Libido, The Ick & The Sexual Scripts We Never Questioned | Georgina Whelan Part 1

What actually is libido? Why do so many couples end up with mismatched desire? And why are so many people quietly convinced their relationship is the only one struggling with sex?

In part one of this conversation, I sit down with Georgina Whelan from Sexual Psychology to talk about the reality of sex and desire in long-term relationships  without the cringe, the wellness fluff, or the unrealistic movie version of intimacy.

Georgina shares her journey from mental health nursing into sex therapy, and we unpack low libido, sexual desire discrepancy, painful sex, “the ick,” resentment, selfishness in bed, and why libido is about far more than hormones alone.

We also talk about the sexual scripts men and women grow up with, how men can also be harmed by patriarchal expectations around sex and performance, and the desire/arousal scale that explains why couples are often mismatched without even realising it.

This episode is thoughtful, funny, and deeply reassuring for anyone who has ever wondered whether their sex life is “normal.”

Stay tuned because in part two, we get even more practical: talking to your kids about sex, sex toys, introducing novelty into long-term relationships, and the concept of “bread and butter sex.”

Find Georgina at https://www.sexualpsychology.com.au/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to On the Moons, where we have conversations about hormones, midlife, and the moments that make us wonder is it just me? I'm Kate. I'm a 48-year-old pharmacist and newly minted perimenopausal oversharer. This is where we talk openly about the changes we aren't prepared for, so we never have to feel alone in them again. I acknowledge the Camaragle people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the land which I am recording today. I pay my respects to elders past and present, and I extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal Land. Hello friends. My guest is the wonderful Georgina Wheelan from Sexual Psychology, and this conversation was fascinating. Georgina started her career as a mental health nurse before moving into psychology and sex therapy. And she brings this really grounded practical approach to conversations that a lot of people still find awkward, shameful, or difficult to have. In this first half of the conversation, we talk about what libido actually is and what it isn't. We talk about lo libido, mismatched libido, and sexual discrepancy. We talk about lo libido, mismatched libido, and sexual desire discrepancy, and a fact about men and women that surprised me. We also get into the sexual scripts that men and women grow up with, why men can also be victims of the patriarchy when it comes to sex and intimacy, and some of the real life libido killers that don't get talked about enough. Things like painful sex, resentment, mental load, and yes, the ick. Georgina also explains the desire and arousal scale, why couples are often mis why couples are often mismatched on it without even realizing, and how to actually start talking to your partner about sex without it turning into blame, shame, or defensiveness. Honestly, this conversation was so refreshing. I hope you find it so too. Here's the first half of my chat with Georgina Wheelan from Sexual Psychology. Hi, George. Hi. Thanks for coming on my podcast. Oh, you're welcome. This is very, very exciting. George and I were introduced by a mutual friend, and George has a history in clinical psychology. But how on earth did you get from clinical psychology into sexology? Tell me all about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, there's no direct pathway. You have to kind of forge that yourself, like all uh sexual minority adventures. Yeah. Um, I was a mental health nurse and then I retrained as a psychologist. And while I was retraining as a psychologist, I then also worked in uh sexual health as a nurse in um Coach and Road Sydney Hospital. So sexual health and drug and alcohol. Uh and then I did my internship there. So I had that sexual health, um, mental health experience. And then I, when I finished my internship, I did a master's of sexual health. It was the first year it was ever run in Sydney with uh at Sydney University. And I after I finished that, I um then worked specifically in a sexual health clinic called the Australian Sexual Centre for Sexual Health with Chris McMahon. That was his practice. He's like a world leader in uh sexual medicine, particularly for men. Uh yeah, so then I I just sort of did that specifically and then I brought it into my own uh private practice. So my my clinical experience really focuses less on uh the you know sexual spicy things, but more the intersection of people's relationships, mental health conditions, sexuality, gender, yeah, and sexual function. Yeah, amazing. So, what actually is libido? I think a lot of people think about it in a really uh specific way, like related to sexual desire, so wanting, but I actually think about libido as more like an energy life force. Uh Carl Jung first talked about libido as being like this energy this energy that we have and carry around. So it's it's about vitality, vitality, um, motivation, drive, wanting, uh, pursuing. Uh so we can do that in all areas of life. And yeah, we certainly have libido within sex, is which is wanting sex, seeking it out.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I had a conversation with a lady who was a little bit older, and she was telling me about a friend of hers who had started HRT and was wanting to, so this lady was in her early 80s, I think, and she was wanting to continue her hormone replacement therapy because she said it gives me a libido and a sex drive, and I live on my own, so I'm driving nowhere, but it is a libido for myself. Yeah. And I thought, what a bloody brilliant way of stating it.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Well, a lot of people self-regulate through sex, so masturbation. So having a desire to masturbate is one thing, and then also hormones help you with your ability to have arousal, so that is to experience pleasure and then orgasm. So you've got to want to masturbate and then the hormones to help you get aroused. Uh, and orgasms is uh orgasms are are very calming to the nervous system. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And um, and also hormones make you feel like yourself again. So they can take away all those, oh, I guess, symptoms of when we're having hormonal fluctuations or hormonal, you know, imperimenopause, menopause, the the loss of the hormones, and then we don't feel like ourselves. And of course, all of that would feed into then how much you want to do anything, let alone like how much you want to engage in the world. And then, of course, sex and your relationship. What I was going to ask you was then why in 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s do women feel like their libido is gone or they've it's less than it was in our 20s.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

