

Pillow Talks
Vanessa & Xander Marin
Meet Vanessa and Xander Marin, your new BFF couple friends! She’s a sex therapist with 20 years of experience and he’s a regular dude. Together they’re the shockingly open, slightly nerdy, and seriously funny couple you want to grab sushi with. They share the ups and downs in their relationship while giving you step-by-step techniques for improving yours. Subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally do-able sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors, and so much more. It’s the sex education you WISH you’d had!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 12, 2021 • 50min
Episode 12: How To Let Your Partner Love Your Body - Even If You Don't
Body confidence is something that affects everyone, whether it's an occasional thing or a daily struggle. Usually we think of it as a personal issue - feeling self conscious, or having critical and judgmental thoughts towards ourselves. But there's another aspect to body confidence that actually has a huge impact on how we show up in our sex lives and relationships: our ability to let our partner love our body. In today's episode, Vanessa and Xander discuss how to let your partner love your body and share their best tips for receiving and accepting compliments from your partner. Links & Resources: Video: How To IMPROVE Body Confidence - The Ultimate Guide Guide: 3 Simple Daily Habits To Keep The Spark Alive In Your Relationship! If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had! For full show notes: https://vmtherapy.com/episode12

Aug 5, 2021 • 1h 3min
Episode 11: How Vanessa Turned Her Orgasm Struggles Into A Sex Therapy Business!
When you hear the words “Sex Therapist”, you probably think of someone who knows exactly what they want and how to get it in the bedroom, right? So what happens when an aspiring sex therapist is struggling with her orgasm? In this interview-style podcast, Vanessa tells her own personal orgasm journey, and how it inspired her to start a business teaching thousands of women how to orgasm. For full show notes: https://vmtherapy.com/episode11

Jul 29, 2021 • 47min
Episode 10: Communication Breakdowns: We Coach Real Couples Through Their Worst Fights So You Can Get Better At Yours
Good communication is really hard. We'll be the first to admit that in the heat of the moment it can be really tough to validate your partner's experience, use clear and empathic language, and also ask for your needs to be met. We make a living teaching couples how to have good communication and we STILL struggle with this. So in this episode, we're roleplaying some of our listener-submitted arguments, and breaking down their communication breakdowns. Links & Resources: Video: 5 Communication Tips For Couples Guide: Golden Rules Of Communication Masterclass: Bring Your Sex Life Back To Life If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had! Check out the show notes at vmtherapy.com/episode10

Jul 22, 2021 • 53min
Episode 9: How Often Is Everyone REALLY Having Sex? And What's Healthy For Your Relationship?
Everyone wants to know what the magic amount of sex is to keep their relationship healthy. So many of us think that if we hit a certain quota, it means out relationship is successful. So we decided to do a little experiment to see what the sex lives of our followers really look like. We created a sexual frequency and satisfaction survey, and we've now had 12,000 people respond! If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had! Check out the show notes at vmtherapy.com/episode9

4 snips
Jul 15, 2021 • 1h
Episode 8: Has Purity Culture Harmed Your Sex Life? How To Overcome Religious Shame
Did you grow up in Purity Culture? Purity Culture teaches that it's important to wait until marriage to have sex, because people who wait are more pure, wholesome, and desirable. It also has a lot to say about dressing modestly (especially for girls), pleasure being sinful, & masturbation being evil. In this week's episode, we're breaking down the effects Purity Culture can have on your sex life- and what you can do to counteract it. Links & Resources: Video: Religion And SEX - Navigating Sex, Shame, and Religion Masterclass: Masturbation Masturclass If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had! Check out the show notes at vmtherapy.com/episode8

