Episode 66
Why Women Still Fake Orgasms: Closing the Bedroom Gap with Dr. Maria Sophocles
Why are so many women still faking orgasms—and blaming themselves for sex that doesn’t feel good?
I can't even begin to tell you how many women come into my office thinking they’re broken—because sex isn’t working for them the way it “should.” They’re doing all the right things, checking all the boxes, and still feeling disconnected, dry, resentful, or just straight-up bored in the bedroom. But here's the thing: it's not their fault, and they’re definitely not alone.
In this episode, I’m talking with Maria, a total powerhouse in sexual medicine and menopause care. We go deep into the systemic blind spots in medical training, the cultural shame around female pleasure, and how most of us were never even taught how to understand our own bodies. From the bedroom gap to vibrator prescriptions, we’re covering it all—honestly, unfiltered, and with the kind of compassion that’s long overdue.
Maria shares how her own clinical journey shifted when she realized how many women were being misdiagnosed or dismissed—especially when it came to menopause and sexual health. She’s on a mission to close the gendered healthcare gap, and she’s not waiting around for the system to catch up. We also dig into the everyday stuff: how screens are killing sex, why novelty matters, and how to actually start advocating for the sex life you want.
This is one of those conversations that’ll make you laugh, nod, and maybe even rethink your nightstand drawer. And yes, we talk about lubes, vibrators, and why your bedroom deserves better vibes (and better lighting).
Highlights:
- The origin of The Bedroom Gap and how it's damaging women's relationships
- Why Maria believes medical education is failing women—especially in menopause
- The orgasm gap, mercy sex, and how women are taught to prioritize male pleasure
- The cultural baggage that still surrounds self-pleasure and masturbation
- How to reframe your relationship with lube, sex toys, and your own body
If you loved this episode, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment wherever you’re listening. To keep growing the show we would love it if you would leave a review on Apple Podcasts It helps more women find these real, necessary conversations—and that means we all win.
Dr. Maria Sophocles bio:
Maria has been a practicing gynecologist for 29 years and is an internationally respected expert in menopause and female sexual function.
She is the founder of Women's Healthcare of Princeton, a progressive gynecology practice serving over 30,000 women in the U.S. To meet the needs of international and remote U.S. patients, in 2024 she launched The Thinking Woman, a virtual consultation practice.
She completed a BA in English with honors and distinction from Duke University, attended medical School at Jefferson Medical College and completed her residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
She is board certified in ob/gyn, a certified menopause practitioner, and has been named a fellow to national societies (ISSVD and ISSWSH) for her contributions to gynecology.
As one of the first U.S. clinicians to recognize the need for a non-estrogen option to treat vaginal atrophy, in 2015 she pioneered the use of Co2 Laser in the U.S.; she has taught clinicians this technology on five continents.
A passionate advocate for reproductive freedom and contraceptive access, she fought for seven years alongside Senator Shirley Turner to achieve passage of New Jersey Bill S275, a part of the historic Freedom of Reproductive Choice Act which became law in 2023.
Appalled by the pervasiveness of the gendered healthcare gap, she is developing a Women’s Health clinic in rural Kenya.
Her TED talk “What Happens to Sex in Midlife” has garnered nearly a million views and her forthcoming book, The Bedroom Gap will be released in late 2025.
She is currently at work on a documentary about Sex, Menopause and Gender Equality called HOT!. She is married with four children.
Get in Touch with Dr. Sophocles:
Get in Touch with Dr. Rahman:
Transcript
Hey y'all. It's me. Dr. Sameena Rahman gyno girl. Welcome back to another episode of gyno girl presents sex drugs and hormones I'm Dr. Sameena Rahman today I have a wonderful wonderful guest who I've befriended recently through all of our sexual medicine conferencing and she's a phenom for sure I'm so happy that I was able to meet her and to front her and
She's a wonderful human being who's been doing this work for so long, locally and internationally as I talked about in my intro. Please welcome Dr. Maria Sophocles to my podcast. Yay. I've been trying to do this intro like it's Dr. Maria Sophocles. Like go for it. Yeah, I love it. love it. Well, thank you for joining me on my podcast today, Maria. Love it.
