Talking To Your Partner About Your Sex Life

In this episode, we get real about one of the most avoided yet most important parts of any intimate relationship: talking about sex. 

We look at why open, grounded communication is the gateway to deeper pleasure, trust, and connection. You’ll learn how to bring up the topic without blame or awkwardness, how to create emotional and physical safety for both partners, and how to turn an uncomfortable conversation into a collaborative one. 

We also explore practical scripts, timing, and easy questions you can ask.

If you’ve ever felt tongue-tied or scared to talk about what you really want in bed, this episode will give you a calm, practical roadmap for starting that conversation so you can have the kind of sex you have been wishing to have.

Transcript

Welcome, Pleasure Seeker, to this episode.

Where we're going to be talking about talking.

And that is talking to our partners about sex.

Now…

When I first relaunched and revamped this podcast for its second season, I wrote an email to my community, and I said, what do you want me to talk about?

And actually, if you're listening to this and there's a topic that you'd like me to talk about, please email me.

Reach out, or reach out through my website and let me know, what do you want me to talk about? What would be of value to you?

And the reason that I'm talking today about talking to your partner about sex is that there are a lot of different suggestions that came back, a lot of which I'm going to be talking about in the coming weeks and months.

And a lot of what came back as suggestions actually boiled down to there's a communication issue going on between us about sex. Like, there's just something that we're not meeting each other with our words, and it's affecting the practicalities of sex that we're having. And so I thought, well, let's actually just go to the source, and let's talk about how we can talk to our partners about sex.

So, this episode. This next 20 minutes is going to be about communication.

And it's really important that, as we go into this, that we kind of have a mindset about communication, because especially if we have been disappointed for a long time, or there's other frustrations in our relationship, other ways that we're being unmet, other ways that we're seeing… we're feeling unseen and unheard.

We can go into these conversations with this kind of underlying simmering, like, I just need to tell them what's going on. How can they not be meeting me like this?

Sex is just another example of the ways that this relationship is not working.

This is not about that.

This is not about criticizing or pointing out how we're not satisfied.

And if that's the energy that we carry into these conversations, that it's not… it's just not gonna go well.

I mean, feel it in your system, how you feel when you're criticized and told what you're doing wrong.

It doesn't go well. But if you can enter into this contemplation with the spirit of collaboration, how can we as a couple make something better together.

That's what we're talking about here in terms of this, and this is going to be a very super practical episode.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I have been doing a lot of conversation, and a lot of research, and a lot of my own, investigation, experimentation over what has worked and not worked over the years. And so this is kind of, like, my top tips of what I've seen, especially working with my clients where sex is actually, like, a genuine issue, something that needs to be worked through.

So there's a couple of things to think about. Like, first of all, why bother the conversation about sex? Because we're going to talk about, in a moment, the conversation can actually be the hardest part of our sex lives.

But the deal is, is that couples who talk openly about their sexual desires, their preferences, their boundaries, their frustrations—it actually re… it just creates better sex. The talking makes the action better.

And the talking can actually be more intimate than the action itself, as well. Like, there's power in this communication thing.

Especially if we do our best to do it well, or we make repair when we don't do it well.

Now, I have something pretty blunt that I'm about to say, and I know that not everybody will agree with me, but it's kind of the way I am about this stuff, which is…

If we're not talking about sex, like, if we're really genuinely, deeply uncomfortable about talking about sex, and we don't feel like we can have those conversations—should we actually be having sex with this person that we can't talk to about sex?

Because… The act of sex is there is another person's body part entering the most sacred part of you.

If it's fingers, or a tongue, or a penis.

You are allowing or inviting another person inside your body.

Which, to me, is the most sacred and the most vulnerable thing that we can do if we actually are present and pay attention and feel the impact of that in our bodies.

That, for me, is, like, genuine vulnerability, and if we're allowing that, if we're welcoming that from another person, but we don't feel able to talk about it?

I think there's a gap there. There's something missing.

And so this podcast is about how do we even have those conversations? If talking about sex is just like, no, I can't, or you do it, but you're open to some pointers in doing it better, or, it just feels like a real growth edge for you, this is the podcast for you, this is the episode for you.

So let's go on the investigation.

And talk about how to talk about it, and then we'll talk about what to talk about.

