The Leading Sex Expert: How To Have Great Sex EVERY Time! (And Fix Bad Sex): Tracey Cox | E247

Steven Bartlett 0:00 You've written 17 books on the topic of sex. So, my first question, how do we have the best sex of our lives?

Tracey Cox 0:07 That's the question that everybody wants to know. The first thing is- (bell rings)

Steven Bartlett 0:10 Tracey Cox. The world's most celebrated sex expert. She's got the answers to the questions you've always wanted to know, and has the secret to a great sex life. (bell rings) There is a decline of sex, isn't there?

Tracey Cox 0:21 Yes. There's a sex recession. If you haven't had sex for a year with your partner, it is very unlikely you're gonna have sex again. (bell rings)

Steven Bartlett 0:28 Oh, really? Are you hopeful that we can turn that around?

Tracey Cox 0:31 Yes, absolutely. The key thing is- (record scratches)

Steven Bartlett 0:33 Women fake their orgasms.

Tracey Cox 0:35 We have known that women don't orgasm through penetrative sex since Kama Sutra, and yet most men will go, "Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've heard about that." Women aren't having very many orgasms during partner sex. They always fake them. The way to solve the whole orgasm thing is- (bell rings)

Steven Bartlett 0:49 How do we predict if someone's going to cheat on us?

Tracey Cox 0:51 Number one, being close doesn't actually protect you against infidelity. You'll become so close to your partner, they're your best friend, you just don't see them as a sexual partner anymore. If you understand how sex works, and if you can make sex good with your partner, affairs can be so preventable in so many different ways. Women get bored way quicker than men. Men don't get bored, because they get the orgasm as a reward. You need to give women interesting, erotic sex, and then they'll be interested. Otherwise, they're not gonna be interested.

Steven Bartlett 1:18 I've noticed a trend that amongst my friendship group, a startling amount of them are in sexless relationships.

Tracey Cox 1:25 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 1:25 What are some of the most important solutions?

Tracey Cox 1:27 If you wanna have great sex, you need... (bell rings) That's what you have to do if you want a good sex life.

Steven Bartlett 1:32 I think that's phenomenal advice. I have some breaking news. And th- no, this is an emergency. I've spent the last two years writing a book, and I've written 33 laws for business, marketing, and life that I derived from all of these conversations I've had here. I traveled the world to write this book. I interviewed some of the most incredible people. I did six months of en- extensive research on scientific studies and principles to corroborate everything that I wrote into these 33 laws. And ladies and gentlemen, that book, called The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws for Business, Marketing, and Life, is now available for pre-order, and there are 5,000, only 5,000, signed copies, and it's first come first serve. The link is in the bio right now, so if you want that book, honestly it's the best book I've ever written. It's the book I always should've written. It's the book I also wish someone had written for me when I was starting out in my career. I'm really proud of it. I'm really, really proud of it. Really, really proud of it. And I can't wait for all of you to get to read it. It's out in August. I couldn't be more excited about this, as you can probably tell. I don't know what to sa- to say other than the words I've said to emphasize my excitement, 'cause I think it's important and I think it's really valuable. Um, link in the description. (instrumental music plays)

Steven Bartlett 3:04 Tracey, I reached out to my team and I told my team that I wanted to have a conversation with the individual in the world that was best and most educated and most engaging on the subject matter of sex, because I've noticed a bunch of things in my personal life, in the lives of my friends and those around me, um, and I feel like people aren't having the right types of conversation about sex. I feel like we're avoiding it as a society, and I feel like sex is so intrinsically linked to performance and wellbeing and business, and all the things I usually talk about, so they found you, and that's why you're here. So, my first question is who are you and what do you do? What is your mission?

Tracey Cox 3:49 Right, I'm not a trained sex therapist, which is what everybody thinks I am. I'm a sex educator. Um, which is, which I think means that what I do is I look at all the research and look at all the- the sort of what's going on in the sex world in sort of an academic sense, and then I work out, okay, so that's all well and good, but what does this mean for you and I? Well, not necessarily you and I together, but people in the bedroom. So I bring it down to a sort of level that is more practical, that all my books are very much like, right, so here's what we now know about sex. Here's how this is gonna help you in bed. So I think my job is to sort of get the research and make it into something that, you know, the average person can understand and make it work for them. So I sort of, yeah, I'm a, I'm a sex educator is a better way to describe

Tracey Cox 4:39 me.

Steven Bartlett 4:40 You know, part of the reason I wanted to speak to you, as I said at the start of this conversation, is because I've noticed a trend. I've started to, like, (sniffs) smell it amongst my friendship group, where a startling amount of them are in sexless relationships.

Tracey Cox 4:53 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 4:53 And they're not, they're not... You know, your book here says Great Sex Starts at 50. M- my friends are, the friends I'm talking about are in their 30s.

Tracey Cox 5:00 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 5:00 And I- I, and there's lots of things here, there's lots of thoughts, and I wanna figure out which ones are true. So I- I'm- I'm gonna say a bunch of things which are inherently naive. I know they are. So the first one is, like, why aren't they having sex, um, more often, and- and is that a, is that a problem? Are their partners to blame because they seem to wanna have sex and their partners don't? Um, is it wrong? Are those relationships therefore broken, and should they break up with their partners because they're not having that much sex? Um, so we'll go into all of that, but let's start with this- this que- the point you raised about how lust and love are not necessarily great bedfellows. Um, how does one, if they're in that situation where they really love their partner, they're really, really close to their partner-

Tracey Cox 5:44 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 5:44 ... um, but they're feeling like the intimacy has run out the back door because of, you know, that sexual intimacy has run out the back door, how do we create that balance? You talk about something called otherness, which I thought was really compelling in- in your-

Tracey Cox 5:57 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 5:57 ... in your new book.

Tracey Cox 5:58 Yes. Such a, such a-... big question that is, because that's the question everybody wants to know, how do you keep desire going long term. Um, the otherness thing is all about... The close couples kind of become like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they don't do anything separately. But you- you need to have separateness from your partner. And this is why during COVID no one had sex at all. In the beginning it was like, "Fantastic, we can have sex at 11:00 in the morning," and then it was like, "Oh, we can have sex any time we want." How unappealing is that? You know, the more available something is, the less we want it. But the... You need to separate from your partner. You need to be... You know, have your own identity and your identity with your partner. And that's the otherness that I talk about, is seeing your partner in the real world and seeing them when you're not with them. Like so many couples only ever see each other at home in their house. They never see each other out. And if you go out... I remember once, very early on into the relationship with my husband, Miles, he was walking through a restaurant and I'd arrived first and he hadn't seen me. And I was... He was walking through the restaurant and I saw a couple of women look over at him and I was like, "Shit," you know, he's really attractive. Well, I knew that, but he's, you know... And if I don't, you know... He's, he's out there all the time, you know, like people are gonna be attracted to him. So it sort of makes you lift your game a bit. So you need that. Where if you see your partner at home and you, you know, "Hi," "hi," you only ever see them come through the front door, they become too safe. And I think when people say, "Oh, my partner would never cheat on me," I think, how rude is that to think that your partner's never gonna cheat on you no matter what you do to them, no matter how horrible you are? That's terrible. That's like saying your partner, you know, is just doormat that you can do whatever. I like to think that, you know, my partner's not gonna cheat on me, but, you know, that makes me think that if I pledge monogamy, I pledge that I'm going to sexually satisfy my partner. I think you have an obligation to do that. And I'm gonna keep myself looking good because love is, you know, kind but it's not blind. And I'm going to do all sorts of things. I think it's a real insult. If somebody... If Miles said to me, "I know you'd never cheat on me," I'd be like, "Huh."

Steven Bartlett 8:09 (laughs) .

Tracey Cox 8:09 I don't take that as a compliment. Would you?

Steven Bartlett 8:12 Um, I think it's important to know that your partner will go and leave you if you drop the ball-

Tracey Cox 8:21 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 8:21 ... in a variety of different ways. And I think that one of the interesting points you raised there is about like physical appearance or keeping yourself well or keeping yourself attractive. Do you think, and I've asked a few people this over time,

Steven Bartlett 8:31 do you think we have an obligation to stay in shape, attractive, whatever it might be for our partners?

Tracey Cox 8:38 Yes. Absolutely. I don't mean like you have to have facelifts or-

Steven Bartlett 8:42 Hmm.

Tracey Cox 8:43 ... you know, anything like that. But you, you should keep yourself as attractive as you can, each of you. And I think, you know... (sighs)

Steven Bartlett 8:50 That's not just a physical thing, I have to say.

Tracey Cox 8:52 No. No. It's an everything.

Steven Bartlett 8:52 It's a... It can be an intellectual thing.

Tracey Cox 8:53 Yes. Exactly.

Steven Bartlett 8:54 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 8:54 It's an intellectual thing as well. Because desire goes... And especially, you know, the, you know, grumpy old man, grumpy old woman thing. When people age, I think that they become very set in their ways and, you know, become quite... You know, you don't wanna be the bitter and twisted person. You could look like, you know, a Greek god, and if you're bitter and twisted, your partner (laughs) still not gonna want to sleep with you. So yes, I do think we owe it to each other to say... you know, to look as good as you can and to be as positive as you can. There is nothing less sexy than being with somebody who's miserable all the time, who's a negative person.

Steven Bartlett 9:28 It's so interesting that I f-... That some of the most attractive things I find in my partner are when I look over and see her doing her work and her thing.

