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Some news about my personal life. I’m moving to Canada, FINALLY. Also, my Bartholin gland flared up – and I had to take my own advice around new ways to experience sex and touch when intercourse and masturbation were off the table for several weeks. Ugh. Bodies.
This week’s show features a listener confession from S about a mess she had in her life. We also get an update from Scarlett Grace about telling her friend that she doesn’t want to have threesomes with her anymore.
Hailey wrote in asking how she can support a friend who was raped but who doesn’t want to call it rape and who hasn’t asked for support. How can you be a good friend and let someone know you’re there for them after sexual assault, trauma, or rape? Let’s talk about centering survivors and what that might look like, even if it feels really terrible for the people around them. Also, I am planning a trauma summit in August. Get on the Explore More list to get the notification. It will be free.
Kelsey wonders – what’s the difference between having a type or having a fetish, especially when it’s racist and oppressive? Kelsey has a co-worker who constantly talks about Asian women and why he loves them. It’s tokenism and exoticism, and she wants to know what she should do.
My thoughts include why we ALL have a responsibility to critically reflect and examine our fantasies. Kitty Stryker has a thought-provoking piece on this very thing that’s linked below. Sometimes we need to feel ashamed and move through that to get to deeper, more meaningful understandings of ourselves.
Micah loves Conner Habib’s deep questions, especially about impossibility and opening up conversations to new thought. He wants to know – why do we so often jump to “never” when even bringing up new ideas around sex and love? I have loads of thoughts. A lot of it comes back to safety.
Stephanie’s boyfriend has premature ejaculation and it’s impacting their sex life. Medicine hasn’t worked. She hates her body. She’s faking her orgasms. What can she do? Big big thoughts there on body neutrality, on removing goals and expectations from sex, and from trying something new when the things you’re trying keep not working.
You do NOT need to love your body to have enjoyable sex.
If you’re interested in one-on-one coaching, check out my options here.
Follow Dawn on Instagram.
Resources mentioned in the show
Kitty Stryker’s article about examining our fantasies and challenging ourselves when they’re racist, sexist, and problematic.
Elle Chases’s new book, “Curvy Girl Sex: 101 Body Positive Positions to Empower Your Sex Life”
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.
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!
Hello listeners! I am recording this in my PJs. I am looking out at a snow covered world, despite the fact that we have had several days in a row that were in the 70s and 60s. Or, for those of you who have Celsius, close to 20 degree days. Now there is snow. But it’s probably the last one that I’m going to see for a while because I don’t think I announced it on the podcast, but my Canadian permanent residency papers came through. We just have one final step, which is an interview with the border. The plan is to be living in Vancouver around June 1, so I am very excited. Although, slightly dreading having to pack up my whole house and move again, even though it’s only been six months since I did the cross country move to Utah. So, yeah. I’m excited, and things have been so busy. I didn’t think I had shared that with everybody.
Dawn Serra: For those of you who get grossed out easily by body stuff, I’m giving you a little warning. I also, earlier this year, spent several weeks out of sexual commission because I had a Bartholin gland blockage. A little anatomy lesson for those of you who don’t know what the Bartholin gland is, it’s a little gland that for folks with a vulva lives inside of your labia just inside and near the vaginal canal, and it helps to produce a lot of the wetness and secretions that just naturally keep the vulva and the vagina healthy, but that also help with arousal. Bartholin gland backups can be incredibly painful. Unfortunately, they often lead to surgery or to needing to have a drain installed.
Thankfully, mine didn’t get to that place. But it was very painful. I had to do lots of sitz baths with Epsom salts, and it’s super common. They happen for all different kinds of reasons, like too much agitation, pre-arousal, having sex without enough natural lubrication and/or added lubrication or just because your body just has a little blockage. Our bodies do amazing, weird things all the time. So, yeah. That took me out of commission for a little while and being patient through that was really challenging. All of our bodies do all kinds of bananas things. And being patient through that can be terrible.
Dawn Serra: I actually have a question about bodies that I’m going to field today. But I just wanted to share my little hiccup that my body gave me, that really did take sex in my body, intercourse off the table. Also, masturbation was off the table, and oral was off the table. Getting really creative with giving to Alex was a big part of it, and also just finding ways to get physical touch through massage and cuddles and kisses. That was what my body needed. So allowing that to be true. I know I give advice like that all the time. I just wanted to share with all of you that I did have to take my own advice. While I was frustrated at my body, I did still feel really lucky that I felt like I had lots of options.
I want to remind all of you that Patreon supporters for the show will get to join me on April 17th, which is next Monday, for a little online pajama party. We will have an hour to just chat. You can ask me questions. We can share stories. It’s going to be a pretty PG-13 event, very similar to the podcast, but us just getting to actually hang out face to face, say hi, share what’s going on in our lives. I’m going to have questions that I ask all of you, so that you can share yourselves with me. And it should be really fun.
