December 1, 2025 • 45 mins
Dr. Wendy is talking to the director of the Kinsey Institute, Dr. Justin Garcia, about relationships today and his new book, The Intimate Animal The Science of Sex, Fidelity, and Why We Live and Die for Love, available for pre-order now.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know,
it's amazing that we talk so openly about sex and
love today. Although I always remind people like, I'm not
a sex therapist. I don't talk about sex. I'm not
a doctor Ruth where I'm going to give you plumbing
(00:20):
information or talk about positions or lubrication or any of
that stuff, because I'm a psychology professor. When I do
talk about sex, it's within the context of relationships, you know, frequency, neurochemistry,
the bonding effects of having sex, et cetera. So, but
(00:45):
we live in a time and a culture where it's
okay to be open and talk about your sexual desires,
your fantasies, your sexual identity, your orientation. Right, you know,
not so long ago, it was not okay to even
say the word pregnant on television. One of my favorite
shows when I was little was a Dick Van Dyke show,
and you remember he and his wife slept in twin
(01:07):
beds on TV. They couldn't even show them getting into
bed together in the nineteen sixties. And I want a
credit A man named Alfred Kinsey to the openness that
we have today. Really beginning back in the nineteen forties,
he was the first person to really look America straight
(01:27):
in the eye and say, hey, everybody, let's stop moralizing
here and start measuring. I mean he started to collect data.
Before Kinsey did his work, there were assumptions people had
shame around things, secrets, and there was a complete lack
of data. A little background if you don't know who
(01:48):
Alfred Kinsey was. He grew up in New Jersey, Hoboken,
New Jersey, and he happened to have come from a
very strict religious and it's reported emotionally restrained household. His
father was a devout Methodist minister and later a professor.
He supposedly ruled the home with rigid moral expectations. So
(02:10):
picture this. Here's this little boy with all these questions
and hormones that are going and you can't even talk
about these things. His mother was known to be deeply
submissive to her husband, so he grew up in really
hard traditional gender roles. He also was a very shy
and often sick child. He suffered from scoliosis and he
(02:34):
spent long periods alone thinking, right, this pushed him into
nature and the woods, and Kinsey liked to collect plants insects,
So some of his biographers would say that this part
of his life was filled with sexual suppression religious control.
But then he began this lifelong obsession with trying to
(02:58):
understand human sexuality. Eventually he made it to Harvard. He's
a Harvard trained biologist. He began his career studying nature
gall wasps actually tiny insects. He collected tens of thousands
of them. I was watching an interview. I don't know
if you've seen the Netflix interview with Jane Goodall that's
I think it's called Famous Last Words, where they interviewed
(03:19):
her before her death and promised her that this would
not be put out until after she passed away. And
she was talking about there's nature everywhere. She just used
a cute little story about being at an airport and
people walking by with their suitcases whatever, and not even
seeing that there's a courting ritual going on between these
two insects and one male was trying to pick up
this crumb off the floor to entice the female their
(03:42):
version of dating, right, And she said, it's everywhere, it's everywhere, right. Well,
Kinsey eventually turned sex from a taboo into a scientific
question his famous study nineteen forty eight Sexual Behavior in
the Human in Male. Before that, there were zero large
(04:03):
scale data sets on sexual behavior. So he went out
and just asked people questions. But he not only asked
them questions about their sexual behavior, but he asked them
questions about their sexual fantasies. You know. He was One
of the many things he came up with in the
area of sexuality was this idea of the Kinsey scale,
a scale of sexual orientation where at one end of
(04:26):
the scale you're one hundred percent homosexual, both in behavior
and fantasies. But he found something else. He found that
people could be one hundred percent heterosexual in behavior, but
they're fantasies were almost always homosexual. Again, the repression at
the time people unable to be authentic and who they were.
(04:47):
And he also found that it's a wide scale and
that most of us Kinsey scale is from a one
to a six. A vast majority of us are more
like a three. We're somewhere. It's a sliding scale, right,
he found, and that despite what people thought, there were
lots of rates of sex outside of marriage. He found
that same sex behavior was far more common than people thought,
(05:10):
that there was a whole diversity in desire and fantasy,
and that women who were thought to be very asexual
and performative, that women had rich, varied sexual experiences.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Eventually, the Kinsey Institute evolved into cutting edge global research.
