December 1, 2025 • 38 mins
Dr. Wendy dives into the science behind sex, fidelity, and human connection with Dr. Justin Garcia, director of the Kinsey Institute and author of the upcoming book The Intimate Animal.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf
I am six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app. I promised, I promised you
I would have him here, and I got him trapped
here for a whole hour. Doctor Justin Garcia, director of
the famed Kinsey Institute. Doctor Garcia, am I going to
(00:24):
say it wrong? Is it the University of Indiana or
Indiana University? I always I always mix it up.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So everyone knows who.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Okay, hoosiers, there we go. You have been studying love, intimacy, sex. Technically,
you're one of my favorite animals an evolutionary biologist because
you know, I always say what's natural for our bodies. Uh,
you've been doing this for a very very long time.
And I just talked about the history of the Kinsey Institute.
(00:58):
Can you just give us a napshot of where the
Kinsey Institute is now, like what current things you guys
are studying and working on.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yes, absolutely, thanks for having me. I always love when
I get to talk with you and your audiences, and
so the Kidney Institute today, we've really widened the lens
from where doctor Kinsey and the research team initially started
and we still fundamentally ask questions about sexuality. We do
a lot of big studies. We did studies on, for instance,
(01:31):
what was the impact of COVID on people's romantic and
sexual lives. We were the first really big study to
look at that, and in that case we found sexual
frequency decreased, but quite a lot of people tried something new,
so their sexual repertoires expanded, even though their behavior was
tamped down.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So it was less frequent, but it was a little
more frisky.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, exactly. And initially when we looked at the data
at first we thought, well, part of this is that
it took this enormous event. It took COVIDI, which I
think is also tells us a lot about psychologist, so
I'll say a little bit more about it. But it
took this big event to really make people stop and
talk to their partner for the first time about fantasies.
(02:14):
For instance, we saw quite a number of people said,
I never talked to my partner about a sexual fantasy,
and so we were locked in the house together and
they were trying new things, new behaviors. Sometimes it was
sex thing, sometimes it was showering together. And some of
that was convenience. I remember we talked to one couple
and the woman said, my husband and I started having
(02:35):
shower sex during a pandemic. And I said, oh, you're
trying something new and she said, no, it's the only
time we get five minutes alone.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Exactly. So there was some of that, but it was
it was for a lot of people, this moment forced
them to have conversations with partners they had never had.
In one of our studies, we found over eighty percent
of marriages did better during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So I was so, I mean, I would think so,
especially because with you know, with both partners being home.
I think men witnessed and women saw for sure. We've
always known about it, the disproportioned and domestic labor, and
so you see men starting to pitch in just because
there's a bila laundry there, you know. So I think
(03:20):
that was really good for marriages. I mean, it was stressful,
especially with small kids.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
People were small kids.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That was just I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine. So basically,
the Kinsey Institute has moved from just studying sexuality though
to also studying the kinds of relationships we're having. Now.
I want to remind everybody who's listening this is not
new news to you, doctor justin Garcia, that this idea
of a traditional family where I hate that word traditional,
(03:48):
where two people this this fantasy where two people meet
early in life, established that they are soulmates, stay together
until the end of their lives, and any offspring that
come out of this union are biologically connected to both
of those partners. That's actually pretty rare, right, what is
(04:10):
more natural for human beings across a lifespan.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so we see when we look at both the
historical and the cross cultural evidence, we know that we
know that people form intense pair bonds, that we have
what we might call what we call social monogamy. It's
scientists the term you and I will use, but it's
this idea that romantic love and in other species it's
characterized by mutual territory defense, building a nest together, raising
(04:35):
offspring together. Humans have that capacity and most people around
the world and historically do that we form these intense bonds.
But what we know exactly as you said, that doesn't
follow a sort of quote unquote traditional playbook, that there's
often a lot of family involved, there's can involved, there's
a community. It can happen multiple times throughout the life course.
(04:59):
But at its cour we know that the most fundamental
universal pattern is these intense pair bonds. And I think
when we understand that, when we understand that that ability
to fall in love, but not all species even have
that ability, they don't have it in their brains to
be able to do it. We do. Once we understand that,
then we can think of our sexual lives or reproductive lives.
(05:21):
Are social relationships all sort of gravitating around that. That's
the classic pattern, but it varies even whether you might
have multiple wives or husbands. But often at its core
we still see this primary bond, and then people are
trying to navigate that. They're trying to navigate a primary
bond with one but then two or three other wives,
(05:41):
or in cases of open relationships, how do you navigate
your primary partnership in that. So for me, that's really
at its core is the evolution of pair bonding that
explains so much of ours are very long lifespans, teach
developmental psychology.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Our lives just keep getting longer and longer, and in
some ways we outgrow our relationships. So I always think
that divorce is not a failed relationship, especially when somebody's
been married twenty years. I wouldn't call out a failure
like that success exactly. I love.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I always love when you say that, and it reminds me.
Margaret Mead also used to say, I remember a journalists
Margaret Meade on the famous anthropologist why did all three
of her marriages fail? And she said, excuse me, all
three were a success. It's this idea that what we
how we measure success in relationships and new points is
out Wendy. It's just said. It's we have to really
(06:39):
rethink that that you can have a wonderful relationship. Last thing,
forever shouldn't be the measure of success in a relationship.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Right, Duration shouldn't be the litmus test, especially if you're
white knuckling it through right. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because
I also remember a famous I think it's Margaret Mead.
She did not have children, right, the famous anthropologists And
someone us asked her, why did you you know you
talk about parenting and maternal nature, and why did you
(07:08):
never have children? And she deadpan looked at them and said,
because I know too much.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's a super challenge.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And I happened to know that you are new father
congratulations baby in September, so you can see what she meant, like,
we wouldn't go into parenthood if we actually knew how
hard it was.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, and you know, you could read so many books
and then something about the flood, the sort of hormones
and everything that happens. I mean, our world has one
censor and it's our little baby boy. But at the
same time, I've thought a lot in the last few
weeks about if I wasn't so bonded to my wife, Michelle,
if we didn't have this this deeply evolved bond. It's
(07:54):
such a such a stressful time when you have an infant,
that it was a mother in nature's of protecting the family,
that you really have to be in love with your
partner to stick through them. In the first month asket postpartum,
I mean, it's just so intense. Yeah, it's And I
had a new appreciation for the evolutionary science and I said, oh,
(08:15):
thank god, we've got this intense pair of mind because
we'll navigate this. And we did, and now we're sleeping
more and baby speaking more. But it's just so. And
I think that that's part of the story we don't
talk about enough with relationships, is the evolution of romantic love.
It allows us to weather stormy times, whether it's a baby,
(08:35):
whether it's a pandemic, whether it's the economy, whether it's
health issues. When you have that strong core bond that
we've evolved to keep, it allows us to weather through uncertainty. Now,
for our ancestors, that could mean a season of no
food or a season of bad weather. For us, it
could mean all sorts of different things. But having that bond,
(08:56):
we can weather uncertainty with a partner, with a co
pilot and get through it.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
You know. I was helping a young friend recently build
her dating app profile and one of the prompts on
hinge said something like what's important to me in a relationship?
And I said, men fall in love through trust, So
just put this that we have each other's back. And
she put that one line and she got so many
(09:21):
likes from guys like It's like, say, anyway, we have
to go to a break. When we come back, I
want to talk about the state of our unions now,
the rise of situationships and you touched on open relationships.
I don't know how people navigate those because I'm so monogamous.
So we need to talk about the research. My guest
is doctor Justin Garcia, director of the famed Kinsey Institute.
