Bread & Butter Sex Deserves Better PR! Part 2 with Georgina Whelan from Sexual Psychology

Part 2 of my conversation with sex therapist Georgina Whelan and we’re talking about the stuff people rarely say out loud about sex in long-term relationships.

What is “bread and butter sex” and why does it probably deserve better PR?

Why people need a transition phase between everyday life and intimacy?

And why do we expect ourselves to go from work emails, school lunches, dishes, stress and Antiques Roadshow… straight into feeling spontaneously sexy?

In this episode we talk about:
- desire and arousal in long-term relationships
- why sex often changes every 5–10 years
- how to introduce toys and novelty without awkwardness
- responsive vs spontaneous desire
- why relaxation, safety and connection often come before desire

- toys and how to introduce them without feeling awkward 
- and why “good sex” doesn’t always look like the movies

This is funny, honest, occasionally spicy, and deeply reassuring for anyone who has ever wondered if their relationship is “normal.”

If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, go back and start there.  We covered libido, desire discrepancy, the “ick,” rejection, and why women wanting more sex than men is far more common than people realise.

Your taboohub.com.au (http://taboohub.com.au/) website 10% coupon code is: GEORGE

https://maxblack.com.au/

Whether you are in perimenopause, approaching menopause, or simply trying to understand your hormones, I've got you.

Read more about this episode at Medication Clarity Clinic, Kate's own medication education and telehealth consulting site: https://medicationclarity.com.au

Follow Kate for more no-nonsense health education at @prescribeorpass on Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to On the Moans, where we have conversations about hormones, midlife, and the moments that make us wonder, is it just me? I'm Kate. I'm a 48-year-old pharmacist and newly minted perimenopausal oversharer. This is where we talk openly about the changes we aren't prepared for, so we never have to feel alone in them again. I acknowledge the Camaragle people of the Iora Nation, the traditional custodians of the land which I am recording today. I pay my respects to elders past and present, and I extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal Land. Hello friends. Welcome back to On the Moons. Today is part two of my conversation with sex therapist Georgina Wheeland. If you haven't listened to part one yet, I'd really encourage you to go back and start there because we covered some fascinating stuff around libido, desire discrepancy, and arousal, and what happens when couples are mismatched sexually, which, by the way, is incredibly common and not talked about nearly enough, in my opinion. We also talked about the ick, that feeling of emotional disconnection or resentment or just not wanting to be touched by your partner, and how that can build in long-term relationships. But in this episode, we move into something a little bit different. We talk about what Georgina calls bread and butter sex, the kind of dependable, familiar, long-term relationship sex that maybe doesn't look like a Netflix bodice ripper every night, but is actually deeply important and often really underrated. We also talk about toys, how to introduce novelty or playfulness into a relationship without it feeling awkward or threatening, and something I found incredibly interesting, the idea that many people need a transition phase between everyday life and wanting sex. Because most of us are not walking around in a permanently receptive, erotic state. We're answering emails, driving the kids to sport, unloading the dishwasher, stressed, overstimulated, or thinking about whether or not you remember to take the chicken out of the freezer. And then suddenly your partner's like, How are you doing? And your body is supposed to magically pivot into desire. But maybe, just maybe, that's not how humans actually work. And Georginia explains that there needs to be some kind of warm-up phase. Not necessarily sexual, but something that helps the nervous system and body transition from stress and responsibility into pleasure and connection. For some people that's a walk, a shower, music, a foot rub, a head massage, dancing in the kitchen, a conversation, laughter. And honestly, the way she described it makes so much sense to me, and I hope it does for you too. Because if you were about to run a marathon, you wouldn't go straight from lying on the couch watching a true crime or antiques roadshow into sprinting down the street without warming up first, right? So maybe we need to stop expecting desire to arrive like a lightning bolt and start understanding it more like a process. Here's part two of my conversation with Georgina Wheelan. And it is easy. Ah, I don't know. Easy's definitely not the right word, but now my children are 18 and 21. I look back at when they were younger and think it's you're so busy and you've got such a lot bonding you in your relationship because you're so focused on these two things that you are both so in love with that then it's sort of okay. You can you can muddle through a bit. You don't feel like you're muddling through at the time, but then when they become 18 and you know, when they're older, when they're adults, and it really is just you and your partner, then you're a bit stuck looking at each other, going, Oh, it's really just you and me now. And I I imagine that's that's why a lot of the divorces are happening when women are 49 because their children have grown up and now they're they're looking at their partners going, Oh, you're a nice guy. But I don't know. Is is that would is that your experience?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I think the um yeah, that idea of we get on better when we're in parental role and we've lost the capacity to move into that sexual playfulness, that's a relationship cycle. So uh all couples will go through that that limerence, the bonding, and then identification, and then they'll go through power struggles. And then power struggles involve like our family dynamics, our attachment histories, basically like a repetition of what we did in our early uh childhood experiences. We kind of play those power struggles out, and it's a normal, it's very normal for couples, but sometimes couples get really stuck there, and so they'll be stuck in stuck in that repetitive power struggle for a long time, and then they'll end up doing parallel lives. So they're excellent parents and excellent friends, and you know, their family is well provided and they're good people, but in regards to their emotional and sexual intimacy, they've stalled, and so that is difficult for people. They've got to work out how to repair. So when you can do that repair, then you come back to the next stage, which is your mature intimacy, and sexuality is re-igned, and it can be very exciting and loving. It's not ever going to be like the first stage because we just don't have that chemistry available to us, but we've got deep security and admiration and acceptance for our partner's flaws rather than the idealization of what we thought they were, the power struggle of how we want them to be.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Um, and those cycles kind of happen at major life stages. So we can kind of be in this mature space where we're accepting, and then we have our children leave. And oh no, I want to have a different identity than my partner, and then we're gonna struggle again. So any power struggle that we have with our identity, we will that will be expressed in sexuality. Yeah. So I I feel like that sex needs to be really renegotiated about every five to ten years. Yeah. How I had sex in my 20s is not how I did it in my 30s or 40s, and I'm now in my 50s. Um, you want different things because you're a different person. You're a different person in all those experiences, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

