In a world filled with poorly thought-out advice on relationships and love, Dr. Venus Nicolino begs to differ. Much of her work focuses on exposing the traditional advice that many people live by without realizing it’s terrible. Her hope is to get people to look at things differently and ultimately live more fulfilled lives.
She’s even written a book about this subject, Bad Advice: How to Survive and Thrive in an Age of Bulls–-. In the book, she immediately lets readers know that she is offering something different than the “usual saccharine, sanctimonious bull—” found in self-help books. Her objective is to change the way people view themselves and their problems — and that requires throwing out bad advice.
“What if you already have everything you need? What if the reason that it feels like there is no way out of your problems is because your back is to the exit?” Dr. Venus Nicolino writes in the book’s introduction. “What if most of what this society — and by extension your teachers, friends, family, and even therapists — has told you about yourself isn’t true?”
She doesn’t offer “pain-free living,” although she notes that this is exactly what bad advice often tries to offer. Rather, she focuses on helping people “tap into strengths, talents, and potential that are already within you, waiting to be discovered.”
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Why People Listen to What Dr. Venus Nicolino Has To Say
Dr. Venus Nicolino is known for offering relationship and life advice that runs contrary to what others might say. She’s also known for her straight talk and sense of humor. In addition to being a bestselling author, she speaks on a wide range of topics on her popular TikTok channel, as well as on her podcast, “The Tea With Dr. V.”
Dr. V, who grew up in west Philadelphia, holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology and a master’s and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. In all her interviews and writing, she explains sometimes complex psychological theories in a way that people can understand.
The book intro provides insight to her approach. She writes that while it’s “inevitable” for life to hurt and for people to experience pain, everyone should also stay open to the good things that life offers.
“It can fill you with joy, laughter, and a gabillion other flavors of pleasure: Your favorite song. The Grand Canyon. Orgasms. Waking up in the morning. Holding/being held by the one you love. Netflix,” Dr. Venus Nicolino writes. “And all you have to do is just be, and you automatically earn a lifetime front-row seat to all of that.”
She writes that a good place to start is to dispense with advice and attitudes that can hold people back.
Self-Help Can Create Unnecessary Rules for Relationships
There’s perhaps no more prevalent piece of advice on relationships in the modern world than this phrase: “You can’t love someone until you love yourself.” Dr. Venus Nicolino doesn’t care for it. She talked about why with Alexis Haines on the “Recovering From Reality” podcast.
“Scientifically and biologically, you’re loving people all day long. We’re feeling human beings. That is what we are meant to do. So, you’re going to love. You might not do it well, but you’re going to love people,” said Dr. V. “And your ‘self’ — this ‘self’ we are talking about in this phrase ‘you can’t love anybody until you love yourself’ — doesn’t give a f— about how you feel about you. Your love doesn’t care. Because you’re human, built to love others.”
She notes that people don’t apply this saying to paternal love, love of family or even love of pets. Instead, it’s only applied to romantic love. Few question whether people love their kids based on how they feel about themselves. “I love tremendous amounts of people with enormous amounts of self-hatred, and I love them well,” Dr. Venus Nicolino says about herself. “And part of loving them well helps me hate myself less.”
Rather than thinking about love as springing from your own self-love, people should instead think of love as being co-created with their partner, says Dr. Venus Nicolino. And that can happen even if you don’t feel so hot about yourself.
Dr. Venus Nicolino Says It’s OK To Have Expectations
Dr. Venus Nicolino also takes exception to another famous theory that routinely makes the rounds on the internet: Expectations lead to disappointment, so don’t have expectations.
“You are built to have expectations. You are going to have expectations, because that is how we have survived through centuries and centuries,” Dr. Venus Nicolino. “Our expectations of when we would be killed, when we would be eaten, we need to have expectations because that’s how the human brain is built.”
Dr. Venus Nicolino also notes that most people have their expectations met about 99.9% of the time. They just notice the small percentage of times when their expectations are not met. But the disappointment in something not meeting expectations is still important, she says, because it may be a sign of deeper, unmet needs.
“Expectations may lead to disappointment, but they also may lead to your greatest potential self. The things that you want. The things that you deserve,” she says on the podcast.
More Bad Advice on Love and Sex
Dr. Venus Nicolino says she first realized the prevalence of bad advice when she was in her early 20s. Someone told her that if she didn’t want to have sex with someone on a date, she shouldn’t shave her legs or vagina. The idea was that she would be too embarrassed to show her unshaven body — a kind of sex deterrent through shame. She then met her future husband, and they had sex on their first date. She had gone into the night unshaven. “He didn’t give a s—,” she says, adding that she didn’t, either. “And I was like, ‘What horrific advice.’”
She said through education and experience, she has since learned that such advice, which revolved around a woman feeling ashamed about her body, is the rule in society.
“We live in a world that promotes the penis. We know exactly what this thing does,” Dr. V says. But, she adds, there’s less known about a woman’s body. She said men and women both should learn about the vulva and what sex is like for women. “I get the fear of the unknown,” she says. “But it should be known.”
She also feels that society needs to change the conventional approach to marriage, which is typically idealized as a great deal for men and women. In truth, men benefit far more from marriage. Dr. Venus Nicolino cites studies that show married men make more money, have more sex, and live longer.
“For women, on every quality of life measure, their quality of life goes down. We need to reinvent what marriage looks like so that women can benefit.” Dr. Venus Nicolino says. For example, she adds, “To this day, working women are the main parent in the house — they’re cooking, they’re cleaning, they’re doing everything.”
She later added, “I don’t know how women all over the world are not revolting.”
