Dr. Justin Lehmiller studied the sexual fantasies of thousands of Americans for his book Tell Me What You Want - The Science of Sexual Desire and How it Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. And through that extensive research he learned a lot about cuckolding! He joins Venus on this special pre-Cuck Week episode and dives into the stats, the discoveries, and all of the what we ve learned about cuckolding fantasies so far - it s totally fascinating!LinksCuck Week Events - https://www.venuscuckoldress.com/eventsSex and Psychology blog and podcast: https://sexandpsychology.comTell Me What You Want: https://www.amazon.com/Tell-Me-What-You-Want/dp/0738234966?ref_=ast_sto_dpInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinjlehmiller/Twitter: https://twitter.com/JustinLehmillerAbout Dr. Lehmiller:Dr. Justin Lehmiller is a social psychologist and Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute. He runs the Sex and Psychology blog and podcast and is author of the popular book Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. Dr. Lehmiller is an award-winning educator, having been honored three times with the Certificate of Teaching Excellence from Harvard University, where he taught for several years. He is also a prolific researcher who has published more than 50 academic works, including a textbook titled The Psychology of Human Sexuality that is used in college classrooms around the world. Dr. Lehmiller is a much sought-after voice in the media on sexuality research and education. He has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and CNN, and he has appeared on dozens of international radio, podcast, and television programs.Apps mentioned in the episode:X Confessions - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xconfessions-the-couples-app/id1318649256Own Your Sex - https://www.ownyoursex.app/ Destination Links for Venus - https://linktr.ee/venuscuckoldressLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices❤️Venus Connections❤️ - Matchmaking for loving cuckolding relationships and female-led relationships. Learn more at https://www.venusconnections.com/ Give her what she wants 💦 🍆 the Thrum - triple the pleasure, feel the difference 🤤 BUY NOWDestination Links for Venus - https://lnk.bio/VenusPodcast
Transcript
Hey, are you looking for a hot wife? Maybe you're looking for a cuckold relationship. Then you need to join Venus Connections matchmaking service. It's totally private, it's fun blind dates, and all members are vetted. And it works. There was even a wedding last year and there'll be another one next year. It's definitely hard to find your life partner. I know. And it's even harder to find this kind of relationship. But you'll never win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket, right?
So join VenusConnections.com. That's VenusConnections.com. And find the relationship of your dreams. Coming up on this special Cuck Week episode.
People who have more erotophilic personalities, these are people who just generally have more positive attitudes towards sex, as well as people who have more sensation-seeking tendencies, so they just prefer more sexual activities higher levels of stimulation people who are high in erotophilia high in sensation-seeking are much more likely to fantasize about cuckolding and that's true for men and women alike so women are more likely to have fantasized about cuckolding in the exhibitionistic role where their partner is watching them men are more likely to fantasize about cuckolding in the voyeuristic role where they're watching their partner so it's a common fantasy across gender across sexual orientation but there is a gender difference in the roles that people seem aroused by in this scenario there are moderate linkages between cuckolding and all forms of bdsm so people who tend to be more interested in kink and bdsm tend to be more interested in cuckolding but the link between bdsm and cuckolding is stronger for men than it is for women so for men there seems to be more of this kind of kinky element to it um i think it makes sense if you look at a lot of the cuckolding porn that's out there.
You know, there's a lot of small penis humiliation, cock in chastity cages, you know, things like this. And so, yeah, it tracks with what you see in cuckolding porn. So you might think that men with lower self-esteem fantasize more about cuckolding, given these strong themes of small penis humiliation and so forth. But it was actually men with higher levels of self-esteem, more self-confidence, who were more likely to fantasize about cuckolding.
And so it's interesting when people use the term cuck as a slur, like to kind of imply that this is a lesser person who doesn't feel good about themselves or whatever. Nope, it's actually precisely the opposite. You are now listening to the Venus Cuckolders podcast, a place to learn all things cuckolding for the curious, the passionate, and the sexually empowered woman who wants it all. Go to venuscuckoldress.com. You'll find the new Queen's Quarters fan destination.
Book a one-to-one chat with me. listen to the private podcast, and even get access to my secret Snapchat group, where I share some of my most intimate encounters. Now sit back, make yourself comfortable, starts on the 23rd, but this episode drops on the 21st. So it's kind of like a pre-Cuck Week episode. And I have a very special guest on the show, Dr. Justin Lee Miller, who is the author of Tell Me What You Want. Such a great book.