Dawn Serra: So if you are around on April 17th, it’s going to be in the evening, Mountain Time. Adjust accordingly, depending on where you are. But Patreon supporters will get a special link in a couple of days that will make our little pajama party happen. So I’m super excited. If you want to make sure you’re one of them, you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show. Of course, every single dollar helps me to keep doing this, and I really need it, to be honest.
Getting companies to sponsor shows around sex has proven to be very difficult. When you don’t have a Dan Savage-size audience, most companies are a little scared to associate themselves with an explicit show. A lot of the amazing companies out there doing incredible work are barely making ends meet themselves. A lot of the feminist sex toy shops and things like that, they don’t have a lot of money to spare. So your individual dollars are so helpful, and I appreciate it. That’s why I’m doing the PJ party, and we will have more things like that planned over the course of the rest of the year. So thank you so much.
Dawn Serra: We are going to dive into some questions. Then actually, this coming week, I’ve got a whole bunch of interviews lined up with folks. I’ve got Suzie Q, who’s a porn performer and now speaker works with the Free Speech Coalition to help folks who do porn and erotic film, to fight against unfair laws and unfair labor requirements, and all kinds of neat stuff. We’re going to dive into that. I’ve got some authors coming up who have written some super rad books about all kinds of things. So definitely stay tuned. We’ve got some really fun things. I’ve got this beautiful, amazing porn performer that is in Erika Lust films and has done Four Chambers films with Vex Ashley, and she’s going to be on the show soon. I am super excited about what’s coming up next, which is why I wanted to squeeze in some listener questions now before we get all these super fun chats coming.
The first email that I got was actually a follow up from Scarlett Grace. If you remember a couple of weeks ago, Scarlett wrote in that her and her husband used to have sex with this one friend of theirs. But they had stopped having sex with her because their friend was engaging in a lot of promiscuity, and this person was a little worried about safety and STIs and wasn’t sure how to navigate that conversation.
Dawn Serra: Scarlett Grace wrote back, and it was a follow up to how not to have sex with your friend. Here’s what she shared. “Hi, Dawn. I just listened to your podcast with my question, and I just wanted to follow up. Thank you so much for your advice. It really helped me to tell my friend how much I love the place we are in right now with our friendship. I left out, for now, my feeling on her playtime with others and just explained to her that I want to enjoy what we have together. I don’t have an issue with multiple partners and playing around. I actually really enjoy playing with others. But I know she’s not using protection or asking people to get tested. She’s told me in the past that she hasn’t been tested in a really long time, which scares me. So again, thank you so much for the great advice. You are great, and I love listening.”
Thank you so much Scarlett Grace. I love follow ups. I love hearing that my advice helped you a little bit with your conversation with your friend and maintaining that connection. That’s so important. I also just saw a statistic. I tweeted it out. If you follow me, you can follow the show on Twitter at @SexGetsReal. You can follow me at @Dawn_Serra, where I post a lot of political views, where I post a lot of my aspirations for the world. I asked really challenging questions.
Dawn Serra: But I saw someone tweet out a new statistic. They had polled several hundred people around men and STI tests. Over 50% of the men said that they had never been tested for STIs. Then another 10% said that they did it less than a year, less than once a year. I just found that – not surprising, I guess, but really made me sad – as much information as we have available and with as much access as we have had, at least under the Affordable Care Act – I don’t know in the United States what will happen under a 45 presidency – and those folks who are outside the country who have universal health care. STI testing is often free or somewhat affordable and so important to just know. But I think people are just scared and/or don’t want to think about it. They’d rather not know. Then that’s how we get into situations where people feel really betrayed.
I think it’s also a symptom of hookup culture of, “I don’t owe you anything. We just hooked up once. I don’t owe you respect or my time. I don’t owe you answers about my body or your body. I’m just going to tell you what I need to tell you to get into bed with you.” That’s one of the reasons why I have this show is so we can fight against that. Anyway, thank you so much for writing in, Scarlett Grace.
Dawn Serra: To everybody out there who’s listening, please be sure you know your status. Even if you’re in a long term monogamous relationship, it’s still a good idea to get tested every couple of years, especially since we know that infidelity rates are in the 70 and 80 percentile for a lot of people. So just get it done, know your status, even if it’s just, “Yup. It’s confirming what I thought all along.” To have that information is so important both for ourselves and for the people we may come into contact with.