(09:44):
His new book, by the way, coming out, is called
The Intimate Animal, The Science of Sex, Fidelity and Why
We Live and Die for Love. You can pre order
it online now. I suggest you do this. We all
need to read it. I'm gonna be reading it in
my sleep tonight. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
My very special guest, doctor Justin Garcia, director of the
famed Kinsey Institute. His new book that's coming out in January,
but you can pre order it now, is called The
Intimate Animal, Doctor Garcia. Can we talk about what's going
on with our love lives? Is marriage continuing to be
on a decline? And if so? Why? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Oh gosh, there's so much to say here. And there's
one of the things that's interesting is worth seeing that
patterns of people getting into marriages, they're being much more cautious.
But for the first time in a long time, those
marriages seem to be more stable. So I am not
as worried about what's happening to marriages. I actually think
(10:53):
we're seeing a new generation of people for being much
more cautious. Are you're my mutual friend? Helen Fisher? I
am a famous anthropologist who studied love John and I
wrote an article called flow love, and it was the
term she had coined, and it was this idea that
particularly for young people, they're spending more time establishing relations.
(11:15):
They hang out for a long periods of time, they're
kind of maybe seeing each other there, maybe dating, and
then their boyfriend girlfriend them. They're in case. For people today,
they want to know everything about a partner. They want
to google them, they want to know their finances, They
want to know their family, their friends, whereas their parents
and grandparents generation often you didn't know someone that long.
You got married. Marriage was the start of this big union.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
In fact, I read somewhere that in nineteen fifty, the
average time frame between meeting and marrying was six months.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, that is stunning to young people today, Like who
would do that? I mean, even when you hear stories
of people who say we only dated for five six months,
who got married, you go on social media, people like
they're crazy, who does this? Well, your grandparents did it
all the time, and but for young people today, marriage
is a great finale. You do it after you know
(12:04):
everything about someone that you've spent a lot of time.
So there, I think what we're seeing is people are shifting.
What they see is the sort of risks of both
marriage but also of love, of they're sort of guarding
their hearts that from the challenges of relationships. So I
don't think marriages dead. I don't think long term relationships
(12:26):
are ending, but how people are thinking about entering them
and the sort of focus on wanting them to be stable.
I think in some ways even and I could talk
about it, is I think a little too much focused
on wanting them to be stable. I think there's a
little bit of fear and preventing people from the exciting
ups and downs of relationships. But that's shifting, and it's
(12:48):
shifting in the context of we have more single adults
in the country than ever before, and more than most
developed nations in the world. We have over one hundred
million single adults in the United States today, so changing landscape.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So in some way this is good news people are
marrying later, they're getting lots of experience in life and
developing their prefrontal cortex before they're making this important decision,
and so in effect, many marriages are better. However, Esther
Perel would say that we are asking too much of
(13:22):
our partners. We're asking our partner to be the entire
village for us. Whereas before it was like, okay, you
make the money, I'll take care of the house. We
got our roles set down, we're good. We don't have
to actually love each other that much, and now we're
placing so much emphasis on our partner. Are we asking
too much of our romantic partners?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I think we are. I agree. Academics call this the
suffocation model of marriage, and it's in the research literature,
and that's exactly right. That we have this idea that
your partner is the person who does all these things too.
They're the person who you had food poisoning, and they're
holding your hair you're vomiting one night, and then in
(14:02):
the next morning you expect them to sexually desire you
and want we want all of these needs met by
one partner, and sometimes it's just not possible, and we
want them met right away. Right, particularly in this high tech,
high speed environment we're in, we want, we want it now,
or we want we expect our partners to sort of
(14:23):
be there and be able to do a lot. And
it's too much. Our ancestors had a community, they had
a family, they had a village. As we've seen removal
of the nuclear family in terms of how much people live.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And the extended family, we've moved away from our relatives.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Exactly, especially folks like us, right we were tied to
universities or academics, We have careers. You move to the
other side of the country, the other side of the
world for a new family, and you just expect your
partner to be the person who can do all this stuff.
It's too much. It puts an enormous strain on dating,
on early relationships, because you expect all the stuff before
(15:01):
you have developed those really intense spots. You know, you're
married for five years, you can expect a little bit
more of them your partner, not when you're dating for
a few months.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And recently I became an ambassador for an organization called
the Foundation for Social Connection, and they as ambassadors, they
give us monthly assignments to create greater social connections within
our community, and we put together groups or dinner parties
or what have you. Go sometimes the assignment is to
(15:32):
just go meet a neighbor and.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Talk to them.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And they're research based, but they have an army of ambassadors.
I should tell everybody you can go onto the website
for a foundation for social connection and become an ambassador.
And they are trying to rebuild these villages and I
think ultimately that will help our relationships. Now let's get
into something else. You mentioned these hundred million single adults.
(15:56):
We do know that we have an oversupply of successful
women in the mating marketplace, women who in their mind
don't like to quote unquote date down. I tell them, look,
your idea of a power guy might be a guy
who can power a stroller. Okay, But also men who
are intimidated by these powerful women. And a lot of
these women, because now they can enjoy the pleasures of
(16:19):
their body, they have birth control and ways to protect themselves,
we are seeing a lot of women trapped in these
so called situationships, these undefined relationships that involve dating in sex,
but no definition. It's not my boyfriend or girlfriend necessarily,
and no endgame. We're not pourting on the way to romance.
(16:39):
Let's talk about the rise of situation ships and also
what women can do.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, I love this, and I think it's so complicated,
it's so real for so many people, like this dynamic
that's happening on. Who's the mating market, who's your pool
of potential partners? And I'm not a moralist. On the
one hand, if people want to have casual sex or
situationships work for them, I think that's great. The bottom
(17:05):
line is that we're seeing it's not working for most
people when we look at the data. When we ask people,
they're saying, I'm not really that fulfilled with this. I'm
sort of scraping pieces together to get some sense of connection,
some sense of intimacy, some sense of sexual satisfaction in
these situationships, these hookups. They're not really doing it. And
that's true for men and women. Think we often think
(17:27):
that you know, men will love it and do it forever.
Not true, not what we see in the data. Both
men and women really find that's frustrating.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And what do you think people can do? Can they
just say, Hey, I'm not going to be having sex
unless there's some kind of relationship definition here. Can they
just be bold?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I think people can. I mean, one of the challenges
I think we're seeing with a lot of people is
we've heard so much about not settling. Don't settle. You
have to be you know, you have to know what
you want. You can't take anything less. And I actually
think that that narrative about not settling for anything has
done a bit of harm for a lot of people.
(18:05):
I think we've gotten too focused on this idea that
you have to bring your whole self to a relationship,
you have to be self actualized when you come to
a relationship, and then your partner has to be all
these things. And as opposed to this idea, you know
you want to date a CEO. Okay, there's only so
many of them. But what about this idea that you
start a relationship and together you make a CEO out
(18:26):
of one of you. That relationships are the container to
do great things together, to expand your experiences, to push
your partners to their goals. This's too many people, I think,
struggling with this fantasy of you know, the CEO just
should be there. That's the person I'm going to date tomorrow.
As opposed to working towards that together. Relationships are this messy, fun,
(18:49):
exciting place to experience that together. I think we're a
little too focused on this idea. If I'm not settling,
I'm not settling. We know that healthy relationships are about
compromise and creating things together, and.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I've always said that what we're I've always said, what
two people can accomplish together is so much greater than
what one person can accomplish alone. We have to go
to a break. When we come back, I want to
talk about the rise of these open relationships, and also
let's touch on breakups and how much they hurt.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
My guest doctor Justin Garcia, director of the famed Kinsey Institute.
