#47 How To Have Sex Every Day with Caitlin & Michael Doemner

Today on the podcast we welcome Caitlin and Michael Doemner, authors of Sex Every Day, who are sharing with us some hands-on tips for enjoying sexual intimacy on a daily basis, regardless of busy schedules, kids and periods.

They talk about their three-step strategy for practicing frequent intimacy, including how you can communicate your sexual desires in a fun way and what you can do to ensure that both you and your partner are always satisfied. Before you think all of this is unattainable for you as a parent of young kids, hang on a minute! They have four kids of their own and advise you on overcoming the logistics of having regular sex with a house full of small children.

Key Points From This Episode

• The interesting story of how Caitlin and Michael got together.
• Why sleeping naked is such a natural and effective way to restore intimacy in a relationship.
• How the menu metaphor can be used to communicate and express sexual needs.
• The importance of being open to both give and receive.
• What you can do to maintain intimacy with your partner throughout the day.
• A quick review of the five love languages and what they each entail.
• Why it is important for couples to prioritize a woman’s pleasure.
• What couples with kids can practically do to preserve their intimacy and privacy.
• Why a period should not be stopping you from giving and receiving uninterrupted pleasure.
• And much more!

Tweetables

“It’s really hard to be angry with somebody when you’re laying full body contact naked with them and in bed.” [0:04:49]

“The intimacy and the passion, it doesn’t have to be intercourse …there’s a lot of different ways that we can please our partners.” [0:19:45]

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Transcript

[0:01:06.0] Sean Jameson: Today I’m talking to Caitlin and Michael Donor. They’re married and together have created a book called Sex Every Day: How to Prioritize Sex in your Marriage. It’s a three-step process that they use to have sex every single day and they’re here today on The Bad Girls Bible Podcast to talk about how you can use it too. Caitlin, Michael, thanks so much for coming on the show.

[0:01:27.8] Caitlin Doemner: Oh, we’re so glad to be here, Sean.

[0:01:29.4] Michael Doemner: Thanks for having us Sean.

[0:01:30.5] SJ: So before we get into the meat, into the book and that three-step process, I’d love to find out a little bit about you guys and how you met.

[0:01:40.1] MD: Sure. Yeah, we’ve been married a little over 10 years now and Caitlin always has more fun with that answer, so I’ll let her share that a little bit, probably the short version.

[0:01:49.5] CD: The short version. We met back in high school, I actually fell in love with Michael when I was 14 and he was 16, and we lived about three hours apart. So we just kept in touch through AOL instant messenger back when it was brand new and he ended up dating a girl in his youth group and then they got married and had a kid and I sort of wrote him off as the first love and moved on and almost got engaged in college.

[0:02:17.3] MD: I do understand now that this was all poor decisions on my part.

[0:02:21.3] CD: Yeah and so, you know, getting a divorce a couple of years later and we kept in touch and then I had a dream in which he blamed me for his divorce and I realized I had some unresolved issues. And so I contacted him to just get closure and quite the opposite instead of getting closure a year and a half later, we were tying the knot permanently. So it was not exactly what I expected when we re-initiated our relationship but I’m really glad that we got a second chance.

[0:02:52.0] SJ: Yeah, that’s kind of awesome. That’s very almost, I mean, when a divorce is not exactly a fairytale but in the end it certainly sounds like things worked out.

[0:03:03.1] MD: It all worked out, yeah.

[0:03:04.7] CD: Absolutely.

[0:03:05.6] SJ: So I want to talk about Sex Every Day. How did you guys decide to write this book?

[0:03:12.6] MD: Well, it’s been in the works for a while now but we were on our 10^th anniversary actually. We went to Costa Rica for 10 days and the weeks leading up to that, Caitlyn had been talking to some of our friends and it just kind of came about. I’ll let her share a little bit more about that, but it just kind of came about that we decided to write this book. We thought that we could help other couples bring passion and intimacy back into their marriage or relationships and yeah.