Right today, the Kinsey, the world famous Kinsey Institute is
under the leadership of doctor Justin Garcia. Now it's not
just about sex. Right now, they study not just lust
(05:46):
but love. The best research on attachment and pair bonding
comes out of the Kinsey Institute, Dating and dating, app behavior,
sexual health across the lifespan, gender and identity, evolutionary psychology
of mating. That's the area I'm so fascinated with. The
neuroscience of desire. The Kinsey Institute basically looks at love,
(06:11):
intimacy and relationship structure, and they collaborate with global labs
around the world. Right and they use all kinds of
scientific neuroimaging, et cetera to test our most intimate relationships. Now,
I would be remiss if I didn't say that. There
had been some controversy around Alfred Kinsey. Later critics accused
(06:34):
him of using some data that came from like some
questionable secondary sources that included reports of sexual behavior in minors.
And you know we don't like that, right, anybody studying miners.
So the Institute strongly denied these claims and emphasized that
(06:55):
Kinsey himself never conducted or condoned to any research on children.
But you know they're this scandal. I'll say this, Alfred
Kinsey's work paved the way for modern sex therapy, LGBTQ
research and education around consent. Everything that came later, from
Masters and Johnson to modern sex therapy, to public health campaigns,
(07:15):
to research on sexual orientation and gender, all of this
really sits on the foundation that Kinsey built. It's a
new era now, it's an era of relationship science, and
it's something that I am absolutely obsessed with. So that's
(07:35):
why I'm so excited to tell you that. Coming up
is my four part interview with doctor Justin Garcia, the head,
the leader of today's modern Kinsey Institute. He has a
new book coming out, The Intimate Animal, The Science of Sex,
Fidelity and Why We Live and Die for Love. I promised,
(08:01):
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 say it wrong? Is it the University of
Indiana or Indiana University? I always everyone, I always mix
(08:21):
it up so everyone knows. 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
(08:44):
I just talked about the history of the Kinsey Institute.
Can you just give us a snapshot of where the
Kinsey Institute is now, like what current things you guys
are studying and working on.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
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,
(09:19):
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 (09:37):
So it was less frequent, but it was a little
more frisky.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
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 COVID, which I
think is also tells us a lot about psychology, 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.
(10:03):
For instance, we saw quite a number of people said,
I never talked to my partner about a sexual fantasy
until 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,
(10:23):
my husband and I started having shower sex during a pandemic.
And I said, oh, is it You're trying something new
and she said no, it's the only time we get
five minutes alone, right because we can't right exactly exactly.
So there was some of that, but it was it
was for a lot of people, it this moment forced
them to have conversations with partners they had never had.
In one of our studies, we found over eighty percent
(10:44):
of marriages did better during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So I would think so, I mean I would think so,
especially because with uh, you know, with both partners being home.
I think men witnessed and women saw for sure. I've
always known about it, that 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
(11:08):
that was really good for marriages. I mean, it was stressful,
especially with small kids. People were small kids that I
couldn't imagine, could 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,
(11:31):
doctor justin Garcia, that this idea of a traditional family
where I hate that word traditional, where two people. 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
(11:52):
biologically connected to both of those partners. That's actually pretty rare, right,
What is more natural for human beings across the lifespan.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
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
(12:24):
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 this sort of quote unquote traditional playbook, that there's
often a lot of family involved, there's can involve, there's
a community, it can happen multiple times throughout the life course.
(12:47):
But at its core, 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, 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.
(13:10):
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,
(13:30):
or in cases of open relationships, how do you navigate
your primary partnership in that. So for me, that's really
at its core, the evolution of pair bonding that explains
so much.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Our are very long lifespans, I teach developmental psychology. 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 some has
been married twenty years. I wouldn't call out a failure
like that success exactly. I love.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I always love when you say that, and it reminds me.
Margaret Mead also used to say, I remember a journalists,
Margaret Meade, one 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
(14:27):
rethink that that you can have a wonderful relationship, last thing,
forever shouldn't be the measure of success in a relationship, right.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Duration shouldn't be the litmus test, especially if you're white
knuckling it through right.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
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 once asked her, uh, why
did you you know you talk about parenting and maternal
nature and why did you never have children? And she
deadpan looked at them. And so, because I know too.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Much, it's a different challenge.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I happen to know that you are a 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.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Was Yeah, and you know, you could read so many
books and then something about the flood of sort of
hormones and everything that happens. I mean, our world has
one sensor and it's our little baby boy. And and
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
(15:40):
deeply evolved bond. It's such a such a stressful time
when you have an infant, that it was a mother
in nature's way of protecting the family, that you really
have to be in love with your partner to stick
through them. In the first month after postpartum, I mean,
it's just so intense. Yeah, And it's and I I
(16:00):
had a new appreciation for the evolutionary science, and I said, oh,
thank god, we've got this intense pair of bond because
we'll navigate this thing. We did and now we're sleeping
more and baby sleeping 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,
(16:24):
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,
(16:45):
we can weather uncertainty with a partner, with a co
pilot and get through it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
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 reallylationship?