His new book is coming out in January. Pre order
it now. It's called The Intimate Animal. Okay, doctor Garcia,
what about all this open relationship stuff?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
You know?
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I have a video on my Instagram that went viral
where I'm sitting on a swing swinging, and I basically
said swinging benefits men a whole lot more than it
does women, and people argued with me. I will say
that it went viral because a lot of people is
a greet So let's talk about these open relationships.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I know, and I loved that video and it was
amazing to watch how many people have big thoughts on
this and a lot of them feelings. And I think
it's because it challenges so much of our ideas about
what relationship should be or could be. And for a
lot of people, we're asking questions like, well, could I
ever open my relationship or what would be the challenges,
who would have benefit, how would it work? And we
(20:27):
know that we know that a lot of people at
some point have an open relationship. So in one of
our studies we published a few years ago, we found
that about one in five Americans have at some point
had some version of an open relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Realie like honestly, I'm going out on a date, honey,
I'll be back later, hold dinner for me.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, or whether it's swinging or polyamory or open relationships. Now,
there's a lot of different types. We cast a wide
net and how we described it, so some are like
what you're describing, which is really open and known that
you're having other dates, and other if it's the couples
that play together. Maybe they go to a sex club,
or they there's a lot of different varieties of what
(21:05):
it looks like. But what we found was that although
one in five if at some point had an open relationship,
most did it kind of just occasionally or incidentally often
when they were younger. So when you ask people are
you currently in one, that number is much much lower.
Studies suggest well below five percent.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So it doesn't last long, right, it's all fun and games,
So somebody gets hurt.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that there are some people.
I'm convinced that there are some people, just like we
vary in our appetites for all sorts of other things.
And you know that you're the psychologists, you know the
center than anyone, Doctor Wallach is that there's individual differences
of what we want. I think it's the same thing
with open relationships. There are some people who could navigate
this that they can, they want and they know how
(21:51):
to have multiple relationships, but for most people it's really challenging.
It's really challenging to try to have more than one
intense bonder relationship at a time. Now, for some people,
open relationships are just sex, so they're sort of splitting up.
They're saying, well, I have my primary bond that I
play with other people. But what we know is that
because of evolution, the processes that have shaped how our
(22:12):
relationships look, that even when you do that, they have
to do a lot of different work. To protect the
primary relationship. You have to really work on trust and communication.
What are your ground rules? You know? Do you use protection?
Do you talk about it? Do you not want to
ever know about it? Do you? So we're seeing more
and more chatter about it. There was a great study
(22:33):
by Amy Moore the Chapman University that looked at Google
search trends and what she found was that stuff on
polyamory and open relationships, it's just it's wildly spiked. People
want to know more about it, they want to talk
about it. More people are appearing to try it. But
I would say it's not It hasn't redefined relationships. It's
(22:53):
not like everyone is in. You might feel that way,
but not everyone is in an open relationship right now
because they come with different challenges.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, yes, like one of them being that when women
have sex, they often emit a lot of oxytocin and
start to bond. So they don't. They accidentally can fall
in love even if they mean to just play right.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, and we found them, and you and I talked
about this, but when the study came out, it was
a decade ago now, And on one of our studies
on hookups, we found that fifty one percent of men
and women no gender difference, engaged in casual sex with
the hopes that it would turn into a romantic relationship.
And sometimes the sexual activity itself, like you always say,
(23:32):
give us that physiological response that initiates bonding, so that
casual sex isn't always that casualists. There's physiological strings that
can be attached.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And whether we're talking about open relationships, polyamory, or monogamous relationships,
at some point, almost every relationship, I hate to say
it ends, you know, we have this fantasy that it's
going to end when till death do us power. But
let me tell you, I have had callers listeners on
the show who are grieving widows and widowers and it's
(24:06):
years later and they're still grieving. Right, So breakups and
loss are part of love. Let's talk about really what
happens neurobiologically when we're in a breakup.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, and I think it's so important for us to
really talk, see all of us as a society, to
talk seriously about love, loss and breakups and heartache. And
it's you know, in some ways, these bonds, the love bonds,
are so intense. We're wired for these intense connections with
another person that mother nature takes our pack on the
(24:41):
flesh when they end, right, they hurt so badly. It's
the price we pay for loving so deeply. And I
don't think that's a bad thing or something we have
to fear. I mean, I hear so often from young
people who say, well, you know, breakups are so hard.
I don't want to go through that. And in some ways,
I think they're afraid of falling in love and relationships
(25:01):
because of that. And that to me is a story
of we don't deal with this the right way. We
don't talk about this the right way. We don't And
it's exactly for what you just said. It's because when
we start to look at the science of breakup, so
my colleagues of mine put people who have been romantically
rejected into an fMRI brain scanner, and when you look
(25:21):
at what happens after that rejection, the brain looks remarkably
like someone going through cocaine withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Wow, it is like a drug addiction.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, oh yeah, and you feel physical pain. So when
we hear people say that after a breakup that they
are exhausted, they're emotional, they're in pain, the parts of
the brain associated with physical pain are activated. And so
it's because you're tearing apart in the attachment bond and
you're taking away this dopapinergic thing the partner from someone.
(25:53):
And it's so challenging, and the way we socially deal
with it will tell people, Okay, get back on the horror,
start dating someone else. Now there is a little bit
of evidence to the adage best way to get over
someone to get under someone else. That's true because you
can retrigger that response, but the sort of pleasure respond
find an apartment. But I think we don't do a
good job of greeting relationship law.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I remember that I had another video that went viral
where I just talked about having dated a guy for
a short period of time and then I could feel
him pulling away, and rather than me chasing him down
and trying to reel him back in, I just basically
texted him goodbye darling. And he had no answer for
why he was pulling away when I asked him, and
so I said, I took the time. You know, I
(26:39):
knew he wasn't because of this behavior right for me
in the long term. But it doesn't mean that I
didn't feel loss. I had a cry in the shower.
I allowed myself to feel sad about this loss, and
then I went through it and moved on. And that
video that just telling that story went viral because people
(26:59):
aren't don't have the tools for breakups and how to
survive it. Now, can you confirm for me, am I
giving the right advice that the best thing to do
is go no contact.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yes, I think that is the best advice. And I
think there's two parts of that story. What is your story?
Is so powerful because it reminds us that sometimes you
could feel so connected to someone, you can even love someone,
and then the realization that you can't really have a
healthy relationship with that person. It's different thing. Yeah, feeling
that draw but then knowing like can this really work?
(27:30):
That's one of the hardest lessons many of us have
to learn at some point. But the other part of
the when we say it doesn't work, or when it's
broken up or it's over. Yes, I am a big
advocate of going cold turkey because of this neurobiology of
addiction that love. Often we think of addiction as negative things,
as problems, and they often are, but love is a
(27:52):
somewhat positive version of that. It's a positive really balance
that you have craving for the other, you have obsessive
thinking about your partner, all these characteristics, but it's often
in a more positive life. So we're not used to
thinking of addiction in those ways. But when you pull
it away, or if it's been pulled away from you,
(28:13):
you know, you wouldn't show an addict pictures of their
drug paraphernalia. That would You would say that's crazy on
face value. But often we break up and we're looking
at all texts and we're looking at pictures and we're
smelling that star.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So following them online, and we're going to the same gym,
the same dry cleaners. I'm like, change coffee shops, change gyms.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Just move away.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Even if they're friends that you have in common, just
see them less because you don't want news about.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Your exactly exactly. Hey, we have to go, we have to.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Go for another break when we come back. In our
final segment, I want to talk about two things. One
is there's certain things a single people need to listen
that you can do on a first date to try to,
uh well psychologically trick your date into falling in love
with you. Let's talk about that and also why love
is so important to the evolution of the species, why
we need it, and why it's so good for us.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Welcome back to the home stretch of this special expanded
version of the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Listen. If you're
new to my show, I want to remind you I'm
here every Sunday from seven to nine pm. You can
also following me on my social media at doctor Wendy
Walsh anywhere. I'm still with I'm fangirling here, really I am.
