My Libido Doc: Why Great Sex Dies Without Communication

Welcome to the Libido Lounge

Dr. Diane Mueller: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode on the Libido Lounge. I’m your host, board-certified sexologist, Dr. Diane Mueller, and I have a special guest with me today. I have with me Blair Dunkley. Blair is going to talk to us a lot about this thing he has developed, which is language-based profiling. We’re going to talk about his work on the mind, with his work on psychology, his work on communication, his work on understanding your partner, and so much more. And how all of this intertwines with having great and deep intimacy, having great, deep, and wonderful, passionate sex, and so much more because so much of this does begin with the way we are interrelating, the way our mind is perceiving things, the stories we tell, and so much more. So, that’s what we’re going to get into today. Welcome to the lounge.

Blair Dunkley: Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Thank you for being here.

Understanding Language-Based Profiling

Dr. Diane Mueller: So this is a new term for a lot of us, right? This language-based profiling. So I want to start there because I know this is something that is part of your lifelong work, putting together this model. Can you tell us a little bit about what this is and why this is important in terms of communication and relationships?

Blair Dunkley: Man, that’s huge. That’s a lot to unpack. It could take me 40 years. So anyway, I’ll try and tighten it up to a few minutes. The long and short of it is language-based profiling. Every utterance out of your mouth is filtered through one of six question concepts: a who, what, when, where, why, and how. Those are the only functional six question concepts I’ve been able to find. Now, if you talk to people in computer research and natural language processing, they say there’s eight, and I beg to differ strongly because they don’t know what the fundamental concepts are that drive a who. I researched that for six years, and that has a great deal to do with how you perceive your partner, yourself, your intimacy, including your confidence and self-confidence, which are, again, not the same thing. And I figured that out because of language-based profiling.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Okay. So, my question here is, sometimes I’ve heard people say, and I agree with what I’m about to say in many ways, that life is about the questions we ask ourselves. And so people sometimes ask themselves questions like, an example could be, “Why do I look like crap today?” Well, if we ask ourselves a question like that, we’re going to get a whole list of answers of the brain being like, “Well, you didn’t brush your hair,” yada yada yada. Can I break down this stuff?

Blair Dunkley: Sure. Sure. Sure. Right there, you went why initially, and you processed that through a true why. It wasn’t a disguised question. It wasn’t a disguised what. It was a true why, which gives you reasons, only can give you reasons, excuses, rationalizations, and justifications. That’s all that a why can do.

The Impact of “Why” Questions on Self-Perception

Blair Dunkley: It’s very creative in that. Now, it can also, when you say, “Why do I look this way?” and then we said, “Because I didn’t brush my hair.” Well, that simple “didn’t” refers to the past. Whys 100% of the time lock you in your past. You cannot be present, and the only place where change can be is in the present. So, you’re locked in your past, and all you can do is load emotion first because whys load emotion before information in your brain. So, technically, that’s not accurate if you really want to get nerdy sciency here. They both load virtually simultaneously, but the amount that your prefrontal cortex, your cognitive domain, actually fires is far less percentage-wise than the area in your limbic system and emotional area. And it’s not purely limbic, but I’m going to slur the science on this a little bit for time’s sake. I don’t want to get into details here that most people won’t be interested in. But the bottom line here is more of your lizard brain area and emotional center will light up percentage-wise because you’re talking in why, and why will drive that more base emotional drivers.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Okay. But my question, thank you for that, and my question here is that was basically like, okay, well, it’s about the questions we ask. So I’m trying to understand this model. So, like, the example, the second example I was going to give here was, or I could give myself the question, “Why do I look beautiful today?” So I hear you around, okay, well, why is in the past, maybe this is more like lizard type of brain, but my curiosity is with understanding this, like, is there utility in this from, “Hey, I have why of, I’m asking myself this question that my brain is going to naturally find answers to, and these answers could be problematic and not helpful to me, or they could be helpful, but in many ways not helpful, or I could ask myself a different question. Why am I so beautiful today?” And then I can have all of these different answers that are probably going to be a lot more positive in nature. Like, is there an element of, within the context of your six questions here, where it’s not just about the questions, it’s also about the way we ask the question that you find important?