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
(17:10):
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.
(17:33):
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 going to be reading it
in my sleep tonight at 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
(17:53):
order it now, is called The Intimate Animal, Doctor Garcia,
Can we talk about what's going on with our life lives?
Is marriage continuing to be on a decline? And if so, why?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah? Oh gosh, there's so much to say here. And
one of the things that's interesting is we're 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
(18:29):
we're seeing a new generation of people for being much
more cautious. Are you're my mutual friend, the late 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 relationships.
(18:51):
They hang out for a long periods of time, they're
kind of maybe seeing each other, there may be dating,
then their boyfriend girlfriend, then 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 (19:13):
In fact, I read somewhere that in nineteen fifty the
average time frame between meeting and marrying was six months.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
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
(19:40):
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 their sort of
guarding their hearts that from the challenges of relationships. So
I don't think I just did. I don't think long
(20:01):
term relationships 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,
(20:23):
and it's shifting in the context that 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. Wow,
so changing landscapes.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
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
Perell would say that we are asking too much of
(20:58):
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 (21:17):
I think we are. I agree. Academics call this the
suffocation model of marriage, and it's in the 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 as you're vomiting one night,
(21:37):
and then in 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
(21:58):
partners to sort of 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 and.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
The extended family. We've moved away from our relatives.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Exactly, especially folks like us. Right we were tied to
universities or academics, We have careers. You moved to the
other side of the country, the other side of the world,
so 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
(22:37):
you have developed those really intense spots. You know, you're
married for five years, you can expect a little bit
more from your partner, not when you're dating for a
few months.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And even 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
(23:07):
to just go meet a neighbor and talk to them.
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.
(23:32):
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
(23:54):
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 poorting on the way to romance.
(24:14):
Let's talk about the rise of situationships and also what
women can do.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah. I love this, and I think it's so complicated,
it's so real for so many people. Right, 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
(24:41):
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 real doing it. And
that's true for men and women. I think we often
(25:02):
think 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 (25:09):
And what do you think people can do? I 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 (25:19):
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 and you can't take anything less. And I
actually think we that that narrative about not settling for
anything has done a bit of harm for a lot
(25:40):
of people. 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 a data CEO. Okay, there's only
so many of them, But what about this idea that
you started relationship and together you make a CEO out
(26:02):
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. There's too many people, I think,
struggling with this fantasy of, you know, the CEOs 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,
(26:25):
exciting place to experience that together. I think we're a
little too focused on this idea of I'm not settling,
I'm not settling. We know that healthy relationships are about
compromise and creating things together, and I've.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Always said that we're tod I've always said that what
two people can accomplish together is so much greater than
what one person can accomplish along. 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. My
guest doctor Justin Garcia, director of the famed Kinsey INSTITUTIONE.
(27:00):
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 (27:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (27:10):
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 disagreed.
So let's talk about these open relationships.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I know, and I loved that video, and it was
amazing to watch how many people I big thoughts on
this and have a lot of them feelings. And I
think it's because it challenges so much of our ideas
that our relationship should be or could be. And for
a lot of people we're asking questions, they're like, well,
could I ever open my relationship or what would be
the challenges? Who would it benefit, how would it work?
(27:51):
And we 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 at about one in five Americans have at
some point had some version of an open relationship.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Really like honestly, I'm going out on a date, honey,
I'll be back later, hold dinner for me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
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 others 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 it
(28:31):
looked like. But what we found was that although one
in five have 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 (28:49):
So it doesn't last long, right, it's all fun and games,
So somebody gets hurt.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
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 psychologist, you know, the
center than anyone, doctor Wallas, 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
(29:17):
to have multiple relationships, but for most people it's really challenging.
