Making Sex a Conversation, Not a Secret | Dr. Jennifer Litner

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 00:01

Edit out whatever you say like no, don't can you edit that out? could do that for sure But I thought we would you know, just have a conversation. I was just gonna like Talk a little bit about you know, sexual shame with you communication how that's important teaching the next generation. I'm super excited talking about your your platform and resources for caregivers to kids

Jennifer (she/her) (: 00:25

Sure, yeah, anything you want to talk about, I'm an open book.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 00:29

Okay, awesome, awesome. And I usually try to record for about half an hour, like I'm not a Huberman or anything. So, not yet, I'm just joking. Okay, hey y'all, it's me, Dr. Samina Rahman, gyno girl. Welcome to another episode of Gyno Girl Presents, Sex, Drugs, and Hormones. I'm Dr. Samina Rahman. I'm a sex med gynecologist and menopause expert in downtown Chicago. And I have my own practice called the GYN and Sexual Medicine Collective, which is now Concierge.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 00:37

Sounds good.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 00:57

I'm super excited to bring you guys another episode today. you guys heard in my intro who we're gonna have the pleasure of speaking with today. But we are going to dive into some of our favorite topics, really about embracing sexual wellness. So joining me today is the incredible Dr. Jennifer Litner, which I don't like.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 01:26

I

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 01:27

So awesome to meet you guys. You heard the intro about what she does and who she is. So I'm just super excited that you're here. We met in person, I think at Ishwish initially, right? Was it? Yeah. Was it last year?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 01:40

Yeah, yeah. It was last year, February, March. Yeah, but last week in February in Atlanta, yeah.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 01:43

And Elaina? And Elaina? Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK. All right, awesome. Yeah, and so I talk about issue a lot on this platform. So the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, which is multidisciplinary, includes sex therapists, pelvic floor therapists, all types of MDDOs, NPs, PAs, medical sexual educators, researchers, scientists, everything. So.

It's a great organization and we got to meet and we recently, we had you in the office recently to kind of just like reintroduce each other and just know how we can collaborate on patients, which is very exciting. I was, yeah. awesome. Well, you know what, before we get into any of the really heavy stuff, I love to start with this question.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 02:25

Well, thanks for having me. It's always good to be in your company.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 02:37

And I love to find out like why people end up in this location that we are in the junction of sexual medicine and everything. But what inspired the name embrace sexual wellness? Because with that word embrace, you know, it says so much maybe about even how you might approach your work.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 02:53

Yeah, absolutely. Well, so often in the sexuality field, things are often named just like women's health, right, or men's health, which feels, of course, very binary. And also, there are a lot of things related to sexual health companies don't actually have the word sex in them. And I thought it was really important to name what we do and what we're actually really trying to help people accomplish. So for me, like,

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 03:01

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 03:10

Yeah.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 03:15

Absolutely. Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 03:18

Even though there are challenges with censorship as a sexuality professional, with using the word sex in our name, we often go by embrace or ESW. It felt really important to name what we're doing, which is really helping people embrace getting into their sexual wellness more. And that, you know, for some people is more about enhancing their relationship or addressing the sexual dysfunction. For other people, it's about working through some intimacy and relationship concerns. But no matter what it is, I think it's important to just name it and be transparent.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 03:47

Absolutely, I love that. love that. There's that power in naming things. We always talk about sort of affect labeling and sort of the power of naming things to kind of almost disempower the thing that you're naming, right? Like it's almost like trying to battle it out. But I love that and I love that what you're doing. I think that there's so many times where we see patients, and you probably see this as well, kind of get

Jennifer (she/her) (: 03:53

Thank

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 04:16

stuck in the idea of shame, the shame around sex, the same shame around some of these health concerns. Like what does sexual shame look like with the people that you work with?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 04:27