So is it reasonable to expect that sex becomes a little bit predictable? I suppose that's okay if that's how you like it, but is it good to introduce new things and how would you do that? A gentle, non-confrontational way. Like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna spice it up, but tonight I brought home another girl. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Hi. Hi. Uh so I think bread and butter sex is what we call it in sex therapy land. Okay. Uh, is basically good sex. It's the routine, it's predictable, it's regular, you know how it's soothing, you know how to get an orgasm, it's within a time frame that allows you to get up for work the next day. Um, that kind of sex is really great. People underestimate that kind of sex. So bread and butter sex is a good thing. Bread and butter sex. You need that on a t-shirt. Bread and butter sex is good. Um, but we sometimes people have more of a need for novelty. So, like if you're neurodiverse, for example, if you're autistic, you want a lot more, a lot of the sameness. But if you're ADHD, you want a lot more novelty. So then, depending on your own individual personality traits, with the requirement for novelty, that can be difficult for some couples to understand that balance. So, bread and butter sex is absolutely essential because as humans, we can't renegotiate everything we're doing every day. We need to get up and have a breakfast routine or a how do we get to work routine, what do I do with my kids in the afternoon? Yeah, even what I do for lunch. Like we we're pretty routine, mutual animals. And when we're not, when everything's really novel, we don't get anything else done. Yes. Okay. So when we the most novel is at the very beginning of our relationship, and if you think about a Venn diagram, you've got one partner here, one partner there. At a in an early part of the relationship, they really overlap. So the each person is dragged out of their area of comfort into this uncomfortable but exciting sexual novelty. Yes. And so people's sexual experiences will expand. But then as we move into bonding and then differentiation, what happens is that we we become us and we, and then we become I within us. And so then we move back out. So some of the things I used to do, maybe I did anal sex a lot at the beginning, but actually it's not really my favorite thing. I've dropped that from the repertoire. Yeah. Yeah. So then when people talk about bread and butter sex, they might like uh where it's really good is that we're doing the same thing pretty regularly and both of us really like it, right? So but if we do that Venn diagram where we come back into individuals and we're doing bread and butter sex, it might be that we've lost something that we really used to like. So oh, my partner doesn't give me head jobs anymore. They used to give them to me, but I they don't. Um, so I want that in my bread and butter sex, right? So it doesn't, it's not necessarily that it can be really wild for novelty, it can be just like something that we used to do that we don't kind of do anymore because that one person stretched into that new behaviour.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yeah. And I mean blow blowjobs is a really good example, actually, because if he really likes a blowjob and she finds it a bit icky, because if you think about it, just sitting across from our green cups of tea, it's pretty icky.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Well, it is if you're at um a low arousal state.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