Tracey Cox 9:39 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 9:39 So I actually... It's funny, I... She, she doesn't actually know this, but, uh, but last night I came home from work very, very late because I was... I was out, I did some talks at the... And I came home and I got in through the door and I... my partner was sat at the kitchen table, it was about 11:00 PM at night, designing her new studio on her laptop with her headphones on. And I just found that really... I took a photo.

Tracey Cox 9:59 (laughs) .

Steven Bartlett 10:00 And it's on my phone. And I took a photo because I'm like, I'm proud of her in one sense, but it was really lovely that when-

Tracey Cox 10:04 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:04 ... I walked through the door, it wasn't about me-

Tracey Cox 10:08 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:08 ... she was busy doing her own thing.

Tracey Cox 10:09 Absorbed in her own stuff. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 10:11 Yeah. And I kind of like walked past... And I could almost see how some people might find, find that threatening. I like, "W- hey babe," give her a kiss like on the... She kind of like (smacks lips) kisses me back but then goes back to the laptop.

Tracey Cox 10:19 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 10:19 I'm like, "This is nice." And I went, I went over and I sat on the sofa on my own and just watched Manchester United. But there was something really attractive about it.

Tracey Cox 10:25 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 10:26 You know?

Tracey Cox 10:26 Of course there is. I mean, watching somebody at work doing what they love is, is the moment when, yeah, that you're like, "Wow, this person's amazing." I mean, I would hate to be a person who, you know, the partner's at home waiting for you-

Steven Bartlett 10:39 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 10:39 ... and, "Where are you?" And it's all about, "So what have you done?" "Nothing much. How was your day?"

Steven Bartlett 10:43 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 10:43 That's not... It's not healthy for a relationship. That puts it too much on one person. If you want to have great sex, you need to have an interesting life. You need to be doing interesting things. You're not gonna be having great sex if you're boring and you do the same thing every single day because you just end up doing the same boring sex. You need stimulation all the time.

Steven Bartlett 11:03 And that routineness is the, the enemy of-

Tracey Cox 11:05 The killer.

Steven Bartlett 11:06 ... yeah.

Tracey Cox 11:06 The killer for women. The killer for women. Because women are the ones that find monogamy boring, not men. If you say to men, "Right, you could have the same sex, pretty much do the same thing every single time, three times a week for the rest of your life with this person," most men would go, "Yeah, all right. Sounds all right to me." If you said that to a woman, she would go, "You are kidding me." But this is what's happening. Women get bored way quicker than men and they do so because our orgasm is far more complicated than yours. I mean, intercourse is usually the main event for most couples' sex. Intercourse is like the, the big bit that everyone aims for, right? And that's great for men because intercourse very successfully stimulates the penis. You know, the penis wants to rub in and out of something, the vagina does a great job. Fabulous. For women, the clitoris is outside the vagina.... that some of it is inside and, you know. Because the clitoris isn't that little tip, by the way. It looks like a wishbone. Imagine a wishbone and the tip of the clitoris is at the top and then it goes down the sides of the legs, right? That's the clitoris. Amazing. 10, 10 centimeters long. So because the clitoris is in, on the outside of the vagina, intercourse doesn't cut it for most women. Only 80 per- no, 20% of women can climax through penetrative sex. 20%, right? That means 80% of women are not having their orgasms through intercourse. So if you're gonna serve up the same routine sex, and most couples have sex the same way over and over again every time they have sex, and that's your lot as a female, you having sex which doesn't give you an orgasm, you having sex which doesn't, isn't exciting, isn't erotic, isn't e- you know, in any way really interesting, women get bored. Men don't get bored because they get the orgasm as a reward. Women get bored because the sex is just not the right sex for them. So women's desire for sex goes down so much faster than men's does, so you need to give women interesting, erotic sex and then they'll be interested. But otherwise, they're not gonna be interested.

Steven Bartlett 13:10 There are 80% of women listening now that can relate.

Tracey Cox 13:13 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 13:15 So ... And it's funny 'cause I was speaking to a friend of mine. I told him that I was gonna have this conversation with you, and I said, "What would you like me to s- to say?" And they ... This was the question they had and it's linked to what you just said. They said-

Tracey Cox 13:26 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 13:26 ... "I'm in a relationship where my partner is having, um, the same sex over and over again. He's coming very quickly during sex and I don't know how to approach the conversation with him about, like, this isn't working for me, um, without, like, embarrassing him," or whatever it might be. What advice would you give to that person?

Tracey Cox 13:43 Gosh, talking about sex is just the thing. I mean, do you talk about sex with your-

Steven Bartlett 13:49 Yes.

Tracey Cox 13:49 ... girlfriend? How long have you been together?

Steven Bartlett 13:51 Four years now.

Tracey Cox 13:52 Oh, well done.

Steven Bartlett 13:52 We're just very open with things.

Tracey Cox 13:53 Yeah. Well done. That's really good, because most people talk a lot about sex in the beginning when it's all going well, like, "Aren't we amazing? Aw, isn't that great?"

Steven Bartlett 14:00 Mm.

Tracey Cox 14:01 All that sort of stuff. The minute there's problems, they tail off. And every sex problem can be solved if you talk about it. If you don't talk about sex, the tiniest sex problem can ruin your whole sex life. And the reason people don't talk about sex is that they worry, exactly what you just said, that they're gonna hurt their partner. That they're going to upset them. Well, you just be really tactful about it. And I always talk about the, the compliment sandwich. So say you wanna say she wants him to be what? Give her more foreplay, something like that?

Steven Bartlett 14:31 Yeah, just ... He's, he's c- He's, uh, reaching orgasm too quickly and then she's obviously not enjoying it because, uh, he's over and she's still not, you know-

Tracey Cox 14:40 Ooh.

Steven Bartlett 14:41 ... had her orgasm.

Tracey Cox 14:42 No. Well, the mantra for that is she comes first, always. The way to solve the whole orgasm thing in several ways, one of, one of the ways, is to have, you know ... Give her her orgasms through oral sex, fingers, a vibrator, and then you go onto intercourse which is when he gets his orgasm. So that's a very ... I mean, it's what a lot of, um, couples do, a lot of straight couples do. You'll notice actually when I talk about sex or I talk about straight couples, the reason why is that gay couples (laughs) have a lot better time of it, because they've got the same issues going on. So it sorta helps if you're gay, in lots of ways. Um, but I would say don't worry so much about, er- If you say to ... If she said to her partner, "Look, I really love our sex. I love our sex and I particularly like it when you do X, but you know when you used to do Y, give me more foreplay, give me oral sex, I really, really loved that. Can we do more of that?" So you're not saying actually you, you're l- not lasting long enough. And not lasting long enough is not gonna be an issue with most women because they don't have their orgasms through intercourse anyway. So I think that men need to calm down about that. They feel like they have to go on forever and ever and ever and it's like, well, if she's not gonna orgasm that way anyway, she's gonna feel like she has to, and then you get the faking it and all that sort of stuff comes into it. But talking about sex is such a huge issue for people. And the funny thing about talking about sex is that once you've done it once it's e- it's the first conversation especially ... You know, I deal with couples who haven't talked about sex for 30 years, and that first conversation is excruciating, you know. You're sort of like, "Oh my god, this is awful. I just want the, you know, Earth to moot, like open and get rid of me." But once you move past that, that initial awkwardness, which seriously lasts, like, three minutes, then all of a sudden it, this relief. The amount of couples who say, "Oh my god. Like, I can say actually I don't really like it when you do that. Can you do this?" And, like, you know, "Does it worry you that, you know, my erection isn't as hard as it was when I was young and ..." And you get reassurance and then they're falling over themselves. You will never, ever, ever regret trying to talk about sex with your partner. It is the number one thing you can do for your relationship. So she should think about what she wants, be very specific. Men particularly like ... They respond best to very specific instructions. So instead of saying, "Look, this sex isn't working for me because, you know, you, you're climaxing too fast and then all of a sudden it's over and I'm just left high and dry," if you say, "This is my idea of the perfect sex session. Can you just, like ... Let's just p- take turns, you know. We each have, we each design our own perfect sex session. You know, I ... Could you start with kissing? You could move on to kissing my neck. I really like it if you play with my breasts and then I love oral sex but could you do it for a bit longer?" Very specific. Mm.

Steven Bartlett 17:27 And people are like, "Well, that's like telling ... You know, saying you love ... 'Can you say you love me?' And then they say, 'I love you' back." But no, giving instruction in sex is really ... Most people are really grateful for it, and it might feel a bit awkward the session after that where he's thinking, "Oh my god, I'm just doing exactly what she says. Isn't this embarrassing?" And then all of a sudden you forget about it, and then the next session and the next session is, like, flowing and great.

Tracey Cox 17:50 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 17:50 Okay, so a couple of counterpoints here, just from personal experience. One of the things I've always been a bit conscious of, or no, one of the things that I think has irked me a little bit is-... a- and this goes back to what you said about lust, this kind of spontaneity and the- the, uh, the riskiness of it, is I don't want rules, you know? Like, I don't want-

Tracey Cox 18:09 Rules.

Steven Bartlett 18:10 I don't wanna be- I don't wanna be in- instructed during sex or- or- or- or even worse, "I don't like that. Do it like this. Oh, no." It kinda kills the, like ... I think m- sometimes you can become a little bit like a boy being told off by his mum. (laughs)

Tracey Cox 18:25 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 18:26 You know what I mean?

