Keeping It Up With the Joneses
Learn how you and your partner can improve your sex life and keep "it" up. Listen to two marriage and family therapists, Dr. Rebecca Lucero Jones and Dr. Adam Jones (who happen to be married to each other), discuss topics related to sexuality and relationships based on current research.
Keeping It Up With the Joneses
Episode 1: Meet the Joneses
In the inaugural episode of 'Keeping It Up with the Joneses,' co-hosts and real-life married couple, Dr. Adam Jones and Dr. Rebecca Lucero Jones introduce their new podcast. They discuss their backgrounds as therapists and professors in marriage and family therapy, as well as how they met during their doctoral program. In this episode, the couple provides an overview for the first season of the podcast and highlights the importance of research-based information on sex.
Listen as they discuss what makes 'Keeping It Up with the Joneses,' a podcast worthy of your listening queue.
Welcome to Keeping It Up with the Joneses. We've got an exciting introduction into your favorite hosts today.
Rebecca:That's right.
Adam:We may not be your favorites yet, because this is the first time you're hearing from us, but trust us, we will be.
Rebecca:We hope we will be. That'll help us make money.
Adam:And that's why we're doing this. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for listening.
Rebecca:This podcast is about our income increasing.
Adam:And once we figure out how to monetize this thing, we'll be in business.
Rebecca:Sure. Alright let's actually talk about for real what this podcast is,about and why we decided to start a podcast, because this is not our primary profession.
Adam:No it's not. We are seashell salesman by trade. Oh dear, yeah.
Rebecca:Actually, we're not even anywhere near.
Adam:That's how I met my co host. Someone said, go down to the seashore. She sells. Seashells.
Rebecca:You already got it wrong. We're not even anywhere near a seashore. We're in the middle of Texas. Maybe not the middle. The north. North Texas, to be exact. So yeah, let's talk a little bit about this podcast is about, I guess let's talk about who we are outside the podcast first, because maybe that gives a little context.
Adam:Great. Yeah.
Rebecca:So actually we are professors of marriage and family therapy. So marriage and family therapy is a license that many therapists get. You may know social workers, psychologists, there's also marriage and family therapists. And they typically work with families, couples, and also individuals, but provide therapy to different families, couples and so a lot of our research as professors has focused on couples and their sexual relationship. We also operate as therapists. So we have private practices in a city in Texas where we see clients, we supervise therapists who are in training. Anything else you want to add to what we actually do most days of the week?
Adam:That's about it. We've got a pretty nice setup. I guess the real exciting thing is that we work together. We have several jobs together now. We work in a university setting, we teach in graduate programs we have a private practice, which I'm saying we're sharing that together now because we've officially had one co therapy session together.
Rebecca:This is true. It went pretty good, but also maybe not so good.
Adam:Yeah, it's a little strange to do therapy with somebody else when you've been doing it alone for so long.
Rebecca:Yeah.
Adam:And now we have a podcast together. You could say we do a lot of things together. We'll tell you more about that later. How that came to be.
Rebecca:We also run a household together.
Adam:Oh, that's another job.
Rebecca:Did we already say we were married? Surprise! That's a big surprise. We're married. That's why we have the same last name. Many people think we're brother and sister. It's uncanny. Just kidding. It's pretty obvious that we're married I think.
Adam:Who's that brother and sister that always talk about sex together?
Rebecca:That would be a different sex podcast than the one we're going to have. This podcast a lot of our episodes will be about sex. At least for this first season, for sure, we're going to cover a lot of research about sex, sexual communication, sexual relationships. And I imagine that at some point, we might venture into just some relational dynamics because relational dynamics do affect sex, but the focus of this obviously is sex, if you've noticed the title, it's keeping"it" up with the Joneses. It was not a typo. We meant for that, so we have conducted some research on sexual communication, we're currently conducting a study on sexual communication. And we also will be bringing in other research that has been done by other professionals to make sure that the things that we're sharing with you are based in research.