He's also, he also has the Sex and Psychology podcast, which is one of my favorites. So today we're going to talk about all things cuckolding and what the research actually says about this sexy fantasy and relationship dynamic that I love so much. It is truly fascinating. I am just still, my mind blown. The more I think about everything that we covered in this episode, I'm just like, holy shit, there's so many amazing things to be learned and shared about what the research actually says.
It's so cool. So what is Cuck Week? Cuck Week is January 23rd to 29th of this year, 2023. It started last year, so this is the second one. And it is a week for everybody to just celebrate cuckolding, educate people, and explore the wide world of cuckolding, whatever that means to you. I mean, there's so many different things. So there are lots of blogs, podcasts, episodes, radio shows, Monab chats, lots of stuff going on for Cuck Week.
You can search for the hashtag Cuck Week on Twitter and figure out what's going on. Or you can check out the events page on venuscuckoldress.com i've got lots of uh some of the well some of the events that are happening for cuck week so check it out some of the things i'm going to be doing for cuck week super excited about this so this episode drops on saturday the 21st and that is the same day that i'm doing a special Pillow Talk event, a pre-Kakwe kickoff event.
It is a free Pillow Talk, so you can register for free. And it's live. This one will not be recorded, so you have to make sure you check it out live. It's at 6 p.m. Pacific time, 9 p.m. Eastern. And it is super, super cool, super fun. And this is going to be a kind of like a very interactive event. Usually I have myself or some guests with me on screen and everybody in the audience is listening and watching along and asking questions and stuff like that.
It'll be similar, but I will invite people up to join me on the panel to ask questions, have comments, join in the conversation, whatever. You don't have to have your video on. You can just have audio, stay private, all that good stuff. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be great. So it's also going to be an ask me anything pillow talk. So let's get into it. Bring your questions. It'll be good. The other thing I'm going to be doing is a couple of Moan chats on the Moan app.
If you have not downloaded it, you must. It is so fun. You get to just listen in on conversations. So you get to join the conversations if you want. It's always great. There's lots of different topics happening. So I'm going to be doing the first one for Cuck Week on Monday the 23rd at noon pacific time 3 p.m pacific and the topic will be what is cuckolding to you?
So this is going to be a general discussion about how cuckolding looks so different, feels so different, sounds so different for each person, each couple out there. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that on that moan chat. And then near the end of cuck week, well, on the weekend, on Saturday the 28th at 6 p.m. Pacific time, that's 9 p.m. Eastern, I'm going to do a super hot and juicy moan chat. It's going to be so good. We're going to talk about ultimate cuckolding fantasies.
We're going to get right into the hot and dirty of it and share everything that turns us on about cuckolding fantasies.
That is to be super fun so make sure that you check that out live 6 p.m on saturday the 28th on the moan app and there's one more thing i'm going to be doing for cuck week it is a special live hangout and it is going to be just myself and my helpful cucks which is a special fan tier on venuscuckoldress.com so it's going to be very intimate fun little live hangout that's going to be friday night the 27th at 6 p.m pacific time 9 p.m eastern so helpful cucks you can look forward to that one oh and last but not least oh my gosh almost forgot to mention it i'm gonna be doing my first live radio show on gtforadio.com so make sure you check that out that's gonna be tuesday the 24th at noon pacific time so make sure you check that out gtfo radio link is in the show notes for today all right it's time to jump into this episode with dr justin lay miller right after this quick message have you heard about venus connections it's a matchmaking service for singles who are looking for a loving cuckolding relationship.
Just like regular dating, except for someone who's also interested in the cuckolding relationship dynamic. Venus Connections is a private matchmaking service. So you're not sharing a profile. You're not sharing information with others. It is completely private. The program intake process starts out with a very detailed questionnaire. Then you work through a three-week course and then you have an interview. After that, you just sit back, relax and wait for a match. It's that simple.
If you're curious to learn more and maybe even read some testimonials from members, go to venusconnections.com and make 2023 the year that you get the relationship of your dreams. Okay, joining me on the show today, I'm really excited about this, is Dr. Justin Lehmiller and we're going to be talking about his book, Tell Me What You Want. So here's a little bit of information about Dr. Justin Lehmiller. So he's a social psychologist and research fellow at the Kinsey Institute.