I don't see that many women with uh libido problems in their 30s. There they might be having children, so they might have a postpartum kind of dip because children are a massive contraceptive. Yes. Uh, and in that period of postpartum, we have very different hormones. Like so some people get really horny when they're pregnant, and then afterwards um they don't. Also, when you've got a baby on you, um, the oxytocin uh is the oxytocin is um basically managed by the fact that you've got another human crawling all over you. So you often don't want to have sex, and breastfeeding doesn't want to have sex. But other than the childbirthing experiences and the few years of the young children after that, um, it's more, you see, more uh persistent low libido in women in their 40s and 50s, and particularly 50s on. Uh so menopause that coincides with uh perimenopause and menopause, but it also coincides with different relationship cycles. So not that many people are falling right in love at 40 and 50. They might be divorcing, actually. That that's the time where divorce is the highest in Australia: 49 to 50 women. Yeah. Um, so you the relationship cycle really depends on where your desire is. So early relationship limerence has novelty, fantasy, projected uh idealization, and your whole chemistry uh is designed for attaching, like to connect. So you're seeking out and then you're nervous about getting uh rejected. So that kind of anticipation. Uh, pheromones, our chemistry basically fully changes, and so our desire will go up in that first phase. Uh, bonding has it slightly sort of settling down into a little bit more like ourselves, and then to the third phase where we're learning to have uh attachment but uh differentiation, uh, our libido will go back to our normal set. And so that's where we can have problems within relationships with desire discrepancy. So we initially rise at the beginning of the relationship, and then we settle down to our general personal uh libido. Often you're seeing in your 20s people like falling in love a lot of times, and then when they fall out of love, right, or they find they're not compatible, they'll move on. So they're constantly getting new activations of desire there. Whereas for women uh in their later 30s and onwards, uh, they're actually in longer-term relationships. So that is part of the reason why you've got that clash of low desire alongside menopause and then alongside major life changes. So, yeah, so we've started a family, we've moved jobs, we've moved states, countries, and in those later relationships cycles, we've also got uh power struggles. And so when you get into a power struggle over sex, who's who wants sex more, who wants sex less, that really kills desire when you're arguing about it.

unknown 9:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

So when you say discrepancy, why then is it that I'm I'm going to probably generalize and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but is it mainly the women who have a lower libido or desire? Why is it then that the men seem not to? Is it purely just is it purely just hormones?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Well, I it's a myth uh that it's all about men wanting to have more sex than women. So in cis heterosexual relationships, you will see about desire discrepancy. That's when one person wants significantly more sex than the other. Well, and one wants significantly less. Um, in heterosexual cis relationships, that's about 60% men, but 40% men are women actually want sex more than um their male partners, but we don't talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

No, I I I would not have I would not not have guessed that at all. I'd have put it, you know, 90, 10. I don't know, I've I'd put that gap a lot more in favor of the men.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Well, it it me um it matches our cultural myths, right? So all men are supposed to be uh horny as hell, have an erection at every at any moment of their life, want to fuck anybody that walks past them that has a vagina. Um and so that's the myth, which is actually sad for men. Like it's very a constricted myth that they should be on all the time. So men are embarrassed to say, I don't, my wife wants to have more sex than me. So that's why you don't hear it there. Um, men are also used to being told no. So like early gatekeepers of sex uh historically are women. And so men learn to initiate, and it's a numbers game, it's okay to be rejected. Uh, women hate it. Like, like if when I see a desired discrepancy couple, um, it's distressing for uh all couples, but for women, when they're being rejected by their men, uh, they find it incredibly difficult because they've never learned they have to have rejection because generally you can have sex if you want to as a woman, you can't find it. Yeah, but it's actually very common for women to want sex more than men. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