Adam:Yeah. I think one of the reasons we wanted to do this is to help share some of the research that we've done. We've done a good amount of research together in the area of sexual relationships but also individually. We're hoping to talk a little bit more about other research as well. Bringing in some other perspectives from other researchers and there may be different theoretical perspectives or different that sounds really boring, didn't I? I think I just lost everybody with theoretical perspectives, but different ways to think about sex and different ways to talk about it and consider what works and what doesn't work for you. So we'll bring in several different ideas that way. And then really, I think something that we can also bring to this is talking about our own clinical experiences. And of course, we wouldn't divulge anything that would make anybody disclose who our clients are. But we would talk quite a bit about Some of the things that we would do in therapy in different situations and what sex therapy might look like, what some of the different journeys are that clients have gone on with us and to see where people can take their relationships And improve their sexual life.
Rebecca:Yeah. And I think one of the reasons I really wanted to do this podcast was because I think there's so much information out there. I think America is getting more comfortable with talking about sex. I think there's a lot more curiosity about psychology in general. And just because there's a lot of talk doesn't mean that all the talk is worth listening to. And hopefully we are worth listening to for you, but I think the research piece is really important to know. What have we tested? What do we know? What are therapists seeing? What are they experiencing? And just making sure to test any information that you're getting against maybe what the professionals are seeing, what they're saying. And not that, individuals own experiences aren't valid. But I know that for me a lot of times there can be a very powerful story that someone shares. There may be somebody who's a great blogger or someone who writes a book and shares their experience. And sometimes that's really powerful, but sometimes that's not very representative of people's experiences at large. A lot of, things I see sometimes is, what's the right frequency of sex? You could hear some couple talk about we do it five times a day, and then all of a sudden you're worried,"Oh, maybe we're not in love anymore because we're not doing it five times a day." So sometimes it's helpful to get information from researchers or compare things to what research has said What is actually average for frequency? Are we really not in love or are we just comparing ourselves to a couple that has a really high sex drive? So my hope is that this information will help you to maybe not feel so anxious about your sex life. Know that sex problems are a normal part of any ongoing sexual relationship and to really get some more information that you can apply to your relationship to enrich your relationship as it is now.
Adam:Yeah like you and I only have sex three times a day and we, I think we're very happy. It can be really easy to compare yourselves to other people. And oftentimes sex is really uncomfortable to talk about. So you're going to find out a little bit more about us as we go along through this, but also maybe we'll clarify some of the misconceptions out there and we'll start with the fact that even we don't have sex three times a day. Lots of couples really struggle to figure out how often to have sex. And that's one episode I think we'll have in here, right? Or that's come up through several episodes.
Rebecca:Yeah, we will definitely talk about frequency. I think frequency comes up a lot in our research just because it is a point of contention, I would say, for a lot of couples. Because it's pretty rare for a couple to have the same exact. Preference in terms of frequency across the lifespan. So there may be a time where you do both want it the same amount, but that usually is not across the whole span of the relationship. That would be very unusual. And so if you have that, you have been blessed, like you're very lucky that's not an issue. And it's okay that this is an issue for people because it does change and that's okay to be different from your partner. That is not a problem. Learning to talk about those differences is going to be the best thing I think that people can do. And so we hope that our research will help you to talk about those differences, not judge your partner for being different and help you to figure out ways to bridge the gaps because you are two different individuals or more than two different individuals. Some of you are probably in polyamorous relationships. And that also requires understanding each other's differences and figuring out what's going to meet everybody's needs.
Adam:And to piggyback off your point, I think that's something that, may be important to talk about and distinguish even though we are therapists, our podcast is not intended to be therapeutic advice. And I think the reason for that is in what you just mentioned there. In that every couple, every arrangement relationship, they really develop their own sexual culture in a sense. So it would be a big disservice to throw out a lot of advice and assume that anybody should take those suggestions as professional advice because really what we find in our own clinical work is that the approach that we may take with every couple can be very different. I never have a manual going into sex therapy. is to what exactly will solve this problem or this challenge that a couple's facing because there are so many differences and so many unique ways that couples communicate and different challenges that they have. So please, you're going to hear us talk several times about what people might do in different situations. But if you find yourself relating to some of those ideas Talk to a therapist yourself, or if you think there's something you might try go out and explore some more about it, learn more about it, before you really implement anything that we talk about on your own because, just because we suggest it, it may not work for you, or for your partner, or whatever's happening in your relationship.