He runs the sex and psychology blog and podcast, which is one of my favorites, and is author of the popular book, Tell Me What You Want, The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help Improve Your Sex Life. Dr. Leigh Miller is an award-winning educator, having been honored three times with a certificate of teaching excellence from Harvard University, where he taught for several years.
He's also a prolific researcher who has published more than 50 academic works, including a textbook titled The Psychology of Human Sexuality that is used in college classrooms around the world. Dr. Lee Miller is a much sought-after voice in the media on sexuality research and education. He's been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and CNN, and has appeared on dozens of international radio, podcasts, and television programs.
Thank you so much, Justin, for joining me on the show today. Do you want to say hello to all of the listeners? Hello, listeners, and thank you so much for having me. All right, so this is the book. Okay, I first came across you, it was a Netflix series. What was it called? Sex Explained. Sex Explained. That's the one. And you popped up on there. I think it was right in the beginning-ish. And I was like, who's this guy with the really soft voice who's talking about this crazy sex stuff?
I loved it. And I immediately went and Googled your name. And that's how I came across you. And that was, I think, must have been right before you launched the podcast. Because I started listening to the show right in the beginning. And I was like, fascinating. There's only two podcasts. I'm going to admit this to all the listeners out there.
There's only two podcasts out there that I listen to on the regular, and yours is one of them, Sex and Psychology, and Dan Savage's Savage Lovecast, of course, because he's hilarious. He cracks me up, and great advice. So I really do. I have thoroughly enjoyed it. You're my go-to when it comes to like, I get in the car, I turn on the podcast, and you're there. So I have learned so much from your show.
I know that you've had your blog, I think for a long time before that because there's a lot of information on your blog. So super happy that you progressed from the blog to the podcast. I love it. And then this book. So when I Googled your name, up comes this book and And I was just like, oh my God, what is this? And then I started hearing some stuff in the news, and then some stuff where I think you worked with Dan Savage and Dr. – what's his name? Dr. David Lay.
I can't remember his name all of a sudden, Dr. David Lay. And you guys did some research on gay cuckolding too as well, right? And so I was like, oh my gosh, there's research, there's information, there's data. And I was just so intrigued. And so I dove into this book of yours and it's been, it's a fascinating read. So I can't wait to discuss this with you and talk about what you specifically learned about cuckolding fantasies with this book. So where did the idea for the book come from?
And what was the process for getting all of this data? So everything that I do in my career, it's all tied together. And one thing has just kind led to another. So I started the blog, it was more than a decade ago at this point, and that led to opportunities to write for media outlets. And that included a regular writing gig with Playboy.
And my very first article with Playboy was actually on cock holding and why people are into it what turns them on about it and that article became super popular to the point where i had literary agents contacting me saying hey you should write a book and i thought well what can i write a whole book about you know because that was never on my radar and i got the idea to focus on sexual fantasies more broadly because i'd been a sex educator for several years at that point i'd written a human sexuality Thank you.
And I got the idea to focus on sexual fantasies more broadly, because I'd been a sex educator for several years at that point. I'd written a human sexuality textbook. And in the chapter on sexual fantasies, where they're covered, I had all these questions that just weren't addressed in the research. For example, what's the connection between fantasy and reality? So what happens when people share a fantasy or act on it?
And also, how do fantasies change and evolve over the course of our lives you know do we carry the same fantasies with us over time or are they constantly changing and what accounts for that change so i wanted to look at a lot of this stuff and thought you know it could be an interesting idea to do this massive survey on sexual fantasies and then write a whole book about the results so that's what i ended up doing i did this survey of 4 175 americans who came from all 50 states they completed a survey that contained 369 questions about their sexual fantasies including their favorite fantasy and hundreds of other people places things they might have ever fantasized about and And then I asked about their personalities, their sexual histories, their demographic backgrounds.
So I could look at how our fantasies are connected to us. You know, what do our fantasies say about who we are and where we are in our lives? So that was really kind of where it started and what it looked like. Interracial, black and white, the beautiful and sexy relationship dynamic that we love. Now in a lifestyle clothing brand, you can wear with pride. Don't sacrifice quality and comfort any longer. With Maison Dinege, you get both in fresh, empowering looks for every occasion, for everyone.
