April 6, 2026
Sex Therapist Dr. Viviana Coles explains if Carrie really can have sex like a man and what women actually need to learn from men about sex... (S4 E4 "What's Sex Got to Do With It?")
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RSS Feed Who better than to really deep dive and analyze “What’s Sex Got to Do With It” then Sex Therapist Dr. Viviana Coles? From Charlotte and Trey’s frustrating silence around intimacy to the bold claim that maybe she shouldn’t go back at all, the conversation digs into what really happens when sex becomes the unspoken problem in a relationship.
Plus, Carrie and Ray’s no-strings chemistry sparks a bigger debate: are women overcomplicating desire while men simply lean into it?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hi.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte? Hi? Everyone, welcome to Are You a Charlotte? Today we have a super fun and interesting guest. Her name is doctor Vivianna Coles. She is a licensed marriage and Family therapist and a certified sex therapist with twenty years of experience. She is lovely and super smart. The main reason that I wanted her on was to talk about the whole Tray and Charlotte storyline, and she has a lot of interesting things to say about it. And then also we're going to talk about episode four, oh for What Sex Got to Do with It, which is directed by the wonderful Allen Colter and written by Nicole Afrol. So please join us for both episodes this week. It's really interesting.
00:00:49
Speaker 1: Okay, Hi Kristen, nice to meet you.
00:00:52
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. Can I call you doctor Viviana?
00:00:55
Speaker 3: Of course that would be great. Thank you, I am you gave me the best reason to run it back with the seasons, and they're so good. I was just finishing up another episode.
00:01:09
Speaker 1: I just oh, fun, thank you, thank you, thanks for having me. It's my pleasure.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: I mean, it's funny because you know, obviously this was a long time ago that we filmed this, but the episodes really hold up. So it's very interesting for me to be rewatching them myself, and a lot of the times we'll just say here to ourselves when we're watching, especially this whole Tray Charlotte storyline, like I'm trying to think to myself, like did we talk to sex therapists at the time, Like what how?
00:01:38
Speaker 1: What were we thinking?
00:01:40
Speaker 2: But also we were in the middle of filming, right, and we were just kind of going with the scripts as they were given to us, right. But it does really make me think of so many, so many questions I have, you know, for a sex therapist about how to handle the things that we go through in the show. And so I'm so happy for you to be here.
00:01:59
Speaker 3: I'm really happy to be here. And the other thing that I noticed is that I'm like, oh my gosh, I was not a sex therapist at the time that these came out, so looking back and like being a couple serrapists and a sex serface, I'm like, just it's a new light. So thanks for thanks for doing this podcast, because a lot of us are probably rewatching and thinking, oh the gems and the one liners, thank you, thank you, it's too late for a hanky.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: I know, I know it's true.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: Our writers are just so good and they really like there were so many things and I need to ask them again about because for me, the whole Tray storyline. I knew what Charlotte wanted. I knew how much she you know, loved Trey. I had forgotten about the different elements of the difficulty. I remember the big difficulty, but I didn't remember like the kind of issues and how you know, she tried this way with the drugs magazine. She tried to get it into therapy. It didn't work, you know. But also I also feel and I'm wondering how you feel. I mean, I've never personally been in this situation, but I can only imagine how hard it would be to try to get a man to talk about it. It just seems like Trey is not that open, which.
00:03:17
Speaker 3: Is Trey is absolutely not that open. And I actually my heart broke this, you know, this like second third time of watching these around it felt like she was alone. She was alone in dealing with it, in talking about it and think about it. And at first, when she had only told Carrie, she was really alone because she was so ashamed. But everything that she tried, everything that they tried, I felt like, is very relevant and people still do that, and even some aspects of what their therapist brought up I think are still very useful in our in our field. So yeah, I'm excited to dive in and ready to go.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So let's just go for a second backwards in time to win. As you brought up that she just tells Carrie in the beginning. So Charlotte has her, you know, extremely romanticized ideals of what she would like, right, And we know because she tells the girls. You know, I decided to wait and not have sex with him because I thought this was a different way to carriage, right right, which I mean, first of all, what do you make of that?
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Okay, I would not recommend doing that. I think for so many people, if they're putting it, if they're first of all, if they're putting sex on a pedestal, that in and of itself creates a dynamic that can cause a lot of pressure and anxiety and just mystery, but not the good kind with sex. And so when she said that, and and this is you know, the day before she gets married and they're just appalled. I was appalled to because intimacy, both physical and emotional, that's the whole reason that you fall in love with someone to begin with, is to have those things in very full parts and for a whole half of that to be missing. Yes, she said he's a great kisser, and I was like, yeah, and making out is awesome and I love that, right, but it doesn't I mean, your whole body being into the physical act and the physical intimacy and how it responds that mind body connection is not something that I think anybody should have a big question mark when it comes to their partnership. And then when she shares right before she's walking down the aisle that it didn't work and he wasn't able to keep his erection, I felt so bad because the stakes are so high, and Carrie's just like, oh, oh my gosh, what are you doing to me?
00:06:01
Speaker 2: I know I also feel I mean when I think back on it, like, and of course you know you're in it, you're reading the script, you're trying to do your best you can do with the script, but it's so interesting to think through what that would actually be like, I'm so different from Charlotte in this fundamental way where I cannot ever imagine doing this in any way, shape or form, right, And I'm I'm it seems insane to me.
00:06:24
Speaker 1: You mean you're waiting, not waiting all of it.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: I thought you meant going through with the marriage. No, No, like faking.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: I'm not very much focused on marriage.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: But but I mean I do think that once Charlotte wants something, she's really going to pursue it.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:06:40
Speaker 2: And I think it's also so interesting because it's also she's not incredibly mature herself about talking about feelings and things, right, Like she's she has a lot of feelings, and I feel like she can emotionally express herself.
00:06:57
Speaker 3: But there's like a lens. There's this lens and this filter that is very hopeless romantic and is very talalish, you know. And I think waiting till marriage, whether it's a religious thing or not, is a bit of like, let's kick the can down the road, we'll deal with that later. And well, a lot of women and men think, well, everything will work out when when your chemistry is there, or when the respect is there and the love is there, the consent is there everything is going to work out perfectly. And I have a practice that is predominantly full with people who have all of the best intentions, who can really emotionally connect, and physically things are not going well for them awful.
00:07:41
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: So let's just I'm just so curious now, Okay, So what if you had a couple. Obviously you're not going to talk about any of your actual patients, obviously because you are a professional. So let's say you had a couple like Charlotte and Trede, where there are all of these other wonderful qualities, right, and they do seem to fit together, and they do want the same things, and they're kind of aligned in terms of their families, you know, in some ways and whatnot and whatnot. It's it's hard to go too deep because in some ways they're not aligned. But let's pretend at the beginning that they think they are right and then there is some kind of a of a miss miss in terms of the physical life.
00:08:21
Speaker 3: There's a snag.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, what would you recommend, like, what would you have that couple do well?
00:08:28
Speaker 3: So for a lot of the couples that I do work with, one of the main things that we figure out is is this a relational issue or is this something that is going on with the individual partners relationship with sex? For instance, I actually don't think that Charlotte was doing anything. I don't think she really did anything wrong. I mean, she did show her disappointment, but that was mainly because he wouldn't even talk about it, right, So I do assess them for that. Now, with Trey, it could have been so many different things. It could have been his upbringing, it could have been that having Bunny as his mother, who I don't know, although she did seem to have a little freaky side because she was like after Charlotte kissed the.
00:09:12
Speaker 1: Gardener, oh my god, like, oh you're a McDougall.
00:09:16
Speaker 2: Now.
00:09:16
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, okay.
00:09:18
Speaker 2: I know.
00:09:18
Speaker 1: I took that to mean like troubled.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: Well, like everybody's done that. I thought everybody's cheated on their partner kind of thing. And so I think then I would basically go into for a lot of men who are experiencing erectile difficulties, whether it's getting an erection, maintaining an erection, delayed actual ejaculation, early ejaculation, A lot of that has to do with stress, usually there is a lot of stress involved, and yes, that could be impacting the relationship. It could be solely having to do with their professional and providership roles, all of that for a lot of men. Though, So once it happens, once the performance anxiety takes over, so then it's almost like it's just an out of control train right without the breaks. And we see that where he's willing to try, but it's almost like the minute that things aren't going well, the minute he gets into his head and that performance anxiety takes over, he's done and scoot this. This is what the schooner doesn't work.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Any sales, Yeah, I know, yeah, all the little things that like. That's the other thing that I think is interesting, the way that he kind of there's a like infantilization, which makes you wonder about, you know, the mother relationship. But also my question that I have in terms of Charlotte, because I remember when she's talking to Samantha and Samantha says, oh, he's thinking of you like his virginal wife, and he needs to see you as a sexual person. That's when we do that scene where I come and I say I'm your wife and I love you when I'm sexual, which I thought was so so beautifully red and powerful and hard to do, you know, hard to do, hard to act, but also I can't even imagine in real life so vulnerable. Yeah, and I mean as a therapist who's helping couples with these really delicate things.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: You know, how do you gauge?
00:11:23
Speaker 2: Like when I watch it back, I think, like Trey's he means well, but he's just not really willing to delve into it at all. That's what it seems like to me. Do you feel that way when you watch it?
