Sexual Desire and the Three Times a Week Myth with Dr Karen Gurney
Find the episode shownotes here!
Dr Karen Gurney
So it's in the flirtation, the glances, the suggestive texts that, you know, the bum grabs, when you're kind of like squeezing past each other in the kitchen, the talking about sex, the saying you look hot today, that's sexual currency. And actually, if I could ask everybody in the world to just do one thing to improve their sex life, it will be forget about how much you have sex and improve your sexual currency.
Hannah Witton
Welcome to Doing It with me Hannah Witton, where we talk all things sex, relationships, dating, and our bodies. Hello, welcome back to Doing It. This is a juicy episode for fellow sex nerds, but also one that I honestly hope lots of people listen to, because, as you will hear, as a society, we have been getting desire wrong. And the myths that we believe about desire have been making many of us feel insecure about our sex lives, how our bodies work, and we think that there must be something wrong with us. So I've brought on Dr. Karen Gurney, who is a clinical psychologist and psycho-sexologist to chat all about desire, and her book Mind The Gap, the truth about desire and how to future proof your sex life. As I say in this episode, these new ways of thinking about desire have honestly improved my own sex life, not to get all preachy about this stuff, but it is fascinating and also just so reassuring. We talk about myths around the average frequency of sex that people have, what the actual stats are, and how we have no measurement for desire. So we can't really say there is such a thing as low or high desire. We talk about what actually is good sex and how to find out what good sex is for you. And we chat about my favourite new term, which is sexual currency, and whether or not scheduling sex is a good idea. Thanks so much to Karen for lending us her experience and wisdom. I could have chatted for many, many hours about this. You can find Karen and the amazing work that she does on her Instagram, which is @TheSexDoctor. As usual, you can find more info and links to everything we talked about in this episode, in the show notes over on DoingItPodcast.co.uk. And please let us know what you think over on Twitter or Instagram, which is @DoingItPodcast. And without further ado, here is Karen Gurney. Dr. Karen Gurney, welcome. Thank you so much for chatting with me.
Dr Karen Gurney
Thanks for having me here. It's exciting.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I read your book
Dr Karen Gurney
Thanks
Hannah Witton
Mind The Gap, and oh, so like so many like dog eared corners and like underlined bits and like, just my own little scribbles all over it.
Dr Karen Gurney
Oh, that makes me happy, thank you. A scribbled book is a loved book. And yeah, that's, that's great. Thank you.
Hannah Witton
Well, thank you for writing it. Erm, I wanted to know why you wrote it, and like, in your head, who was this book for?
Dr Karen Gurney
Ah, that is a really good question, why I wrote it. So I was, there's a bit of a long history to this, which is that as a psychologist who typically sees either individual people or couples in my therapy room, all the time, for sessions around helping them enjoy their sex life more. I would say that in my 17 years of clinical practice, I've seen 1000s of people concerned about their desire, and very rarely is the problem with their desire. So I can count on one hand, the number of people I've seen in all of that time, and there literally has been 1000s, probably, where there is something wrong with their desire. And so when I was approached a couple of years ago, based on my Instagram content, to to write a book, in the same kind of way that I do my Instagram posts, they said, what is it that you would write about? And I knew straight away it would need to be desire because there isn't an area of sexual function that we are so grossly wrong in our kind of collective psyche as a society about how it works, other than desire. And it's kind of frustrating when you're somebody who works mostly in a one-to-one format. Like obviously, I do some I do teaching and I do public speaking and things like that as well. But most of my working week is spent behind closed doors with an individual or a couple. And it's kind of frustrating when you think, the problem is not within this therapy room. The problem is outside of the therapy room, in society, but yet we're trying to fix it inside the therapy room. And so I wrote the book because I wanted to try and address the problem outside of the therapy room.
Hannah Witton
Fix the society
Dr Karen Gurney
Basically. And really, I want less people to come and see me, which I know sounds a bit odd. But I want people to understand how desire works mainly, so they know they're not broken. And you asked who I wrote the book for. And the book is predominantly a book for women. And that includes all women, no matter the sex they were assigned at birth, although there are some specific things about gender diversity that the book doesn't cater for. But it is a book for all women, a book for women of all sexualities, and their partners, no matter what the sexuality, just because it's women that disproportionately bear the brunt of this. It's mostly women who are concerned about their desire. And obviously, we know this 35% of women in the UK are concerned about their lack of interest in sex. It's a significant issue. And it's really devastating for a lot of people's sex lives, and for their relationships. And so that's why I wrote it. And my hope, and I've had lots of feedback, which has been wonderful from people who've read it, is that I want people to read it and think, gosh, this is nothing to do with me. Or it's nothing to do with me and my relationship. And actually, I have the tools that I need to have however much desire I want to feature in my relationship.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I think that's wonderful. And you'd like spoke about it a bit there. But also, there was a bit in your book that I underlined, which was, you said that there's a difference between having a sexual problem and being distressed about it?
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes.