From the streets to the sheets and everywhere in between. Check us out at MaisonDinesh.com. Maison Dinesh Couture, modern fashion for the modern revolution. 300-something questions. That would take a long time to fill out. So that's amazing. You were able to get that many people to fill out a long survey like that. Did you break it up into parts? No. So it was all completed in one sitting.
So it did take a little while to get through, but it took me about two years to collect all of that data, because I wanted to have as much geographic diversity, sexual diversity, and as large of a sample as I could possibly get.
So I recruited the hell out of that particular study so that I could get the biggest, most diverse sample I could get my hands on that's amazing and did you ever find out some interesting information this book is just filled with like amazing stuff if you're if anyone listening is curious about sexual fantasies what's up with them what's going on who's thinking about what this is the book but also uh in the back of the book there's some information about how to actually go about bringing this into your relationship or acting out on this fantasy safely for real and things like that.
So, some great advice with that. So, let's talk about what you learned about cuckolding. I didn't know that your first job was writing something about cuckolding. That's so funny.
You know, my editor at Playboy asked me to pitch some ideas and i had for my blog i'd been collecting questions from readers and i was doing a sex question friday feature where every friday i was answering a new sex question and i got a question that was about cuckolding you know this guy wrote in and said i really want to watch my wife sleep with other men and can you tell me you know kind of what's up with that but also how to go about doing it and i thought that question was so interesting i wasn't really familiar at the time that i received it with cuckolding there wasn't really much in the way of research on it so i went and i found everything that i could wrote this article for my blog and it became like the most read article on my website so when my editor at playboy asked me to pitch ideas i was like well maybe i'll do an even deeper dive into cuckolding and figure out what new information is out there and yeah so that's kind of where it took off i hear all sorts of origin stories from playboy letters uh articles in playboy from long time ago.
It's so funny. I think this was like, definitely the place to go for information about cuckolding way back when. So that's so cool. And okay, so what did what did we learn about cuckolding when it comes to this study? How popular is it? So one of the questions I asked people about was, have you ever fantasized about watching your partner have sex with someone else? And I found that this was a pretty common fantasy.
So if you break the data down, about 52% of heterosexually identified men said that they'd fantasized about cuckolding before. 66% of gay and bisexual men had had the fantasy, 26% of heterosexual women, and about 42% of lesbian and bisexual women reported having had this fantasy. So overall, the fantasy is more common among men than it is among women. And it's more common among sexual minorities than it is among heterosexuals.
Now, the numbers I just gave you are whether people have ever had the fantasy. So you can also look at, do you have this fantasy often? And it's around a quarter to a third of men who say that it's a very frequent fantasy for them compared to less than 10% for women. But an important caveat to that is that I asked this question in two ways. One was, have you ever fantasized about watching your partner have sex with someone else?
And second, have you ever fantasized about your partner watching you have sex with someone else? And you find that the numbers differ based on gender for that. So women are more likely to have fantasized about cuckolding in the exhibitionistic role where their partner is watching them.
Men are more likely to fantasize about cuckolding in the voyeuristic role where they're watching their partner so it's a common fantasy across gender across sexual orientation but there is a gender difference in the roles that people seem aroused by in this scenario why is that do you think so there are a couple of explanations here one is that men are pretty visual creatures when it comes to sex. We know that men on average watch a lot more porn than women.
And I often liken cuckolding to being this form of customizable porn that takes place right in front of you, where you can watch and choose who the performers are and be up close of be up close and personal it's a sort of live action porn and given men's you know general voyeuristic tendencies i think that that might account for why they're more aroused by watching by contrast for women if you look at women's sexual fantasies more broadly they're more likely to see themselves as being the object of desire in their fantasy, right?
And so I think that that might be part of what's going on when women are fantasizing about, you know, taking on this exhibitionistic performative role where they're having sex with someone and their partner is watching because they're fundamentally the object of desire of everyone in that encounter. That makes perfect sense. I hadn't thought about that. The guys watching a lot of porn part, I had thought about that.
