Sex Gets Real 105: Safer sex kits for college kids and vibrator orgasms

An intimate chat with Dawn Serra. Just because.

Dawn woke up and just wanted to have a little chat with you, because you’re amazing.

There’s also a follow-up from a listener who wrote in recently about sex with vibrators.

Plus, a 20-year-old virgin just got her first vibrator and wants help on working on internal orgasms. A mom also has some thoughts on safer sex kits for college kids.

There are a few free replays from the Explore More Summit, so check it out at exploremoresummit.com.

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About Dawn Serra

Dawn Serra is a therapeutic Body Trust coach and pleasure advocate. As a white, cis, middle class, queer, fat, survivor, Dawn’s work is a fiercely compassionate invitation for each of us to deepen our relationships with our bodies and our pleasure as an antidote to the trauma, disconnection, and isolation so many of us feel. Your pleasure matters. Your body is wise. Dawn’s work is all about creating spaces and places for you to explore what that means on your terms. To learn more, visit dawnserra.com or follow Dawn on Instagram.

Episode breakdown

0:12 – Let’s keep it just us this week.
0:40 – I miss Dylan, too.
2:00 – Thank you for being such amazing listeners.
2:46 – Every time an email comes in from the podcast, it feels like Christmas. Keep ’em coming!
3:10 – Lola and I fielding a question from someone who’s girlfriend wanted to use a vibrator on her. Well, that listener wrote back with an update!
3:58 – YAY FOR THE BEST SEX SHE’S EVER HAD!
4:22 – Riding Solo wrote in – she’s a 20 year old virgin who just took the leap and bought her first vibrator. How can she work on internal orgasms?
5:10 – We want to avoid goal oriented sex and instead focus on pleasure. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be curious and try new things!
6:42 – How does Dawn achieve internal orgasms? Find out!
7:08 – Do you like G-Spot stimulation or cervical stimulation? Very different places inside the vaginal canal.
8:03 – Dawn has a tendency to get off and rush through because vibrators make it easy, so don’t do that. Ha. Try lots of different speeds, scenarios, and teasing with your toy to get to know your body.
9:41 – Getting to know your body can be fun.
9:55 – Deborah Sundahl has a book called “Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot: Not Your Mother’s Orgasm Book” if you want to learn more about g-spots.
11:37 – All vibrators are not created equal. Your body may not enjoy the vibrator you have that tons of other people swear by. That’s normal. Just get a new type of toy that better fits your body.
12:40 – Dawn has to stop saying “we”. Grrrr.
12:53 – Amazing Mom wrote in with a thank you and a story about talking to her college aged daughter about safer sex kits.
14:36 – Having a safer sex kit with you that has gloves, lube, internal condoms, external condoms, and maybe even a small vibe means you have SO MANY OPTIONS for sex and pleasure that don’t have to include intercourse if you don’t want it to.

Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore, sex, bodies, and relationships from a place of curiosity and inclusion, tying the personal to the cultural, where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics, and liberation.

This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.

Dawn Serra: P.S. If you’re hearing this, then you went way back in the archives. Boy, has this show changed over the years. It started with two of us laughing our way through our own stories, but then all of you came into the picture, Dylan left, but we still have mad love for each other, more experts lend their voices, and now the show is about exploring what is and what could be. So enjoy these older episodes and delight in how much we’ve been growing together.

Hey, everybody. It’s Dawn here with your Sex Gets Real Hickey. I have a Hickey already recorded with Prescott from a couple of weeks ago. But I woke up this morning feeling like I wanted it to be just us this week. It’s been a couple of weeks since Dylan signed off, and I am missing her dearly and I know many of you are too. I’ve been getting emails from tons of you all about how much you miss her and how much you love the dynamic that we had. And I’m hoping to have her on in the next couple of months for an episode or two. She is eyeball deep in her new training for her exciting new position right now. So I just want to say, Dylan, we miss you. And I just wanted to spend a little bit of time with all of you, just us.

