Welcome to the libido lounge where we focus on all things love, lust, and libido. We believe that fabulous sex is important to health as exercise and good food. Doctor Diane, your libido expert here. Welcome back to another episode on the libido lounge. We're talking about the dialogue of desire today, how to use dialogue to improve desire, communication, sex, intimacy, relationships, and more.
And I wanna start by telling a story of something I was reflecting on recently, which is a point in my life when I faked a lot of orgasms. And, basically, I was in my young twenties. I was in a long distance relationship with a very, very lovely man. It didn't start out long term. It started out local, and we moved to different places for career purposes. And essentially, we only saw each other every month, every two months, and there was all of this emotion. Right?
There was all of these intense emotions that would come up around it. Like, the desire because of that separation. It's one of the things that first taught me about space as a way of creating desire, which I talk about in my work because there was so much space, in fact, really, for my liking, way too much space. But what it did, of course, is create that strong desire, right, because of how dopamine works, because of how motivation works in our brain.
So essentially, in not seeing each other, there'd be this longing, this buildup, and we'd see each other, we'd have these weekends. And then I remember driving away if I were to go to him, it was about a seven hour trip by car, and I would drive away and just be flooded with tears. Right. So sometimes not even able to drive and having to pull over because I was crying so hard.
But what's interesting and the point of telling the story is actually one of the things I was noticing was I was starting to have to fake orgasms. And I say that intentionally have to fake because I think that's one of the things that happens so frequently as women is there's all these things that allow us and create scenarios where it is difficult for us to achieve pleasure.
And there's this almost this desire we have, I think, innately as humans to provide pleasure and affirmation for our partners. So some of the underlying drive when women and men can fake it too, but typically it's women. We have a lot easier time doing that, and it's a lot more, you know, easy, frankly, to hide. And so some of the faking it that occurs for women in particular can come from things like feeling too tired and feeling overwhelmed and these sorts of experiences.
But it can also come sometimes from this deep desire to be able to provide the sense to the partner of like, you did it. You provided me pleasure. Right? Because we know that our partners like to feel that. And what winds up happening that destroys the dialog of desire is this thing of faking it. And the problem is that when we fake it, oftentimes that leads to this sense of teaching our partner that this is what we like and this is what we want.
And what happens from that is we tend to get more of it. And we can then get get into this very, very vicious cycle then of not being pleased, of not having pleasure. And when we're overwhelmed and we're stressed and we're tired and in all of those scenarios, sometimes it takes a lot more effort to engage in pleasure. And then if you're not even getting pleasure out of it, it just feeds into this vicious cycle.
So when I think about some of the fundamental steps and the fundamental action items in the dialogue of desire, when I teach this in my courses, one of the first things I really teach is not about dialogue with our partners, although, of course, that's very important. But the first step of the dialogue of desire really starts with the dialogue with oneself. And that's where we need to take a step back and say, okay. Well, one, if you're faking it, why? You know, what is truly under there?
Is it because you're tired? Is it because it's not pleasurable? Is it because you've developed pain? Is it because there's pressure? What is it? And then two, conversations on like, for example, like, are you having the right kind of sex? You know, so many times I feel like we get into these these kind of ruts. Right.
And and what can happen oftentimes is like we as women from a desire standpoint, from a pleasure standpoint, a lot of the experience of pleasure is really related to the anatomy of where our erotic tissue is positioned. So like that outer part of that clitoris, that bulb of the clitoris, the part of the clitoris that's visible, if it's closer to the opening of the vagina called the introitus, if it's closer to that opening, it's a lot easier to orgasm with penetration. Right?
But if it's further away, it's a lot harder. So whether or not women can actually orgasm with penetration, so many times it's looked at as like this desirable thing. Right? If you're able to do this, it's like this holy grail. Well, a lot of that comes down to the individual anatomy. And so we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves and our partner to have pleasure look in this one way when there's a huge portion that comes down to anatomy.