00:11:35
Speaker 3: So that's the biggest red flag to me. It's not that he's experiencing the issue, it's how he's handling it and how he's making the fact that he's not handling it right, and how he's treating her attempts to try to help That is not partnership. Right now, she's over here doing the reading about it, she's bringing it up, she's being sweet and soft. I can imagine I've had clients who they are going to be much more direct and you know, maybe a little brash and even mean right at times, sometimes even abusive in the way that they'll talk to their partners about this she was tiptoeing as quietly as she possibly could. And so when she came in and she had those heels on, and she's got this lingerie and she's saying, like, no, I am a sexual being. This isn't even just about you. This is about me and what you're doing to me and what you're taking away from me and my vision of what a healthy partnership looks like. If maybe I think she was hoping like, if you can just get out of the idea that this is about you and your erection, but this is more about us and our connection. And I think it was very powerful. And now I have to say that they didn't do much talking about the fact that he was seemingly so into like really large breasts, yes, and that Charlotte does not no. And you know, that is something that I think a lot of women really struggle with, especially with men who are watching a lot of pornography. Typically the pornography that they're looking at and the videos that they go in watching versus what they end up ejaculating to might be very different, but there is typically a sense of it's different, it's different than what I have at home, And a lot of women cannot reconcile that how can you be looking at big bottomed black women when I'm a small, petite Asian woman, you know, like, how can we do that? And that's something that I think does turn into a relational issue. So even if they're not maybe coming into the sessions with a relational issue that they know of, we have to talk through these things and really kind of unpack the baggage. And I think that Charlotte was trying to do that. She's like, well, is it this? Well is it that? And Carrie was so sweet to offer the idea of like, well, let's see if it's a physical versus emotional that it is true. Sometimes it is physical and there's not much they can do. There are nowadays more invasive things. But you know, if it's emotional, that's where they come in to see a certified sex therapist because we can really work with them to kind of peel the layers away. And there are always layers and that's okay, And when people seek this help, they typically get the help that they need.
00:14:32
Speaker 1: Well that's nice, that's good too.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: It's hopeful, it is really hopeful.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So both partners are willing and go in which you know, that's the question, is Trey actually really willing to look at what he needs to look at?
00:14:44
Speaker 1: Unclear? Right, seems a little unclear.
00:14:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, he's rejected at everything so far, and then all of a sudden he's like, I'll take us to counseling right then.
00:14:54
Speaker 2: And then they start making out cabs and he wist have sex everywhere.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: Else, everywhere, but the way that she would like.
00:15:02
Speaker 1: And I think that's so interesting.
00:15:03
Speaker 2: And I mean, I've never been married and I haven't had these issues, but like, I do feel like that's kind of an intimacy thing. That's like someone who's challenged by real intimacy.
00:15:14
Speaker 1: Trey, it is.
00:15:16
Speaker 3: It almost seems like he is only stimulated by something really big and flamboyant and grand, like that's what gets the radar going, and that's what causes his arousal to spike or even be present. So being in a long term relationship for someone like Trey is going to be challenging in the bedroom, and he has to be willing to say, you know what, my desire to be with this person and to build a life with her is so much stronger than this particular issue that we're dealing with and he just was not having it.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: And then at the end of this particular episode that we're going to get to once because this is so fascinating. I love talking to you about this, because this is the kind of thing that I wish I had had time and a way to get some more insight. But then also I think that the end result was always going to be what it was going to be, Like this was the plan, and then it was more about kind of fleshing out how it went down over time, and we all fell in love with Kyle, and so he stayed longer than they had originally planned, and so we kind of stay in it and try different ways longer than they had originally thought we would. But I mean, it's so interesting to hear about because I think intimacy in general is really complex and interesting. And yes, our show's about it and about a lot of the stuff around it, but sometimes we can't dig as deep as we might like because it's a comedy, right, So like, I love hearing then the inner things, and like, I have one more specific question for you, but I want to say the name of the title. It's called What Sex Got to Do With It, which is of course, really funny that we're just now getting to that title in our show in the fourth season, what sex got to do with it?
00:17:10
Speaker 1: And I think we would say pretty much everything.
00:17:13
Speaker 3: Pretty much everything. Well, here's the thing. When sex is going well in a relationship, it doesn't account for much. Most people don't even talk about it. But when it's not going well is when most people are freaked out, scared, threatened, disappointed. The anger goes through the roof, this feeling of resentment and insecurity. So when it's bad, it's really bad. Yeah.
00:17:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel so so much empathy for couples going through things like this, because it seems so like if you've found someone that you want to commit to and that you want to build a life with and then there are these difficulties, it is just so vulnerable to have to look at it, and then to get spessional help is like so brave, you know, but also like then you actually have to peel back the issues and the things and you know, do some homework. Like one of the things I wanted to ask you about. And I think I've seen this maybe in a movie or maybe I don't know if it was satirized or whatever, but like the idea that someone would a couple would go to a sex therapist such as yourself, and then they might get exercises like to go home and to just touch and not have sex.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: Is that a real thing?
00:18:30
Speaker 3: So we call that sensate focus. It is a strategy that's been around for a long time, an intervention. I actually created a program that is much more tailored to what I see is really working in therapy, and I actually it's called the Doctor Viviana Method for Intimate Reconnection and it's over the course of six weeks, you're building on physical and emotional intimacy exercises. So it just keeps adding on and adding on and building on. But the way that's like pure sensate focuses, I don't think is ever really enough for couples now. I think we all expect a bit more so the idea that you would just lay and maybe be naked next to your partner and just kind of slowly caress them for like an hour. I was like, you know, it's just not realistic.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: It's so sweet though it's so sweet.
00:19:28
Speaker 3: It is. It is very sweet, and I think for a lot of couples, I'm encouraging them to do that, like when they cut at night before they go to bed, or in the morning before they have to get up and do the day. I'll say, spend a timer for five minutes and just allow each other to like touch and connect and like breathe again, you know, big spoon, little spoon. Maybe it's feet touching. I was just telling a couple, I said, y'all, just rub your feet together a little bit and you'll just kind of connect in that way. And that's a version of sensate focus. But yeah, the real like pure one is. I just think for a lot of people it's a little bit more frustrating and kind of cheesy and boring, but you know, it comes from a good place. Of course, I to put your slant on it, and I put my slant on.
00:20:15
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I'd like that so much.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: So in your program you would start with something like that, and then there would be steps that you would progress through, so.
00:20:23
Speaker 3: Actually you go even further back, which for a lot of people they don't really understand why if you're going to a sex therapist, you take sex off the table. But what I find is that a lot of couples are kissing or holding hands or even having intercourse just out of habit, but they're not actually wanting it. They're not doing it because oh my gosh, I just want to kiss you right now. And so they get into these habits and I say, no, no, no, we need to break off and almost like strip away all of the habits and routines so that the next time that this happens, it's very intentional and it means something and it carries more wait then then just a peck on the lips, right, So it actually starts with something like an embrace, which a lot of people are like, wait, so we're just going to embrace each other for a week in the morning and the evening while saying something really sweet. Yes, because a lot of people don't even hug their partners anymore. So the idea that you're holding them and you're wanting to impart a sweet sentiment that is very it's very sincere, and you've taken the time to stand up and hold each other while you're saying this little script. It's very short, it's just three or four lines, but it's very very sincere. You should I mean people start crying. They start crying when it because they're like oh my gosh. Even just while we're going through what they're going to say, they start welling up. And this is both partners or one partner and the other partner's like, oh my gosh, what's going on. It's like I only hear this in a card once a year for our anniversary. The fact that we're going to say this to each other and it's sincere and we mean it is just like it already starts the transformation. So I always tell people like, don't knock it, like, let's take it back and then we can. Then you add on a kiss, and then you add on more and more and more and more, and then by week six there's a little bit, uh, you know there's penetration involved.
00:22:23
Speaker 1: Well that's nice.
00:22:24
Speaker 3: Works up to it, right, we're to it and it makes sense. I'm you know, I'm a sex therapist, so I really do appreciate the value of sexuality within a relationship. But more importantly, I feel like there should be sex should make sense. It's it's not just something that you do. It should make sense within your relationship. And if it's not making sense for whatever reason, you got to handle that.
00:22:48
Speaker 2: I mean, that's so great, that's so great, and it seems so like, yeah, who wouldn't want that? You know, like like just just saying sweet things and hugging each other is like so good. But I also feel and I mean I've got friends who've been married like thirty years and whatnot, and I do think that there is a certain risk involved when you do have a successful relationship, right, it's not that it's unsuccessful, but maybe there's different elements that have taken.
00:23:21
Speaker 3: Over public image. Yeah, there is money, there's history, their kids, there's businesses. I mean, there's just so much, so much that for a lot of my clients in particular, they're trying to preserve not just their intimate connection but their entire lives. And it does create pressure. And that's why I'm a big fan of, like start with premarital counseling. I have had clients who I've had for their entire relationship, Wow, who come in from premarital counseling and now they're in maintenance and they come in once every three months. So oh, this is something where you don't have to be in crisis. Yes, of course, who can be? And I love a good crisis, don't get me wrong. I after having done this for over twenty two or twenty three years. I'm like, give me the toughest situation because like, I like those hard puzzles, right, But do yourself a favor and go when things are okay so that you can learn to talk about things when you're not angry.
00:24:22
Speaker 1: That's so nice, that's so good.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: So people would actually come to you before they're actually getting married.
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Yes, before they're married. Even pre engagement counseling is the thing. Now. People are like much more conscientious. They they are like, I am investing in us because I don't want to waste time. I don't want to get a divorce, you know, after we have kids. So there's pre cohabitation is a big one.
