Vanessa Marin: Is it true that men have higher sex drive?
Xander Marin: Is it true that you should spontaneously desire
sex?
Vanessa Marin: There are a lot of myths about sex drive.
So today it is time to reveal the truth. But before we get to that, just want to take a
quick second to introduce ourselves. Hello.
Xander Marin: Hello.
Vanessa Marin: We are Xander and Vanessa Marin. We are married
and we've been together since 2007. Yeah [inaudible 00:00:26]. Our mission is to equip you with
the tools that you need to create an extraordinary relationship inside the bedroom and out. I
am a licensed psychotherapist specializing in sex and relationships. And I've spent the
last 15 years working with thousands of people, and have served as a featured expert for the
New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple and many more.
Xander Marin: And I am none of those things. I'm Vanessa's
husband. I used to work a pretty normal job, you could say, in the corporate world, but
I started seeing how much of an impact Vanessa was making with her work and I decided to
join her so we could reach even more people. Plus being married to a sex therapist has
a few perks. I picked up some pretty good insight, I think, into what does and doesn't
make relationships work. And I also just love sharing real stories from our own life to
help you all.
Vanessa Marin: You have an honorary degree now in sex and
relationships.
Xander Marin: I'll take it.
Vanessa Marin: In this video, we're going to dismantle the
top six sex drive myths that we see people struggling with, that we have actually struggled
with ourselves too. And you're going to discover the surprising truth behind each myth.
Xander Marin: Believing the sex drive myths can cause some
serious harm to your sex life. So, once you know the truth, you'll be able to avoid all
that damage.
Vanessa Marin: So the number of ways that we humans are able
to make ourselves feel guilty, stuck, or embarrassed about our sex drives, truly it never ceases
to amaze me. From judging ourselves, to setting up unrealistic expectations, to sticking our
heads in the sand and pretending everything's just fine. Virtually all of us needlessly
complicate our relationships with our own sex drives.
Xander Marin: Sometimes these beliefs come from within,
sometimes they're a product of our simultaneously sex obsessed and sex negative culture.
Vanessa Marin: Quite a combination, isn't it?
Xander Marin: Yeah. I know.
Vanessa Marin: As a professional sex therapist, I see my
clients bumping up against the same sex myths over and over again. All of this misinformation
out there just leads to unrealistic expectations and a lot of disappointment in the bedroom.
And we can speak to this from personal experience too. We have each gone through our own ups
and downs with our sex drives, and we have felt all of the fear, confusion, anxiety,
and embarrassment that you may be feeling right in this very moment.
Xander Marin: We love busting up these myths and just filling
you in on the truth about sex, like what it's like for real people. So without further ado,
here are the six main sex drive myths that could be ruining your sex life.
Vanessa Marin: Myth number one. You should spontaneously
want sex. So, I can practically guarantee you that in every romantic comedy you've ever
seen, there's this hot and heavy scene where the two main characters just rip each other's
clothes off. There's this moment of spontaneous, pure passion. You just dash off into the bedroom
together. But that is not how sex works in a longterm relationship.
Xander Marin: Almost never.
Vanessa Marin: Almost never. Every once in a while, but-
Xander Marin: That's why it's spontaneous.
Vanessa Marin: So there are a lot of deciding factors that
affect whether or not you want to, or even can have sex at any given time. So for example,
what if you live with a roommate or you have kids? I don't think you're going to be just
spontaneously going at it on the kitchen counter when there's someone else in the next room.
Xander Marin: Yeah. Not to mention the mental aspect of
desire as well. Because sex drive is both physical and mental. And I think a lot of
us forget about that second mental part. Most of us have a specific mental state that we
need to be in to feel excited about having sex. So, if you've had a long day and you're
totally exhausted from work, sex is probably not going to be the first thing on your mind,
and honestly it might be the last thing on your mind. And good luck finding the perfect
spontaneous moment when both you and your partner are magically in the mood at the exact
same time.
Vanessa Marin: Yeah. Even if you have pretty similar sex
drives, to both be really interested in sex spontaneously out of nowhere and also have
the time space and privacy to do it in that moment is very rare. So, the truth here is
that spontaneous sex can be an awful lot of fun if and when it happens. But I think that
it's so much more rewarding to view our sex lives as something that we make happen, something
that we prioritize and put effort and energy and creativity into. So I always like to talk
about, remember at the beginning of your relationship how much effort and energy you used to put
into your sex life when you first started dating your partner. And not only that, like
how much fun it used to be to put in all of this effort, like doing things like going
to the gym, picking your perfect outfit, listening to all your favorite pump up jams. Like we
put a lot of effort into getting ourselves excited and turned on and ready to spend time
together. And the reality is that it can be the same way in a longterm relationship too.
Xander Marin: Plus there's also an aspect of just how your
sex drive works. Did you know that there are actually two different sex drive types? And
that it's super common for partners in a relationship to have different ones.
Vanessa Marin: We do.
