Sex Talks Quotes

“Remind Yourselves That You’re on the Same Team Remember that it’s the two of you against the problem, not against each other. You’re a team, tackling shame, crappy socialization, gender norms, defensiveness, and all the other monsters that hide under the bed. Remind each other of that during the repair process. Sometimes simply saying, “Can we be on the same team?” can help you feel closer again.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Apology expert Harriet Lerner says that an apology is actually three gifts in one: A gift to the person you hurt, because it validates their experience when you take responsibility for your words and actions. A gift to yourself, because it gives you the opportunity to develop more emotional maturity. A gift to the relationship, because it gives you and your partner the faith that you can repair the harm you cause each other. Even if you think you were right, even if your intentions were pure, apologize to your partner for the fight and for the impact your actions had on them.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“When it comes to apologies, I think about that old saying, “You can be right or you can be happy.” I love being right, so sometimes it’s really freakin’ hard for me to apologize! It’s especially hard to say sorry if you feel that your intent was good and you didn’t mean to hurt your partner. But apologies are just so necessary in relationships. Nothing is more healing than hearing the words “I’m sorry” spoken with sincerity.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“One of the most shocking things I’ve learned in my time as a couples therapist is that two people can experience the exact same event in completely different ways. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done a session with a couple and thought, “Were these two people even in the same room? Did one of them hallucinate? Have they been body-snatched?” But that’s just how life goes. You’re filtering the world through your own set of lenses, and your partner is filtering the world through theirs. Both your experiences are valid. Even if it drives you bonkers, it’s important to honor that your partner is having their own, unique experience.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Aim for Understanding, Not Agreement Talking about sex is hard, and you and your partner are not always going to see things in the same way. Here’s one of the most important keys to resolving conflict in your relationship: differentiate between understanding and agreement. Most people think that the only way to get over a fight is to get on the same page about it. You wind up in a tug-of-war, battling over who gets to be “right” and who gets to be “wrong” in the argument. But good communication doesn’t mean that you’re going to agree all the time. In fact, you’re probably going to disagree more often than you agree. Instead, the goal of communication should be understanding.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“No one likes being told how they feel. If your partner were to tell you, “You don’t care about date night anymore,” I’m sure you’d feel angry! Asking questions and allowing your partner to be the ultimate authority on their own feelings softens things up between the two of you. And often there’s a good explanation. Maybe your partner has been feeling stressed about taking care of their ailing parent. Maybe they thought they had made a reservation. Maybe they thought date night was the following week. Your stories and your meanings are frequently going to be wrong. So, it’s better to get them out there in a gentle way and correct your assumptions, rather than keeping them inside and feeling hurt and resentful.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Check Your Stories We typically assign our own meanings to the things our partner says and does, and then we respond to those meanings that we’ve created. I’ll give you an example: Let’s say you asked your partner to make a reservation at a restaurant for date night, and they forgot to do it. Your brain is probably going to start thinking, I guess my partner doesn’t care about date night. If you’re feeling particularly sensitive, that thought can really snowball into things like, My partner doesn’t want to spend time with me. She must not love me anymore. Cue a massive fight. But that’s just the story you’ve created in your head; there could be a million other reasons why your partner forgot. Instead, what you can do is share your story with your partner. Say something like, “When you forgot to make a reservation for date night, my mind started thinking that maybe it’s because you don’t care about our having quality time together. But I don’t know if that’s how you actually feel, so I wanted to ask.” You still get to share the feelings and insecurities that are coming to you, but you’re doing it in a gentler way that allows your partner to respond.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“All that your feelings really want is some validation. Permission to exist. That’s strangely relatable, isn’t it? So, whenever you notice an emotion come up, take a second to identify and validate it. Researchers at UCLA’s Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory found that the act of identifying our feelings makes them feel less intense.1 I’ll say to myself, “Okay, I’m feeling anxiety. I give my anxiety permission to be there.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Most of us have no idea what to do with our emotions, so we get extremely uncomfortable when conflict inevitably stirs up the big ones. But here’s the secret to feelings: the only way out is through. When we give ourselves permission to experience our emotions, they fade. When we fight our feelings, they get so much stronger. It’s not our emotions themselves that are the problem; it’s how we deal with them.