00:24:46
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:24:47
Speaker 3: Some people will come in within the first three months of dating what because they don't want to they don't want to waste their time, and they're like, let's figure these things out, red flag, let's figure this out. They and they don't know what they don't know.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Well, that's true, but it's amazing that they realize that, you know that they're willing.
00:25:04
Speaker 3: I wish there were more. I wish that there were more, but there are people doing that.
00:25:09
Speaker 2: It seems really really smart. To be doing that. It seems like a really smart thing because you're getting someone's like kind of eye in terms of you know, what might be underneath something or a red flag that you're not aware of, or you're maybe like oh maybe, but sometimes you don't even know yourself. And that's as we started talking about with Charlotte. She really is alone in her own head, you know, like what is going on? But I think her eye is so much on the prize, which is that's kind of Charlotte's issue, right, But.
00:25:41
Speaker 3: Isn't that interesting Because as I was rewatching this episode, she could have easily done well, I'm sure you and I have seen before where it's like, okay, let me just sweep this under the rug. Yeah, and oh okay, now everything's you know, maybe there's some functioning going on and whatever, and she could have said, gosh, this is so good on paper, or maybe I don't need this passion. Maybe maybe I you know, And that is a real thing that people question when they're trying to figure out if they should stay with someone. And so it took a lot for her, I think, yeah, to kind of say wait, no, but this is fake.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: Right, is right? No?
00:26:26
Speaker 2: No? And That's the saving grace of Charlotte, right, is that, like, like, she does have the romantic vision and she is really focused on a goal in a way where you know, it might be questionable, but in the end she wants to be authentic. I think she's looking for authenticity, like more and more authenticity. She's not willing to go backwards. And that's what I love about her. Yeah, thank goodness.
00:26:50
Speaker 3: I feel like that we would have all been almost like, no, Charlotte. We would have been screaming at the screen if she was like kind of caving, but she didn't. And then another thing that I noticed, and the reason that it stood out to me rewatching it is because in the very first chapter of my book, the Four Intimacy Styles, I talk about how for me, yes, we all have heard, you know, sex, money and kids are the cause for most breakups or divorces, but for me, I think it's sex, but most people don't want to say it.
00:27:24
Speaker 2: Is Wow.
00:27:25
Speaker 3: The fact that she is, like, you know, as publicly conscious of her reputation, but the fact that she's able to say, like, no, we have sexual issues, we have bedroom issues. I just thought, gosh, she was almost like ahead of her time, because most people will not say that even though it's one hundred percent why they're divorcing.
00:27:46
Speaker 1: No, you're so right. You're so right.
00:27:47
Speaker 2: And that is one thing when I'm rewatching the show, and people had said this to me over the years, but I was always like, really, are you sure that Charlotte kind of she just says truths like out of the blue, do.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying?
00:27:59
Speaker 2: And sometimes there are all comfortable truths, you know, And I think that's also she's kind of a massive contradictions in a lot of ways that it made her fun to play for eighteen million, hundred years, and that was one of them. Like she does have the facade, like I'm going to have the upperst side good girl facade, but yet I'm actually gonna say.
00:28:16
Speaker 1: The hard things. It's interesting. It's interesting.
00:28:30
Speaker 2: Okay, Now, there's a lot going on in this particular episode with everyone else also, so let's talk about them for a second, because there's some very very interesting things for Carrie. Carrie's going out with the jazz guy now, which is very interesting and different, and she tells the girls in this episode that she has the best orgasm of her life or one of the best orgasms of her life and that normally she has to be in love with someone for that to happen, and what does it all mean?
00:28:59
Speaker 1: And I I think that's really really interesting. What do you make of this?
00:29:04
Speaker 3: So it's it is interesting because what I'm noticing with Carrie and the jazz guy is that she's almost like, oh, I've never really been with someone who's kind of forced me to follow along with him, like she's following him. She is not in the lead really at all, and we kind of find out why later, but he is. He's kind of like a no, no, no, listen to me. No, I'm doing this. You want this, I'm going to give you this, and he even he takes the lead in the bedroom, and she just kind of has to be a passenger, which is kind of sexy too, right, Sometimes it's just nice to be a passenger, Yeah, a passenger princess. But I think what's great about the way that she handles it is that I love that she goes back to talk to the girls kind of like a this is great and all, but there's something up because I mean, for somebody who's enjoying the sex as much as she is, I'm surprised she would even like remotely put ink into the water, right, Yeah, And she's just kind of waiting to hear, like what's going on with this? And they could have been like they could have maybe burst her bubble, they didn't sound well.
00:30:17
Speaker 2: The truth is Carrie doesn't really let anyone burst her bubble, if you've noticed, because all of us at one point are like no more big, and yet she does what she does, you know what I'm trying to say. But I mean, she talks to us about it, which is great. But I think it's interesting because like, on the one hand, we've got the tray situation, which is all complicated now and they're trying and he's trying, and you know whatnot there's very clearly like he has kind of a you know, difficulty being fully intimate with someone who he also wants to be with I guess right, Like he likes the drugs magazine, as we discussed, and he wants to have sex in the cab and whatnot. And for her it's kind of interesting also in that she's basically saying that it's a surprise to her that she doesn't know him that well. She's kind of trying to connect with him in other ways, it's not really working so well, but yet she has one of the best orgasms of her entire.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: Life, which is saying a lot.
00:31:12
Speaker 2: And also it does seem like it is related to the fact that she's not really trying to do anything or trying to get something from him in an interesting.
00:31:22
Speaker 3: Way, She's not performing at all. She's not trying to seduce him. I mean, she's trying to get him too focus.
00:31:30
Speaker 1: Right, which is right, right, right.
00:31:32
Speaker 3: But other than that, it's almost like she's she's having to say, wait a minute, don't you want some sort of an emotional connection, like wait a minute, right?
00:31:44
Speaker 2: But it's kind of cool and interesting in a way, and it reminds me of one of our very first episodes, which is can you have sex like a man? Can women have sex like a man?
00:31:53
Speaker 1: Remember this?
00:31:54
Speaker 2: And it was all about like, can we not have an attachment or can we just look at it as Good said, in the way that men are seemingly able And I don't know if that's even true. Do you think that's true that men and women are different in the fundamental way that we look at sex.
00:32:10
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's a male female thing but I do think that societally and socially we as women could learn something from men about the way that they are able to let fantasies just swirl around them all the time. And sexual thoughts. I think for women we have to compartmentalize. We tend to compartmentalize, It's true much yeah, And I think men are just so good about being like, oh, there's a sexy you know, stimuli, there's you know, there's a really good looking button, and they almost like let these thoughts in. They let them swirl around. Sometimes they masturbate, most of the time they don't. They can talk about it. And with women, I feel like it's very much oh I should not be thinking about that right now, or oh that's wrong to say that, or why am I looking at that. It's all just push push, We reject these thoughts away. And I feel like that's the main difference that I see. I just I wish I'm not saying that we need to be like men, but I do think that women need to allow sexy thoughts to come in a lot more often and prioritize them in order to have a healthier fantasy life and that mind body connection, so that when they are in the mood or they want to be in the mood, they can access that quickly.
00:33:22
Speaker 1: Oh that's very interesting. That makes it sense.
00:33:24
Speaker 3: Fantasy is really big, and I have something for that too, because I'm telling you I've been doing this a long time and I'm like, look, you're not going to see me, but come to my website, my vivid Fantasy. It is a way to create your own fantasy using almost like it's multiple choice and it spits out something that then you can read as often as you'd like to get you in the mood. And it came from an in office activity that I used to do, especially with women who are like, I've never fantasized, I don't even know what's sexy. And then I would ask them questions, looking down at my notebook, giving them, you know, but asking them like where would you want to be touched and what would you be smelling and what would the lighting be like? And by the end of it, they're like, oh my gosh. First of all, I'm a little hot and bothered. Second of all, I didn't know that that was in here. Wow, And I'm like, yes it is. But we just don't take the time to really fantasize and now with audio erotica, it makes it so much easier with audiobooks and with you know, we call it cliterotica.
00:34:26
Speaker 1: And things like that.
00:34:27
Speaker 3: I feel like I feel like we're much more into it. But it's so much better when you can access it in your own brain.
00:34:34
Speaker 1: Of course.
00:34:34
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that really touches on so many things. And one and this is also just a fundamental part of our show is trying to peel back the layers of shame put onto women by society for you know, hundreds of years. And I feel like we want to and culturally we're kind of moving towards it. But then sometimes I also feel and I'm curious your thoughts on this. When our show came out, you know, it was kind of a shocking thing right nowineteen ninety very shocking.
00:35:01
Speaker 3: I remember, I don't even think I was allowed to watch.
00:35:03
Speaker 1: But I should, yay.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: And now it's less shocking, right But still when you look at the episode, some of the things are still like, oh no, that's still happening. But I was talking to someone we were talking about the naked dress in the first season, and we were just laughing about the way red carpets are now like basically people just don't even wear clothes.
00:35:21
Speaker 1: I mean it's.
00:35:22
Speaker 2: Bizarre, right, Like it's bizarre sometimes and hopefully we've gone, we've gone all the way we can go in that area.
00:35:27
Speaker 1: And now we might be coming back.
00:35:29
Speaker 2: But I sometimes wonder about like the realness is almost like a performative freedom, you know, for women in a way like I don't know, I don't feel like like, for instance, what you're talking about about almost just giving your self permission to fantasize and think the sexual thoughts that one might have during the day, just as a normal human being, right that men allow themselves to do, but women still have to kind of teach themselves to allow like let those things happen, let your mind go, and that.
