Anna Martin: Hey everyone, it's Anna. All right, before we start the show, I want to talk about Valentine's Day because of course we are already thinking about it over here at Modern Love. We're hoping you can help us out. We want to know the most romantic thing that's ever happened to you. Or if it didn't happen to you, the most romantic thing you've ever seen or witnessed. It could be something grand, a romcom style gesture. Maybe someone stood outside your window with a boom box or ran through the airport to stop you from leaving. Or it could be something small like someone knows you hate olives, so they always pick them off your plate before you dig in. Whatever made you feel that rush of romance from the big moments to the tiny ones, we want to hear about it and we want to know why it was so romantic to you. If you have a story in mind, record a voice memo and email it to us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com by February 4th and we might use your story on the show.

Now, here's today's episode. I want to do a thought exercise really quick and just a warning, I'm about to get extremely personal extremely quickly. I would like you to think about your own sex life. I'll pause. Think about it. Is it fabulous? Is it lacking? Is it kind of a mix? 50/50. When was the last time you really considered what turns you on? What actually makes your body feel good? And what you really want out of sex? These are all questions my guest today wants us to ask ourselves. Her name is Dr. Nicole McNichols. She's a professor at the University of Washington where she teaches a class all about human sexuality. As you might guess, this is the most popular class on campus. There's literally always a wait list. And now she has a new book coming out called "You Could Be Having Better Sex". To write this book, Dr. McNichols has poured over years of data, countless studies on what leads to good, fulfilling sex. And today she's here to take us back into the classroom and teach us all how to have the best sex of our lives. And by the way, if it isn't obvious, this conversation is very explicit. So if you got kids nearby, maybe pop on some headphones or save this one till later. Dr. Nicole McNichols, welcome to Modern Love.

Nicole McNichols: Thank you so much, Anna. I'm so excited to be here.

Anna Martin: So, Nicole, you teach the most popular course at the University of Washington to over 4,000 students each year. It's called the diversity of human sexuality. And I have to say, if I was an undergrad, I would be rushing to sign up for this class. What do you think that constant weight list, all those butts in seats, as it were, what does that speak to? What are people curious about? What do they want to find out?

Nicole McNichols: I think students are coming in with so much curiosity about sex, which is wonderful because sexual curiosity is exactly what drives us all to be having better sex and more connected sexual experiences. And they have been brought up either within their communities or with their teachers or with the schools that they've been at with usually a complete lack of sex education. I mean, there's no federally mandated sex education. In fact, many schools, many states require schools to teach information. That's just wrong and that's stigmatizing and invoking a lot of shame. So, to be able to tell them, I'm here to make you relax, feel comfortable, because I think that's often the biggest surprise is just how important pleasure is in our lives, right? We tend to think of pleasure as being something that's a treat. And so many students, they come into my classroom, they are used to thinking of pleasure as something that they get to do after all their homework is done, after their two jobs that they're often holding basically.

Anna Martin: Yeah. Yeah. It's dessert.

Nicole McNichols: I mean, we've all grown up in this very puritanical culture that treats sex like dessert. You get lucky. Even if the language that we use. So to be able to first start from the point of view that there is reams of research showing how critical positive emotions and pleasure are to our well-being. And not just to our well-being, but to our ability to think creatively, to problem solve, to broaden our perspectives, and seek out sources of social support. All of which are going to help us cope with the inevitable challenges and stressors in our lives. So just starting from the standpoint of a pleasure is important, sex is important, and b most of what you've been taught about sex, if you've been taught about sex, is likely wrong, right? Like let's start let's start over.

Anna Martin: Nicole, sign me. I'm on the wait list. I mean, you're speaking about sex as central to living a creative, fulfilled life, pleasure as not just a treat that we relegate to a corner. But I have to believe you didn't always see sex this way, right? When you started teaching this course, what was happening in your life at the time that you stepped into teaching this course?

Nicole McNichols: I was at a time in my life when I desperately needed help with my own sex life. I was a mother of three young children and, you know, a husband and two dogs, very needy dogs. And I was so thrown into motherhood and, you know, the waking up at night and the, you know, exhaustion, joy, I mean, incredible satisfaction and fulfillment from that, but just feeling exhausted and touched out and having sex at that point, it starts to feel like you're just fulfilling another person's physical needs, which is, you know, and just the guilt that came with feeling that way and feeling like I knew that I wanted to be able to connect with my husband and knowing sex was important but not really knowing how to work through that. It was it was hard and it definitely weighed on our relationship a bit at the time.