Xander Marin: Most people don't know this. Not understanding
that there's these two types can cause all kinds of friction around sex. So, it's really
important to be aware of what type you are and what type your partner is. Fortunately,
we have a free guide that's all about this to help you identify yours and your partners.
So you can check out the link in the description below to identify your sex drive type and
learn what you need to get fired up and turned on and what your partner needs.
Vanessa Marin: All right. Myth number two. If your partner
doesn't want sex, it's because they aren't attracted to you. So, if your partner doesn't
want to have sex either in a particular moment, or they generally just have a lower sex drive
than you do, it is so easy to take this personally. You might start worrying that your partner
is turned off by this extra 10 pounds that you think you've gained, or that they're starting
to see you as just their roommate but not their lover.
Xander Marin: The truth is, there are tons and tons of different
reasons why people don't feel interested in sex in a given moment. Only one of those reasons
is not being attracted to your partner. And from my experience, I can say that's pretty
much never the case.
Vanessa Marin: Yeah. I can tell you that in my entire career
of working with couples with mismatched sex drives, I have never once worked with a couple
where attraction was the main problem. It is just not the central issue that so many
of us fear that it is.
Xander Marin: It's way more likely that your partner's had
a long day and they're too tired, or they're stressed about a family or friend issue, and
they just aren't in the right head space for sex. That's why it's so important to be able
to talk about sex openly so that you can explain to your partner, I'm turning down sex in this
moment for this reason, but I'm not turning down you.
Vanessa Marin: You know what this reminds me of? Is how we
talk about, we interpret other people's actions more negatively when we interpret our own.
So the classic example is always with people who are being jerks while driving. If someone
cuts us off, we think, "What an asshole. I can't believe they're doing that." But if
we cut someone off, we're like, "Oh my God, I just made a little mistake. I didn't mean
to do that."
Xander Marin: Oh, I was looking down. I was trying to grab
my thing from over here.
Vanessa Marin: I think the same thing happens with sex drive.
Like when we turn our partner down, we're able to say to ourselves, "Oh, I've had such
a long day or I had this really bad headache or whatever it is that's going on." But if
our partner turns us down we really put this negative meaning on it. Like, they're not
attracted to me anymore. Our relationship's terrible.
Xander Marin: Yeah. But the difference between the car example
and this example, is in the car example, you can't just explain to the other driver, "Hey,
I'm really sorry. I was trying to grab my jacket and I just looked down for a second,
and I had everything under control, I just swerved slightly." But in real life with your
partner, you can talk about it. You can explain it. It's just that many people have never
had those types of discussions. And so, you got to get comfortable having those and feeling
comfortable talking to your partner about it.
Vanessa Marin: Yeah. And just speaking from personal experience,
the times that you've turned me down and explained like, "Oh, I've got a really bad stomachache
or whatever it is." That feels so much better than just hearing that no. No is very easy
to interpret and take very personally. All right. Myth number three. If your partner
wants sex, it's just because they're horny.
Xander Marin: This is like the exact opposite.
Vanessa Marin: These two are pretty funny together, number
two and number three. So, we tend to take it personally when our partners don't want
sex, but when they do want sex, we tend to depersonalize it. So, your partner tries to
initiate with you and you're thinking, "Oh, they just want to have an orgasm. They just
want to get up. I'm just like a piece of meat to them. My partners just being a guy." I
know I have definitely had this reaction sometimes when you've initiated sex, it's just, "Oh,
he just wants to get off." And we completely depersonalize it, and we make it just about
the physical aspects of sex.
Xander Marin: Yeah. You can't have it both ways. So, the
truth is, sure, it's nice to feel physical pleasure and it's nice to have an orgasm.
But that's just one of the many reasons why we have sex. I mean, the reality is if we
just wanted an orgasm-
Vanessa Marin: We can do it ourselves.
Xander Marin: Yeah. We can do that ourselves. So, sex is
such an emotional experience for us, that having sex is a way for us to physically express
our love and affection and attraction to our partner.
Vanessa Marin: And I also want to speak a bit to gender dynamics
too. As women, we are socialized in this culture to be in touch with our emotions, it's okay
for us to talk about our emotions and express them. And men are socialized to believe that
you're not supposed to. You're supposed to be a tough guy and be very stoic. And so,
in my practice, I've seen that a lot of men when they're initiating sex, what they're
really longing for is just to experience some sort of emotional connection with their partner
but they don't know how to initiate an emotional connection.
For men, you're socialized to believe, it's okay for you to want sex. You're supposed
to want sex. You're supposed to be a guy and want it all the time. So, men initiate sex
actually as a way to initiate emotional connection. So, sometimes when I explain that to the women
I work with and I tell them, "When your partner initiates sex, imagine that he's actually
coming to you and saying like, I want to feel really close to you. I want to feel intimate
to you. I want to connect with you." That can make it take on a totally different feeling
in the moment.
Xander Marin: So the bottom line is, if you and your partner
have been battling with mismatched sex drives for a while, I can practically guarantee you
that the higher sex drive partner genuinely misses feeling connected and playful and intimate,
way more than they miss just having orgasm.