Rebecca:I think a podcast or even a book often is no substitute for actual therapy. So if you are feeling distressed, if you are struggling with pain contacting a therapist is definitely the way to go to get help for your situation because whatever advice we may give you can apply it to your problem and it may or may not apply to the particular issue you're facing. This is for entertainment purposes, but we do hope that you'll learn things along the way and that you'll try things that feel right for you and your partner or partners.
Adam:And we really don't want to get sued. As we mentioned right at the beginning of this, we haven't made a dime off of this thing. In fact, we've lost money. We paid for these microphones. So right now our checkbook is not in a good position to be sued. So please don't take anything we say seriously.
Rebecca:Shifting gears, a little bit. Why don't we talk about us just as people? We can talk about how we met.
Adam:Sure. Yeah. It's been A while now, huh? I don't like when I have to count the years. That makes it sound like we've been together a long time. No. Which it hasn't.
Rebecca:Which is not true. But I think I just, it's because I forget our anniversary date. That's intimidating for me.
Adam:Yeah. It's been about 7 or 8 years. Something around there.
Rebecca:2016. I know we met in 2016.
Adam:So we've got I guess you could say loads of experience but, haha, to get together. But we've been together quite a while and we actually met in our doctoral program, right?
Rebecca:That's right.
Adam:You want to start anywhere before that?
Rebecca:No I'll just mention that, and we may cover more of our stories in another later episode but I was already practicing as a therapist in a city in Texas and then my husband at the time was actually in a tragic car accident and died and at that point I had to reevaluate what I was going to do to care for my two children at the time. And that's when I decided to go back for a doctorate because I'd always known that I didn't want to have a full time therapy practice because it can be very emotionally taxing to spend most of your waking hours listening to other people's problems. That can be very exhausting. And especially in the wake of grief, I felt teaching would be a better fit for me. It was something I always wanted to do. And so that's when I made the decision to apply to a doctoral program. And we did meet at interviews cause you were also applying to a doctoral program straight out of your master's program, right? Maybe we, do we want to talk about that?
Adam:Yeah, we met at our doctoral interviews. I was actually dating somebody at the time, but I remember watching Rebecca tell a story and I thought to myself, I like this girl. That's like the kind of girl that I'd like to marry.
Rebecca:Sorry.
Adam:I had no idea. I didn't know anything about the fact that your husband had just passed away. And, in fact, I don't even think you and I really even talked at all.
Rebecca:We didn't, but I do remember at some point sitting across from you. So the way in marriage and family therapy, doctoral interviews are done lots of portions Of it are in groups because you often will go through the courses together as a group. So they want to make sure you get along with your peers. And there were times where I was like around you. And I do remember, we've talked about this, but I do remember thinking maybe you were a little conceited. You seemed a little standoffish and I was like, why does this guy think he's too cool for school? And I do remember like being a little surprised or taken aback by that, but this is also where I had gone for my master. So I felt very comfortable in this environment. I knew the culture of the environment was like very laid back. So I remember having a not so good impression of you and being like, what's with that guy? Yeah. You were hard for interviewing. I
Adam:had gone into doctoral interviews thinking. That I was a hot item that any program would feel very lucky to have me and I went to one interview and they didn't take me prior to going to where we did our doctoral program, So when I came for this doctoral program interview, I was very serious and I thought maybe I took the last one a little Too relaxed, too loosey goosey, and so I was quite serious, so I could see how you would have been a little turned off by me. I wasn't necessarily very, I may have been a little friendly, but I was probably very intense and driven. Focused.
Rebecca:Yeah. I don't remember experiencing as friendly, but again, we didn't talk one on one so maybe that would have been different if we had but yeah, so that was our first impression. And then we both did get into the program and decided to go and that's when we saw each other again. And that time I did have a different impression of you. I do remember I think we probably saw each other before class, but it was our first class together and I saw you walk in and I was like, I don't remember him being this good looking, and you were like tan from the summer, and you were very friendly, and so your personality I think was more on display, and I was like, oh anyway, I just had a very different experience of you, and that's when I started to be like, Oh, he seems like really cool and he's good looking. So I like tucked that away. But I knew we were going to be in a program. So I don't know that I expected anything to happen because dating within a small program also feels high risk.
