In Bed With Alexa: Have Better Sex

Are our dating standards keeping us single? Are we too quick to label people toxic, narcissistic, or full of red flags? Sexologist Alexa Andre (@sexwithalexa) gets in bed with sex therapist and author Todd Baratz for a conversation about modern dating, sex, intimacy, relationship anxiety, and why finding a healthy relationship might require us to rethink everything we’ve been taught about love.

Does a healthy relationship mean never having doubts or never going to bed angry? Todd challenges popular relationship advice and explains why real connection requires vulnerability, curiosity, discomfort, and the willingness to do the work.

Topics discussed:
• Modern dating and disconnection: How social media and wider cultural changes influence connection, intimacy, and the way we relate to each other.
• Vulnerability and emotional intimacy: Why opening up feels so difficult, how our defenses protect us from rejection, and why emotional closeness requires ongoing self-work.
• Dating standards and the search for the perfect partner: How unrealistic expectations and the pursuit of an ideal relationship can shrink your dating pool.
• Red flags, dealbreakers, and dating anxiety: Whether political differences, wanting children, lifestyle preferences, and other incompatibilities should determine who gets a chance.
• Entitlement, self-worth, and reciprocity: What we deserve in relationships and why healthy relationships require collaboration rather than one-sided demands.
• Couples therapy and emotional labor: What happens when one partner is ready to work on the relationship and the other resists.
• Relationship doubts and the fear of commitment: Why doubt is a normal part of making choices and why you don't need to feel 100% certain about your partner.
• Closure and heartbreak: Whether closure is necessary to heal, how to process grief without someone else's apology, and why the popular advice “if they wanted to, they would” can create more disconnection.
• Why the right relationship can trigger you: How intimacy brings unresolved childhood wounds to the surface, why the real question is how partners respond to conflict, and how repair and emotional safety distinguish a challenging relationship from a harmful one.
• Therapy speak and performative healing: Why words like “boundaries,” “attachment,” “triggered,” “holding space,” and “narcissist” can lose their meaning when they're used to avoid vulnerability rather than create genuine connection.
• Trauma, anxiety, and self-awareness: Why understanding your history is not the same as feeling and processing it, why we may need to worry less, and how to stop turning every difficult experience into an intellectual exercise.
• Therapy, self-help, and doing the work: Why practical steps such as therapy, books, and relationship resources can help us grow, and why insight alone doesn't automatically change our behavior.
• Authenticity and being yourself: Todd's perspective on showing up as a real person rather than performing a polished therapist persona, the pressure to maintain different identities at work and in relationships, and why humor, honesty, and imperfection matter.
• Todd's personal struggles and growth: His experiences with being single, solitude, relationship challenges, heartbreak, self-care, and decades of therapy and how he handles difficult emotions without beating himself up.
• Discomfort, shame, and curiosity: Why learning to tolerate uncertainty, asking more questions, challenging rigid thinking, and becoming more open to other people can create deeper connections.

Follow Todd:Instagram: @yourdiagnonsense
Website: www.toddsbaratz.com

Follow Alexa Andre:Instagram: @sexwithalexa
Patreon: https://patreon.com/sexwithalexa
Book a call: https://www.sexwithalexa.co/book-online

Sponsor:
Thank you, Beducated, for making this exploration possible. Take their quiz to start your journey: https://beducate.me/alexa

Sexologist Alexa Andre (@sexwithalexa) gets back in bed with Carly from Read Aurore to talk about why affairs, cheating, secrecy, and other taboo desires can be so damn hot.

What makes an affair feel so passionate? Why does forbidden sex create such intense desire? And can cheating ever be understandable—or even acceptable—depending on the circumstances? Alexa and Carly get into the complicated psychology of infidelity, including why people cheat, why an affair isn't necessarily about the person being cheated on, the power of secrecy and feeling chosen, and why affairs between two people who are both in relationships can feel more equal than an affair between a partnered person and someone single.

Topic discussed:
Affairs and infidelity: why affairs happen and why they're sexually appealing
Cheating and relationship agreements
Whether you should tell someone their partner is cheating
The “what you don't know can't hurt you” debate
The ethics of being the other person in an affair
Married people cheating with single people
Why people having affairs often don't leave their primary relationships
The idea of financial compensation in an affair 
Esther Perel and The State of Affairs
Cheating in abusive or neglectful relationships
Cheating when a partner is sick or disabled
Sexual needs within long-term relationships
Sexual incompatibility
Sex workers and whether hiring one constitutes cheating
Defining what “cheating” means in a relationship
Porn as a potential form of cheating
Open relationships and the possibility of cheating within them
Public sex/public play
The thrill and risk of getting caught
Sex in semi-public places
Privacy, consent, and the ethics of public sexual behavior
Being walked in on during sex
Consensual/role-play affairs
The fantasy of secrecy without actual betrayal
Hotel rooms and sneaking around
Fear of getting caught
Feeling chosen/special through an affair
Novelty and new relationship energy

Follow Carly:Instagram: @readaurore
Website: www.readaurore.com 

Follow Alexa Andre:Instagram: @sexwithalexa
Patreon: https://patreon.com/sexwithalexa
Book a call: https://www.sexwithalexa.co/book-online

Sexologist Alexa Andre (@sexwithalexa) gets in bed with certified holistic sexuality educator and embodied intimacy & relationship coach Lauren Elise Rogers for a deeply honest conversation about sexual trauma, healing, pleasure, intimacy, consent, and reclaiming your relationship with your body.