Tracey Cox 18:27 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:28 I- I ... And that can- then that can have an impact on one's erec- uh, erection, or erection and their- their, like, mindset. F- I think sometimes for guys, so much of sex is flowing, feeling like you can flow.

Tracey Cox 18:40 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 18:40 And sometimes ... If you get f- like, if you've got critical feedback during sex-

Tracey Cox 18:44 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:44 ... that's like a pressure stress which then the erection might not, you know, hold out.

Tracey Cox 18:50 Well, first of all, it's natural for an erection to come and go during any sex session, so that's not really important.

Steven Bartlett 18:57 Hm.

Tracey Cox 18:57 But maybe ... Yeah, criticism isn't great. Like, "Don't do it like that. Move over here." Or in a very barking, you know-

Steven Bartlett 19:02 Yeah, yeah.

Tracey Cox 19:02 ... Sergeant Major, you know, "Can you move to the left?" That's not so great. But if you- if you do it- I mean, often men do- it's- do- don't hit the spot, and they are doing it wrong. And so do you want women to just lie back and go, "Oh, good, he's not even remotely close to where he should be-"

Steven Bartlett 19:19 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 19:19 "... but I'm gonna pretend."

Steven Bartlett 19:21 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 19:21 Because that's what ... And this is why women don't give men instruction in bed, is because they know that a lot of men don't like it. A lot of men s- you know, it is- you know, it does disrupt the proceedings. But then it's very quickly back on track if you do it, you know, if you go and do what exactly she wants. Personally, I think sexual instruction, you can say, "Oh, just over to the left a bit," or, "That feels great there." And, you know, whenever you can give positive feedback rather than negative is great. So giving ... I'm sure you wouldn't mind if she says, "No, that's perfect. Stay there, stay there. Do it for longer."

Steven Bartlett 19:53 100%.

Tracey Cox 19:53 Yeah, exactly.

Steven Bartlett 19:53 The key thing is the positive framing.

Tracey Cox 19:54 Yeah, yeah, that's the key thing.

Steven Bartlett 19:56 Yeah, yeah.

Tracey Cox 19:56 The key thing is absolutely that. And then if- if maybe you've still haven't, um, haven't hit the spot, then afterwards you say, "Actually, um, you know, that didn't quite work. Can I just tell you where or what works for me?" And then demonstrate on your hand or something. That's-

Steven Bartlett 20:10 Mm.

Tracey Cox 20:10 ... always a really good way to do it. But yeah, the key is in the positive.

Steven Bartlett 20:13 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 20:13 No one's gonna respond to sex where somebody's going, "Oh, that's not right."

Steven Bartlett 20:17 Being told off.

Tracey Cox 20:17 "Why are you doing that for? That's terrible."

Steven Bartlett 20:19 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 20:19 You know, "Don't go there. That doesn't feel anything," you know.

Steven Bartlett 20:21 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 20:21 "No. That's terrible. That's awful."

Steven Bartlett 20:23 And those instructional sessions should happen when? Before sex, during sex, after sex?

Tracey Cox 20:28 Well, depends on the couple. A little bit ... I mean, you can use body language during sex. I don't know about before sex. I think maybe sometimes after sex when you're getting on really well and, you know, having a few drinks maybe, if you're a drinker, and relaxed and just talking generally, that's sort of the time to say, "By the way." You know, that ... I always think that's a good time, if you wanna try something new, to say, "Oh, by the way, god, my friend was talking about doing X. You know, what do you think about that?" I always think things like ... Conversations about sex that are positive and exciting and, you know, talking about trying new things should happen outside the bedroom, really. Um, but otherwise, yeah, you do have to have those instructional sessions, I'm

Tracey Cox 21:08 afraid.

Steven Bartlett 21:08 What if you wanna do something and your partner doesn't wanna do it?

Tracey Cox 21:11 Generally, a request for something new, a request for anything is just a request for variety. So say your partner says, "I wanna try having sex outside," and you really don't want to have sex outside, the correct answer to that is, "Look, that's really not my thing, but, you know, why don't we try X?" Most people, if they wanna try something new, if you give them s- you know, "I'm not open to that, but I am open to something else," then they'll be fine about it. But I mean, where you get into problems with somebody wanting to try something and the par- other partner not wanting to try is if it's something a bit fetish.

Steven Bartlett 21:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tracey Cox 21:47 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 21:47 Yeah, yeah.

Tracey Cox 21:47 And that's when you get ... Did you ever watch, um, Billions? You know, where they ... She- she had the fetish of, you know, of being whipped and wanting to be the submissive and- and he just let her go off and be satisfied by, um, a sex worker. That's one option, by the way, if your partner (laughs) has a fetish, is to just go, "Okay, I accept that you've got this fetish and it's not for me, so if you- if it's really so much part of your makeup that you can't live without it, then go off with a sex worker and satisfy it." That's the extreme version. But most of the time, I think ... Or you can meet halfway. Like say, um, say your partner ... Say you wanna have a threesome with two women. Well, then the meeting halfway might be that you have phone sex with a sex worker. Maybe you role-play it. Maybe you go to a lap dancing club and she gets a lap dance by someone. There i- there's always some kind of compromise in there where you can capture a sense of what the other person wants.

Steven Bartlett 22:38 Okay, so let's go back up to this- this- this initial question. My friends, they're in their 30s, they're-

Tracey Cox 22:43 Sexless.

Steven Bartlett 22:43 ... sexless relationships. They are increasingly frustrated about it, it seems.

Tracey Cox 22:48 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 22:49 Um, it's funny. I've got like ... You know, I've got this collection of f- my best friends, we're- we're very talkative and communicative around our sex lives and stuff. And I just noticed that in various ways, they're in situations where they're n- they don't feel like they're getting enough sex from their partner and they see it as a critical problem, which wou- which might result in them, for example, being, um ... cheating or, um, ending the relationship. Even in my own, um, sort of sexual experience, what got me really engaged with this subject matter was I was in a relationship where the po- my partner turned around to me one day after six months and said, like, "I don't like having sex." And as a young man-

Tracey Cox 23:27 With you-

Steven Bartlett 23:27 With me.

Tracey Cox 23:27 ... or just "I don't like having sex"?

Steven Bartlett 23:29 With me.

Tracey Cox 23:29 Oh. Great.

Steven Bartlett 23:30 And as he-

Tracey Cox 23:30 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 23:30 As ... Yeah. A- as a young man, I- I- I think with, you know, with an ego, I thought, "Well, what does that mean? That's super emasculating. Does that mean that I'm not hitting it right or, like-"

Tracey Cox 23:39 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 23:39 "... do I ... Maybe it's her proper-" You know, whatever. And so I went on that journey with-

Tracey Cox 23:43 What did she mean?

Steven Bartlett 23:44 So it's interesting because we separated.

Tracey Cox 23:46 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 23:46 My reaction was very, like ... And also, I turned to her and said, like, "Why?" And she said, uh, the next sentence was, "I'm not comfortable talking about that with you."

Tracey Cox 23:55 Oh.

Steven Bartlett 23:56 Yeah, so for me, that was like the door had closed.

Tracey Cox 23:57 Of course it do- 'cause where do you go with her?

Steven Bartlett 23:59 Yes, well exactly.

Tracey Cox 24:00 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:00 So I broke up with her.

Tracey Cox 24:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:01 And, um-... year passes. We both go to different places. We both kind of, you know, figure ourselves out a little bit. And on her journey, she really got to understand that at the heart of her relationship with sex was this fear that had derived from previous relationships where the partner was very forceful, you know, um, apparent cheating, all of those things that we-

Tracey Cox 24:20 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 24:20 ... kind of discussed earlier. So it wasn't that she necessarily didn't like having sex. There was a lot of psychological work to be done on-

Tracey Cox 24:27 Right.

Steven Bartlett 24:28 ... removing that fear of, like, abandonment. And really, if I made her feel safe-

Tracey Cox 24:33 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 24:33 ... really, really safe, then the sexual appetite would return. That's what happened.

Tracey Cox 24:38 Mm. Oh.

Steven Bartlett 24:40 So a year later, we get back together.

Tracey Cox 24:41 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:41 We end up having the best sex of our lives on an ongoing basis. Um, and it was because she was able to understand. I was f- okay, so f- first, she was able to understand what was really going on. I was able to, like, be patient enough to, like, listen and-

Tracey Cox 24:57 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 24:57 ... you know, go for weeks and weeks and months with not having sexual intimacy and just be there, which allowed her to feel safe.

Tracey Cox 25:04 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 25:04 And then beyond that, we were able to kind of, like, rebuild it and experiment.

Tracey Cox 25:07 Fantastic.

Steven Bartlett 25:08 And we're still together today.

Tracey Cox 25:10 Oh my God.

Steven Bartlett 25:10 Yes.

Tracey Cox 25:10 So this is your girlfriend?

Steven Bartlett 25:11 Yeah. (laughs)

Tracey Cox 25:12 Wow.

Steven Bartlett 25:12 I'll have to ask her for permission to say this, but I'll show her the clip and make sure she's-

Tracey Cox 25:15 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:15 ... comfortable with it.

Tracey Cox 25:15 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:16 But, um, but that's my current girlfriend.

Tracey Cox 25:17 But that's an extraordinary story.

Steven Bartlett 25:18 So we went from a point of, "I don't like having sex. I'm not having sex," in a really, really bad situation to the best situation I think one can imagine in that department.