I got a listener confession. As you know, the theme for March and April is messes. I got a listener confession from S, the letter S like Sam. The subject line is, “Good sex doesn’t equate to a good relationship.” Here’s what S shared. “Hey, Dawn. I love your show. I have an hour drive to work, and it’s my Monday ritual to listen to all of your latest show on my drive. I know March and April’s themes are messes, and I have quite the emotional mess. I am a cisgendered female who identifies as pansexual. I am married to my wonderful wife, and I have to admit our life together is incredible. But before we got to this incredible place in our relationship, we had a very rocky patch.
Dawn Serra: So here’s my mess. About six years ago, I encountered someone who had changed my sexual nature for the rest of my life. He invoked a fire in me that has never left. Sex with him was fire and magic. He ended up being extremely controlling, and not in the way that I wanted him to be. The relationship had to end for my mental health. Breaking up with him allowed me to meet my wife. The mess happened about three years ago, after I did some things that I, to this day, regret. The ex and I hooked up, leaving my relationship in shambles. The sex was incredible and mind-blowing, which is what clouded my judgment to begin with. He and I continued this mess for a couple of months, hoping it would get cleaned up. But it never did. I quickly realized that something huge was missing from me – my wife.
In order to clean up the mess I made, I had to give up the most incredible sexual partner I’ve ever had, and I had to choose love. I had to choose the person who made me whole instead of the person who made me feel good while simultaneously tearing me apart emotionally. I’m happy he’s in my past. I’m happy to be married to the love of my life. This mess still haunts me. And it still lingers in the crevices of my heart. But cleaning up the mess made my world a much better place. Thank you for listening. I’ve never told anyone this, and it feels good to lift it off of me, if only just a little. I hope this finds you well. Love S.”
Dawn Serra: Thank you so much for sharing that with us and for trusting us with your story and your mess. I think so many of us can relate to that, of having this intense chemistry in one way or another with somebody who’s just really not good for us, with someone who hurts us or controls us or lies to us, continually betrays us. Yet, we keep coming back because something about it is so good or so exhilarating. Sometimes we have to make that really challenging decision to walk away from something that can often feel like an addiction or an obsession. It’s like the sex is so good or the conversation is so good, that it’s hard to walk away from that. But I love that by walking away from that, you opened yourself up to the potential for this love and this connection with your wife and this beautiful world that you’ve created. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. I know that’s something a lot of us can understand.
Hailey wrote in. It says, “How to talk about rape and relationship abuse.” Now, there’s two questions in this email. I’m just going to answer the first one right now, and then hopefully, later down the road, I’ll be able to get to the other one. But here’s the first question. “Hi, Dawn. You are amazing. I’ve been listening for a long time now. I love talking about sex and relationships with my friends in an open and honest way. Your show has helped me become more articulate and open when I do so. There are a couple of topics in which I’m stumped.
Dawn Serra: My friend disclosed to me a situation in which her consent was not given and ignored. These guys took advantage of her, even when she verbally said no. It was really horrible to hear this has happened. Of course, our first reaction was to try and comfort or support her. She flat out refused to say the “r” word when describing the event. She was determined it was partly her fault. I’m not sure it was right of us to tell her that it was rape. But it is hard not to have an emotional and an angry reaction.
Time has passed, and the topic hasn’t come up again. The friends who know what happened want to check in with her and support her. But we have no idea how to have this discussion. I really hope I’m not being insensitive. I would love your wisdom on how we can reach out to her and help her through this. Or should we leave it be? Thank you again for what you do. Hailey.”
Dawn Serra: I just want to recognize, first of all, that you want to help your friend, and you want to support her. I think that’s a beautiful thing to want to do that. I also know that for many survivors, using the rape word is really, really, really scary. Sometimes it’s harder to even say that word than to think about what happened because we don’t want to be a victim. We don’t want to be a rape survivor. We don’t want to think about the fact that we were raped. We don’t want to think about the people that we know who did this as being rapists. There’s so much around that that’s just charged and painful and terrible.
So it can be so much easier to just blame yourself, to internalize all the things that you didn’t do. Because then you don’t have to confront the reality of what happens. You don’t have to confront the betrayal. You don’t have to confront all of the wounding that may have happened. You can just blame yourself and take that on, so that it’s not something you have to deal with out in the world. That’s a very common response for a lot of people.
Dawn Serra: I think one of the hard things when it comes to any type of abuse or sexual trauma from friends and family is because, as a friend, you’re so angry, and you’re so uncomfortable. You’re experiencing such big emotions about what happened because you love your friend. There’s this need to do something – to fix it, to make it better, to rush someone to healing, to rush someone to finding words that maybe aren’t their own. And it’s understandable. When we love someone, we hate thinking about them being in pain. We hate thinking about them being alone. Also, we don’t want to sit with the discomfort ourselves. We want justice. We want to know that something is happening other than just sitting in this uncertainty because there’s discomfort there.
