368 - Sex Talk with My Mom Presents: Sex Scripts with Dr. Ian Kerner

Full transcript available

It's time for another episode featuring one of the other podcasts in the network we're a part of. This week we're featuring Sex Talk with My Mom, where Cam and KarenLee talk about sex and sex scripts with Dr. Ian Kerner, author of So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex: Laying Bare and Learning to Repair Our Love Lives.

Be sure to check out Cam and KarenLee at their website and Dr. Ian Kerner at his site!

Transcript

This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.

Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we have another fun treat for you, which is an episode from one of our fellow Pleasure Podcast shows. This is an episode of Sex Talk With My Mom, it's episode 356, that is called, Gross Sex is Good Sex with Dr. Ian Kerner. What it's really about is getting to the bottom of what are some of the patterns that you fall into when it comes to having sex with your partner or partners? and taking a look at that and seeing how you might be able to improve that or what you can learn from these, he calls them sex scripts, this routine that you'll fall into.

For those of you who don't know, Sex Talk With My Mom has been around-- They're on about the same episode numbers as us, which is exciting. Cam, who's one of the hosts of the show is the one who runs our network and came and talked to us about joining a number of years ago. He's fantastic. It's been great. His mom, Karen, is awesome, also great. This is from their episode 356, but for those of you who remember way back, we have the two of them on our show for episode 226 of our show, and Emily and I were on their show, episode 220. If you want to have a fun day of Sex Talk With My Mom and Multiamory, you can go listen to those two episodes, and then check out this one here today.

Emily: I remember you discussing this episode just a bit when you first listened to it. This is the one, the syndicated episode that we're going to bring you on now, and you were just so excited about it. You're like, "This is awesome. Oh, my gosh." I'm excited to listen to it myself because I haven't yet and I'm really interested to hear what the heck a sex script is.

Dedeker: Yes, just like what happened the last time that we syndicated another Pleasure Podcast show, the last one where they were interviewing Dr. Emily. I'm super excited about Dr. Ian Kerner, who's interviewed in this episode, and let's hope we can get him on our show too.

Jase: For those of you who are always disappointed that we don't share more of the gory details of our sex and relationship lives, don't worry because Cam and KarenLee share all sorts of details about their sex lives so you can get that from them. We hope you enjoy this episode of Sex Talk With My Mom.

Cam: You are listening to a Pleasure Podcast. For more from our sex podcast collective, visit pleasurepodcasts.com.

Cam: We all have what's technically called a disgust reflex. We are programmed to find certain things disgusting, like the taste of sour milk. If you think about sex, purely from an objective perspective, exchanging fluids, cum-

KarenLee: Eating our assholes.

Cam: -eating assholes, and vaginas, it sounds disgusting in some ways.

KarenLee: It does.

Cam: The point is this is what I love it, like arousal. It disinhibits us and it just lowers that disgust reflex and all of it becomes delicious. It's uncomfortable to talk about sex, but sometimes, it's important to get uncomfortable. Sex Talk With My Mom is the best mom-son podcast about sex.

KarenLee: It's the only one as well.

Cam: My mother is a cougar.

KarenLee: My son is a clown.

Cam: In a nutshell, my dad died, so my mother decided to create a YouTube channel all about sex like all mothers do.

KarenLee: Then my son decided to use my material in his stand-up comedy routines.

Cam: Thus, Sex Talk With My Mom was born.

Cam: Welcome to Sex Talk With My Mom. I'm Cam Porter.

KarenLee: I'm KarenLee Poter.

Cam: Oh, yes, we got a special episode for you sneaky freaks today.

KarenLee: We got a banger.

Cam: We got a banger. We haven't had a guest in a long time. It's mainly because we enjoy hanging out just the two of us, but sometimes someone comes along and they blow us away.

KarenLee: We were blown away, how many years ago?

Cam: We were blown away on May 23rd, 2019.

KarenLee: Oh, it's been a while.

Cam: In episode 210, She Comes First, with Dr. Ian Kerner. If you haven't listened to that, you got to listen to that. This is a follow-up with Ian Kerner. Who is Ian Kerner? Ian is a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in sex therapy, couples therapy, and working with individuals and a range of relational issues. He is the New York Times best-selling author of She Comes First, one of our favorite books, and many more books focusing on healing, sexuality, and relationships. Guess what, my friends? He just came out with a new book yesterday.

KarenLee: It's called So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex.

Cam: He basically acts like a little investigative therapist. He's going in there like Sherlock Holmes into the bedroom asking people to unpack what are they doing in there? How can we fix it?

KarenLee: Literally in the first five minutes of meeting them.

Cam: We do this on this episode. We have a wonderful discussion with him. We unpacked my mother's sex script.

KarenLee: Oh, yes, I went through my sex script. If anybody wants to know what's like in the bedroom with KLP, you're going to hear it here.

Cam: We also went through my sex script or lack thereof.

KarenLee: You're going to hear about CRP's sex script, but he helped you, I think.

Cam: He did. He totally did. We talk about hookup culture and casual sex. We talk about initiation in the bedroom, what happens when one person is constantly initiating the other's net.

KarenLee: He makes sex fun. He thinks anything in the bedroom is a go as long as both parties are consenting. That could be porn, there could be sex toys. He just makes it be okay. I think that a lot of people, especially there in this last pandemic, have been in a situation where they just don't even feel like having sex because it just seems like so much effort, but he makes it fun again.

Cam: He does that by unpacking the sex scripts or the storyline that goes through everyone's sexual encounters. I think it's absolutely a wonderful framework through which you can view your own sex lives. We are very happy with this interview. We hope you enjoy. Thank you for listening.

KarenLee: We love you, you little sneak freaks.

Cam: Here we go.

Cam: Mother, I notice in your sex script that you involve sex toys.

KarenLee: I do. I think they're really important with a partner or without a partner. It's good to have one, especially one that stimulates the G-spot.

Cam: Oh, the inside.

KarenLee: OhMyG is a super silent internal G-spot massager for bodies like mine with a vagina.

Cam: Oh, what's so special about that OhMyG?