I am so in love with doctor Justin Garcia and
(29:37):
his work. Apparently there's this girl named Michelle who took
him as a husband. But I'll have to deal with that.
Doctor Garcia, you are the man on the research of love.
There are single people listening. There are a few tricks
that you can use on first dates to impress your dates,
like right now. I've been asked a lot about this one,
(29:58):
the misattribution of arousal. It's a fun one. I don't
know that it works for a long term relationship, but
it can certainly get them attached to you. Can you
explain it?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yes? Thanks, and I'm so glad that I'm here from
a wrap up of this amazing episode. Thank you so much.
And misattribution of arousal. So, the studies were initially done
by these psychologists that looked at how actually the original
study is really interesting. They had participants walk across a bridge,
(30:30):
a bridge structure.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
A very scary suspension bridge that's half a mile high
in Vancouver. I've been on it. It's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Really, Oh God, I love it. I keep saying one
day I want to go because it's such an important
psychological study for relationship science. And what they found was
that on the other end, when people came to the
other end, there was a confederate, a person who worked
as part of the research team, and they would when
(30:57):
men cross the bridge, there would be an change of
a phone number with that person. So if you have
any questions about this study you just took part in.
And the arousal not in a sexual sense, the arousal
that people felt from crossing that scary bridge, that their
heart was pounding, that their adrenaline was runching, they met
this woman on the other side, and they attributed that
physiological response to the woman. And then they would call afterwards,
(31:20):
but not about a study question, but they'd say, oh,
do you want to go out for lunch tomorrow? Do
you want to? So it's this idea that we can
have a physiological response arousal in the general sense and
attribute it to the people we're with, and I think
that is great.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So we confuse the beating heart of fear with the
beating heart of.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Love exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And so the advice to single people is, you know,
go on some go kart rides, some bungee jumping, some skiing, even,
you know, stuff that gets your heart rate going and
gets you fear a little bit in your fear zone,
and that can make you attracted to the person.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You're with, exactly. But we all stuff to remember. Don't
push it too far, because if you feel a little
bit of excitement, a little bit of stress and you
attribute it to that person and you say, hey, this
person I like, you know, the fun I have with them.
I feel alive when I'm with them. But if it's
too much, you then trigger a different physiological response. You
trigger a threat response. That's when you're really afraid. That's
(32:19):
like the building's on fire.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
So I'm going to tell you one time I went
on a date with a guy who was a helicopter
pilot and he did some dipty do things. I never
saw him again. I was like, no, no, I'm not
safe with this person.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, you need to live to date again. And that's
exactly right. And one way I think about it is
you would never see two gazelle mating in front of
a lion in the natural world. And when we're in
too much of a fear response, you totally shut down
mating psychology, You shut down any interest and love sex
connection because you just want to get out of it.
(32:53):
So you find these little ways to do something. It's
actually why, like a movie is not a good first date,
even though people always say dinner movie. But you want
to do things that you know. Try a totally new restaurant,
try an activity, try a concert. Try You and I
were talking about comedy shows. It's something that makes you
you want to try something that can kind of get
(33:15):
your physiology pumping. That's exciting, and it just a little
bit of a shock is a good thing.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
And this is also good advice for people in long
term monogamy to add a little bit of novelty to
their marriages. Oh yeah, do something fun and exciting, get
out of the house.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah exactly. Well, you and I were talking, not on
the show, but we were talking about the importance of
date night. So it's long in our long term relationships
and doing things that are new, Trying that new restaurant,
trying that new game place in town. That's really helpful.
We know that in long term relationships that sort of
stuff helps keep the embers of passion going.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Even just the fact that you're seeing your partner in
a new schema, in a new setting, in a new
light just can help. And I told that to my
now husband ju Leo when we were dating, about the
novelty effect, and he has made it like his primary
thing to show up with tickets to weird things or
a museum to see or whatever.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
He goes.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Let's do this. This is different. We need novelty. He'll
say we need novelty. I'm like, okay, yes, right before
we go, I want us to talk just briefly about
how important love is for our mental and physical health.
What can you share with us based in the research?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh? Sure, thank you, and I think it's I think
one of the goals that I had when I wrote
The Intimate Animal was really getting folks to think about
the science of love and connection and our relationships, because
the more we learn, the more we understand how important
they are for our psychological well being, our longevity, our
(34:51):
physical health. That these relationships, and even if they don't
last over but these partnerships are so critical, and there's
a lot of different studies that show this. Some of
them have been challenged. There's been research asking methodological questions
that classically we know that people who are in long
term relationships live longer, they manage disease better. You can
(35:14):
think if you have a chronic condition and your partner
remembering to put your pills out every morning, that those
people tend to live, they live longer, they respond better.
And all the breast cancer studies.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Why is there good at doing those mole checks?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah right, I'll do body checks I'm here, and we know,
like in breast cancer studies it'spausal support. It's one of
the biggest particular of survivorships, and so there's a lot.
There were also these wonderful studies done by a scientist
ky coche laser, and what they found was that oxytocin,
that cuddle hormone that's involved and positive relationships, is actually
(35:50):
associated with wound healing. And so some scientists are starting
to talk about oxytocin as really being a part of
the immune system, how it functions in our body. Positive
oxyers and your body response to wounds healer, you get,
you deal with illness better. So people sort of jokingly
say love is the best medicine. It's not just a joke.
(36:11):
It's in the data. It's physiological share.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I have to share something personal and anecdotal. So my husband, Julio,
had prostate cancer and they were it was at the
stage of actively monitoring MRIs biopsies, blood work, watching the
PSA and we got married. He's a big, big, big cuddler,
more than I am, no less, he's some cuddler, cuddler
(36:36):
cuddler at all times. We can't even watch TV unless
our legs are wrapped around each other. And his last
biopsy came out cancer free, gone, just disappeared love, So
maybe that's why. Of course the doctor said, well, maybe
you have a cancer fighting gene. I'm going to go
with happy marriage.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
That's right, he's had a cancer fighting more and more.
That power, it's it's it's not you know, woo woo
uh thinking. It's actually it's based on real scientific evidence
of the power to ramp up our immune functions. And
you guys keep calling, keep wrapping those legs around together,
(37:15):
and you'll be doing it for decades.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Exactly. Well, doctor Justin Garcia, thank you so much for
joining the show. It is always a pleasure. Now, you
promised me that when your book comes out, we're going
to do some videos for social media, so people.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Can watch out for that.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
If you follow me on my social you'll see doctor
Justin and I giving all the secrets from his book.
In the meantime, I encourage every listener to go online.
I'm sure it's available everywhere, but we can say that
Amazon word the Intimate Animal is the name of the book,
The Intimate Animal. The subtitle The Science of Sex, Fidelity
and Why We Live and Die for Love comes out
(37:53):
in January. Pre order it now. I'm going to pre
order it myself, did you know, doctor Justin. It's important
that because people listen on the iHeartRadio app all over
the country to this, that the algorithm notices when the
sales are from different zip codes, so it's not to
keep you and your friends and family in one zip
code from over ordering to try to trick it. So
(38:14):
they like to see. So if you're if you're not
in Los Angeles or Indiana, make sure you order the book.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Thank you everyone.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Always a pleasure to have.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
You than you've.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear
us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to
nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app.