It's really challenging to try to have more than one
intense bond 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
(29:38):
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
(29:58):
by Aiming a 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 not like
(30:20):
everyone is in It might feel that way, but not
everyone is in an open relationship right now because they
come with different challenges.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Well, yes, like one of them being that when women
have sex they often emit a lot of oxytocin and
start to bond and you don't. They accidentally can fall
in love even if they mean to just play right.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, And we found them and you and I talked
about this and 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 sets with
the hopes that it would turn into a romantic relationship,
and sometimes the sexual activity itself, Like you always say,
(30:57):
give us that physiological response that initiates bonding, so that
that casual sex isn't always that casual. There's physiological strings
that can be attached.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
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 till death do us power. But let
me tell you, I have had callers listeners on the
(31:29):
show who our grieving widows and widowers and it's 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 (31:46):
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, those bonds
are so intense. We're wired for these intense connections with
another person that mother nature takes their ping on the
(32:07):
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 having
relationships because of that. And that to me is a
(32:30):
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 at what happens after that rejection, the brain looks
remarkably like someone going through cocaine withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Wow, it is like a drug addiction.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, oh yeah, and you feel physical pain. So when
we hear people say that after a breakoup that they
are exhausted, they're emotional, they're and pain, the parts of
the brain associate with physical pain are activated. And so
it's because you're tearing a part in attachment bond and
you're taking away this dopeapinergic thing the partner from someone
(33:19):
and it's so challenging, and the way we socially deal
with it will tell people, Okay, get back on the horse,
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 is because
you can retrigger that response, but the sort of pleasure
response finding your partners. But I think we don't do
a good job of greeting relationship law.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I remember I have 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
(34:03):
I said, I took the time. You know, I 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 lost. 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 aren't
(34:25):
They 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 (34:35):
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. Different thing. Yeah,
feeling that that draw, but then knowing like can this
really works? That's one of the hardest lessons many of
(34:57):
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 that love. Often we think of
addiction as negative things, as problems, and they often are,
but love is a somewhat positive version of that. It's
(35:19):
a positive, really falance that you you have craving for
the other, you have obsessive thinking about your partner, all
these characteristics, but it's often in a more positive LFE.
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, you know, you wouldn't show an
(35:40):
addict pictures of their you know, drug paraphernalia. They 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 scar.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
We're so following them online and we're going to the
same gym, the same dry cleaners. I'm like, change coffee shops,
change gyms. Just move away, even if they're friends that
you have in common, just see them less because you
don't want news about.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Your exactly exactly. Hey, we have to we.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Have to 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 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.
(36:29):
You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app 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
(36:49):
Justin Garcia and 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 few trips that you can use on first
dates to impress your dates, like right now. I've been
(37:10):
asked a lot about this one, the misattribution of arousal.
It's a fun one. I don't know that it works
for long term relationship, but it can certainly get them
attached to you. Can you explain it?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
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
(37:43):
a bridge, a bridge structure, a very.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Scary suspension bridge that's half a mile high in Vancouver.
I've been on it. It's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
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
(38:11):
men cross the bridge, there would be an exchange 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,
(38:34):
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, but.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
We confuse the beating heart of fear with the beating heart.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Of love exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
And the advice to single people is, you know, go
on some go kart rides, bungie 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 (39:10):
You're with, exactly. But we also have 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 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
(39:33):
like the building's on fire.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
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, I'm not safe
with this person.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
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 toucazelnating in front of a lion
in the natural world. And when we're in too much
of a fear response, totally shut down meeting psychology, You
shut down any interest and love sex connection because you
just want to get out of it. So you find
(40:07):
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 in a 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
(40:28):
your physiology pumping. That's exciting and it's just a little
bit of a shock. Is a good thing.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
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 so fun and exciting, get
out of the house.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
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 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 (41:04):
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 hu 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. He goes, let's do this,
this is different. We need novelty, He'll say, we need novelty.
(41:26):
I'm like, okay, yes, 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 (41:42):
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
(42:04):
physical health. That these relationships, and even if they don't
last forever, 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
(42:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Studies, why at doing those mole checks.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, that's right, I'll do body checks. I'm here and
we know, like in breast cancer studies, espousal support is
one of the biggest particular of survivorships, and so there's
a lot. There were also these wonderful studies done by
a scientist ky Coch Glazier, and what they found was
that oxytocin, that cuddle hormone that's involved in and positive relationships,
(43:03):
is actually 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 oxytas in your body responds 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.
(43:25):
It's in the data. It's physiological share.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
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
(43:49):
cudler 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.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Love it so abe.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
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 (44:08):
That's right, He's have a cancer fighting spouse. Listen, and
we're understanding more and more that power. It's it's not
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 lights around together, and you'll be doing
(44:29):
it for decades.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
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 can
watch out for that. 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
(44:51):
listener to go online. I'm sure it's available everywhere, but
we can say that Amazon word. Uh, the Intimate Animal
is the name of the book, The Animal. The subtitle
The Science of Sex, Fidelity and Why We Live and
Die for Love comes out 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
(45:13):
iHeartRadio app all over the country to this, that the
algorithm notices when the sales are from different zip codes.