Hannah Witton
Erm and I was like, yes, of course, because like, we think there's a sexual problem, but only because we're comparing ourselves to what we think is normal.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, absolutely. And therein lies the irony around the current kind of diagnostic classifications for sexual difficulties, because you can fit the criteria for low desire, because you are distressed about low desire, because there's no norm for desire, you have to go on other criteria to give a diagnosis for it. And the criteria is being distressed. So you're distressed about something that we have no norm for, and why are you distressed? Because you think it should be different. So is the problem that you've got low desire? Or is the problem that you're distressed because society tells you, you should feel something that you don't? And I would argue it's the latter. And that's deeply problematic.
Hannah Witton
One of the things that you tackle in the book, which honestly really helped me, because I think that this is maybe one of the areas that I am still, like feeling insecure about, even though on like an intellectual level, I'm like, no, it's fine. But there's still like, the emotional, like, what's going on here? And that was about frequency of sex.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes.
Hannah Witton
And obviously, there's this myth of like, happy healthy couples have like, specifically penetrative sex three times a week,
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes, everyone is obsessed with this three times a week, it's so true
Hannah Witton
So where does this statistic come from and also,
Dr Karen Gurney
So I have no idea but I can tell you that everyone says it. When I ask people, how often do you think you should be having sex, people always say a couple of times a week, it's, I can I could bet money on it. And it
Hannah Witton
It's in our collective consciousness
Dr Karen Gurney
It is. And I'm so fascinated by the kind of cultural narrative around frequency of sex being important or being a kind of barometer for our sex lives. Because, you know, we can we can come on to what's normal in a second. And I think it is good to know that, because most people are drastically wrong when they think about this imaginary standard they're comparing themselves to. But what's so fascinating is that sexual satisfaction has actually got zero to do with frequency of sex. And so frequency of sex is such a red herring, that I think it's, it's really surprising that we find ourselves getting caught up in it. And I often like to ask people instead, you know, aside from how often you having sex, how much is the sex that you're having, pleasurable? How much does it feel like it connects you to the person that you're with, or connects you to yourself and your own body? How much does it feel like it has some adventure, or passion? Is it life expanding? Does it it does it always look the same way or is it got some variety? And obviously good sex means different things for different people. And one of the things I really encourage people to do and, you know, the listeners could do this if they wanted to, is reflect well, what actually is good sex for you, before you start going judging it on frequency as a marker, what is good sex and judge that as you're, use that as your barometer, not frequency because if those conditions are met, then that's good sex, even with, if it's you know, every, every month or every year you know if you have sex once a year, and the sex that you have blows your socks off, and makes you feel alive, and makes you feel great about yourself, then that's a good sex life. And if you have sex once a once a day or once a week, and the sex that you're having is lacking in pleasure, lacking in your agency, lacking in connection, making you feel bad, then actually that sex is not good for your sex life and will decrease your desire over time. So I think it'd be great if people could kind of ditch the fear about frequency. And, and just think about, well, what is important to me about my sex life? And when we have sex whenever that is, does it contain those things?
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Do you find that people find it difficult to figure out what is important to them? Because we've kind of been told what should be important to us, whether that aligns with us or not,
Dr Karen Gurney
I think people do. And I've done a little kind of free, free resource, a guide on how to do that, which is on our website, which I'm happy to share with you for, you know, the listener notes, if that would be useful.
Hannah Witton
Yes, please do,we will leave that in the show notes.
Dr Karen Gurney
It's it's part of what's in the book around the conditions for good sex triangle. And it's basically just a way to really reflect on the best and the worst experiences that you've had. And to try and pull that information together in a rounded way to look at what are the aspects of where your mind needs to be, and what your body needs, and what you need in the dynamic between you and the person that you're with. What are the elements of those for you that constitute good sex, and then trying to reflect on how many of those are in your current sex life. And if you have a partner or partners, you can get them to do that as well. And you can all kind of compare notes together, and think about how you can try and increase that in your current sex life.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, so that's a exercise that people who have like some experience behind them can do. But what if you're like just starting out on your sexual journey, and you're like, I have no idea.
Dr Karen Gurney
That's okay, you can do it too. So you can obviously use any information that you've got from masturbation, so anything that you know, from solo sex, about what you like to think about, how you like your body to be touched. But you can also use information that you get from any other source. So things you've read, that you've read, and you thought that sounds hot, or things you've seen on TV, or in films or in porn, or anything that you've come across, you know, we're all, we're all sexual beings, even before we're sexual with someone else. So you've got plenty of experience from the things you've heard and read, and you can draw on those. And I would also say, it's important to recognise that for all of us, no matter whether we're our kind of sexual debut, or whether we really experienced, this will change all the time. And so it's also important not to think that this will remain static. And we could all do as checking in from time to time on what our particular conditions for good sex are right now.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, cuz it can change over time as well.
Dr Karen Gurney
It really can. Do you think we should talk about frequency in terms of the stats, while we're at it.
Hannah Witton
I would love to, yeah, because I wanted to come back to what you said, being like, we can talk about what's normal. Like I literally wrote down, what's normal?
Dr Karen Gurney
Because sometimes people do find it really reassuring. And I think we should caveat this with the fact that if you're not having sex anywhere near this much, please don't think that that matters for all the reasons we just mentioned. But in my experience, people are often surprised that it's as little as it is, and it's the people who think they should be having it three times a week, they're often reassured by this. So okay, we know from Natsal data, so as you know, the largest sex survey that happens in the world, happens in the UK every 10 years.