Blair Dunkley: That is so true. Now, your second why question here is not… Could you do me a favor before I actually explain this so I don’t lead you into anything? Just tell me the answer to, “Why are you so beautiful today?”

Dr. Diane Mueller: Well, I got up and I crimped my hair. I washed my face. I took a great walk. I did my meditation so I could get in the right vibe for the day. We’ll leave it at that.

Blair Dunkley: Okay, great. Now, yes, those are past, but how do you view yourself connected to that information in the past, present, or future?

Dr. Diane Mueller: I would say there’s an element of past but also present.

Blair Dunkley: Correct. And which percentage is higher, past or present?

Dr. Diane Mueller: Probably more in the present.

Blair Dunkley: Correct. That means that you’re in a what-why language pattern because the why of it, although you used the word, it was not the main driver. What is the main driver, and as I shared before we got on here, there are two fundamental types of emotions we deal with all the time. We deal with why emotions, which is the self-judgment, the self-incrimination. You beat yourself up, and you stack all kinds of stuff that was there. But did you notice that the past stuff was generalized, and the more present stuff was more specific? I crimped my hair. I did this. I did that. You know, it’s all things that you did, but it references the present of where you are now.

Dr. Diane Mueller: That doesn’t make sense to me. So, can you clarify this for listeners because when we were talking about the first why, like, “Why do I not look as good today,” or however I framed it, the specific thing I said was, “I didn’t brush my hair,” right? And that, to me, I don’t understand how it’s specific versus not because, to me, that was a specific thing.

Blair Dunkley: If we had a chance to do a deeper dive, what I would go is, so when you view yourself as unattractive, what are the situations that you see, and how do you frame that in your mind? Most people who see themselves as unattractive will frame it as a generalization that they didn’t do their thing, and they don’t have a ritual to do that. You framed your second situation as though it’s nearly a ritual for you to crimp your hair, do everything that you said, and turn that into something that gets you into a state in the present that you can then carry forward for the rest of the day.

Practical Applications in Relationships

Dr. Diane Mueller: Okay. So, as we’re getting pretty meta here, I want to make sure that we’re bringing it down to the people. So, like, give me an example, like real-world, if you would, for our listeners to help understand. So these concepts of these questions, right? So I hear you in your work, there’s these questions, and then they deliver different things, it sounds like, to the conversation. Can you set a little bit of a foundation too for us from a standpoint of your methodology and these questions and how these questions actually help with communication and intimacy? So we understand kind of the purpose here a little bit.

Blair Dunkley: Sure. So let me ask you a question. Where does change happen? Past, present, or future?

Dr. Diane Mueller: Present.

Blair Dunkley: Can you change your past?

Dr. Diane Mueller: You can change your relationship and how you view your past, your memory of your past, those kinds of things.

Blair Dunkley: Can you change your future?

Dr. Diane Mueller: You can take actions today that could impact your future.

Blair Dunkley: So both of your answers, your past and your future, are only present things that you can do to impact those. So can you actually change your present?

Dr. Diane Mueller: Well, at first, I said change happens in the present, but then you challenged me. So I thought I got the answer wrong.

Blair Dunkley: No, no, no. You got the answer perfectly correctly. But then I went in, and I do challenge people on this because then they try and fudge it in their brain, trying to make their past adjustable into their present or have their present influence their future so that that future condition is now, which just messes up their brain. And when we have fantasy in relationships, we’re projecting into the future. And sometimes we cannot specify it and find out and communicate exactly how we’re feeling in the moment to be able to bring that to the present. So that whole past stuff and whole future stuff gets collapsed into a present moment. And when you have a past, future, and no ability to describe it, you have some form of frustration or anxiety or fear or “I can’t talk about this” or “I’m not understood” or something that is reflecting on either the past or the future but isn’t dealt with in the present.

Dr. Diane Mueller: So, what you’re saying then is, in the context of communication from an intimacy standpoint, part of the problem that you’re seeing, and this is me paraphrasing, trying to…

Blair Dunkley: Yeah, please go ahead.