maria sophocles (:You're so cute. It's such a mouthful. It's a mouthful unless you're Greek and then it's just a normal name, right? Thank you
maria sophocles (:Thank you. It's so great to be here. I love how we vibe and how we both share how much we love what we do.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I know, we have so much, exactly. I mean, we're both OBGYNs, like I stated, and we all have our own circuitous way into getting into the field, this arena of sexual medicine and menopause, which for me, I've been in it for 10 years at least. I know you've much, you're ever much longer than that, but I feel like it's really caught on a lot more in the last few years with the menopause movements that are happening and the rev, which is wonderful. But, know,
I always talk about how it's not something we're ever really taught or we learn about in residency or medical school. What kind of brought you into this realm?
maria sophocles (:Yeah, I mean, my patients really brought me into this realm. I trained just like you did as an OB-GYN and I started seeing patients and delivering babies and doing surgery and I so proud to be really well trained, classically trained at a famous institution. And I thought I had it all nailed down. I didn't know what I didn't know as a clinician. And then I remember a woman came to see me and she was in her fifties and I was
Dr Sameena Rahman (:questions come.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:So, bye.
maria sophocles (:30, you my first year in residency, out of residency. And she said to me, I have mood issues and my hair's falling out and my tongue's burning and I have frozen shoulder and my heart is palpitations. And I thought to myself, not menopause, of course I didn't think of menopause. I said, oh my God, this woman is, has probably some mental health issues, maybe stress, maybe she needs an orthopedist.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:jeez.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:That's the part, man.
maria sophocles (:a neurologist, a rheumatologist, like I was full of all the specialists she needed to see. And I couldn't have served her worse. I couldn't have done a worse job, Samina. I think I sent her to like three or four different specialists, none of whom found anything, because none of them were trained to think about menopause. And they all just sort of blew her off, dismissed her, and she came back in tears. And I really felt that I had failed her. I really had failed her. And I...
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Thank you.
maria sophocles (:kind of just did some soul searching and said, there's gotta be more, know, the more women I had like that, the more I realized I wasn't doing them a service. So I found the North American Menopause Society maybe 20 years ago when it was just a baby, you know, there were barely anybody there and they were, and I thought, oh great, just some people who just want to talk about menopause. That's not even a whole thing, is it? And then of course I realized it's everything.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I know. It's so funny. What because like I think I was in my you know, late 30s when I started learning about it. And it was kind of like, you know, you feel like it's so forward. I mean, I hadn't had my third kid yet. Yeah, and you're like, is it really that bad? And now I'm like in this in the the deep sub period menopause. And I'm like, I can't believe how many people I probably dismissed myself, you know, like it drives me crazy thinking about
maria sophocles (:It's so far away from you. Yeah.
maria sophocles (:Explode it.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:you know, what we didn't learn and how we weren't doing well for our patients. a lot of it, wasn't our fault really, but like, but we're empaths, right?
maria sophocles (:Yeah, so I kind of have two missions in a way. One is to really disrupt medical education and really make sure that medical education takes this seriously. One of my mentors is a doctor at Johns Hopkins, Wen Shen. Wen was my attending when I was a resident and she is now the head of a menopause clinic at Johns Hopkins and her mission
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:is to make sure menopause is taught in medical schools, not just to OB-GYN residents, but so that no matter what specialty you go into, you're aware that if you're an ophthalmologist, that menopause has impact on the eyes. And if you're an orthopedic surgeon, that it impacts the joints. And I can't tell you how shocking that concept is to so many currently training doctors and doctors out there. I gave the...
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:you
Dr Sameena Rahman (:So many people.
maria sophocles (:graduation speech from medical school last week and in my speech I spoke about this that no matter what field you're going into you are having a blind spot in your education if you're not aware of how women's health is different, research needs to be different and how we approach menopause needs to be different. So that's one mission and the other is really to close the gendered healthcare gap between men and women so that
A woman with chest pain gets the same care in an emergency room that a man does. And I've seen this, this is a universal problem, Samina, it's not just an American problem. And McKinsey, the consulting firm has valued that gap at a trillion dollars. Trillion dollars could get injected back into economies if we treat women the same and get them back to work or able to have kids or things like that. So those are my big umbrella things. You asked how I got into this. It's really...
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Really?