Hannah Witton
We're due one soon, aren't we?
Dr Karen Gurney
We are. I've actually seen some of the questions, and it's really exciting.
Hannah Witton
Is it random who gets to answer it? Because I really want to answer this survey.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, it is. It's a population based survey. So they do a really clever, kind of like postcode lottery type thing to try and get a real random sample. And this is people from, you know, 17 to 80. So a huge age range. And what we know is that the amount we're having sex is dropping each decade, and has dropped for the last three decades, since Natsal began. So that in itself is interesting. And maybe when we get on to talking a bit more about desire, we might talk about what that could be, that's getting in the way. Erm. and we know that the average amount of sex that somebody in the UK is having is about three times a month. In the 35,
Hannah Witton
That's reassuring
Dr Karen Gurney
It is, isn't it. In the, in the 35 to 44 year old age range, where I find myself, it's more like twice a month. And there are plenty of hypotheses around that, around those being the years that people have most often got young kids, and are kind of very, very busy with practicalities, obviously, not everyone, but a large number of people in that age range. And a third of people, just under a third of people, had no sex at all in the last month. So that's people in and out of relationships. So it's really not as common as you would think, to be having sex every day, or even every week, it's a bit less than once a week, the UK average so. So hopefully that reassures people, but but really take frequency with a pinch of salt. It's a total red herring.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that is very good to hear. So yeah, let's talk about desire.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes, let's, I love desire.
Hannah Witton
Honestly, the, from your book and then also from like Emily Nagoski's book.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes.
Hannah Witton
It changed my life.
Dr Karen Gurney
Amazing
Hannah Witton
Being like, oh, how, why, if I gotten this wrong, why have all of us gotten this so wrong?
Dr Karen Gurney
I totally need you to get that on the cover of my book for the next reprint, please. Can I have that quote please, for the back cover?
Hannah Witton
It changed my life, how have we gotten it so wrong? Yeah, absolutely. It's just such a, what's interesting to me is that it isn't, it hasn't got anything to do with like changing our behaviours or changing like who we are. It's all knowledge based.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes.
Hannah Witton
And it's just about learning, actually, about how we work and a bit more of a like a mindset shift.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, it's about understanding desire, isn't it. And I think that's one of the key things for me, like I wanted to write a book about desire that was kind of situated in feminism, and intersectional feminism, because of society and desire, you cannot separate the two, it's super important. But I also wanted to write a book, which was heavily based on what the science tells us. Because when it comes to sex, so much of what we believe is skewed by moral opinion, you know, the media, faith based views, which are all kind of important standpoints in their own right. But often when it comes to sex, they've not really done that much for sex positivity. They're often based in, you know, shame, and fear, and guilt, and worry. And we can only really go on what the science says. And actually, when it comes to the sex science, it works to change people's relationship with desire. And I know that because I see that in the therapy room week in, week out. I, I see, you know, work with couples for six sessions, and can completely change their relationship with desire, and their relationship with their partner in terms of their worries about desire. And I thought, I have to find a way to put this in the book. So yeah, it's got lots and lots of that in it, lots of understanding.
Hannah Witton
Could you break it down for us? So break down spontaneous and responsive design, because that, to me, was like a massive aha moment.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And that it's part of being human.
Dr Karen Gurney
Absolutely, okay. So the starting point of this probably needs to be the fact that as a, as a society, we've kind of pitched sexual desire as a drive. And we talk about sex drive all the time. And we talk about people having high sex drives and low sex drives. And there is actually, firstly, no such thing as high or low sex drive, all of us have different levels of desire, day to day, hour to hour, year to year. And also, a sexual desire doesn't operate as a drive. So there's nothing instinctive in humans, that drives us to be sexual, in the way that there is with hunger and, and thirst. But we've got an idea that there is, so we're starting already from a position that we should feel sexual desire, and we certainly should feel sexual desire towards somebody that we love.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes. And it's part of being in love. And actually the thing, that those things are very different. You can have an amazing relationship with someone you love to bits, but feel no spontaneous desire for them. And so why is that? So, the first thing is that there's no such thing as a drive. So what is desire, if it isn't an innate physical drive? Well, it's actually more of an emotion/motivation than it is any physical drive process. So what that means is, it's a behaviour. So being sexual, seeking out sex, is a behaviour that we're motivated to do, in the right conditions. And we'll talk a bit more about the right conditions in a second. So at the start of a relationship, or when we're having casual sex, or when we don't know somebody that well, we tend to feel high levels of what we call spontaneous desire. And that means that we think about sex often, we fantasise about them, we feel an urge to be sexual with them. And that's, that's really normal. And it's part of two things, it's part of the kind of mystery of not knowing them, and the fact that when we don't know or have something, it's very alluring to us. And it's also part of the fact that we have high levels of what I call sexual currency at the start of a relationship, so tonnes and tonnes of passionate kissing, tonnes of like gazing into each other's eyes, tonnes of like sexy texts, that sexual currency is not at all diluted by any of the mundane ways in which we might later get to know each other.