Dr. Diane Mueller: So part of the problem is that people are projecting into the past or the future, and they’re not staying present in the moment with what’s actually happened. Is that what I’m saying here?

Blair Dunkley: Absolutely. And that is a huge part of intimacy, that intimacy almost, well, not almost, can only happen in the present.

Dr. Diane Mueller: So what about, and I’m going to challenge you now, and I do this respectfully.

Blair Dunkley: Yeah. No, no, that…

Dr. Diane Mueller: What about then the idea of visualization for the future, like, okay, let’s visualize our hopes and dreams and what we’re trying to create together, or even people that visualize, like, “Hey, we want to create this fantasy in our physical, mental, or sexual realities.” You know, fantasies are oftentimes projections into the future. Visualizations are projections into the future. And where does that fit into this idea of, hey, we need to be in the present in order to communicate well and that sort of thing?

Blair Dunkley: Well, you know what? I came up with a quote, sort of, I hope this summarizes it. Hopes, dreams, and desires without behavior change nothing. So all of the visualizations that you do don’t change anything until you can attach that to a behavior. And the first behavior that I found when I was doing my marriage counseling was quite literally having people talk about their hopes, dreams, and desires to find out from their partner, “Is that something that they’d like to explore?” And when the answer is yes or no, doesn’t matter. It creates an openness to discuss more. And that’s in the present. So we take from the future or take from the past and their hopes, dreams, and desires for having a better relationship. But if we judge that and hold on to the emotional outcome of the answer as opposed to taking that as information that we can adjust our behavior in the moment, that’s where the fun lies, is making these adjustments, is figuring out how can I find a way to communicate and make some of these hopes, dreams, and desires some form of reality and become resourceful rather than set an expectation to have just what I want, the way I want, when I want. And that, unfortunately, is generally not the way that healthy relationships work. It’s very mutual. It’s great communication. It plays together. And somebody says, “Ooh, I like that.” And somebody says, “I like doing that.” Well, let’s do more of that. Great. So that actually gets, I call it, it’s a really intimate, sexy way of being able to communicate because you get to find out from your partner and with yourself what you’re prepared behaviorally to do. So the seed is our hopes, dreams, and desires, or you can call them visualizations. I have seen a lot of studies on visualizations, done a few myself. And the problem that I have with visualization is when people have no experience on visualizations, the functionality of visualization drops dramatically.

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Specific Compliments and Communication in Intimacy

