Alright, we are back with the marriage edition of our disability and intimacy series.
And this video is beginning with a big warning.
Alert, alert, alert. To family members of ours, close friends of ours, even acquaintances of ours.
If you proceed with this video, you waive all rights to be uncomfortable to say anything
to us about the video. Don't watch it.
And we prefer that you didn't watch it. But that being said, what is about to follow is not X rated.
So don't worry everyone.
No, obviously we won't be graphic, but we're talking about intimacy
and it's not a conversation that I would have with my mom.
So mom, close the tab.
Shane, where are we?
We're in your stretching position.
We're in our basement. We're in your stretching position?
Well, we're here.
Shane has never seen what stretching looks like on a human being.
That is not true. I know better than anyone.
Yeah, that's true. You did a lot of stretching and physical therapy.
I'm trying to learn how to do a split. It's my latest thing.
Unrelated to intimacy.
Shane. I am so far away from being able to do a split. It's not even funny.
You're further than me.
Yeah, pretty much.
So anyway, I'm going to be doing my daily stretches. I'm following like a
five minute regiment.
And we're going to do that while we talk about, while we answer these Q&A
questions that you've compiled for us.
Yeah, so we put up a thing saying, Ask Just About Intimacy.
And we picked some, but also leave your comments below if you have more questions
because we got so many that this is going to be a multi-part series.
Oh boy.
So here we go.
But before we begin, Shane, we have to take a quick break to show you the best cinematic
piece of work that we have made in a long time.
We hope you love it.
You're about to be very impressed.
Here we go.
Hey, you ready for dinner?
No, my mom's cafe burned down. I'm trying to figure out who did it.
Oh, my god. That's terrible. I'll call the police.
Oh, no, it's not in real life.
I'm playing love and pies. Your mom's cafe burns down
and your aim is to help build back a thriving business and solve the mystery of the fire.
Okay, so should I just go get takeout?
Yeah, how could I possibly stop now? I'm trying to figure out if I can trust Joe.
Joe.
Yes.
Okay.
Joe.
Hey, baby.
Want to watch a movie?
The freaking cat ran away. That's really my number one priority today.
We don't have a cat.
Freya's cat, Marshmallow from love and pies. I'm very busy, Shane.
Okay. Well, hope you find Magenta or whatever?
Marshmallow.
Baby, guess what day it is?
Monday?
My birthday. I thought we could celebrate.
Oh, well Sven is kind of building me some tables later, so I really need to keep baking.
Oh. Okay.
Happy birthday to me.
Are you ready for bed? I'm excited to cuddle.
How am I supposed to make two apple pies and an Americano in the
midst of a full-on arson investigation?
I am up to my neck in customers.
Love and pies?
Love and pies.
Love and pies is a free-to-play, merged-to mobile game that
can be played on a mobile phone or tablet.
The objective of the game is to merge baked goods, serve them to customers,
earn tips, and decorate your cafe.
It's so easy to pick up and play, and I play a lot.
There's a new leaderboard event called Customer Clash that you
can participate in, completing orders Wednesday to Saturday.
You get points in friendly competitions against other players.
For now, it's exclusively available to some players, but Love and Pies
hopes to bring this event out to all players soon.
So Shane and I encourage you to join in on the fun and download Love and Pies
for free on iOS and Android.
We are back from something that I'm very proud of.
I have to say, the fact that I am not a professional actor at this point is shocking.
It is upsetting. It is upsetting that we are still not professional actors.
Okay, we are going to start with the first question on the list, which is funny.
Do you feel uncomfortable answering these types of questions?
That kind of leads us into the rest of these types of questions.
I think the fact that Hannah is actively doing a different activity while we do them might be indicative
of her discomfort.
I'm starting. I'm like my stretching. I have to start.
I don't feel very much discomfort.
I've written about my sexual function in my book, so like, I... no.
No?
Not really.
I want to honor our privacy.
You barely do though. I think you would answer so many more questions
than I allow you to put on that list.
I vetoed things and you were like, who cares? I want to answer this one.
I'm like, nope, no, we're not going to do that.
I would say I'm immature, short-sighted.
And you have no shame.
Unprofessional and shameless.
Goodbye Chloe.
Okay, Chloe's like, and with that list of adjectives, I'm out.
So I don't really feel bothered by this.
Hannah is more private than I am.