Hannah Witton
Oh, that's so true. I actually scrolled back ages, like mine, and my partner's old messages to each other. And I was like cringing at the flirt, like, being really sexually suggestive and like flirting with each other, and I was like ah, bless us.
Dr Karen Gurney
Aw cute. And I'm sure if if anyone who's ever had a longer term relationship, so I guess we're talking about, you know, a year or more, most people can probably reflect on that happening for them, that that happens at the start of relationship. So that's really normal. But what what isn't talked about very much is that about a year, or 18 months in, for most people, particularly most women, that changes, and there is a drop in spontaneous sexual desire. And crucially, we know now, and this is newer sex research, really, we know now that it's actually completely normal for women in a long term relationship to never feel like sex out of the blue with their long term partner.
Hannah Witton
Because that's what, like, the myth is, is that what everyone experiences and what you should be experiencing, is that it, is this just like, not triggered by anything.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes
Hannah Witton
It just kind of appears out of nowhere. You're like, ah yes, I'm horny now.
Dr Karen Gurney
Exactly. And so our expectation, which comes from society, is that we have this internal drive, and we felt it for our partner at the beginning, so we start to panic when it starts to wane. And we think, is it me? Is it them? Am I with the wrong person, etc, etc. Where has my drive gone? Why is this not happening? It's not normal, etc, etc. And that's when people start to worry. Whereas in actual fact, that is a normal change, something that happens to the majority of women, but not all women. And also a large proportion of men as well. And so it's a really normal experience to feel that sudden drop. And I guess we can you know, it's easy to hypothesise why that might be, we talked about it earlier, didn't we. So, you know, the ways in which you relate to each other become a little bit less sexual, a little bit more mundane. You know, if you took the bins out, can you get milk, that kind of thing?
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Not a lot of sexual currency in the bins.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, sexual currency starts to drop. So people frequently say to me, when I meet them for therapy sessions, you know, we don't passionately kiss, unless it's part of sex. So the cues for triggering our arousal and desire start to become less and less and less.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And that's what it is. It's about thinking about the conditions and the context in which desire can occur. Rather than expecting it to come out of nowhere. The sexual currency thing is, that was really interesting to me. Your book was the first time I'd come across that idea. And I actually was in bed with my partner, reading that sexual currency part out loud to him.
Dr Karen Gurney
I'm loving this. I'm picturing it right now, although I can't picture your partner, so I'm just guessing.
Hannah Witton
Well, we, it was, it was honestly really reassuring, because like I said, I have a lot of like, anxiety and insecurity about the frequency. But then when I was reading about the sexual currency, I was like, oh, we actually have loads of this. Yes, I was like, we do good at this. This is great.
Dr Karen Gurney
And something that I really kind of try and tease out in the book as well is that, you know, our sexuality and our sex lives are so much more than sexual acts. And when we think about sex, we often reduce it to those moments where we're having sexual acts either with ourselves or with other people. And actually, let's expand our definition of that because we can be sexual with a partner without it leading to one of those things, and we can be sexual alone ourselves without it leading to one of those things, just by indulging in our sexuality, and sexual currency is really just that, it's, for the people who have haven't read it and want a bit of a definition, it's kind of like the it's the charge the sexual charge between you and another person or people, which is something that you perhaps wouldn't do with your Auntie Jean. You know, it's it wouldn't be appropriate to do with your with it with a family member like an aunt, but it's also not a sexual act. So it's in the flirtation, the glances, the suggestive texts the, you know, the bum grabs, when you're kind of like squeezing past each other in the kitchen, the talking about sex, the saying, you look hot today, that's sexual currency. And actually, if I could do if I could ask everybody in the world, just do one thing to improve their sex life, it will be forget about how much you have sex and improve your sexual currency. Because that's how desire is organically maintained, and that's how we feel sexual satisfaction. Because the things that we get from sex like feeling wanted, or feeling connected, or feeling attractive, or displaying attraction or whatever,
Hannah Witton
You can get that through sexual current.
Dr Karen Gurney
Exactly. And it, it's a way for couples to, or anybody, to feel all of those things when sex is either something you don't want to do right now, or is perhaps off the cards for other reasons, like, you know, physical health, or you've just had a baby or, you know, there's something else going on, which means you can't be sexual. You've not lost your sex life if you still got a sexual currency.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that makes so much sense to me because when I came out of hospital after surgery,
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes
Hannah Witton
I would say that there was like, actually, like, huge amount of sexual currency in our relationship, but physically, like we couldn't have sex.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes.
Hannah Witton
But yeah, no, that makes tonnes of sense. And I love the analogy that you use in your book about food.
Dr Karen Gurney
I'm so obsessed with food analogies.
Hannah Witton
Honestly, it works. It works so well. Because that is 100% what I'm like with food, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the analogy goes; having your meals would be like the equivalent of a sexual acts, but then planning the meals, and talking about food, and like going for a food shop is all of the like, sexual currency.
Dr Karen Gurney
Exactly.
Hannah Witton
So that's me. I'm like, I'm having one meal. And I'm like, what are we doing for the next one?