And sometimes what happens too in the early beginning part of relationship is that because there are so many hormones. Right? This these hormones that I'm talking about that are largely created by space and by the unknown. There's so many hormones that actually are playing into our ability to sense pleasure that our pleasure centers are actually a little more sensitive. They're a little heightened.
And so when that happens, we can sometimes, say, experience great pleasure in positions that once some of those hormones calm down, once there's more, the novelty is worn off, once there's less space, once we're more in, like, the rhythm, then certain things that may have provided great pleasure in the beginning of the relationship actually don't provide that same level of pleasure.
And some of that too is if we get into that system where we do those same positions, we have sex in the same way, we have intimacy in the same way, then what can happen is we're not creating all those extra hormones that allow us to become more sensitive to pleasure, more responsive to pleasure. And then we can often think it's so easy to be like, there's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with the relationship. But oftentimes, what happens is we just get into that rut.
So part of the dialogue desire is really, you know, taking a step back and first, looking at the entirety of the relationship of how you guys interrelate. Right? From the standpoint of how does it look when you greet each other in the morning? How does it look when you greet each other when you come home at the end of the day? How does it look when you say goodbye, when you disconnect and come back together to reconnect?
How do all of those things actually look from a pleasure standpoint, from an enjoyment standpoint? Because those are those points where those those tiny little things, the way you kiss goodbye, the way you kiss hello, the way you text, the way your tone is with each other, all of those things actually lead into the dialogue of desire.
Because remember, remember back to those days when you're dating, you're beginning to fall in love, and you're sending these sweet texts and you get those butterflies and that excitement. You know, in those days, texting and the way and the tone and the energy probably looked a lot different.
And, obviously, there's that tendency to be that way when things are new and things are novel because novelty creates those emotions that help us respond and allow us to respond oftentimes with a lot more softness and ease and flirty in us. And at the same time, if we don't put effort into keeping some of those types of interactions alive, those types of things, which are oftentimes the that glue, that fundamental of the dialogue of desire can fall away.
And what some of those things are doing when we're talking about desire and we're talking about that play, what some of those things are doing those fundamental things, how we say goodbye, how we say hello, how we text, they're actually setting the stage for communication of how we communicate in other ways more effectively and more flirtatiously and and more successfully. Right?
Because if we are constantly reminding each other from, like, a secure attachment kind of way when we see each other and we come back together, If we're coming, we take a moment to, like, meet and greet each other and, you know, really, even if it's for twenty seconds, which is the minimum time of a hug to really release that oxytocin hormone, even if it's, like, a twenty second hug, which actually, if you've ever counted a hug, is a quite a long hug.
But essentially, if you take that moment for twenty seconds to allow those hormones to really be created and allow you to really sync and be present, meaning for those twenty seconds, we're really sinking into our partner's skin. Right? We're really sinking into our partner's touch. We're taking a moment to look at each other in the eye in twenty seconds while when you're hugging and you count it, I'm telling you, it's, like, gonna be surprising for most of you.
It is for me, even though I know this stuff, every time I'm counting twenty seconds just because I do that sometimes out of curiosity, it's like, wow. This is really long. It's very, very common. We hug people for three to five seconds, and that's not enough time to that to deeply sink in and drop in to that experience and to all those hormones. And the reason that's important is because that's allowing that oxytocin to release.
That's allowing our time for our hearts to sink and our hearts to connect. And if we're doing a hug really effectively, what I mean by effectively is we're actually then taking a moment to be present with our partner. Right. We're not thinking about, you know, allowing yourself to say, okay, for twenty seconds, I'm not going to think about the task list for twenty seconds. I'm not going to do this. It's not a lot of time to stay focused and present, but it's still enough time to practice.
And the point of that is these are all the tiny little things from, like, the way we say hello, the way we say goodbye that are setting up that connection, that are setting up that foundation to say, oh, right. Us. Oh, right, safety. Oh, right, you're here for me. Oh, right, you're fully present with me. And these tiny little messages that actually don't take very long really set the foundation for that dialogue of desire.