So basically, once you're about 80% arousal, so again, remember, arousal is different than wanting. Desire is wanting. Arousal is your body, which is pretty excited. You can you would do a lot of things, basically. Like, I don't know, spit on me. Like, could you imagine? Like, you're just sitting at the breakfast table, oh babe, spit on me. You'd be just like, oh that's revolting. That's a great next minute. You're like, you've got saliva everywhere and like body products everywhere. So it's all about yeah, arousal. And I guess when I say blowjobs, I probably should clarify. I mean like everyone, oral sex. Oral sex, is that not yeah, not necessarily necessarily someone giving a guy a blowjob. No, no, I meant oral sex, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

So then if I do want to start introducing a bit of spice, perhaps coming home with another girl is a bridge too far for the one night, although maybe it isn't. I don't know, maybe I should ask him. But if you say I wanted to try a sex toy, we've never say we've never had sex toys before, but it's something that I want to try. How do you think is best to introduce that? Do I just pull it out when everyone's at 80%, or can I talk about it? What do you recommend? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

I love this website called Oh My God Yes, OMG Yes. So it's a website designed by women for women with research on local women have disguised, like who are discussing on how they bring themselves to orgasm through masturbation. They demonstrate it through videos, they talk about sex toys. Hands down, wonderful. Um, you can read, read it, you can watch it on a video, you can even go on your iPad and touch a woman's vulva and she'll tell you if you're doing the right thing, if it's good or not.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

It's really interactive. OMGS, yes. OMGS dot com. Yes.com.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, yeah, I think so. And it's on it's on Instagram as well. You you'll find it's just OMGS. So that's a good way for women to like just get some vocabulary around it. But I if you're going to, if you're feeling nervous about saying I want a new sex toy, or maybe you're coming earlier than I'm ready to finish, or I want to get into trying multiple orgasms instead of just the one, or I think my G spots like too like deep, right? I think I needed something that's a bit longer in me, or I need multiple stimulation. I would talk about it first, right? So over coffee or the best way to talk about things is when you hear something in the in society that has anything to do with sex, right? So if you can riff off something, okay, it feels really natural and it only has to be a couple of sentences. So say, well, I mean, if people used to listen to Kyle and Jackie, oh, it'll take about five seconds to have a sex conversation from that. But but there's a lot of like you'd be like, I'm listening to this podcast, or maybe even you see something on your Instagram or something like that, and you'd be like, oh, isn't this interesting? I just saw this on my Instagram or TikTok. Um, but the way to do it is just a short little statement, even if you can't riff off it, but would be like, hey, I was talking to my girlfriend, um, she got a new vibrator. I I'm gonna I'm gonna check it out, right? Just that's it, just drop it, put it in there, yeah. And then maybe later you'll be like, oh. He'll percolate on that. Yeah, oh, I had a look at that vibrator, it's pretty good. That's the end of the conversation. Okay. He could talk to you about it, or he could not talk to you about it, or your part like they could talk to you about it. Um, and then later on, you'd be like, I've been using it, it's really excellent. Yeah. And then later on, I think I'd like to bring it in. So often people, when they're talking about sex, they think they've got to just do this full sit-down. Yeah. And when you do that, it actually over often can overwhelm your partner. Yeah. Whatever opportunity your partner is. But just direct conversation would be great if people could do it. But a lot of people find that difficult because we've never talked about sex in this intimate way. Like girlfriends can talk about it because we're talking about someone else. Like, I'm having sex with someone else, and I'm gonna gossip about it or tell you my experience about it. But we're not going face to face in intimacy, going, This is what I like, I'd like you to do this, which activates maybe that feelings of not good enough or uh some inadequacies or insecurities. And so that is hard. And we basically have very little language on even to say how it was good. Was that good? Yeah, it was good, babe. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, it was good. I really love that. That was excellent. I felt really good, right? Do more of that. So we don't have a real big language to describe it. So then, yeah, doing this face-to-face, let's sit down and what would you think if we bought the white vibrator in? Like it's just where the hell did that come from, right? So, yeah, you just drop, just drop it into the conversation. And the more you drop, and that goes with conversations with kids about sex too, is yes, you're just dropping in a sentence, let's take it with you. Yeah, often too, when we're really um nervous about saying something about sex, say, say, say your partner, tarot kissar, or just touches you, like pinches your nipples too hard or something like that, and you just really want to tell them, you're gonna feel really kind of nervous about it, right? Because most people are sensitive, they don't want to hurt their partner's feelings. So when you're nervous about it and you sit down and then you say something really big, and then your partner is silent, and because you're expecting, like, sure, babe, I'll stop doing that. I didn't know that that happened. I'll touch you more softly or something. They might be like, Oh, fuck, have I have I been, has she been hating it all the entire life? Like, what else is she like not telling me about? Like they can get overwhelmed, and what you get is silence, and then you feel like you're out there in this vulnerability land, circling all by yourself, and you can feel like, oh, I'm being kind of uh left here and not uh my partner doesn't care enough to respond to me. Uh yeah, so often when you're talking, think about it like I expect nothing in return. I'm just starting, I'm just stating something so we can start a conversation. And then the other thing people do with sex is they talk, they approach it like it's a hit and run conversation. So it's like they should have one conversation and it should be said, and everybody should understand. Yep, and it should be resolved, and it'll be good from then on. Whereas sex, as I was saying before, it's like a revolution, it has to need it needs to change all the time. Uh, so the conversation doesn't have to be a big one, it can be little things, and that you you in your mind you think I don't expect them to re reply in the moment. I expect myself to be able to bring it up again to follow up, and it's my responsibility to do that. Yeah. So if you hold on to that with lim l limit little um expectation of this uh completely resolved issue, yeah, that's easier.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