KarenLee: Do you know where the G-spot is, Cam?

Cam: Yes, mother. It's on the upper wall inside the vagina.

KarenLee: That's exactly where it is, Cam. What OhMyG does, it has a unique massaging pearl that mimics this "come here" motion you do with your fingers. It moves up and down, only it's a lot less work for your partner or you and it's 10 times better.

Cam: Typically, when you're fingering yourself, how do you get that angle when you're clawing in there?

KarenLee: This has a sleek C shape making it easy to directly and precisely massage your G-spot.

Cam: I understand that it's quiet.

KarenLee: It's so quiet that if you want to masturbate while your partner's snoring away, you just go ahead and do it. They will never know the difference.

Cam: What about if you have roommates, you got children home?

KarenLee: Even better.

Cam: It's got that silent drive technology that makes it one of the quietest pleasure products on the market. Right now, OhMyG is offering our Sex Talk With My Mom listeners 30% off when you go to iobatoys.com and enter code 'Mom'. That's iobatoys.com, I-O-B-A-T-O-Y-S, toys.com, and use promo code, 'Mom' to get 30% off your OhMyG. Check out our episode description, go to iobatoys.com, use promo code 'Mom' you're going to be-

KarenLee: Pleasantly surprised.

Cam: Ian, welcome back to the show.

Ian Kerner: I am super excited. It's nice to see you both.

Cam: It's great to be seen.

KarenLee: No, that's his grandfather's favorite saying.

Cam: It's also great to put a face to the words that we've been reading because we've been reading your book So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex. I have it right here. It's phenomenal.

Ian: Thank you.

Cam: It launches today.

KarenLee: What a catchy little name.

Cam: Mom, you saw me reading this yesterday.

KarenLee: Yes. Copy his notes.

Cam: I did not want to be interrupted.

KarenLee: He's very hurt when I interrupt him.

Cam: I was taking notes, underlining. It was active reading.

KarenLee: I was doing screenshots. I screenshotted one in particular, which I'll get to at some point. Since one of us is doing on Kindle and he's got the paperback.

Ian: Excellent. Well, thank you.

Cam: It's like a textbook on how to have phenomenal sex.

KarenLee: My first question has got to be how does this book differ from your last one which is a blockbuster hit, She Comes First?

Ian: I love She Comes First. It's the little book that could. It just continues to stay out there. I will always love that book. I wrote that book in 2002. It published in 2004. We're in 2021 now. It's been like 20 years. I have grown. I've matured. I've been working with thousands of patients.

KarenLee: Should she come first still?

Ian: Oh yes.

KarenLee: She should still come first? That hasn't changed. I just want to make sure.

Ian: Absolutely. I'm never going to give that up. In fact, I think I even expand on that again in this book, but it was really just 20 years or so of being a sex therapist and really wanting to almost make it like you're in the room with me. I don't know if it felt that way in reading it. I know there's actually a lot of research, but I really wanted to make it like you can fix and resolve an issue at home reading this book.

KarenLee: It's hot.

Cam: Yes. The case studies are very hot. Sometimes they're like, "Thank God I'm not in it that situation," but it's great. In this book, you do an excellent job outlining what a sex script is and why that's important to look at for anyone. Can you tell us what is a sex script?

Ian: In my practice, I learn about the issue that a patient or a couple is dealing with, and then I will always ask them, "Tell me about the last time you had sex," which is the title of the book.

Cam: Great question.

Ian: It's a simple question, but the idea is that every sexual event tells a story. It has a beginning, middle, and end. There's a sequence of interactions that are physical, emotional, psychological. All of that creates what I call the sex script. Couples come in and generally, their sex script, the way they're having sex, what they're doing, how they're moving through the sequence, it's usually replicating, repeating, and reinforcing the issue that they're having.

I literally want to look at the components of their sex script, what it contains, all of the meaning, all of the elements, and I want to help them rewrite their sex scripts away from pain and towards pleasure.

Cam: We are thinking that to give our listeners a better opportunity to see this in action, we could actually run through one of these with one of us or both of us.

KarenLee: Okay, but not together. Just for the record, we are not having sex together.

Cam: Thank you for the fucking disclaimer, mom.

Ian: Not a shared sex script, but each of your individual sex scripts. If you were coming in and you were my patient, first of all, you'd be coming in not because your sex script is working so well, because then you wouldn't be coming in. You have a good working sex script that is delivering pleasure probably on a pretty predictable, repetitive basis. You'd probably be coming in with a sex script that's not working in some way. I'm not saying that's the case.

KarenLee: My sex script is working though. I just want validation for my sex script.

Cam: Well, luckily we have a patient here that you can work with.

Ian: All right. We'll do both. We'll do a working sex script, and we'll talk about everything that's working and amazing, and then we'll also talk about a sex script that's not working, okay?

Cam: Perfect.

Ian: Where do you want to begin? Let's go with the working sex script or whatever you want.

Cam: The good news is good.

KarenLee: All right, let's go. Run me down. My boyfriend's name is Dees.

Cam: Run me down.

KarenLee: Here's the rundown. My boyfriend's name is Dees. He's 15 years younger than I am. We've been "dating", but it's like being married for the last 13-and-a-half years. We live together. Our sex life is one I feel that it's always been pretty good, pretty adventurous. He has ADD, I have ADD so I think it lends to-- I don't know if I'm just talking out of my ass, but I think the fact that we're both spontaneous lends itself to trying new stuff all the time.

Ian: Okay. Let's talk about it. Tell me about the last time you had sex. What did it look like? How did sex get started? Who initiated?

KarenLee: Okay. Cameron's looking at me weird, like, "Oh, do I want to hear this or not?"

Cam: I'm fine. I'm fine with this.

KarenLee: Okay. All right. Pretty much always, it's the same kind of scenario with different elements sometimes added in. For example, I would say a typical sex script is we make it a habit that we always have sex once a week on Saturday nights, or if it doesn't end up on Saturday, it'll go on a Sunday.

Cam: I'm so glad that's the one night I make sure I'm not here.

Cam: Which came first? The fact that I was not coming over on Saturday nights?