And maybe that explains a lot because I find that as a woman, watching most of the cuck porn that's out there, it really doesn't do much for me. And I wonder if it's because it's made for men to be looking at themselves in the role of the cuckold and, and not, it's not really made for, for me and being like the object of desire in that. I wonder if that's what it is. Cause like I, I shred porn all the time when it comes to cuckolding. It's, I wish I didn't.
I wish there was some really great stuff out there, but I just,'t found it. But maybe that's why. We need some research on cuck porn when it comes to men and women and these roles that we enjoy. Anyway.
You know, for the articles that I wrote on cuckolding, I went and watched a lot of cuckolding porn for research purposes because I wanted to see how does this porn look like what is it that might be turning people on about it and you start to see a lot of common themes and elements that emerge these threads that appear across a lot of it and you know if you're someone for whom that kind of typical scenario is really arousing like that mainstream cuckolding porn if you can call it that uh it would be really right up your alley but if you're interested in different variants of it or different roles or different perspectives being emphasized you know it might not be for you and i think this is part of the reason why just in general a lot of heterosexual women just aren't turned on by most of the porn that's out there because it's made by men for men and that's why we see a lot of women looking for different kinds of porn and erotica and also why a lot of women are turned on by gay male porn right because women are often not just in their fantasies but when they're watching porn they're often psychologically putting themselves in the role of the woman who is in that video.
And oftentimes they feel that it's exploitative or something else along those lines. And so being able to- Or really fake, really, really fake. Very performative or the plot's just terrible. The production value is not good, right? There's all kinds of things. And there's a fascinating body of research on women who watch gay male porn. I recently did a podcast about. That is so interesting. Because yes, I have watched gay male porn before. And I was like, this shit's hot. I like it. It's good.
So funny. Okay, so in your book, you did talk about how many of the fantasies regarding cuckolding that you came across in this study involved some kind of power dynamic of him being submissive, her being more dominant and a more kind of BDSM theme going on. Was that the same for both men and women when it came to their cuckolding fantasies, or was this mainly for men?
Yeah, so I looked at how fantasies about cuckolding were related to BDSM fantasies, and I looked at various forms of BDSM, dominance versus submission versus sadism versus masochism, bondage, and so forth. And what you see across the board is that there are moderate linkages between cuckolding and all forms of BDSM. So people who tend to be more interested in kink and BDSM tend to be more interested in cuckolding. But the link between BDSM and cuckolding is stronger for men than it is for women.
So for men, there seems to be more of this kind of kinky element to it. I think it makes sense if you look at a lot of the cuckolding porn that's out there, you know, there's a lot of small penis humiliation, cock and chastity cages, you know, things like this. And so, yeah, it tracks with what you see in cuckolding porn. That makes so much sense, because I have this matchmaking service for singles looking for a cuckolding relationship.
And I found that the single guys are coming with this long list of kink dynamics that they really want, that they saw in porn, that is super hot, they know it turns them on. And yet the women who come into it, they're kind of like, well, I don't know. I'm really interested in this one-sided open relationship part. They get to this list of kinky stuff. And most of them, if they don't have a kink background, they're kind of like, I have no idea.
So it's a real disconnect when it comes to matching people up because you have different expectations when you have a different approach like that. So that makes a lot of sense. I'm starting to fully understand this stuff. It's only taken seven years, but I'm working on it. Okay. The next thing I wanted to ask you about was these cuck queen fantasies. Okay.
It took a long time for me to come across a woman who said she was interested in being a cuck queen, which for those of you who are listening or not familiar with the word, it is basically a woman who's in the cuck's position. So she enjoys watching her partner have sex with others or hearing about it later or whatever. With this study, how common is that?
so about a third of heterosexual women said that they would like to watch their partner or rather i should frame this as about a third of women said that they had fantasized about watching their partner have sex with someone else at some point but it's a much smaller number six to seven percent of women who say that this is a frequent fantasy that they have. So there's a pretty big disparity there.
And I think that that might be part of the reason why we don't see as much cuck-queen porn, just because there aren't nearly as many women who fantasize about this on a regular basis. And we know that fantasy is one of the things that prompts people to seek out porn. People are often going to porn to vicariously live out their fantasies.