And do you see then you said heterosexual couples, what is the difference then in homosexual couples?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Well, in uh same-sex males, they have more open, flexible relationships. Sometimes they're polyamorous, but mostly it's a hookup culture. So when uh the libido dies, not dies or reduces from the limerence into the bonding, into the differentiation stage, men who stay in relationships have a lot more flexible understanding that they can just go and hook up. So it's very it's a transactional experience, it's easily available, you can have sex anytime you want. Um so men in same-sex relationships tend to negotiate that by enter bringing other people in. And women in same-sex relationships don't have that same hookup couple, and there's like myths around lesbian bed death, which is this idea, there's a book written about it. Uh, this idea that you move into that attachment uh but kind of almost over-identification phase. And if you've got two people with responsive desire in that respect and no one's initiating, um, that can that can lead to less sexual frequency. Not to say that lesbians aren't, there aren't women in relationships that initiate sex and have high sexual desire, but women in longer-term relationships move more into a responsive uh sexual sexual experience. Uh, and then for uh non-binary or gender-diverse people, it's really very different and it depends on where they are in their gender affirmation and hormone state and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And I've heard you say previously that uh sex and sexual relationships for women can be emotional and for men it can be just physical. Do you think that's then also feeding into why, if there's a discrepancy in a relationship, the woman feels really hurt by it, but the men not so much?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

No, I don't really believe that for men uh sex is physical and for um women it's emotional. Uh and in fact, biology doesn't show that. So biology shows that oxytocin reliefs, which is a bonding, loving hormone for us humans, is actually higher in men when they ejaculate than it is in women when they orgasm. So the highest oxytocin that a woman will have is when she's breastfeeding. Yeah. Men come in with their ejaculation, women come in with their orgasm, and then we get oxytocin release through physical touch, like kissing or just even holding hands and you don't have like even friendship hugs and things like that. But men actually fall in love through sex. And I think it's a real disservice to talk about men just being like fuckboys and things like that, because it's they're they're the same, they're experiencing the same problems in patriarchy as as as women are, which is locked into the there's the sexual script of that's how you're supposed to have sex. Um but yeah, a lot of men in uh sexual desire discrepancy feel very rejected if their partner doesn't want to have sex, and it's and and they often can communicate in their emotional feelings through sex in a way that women can actually be a little bit more diverse. So we've been we've got slightly different brains in regards to communication style and the like forward-facing eye-to-eye contact rather than side to side, and we also can get a lot of intimacy through our friendship groups, yeah. Not to say that men don't do that, but we're socialized to really develop our, you know, be the manager of social groups, uh, women. So women can get intimacy in a more variety in a variety of ways, and then men can uh get it maybe in a less scripted kind of way. Yeah. So I actually I actually believe, yeah, that men, everyone can have transactional sex in FARC, uh, but men do fall, but men do actually express their emotions a lot more in sex than in women.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