So the first thing is, is that safety is really important for these conversations, both for you and for your partner. And let's talk about what actually safety means in this context. What are we talking about with safety?

So… First of all, safety can come through very practical means.

The setting of the conversation.

Those of you that haven't worked for me might have this… like, I talk to some people… I'm just… sorry, this is an aside, I just thought of something. I talk to people sometimes, and I actually get this feedback a lot, like, wow, you're not what I expected somebody to working with sexuality, or a sex coach, or, you know, whatever you want to call me. You're not what I expected them to be. You're very, kind of, down-to-earth and practical, and I'm like, yeah.

I'm very down-to-earth and practical, so this is a very down-to-earth and practical conversation.

If you want to talk to somebody, your partner, about sex, take the brave step and say to them, I would love to talk to you about our sex life. You're not doing anything wrong.

Our sex is enjoyable, but I want us to work together to make it better.

First thing, it's really important, don't let your partner think that they're in trouble, and they're doing something wrong.

And then…

Schedule a time to talk about it. Could we talk about it in 3 days' time? At least 3 days from now. Give your partner time to also think about it, to think it through, because if you're scheduling, you've probably had some time to think, right? Because this won't be coming out of the blue. So give them some time.

Make sure they know they're not in trouble.

Frame it as a positive. The sex is good. I want it to be better.

Nobody is wrong. Nobody is in trouble.

We are going to collaborate to make this better for both of us.

And that's actually a really important factor, right? Because we often talk about things. We talk about things in relationship, or, just generally in life, when we have problems with them. We come when there is trouble.

Instead of going…

Let's actually make sexual communication part of our ongoing lives, because it will make our sex better. It will make our intimacy more intimate. It will make our connection stronger.

Make sexual communication a regular ritual, and you two can decide together when. Every month?

Every 2 months? Every 3 months? Every week? Whatever feels right for you.

And actually schedule it.

And another thing is to… and you can actually ask your partner for this, but make sure that you also give this yourself, which is…

Come with curiosity.

You know, if you've never had the sex conversation before, it might have so much weight behind it. All of those times that you felt frustrated because they had an orgasm and they apparently didn't care about yours.

All those times where you wanted to have sex, and they didn't want to have sex. All those times when you had pain, or you were feeling shut down, or sex just wasn't an option, and then they're carrying all that rejection, all those feelings that they might have about it.

This can be so much weight behind this conversation. So just ask and offer. Let's just be curious.

Let's actually just see what's possible.

And come with an agreement that neither of you are going to use attacking language, or make this whole conversation a pointing out of failures and everything you've ever done wrong.

If you start every sentence with, you never, or you always.

And you always are not in a good way, you know? Like, you always only focus on your orgasm.

You never seem to care about how I feel.

The capacity, the possibility of having a really beautiful, intimate, juicy conversation is so much lower.

If you can start with, I feel.

It's going to be so much more open. I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in a moment.

And just know that, like, complaining and disrespect and criticism are intimacy killers, they're sex killers.

Just keep that in the back of your mind. It's not to say that everything has to be perfect. We're not whitewashing this conversation. It might be a hard conversation with some hard truths for both of you.

But it doesn't have to come with an attack.

Or disrespect.

Really, really practical. Don't schedule this for the PMS time of the month if you get PMS. If the final week of your cycle, or the final two weeks of your cycle are rough.

Don't schedule hard conversations for the rough times. Save it for the times of the months where you feel resourced.

Don't schedule this if your partner is going through a huge amount of stress.

Or is also PMSing. Or, you know, like, be realistic about your… both of your capacity to have this conversation. Set yourselves up to win.

Okay, practicalities.

You can keep this conversation super practical.

I would like to have sex more often. For me, two times a week would feel amazing.

Would you be willing to try that?

What do you need in order to have two times a week sex with me?

How would it feel to schedule that?

Really practical, right?

How do you feel? How many times a week or a month would you like to have sex?

And then you can also use a more of a feeling, and you can combine both of these, of course, and there can also be more feeling communication.

Which… Women, we can often find it a little bit more difficult, because feeling conversations can feel quite vulnerable.

But, especially if we're speaking to a male partner.

Feeling can really reach them in a way that practicality doesn't.