Tracey Cox 25:27 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 25:28 Obviously, communication was at the heart of it.

Tracey Cox 25:30 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 25:30 Letting the ego down.

Tracey Cox 25:30 Of course, always, yep.

Steven Bartlett 25:31 And giving her space too, you know? And, and I give the credit to her 'cause she figured that out. But that's what got me really into the subject matter 'cause I've now got loads of friends that are in that situation.

Tracey Cox 25:39 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 25:40 What, you know?

Tracey Cox 25:40 What I would say to your friends is if your partner doesn't want to have sex with you, I wonder whether how good the sex is. Because a lot of women say no, I'm presuming these are straight couples, a lot of women say no to sex because the sex that's on offer is not that interesting to them. So for this, we need to talk about sex drives, spontaneous desire versus responsive desire. Have you heard of that?

Steven Bartlett 26:04 Yes.

Tracey Cox 26:04 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 26:05 From reading your book. (laughs)

Tracey Cox 26:05 Oh, right. (laughs) So spontaneous desire is two thirds of men have spontaneous desire, and it's the desire that everybody has at the beginning. And by the way, if you wanna know somebody's resting libido, you ca- you've gotta wait about a year. You have to wait about a year to find out what their real libido is because it's always so artificially inflated at the start, right? But so spontaneous desire, two thirds of men have this. It's, it's the, you know, want to, see, want it, see, you know, seek sex. Want sex, seek sex. They can go from people with spontaneous desire could be like scrolling through Instagram, somebody sexy walks past and it's like, wow, I'm instantly aroused for sex. They go from 0 to 100 very quickly. They seek out their mate, want sex, and they're off, right? Responsive desire means that you have no desire for sex or very little desire for sex until somebody is actually doing something to you sexually. So this is somebody who, you know, maybe is with their partner, their partner wants to have sex, they're not even slightly interested, but goes, "Okay, look, I'll give it a go." Then once start, things start happening if their partner is very good at stimulating them and they enjoy the stimulation, all of a sudden they're like, "Yeah, actually, yeah, I'm enjoying this."

Steven Bartlett 27:16 That's the warming up.

Tracey Cox 27:17 That's the warming up. Right now, 30% of women have responsive desire. The rest of them are a mix between spontaneous and responsive, most men. So you've got this situation where most men have spontaneous desire, most women are responsive. Most men are very happy to go straight to genital sex. They don't need warming up, the way their anatomy works. For women, foreplay isn't a, a luxury, it's a necessity. Because in order for sex to be comfortable, you need the vagina to tent. So it literally puffs up so that it can, you know, take a, a penis comfortably. So if you don't wait for that to happen and you go male style sex, go straight for penetration, she's not even off the starting blocks and suddenly you're penetrating, sex isn't great, and then it's all over. So for men you could have, like, not even thinking about sex to having finished within 10 minutes. For women, they need time to warm up because their sex drive is responsive. So they're almost like blinking it's over and they haven't even got to 5% desire. And this is the problem with couples. And that's, that's with, I'm talking about a very basic couple who probably don't talk about sex and who aren't terribly sexually savvy. So I think, 'cause I think people have an understanding, vague understanding, that women need more foreplay. I mean, that's been drummed into men, hasn't it? But I think that what women don't understand is that women think, you know, at the beginning it was great, it was all spontaneous, I, desire was there. You know, when you get into a long term relationship, desire doesn't tap you on the shoulder anymore. You have to create it. And women, I think, think because they, that spontaneous desire is gone and they don't feel like sex, it just doesn't come out of the blue unless they start having sex, they think, "Oh, that just must mean I don't want sex anymore. Wow, something's wrong with me. I don't want sex anymore." You do want sex, it's just that you've gotta be, h- have sexy things happening to you before you feel the desire for sex. And if people understood that, if women understood it better and stopped saying, "Oh, well, it's obviously means my sex drive's gone." No, it hasn't. It's there, you've just got to have great stimulation and great sex to get it back. And the other thing about women is that women, we have this thing about that women want tame and they want romance and stuff. That's not true. So much research now shows that women like erotic wild sex. I mean, they've done these experiments with women where they'll show them erotic videos and they'll wire up the genitals to measure genital response. So when you're aroused as a woman, blood flows to the genitals same as men and you lubricate. So they're watching all these videos, various sexy videos, and they have to say, you know, "Feel anything? Is this arousing you?" "No, because society says no, we're not supposed to be." And the genitals are like, "Are you kidding?"... thinking? This is fantastic." I'm absolutely, "Say yes to this, say yes to this." So the, the, you know, the- there's such a big difference between what we're taught and what we would like. So if your girlfriend's saying no to sex and you're in a long-term relationship, it's because you're not giving her interesting enough sex. Give her exciting erotic sex. Give her something like, "Actually, this is what we're gonna do." I mean, look at Fifty Shades of Grey. That got middle-aged women wanting sex, w- women who hadn't wanted sex for 20 years. I remember being on a holiday with my husband, and we started talking to this couple, and it was around the time when Fifty Shades came out. And she knew what I did and she said, um, she said, "God, I hadn't really had great sex with my partner, wasn't interested in sex, you know, for like 10 years." She said, "I read the book, I'm sitting there, 2:00 o'clock in the morning, I'm looking down at my partner and I'm thinking, 'I really just wanna wake him up and have sex with him.'" And she said, "And I've never..." And, and then she said, "And I read the books and suddenly I was back into this erotic sex with my husband that I'd just forgotten, I'd forgotten about." Like, you think of sex as like, "Oh, god, here we go. Kissing, a bit fumbling, you know," and then the routine sex. But give people something interesting. Like all your friends, give her really interesting scenarios. Take her somewhere sexy, push her out of her comfort zones. Don't give her romance, don't give her ... you know, give her sexy sex, and then they'll be interested.

Steven Bartlett 31:24 Hmm. (laughs) I'm try- I'm thinking of my friends like posing that-

Tracey Cox 31:29 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 31:29 ... and how uncomfortable they'd feel. (laughs)

Tracey Cox 31:31 Really?

Steven Bartlett 31:31 Like, "Babe, I wanna drive to the countryside and da-da-da-da-da," because you know when you've been with someone and you've become that kind of sibling thing that you described earlier-

Tracey Cox 31:39 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 31:40 ... they might almost look at you with a bit of-

Tracey Cox 31:42 Horror? (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 31:43 ... horror. Yeah.

Tracey Cox 31:44 Yeah, you wouldn't go straight from not talking about sex to like, "And we're gonna go to Lapdance a club-

Steven Bartlett 31:48 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 31:48 ... tonight" and no, you have the, you have to have the conversation. You have to bite the bullet and have the conversation, because the thing about sexless relationships, if you haven't had sex for a year with your partner, it is very unlikely you're gonna have sex again with your partner unless you confront it head-on. If you just think, "Yeah, this'll pass, this'll pass," it will never pass. You're not gonna suddenly go, "Oh my god, look at that. We haven't had sex for five years, let's go to bed now." No. It's got to the awkward, awkward, awkward stage. So I mean, 30% of couples who have been together for two years or more don't have sex. Two years. Not 10 years, two years. 30%. It is very easy to get out of the habit of sex, and once you're out of the habit of sex, the less often you do it, and then couples get into this thing where it's like, "God, we haven't had sex for ages, but you know what? Next weekend we'll have this marathon sex session and that'll make up for it all." And then the marathon sex session is like, "Well, god, how am I gonna find time for that?" Or, you know, "That's a bit daunting." And then of course you'd have to have sex for like six weeks to make up for the session, so it just becomes more and more insurmountable. So I always say to people, "Just have little bite-size bits of sex." You know, don't have ... Sex doesn't have to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Like, have a big snogging session, have a thing where he gives you oral, you don't do any- you know, give nothing back. Or you give him oral, or you know, you ... Just do something sensual together. You have a bath together. That counts as sex. You know, people think sex has to have intercourse in there. It doesn't. It's the least favorite bit for women. Take the intercourse out. Start doing little bite-size stuff to reconnect sexually.

Steven Bartlett 33:26 It's like a frog in a frying pan, that old analogy of how slowly-

Tracey Cox 33:29 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:29 ... that, you know, the frog doesn't realize it's being heated in a frying pan until it- the water's boiling and it's dead. Like, it happens very, very gradually in relationships-

Tracey Cox 33:35 Yes, it does.

Steven Bartlett 33:36 ... and then you get to a point where you go, "How the hell did we get here?"

Tracey Cox 33:38 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 33:39 And at that point-

Tracey Cox 33:40 You have to have the talk.

Steven Bartlett 33:41 ... the talk. This is interesting, 'cause one of my- my friends was- I was talking to them about it and I was saying like, "You've let it gradually stray so far and you're currently letting it- you're not addressing it. You need to stage a crisis."

Tracey Cox 33:52 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 33:53 That's kinda the way I framed it to him, which was like, "You need to say, 'Stop.'"

Tracey Cox 33:56 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 33:56 Like, "This relationship has to stop. We have to have a conversation now-

Tracey Cox 33:59 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 33:59 ... because I'm at a point now where I- I'm either gonna leave this relationship or I'm gonna end up cheating or something, so we-

Tracey Cox 34:04 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 34:04 ... need to fix this together." And it needs to feel important.

Tracey Cox 34:08 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 34:08 Or else it'll

Steven Bartlett 34:09 be allowed to simmer.

Tracey Cox 34:10 That's exactly right. And of course what lots of people do in that scenario is they just turn to porn.