Dawn Serra: It’s been a wild ride for the past few months as Dylan and I transitioned out of having the show be what it was for two years. I have some really awesome people that have stepped up to be on the show that you’ve already heard and some awesome people that are in the works, including Jessica Drake, the beautiful, gorgeous porn star. She creates all kinds of really wonderful educational videos around sex. So we’re just trying to get our schedules worked out. I’m also trying to get a couple of writers and actresses from this online show called Her Story. Of course, still trying to work out with a couple of other folks who are very busy celeb-status type people so scheduling can be kind of tough. But I just wanted to personally thank all of you for sticking with me, I am really excited for what’s coming next. And I think some really awesome things are going to start unfolding over the next couple of months.

Admittedly, my life is a little intense between getting ready to sell my house of 15 years and move so that I can be on my way to being closer to Alex, because all of you know, we’ve had a long distance relationship for a few years. And it’s just this massive time of change. So I just want to pop into a couple of emails, and it’ll just be you and I today, as we go through those. Of course, all of you I just want you to know that your emails and your comments and your feedback and your questions mean the world to me. Every time I get an email come in from one of you, it feels like Christmas. I have such a backlog but I’ve been trying to reply to those of you who leave your email. We’ve got some amazing stuff.

Dawn Serra: The first thing that I want to jump into is a couple of weeks, we got an email from someone saying that their girlfriend wanted to use a vibrator on them for the first time and I think Prescott and I covered that one. Or maybe it was Lola and I, but either way this person had asked, “What should I prepare for? What should I do?” Oh, it was Lola and Lola offered some opportunities for how to shop for toys together. We heard back and it says:

“Hey, Dawn. You said on the show a couple of weeks ago to write back and tell you how it went. So here it is. First of all, I want to tell you that I am a girl. Last night, I went over to her apartment, and she pulled out her expensive vibe. She asked if she could use it on me, and it was some of the best sex I have ever had. So thank you so much for the advice. Love from the south.”

Dawn Serra: I am super excited that the vibe of sex with the girlfriend went well, that’s amazing and exciting. I am such a fan of finding toys that makes sex better and that makes sex fun. So speaking of toys, we actually got an email from someone else asking for advice. So we’re going to take a look at that next. It’s from Writing Solo and it says “My First Toy: How to Make the Most of It?”

“Hello, I recently started listening to your podcast, and as a 20 year old virgin, I am loving it. So inspired by your craziness and with a little push from a friend, I just bought my first vibrator. I have never been able to achieve orgasm through penetration, but have been enjoying years of clit play. Do you have any suggestions and ideas about what I can do with my new toy to work towards an internal orgasm? Thanks so much.”

Dawn Serra: I think this is a great question. One of the things that we’ve always kind of talked about on the show is that we want to try and avoid goal-oriented sex. And really the only goal should be maximizing pleasure. That said, I also think that it’s really exciting when we want to try new things, and explore our bodies in new ways. So I think that this is a really wonderful question as long as it doesn’t become something where you feel bad if you’re not achieving it or if you feel like there’s something wrong with you if it doesn’t happen. Because for many people with vulvas, clit is just the way to go. Internal orgasms aren’t something that everybody enjoys, aren’t something that everybody has experienced. You can still have amazing super hot sex. But that’s that.

I also think that getting to know your body, and giving yourself that permission to try new things and work on things and explore and play is super, super awesome. I mean, there are our bodies, so let’s get to know them. For working towards an internal orgasm, there’s actually two different schools of thought when it comes to internal orgasms. One that says, “You need to relax completely and allow the pleasure to build and relax those muscles.” And another school says, “You need to contract the muscles to get lots of blood flow going, and that will help you achieve that orgasm.”