So if you have a fantasy that has a much greater prevalence within a given demographic, you're probably going to see more porn develop to cater to that particular audience. But still, even if it's 7% of women who say they fantasize about this often, that's a significant number. And you should probably see a bit more porn out there that reflects this. Yeah. Yeah. I've not seen any. All right. Okay. And so what is this self-expansion theory?
You mentioned it in your book and I was like, I read it and I'm like, oh my God, this makes so much sense. So how does this relate to cuckolding or open relationships? So self-expansion theory is this idea that throughout our lives, we have this need to grow and expand the self. And one of the ways that we do this is by continually having new and different kinds of experiences.
And when people fall into ruts and routines and they're not going out and having these new experiences, they have that self-expansion need being thwarted and, you know, life can become depressing or it just, you know, isn't meeting those needs anymore. So, you know, this idea of self-expansion, we often meet this through our relationships, right? Because our partners are bringing something new to the mix.
But when you have some type of sexually open relationship, that can be a really powerful way of tapping into this need for self-expansion because you might be having new partners or if it's in a cuckolding situation, you know, you've got this diversity, this variety and sexual experience that you're having and participating in. So, you know, through sex and relationships, That's one of the ways that we can meet those self-expansion needs.
And so cuckolding and other forms of sexually open relationships are one way that, you know, people can kind of tap into that. Oh, this is, this needs to be part of the messaging to women out there. Hey, this kind of relationship is an option for you to consider.
It's not for everybody, but you can consider it because it really does promote that kind of self-expansion that you're talking about when it comes to sexuality in that you have this partner who's faithful to you and happy for you to have these other sexual experiences with others. And I love that part of this kind of relationship. I adore that. From the minute I learned about it, I was like, that, that is amazing.
However, I have seen along the years, a lot of people assume that for a guy to have cuckolding fantasies that he's not, that he must be lacking in some way when it comes to his sexuality or his sexual performance, he must not have a big enough penis or he must not be very good in bed. Or he, for whatever reason, she needs to have something from someone else because he's lacking. Whereas I don't think that's the case. Did you come across that in the fantasy research that you did?
So one of the things I did look at was how is somebody's self-esteem related to whether or not they have cuckolding fantasies? I also looked at whether people felt secure in their relationship or not was related to these fantasies too.
Because I think you could make a lot of hypotheses, for example, that maybe people who feel more secure in their relationship or not was related to these fantasies too because i think you could make a lot of hypotheses for example that maybe people who feel more secure in their relationship might be more likely to explore or experiment with cuckolding or some other type of sexual openness because you know they know that they've got that kind of secure base with their partner now it turned out there actually wasn't anything going on there so whether people had cuckolding fantasies was unrelated to how secure they felt in their relationship.
But I did find that there was a linkage to self-esteem, but it was really only there for men. And it runs counterintuitive to what people might expect.
So you might think that men with lower self-esteem fantasize more about cuckolding given these strong themes of themes of small penis humiliation and so forth but it was actually men with higher levels of self-esteem more self-confidence who were more likely to fantasize about cuckolding and now that i've seen those data i think you know actually that does make sense that you kind of have to have a certain level of security in yourself to put yourself and your partner in that position, you know, being in any type of sexually open relationship, because you'll know that your partner isn't going to leave you, you know, that this is just part of sexual exploration.
So, you know, having that security in the self seems to be more important than having, you know, just a broader sense of security in the relationship, at least for men. Oh, my God, that needs to be louder for the ones in the back. That's amazing. I'm so glad that you brought that up. That's probably going to be my favorite part of the show. That is fascinating.
So it Yeah, it is very opposite to what people think people assume that CACs must be weak and, confident or have some sort of confidence issues. And that's not the case. Oh my gosh, that's so fascinating. I love it. And so it's interesting when people use the term cuck as a slur to imply that this is a lesser person who doesn't feel good about themselves or whatever. Nope, it's actually precisely the opposite.
You know, if you call somebody a cuck, you know, maybe they actually have much higher self-esteem than you do. But I think one other thing that's important to mention here is that different people are drawn to cuckolding for very different reasons. And so, you know, I also looked at how is cuckolding related to people's age? How is it related to their personality profile?
And some of the things I find are that people who have more erotophilic personalities, these are people who just generally have more positive attitudes towards sex, as well as people who have more sensation-seeking tendencies, so they just prefer more intense sexual activities, higher levels of stimulation. People who are high in erotophilia, high in sensation-seeking, are much more likely to fantasize about cuckolding. And that's true for men and women alike.