00:36:05
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be in public. It doesn't have to be performative. You don't have to let the whole table know you can, right y'all have sex, and the city taught us that you absolutely can and you might get looks from the other table, most of the time you won't, but that it doesn't have to be something that you're doing for someone else's benefit, especially if you're thinking about it from the male gaze gaze. I don't encourage women to do that for the sake of their partner. It's for you. Your brain is your largest sexual organ. If you're using it, awesome. If you're not, you're missing out on some stuff. So it's not for only to be in a partnered relationship. It's not only to satisfy your partner's needs, but really to tap into something that is already in you, within you, and is a part of you, just like every other part of your body.
00:37:00
Speaker 2: Really interesting, yeah, really really interesting. And I do feel like this work kind of just continues culturally, right, Like we're just kind of just trying to deep in and out and you're seeing it in like people's specific lives how it's playing out, which is so interesting.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then to see it on screen in so many different ways. It's like they're all case studies. Every single one night stand, every single relationship, every single friendship, all of that. It's to me now looking back and rewatching these episodes, they're all case studies. And I love it because a lot of them, I'm like, these writers, who were they taking who are they consulting with?
00:37:41
Speaker 2: Well, sex therap the writers were putting their own stories in there, or stories of our friends, so it could be once removed, right, but they had to have some personal knowledge of something that was happening.
00:37:52
Speaker 1: Now.
00:37:52
Speaker 2: Sometimes, like in the instance of the Trace situation, no one ever confessed to me whose story that was, And I don't know if it was particularly anyone's because most of our writers at this point in time. We had Jenny Banks, one of our writers, on the other day and she was saying, like all of them, I can't I can't remember what she said exactly, were like criminally single or whatever, like they could not because we were just working so much, you know, so the writers.
00:38:17
Speaker 3: Because the writers were very difficult.
00:38:19
Speaker 1: Right, and they were with us all the time on the set.
00:38:21
Speaker 3: You know.
00:38:21
Speaker 2: It wasn't like they would write and turn it in and not come. They were like with us, which was wonderful, But they weren't able. They weren't really to the point in their lives where they had successful relationships. It was more them trying to date and try to figure things out. And then late later on they did and wrote some of those things in. But like the Trade thing, I think we were creating the Tray story line as time went on, because we kept Kyle longer than the original idea, So they're just trying to kind of figure out what would the problems be and you know, being I think super creative about it, you know in terms of, you know, people might have these problems but then also might not know how to handle them, and we're we're so hampered. Both both characters, Charlotte and Trey are hampered by kind of their ideals and what they're trying to kind of hold up.
00:39:14
Speaker 3: Well and their pride, right, yeah, yeah, pride involved. There's ego. You know. He starts kind of it's like, I don't even know how to describe the talk that he's giving his Johnson when it's like when he's trying to give himself a pep talk and he's like, yeah, look, I'm like and he's so into the fact that he's got this erection finally that is maintaining and she's at this point like, oh my gosh, this is not even going to be.
00:39:43
Speaker 1: About us, right, that's sad. It makes me say.
00:39:47
Speaker 3: It's sad, but that happens too. You get someone who has this reawakening sexually or for the first time ever within a relationship, and their partners can sometimes feel insecure about that, and it can sometimes feel like, well, wait, it seems like I'm now your toy right now, your tool, you know, And I think for her it was almost like a wait, am I even here? Like this hasn't heard that? It's right? You know? Right? Right? No?
00:40:19
Speaker 1: I think that's very very true.
00:40:20
Speaker 2: And I think I mean in this particular episode is when she's like, you know, when she leaves because he wants her to measures his penis or.
00:40:27
Speaker 1: Whatever, and she's like, I hope you want penis. You and your penis have a wonderful night. Like it's just like, oh.
00:40:33
Speaker 3: My gosh, exactly.
00:40:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all about that now, you know, it's all.
00:40:38
Speaker 3: About that now. And she's like, oh my gosh, this isn't going to be our sex side. This is now going to be you being performative for yourself because you've missed out on so many years. Well, that's not my that's not my issue, that's not my thing now.
00:40:54
Speaker 2: Right Because she wants connection, she's trying to connect to him Nick love.
00:40:59
Speaker 3: She wants to have passion, and that's kind of been something that is just it's it's like just out of reach for Trey and Charlotte so out of reach it is, and you're like, is this Are they ever going to get it together? And then it's very clear in this episode like no.
00:41:18
Speaker 2: Well, but then at the end he asked her to move back in. What did you think when that happened? Were you like no, Charlotte? No, I'm like no, Charlotte, because.
00:41:29
Speaker 1: You know, you know the reality of this.
00:41:31
Speaker 3: The reality is that she's now signing up for probably a lot of doubt. Right, there's going to be He's going to feel like, well, what if it happens again? And then she's going to wonder how you know, Oh, no, we're starting all over again. And that can happen with lots of different dynamics and relationships where you're like, I'm seeing the same I'm seeing these these signs again.
00:41:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker 3: And I think I think the way that he and more importantly, the way that he handled the entire sexual issue for the duration of their marriage, however short lived, was that was such a red flag.
00:42:10
Speaker 1: Right that the handling of it, not the actual issue.
00:42:13
Speaker 3: Handling it, because I mean, even if he had said I know that this is a big deal, I just don't know how to deal with it, or I'm so embarrassed or how why would you want to be with somebody who's dealing with this, like anything that points back to I care, right, that would have made such a big difference.
00:42:31
Speaker 1: Right, right.
00:42:32
Speaker 2: And he doesn't really say things like that, does he? No, he doesn't. Oh my gosh, I know. I mean it's so hard for me to watch it because I want Charlotte to get what Charlotte wants, right, because I did live live that storyline. And so when he comes to the door with her with her engagement ring again and kind of proposes, because remember she proposed in the beginning, which I also do think like there is a way that you can look at their whole relationship as being somewhat her doing because she was so focused on that goal of marriage.
00:43:06
Speaker 3: I mean, again, having had the opportunity to go through and see very now much more focused on just their storyline. She's not a victim, no, no, it's not a victim, no no. But I think she had good intentions. She thought she thought he just needs a little prompting. There's some manipulation there, you know, with the touching and the and and she you know, learning it from Bunny who does it best. But it was just very interesting that she's she's getting what she wants it, but not the exact way that she envisioned it.
00:43:46
Speaker 2: That's her shame, right, And I think, I mean, I think it's so great, like just for who she is as a character is so perfectly crafted that you know, she posts is very poetic and also just so also painful that it plays out how it does over time. And yet he's he gives her just enough that she stays in, Like every time she tries to, you know, get out. She comes at one point with the list This is a couple episodes back or maybe the end of Thursdays, and she's like, I have a listen.
00:44:17
Speaker 1: We've got to talk about these things. And he's like, no, no, let's make out. And she's like, but no, no, I'm trying to talk about these things.
00:44:23
Speaker 2: It's like I've really been there.
00:44:25
Speaker 3: Push, yeah, push, And that exists in so many relationships and sex is often the catalyst to feeling like wait, what are we building off of? You know, every time I go to talk to you about something important, you kind of blind me with your sexual prowess or you know, you make me feel so good that it's like, oh, all is forgiven right. But that said, he's not the villain either, No, No, I mean it's he is just immature, and I think he's so kind of ambivalent about things, and I think that's just his upbringing and probably you know, being a doctor, a medical doctor that he's playing a medical doctor. I feel like there is this sense of black and white. There is this sense of or he may have known this is a much bigger issue and he just didn't want to face it, right.
00:45:26
Speaker 2: Like when you see the word ambivalence, I mean that's the perfect word, because it's like in the scenes where Charlotte's just trying so hard and he's just got that wall up, you know.
00:45:36
Speaker 1: Oh, it was so painful.
00:45:38
Speaker 2: And I've just been there in so many different ways, not around this particular thing.
00:45:43
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm sure.
00:45:44
Speaker 2: All the women listening and me do right, like, you know, when you're just trying so hard to not be mean, to not you know, shame in any way.
00:45:53
Speaker 3: To not to not let those walls go up, right, let me, you know, let me just be a little tiptoe, mat me just be sweet and open. And she does that, and I mean I know that they were able to share her frustration and they were able to show that she's, like she really cares, if she's really frustrated to not get any of that from his side. There's such a stark contrast. I know she cares, he doesn't. She wants to do something about it. He is shutting it down. He's he obviously knows that something's going on, but he's not addressing it. And you're like, okay, well, maybe all of that will come together and he'll when he thinks he's going to lose her, right, That's when most people are going to try when he thinks he's going to lose her. Maybe right, But no, not really.
00:46:43
Speaker 2: I know it's so hard and so relatable. It just in terms of those those relationships that you want to make work, but yet there is just a lack of some commitment on both sides.
00:46:57
Speaker 3: He follow through, right, Yeah, it's the follow through. And I'm glad that at some point she realized, like, I can't do this all alone.
00:47:06
Speaker 1: I know she's strong.
00:47:07
Speaker 2: She's strong, Like I mean, she already tried to leave it once, like when they're when they're out at you know, when she makes out with the gardener and she's like, yeah, we should separate. I was like, Wow, Charlotte brave. But obviously it doesn't last. But I totally get it because who wouldn't want to try?
00:47:20
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it. You guys.