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Make an agreement that it’s okay for anyone to ask for a time-out whenever they need one. Some people get triggered by the word “break” because it sounds too close to “breakup.” If that’s the case for you, come up with a code word or specific phrase that you use to put a pause on the conversation. Saying “Fuzzy caterpillars” can feel a lot better in the moment than yelling, “Screw you, asshole, I’m taking a break!” In the moment, remind each other of the purpose of the break. You can say something like “I need to gather my thoughts so I can share them with you more effectively” or “I want to slow myself down so I can be a better communicator.” Or even, “I want to take a time-out so I can make sure I don’t say something I don’t mean in the heat of the moment.” This helps you both feel better about putting things on pause. The most important thing to do is to tell each other that you’re going to come back to the topic at hand. Taking a break doesn’t mean you’re ending the conversation right there; you will come back and finish the conversation. So, you may want to include that in your request by saying something like, “I need a ten-minute breather. Can we come back and finish the conversation after that?”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Let’s take it up a notch and talk about what to do if your partner won’t let you share your experience, or your partner tries to turn the tables and focus on your wrongdoings instead of their own words or actions. Defensiveness can sound like “But you’re the one who always turns me down for sex” or “I’ve been trying to get you to talk about our sex life for years!” The best way to stop defensiveness in its tracks is to validate it. Let your partner know that you do care about their experience. I’ll give you a heads-up: this is not going to feel great for you in the moment. When your partner gets defensive, it’s so easy to feel argumentative in return, and then fights can escalate quickly.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Stonewalling is a more extreme version of disengagement. It’s when your partner completely withdraws, shuts down, or refuses to communicate. Stonewalling can be done without words (giving you the cold shoulder or an icy glare), or it can include phrases like, “I’m not talking about this.” In my professional experience, men tend to stonewall far more often than women. It really sucks to be on the receiving end of stonewalling. It also really sucks to be the one doing the stonewalling! I know it might seem like your partner is being an unfeeling robot, but as a psychotherapist, I can tell you that what’s actually going on is that they’re feeling scared and vulnerable. They’re being flooded by emotion, and they’re paralyzed. Your partner is putting their walls up as an ill-conceived protective mechanism. You might be frustrated that your partner won’t respond, but I want you to know that human beings are incapable of responding when we’re that distressed. What’s happening to your partner is called “emotional flooding,” and it has a paralyzing effect on our bodies. We lose our capacity to access our thoughts and emotions. Our hearing literally shuts down. We can dissociate from our physical bodies. It’s not that your partner won’t respond, it’s that they can’t. And the harder you push for them to engage, the less capable they are of doing so.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“I like to think of conflicts as missed attempts at intimacy. The two of you have the desire to be close and connected, but your intentions go awry in some unfortunate way. Having an argument doesn’t mean you’re a terrible fit for each other or that your relationship is doomed. Instead, it’s an opportunity to clear up misunderstandings and to understand yourselves and each other more deeply. If handled properly, disagreements can actually bring you closer together because you build trust when you can handle each other’s stuff.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“If you’re worried about your partner’s judging you for your curiosities and desires, your first step is to stop judging yourself. We tell ourselves we can’t ask for a certain thing in the bedroom or give a piece of feedback because our partner will react poorly. But the reality is that we’re projecting our fears onto our partner and are avoiding confronting it within ourselves.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“The best way to try new things in the bedroom is to make small changes. That will increase your confidence and motivation to keep exploring. First, decide how frequently you’d like to try something new. My suggestion is to pick a schedule that feels totally manageable at first. Certainly not every time you have sex.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Next, take your to-do list and order it in terms of least intimidating to most intimidating. Pick the least-intimidating thing and make a specific game plan for when you’re going to do it. From there, you can try a few options: Work through your list in order. This works well if you like knowing what to expect. If you want some surprise, print out the ideas you currently feel comfortable doing on slips of paper, fold them up, and put them in a jar on your bedside table. Pick one at random to try out in the moment. Or pick your activity earlier in the day, so as to build anticipation for later that night. If you want to surprise each other with something new, you can go through your to-do list and decide which items you’d be fine with your partner springing on you in the moment, and which ones you’d want to agree beforehand to explore.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“For each item on the list, go through and decide if that activity is a Yes, No, or Maybe for you at this point in time. You and your partner should each fill out a copy of the worksheet individually. Then come together to discuss your answers to each item. You can go through the list all at once or one page at a time. Your only rule for this process is that neither of you are allowed to say anything negative about the other person’s interests—especially if your partner is into something that you’re not, or vice versa. No jokes, no shaming, no shocked responses. Try your best to stay neutral. If you’re nervous about how this part of the process will go, you can come up with an agreed-upon response beforehand, like “I respect that you’re interested in that even though I’m not open to it.