Episode S01E07: 

Rewrite Your Sex Script with Dr. Ian Kerner

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:08] ZK: Ian Kerner single-handedly taught hundreds of thousands of men how to pleasure a woman with their mouths. No, really. In his book, She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman, he presented an intricately detailed, step-by-step methodology for cunnilingus. He coined the term cliterate as a way to define men who were knowledgeable about and devoted to the role the clitoris plays in female sexual response. It’s no surprise that in the 18 years since it was first published, She Comes First has been translated into 12 languages. 

Ian is a licensed psychotherapist and nationally recognized sexuality counselor, who specializes in sex therapy, couples therapy, and working with individuals on a range of relational issues that often lead to distress. He approaches psychotherapy from an integrative perspective which seeks to explain human behavior by bringing together physiological, affective, cognitive, behavioral, neurobiological, and systemic approaches as they apply to the natural stages of human development and the wide range of human functioning. 

Ian endeavors to create an atmosphere of inquisitive reflection, along with a sense of safety and commitment to the therapist-patient bond. He’s the real deal. In talking about Ian’s most recent book, So Tell Me About the Last Time You Had Sex: Laying Bare and Learning to Repair Our Love Lives, noted therapist Doug Braun-Harvey says, “Does the sex between your ears or your sheets need a script update? You’ve come to the right place. Ian Kerner brings together up to the minute sexual science with the highly personal art form of sexual pleasure to give readers a masterclass in sexual scriptwriting, full of practical and knowledgeable ideas for rewriting your last forgettable sexual experiences into sexual narratives worth repeating and retelling.” Ian stopped by between his sessions today to talk about sex scripts, erotica, fantasy, safety, and the opportunity we each have to create a nourishing and connective sex life. 

[00:02:26] ANNOUNCER: You are listening to the Radical Intimacy Podcast with sex and intimacy coach, Zoë Kors. 

[INTERVIEW] 

[00:02:38] ZK: Dr. Ian Kerner, welcome to the podcast. 

[00:02:41] IK: Thanks, Zoë. Great to be talking with you. 

[00:02:43] ZK: Yeah. So you wrote a book recently called, So Tell Me About The Last Time You Had Sex. Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to write that book and what the title means? 

[00:02:57] IK: Sure, absolutely. I’ve been doing this work as a sex therapist for a long time. What I’ve noticed is, at least in my practice, that couples who come in for sex therapy have usually waited far too long. There’s a sense of urgency, there’s a sense of pain, there’s a real need for relief. I very much want to start to provide that sense of relief in the first session. I’ve kind of developed an approach. I kind of call it a sex in action approach that really allows me to get moving, and make suggestions, and really change the direction of a couple’s sex life right from the get-go. It really comes down to that question, “So tell me about the last time you had sex.” 

For example, a couple may come in complaining about desire discrepancy, or a couple may come in, or an individual may come in worried about his erectile unpredictability and how that’s affecting the relationship. Well then, once I’ve learned about the problem, I want to hear about a recent sexual event. I want to know when and where it happened, why it happened, what they did, how they got going, how they generated arousal, how they built that arousal, who had orgasms, who didn’t, what was the emotional experience of the sex. I want to – because basically, to me, there’s so much information in a single sexual event. As a couple is recounting what I call the sex script, I can usually come up with a kind of a preliminary idea of why the problem is occurring. Then I can give a homework assignment right at the end of the first session that gets them doing something that’s going to get them on the other side of the problem. It’s kind of like what a solutions-oriented kind of let’s get moving approach. 

[00:04:56] ZK: It’s very much what I do as a sex coach, right? To really have them taking action to have a different experience of sex. Can we talk a little bit about sex scripts? I love that idea, and I love that that offers your clients sort of a practical tool, some kind of agency in what’s happening in the bed, to rewrite your sex script. I can also imagine that some people are like, if I’m writing a sex script, shouldn’t sex be spontaneous? Shouldn’t we have a spontaneous? What is like, why are we writing a sex script? Is that something that – can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean by “script” and how you use that to help clients change what’s happening? 