Yeah, I mean, I think first off, it's nervousness and getting on a call or reaching out, right? It takes so much courage to reach out to a sex therapist. And I don't think people realize that until they actually go through it. It's like the first time you're asking someone out or trying to have your first kiss, like if you can remember those feelings, right? But it's like, this is not about a relationship that you're building in intimacy. It's about seeking care. And I think people already feel nervous going to the doctor and

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 04:32

Yeah.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 04:44

Yes.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 04:57

We are a very sub-specialty within mental health. And so there is a piece around this that feels like very stigmatizing and scary for people too. So I think that's where I first see shame develop. And then once we're getting into the work, a lot of it's like, hey, I feel insecure about my body. I feel insecure about the number of partners I've had or how experienced I am. I feel insecure because a partner told me that.

the way that I interacted with them sexually just didn't feel good, and so I then therefore don't think I can feel competent as a sexual partner moving forward. So there's a lot of different ways it can show up, and then there's a lot of it's based on messaging from how people are raised. So purity culture is a big phenomenon I see in my practice too, and I think it teaches people that if we grew up thinking we were...

a chewed up piece of gum if we were to have sex, right? That's gonna affect you even when you're, you know, even if you're together and married and happily in a relationship, right? Like, and it's acceptable for you to be sexual, there's this whole piece that kind of feels like a disconnect for a lot of

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 06:04

Totally, totally. I think, you know, especially for, you know, we see it in different cultures within women of color, like, it's not just personal. Personal is like almost intergeneration, all right? Like it's just a retaught shame over and over again. Is that kind of how you see it play out within cultures and families too?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 06:16

sign.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 06:22

Absolutely, I'm trained as a marriage and family therapist before I'm a specialist and we see everything in systems theory, right? So the systems that we're a part of and I think that we inherit some of these beliefs, And it's not, like, it's not, we don't come out of the womb thinking that sex is bad, right? But we learn this by all the things that reinforce it, right? So maybe it's our family members or caregivers, maybe it's the religious community we're a part of or the social community.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 06:30

Yeah.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 06:40

Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 06:51

our peers, what's taught to us or not taught to us. I can't tell you how many people who didn't learn anything about sex was never talked about and how much shame that has actually caused as a result and not because of what was said, it's because it wasn't talked about, right? We have more shame in that kind of thing. So I absolutely agree with you about that.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 06:55

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 06:59

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 07:08

Exactly.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 07:12

Yeah, it's so interesting because I think with family dynamics and the shame around, you know, just bringing it up, there takes a lot of courage for so many patients, even like, I'm sure you see this one. I think about some of my pelvic floor dysfunction patients who have significant vaginismus, can't have, who have unconsummate relationships. And it takes them so long to get to the point where they can actually show up at your door, your door, my door, whatever.

And I get it. feel like it's, you you think it's naturally just going to magically happen one day. Like it's, it'll happen. It'll happen. It'll happen. And then by the time two years go by or whatever, you know, some people experience, it doesn't happen. And then what do they do about it? And so I think it's so interesting that they can finally get the courage to come. But then I sometimes I find like they ghost me for a while once they figure they'll come and then I'm like, no, I can't do that again, you know. But once I think they have.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 07:42

Thank

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 08:09

you because most of these people are super educated. Like I have a lot of, you know, other clinicians and doctors and you know, whatever that are experiencing this. And so it's not even a lack of, you know, education or knowledge, but maybe within the realm of this and your own body, like you're just uneducated about yourself.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 08:27

Yeah, and I think there's a really big difference in being able to say, like, I accept that, you know, other people can have sex in this way, or this can feel comfortable for them, but when I go to do it, it feels I am hit with this emotional block that I'm just really stuck with. And I think that that is really, really hard, especially for really high-functioning folks or folks who are really, really educated, right? It's like, we manage so much in our lives. How come we can't manage this? And I see a lot of that in my...

us too and just a ton of validation that like this stuff is hard and sometimes we do need some added support.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 09:03

