November 2, 2016
Sexism Has No Place in Sex
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Sexism contributes to fewer, poorer orgasms! If you want bigger, better, more frequent orgasms, you need to let go of your sexist beliefs and take matters into your own hands first. In this episode of Sex With Dr. Jess, with Sexologist and Relationship, Expert Jessica O’Reilly addresses everyone – men and women alike – and challenges them to look at how sexism is taking a toll on their sexual relationship all in the name of the Big Ohhh!
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Rough Transcript:
This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health, or other professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.
Episode 03: Sexism Has No Place in Sex
Jessica O’Reilly
0:00:00 – 0:00:32
Hello. My name is Jessica O’Reilly, and I am a sex and relationship expert, and my focus is sexual compatibility because sexual compatibility is essential to a lasting, happy relationship. I’m here to help you become sexually compatible because compatibility is something you cultivate. It’s not something you find you’ve got to work for it – and it will be worth it once you’re living happily ever after.
0:00:33 – 0:02:59
Today I stumbled upon a kind of saddening poll. So, this poll suggests that most of us are settling in our relationships. We’re not happy, but we’re staying anyway. So according to the Daily Mail’s report – let’s… let me run down this poll a little. So, 23% of people polled, only 23% believe that they found Mr. Or Mrs. right and that they’ll remain their sole lifetime companion. So, the majority of us, the rest of us – are dating. We’re in relationships. And we’re even in love with individuals – that we admit are – very definitely not the one. Hm… Interesting. And a third of these believe, oh, this drives me bananas. A third of these believe that destiny will intervene, and they will meet their one true love at some point in the future. So, they’re in relationships. We’re in relationships. We’re not happy. We don’t think this person is the one. But somehow, we believe that fate – is going to intervene, and we’re going to find our soulmate. So, I guess we’re just using these people. And this is absurd.
Now, another poll of 1000 women found that nearly half of us; who are in relationships have a backup plan. A plan B man. So, we’re looking at hetero… hetero women with this poll. So according to Medical Daily, this Plan B man is likely to be one of our friends – someone; that we’ve had around for several years. And more than 40% admitted that they got to know this Plan B man while they were with their partner. And another 40% – basically said that he was actually on the scene before the relationship. So, we’re just holding this guy, kind of, in the back closet. And now, a quarter of these ladies admitted; that they have very strong feelings for their plan B man. So, the feelings are just as strong as they have for their current partner. And 15% said they actually feel more for the Plan B man than they do for the significant other. And I think it’s easy to – feel things. I think we treat feelings like there’s something authentic about them, so much so that we’ve got to do something about it. But feeling something for someone definitely doesn’t mean you can be with them or be happy with them. Feelings are just feelings. Sometimes I think we pay too much credence to them.
0:03:00 – 0:05:16
Now. Oh, I look at these polls, and I think this has got to stop. You cannot have a happy, thriving relationship if you have a plan B or you’re looking for the next best thing. You are self-sabotaging. You are sabotaging your relationship – you are doing this on purpose. If; you have a plan B person – just hanging in the wings there. Now you can be in love with two people at once. You can be in love with seven people at once. Being in love is just a chemical reaction. It’s just a drive. But if you have feelings for several people at once and you’re holding one in the bullpen while the other is out on the mound, you just have to admit this one option is, and this is one that I come to every day, every time I run into new research. I think this applies in almost every case for some of us. Maybe you’re just not monogamous. Maybe, you don’t want to be with one person for the rest of your life, and; that is perfectly okay. You don’t have to. You can be single. You can have an open relationship. You can consent to non-monogamy within a relationship. But when you do this secretly, when your partner doesn’t know about it, when you keep it in the background, ultimately, you’re cheating. All right? You’re cheating. And your relationship, the primary one, is not going to work out, and the cheating one is probably not going to work out either. So, you have every choice in life. Again, you can be single. You can date multiple people at one time. You can have a centrally monogamous relationship. You can have a monogamous relationship. These are just some of your choices. But you have to pick one. You can’t choose monogamy and expect to be happy in your relationship. If you have a plan B – or you’re hoping to meet your soul mate, or you feel you’ve settled, it’s one or the other. Make a choice. This is on you. And I can hear you right now. Everybody’s going to say, but but but in my situation, blah, blah, blah, blah, or with my partner, it’s like this. No, it’s one or the other. You’ve got to choose. And you can’t make excuses for your bad choices.
