What They Didn’t Tell You: From Core to Floor

The Truth About Intimacy They Never Taught You

• Millie Schweky • Season 1 • Episode 5

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In this episode, Dr. Millie answers listener-submitted questions that crack open the honest, nuanced world of sexual wellness and relational intimacy. She tackles:

  • Why orgasms might require vibrators while on antidepressants and how to navigate that with your partner
  • How to have conversations about sex with your fiancé before marriage (without feeling shame or confusion)
  • What it means when sex doesn’t hurt but throbs after
  • How lubrication, arousal, hydration, and hormones all play a role in your pelvic health and pleasure

This is your permission slip to ask, learn, and explore because your pleasure and wellbeing matter.

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[Dr. Millie Shwecky]

We got another question. I like this one. I think it's something that a lot of people can relate to but no one really talks about.

So someone wants to know, okay, they ask, I'm on antidepressants and I cannot have an orgasm without a vibrator. How do I make my husband not feel inadequate? 

[Galya Falkson]

This is such a profound question because it's touching on so many different layers, but I'll firstly just say that that is completely normal. Antidepressants can really affect our sexual functioning, especially orgasm, and there is nothing wrong with your body because you need an orgasm through a vibrator.

There's nothing wrong with having to use that tool in order to get there because this is what is literally being inhibited by the antidepressant. So it's absolutely normal just to put that out there. And secondly, the husband's feelings are valid, but also the whole situation isn't about his inadequacy.

It's really about your body responding to the medication. So yes, his feelings are valid, but there is a level of him needing to understand that it isn't about his inadequacy. He isn't inadequate.

This is not a him versus you issue, but it's a how can we figure this out together? Because this is making you feel inadequate, which is valid, but this isn't about him. It's about actually just understanding that this is your body's response to the medication. So I would start with having a conversation with him and saying, you're doing everything right.

This is just what works best for my body, and that's okay. In the space that I'm in and the time that I'm in and in the season that I'm in, this is what my body needs in order to experience pleasure. So you need to know that you could become a superman, but unless you were a vibrator, you're not going to get me to that point.

And that is just because the medication's inhibiting me. So it's just important to be able to frame it in a way that it's got nothing to do with his inadequacies, but rather very much the medication. And it's okay for him to get involved in every way of using the tool.

There's no way that he doesn't have to just sit on the side and be like, okay, I'll never do this again with my wife. No, he should hold the tool, and he should be kissing your body, and he should be touching your other erogenous zones, and he should be experiencing the experience with you just because he's not using his hand on your clitoris, wherever the tool is. His hands can be everywhere else.

And I think that's an important thing, to allow him to know that he still has a huge role in your pleasure. It's just, this is part of the season that you're in, and this is how he can show up in the season. 

[Dr. Millie Shwecky]

That was brilliant. That was really brilliant. I love that answer. We have another one.

Someone asks, I'm getting married soon, and I'm so nervous to have sex. How can I talk about it with my fiancé, and what can I do to prepare? 

[Galya Falkson]

This is also such a multi-layered question, because firstly, she's feeling nervous, and she also is feeling like she doesn't have the words to communicate with her fiancé, but she also wants to prepare to be able to communicate with her fiancé. So the first thing that I would say is that, especially in the religious world, it's quite difficult to be like, oh, let's talk about sex before marriage, because that might not be so simple for some people.

They might see it as very unseamless, or they might say this is not appropriate. And so I think you just have to kind of acknowledge where you are with your partner, and where you're at in the space. What are the things that we can communicate about, and what are the things we will wait after to communicate about? So a lot of the things when it comes to sex, when it comes to talking about sex, is how you feel about sex yourself.

So if you're feeling anxious, or you're feeling like sex is shameful, or taboo, or naughty, or bad, then having a conversation about that is also going to be a little bit difficult. So I think the first step is to kind of just have conversations with like, what do you feel about like, do you feel positive towards sex, or do you feel shameful towards it? You could have conversations around like, well, before you actually have those conversations, I would also think about like, what are your expectations of sex? So do you have expectations, the same expectations for the first night? Start there. You may not be discussing sex entirely, that you can build on once you're married, but what is your expectations? Are you expecting that like, the minute we get married, we're jumping into bed? What are you expecting from sex? Are you expecting it to be this big, lavish affair, or do you understand that you are going to have to do things differently for the first time, or more slowly? It's very important going into this, sorry, there's so many layers, my brain's just going to a million places, but it's very important to learn about sex.

So if your color teacher doesn't prepare you enough, go and read about it. There's so many books, there's so many resources out there. I've got courses, I know, and maybe you've created courses, and there's so many different resources out there where you can read up on your anatomy, you can read up on what arousal means, you can read up on what pleasure is.