When we have sex, I feel so much more relaxed and safe.

When we slow everything down.

I feel really connected to you if you hold me after you orgasm and you don't immediately pull away.

Feelings.

If you're going to go down the feeling path with your communication, I actually suggest you practice it beforehand.

And even write it down, and get clear on, well, first of all, what are your feelings? Joy, sadness, hope, fear?

Lust, anticipation, connection, safety.

Make a list of them all, and then think about them, and communicate them.

Communicating about our feelings can be a real gift to our partners.

A really beautiful thing to do.

And can feel so deeply vulnerable, and weird, and awkward, and just like, what am I doing, and why am I bothering?

So…

I've just given you a whole bunch of information about, kind of, setting up the scene, and how to do it.

But the reality is, for a lot of us, this conversation feels… Hard to impossible.

To actually open our voice, to open our mouths, and… Have sound come out.

That is a conversation.

About something that may actually be… that may feel like a difficult conversation, because if we have been in a relationship for 20 years, and we've never talked about this.

And we want to ask for something.

That we've never asked for before.

Can feel difficult.

Can feel difficult for so many reasons.

And so… There's a couple of different things that we can do if this feels really difficult.

The first is, is that we can practice.

Like I said, with the feeling words. We can write down all of our feelings.

And get kind of clear on how to structure them in a sentence.

That's one thing we could do.

We could practice saying it out loud.

Saying, I would like to have sex twice a week.

Saying it out loud to ourselves, and just feeling it in our bodies, and letting that land as a truth for us.

If it feels really impossible, an amazing thing that we can do is…

We can close our eyes, and we can imagine having the conversation.

Or we can imagine.

Close your eyes and imagine opening your mouth and saying to your partner.

I would love to sit down with you sometime soon and talk about sex.

You're not in trouble. There's nothing wrong. I just want to make our sex life even more epic. Even more amazing.

Would you have time for me in the next 5 days that we could schedule this conversation?

And actually, just imagine yourself doing it.

And the beautiful thing about imagining is that the brain doesn't really know the difference between it happening and you imagining it.

And so, if you imagine it, you have the response in the body that you might have had if you were gonna do it.

Out loud.

And then you can breathe through that, and allow that response to happen.

And then imagine it again, and imagine it again.

And by doing the imagining, you actually take the kind of stress charge out of the experience. You give yourself more space, more capacity to do the action.

So you can let yourself imagine 2, 3, 4 times before you go ahead and actually open your mouth and say it. Say the real thing.

And another thing that you can do is… like, I would suggest don't have this conversation in the bedroom. So schedule it for a place in the house that feels a bit more neutral. The bedroom, especially if that is the place where most sex happens, or most sex doesn't happen, but we wish it did, it can hold a real charge around it, a real energy around it, so pick the living room, or somewhere neutral.

And… What you can also consider, especially if your partner agrees, is…

Try having this conversation in the dark, if it feels impossible to do it with the lights on, looking at each other.

Try sitting next to each other in the dark.

Or even back-to-back.

Because if we don't feel like we're under observation, if we don't feel like somebody is gazing at us.

It can feel so much easier.

To have the conversation.

And if it feels really overwhelming, if it feels like a really big thing, have a 5-minute time limit.

5 minutes is an example, but say, hey, this is a really hard conversation for me.

Could we just try it for 5 minutes?

Just to see… just for me to see that it's safe to have this conversation, just for me to be able to give it a go, and then we'll come back to it, but please, could we set an alarm for 5 minutes?

It's not you, there's nothing wrong, I just need to feel brave enough to do this, and this is one way that I'd like to try.

And set up an agreement that this conversation is boundaried.

So you have the conversation in the time that you've agreed to have it.

And you talk about it in your scheduled times, so it's not popping up again all the time in life, especially if there's things that were unresolved. Especially if there's things that you feel like you need to come back to and talk to them more about.

And then you don't feel like you're going to be blindsided all the time by this conversation just popping back up, but you also need to do the same favor to your partner and not just talk about it out of the blue.

If you can't have a complete conversation, schedule the next one. Can we come back to this in 3 days' time? I'm not feeling complete, but I feel like I need to think a little bit more, and get a little bit clearer on what I would love, so I can share that with you.