KarenLee: No. Saturday night has always been a relaxing evening. I think, for me, I need it to be something very comfortable. I'm already relaxed from the night

Ian: It's already interesting. We're already getting a little sense of the script that there's a ritual that happens on every Saturday night. A sex script can contain a lot of spontaneity. Did you have sex this last Saturday night? We're basically at Tuesday as we're recording this.

KarenLee: Right. I think we veered off course and it was a Thursday. Sorry. It's typically on a-

Ian: Let's talk about Thursday though. Can you get an image of Thursday in your mind?

KarenLee: Yes. I like to always come first as you know, as your last book has suggested. He wants me to as well. I can just run you down almost a typical sex scenario, and I'll tell you what happened with that one.

Ian: Okay.

KarenLee: Usually, I will be in charge of setting the mood. I need to have the lights dim, I need candles out, I need music playing where I have a special love list on Spotify, which I'll put at the show notes after this podcast which goes on for hours. What else happens? Sometimes we'll do crazy stuff. Sometimes we'll start with a back massage. He'll give one to me, then I'll give one to him, then he may start pleasuring me in different ways, and then I'll start pleasuring him, and then we bring out a vibrator.

Almost always, both of us like it when he's on the bottom and I'm on top because that way we could look each other in the eye and we can use a vibrator on my clit while we're having sex, so he feels the vibrations, I feel the vibrations, oh, and then we might go back to having oral sex at that point. It's a familiar dance that we can vary up a little bit, but typically it ends up that I will come first, then he will come, and then everybody's happy. That whole scenario takes about two minutes. Just kidding.

Ian: That's really great. First of all, then do you relate to the idea of just sex scripts in general? It sounds like you and Dees have something that works.

KarenLee: Yes. There's always going to be some sort of fantasy element where we watched porn and maybe we'll act out like he's Dirty Dee at the porn theater, and I'm one of the dirty theater porn sluts.

Ian: That is great. I love that. Does that happen early on in the sex script, gets things going?

KarenLee: It happens early, and then in the middle, and probably towards the end. It can continue. Cam even knows this already. Sometimes he imagines me as our couple's therapist we went to eight years ago, and he will call me by her name. One time we were watching porn together and he literally will move me away so he can watch the porn and then we could-- Anyway.

Ian: Let me just comment on a little bit of what I'm hearing because I think that there are actually some really great elements of the-

KarenLee: Thank you.

Ian: -sex script that you described. First of all, it's nice that there's a little bit of a ritual element to it, and it happens once a week. We know that couples who have good, healthy sex once a week have higher levels of relationship positivity than couples who do not, and couples who end up having sex a lot more than once a week don't necessarily have higher levels of relationship positivity. I think just knowing that that's at least ritualized once a week, if not more.

I'm hearing that there's some attention to what I call the desire framework and creating a shared desire framework. You're very conscious of the environment that you want to be in, what's going to turn you on, get you excited, and also, eliminate stressors. I think paying attention to the desire framework is good. I haven't gotten a sense yet of who actually taps the other on the shoulder and says, "Let's go do this," but I'm going to assume that there's something that's mutual that's happening between the two of you.

What I really like is that you spend time both above the neck and above the waist. You described this sensual massage that could happen. You also described an element of fantasy. We're really fully capacitating the potential for arousal. We're getting the psychological arousal, we're getting the physical arousal before we're going below the waist into any direct genital stimulation.

Now, I did hear a lot about oral sex and direct genital stimulation, and a vibrator, going back to oral sex after intercourse. Let me just say, what I love about that is that the sex script is-- it's a little nontraditional. It's not following the traditional structure of like, "Let's get to intercourse," and intercourse is the culminating activity or the overshadowing activity.

When I'm working with my couples, if I'm working with a heterosexual couple, I would say about 100% of the heterosexual couples that I work with had intercourse the last time they had sex, penis and vagina intercourse, but for most of the couples that I work with, they got to intercourse within about two to five minutes of starting sex. Intercourse-

KarenLee: Oh, no. No, that would not work.

Ian: -became the all-encompassing, overshadowing sexual behavior that was engaged in. What I really like about your sex script is that it was deconstructed and had a lot of variety. It actually of reminds me, and I say this in a positive way, of gay male sex scripts. Here's the thing there's a study done-- Do you mind if I bring in a little bit of the research from the books?

Cam: Please do.

KarenLee: Please do.

Ian: There was a study done of 25,000 gay and bisexual men. It came out of Indiana University by Josh Rosenberg. It was done about, I think seven or eight years ago, but it's a great study because it looked at the last time that these 25,000 gay men had sex. As it turned out, only 35% engaged in intercourse. That means 65% of gay men do not generally have intercourse as part of their sex script which I already think is incredible, because what are they doing? They're engaging in all different types of outercourse activities, a lot like the ones you described: kissing, sensual touch, oral sex, manual stimulation.

What was so cool was that of the men studied, there were 1,300 different combinations of behaviors put together. That's 1,300 different sex scripts. What I liked about your sex script was how particular it was and how personalized it was, and how it emphasized a number of different behaviors. Yes, there was intercourse, but it didn't seem to be like the only behavior or the main behavior. I like that the orgasms were--

KarenLee: Right, it's all out there.

Ian: Yes. I think that there's a lot of really cool elements.

KarenLee: It was the same thing with Cam's father. It's funny because it's like when I think about getting massage it's, "Oh, I got to make the appointment, sign up, go in there." Then every time I get a massage, I'm like, "Why didn't I do this for two hours?" The same thing I feel about sex. It may take me a minute to get there, but once I'm there I'm like, "Why don't we do this all the time?"

Ian: Yes, I agree. Let me ask you, is it hard? Did you and Dees automatically just get into this space where you could do all this role-playing? Because I love the psychological element, but a lot of couples can't get there. They have too much inhibition to just let themselves play.

KarenLee: For me and for him, I think I wasn't a talker doing all that with my husband. At the time that was back in the-- man, I was like in my 40s. I was not taught that women should be verbal during sex in the bedroom. It just was like, I was taught that we just be quiet in the bedroom because that was my generation. Whereas when I'm with Dees, we will play, we will role play, we will bring out whips and all kinds of-- Cam's now doing-

Cam: I think you're overestimating my reactions here. I'm completely cool right now. You're the one that is feeling uncomfortable.