Anna Martin: And this is the moment in your life when you step in to teach this human sexuality course.

Nicole McNichols: Yes. Well, actually, Anna, I'm glad you mentioned that because one other critical factor about my condition when I started teaching for the first time this human sexuality course is that I was also I had two young children and I was 6 months pregnant with my third. So, I think I think part of the reason I got selected is because the department figured I probably already knew something about sex given that I was...

Anna Martin: They were like, she's at least had it three times.

Nicole McNichols: Yeah. So, she seems qualified. Exactly. Wow, what a confluence of personal and professional. I mean to to put it, you know, in a zoomed out way, but all these factors, you know, converging at this point when you step in to teach this course, I assume you're like soaking in the research. What are you discovering? What are you uncovering? Well, I was fascinated and completely blown away at just how important sexual satisfaction is to relationship satisfaction.

Anna Martin: I was going to say I feel like intuitively that makes sense, right?

Nicole McNichols: Yeah. Yeah. But looking at longitudinal data from, you know, Dr. Amy Muse of thousands of couples over time finds that it's not just having a happy relationship is going to lead to necessarily better or more satisfying sex. That the direction of that is the opposite. That it's usually sexual satisfaction that's preceding relationship satisfaction. So we might assume okay well if I just work on my and trust me working on your relationship is critical and we can get into that. But just understanding that if you look at couples over time who are asked to keep daily diaries of how satisfied they feel in their relationships and what their mental well-being is and how happy and satisfied with life they feel overall and how satisfying their sex life is. What you see is that when an uptick in sexual satisfaction occurs, the joy and satisfaction in the relationship follows. So, it's a pathway in that people don't really appreciate enough, I don't think.

Anna Martin: And I'm just I'm going to say it back mostly because I want to make sure I understand it. It's like, okay, yeah, good sex, good relationship, whatever. What you're saying is working on your relationship, that's not necessarily going to lead you to have better sex. What the data does prove is that having better, more fulfilling sex is a way to lead towards more relationship satisfaction. It's like the sex is the vehicle. The maybe that's the wrong word, but is that right?

Nicole McNichols: The mechanism. We love the word mechanism. Vehicle sounds better.

Anna Martin: Okay. Sex is the mechanism for relationship satisfaction. Now, that is really that is really interesting. I mean, you're you're learning this stuff. You're immersed in this as you're teaching this course. How many years has it been now that you're teaching this? 15. Over the course of that, have you implemented the things you've learned in your course to your own sex life, your intimate life with your husband?

Nicole McNichols: Absolutely. The other thing that really gave me sort of a sense of hope, right? Because you can think sex is super important, but oh my god, like how am I supposed to be carving out having sex all the time with my husband when I am so busy with all of my kids and my teaching load? And I was also really heartened to see, and you know, I'm a data nerd, so forgive this. But you know, one of the hush-hush questions I often get from other couples that I have had too was, "Okay, but like what's that magic frequency?" Right? In other words, we know sex is important, but like how often do you really need to be having it to see these benefits that we know it leads to with relationship satisfaction? And the answer, Anna, and this is a mean, an average. Once a week, which is not an astronomical amount of time, right? No, it is not. And it's not that, you know, couples who have sex more than once a week, that's fantastic if they want to do that. But when we look at the benefit of sex to relationship well-being, it doesn't increase after about once a week.

Anna Martin: I really like this because for many couples, I feel like hearing that number, one time a week, having sex one time a week is implementable and quite doable and not intimidating. Okay. So, a lot of us have questions about our sex lives, but not all of us can take your course, unfortunately. So for someone who wants to have better sex, where would you tell them to start?

Nicole McNichols: Well, I can give you the 10,000 foot answer and the specific answer to this. The 10,000 foot answer is that unfortunately I cannot offer you a GLP one shot to improve your sex life. But I can give you a blueprint.

Anna Martin: I want to throw out some different scenarios that people could be experiencing. Let's say someone is single, they're dating, they're having casual sex, and they keep finding themselves having experiences that are just not great. Applying these sort of ways to have better sex to this situation. What would be your first question for them?