And also in terms of age, I find that cuckolding fantasies actually vary across the lifespan. And this is true for fantasies about other types of sexually open relationships.
So specifically, these fantasies actually vary across the lifespan and this is true for fantasies about other types of sexually open relationships so specifically these fantasies are actually least common among young adults you know people in their late teens and 20s they become most common in midlife people in their 40s and 50s and then they decline somewhat after that in the 60s and beyond but they don't get as low as they were when people were much younger.
So there's really kind of this midlife peak where people tend to be drawn more to cuckolding. And I think part of that is because most people end up in monogamous long-term marriages. And the longer you're with someone, the passion tends to wear away. Sex can become more routine. And opening up your relationship or just exploring different things sexually takes on heightened importance because you've got to find a way to kind of keep that spark alive.
And exploring cuckolding is one of the ways that I think a lot of long-term couples manage to find a way to stay together because it brings that newness that to the bedroom and also meets that self-expansion need yes the self-expansion theory i just think this is so fascinating okay and so you you collected a mind-boggling amount of data about cuckolding this is so so fascinating to me what do we still need to learn about cuckolding? What are the answers that we still need?
So one of the things we need is more research looking specifically at women who are into cuckolding, right? And cuckweening more broadly, because we have very limited research on cuckolding in general, but most of it is focused on the male perspective, most commonly the kind of heterosexual male perspective. So taking a broader look at this, I think would be important in future work. I think it would also be interesting to do some longitudinal research in this area.
So if we follow people who are opening up their relationship in different ways over time to see what actually happens and when does this work out well and when doesn't it work out would be really useful to know in terms of giving people better advice and information when it comes to how to do this because we know that when it comes to acting out any sexual fantasy sometimes it goes great and sometimes it goes really poorly you know sometimes it's the thing that brings you closer to your partner.
It improves, it strengthens the relationship, but other times it's the thing that drives people apart.
And when you start adding in these dynamics of an extra person or persons involved in the relationship, that's where things can get complex, especially if people don't have great communication, if there are jealousy issues in the relationship.'s where things can get complex especially if people don't have great communication if there are jealousy issues in the relationship and so you have to be i think really confident and secure um when you go to explore these types of fantasies because if your relationship isn't in a good place when you're starting out by opening up and you're opening up with the hope that that's going to save the relationship.
You know, that's where things I think often go off the rails. Yeah. And in the back of your book, you have this really great little guide, the path to healthier sex and relation relationships. And you said how to break the barriers that prevent us from communicating about our desires. You go step by step into the things that you should really consider when it comes to fulfilling these fantasies or communicating these fantasies to your partner. And the very first one, I think, is communication.
Very important. So just to close off, what kind of advice would you give to the, let's say, middle-aged guy who's been in this monogamous relationship forever with his wife and he's had these fantasies and he would love to make them happen for real, but he's scared to bring them up to his wife.
What is an example of the breaking into it sentence that he could use that would be ideal for this situation so there's no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to sharing fantasies because everybody and every fantasy is a little bit different but i think the first place to start is by working on yourself because one of the things that really holds us back from sharing our fantasies is that we have some feelings of shame or guilt or anxiety about them.
And if you have those kind of complex feelings about your fantasy, and then you go and try and share that fantasy with your partner, that's probably going to come through. And that might not be the best way to kind of get that conversation going. So I think part of it is finding first a way to drop the shame, feel good about yourself and the fantasy before you bring this up to your partner.
And then when it comes to actually communicating about it, if you've never shared fantasies with your partner before, you might not want to launch in with, I want you to go fuck other men and tell me about it later. Because for a lot of people, that's just going to be too much too soon.
So I often advise when it comes to sharing fantasies to kind of get some practice with this, start low, go slow, share some other fantasies first that might not be quite as adventurous compared to what you've done with your partner in the past and also act on some of those fantasies so that you get the practice of communicating and you talk before and afterwards, you know, how was that for you? What could we do differently next time to make this even better?
Because I think when it comes to fantasies, practice makes perfect. You know, we have to get practiced and comfortable communicating about our desires, starting to break down those barriers, and then also having the right communication dynamics for having these positive and healthy experiences together. So, you know, once you've dropped the shame, once you've done some practice fantasies, then you can kind of start sharing some of the more, I guess you could call them advanced sexual fantasies.