Yeah, I mean sex education I think in general is wasted on teenager. know, like it should be really like we should have adult sex, which I think my colleague and friend, Kayla Kaspersson always says like we should have have adult sexual education and stuff.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 09:08

Stop.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 09:17

And there's a huge impact on our relationships. My doctoral research really focused on that. I looked at how comprehensive sex ed impacts our relationship satisfaction and turns out it makes a big difference. what happens with our bodies, getting prepared for that wedding night that you don't, if you feel like you're gonna consummate this because you were taught in all the Hallmark movies that that's what's supposed to happen and then it doesn't happen. Like, of course you're gonna feel a sense of shame, right? You're gonna think something's wrong with you. But ultimately like,

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 09:40

Yeah.

course.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 09:47

having known that it might not be so great the first time or you're gonna wanna do some stretching first or any of the other things that we ought to know can go along with

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 09:57

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because I think it's so, it's, well, I mean, tell me like, when you think about what brought, because I mean, obviously, I think we all have our own journeys that bring us into the realm of like sexual medicine, you know, and so sometimes it's because you grew up in a shame culture like I did, or, you know, like some of these other things, you might've experienced it yourself, like I did as well.

Like, you know, it's one of these things or, additionally, it's like you start seeing the patients over and over again, you don't know how to help them. So like, what brought you into like saying like, okay, I know I wanted to be a mental health therapist, but now I actually want to sub specialize and focus on sex.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 10:38

Yeah, so when I was studying psychology in my early part of my career, I was really interested in mental health and like relationships and family patterns. I had had some early experiences that made me curious about that, but I was also really interested in health and I was working in a public health center doing a lot of sexuality training. So was teaching safer sex skills on college campuses.

And I was also counseling folks and doing HIV testing. So we had this really great grant where students from the college wellness center could come in and get tested. And I found that people would come to these tests feeling really, really nervous. And it wasn't that they necessarily were nervous about what the test meant per se, but it was more about the relationship that led them there. Did somebody step outside of a relationship agreement?

and that's why they were there or the results, right? And I felt like there was so much they were bringing beyond the safer sex piece of things that I didn't have the skills to counsel them on. And it just made me realize how sexuality is so much bigger and deeper than what we do with our bodies. And I felt really compelled to be able to work with folks in that way. I actually connected with a sexologist who became a mentor to me and sort of introduced me to the field of sex therapy because at the time,

13, 14 years ago or whenever this was, there wasn't really a whole training protocol for sex therapists. You kind of fell into the field and now we're in a very different space. So that was sort of my origin story is just realizing that I was really comfortable talking about this with people and I was a void and a place where I could help and it was just about getting that education and tools.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 12:29

Yeah, because before it was like, you know, Masters and Johnson, figure out how to do it. Yeah, everyone's on.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 12:33

Yes.

I have a fun story about them too, actually. When, so the home, one of my family members lives in a home that used to, the former residents worked with Masters and Johnson and so they conducted therapy in this home, in St. Louis, yeah. And so there is like a side door and when I first encountered this home, I was like, my God, they used to do therapy in here.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 12:53

I'm St. Louis? No.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 13:05

the den. And so like I tracked down like who it was. And I have some colleagues in St. Louis who trained with this couple that used to live there, and Masters in Johnson. And I was like, okay, this is amazing that like, you know, we're full circle. So anyway, it was just such a fun, like personal, professional moment.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 13:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so cool. Yeah. Because yeah, and that and you know, think that was a show time had a show about a Masters of Sex or something like that. I didn't dive too deep into it. But I know it's sort of like, probably really dramatized what was going on.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 13:29

Yeah, they did.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 13:40

It did. I also think it's anti-shaming, Because we're talking about this. And I think that's the thing that's so important. I always see people, there's so many examples of therapy on television, right? And some of them are, I think, kind of ludicrous and emphasized for dramatic effect. But ultimately, the more that we're talking about this, the less that that shame continues to grow. I think it's important for, it's 2025, and there are more people seeking sex therapy now than...