Vanessa Marin: Okay. Myth number four. Men always want it
more. This myth is so dumb but it just will not go away. In fact, we have an entire video
dedicated to myths about men and their sex drive, which you can view right up here.
Xander Marin: If you're in a heterosexual relationship where
the woman wants sex more, this myth can cause so many problems. The man can feel emasculated,
the woman feels unfeminine, and both partners just feel abnormal and neither partner wants
to initiate sex.
Vanessa Marin: Now, the truth here is that we are all unique.
There are some men who want sex more often than women and some women who want sex more
often than men. We have gone through this personally. There have been periods of our
relationship where Xander's had the higher sex drive and periods of our relationship
where I have had the higher sex drive. And I also had relationships in the past where
I was the higher sex drive partner for the entire relationship, so I came into our relationship
feeling extra sensitive about these dynamics. So, even though I knew better, it was so easy
for me to feel embarrassed and ashamed for the times that I wanted sex more than Xander
did.
Xander Marin: Yeah. And that took a long time for me to
get comfortable with because, yeah, as a man, like Vanessa mentioned, I was socialized to
just believe that I should always want it. And that I should always be initiating. And
that if I wasn't wanting it or I wasn't able to get it up that something was wrong with
me, my hormones must be off. You think of all these reasons that don't have to do with
reality to explain why it's happening, when in reality, it's just a matter of looking
at, what's going on in your life? Are you stressed out? Are you getting enough exercise?
What do you need to actually feel turned on? And so, it took us a long time of working
through all this stuff for me to understand what I need in order to really want it.
Vanessa Marin: And a big part of that was discovering your
sex drive type.
Xander Marin: Yes it was.
Vanessa Marin: And the reason you should go check out that
free guide.
Xander Marin: Yeah. Definitely. We've just had to remind
ourselves that it's okay for both of us to have whatever sex drive we have. And we recognize
that our sex drives change too. So, sometimes the dynamic is flipped and I'm the one with
the higher sex drive.
Vanessa Marin: Which leads us straight into myth number five.
You can't change your sex drive. So, if you're like most people, you think of your sex drive
like you think of your physical traits. It's just a part of you. You don't have any control
over it. There's nothing you can do about it. So, for example, I can't make myself grow
taller. You can't make yourself have smaller feet. We have this feeling that we just can't
do anything to change our sex drives.
Xander Marin: But, here's the trick. You can absolutely
have control over your sex drive. You can make active changes to create the sex drive
that you want. And it's probably going to be way easier than you think it is because
we've both done it.
Vanessa Marin: We can do a whole video on this topic. There's
so much to go into. But we actually have an entire course dedicated to reconnecting with
your sex drive and increasing it. It's called Rediscovering Desire, which you can check
out over at vmtherapy.com.
Xander Marin: So, myth number six. You shouldn't have to
put any effort into your sex life. If there's one myth that we think is the most pervasive
and most dangerous than all the others, it's this one. In one way or another, almost everyone
believes that having great sex should just happen naturally.
Vanessa Marin: Spontaneously like we talked about.
Xander Marin: Yeah. Spontaneous, natural. Having to put
any sort of effort in, is seen as a sign that something is broken or wrong with you or you're
not a good fit with your partner.
Vanessa Marin: But the truth is, great sex does not just
happen naturally. It doesn't fall out of the sky into your lap. Having a great sex life
requires consistent effort just like your relationship does. It requires constant communication,
growing over time, our sex life requires us to work on it on a regular basis. If we didn't,
things get boring pretty quickly. But the good news is that working on your sex life
does not have to feel like a chore. It can be incredibly fun, fulfilling and exhilarating.
That is really the point of our entire business. To normalize working on your sex life. To
help people realize, it's not a sign that anything is wrong or broken or bad about your
relationship.
Xander Marin: It's a sign that you care.
Vanessa Marin: It's a sign that you care. And it's an opportunity
to go deeper with each other, with yourself and just create the sex life that you feel
truly excited about and proud of. So, when you approach your sex life from this kind
of an attitude, working on it can be this really bonding experience for both of you
instead of this sign that something is horribly wrong with your relationship.
Xander Marin: Okay. So, that wraps up our top six sex drive
myths. If you like this video, please give it a like, or hit the red subscribe button
down below. Better yet, leave us a comment and let us know if this information helped
you. Let us know which of these sex drive myths you've been falling for and what you're
going to do to try to change it.
Vanessa Marin: We also have a gift for you that we've mentioned
a few times. If you want to learn more about your sex drive, figure out which type you
are, you're definitely going to want to download our free guide, What's Your Sex Drive Type?
You'll learn about those two different sex drive types, as well as the number one thing
that you can do if your partner is a different type than you are, which is very likely that
they are. So, click the link in the description box to download. Thanks for watching.
Xander Marin: See you next time.
Vanessa Marin: Bye.
Xander Marin: Hurrah.
Vanessa Marin: Wow. You're excited for this one.
Xander Marin: Yeah.