So you feel informed. When you feel confident in your education, you feel confident about the things that you're going to be able to talk about, then when these things come up, you can then make time with each other to say, hey babe, I was thinking about arousal, and I was thinking about how I've noticed your arousal is very different to my arousal. You get aroused quite quickly, whereas I take longer having conversations about it, because you know that that's normal, and you know that those are just parts of our physiological makeup, as opposed to expecting something to be different, and then obviously it's going to be more complicated to discuss something that you think isn't normal or you think is bad.

So that would be my first tip. And then the second tip is that there's no rush, okay? Sex is a journey, it's not one single event. So when you're feeling emotional and physically close to someone, that's the first step before you can start having a vulnerable conversation about sex that maybe you've never experienced before.

So create that emotional closeness and physical closeness before you start having these conversations. And lastly, just have those conversations about realistic expectations, because once you have those realistic expectations conversations, that can be the springboard into how can I talk about everything else. So you can say, I'm feeling nervous about sex, that's the first step.

Say, I'm feeling nervous, this is my expectation and this is what I want, what do you want, what are you expecting, how can we make sure we are on the same page? 

[Dr. Millie Shwecky]

Wow, we just went everywhere with that answer. And it's funny, I was listening to you and you're speaking like a true Kala teacher, but also like a true therapist. And it's like, wow, your clients are so lucky that they get to experience both, because you're really coming at it from all angles.

[Galya Falkson]

Thank you. And there was another question that actually came in for you, which is, is it normal that sex doesn't hurt, but it's throbbing after? So is that a sign that something is wrong? 

[Dr. Millie Shwecky]

Yeah, it is a sign that something is wrong. It's not normal.

It's actually interesting, this question I actually put in because I've been treating this an insane amount. And very recently, things come in waves sometimes. I'll get three people in a row with same thing and then I won't see it for like two months.

But I've been seeing a lot of this. So the first thing I would want to address is lubrication. What's going on? Are you dry down there and are you needing a lot of lube? One thing that I don't hear spoken about so much is lube and what's going on, right? So our body is meant to make a certain amount of natural lubricant and then if it's not doing that and you feel like you need more, then we have plenty of beautiful products that we could use.

Just stay away from the bad ones. But there's plenty of great things we could use. That being said, if your body is not producing an adequate amount of lubrication, I actually like to ask why.

Are you nursing or on any form of hormones that's stopping your body from producing that? Or is there something else going on? Maybe your hormones, maybe you're not drinking enough water, maybe you're not feeling aroused. And as we know, physiologically, when we're feeling aroused, the vagina actually does this thing called tenting where it kind of like opens up and makes more space for something to come in. And there should be less friction and less tension.

So if you're like feeling like, yeah, maybe there's something going on, my hormones do feel off because you're like maybe seeing it in other areas of your life. If you feel like you're dehydrated, like your urine is coming out looking like apple juice as opposed to a light pale lemonade. Or if you feel like you're not so aroused going into it, then I would actually start there and understand like maybe there's too much friction going on and I'm using the extra lube.

But just physiologically, my body is not in the place that it potentially could be where everything would just kind of feel like more gentle. And like as you said before, the vagina is elastic. So I'm like feeling more of that elasticity going on as opposed to like, you know, when you leave a rubber band out for too long and it just kind of like gets dried up and hard, like kind of like that.

So you want to make sure that first physiologically you're hitting those three things, hydration, hormones, and arousal. That being said, there are many other reasons it could happen. Sometimes there's a nerve or muscle tension issue where you could feel totally fine during sex, but all of a sudden, even after orgasm, your body kind of like tenses up.

Sometimes it's a blood flow restriction. Sometimes it's what's called muscle hypertonicity where the muscles just have an increased tone to them. So again, that would be a sign to seek help.

But if you know how to do 360 breathing, diaphragmatic breathing, any pelvic floor stretches, I would totally start with that before intimacy, like right before. It's kind of like I tell my patients to do like a pre-sex warm up when they're dealing with things like this so that I can get the blood flow moving and get the muscles contracting and relaxing before they put anything in. So that would be like my first line of defense.

And if it's something that's ongoing, then, you know, seek help. 

[Galya Falkson]

Yeah. I would also say that from my perspective, sometimes I often see where there's lack of education, where maybe the partner has gone too hard or too fast, too quickly for the person's body.

So like you said, the arousal is important, but also sometimes it's technique related. So if you notice that it doesn't happen every time, but it happens when your husband or your partner does certain things that are more intense or there is a difference in the rhythm or the play. 

[Dr. Millie Shwecky]

Tempo, roughness.

[Galya Falkson]

Yeah, exactly. That's when you would also just take that into consideration. Is it happening every single time? That's when you would seek help with a pelvic floor therapist if it's continuous.

But if it's a once-off or it happens randomly, then you would look at what happened in that. 

[Dr. Millie Shwecky]

Okay, great. Totally agree. Totally, totally agree. Okay.