ever before, right? And that's not an accent. It's because we're talking about it. It's because our field is growing. You know, same with sexual medicine, I'm sure.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 14:17

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's just more people are on social media talking about even, and there's actually a lot more groups of patient advocates, like the patients who had been historically gaslit or had a hard time are now advocating for other patients. And so I think that's really, really important. I so you're really talking about unlearning shame. there might be, I mean, we see it all the time where you have physical pain and avoidance and.

really a disconnect from pleasure in and of itself because of a lot of this and it's rooted sort of in more of the emotional stuff. Do you think that's... Do you think people can unlearn the shame that they've carried for so long?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 15:01

absolutely think that I've seen it happen in my office. I think it's really rewarding to be able to help folks do that work. Recognizing that they deserve pleasure and that they're also even saying the word pleasure can be really activating for people. like finding the language of like, how do we describe wanting something for ourselves when we're taught that like our body or our existence is in service of like a lot of other people. This is something I see a lot with women. So, know,

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 15:08

Uh-huh.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 15:29

Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 15:31

It's definitely something that can be overcome and I think it's really cool to help people do that, but it is work. It's not something that's super quick usually.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 15:44

Yeah, and I think that whole idea that your body is for service or pleasure shouldn't be sought. I was talking to somebody and I was just about had the number of people that fake orgasms at some point in their life. And it's interesting because there's no other condition where a woman would accept not getting something that's, or anyone, right? If you had a bad meal, you wouldn't keep going after the same bad meal.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 15:57

Dr. Sameena Rahman (16:13.644)

Like you would say, okay, I'm not gonna have this bad meal, I'm gonna correct it. But like people can have like bad relationships and not get pleasure during those encounters and they keep faking it because they think that's what they're supposed to do or that they're not, maybe they're not even supposed to have the pleasure, right? Like we don't, we just think that we're supposed to suffer as women, I think.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 16:13

Right. Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 16:35

I think that's message and I think since I work with lot of couples, something I see a lot in relationships is fear about hurting my partner. I don't want to tell my partner that I've been faking an orgasm for our entire marriage, our entire relationship because that's gonna wreck them. Their self-confidence is gonna be in the tank and I don't want to be responsible for that.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 16:56

Yeah, that's true.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 16:57

And that's so hard. think it's a tough pill to swallow. Like it's one thing when you're new in relationship and you can be a little bit more honest. There's not as much, but if there's like a lot of years there, I think that becomes a harder, you know.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 17:04

you

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 17:10

Yeah, I mean, that's a good, I think that's a good segue into a topic I think that is so important for relationships of any type when it comes to sex, really it's communication, right? So, and that connection, because, you know, obviously shame lives in our minds, it shows up in relationships, and the communication barriers are so real. Like, what do you think the biggest barriers are? You said, obviously, like not being truthful about what you.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 17:36

Yeah.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 17:37

experiencing either I'm sure some people are hiding the number of partners I have some people are over exaggerating it, you know,

Jennifer (she/her) (: 17:44

I think it's not being able to say what you want and also not asking. So when we, I think about culture, not just broadly, but culture within a relationship. And when you get into an intimate relationship with someone, you establish a culture of what's normative for us to talk about and what's on the table and what's off the table. And something simple like maybe you have a sexual encounter and just being like, how was that for you?