Steven Bartlett 34:14 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 34:15 And they just satisfy themselves with porn, but that's not ideal, obviously.

Steven Bartlett 34:18 Why?

Tracey Cox 34:18 But you ... Well, because it's- it's pretty soulless sex, isn't it? Just watching porn and masturbating. And I think, you know, there's- it's really funny about porn actually, because I used to have a great relationship with porn. I used to say to people all the time, like, "Porn is your friend. Watch it with your partner. It's great for, you know, if you've got a high sex drive and your partner doesn't, it- it, you know, you can satisfy yourself, it- it keeps your imagination, you know, piqued. You, you know, can satisfy that sense of newness by watching porn." And now porn's moved into a really ugly stage with, you know, there's such a- a concentration on aggressive acts like spitting, choking. Choking is terrible. Um, slapping across the face. It's become very much like that, and young men are growing up to think that this is what a normal sex session is like, this is normal real-life sex. It is not. Porn is nothing like real-life sex. And then women look at it and go, "Gosh, right, okay, that's obviously what's expected of me, this is what I have to do." And it's- it's moving into a very nasty direction.

Steven Bartlett 35:19 They say unmet expectations equal unhappiness, so by setting expectations up here as like-

Tracey Cox 35:24 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 35:25 ... "We're gonna do this for an hour and I'm gonna tie you up and spit on you and choke you and you're gonna make this sound and you're gonna-

Tracey Cox 35:29 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 35:29 ... scream and you're gonna tell me I'm this and you're gonna say that I'm your fa- whatever-" (laughs)

Tracey Cox 35:33 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 35:33 "... perverse thing it might be," then for those unmet expectations equals unhappiness in the bedroom. You go, "Well, you know, I'm gonna-

Tracey Cox 35:39 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 35:39 ... have to go looking for something else," and-

Tracey Cox 35:40 Exactly, and that's what young men do, 'cause they think that's what sex can- gonna be about. It's not. So then they keep looking for the girls who will give them that, and then girls very quickly figure out, "Okay, if I wanna be liked, I have to do that." I've just done a- done a big thing on choking, and um, and I interviewed all these young girls and it was- it was horrifying. It was ... They- they'd been, I mean, between 58% of college students between the age of, you know, like ...... had all been choked. I think 30% of them had been asked. And I'm not talking about, you know, symbolic choking of just putting a hand on the throat, which even that freaks me out. But I'm talking about, you know, cutting off wind supply. There was one girl who told me, she was 21, she'd gone out with this guy, he seemed really nice. He started choking her. She said, "No." She passed out. She woke up next to this guy who was asleep. He then said to... And then she got herself out of there and was like, "Oh my god," you know, terrified. He texted her the next day and said, "Oh my god, babe, the sex was awesome. Let's meet up again." And she was, she was just like, "How could you possibly think that that was good?" And that worries me a lot. I think that, that... I mean, uh, sex, I think, is moving in a great way in lots of ways, particularly for young women, except for things like that. I think that is terrible. So, no, you don't want to be satisfying yourself with porn. But you have to have the conversation if sex is now out of your marriage. You cannot just let it go and be the elephant in the room because exactly what you said is gonna happen. You're gonna leave or you're gonna cheat. So you sit down with your partner and you say, "Listen, we really need to have a discussion about this. I love you desperately. Um, but I miss our sex. I really... We used to have lovely sex. I love having sex with you. You're really desirable. It's, it's, you know... And I... Can we talk about why this isn't happening anymore? Are you having the sort of, you know... Is it that the sex that we're having isn't doing it for you? What can I do to make you, you know, want to have sex more often with me? Because I would really love to have sex with you more often. Can we have a discussion about this?"

Steven Bartlett 37:40 Okay, I've got friends that have tried that.

Tracey Cox 37:42 And what happened?

Steven Bartlett 37:43 Um, the partner doesn't necessarily know. It's a si- similar situation to what I f- the one in... The situation I described that I was in where my partner turned around and said something, because th- they might not have the information themselves. They go, "Well, I just don't like having it."

Tracey Cox 37:55 Right.

Steven Bartlett 37:55 And they might not know that the, you know, the responsive s- sex language that you talked about.

Tracey Cox 37:59 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 37:59 And they might not know what's going on with-

Tracey Cox 38:01 Oh, I see. The partner might not know why she doesn't want to have sex.

Steven Bartlett 38:04 Why she does- why she or he doesn't like having sex.

Tracey Cox 38:06 Um, I think-

Steven Bartlett 38:07 And then you kind of hit a wall, don't you?

Tracey Cox 38:08 Well, that's when you educate yourself. That's when you give, read a few of my books-

Steven Bartlett 38:11 (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Tracey Cox 38:12 ... to give you a bit of education. But I mean, okay, so the partner who wants sex is generally more driven, so maybe they could sexually edu- educate themselves and say, "You know, I've been reading up about this. Perhaps it might be because of this. Can we try having sex this way?" But it's all about broaching the topic. And then, I mean, depending on the reaction, I mean, I know I've, you know, encouraged some people to have this talk, and then they've got an answer which is just startling. Well, they'll say, "I don't want to have sex anymore. I'm not interested in solving this." So that's it. So you just have to put up with it. And if that-

Steven Bartlett 38:45 That's what I... That's basically-

Tracey Cox 38:46 Well-

Steven Bartlett 38:47 ... what I got.

Tracey Cox 38:48 If somebody says that to you and they really... And you've tried on several occasions and you... I, I think that is grounds for walking out myself.

Steven Bartlett 38:55 And I did.

Tracey Cox 38:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 38:58 And a miracle seems to have occurred (laughs) .

Tracey Cox 39:00 Yes, because then people did some soul searching.

Steven Bartlett 39:02 Yeah, yeah. Separation.

Tracey Cox 39:02 Sometimes maybe you walk out and then the person thinks, "Well, gosh, actually, that's not very fair." Because monogamy is all about, you know, "I pledge to only have sex with one person." But if that person withdraws sex, then where are you left apart from having solo sex and, you know... Or you have an agreement. "Okay, well, if you won't have sex with me, then what are my options? My options are to satisfy myself, to cheat. Are you happy for me to seek the sex elsewhere?" And lots of, lots of times people will say, "Yeah, actually I am. I don't want to know about it. I don't want it to be in our friendship group. And we're gonna have to have rules about this." But, you know, some women are more than happy with, for that to happen. Or some men are more than happy for that to happen. It's not just a female thing here. Men go off sex as well.

Steven Bartlett 39:45 On this point of porn as well, there was... I read something recently about the shame that it's causing in, in people. Like, I, I... The... Rethink the study that I read, and I'm-

Tracey Cox 39:55 Yeah, I think I read that too.

Steven Bartlett 39:56 About 40% of men that use, um, that masturbate to porn report to feeling a sense of shame.

Tracey Cox 40:01 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 40:01 And then when we think about the sort of macro, where we are in sex as a society right now, there is a decline of sex, isn't there, going on?

Tracey Cox 40:09 Absolutely.

Steven Bartlett 40:09 Which is quite concerning.

Tracey Cox 40:10 Yeah, there is a, there's a sex res- recession, and that's very much because... I mean, basically, there wasn't a sex recession before social media, streaming, phones. It's all to do with that. We have too much to do. We basically just go off sex because we have other things to entertain us. You know, prior to that, 10:34 on a Saturday night, most couples were having sex. There was nothing else to do.

Steven Bartlett 40:33 Mm.

Tracey Cox 40:33 That was it. We just did two... You know, there's that going on, so we're too busy. We've got too many other things on our plate. That's the main problem with long-term couples. Then you have, like, I think less face-to-face communication, which may- which makes people quite nervous. If you haven't had sex before and you're dealing mainly with, you know, FaceTime calls, you know, video calls, which is what lots of young people are, when you're face to face, they get very nervous. They don't know anything about body language. They don't know how to connect. And sex becomes scary. In Japan, there's something like 30%, no higher, I think more like 45% of people get to the age of... In their 30s, and they're virgins. They've never even had a sexual encounter, and they just... And if you don't give your body sex, your body doesn't want sex. So they could quite happily go through life completely sexless. That's what's gonna end up happening with sex. We are becoming less and less and less. And, you know, the more we go into virtual worlds, the more... I mean, the amount of people who rely on porn for sex, who can't even be bothered going out and finding a partner because it's all too difficult. I mean, we're... It's becoming less and less about the intimacy and more and more about just the getting off part.

Steven Bartlett 41:44 We're now in an AI world as well.

Tracey Cox 41:45 Yes, terrifying. Terrifying.

Steven Bartlett 41:47 Which is very interesting-

Tracey Cox 41:48 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 41:48 ... because you're now... You know, we've heard about sex dolls and stuff like that over the years-

Tracey Cox 41:52 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 41:52 But a sex doll that can speak to you with such depth and reason and apparent emotional, uh, nuance and understanding is really, really scary.

Tracey Cox 42:03 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 42:03 You, you can think... I was thinking about (laughs) ... Thinking about this. Thinking about all the different ways that AI is gonna disrupt us as, like, a, uh, the social fabric of society. And one of the really clear ways that was... You can now have a sex doll in your house that speaks to you, that comforts you, that understands your problems, understands what you're going through and can give you unbelievable advice, will never shout at you, will never criticize you, and will please you in a, in a personalized way. It will learn how to please you.... you know-

Tracey Cox 42:30 Sounds great, doesn't it? (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 42:31 ... and fantastic. (laughs)

Tracey Cox 42:33 Let's just swap our partners for that purpose. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 42:34 Yeah. No, but that is... We're right there. We're on the-

Tracey Cox 42:36 I know.