So what would you say? I know you've just said that children are a libido killer. What else in your clinic do you think are people saying that kills their libido?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Oh, right, yeah. So there's um lifestyle factors, probably the biggest thing. Just people like not understanding that their body has to be in a happy place. So people don't really want to have sex when their body is unhappy. Yeah. When you're moving into your later stage relationships, if you've got children or social commitments, family commitments, we tend to put sex and our bodies kind of right at the bottom of the priority. Yeah. And women do tend to feel like they're focusing on other people's needs as part of their roles. So one of the things is yeah, just neglect of feeling good in the self. So we're accessing that general energy and vitality. And one of the other things that I think is probably like you just have to stop, which is painful sex. So some women continue on with painful sex regardless because they feel like that they're doing that for the relationship or they're doing it to manage their men's emotions. So back to the point of emotions and sex for men, then their partner might sulk uh or get frustrated uh or withdraw. So they're doing that to kind of placate there. And so they'll go through, you know, of course, that's painful, uh, which is terrible because that teaches the body that their partner is dangerous. So the body doesn't matter what your mind says, I'm doing this for us, or it's we'll be quick, uh, the body uh will remember that and then build an anticipatory aversion to that. So, yeah, sex that's painful, uh, sex that is one way, which is like I don't really feel like it, but I'll do it for you. That's everyone like giving your partner a solid like that is great for sometimes. But if you're turning up in a sexual experience and not getting something out of it that you enjoy, you don't have to have an orgasm every time, but you really have to leave thinking more, not more like I did that for you, and that's for our relationship, but what did I get out of that? So, sex is actually selfish. So, in the moment we're orgasming, we're thinking about our own fantasy, what it feels like in our body, uh, whatever the smells or the vision or whatever it is that's really getting us going. It's actually very self-referential. And good sex involves selfishness as well as um turn taking, sometimes mutual satisfaction. But often women uh feel bad about just doing that solitary, it's my turn. Yeah. Really kind of uh laying back as a doomy queen, kind of like, you know, can't bring it all on. Yeah. So I think that when you're turning up for sex and it's a gift or quick, I've got to get something else done, and I've got nothing against quickies, they're good too. But uh yeah, just this idea of making sure that you don't neglect yourself. Yeah. Being selfish in sex. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Oh my god. Yeah. Did everybody hear that? That's uh that's the takeaway message for the entire podcast, I think. Be selfish in sex.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Yes. Well, it's really it's it happens to um men and women, all genders, is that this idea that men get like, oh, well, if I'm being selfish in sex, that's me. I get they get really worried about premature ejaculation. And um, but then women will feel like they can't be selfish. Oh, I'm taking too long, or um, I haven't bothered to shave, or maybe I haven't had a shower or something. So that my smells or the way like I'm a bit thurry or something, that's gonna upset my partner a bit. Like actually, my guys don't care about that. I really don't. They generally like smells, uh, and women are very can be can be very hyper-vigilant about like uh their bodies. Yeah, so that part where you just be like, oh, I'm just I'm accepting myself as I am and I'm gonna take the pleasure as it's given to me. I don't have to be in some perfect frame of mind or perfect body shape.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, I think um my husband has definitely said, I mean, my son as well, when I'm shaving my legs or plucking my eyebrows or dyeing my eyelashes or you know, whatever other ridiculous thing it is I'm doing, both of them have said, I don't know why you're doing that. And my daughter gets it, but interesting that, I mean, I I can understand why my husband would say it because we've been together for 25 years, and but interesting that even my 21-year-old son is saying, I don't know why you're bothering to do that, mom. So um he doesn't mind you having hairy legs. He will no, but also I think he I think he's I I really think he's just saying to me, people are fine as they are. Yeah. Um, but you have mentioned the ick before.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Tell me about that. Well, the ick is when you're uh participating in sex with like really low desire. So if you think about a spectrum like from zero to 100, um, you've got uh desiring, which is wanting, um going up from zero to a hundred, and you've also got uh arousal, which is your vasodilation into in your clitoris and your and your vulva in a labia, so that swelling, engorgement, lubrication, right? So arousal going from zero to a hundred and hundred being orgasm. So when you're starting sex with no arousal, that's okay, that's fine. You can a lot of women will start with that, and zero desire. What can happen is that because you've women feel like, oh, I've got to get all this over and done with, and men will might be starting if they're if they've got a desire discrepancy, they might be starting at a 50 or something like that already. They could start at a 30, they haven't got an erection that is getting low, and they're moving up to a 50. So think that zero to their desires are different. So she's zero in desire, he's uh maybe even 60 in a desire, but he's already 50 in arousal and she's zero in arousal. He's ready to do a high arousal activity like intercourse, right? So best to wait till you're about an 80% aroused to uh do an intercourse. So he's it doesn't take it's not going to take him very long to get more aroused to be ready for intercourse. She's starting at zero arousal, zero disaster. So if she's touched in a way that she likes, she will start to get aroused. So she might move into like a 20, 30. I love the way you're touching the back of my neck or the kissing me that way, or my personal favorite from moving from a zero to a 30 is a foot massage. Oh, yeah. Just fully relaxed. And from that moving up into that slight arousal there, then you start wanting. Women will then like, oh, now I want to continue. So then their desire will catch up. And then their arousal and their desire start moving. I keep wanting more and I'm enjoying it more and moving up. But that lag between where your partner starts and where you start is really important for pacing. So if you start with a zero, then jump straight into a high sexual activity, which is, oh, I know if I just give you a head job, that'll get things done. Or if you even if your partner went down on you to get you there, it's really like, it's kind of like dragging you, trying to drag you up faster than your body's ready. So what happens is that it becomes a turn-off. So your partner that that in that moment could be touching you like a sexual magician, right? They're like the best lover in the world. They're doing all the right things, they're doing the things that made you like tremble and scream in previous time, but they're touching you in the same way, and you'll be like, oh, it feels intrusive. So if you do any kind of sexual touching on the breasts or the um genitals, or really like tongue down your neck, kissing your like deep in your ear or something, something you're asked. When you're down there, you just go into minus category.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