Right? That's checking in. It's like, it's not a big question. I mean, it's not something that you need a doctoral degree to know to ask. Right. But a lot of people don't do that. Right. Because there's fear and vulnerability on the other side of that. And what if they didn't like it? Right. And what if I can't handle that? And I don't want to talk about that. So I think it's like a lot of fear and not not creating a culture of openness around this and like ongoing. I these were feedback, not because it's like a corporate term, but just because we want to have open dialogue with.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 18:11

you

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 18:18

Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 18:40

is that's really key to being able to have a really good experience and satisfaction. Couples who can do that tend to have more satisfying relationships in my experience.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 18:53

I mean, because we know that this is the kind of thing that for some couples it makes or breaks them, right? Like it can be, especially we know there's always usually, it's rare that you have libido that's, especially for midlife patients, I think like everyone has the same equal libido. There seems to be, for most people, a libido mismatch. And it may not be, I see it all the time, it's not like.

my patient's desire to increase her libido a lot of times. Sometimes they do, they feel dead inside and they wanna increase it. Other times it's like, I don't wanna keep doing this to my partner. Like don't wanna keep, you know, turning them away or trying to pretend like I'm sleeping or tell them not to touch me, cause that might spur on the next thing, you know.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 19:38

It can create resentment, it can be really painful. I think a lot of people feel like they're not contributing to the relationship or they're not getting the, like, they're not nurturing their connection in the way that they either thought that they were supposed to or they used to. And so desire mismatch can be a really tricky thing. It's the most common thing I see in my practice as far as sex therapy with couples. Believe it or not, there's no sexual dysfunction code that really.

applies to this, right? I wish that in some way we could have a term, and we do have desire discrepancy or desire mismatch, but there's not like a code that's like, okay, this is really what's going on here, even though we know that to be true. So yeah, it's a big thing.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 20:16

Yeah. Yeah. What do you do? What are some of the tools you use in sex therapy for helping to improve the communication or getting? Because we always know it's biopsychosocial, right? So I can help with the bio part and even talk to them about some of their social issues and psych issues. But bringing it all together, how do you help them open up communication? What tools do you use in sex therapy that's different than cognitive behavioral therapy?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 20:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 20:45

Yeah, so the first thing we do is looking at like we do an assessment and we look at what are sort of the blocks to you wanting intimate like to be close with your partner in that way and sometimes it's not sex entirely sometimes it's like all types of physical touch are off limits right or people feel really distant or they're not emotionally communicating about emotions either so we're looking at like what are the things that like in the moments where you have connected what has helped with that what are the things that have gotten away and those span the biopsychosocial

And then from there, it's like looking at building willingness, taking pressure off the table. So I have couples do a lot of what I would call non-demand touching, which means that, let's say you're gonna have a hug for, I don't know, a minute or something, which is a long time to hug somebody, and most people. And there's no expectation that anything other than a hug will

And I'll have couples decide what kind of activity they want to use. I'll have them pick something that's in the green zone is what I'll call it. So if you think of a stoplight, there's green, yellow, red. Yellow is a little bit, I'm not so sure. Reds, I don't want to do that. But green is usually a safe enough activity. So I'll have them start with things that are in the green zone and basically engage in non-demand touch. So they know that they're going to do this. There's no pressure associated with it leading to anything like sex if there's some stress there.

Once they start doing that and they feel some sort of success and self-efficacy around it, then we work up to other things. I've also used Sense8 Focus to help couples. for folks who aren't familiar, that's a kind gradual technique of mindfulness with guided touch that helps partners basically create space to focus on the sensations their bodies are feeling without.

focusing on the pressure or what's gonna happen next and the monitoring of all the other stuff that gets in the way. So we do a lot of that and then we talk about feedback and like how do we, how do you know if your partner's feeling turned on? What if they're turned off? Like how would you know if like that was happening for you and can you talk about that? And we practice role playing some of these things in session and then they go home and they use those tools. So for some people it's asking about, know, I want some privacy or I want,

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 22:59

Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 23:05

I want to know that like, you know, when you stroke my hair, you're not gonna, you know, dig your fingernails into my neck or something because they're long or whatever the thing is. you know, we're, whatever the fears are, concerns are, we're kind of customizing it to the individuals. But yeah, those are the goals.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 23:21