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I love
maria sophocles (:through seeing what I wasn't doing for patients. The sexual part sort of came after. Like once I started looking at menopause, I thought, okay, I get menopause and I can teach women about menopause. But it also occurred to me that in medical school and in residency, I didn't have good training in sexuality or sexual problems. And my mentors were not comfortable teaching me.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
maria sophocles (:Almost all the other OBGYNs I knew weren't doing it, weren't asking. And so women weren't telling. So there's this like silence, like this under the radar thing, right? So I love that you and I are kind of tackling this head on.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I it too and I'm happy to be there right with you on this journey of really just educating. My tagline is I'm here to educate so you can advocate and I feel like that is something that we all do every day in our office but we need to do it for other clinicians so that we
maria sophocles (:Yeah, well that's kind of where the Ted Talk happened. Like I was, I've been doing one on one medicine just like you, one woman at a time. And you know, now for 30 years, but when I thought to do the Ted Talk, it was probably 27 years or so in. And I thought, how do I get this education to more women? So I applied and was accepted and that talk has now been seen, you know, all over the world and it's so...
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah.
maria sophocles (:Nice to have a woman contact me from Bangladesh or the Philippines or Argentina, say, I saw your Ted talk and it changed the way I think about sex for myself. That pleasure is for me too. So obvious to you and I, but not obvious to people who were taught good girls don't talk about sex or my mother never told me anything or I can't talk to my husband about it, right?
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. Exactly.
enough.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, absolutely.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:It's so true. It's so true. And I'm going to link your, it was a wonderful Ted talk and we'll talk a little bit about some of the concepts you mentioned in a little bit. But, since you're talking about self pleasure and, and it really, really even just like women like accepting pleasure for themselves. I mean, I think we see the statistics all the time about, you know, the orgasm gaps out there and how, you know, we don't ask for things that we should. And, and, you know, now I think we're seeing a trend even among the millennials and the Gen, Gen Xers who, Gen Zers, sorry, who are
maria sophocles (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:not even having as much intercourse, not even having as much sex, not even drinking, you know? And so, like, I always find, like, you and I both do this. We recommend, like, vibrators to our patients as part of, a prescription plan to improve their, you know, sexuality or their sexual experiences. But, I mean, what do you think it is? Like, I feel like so many women, you know, are very secretive about, like, their sexual pleasure and really loving yourself.
maria sophocles (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:It's shame. I think it's shame and I think it's cultural norms. So these have been ingrained in us as women for centuries. Okay, this isn't just a 2024 thing and this isn't your mom and grandmom's generation being stuffy. This has been centuries and honestly millennia.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:that women have been taught the message that sex is for men. Sex is for male pleasure or procreation, two things. And they know how to do the procreation thing, they get that. But male pleasure, they know how to do that too. They know how to fake orgasm, that's widely known and it's widely done across cultures, across socioeconomic scales, wealthy women, poor women, brown women, white women, all fake orgasm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yes. Right. Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Right.
maria sophocles (:Not all women fake orgasm, but a good number, good percentage. No, not every time. Sometimes we're just too damn bored too. No, I'm kidding. But we do. And there's even a cool book I read about why we fake it. You know, it's kind of interesting. And so we get how to do procreation. We get how to make sure men have pleasure, because frankly, a lot of men can have pleasure whether we have pleasure or not. And some men, by the way, just to defend men,
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Not every time. Sometimes I'm like, yeah, exactly.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, exactly.
maria sophocles (:want us to have pleasure being turned on, seeing us have an orgasm turns them on. So this is not about crapping on men at all. But women ourselves, we're our own worst enemies in some way. We're too busy, we're too distracted. We don't feel we deserve it. And we certainly, certainly don't feel we can talk honestly about it with clinician, partner, maybe some good girlfriends, but not everybody has girlfriends they can talk to about it.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Totally.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. Uh-uh. No, huh. Empowering you. Man. Totally.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:huh.
maria sophocles (:So we're really stuck keeping it this shameful internal thing. And you know, I watched this movie, Baby Girl this week with Nicole Kidman. Well, it's not like an Oscar worthy, you know, amazing film, but it's really about, don't tell Nicole Kidman that because you know, she did a great job. No, she was wonderful, amazing. it's more just that it's actually about the difference, about communication.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:yeah, I wanna see it, it's gotten all the friends.