It's amazing when you say it like that because you wouldn't expect anything else in your life to be resolved like that, really, would you? So, and I was just thinking as you were speaking of anything else physical. So if I'm at the gym and I'm trying to do an exercise, if somebody says to me, okay, you do it like this, and now from now on we're never going to speak about it again, and from now on it's gonna be perfect. It's ridiculous when you say it like that. Why do we think that having sex with unbelievably closed-minded of us?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Or yeah, well, uh I think it's uncomfortable, so we're trying to avoid discomfort. So it's hard, we have to keep on coming at into our own discomfort. I I like to think about awkwardness as your brain is growing. So if you think about your brain, all these little neuronal networks, things that are familiar as what you've been doing on repeat and it's the habit and like the habit. But to change behavior, you actually have to grow neuronal connections, right? It's like when you lift a weight, your muscles hurt, right? It has to, they have to kind of break up and then read like and then grow bigger. Grow stronger. Awkwardness is your brain growing. So I like to think about it like that. But a lot of people are like, oh, I shouldn't feel awkward if I'm talking to my partner about sex. What's wrong with me? Am I too shy? But no, why would you know how to talk about sex? We've never been taught told how to talk about sex.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Back to the sex toys.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I have heard that there are better ones. Well, not not better, because I guess it's all it's all individual, but for the perimenopausal menopausal vagina, you need to be perhaps a little bit more gentle or have something that is a bit different, or well, I think basically you need vaginal estrogen.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Oh yeah. So um that comes first, ladies. Well, I embarrassment. Embarrassment, 52-year-old sex therapist, thinking to myself, I've there's not I don't have genital uh symptoms of menopause. No, me, I I thought that as well. I have orgasms, like you know, uh Yeah, and I'm not incontinent, I don't have stress incontinence, I don't know. I'm not itchy, there's yeah, I'm like, there's nothing wrong down there, it's fine. Yeah, I'm there the same. I thought the same, George. And then I use it and I was like, oh my god, I've got genital symptoms of menopause. Me too. What's this nighttime wee? That's not normal. Yeah, completely gone away. Oh my god, my my vulva just responds so much better. Yep. Right. Oh wow, my orgasms are easier to achieve. Yeah, yeah, and uh that they feel better. So I I am completely guilty of saying I've got no symptoms. Me too. So I think I just this idea that you need to use a different uh toy during menopause is because you've got genital symptoms, right? So if you've got it, and while you're managing genital symptoms, so getting your general systemic estrogen up and your vaginal estrogen up, uh testosterone, as you know, if you think about that a lot. But while that's happening, some people, and if you've got pain during sex, you just keep it on the outside. Okay, use vibrators that maybe those air sucky, those new air sucky ones, they're just so amazing. I haven't, I haven't got one. Oh my god. Really? Revolutionary. Revolutionary. Yeah. And so this was part of my menopause symptoms. I was at I was at work one day and someone asked me, George, what's the what are the good vibrators? I was like, uh, you know, they're all the same. And I heard myself say it. I was like, what has what's happened to me? What's happened to you? Um, so um then I went onto hormone replacement therapy and I was like, oh yes, I do need to look at some of the new ones again. So the air, the air-sucking ones are really, really good. They do a vibrating kind of blowjob for the clitoris. They're like around they're really good because you don't have to be like pressing on the button. So the rabbits are really, some women like firm simulation around with the rabbit ears around their clitoris, but for a lot of people that's too much. So the air-sucking ones can you can just put them over the top of the clitoris and they just do a low vibration sucking feel. And there's some new ones that are also got just some people like the sensory tapping, like so, like a deep toop top, toop, top of different um intensities. Yeah. And also just having the right lubricant and the right material. So a lot of the cheaper uh vibrators, if you can smell, they smell funny like plastic, do not. Put them anywhere near you. Okay. Anything with like a sticky kind of surface is really bad. So high quality silicon and for products that tell you what materials they're made of. So if you can't find what material it is, it's going to be bad material.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