00:47:21
Speaker 2: This is so much fun that we're going to have to have a part two, so join us later in the week on are You a Charlotte
Speaker 1: Hi.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know are you a Charlotte? Hi? Everyone, welcome to Are You a Charlotte? Today we have a super fun and interesting guest. Her name is doctor Vivianna Coles. She is a licensed marriage and Family therapist and a certified sex therapist with twenty years of experience. She is lovely and super smart. The main reason that I wanted her on was to talk about the whole Tray and Charlotte storyline, and she has a lot of interesting things to say about it. And then also we're going to talk about episode four, oh for What Sex Got to Do with It, which is directed by the wonderful Allen Colter and written by Nicole Afrol. So please join us for both episodes this week. It's really interesting.
00:00:49
Speaker 1: Okay, Hi Kristen, nice to meet you.
00:00:52
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. Can I call you doctor Viviana?
00:00:55
Speaker 3: Of course that would be great. Thank you, I am you gave me the best reason to run it back with the seasons, and they're so good. I was just finishing up another episode.
00:01:09
Speaker 1: I just oh, fun, thank you, thank you, thanks for having me. It's my pleasure.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: I mean, it's funny because you know, obviously this was a long time ago that we filmed this, but the episodes really hold up. So it's very interesting for me to be rewatching them myself, and a lot of the times we'll just say here to ourselves when we're watching, especially this whole Tray Charlotte storyline, like I'm trying to think to myself, like did we talk to sex therapists at the time, Like what how?
00:01:38
Speaker 1: What were we thinking?
00:01:40
Speaker 2: But also we were in the middle of filming, right, and we were just kind of going with the scripts as they were given to us, right. But it does really make me think of so many, so many questions I have, you know, for a sex therapist about how to handle the things that we go through in the show. And so I'm so happy for you to be here.
00:01:59
Speaker 3: I'm really happy to be here. And the other thing that I noticed is that I'm like, oh my gosh, I was not a sex therapist at the time that these came out, so looking back and like being a couple serrapists and a sex serface, I'm like, just it's a new light. So thanks for thanks for doing this podcast, because a lot of us are probably rewatching and thinking, oh the gems and the one liners, thank you, thank you, it's too late for a hanky.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: I know, I know it's true.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: Our writers are just so good and they really like there were so many things and I need to ask them again about because for me, the whole Tray storyline. I knew what Charlotte wanted. I knew how much she you know, loved Trey. I had forgotten about the different elements of the difficulty. I remember the big difficulty, but I didn't remember like the kind of issues and how you know, she tried this way with the drugs magazine. She tried to get it into therapy. It didn't work, you know. But also I also feel and I'm wondering how you feel. I mean, I've never personally been in this situation, but I can only imagine how hard it would be to try to get a man to talk about it. It just seems like Trey is not that open, which.
00:03:17
Speaker 3: Is Trey is absolutely not that open. And I actually my heart broke this, you know, this like second third time of watching these around it felt like she was alone. She was alone in dealing with it, in talking about it and think about it. And at first, when she had only told Carrie, she was really alone because she was so ashamed. But everything that she tried, everything that they tried, I felt like, is very relevant and people still do that, and even some aspects of what their therapist brought up I think are still very useful in our in our field. So yeah, I'm excited to dive in and ready to go.
00:04:08
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So let's just go for a second backwards in time to win. As you brought up that she just tells Carrie in the beginning. So Charlotte has her, you know, extremely romanticized ideals of what she would like, right, And we know because she tells the girls. You know, I decided to wait and not have sex with him because I thought this was a different way to carriage, right right, which I mean, first of all, what do you make of that?
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Okay, I would not recommend doing that. I think for so many people, if they're putting it, if they're first of all, if they're putting sex on a pedestal, that in and of itself creates a dynamic that can cause a lot of pressure and anxiety and just mystery, but not the good kind with sex. And so when she said that, and and this is you know, the day before she gets married and they're just appalled. I was appalled to because intimacy, both physical and emotional, that's the whole reason that you fall in love with someone to begin with, is to have those things in very full parts and for a whole half of that to be missing. Yes, she said he's a great kisser, and I was like, yeah, and making out is awesome and I love that, right, but it doesn't I mean, your whole body being into the physical act and the physical intimacy and how it responds that mind body connection is not something that I think anybody should have a big question mark when it comes to their partnership. And then when she shares right before she's walking down the aisle that it didn't work and he wasn't able to keep his erection, I felt so bad because the stakes are so high, and Carrie's just like, oh, oh my gosh, what are you doing to me?
00:06:01
Speaker 2: I know I also feel I mean when I think back on it, like, and of course you know you're in it, you're reading the script, you're trying to do your best you can do with the script, but it's so interesting to think through what that would actually be like, I'm so different from Charlotte in this fundamental way where I cannot ever imagine doing this in any way, shape or form, right, And I'm I'm it seems insane to me.
00:06:24
Speaker 1: You mean you're waiting, not waiting all of it.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: I thought you meant going through with the marriage. No, No, like faking.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: I'm not very much focused on marriage.
00:06:34
Speaker 2: But but I mean I do think that once Charlotte wants something, she's really going to pursue it.
00:06:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:06:40
Speaker 2: And I think it's also so interesting because it's also she's not incredibly mature herself about talking about feelings and things, right, Like she's she has a lot of feelings, and I feel like she can emotionally express herself.
00:06:57
Speaker 3: But there's like a lens. There's this lens and this filter that is very hopeless romantic and is very talalish, you know. And I think waiting till marriage, whether it's a religious thing or not, is a bit of like, let's kick the can down the road, we'll deal with that later. And well, a lot of women and men think, well, everything will work out when when your chemistry is there, or when the respect is there and the love is there, the consent is there everything is going to work out perfectly. And I have a practice that is predominantly full with people who have all of the best intentions, who can really emotionally connect, and physically things are not going well for them awful.
00:07:41
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: So let's just I'm just so curious now, Okay, So what if you had a couple. Obviously you're not going to talk about any of your actual patients, obviously because you are a professional. So let's say you had a couple like Charlotte and Trede, where there are all of these other wonderful qualities, right, and they do seem to fit together, and they do want the same things, and they're kind of aligned in terms of their families, you know, in some ways and whatnot and whatnot. It's it's hard to go too deep because in some ways they're not aligned. But let's pretend at the beginning that they think they are right and then there is some kind of a of a miss miss in terms of the physical life.
00:08:21
Speaker 3: There's a snag.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, what would you recommend, like, what would you have that couple do well?
00:08:28
Speaker 3: So for a lot of the couples that I do work with, one of the main things that we figure out is is this a relational issue or is this something that is going on with the individual partners relationship with sex? For instance, I actually don't think that Charlotte was doing anything. I don't think she really did anything wrong. I mean, she did show her disappointment, but that was mainly because he wouldn't even talk about it, right, So I do assess them for that. Now, with Trey, it could have been so many different things. It could have been his upbringing, it could have been that having Bunny as his mother, who I don't know, although she did seem to have a little freaky side because she was like after Charlotte kissed the.
00:09:12
Speaker 1: Gardener, oh my god, like, oh you're a McDougall.
00:09:16
Speaker 2: Now.
00:09:16
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, okay.
00:09:18
Speaker 2: I know.
00:09:18
Speaker 1: I took that to mean like troubled.
00:09:21
Speaker 3: Well, like everybody's done that. I thought everybody's cheated on their partner kind of thing. And so I think then I would basically go into for a lot of men who are experiencing erectile difficulties, whether it's getting an erection, maintaining an erection, delayed actual ejaculation, early ejaculation, A lot of that has to do with stress, usually there is a lot of stress involved, and yes, that could be impacting the relationship. It could be solely having to do with their professional and providership roles, all of that for a lot of men. Though, So once it happens, once the performance anxiety takes over, so then it's almost like it's just an out of control train right without the breaks. And we see that where he's willing to try, but it's almost like the minute that things aren't going well, the minute he gets into his head and that performance anxiety takes over, he's done and scoot this. This is what the schooner doesn't work.
00:10:28
Speaker 2: Any sales, Yeah, I know, yeah, all the little things that like. That's the other thing that I think is interesting, the way that he kind of there's a like infantilization, which makes you wonder about, you know, the mother relationship. But also my question that I have in terms of Charlotte, because I remember when she's talking to Samantha and Samantha says, oh, he's thinking of you like his virginal wife, and he needs to see you as a sexual person. That's when we do that scene where I come and I say I'm your wife and I love you when I'm sexual, which I thought was so so beautifully red and powerful and hard to do, you know, hard to do, hard to act, but also I can't even imagine in real life so vulnerable. Yeah, and I mean as a therapist who's helping couples with these really delicate things.
00:11:20
Speaker 1: You know, how do you gauge?
00:11:23
Speaker 2: Like when I watch it back, I think, like Trey's he means well, but he's just not really willing to delve into it at all. That's what it seems like to me. Do you feel that way when you watch it?
