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. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the lounge. I'm your host libido expert, doctor Diane. And I'm so excited about introducing to you my friend, my colleague, another naturopathic doctor, doctor Amatma Simmons.
He's doing this amazing online event coming up talking about fertility and libido and how these things really intersect is what we're talking about today. Mhmm. So I'm so excited to have you, doctor Imatma. Thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me, doctor Diane. Well, let's jump in. So because we love to talk about libido on the lounge, can you tell us initially some of the things you see kinda relating libido to infertility?
And I think, you know, connecting some of the thing that we see around this vicious cycle that people get in. Right? Where it's like, okay. We're trying to conceive and maybe it's hard. And then all of this pressure goes on sex, and it goes on intimacy in the relationship. So Mhmm. Can we just dive in? Just let's get right to it on talking a little bit more about that that vicious cycle that people get into.
Yeah. I I feel like a lot of people go into fertility thinking it's gonna be fun and exciting, and we're gonna have lots of sex. And then they get into the reality. And the reality is what we're being told is that we should time our sex, that we should only do every other day during the fertile window. We're because of the pressure of it, it becomes almost the antithesis of what we want, which is this easy, fun, lively experience, and then, boom, we're in the fertility world.
And everyone's transition is different. Right? Like, some people go into it and they're like, oh, we're gonna have fun, and we have all this energy, and we're, like, we're having fun, and we're doing this. And that energy will last last max twelve months max. And that's literally the amount of time that doctors want you to be trying before they will do any testing. So the problem is it's almost a conflict of interest because doctors are like, well, try for twelve months.
And in reality, people knew going into it that the max amount of time and bandwidth and kind of energy that I can put into this is about twelve months, you would wanna be doing things way sooner as far as testing and understanding what's happening. And are there any blocks? And should we work on stuff? Because if your timeline is twelve months, you're really setting yourself up for failure if you don't get pregnant in those twelve months.
Because now every month after that point where you've reached your internal limit is gonna be extra. It's gonna be, oh my god. I can't do this. I can't do this anymore. And it's both partners. Right? Like, we often assume, oh, it's always the the women that are giving up and don't really wanna have sex and all that. No. In this case, it it often fill flips the script. And, honestly, I feel like men have a shorter bandwidth than women. Right?
They're like, I don't wanna feel this pressure for twelve months. I don't even know if I wanna feel this pressure for three months. So you'll feel like the male partner is kind of disengaging and is finding himself being distant and is like, oh my god. Here she goes again. Like, calling me at work, trying to come home and have sex. Like, it's just not what I wanna be doing with my time. So it and it's not that they don't wanna have a child.
They just don't wanna do it under this circumstance of pressure. And I'm on her timeline, and she I'm, like, at her beck and call. You know? And yeah. So there's just so many, like, contradictions that I feel like if we cleared up the misconceptions from the beginning and if people had more awareness about what they're getting into, the pressure just wouldn't be there. And we would have a whole different dynamic in our sex lives if we didn't have that pressure.
Yeah. You're I love this intro to this conversation because, obviously, we're talking about fertility here. And, also, I think this is just so easy to, like, extrapolate out and be like, oh, this is, like, fertility or not fertility. Sometimes this is just what happens with, you know, with libido and with intimacy in general is, like, various things in life put pressure on or performance on and Yeah. You know, and things change.
But my question question for you is this, because one of the things I talk a lot about in my work and then on this podcast is the concept of scheduling sex around, like, even, say, post having children or just being busy. Right? It's so easy for that novelty dopamine and all those feelings of young love to wear off. And then without prioritizing sex in some ways, like scheduling it like our gym time Mhmm. Oftentimes, then it's, it doesn't happen. Right.
So my curiosity is, like, interesting of, like, okay. So scheduling sex, and we do this in a way when we're not trying to conceive in a way of, like, fun, you know, and playful and prioritizing. But it's interesting then that oftentimes, like, what I'm hearing is, like, when we schedule it because of trying to conceive and needing to meet that ovulatory window, then all of a sudden, that schedule becomes pressure.
So is there my question for you is, like, is there, like, a mindset shift that people can begin to make to still, you know, have to find that, of course, you know, that ovulatory window if we are having, you know, non, help with, like, IVF or any of those other mechanisms, you know, needing to find that I ovulatory window to conceive, can we do that and schedule that and switch our minds so that it becomes almost like this scheduled sex that's done in this playful way without that intention.
Yeah. I I feel like the biggest shift is, like, a small shift, and that shift is instead of scheduling sex, schedule intimacy. Schedule, like, we're gonna be naked and sexy together, and it may or may not be sex. It may be just like playing or flirting or, like, cuddling or whatever. There's so many things besides sex that can lead to sex, but they don't have to. And I feel like that's the big one, is the we have to have sex.
And I feel like our culture has created this pressure, but science is not it was not based in our physiology. Right? Like, if you have sex during your fertile window, and I define that by actually, like, multiple days before you ovulate, if you're having sex in that window, somewhere in that window, and you've optimized the egg and optimized sperm health, the sperm are gonna stick stick around for five or six days.