Yeah. She's wonderful. You did a great job.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:between a heterosexual couple who are loving and have kids and love their life and love their marriage. But there's this elephant in the bedroom that they're not talking about and it's that she's not actually having pleasure. And you see it in the opening scene when she fakes an orgasm, spoiler alert, fakes the orgasm and then runs in another room to masturbate. And it's like, wait, why doesn't she just tell him what she wants?
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:That's rare.
Yeah.
maria sophocles (:And that seems so obvious to you and I, but it's not obvious to 99 % of women who it's easier just to satisfy him, go to sleep. And she's done this, Nicole Kidman's done this in the movie for 19 years. And that concept of I'm having sex for him started to really bother me in the last say 10 years. I started thinking, no, that's not okay. You work too hard, you have a job, you're raising kids, you're cleaning the fridge out.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:You are taking care of your parents. You are supporting the community. You cannot deny yourself, right? So that's where I came up with this concept of a gap between the expectations, abilities, and even communication between men and women. And so instead of orgasm gap, I call that the bedroom gap, and we can learn more about that another time or later. But it's really that disconnect in the bedroom that
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, world is on your
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Yeah.
maria sophocles (:is primarily a heterosexual thing, but I have LGBTQ couples who suffer from it too. They just may have communication issues or they have different abilities too. But I think it's really very much at the crux of why women don't allow themselves pleasure.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:And it's really a sad thing. feel like, you know, you're right. We know the benefits of a good sex life. We know the benefits of good communication to get a good sex life. Like, it's very obvious to those of us in this, you know, and you know how like people used to always say like, oh, look how bitchy that woman is. She just needs to get laid. I mean, well, I mean, I mean, don't know if you're, yeah.
maria sophocles (:Wow. Yeah, yeah. No, I know, I know. You're right. I don't mean wow. mean like, yes, I've, wow, we both heard that.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, and so, but in some ways you're like, well, I mean, maybe she does need a pleasure to like have more pleasure.
maria sophocles (:Yeah, because she may be resentful that her husband wants sex three times a week and she does it Monday, Wednesday, Friday dutifully. You we call it mercy sex or duty sex. And then she's just like, Jesus, I'm giving this to him. I'm driving my kids everywhere. My law firm, there's stuff going on at work, you know. And I think, yeah, I know. And so, well, there's a couple of messages here, okay? One is sex is a great,
Dr Sameena Rahman (:actually.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:exhausting.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I'm gonna give you a high five, cause that's how I feel.
Yeah.
maria sophocles (:stress reliever, period, end of story. But I think what you and I could help listeners today understand is that sex, that we get to define that. We get to define that. Men define sex as penis and vagina until they ejaculate. But we can change that script and yes, if you're listening, you can talk to him and we can talk this time or another time about how to start that convo so that the listeners out there who are female can say, okay.
I'm gonna advocate for what I want. And also, by the way, I'm gonna define what gives me pleasure. Maybe it's just oral sex. Maybe, you know, most women don't have orgasms from penile penetration anyway. Or maybe it's self-love. What's self-love? Just pleasuring yourself, right? And masturbation has such a, like, dirty stigma, ugh, you know, but for teenage boys, for teenage boys, it's like exactly the core of their being, you know?
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, rub one out. Mascara.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, yeah. Don't tell me that.
maria sophocles (:And so it's really as teenagers, sorry, I know I had three of them, I had three of them. So I think it's as teens where we get this bifurcation of who we're supposed to be. And by the way, think sex ed classes don't help. If we did sex ed classes like they do in the Netherlands, mutual pleasure, would, men would understand. And so with women, you're not gonna become these different sexual beings where men can.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm. Right.
yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:masturbate till their sheets are crusty and women have to never ever ever talk about it. You know, we can be more open about that and then that will translate for the rest of your life. So I think we could start a lot earlier.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:No, you're totally right. And we do a disservice to adolescent kids trying to teach them about stuff that they usually have no concept of for a very long time. And then you get to an adulthood and you're like, wait.
maria sophocles (:wait, what am I supposed to do? How do, and I have so many adult patients that I know you do too, who really don't know their body. You know, I give everybody a mirror and you know, we talk about it and they just say, I just, didn't realize that was that and that was there. So if you don't even know your own body, it's very hard to teach someone else to give you pleasure. So I think it starts with the comfort of knowing your body and of what gives you pleasure. And the other thing I think, Samina, is we can de-stigmatize
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Not at all.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
maria sophocles (:masturbation, doesn't have to be clitoral, it doesn't have to be until I orgasm. These are just rules that someone made up. I tell patients about G-rated masturbation. Touch your arms, stroke the sides of your breast, touch anything that feels good to you, right? That's right, that's right. And so I think, and that's why I sometimes say self-love, because I think masturbation, you say it and patients wince, right?