So it's that to keep you and your friends and
family in one zip code from overordering to try to
trick it so 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 (45:33):
Thank you everyone, always.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
A pleasure to have you. You you have been listening
to The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six
point forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, go the
twenty four hour KFI Newsroom
Welcome back to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know,
it's amazing that we talk so openly about sex and
love today. Although I always remind people like, I'm not
a sex therapist. I don't talk about sex. I'm not
a doctor Ruth where I'm going to give you plumbing
(00:20):
information or talk about positions or lubrication or any of
that stuff, because I'm a psychology professor. When I do
talk about sex, it's within the context of relationships, you know, frequency, neurochemistry,
the bonding effects of having sex, et cetera. So, but
(00:45):
we live in a time and a culture where it's
okay to be open and talk about your sexual desires,
your fantasies, your sexual identity, your orientation. Right, you know,
not so long ago, it was not okay to even
say the word pregnant on television. One of my favorite
shows when I was little was a Dick Van Dyke show,
and you remember he and his wife slept in twin
(01:07):
beds on TV. They couldn't even show them getting into
bed together in the nineteen sixties. And I want a
credit A man named Alfred Kinsey to the openness that
we have today. Really beginning back in the nineteen forties,
he was the first person to really look America straight
(01:27):
in the eye and say, hey, everybody, let's stop moralizing
here and start measuring. I mean he started to collect data.
Before Kinsey did his work, there were assumptions people had
shame around things, secrets, and there was a complete lack
of data. A little background if you don't know who
(01:48):
Alfred Kinsey was. He grew up in New Jersey, Hoboken,
New Jersey, and he happened to have come from a
very strict religious and it's reported emotionally restrained household. His
father was a devout Methodist minister and later a professor.
He supposedly ruled the home with rigid moral expectations. So
(02:10):
picture this. Here's this little boy with all these questions
and hormones that are going and you can't even talk
about these things. His mother was known to be deeply
submissive to her husband, so he grew up in really
hard traditional gender roles. He also was a very shy
and often sick child. He suffered from scoliosis and he
(02:34):
spent long periods alone thinking, right, this pushed him into
nature and the woods, and Kinsey liked to collect plants insects,
So some of his biographers would say that this part
of his life was filled with sexual suppression religious control.
But then he began this lifelong obsession with trying to
(02:58):
understand human sexuality. Eventually he made it to Harvard. He's
a Harvard trained biologist. He began his career studying nature
gall wasps actually tiny insects. He collected tens of thousands
of them. I was watching an interview. I don't know
if you've seen the Netflix interview with Jane Goodall that's
I think it's called Famous Last Words, where they interviewed
(03:19):
her before her death and promised her that this would
not be put out until after she passed away. And
she was talking about there's nature everywhere. She just used
a cute little story about being at an airport and
people walking by with their suitcases whatever, and not even
seeing that there's a courting ritual going on between these
two insects and one male was trying to pick up
this crumb off the floor to entice the female their
(03:42):
version of dating, right, And she said, it's everywhere, it's everywhere, right. Well,
Kinsey eventually turned sex from a taboo into a scientific
question his famous study nineteen forty eight Sexual Behavior in
the Human in Male. Before that, there were zero large
(04:03):
scale data sets on sexual behavior. So he went out
and just asked people questions. But he not only asked
them questions about their sexual behavior, but he asked them
questions about their sexual fantasies. You know. He was One
of the many things he came up with in the
area of sexuality was this idea of the Kinsey scale,
a scale of sexual orientation where at one end of
(04:26):
the scale you're one hundred percent homosexual, both in behavior
and fantasies. But he found something else. He found that
people could be one hundred percent heterosexual in behavior, but
they're fantasies were almost always homosexual. Again, the repression at
the time people unable to be authentic and who they were.
(04:47):
And he also found that it's a wide scale and
that most of us Kinsey scale is from a one
to a six. A vast majority of us are more
like a three. We're somewhere. It's a sliding scale, right,
he found, and that despite what people thought, there were
lots of rates of sex outside of marriage. He found
that same sex behavior was far more common than people thought,
(05:10):
that there was a whole diversity in desire and fantasy,
and that women who were thought to be very asexual
and performative, that women had rich, varied sexual experiences.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Eventually, the Kinsey Institute evolved into cutting edge global research.
Right today, the Kinsey, the world famous Kinsey Institute is
under the leadership of doctor Justin Garcia. Now it's not
just about sex. Right now, they study not just lust
(05:46):
but love. The best research on attachment and pair bonding
comes out of the Kinsey Institute, Dating and dating, app behavior,
sexual health across the lifespan, gender and identity, evolutionary psychology
of mating. That's the area I'm so fascinated with. The
neuroscience of desire. The Kinsey Institute basically looks at love,
(06:11):
intimacy and relationship structure, and they collaborate with global labs
around the world. Right and they use all kinds of
scientific neuroimaging, et cetera to test our most intimate relationships. Now,
I would be remiss if I didn't say that. There
had been some controversy around Alfred Kinsey. Later critics accused
(06:34):
him of using some data that came from like some
questionable secondary sources that included reports of sexual behavior in minors.