KarenLee: I normally don't talk about my current sex life. I will talk about past sex lives where for example, I went on a date with this guy. We ended up in his bedroom, and literally, he spent maybe two minutes going down on me, and then he wanted to have sex and he came within two seconds. I'm like, "Wow, hello, you forgot about me over here." He's like, "Oh, okay, we'll try again. We'll watch some porn. We'll do it again." The same exact thing happened and I never went out with him again obviously.

Ian: Your sex script with Dees sounds really personalized. It includes a lot of behaviors. It has a lot of psychological stimulation. It is a great arousal and desire runway to get going, but the other one you just described that sounds like a broken sex script. You never got off the ground on that. That's very common for one partner to get left behind.

KarenLee: How much does confidence weigh into all this? Because I feel like both of us are very confident in ourselves and that's why we're willing to take more risks and be comfortable with each other that we could say anything to each other and no one's going to shame each other.

Ian: I think that confidence and self-esteem is a part of it, but what I'm actually hearing you talk about is emotional safety, and just feeling like, "We have a nice level of emotional safety. We're not going to shame each other. We're not going to judge each other. We can laugh with each other." I think actually that kind of relationship safety is essential for the adventurousness in play.

I think that's why good relational sex goes hand in hand with really good recreational sex. I think the emotional safety that you described and not feeling shame and being comfortable in your own skin, I think that's huge, I think that that's essential.

Cam: You talked about this the last time you came on the podcast, but can you give us just a very quick summary of the difference between relational versus recreational sex?

Ian: Sure. I talk to my patients sometimes about there being three categories of sex: procreative, relational, and recreational. Procreative, we all know is penis and vagina-

Cam: Trying to make babies.

Ian: -we're trying to make a baby. What really bums me out though is that the form of procreative sex, penis and vagina, is great for procreation, but it becomes the main behavior that we engage in in these other categories, relational and recreational. When we're in a relational category, we want that safety, we want the connection, we want the intensity, we want to merge, we want to go to a place with another person that words cannot describe, we want to be in that totally mutual flow state where self other boundaries just dissolve and collapse. That's relational sex.

Recreational sex is, well, that's having a sense of novelty and adventure and fun and fantasy. I feel like so many of my patients engage in recreational sex with themselves when it comes to masturbation and-

KarenLee: Porn.

Ian: -and toys they use and the porn they watch, all of that, but when they're having sex with each other, they're in a relational model that has lost a lot of its life, it's lost a lot of its vitality. The sex script has gotten a little dehydrated. That's why I really want couples to combine the relational with the recreational and to create what I call rec-relational sex.

For rec-relational sex to happen, a, it needs a very strong psychological component, but procreative sex, just that behavior of penis and vagina intercourse really is not the form of sex that's best suited to rec-relational sex. It's really much more about outercourse-based behavior. It's not to say it shouldn't include intercourse, but it really needs to be a whole menu of possible behaviors to engage in.

Cam: It's funny because I think what you're describing about emotional safety and the ability to go into this more playful state is definitely what I'm after. Now turning the spotlight over-

KarenLee: Apparently he wants his sex script.

Cam: Spotlight is changing, but it's very challenging to go on a date with someone and say, "Excuse me, are you interested in recreational sex, relational sex or procreative right now?" It's hard to know--

Ian: Well, I wasn't suggesting that that's like a pickup line, "Are we going to have procreative sex?"

Emily: We all really hope that you're enjoying this episode. We are going to take a quick break to talk about some of the ways that you can support our show, Multiamory, because we love bringing all of this content to you for free, and when you listen to our ads, it helps us to do that further. We really appreciate it if you could take a time to just check it out a little bit, just check out our ads. Thanks so much.

Cam: In order for me to feel emotionally safe, I need to know what I'm signing up for because too many times in the past, I've signed up for something that the other person was not necessarily signing up for or I'm worried that that would be the case.

Ian: You're single and dating now, Cam?

Cam: You got it.

Ian: You have a challenge-

KarenLee: He's horny as fuck right now. He's so horny.

Ian: Are you seeing anybody regularly, or is it just playing the field?

Cam: No, and I haven't seen people in a year and a half I'd say.

Ian: Oh, wow. You're having sex for one right now?

Cam: Yes. I'm preparing for the opening that's about to occur, the summer of love.

Ian: I think there's so much spring fever and summer sensuality in the air. This summer's going to be off the chart. It's crazy-

KarenLee: It's going to be like rabid dogs are going to be on the loose.

Cam: Do you have any advice for someone entering that?

Ian: First of all, I was single, and as you know from She Comes First, I was sexually dysfunctional. I didn't have a working sex script, and as a result, I was pretty depressed and fatalistic, and sex was not working. I think as a single person, first of all just knowing where are you in your sexual element? Forget how you think you're supposed to be having sex or even the person that you're going to be having sex thinks that you're supposed to be having sex. What is the sex that allows you to be creative, confident, to have that self-confidence and self-esteem that your mom was describing? What are the elements of the sex script that you need?

You might decide it's going to be very outercourse based, or maybe it's going to be very intercourse based, or maybe it's going to be very psychological and creative. In the book, I think I have a lot of tools to help you just understand the elements that might best suit the sex script that puts you in your element, so to speak.

Cam: I think that the first step is finding someone-

KarenLee: That would help.

Cam: -to have sex with.

KarenLee: Having a partner always helps.

Cam: I guess entering this summer of love, I don't have a strong desire to have just one partner and develop a relationship. It's the same reason why I don't want to have a dog right now. I'm coming out of hibernation. I have that motivator like, "Oh, I don't necessarily want this full-blown relationship right now." I'm looking for more casual sex. At the same time, as we discussed in the last podcast, as we discussed ad nauseam on the show, I come pretty quickly or quicker than I want to coming. I need that emotional safety that someone is not going to be like, "What the fuck? That was two seconds," because that's not going to help the matters if--

KarenLee: Ian, does that really matter though? Even if he comes real quickly, he can still pleasure her and come again probably very soon thereafter. Does it really matter if he comes that quickly?