I mean, because what I see is, especially in the midlife space where you have the perimenopausal or menopausal woman that's really struggling with anxiety, depression, mood disruption, sleep disruption, stress, all the things trying to balance. Libido is bothersome. She wants it to be better, but it's kind of last priority for her. she's now seeing like, because I did this interview with someone

recently about the menno divorce, right? Like the 60 % of women who get divorced in menopause that's led by the menopausal woman. And so it's like, you know, these patients are upset because if you ask them about their sex life, what does sex look like for you? What's happening here? And if you know what, maybe I had sex once last year. So they're in a sexless marriage, right? By definition. And so then it becomes, the farther you go from like actually having physical touch with

with the person that you are kind of roommates with at this point almost, right? Roommates and maybe co-parenting. You know, I think that's kind of the hardest thing for them to say like, well, I don't even know. I mean, I don't even know where I'd start. Okay, say I have a little bit like what it just feels foreign to me now to actually want to be touched by that person.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 24:38

100%. And so we work on small, like baby steps, essentially, and not expecting it to feel natural. Because what if you used to lay and cuddle together before bed every single night, but you haven't touched your partner then that way in over a year, it's not going to feel the way that it used to feel. And expecting that and then feeling disappointed by it is going to frustrate the hell out of you. you know, we really work on like tempering expectations around that. And also,

helping create willingness because sometimes people don't go into a sexual experience with a whole lot of desire. They might just feel like, okay, I'm willing to do this and see what happens, but I don't actually feel like my libido is all that high right now. And that's pretty normal. We know a lot about responsive desire and how that works. So we do a lot of education around that too and helping partners recognize that just because you're showing up doesn't, as long as you're, you know,

open and willing to be there, that doesn't mean that like this is wrong or a bad thing to start from this point. So that's something that we also work with.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 25:41

Mm-hmm. Yeah, because I think that's kind of the most intimidating because I'm like, well, you really should see a sex therapist too if you guys, you know, as a couple, right? Most people come as couples. But I think that, you do. And sometimes you'll see them separately.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 25:53

I follow, yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 25:58

I always see people separately individually, like at the beginning, just to do a history. But if, like sometimes I do see people individually. you know, if somebody has got like a lot of performance anxiety and that's creating stress in the relationship, they might want to work with me one-on-one first, and then they want to do some couples work or, you know, so I have other people on my team, so sometimes we'll cross collaborate. Like I'll see one of the systems and they'll see one and then that works out really well. So it just depends like on.

where people are at and I'm always trying to meet them there first. Yeah. Right, exactly.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 26:30

Yeah, of course. That's all you can do, right? That's like the biggest thing. And so I think that, you know, that's all in well for now. And I love that you have this sort of platform for the next generation, right? Because I feel like that's really what is it building ease talking about the birds and bees course? Is that what it's called? Can you me a little bit about that and the origin of that and what it's?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 26:51

Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, for sure. So I've always known that there's a link between education and what we learn and how that impacts the relationships. And I felt a lot of people come in and they just feel so massively unprepared for their sexual relationships. And that's actually a contributing factor to the concerns that they're having. And so what I really thought would be helpful is to be able to help with

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 27:04

you

Jennifer (she/her) (: 27:19

of parents and youth, right? Because when we start talking about these things early and often and not in a shaming or a fear-based way, it actually, what we find is that people are more prepared and it feels more normalized. Other countries do a really good job of this. If you look at like the Netherlands in terms of how they approach sex ed, right? This might come up at dinner, right? Like on a...

random Tuesday and it's like not a big deal to be able to talk about condoms or have them be in a bathroom. Like, you know, it's the same way that you might see like a tampon pad dispenser or hand soap for, you know, things like that are necessary in there. So, yeah, so I started to create a course. I started working with parents and teaching them like, how do you approach your young people about these things? When do you say, you know, what do you say and when do you say it and how do you start these conversations? And then built a course that I launched about.