Steven Bartlett 42:36 ... we're on the doorstep of that world, and-

Tracey Cox 42:38 And do you know what, though? Think about all the lonely people. Think about all the lonely people that can now have a companion. I think-

Steven Bartlett 42:45 But is it companionship?

Tracey Cox 42:46 Think about it like that.

Steven Bartlett 42:46 Is it real connection?

Tracey Cox 42:47 Yes, of course it is. If you're somebody who can't find a companion in real life or you're lonely, I mean, it's better than a dog, isn't it? I mean, it's... I- I- I mean, I think that's got some really nice applications to it, but it's also got some dire applications to it because then, you know, it ultimately we'll end up with a- with n- no population, won't we? 'Cause no one will be having sex-

Steven Bartlett 43:06 That's what I'm saying.

Tracey Cox 43:06 ... with a real person. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:07 So I thi- I think you think... You- you can see the short-term, "Oh, well, you know, Dave's gonna be sl- slightly more less lonely potentially."

Tracey Cox 43:14 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:14 Right? But-

Tracey Cox 43:16 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 43:17 ... if we, if we go up that exponential curve of improvement, we get to a point where this thing is walking, it's talking, it is making y- making your breakfast, your dinner, your whatever, then it's satisfying you on demand-

Tracey Cox 43:28 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:28 ... and then you look over at a human and you go, "Ugh." You know?

Tracey Cox 43:31 They're gonna be more interesting than humans though, aren't they?

Steven Bartlett 43:34 That's what I'm saying. They're gonna be-

Tracey Cox 43:35 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:35 ... more interesting. They're gonna be better in every way, you know. Well, not every way, but-

Tracey Cox 43:37 No, I think humans will be more interesting, surely.

Steven Bartlett 43:40 Y- you think?

Tracey Cox 43:40 Do you want, like, somebody like... It's like a yes person. I don't want a yes person in my life. I want somebody who's gonna challenge me.

Steven Bartlett 43:45 But do people think they do?

Tracey Cox 43:46 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:47 People- I think people will choose the short-term-

Tracey Cox 43:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:51 ... without thinking about the long-term of, like, connection and-

Tracey Cox 43:53 Mm. Mm.

Steven Bartlett 43:53 ... companionship over time and challenge and difficulty solving problems-

Tracey Cox 43:57 Yeah. Challenge, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:57 And you'd r- You know, I think the average person, if they could be faced with a- with... If they were to draw their perfect partner-

Tracey Cox 44:02 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 44:02 ... they wouldn't say, "I want difficulty-

Tracey Cox 44:05 No. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 44:06 "... and challenge and sometimes to walk out-

Tracey Cox 44:08 No. No.

Steven Bartlett 44:08 "... arguments and to be interrupted when the football's on."

Tracey Cox 44:11 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're not gonna put that in there.

Steven Bartlett 44:13 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 44:13 But then I think surely over time... I don't know. I- I do worry about AI with humans, and I don't share... You know, like some people present the argument like, "Well, it would be free to do all these amazing esoteric things." We won't. We'll just sit there and look at social media and get fat and drink and sit in our rooms watching porn. That's what we'll do.

Steven Bartlett 44:29 Yeah, 'cause we choose the, like, short-term dopamine hit-

Tracey Cox 44:31 Hm. Exactly.

Steven Bartlett 44:31 ... over the long term.

Tracey Cox 44:32 Yeah. Instant gratification.

Steven Bartlett 44:33 Gosh, that is scary. That's gonna be a huge industry.

Tracey Cox 44:36 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 44:36 I mean, it already is a big industry-

Tracey Cox 44:38 It already is. Yeah. Sex dolls.

Steven Bartlett 44:38 ... but- but these- these living AI sex dolls will be a- a huge industry.

Tracey Cox 44:43 Mm. I don't think they've quite perfected the robot bit though, have they?

Steven Bartlett 44:45 Um, so there's a couple of things happening in- in tandem. I mean, Elon Musk is- is- is working on his own, um, robots at- at Tesla. We have Boston Robotics, I believe they're called-

Tracey Cox 44:54 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 44:54 ... who have been working on robots for a long time. But, um, it's gonna move very quickly as- as all- all exponential curves do. So now we've got the kind of machine learning modeling, um, ML- MLM AGI, they call it, artificial general intelligence stuff moving quickly. The robotics side I think is gonna gain pace-

Tracey Cox 45:12 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 45:12 ... because now there's a greater demand. But it's really, really... It's one of the things I, um... Did you see that film Blade back in the day?

Tracey Cox 45:18 No.

Steven Bartlett 45:19 There's a film called Blade.

Tracey Cox 45:19 I saw Lars and the real do- real girl. Do you remember that? That was about a guy who had a sex doll-

Steven Bartlett 45:23 Oh, really?

Tracey Cox 45:23 ... and the whole village, um, sort of accepted it. And then when he didn't need her, he got a real person at the end. But no, I didn't see Blade.

Steven Bartlett 45:30 I- uh, just there's a scene in this film called Blade where he puts on a headset and it's set... I mean, it was 20 years ago, but it was set in the fu-

Tracey Cox 45:36 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 45:36 ... in the future. Puts the headset on, and this headset, you know, is exactly that. It's an AI that basically gets him off-

Tracey Cox 45:42 Hm.

Steven Bartlett 45:42 ... and he has the time of his life. And actually they sit, his co- his partner sits opposite him and they both put the headset on and they-

Tracey Cox 45:48 Yeah, I actually- I do- think I did see that.

Steven Bartlett 45:50 Gosh, it's-

Tracey Cox 45:51 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 45:51 ... it's a scary world.

Tracey Cox 45:51 But that's what we'll be doing. We will be doing that.

Steven Bartlett 45:55 I mean, we're kind of going that way already with porn and y- we talked about this sort of macro decline in sex.

Tracey Cox 45:59 (clears throat)

Steven Bartlett 46:00 Are you hopeful that we can turn that around?

Tracey Cox 46:04 Um, yes, and I-

Steven Bartlett 46:06 Really?

Tracey Cox 46:06 ... have great help- hope with the young generation of women. I think this is the first generation of women who really have probably the least sexual hangups that we've ever had. And (clears throat) I think that... I mean, young women are much more adventurous than young men. It's sort of going in a weird direction, I think, that way. And all the young women that I'm in contact with, I'm talking about young women in their 20s, early 30s, we know that young women are more bi-curious than men. We know that young women are more interested in threesomes with two women than men are. We know that young women are more interested in going to a sex club than men are. We know that young women are more interested in polyamory and they- they don't want several love relationships. They want the lovely relationship and then they want to be able to have sex with men on the side. It's not men thinking like this. This is women thinking like this. And I think that it's gonna make for more interesting relationships. And because the whole... Women are overturning everything. Like, the motivation for affairs now has completely reversed. So men used to have affairs for sex. Now most men, if they're in a good relationship, will satisfy that with porn, right? Most men. Um, now men have affairs for love and affection. Women have affairs... They used to have affairs for love that they weren't getting from their partner. Now they have affairs for erotic sex, sex where they're not looking after their partner. They can be selfish. They don't have to care about whether they hurt his feelings or say, "Don't do it that way." They're not gonna care about whether Steven doesn't like it if he's being instructed, it's like, "Do that. Do this." They want that sort of sex, right? And that's why they're having affairs. So I feel like my hope is that women are gonna take the charge and go forward and we are gonna end up with sex that's more interesting, sex that's less doing everything to please a man, more equal. You know, "This is what I need. This is what I want. This is what you need. This is what you want." Let's work out the best way to do that together. Not where... You know, because so many women still now, that's the thing that does- does disappoint me, is still have sex to please men, still pretend to have orgasms during penetrative sex because society's brainwashed. We have known that women don't orgasm basically through penetrative sex since Kama Sutra, which was written in the third to fifth century. And yet most men will go, "Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've heard about that."... I've read about them. It hasn't happened to me, I've just been really lucky.

Steven Bartlett 48:38 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 48:39 All my girlfriends, you know. I mean, it's just like they're faking. They're faking because the girl before faked, and now they feel like they have to fake, and, you know, every depiction of sex is that, you know, everybody has this mutual orgasm, simultaneous orgasm together, and that's just how sex is. Well, it's not like that. It's, uh, it's totally not like that at all.

Steven Bartlett 49:00 Speaking

Steven Bartlett 49:01 of young women, in, in your book Great Sex Starts at 50-

Tracey Cox 49:03 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 49:03 ... one of the things you talk about is the issue of sort of sexual confidence and sexual self-esteem.

Tracey Cox 49:09 (clears throat)

Steven Bartlett 49:09 Um, you talk about that in the opening chapter of the book. And I found it really compelling, r- re- really interesting that women view themselves differently when they look in the mirror, which c- has a libido impact.