[00:05:48] IK: Yes. First of all, it’s like I said, I’m looking at a single sexual event, and I want to know what happened. So to me, it’s very much like a movie script, or the script to a play that has a beginning, middle, and an end. I’ve sort of already told you some of the things that I’m looking at, to take a closer look at a sex script, you know. I really want to understand a couple’s desire framework, because so often with libido issues, it comes down to different couples being in a different desire framework. I want to know how they built arousal. So many couples, especially heterosexual couples, they rush to intercourse, and there are so many activities that are getting neglected. I want to know if a couple is really engaging their erotic imaginations and their minds, maybe that’s what’s making sex perhaps a little bit boring. Of course, I’m interested in orgasms. Not every sexual event has to have orgasms, but orgasms are great, and they’re very motivating for us to have more.  

I really am trying to get near experience, and I want a couple to create a sex script that really allows them to maximize pleasure. And couples come in when their sex scripts aren’t working. So yes, the idea of, “Shouldn’t sex be spontaneous?” No, it shouldn’t be, frankly. For some people, desire may be spontaneous, but for other people, they may really have to have a willingness to really engage. We lead very, very busy lives. We need to make space for sex. How is sex going to spontaneously emerge if we’re not living in a sexual environment and making space for sex? But in the end, what you asked about a sex script, doesn’t that sound rigid or scripted? Well, I kind of compare it to playing jazz. I’ve been taking piano lessons, actually, for the last two years and I picked jazz because I thought, “Oh, great. I’m just going to like improvise and it’s going to be easier.” What I learned obviously, very quickly is, “No, you need to actually know the song you’re playing, you need to know the rhythm, the tempo, you need to know the chords, the melody. You need to know the key signature, right? Then you have all of those elements in place, then you can start to improvise, right? 

A sex script is not about getting stuck in a rigid path, it’s about creating that place where ultimately you will be able to improvise and be spontaneous. 

[00:08:23] ZK: Right. I love that. I love that. The more structure you have. I mean, I know this is just from like my daily life. The more structure I have in my life, the more I’m able to find pockets of time to really relax. I schedule that into the structure. Create a context in which spontaneity can happen. You said something, Ian, that I really wanted to hear more about. You mentioned like the erotic mind, or if couples are using – I think what you’re talking about, maybe in your book, you talk about sheathing or psychogenic skins. I’m interested about the role of the mind in, I do a lot of mindfulness work with clients, you probably do too, where you get them out of their sort of thinking mind, and out of the anxiety and the sort of intrusive thoughts that can happen in sexual contexts. How do we use our minds for the good of a great sexual connection or experience? 

[00:09:31] IK: Yeah, I think a lot of couples come in either complaining that sex doesn’t work. Sometimes that’s literally the sequence of physical behaviors just aren’t the right behaviors or they’re mis-sequenced behaviors. Couples also come in complaining sometimes that sex or their sex scripts have become predictable and boring. I often will ask couples the question, well, what do you do to generate arousal with your minds? Very often, they don’t really know how to receive that question exactly. It is kind of a leading question. I’ll often go on to explain, well, we know for example that many women can fantasize their way to orgasms, and many women use just fantasy as a very powerful tool to get aroused. 

Men sometimes, when I’m working with guys, Zoë, who have erectile impairment, or erectile unpredictability, and I don’t know the extent to which it’s physically based or psychologically based. I’ll ask that person the next time they go home and they’re masturbating. Maybe they’re turning on some hot porn, or they’re having a fantasy to really keep their hands at their sides for a period of time. Most guys will say, “Yeah, I had a workable, usable erection within a few minutes.” That’s the power of psychological arousal to create a physical response. But too often, we are not engaging psychological arousal, or we’re not cultivating it together, we’re keeping it to ourselves. So many people tell me they fantasize during sex. Is something wrong with that? I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with it, but why aren’t you enjoying your erotic minds with each other. That can be so much more powerful as a shared connected experience. I will lead couples through a process of beginning to cultivate that sort of psychological material, which then I’d say, sheaths the sex script or skins the sex script. 