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. Awaken any pleasure, right?
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, that's true. Right, right, yeah, yeah.
maria sophocles (:And they're like, God, no, look, I gotta go. We didn't even talk about my thyroid yet. So whereas, because I'm also a sex therapist, I like to give it time and give people time and permission to kind of come to a conversation about that. So I love talking sex toys, I love talking lubes. I used to design them and now I just have them all.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Oh, I didn't hear about this. How did you get into that? What did you do?
maria sophocles (:just as a Swedish company like 20 years ago asked me to help them create their lube to match female fluid. And then we started doing toys and I just did it all for free because it was fun. But now I just advise a lot of companies, you know, on what they need and what we think women want. But I think the cool trend in sex toys is A, they're more acceptable, B, they're more available and C, they're not
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I'm a wonderful.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:male design looking like big hard dildos. A lot of them are not so threatening anymore. They look like a mouse for your computer that could be just sitting around and your cleaning lady is not going to freak out if she sees it.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Where's all the cute ones? Yeah, yeah.
Great. Great.
or like a little finger that you just stick in your like purse to carry around with it.
maria sophocles (:Yeah, I mean some of them are USB charged now, you know, I have patients who... Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, well some of them have the apps too right or you can like the lioness and some of those other ones like you can actually
maria sophocles (:Yes, so we have a lot more choice. They're less threatening. So I keep them in my office so people can kick the tires. They can feel them. They can feel the high grade silicone. They're not so threatening. I think that's really helpful. So if you're listening and you're toying with, maybe I should try one. You know, I would say start with something that doesn't necessarily go in the body. Dame, the company Dame DAME has some nice ones. Lalo, L-E-L-O.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:you.
maria sophocles (:Plus one, there's lots of companies out there. Playground, you know, there's a lot that can, you know, find something that looks appealing to you and that you wouldn't be kind of freaked out using and use it on your arms or legs in the shower first. Just note that it feels good. Just close your eyes and feel that it feels good. That's the beginning. That's the beginning. When you feel uncomfortable, you could put it on your thighs or on your vulva, which is the outside of the vagina.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:and see how it is.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. mean, I think it's all that whole like mindfulness thing, right? That we talk about when it comes to sex. know, it's like being, I mean, how many of us are running like to do lists in our head or like they're just not present in the moment with our. Right.
maria sophocles (:But I think you can baby step, right?
maria sophocles (:Totally. And we can make our bedrooms conducive to that. So I used to train under Dr. Ruth. She was so lovely to mentor me. yeah. And she used to with her accent, you know, she used to almost yell at me about how important it was to tell people that their bedroom had to be welcoming. And I was hardcore doctor mode at that point. was like, I don't have time for that kind of stuff. I just want to give them all vaginal estrogen. She was like, Maria, Maria.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Wonderful! You met her and trained with her? That's the conclusion.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, Yeah.
maria sophocles (:The bedroom, it must be for sex and sleeping and nothing else. So she was really cute. She was really feisty. And God, you know, I'm five too. And she was probably like 4'10 at that point. I think she was probably about 4'6 when she passed away. But she really meant it that the bedroom needs to be a welcoming place where you're not looking at your screen, thinking about your kids lacrosse game. You know, it really does. You need to protect it.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I know, I know. I don't know.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, she's shriken down. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:That includes keeping it a decent temperature, keeping the bedding wonderful, keeping screens out. Do know that 35 % of us have sex with our cell phone physically in the bed with us while we have sex? I'm not joking. That's just, that's pathetic. And guess what? I don't want to say pathetic because I'm going to offend the people listening who actually do it. It's not pathetic, sorry, take back. But it's harming you.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:really? didn't know that. Yeah, that's great.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, yeah. it's a product of our society is right.