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf
I am six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app. I promised, I promised you
I would have him here, and I got him trapped
here for a whole hour. Doctor Justin Garcia, director of
the famed Kinsey Institute. Doctor Garcia, am I going to
(00:24):
say it wrong? Is it the University of Indiana or
Indiana University? I always I always mix it up.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So everyone knows who.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Okay, hoosiers, there we go. You have been studying love, intimacy, sex. Technically,
you're one of my favorite animals an evolutionary biologist because
you know, I always say what's natural for our bodies. Uh,
you've been doing this for a very very long time.
And I just talked about the history of the Kinsey Institute.
(00:58):
Can you just give us a napshot of where the
Kinsey Institute is now, like what current things you guys
are studying and working on.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yes, absolutely, thanks for having me. I always love when
I get to talk with you and your audiences, and
so the Kidney Institute today, we've really widened the lens
from where doctor Kinsey and the research team initially started
and we still fundamentally ask questions about sexuality. We do
a lot of big studies. We did studies on, for instance,
(01:31):
what was the impact of COVID on people's romantic and
sexual lives. We were the first really big study to
look at that, and in that case we found sexual
frequency decreased, but quite a lot of people tried something new,
so their sexual repertoires expanded, even though their behavior was
tamped down.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So it was less frequent, but it was a little
more frisky.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yes, exactly. And initially when we looked at the data
at first we thought, well, part of this is that
it took this enormous event. It took COVIDI, which I
think is also tells us a lot about psychologist, so
I'll say a little bit more about it. But it
took this big event to really make people stop and
talk to their partner for the first time about fantasies.
(02:14):
For instance, we saw quite a number of people said,
I never talked to my partner about a sexual fantasy,
and so we were locked in the house together and
they were trying new things, new behaviors. Sometimes it was
sex thing, sometimes it was showering together. And some of
that was convenience. I remember we talked to one couple
and the woman said, my husband and I started having
(02:35):
shower sex during a pandemic. And I said, oh, you're
trying something new and she said, no, it's the only
time we get five minutes alone.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Exactly. So there was some of that, but it was
it was for a lot of people, this moment forced
them to have conversations with partners they had never had.
In one of our studies, we found over eighty percent
of marriages did better during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
So I was so, I mean, I would think so,
especially because with you know, with both partners being home.
I think men witnessed and women saw for sure. We've
always known about it, the disproportioned and domestic labor, and
so you see men starting to pitch in just because
there's a bila laundry there, you know. So I think
(03:20):
that was really good for marriages. I mean, it was stressful,
especially with small kids.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
People were small kids.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That was just I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine. So basically,
the Kinsey Institute has moved from just studying sexuality though
to also studying the kinds of relationships we're having. Now.
I want to remind everybody who's listening this is not
new news to you, doctor justin Garcia, that this idea
of a traditional family where I hate that word traditional,
(03:48):
where two people this this fantasy where two people meet
early in life, established that they are soulmates, stay together
until the end of their lives, and any offspring that
come out of this union are biologically connected to both
of those partners. That's actually pretty rare, right, what is
(04:10):
more natural for human beings across a lifespan.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, so we see when we look at both the
historical and the cross cultural evidence, we know that we
know that people form intense pair bonds, that we have
what we might call what we call social monogamy. It's
scientists the term you and I will use, but it's
this idea that romantic love and in other species it's
characterized by mutual territory defense, building a nest together, raising
(04:35):
offspring together. Humans have that capacity and most people around
the world and historically do that we form these intense bonds.
But what we know exactly as you said, that doesn't
follow a sort of quote unquote traditional playbook, that there's
often a lot of family involved, there's can involved, there's
a community. It can happen multiple times throughout the life course.
(04:59):
But at its cour we know that the most fundamental
universal pattern is these intense pair bonds. And I think
when we understand that, when we understand that that ability
to fall in love, but not all species even have
that ability, they don't have it in their brains to
be able to do it. We do. Once we understand that,
then we can think of our sexual lives or reproductive lives.
(05:21):
Are social relationships all sort of gravitating around that. That's
the classic pattern, but it varies even whether you might
have multiple wives or husbands. But often at its core
we still see this primary bond, and then people are
trying to navigate that. They're trying to navigate a primary
bond with one but then two or three other wives,
(05:41):
or in cases of open relationships, how do you navigate
your primary partnership in that. So for me, that's really
at its core is the evolution of pair bonding that
explains so much of ours are very long lifespans, teach
developmental psychology.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Our lives just keep getting longer and longer, and in
some ways we outgrow our relationships. So I always think
that divorce is not a failed relationship, especially when somebody's
been married twenty years. I wouldn't call out a failure
like that success exactly. I love.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I always love when you say that, and it reminds me.
Margaret Mead also used to say, I remember a journalists
Margaret Meade on the famous anthropologist why did all three
of her marriages fail? And she said, excuse me, all
three were a success. It's this idea that what we
how we measure success in relationships and new points is
out Wendy. It's just said. It's we have to really
(06:39):
rethink that that you can have a wonderful relationship. Last thing,
forever shouldn't be the measure of success in a relationship.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Right, Duration shouldn't be the litmus test, especially if you're
white knuckling it through right. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny because
I also remember a famous I think it's Margaret Mead.
She did not have children, right, the famous anthropologists And
someone us asked her, why did you you know you
talk about parenting and maternal nature, and why did you
(07:08):
never have children? And she deadpan looked at them and said,
because I know too much.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
It's a super challenge.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And I happened to know that you are new father
congratulations baby in September, so you can see what she meant, like,
we wouldn't go into parenthood if we actually knew how
hard it was.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, and you know, you could read so many books
and then something about the flood, the sort of hormones
and everything that happens. I mean, our world has one
censor and it's our little baby boy. But at the
same time, I've thought a lot in the last few
weeks about if I wasn't so bonded to my wife, Michelle,
if we didn't have this this deeply evolved bond. It's
(07:54):
such a such a stressful time when you have an infant,
that it was a mother in nature's of protecting the family,
that you really have to be in love with your
partner to stick through them. In the first month asket postpartum,
I mean, it's just so intense. Yeah, it's And I
had a new appreciation for the evolutionary science and I said, oh,
(08:15):
thank god, we've got this intense pair of mind because
we'll navigate this. And we did, and now we're sleeping
more and baby speaking more. But it's just so. And
I think that that's part of the story we don't
talk about enough with relationships, is the evolution of romantic love.
It allows us to weather stormy times, whether it's a baby,
(08:35):
whether it's a pandemic, whether it's the economy, whether it's
health issues. When you have that strong core bond that
we've evolved to keep, it allows us to weather through uncertainty. Now,
for our ancestors, that could mean a season of no
food or a season of bad weather. For us, it
could mean all sorts of different things. But having that bond,
(08:56):
we can weather uncertainty with a partner, with a co
pilot and get through it.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
You know. I was helping a young friend recently build
her dating app profile and one of the prompts on
hinge said something like what's important to me in a relationship?
And I said, men fall in love through trust, So
just put this that we have each other's back. And
she put that one line and she got so many
(09:21):
likes from guys like It's like, say, anyway, we have
to go to a break. When we come back, I
want to talk about the state of our unions now,
the rise of situationships and you touched on open relationships.
I don't know how people navigate those because I'm so monogamous.
So we need to talk about the research. My guest
is doctor Justin Garcia, director of the famed Kinsey Institute.