[00:11:40] ZK: Yeah. I love that, I had a lover once, now quite a few years ago, but I had a lover who – while we were having intercourse, he would whisper in my ear all these experiences he had had with a friend of his. Like he had a buddy, a friend, and they would go out and pick up women and then have sex with her together. He would like tell me that like blow by blow, I was going to say, no pun intended or pun intended what had happened in their experiences. That was so hot. It was really the first time anybody had really done that to me. It opened up a sort of world of shared fantasy in a way, and it doesn’t even need to be fantasy so much as like, I mean, what I would love to do to you, or what I’m doing to you, what it feels like to really talk through and communicate what’s happening. 

[00:12:39] IK: Well, what’s unique about what this partner did is, (a) together you had enough freedom where he felt the emotional safety to even talk and whisper in your ear. So many couples just don’t have that safety to go into a language with each other that’s raunchy and eroticizing and objectifying. So (a), he was willing to whisper in your ear, but then he was able to whisper about other partners, and it didn’t threaten you, it turned you on. Listen, in reality, you wouldn’t want him going and having sex with three other people, and then coming back and telling you about what he did that week. But logical arousal doesn’t have to be based in behavior. It’s based in talking and sharing. You were able to create a space where you weren’t threatened by that. I think that that’s very important when it comes to learning about your partner’s turn-ons, like not feeling threatened by them. 

[00:13:47] ZK: Yeah. I think too, like when you’re talking about and I want to ask you, turn this back to you, when you’re talking about safety in a relationship. People have all kinds of agreements and sort of structure their relationships in different ways. I have a client who – they have an open relationship, and that is one of the things that they use that kind of structure of their relationship to actually have experiences with other people, and come back and talk about it. It does fuel their – you know, she loves to hear about her husband’s experiences with other people. That works for them. It doesn’t work for everybody, but that is a possibility.  

If any listeners are poly or practicing ethical non-monogamy, there’s a world of possibility of how we use either real-life behavior or fantasy behavior. I also love roleplaying, like I will often have clients roleplay if they’re game and I love role-playing to sort of bring in another – to play with other identities and other sort of forms of expression that I wouldn’t necessarily do as Zoë. That sort of, I think falls into that category of sheathing. 

[00:15:06] IK: Definitely. When I’m referring to safety, I’m not necessarily referring to like agreements that couples may have around kinky behaviors. I guess I’m talking about also, just having the vulnerability to be able to talk about what turns you on, or to be able to tell a partner, “I like this and not that.” Sex requires a kind of vulnerability because we’re not really used to having those conversations and there can be a lot of shame around sex. Now, you also mentioned role-playing, which I put in the category of face-to-face psychological arousal, in which it’s like, “Hey! We’re two actors on a stage, and we can create a whole world. Like we can become and inhabit characters. We can play make-believe like we did when we were kids.” I love that kind of face-to-face arousal. I think that many couples need to be supported in getting there. I’ve often given couples an assignment like, “Hey! Go share your fantasies or go roleplay”. It was many years ago, and many couples would come back and they just wouldn’t do the homework.  

I realized it was sort of like throwing them a little bit in the intermediate or deep end of a pool without teaching them how to swim. I think that there’s also a lot to be said for what I would call just side-by-side experiences, taking in other people’s erotic imaginations and fantasies, reading erotic literature aloud together in bed listening to a really sexy erotica podcast, or we’re also going through a renaissance erotic video, which we also would call ethical porn. I don’t really love the term porn anymore, because it’s just so loaded with sort of just associations. But there’s so much great, amazing, just erotic media out there to take in. And we are such consumers of content these days on our phones, and with all of the streaming apps so let’s stream some eroticism directly into our sex scripts. 

[BREAK] 

[00:17:21] ZK: Curiosity, anticipation, discovery. These are the cornerstones of a passionate connection in bed. They’re also an intrinsic part of a new relationship. But whether you’ve been together for a week or a lifetime, the best way to heat things up is to stoke that fire day by day. Coral, the first sexual wellness app for everyone can teach you how to keep it sizzling. Coral is an easy-to-use, science-based, and trauma-informed app that keeps your relationship fresh and exciting. Full disclosure, I am Coral’s resident sex and intimacy coach, but that’s part of why I feel so confident about recommending it. 