So women can have more sensitivity, uh, histamine responses and skin sensitivity when their hormones are depleting. Yep. And so you're wanting a good product there. Yeah. A lot of the water-based lubricants have alcohol in them. Yeah. They say don't use water-based lubricants with your silicon toy because it can make the silicon toy degenerate faster. But frankly, like you need to get new toys quite every couple of years anyway. They're not built forever. No. And I just never really found that. I've always liked silicon lube is a really excellent lube. And if you wash it toy afterwards and you don't have the silicon laying on there, it's not going to sit there and like fast with faster generation. Okay. Yeah. So good products, tapping ones, external ones. Yeah. But it depends. Like some people are very, you know, we've got that new research on all the nerves around the clitoris and the and the genitals for women. Thank, thank goodness.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

It's like it's about time. Yes, and how it extends all the way up.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah, amazing, right? So, but everybody's got slightly different nerve connections around there. Some people have got a lot more and and have a lot more enjoyment around the clitoris. Other people have a lot more just inside the vagina, like in the traditional G spot area, right? Like when you first go in. Other people they've got that right at the back of their vagina, the A spot they call it, right long back in the vagina. Yeah. And then other people have nerves that are attached to the um to their cervix as well. The vagus nerves goes all the way down into the cervix. So people are slightly different with where their nerves, generally the same, but slightly different. Yeah. So that depends whether you actually historically like something inside you or um not.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

And if I'm shy and I don't want to go into a shop, how do I know what is available without crashing my Google search?

SPEAKER_00 24:17

You know, like it's mostly about finding a reputable place that you uh trust, like a company that you trust, and then just going onto that site and then ordering them online because mostly people get them online. My favorite shop is uh Taboo Hub. Um, and I could give you a link for your listeners to have a discount on that.

SPEAKER_01 24:39

Oh, thank you. Yes, I'll put that in the show notes. That'd be great. And also I quite like Max Black in Newtown as well. Taboo Hub and Max Black in Newtown if you live in Sydney. Or I mean I imagine Max Black have got an online presence.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Yes, they do. So both of them have got good websites. So just having a look online, yeah. And I think also just say sucky ones, air blowy sucky ones. Yeah, and also just say, I'm just gonna get a few and try try them out, right? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we spend money on going out to dinner for sure and all kinds of things. Yeah, so sometimes people are like, I've got to get the right one. Oh, that didn't work. Oh well. Therefore, I don't like it. Yeah, so maybe think about it. Let's and let's do an experiment, see.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Three practical things people can try this week to improve their communication with their partners around their sex life.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Oh, okay. So communication uh involves knowing what you want first of all. So getting clear on what you want personally. So a lot of people know what they don't want. Yes. So that's a that's okay, okay place to start. But rather than working out that I I know what I'm coming to you with, I know what I don't want only, step back and go, well, if I had a magic wand, what would be different? What behavior would be different? How would I be different? And then looking, so then looking at what you want, and then like, how do I bring that about? So um sometimes people can be feel a bit powerless in sex. So they're worrying about upsetting their partner for raising it, they feel uncomfortable with themselves. Sometimes they don't know what they want either. Yeah, right. So like I don't I will never know, right? So if you can you just look at well, what outcome is it? So is it I want to feel happier? Uh do I want to have an orgasm? Do I just want to feel sexual again? Do I want to feel sexual again? Do I want my partner to stop pressuring me? Do I want to feel close to my partner? Yeah, is there an intimacy? Do I feel like I'm inhibited in some way? So that really is going to like what's the outcome? Look for that, is the most important thing. Because if you're just kind of going like I'm really unhappy, what you're waiting for is your partner to be like, oh, we can do these things. And they may be really great. They might have a suggestion for you, but they're they're just going to be guessing.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah. You can go to your partner and say, I'm not, I want to do things differently and I don't know how. Can you help me?

