How do I talk about sex?
Great questions from Emily's book tour
Hello again! How is May almost over already?
Emily just left this morning for Canada and Europe! She will be speaking at the ASPSH conference in Edmonton on Friday (virtual tickets here) as well as at EFT Europa in Haarlem, Netherlands next week.
If you’re in London, she has public events at Vagina Museum on June 6 @7pm and at How To Academy with Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh on June 7.
Speaking of book tour: You may remember Emily’s incredible tour assistant Robyn from this post she wrote about how to become a sex educator. She’s back, with some of the questions readers asked Emily while on tour. It sure is handy to have a second extremely qualified person to answer questions.
–The Euphemism
How do I talk about sex?
“How do you suggest starting the conversation that you are not enjoying the sex in your relationship and would like to change things?”
“How to approach opening the conversation about improving aspects of our intimate life without feeling (as a woman) like I’m pressuring them since women often feel pressured by male partners?”
“Recommendations for introducing partners to these conversations? Including partners who might not be as … gung ho about super deep maybe cheesy (?!) sex conversations?”
“I have a 15 year old daughter and I want her to have a better education than I did about her own sexual pleasure, but she doesn’t always want to hear about the topic from me. What are some good resources for teen girls who don’t want to have cringe conversations with their moms.”
“How can partners better communicate if they are wanting physical intimacy or sexual intimacy and what each of those could look like for each individual?”
In looking at questions from the tour, I noticed that some variation of “how do I talk about sex?” came up multiple times. Sometimes it varied by topic or who the question asker was looking to talk to, but each of these questions were thematically interested in how to have a hard or awkward conversation about sex with someone.
Now, I’ll say up front that I love talking about a wide variety of topics around sex and sexual health. I literally can do it all day and have been trained to do it well. But that in no way means that I am good at talking about my own sex life, especially in the context of talking with my partner. Talking about your own sex life can be vulnerable in a way that talking about other people’s sex lives or sex in general is not. So I just want to emphasize that this can be challenging, and you should give yourself some leeway! Embrace the awkward!
Like many topics that come up around sex and relationships, the way to talk about sex has less to do with the content of the conversation than the structure and context of the conversation. I’ll break down what I mean into four… not quite steps, but things to think about and consider before talking with someone about sex. This can include talking to someone with whom you have had sex, someone you want to have sex with, or someone you’re giving “The Talk” to. It can also be broadened to talk about pretty much anything that might feel vulnerable or emotionally fraught, but I’ll focus on sex for now.
1. Do you know how this person likes to have hard conversations?
This is something that can sometimes be overlooked in the lead up to having what can feel like a very emotional conversation and something that my relationship therapist had to point out directly. Often, the person initiating the Big Conversation will focus on organizing their thoughts, psyching themselves up, etc etc. Once all that is in order, people can often just spring this on the other person, seemingly apropos of nothing. I can’t say universally whether or not this is a good strategy, but I did learn from my therapist that is not how my partner would prefer this to happen. It turns out he sometimes needs 2-3 business days to wrap his head around the topic and prepare so he’s not speaking from a place of feeling defensive and bombarded by me throwing big topics at him out of the blue. I had assumed knowing we were going to talk about something hard two days in advance would cause him more anxiety, but that’s what I get for assuming right? So now, if we need to talk about finances or something else I know is hard for us, I’ll go, “Hey babe, can we set aside some time in the next two days to talk about our finances?” And then it’s on both of us to follow through.
If you’re not sure how the person you want to talk to about sex likes to have hard conversations broached, then this is maybe where you start. Having a conversation about people’s preferences around difficult conversations can feel kind of meta and like navel gazing, but it’s an important way to ensure you’re setting the conversation up for success.
When Emily talks about the stages of change from the Transtheoretical Model in chapter 8 of Come Together, she presents these stages as a tool to assess whether the person you want to talk to about your sexual connection with is in a place to hear, integrate, and/or act on that information. I want to second that knowing where the person is at when it comes to this topic is another crucial step to determining whether or not to have the conversation about sex. If you don’t know how to propose having this conversation and/or you’re not sure how receptive they will be to the conversation, then this is where you can start to focus some of your efforts.