Tracey Cox 49:25 Body image is terrible. They've just done a study which looked at two decade- 20 years of studies, so they did a study on all the studies on body image, and it turns out that it impacts every single area of sex, regularity of sex, enjoyment of sex, arousal, desire, orgasm. And it makes sense that if you don't like your body, you're not gonna want anyone to look at it or touch it. It is the biggest problem with women today and their sex lives is that often, you know, this is the other thing with your friends, you know, have they just had babies? Has their body changed? You know, are they not feeling so desirable? You know, desire, I think feeling desired by your partner is much more important to women than, you know, anything else. If your partner looks at you and they're, you know, like, "God, you're so hot. You're so sexy," that is the biggest turn-on of all. And if you're feeling not great about yourself and your mindset is so much down on yourself that you think, "I don't even... How could he possibly look at me and think that I'm attractive?" then you'll never feel that... Y- your partner could fancy you to death, but you're never gonna feel it because your brain's just gone, "Nope, I am not sexually attractive anymore." So, that is a real problem. It's a real problem. And do you know what the solution is for that? It's not to go off and get a facelift, or get your hair done, or lose weight, or go the gym more. Though, actually going to the gym more is one. Exercise is really good for your sex drive and for your self-esteem. But the other thing is that cures body image is, um, is actually to have sex more. If you have sex more often and your partner enjoys it, your brain goes on a subconscious level, "Well, you know what? It can't be that bad because he's having sex with me or she's having sex with me, whoever's having sex with you, they're enjoying it." And so you, it start, your brain starts to make sense of it all and go, "Okay, right. You know, this is... I'm obviously not as undesirable as I think." And it starts to sort of become better and more able to be dealt with. So, the more you have sex, the better, because it gives you confidence. And sexually confident women, women who think they're good in bed, so increase your skills as well. If you're worried that you're not a great lover, read up on it, buy some of the books, go online, look up technique. You know, 'cause technique is very important. And the better lover you think you are, the less you worry about what you look like in bed. We all know that. Sexually confident women win all the time. And sexually confident women put on weight the same way other people do as they get on in life, et cetera, et cetera. You know, their bodies are different after pregnancy, but they don't focus on that. They're like, "Hey, I'm a brilliant lover. Who cares?" You know, he's not looking at that. He's just thinking how fantastic I am. So, it's more about increase your confidence as a lover, exercise more, and, I mean, than the obvious, take yourself off social media, stop comparing yourself to other people, all that sort of stuff. But it's, it's difficult. It's very difficult. And I think men suffer from this as well.

Steven Bartlett 52:16 That's so un- unbelievably true, especially, um, especially the part that it also relates to men, because I've got multiple accounts from female friends of mine that are in a heterosexual relationship that have told me their partner won't have sex with them with his top off or with the lights on. Um, and also the point there about how you solve that body confidence issue, that confidence comes from the evidence you get from doing the thing.

Tracey Cox 52:41 Yeah. And also, if you are worried about your body, when you're having sex, close your eyes. Like, close your eyes and think about what you're feeling. It's about what, what you're feeling, not, like, how you're looking, because if it's stressing you out and you're looking and thinking, "Oh, my God. He's looking at my thighs. He's looking at this," just close your eyes and go into yourself. Or become more active. That's the other way to overcome body issues is if you're really active in bed, and you're, like, looking at your partner, and you're talking dirty, and you're making lots of eye contact that way, anything to sort of take yourself out of yourself is good. You either go into yourself and focus on what you're feeling rather than what you're looking like, or you sort of become way more active. That also works.

Steven Bartlett 53:20 Three things that boost sexual self-esteem easily in your book. Initiate sex to feel more powerful.

Tracey Cox 53:26 Yes, absolutely. Initiation is such a big thing on so many levels. And if you don't ever initiate sex with your partner, you're essentially saying, "I don't actually enjoy having sex with you. I'm only having sex with you because you've asked me to have sex with you." And people argue about that. It's like, "Well, his sex drive's way bigger or, you know, higher, and lots of stuff." It doesn't matter. You really need to have a thing where, you know, if, if your partner's got a much bigger sex drive than you, you need to say to them, "Look, okay, it's really sexy being the person who's the sexy one in the relationship. That's why... You know, it's great. It's nice to be that person, but I wanna be the sexy one in the relationship. So, hold off on initiating for a while and give me a chance to initiate, so that I can feel more powerful." And it's, it's such a great dynamic that, that power dynamic in, in, you know, relationships is really important that you have to be sometimes the dominant person, you have to be the submissive person. And if you swap around, it makes for a much more interesting sex life. But if you don't initiate sex, I mean, it's a real cop-out to never initiate sex. I really do think so. And when women do it who don't often initiate sex, what often happens is that they'll be so subtle.... that the man misses the point completely. It's like, "Well, I gave him this really sexy kiss," and it was like, "Yeah? And?"

Steven Bartlett 54:42 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 54:42 "Yeah, anything else?"

Steven Bartlett 54:43 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 54:43 "Anything else that went with that? And, and he didn't even, you know, and now I'm not gonna do that again." It's like, oh for God's sake, just be really obvious about it. Be really obvious about it. And going back to initiation, just be aware that how you initiate sex will influence whether or not your partner says yes. So, if you initiate sex the wrong way, your partner might say no to sex because you've just approached it all the wrong way. Whereas if you approach your partner that you know has got a responsive sex drive by talking, cuddling, connecting, whatever she wants, could be, you know, she might want you to re- um, initiate it, sex like that. But, you know, and getting her in the mood the way she wants to be in the mood, not the way you would like her to get in the mood, but the way she wants to be in the mood, she'll probably say yes to sex. So, a lot of people saying no to sex isn't that they don't want sex, they're just being approached the wrong way and they're not being warmed up the right way. So, if you can solve those two basic things, it can s- change everything.

Steven Bartlett 55:47 It feels like there's something really fu- fundamental here, that we c- we assume sex will take care of itself.

Tracey Cox 55:51 It never... Oh, my God. Writing all those sex books, when I go to a dinner party, people either wanna sit next to me or they go as far away from me as they possibly can because they're terrified. And s- the people who say to me, "Oh, God, well, I don't need a sex book," I'm like, "Yes, you do. You're the person that needs a sex book." I've written 17 of them and I'm still learning about sex. There is so much to learn about sex. How can you think you possibly know everything about sex without ever educating yourself?

Steven Bartlett 56:19 And it's changing.

Tracey Cox 56:20 Of course it is. But people who think that they're born great lovers, they don't, you know... I think the female response system is complicated. Who knew what a clitoris was back in the day, you know? Like, they're difficult to stimu- well, actually, they're not that difficult. You just give her the vibrator and then they're fine. But, um, you know, it's not easy being a great lover. And can I just say one more thing about orgasms, is we worry too much about orgasms and how we get them. There is no right way to have an orgasm 'cause everyone thinks the right way to have an orgasm is during intercourse with your partner, and preferably them climaxing at the same time. Simultaneous orgasms hardly ever happen, for a start. They're always faked. So, the easiest way to give a woman an orgasm, I mean, great women are, can be very easily orgasmic if you use the right finger technique, if you give her the right oral sex technique, but the thing that is most expert at stimulating the clitoris is vibration. Most women can have an orgasm within three minutes with a vibrator. So, we have this big orgasm gap problem where men are having lots of orgasms during partner sex, women aren't having very many orgasms during partner sex because they don't understand each other very well, because sometimes people just, just can't relax with another person there, right? So, the solution is to put your hand in the bedside drawer and bring out a vibrator, and she would have an orgasm every single time the same way you have an orgasm every single time. Why don't we all just do this? It's the easiest solution in the world, but we don't. Young men are better at it. They'll often say, or you know, and she'll say... If women are honest and they'll say, "Look, you know, that was fantastic but I kinda missed the moment a bit," which you can as a woman. "Can I just use my vibrator or can you use the vibrator on me?" Sorted. But we have this, like, that's a cheating orgasm, that one.

Steven Bartlett 58:05 Yeah, or that it takes something away from what sex is supposed to be.

Tracey Cox 58:09 The couple-ness, or... Yes.

Steven Bartlett 58:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tracey Cox 58:10 But it's a solution. I'm not saying have all your orgasms like that, but just maybe now and then have the vibrator in the bed, and why is it inferior if you can have all that intimacy, if you've had the oral sex, you've had the intercourse, you've thoroughly enjoyed it but it just hasn't given you that tip-over?

Steven Bartlett 58:27 Mm-hmm. And what I mean by y- that question about this fundamental belief that kinda sex is supposed to take care of itself, and I think that's why we don't talk about it enough, we don't research about it enough, we don't, um, try put, invest in making it new and exciting and different and all the things you've said-

Tracey Cox 58:43 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 58:43 ... is because we just, just sh- 'cause at the start it kind of takes care of itself, doesn't it?

Tracey Cox 58:46 Course it does, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 58:47 First couple of months, and then-

Tracey Cox 58:48 All the sex hormones are there.

Steven Bartlett 58:50 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 58:50 Driving us, driving us, without even us having to think about it.

Steven Bartlett 58:52 And then we, you don't think about sex as something you've gotta work on, and, and talk about-

Tracey Cox 58:56 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 58:56 ... and invest in, and buy stuff for, and-

Tracey Cox 58:59 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 58:59 ... you know, change all the time. "I've already got a job." You know? I don't... (laughs)

Tracey Cox 59:02 I know. Well, unfortunately, that's what you have to do if you want a good sex life. It's, there's, it's what you do. And the thing is, it makes me laugh because we put effort into every other thing. You don't, like, eat the same meal every single night. You find d- buy a good cookbook and look up recipes and experiment with different things, and no one goes, "Oh, that's terrible. That's so much effort. I don't wanna have to do that. I wanna know how to cook a three course cordon bleu meal without even looking at a cookbook."