And you know we don't like that, right, anybody studying miners.
So the Institute strongly denied these claims and emphasized that
(06:55):
Kinsey himself never conducted or condoned to any research on children.
But you know they're this scandal. I'll say this, Alfred
Kinsey's work paved the way for modern sex therapy, LGBTQ
research and education around consent. Everything that came later, from
Masters and Johnson to modern sex therapy, to public health campaigns,
(07:15):
to research on sexual orientation and gender, all of this
really sits on the foundation that Kinsey built. It's a
new era now, it's an era of relationship science, and
it's something that I am absolutely obsessed with. So that's
(07:35):
why I'm so excited to tell you that. Coming up
is my four part interview with doctor Justin Garcia, the head,
the leader of today's modern Kinsey Institute. He has a
new book coming out, The Intimate Animal, The Science of Sex,
Fidelity and Why We Live and Die for Love. I promised,
(08:01):
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 say it wrong? Is it the University of
Indiana or Indiana University? I always everyone, I always mix
(08:21):
it up so everyone knows. 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
(08:44):
I just talked about the history of the Kinsey Institute.
Can you just give us a snapshot of where the
Kinsey Institute is now, like what current things you guys
are studying and working on.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
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,
(09:19):
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 (09:37):
So it was less frequent, but it was a little
more frisky.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
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 COVID, which I
think is also tells us a lot about psychology, 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.
(10:03):
For instance, we saw quite a number of people said,
I never talked to my partner about a sexual fantasy
until 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,
(10:23):
my husband and I started having shower sex during a pandemic.
And I said, oh, is it You're trying something new
and she said no, it's the only time we get
five minutes alone, right because we can't right exactly exactly.
So there was some of that, but it was it
was for a lot of people, it this moment forced
them to have conversations with partners they had never had.
In one of our studies, we found over eighty percent
(10:44):
of marriages did better during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So I would think so, I mean I would think so,
especially because with uh, you know, with both partners being home.
I think men witnessed and women saw for sure. I've
always known about it, that 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
(11:08):
that was really good for marriages. I mean, it was stressful,
especially with small kids. People were small kids that I
couldn't imagine, could 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,
(11:31):
doctor justin Garcia, that this idea of a traditional family
where I hate that word traditional, where two people. 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
(11:52):
biologically connected to both of those partners. That's actually pretty rare, right,
What is more natural for human beings across the lifespan.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
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
(12:24):
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 this sort of quote unquote traditional playbook, that there's
often a lot of family involved, there's can involve, there's
a community, it can happen multiple times throughout the life course.
(12:47):
But at its core, 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, 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.
(13:10):
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,
(13:30):
or in cases of open relationships, how do you navigate
your primary partnership in that. So for me, that's really
at its core, the evolution of pair bonding that explains
so much.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Our are very long lifespans, I teach developmental psychology. 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 some has
been married twenty years. I wouldn't call out a failure
like that success exactly. I love.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I always love when you say that, and it reminds me.
Margaret Mead also used to say, I remember a journalists,
Margaret Meade, one 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
(14:27):
rethink that that you can have a wonderful relationship, last thing,
forever shouldn't be the measure of success in a relationship, right.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Duration shouldn't be the litmus test, especially if you're white
knuckling it through right.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
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 once asked her, uh, why
did you you know you talk about parenting and maternal
nature and why did you never have children? And she
deadpan looked at them. And so, because I know too.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Much, it's a different challenge.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I happen to know that you are a 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.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Was Yeah, and you know, you could read so many
books and then something about the flood of sort of
hormones and everything that happens. I mean, our world has
one sensor and it's our little baby boy. And and
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
(15:40):
deeply evolved bond. It's such a such a stressful time
when you have an infant, that it was a mother
in nature's way of protecting the family, that you really
have to be in love with your partner to stick
through them. In the first month after postpartum, I mean,
it's just so intense. Yeah, And it's and I I
(16:00):
had a new appreciation for the evolutionary science, and I said, oh,
thank god, we've got this intense pair of bond because
we'll navigate this thing. We did and now we're sleeping
more and baby sleeping 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,
(16:24):
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,
(16:45):
we can weather uncertainty with a partner, with a co
pilot and get through it.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
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 reallylationship?