2. Context Is Important
Here in Emily’s newsletter we all know the importance of context. We have all watched Emily at some point impersonate a rat being annoyed by Iggy Pop (if not check out this Tedx Talk!), so I don’t have to try to sell you on the idea that context is important. Instead, I want to focus on why you should talk about sex in the least sexy context possible. This can mean you’re at a cafe (if everyone involved feels able to talk about sex in public), at the dinner table, in a therapist’s office, whatever works for you. The goal is to take the pressure off the conversation, so it doesn’t feel like there are expectations for immediately acting on what comes up during your talk, and so it doesn’t feel like a criticism of something that just happened. It’s important to talk after sex about the sex you just had, but if you’re aiming to make changes or talk through something that’s not working for you, it’s best to do that with some distance from recent sexual encounters.
The context should allow for everyone involved to feel like they can be honest, that there’s no pressure to act on anything, and that there are no power imbalances influencing the conversation. That can look like going somewhere neutral if you don’t live together, or making sure someone has a ride home if they don’t want to stay afterwards. Talking about sex is already difficult and vulnerable, so creating a context that takes as much pressure off of everyone as possible can be really important.
3. Use An External Tool
Alright, you’ve had the meta conversations about conversations, you’ve assessed their readiness for change, you’ve created a context where everyone feels empowered and able to talk about sex, and then… what?
This can sometimes feel like the most daunting part of the conversation because there is often a nebulous something about the sex you want to address, but maybe nothing specific. If you have something specific to talk about, that’s great and typically super helpful as a way to start the conversation. If you’re feeling less specific and more unsure about what to bring up, try using an external tool to get the conversation going. This can look like filling out the Come As You Are workbook individually or together or using a Yes, No, Maybe list to broaden the range of things you might be interested in. Either way, having an aid to focus the conversation can help make things go more smoothly.
If you’re unfamiliar, a Yes, No, Maybe list is a tool people can use to communicate which aspects of sex they are interested in or not. Scarleteen has a really good list as a starting off point if you’re new to this conversation or want something that is more broad and simple than some others out there. It is also appropriate for teens if you’re giving The Sex Talk to a friend or family member and want to give them a tool to explore their sexual interests. There’s a more comprehensive list in Yana Tallon-Hicks’s book Hot and Unbothered that includes some ways to explore fantasies and other aspects of sexual intimacy.
These lists can also help open up sexual intimacy and conversations about sex in unanticipated ways. It’s fine if your conversation ends up being an Incognito Mode deep dive into what figging is because 1) laughing or exploring together builds intimacy and can sometimes lead to a LUST space, and 2) it normalizes looking into aspects of sex you might be unfamiliar with, leaving space for asking questions. These are all good things in the long run, even if you don’t leave the conversation with anything definitive written down.
4. Aftercare
Aftercare is an aspect of kink culture that has become more mainstream and I honestly could not be happier about it. It’s the practice of setting up care and comfort for after an intense or emotional experience. In kink, this is an embedded part of the scene that’s negotiated by the people involved ahead of time. They talk about whether they want to be touched or held, if they need a shower or food first. To me, this is generally good sex etiquette, but it is more formalized for some folks in the kink community.
What I mean when I say aftercare in this context is make sure you have a plan for after the conversation. There’s no way to know if the conversation will go well or not, or if your suggestions will be well received. And even if it does go well, it can be exhausting to be emotionally open with someone for an extended period of time. Make a plan individually or together for what happens after you talk. Do you leave the space alone or together? Is there someone available to support you if you need it? Is sex on the table if everyone is feeling up for it?
That last one is an important one to talk through ahead of time. Emily mentions this throughout Come Together and it’s something I want to reiterate here: talking about sex can be sexy, fun, and arousing. Talking about sex is sexually relevant and building emotional connection and intimacy can feel even more sexually relevant and appealing. If you know that is the case for you, consider bringing it up ahead of time as a possibility. This used to happen to me and my partner after a relationship therapy session. We’d get all vulnerable and talk about why we like and love each other and on the drive home we’d talk about what we needed. Sometimes it was sex, sometimes it was cuddling, and sometimes it was space. Either way, having a plan for afterwards can feel like having a safety net or a reward for doing something hard.
Now, Come Together has a lot of helpful information and examples for how to talk about sex. I highly recommend going back and reading through those chapters and seeing if anything resonates for a particular situation. I just wanted to use this space to offer a basic structure around which you can build your conversation about sex. Like any advice given generally, it might not feel like a good fit for everyone. There’s no hard and fast way to do this to get the maximum positive results. This is just one of many ways I have found that help people feel able to approach the subject with confidence. If there’s something that has worked better for you, let us know!
-Robyn
Questions or comments? Please email my very tiny team at unrulywellness@gmail.com
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Signed copies of Come As You Are and Come Together can be obtained from my amazing local bookseller, Book Moon Books.
Stay safe and see you next time.
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