(09:44):
His new book, by the way, coming out, is called
The Intimate Animal, The Science of Sex, Fidelity and Why
We Live and Die for Love. You can pre order
it online now. I suggest you do this. We all
need to read it. I'm gonna be reading it in
my sleep tonight. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
My very special guest, doctor Justin Garcia, director of the
famed Kinsey Institute. His new book that's coming out in January,
but you can pre order it now, is called The
Intimate Animal, Doctor Garcia. Can we talk about what's going
on with our love lives? Is marriage continuing to be
on a decline? And if so? Why? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Oh gosh, there's so much to say here. And there's
one of the things that's interesting is worth seeing that
patterns of people getting into marriages, they're being much more cautious.
But for the first time in a long time, those
marriages seem to be more stable. So I am not
as worried about what's happening to marriages. I actually think
(10:53):
we're seeing a new generation of people for being much
more cautious. Are you're my mutual friend? Helen Fisher? I
am a famous anthropologist who studied love John and I
wrote an article called flow love, and it was the
term she had coined, and it was this idea that
particularly for young people, they're spending more time establishing relations.
(11:15):
They hang out for a long periods of time, they're
kind of maybe seeing each other there, maybe dating, and
then their boyfriend girlfriend them. They're in case. For people today,
they want to know everything about a partner. They want
to google them, they want to know their finances, They
want to know their family, their friends, whereas their parents
and grandparents generation often you didn't know someone that long.
You got married. Marriage was the start of this big union.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
In fact, I read somewhere that in nineteen fifty, the
average time frame between meeting and marrying was six months.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, that is stunning to young people today, Like who
would do that? I mean, even when you hear stories
of people who say we only dated for five six months,
who got married, you go on social media, people like
they're crazy, who does this? Well, your grandparents did it
all the time, and but for young people today, marriage
is a great finale. You do it after you know
(12:04):
everything about someone that you've spent a lot of time.
So there, I think what we're seeing is people are shifting.
What they see is the sort of risks of both
marriage but also of love, of they're sort of guarding
their hearts that from the challenges of relationships. So I
don't think marriages dead. I don't think long term relationships
(12:26):
are ending, but how people are thinking about entering them
and the sort of focus on wanting them to be stable.
I think in some ways even and I could talk
about it, is I think a little too much focused
on wanting them to be stable. I think there's a
little bit of fear and preventing people from the exciting
ups and downs of relationships. But that's shifting, and it's
(12:48):
shifting in the context of we have more single adults
in the country than ever before, and more than most
developed nations in the world. We have over one hundred
million single adults in the United States today, so changing landscape.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So in some way this is good news people are
marrying later, they're getting lots of experience in life and
developing their prefrontal cortex before they're making this important decision,
and so in effect, many marriages are better. However, Esther
Perel would say that we are asking too much of
(13:22):
our partners. We're asking our partner to be the entire
village for us. Whereas before it was like, okay, you
make the money, I'll take care of the house. We
got our roles set down, we're good. We don't have
to actually love each other that much, and now we're
placing so much emphasis on our partner. Are we asking
too much of our romantic partners?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
I think we are. I agree. Academics call this the
suffocation model of marriage, and it's in the research literature,
and that's exactly right. That we have this idea that
your partner is the person who does all these things too.
They're the person who you had food poisoning, and they're
holding your hair you're vomiting one night, and then in
(14:02):
the next morning you expect them to sexually desire you
and want we want all of these needs met by
one partner, and sometimes it's just not possible, and we
want them met right away. Right, particularly in this high tech,
high speed environment we're in, we want, we want it now,
or we want we expect our partners to sort of
(14:23):
be there and be able to do a lot. And
it's too much. Our ancestors had a community, they had
a family, they had a village. As we've seen removal
of the nuclear family in terms of how much people live.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
And the extended family, we've moved away from our relatives.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Exactly, especially folks like us, right we were tied to
universities or academics, We have careers. You move to the
other side of the country, the other side of the
world for a new family, and you just expect your
partner to be the person who can do all this stuff.
It's too much. It puts an enormous strain on dating,
on early relationships, because you expect all the stuff before
(15:01):
you have developed those really intense spots. You know, you're
married for five years, you can expect a little bit
more of them your partner, not when you're dating for
a few months.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
And recently I became an ambassador for an organization called
the Foundation for Social Connection, and they as ambassadors, they
give us monthly assignments to create greater social connections within
our community, and we put together groups or dinner parties
or what have you. Go sometimes the assignment is to
(15:32):
just go meet a neighbor and.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Talk to them.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
And they're research based, but they have an army of ambassadors.
I should tell everybody you can go onto the website
for a foundation for social connection and become an ambassador.
And they are trying to rebuild these villages and I
think ultimately that will help our relationships. Now let's get
into something else. You mentioned these hundred million single adults.
(15:56):
We do know that we have an oversupply of successful
women in the mating marketplace, women who in their mind
don't like to quote unquote date down. I tell them, look,
your idea of a power guy might be a guy
who can power a stroller. Okay, But also men who
are intimidated by these powerful women. And a lot of
these women, because now they can enjoy the pleasures of
(16:19):
their body, they have birth control and ways to protect themselves,
we are seeing a lot of women trapped in these
so called situationships, these undefined relationships that involve dating in sex,
but no definition. It's not my boyfriend or girlfriend necessarily,
and no endgame. We're not pourting on the way to romance.
(16:39):
Let's talk about the rise of situation ships and also
what women can do.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, I love this, and I think it's so complicated,
it's so real for so many people, like this dynamic
that's happening on. Who's the mating market, who's your pool
of potential partners? And I'm not a moralist. On the
one hand, if people want to have casual sex or
situationships work for them, I think that's great. The bottom
(17:05):
line is that we're seeing it's not working for most
people when we look at the data. When we ask people,
they're saying, I'm not really that fulfilled with this. I'm
sort of scraping pieces together to get some sense of connection,
some sense of intimacy, some sense of sexual satisfaction in
these situationships, these hookups. They're not really doing it. And
that's true for men and women. Think we often think
(17:27):
that you know, men will love it and do it forever.
Not true, not what we see in the data. Both
men and women really find that's frustrating.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And what do you think people can do? Can they
just say, Hey, I'm not going to be having sex
unless there's some kind of relationship definition here. Can they
just be bold?
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I think people can. I mean, one of the challenges
I think we're seeing with a lot of people is
we've heard so much about not settling. Don't settle. You
have to be you know, you have to know what
you want. You can't take anything less. And I actually
think that that narrative about not settling for anything has
done a bit of harm for a lot of people.
(18:05):
I think we've gotten too focused on this idea that
you have to bring your whole self to a relationship,
you have to be self actualized when you come to
a relationship, and then your partner has to be all
these things. And as opposed to this idea, you know
you want to date a CEO. Okay, there's only so
many of them. But what about this idea that you
start a relationship and together you make a CEO out
(18:26):
of one of you. That relationships are the container to
do great things together, to expand your experiences, to push
your partners to their goals. This's too many people, I think,
struggling with this fantasy of you know, the CEO just
should be there. That's the person I'm going to date tomorrow.
As opposed to working towards that together. Relationships are this messy, fun,
(18:49):
exciting place to experience that together. I think we're a
little too focused on this idea. If I'm not settling,
I'm not settling. We know that healthy relationships are about
compromise and creating things together, and.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I've always said that what we're I've always said, what
two people can accomplish together is so much greater than
what one person can accomplish alone. We have to go
to a break. When we come back, I want to
talk about the rise of these open relationships, and also
let's touch on breakups and how much they hurt.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
My guest doctor Justin Garcia, director of the famed Kinsey Institute.
His new book is coming out in January. Pre order
it now. It's called The Intimate Animal. Okay, doctor Garcia,
what about all this open relationship stuff?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
You know?