And feels shame.
I run everything through a much bigger filter than Shane does.
The fact that you're doing this right now here is a testament to you.
But the thing is, I'm not uncomfortable with anything that we're going to say.
You know, but like you would say a lot of other stuff, you know?
I'm not saying like I'm really uncomfortable doing this.
I'm saying like I'm not doing the things that I'm uncomfortable with.
The questions that we have, I have approved.
And I'm doing this stretch.
I'm supposed to tilt my pelvis forward to stretch my hamstring.
And I feel like I'm dislocating my kneecap.
That's a sign to stop doing it.
Ouch.
Maybe you just don't need to do a split.
Oh, I do though.
Maybe that's not in store for you.
Now I need to do this back of my leg.
Question number two.
Since getting married, has your intimacy changed in any way?
So the the lead up to this Q&A series was that it is our three year anniversary,
wedding anniversary coming up.
But we've been together for seven and a half years.
In a week, two weeks.
I don't know, when's our anniversary?
Oh, Shane, it's coming up.
And we have a couple of weird anniversaries with how our wedding worked out.
But it's three years.
So that's why this question, for context, that we have been married for three years.
I think the simplest answer is, yeah, without a doubt our intimacy is
different in ways than it was when we met.
Yeah.
In seven years, yeah.
When Hannah used to visit on like her weekend visits from college,
like the urge and the need to just be like physically close was powerful.
Yeah.
Now, like we live together.
We're always together, yeah.
We're together all the time.
It's okay if we're not...
So the urgency.
She's whining.
Chloe.
She's licking her lips.
Okay, we have to put our dog back upstairs.
Anyway, yeah.
So the urgency is not the same as it used to be.
I think an improvement is that like the comfort level that we have with one
another is way higher.
Yeah, no embarrassment or anything like that you have at the beginning.
Do you remember in the early days, like, we've maybe never really talked
about this, but like the feeling you have in the back of your mind when you're
like getting into intimacy.
Early on, and you're like, is this okay?
Yeah.
And does she hate it?
Yeah.
Is it fine?
I hope she's happy.
Yeah.
And you're so nervous that.
Yeah.
Now you know the other person a lot better.
So it's not that way.
Definitely.
Yeah.
So those are two big ways it makes a difference.
Yeah.
All right.
How did you initiate the conversation about how intimacy would work?
Do you remember?
Well, we probably answered this in a previous video like years ago when
we first talked about this three or four years ago.
So we probably had a better answer then because we were closer to when it happened.
How did we initiate the conversation?
Do you think you had maybe written anything about intimacy at the time?
That I had already read?
Yeah, you definitely read my blog where I definitely talked about the fact
that like sexually everything works, like that my disability doesn't affect that.
Yeah, but I also remember reading a chapter that you wrote that you scrapped from your book.
A chapter?
I don't remember.
Okay, I'm going to cut here.
Oh, yeah.
It's burned into my mind.
Okay, yeah.
And now Shane's laughing.
We're cutting back in, the chapter that I just described to him that actually
I think was cut from your book at my request.
Thank God.
It was vivid, let's put it that way.
It was so, it is exactly what we were saying before where Shane has no filter and I...
Nixed it.
And you know what?
Rightfully so.
Everyone else who would have read that or been implicated in that chapter
should be thanking me.
But you were aware.
I had read, yeah, and I'm not even sure that honestly might have been later
into our relationship.
I don't remember exactly when that was.
It was in the first six months, but I'm not sure if that's what started our conversation about intimacy.
It probably wasn't, but Iremember reading about intimacy
And then I mean...
Knowing no filter me.
Yeah.
I bet you I like texted like when we were being like flirty, I bet you I texted something
that like initiated a conversation about that.
Yes.
Just so that I could like make sure you knew that like I could do that.
Oh, I remember you texting me things that were not like disability related,
but obviously very like flirtatious.
Intimate.
Very intimate.
Yeah.
So yeah, I didn't have any...
Yeah.
I just, I don't think I ever assumed that it wouldn't work.
Yeah.
I just didn't because I knew you had had multiple previous relationships.
I knew that you had like written about this.
The way you emphasize multiple, made it sound like there have been hundreds.
- Well, there were like.. - You were like multiple.
You know what's funny to me, but this is so funny.
We're getting off topic here.
I might leave for this.