For example.

So then it comes to, like, what do you want to even talk to your partner about if you're talking about sex?

So here's a list of questions. This is by no means a complete list, and these questions may also not even work for you.

But it's a starting point, if you need a starting point.

How often do you want to have sex?

And of course, you get to reply as well.

What helps you get in the mood?

Both asking your partner and replying.

What gets you out of the mood?

Do you want to plan it, or keep it spontaneous? And just a little note from me, if you're going to rely on the spontaneous sex, it's basically you accepting that you're not going to have very much sex. If you want more sex than intimacy, schedule it.

It's not sexy, it's not honeymoon phase, it's not all of those things, but…

If you want more sex and intimacy in this crazy busy lives that we're all leading, put it in the schedule.

It doesn't mean that you have to have a penis or something else inside your body because it's in the schedule. Maybe what is going to happen is you're going to say, well, today I don't feel like that degree of intimacy, or that kind of physical sexual act, but I would love if we could cuddle and stroke each other.

I would love if we could insert here a thing that you enjoy.

Back to the questions.

What time of the day do you actually like sex the most?

And can we make that happen?

Because if you're a morning sex person, and you want to have sex 3 times a week, but we have to get up at 5 or 6 or 7 and go straight to work.

What's the compromises we can find?

What do you need from me to feel turned on?

And listen with an open mind, and be honest.

Do you need intimate touch? Just kind of general touch all the time, so that sex doesn't feel like the only time you're being touched?

For example, what is it that you actually need?

How is it that you would like me to communicate to you what feels good for me?

And what about what doesn't feel good for me?

How can I let you know that actually I don't like that thing?

But, if you did it a little bit to the left, or if you did it a little bit slower, I might be interested in it.

What's one thing that you already love about our sex life?

What's something that you like more of?

What's something that you've kind of given up on the hope of getting? That can be a… Take a deep breath with that one

.

But that's… It's the communication of something that might be important, as well.

How do we want things to end? What's our aftercare look like? Do you need space? Do you need a cuddle? Do we just both fall asleep? Do we turn on our lights and start scrolling on our phones? What does the end of this look like?

Is this something you've been curious about?

That we haven't tried.

Does this way of communicating about sex actually work for you? And does it work for me? Or is there another way that we can talk and communicate about it that actually works better for us?

And now, this last bit that I want to say is, women?

This is for you if you have a male partner.

And this can be… The biggest gift that you ever give yourself, and you ever give your man.

Which is…

If you ask him a question, and you actually would love to hear his answer, and you are curious about what he might bring to you.

Stop talking and listen.

As women, we use a lot more words than men. We talk a lot more.

We often talk faster, we have different communication styles.

But if we can close our mouths, and listen, and give him time.

To dig deep and communicate what he wants to communicate.

There can be so much gold available for us.

So much connection and intimacy available for us.

When I first started trying out this method, I'm not suggesting you all do this, but when I first started trying out this ask a question and then listen, I actually used to put my hand over my mouth, because I was such an interrupter. I would never let the man finish his sentence, or I was giving him multiple-choice answers so that he actually had to pick from something that I was already telling him was the answer.

I used to put my hand over my mouth.

And listen.

And listen, and listen, and listen, until he was like, okay, I'm done now.

Or whatever his version of that was.

And then I'd ask the next question, or I'd reply myself.

To really give him space to talk.

Okay, so that's what I've got for talking to your partner about sex.

And again, like I said at the beginning.

This is about communication, not just for better sex.

It's about communication for… because sex is not just sex.

It's about communication about better sex, which will lead to deeper intimacy.

More closeness. More feeling like you're a team on the same page on the same track.

More intimacy.

More safety?

More feeling like your boundaries are respected.

And heard, because if we don't communicate what they are, how can everybody… anybody ever know that they are our boundaries?

And the potential for more closeness.

And that's it.

That's what I have about talking to your partner about sex. In the weeks to come, I will be answering more of the questions that my community sent my way.

And I'll also be coming back to desire and arousal. I know I've only done part two of three. Don't worry, part three of three will be coming at a later date. I was just feeling really inspired to talk about this because of the questions and because of clients that I've been speaking to as well.

I trust that that was useful.

Lots of love to you all.