To start, I highly recommend searching Coral’s vast library of games and guided exercises for new ways to give and receive pleasure. When it comes to your own and your partner’s sexuality, I promise, there is so much more to explore. Coral’s interactive space for couples, guided journeys, and fun central games provide you with a roadmap on your journey of discovery. You can use Coral on your own or invite your partner free. Download Coral from the App Store today to get started. Join the hundreds and thousands of people already maintaining fun, healthy, and deeply connected relationships with Coral. 

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES] 

[00:18:53] ZK: I find that people can be so creative in their non-sexual lives. Then when they get to their sex lives, they’re not creative, right? They don’t give themselves permission to explore and explore just in their heads. Do you find that with your clients, like you need to sort of open them up to the idea that they can explore all kinds of different things and it’s okay to do that? 

[00:19:19] IK: Yeah, I definitely do. I think though that people really haven’t exercised their erotic imagination. Sometimes a couple will come in and one partner will say, “I just want to know his fantasies. I mean, I just want to know what turns them on and the guy will say, “I don’t have fantasies. I like sex. I like sex with you.” That’s a statement that feels sort of like, well, a dead end. But all that’s really telling me is that, (a), this is a person who felt kind of confronted by that question, and it made them anxious and (b), they haven’t really worked their erotic muscles yet. It’s very interesting if I start to talk to that same guy about the porn he likes, or the porn he enjoys, and the variety of porn he enjoys. I could start to learn a lot about that guy’s preferences, or interests, and situations that are turn-ons. He may not even be thinking of that as a form of fantasy. Or he could say, come back to that question. “I just like having sex with you.” “Well, what do you like about the sex?” “Oh, I love the oral sex. I love how I feel like dominated by her or just like, I’m submissive or I’m totally being taken care of, or whatever it is.” Well, that’s actually a fantasy in that, and it’s all tied up in a behavior. It’s there to explore. People just haven’t learned how to explore it. 

[00:20:52] ZK: I’d love to talk a little bit about, I mean, you’ve touched on a lot of this, but I just want to really drive home the point that we’ve gone through in the last couple decades, this idea that it’s dehumanizing to objectify a partner. So a lot of people are unwilling to or feel that they shouldn’t fantasize because it’s taking their presence and attention away from the actual person that they’re engaging with, that they’re having sex with. You said something, you said, why not share these fantasies? Why not include each other in these fantasies? Is that sort of the difference between fantasy and objectification? I don’t want to be with a partner who is imagining that they’re with somebody else, doing something else with me. I mean, maybe I do. I mean, it doesn’t particularly bother me, depending on the relationship. But certainly, with my husband, now that I’m married and monogamous, and we are cultivating a sort of sex life together. Like, I would want to know that, if that’s what he was doing as a sort of exercise, or indulgence or experiment. 

[00:22:09] IK: Right. I mean, just on that word objectify. Again, like porn, it’s such a loaded word. Sometimes I talk about just eroticizing your partner or being able to see your partner differently during sex than you might see them in other parts of your life. So many of us are in these egalitarian relationships, and like we’re shopping together, and co-parenting together and co-managing together. We have a kind of like language for that, that doesn’t really suffice in terms of expressing that psychological arousal, that desire. 

At heart, what I hear from patients is more than even having great sex, they want to be desired, they want to really feel like they are the object of someone’s desire. Now, I’m certainly not saying that someone’s needs should be ignored, or someone should just be relegated to having porn-style sex. What I mean is getting that feeling of being the object of someone’s desire, which can be a very amazing, powerful feeling, especially when it’s mutually expressed. I think I’m really talking about our ability, in some ways to like sometimes like, look, sex can come out of an appetite, it can come from a desire to consume. Sometimes, like our partner is like a delicious meal that we want to eat. 

[00:23:42] ZK: I love that. I love that. People will hear me say, and I need to say it in the proper context. But I certainly can say it here like, I have said to my partners like, “Objectify me, do it. I want to be the hot thing you’re devouring.” Because I mean, look, it might be different if I’m in a relationship, like you said, where I don’t feel seen, or I don’t feel valued, or I don’t feel like my partner — But if I have those things in my non-sexual life, if I’m feeling like a real partner, and like I’m really loved and respected, then sex is like, how we do anything is how we do everything except in bed. There’s more freedom in bed. 