Blair Dunkley: We have two clear ways, probably three, but two clear ways. Number one is just by turning around and getting curious and saying, “What does cute mean to you when you’re telling me? Please be specific.” And initially, when I tried that back in the day, I did not have the skills that I currently have. So, you know, I screwed it up. And she said, “Well, you’re very cute. You’re just a cute man.” Like, I like cute. Great. That’s nice for you. It doesn’t do anything for me, but I’m trying to please. And so that didn’t have the effect that she was hoping for. Let’s put it that way. So now what I would do is I would go, “So can you be very specific on what works for you around cute?” Well, I like the look at your face. You’re sort of ruggedly attractive to me. You’ve got this look. I like your gray beard. I love your eyes. You know, the way that you look at me. When you’re into me, I know it. And they go, “Oh, okay.” And then I try and get a smoldering look or get playful and do something like that, in a silly sort of way, but very specifically, I’m trying to figure out how do I train myself to be the thing that she’s there and determine whether or not that’s a fit for me. I’m trying. It’s like clothes. Okay, I have a black t-shirt on. I can go change it. You know, these are all behaviors that I can try on and see if they work for me or not and see if they work for her or not. And then I can go in and also ask, could you try calling me handsome if you figured this out? And that’s what I actually wound up doing with a girlfriend that I had afterwards. And I said, she went to cute. I don’t know what it was, but it triggered me. And so I wasn’t interested. And I said, “Do you want to not be interested, or do you want to resolve this?” And I said, “I want to resolve this.” So I knew I’d stumbled across handsome, and I asked her, “Do you find me handsome?” And it was, “Oh, yeah.” Like, it was a very enthusiastic answer. I got lucky ’cause she didn’t want to call me handsome ’cause she thought I’d have an ego about that. And I go, “No, I have never found myself that attractive to women. I have never found myself as a good-looking man.” And all of a sudden, I got feedback. “You’re a very good-looking man.” And it needed to go on for months, literally, and from multiple sources. Also had another friend who happened to be female. And my girlfriend was talking with my friend who also is a woman, and they were saying, “You know what? It’s really a shame Blair doesn’t see himself as an attractive man.” And this is during that phase where I was trying to sort it through. And she went, “Yeah.” And she suggested to my friend to have her tell me that I’m an attractive man. And I had it from two sources, very different sources, and they weren’t trying to butter me up, especially the last one who’s just a friend. And I go, “Whoa, I got to re-evaluate myself.” And I needed to figure out what’s my story I was telling myself. I have this little boy cute story that I ran in my head that it wasn’t crystal clear, but it was definitely something that I saw myself as, you know, a pre-pubescent boy being cute, no drive. And I go, “Okay, that’s important because I’m a man now.” And these women never saw me as that child. Now they’re seeing me as somebody who is masculine, who is manly, who is attractive, who looks good in their eyes. And I feel I can become way more self-confident because self-confidence is me self-identifying my own effective use of skills, attitudes, and behaviors, and especially the behaviors, and then I can align my behaviors with my partner’s desires, and OMG.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Yeah, I see. I see. So I see the power of this, which is amazing. I think where I still feel a little confused on your methodology that I’d love you to speak a little bit more is, like, just being more curious, like, is there, like, a system from a standpoint of, like, oh, you’re thinking this, like, okay, here are the set of questions that people need to ask themselves, here is kind of, you know, more from, like, that understanding of the methodology, like, are there a typical set of questions that you would recommend people ask themselves or their partner?

Blair Dunkley: I have come up with lists of questions over the years. I have found that they are not as reliable as I would like because everybody is so unique and their whole story. And when I came up with questions to ask, some of those questions triggered one or both parties into their past because, I guarantee you, 80% of the people out there have some kind of trauma related to sexual encounters at some point. And that can rise up very quickly, completely triggered by questions. And I go, okay, so how can you keep it so that it’s most flexible for individuals? Well, what if we just gave them a process model? And saying, if you’re curious and you ask, you stay away from why-based questions and you stick with what and how and keep your present, your question as present as possible and directly forward-facing. Then all of a sudden, when I did that with my clients back in the day, wow, forward-facing what now? And then I’d have them talk about what’s forward-facing to you. Practice asking some questions. And the biggest challenge that they had was asking questions that actually were curious. Because there’s three things, three ways that you can ask a question. You can ask a question to prove, you can ask a question to position, or you can ask a question to build a process with. I call it the three Ps of questioning. And the process piece is the only one that requires curiosity at its root. And when you’re curious, everything starts working magically, practically. And I hate that because I’m a behavioral scientist at heart, but I have no other way of describing it because you put that curiosity in, and stuff pops out of people’s heads that sounds curious, that does not sound, “I’m right, you’re wrong, and I’m trying to prove it,” right?

Dr. Diane Mueller: Yeah. Yeah, that helps a lot. Thank you for explaining that. And I think, like, what I’m gathering then from, like, a take-home for people is, like, and I hear this from a lot of therapists I talk to and, you know, educators and doctors and clinicians of all types, one of the most common things I see is, like, start with curiosity. You know, that’s, like, a fundamental talking to so many different experts, a fundamental thing I hear over and over again. And I think, you know, this process of, like, what I hear in what you’re saying is, like, hey, the why is a little bit dangerous because the why takes you away from the present. It takes you down this road of the past, which is innately, like, we can change our relationship to it, but we can’t change it. So, what I hear is, like, really, you know, really focusing on the what and the how questions when you’re communicating about cute versus handsome, about what you want to do in bed or whatever else. Is really the fundamental, like, if we could focus more on those questions, the communication effectiveness is going to go through the roof.