Dr Karen Gurney
Exactly, exactly. And the actual eating bit doesn't last that long in your life, right. But you know, if you're someone who enjoys menu planning, cooking, thinking about food, looking at recipes, that's, that's essentially, essentially sexual currency. And so that's one of the reasons why, in a longer term relationship, we see a drop in spontaneous desire. Because not only does sexual currency decline, but there is a rise in predictability. So the more we get to know someone, we can't really help that, right. It's just how our brain works. Our brains like novelty. And our brains are aroused by variety, newness, novelty. And that's why it's harder to maintain spontaneous desire for someone you already know. Because you've seen them 1000 times, you've kissed them 1000 times, and you
Hannah Witton
You're like, oh it's you again
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes. And if you add in to that, a sex life that's fairly predictable, so, you know, this is something that's particularly challenging for heterosexual couples, because there's such a strong script of what sex should look like. You know, that whole idea if you do a then b, then you have penetrative vaginal sex, and then it's over, you know, that kind of script
Hannah Witton
There's a beginning, middle and end
Dr Karen Gurney
There is, and we can all recount it, can't we.
Hannah Witton
Yeah
Dr Karen Gurney
We've been socialised that way. But that kind of script is so heavily predictable, that it's one of the reasons that we also see a significant drop in desire, particularly for women, because we've also got the added bonus thrown in the orgasm gap from penetrative vaginal sex. And, of course, a lack of pleasure, or a lack of positive reward for sex, is going to reduce your desire as well. So that comes into it as well.
Hannah Witton
What fun
Dr Karen Gurney
I know. And that's where actually, you know, straight couples could really learn a thing or two from the queer community around, not always having sex that follows a set pattern, and feeling able to mix it up quite a bit
Hannah Witton
Writing your own script, your own various, multiple different scripts that you can whip out whichever one you fancy.
Dr Karen Gurney
Exactly Exactly. And often, I feel really conscious when I talk about like variety and novelty, that people are going to think I'm like, oh, you know, you must dress, dress up as like Batman tonight and tomorrow, you must do x. And of course, if you're into that, then fine. But that's not the kind of variety and novelty I mean. I mean the ability to have diverse sexual experiences, you know, in different places, starting and ending in different ways. Experiencing bodies in different ways, being a different person yourself sexually from time to time, and not getting like typecast into one way of doing things.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that makes a tonne of sense. So what's responsive desire?
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes, sorry, we got really stuck on spontaneous, didn't we. So that's normal. And if anyone's listening and thinks this is totally me, I literally never feel like it, I can promise you that what you will connect with next is this idea that you might not feel like it, but if you're open to the idea, and you find yourself going along with it for another motivation, you might find that during being sexual with someone else, whether it's a kiss, or whatever, you find that you start to get into it. And afterwards, you think, gosh, that was really good, we should do that more often. And what we call responsive desire. So responsive desire basically means in the presence of an adequate sexual stimuli, and I love that phrase, because it's really scientific, but it basically, it does say what it is because quite often when when I talk with people about this, and I ask them about, well, you know, how do either of you initiate sex and they say, my partner says to me, it's been ages, let's have a shag tonight. Like, that is not adequate sexual stimuli, that is not going to do that. So this is where you go back to your conditions for good sex. And you see, what are the types of things that work for me, you know, is it about feeling really connected emotionally, it's usually about some kind of physical touch. So all the time, all the connection in the world together, all of the emotional closeness won't bring desire, if it's not some got some kind of sexual stimuli to it, like touch. But it can usually be you know, passionate kiss, a naked massage, and no kind of pressure. Let's just hang out naked together and talk about our day. It's about fantasy, it's about listening to audio erotica, it's about watching porn, if that's your thing, you know, there's there's a number of different things which could do it, watching TV and a good sex scene comes on. But what people will probably notice as they reflect on this, is that, yes, they might not feel desire out of the blue, but if they tried to trigger their desire, if they, you know, went away now and downloaded an audio erotica app and listened to a story for 10 minutes, would their arousal and desire follow? And I promise you, it's almost certainly will. And once you've experimented with that a bit, and you can say, okay, right, that's great. That works, then you get a bit more of an insight into what your sex life needs, because we are socialised to believe that we've got this spontaneous sex drive that we just sit and wait for. And for most people, they end up waiting a really long time. The truth is, in the long term relationship, particularly, desire needs purposeful and intentional action to trigger.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and I think this is another like sticking point for people, because we've also been sold the myth that spontaneous sex is like the best kind of sex.
Dr Karen Gurney
And this is a funny one, isn't it. And one of the analogies I used to talk about this one is the holiday analogy. Because, you know, we go on holiday, which is a pleasurable event. And we plan it, and we think about it, and we look forward to it, and we think about what we're going to pack, and we think about what we're going to do when we're there. And all of that builds our enjoyment and excitement, excitement and anticipation for the holiday. And does, does that ruin your experience of the holiday? Or does that actually make the holiday better
Hannah Witton
It makes it last longer
Dr Karen Gurney
It longer makes it last longer? But yeah, in sex, there's kind of this idea that spontaneous desire is best, and you shouldn't need to schedule anything looking like physical intimacy. But it is the equivalent of someone just like barging into your home and going, right you go on holiday now, don't pack, don't think about it, just come with me. And you'd be like, what, I'm not ready, like I've not packed, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm not really in the headspace to go on holiday, I've got like 10 things to do. And it is the same kind of concept. And some people are really resistant to this idea that you should kind of purposefully and intentionally think about nurturing desire in your sex life. And I say to them, experiment with it, and then make a decision. Because if you're worried about desire, and you're waiting for desire to happen, and that's not been happening in the last few months or last few years, I promise you this is a better alternative that will make you feel good about your sex life. And if you don't believe me, just try it.