00:11:35
Speaker 3: So that's the biggest red flag to me. It's not that he's experiencing the issue, it's how he's handling it and how he's making the fact that he's not handling it right, and how he's treating her attempts to try to help That is not partnership. Right now, she's over here doing the reading about it, she's bringing it up, she's being sweet and soft. I can imagine I've had clients who they are going to be much more direct and you know, maybe a little brash and even mean right at times, sometimes even abusive in the way that they'll talk to their partners about this she was tiptoeing as quietly as she possibly could. And so when she came in and she had those heels on, and she's got this lingerie and she's saying, like, no, I am a sexual being. This isn't even just about you. This is about me and what you're doing to me and what you're taking away from me and my vision of what a healthy partnership looks like. If maybe I think she was hoping like, if you can just get out of the idea that this is about you and your erection, but this is more about us and our connection. And I think it was very powerful. And now I have to say that they didn't do much talking about the fact that he was seemingly so into like really large breasts, yes, and that Charlotte does not no. And you know, that is something that I think a lot of women really struggle with, especially with men who are watching a lot of pornography. Typically the pornography that they're looking at and the videos that they go in watching versus what they end up ejaculating to might be very different, but there is typically a sense of it's different, it's different than what I have at home, And a lot of women cannot reconcile that how can you be looking at big bottomed black women when I'm a small, petite Asian woman, you know, like, how can we do that? And that's something that I think does turn into a relational issue. So even if they're not maybe coming into the sessions with a relational issue that they know of, we have to talk through these things and really kind of unpack the baggage. And I think that Charlotte was trying to do that. She's like, well, is it this? Well is it that? And Carrie was so sweet to offer the idea of like, well, let's see if it's a physical versus emotional that it is true. Sometimes it is physical and there's not much they can do. There are nowadays more invasive things. But you know, if it's emotional, that's where they come in to see a certified sex therapist because we can really work with them to kind of peel the layers away. And there are always layers and that's okay, And when people seek this help, they typically get the help that they need.
00:14:32
Speaker 1: Well that's nice, that's good too.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: It's hopeful, it is really hopeful.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So both partners are willing and go in which you know, that's the question, is Trey actually really willing to look at what he needs to look at?
00:14:44
Speaker 1: Unclear? Right, seems a little unclear.
00:14:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, he's rejected at everything so far, and then all of a sudden he's like, I'll take us to counseling right then.
00:14:54
Speaker 2: And then they start making out cabs and he wist have sex everywhere.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: Else, everywhere, but the way that she would like.
00:15:02
Speaker 1: And I think that's so interesting.
00:15:03
Speaker 2: And I mean, I've never been married and I haven't had these issues, but like, I do feel like that's kind of an intimacy thing. That's like someone who's challenged by real intimacy.
00:15:14
Speaker 1: Trey, it is.
00:15:16
Speaker 3: It almost seems like he is only stimulated by something really big and flamboyant and grand, like that's what gets the radar going, and that's what causes his arousal to spike or even be present. So being in a long term relationship for someone like Trey is going to be challenging in the bedroom, and he has to be willing to say, you know what, my desire to be with this person and to build a life with her is so much stronger than this particular issue that we're dealing with and he just was not having it.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: And then at the end of this particular episode that we're going to get to once because this is so fascinating. I love talking to you about this, because this is the kind of thing that I wish I had had time and a way to get some more insight. But then also I think that the end result was always going to be what it was going to be, Like this was the plan, and then it was more about kind of fleshing out how it went down over time, and we all fell in love with Kyle, and so he stayed longer than they had originally planned, and so we kind of stay in it and try different ways longer than they had originally thought we would. But I mean, it's so interesting to hear about because I think intimacy in general is really complex and interesting. And yes, our show's about it and about a lot of the stuff around it, but sometimes we can't dig as deep as we might like because it's a comedy, right, So like, I love hearing then the inner things, and like, I have one more specific question for you, but I want to say the name of the title. It's called What Sex Got to Do With It, which is of course, really funny that we're just now getting to that title in our show in the fourth season, what sex got to do with it?
00:17:10
Speaker 1: And I think we would say pretty much everything.
00:17:13
Speaker 3: Pretty much everything. Well, here's the thing. When sex is going well in a relationship, it doesn't account for much. Most people don't even talk about it. But when it's not going well is when most people are freaked out, scared, threatened, disappointed. The anger goes through the roof, this feeling of resentment and insecurity. So when it's bad, it's really bad. Yeah.
00:17:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel so so much empathy for couples going through things like this, because it seems so like if you've found someone that you want to commit to and that you want to build a life with and then there are these difficulties, it is just so vulnerable to have to look at it, and then to get spessional help is like so brave, you know, but also like then you actually have to peel back the issues and the things and you know, do some homework. Like one of the things I wanted to ask you about. And I think I've seen this maybe in a movie or maybe I don't know if it was satirized or whatever, but like the idea that someone would a couple would go to a sex therapist such as yourself, and then they might get exercises like to go home and to just touch and not have sex.
00:18:29
Speaker 1: Is that a real thing?
00:18:30
Speaker 3: So we call that sensate focus. It is a strategy that's been around for a long time, an intervention. I actually created a program that is much more tailored to what I see is really working in therapy, and I actually it's called the Doctor Viviana Method for Intimate Reconnection and it's over the course of six weeks, you're building on physical and emotional intimacy exercises. So it just keeps adding on and adding on and building on. But the way that's like pure sensate focuses, I don't think is ever really enough for couples now. I think we all expect a bit more so the idea that you would just lay and maybe be naked next to your partner and just kind of slowly caress them for like an hour. I was like, you know, it's just not realistic.
00:19:25
Speaker 2: It's so sweet though it's so sweet.
00:19:28
Speaker 3: It is. It is very sweet, and I think for a lot of couples, I'm encouraging them to do that, like when they cut at night before they go to bed, or in the morning before they have to get up and do the day. I'll say, spend a timer for five minutes and just allow each other to like touch and connect and like breathe again, you know, big spoon, little spoon. Maybe it's feet touching. I was just telling a couple, I said, y'all, just rub your feet together a little bit and you'll just kind of connect in that way. And that's a version of sensate focus. But yeah, the real like pure one is. I just think for a lot of people it's a little bit more frustrating and kind of cheesy and boring, but you know, it comes from a good place. Of course, I to put your slant on it, and I put my slant on.
00:20:15
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I'd like that so much.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: So in your program you would start with something like that, and then there would be steps that you would progress through, so.
00:20:23
Speaker 3: Actually you go even further back, which for a lot of people they don't really understand why if you're going to a sex therapist, you take sex off the table. But what I find is that a lot of couples are kissing or holding hands or even having intercourse just out of habit, but they're not actually wanting it. They're not doing it because oh my gosh, I just want to kiss you right now. And so they get into these habits and I say, no, no, no, we need to break off and almost like strip away all of the habits and routines so that the next time that this happens, it's very intentional and it means something and it carries more wait then then just a peck on the lips, right, So it actually starts with something like an embrace, which a lot of people are like, wait, so we're just going to embrace each other for a week in the morning and the evening while saying something really sweet. Yes, because a lot of people don't even hug their partners anymore. So the idea that you're holding them and you're wanting to impart a sweet sentiment that is very it's very sincere, and you've taken the time to stand up and hold each other while you're saying this little script. It's very short, it's just three or four lines, but it's very very sincere. You should I mean people start crying. They start crying when it because they're like oh my gosh. Even just while we're going through what they're going to say, they start welling up. And this is both partners or one partner and the other partner's like, oh my gosh, what's going on. It's like I only hear this in a card once a year for our anniversary. The fact that we're going to say this to each other and it's sincere and we mean it is just like it already starts the transformation. So I always tell people like, don't knock it, like, let's take it back and then we can. Then you add on a kiss, and then you add on more and more and more and more, and then by week six there's a little bit, uh, you know there's penetration involved.
00:22:23
Speaker 1: Well that's nice.
00:22:24
Speaker 3: Works up to it, right, we're to it and it makes sense. I'm you know, I'm a sex therapist, so I really do appreciate the value of sexuality within a relationship. But more importantly, I feel like there should be sex should make sense. It's it's not just something that you do. It should make sense within your relationship. And if it's not making sense for whatever reason, you got to handle that.
00:22:48
Speaker 2: I mean, that's so great, that's so great, and it seems so like, yeah, who wouldn't want that? You know, like like just just saying sweet things and hugging each other is like so good. But I also feel and I mean I've got friends who've been married like thirty years and whatnot, and I do think that there is a certain risk involved when you do have a successful relationship, right, it's not that it's unsuccessful, but maybe there's different elements that have taken.
00:23:21
Speaker 3: Over public image. Yeah, there is money, there's history, their kids, there's businesses. I mean, there's just so much, so much that for a lot of my clients in particular, they're trying to preserve not just their intimate connection but their entire lives. And it does create pressure. And that's why I'm a big fan of, like start with premarital counseling. I have had clients who I've had for their entire relationship, Wow, who come in from premarital counseling and now they're in maintenance and they come in once every three months. So oh, this is something where you don't have to be in crisis. Yes, of course, who can be? And I love a good crisis, don't get me wrong. I after having done this for over twenty two or twenty three years. I'm like, give me the toughest situation because like, I like those hard puzzles, right, But do yourself a favor and go when things are okay so that you can learn to talk about things when you're not angry.
00:24:22
Speaker 1: That's so nice, that's so good.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: So people would actually come to you before they're actually getting married.
00:24:28
Speaker 3: Yes, before they're married. Even pre engagement counseling is the thing. Now. People are like much more conscientious. They they are like, I am investing in us because I don't want to waste time. I don't want to get a divorce, you know, after we have kids. So there's pre cohabitation is a big one.
00:24:46
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:24:47
Speaker 3: Some people will come in within the first three months of dating what because they don't want to they don't want to waste their time, and they're like, let's figure these things out, red flag, let's figure this out. They and they don't know what they don't know.