[0:03:42.8] CD: Yeah. Well, I was talking to some girlfriends and I just happened to mention that my husband and I have sex every day and they would stop me dead in the conversation. They’re like, “Wait, what?” And I was like, “Wait, what you don’t?” and so we started talking about it and they’re like, “Well, how does this work?” And I started thinking through, well, how have I been able to sustain this level of intimacy? And so there were a couple of rules that we had been following unconsciously at that point. But once I articulated them, I realized, “Oh, that’s what’s made them.”

[0:04:11.4] SJ: Awesome. So could you talk a little bit then about what the three step process is?

[0:04:17.7] CD: Yeah, you want to start with the first one? It’s yours.

[0:04:19.0] MD: Sure, so our first rule, I guess you could say is that we always sleep naked or at least most of the time. So we like to kind of say – I mean it was a little bit odd for Caitlin at first I think but when we first got married, we have adopted that since earlier in our relationship. And for me, I found out that that kind of intimacy and closeness and just the physicality of it when we’re sleeping has always brought us closer together and kind of led to – It’s really hard to be angry with somebody when you’re laying full body contact naked with them and in bed. So just kind of that as being our basis has always been good for us.

[0:05:00.6] CD: And you’re already halfway there, so it’s easy to initiate intimacy when you’re already skin to skin.

[0:05:06.4] SJ: Absolutely. And so who brought it up first then in the relationship?

[0:05:11.8] CD: That was definitely Michael. I was very conservative and the idea of sleeping naked was outrageous especially since we had his six-year-old step son in the house, and so we got very comfortable with bathrobes and locked doors and yeah, but it ended up being really great on a number of different levels and so now that’s our standard practice.

[0:05:34.2] SJ: Awesome. So that’s what you’d recommend then, you know, other couples would start if they want to have more sex in their life, whether it’s a man listening, a woman listening, a couple listening, they should maybe suggest to their partner, “Hey, let’s try sleeping naked for a week or a month.”

[0:05:51.7] MD: Yeah, that’s our first of our three parts but that’s definitely a key aspect of it.

[0:05:57.7] CD: Yeah, it’s the easiest to implement even if your partner isn’t sure they want sex every day. It’s pretty easy to start as an initiation and we do, we recommend a two-week trial for the system that we create and say, “Hey, just try it out for two weeks.” If you don’t like it, you can always go back. But maybe you do like it and it’s about creating a different habit.

[0:06:17.6] SJ: So moving on into step two, what is step two?

[0:06:21.8] CD: So step two is give and receive one item from the menu every night or day I suppose. And so the menu began, it’s kind of the overarching structure of the system because I wanted to talk about what I did and did not want and I wanted Michael to be able to talk about what he did and didn’t want but he was really uncomfortable with that. So I essentially created an elaborate metaphor in the menu. So there are appetizers, anything that comes kind of before.

So we think of it as foreplay side dishes. So anything that goes alongside with the entrée. The entrée is whatever allows you to climax. So there are numerous different ways that we can get there. It doesn’t have to be intercourse. And that is something that we emphasize in the book is that sex does not have to be defined as intercourse. It doesn’t even have to be defined as an orgasm, but just initiating consistent physical and emotional intimacy with your partner.

And then lastly is dessert so anything that comes afterwards. So for Michael, his favorite dessert is backscratching. So we always make sure –

[0:07:26.2] SJ: I like it myself to be honest.

[0:07:29.7] CD: I think it’s a popular one. So it’s just about having a context in which to ask for it. So one partner would say, “Well, what would you like from the menu?” Which is an easy way to start the conversation every night and the other partner will respond and say, “Well, what is on the menu?” Because not every dish is always on the menu and so it’s just an opportunity to have mutual invitation, and you can order just one item, you can order a four course meal and you can ask for seconds. So it’s just an easy way to talk about what can be awkward sometimes.

[0:08:05.9] MD: Yeah. Sometimes having that just starting the conversation, especially if you are at odds with your spouse. Sometimes I mean there’s that. Of course we say, you know, sleep naked but there’s also that aspect of just the conversation starter and having that be, it’s just a mutual way to share that without it being like you’re asking for something that somebody doesn’t want to go. I mean it’s a great way to start the conversation.

[0:08:32.2] CD: Yeah, the alternative – I can’t even imagine like, “Do you want sex tonight?” like that sets you up I guess.

