember because it really left this lasting impression on me. But growing up, I definitely saw this movie, and I was way too young to be seeing it. I don't know how I ended up stumbling across it, but it was the movie Fear. Do you guys remember that?

 

Zac:

Oh, yeah.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah. And it was the scene where they're on the Ferris wheel and he starts using his hands on her. And I had never seen that before. I didn't know that that was a thing that you could really do. And that was very intriguing to me at the time. So that one seared in my brain.

 

Kim:

Yeah, that. I remember that movie. He was scary, too, in that movie.

 

Vanessa Marin:

I know it was not a good movie.

 

Kim:

He was the bad boy. He was the bad boy for sure. Now you got my mind on that movie.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Fortunately, I'M not attracted to guys like that. But.

 

Kim:

No, but I mean, it was a hot scene.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It was the intrigue of, like. Oh, I didn't know you could use your hands like that. That's interesting.

 

Kim:

I just remember. This is so terrible. Do you remember the movie Blue Lagoon? And they were so young and they didn't show it, like, all massively, but just the idea of them being stranded. They were so young. They grew up together. I don't know. I guess I'm a traditionalist in the fact that I just think, you know, you just saw them together forever when they were young and they grew up and they had a baby on the island by themselves. I don't know.

 

Vanessa Marin:

It's.

 

Kim:

It just. It was. It was. I guess it was something. I always aspired to have that one partner. You love each other. You spend your life together. And, you know, little did I know that you could spend your life together and really have a hot sex life.

 

Kim:

Or a healthy sex life, I should say.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah.

 

Kim:

Oh, Vanessa, you gotta come back. You gotta come back. You're so amazing, though. I hope Xander next time.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, I'll bring Xander. You can bring Travis. We'll have a double date.

 

Kim:

Oh, Lord bless his Travis sausage fest.

 

Zac:

I don't know about that.

 

Kim:

I feel like it'd be too much Travis be like. But he's used to me over sharing, and he secretly likes it. Anyway, follow Vanessa and her husband Xander on their Instagram at Vanessa and Zander and listen to their podcast Pillow Talks. Wherever you can get your podcast. Her book is out now, and this is going to rekindle the spark in your relationship. You're. Y'all go get it. It's called Sex Talk.

 

Kim:

Five conversations that will transform your love life. And make sure to get the sex Talk card deck. Zac is already obsessed with it. So am I. Wherever.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Where.

 

Kim:

Where can we get that? Vanessa, you're anywhere.

 

Vanessa Marin:

Yeah, yeah, you can get in anywhere. You get books.

 

Zac:

Me and Camille have been looking at these for days. We've been having so much fun with them.

 

Vanessa Marin:

They're great.

 

Kim:

You don't have to read the book.

 

Zac:

To have fun with the card. They're great.

 

Kim:

Do it. Get them. All right. Thank you, Vanessa, for being here. I love you. Will you come back?

 

Vanessa Marin:

I will. Thank you so much for having me. This has been such a fun conversation.

 

Kim:

Oh, I love it. Okay, guys, till next time, have more sex. Start talking, Travis. I'm calling you.

Kim:
The Kim Gravel Show is produced and edited by Zac Miller at Uncommon Audio. Our associate producer is Kathleen Grant from the Brunette Exec. Production help from  Emily Bredin and Sara Noto. Our cover art is designed by Sanaz Huber at Memarian Creative. Our show is edited by Mike Kligerman. Our guest intros are performed by Roxy Reese. Our guest booking is done by Central Talent Booking. Our ads are furnished by True Native Media. And y'all, I want to give a big huge thank you to the entire team at QVC+ and a special thank you to our audience for making this community so strong. If you are still listening then you must have liked a few episodes along the way. So tell somebody about it. Tell somebody about this show and join our mailing list at kimgravelshow.com. I cannot do this show without you and so I thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening. I hope you gain a little bit of encouragement, light and love love from watching and listening to The Kim Gravel Show. I love you all so much. Till next time. Bye.