Ian: I was following you through the pleasure part, but coming very soon quickly thereafter, that really depends on the guy, his age, his lifestyle, and just his natural sexual temperament. A lot of guys who have premature ejaculation who are able to get erections again quickly, will often prematurely ejaculate again. Just because you ejaculated once and then get an erection again doesn't mean that you're not going to ejaculate quickly the second time around. There are men who can prematurely ejaculate with almost completely flaccid penises.

Cam: Oh, wow.

KarenLee: Do women really care?

Ian: Do women really care about what?

KarenLee: If he has sex, he ejaculates quickly, he goes down on her for 20 minutes and then he gets hard again, they have intercourse again, and he just comes real quickly again. Do you think that if he made sure that he gave her a great orgasm that at that point, the woman would say, "Oh, I don't want this anymore," because he just comes too quickly?

Ian: No, I think that that would be an interesting sex script. For someone who struggles with early ejaculation, I think you want to really focus on percolating, a lot of arousal. I think you want to really focus on a lot of psychological arousal as well. You want to do whatever you can to get the person you're with really fully aroused. I think you want to really sequence out that transition into oral sex or outercourse and direct genital stimulation.

I think if you want to transition into intercourse, you should probably be within about 30 to 60 seconds of your partner's orgasm. You should be able to either ask about that or communicate or on some level, intuit that. I think you probably want to transition into a sex position like woman on top, that's going to provide the most direct clitoral stimulation. More than likely, if you're a guy with premature ejaculation, you're pretty excited at that point and you're probably going to ejaculate, but if you're within that 60 or 45-second window, even if you and your penis is becoming detumescent, there's still going to be a lot of clitoral stimulation against the pelvic bone.

KarenLee: Detumescent means just soft?

Ian: Just losing that erection. All the blood's flowing out. Those are just some of the ways that I would start to think about the sex script, for somebody who's single and who has early ejaculation, and then you got to really own that sex script. Here's the thing, own the things that you know you need. If you need to be just very psychologically oriented to build arousal and you want to be able to start talking about sex in a sexy way or share a fantasy or make that part of your script, start to get good at doing that if you're going to need to really rely on outercourse over intercourse.

Be prepared to advocate for your sex script and to communicate about it because I think for a lot of guys with, say, erectile unpredictability or early ejaculation, they just go in feeling like the underdog. They're not going to be able to do this thing.

Cam: What do you make of these competing desires, the desire to experience the summer of love and be free and then this desire for that emotional safety?

KarenLee: Good question.

Ian: Let's brainstorm it a little bit. I think it's a little challenging because you're going to be with new people. Just a lot of studies show that it takes a little while to develop some nice routines like what you have with Dees. It takes a little while to learn how to dance like that and to be able to anticipate each other's moves. I think you're going to have to be prepared for a lot of excitement, a lot of novelty, a lot of spontaneity. How could you get some emotional safety? Or how do you start to feel really comfortable? Just because it's somebody new, does that mean there isn't any emotional safety or there isn't a level of comfort or communication?

Cam: No, no, no. Usually, with me, there's over-communication. I think I could develop emotional safety, but it's hard to find that right person to-- Basically, my whole approach is if I can't develop the emotional safety, I just won't engage, but that leads me having years to go by without having any sexual interaction with that partner.

Ian: Talk to me about what you need to cultivate emotional safety. How long does that take? Or what do you do to cultivate it? Or when do you start to experience that feeling of emotional safety?

Cam: A couple of dates I'd say. Real dates, where I'm sitting there maybe an hour or so, we're talking with the person, feeling them out, seeing how they respond to certain events.

Ian: Cam is the thing that you're worried about sexually the early ejaculation that you're just not going to go home and really be a good lover with this person?

Cam: Sexually that's what I worry about. The other worry with regard to emotional safety is whether this person is on the same page in regard to, "Are they also looking for a more casual experience right now? Or are they thinking that this sex is going to lead to a relationship?"

Ian: Are you overly anxious about that? Do you worry about that? Or do you talk about that with the partner? Are you assuming? I ask because some people almost have a little bit of an OCD around ruminating over, "Does this person think I'm here just for the night or for life?" To what extent are you-

Cam: I wouldn't say it's an OCD level, but there's an awareness there and there's the awareness that I'm not bringing it up necessarily.

Ian: You're assuming that they're not interested in just fun, casual sex, that they're interested in having a real relationship with you in an ongoing way?

Cam: Most of the time, that's the assumption. However, I did just start using a new app that focuses on this type of more casual play.

KarenLee: What if you just go into it saying, "This is what I'm looking for, it's going to be casual." Dees and I, first night we were together, I was like, "No one's looking for anything serious here," so what if you just go into it with knowing that if you're using that app or even if you just meet the person in a coffee shop, you just go into being honest and saying, "Listen, I'm just in the summer of love and I'm not going to make anything too serious. Are you on the same page? If you're looking for something else, let's stop right now."

Ian: I think that's cool. I was just bringing this up because I do work with a lot of guys who sometimes resist being sexually free or resist just having fun and playing because they're really worried that someone's going to have the wrong impression in some way. I just believe in being pretty upfront like your mom just said and communicating. You don't have to over-communicate either. You're having sex with consenting adults who can manage their own feelings and emotions and let you know what they're thinking.

Sometimes we just think that the people we're having sex with are just these objects that we're almost manipulating in some way, but these are adults that you're coming together with who are perfectly capable of having conversations and making their own decisions. As long as they're just, I think, informed about where you're at.

Cam: It's funny that what I worry is treating this person like an object. By assuming that they're not capable of having those thoughts and knowing where they're at, it is actually treating them more like an object. There's an irony.

Ian: I think so. I think it's a little paradoxical. I know that you're sensitive and I know that you're caring and you want to have emotionally safe relationships, but you have to allow someone's subjectivity, someone's personhood to really assert itself in combination with yours, you know what I mean? Otherwise, they are being objectified.