[0:08:38.1] SJ: So I’m wondering then, could you give a few examples of maybe each course in the menu? Would that be okay? Maybe what an appetizer would be.

[0:08:46.3] CD: Of course and we do encourage couples to create their own menu, but we do include a sample menu just to get things rolling in the book. Appetizers is anything that is setting the mood. So it might be sexting your partner. So for example, Michael was at a conference this weekend and so he got some images in his inbox from me. And then side of this, what else? Oh, words of affirmation. So we talk about love, the Gary Chapman’s love languages in the book and for Michael, it is physical touch.

So this, this definitely fills his cup but for me, I’m a words of affirmation girl. So I need him to tell me how much he adores me, how beautiful I am, all of those different linguistic pieces. And so that’s one of our appetizers and it’s one that I asked for on a regular basis because that is what gets me in the mood. It then allows me to feel connected to him.

[0:09:44.6] MD: And one of the things that I like too about appetizers specifically is because they don’t have to be in bed that night, right? So another one would be like flirting or making out, which we can do with when we pass each other in the kitchen as we’re making dinner or throughout the day. So it kind of brings the conversation to our daily routine and we can maintain that intimacy throughout the day and not just after the kids are in bed and we fall into bed exhausted then that’s when we start the conversation.

[0:10:11.7] CD: Yeah, appetizers are kind of all-day sex, so.

[0:10:15.1] SJ: Awesome. So I’m wondering then, I’ll just get a quick refresher for our listeners about the five love languages. It’s basically a guy who wrote a book to kind of examine what people need to feel or experience from the partner to feel loved by them and different people need different things. So for some people they need to receive gifts from the partner or the people that need to receive quality time spent together. Others would need words of affirmation, like you guys said.

And then the two older ones are then acts of service, doing things for your partner, having them done for you. And then lastly is physical touch and then they’re not always black and white. It’s not always just one thing that you need. Sometimes it’s a combination and one thing is that much stronger than the other. Sorry that was a bit of a side note.

[0:11:07.7] MD: Yeah, no I feel like that’s critical though because I think that the idea that we speak different languages of love but you know saying I love you and it’s physical touch, but they may not be hearing it because that’s not how they best receive. So it’s, it’s important to remember those five and you know you have to have that conversation with your partner and know how you’re approaching it and know if it’s effective or not.

[0:11:29.9] SJ: So step three, what is step three?

[0:11:32.7] CD: Oh, step three is my favorite. Step three is she comes first. So our book is obviously focused on kind of heterosexual, monogamous couples, but for us it really is about putting the woman’s pleasure first and prioritizing her so that she enjoys this process as much as the man does. It’s frequently very easy for guys to orgasm and enjoy that pleasure but until the woman is prioritized and she’s enjoying it, she’s orgasming every day, it just is lower usually on our priority list.

We have a lot of other competing values on our mind and for a lot of reasons, I feel like women tend to move their own pleasure further down on the value scale. So it’s about prioritizing pleasure in your marriage and that starts with putting her first, literally coming first.

[0:12:33.7] MD: And as well as the bigger conversation about masculine versus feminine and that femininity is about receiving and masculinity about initiating and action. So that kind of sets the stage for if the man isn’t intentional that he can take action and take his pleasure without even realizing that there’s more there or that she wants more. So kind of having that understanding and just being willing to take that in and understanding too that giving her pleasure first leads to a lot more pleasure

I am willing to bet that sex every day may not sound like an attainable goal but if your wife or your partner is enjoying it as much as you are, it’s a lot more attainable of a goal. So kind of putting it in that context.

[0:13:27.9] CD: And physiologically, it usually takes us longer to respond physically. And so putting us first allows for that ramp up period because I find that I get energized after I come, whereas Michael tends to be relaxed and get sleepy afterwards. So by putting –

[0:13:46.8] SJ: I hear that.

[0:13:48.2] MD: We won’t say that that’s everybody but.

[0:13:51.6] CD: I have more energy to help him get to his pleasure after I’ve come and then after he’s done, then we’re both in a space where we can just go to sleep and I’ve already been taken care of, you know?

[0:14:03.9] MD: As well as just the physiological responses. I mean if intercourse for example is on the menu, it’s more pleasurable for everybody involved if there is natural lubrication and that kind of thing. So there’s definitely, there’s a lot of different reasons that we do it but yeah, that’s rule number three.