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I have a video on my Instagram that went viral
where I'm sitting on a swing swinging, and I basically
said swinging benefits men a whole lot more than it
does women, and people argued with me. I will say
that it went viral because a lot of people is
a greet So let's talk about these open relationships.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
I know, and I loved that video and it was
amazing to watch how many people have big thoughts on
this and a lot of them feelings. And I think
it's because it challenges so much of our ideas about
what relationship should be or could be. And for a
lot of people, we're asking questions like, well, could I
ever open my relationship or what would be the challenges,
who would have benefit, how would it work? And we
(20:27):
know that we know that a lot of people at
some point have an open relationship. So in one of
our studies we published a few years ago, we found
that about one in five Americans have at some point
had some version of an open relationship.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Realie like honestly, I'm going out on a date, honey,
I'll be back later, hold dinner for me.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, or whether it's swinging or polyamory or open relationships. Now,
there's a lot of different types. We cast a wide
net and how we described it, so some are like
what you're describing, which is really open and known that
you're having other dates, and other if it's the couples
that play together. Maybe they go to a sex club,
or they there's a lot of different varieties of what
(21:05):
it looks like. But what we found was that although
one in five if at some point had an open relationship,
most did it kind of just occasionally or incidentally often
when they were younger. So when you ask people are
you currently in one, that number is much much lower.
Studies suggest well below five percent.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So it doesn't last long, right, it's all fun and games,
So somebody gets hurt.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that there are some people.
I'm convinced that there are some people, just like we
vary in our appetites for all sorts of other things.
And you know that you're the psychologists, you know the
center than anyone, Doctor Wallach is that there's individual differences
of what we want. I think it's the same thing
with open relationships. There are some people who could navigate
this that they can, they want and they know how
(21:51):
to have multiple relationships, but for most people it's really challenging.
It's really challenging to try to have more than one
intense bonder relationship at a time. Now, for some people,
open relationships are just sex, so they're sort of splitting up.
They're saying, well, I have my primary bond that I
play with other people. But what we know is that
because of evolution, the processes that have shaped how our
(22:12):
relationships look, that even when you do that, they have
to do a lot of different work. To protect the
primary relationship. You have to really work on trust and communication.
What are your ground rules? You know? Do you use protection?
Do you talk about it? Do you not want to
ever know about it? Do you? So we're seeing more
and more chatter about it. There was a great study
(22:33):
by Amy Moore the Chapman University that looked at Google
search trends and what she found was that stuff on
polyamory and open relationships, it's just it's wildly spiked. People
want to know more about it, they want to talk
about it. More people are appearing to try it. But
I would say it's not It hasn't redefined relationships. It's
(22:53):
not like everyone is in. You might feel that way,
but not everyone is in an open relationship right now
because they come with different challenges.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, yes, like one of them being that when women
have sex, they often emit a lot of oxytocin and
start to bond. So they don't. They accidentally can fall
in love even if they mean to just play right.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, and we found them, and you and I talked
about this, but when the study came out, it was
a decade ago now, And on one of our studies
on hookups, we found that fifty one percent of men
and women no gender difference, engaged in casual sex with
the hopes that it would turn into a romantic relationship.
And sometimes the sexual activity itself, like you always say,
(23:32):
give us that physiological response that initiates bonding, so that
casual sex isn't always that casualists. There's physiological strings that
can be attached.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
And whether we're talking about open relationships, polyamory, or monogamous relationships,
at some point, almost every relationship, I hate to say
it ends, you know, we have this fantasy that it's
going to end when till death do us power. But
let me tell you, I have had callers listeners on
the show who are grieving widows and widowers and it's
(24:06):
years later and they're still grieving. Right, So breakups and
loss are part of love. Let's talk about really what
happens neurobiologically when we're in a breakup.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Yeah, and I think it's so important for us to
really talk, see all of us as a society, to
talk seriously about love, loss and breakups and heartache. And
it's you know, in some ways, these bonds, the love bonds,
are so intense. We're wired for these intense connections with
another person that mother nature takes our pack on the
(24:41):
flesh when they end, right, they hurt so badly. It's
the price we pay for loving so deeply. And I
don't think that's a bad thing or something we have
to fear. I mean, I hear so often from young
people who say, well, you know, breakups are so hard.
I don't want to go through that. And in some ways,
I think they're afraid of falling in love and relationships
(25:01):
because of that. And that to me is a story
of we don't deal with this the right way. We
don't talk about this the right way. We don't And
it's exactly for what you just said. It's because when
we start to look at the science of breakup, so
my colleagues of mine put people who have been romantically
rejected into an fMRI brain scanner, and when you look
(25:21):
at what happens after that rejection, the brain looks remarkably
like someone going through cocaine withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Wow, it is like a drug addiction.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah, oh yeah, and you feel physical pain. So when
we hear people say that after a breakup that they
are exhausted, they're emotional, they're in pain, the parts of
the brain associated with physical pain are activated. And so
it's because you're tearing apart in the attachment bond and
you're taking away this dopapinergic thing the partner from someone.
(25:53):
And it's so challenging, and the way we socially deal
with it will tell people, Okay, get back on the horror,
start dating someone else. Now there is a little bit
of evidence to the adage best way to get over
someone to get under someone else. That's true because you
can retrigger that response, but the sort of pleasure respond
find an apartment. But I think we don't do a
good job of greeting relationship law.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
I remember that I had another video that went viral
where I just talked about having dated a guy for
a short period of time and then I could feel
him pulling away, and rather than me chasing him down
and trying to reel him back in, I just basically
texted him goodbye darling. And he had no answer for
why he was pulling away when I asked him, and
so I said, I took the time. You know, I
(26:39):
knew he wasn't because of this behavior right for me
in the long term. But it doesn't mean that I
didn't feel loss. I had a cry in the shower.
I allowed myself to feel sad about this loss, and
then I went through it and moved on. And that
video that just telling that story went viral because people
(26:59):
aren't don't have the tools for breakups and how to
survive it. Now, can you confirm for me, am I
giving the right advice that the best thing to do
is go no contact.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yes, I think that is the best advice. And I
think there's two parts of that story. What is your story?
Is so powerful because it reminds us that sometimes you
could feel so connected to someone, you can even love someone,
and then the realization that you can't really have a
healthy relationship with that person. It's different thing. Yeah, feeling
that draw but then knowing like can this really work?
(27:30):
That's one of the hardest lessons many of us have
to learn at some point. But the other part of
the when we say it doesn't work, or when it's
broken up or it's over. Yes, I am a big
advocate of going cold turkey because of this neurobiology of
addiction that love. Often we think of addiction as negative things,
as problems, and they often are, but love is a
(27:52):
somewhat positive version of that. It's a positive really balance
that you have craving for the other, you have obsessive
thinking about your partner, all these characteristics, but it's often
in a more positive life. So we're not used to
thinking of addiction in those ways. But when you pull
it away, or if it's been pulled away from you,
(28:13):
you know, you wouldn't show an addict pictures of their
drug paraphernalia. That would You would say that's crazy on
face value. But often we break up and we're looking
at all texts and we're looking at pictures and we're
smelling that star.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So following them online, and we're going to the same gym,
the same dry cleaners. I'm like, change coffee shops, change gyms.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Just move away.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Even if they're friends that you have in common, just
see them less because you don't want news about.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Your exactly exactly. Hey, we have to go, we have to.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Go for another break when we come back. In our
final segment, I want to talk about two things. One
is there's certain things a single people need to listen
that you can do on a first date to try to,
uh well psychologically trick your date into falling in love
with you. Let's talk about that and also why love
is so important to the evolution of the species, why
we need it, and why it's so good for us.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Welcome back to the home stretch of this special expanded
version of the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Listen. If you're
new to my show, I want to remind you I'm
here every Sunday from seven to nine pm. You can
also following me on my social media at doctor Wendy
Walsh anywhere. I'm still with I'm fangirling here, really I am.