00:25:00
Speaker 2: Well, that's true, but it's amazing that they realize that, you know that they're willing.
00:25:04
Speaker 3: I wish there were more. I wish that there were more, but there are people doing that.
00:25:09
Speaker 2: It seems really really smart. To be doing that. It seems like a really smart thing because you're getting someone's like kind of eye in terms of you know, what might be underneath something or a red flag that you're not aware of, or you're maybe like oh maybe, but sometimes you don't even know yourself. And that's as we started talking about with Charlotte. She really is alone in her own head, you know, like what is going on? But I think her eye is so much on the prize, which is that's kind of Charlotte's issue, right, But.
00:25:41
Speaker 3: Isn't that interesting Because as I was rewatching this episode, she could have easily done well, I'm sure you and I have seen before where it's like, okay, let me just sweep this under the rug. Yeah, and oh okay, now everything's you know, maybe there's some functioning going on and whatever, and she could have said, gosh, this is so good on paper, or maybe I don't need this passion. Maybe maybe I you know, And that is a real thing that people question when they're trying to figure out if they should stay with someone. And so it took a lot for her, I think, yeah, to kind of say wait, no, but this is fake.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: Right, is right? No?
00:26:26
Speaker 2: No? And That's the saving grace of Charlotte, right, is that, like, like, she does have the romantic vision and she is really focused on a goal in a way where you know, it might be questionable, but in the end she wants to be authentic. I think she's looking for authenticity, like more and more authenticity. She's not willing to go backwards. And that's what I love about her. Yeah, thank goodness.
00:26:50
Speaker 3: I feel like that we would have all been almost like, no, Charlotte. We would have been screaming at the screen if she was like kind of caving, but she didn't. And then another thing that I noticed, and the reason that it stood out to me rewatching it is because in the very first chapter of my book, the Four Intimacy Styles, I talk about how for me, yes, we all have heard, you know, sex, money and kids are the cause for most breakups or divorces, but for me, I think it's sex, but most people don't want to say it.
00:27:24
Speaker 2: Is Wow.
00:27:25
Speaker 3: The fact that she is, like, you know, as publicly conscious of her reputation, but the fact that she's able to say, like, no, we have sexual issues, we have bedroom issues. I just thought, gosh, she was almost like ahead of her time, because most people will not say that even though it's one hundred percent why they're divorcing.
00:27:46
Speaker 1: No, you're so right. You're so right.
00:27:47
Speaker 2: And that is one thing when I'm rewatching the show, and people had said this to me over the years, but I was always like, really, are you sure that Charlotte kind of she just says truths like out of the blue, do.
00:27:58
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying?
00:27:59
Speaker 2: And sometimes there are all comfortable truths, you know, And I think that's also she's kind of a massive contradictions in a lot of ways that it made her fun to play for eighteen million, hundred years, and that was one of them. Like she does have the facade, like I'm going to have the upperst side good girl facade, but yet I'm actually gonna say.
00:28:16
Speaker 1: The hard things. It's interesting. It's interesting.
00:28:30
Speaker 2: Okay, Now, there's a lot going on in this particular episode with everyone else also, so let's talk about them for a second, because there's some very very interesting things for Carrie. Carrie's going out with the jazz guy now, which is very interesting and different, and she tells the girls in this episode that she has the best orgasm of her life or one of the best orgasms of her life and that normally she has to be in love with someone for that to happen, and what does it all mean?
00:28:59
Speaker 1: And I I think that's really really interesting. What do you make of this?
00:29:04
Speaker 3: So it's it is interesting because what I'm noticing with Carrie and the jazz guy is that she's almost like, oh, I've never really been with someone who's kind of forced me to follow along with him, like she's following him. She is not in the lead really at all, and we kind of find out why later, but he is. He's kind of like a no, no, no, listen to me. No, I'm doing this. You want this, I'm going to give you this, and he even he takes the lead in the bedroom, and she just kind of has to be a passenger, which is kind of sexy too, right, Sometimes it's just nice to be a passenger, Yeah, a passenger princess. But I think what's great about the way that she handles it is that I love that she goes back to talk to the girls kind of like a this is great and all, but there's something up because I mean, for somebody who's enjoying the sex as much as she is, I'm surprised she would even like remotely put ink into the water, right, Yeah, And she's just kind of waiting to hear, like what's going on with this? And they could have been like they could have maybe burst her bubble, they didn't sound well.
00:30:17
Speaker 2: The truth is Carrie doesn't really let anyone burst her bubble, if you've noticed, because all of us at one point are like no more big, and yet she does what she does, you know what I'm trying to say. But I mean, she talks to us about it, which is great. But I think it's interesting because like, on the one hand, we've got the tray situation, which is all complicated now and they're trying and he's trying, and you know whatnot there's very clearly like he has kind of a you know, difficulty being fully intimate with someone who he also wants to be with I guess right, Like he likes the drugs magazine, as we discussed, and he wants to have sex in the cab and whatnot. And for her it's kind of interesting also in that she's basically saying that it's a surprise to her that she doesn't know him that well. She's kind of trying to connect with him in other ways, it's not really working so well, but yet she has one of the best orgasms of her entire.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: Life, which is saying a lot.
00:31:12
Speaker 2: And also it does seem like it is related to the fact that she's not really trying to do anything or trying to get something from him in an interesting.
00:31:22
Speaker 3: Way, She's not performing at all. She's not trying to seduce him. I mean, she's trying to get him too focus.
00:31:30
Speaker 1: Right, which is right, right, right.
00:31:32
Speaker 3: But other than that, it's almost like she's she's having to say, wait a minute, don't you want some sort of an emotional connection, like wait a minute, right?
00:31:44
Speaker 2: But it's kind of cool and interesting in a way, and it reminds me of one of our very first episodes, which is can you have sex like a man? Can women have sex like a man?
00:31:53
Speaker 1: Remember this?
00:31:54
Speaker 2: And it was all about like, can we not have an attachment or can we just look at it as Good said, in the way that men are seemingly able And I don't know if that's even true. Do you think that's true that men and women are different in the fundamental way that we look at sex.
00:32:10
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's a male female thing but I do think that societally and socially we as women could learn something from men about the way that they are able to let fantasies just swirl around them all the time. And sexual thoughts. I think for women we have to compartmentalize. We tend to compartmentalize, It's true much yeah, And I think men are just so good about being like, oh, there's a sexy you know, stimuli, there's you know, there's a really good looking button, and they almost like let these thoughts in. They let them swirl around. Sometimes they masturbate, most of the time they don't. They can talk about it. And with women, I feel like it's very much oh I should not be thinking about that right now, or oh that's wrong to say that, or why am I looking at that. It's all just push push, We reject these thoughts away. And I feel like that's the main difference that I see. I just I wish I'm not saying that we need to be like men, but I do think that women need to allow sexy thoughts to come in a lot more often and prioritize them in order to have a healthier fantasy life and that mind body connection, so that when they are in the mood or they want to be in the mood, they can access that quickly.
00:33:22
Speaker 1: Oh that's very interesting. That makes it sense.
00:33:24
Speaker 3: Fantasy is really big, and I have something for that too, because I'm telling you I've been doing this a long time and I'm like, look, you're not going to see me, but come to my website, my vivid Fantasy. It is a way to create your own fantasy using almost like it's multiple choice and it spits out something that then you can read as often as you'd like to get you in the mood. And it came from an in office activity that I used to do, especially with women who are like, I've never fantasized, I don't even know what's sexy. And then I would ask them questions, looking down at my notebook, giving them, you know, but asking them like where would you want to be touched and what would you be smelling and what would the lighting be like? And by the end of it, they're like, oh my gosh. First of all, I'm a little hot and bothered. Second of all, I didn't know that that was in here. Wow, And I'm like, yes it is. But we just don't take the time to really fantasize and now with audio erotica, it makes it so much easier with audiobooks and with you know, we call it cliterotica.
00:34:26
Speaker 1: And things like that.
00:34:27
Speaker 3: I feel like I feel like we're much more into it. But it's so much better when you can access it in your own brain.
00:34:34
Speaker 1: Of course.
00:34:34
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that really touches on so many things. And one and this is also just a fundamental part of our show is trying to peel back the layers of shame put onto women by society for you know, hundreds of years. And I feel like we want to and culturally we're kind of moving towards it. But then sometimes I also feel and I'm curious your thoughts on this. When our show came out, you know, it was kind of a shocking thing right nowineteen ninety very shocking.
00:35:01
Speaker 3: I remember, I don't even think I was allowed to watch.
00:35:03
Speaker 1: But I should, yay.
00:35:05
Speaker 2: And now it's less shocking, right But still when you look at the episode, some of the things are still like, oh no, that's still happening. But I was talking to someone we were talking about the naked dress in the first season, and we were just laughing about the way red carpets are now like basically people just don't even wear clothes.
00:35:21
Speaker 1: I mean it's.
00:35:22
Speaker 2: Bizarre, right, Like it's bizarre sometimes and hopefully we've gone, we've gone all the way we can go in that area.
00:35:27
Speaker 1: And now we might be coming back.
00:35:29
Speaker 2: But I sometimes wonder about like the realness is almost like a performative freedom, you know, for women in a way like I don't know, I don't feel like like, for instance, what you're talking about about almost just giving your self permission to fantasize and think the sexual thoughts that one might have during the day, just as a normal human being, right that men allow themselves to do, but women still have to kind of teach themselves to allow like let those things happen, let your mind go, and that.