Adam:I remember we started to spend a lot of time together. We'd go out to lunch. We were around each other. We had classes or we were just in the same building almost every day. And so at some point I thought we would invite others to lunch.
Rebecca:You would invite everybody to lunch.
Adam:I guess that was my role. I took that on and said, hey, let's go to lunch because that's what I did in my previous degree. And I just assumed that's how it was everywhere and so I would invite people, and we started with five or six people, and then some days we'd have more, we'd have less, but then slowly people started to dwindle off, and fewer and fewer people started to come to lunch, and the two of us remained, I guess maybe that was just a whittling down process of who I'm going to be with.
Rebecca:Sure. It could have been anybody in our cohort.
Adam:We should ask them. Maybe they were like, whoa, there's so much sexual tension happening here that I don't know that I can be in the same room as those two. They felt that. Yeah, we'll have to check. That's what it was. It was interesting for me, I think, because you did invite everybody and because I was, a single mom going into a doctorate program, essentially an insane person, right? I wanted to really simplify my life and I bought a meal pass and so I was always going to eat on campus. So I was just like, yeah, I'll eat with somebody else. And yeah, to me it was this funny thing that we just happened into this, I would say one on one friendship that otherwise probably wouldn't have happened. But through lunch, We fell in love, yeah. And we started to go to dinner. Yeah, I was gonna say, one time I remember you invited me to go to Costco. Oh, yes. We ate a churro together. Oh, That does it, guys. Costco churros. I don't even think they sell those anymore. They don't. Probably because too many were, too many people were, Yes. Fucking in Costco. Those bathrooms were really problematic for a little while. Okay, yeah, sorry, sorry Costco. Oh boy, we might need to edit that out. We haven't decided our language policy on this podcast yet. We can't have a language policy. It's about sex. That's right. We can't. Sorry, guys. We probably aren't going to say the F word. You just got to know that therapists pretty much have no language filter.
Rebecca:Everything's fair game. That's pretty true. That's right. Brene Brown says, if you're not praying and cussing, I don't want to talk to you. It's like this idea that she says that I don't know, I might be misquoting her, but I remember her saying something. akin to that. But basically, I should be able to rant the way I need to that's authentic to me. And I should also be able to talk about spirituality. I think it's more about this idea of can I show up as I am? And you'll accept that. Sure. And here we are. Yeah, showing up. We'll see if they accept us. And if we can monetize this. And if advertisers think you like us? Yes. Okay, so we have two kids that come from my first marriage and then we also added another little one to the mix. So we got, yeah, at this point, 11, 10 and almost four. So we're a busy bunch.
Adam:I would say. Yeah. They keep us plenty busy outside of work, so that's the fourth job I failed to mention. Yes. Being a parent. All of which we share together. And for some people, that just terrifies them. I was speaking to somebody the other day that was like, you work with your wife? And I said, yeah. And they said, oh, I tried that for six months and there was no way I would ever go back to that.
Rebecca:Yeah. And we hang out too. You might be worried that we're obsessed with each other, but I promise separate to go to the bathroom.
Adam:Hey, it's fair game. We're going to diagnose some people in here, so you might as well diagnose us or go for it.
Rebecca:Yeah. We might be codependent. That's okay. You might be codependent too. So now you know that You're like us, so that's good, right?
Adam:We're all in the same boat here.
Rebecca:Alright. We might have mentioned this a little bit already, but I wanted to cover what we're going to talk about this particular season. Because we do have other jobs and we decided to add another one We do want to do it in the format of a season, so we'll record all of our content and then post all those episodes, and then we'll create another season as soon as time permits. But this particular season we are going to be focusing on research on heterosexual couples and sexual communication. Now, I think it's important to just note that heterosexual couples face different challenges in some also the same as LGBTQ couples. But it is important that we separate them because I think the gender differences that present in heterosexual couples present unique challenges. We are conducting research right now on LGBTQ and polyamorous couples and sexual communication. So hopefully we'll have more seasons to come if you guys listen and then we'll be able to talk about that research as well. And I think, whether you're hetero or your LGBTQ or your polyamorous. My hope is that in the way that we talk about these things, that you would still find something useful for you or for your family members or just that it's a little bit of entertainment. We also will have some other episodes that are not specifically on the research we've conducted, but other sexual topics like consent, orgasm, maybe some episodes on questions. And I'll be honest, anytime there's questions and we're giving answers, those answers might be in the form of questions. Because we're therapists, we love to ask questions. Anything else I'm missing that we might cover?