[00:24:29] IK: Totally. I mean, I think the big difference is, are we talking about objectifying sexually a partner as a form of eroticism and play? Like that’s one thing like. I certainly don’t want to be objectified, like on an interview, or like out on the street by somebody. That’s kind of disrespectful and kind of non-consensual. That’s a kind of abhorrent kind of objectification, to be wanting to be seen one way and to just be seen for your body or whatever. I think we have to also just distinguish between sort of consensual objectification and non-consensual objectification. 

[00:25:13] ZK: Well, I think that the other thing is, is that and the reason why – I mean, I do a whole lot of work with a population of people who are recovering from compulsive sexual behavior, and other which a lot of people call addiction. Their partners I work with, with couples who are trying to recover relationally from that. I see firsthand with clients, like a lot of the damage that pornography does, there’s also sort of a lack of education, pornography, largely, at least in this country, this country, meaning the United States is the de facto sex education, right?  

We learn about bodies, and we learn about anatomy and physiology through pornography. and there’s all kinds of damage that happens and misconception right. A lot of what I think the movement against objectification, and I’m using air quotes is that women who claim to feel that they are objectified in their relationships also feel like their physical needs aren’t being met. Like there’s very little – there’s a basic assumption about what feels good. I’m sure it’s true for men as well, or whatever your orientation or gender is, but this sort of like assumption that I’m going to do this for my pleasure, and therefore, like it’s going to be okay for you. Or it doesn’t even matter whether you’re feeling pleasure or not or you’re enjoying it. 

[00:26:45] IK: I think we come back to like sort of this idea of like our sex scripts, and our personal sex scripts, and how they exist in the context of cultural sex scripts, and how we’re getting our ideas about what sex is supposed to be and what sex is supposed to look like. A lot of partners, I hear this from a lot of women will say, “Yeah, I do feel objectified during sex or I do – in a negative way. Or I feel like I’m being treated like a doll, or a porn star because he’s just bringing me these porn star-style moves. That would be a form of dehumanization and objectification. To me the problem there is really a lack of communication. I mean, you’re not going to learn about sex, and somebody’s particular taste unless you’re talking to each other. And if you’re not talking to each other, you are going to default to general assumptions. I think you raise an interesting point, we could do a whole different podcast on the topic of porn, and how it affects younger people who are growing up, who don’t know how to orient themselves in a world of sexuality versus adults who have had some experience. But I definitely think porn has its problems and it has its pleasures. 

[00:28:00] ZK: Yeah. When you talk about ethical porn, and I know that you don’t love the term porn, but when we do sort of distinguish between mainstream porn and ethical porn, what are we talking about? What makes it ethical? 

[00:28:15] IK: Think about buying a cup of fair-trade coffee versus non-fair-trade. I think with the fair trade, the people who were involved in the whole supply chain were treated well and treated fairly, and their human rights were respected. I think when we talk about ethical porn, there’s a certain kind of fairness and a standard of fairness. That’s part of the whole process. But I think it’s also – ethical porn also, is generally something that you have to pay for. You don’t have to pay a lot for it. Sometimes it is less than that cup of fair-trade coffee. But in actually paying for the porn, you’re not only allowing people to treat each other fairly, you’re also allowing people to be remunerated for what they do, which means they get to be creative, and they get to be original, and they get to be unique and make the stuff that they want to make. I also find just the quality of ethical porn is much higher than the kind of porn that we find, like on PornHub, where it’s just all advertising based and they’re just using SEO algorithms to churn out the same clips over and over again. 

[00:29:27] ZK: That’s right. Consume porn ethically, and intentionally and do some research. I mean, we’re at a point in technology, and streaming and whatnot that it’s readily available. We have something called Google so you know, if you’re really interested in, in being responsible with porn use, there are plenty of resources to access that and to know what you’re doing and know what your [inaudible 00:29:52]. 

Ian, what do you want people to know about sex? I mean, the bottom line, like when you’re talking to the general public about what we’re getting wrong about sex or what opportunities for sex are we missing? Or what is something that everybody really could benefit from hearing? 