maria sophocles (:Yes, I mean I'm guilty. My kid said to me the other day, you're a screen-ager, you know, because I was looking at my screen while they were talking to me. Yeah, but the point is how can you possibly be focused and engaged on something as intimate and special as sex or just kissing or fooling around or touching when you're hearing beeps and dings and alarms and lights are going on? I can't. I maybe I have adult ADHD, but I cannot.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:That's pretty natured.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
maria sophocles (:focus on anything else with that phone around. So I would beg listeners to really think about finding a place near their bedroom for their phone at night and just making the bedroom something welcoming for sleep or sex. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I'm really sure.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:just away from.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, and I think that may speak to the statistics that we read about how like the amount of sex is decreasing among younger people and even like, you know, alcohol use and all these other things. Well, maybe they're just too busy on their screen and they're not making these like, you know, human connections.
maria sophocles (:Well-
Human connections, human connections, over 50 % of men 18 to 25 have never asked a woman out in person. In person. Yeah, of young men. Why? Because they're either on porn, just getting sex from porn, or they're internet dating. And nothing wrong with porn, and nothing wrong with Tinder or Bumble, nothing wrong with any of it. It's how we live. But when over half of a demographic
Dr Sameena Rahman (:no.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah.
maria sophocles (:has never sat face to face with someone they wanna go out with and felt the almost discomfort, read the facial expressions. There's learning from that, right? They have to learn from that. So I do think porn and online dating have to be addressed. So my book, The Bedroom Gap is coming out this winter and there's a chapter on that. There's a part about online dating and how do we do it?
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right, right, right. The body language, the
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yay! I
maria sophocles (:How do we deal with a society where you can have a different date every night of the week for weeks when you're divorced or single? And even 25 % of the people on Tinder are not single and they're still looking for other dates. So there's a lot of change happening because of online dating and women need some guidance and answers which hopefully my book helps with but also people like you and I can help them I think know themselves and
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Not funny.
maria sophocles (:own their own sexual experience so that they're more comfortable putting boundaries up, saying, don't know, I don't want to do that. And they're also more comfortable maybe expanding a little bit because novelty is fun. Yeah. And, you know, one of the most common reasons for adultery is lack of novelty in a sex life. So that's kind of good to know, right? And not that anyone's, you know, thinking their spouse is cheating, but
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yep.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, thank you.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:It's good for our brain to have some novelty. It releases dopamine. And yet many women feel like, that's weird or creepy. I'm not dressing up like a cheerleader or whatever. But there's lots of ways to have novelty in your sex life without doing something you're uncomfortable with. And I think that's where a sex therapist can help too.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Great.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. you know, scheduling, you know, for couples that have been together 10, 15, 20 years, 30 years or more, you know, like you don't even know where to start sometimes when you're in a sexless marriage, right? Two or three times a year you're having sex and what do you do? Like I have patients tell me this all the time. I'm like, well, like first we gotta just, we have to schedule sex. Like that's what we have to do, right? Like we have to start scheduling it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So I mean, you know, this is something that's critical for most relationships and important for, you know, your health.
maria sophocles (:That's right.
maria sophocles (:Yeah, so what? We scheduled dentist appointments and that's good for us.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:right? Your sexual health is health, we know that. So I mean, think all of that is very important and keeping those factors in mind are so critical. And then, you know, we all talk about vaginal estrogen and using it in midlife and those other scenarios like lactation or birth control pills and whatever, we always talk about those conditions. You know, people are sometimes scared to talk about or use lube or moisturizers. What's your take on that?
maria sophocles (:Yeah, I mean my take is that lube is for life lube is not something for old ladies and that's the image that it's somehow developed that and so that women hate using it because they feel like it's a failure because if you're not Lubricated if you're not wet, you know it and he knows it right or your female partner knows it with a toy And so it feels like a big sign on your head saying failure loser couldn't get wet and that's just
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yes.
