Dr. Laura Berman Webcast Transcript

 

Dr. Berman: Right.

Oprah: —and that you're going to be sexually active and powerful and engaged and—

Dr. Berman: Yeah.

Oprah: —feeling vibrant in your life.

Dr. Berman: Just like—

Oprah: Throughout your life.

Dr. Berman: Just like your generation spearheaded the women's movement.

Oprah: Correct.

Dr. Berman: It's been all the way through.

Oprah: Actually it was a generation ahead of me. Gloria Steinem.

Dr. Berman: Right. And now you're guiding—

Oprah: And I get the benefits of that.

Dr. Berman: Right. And now we have the menopausal—this whole baby boomer generation moving through menopause, and they're not going to take it sitting down. They're going to figure out how to live their best lives through it.

Oprah: Number 5, make sex a priority in 2009 with a weekly sex night. Now, this could change America. This could really change America.

Dr. Berman: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Berman: Put a lot of smiles on people's faces.

Oprah: A weekly sex night.

Dr. Berman: At the minimum. During the worst of times, in the times you're most stressed, don't let it go more than two weeks. You want to are sex at least once a week. And you want to make a date in pen in your calendar. Be extra nice to each other.

Oprah: That feels too predictable.

Dr. Berman: Yeah.

Oprah: That feels too—

Dr. Berman: Right. Because what we're used to is the fantasy—in the beginning of the relationship it's easy for sex to happen spontaneously. You can't get enough of each other.

Oprah: Right.

Dr. Berman: But if you wait for that to happen in a long-term relationship when you know each other's dirty laundry, you have a mortgage, you have kids, you have distractions, you have stress, if you wait for it to happen spontaneously, it never happens unless you're on vacation and you take all of those stressors out of the way.

Oprah: Okay. So let's say your night is Friday night at 10 o'clock.

Dr. Berman: Right.

Oprah: And all kinds of stuff has gone on during the week. You're exhausted and things didn't go the way you wanted to and all kinds of problems and you're just—really you're not in the mood.

Dr. Berman: Right.

Oprah: Oh my God, you know?

Dr. Berman: Right. Okay. So two things. One, you want to choose a time. I don't recommend Friday nights for that reason. I recommend—

Oprah: I said Saturday.

Dr. Berman: Oh, you did? I thought you said Friday.

Oprah: I thought I said—okay, Saturday.

Dr. Berman: Saturday night's good because then you have time—

Oprah: You don't recommend Friday, though.

Dr. Berman: No, because you're exhausted from the week. If you're worried about exhaustion, give yourself a time like Saturday or Sunday, even in the morning, earlier in the day, it doesn't have to be 10 o'clock at night. So plan the time where it might fit best into your schedule and you've had some winding down time, because women especially—

Oprah: So Friday night not good.

Dr. Berman: Probably not if you have—if you tend to have really busy weeks.

Oprah: Okay.

Dr. Berman: And then the other thing is—

Oprah: Sunday seems like a good day.

Dr. Berman: Yeah. Sunday is good.  

Oprah: If you're only doing once a week.

Dr. Berman: Yeah.

Oprah: Yeah.

Dr. Berman: And then you also—

Oprah: Dean—Dean, our stage manager, he's loving this.

Dr. Berman: Yeah, he's listening intently.

Oprah: Lots of tips. Yeah.

Dr. Berman: Wait till we bring out the sex toys, Dean.

Oprah: Sex toys coming up, folks, for sure. All varieties.

Dr. Berman: So it's making it on a day or an afternoon or a night that will work and really sticking to it. Because what you'll find—

Oprah: You're saying that, Laura, but that's not—that sounds odd to me. I don't think I could ever do that. It feels odd. I couldn't do it.

Dr. Berman: It is odd at first, but I promise you when you try it—and I always get pushback from people but when you try it at first, it's a total mind shift, and what you'll find is that you start looking forward to that day.

Oprah: And you start being nicer to each other?

Dr. Berman: You're nicer to each other coming up to that and you get jokey and silly about it and you wink at each other and send each other sexy e-mails and you're smiling at each other across the crazy breakfast table with the kids because you know that night—

Oprah: You know it's—

Dr. Berman: Yeah.

Oprah: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Berman: And you kind of—it becomes a kind of playful fun date thing that you get to look forward to. And even those times—

Oprah: It's like the buzzing panties you left the last time.

Dr. Berman: Yes, yes, we'll be doing those too.

Oprah: I did give them to my stylist, not—

Dr. Berman: Oh, you didn't keep them?

Oprah: I didn't keep them, no. No. I—I—

Dr. Berman: We have to work on you, Oprah.

Oprah: I must say—listen, I have a lot of responsibility in the world. I cannot be out in an elevator with my panties buzzing. (Laughter. )

Dr. Berman: Who knows what you can come up with.

Oprah: I'm willing to do a lot of things.

Dr. Berman: It might release a whole creative channel that you don't even know about.

Oprah: I am not willing to be standing in public and my panties are buzzing. I'm just not willing to do it. So I did give that away to someone who would appreciate it more than I. So if you're wondering what we're talking about, we have a lot of sexual things coming up here.

Dr. Berman: Yes.

Oprah: Dr. Berman assigned homework for each of those five steps to help all of you and your partners get started. You can find those on Oprah.com. Oprah.com. It's a-changing, yeah.

Dr. Berman: Yes, it is.

Oprah: After this webcast. So you may remember, if you watched the show, Luanne and Gerald from our show last week. Tonight they are joining us from their living room near San Jose, California. Luanne admitted she had faked it for her entire 24-year marriage. But had her very first orgasm after meeting with Dr. Berman. So how are things today, Luanne?