Dawn Serra: Personally, what I do is, as I feel the pleasure building, I have to really relax and surrender to it. If I start chasing it or trying or pushing, then my internal orgasm just isn’t going to happen. The other thing to do is some people with vulvas really like stimulation that’s just barely on the inside. The G-spot runs along your urethral sponge, so it actually goes from right at the opening of the vaginal canal up along the upper side for about two inches. And so people call that the G-spot – it’s full of nerve endings. So a lot of people like pressure and consistent motion on that spot, and that can bring a really yummy, gushy orgasm. Other people like really deep penetration to the point where you’re actually hitting the cervix. So it just depends on the toy you got and the type of stimulation that you like. I can actually have internal vaginal orgasms from anal sex as well just because of how things are being compressed and pushed on and stimulated. So all of us have these bodies that can do these really amazing things.

One of the things that I’ll say when it comes to using a vibe and working towards an internal orgasm, when I use vibrators, I have a tendency to get off and then be done with it. It’s really hard for me because the toy is so intense to really take my time and build slowly up to something, and then allow myself the orgasm and then even to have multiple orgasms. When I’m with a partner, it takes sometimes 20 or 30 minutes of build up and playing and touching before I’m really aroused and engorged, and then the sex, whatever that is with hands, mouth toys or cocks – can take anywhere from a couple of minutes to another 15 or 20 minutes. And I can orgasm multiple times when I have that kind of slow build up. With toys, I can do the same. But when I’m by myself, no one’s around, I’m not talking to anybody, I tend to just be super, like, “Let’s get this done.”

Dawn Serra: So I would just say to you, Writing Solo, make sure that you’re giving yourself permission to go slow, take your time, let your body warm up, get aroused, don’t just throw the toy, hold it on maximum pressure. It’s fun to experiment with that. But I think that it becomes tempting to only use the toy that way. So what I’m inviting you to do is try different places, try different speeds of using the toy – from using it for a couple of minutes to using it for a half an hour and teasing yourself, and just really get to know what that feels like. If you’re interested in learning more about the G-spot, then there is a really great book. I actually 10 attended a talk by this person. You can hear the podcast. It was almost two years ago. But Deborah Sundahl, that’s Sundahl – wrote a book called Female Ejaculation and The G-spot: Not Your Mother’s Orgasm Book.

Deborah Sundahl loves talking about female ejaculation and the G-spot. While I don’t want people to feel like female ejaculation is something that they have to achieve or they should achieve, the one thing that I’ll say about Deborah is she’s spent a lot of time getting to know the G-spot and the different types of stimulation that tend to work for most people who have a G-spot or for a large percentage of them. So it might be worth checking out that book, if you really want to get to know your internal anatomy, where your G-spot is, how it works, what female ejaculation is, how all of that can either seep out or gush out, the way that female ejaculation works is some people squirt out. That’s the porn star style, and tends to be a very, very small percentage of us that do that. A lot of other people, myself included, tend to just slowly gush and every once in a while can have like a big gush, but it’s more just like fluid seeping out because it’s your body being aroused, and releasing map.

Dawn Serra: Writing Solo, here’s what I’ll say: Try the toy lots of different ways. Try it on the internal part of your vaginal canal along your G-spot, try it really deep, see what works for you. And also keep in mind that the vibe you bought because it’s your first one might not be the best one for your body. It took me a couple of years and a couple of different toys before I really started figuring out what I enjoyed. And even now that’s constantly changing as technology changes and toys change. So give yourself permission to play with the vibe, see if you like it, if it’s okay, and you enjoy it, but it’s not the best thing in the world or you feel like it could be better it might just be because a different toy is in order for your body and what you’re looking for.

So if you are looking for a different type of toy, feel free to either write in or reach out to Lola, her information is a couple of episodes ago on the podcast. But thank you so much for writing. And also thank you for being so brave and getting yourself a vibrator at 20 so that you can really get to know yourself. I think that’s really exciting and I wish more of us, with vulvas, would do that when we’re really young so that by the time we come to partnered sex, we’re feeling really confident.