Nicole McNichols: I will say that when it comes to casual sex specifically, I have a very different view than a lot of the messaging that we've seen about sort of the the types of impact that casual sex has on people and relationships, which has mostly been negative. Right? Most of what we see in the media is fearful messaging. It's terrible for women. It leads to a sense of isolation and despair. And the reality is that it absolutely can lead to those feelings. But casual sex can also be awesome. It can be exciting. It can be pleasurable. It can be a form of sexual adventure. There's a study I love that even shows that in the right context, casual sex can lead to an increased GPA. This is real data. When you really poll people about okay what was your last sexual experience truly like, it's very mixed. You see about a third of people who are like it was really unsatisfying and it left me feeling empty. But then we get another third who say it was awesome. It was pleasurable. It was an adventure. And then you get about another third that are like, eh, it was a little bit of both. And there is a small gender difference, but not nearly as big as you might think. In other words, there are a lot of women having a lot of fabulous casual sex.

Anna Martin: And what does the data show?

Nicole McNichols: It really comes down to motivation. In other words, what are you looking for in the experience? And are you looking for adventure and play and fun and experimentation and letting off stress or even sexual validation? When your motivation is those what we call autonomously driven reasons, it can be really exciting and hot and fun. On the contrary to that, when there is a sense that you're having it because you actually want something deeper, but you're not quite sure how to ask for that, it can lead to really poor results.

And this is where I think it's relevant to mention my consent manifesto. We have a very limited definition of consent right now in our culture which is mostly limited to our physical boundaries. We need to start bringing in not just respect for each other's physical boundaries but respect for each other's social and emotional boundaries as well. We need to have a sense of emotional honesty. We need to be normalizing things like saying, "Are you okay if this is just for fun?" Because when those two purposes are misaligned, that's what leads to a negative experience.

Anna Martin: Okay, so casual sex is one context. Another context is a long-term relationship. If someone's listening and they are in a long-term relationship where the sexual spark has faded, what would you recommend they do to reignite that spark?

Nicole McNichols: There's sort of five major variables. The first one is set the mood. Don't just expect yourself to go from all those work emails to jumping into bed and having amazing sex. Lighting candles, lowering the lights. But couples who say I love you during sex are actually... I know. And kissing. Kissing during sex increases the chances of orgasm particularly for women. Researchers think it's because if you're kissing, it's likely slowing the pace of sex and increasing emotional intimacy. Second, prioritize orgasm, but with nuance. It's not the case that you have to have an orgasm in order to have an amazing sexual experience. There needs to be widening our definition of what sex is. It's not just penetration. Third, communicate. Using these phrases. "Guide me" is my favorite one. "Show me." Fourth, switch things up. Novelty.

Anna Martin: Do I need to be doing something totally different every time we have sex?

Nicole McNichols: No. Data shows that couples who try to do something new once a month or more tends to be that threshold. I love to discuss this idea of micro novelty. It does not need to mean that you're going to a sex shop and buying a bunch of leather. It can be as subtle as instead of missionary, lifted missionary. You can either put a pillow underneath the woman's hips or her legs around her partner's neck, which is going to elevate the pelvis into an angle that is going to be more pleasurable. Or having sex in a different room, at a different time of day.

Anna Martin: You spoke about this idea in long-term relationships of how beneficial it can be to planned sex. Talk to me about how those two things can coexist because they seem potentially contradictory.

Nicole McNichols: When we ask people which do you think is hotter, planned sex or spontaneous sex, everyone says spontaneous. But when you ask them to keep daily diaries, guess what? It's just as pleasurable when it's planned. It's the perfect pathway into introducing micro novelty because you have time to think about what might be fun to try, to anticipate, to fantasize. It just needs a rebrand. It's a regular erotic space where you can explore and be explored. And if the planned sex time comes and you're just not into it, normalize rescheduling. Put another date on the calendar. I have a 48-hour rule.

Anna Martin: I wonder if you have a sort of mantra or rallying cry that we could keep in mind if someone listening does want to start tonight. What's a mantra we can hold on to?

Nicole McNichols: Own your pleasure. It really is about owning your own particular brand of what makes you come to a sexual situation, feeling empowered to show up, assert your own needs, communicate, and have a mutually pleasurable experience. And it's really about taking ownership, right? Taking that responsibility into your own hands and knowing that you have the power to do it.

Anna Martin: I knew you'd have a mantra right there at the front, Dr. Nicole McNichols. Thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate it.

Nicole McNichols: Anna, this was such a delight. Thank you so much for having me.