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“On the following pages, you’ll find a long (but not complete!) list of activities that you could do in the bedroom.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“What’s one thing you’re curious about trying in the bedroom with me?” Bingo! I got a response! Years later, after talking about the word “fantasy” with thousands of people, I can confidently say that we’re focusing on the wrong question. I asked our Instagram audience, “Do you have any fantasies?” and 70 percent said no. Many of us think that “fantasy” means “an incredibly elaborate and detailed scene involving role-playing and story arcs that I think about constantly and makes me orgasm just to think about.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“What’s one thing you’re curious about trying?” And come prepared with an answer of your own. It’s much more fun to approach sexual interests from a place of curiosity than of certainty, as in, “I guarantee you this is something that wildly turns me on, and I’ve kept it a secret all these years.” And remember what we talked about in the last chapter—that you can ask for something without being positive that you’ll like it? “What’s your fantasy?” implies that you already know you’ll love it, whereas “What are you curious about?” leaves the space for your reaction to be, “Hmm, yeah, I’m glad we tried that, but I don’t think I’d do that again.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“EVERYTHING COUNTS AS SEX Do away with the idea that intercourse is the only way to have sex, and put more options on the table. Foreplay can and should be the main event. The same 2009 study by the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior that I referenced earlier found that 90 percent of men would orgasm during sex regardless of what sexual activities the couple participated in. But for women, adding more options to the menu greatly increased their likelihood of orgasm. Eighty-one percent could orgasm from oral sex, and 89 percent could orgasm if they engaged in five or more different sexual activities in one interaction. More variety leads to more orgasms!”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“We polled our Instagram audience, and a whopping 90 percent of women said they prefer something other than intercourse! Our pleasure comes from clitoral stimulation, and we don’t get much of that during the ol’ P-in-V.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“One of the simplest things you can do to improve your sex life is to eliminate the “What do you want?” question from your vocabulary and substitute my Eye Exam Test. When you go to get your eyes checked out, the optometrist doesn’t just sit you down and say, “Describe what you want your vision to be like.” Instead, they show you a series of slides and ask you, “Which one is more in focus—one or two?” Sometimes those slides get pretty damned tricky, but in general, choosing between the two options feels straightforward. You can use the same technique in the bedroom! Give your partner options to choose from, instead of asking them to come up with an answer out of thin air to “What do you want?” For example, “Do you want me to massage your back or your shoulders?” or “Does it feel good when I touch you like this or like this?” or “Do you like it better when I use this pressure or this pressure?” The Eye Exam Test also helps your partner feel like you’re genuinely invested in bringing them pleasure, because you’ve taken the time to think of a few specific options.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“When you first start communicating about pleasure in the bedroom, focus on grounding all your comments in something positive. Ask for more of what feels good instead of criticizing what feels bad. This is going to feel easier for you to give, and easier for your partner to receive. So, you want to avoid saying things like: “That doesn’t feel good.” “No, not like that.” “Don’t touch me there.” And instead aim for things like: “When you touch me here, it feels amazing.” “I like when you use that level of pressure.” “That feels even better than what you were doing before.” “That slower stroke you were doing a minute ago felt great.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“It may also bring you some peace of mind to know that you don’t need to know you’ll like something in order to ask for it.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“The good news about feedback is that you don’t have to hand over a set of detailed, step-by-step instructions about exactly what to do to you and when. Instead, feedback is all about reporting back to your partner about your experience, in the moment, moment by moment. Feedback can be as simple as “That feels good” or “Don’t stop.” It doesn’t need to be a ten-page manifesto.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Feedback is necessary because, without it, we’re also subject to some serious miscommunications.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“How is your partner supposed to know what you enjoy most during sex, or whether you’re enjoying it at all? Do you do or say anything specific to ensure they know you’re having a good time? If you’re thinking, “Well, my partner can probably sense what’s going on in the moment,” then I have another question for you: Does your partner do a fantastic job of reading your mind outside the bedroom?”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“The following is a list of body parts. Circle all the parts you like to have touched. You can also rate each part from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “I don’t mind being touched here” and 5 meaning “I loooove being touched here.” (0 can be reserved for “I don’t want to be touched here.”) Toes Feet Ankles Calves Shins Knees Behind the knees Thighs Inner thighs Butt Lower back Lower abdomen Mid-back Chest Breasts Nipples Shoulders Front of the neck Sides of the neck Nape of the neck Jaw Lips Cheeks Forehead Scalp Other:”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life

“Two of the most common reasons for low sex drive are a lack of a connection and a lack of enjoyment.”
― Vanessa Marin, Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life