Adam:I'm drawing a blank here. Whoa, I guess I did a fabulous job. I think you recapped everything. We've already recorded a few episodes and I'm trying to think if there was anything you missed. I think one of the things that we're hoping to capture here and some of the limitations That you've already mentioned of really talking a lot about. This episode of keeping it up with the Joneses is brought to you by bidet toilet seats. We had a little break here and I used our bidet toilet seat. We're recording this in our master closet. So it's very convenient that our toilet is right nearby and Ooh, boy, that toilet seat, I almost feel a little naughty about how good it feels sometimes. So you should get one of those. We got one in the two to 300 price range and loved it. So I don't even know the brand, but some brand on Amazon. That's great. Okay. I want to surprise you with that. Okay. I'll record what I need to record. Okay. Let's see. Do you remember, we were just talking about what we're going to talk about and you said, Oh yeah, I think you covered it. I think that was about it. I think really the only other thing we wanted to cover in this episode was something that came up in a conversation between you and I just the other day, which was figuring out what to call our listeners. We are avid listeners of armchair expert and which really, if you haven't listened, this is really just our bid to get invited as guests on armchair expert at some point, But we love that they're called armcherries. That's such a great name. And we thought what will we call our listeners? Our faithful, dutiful listeners.
Rebecca:Yeah. And my idea was neighbors, right? Because keeping up with the Joneses are your neighbors. And you were like, no, that's boring.
Adam:I think it's pretty catchy. I've come around to it. I think I can see the appeal of that one. But, I was really excited about my idea. Tell me your ideas. Which is really for anybody that has watched Bluey. I wanted to call our listeners keepy uppies. Which I thought was also pretty catchy. That is pretty clever. Whether you're a fan of Bluey or just a fan of our podcast, you could be called a keepy uppy. And I think that would be really catchy. So this will be a nice way to gauge our listenership on our first episode is to have you all hop on to the comments and give us your vote For what you'd like us to call you going forward whether you want to be our neighbors or if you have other ideas, you can throw them in there as well. And we'll do some more formal research at some point to determine a winner. I could definitely post a poll or a survey or something. We'll do that. We know how to do all that. We are open to suggestions. This podcast is all about being open to suggestion. That's right. Yeah. Let us know what you think.
Rebecca:All right. I think that's most of what we wanted to cover. So anyway, hopefully this gives you a brief introduction to what you might be listening to if you keep listening to other episodes and hopefully we've gotten you interested.
Adam:Yeah. We'll be excited to have you go along this ride with us in season one. And who knows what will come about in season two. Yeah. Hopefully something a little spicier. If we can even get spicier. Oh, if, oh, we can. The spiciness level has turned so high. Yeah. We're not even, we're not even there yet. I guess you did. Who knows? We'll see where it goes. Okay. Alright. Thank you for listening to Keeping It Up With the Joneses. We'll see you next time. are hearing multiple things. Something's, something strange is happening. I can't do that. What is it? The Stranger things? That's
Okay. I don't. That we can include that.'cause I don't know if it's Car Back
Adam:in this episode of Stranger Things.
Rebecca:I thought Stranger Things the musical, but the Stranger Things. Oh, you just got me going. Okay. Why don't you do our welcome. There's some stranger things. Go winner round here. That little bald girl da. And a cop with a beard. Is that a real song? We're fighting aliens. And we're bending things with our minds. It's the Stranger Things Musical. Yeah. Ra cha. Yeah, that's great. That was pretty good improv there. Who needs a theme song? That's our theme song. Okay. All right. Why don't you welcome everybody? Or, yeah, that I'm messing up there. I didn't like that. Okay. Okay. I think I want back to, maybe let's just start that whole thing. Okay. Do you want to start it? Maybe. Yeah. We're talking about. We're talking about. Okay. So what is this podcast about?
Adam (2):Stranger Things, the musical,
booby doop.