So when you're in zero desire, zero arousal, and you do a high sexual arousal activity, women will feel irritated, intrude, like it's intrusive, like it's a boundary violation. They can get irritable and then they can go into disgust. That's disgusting. Right. And then that's really bad for their partner because if she's irritable, she'll be like, don't touch me like that. No, no, no. So it's never, it's not about how to, what could bring me up, like please give me a foot massage. It's sort of like not that way, not that way, not that way. And then he's going to be all anxious about oh, I'm doing it wrong. So falling into the male myth of he's got to somehow secretly work out what you want, what she wants without her saying. And then if he just misses all that or is just all a bit ashamed and he's got his head down, just trying to, like, if we can just get over this hump, all right. Get over the hump, and then we'll both be all right. Um, then it'll move into the ick. Yeah. So you get this disgust. And so unfortunately, then the disgust can then be transferred onto the partner. I like you're disgusting. And then that's really painful for partners to have when someone's in a low desire space that when they're touched, be rejected, but then felt like their sexuality is disgusting. And then that because that is such a big feeling, there's a lot of shame around it. So women will either they're ashamed that they feel that way in the first place. They'll be like, I don't want to say that's disgusting, but I feel disgusted. So they'll like kind of squash it down, or then it'll be just too intrusive for them, and they'll get that irritable disgust, and then the guy will feel really ashamed. And so then you've got this shame sitting in sex, which is unless you've got a humiliation fetish, shame generally is not great for couple sexuality, so um, yeah, then that further entrenches that low desire. So then unfortunately, then it broadens out into your general affection. So you've got your partner again floating around with like, you know, desire around a 40 or a 30 comes past, rubs your leg, rubs your bum, because they're just like feeling great, and then you're still zero. And but the last time you had sex, did anything sexual, you went into ick zone. So then general touching and flirty touching becomes icky too. And so then the general affection goes away. And so then that really reinforces that desire discrepancy. So, because how do you start? Like that was gonna be on my next question, which is how how do you how do you start then? Yeah, but you can't because you it's very it's like it's like a functional, well, we haven't had sex in three months, let's do it, and then it's so awkward, right? And then people think, well, it's awkward, it shouldn't be awkward, there must be something wrong with a relationship. But no, you can have really great relationships and get stuck in these patterns of sex. Um, but the belief that sex should be spontaneous, it should be easy, I shouldn't have to say anything about it, my partner should read my mind. Um, it and the comparison of like how it used to be like so I've turned up, we had bad sex, that's pretty normal in a long-term relationship. But if this idea of bad sex, we carry the um the emotional feeling that we leave with. So we've got you know the sex response cycle of the uh you know, of wanting and pleasure and orgasm and then completion, we in that completion phase, we really remember the feeling. So if we've ended on a bad note, we've got that feeling in ourselves, then we go to sex, we bring that with us. We've got to that we've got to get over that feeling to start, which is where we get the ick, and then we don't because we haven't really known recognized it very much, and then we think, oh, people think, oh, must be something wrong, right? And then if they're really good, it's a really good relationship, what will happen is it'll be like we love each other and we get on so well when we're doing XYZ together, but as soon as we have sex, it's weird. Yeah, and so then they're like, well, why would doing that sex makes us feel weird and awkward, awkward? So we'll just avoid it.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

And so then it's easier to sit on the lounge, or it's easier just to go out, watch a movie, or it's easier to play parents and kids, and uh because we get on so well there. Uh, and that's just a natural human thing, which is we go towards the things that we like, of course, and we stay away from the things that feel awkward, shameful, and yeah, disgust disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

And that's where we'll leave part one of my conversation with Georgina Wheelan from Sexual Psychology. In the next episode, we get even more practical. We talk about how to talk about hmm. We talk about how to talk to your kids about sex without dying of embarrassment, sex toys, and how to actually choose one if you've never bought one before, how to introduce one into a relationship without making your partner feel threatened, and Georgina introduces me to the concept of bread and butter sex, which honestly I think a lot of long-term couples will really relate to. So if you've ever wondered whether your relationship is normal, whether everyone else is secretly having better sex than you, or how people actually keep intimacy alive over decades, part two is for you. I'll see you next time we get on the moans. Bye bye.