Hannah Witton
It's not necessarily the case of going on Friday night, book it in, into calendar, we're gonna have sex.
Dr Karen Gurney
Oh, and definitely not sex. Yeah, definitely don't schedule that.
Hannah Witton
Because that like I can see how people would have like an issue with that, especially if it then gets to Friday night and you've not done anything to build up the sexual currency, like leading up to it, then you might be like, okay, now it's time to have sex, like, what do we do?
Dr Karen Gurney
Absolutely, I'm totally not a fan of scheduling sex. Because another thing we know about desire is it operates really badly under pressure. So as soon as you feel like you have to feel desire, it really switches off desire. So that's why I like wedding night sex, and well there's other reasons for that as well, like tiredness and drunkness, but like wedding night sex, weekends away, they're all super pressured and that's not great for desire. So we're not talking about scheduling sex, we're talking about scheduling physical intimacy, and a time when desire may emerge, but it also may not. And it's really important that anyone involved in the sex, gets that point. It's that what we're not doing, think about sexual currency, you know, if you spend that, if you say, on Friday night, we're gonna have half an hour together, where we, were just going to get naked, and like, be close and talk about our week. And we're gonna do that for half an hour before we have dinner or whatever. Because, you know, noone feel sexy when they're too full. And everyone has to, kind of, be subscribed to the idea that there is no pressure for that to go anywhere. And even if it doesn't, because that's sexual currency, you will feel more sexually connected after that half an hour than you did before. But, what will also possibly happen, because desire is actually really easy to trigger, super easy to trigger responsive desire, is that being together in that way, in a no pressure environment is the perfect time for desire to be triggered. And if you don't make the time for it in the first place, then how is it ever going to be triggered?
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Dr Karen Gurney
Where is it going to come from this desire? You know, if you're like, rushing to work, and then you've got something else on your mind. And then you're on the phone to your mom, or, you know, where is this desire going to emerge from. And you mentioned something about not feeling like it as well, which I think is a really important point. You know, it gets to Friday, and you're like, oh, we plan to do this, but now I don't really feel like it. And at the very beginning, we were talking about the fact that desire is more of an emotional motivation, than it is a drive. And actually, one of the things about desire is that we know that what desire really is, is a motivation to be sexual. So there could be a sexual motivation, like I want to experience this pleasure, I don't feel in yet, but I want to experience that pleasure. Or there could be a non sexual motivation, like I want to feel close to this person. The actual
Hannah Witton
Or I'm bored
Dr Karen Gurney
Exactly, or boredom or obligation, or a number of other reasons, which are all perfectly fine. As long as it's consensual, obviously. But we actually don't need to feel like it when we start off. All we need to do is have a motivation to see if we can feel like it. For another reason, because we because we want to feel like it, we want to feel desire. So we put the time aside to see if we can trigger that desire. Or we want to feel close, because we know that it's something that's really important to our partners. So we, we think right, I'm gonna schedule this and often when we do that, desire follows, but it's okay, if it doesn't.
Hannah Witton
I think one of the things that was really like powerful for me, and in your book as well, was about the being receptive, kind of like stage.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yes.
Hannah Witton
And listeners, I would just recommend checking out Rosemary Basson's module
Hannah Witton
Because that's where this comes in. But the way that you described it, is that what we're kind of talking about here, like a receptive stage of like, pre any arousal, pre any desire, but just being like open to it.
Dr Karen Gurney
Absolutely.
Dr Karen Gurney
That's right. So there's a whole chapter in the book about Rosemary Basson's work because her work was really influential in changing the landscape of how we understood women's desire, particularly. And, as you know, her model is a circular model. And it's based on the sex research that I mentioned earlier. That is that women are often in long term relationships, and in a state of what she calls sexual neutrality, that is without desire, so without spontaneous desire. And the important next stage of the model is willingness to be receptive to sexual stimuli, which is the one after that. So if you think about sexual stimulation or sexual currency, yeah, the kisses, the being naked, the touch, that type, the porn, audio erotica, whatever it is, that type of stuff, then you have to first be feeling willing. And after that comes arousal, which is body's physical response, and after that comes desire, so desire happens a really the long way around the cycle. But what's fascinating, this is, this is why I love thinking and working with desire so much is that the very notion of how desire works in our society makes us unwilling or unreceptive. Because we're sold an idea that we should feel like at first.
Hannah Witton
So if we're not in the mood, we just go, I'm not in the mood and you shut anything that could potentially happen down.