Matter of fact, they're gonna be more available if you had sex before your egg was released because they need to swim all the way upstream and find that egg. So if they're hanging out there already, it makes it a lot easier. A lot, lot, lot easier. So, really, like, if you're during that window, you don't have to be like, oh my god. It's positive. It's positive. It's positive. LH is positive right now. And it's like, okay. Really, like, let's back off.
And if the sperm are there, they're gonna be there. It's okay. Like, there's no pressure. And, like, the number of times, I would say the majority number of times that women will come back after everything is optimized, the number of times couples come in, and they're like, we didn't even expect to get pregnant in this cycle because we didn't actually have sex when she was ovulating. And I'm like, yeah. But you had sex three days before that. So all good. You're pregnant.
And they'll and they'll try to fight it. They'll be like, oh, but no. Like, it couldn't have happened that time. And it's always the case. And, like and I say always in, like, not every single time, but a lot of the times, that's the majority of our stories. And I feel like it's because there wasn't the pressure. It's because, oh, we're feeling we're feeling each other, and we're wanting to be intimate, and it's that's driving the sex equation more than it's the right time. Right?
And it's like yeah. So if we can just separate those two, we get a lot more. And then it once those are separate, then really we're focused on, okay, like, what are the things that are gonna help build intimacy? What are the things that we talked about this on, in your interview, the oxytocin. Like, what's gonna get that oxytocin release? How do we get that bonding going? Or how do we get that oxytocin in men is amazing for sperm health. Like, let's get you oxidized. Oxitocized.
I don't know what the word is. We're gonna work on that. Yeah. That would be cool. So if we can really focus on something different, something else besides the sex, the physical act of sex, then everything else that comes after is bonus. It's like, we're not focused on that. We don't even care if you have sex. And they're like, what? We need to have sex if we're gonna have a baby. Yes. But your body knows what to do.
Yeah. And you're, like, if you're in tune, if you're feeling connected, if you're feeling that emotional bond, you couldn't wanna have sex. Like, sex is the outcome of that. It's not the action that creates the intimacy. And I know it's a little different for men. Like, men need physical sex to feel connected. But I think that driver for the desire for connection is not gonna be pressure. Like, you're not gonna pressure your man into wanting to have sex with you.
Like, it just doesn't work that way. And if you do wanna pressure him, seduce him, don't force him into it. Right? Like, pressure him. Like, if you leave his house, he'll never have a child. Like, that's not gonna help him feel sexy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That is super useful. Yeah. And I I appreciate what you're saying too. I've been calling, like, sex dates. I've actually been calling them intimacy escapades and, you know, talking about, like, this isn't just about sex. It's about intimacy.
It's about you know, you have your emotional intimacy escapade. You have your cuddle intimacy escapade, and you can have your sex intimacy escapade. But Mhmm. Yeah. So much of what I hear in that too is like, alright.
So if it is, you know, in this ovulatory fertile window time period, even if it's days before, you know, some days after, and you, you know, you are trying to conceive, can you even set that time but take the pressure off and just be like, pretend that this is just like a normal intimacy escapade. Right? And flirt and tease and do all the fun things, and and eventually, you'll get there. And wear the sexy lingerie. Yeah. And do do the things that you would do when you first met. Right?
Like, when sex was still hot, do those things. Because I feel like it's it's really easy to get into the groove of, like, oh, we just need to have sex. Like, just have sex. Just come on. Just do it. And, like, that just feels it doesn't feel good ever. But specifically around fertility, it's not great. The other thing that I found really helpful is for women to stop monitoring their ovulation and let the partner do it instead.
And the male partner in charge of monitoring the fertile window, they're really good at it. Once they learn how to do it, they're really good at it. And it puts him back in his masculine driver's seat to initiate sex. So now she's no longer the one that's like, time's ticking. Let's go. Now is the time. Instead, he is initiating, and he doesn't need to mention anything about your it's your time. Like, I just wanna have sets. And I'm initiating it, and I'm in the driver's seat.
So now he's empowered to be in his masculine instead of the woman being in her masculine while trying to be feminine. I that is, I think, my favorite thing we've said today so far. I love like like, there's so many layers of that. Like you said, it's like not only taking the pressure off, but putting the man in his masculine and giving him that power to provide and letting a woman soften into her feminine and not have to worry and strut. There's layers upon layers. So ready.
But the gym, I love it so much. Yeah. What about so are there any sort of, like, myths around fertility and and conception that you feel like are really important to break down while we're having this conversation? I think we've talked about quite a few of them, the ones specifically around sex. And I think the timing piece is really key because I feel like we drive that home so frequently. You go to your OB. The first thing you're gonna hear is, well, are you timing sex?
Yeah. It's like the worst advice ever. Like, should you only have sex when you have the LH surge? That seems so ridiculous to me. Right. And, like, it's putting all of your eggs into that one basket that is the LH surge. And, unfortunately, LH surge doesn't always mean ovulation. It is literally one hormone out of the many hormones that are happening. So I think that's the first myth. The second one is around the age piece, and I I think that that adds to the pressure.