They're for for most people and you know one way to do this that i think is a relatively easy way just to kind of test the waters is to use technology as your friend you know there are some apps out there i like to recommend one is called x confessions the other one is called own your sex i don't have a financial stake in either of them i wish i did because i recommend them all the time but basically you know some of these apps will have you know this fantasy survey that you take separately your partner takes separately and then the app compiles your shared sexual interests and so you know if you have cuckolding in there in the mix the great thing about this app is that or these apps is that they only share with you the things that you're both interested in and so that can be a way of kind of figuring out all right we're both into this this is a good thing to try you know this could also be a good thing to try just at the beginning to just kind of hone in on like what are we both into and where might we like to start exploring and yeah i mean and when it comes to uh you know if you want to communicate more expressly about you know a cuckolding fantasy uh there are lots of different ways that you can go about this one is to kind of frame it as a dream and say you know i had this dream last night that you were having sex with this other guy and i was watching and it was just so hot and like what do you think about that you know you can kind of use that as a starting point or you can find increasingly cuckolding is kind of all over in the popular media you know if you watch a show where it's featured you can say oh what did you think about when you know they they open up their marriage in that way and just kind of use that as a point.
Get the conversation going. I think it's also important to recognize that sometimes when your partner is exposed to a new sexual interest, their initial reaction might be, I don't know. But it's because they've just never thought about it before.
And so that's where I think sometimes people go wrong because they just push too hard and say, this is is my fantasy i want to do it and the other partner is like i don't know where this came from i've never even thought about this before right so it's all about sort of gradually introducing the idea and then you know allow your partner some time to to think about it to explore some erotica or porn in which it might occur to see if it's something that they might be into and i I think you also have to recognize it's possible your partner might not be into it.
And that's okay, too. They don't have to do anything that they don't want to do. You shouldn't pressure them to do something they don't want to do, because that is not right. And it's not going to turn out well. Yeah, it just won't. That was the best list of advice that I have come across so far. And who the fuck thought of these apps? Like, oh, my God, that's genius. That is such a great place to start with. Oh, that's just amazing. Okay. You know, and it was a missed opportunity for me.
Like, when I published Tell Me What You Want, I thought, you know, my path was going to be as an author.
And I'm just going to write a new book every couple of years and you know move on to the next thing i didn't realize that publishing that book was going to make me the fantasy guy and that you know years later i'm still going to be talking about it and that it would lead to you know work on television series and putting on workshops around the world and you know all this other stuff so you know for the next book, you know, when it when it comes out, whenever that will be, whatever it's even going to be on, there's going to be an app to go along with it, there's going to be a workbook, you know, all this other stuff.
Yes, absolutely. Well, I think that's just absolutely fascinating. Okay. I have learned so much today in speaking with you, I've learned so much in reading your book and listening to your podcast. Where can our listeners learn more about you? Everything is on my website, Sex and Psychology. And you can find that at sexandpsychology.com. You can find the Sex and Psychology podcast, basically anywhere you can get podcasts, Apple, Spotify, all the good places.
And if you want to connect on social media i'm on twitter at justin lehmiller and instagram at justin j lehmiller and uh you know i would keep my handles the same but i was a little late getting to instagram and it turned out there was another justin lehmiller who was like a 12 year old boy who already claimed the handle so you know if you look for justin lehmiller and it looks like an account from a 12 year old boy it is so look for a different one i'm so glad you put that in there okay and i will have all of those links uh in the show notes for today's episode justin thank you so much for joining me on the show today thank you so much for having me it was a pleasure.
That's going to be it for this episode of the Venus Cuckoldriss podcast. I hope you have a wonderful, amazing, super fun Cuck Week 2023, January 23rd to 29th. Make sure you go to venuscuckoldriss.com.
Check out the events page to figure out what's going on or just follow the hashtag cuck week on twitter also at venuscuckoldress.com you can subscribe to the helpful cuck tier get access to my secret snapchat group book a private chat with me and so much more and if you're single and looking for a loving cuckolding relationship, make sure you check out venusconnections.com. Probably the only matchmaking service for loving cuckolding relationships out there.
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