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Can you help me find out for me? Right? Because that's really what you're talking about with the person is trying to work out what's going to make my sex more enjoyable. Like, so that's very vulnerable, isn't it? It is, right? Because often we're like, well, I'm not really happy, but can you fix it for me? Right. Also, I don't know how I want you to fix it. Yeah. I don't know what I need to do. Or you're if you could stop doing this one thing, it would be fixed.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

But it doesn't really work like that because if we go back to desire and arousal, if you're at a zero and a zero, he could be doing something that's excellently, or they could be doing something that's excellent, but it's just not you're at mismatched.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Yes, I I love that idea actually that you spoke about before about being mismatched in terms of on the scale. And it is okay to be mismatched and to start with no desire, but to remember that you like it, you will get there and you like that. That's okay, right? You don't have to.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Oh, yeah. So that's receptive desire, which is if you if you're confident about your sexual pleasure, like I know that I can have an orgasm, it's not gonna hurt, for example. Um, you'll be able to say to yourself, I'm gonna have an orgasm out of this. It's a bit like going to the gym. Yeah. Yeah. I always feel better after I go to the gym, but I don't always want to go. Wanna go. Yeah. So if you know how to get yourself into a sexually aroused uh place once you can relax, then what you're needing from your partner is can you help me get into that relax? So sometimes people can't do a transition. So that might be the one thing is like learn for yourself what is a transition that allows you to move from daily activities, parent work role mode, um, caring mode into central mode. Yeah. So that can be a shower for somebody, it could be a bath, it could be a walk, it could be exercise, could be foot rub. Mine's definitely a foot rub. Um, with that idea of I'm gonna give myself that time. So if I if I think I'd like to have sex with my partner later on in the evening, but I am like uptight and I'm sitting here watching Netflix, I am not gonna be able to transition from a true crime story, yeah, antiques retro, yeah, or something that's even quietly, passively boring like that. That's a really big thing. So I need to work out what my transition role is. That's and the second thing might be like, yeah, what am I doing every day with my body that makes my body sing?

unknown 29:49

Right?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

It doesn't have to be dancing uh and excitable sing, but if I can put myself in the sun and my body feels good, yeah, I can do some stretches, moisturizer, I could moisturize, yeah. Um I could sing, I could listen to listen to a song, dance around the house, I could do some stretches, I could Yeah, wear a pretty thing. Yeah, so what but something not just the well getting dressed is a ritual that makes people feel good, that's true, but often movement is is a really good thing for transitions. Okay. Yeah, so if I'm sitting down at a desk all day and then I get in the car or the bus, and then I come home and then I'm making dinner, and then I sit on the lounge. How's my why would my body suddenly want to do this quite vigorous sexual thing, right? Yeah, yeah. It's we we wouldn't like No, you wouldn't. We warm up when we do exercise. Like you go to an exercise class, they don't say, here, here's 20 kilos type push. Of course. Like, let's do some five-minute warm-ups. So that think about it like that. I'm gonna get my body ready in a way that might something that my body really likes doing.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah. That's wonderful. Thank you. My final question to you is because you touched on it just briefly before, but talking with your children. We talked about how it's awkward, and and I don't mean I don't mean you're seven-year-old, I really mean your 15, 16, 20, 25 year old. Yeah. Without them thinking, Oh my god, she's talking to me about without them shutting down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