Cam: I like that.

KarenLee: I like it too. Can we switch total gears here? Because I know we're coming to an end of this and I'm not going to get to this, but I love this passage in your book. I just wanted to read this. I think Cam said that you also like this. This is where I think if you're with someone like I'm with my partner who is all or nothing, I have to explain the nuances here. I'm going to read this chapter and tell you. This is about yourself actually.

It says, "Take biting or tickling, for example, if I just walk up to my wife and bite her or tickle her or slap her on the butt, that could turn her off and probably piss her off and it may even feel too rough or too ticklish if done at the start of sex, but once we get going and she's aroused, a good bite, nibble, or tickle may feel sexy and exactly what the doctor ordered, or in this case, provided." I just love that. Can you go into that a little bit? Because I think that's something that people just don't sometimes understand the difference between everyday behaviors and stuff that goes in the bedroom.

Ian: First of all, I want to say with all sexual behaviors, it's not just about the behavior, it's about the timing of the behavior, so it's the right behavior at the right time. Something that feels very uncomfortable at the beginning of the arousal process like when someone goes straight to direct genital stimulation, I hear this from men too, "Wow, as soon as she sees an erection, it's going straight for the penis in a forthright way." It's a great behavior, it's a great activity, but it's just happening at the wrong time in the arousal process.

I think that every behavior, and so when I talk about just walking up to my wife and slapping her on the ass, it's just like we're not in that sexual space. There's no arousal being generated between the two of us.

KarenLee: Does she get off at you if you just walk up and hit her in the butt?

Ian: Yes, she gets off at that apparently.

KarenLee: What is that that men think that women like that? Or don't even give a shit if women like it, I should say.

Ian: I guess you just see this butt and it looks tasty and you just want to connect with that in some way.

KarenLee: Right, but still. That happens to me pretty often with these and he's like, "Oh, all my friends do this." I'm like, "I don't give a shit if all your friends do this. I didn't say you can walk up and hit me in the ass," and then I got really pissed and I try to hit him and I hurt my hand.

Ian: Yes, but meanwhile, if you're in bed-

KarenLee: That's a whole different ball game.

Ian: - and you're in the middle of arousal, you want that bite on the neck maybe or you want that slap on this. The other thing that's interesting is that we all have what's technically called a disgusted reflex. We are programmed to find certain things disgusting like the taste of sour milk, you know what I mean?

KarenLee: Right.

Ian: It's just gross. It informs us don't drink this or you're going to get really sick. If you think about sex purely from an objective, perspective like exchanging fluids, cum,-

KarenLee: Or eating your asshole.

Ian: - eating assholes-

KarenLee: I mean, seriously.

Ian: - vaginas, it sounds disgusting in some ways.

KarenLee: It does.

Ian: The point is this is what I love, arousal. The gift of human arousal it disinhibits us and it just lowers that disgust reflex and all of it becomes delicious. That's to me, the beauty of arousal and sex. That's why throughout the book, what's so important in understanding a sex script is it's not just a sequence of events, it's actually going through a process of arousal that's increasingly building and culminating.

KarenLee: I loved how you distinguish between physical in psychological arousal in creating this erotic mind.

Ian: Absolutely. That's what I would say to you as well, Cam, if I could go back to all my single days as an early ejaculator, I would become much more an expert in psychologically turning someone on, psychologically romancing and seducing them because that builds as much arousal on the body, if not more than, physical arousal.

KarenLee: Especially for women. I could speak that that is 100% true.

Cam: What else is interesting is that the discussed response that takes place. If you have that erotic mind with someone who's not in that context, you've become very creepy to them, I think.

Ian: Again, everything about right time, right place, right?

Cam: Right.

KarenLee: It's a dance.

Ian: You don't want to just be out at coffee, but when you're in the moment when you're engaging in foreplay, when you're starting to kiss when you're starting to exchange breath when you bodies are up against each other, why not braid in the psychological arousal? Why not start to comment on what you're experiencing and seeing.

KarenLee: It's the timing.

Ian: If you sit down and you're having a delicious meal with somebody, wouldn't you comment on everything that was so amazing about that meal?

Cam: Yes

KarenLee: That's a really good idea. Listeners, you sneaky freaks, that's a very good idea. Comment on what you see and hear and think and all the senses. Cam, I have to go through some of these TikTok. The question I asked on my TikTok was, who initiates sex? I had some funny answers, I wanted to run by you and see what you thought because I don't know. First of all, is it important who initiates?

KarenLee: What's important is that each person's desire framework is honored. I was just with a couple before we started talking, they were here, and they have an issue, which is he always feels spontaneous desire. He's always interested in her. He would always love to go up and kiss her or talk to her, but there's something about him that inhibits him from doing that, and so he leaves it to her to always initiate. She always has to be the one to initiate, but she doesn't experience desire in the same spontaneous way. She needs to have herself simmered and percolated.

They're not working together in this desire framework, how they each manifest desire. What I try and do when I'm working with couples is to really understand how each one experiences desire, and then validate a shared framework that they can both participate in.

KarenLee: Cool.

Cam: The answer to that is?

KarenLee: The answer for that couple would be that, and he always says like, "I'm going to ask you in the morning if we could have sex later," and I was like that's the least sexy way to request sex for someone who needs to be simmered and brought into it. He needs to learn how to approach and bring his spontaneous desire, but kindle a longer experience that will help manifest her desire. That would be a shared desire framework between the two of them.

KarenLee: Let's go a little bit back to the initiating part. As far as that is concerned, it seems like most of the people--

Cam: What are some of these responses?

KarenLee: Some of these responses are just so funny.

Cam: What was the initial question?

KarenLee: The question was, who initiates sex? This one guy goes, "Always me and would bet guys 99% of the time."

Cam: Is that true in your experience?

Ian: No.

KarenLee: That a guy would initiate sex 99%?

Ian: No, not at all.

KarenLee: I didn't think so.