0:05:17 – 0:07:48
Now, on the topic of soulmates, because… one true love came up in these polls. On the topic; of soulmates, I want to talk about this. There is no such thing. I wrote a piece for Huffington Post on this. I’m going to reiterate some of my thoughts really briefly here. First the idea of a soulmate; the perfect partner who complements you on every level; and completes all of – your missing pieces. This concept will destroy your love life. It might destroy your life – altogether. If you’re out there looking for the perfect partner who fulfills every one of your needs, he, she, they do not exist – it will be an inevitable letdown because that person is not out there. And then here – this is always interesting to me, the statistics of it. It just doesn’t make sense, you know, when we’ve got billions of people in the world, and you break down the population, and I guess you cut it in half if you’re heterosexual or uh… attracted to the same sex. The numbers are worse if you’re bisexual. But if you break it down, then; account for age; because your soulmate obviously isn’t eleven years old. But if you really believe in soulmates, who’s to say your soulmate isn’t, I don’t know, a bunny rabbit? But basically, if we just – count the humans, you have a one in 2.625 billion chance of actually finding this person. All right?
It would never happen. Get over it. No soulmates. First thing, get over that; your love life will be happier. Now, this poll says that we are basically dating or in a relationship with one person – but secretly hoping the destiny will intervene so that we find that one true soulmate. It’s killing your relationship. Get over the soulmate myth. You can become soulmates, all right? You can find a person and become soulmates. And that you can work to be happy together. You can learn and teach one another to meet many – but not all of your needs. Okay? But there’s nothing magical about it. It’s not destiny. It’s about commitment; and hard work; and communication, and a willingness to truly; be open and vulnerable with another person. Vulnerable. And uh… by having a backup plan, you’re not being vulnerable. You’re doing the opposite. You’re putting walls around your relationship. So, there’s no way it’s going to work out.
0:07:49 – 0:11:55
Now, I’m uh… I’m working with a couple. We’ll call them – Sue and Tom. Who are they’re fighting over – Sue’s relationship with her ex. So she’s still close with this guy, and Tom is, quite frankly, pissed about it. A bit of a deal breaker, in fact. Now, I’m not going to get into a discussion about whether or not you should stay friends with an ex. That’s really a very individual choice, and I think it has to do with your specific relationship history. That’s another cat, another question. But this particular friendship is wreaking havoc on their marriage. Now; some of you might think, oh, well, maybe Tom is just jealous. Maybe he’s controlling, but you know he’s not jealous of any of her other friendships with men. Sue has a lot of male friends because she’s an… she’s an executive in finance. So she’s out with them after work several times a week. It’s a part of the job in finance. At her level, she’s a C-level executive, so she’s surrounded by men. She has lots of male friends. So, it’s not a matter of jealousy or Tom being controlling. In this particular case, he really is not. And they’ve been fighting about this, and it’s leading to tension and their relationship. And interestingly, a few months ago, Sue admitted to me Tom was out of the room. She said I am attracted to this ex. And when I’m pissed off at Tom, you know they’re a regular couple, they have fights, they have a good relationship, but of course, they have fights. And she gets angry. She says she actually calls her ex, and Tom does not know this so; she turns to him. She… she says that she sometimes even – just thinks about, maybe I should just run away with this ex when she’s frustrated with Tom. And, of course, that’s a fleeting thought. She’s not going to do it, but she does have some feelings for him, so feelings. But the idea that you care about someone; or even love someone doesn’t mean you need to be with them. So… so, I told her, you have two choices. You can admit this to Tom. You can say, you know what? I do, have these feelings, and maybe you guys can work it out. Maybe – you can talk about this. Maybe – he’ll admit to having feelings for other people, too. The idea that you have a crush on someone else, or you, have feelings for someone else, or you, have an emotional attachment to someone else; doesn’t mean your relationship is doomed. But when you hide that, when you thrive on it, when you use it, when you exploit it, that’s when it becomes a problem.
So, I told her, you can admit this to Tom – and you can talk about it, or you can break it off with your ex. And uh… maybe you; need to assess whether or not – you’re actually monogamous – because you can’t have it both ways. Um… If you try that, neither relationship will thrive. So, if you care about your marriage, you got to choose to work on it by cutting out the ex, or you need to open up to Tom about these conflicting feelings. And… and and again, that might be because you decide you’re not monogamous. So, she did some um… she did some soul searching, and she said – you know, I really am monogamous. It’s not that I want non-monogamy. That’s not for me. I get that it’s for other people; but it’s not for me. So, I reminded her, it’s one or the other in a relationship. You’re either – in or you’re out. There’s no gray area. I think we like to pretend there is. We like to – pretend that we’re torn because it’s convenient for us. We convince ourselves – that we’re confused because we don’t want to dig deep and be vulnerable with ourselves or; with our partner. And in saying this to sue, she realized – took her a couple of weeks, and she said, I’m not really torn. I know what I want. I want my husband, and um… I want the emotional support from my ex. I don’t want to be with my ex. I am just using him. I am using this guy. He’s a crutch. He’s an excuse. I don’t even really like him that much.