So because it's important, right? You can't control their feelings. You must be able to do it in a way. No, they're gonna have feelings. They're gonna have feelings, they're gonna be disgusted and they're gonna shut you down. Okay. And you've got to decide what you want to say, what's important for you to say, and say it and like just try and just little tap taps away. So sometimes people uh their kids will shut down, and so then they think, okay, the important thing to say is safety. Are you wearing condoms? Don't get pregnant, are you on contraception, don't get an SDI. So people find it easier for to kind of push that information through, but that's they're they're pretty well taught that at school now. Yeah. Yeah, we've moved a long way from historical conversations about sex in those kind of areas. So as a parent, you might think, well, what is it that I really want them to know? And my experience talking to my son is that if you sit down with too much information, and this is what they say in the research, and lots of sex educations as educators at school, they'll just they just get over, they get flooded and they shut down. So the same principle I was talking about as you approach your partner about sex toys, it would be with your children and using uh something from the media or something that's on the tell or something that you know you're in a song or something, yeah. That's they're talking about somebody else, and you're like, oh, here's my opportunity, just to put a couple of sentences in there. Yeah. I've always found like about I've got about two sentences, the third sentence is too far. Okay, that'll be like, yes, yes. All right, that's enough now.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, so just to know normalize it, normalize it as a as an adult conversation, and that's something that everybody does that's not shameful. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Yeah, yeah, you'll you'd be like, you're lucky your parents still want to have sex with each other. You're you're you know, it's just a beautiful thing. I'd like to share it with you. Sometimes kids, some kids are completely open about it. They're like, they go to their parents, they want to, how do you do this? What happens? So some people have relationships like that. Um, but a lot of kids are a bit squeamish. Yeah, yeah. Understanding. And also they there's this thing that they can be like, I already know. Yeah. But I think they're like that. That's defensive though, surely. But I think they're like that a lot about a lot of things. You know, it's really normal at the time that they're having sex, that they're individuating from parents. So they want to push back, they want to have their own ideas, they want it to be separate. At that time where you're like talking about these big identity uh and kind of hard topics like sex and relationships, uh, just the natural developmental stage is to be like, well, what would you know? What would you know?

unknown 34:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Like trying to teach them anything. Yeah, if you like, quite a lot, actually.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Been on the earth a little bit longer than you have. Yeah, when you're ready. Circle back. Yeah, but I think, yeah, drip, just drip it in. Drip it in. Drip it in. Drip it in. Yeah. And then, yeah, what are the core things that you want rather than a fear-based conversation, the core bits that you want. Or a serious lectures. No, lectures lectures don't work. Do not work. Because they don't listen, right? Because they'll be even if you just this is important, you've got, I've got to tell you. After about the third sentence, you could have someone's, you know, you could have your child sitting there, but they will not be taking it in. Yes. Yeah. So and then they're just enduring. Yes. Yeah, white knuckling helmets.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

To make you happy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

She's gonna talk at me for quite a while, actually.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

So we talked about, oh my god, OMG, yes. Taboo Hub. Yeah. We talked about the one in Newtown, I forgot. Oh, Max Blacks. Yeah, it's M A Triple X Blacks. Blacks as in B L A C K S. C K S. Yeah. That's wonderful. George, you are just a delightful person. Thank you for talking with me about this topic because it's really for something that is ever should be an everyday conversation. Well, not an everyday conversation, but should be, should be out there. We don't talk about it. Nearly enough. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Thank you for having me on the thanks for having me on. It's great. Yeah, enjoyed myself a lot. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

That was part two of my conversation with Georgina Wheeland, sex therapist from sexual psychology. And what I loved most about this whole discussion is that it gave people permission to stop thinking about sex as something that's either spontaneously amazing or fundamentally broken. Because long-term relationships evolve. Bodies evolve, stress evolves, hormones evolve, we evolve. And intimacy also needs to evolve or be renegotiated along with us. And I think for so many people, particularly in midlife, particularly when you're juggling work, children, aging parents, exhaustion, perimenopause, medication, body image, all the things. There can be enormous pressure to think sex should still happen exactly the way it did when you were 25. I also think this conversation was a really important reminder that there's no single normal when it comes to desire, frequency, fantasy, initiation, or intimacy. There are just humans, relationships, communication. And how validating is a frank and candid conversation about sex, hey? If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with someone you think might get something from it. A partner, a friend, your group chat, honestly, whoever. And if you haven't listened to part one yet, definitely go back and do that because the two episodes work really well together. I'll see you next time we get on the moans. Bye bye.