[0:14:19.5] SJ: Awesome. So I’d love to dig in just a little bit into the details because I’m sure people listening absolutely want to have sex every day. You know, they may have say young kids running around and sort of they need to be looked after too. So what advice would you have for couples in that situation?

[0:14:39.2] MD: Lock them in a closet. No, I’m kidding. We have four kids ourselves so we get it. It’s not like we are a couple without kids and we can do it whenever we want it to, wherever we want it to. There’s definitely some logistics involved there. And –

[0:14:54.4] CD: We have a 16-year-old, we have a seven-year-old, we have a five-year-old and a three-year-old. So we absolutely have experienced all of the different phases and there’s a couple of different ways for us, it’s easiest because our kids are young, so they go to bed early. So bedtime’s before eight o’clock and then we have a couple of hours before we need to be asleep. And so I think that’s probably –

[0:15:17.2] MD: We close and lock our bedroom door and –

[0:15:18.8] CD: And they don’t know what the sounds mean so we’re great. As they get older though, I suspect that we’re going to be having kind of sex positive conversations about mommy and daddy time and why this is important for mommies and daddies to have time together and have conversations about sexuality. I expect that our kids will probably be introduced to that conversation probably earlier than maybe other conservative couples might. But I think it’s actually going to be to their benefit to understand that consistent intimacy is a really beautiful part of a healthy relationship.

[0:15:57.4] MD: As well as it’s not just about sex either, right? So they see us loving on each other all day, every day, which sets the tone for that and sets that example for them. But I think mommy and daddy need our time as well and so that’s something that we built into it. So I think they realize that or recognize that from an early age, which helps.

[0:16:16.7] CD: And recognizing that kids will normalize whatever you consider normal. So for example, the sleeping naked, our kids, the three younger ones are young enough that that may shift as they move into adolescence. But that’s just been our normal and so for them it’s normal. Whereas I remember when I was growing up, a very young childhood memory was my mother seeing her naked and her like screaming and running off to the bathroom and what I ingested from that experience was nudity is bad, right?

Don’t see naked people but that was completely inherited. It was something that was I adopted it simply because that was what was implied. Whereas our kids think that being naked is completely normal and so it is for them. So I think –

[0:17:02.3] MD: Within the confines of the home and of course decency but –

[0:17:05.6] SJ: Yeah, for sure.

[0:17:08.5] MD: And I think too, having that so one is just making sure that you’re taking or prioritizing that time and having a conversation with your kids. Another piece is that Caitlin and I do religiously is we do weekly date nights. So we have a babysitter come and watch the kids. We get out on our own to be able to have us time and I feel like that’s critical as well. I know a lot of my friends that they don’t prioritize their relationship and their lives kind of revolve around their kids.

And sometimes I feel like that gives the children a false sense of expectation of how their lives are going to be and it also doesn’t allow the parents to set that example for their children of what a great relationship and a dynamic family looks like. So I feel like having a weekly or as often as you can, I know it doesn’t work for everybody, but having that you time, time away.

[0:18:04.2] CD: Sean, do you have any follow-up questions to that?

[0:18:07.5] SJ: Well, I’ll have a few more on the same sort of vein and the next would be, you want to have sex every day but what about, you know, if one partner is on their period?

[0:18:19.2] CD: Periods, oh yes we have, I have a whole section on that in the women’s section. So the book is written, there’s a for her and a for him version. So in the for her section, we do have a whole piece on menstruation because that is something that we deal with on a monthly basis and what I advocate is, listen to your own body. I know that some women get more aroused during their cycle and some women are completely turned off during their cycle.

And I want to just honor both pieces, right? If you want it during then, by all means go for it. Get your partner on board. If they think it’s messy, do it in the shower, but do whatever you want to do. If you don’t, we do encourage you to still take something from it. It can be an appetizer and a sidedish and a dessert menu, right? So there’s lots of other things on the menu that we can pull from even when we’re on our periods and always give something from the menu.