It's the whole, like, oh, the latest is at 32, our fertility starts going downhill. So it's not 35 anymore. It's 32. And you're too old. Your eggs are too old. It's like so many things around aging that we're just not a culture that likes aging, period. But when it comes to fertility, we have all these myths that are truly myths.
The the idea that fertility declines at 35 came out of churches in France in the eighteen sixties that observed that women were not coming in to get children baptized after the age of 35. So they created this idea that at 35, fertility must go to shit because women don't come in to get their kids baptized after that age. Wow. Eighteen hundreds. And, like, eighteen hundreds in France, what was happening? A lot of stuff that was killing women before the age of 35.
So that's why or even around that much after 35. So there's a whole, like, issue that I have with where that came from. Science has actually not verified this. Yeah. Yes. IVF outcomes tend to go down. Yes. Our hormones are shifting. There's a yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm not the person that's gonna be like, oh, you can get pregnant in your fifties. I'm not saying that.
I'm saying, like, be realistic, but really have an analysis that is based on your body and your hormones and your aging profile, your ovarian aging profile, which now we have tests for. So do that first instead of, oh, I'm 37, so now it's gonna be really hard for me. Like, who knows what that I I was 30 I I got pregnant at 37 on our first try, and it was a first try, quote, unquote, after a year of prepping my body. Right. A year of him working on his stuff.
Like, it wasn't like, oh, we magically got pregnant. It was literally like, let's click all of these things into place before we even start trying. And my expectation wasn't that we got pregnant right away. Like, I was like, oh, this is gonna be so hard. You know? Like, stepping for those twelve months. But I think it really goes to say, like, if we're able to prep our body and we come out of this mindset of the age and I don't have enough time, and I'm running out of time.
So every cycle is that much more pressure. Right? That just adds to all of what we're talking about as far as pressure goes, and it it's just not worth it. So I think that's a really that's the second big myth. And the third one that's kinda mixed in with all of this is testing and really knowing what's happening with your fertility. Is your sex drive affect is is it a reflection of stress, or is it a reflection of hormones, or a little bit of both, which happens often?
And being able to navigate that with without the shame and guilt and, like, anxiety around all of it, but instead being like, hey. Your testosterone is over converting to estrogen. That's a problem, and let's just do something about it. And it's okay that at at, like, the number of women that are like, you fixed my sex drive. I feel amazing. And it's, like, it's so simple sometimes.
And it is it's gonna go a long ways in supporting your fertility because those hormones are interdependent, and they're they're influencing what's happening in your body through every part of the fertility cycle. We don't talk about it often, but testosterone increases two to three days before estrogen spikes before the l eight surge. Right. So the instant like, if your sex drive, your cervical fluid, and your ovulation surge are all synced, that's optimal fertility. Yes. Right?
Like, all of it is happening in sync in synchrony with each other. That's telling me you are in an optimal state because all of your hormones have clipped into place. And very infrequently when people have that, do they not get pregnant? But if they don't have that or if they're trying to override it, the number of women that are like, oh, I don't ever have cervical mucus. Like, yeah, that's a problem. Yeah. We're not gonna just shove that under the rug and move on.
It's like, that's a major indicator that things are not quite where they should be, and we can do something about it. Well, that's why I'm so excited about your upcoming Beyond Infertility Summit is because I know this is, like, you know, only, like, the tip of the iceberg. Like, what's what we're gonna be talking about. Right? So it's, like, you know, the hormones, the cervical mucus, all these things and and and and and and.
And I and I wanna make sure that everybody knows that this this is a online event that doctor Matt must know. It's coming up basically about a week from when you guys are listening to this. So there'll be information in the show notes about how to register. And I I would really encourage people. Remember, it's called Beyond Infertility because we're gonna be talking about I'm gonna be on there talking about libido. We're gonna be talking about all sorts of different things beyond infertility.
It's also about your health, your well-being, these sorts of things. So even if you're like, well, it's not really where you're at right now as far as infertility, there's gonna be so many gems that you will pick up like like we did today. Is there anything else you wanna let people know about as far as that event is concerned? I love it. It's gonna be free. It's 49 plus experts just like doctor Diane, and there's, like, master class series going alongside of it.
There's just so much that we have spent time building. It's it's gonna be incredible, and it's just a big old party. Yes. Yeah. Come on over. Yes. Come party with us. That's right. We're gonna have so much fun. And I wanna also encourage you guys, please remember that the end of this year, we're inviting our top guests back for a longer, deeper dive.
So if you love this conversation, make sure you take extra effort to send it to your friends, to download it, to share it, because that's going to rate doctor Amatma high, and then I get to invite her back for more time. So Oh, that's fun. That's fun. Yeah. Super fun. And thank you so much for being here with me and with us today. It's been always, just like always, a pleasure and a joy chat chatting with you. Likewise. Thank you. And thank you everybody for listening.
Remember, everything you need to know about working with doctor Ramatma as well as her upcoming beyond fertility beyond infertility event is in the show notes for you. And this is doctor Diane reminding you to always stay classy, always stay sexy, and always remember to be a little badassy. We'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 mylabidodoc.com.