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
(17:10):
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.
(17:33):
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 going to be reading it
in my sleep tonight at 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
(17:53):
order it now, is called The Intimate Animal, Doctor Garcia,
Can we talk about what's going on with our life lives?
Is marriage continuing to be on a decline? And if so, why?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah? Oh gosh, there's so much to say here. And
one of the things that's interesting is we're 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
(18:29):
we're seeing a new generation of people for being much
more cautious. Are you're my mutual friend, the late 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 relationships.
(18:51):
They hang out for a long periods of time, they're
kind of maybe seeing each other, there may be dating,
then their boyfriend girlfriend, then 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 (19:13):
In fact, I read somewhere that in nineteen fifty the
average time frame between meeting and marrying was six months.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
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
(19:40):
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 their sort of
guarding their hearts that from the challenges of relationships. So
I don't think I just did. I don't think long
(20:01):
term relationships 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,
(20:23):
and it's shifting in the context that 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. Wow,
so changing landscapes.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
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
Perell would say that we are asking too much of
(20:58):
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 (21:17):
I think we are. I agree. Academics call this the
suffocation model of marriage, and it's in the 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 as you're vomiting one night,
(21:37):
and then in 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
(21:58):
partners to sort of 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 and.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
The extended family. We've moved away from our relatives.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Exactly, especially folks like us. Right we were tied to
universities or academics, We have careers. You moved to the
other side of the country, the other side of the world,
so 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
(22:37):
you have developed those really intense spots. You know, you're
married for five years, you can expect a little bit
more from your partner, not when you're dating for a
few months.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And even 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
(23:07):
to just go meet a neighbor and talk to them.
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.
(23:32):
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
(23:54):
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 poorting on the way to romance.
(24:14):
Let's talk about the rise of situationships and also what
women can do.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah. I love this, and I think it's so complicated,
it's so real for so many people. Right, 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
(24:41):
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 real doing it. And
that's true for men and women. I think we often
(25:02):
think 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 (25:09):
And what do you think people can do? I 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 (25:19):
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 and you can't take anything less. And I
actually think we that that narrative about not settling for
anything has done a bit of harm for a lot
(25:40):
of people. 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 a data CEO. Okay, there's only
so many of them, But what about this idea that
you started relationship and together you make a CEO out
(26:02):
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. There's too many people, I think,
struggling with this fantasy of, you know, the CEOs 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,
(26:25):
exciting place to experience that together. I think we're a
little too focused on this idea of I'm not settling,
I'm not settling. We know that healthy relationships are about
compromise and creating things together, and I've.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Always said that we're tod I've always said that what
two people can accomplish together is so much greater than
what one person can accomplish along. 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. My
guest doctor Justin Garcia, director of the famed Kinsey INSTITUTIONE.
(27:00):
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 (27:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (27:10):
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 disagreed.
So let's talk about these open relationships.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I know, and I loved that video, and it was
amazing to watch how many people I big thoughts on
this and have a lot of them feelings. And I
think it's because it challenges so much of our ideas
that our relationship should be or could be. And for
a lot of people we're asking questions, they're like, well,
could I ever open my relationship or what would be
the challenges? Who would it benefit, how would it work?
(27:51):
And we 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 at about one in five Americans have at
some point had some version of an open relationship.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Really like honestly, I'm going out on a date, honey,
I'll be back later, hold dinner for me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
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 others 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 it
(28:31):
looked like. But what we found was that although one
in five have 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 (28:49):
So it doesn't last long, right, it's all fun and games,
So somebody gets hurt.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
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 psychologist, you know, the
center than anyone, doctor Wallas, 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
(29:17):
to have multiple relationships, but for most people it's really challenging.