And when she finally put this into words and admitted she was wrong, which is probably the hardest thing to do as a human being, is really admit – that we’re wrong. She started taking responsibility for the conflict in her marriage and realized that it really was time to cut this guy out.
0:11:56 – 0:13:21
Now, this is not a universal solution, all right? It worked for Sue and Tom. But it really could have gone either way. She started to feel happier in her relationship when she kinda – when she stopped comparing Tom to this tiny sparkle of an ex with whom she was never happy – to begin with. So, sue really illustrates the problem with plan B. You don’t know plan B. You don’t know this person. You just – use them in a way that suits you. You create a fake, incomplete, idealized image of them because they’re convenient because they’re serving you. And this is why it has to stop. You cannot have a Plan B if you want to be happy in a relationship. If you want a successful, happy, hot relationship that lasts, you can’t have a backup plan. I’m not saying that you can’t be with multiple people. There are those of us among us who are in consensually, non-monogamous relationships, and I think that if we made that a more accessible option, we’d see a lot more successful relationships. But if you want to be in a monogamous relationship, you have got to stop wasting your energy on Plan B, on a backup plan. And so many of us are doing this.
0:13:22 – 0:15:04
So, if you are one of the ones who find that you are wasting your energy on Plan B, this is what you’ve got to do.
Number one, get over the soulmate myth. It’s nonsense, and it’s not serving you, and it’s wreaking havoc in your relationship. It’s not what will be – will be. You’ve got to make it be. So, get over the soul math.
Number two, you got to make a choice. You’ve got to dig deep, and you’ve got to figure out whether you are monogamous or not, to begin with. You need to be honest with yourself, honest with your partner. You know – Sue might have decided that this was the case for her because I’ve had clients like her who have swung the other way. Once you’ve given them permission to be openly, non-monogamous consensually, they’ve learned to identify that this is their true orientation. They’re not meant to be monogamous. We see this all the time. We see this with people who continue to cheat on their partners and put all the things they actually care about at risk because they’re not allowed; to just say, you know what? I’m a good person. I can be good in a relationship, but I’m not sexually monogamous. We need to – we need to put this out there – from the beginning; so; that they can be true to themselves. Some are – not meant to be monogamous, and Plan B is just one tiny piece of evidence that helps us to realize this. And once you do, you can be true to yourself and find partners who want the same thing. So, figure that out and make that choice and be honest about it, even though it’s going to make you feel vulnerable.
0:15:05 – 0:15:57
And number three, if you have a Plan B, you’ve got to ask yourself if you are using this person, and that is not an easy question to answer with a yes, because all of us believe we’re good people. No matter. Even the… the ones that you know do not treat people well. They really believe they treat people well. They, believe they’re the victim, and you might be making yourself; into a victim. So, you need to think, if I have a Plan B or someone I emotionally lean on – are you using this person? And if you are, you’ve got to do something about it. It’s not fair to treat someone as Plan B. You got to cut it off. It also – is threatening your primary relationship. All right? If you’ve got the Plan B, you’re not focused – on the core relationship. You are in – or you are out, that’s it.
0:15:58 – 0:17:26
Again – when it comes to relationships, you have all the choices in the world. Be with one person for the rest of your life, be with a new person every day, and be honest about it. And, then – if every choice in-between those two extremes. It’s up to you, and you need to examine that before you get into a relationship. And if you’re already in a relationship and you want that relationship, you value that relationship. You’ve got to start having these conversations. We know, for instance, that monogamy and cheating mean different things to different people. So, you need to define that within your relationship.
It’s actually quite simple. You just have to be honest. You have to; let yourself be vulnerable – and you have to reassess over time because you will change. What you want today will not be the same as what you want – 20 years from now. You will change. Your partner will change, and that’s okay. You are kay. If you have a Plan B, if you’re not happy with your partner, if you feel like you’re settling, do something about it. Do it now. Do it today. You are creating the gray area. There is no gray area in any magical way. You have created – the gray area because it’s convenient for you. So, figure out what you want and get out of the gray… today.
0:17:27 – 0:17:57
You have been listening to Sex with Jess. Today’s show was brought to you by Vigor Man. By Greenish vigour, man is Halal Kosher veggie, certified gluten and dairy free. It’s a supplement approved to support the physiological and psychological components of male sexual health. So thank you so much to Vigor Man, and be sure to tune in next week – because we’ll be looking at the latest sex research and how you can apply it to have the – greatest; sex of your life and live happily ever after.