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah.
maria sophocles (:A, ridiculous because it's about having fun and B, you just have to lose that shame. one of the most common times women need lube is not in old age. It's in sort of the 16 to 25 year old age group because those men often want penetration immediately before a woman is wet. So we have to teach our young patients too, lube is for you also. There are basically three kinds of lube, right? Water-based, silicone-based,
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yes. Yeah.
maria sophocles (:and oil-based. there, you can pick whatever works for you. It's like shoe shopping at Nordstrom's. You do you. You pick the one that feels comfortable for you. But know the differences so that you know how to shop. Water-based lube feels the most natural, but it wears out the fastest. Silicone wears out the slowest, so it's great for like prolonged thrusting and sex, but it feels slippery and the most artificial.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Mm-hmm.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right. Right.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yes.
maria sophocles (:I have some patients blend them. They just get like a silicone based lube like Uber lube, and then they'll get a water based lube and they'll blend them a little bit. You know, some sex toys are not compatible with oil or silicone based lube. So you've got to know that, but you know, that's just sort of like a one hour lube talk I do in 90 seconds, you know.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, it's really lovely.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Thank
Yep.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:But we can come back and do another Just On Lube and Sex Toys and have so much fun.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:All right. Yeah, absolutely. I know because we're limited on time today because of both mainly my schedule and stuff. either way, I just want you to introduce what you're working on so that when I have you back in a few months, all the listeners will be like chomping at the bit to hear what it's about.
maria sophocles (:Yeah, the concept of the bedroom gap is in the TED Talk and the bedroom gap, the definition is the difference in expectations and abilities between men and women in midlife. We all bring into our bedrooms little scripts, I'll call them, about who I should be, who my partner should be.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:You mentioned it briefly, but I just want you to come on up.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Right.
maria sophocles (:Should you be macho and be having orgasms? Should you be gentle? Should you be a female? Should you be a male? And obviously this depends on gender identity. It depends on whether you're same sex couple or not, but we all bring our own sort of baggage, if you will. And as we hit middle age and physiologic changes happen in the vulva, vagina, bladder, and it's harder for women to make moisture and it's harder to have comfortable sex.
Many men don't realize that. Women aren't sure what's happening. They feel broken. Women feel broken. Men feel the woman might be broken. No one understands it because no one teaches this in sex ed class in 10th grade. And you get this gap of information and it's because we don't communicate, it just sits there. It leads to wrecking of self-esteem, wrecked relationships, adultery, affairs, wrecked marriages, whatever.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:So I termed it the bedroom gap because it's bigger than just an orgasm really. And it's relational and the book talks about the socio-cultural factors that make that, the physiology, the science. It talks about pharma and the pharma industry and how the launch of Viagra and this amazing ability for men of any age to have erections forever and ever has actually widened that gap.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Sure. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah, right. Yeah. Literally.
maria sophocles (:and it sort of left women hanging out to dry. when you couple, yes, literally hang out to dry. And then you couple that with the underuse of vaginal estrogen and the fear. Just today, I had a woman with very severe vaginal dryness. She said, I can never use estrogen. My father told me you will die of cancer, never use it. Her father told her this as a little girl. I mean,
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:you know, I just wanted to cry. thought, you know, you're 80, your father's been dead for 25 years, you know, or something, and you're holding onto that when we know it's safe for you. And we even have a black box warning on vaginal estrogen that we shouldn't have. you know, you and I have a steep hill to climb to help women feel it's safe, help them understand vaginal estrogen is safe, help them understand that sexual pleasure is for them.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:I know. We've talked about this. Ridiculous.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Yeah.
maria sophocles (:and they can use lube and sex toys and anything they need. And people like you are just so wonderful and so needed to carry this message.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Absolutely. We have to continue doing the work and I'm so excited for your book when it comes out in the fall and you're going to be back on here to talk all about what's in the book. that's little teaser for everybody. Yeah. A little teaser. So it's going to be good. we're going to put in the notes your TED Talk. This is wonderful. I listened to it recently and it was like, wow, very powerful. and I want to have you next time we want to talk about some of your international work because I find that very fascinating as well.
maria sophocles (:Yeah, we'll do a little reading, a little teaser. Yeah.
maria sophocles (:Yeah, it's very easy to focus on America and that's where you and I live and we should, but it's really fascinating to see what's happening in women's health globally as a result of all the funding being stripped away and also to just talk about how menopause exists around the world for women. Yeah, so much good stuff to talk about. I can't wait to do it again.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Thanks.
Dr Sameena Rahman (:Absolutely, absolutely. So, yeah, absolutely. So thank you so much, Maria, for coming on to my podcast today. I'm Dr. Smita Rahman, gyno girl. Thank you for joining me for Gyno Girl Presents Sex, Drugs, and Hormones. Remember, I'm here to educate so you can advocate for yourself. Please join me next week on another episode.