Ian: Not at all, especially in this last year and a half or so of going into COVID where we're not eating well, we're not exercising, we're not even changing out of our pajamas, we're on top of each other. I'm finding that libido across the board is depressed and inhibited, and I'm finding a lot of men with lower desire, and so a lot of women who are in the position of initiating and wanting more sex. I appreciate your TikTok responses, but I don't think that there's a real gender line in terms of our desire.

KarenLee: Right, that's what I was wondering because a lot of them were saying 99% me or nothing, and then one guy said, "Cialis and a cabernet."

Cam: That's what initiates?

KarenLee: Who initiate sex, Cialis and a cabernet. Now, one guy, the last one I'm going to read is really funny. He said, "My wife is a doctor, so I have to make an appointment. I usually don't have to wait too long. Sometimes she'll squeeze me right in."

Ian: That's cute.

KarenLee: Very cute.

Ian: I think what's true is that a lot of men are able to metabolize a sexual cue very quickly and it only takes a single sexual cue like, "Oh, there's my cute wife coming out of the shower in a towel." That one single cue just go straight to the genitals and I'm ready, willing, and able to have sex. I think for a lot of women, and again, I don't want to stereotype, it's not that they don't appreciate that single cue or it's not sexy, it just might take more cues.

KarenLee: I agree with you 1000% based on my own experience.

Cam: This is why we have so many dick pics flying around.

KarenLee: Yes, I don't like dick pics, but I know that a guy would love a vagina pic in a second. Are men inherently just more visual?

Ian: I think that men are able, again, it doesn't always have to be a visual cue, it can be an audio cue, it can be a memory, it could be a suggestion of something.

Cam: It could be someone walking down the street and a little whiff of something gets in my nose. It could be anything.

KarenLee: I always thought that men just tend to like more visual stimulation more than women, but then can you speak a little bit about porn? Because it really helped me think of myself as being okay or more than okay. When you were describing, during this pandemic, how my libido has not been the way it used to be, it was much stronger before this pandemic. Maybe because I'm what the person 24/7, but saying, "You know what? If your libido is not where it used to be or whatever and you want a little extra something, watch porn together.

You'll get horny faster, and then start the process quicker." Because I think one of the reasons that we don't have sex as much is because it's going to be like, "Oh, it's going to take me a long time to get there."

Ian: Right. In the book I talk about, there are different ways of getting started. There's a hot start where like, look, Cam, if you're enjoying this summer of love and you're out there and you're meeting someone who's turned on by you, you're probably going to have what I would call a hot start. It's not going to take long for the two of you to get your clothes off and be going. For a couple in a long-term relationship like you and Dees, where there's still a lot of sexiness in the air and a lot of emotional safety, very often, I'm not saying you're not having hot starts, but there's also this feeling of a warm start that's just coming out of the general warmth.

For a lot of couples, though, they're in a place what we described during COVID, where if they're going to have sex, it's going to be from the position of a cold start and it's going to be pretty difficult to get there. In those cases, I think you need what I'm going to call an arousal runway. You need something to get the system just warmed up, and I think taking in some kind of psychological material, whether it's porn, and I only emphasize ethical porn.

KarenLee: Consensual porn.

Ian: 100% consensual and ethical. I believe that we should be paying for our porn. Nothing good comes for free and people get exploited, but there's also a renaissance in audio erotica and in audio porn, and then literary erotica, and in toys that are creative and suggestive. All of this stuff can help introduce more psychological material into the system.

KarenLee: For our viewers and listeners, would you say there's nothing wrong with a couple that uses porn or uses vibrators and that it doesn't mean, since I know, I've heard this before from guys, "She needs a vibrator to get off," or, "He needs porn to get off."

Ian: I think all of those, whether it's like, "I have to be a walking erection, I have to last long. If I watch porn twice a day, I'm a sex addict. If she uses her vibrator once a day, she's a vibrator addict." These are all just misconceptions that unfortunately really dilute and make the playground of sex pretty limited and constrained. I think we should get everything into that playground.

I think study after study shows that couples who watch porn together have more adventurous sex lives or feel better overall about communicating about sex and porn, get more excited about having sex with each other. I'm not saying that porn is the answer, but sometimes you need to, again, just bring that psychological arousal into your relationship.

Cam: I have a question, which is, what are your thoughts on today's hookup culture? The reason I'm asking this question is because I'm very interested in Buddhism and Buddhist take on sexuality, which is considered they suggest why sexuality, and some people interpret that to mean if it's consensual, if both partners are excited about the pleasure, that's fine. There's different interpretations of it. Hookup culture is interesting because I'm not sure it sits in the category of why sexuality, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Ian: I have to be honest a little bit, Cam. You're going to be a little more of a dating expert than I am because I have not been dating since like 1997, so I am a little bit out of it. It's not the thing that I work on clinically a lot and I really derived from my clinical experience, but what I will say that I've noticed, especially in single men, young men, is a lot more performance anxiety, a lot more erectile unpredictability, and a lot more fear in initiating sex and sexuality. I'm all about consent, but there also has to be a mature way of bringing our erotic selves into the picture. You know what I mean?

Cam: As opposed to leaving that behind.

Ian: Being afraid. It's kind of like this guy that I was talking to today in my office. Can we have sex? I'm reading the newspaper. "Hey, honey, how do you feel about having sex this evening?" "Let me contemplate it."

KarenLee: Man, I'm so hot when you say it like that. Jeez.

Ian: Sex is hot. Sexual language is hot, and we have to be respectful and we have to be careful but we also have to embrace the energy and the heat of sex. When I'm doing sex therapy with couples, I will often get them talking about sex and they'll go home and they'll have sex and they'll say, "That session got us hot, can we come back on a Friday night? Because it's going to be our Friday night date night." We have to master this language and this feeling, not be mastered by it.

Cam: Is that pro the hookup culture or is that to say the hookup culture might be a detriment to that?

Ian: I think I would be pro. When you say hookup culture, what do you mean by hookup culture?

KarenLee: Yes, I'm part of that hookup culture when I became single again for a year.

Ian: I'm very pro-sexual experience and sexual variety and sexual encounter.

KarenLee: What about threesomes?