In this episode:
Sexual trauma and sexual assault
Consent and coercion
Why sexual trauma can be underreported
Shame and sex-negative culture
Rape culture and normalizing sexual harm
Victim vs. survivor language
Why healing is not linear
Trauma, fear and helplessness
Processing an experience after it happens
Talking to a safe person after trauma
Trauma and the body
Accountability and taking responsibility
Apologies and relationship repair
Defensiveness and ego after causing harm
Listening to impact instead of defending intent
Asking curious questions
Communication and empathy
Sex educators and trauma therapists working together
Pleasure as part of healing
Reclaiming intimacy after sexual trauma
Sex after sexual assault
Pelvic-floor responses and sexual tension
Triggers and nervous-system responses
Neural pathways and creating new experiences of safety
Somatic healing and body-based responses
Shaking, movement, dancing and laughter
Orgasm and pleasure
Play as a healing modality
Trauma becoming connected to erotic arousal
Forgiveness vs. reconciliation
Boundaries after harm
Self-forgiveness
Healing within healthy relationships
Time, memory and healing
Why healing doesn't necessarily mean never being triggered
Reclaiming pleasure, agency and identity
Building a life beyond simply “surviving”

Follow Lauren:Instagram: @sex_ed_for_you
Website: www.sexedforyou.com

Follow Alexa Andre:Instagram: @sexwithalexa
Patreon: https://patreon.com/sexwithalexa
Book a call: https://www.sexwithalexa.co/book-online

Sponsor:
Thank you, Beducated, for making this exploration possible. Take their quiz to start your journey: https://beduc.at/pd2638-alexa

Sexologist Alexa Andre (@sexwithalexa) gets in bed with sex educator, event planner and author Niki Davis for a conversation about sexual shame, uncommon desires, kinks, fetishes, fantasies, self-pleasure, relationships and the psychology of arousal.

Why do so many people feel ashamed of what turns them on? Niki Davis shares what she has learned from working with people with uncommon desires and explains the difference between shame and guilt, how shame can create a spiral of negative thoughts, and why people can feel like they have a “fetish self” and a separate identity.

Topics discussed:
• Sexual shame and how to recognize it• Shame vs. guilt• Uncommon sexual desires• Kinks vs. fetishes• Sexual fantasies• How the brain influences arousal• Whether desires can change or evolve• Exposure and developing new desires• Partner acceptance and exploring a partner’s kink• Balloon fetishes (poppers vs non-poppers)• Wet floor sign fetishes• Foot fetish• Carpet fetishism and Giorgio Carpet• Vore and being swallowed fantasies• Fantasy vs. real-life sexual experiences• Threesomes as fantasy vs. reality• Scat play• Disgust and arousal• Finding community around uncommon desires• Shame spirals and negative thought loops• Identifying sexual and emotional triggers• Keeping a thought log• Exploring kinks independently• Using imagination as part of erotic experiences

Follow Niki:Instagram: @missbloomsexeducator
Website: www.nikidavisf.com

Follow Alexa Andre:Instagram: @sexwithalexa
Patreon: https://patreon.com/sexwithalexa
Book a call: https://www.sexwithalexa.co/book-online

Sexologist Alexa Andre (@sexwithalexa) gets in bed with gynecologist, sexual medicine expert, and author Dr. Maria Sophocles to talk openly about painful sex, vaginal health, sexual pleasure, menopause, low desire, and everything in between.

Topics discussed:
Why does sex hurt? How common is painful sex, and when should you see a doctor? Dr. Maria Sophocles breaks down the most common causes of sexual pain, including vaginal dryness and inadequate lubrication, lack of arousal, vaginismus and a hypertonic pelvic floor, dermatologic conditions such as lichen sclerosus, STIs including herpes, chlamydia and gonorrhea, and internal causes such as endometriosis, ovarian cysts, fibroids and scarring.
Alexa and Dr. Sophocles also get into why lubrication isn't the same thing as arousal, the importance of taking time before penetration, sexual scripting, communication with your partner, the orgasm gap, faking orgasms, low libido and desire differences, and why treating pain can sometimes bring sexual desire back.
They discuss estrogen, genitourinary syndrome of menopause, perimenopause, postpartum and breastfeeding-related changes, surgical menopause, chemotherapy, vaginal estrogen, systemic estrogen, birth control and its potential effects on dryness and libido, as well as pelvic floor physical therapy, Kegels and pelvic floor relaxation.
The conversation also covers PMS and period symptoms, breast tenderness, mood changes, back pain, exercise, sleep, meditation, mindfulness, magnesium, ibuprofen, vitamin E and evening primrose oil.
Pap smears, trauma during gynecological exams, pediatric speculums, lubricant during Pap testing, and the future of at-home HPV/Pap sample collection. 
They also play fact vs.fiction on cotton underwear, synthetic underwear, thongs, tight leggings, sweating after workouts, panty liners, vaginal discharge, vulva washing, soap, feminine washes, vaginal pH, normal genital odor, BV, boric acid, antibiotics, the vaginal microbiome, diet, fermented foods, probiotics/microbiome testing, vulvar irritation, pubic hair and friction.

Follow Dr. Sophocles:Instagram: @mariasophoclesmd
Website: www.mariasophoclesmd.com

Follow Alexa Andre:Instagram: @sexwithalexa
Patreon: https://patreon.com/sexwithalexa

Sponsor:
Thank you, Beducated, for making this exploration possible. Take their quiz to start your journey: https://beduc.at/pd2638-alexa