Jul 8, 2021 • 1h 4min
Episode 7: What Makes a Great Kiss? And What to Do if You Don’t Like the Way Your Partner Kisses
When was the last time you had a truly amazing kiss? The sad reality is that most couples just don't really kiss anymore! A lot of us, if we're really honest with ourselves, feel a little insecure about our kissing technique. And if we're even more brutally honest, a lot of us don't really like the way our partner kisses. There's a lot of sex advice out there about oral sex technique and sex positions, but you rarely hear discussions of kissing technique. In this episode we're back to basics and talking all things kissing. Links & Resources: Video: How To Initiate - 7 Ways To Initiate Sex That Will Make Your Partner Say "HELL YES!" Guide: Foreplay Guides Masterclass: Initiate Sex So Your Partner Will Want To Say "Yes" If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had! For full show notes: https://vmtherapy.com/episode7

Jul 1, 2021 • 56min
Episode 6: This Is Why Your partner Won't Work On Your Relationship With You - And How To Finally Get Them To!
Do you think that relationships should be effortless? Or that having to work on your relationship means there's something wrong? Or does your partner think these things? A lot of people think that they should only need to put effort into their relationship to solve serious problems. Or they wait until things are bad to start putting in effort. But your relationship CAN NOT survive without effort. In this episode, we reframe work in a completely different - and much more helpful, effective, and fun! - way. Links & Resources: Video: Improve Your Relationship - How To Follow GOOD Relationship Advice Guide: The Simple Daily Check-In Every Couple Needs To Be Doing Right Now Masterclass: Bring Your Sex Life Back to Life If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had! Check out the show notes at vmtherapy.com/episode6

Jun 24, 2021 • 51min
Episode 5: How to “Let Go” During Sex
What’s keeping you from letting go in the bedroom? People we polled said that body image, kids, and to-do lists all contributed to having a difficult time staying present during sex. People tend to feel that “letting go” is the main thing that could make sex better and more pleasurable. But for many of us, just letting go is a lot harder than it sounds! In this episode, we talk about what “letting go” during sex could look like, and whether that’s actually something we should be striving for in the bedroom. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had! Check out the show notes at vmtherapy.com/episode5

6 snips
Jun 17, 2021 • 1h 8min
Episode 4: Mental Load: What It Is and How to Stop It from Destroying Your Relationship
Do you secretly keep score of who does what in your relationship? Do you feel like your partner gets to be carefree and happy while you’re stressed out trying to hold it all together? In today's episode, we talk about one of the most popular topics we’ve ever talked about: mental load. If you’ve never heard the term before, mental load refers to the invisible mental burden of keeping track of household and family needs. Seriously, people go bananas whenever we talk about mental load, so this is an episode you don’t want to miss! Get full show notes and resources mentioned in this episode here: www.vmtherapy.com/episode4 GIVEAWAY ALERT! If you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts before June 20, we'll enter your name into a drawing to win any one of our courses for free! That’s up to a $1,000 value! (Just make sure to take a screenshot of your review and DM it to us at @vanessamarintherapy. Apple doesn’t like to show every review, so we want to make sure you get added to the giveaway.) Thank you in advance for taking the time to leave us a quick review! If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had!

Jun 10, 2021 • 43min
Episode 3: Should Sex Happen Naturally?
Should sex happen naturally? This is one of the most common questions we get asked, and it can cause some serious tension in relationships. You may want to work on improving your sex life or making changes, but your partner refuses because they think it should just happen naturally. In this episode, we're going to uncover the truth about how sex really works in a long-term relationship. We think you’re going to be pretty surprised... Get full show notes and resources mentioned in this episode here: www.vmtherapy.com/episode3 GIVEAWAY ALERT! If you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts before June 20 and we'll enter your name into a drawing to win any one of our courses for free! That’s up to a $1,000 value! (Just make sure to take a screenshot of your review and DM it to us at @vanessamarintherapy. Apple doesn’t like to show every review, so we want to make sure you get added to the giveaway.) Thank you in advance for taking the time to leave us a quick review! If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for your weekly double date full of totally doable sex tips, practical relationship advice, hilarious and honest stories of what really goes on behind closed bedroom doors and so much more. It's the sex education you wish you had!