Ian: I'm positive about anything that is, A, consensual and that's fun. Look, I work a lot with couples who just want to make a world of their bedroom and it's just the two of them. I work with a lot of couples who want to enjoy sex parties and shared sexual adventure and just get out there in the world and enjoy others. Sometimes I work with couples who want all that adventure, but they wanted in a more consensually non-monogamous way where they're each getting. I'm all about that. The thing that's hard in our culture is that monogamy, especially for heterosexual couples is such the dominant paradigm that it's hard sometimes to switch out of that.

If you start off in a monogamous relationship, and you feel that there's something that's non-monogamous or erotically explorative about you, it's very difficult to pivot sometimes out of that paradigm.

KarenLee: I love that you brought up the Coolidge effect too.

Ian: The Coolidge effect being around the importance of novelty in a relationship and women want it just as much if not more than men.

KarenLee: Let's end on that note. Did everybody hear that?

Cam: Ian, how do people find your work and follow you if they want to get in touch? Can you tell us about this book?

Ian: Yes, hopefully, it's available in most or all bookstores. I know you can certainly get it on Amazon. Definitely, my website is a great way to find me, iankerner.com. I'm not that hip to social media yet or probably ever will be. The website's a good way to find me.

Cam: Okay, awesome, and the book is called, So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex: Laying Bare and Learning to Repair Our Love Lives. Did you know that that rhymed a little bit, laying bare and learning to repair?

Ian: I did.

KarenLee: Now he does.

Cam: Rolls right off the tongue.

Ian: It was a little bit the idea of it, Cam. It rhymes a little bit.

KarenLee: Thank you so much for being here.

Ian: It could have just been getting naked and fixing from a solutions-oriented perspective, but it wouldn't quite have had the same ring to it.

Cam: No, I think that's right. I think you did a great job with this. It was really a delight to talk to you, and it was a delight to read this.

Ian: Thank you.

KarenLee: Thank you for validating my sex script.

Ian: I think it's terrific, it's inspirational.

KarenLee: Oh, well, feel free to use it whenever you want.

Ian: Okay.

Cam: We hope you enjoyed that interview with Dr. Ian Kerner. What do you think?

KarenLee: I really enjoyed it, and I hope you guys liked it as well.

Cam: Do you think I should go to him at a weekly basis for therapy?

KarenLee: No, I think he'd killed himself. I think he'd be like, "You again, kid?" I think he really helped me and helped other people understand the value of having a script that you can keep going back to and altering and changing as the days goes on.

Cam: Did you feel validated in your ?

KarenLee: I did, I felt very validated.

Cam: Did you feel uncomfortable talking about it in front of me?

KarenLee: Not really because we always talk about sex and in front of each other, but I don't normally talk about this part.

Cam: You can go into the fucking details.

KarenLee: I don't usually go into the details and certainly now, I'm sure Dees would not like me to tell that much in general all the time, but on the occasion like this, I felt that it was a therapist, it's okay.

Cam: I felt surprisingly comfortable hearing you discuss it, and I was actually very proud of you that you have such a good sex script.

KarenLee: Aw.

Cam: It is. Like what he says, it's very admirable.

KarenLee: You think I got an A?

Cam: You got a fucking A plus.

KarenLee: I got an A-plus.

Cam: The doctor.

KarenLee: I felt good about it too, but I don't want people listening going, "Oh, I don't have that, so something's lacking." It's not lacking, it's just my sex script and yours can be completely different and still be very valuable.

Cam: We wanted to thank everyone who has been supporting our show, making this possible for people like Dr. Ian Kerner to come on, and one way to do that is through Patreon. Patreon is a way for you to financially support us even if it's just five bucks a month, and now you can get access if you're a Patreon member.

KarenLee: Drum roll, please.

Cam: To our Discord channel.

KarenLee: Whoa.

Cam: What the fuck is a Discord?

KarenLee: I have no idea, but it works.

Cam: It's a really dope chat room where other sneaky freaks and us get together and we can just talk back and forth nonstop and there's chit chat going on all day long. It's a real community there. Some discussions will be available to the public, but most of them are going to be Patroen-only.

KarenLee: Okay, let's tell them how to get to Patreon, it's www.patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/sextalkwithmymom.

Cam: If you wanted to help us out another way for free, all you have to do is leave a rating and a review for us. Just go to ratethispodcast.com/mom. I actually have one here I'd like to read, mother, from Unicornlol with a unicorn face.

KarenLee: So cute.

Cam: This person says, "Y'all weren't cooking Dino Nuggets?" and then gave a bunch of aggressive emoji faces. Anger, devil face, crying with the swearing face, frown face.

KarenLee: I think he wasn't really happy with something that we did.

Cam: He gave us one star because of the Dino Nuggets. We weren't cooking Dino Nuggets.

KarenLee: We weren't cooking the Dino Nuggets.

Cam: Can you help us out by overturning that one star? I don't know why we got-- I guess we didn't do enough Dino Nuggets or something, but now we got one star over there.

KarenLee: You little sneaky freaks, if you've gotten to this part of the podcast episode and you have not, can they write a review more than once?

Cam: You can do it on multiple platforms

KarenLee: Right, so if you haven't or if you have and would like to help us out and write another one, please do so we can get our ratings back up now that this Dino Nuggets guy put us down to one star.

Cam: We also wanted to thank everyone who has helped us by sharing this podcast. That really is our favorite way for you guys to tell your friends, your family, your parents.

KarenLee: It's called word of mouth. We are on Instagram and TikTok. I'm doing some really funny stuff there. We want to create this multimedia channel and this is the way to do it, so follow us on Instagram and TikTok @sextalkwithmymom.

Cam: We're doing a new Uberlube giveaway there, so stay tuned for that.

KarenLee: Oh, yes.

Cam: Thank you guys for listening. We love you very much.

KarenLee: We love you, you little sneaky freaks.

Cam: You want to sing them out?

KarenLee: Let me tell you about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and having Ian Kerner as a guesty.

Cam: A guesty.

KarenLee: A guesty and the besty guesty.

Cam: Oh, besty guesty. All right, love you.

KarenLee: Love you, bye.

Cam: Bye-bye.