It's really challenging to try to have more than one
intense bond 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
(29:38):
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
(29:58):
by Aiming a 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 not like
(30:20):
everyone is in It might feel that way, but not
everyone is in an open relationship right now because they
come with different challenges.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Well, yes, like one of them being that when women
have sex they often emit a lot of oxytocin and
start to bond and you don't. They accidentally can fall
in love even if they mean to just play right.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, And we found them and you and I talked
about this and 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 sets with
the hopes that it would turn into a romantic relationship,
and sometimes the sexual activity itself, Like you always say,
(30:57):
give us that physiological response that initiates bonding, so that
that casual sex isn't always that casual. There's physiological strings
that can be attached.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
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 till death do us power. But let
me tell you, I have had callers listeners on the
(31:29):
show who our grieving widows and widowers and it's 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 (31:46):
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, those bonds
are so intense. We're wired for these intense connections with
another person that mother nature takes their ping on the
(32:07):
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 having
relationships because of that. And that to me is a
(32:30):
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 at what happens after that rejection, the brain looks
remarkably like someone going through cocaine withdrawal.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Wow, it is like a drug addiction.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, oh yeah, and you feel physical pain. So when
we hear people say that after a breakoup that they
are exhausted, they're emotional, they're and pain, the parts of
the brain associate with physical pain are activated. And so
it's because you're tearing a part in attachment bond and
you're taking away this dopeapinergic thing the partner from someone
(33:19):
and it's so challenging, and the way we socially deal
with it will tell people, Okay, get back on the horse,
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 is because
you can retrigger that response, but the sort of pleasure
response finding your partners. But I think we don't do
a good job of greeting relationship law.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I remember I have 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
(34:03):
I said, I took the time. You know, I 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 lost. 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 aren't
(34:25):
They 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 (34:35):
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. Different thing. Yeah,
feeling that that draw, but then knowing like can this
really works? That's one of the hardest lessons many of
(34:57):
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 that love. Often we think of
addiction as negative things, as problems, and they often are,
but love is a somewhat positive version of that. It's
(35:19):
a positive, really falance that you you have craving for
the other, you have obsessive thinking about your partner, all
these characteristics, but it's often in a more positive LFE.
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, you know, you wouldn't show an
(35:40):
addict pictures of their you know, drug paraphernalia. They 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 scar.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
We're so following them online and we're going to the
same gym, the same dry cleaners. I'm like, change coffee shops,
change gyms. Just move away, even if they're friends that
you have in common, just see them less because you
don't want news about.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Your exactly exactly. Hey, we have to we.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
Have to 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 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.
(36:29):
You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on
KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app 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
(36:49):
Justin Garcia and 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 few trips that you can use on first
dates to impress your dates, like right now. I've been
(37:10):
asked a lot about this one, the misattribution of arousal.
It's a fun one. I don't know that it works
for long term relationship, but it can certainly get them
attached to you. Can you explain it?
Speaker 2 (37:22):
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
(37:43):
a bridge, a bridge structure, a very.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Scary suspension bridge that's half a mile high in Vancouver.
I've been on it. It's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
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
(38:11):
men cross the bridge, there would be an exchange 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,
(38:34):
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, but.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
We confuse the beating heart of fear with the beating heart.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Of love exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
And the advice to single people is, you know, go
on some go kart rides, bungie 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 (39:10):
You're with, exactly. But we also have 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 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
(39:33):
like the building's on fire.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
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, I'm not safe
with this person.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
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 toucazelnating in front of a lion
in the natural world. And when we're in too much
of a fear response, totally shut down meeting psychology, You
shut down any interest and love sex connection because you
just want to get out of it. So you find
(40:07):
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 in a 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
(40:28):
your physiology pumping. That's exciting and it's just a little
bit of a shock. Is a good thing.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
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 so fun and exciting, get
out of the house.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
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 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 (41:04):
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 hu 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. He goes, let's do this,
this is different. We need novelty, He'll say, we need novelty.
(41:26):
I'm like, okay, yes, 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 (41:42):
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
(42:04):
physical health. That these relationships, and even if they don't
last forever, 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
(42:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Studies, why at doing those mole checks.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, that's right, I'll do body checks. I'm here and
we know, like in breast cancer studies, espousal support is
one of the biggest particular of survivorships, and so there's
a lot. There were also these wonderful studies done by
a scientist ky Coch Glazier, and what they found was
that oxytocin, that cuddle hormone that's involved in and positive relationships,
(43:03):
is actually 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 oxytas in your body responds 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.
(43:25):
It's in the data. It's physiological share.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
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
(43:49):
cudler 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.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Love it so abe.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
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 (44:08):
That's right, He's have a cancer fighting spouse. Listen, and
we're understanding more and more that power. It's it's not
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 lights around together, and you'll be doing
(44:29):
it for decades.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
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 can
watch out for that. 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
(44:51):
listener to go online. I'm sure it's available everywhere, but
we can say that Amazon word. Uh, the Intimate Animal
is the name of the book, The Animal. The subtitle
The Science of Sex, Fidelity and Why We Live and
Die for Love comes out 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
(45:13):
iHeartRadio app all over the country to this, that the
algorithm notices when the sales are from different zip codes.
So it's that to keep you and your friends and
family in one zip code from overordering to try to
trick it so 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 (45:33):
Thank you everyone, always.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
A pleasure to have you. You you have been listening
to The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six
point forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, go the
twenty four hour KFI Newsroom
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