five years ago now and I still do some parent coaching with folks who have questions and I also give lectures and talks about this for clinicians as well.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 28:22

I love that. I think that's really crucial. feel like maybe one or two years ago at Ishwish, there was some discussion on what kids are doing in college these days. And I've had some people on the podcast as well talking about really how the types of sex people are having are not

So I mean, there's more sort of, what would it be considered more kink, I guess, right? There's a lot more choking happening in sex and there's a lot more of these other things. So I think even exposure to pornography and these things that kids are getting exposed to just right at their disposal, which wasn't the case in the past, has really skewed how they view it too as well. When did you say? Have you seen that as well?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 29:17

I think, you know, what's happened is that with the absence of quality sex ed and without talking about it, people are gonna encounter porn and that's gonna impact what they think about it unless they were taught otherwise. Now, if you have a trusted adult or somebody saying, hey, what you're gonna see in pornography is not, you know, reflective of what's happening in real life or, you know, it's very highly curated or just, you know, just kind of helping to have a little bit more conscientiousness around it.

That can certainly help. I'm not somebody who tends to be anti-erotica, but I do think that when young people are absorbing this without any kind of guidance or support around it, that becomes pretty dangerous, or can be. And so that's really the work that I help parents with the most is around internet safety and talking about sexually oriented materials and how do we...

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 29:54

this.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 30:12

engage young people with these kinds of things because they're probably, they're not gonna see it under your watch, they're gonna see it on someone else's.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 30:18

Yeah, yeah, I am. There's that book, not my child. I think it's called. Anyway, I was talking to my son about it one day and he was just like, why are you talking to me? It was so followed by it. But I was like, well, I just want you to know you can talk to me about like, you know, and so I think he appreciated that later. But he was just like, I think sometimes because we live in this world of like sexual medicine.

It's so desensitized to us that I think it's still a little bit. Wasn't there like a Netflix show about a sex therapist? Somebody told me about what is it? Sex education. One of my patients was like, you should see this. I'm sure this is how your kids are gonna be.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 30:54

Yeah, it's called sex education. We're in Europe.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 31:03

The assumptions people make because of what we do, right? I think that's a big one too. But yeah, I totally agree on that.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 31:10

Yeah. Do you think, like, you, have you, do you, I don't know if you see even like, you know, you probably see young adults, I don't know how many teenagers or whatever you might see, but like, since that all it's into more child sort of therapy, but do you see more people coming to you like even thinking they're asexual? Because I feel like that, I see, I've seen that more than I would have expected. Like sometimes we think it's low libido and then

don't work with one of my sex therapists more you or whoever else and they realize actually I'm just asexual and that's okay too at least I can accept the fact that this has never been who I am

Jennifer (she/her) (: 31:44

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely something that I think we've become, we've developed more language around in the last several years, so I'm seeing it more. It's not like a huge population of the folks I see, but I definitely do have people wondering, especially for folks who have lower desire, like is it the low desire? Is it that I'm asexual? Am I demisexual or graysexual? There's all these terms now to describe all the ways in which we may identify.

And I think, you know, one of the things I'm helping people with is like, what is their distress level around desire? Have they ever experienced it? Because when it's an identity piece, like it's different than when we, you know, just we want to have desire, but we don't, we feel stressed by that. So definitely something that's coming up more. And I feel like it's good that there are more resources now around that topic too.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 32:33

Yeah, for sure. I think that's very helpful too. I think, you know, even I've read statistically like younger adults are having like less sex than like you would have expected. I don't know if it's cause they're just all consumed with something. Like they'd rather be doom scrolling or whatever the case.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 32:40