Dr Karen Gurney
Basically, yeah. So imagine that your partner only passionately kisses you when they want to have sex. So if we've got a sexual currency problem there to start off with it needs addressing, but imagine that's the case. They kiss you, they may not mean it as an initiation of sex, but let's assume that you think that they do. As soon as they start to kiss you, you think, I'm not feeling desire right now. Because you've got this idea, you should have this internal drive state, and it's not happening right now. And therefor, I'm gonna close this off before it gets awkward. So you start to kiss, you say, oh, don't be silly, you push them away, whatever it might be. And there's a tonne of reasons for that connected to, you know, societal ideas that it's rude to lead someone on and then stop. It's particularly, it's particularly frowned upon if you're female, to to lead someone on, and then decide that you don't want to go ahead with it, and of course, that's rubbish. But that's a very strong societal belief. And we kind of live in a society where we're taught to be polite, rather than anything else. And so, and so people would often rather stop it right there and then, than risk going on with the kiss, and then their partner getting turned on, and then you get the whole blue balls concepts that people worry about if they're if they're in relationships with men as well. So there's all of that to think about. Whereas that's where our understanding of desire really can change things. Because if we know that desire happens much later on, and if we're willing to be open to and also increase the sexual stimuli, and we can call that sexual currency for purposes of this, it's then that we see desire flourishing. But we can only do that, if our sexual partners are also sold on this concept. Because sexual partners also needs to know that desire is context specific, that desire does not operate well under pressure, and that sexual currency is the key, rather than hardly ever being sexual together, and then putting loads of pressure on that one time to have to go all the way in inverted commas.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. So maybe, listeners, if you are in a relationship, maybe suggest getting naked and just listening to this podcast with your partner, together.
Dr Karen Gurney
That's a great idea.
Hannah Witton
Let's do that. And then have a conversation about it afterwards.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, I can't, can't kind of stress the importance of communication enough, actually, when it comes to good sex. It's much more important for sexual satisfaction than frequency is, where we started off at the beginning. And we know that people that are able to talk better about sex actually are able to not just enjoy sex more, but also that being able to talk about sex is a buffer against a drop in desire in a long term relationship. So that's really key. And something that, you know, when all the research looks at couples who are still kind of very sexually satisfied after decades and decades of being together, there are two key things that come forward. One is that they can talk well about sex. And the other is that they see their sex life as something which needs purposeful and intentional action.
Hannah Witton
Rather than just like sex isn't something that we have to think about or work on. If we are happy, and if we love each other, it will just magically be good.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah. Which is bizarre when you think about it. Because you know, and what are the areas of our lives do we think that? You know, when it comes to our nutrition, or our physical health in terms of like, our fitness or our work life. What are the areas where we think, oh, just won't put any effort whatsoever into it, and hope that it will be amazing.
Hannah Witton
Or expects that will be amazing.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, we just don't do. So, communication is so important. And, and, and it's important for desire, because, you know, we talked about the importance of reward and pleasure and meeting our conditions for good sex in increasing desire. And if we're not able to talk about what we want, or when we want it, or how our sexuality is continuing to evolve and change and what that might mean for sexual partners, then how can we do that?
Hannah Witton
Yeah, cuz it's not just one conversation as well, it's ongoing.
Dr Karen Gurney
Definitely.
Hannah Witton
So we've talked for ages but I do have some questions from our Instagram followers.
Dr Karen Gurney
Great.
Hannah Witton
So maybe we can try and quick fire.
Dr Karen Gurney
Great, I'll try. I'm so not good at being brief, I'll do my best.
Hannah Witton
Well, this this one I think will be good. And what exactly happens in sex therapy?
Dr Karen Gurney
Oh, that's a great question. So basically, what happens is people arrive with an idea of something that they'd like to be different. And it's important to stress, it doesn't need to be a really big problem. But just something that people would like to be different. And the person that you're consulting with should understand that really well with you first, and then we'll give you an idea about how to get there. And that typically is a combination of two things, it's combination of changing your understanding of what's going on, and that could be about relationship dynamics, it could be about understanding about your body, it could be about reflecting on some of the messages out there around sex. And it's also doing things between sessions. So a lot of the stuff we've talked about,
Hannah Witton
The homework
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, they may be things we might get people to do. And really, it's about trying different ways of being, so that you can see the impact that it has. And it can be relatively short term, often I just see people for six sessions. And that's often all it takes. But you know, for some people, it's longer. And that's fine. Hope that answers their question.
Hannah Witton
No, that's a great answer. Somebody asked, I'm poly and I notice different levels of desire between my partners. Does this indicate different levels of trust, emotional bonds, or commitment?
Dr Karen Gurney
So obviously, it could, but it's also probably more important to say that it probably doesn't. And, as we've talked about, with desire today, desire can be about so many things, that we can experience desire differently, hour to hour, day to day, and also person to person. So there could be a number of reasons why you might desire one person more than another on any particular day. And it's not really anything to worry about.
Hannah Witton
Whilst we're on that as well, actually, it might be worth just naming a few things that actually do impact desire, like what actually might cause lower levels of desire.