I am so in love with doctor Justin Garcia and
(29:37):
his work. Apparently there's this girl named Michelle who took
him as a husband. But I'll have to deal with that.
Doctor Garcia, you are the man on the research of love.
There are single people listening. There are a few tricks
that you can use on first dates to impress your dates,
like right now. I've been asked a lot about this one,
(29:58):
the misattribution of arousal. It's a fun one. I don't
know that it works for a long term relationship, but
it can certainly get them attached to you. Can you
explain it?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yes? Thanks, and I'm so glad that I'm here from
a wrap up of this amazing episode. Thank you so much.
And misattribution of arousal. So, the studies were initially done
by these psychologists that looked at how actually the original
study is really interesting. They had participants walk across a bridge,
(30:30):
a bridge structure.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
A very scary suspension bridge that's half a mile high
in Vancouver. I've been on it. It's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Really, Oh God, I love it. I keep saying one
day I want to go because it's such an important
psychological study for relationship science. And what they found was
that on the other end, when people came to the
other end, there was a confederate, a person who worked
as part of the research team, and they would when
(30:57):
men cross the bridge, there would be an change of
a phone number with that person. So if you have
any questions about this study you just took part in.
And the arousal not in a sexual sense, the arousal
that people felt from crossing that scary bridge, that their
heart was pounding, that their adrenaline was runching, they met
this woman on the other side, and they attributed that
physiological response to the woman. And then they would call afterwards,
(31:20):
but not about a study question, but they'd say, oh,
do you want to go out for lunch tomorrow? Do
you want to? So it's this idea that we can
have a physiological response arousal in the general sense and
attribute it to the people we're with, and I think
that is great.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
So we confuse the beating heart of fear with the
beating heart of.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Love exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And so the advice to single people is, you know,
go on some go kart rides, some bungee jumping, some skiing, even,
you know, stuff that gets your heart rate going and
gets you fear a little bit in your fear zone,
and that can make you attracted to the person.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You're with, exactly. But we all stuff to remember. Don't
push it too far, because if you feel a little
bit of excitement, a little bit of stress and you
attribute it to that person and you say, hey, this
person I like, you know, the fun I have with them.
I feel alive when I'm with them. But if it's
too much, you then trigger a different physiological response. You
trigger a threat response. That's when you're really afraid. That's
(32:19):
like the building's on fire.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
So I'm going to tell you one time I went
on a date with a guy who was a helicopter
pilot and he did some dipty do things. I never
saw him again. I was like, no, no, I'm not
safe with this person.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
No, you need to live to date again. And that's
exactly right. And one way I think about it is
you would never see two gazelle mating in front of
a lion in the natural world. And when we're in
too much of a fear response, you totally shut down
mating psychology, You shut down any interest and love sex
connection because you just want to get out of it.
(32:53):
So you find these little ways to do something. It's
actually why, like a movie is not a good first date,
even though people always say dinner movie. But you want
to do things that you know. Try a totally new restaurant,
try an activity, try a concert. Try You and I
were talking about comedy shows. It's something that makes you
you want to try something that can kind of get
(33:15):
your physiology pumping. That's exciting, and it just a little
bit of a shock is a good thing.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
And this is also good advice for people in long
term monogamy to add a little bit of novelty to
their marriages. Oh yeah, do something fun and exciting, get
out of the house.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah exactly. Well, you and I were talking, not on
the show, but we were talking about the importance of
date night. So it's long in our long term relationships
and doing things that are new, Trying that new restaurant,
trying that new game place in town. That's really helpful.
We know that in long term relationships that sort of
stuff helps keep the embers of passion going.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Even just the fact that you're seeing your partner in
a new schema, in a new setting, in a new
light just can help. And I told that to my
now husband ju Leo when we were dating, about the
novelty effect, and he has made it like his primary
thing to show up with tickets to weird things or
a museum to see or whatever.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
He goes.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Let's do this. This is different. We need novelty. He'll
say we need novelty. I'm like, okay, yes, right before
we go, I want us to talk just briefly about
how important love is for our mental and physical health.
What can you share with us based in the research?
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh? Sure, thank you, and I think it's I think
one of the goals that I had when I wrote
The Intimate Animal was really getting folks to think about
the science of love and connection and our relationships, because
the more we learn, the more we understand how important
they are for our psychological well being, our longevity, our
(34:51):
physical health. That these relationships, and even if they don't
last over but these partnerships are so critical, and there's
a lot of different studies that show this. Some of
them have been challenged. There's been research asking methodological questions
that classically we know that people who are in long
term relationships live longer, they manage disease better. You can
(35:14):
think if you have a chronic condition and your partner
remembering to put your pills out every morning, that those
people tend to live, they live longer, they respond better.
And all the breast cancer studies.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Why is there good at doing those mole checks?
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah right, I'll do body checks I'm here, and we know,
like in breast cancer studies it'spausal support. It's one of
the biggest particular of survivorships, and so there's a lot.
There were also these wonderful studies done by a scientist
ky coche laser, and what they found was that oxytocin,
that cuddle hormone that's involved and positive relationships, is actually
(35:50):
associated with wound healing. And so some scientists are starting
to talk about oxytocin as really being a part of
the immune system, how it functions in our body. Positive
oxyers and your body response to wounds healer, you get,
you deal with illness better. So people sort of jokingly
say love is the best medicine. It's not just a joke.
(36:11):
It's in the data. It's physiological share.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
I have to share something personal and anecdotal. So my husband, Julio,
had prostate cancer and they were it was at the
stage of actively monitoring MRIs biopsies, blood work, watching the
PSA and we got married. He's a big, big, big cuddler,
more than I am, no less, he's some cuddler, cuddler
(36:36):
cuddler at all times. We can't even watch TV unless
our legs are wrapped around each other. And his last
biopsy came out cancer free, gone, just disappeared love, So
maybe that's why. Of course the doctor said, well, maybe
you have a cancer fighting gene. I'm going to go
with happy marriage.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
That's right, he's had a cancer fighting more and more.
That power, it's it's it's not you know, woo woo
uh thinking. It's actually it's based on real scientific evidence
of the power to ramp up our immune functions. And
you guys keep calling, keep wrapping those legs around together,
(37:15):
and you'll be doing it for decades.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Exactly. Well, doctor Justin Garcia, thank you so much for
joining the show. It is always a pleasure. Now, you
promised me that when your book comes out, we're going
to do some videos for social media, so people.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Can watch out for that.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
If you follow me on my social you'll see doctor
Justin and I giving all the secrets from his book.
In the meantime, I encourage every listener to go online.
I'm sure it's available everywhere, but we can say that
Amazon word the Intimate Animal is the name of the book,
The Intimate Animal. The subtitle The Science of Sex, Fidelity
and Why We Live and Die for Love comes out
(37:53):
in January. Pre order it now. I'm going to pre
order it myself, did you know, doctor Justin. It's important
that because people listen on the iHeartRadio app all over
the country to this, that the algorithm notices when the
sales are from different zip codes, so it's not to
keep you and your friends and family in one zip
code from over ordering to try to trick it. So
(38:14):
they like to see. So if you're if you're not
in Los Angeles or Indiana, make sure you order the book.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Thank you everyone.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Always a pleasure to have.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
You than you've.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear
us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to
nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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