Dawn Serra: We got this other email… I have to stop saying “we” because it’s just me. Oh, it’s such a weird transition. Okay. Anyway, the podcast got this email from Amazing Mom, and it says “Advice to College Girls.” Okay, here it is:

“One big fat Thank you. My daughter is going to college next year and what you said to that college girl in your recent episode was straight up good. I wish someone had that talk with me or just told me half of the information you mentioned. So with all that information you provided, I relayed to my daughter that I had heard about this preparation kit and said if she needed to help getting those things together, that I would help her. She said, ‘Okay, Mom, this is getting awkward.’ But I told her where to hear the podcast and the rest of the story, and I hope I’m not overdoing it. But once again, thank you for all of the great, very enlightening info. Amazing Mom.”

So yay for safer sex kits and yay for being prepared when you’re in college and navigating all of what that means and hook-up culture and being at parties and being prepared. I mean, safer sex kits are one of my favorite things and making sure that you have little packets of lube and gloves and internal condoms and external condoms, and anything else that would make play really safe and really fun, including a little mini vibe or something like that. Because that gives you so many options for other than intercourse type sex. If you want to hook up with somebody or have some really sexy encounter, but either they haven’t been tested recently, or you’re not sure of your status or you’re just not sure you want to have full intercourse with that person, but you’d like to get naked and feel good. I mean, having a really comprehensive, safer sex kit that you carry with you at any age, of any gender is such a wonderful thing and gives you so many options. So thank you so much, Amazing Mom for passing that on to your daughter. I think that’s phenomenal and I wish more parents would do that warms my heart.

Dawn Serra: So we’re actually almost at the end of this week’s Hickey, and I just wanted to share one other thing. I had all of the folks from the Explore More Summit vote on their four top talks that they wanted replayed. As of today, actually, the second talk is being replayed for free. It’s Dan Savage. Dan Savage is up on April 17th, only for 12 hours, though. So it’s a really limited timeframe, I’ll have a link up to just that talk if you go to sexgetsreal.com. But if you’re interested in hearing the other two talks, Reid Mihalko is going to be airing for 12 hours on Wednesday, April 20th, and Karen BK Chan is going to be airing next Sunday for 12 hours, and that is such a wonderful intimate talk.

Then just go to exploremoresummit.com and sign up. I’ll send an email out on Wednesday and next Sunday with all the links plus some other freebies, if you want to rehear any of those talks, or if you missed the summit that I hosted a few months ago. So it’s me interviewing Dan Savage today, but that’s only up till 8pm Eastern. Then on Wednesday, there’s 12 hours to hear me and Reid Mihalko, and next Sunday, is me and Karen BK Chan. So exploremoresummit.com, you can sign up for the list and get some freebies. Then on Wednesday and Sunday, you’ll get some emails from me with the details about that.

Dawn Serra: I woke up this morning, and I just really felt like I’m really grateful for you. I’m really grateful that you’re here with me and you’re interested in sex positivity and talking about relationships and being brave and being courageous. I have so many ideas for things I want to do with this show that are beyond interviewing people and telling people’s stories. It means a lot to me that you’re here with me on this journey and I know it might be a little bit bumpy here and there as we’re figuring tech out because I had to move the Sound Studio, but you’re amazing and your questions are amazing and your stories are incredible. I love hearing from you.

So if you want to write in and have me and or one of my guest experts answer a question for you or share your story, you can go to sexgetsreal.com. There’s a contact form where you can either leave your name and email or do it anonymously if you need to protect your identity. So please do that. Also make sure to follow Sex Gets Real on Twitter. You can follow me @Dawn_Serra on Twitter and also on Instagram. I post a lot of pictures of cats, food, and sex toys. If you like cats, food, sex toys, then my Instagram is for you. But anyway, I just want to wish all of you a really wonderful week and to say that I love all of you so much.

Dawn Serra: I will be back next week with an interview with Victoria Rosa, who is a conscious relationship and open relationship expert and coach. She was on the Explore More Summit and we’re going to be talking all about relationships and non-monogamy. It’s a really fun chat. So I will talk to you next week. Have a great Sunday. This is Dawn Serra with Sex Gets Real. Bye.

Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to the Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/SGR to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses.

As you look towards the next week, I wonder, what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship, or helps you to connect more deeply with your pressure.