Dr Karen Gurney
Okay, so obviously, there's a couple of big ones we talked about, so predictability, lack of sexual currency, the impact of gender and pleasure equality over time. So the orgasm gap. Ones that people don't often think about are, tiredness, and the amount of time that you spend with that person actually connecting, that's much bigger than people give it credit for. And actually, the reason why, or probably the reason why, we've seen a decline in sexual activity generally in the last three decades, because there's been a real dip since smartphones came in. And, you know, if you think about everything we've talked about today, about how desire often needs to be nurtured, and, you know, one of the things I often do with people is get them to think about a typical day. And if they take out like, all the time they spend, travelling, eating, working out, working, whatever else it might be, how much time do they actually have with their partner, when they are with them? And how much of that time is spent really connecting? Or how much of it is spent, you know, watching Netflix and scrolling Instagram next to each other on the sofa? Yeah, so yeah, those things really make a difference. And then obviously, there are some more obvious practical things like the impact of certain antidepressants, the impact of prolactin for people who are breastfeeding, the impact of experiencing pain during sex. So all of those things can affect desire by either kind of biochemical means, or also, just by being a negative reward, a negative reinforcement if you like. So if something's unpleasant, or lacking in pleasure, or painful, we tend to want to avoid it over time. So sometimes it can be a secondary effect. There's loads more
Hannah Witton
Stress, I guess?
Dr Karen Gurney
Stress, yeah, that's a good one. Psychological barriers, stress is one, but also concerns about body image. So feeling really, it's the number one distraction in sex, for women, is concerned about what their body looks like. So so that's one, not being able to be in the moment is another. We know that women who practice regular mindfulness experience, can see a change in their desire, in a positive way. Not being able to talk about sex and sex becoming further and further away from what you want it to be. I've talked about predictability, always having penis and vagina sex. I mean, there are so many things,
Hannah Witton
And somebody asked, erm, and I think this would be a good place to end it on. At what point does low desire become a problem and when should I seek help?
Dr Karen Gurney
Okay
Hannah Witton
So where is that line between? Well, hopefully this podcast episode has maybe helped some people realise that they don't have a problem.
Dr Karen Gurney
I hope so
Hannah Witton
But for people who are still maybe like, distressed by whatever their situation is, you know, where, where is that line? If there is a line.
Dr Karen Gurney
Okay, so, well there are two, there's two answers to this. There is no line, is the first thing. And if it's fine with you, it's totally fine. You may find, though, that there is a discrepancy between you and the people that you choose to have sex with. And that might make it not fine, if that makes sense. In my clinical work, I rarely or never talk about someone as having low desire, because, very usually, it's a discrepancy between people. That's the problem, not how one person feels, if that makes sense.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, it's like what you said at the beginning about how we actually don't have anything to measure what low desire is.
Dr Karen Gurney
Exactly, there is no norm. So how can there be such a thing as low and high? Yeah, so a discrepancy in desire between you and the people you have sex with can become a problem in a relationship because sex meets relational and psychological needs for people. And if those needs aren't being met, and they're in a monogamous relationship together, then that can start to feel like a problem. So that can though be addressed in other ways, like sexual currency, like working out what those needs are, and meeting them in other ways. But that's often the time to seek help, if it's becoming a problem in relationships, the first thing. The second thing to bear in mind is that although there are many couples who are, or throuples and other relationship contexts, where people aren't very happy, having no sex at all, and I'm not talking about asexuality here, I'm talking about people who are are sexual, but are choosing not to have sex because they don't feel that desire, don't feel desire much. And that works perfectly well. But on the whole, sex research tells us that for people who aren't asexual, that sexual satisfaction is actually really important for relationship satisfaction. Does that make sense? So, for some people, it's going to be totally fine to never have sex again. Even if you and your partner are still both sexual beings, if that make sense. But for, for, for a lot of people that will start to impact relationship satisfaction over time. But I'm talking real extremes here. And I guess, if we do full circle back to frequency, the key message here is, you probably don't have low desire is the first thing, and find out how desire works, and experiment with triggering your desire to reassure yourself your desire works just fine, and I can almost guarantee that it will. Yeah, and then think about,
Hannah Witton
I love the idea of like running lots of really, like, low pressure high level experiments.
Dr Karen Gurney
And then make a decision. Okay, my desires working fine. Do I want more desire to feature in my sex life or not? And also, you might not, you might just be worried that you're not normal. And once you find that you're normal, it's all fine. So
Hannah Witton
There we go. Well, thank you so much. This has been so enlightening, and just like, hopefully reassuring to, to listeners. And I just wish, like, there were other ways to disseminate this information into like, our collective consciousness. Like, obviously, we've got your book, we're doing this podcast and like, you know, there's, there's people
Dr Karen Gurney
I did a TED talk on this on this subject
Hannah Witton
Yeah, there is this content out there, but we're just like, I'm just like, waiting for it to trickle down. I don't know, like, I would have been a teenager when I heard the three times a week thing. Who knows where from, so I'm just like, when is it going to disseminate.
Dr Karen Gurney
Yeah, I know I feel like that as well. I'm so impatient. But it's been loads of fun to do this today. So thanks for having me on.
Hannah Witton
Thank you. And thank you guys for listening. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to Doing It. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it if you left a rating and a review. You can find show notes at DoingItPodcast.co.uk and do go follow us on social media and I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye.
Hannah Witton
This was a global original podcast