[00:30:12] IK: I mean, I think sex is such a unique experience when it’s working. On the one hand, I think about the words, “I love you,” right? Those are just three words, and they say something. But then when I think of actually making love with somebody, that having sex with somebody that you love, like you’re going to a place beyond words. I love that sex allows us relationally to go to a place beyond words. I love that it’s a place where we can also play again, and use our imaginations and feel alive again. I think that when you have a healthy sex life, it’s often a function of having a healthy life overall, because sex is so biopsychosocial, right? It can mean how we’re taking care of our bodies, how we’re taking care of our minds, how we’re taking care of each other in our relationships. 

I’ve been married for a long time, Zoë, over 20 years and I meet a lot of couples who have picked each other, but sex wasn’t the most important criteria or wasn’t even at the top of the list of criteria and they’re struggling. I can say for myself that sex is kind of a – it’s like a form of energy, and glue, like life can be so difficult, and so many challenges, and there’s so much to argue about enough conflict about and yet, the feedback loop of sex just creates such a resource of positivity for us to draw on as a couple. 

[00:31:49] ZK: I love that. I love that. In my upcoming book, I define emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, and what I call energetic intimacy. You’re speaking to that a little bit, where there’s beyond all of it. When you get in bed together, and you’re going to have a sexual experience with each other, there’s a connection there that is stoked, that is beyond how you’re feeling. Maybe it results in an emotional connection, or maybe emotions help to create the context for that connection. But there’s something that happens that is beyond the physical and beyond the emotional, it’s sort of an otherworldly undefinable connectedness. 

[00:32:35] IK: Hundred percent, yep. And everybody’s going to have different answers to that question. I just hope that everybody finds the answer that’s unique to them. 

[00:32:42] ZK: Yeah. What I hear over and over again is the importance of communication and being able to really communicate with yourself about what’s happening for you, what you want. Really know yourself, so then you can come together as partners and get to know each other. Right? 

[00:33:00] IK: Yeah. I mean, I can’t imagine any aspect of living in society, in life where we’re not communicating with people. It’s funny, because I always emphasize communication, and it’s not like that’s the only thing. It’s just so remarkable that people don’t communicate that we have to emphasize it because communication is the heart of being alive. 

[00:33:22] ZK: That’s right. And yet we’re taught. I mean, we’re conditioned to think that it’s not right to talk about sex. It’s something that we don’t talk about. Finances, sex, and death, don’t talk about it. And so, you know, it’s no surprise that we feel a lot of shame and resistance to going there. 

[00:33:43] IK: Yeah, I agree 100%. We got to work to get on the other side of the shame that we were just born into. 

[00:33:52] ZK: That’s right. Ian, you are always such a pleasure to talk to. I love chatting you up and I hope to have you back on the podcast at some point to talk about all kinds of other things. Ian, can I ask you, what’s next for you? Where can people find you? If people have heard this, heard you speak, and read your books, and they want to get in touch with you, maybe they want to work with you, maybe they want to sort of keep in touch with you, and keep track of you, where can they find you? 

[00:34:23] IK: Yeah, just my website, iankerner.com. It’s sort of like my hub. I recently gave a TED Talk, it’s up on the TED site. You can find me there. But if you want to interact with me in some way, it would have to be via my website. 

[00:34:40] ZK: Great. That’s wonderful. And your book, you can buy So Tell Me About The Last Time You Had Sex,everywhere you buy books. 

[00:34:48] IK: As long as they’re stocking it, yes. 

[00:34:51] ZK: Okay. Wonderful. Ian, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. 

[00:34:58] IK: You’re welcome, Zoë, and best of luck with the launch. 

[00:35:01] ZK: Thank you very much. 

[END OF INTERVIEW] 

[00:35:05] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Radical Intimacy Podcast. We are committed to facilitating courageous conversation about things that are hard to talk about. To support what we do, please subscribe, review and refer us to your friends. To connect with us directly, visit theradicalintimacypodcast.com. To learn more about Zoë, visit zoekors.com. You can buy Zoë’s book, Radical Intimacy: Cultivate the Deeply Connected Relationships You Desire and Deserve, wherever you buy books. You are worthy of love and belonging. You are enough. We see you. We got you. We love you. 

[END]