Because when we have more, say, deep conversations that could be potentially triggering or sensitive or, you know, hurtful to an ego, that's not the goal. Right? There's ways to do this without hurting the ego. But when we have those kind of conversations later on, a lot of the success of those kind of conversations is gonna be deeply and specifically related to how we are able to how much of these foundational things we can do.
So when we begin to have the conversation with ourselves, which is one of the step, you know, the beginning steps, right? How do I feel about intimacy? How do I feel about, you know, am I getting enough touch? How do we greet each other? How do I feel after we say hello and goodbye? How do I feel about our text? Do our text give me any sort of, like, excited feeling anymore? Right?
Not saying it's gonna be a % the butterflies of relationships, but we can learn to come back to that flirtiness and a level of, like, okay. Yes. We might have to have some texts that are just, like, normal texts. How's the day? How are the kids? Do who's picking up who? Who's grabbing groceries? What are we doing for dinner? Did you pay mortgage? Did you pay rent? Yada yada. We obviously have to have these kind of texts. Right?
It's not like it's just gonna be in long term relationships more integrated. It's not realistic to be like every text is gonna be flirty. But we do wanna have some levels of putting those kind of flirty text back into the relationship. And sometimes we have to set reminders to do this. And this is, like, might seem like less sex sexy, but sometimes, like, reminders on our phone, you know, send my partner a flirty text, reminders on our desk, send my partners a flirty text.
And it might feel awkward in the beginning, especially if you're twenty, thirty, forty years into the relationship. Right? But if you haven't been doing that, those again, these are the foundations of safety so that when we do bring the other bigger conversations around dialogue of desire, around wanting to change positions or wanting to mix it up, or, you know, the fact that, like, maybe you're not experiencing pleasure in lovemaking the way that that you have.
And, you know, if we're really going for it, and I don't I don't encourage you to do this right away, but eventually, maybe getting to a point where it's like you can say, like, you know, sometimes I you know, telling a partner maybe that sometimes that you fake it and here's why you do it, and you wanna be very, very, very careful about that. Sometimes it's a good idea. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's best to just, like, you know, stop doing it and start bringing in conversations of, hey.
This is how, you know, these are ways you wanna change, and these are ways you wanna mix it up, and these are the ways you wanna spice it up. Sometimes it works a lot better to focus more on moving forward than the past because we don't wanna bring some of that energy into our partner's heads.
Other times, it can be beneficial to say, you know, to share that, but there needs to be a lot of love, a lot of trust, a lot of security, and really done in a way where we're not going to we really believe that our partners then not gonna get into their head and worry every time that we're experiencing pleasure if we're telling the truth or not. So oftentimes, it can be better just focus on, okay, I'm gonna not do this anymore.
I'm going to really start being honest about what's happening and just move forward versus focus on the past and then understanding one's own pleasure enough so that we can bring that into communication. And I, you know, I I talk in some of my other videos as well as as some in my my online workshops. I have a workshop completely on this topic on called communication. And in that workshop, we go through step by step the do's, the do nots of how to actually have these kind of conversations.
But in this video, some of the purpose of the dialogue of desire is really to set that foundation. Right? It's to really set that foundation of what are we doing on a day to day basis to build that safety, to build that trust so that when we go into some of those bigger conversations, we actually have been practicing closeness and safety and flirtatious.
And there's that energy and that dopamine and that oxytocin that has already rebonded you guys to each other so that when you go into some of those deeper, more sensitive trigger type of conversations that there's so much safety, there's so much love, there's so much desire that has already be been rekindled. But, of course, it starts with us. It starts with understanding ourselves. It starts with those basics. So hope this has been helpful. Please do drop things in the comments.
Check out my communication workshop also in the comments if you want to learn more on this topic. I'm always so happy to be with you all. Please do share this with your friends if this has been helpful and you think this could help anybody you know. Again, I'm doctor Diane reminding you to always stay sexy, always stay classy, and a friendly reminder to be a little badassy. I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the libido lounge. Please don't keep me a secret.
Please share this with your friends. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.