We are getting off topic, but I saw a comment.
It was on like your most recent reel about, it was a podcast clip, just funny of us
being like, you being like, we're so classy.
Okay.
Oh yeah.
It wasn't even that funny.
It was literally just like a moment.
I thought it was hilarious.
Hilarious of you.
Anyway, but some person who I had restricted, like I clicked on their
name and it was like, would you like to unblock?
And I was like, this checks out.
Commented just being like that they don't believe we're a real relationship,
but they were like being very diplomatic about it.
They were like, you know, I honestly don't think they're like horrible people.
They're a little bit boring and I think they're lying, but they have some
content that I've watched and I was like, okay.
Anyway, however, they are proof of, someone responded being like,
why do you think they're faking?
And they were like, well, he's had two girlfriends before Hannah
and that is just absolutely unbelievable.
Like I don't buy it.
And I was laughing to myself being like, you think he's had two girlfriends because
that was when he was writing a book, like they're in his books and like in his blog.
And he has had previous girlfriends before that that were not written about.
And so they're just like, like imagine if they knew that you had had more girlfriends.
Their minds would have melted.
There are girlfriends that I've not written about.
Yeah.
And like, I've never even said that publicly, but I was just like giggling at this person being like,
well, he's had two previous girlfriends.
Well, thanks for outing me Hannah as having had...
I know. I hope that person watches this video and is like, dozens and dozens.
Anyway, I didn't have any concerns.
And then like the first time there were any like conversations about specifics,
logistics would be like in the moment.
It wasn't like pre-planned.
And that was just like silly and fun.
Yeah.
There was no like, okay, what should we do?
Yeah.
It was just like, you know, having fun.
Yeah.
Laughing about it.
Yeah, exactly.
Any suggestions on how to guide my 10 year old son with muscular dystrophy on sexual health?
Yeah, that's a great question.
Yeah.
And I just, I wanted to share that like my sexual health education was standard
growing up and that got me to where I am today.
And I like, obviously I can't draw a direct line from that to where I am now.
But like, I took health class with my peers and learned about puberty and all that,
the way that every other student did.
My parents never really talked about like, here's how things might be different or,
you know, here's what you need to think about your disability.
Like, because I have normal sexual function.
Yeah, that's the thing.
I think it just wasn't a topic.
I was going to say, because like there weren't any specific concerns where you were like,
that doesn't work for me.
You didn't have that.
I do think you probably had moments where you were like, a girl wouldn't want to date me.
Yes.
You know, that's different than like this wouldn't biologically work.
Yeah.
And that's what I wanted to get to is like, I think the bigger thing is encouraging your child
to see themselves as valuable and worthy of relationships.
Yeah.
Like anyone else.
Yeah.
And showing them examples of, you know, like,
Show them our videos.
Well.
Be careful which one you choose.
Maybe not that.
Um, okay.
How's your split coming along, are you..?
Well, terribly.
You want to see, like after I stretch, I'm supposed to be able to get a little closer.
Are you giving a demo here?
Don't hurt yourself.
That's it.
Do you think it's better than three days ago when I began?
Uh, yeah.
So much better.
Ugh, it's this hamstring.
You are far. Yeah, hit it, that'll help.
You are really far.
I'm going to get there.
Oh, and you know how cool I'm going to look when I can do a split?
So cool.
I'm going to do it all the freaking time.
Just down here in the basement.
No, I'm going to do it in public everywhere I go.
It would actually increase the interest in our vlogs.
Yeah, and I'll wear a squirmy and grubs shirt.
And suddenly Hannah's doing a split in burger king.
All right. Next one.
How do you handle differences in libido?
Um, just by communicating and acknowledging that we're not always going to be on the same
page at the same time.
And that's not a cause for like annoyance or anger or anything like that.
Yeah.
I don't, yeah.
You nailed it.
Yeah.
So that's part one of our married disabled...
We're getting a lot of adjectives here.
Yeah.
I wonder if we'll do the rest of them in the basement.
That's going to be where we do all of them.
By the end, Hannah's going to do a perfect split.
Oh my God.
Wouldn't that be fun if we like, if I worked really hard between now and the next one and
I was like halfway there and then in like the last one, I was in the split the whole time.
I can't think of a single thing that would be more fun.
I agree.
Alright. Thank you everyone.
Bye.