So don’t make your partner fast while you’re on your period. Make sure that you’re still meeting his needs and making sure that his physical intimacy bucket is getting filled even while you’re there. And I mean, let’s be honest, if you do sex every day for three weeks out of the month, you’re still doing better than the average couple so yeah.

[0:19:37.5] SJ: Absolutely.

[0:19:37.6] MD: Well I think too, well of course the title of the book is Sex Every Day, but kind of opening the ideas of what’s included in sex, right? So the intimacy and the passion, it doesn’t have to be intercourse. Like Caitlin was saying, there’s a lot of different ways that we can please our partners and so keeping that in mind and like she said, go based on how your body feels and what you want and ask for it and just be on the same page, really.

[0:20:05.3] SJ: Great. Then say, I guess one other question I have on this is, do you have any advice then for female listeners who actually, they struggle to orgasm, to get over the line and climax?

[0:20:18.3] CD: Oh yeah I definitely understand that. When I first got married to Michael, I remember being really self-conscious about it and if it took me longer than 15 minutes to climax, I was freaking out. I have this internal clock and it was completely self-imposed but I had this idea that Michael might get bored. I don’t know but putting pressure on myself like I had to come, especially in a certain period of time is very stressful and Cortisol is not conducive to orgasming.

So I think first one is to take the pressure off yourself. If you’re having trouble orgasming not a problem, right? Order everything else on the menu. But the second one I would say is start learning about your own body. So frequently when we’re having trouble orgasming it’s because we’re not connected in some way, maybe we have a psychological taboo. Maybe we had a traumatic experience when we were younger.

So sometimes doing the inner work, the emotional investigation therapy or coaching or something like that, look inside and see where is this resistance coming up, and again, I have an entire section dedicated to how to handle negative emotions because there is a lot that comes up in our sexuality because our sexuality is tied to every part of our identities. And so looking at fear, looking at anger, looking at grief, looking at resentment and unforgiveness.

[0:21:47.2] MD: Every interaction that you have with that person even if it’s not on a conscious level, if you’re harboring some of those things it can definitely affect your pleasure and your sex life.

[0:21:57.0] CD: And so I would say ultimately reconnect with yourself and your own sensuality. Maybe it’s exploring yourself in the bathtub, maybe it’s masturbation. There’s a fabulous book that I highly recommend. Her name is Mama Gina. Her first name is Regina. So when you’re looking for it as an author, the book title is kind of amusing, but it’s Pussy: A Reclamation and that one’s a really great one for women to get back in touch with their own sensuality, which then usually expresses itself in sexuality. But it’s about reconnecting with yourself first and then allowing that to express yourself in a relationship.

[0:22:36.3] SJ: Awesome. Caitlin, Michael, this has been fantastic having you on the show. I’m just wondering if people want to find out more about you guys and they want to find out more about Sex Every Day, what’s the best way for them to do that?

[0:22:49.1] MD: Absolutely. So our website is Sex Every Day Book and we’re also on Facebook under that.

[0:22:59.6] CD: Facebook didn’t allow safe sex or pleasure or intimacy, those are all banned. So quotidian just means that every day and coitus, you know, we’re there. I will say because this book is an experiential piece, right? On the website, we do offer free resources as well. So you can connect to our Facebook group. So we have a women’s group and a men’s group and you can connect with other women and men who have gone through this experience, share your story, hear their stories.

So it’s a sacred place to really be honest about what comes up during this two-week trial or however long you decide to do it. We have the contract. So if you want to do the two-week trial, we have a sticker chart for your calendar that you can give yourself a gold star. We also have the menu itself out.

[0:23:44.4] MD: There is a printed out version.

[0:23:45.6] CD: That you can print out and then some MP3 energy clearing kind of meditations for clearing out your sexual blocks as you’re getting in the mood. So there’s a for him and a for her version there as well, but that’s done by not a sex coach per se but she’s my energy clearer and she happens to specialize in sexuality. So she created that as a special gift for our readers so you can access that as well on the website at Sex Every Day Book.

[0:24:12.4] SJ: Awesome. Guys, check it out, Sex Every Day Book. Caitlin, Michael, thanks again for coming on the show.

[0:24:19.0] MD: Absolutely. Thank you so much Sean, we appreciate you.

[0:24:21.2] CD: Thanks Sean.