Steven Bartlett 59:26 Well, in the movies, they never do this.

Tracey Cox 59:28 No. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 59:28 There's no movie where they sit and talk about sex. "What did you like?" "Okay, you liked it when I did that." Uh, no.

Tracey Cox 59:31 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 59:31 In the movies, they, they come in the door and they pick 'em up and-

Tracey Cox 59:34 Oh, God.

Steven Bartlett 59:35 ... they put their hands back and they rip the dress off. "Oh!" You know, and then-

Tracey Cox 59:38 Do you know what I'm-

Steven Bartlett 59:39 ... the flows.

Tracey Cox 59:39 ... the worst person to watch TV with because I shout at the television? Honestly, there was a, a thing called Doctor Foster. Did you ever watch that?

Steven Bartlett 59:45 Mm-hmm.

Tracey Cox 59:45 Suranne Jones was in it, and there was this couple, they'd been together 10 years. They woke up on a Sunday morning, right? Sunday morning, just woke up. She's of course, full makeup, lingerie, everything.

Steven Bartlett 59:55 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 59:55 Um, and next minute, he's like thrown her against the wall, they're having sex standing up and, you know, like, all the... And I thought, "Oh, for g- for God's sake! This is t- a couple 10 years in. It is not happening like that." And then even me, who knows that this doesn't happen, this is not the norm, e- I'm like, a little bit like... And I always turn to Paul Robles and I say, "You realize that's not true. You realize" (laughs) "that this is not a real..." And, and he's sort of like sitting there going, "Yep. Yep, I do know." But-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:24 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 1:00:24 But he says-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:24 Like, "Cover your eyes!"

Tracey Cox 1:00:25 Yeah, so you know (laughs) -

Steven Bartlett 1:00:26 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 1:00:26 Don't have unreal expectations. Don't think you're missing out on this. And because it's sad because people try and, they think that that hot sex at the beginning should last a lifetime and when it goes... And you think the next person you meet, "This is gonna last forever. This is, this one's gonna last forever." And then of course, it dies down and dies down and dies down, and you're like, "Damn it, I've got the wrong person." You haven't got the wrong person. It's because all the sex and love hormones have c- stopped working. That's the only way to keep having sex th- like that. The only way to keep having that beginning sex over and over is to swap partners.... constantly. Constantly swap partners and you can have that beginning bit over and over again. It is impossible to have the type of sex you have at the start when you're fueled by all these chemicals at the end of a relationship, or during a relationship. Anything over two years, it's very ... You can have satisfying sex, great sex, exciting sex, but it's not fueled by the same hormones. So, you cannot recreate that. And if people knew that, no matter what person you end up with, then they'd, would l- stop leaving perfectly good relationships in search of something that's not ever going to be found.

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Steven Bartlett 1:02:27 I've talked in this conversation as if sexless relationships are unhappy relationships.

Tracey Cox 1:02:31 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:32 But that is not true, is it?

Tracey Cox 1:02:33 No, it's not true. You can often have ... I mean, people do instantly think if they're not having sex, "Oh my god, you know, divorce is coming soon." No. I mean, you can get ... Sex isn't the be all and end all for everybody. Lots of people have very low sexual libidos. If you've got two people who have low sex drives, they have a lot of sex at the beginning, or maybe not even that much, and then all of a sudden it fades off, they're perfectly happy. Some people are happy having, you know, one great session every six months. That's enough for them, it keeps them perfectly satisfied, so long as both of you are like that. But what doesn't work is if one of you is highly sex-driven. In the beginning, you know, we all worry about compatibility. Please, mesh- ... You know, match up with somebody who has the same sex drive as you. And I know it's artificially inflated at the beginning, but don't commit to anything (laughs) until you're six months in, eight months in, a year in. Don't marry anyone under that, because you don't know what their sex drive is. Wait until after a year and then you see. And it's very difficult if you've got a massively high sex drive and your other one doesn't. But you can be perfectly happy in sexless relationships, so long as both of you are happy with that. And also, you know, they used to define a sexless relationship as couples who had sex 10 times a year. Now, plenty of couples, especially couples over 50, only have sex 10 times a year, and they were, like, indignant to be described as sexless. So, now they've changed it to a sexless relationship is one where sex hasn't happened in a year, and that's a low sex relationship to be 10 times a year. But it's all dependent on where you're at in life. Like, if you, if you've just had babies and they're under two, you're not gonna be having a lot of sex. If you're 18, you've just got together, you're gonna be having an awful lot of sex. You know, if you're part ... If you've just gone through menopause or perimenopause and everything's gone to hell, you're not gonna be having sex at that period of time. So, you can't ... There is no one-size-fits-all thing. So, find your normal, is what I would say, and if your normal is no sex, so long as you have a conversation about it, that's fine. But you ... What you cannot do is stop sex and not talk about it. That is really, really dangerous. You've gotta have some kind of discussion, even if that's getting into bed one night and one of you says, "We don't have sex much anymore. Do you- does it bother you?" "No, it doesn't really bother me." "Good." Even if it's that. But you do need ... And you need to have lots of affection, lots of ... You need to make up for that s- ... Don't stop touching physically, because when sex stops, people often stop touching each other because they're worried that that's gonna lead to sex and that's gonna be awkward. So, keep up the affec- ... That's why you've gotta have the chat. If you don't have the chat, affection stops. And if affection and sex stops, then you are in trouble.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:14 Mm-hmm.

Tracey Cox 1:05:14 If you've got lots of affection, you're okay, so long as both of you are happy.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:19 Interesting.

Tracey Cox 1:05:21 But you're not gonna be happy if one person doesn't want sex to stop and the other one does. That doesn't make for a happy relationship at all.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:27 And in that situation, is it right to then just leave?

Tracey Cox 1:05:30 No, you have the chat.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:31 And the chat is w- ... But, but they-

Tracey Cox 1:05:32 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:32 ... say in the chat, "No, I want more sex." You say, "I don't want as- more sex." Then what do you do?

Tracey Cox 1:05:36 Well, then you look at exactly ... You sort of go through a process. So, you have the chat. You talk about ... You make sure the sex that's on offer is good sex for the person who doesn't want it. You look at anything around it, like, you know, have they got any childhood issues that need dealing with? What are the ... You know, why don't- ... Do they not want to want? If they don't want to want, then you need to look at what happened, you know, sexual trauma. There's ... I mean, if the person that doesn't wanna have sex with you is willing to look at ways to become more sexual, stay. Of course, stay. You know, there's always hope. Yes, there's tons of stuff you can do. You know, you can, you can take- strip sex right back to basics where you don't have penetrative sex for a year. You might do the Sensate Focus program, which is all about touching each other without sexual intent, and it might be that you have to go ... Almost like you've got to learn how to have sex all over again. If your partner's willing to try, anything's possible. Definitely don't walk out. But if your partner says, "I don't wanna have sex with you and I've no interest in having sex. I've got no interest in trying to, you know, bring- get back my desire," and you're not allowed to have sex either, you're not allowed to seek it anywhere else or, you know, apart from running off to the office and masturbating to porn, well, what choice have you got? I mean, some people stay. Some people stay in that scenario because the love is very strong and they've got kids or whatever. But I think that's an incredibly selfish thing to say to a partner.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:59 Chapter Nine of your book, it says that 33% of, um-... couples said that they rarely or never have had sex, and one-quarter of those rated themselves as being extremely happy.

Tracey Cox 1:07:11 That's right. So something like 75% of people who are denied sex nearly all of the time stay if the love is strong, so-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:19 People choose love over sex?

Tracey Cox 1:07:21 Well, and of course they do, because how often are you having sex? Even if you're having sex a lot, even if you're having sex once a day, twice a day, it's still only really for half an hour each time, so, you know, in the proportion of the time you spend together, you're... The love bit's more important than the sex bit. It definitely is. Unless the sex bit is really bad, and then it tends to poison-

Steven Bartlett 1:07:41 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 1:07:41 ... the rest of the relationship.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:43 Do you do any sort of therapy for couples? Do, do couples ever come to you?

Tracey Cox 1:07:45 No, not face-to-face, no.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:46 And, de- And, and do individuals come to you for advice in a professional context to get-

Tracey Cox 1:07:51 No, no.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:51 ... good therapy or anything?

Tracey Cox 1:07:52 I do friends and, and friends of friends and stuff like that. I don't because I lack the skills to disassociate. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:07:59 Oh, okay.

Tracey Cox 1:07:59 This is why I never became a therapist, because I'm not very good at... There are ways to solve a problem where you can stand outside the problem, or you stand right in the middle of it all and take it all on, and I'm the stand-in-the-middle person. And I, and I wouldn't ever be able to... I would have no boundaries. I, they'd be calling me day and night, so no, I can't do that.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:16 What are the most common questions that people ask you about sex? And I'd like the ones that we don't talk about enough. So, you know, I don't know whether it's erectile dysfunction or whether it's like-

Tracey Cox 1:08:30 Oh my God, erectile dysfunction for men is... Women don't appreciate how having not being able to get an erection or, you know, is, it's the biggest psychological catastrophe-

Steven Bartlett 1:08:41 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 1:08:41 ... men experience.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:42 We can't fake it.

Tracey Cox 1:08:43 No, no.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:44 (laughs)

Tracey Cox 1:08:44 Penis envy, who wants a penis?

Steven Bartlett 1:08:46 Yeah.

Tracey Cox 1:08:46 I certainly don't want a penis. It's all out