Blair Dunkley: Bingo. Right. Absolutely.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Thank you. Thank you for walking me through that. I understand it so much.

Blair Dunkley: My pleasure.

Corporate Communication’s Impact on Relationships

Dr. Diane Mueller: So then, what about one of the things that we talked about offline is, what is the question everybody asks that ultimately destroys relationships, and I’m going to guess that it starts with why. Am I correct? So tell me about this question, what is the question that everybody asks that actually destroys relationships?

Blair Dunkley: You’re absolutely 100% right because everybody wants to figure out, everybody’s been told through pop psychology, through mindset stuff, through everything, and, you know, Simon Sinek’s “ask why.” If there’s one way to take that out of our culture, it has wrecked so many things, including, I do business, I do relationship coaching, I do executive coaching, and when executives take home, like, “What is your big why?” I’ve seen relationships freaking blow up because a senior executive takes home and tries to use that on his partner, and I get called in to try and resolve it. And fortunately, I’ve been able to every single time so far when I’m called in quickly enough. Number one. Number two, I’m also able to restore it by getting the person out of their story and into what it is that they want and how they can move forward. So, where we are now to where we want to go because we can’t change our past.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Yeah. Go ahead.

Blair Dunkley: You know, at the end of the day, we all have our past, but the neuroscience of the brain, the more we practice on building strengths and going towards what we want, the more natural pruning the brain will do on all of that negative stuff, making it smaller and smaller and smaller, and the felt sense that it’s a big deal goes to that you don’t forget. Well, sometimes you do, but usually, it’s reduced to such a minor degree that it’s one of the things you just remembered that happened in your life next, and you have enough retention of that information to not go there again, which is great. Survival is great. But, you know, getting into a better life and building success, that’s huge. And success in the bedroom, the success with a partner and the intimacy, and being able to take that intimacy out of the bedroom and put it into your day-to-day life just by giving the person I described earlier here just the look. Well, when you’re in the kitchen or you’re out on a business meeting and your partner’s across the room, and you can give her or him that look, every all the energy changes for you. It’s amazing.

Dr. Diane Mueller: Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting you even bringing in the corporate component of this is, so it’s a point worth bringing up because I feel like with any business coaching or training that I’ve done, and I’ve done a substantial amount of this over the years, one of the common things that comes up is “know your why.” You know, like you mentioned, absolutely, why it’s one of the most common questions. And so it sounds like you, in some ways, would say, don’t, it’s not about knowing your why. It’s about knowing your what.

Blair Dunkley: Well, technically, it is your what, but it’s your what paired with the how. Because the list of whats, if you know your what, that’s so that’s good. But if you can’t build behaviors on that what, you’re screwed. Pardon my language, but yeah, you’re completely screwed. Because action, it requires behavior. As I said, hopes, dreams, and desires are nothing without behaviors.

The Importance of Curiosity and Asking the Right Questions

Dr. Diane Mueller: So then, what about the question that you thought I asked, which is, what is the question everybody asks that actually repairs relationships? So is that the what and the how then, or is there something else to add there?

Blair Dunkley: You know what it is? What’s, but you’ve got to be able to ask the question with curiosity with a process in mind. If you do, if you’re asking a static question of “What did you do,” past tense, it’s a disguised why. Okay. That means you’re going back to the past. You’re forcing that person into justifying why they’re there doing their thing. So it’s not the words who, what, where, when, why, and how. It’s the concepts, and that is four columns of information in the six questions, and that gives you exactly how that person is processing it in their brain. So that’s literally, we talked briefly about profiling, language-based profiling. That is the piece that I use for the majority. Pairing that with 17 and a half years of research on beliefs and recognizing that beliefs cannot change on an ongoing basis, cannot turn into habits without behaviors.