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 32:46

Really? Yeah. I think it's also like I've heard a lot of people feel worried about access to like, you know, safer sex and birth control and contraception and things like that. And so feeling worried of like, well, I don't want to get pregnant or I don't want to get an STI. And so like avoiding sex for that reason, especially with everything with like Roe versus Wade, like I think there was a good population of people I

heads noticed, particularly like, I would say Gen Z or younger, like around them that were like, okay, I'm just not. And then I think for kind of millennial Gen X, it's more of like life stressors is impacting that, right? People are so strapped, mental load is so, so full, so high that like sex becomes offloaded or like deprioritized in many ways. And so I think those are the things that I see contributing to lack of interest in sex. And then of course, the pandemic, right? If you were like a college student during pandemic,

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 33:20

Yeah, 27.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 33:33

and form.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 33:46

You know, you probably were not as sexually active as somebody who maybe that cohort now. Yeah.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 33:50

Yeah, that's so true actually. It'll be interesting to see how the pandemic, once they get 10 years or more of data, how it really impact mental health and sexual health and all the things that we think about because I think it's gonna be pretty pronounced and we just don't even really.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 34:07

yeah, I'm already starting to see some early effects, but you know, think it's such anecdotal data. I would love to hear what they find.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 34:16

Yeah, eventually, Jennifer, I do this thing on the, so my husband's kind of like made a joke once that my listeners are like vagilantes. So I do this thing called a vagilante verdict, which is your hot take, like what's your hot take that you want people to remember, listen, you know, or to think about.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 34:34

you

I think that it's like, you know, we all just, what was that? I think that like, you know, the more that we are bringing sex into our relationships of all of our relationships, like the better, right? We're working on undoing that shame or making it like more accessible to be able to talk about feeling less alone. I think that like normalizing bringing up what like one's sex life.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 34:39

Vaginal antivertix is what I call it.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 35:06

And, you know, any kind of conversation is really important. Like I was at a networking event the other day and we were talking about Smutty Literature and it was a diverse crowd. And like, I think it's just great to be able to bring these things to the table. And yeah, like it might be, it might seem a little bit kind of cultural or, you know, novel, but it normalizes it. And we ended up talking about like, I think the conversation was like, what do you like to read? And some people were talking about romance and how that.

can be really powerful. So that's my hot take is that there's no wrong place to necessarily talk about these things.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 35:37

on.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 35:42

I love it. I appreciate you coming on today and giving us some insight into your world of sex therapy and people have their misconceptions like, is sex therapy? I'm sure you hear about it all the time, like, what does that mean? They're gonna watch me have sex?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 35:59

Yes, Right, right. And those shows did actually confuse people, right?

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 36:04

Right, right, to their point, yeah. Maybe that was understanding what sex was at the time in the different sort of stages. anyway, I appreciate you being on today. I'm gonna make sure in the show notes, everyone knows where they can find you and on Instagram and also in Chicago. Are you licensed in any other states?

Jennifer (she/her) (: 36:11

100%.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 36:26

I am licensed in Louisiana and Idaho as well. And then I have some staff who are licensed in Indiana and Kansas too. So.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 36:32

Okay, yes, that's what I said. Okay, awesome. So we'll put all that in the show notes and thanks for coming on and we'll have to do this again because there's so much more we can talk about but you know, we have to, I like to keep our show limited so that people can actually get through the whole thing. So I find that, you know, the longer the episodes are sometimes people have a hard time like staying on path.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 36:54

totally. If you can fit into like a commute of some kind, that's the right amount, right? But I don't know you're driving more than 30 minutes.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 36:57

Yes, this is that like I don't know what she's got in because I got out of my car. So anyway, thank you so much. Thanks for everyone to thanks everyone that's listened today to this episode. Please like and subscribe to my podcast and leave me a review. I'm Dr. Smeena Arman, Gyno Girl. Thanks for listening to another episode of Gyno Girl Presents Sex, Drugs and Hormones. Remember, I'm here to educate so you can advocate for yourself.

Jennifer (she/her) (: 37:05

Exactly. Yeah, well, thanks for having me.

Dr. Sameena Rahman (: 37:28

Please join me next week.