00:36:05
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be in public. It doesn't have to be performative. You don't have to let the whole table know you can, right y'all have sex, and the city taught us that you absolutely can and you might get looks from the other table, most of the time you won't, but that it doesn't have to be something that you're doing for someone else's benefit, especially if you're thinking about it from the male gaze gaze. I don't encourage women to do that for the sake of their partner. It's for you. Your brain is your largest sexual organ. If you're using it, awesome. If you're not, you're missing out on some stuff. So it's not for only to be in a partnered relationship. It's not only to satisfy your partner's needs, but really to tap into something that is already in you, within you, and is a part of you, just like every other part of your body.
00:37:00
Speaker 2: Really interesting, yeah, really really interesting. And I do feel like this work kind of just continues culturally, right, Like we're just kind of just trying to deep in and out and you're seeing it in like people's specific lives how it's playing out, which is so interesting.
00:37:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then to see it on screen in so many different ways. It's like they're all case studies. Every single one night stand, every single relationship, every single friendship, all of that. It's to me now looking back and rewatching these episodes, they're all case studies. And I love it because a lot of them, I'm like, these writers, who were they taking who are they consulting with?
00:37:41
Speaker 2: Well, sex therap the writers were putting their own stories in there, or stories of our friends, so it could be once removed, right, but they had to have some personal knowledge of something that was happening.
00:37:52
Speaker 1: Now.
00:37:52
Speaker 2: Sometimes, like in the instance of the Trace situation, no one ever confessed to me whose story that was, And I don't know if it was particularly anyone's because most of our writers at this point in time. We had Jenny Banks, one of our writers, on the other day and she was saying, like all of them, I can't I can't remember what she said exactly, were like criminally single or whatever, like they could not because we were just working so much, you know, so the writers.
00:38:17
Speaker 3: Because the writers were very difficult.
00:38:19
Speaker 1: Right, and they were with us all the time on the set.
00:38:21
Speaker 3: You know.
00:38:21
Speaker 2: It wasn't like they would write and turn it in and not come. They were like with us, which was wonderful, But they weren't able. They weren't really to the point in their lives where they had successful relationships. It was more them trying to date and try to figure things out. And then late later on they did and wrote some of those things in. But like the Trade thing, I think we were creating the Tray story line as time went on, because we kept Kyle longer than the original idea, So they're just trying to kind of figure out what would the problems be and you know, being I think super creative about it, you know in terms of, you know, people might have these problems but then also might not know how to handle them, and we're we're so hampered. Both both characters, Charlotte and Trey are hampered by kind of their ideals and what they're trying to kind of hold up.
00:39:14
Speaker 3: Well and their pride, right, yeah, yeah, pride involved. There's ego. You know. He starts kind of it's like, I don't even know how to describe the talk that he's giving his Johnson when it's like when he's trying to give himself a pep talk and he's like, yeah, look, I'm like and he's so into the fact that he's got this erection finally that is maintaining and she's at this point like, oh my gosh, this is not even going to be.
00:39:43
Speaker 1: About us, right, that's sad. It makes me say.
00:39:47
Speaker 3: It's sad, but that happens too. You get someone who has this reawakening sexually or for the first time ever within a relationship, and their partners can sometimes feel insecure about that, and it can sometimes feel like, well, wait, it seems like I'm now your toy right now, your tool, you know, And I think for her it was almost like a wait, am I even here? Like this hasn't heard that? It's right? You know? Right? Right? No?
00:40:19
Speaker 1: I think that's very very true.
00:40:20
Speaker 2: And I think I mean in this particular episode is when she's like, you know, when she leaves because he wants her to measures his penis or.
00:40:27
Speaker 1: Whatever, and she's like, I hope you want penis. You and your penis have a wonderful night. Like it's just like, oh.
00:40:33
Speaker 3: My gosh, exactly.
00:40:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all about that now, you know, it's all.
00:40:38
Speaker 3: About that now. And she's like, oh my gosh, this isn't going to be our sex side. This is now going to be you being performative for yourself because you've missed out on so many years. Well, that's not my that's not my issue, that's not my thing now.
00:40:54
Speaker 2: Right Because she wants connection, she's trying to connect to him Nick love.
00:40:59
Speaker 3: She wants to have passion, and that's kind of been something that is just it's it's like just out of reach for Trey and Charlotte so out of reach it is, and you're like, is this Are they ever going to get it together? And then it's very clear in this episode like no.
00:41:18
Speaker 2: Well, but then at the end he asked her to move back in. What did you think when that happened? Were you like no, Charlotte? No, I'm like no, Charlotte, because.
00:41:29
Speaker 1: You know, you know the reality of this.
00:41:31
Speaker 3: The reality is that she's now signing up for probably a lot of doubt. Right, there's going to be He's going to feel like, well, what if it happens again? And then she's going to wonder how you know, Oh, no, we're starting all over again. And that can happen with lots of different dynamics and relationships where you're like, I'm seeing the same I'm seeing these these signs again.
00:41:54
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker 3: And I think I think the way that he and more importantly, the way that he handled the entire sexual issue for the duration of their marriage, however short lived, was that was such a red flag.
00:42:10
Speaker 1: Right that the handling of it, not the actual issue.
00:42:13
Speaker 3: Handling it, because I mean, even if he had said I know that this is a big deal, I just don't know how to deal with it, or I'm so embarrassed or how why would you want to be with somebody who's dealing with this, like anything that points back to I care, right, that would have made such a big difference.
00:42:31
Speaker 1: Right, right.
00:42:32
Speaker 2: And he doesn't really say things like that, does he? No, he doesn't. Oh my gosh, I know. I mean it's so hard for me to watch it because I want Charlotte to get what Charlotte wants, right, because I did live live that storyline. And so when he comes to the door with her with her engagement ring again and kind of proposes, because remember she proposed in the beginning, which I also do think like there is a way that you can look at their whole relationship as being somewhat her doing because she was so focused on that goal of marriage.
00:43:06
Speaker 3: I mean, again, having had the opportunity to go through and see very now much more focused on just their storyline. She's not a victim, no, no, it's not a victim, no no. But I think she had good intentions. She thought she thought he just needs a little prompting. There's some manipulation there, you know, with the touching and the and and she you know, learning it from Bunny who does it best. But it was just very interesting that she's she's getting what she wants it, but not the exact way that she envisioned it.
00:43:46
Speaker 2: That's her shame, right, And I think, I mean, I think it's so great, like just for who she is as a character is so perfectly crafted that you know, she posts is very poetic and also just so also painful that it plays out how it does over time. And yet he's he gives her just enough that she stays in, Like every time she tries to, you know, get out. She comes at one point with the list This is a couple episodes back or maybe the end of Thursdays, and she's like, I have a listen.
00:44:17
Speaker 1: We've got to talk about these things. And he's like, no, no, let's make out. And she's like, but no, no, I'm trying to talk about these things.
00:44:23
Speaker 2: It's like I've really been there.
00:44:25
Speaker 3: Push, yeah, push, And that exists in so many relationships and sex is often the catalyst to feeling like wait, what are we building off of? You know, every time I go to talk to you about something important, you kind of blind me with your sexual prowess or you know, you make me feel so good that it's like, oh, all is forgiven right. But that said, he's not the villain either, No, No, I mean it's he is just immature, and I think he's so kind of ambivalent about things, and I think that's just his upbringing and probably you know, being a doctor, a medical doctor that he's playing a medical doctor. I feel like there is this sense of black and white. There is this sense of or he may have known this is a much bigger issue and he just didn't want to face it, right.
00:45:26
Speaker 2: Like when you see the word ambivalence, I mean that's the perfect word, because it's like in the scenes where Charlotte's just trying so hard and he's just got that wall up, you know.
00:45:36
Speaker 1: Oh, it was so painful.
00:45:38
Speaker 2: And I've just been there in so many different ways, not around this particular thing.
00:45:43
Speaker 1: But I mean, I'm sure.
00:45:44
Speaker 2: All the women listening and me do right, like, you know, when you're just trying so hard to not be mean, to not you know, shame in any way.
00:45:53
Speaker 3: To not to not let those walls go up, right, let me, you know, let me just be a little tiptoe, mat me just be sweet and open. And she does that, and I mean I know that they were able to share her frustration and they were able to show that she's, like she really cares, if she's really frustrated to not get any of that from his side. There's such a stark contrast. I know she cares, he doesn't. She wants to do something about it. He is shutting it down. He's he obviously knows that something's going on, but he's not addressing it. And you're like, okay, well, maybe all of that will come together and he'll when he thinks he's going to lose her, right, That's when most people are going to try when he thinks he's going to lose her. Maybe right, But no, not really.
00:46:43
Speaker 2: I know it's so hard and so relatable. It just in terms of those those relationships that you want to make work, but yet there is just a lack of some commitment on both sides.
00:46:57
Speaker 3: He follow through, right, Yeah, it's the follow through. And I'm glad that at some point she realized, like, I can't do this all alone.
00:47:06
Speaker 1: I know she's strong.
00:47:07
Speaker 2: She's strong, Like I mean, she already tried to leave it once, like when they're when they're out at you know, when she makes out with the gardener and she's like, yeah, we should separate. I was like, Wow, Charlotte brave. But obviously it doesn't last. But I totally get it because who wouldn't want to try?
00:47:20
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it. You guys.
00:47:21
Speaker 2: This is so much fun that we're going to have to have a part two, so join us later in the week on are You a Charlotte