Critique of the “Why” Concept

Blair Dunkley: So let’s just start with making behavior change first. And in Simon Sinek’s main thing there, he has this thing called the golden circle. And when he goes in there and talks about why, he immediately gives an “I,” and let me define why it means, what it means is this. What it means is this. What it means is this. He uses three whats immediately to define the why. Don’t, that’s just a disguised what. And he uses six whys. The word that he’s trying to define is why, but he’s doing it in terms of what. And it’s messing up people and businesses like nobody’s business. And I’ve been called in to fix companies that have gone through that, and they can’t seem to figure it out. And that’s where I have gone in and straightened them out and helped them get clarity so that they don’t have a “knowing your big why.” And some of the things that I’ve heard, you know, if your why isn’t big enough that it makes you cry, it’s not big enough. And I go, that’s garbage. That is so garbage. So let’s figure out your big what’s, you know, your big hairy audacious goals of what you want to achieve. And what if you took your big hairy audacious goal and put that into your relationship?

Dr. Diane Mueller: Yeah. Oh my god. And then had conversations about that. Yeah. Yeah. So much there. I really appreciate all of this, Blair. I want to make sure, as our time is wrapping up here, one, I thank you so much for coming on. I think there’s so much value in understanding this, you know, and understanding that these simple ways we frame questions can literally make or break relationships. They can make or break our sexuality with our partner, our emotional intimacy, our marriages, our long-term relationships, and more. I think it’s so important, and I know you have a free masterclass that I want to make sure everybody knows about. So, people, you can get this additional information for free from you. And how do they find that? And we’ll put it in the show notes as well, but if you want to tell us a little bit about that.

Blair Dunkley’s Free Masterclass on Mind Models

Blair Dunkley: Absolutely. Well, it’s all about the three E’s, which is the mind models, the three mind models that I used repeatedly with virtually everybody in every situation. But the first mind model is effective versus ineffective. Not good, bad, right, or wrong. Because that triggers the brain to go into a judgment because, as children, we were taught you’re a good boy, you’re a good girl. You know, you’re a bad boy, you’re a bad girl. Like, all of that good, bad, better, best, all that competitive crap doesn’t allow you to evaluate your behavior because everything that you do is you. Well, that’s not true. This t-shirt is not me. You may not like it. I can go change it, but it’s not me. I can change my behavior. It’s not me. It’s just a behavior, and I can change it. And all of a sudden, when I introduce that into effective versus ineffective, people go, “Well, wow. What if I asked my partner, what might I do more effectively?” Or, “What am I doing that’s ineffective?” and ask them to just name and label it, not go into a story. Just tell me what it is, and then let me explore how I can adjust that behavior.

Evaluation vs. Judgment in Self-Improvement

Blair Dunkley: Great. Okay. So, is that now externally verifiable? Which is the second of the three: externally versus internally verifiable? Because if it’s internally verifiable, you’re going to just take that in and go, “Yeah, it’s me. I’m a piece of crap here. It doesn’t work well, you know, yada yada.” And you just beat the crap out of yourself. Or you hold it as, “Hey, this is externally verifiable. This is a behavior I can actually change, and I can actually test something to see if my partner likes what I’m doing and get feedback on, is that better or worse.” And sure enough, you’ll drop the stuff that’s not working for them and do what is working for them. And that just makes you a better lover. Okay? And then finally is evaluation versus judgment. All the crap that we do about self-crimination and judging, oh, I’m not a very good lover, and my partner doesn’t think I’m a very good lover, and yada yada yada. Okay. Well, want to change that forever? Literally forever. Start evaluating and look at it as an incremental improvement. And if you made one small improvement every day, a year later, you’ve made 352 improvements. Hello. You’re going to be great at whatever it is that you need to do. So there’s an hour and 20-minute masterclass in there as well.

Accessing Blair Dunkley’s Resources

Dr. Diane Mueller: Awesome. I love that so much. And so everybody, we’re going to have that link to the masterclass on these three E’s, so much more. How to get a hold of how to work with Blair, all in the show notes. So just look for that there. And that makes it a wrap for today. So thank you everybody for being here. Thank you so much, Blair, for all of this wisdom and knowledge. It’s deeply appreciated. And I will see you all very soon on another episode of the lounge. Ciao for now.

Closing Remarks

Dr. Diane Mueller: Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge. Please don’t keep me a secret. Please share this with your friends. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, and check out our Modern Libido Club for so much more!