I think the most important thing that we have to think about when we’re dealing with trauma of any kind is centering the survivor or centering the person who has been experiencing that trauma. That can be really uncomfortable because centering them might mean doing something that’s very different than what we would do. And that’s where we have to really look within ourselves.
Dawn Serra: So I think the most important thing that you and your friends can do is just let your friend know that you’re there. It can be as simple as, “I love you so much. If there’s ever anything that you just need to share or let go of, and you just want me to hold that space, I am here for you. Anything at all in the world. My job as your friend is to support you and hold that space. I want to be that person. I want to be that friend. So let me know how I can support you.” And leave it at that. You don’t have to ask how she’s feeling about the trauma, bring the trauma back up, ask what language she’s using around it. I mean, that can be really retraumatizing. She may need to lock that down for a while. She may need to put it in a box and move away from it for a little while before she’s ready and has some distance.
I think a really good thing for her would be therapy or a support group. But she has to be ready for that on her own time. That can’t be friends and family pushing that on her because if she’s not open, then it doesn’t do any good anyway.
Dawn Serra: I think what you and your friends need to do is grieve and mourn on your own. Deal with that anger and those big emotions in your own way that doesn’t involve your friend who was raped. Then just making it really clear to your friends, like, “I love you. If ever you need someone to just hold a safe space, if you just need to work through something or you need someone to rage with you, I want to be that person for you. Let me know how I can support you,” and then just let it go.
Don’t make it a point to bring this up over and over and over again because that can just add to the pain, especially if she needs to pretend like it didn’t happen for a little while. So center the trauma. Thank you for asking that question. I think there’s a lot of people out there who have friends and loved ones who have been raped or traumatized and don’t know what to do, don’t know how to offer support.
Dawn Serra: Just a little plug. I just finished up the Explore More Summit a couple of weeks ago, where we do 30 talks all about sex and emotional intelligence and kink. I’m doing a smaller, mini-summit in August that’s just about trauma. It’s going to be a couple of days of talking about trauma resilience, trauma healing support for trauma survivors. There’s going to be a part of the summit that’s specifically for friends and partners of people who have a trauma background, and how we can better support and better show up for people. Because our culture doesn’t teach us that. Our culture teaches us to rush in and fix, to offer advice, to force our friends because it’s good for them. And that’s the last thing that you need to do for folks who have suffered trauma or who have PTSD. So that’s going to be part of it.
Of course, it’s going to be free. Just mark your calendars or make sure you’re on my newsletter list. You can sign up at dawnserra.com or exploremoresummit.com, if you’re interested in learning more once the Trauma Summit gets birthed. We are pre-planning right now. But Hailey, for you and your friends, and for anyone else who’s in a similar situation, if you need to learn how to be a better support to someone who’s been through trauma or is experiencing trauma, that might be a good place to turn. So thank you for your very sensitive and wonderful question, Hailey. I appreciate it.
Dawn Serra: Kelsey wrote in and it says, “Type or fetish?” “Hey, Dawn. My name is Kelsey, and I’m just going to say I am completely obsessed with your podcast. I think you are the belle of the sex educators ball, and I can’t get enough of your fine, feminist ass. I’m interested to know your take on something that’s been bothering me for, oh, my entire life. I’m a white, cisgender girl who is in constant struggle to explain to my fellow whities why the things they say are racist.
Most recently, I have acquired a male coworker who is vocally enamored with Asian women. He says things like, “Asian women are my kryptonite. Asian girls get me going.” Aside from this not being appropriate office banter, I’m disturbed by his thought process. I feel defensive for my Asian sisters, who time and time again, are exoticized and fetishized by the male, especially Western male gaze. My question is this: I know we all have our preferences, but where do you think the line is between a type and a fetish? What’s the difference ultimately, between a racist-stereotyped fantasy and real life attraction? Thanks for your time. Kelsey.”
Dawn Serra: Oh, this is such a big question and a very complicated one. I think when you’re dealing with your co-worker, I think it’s important to just name like, “Hey, this makes me really uncomfortable. Please don’t say these things around me. It’s racist.” There’s lots of different ways to do that call out if you want to maintain that connection or not. But you get to say, “Please don’t say things like this. If you do, I’m going to call you out because it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to hear it.” You’re allowed to have that boundary, especially in the workplace.
But to talk to your question about a type and a fetish. At a very basic level, taking these comments aside, having a type versus having a fetish means if you have a fetish, you basically need that thing in order to achieve peak sexual arousal. It’s part of your ability to experience your full sexual experience. Now, that’s the extreme end of a fetish. We’ve made fetish more of a mainstream thing or it’s just something you really like. But traditionally, a fetish really means, if you have a foot fetish, a true foot fetish, it pretty much means that your sexual fantasies, your sexual experience, your best orgasms, your sexuality is very tied to feet. So the absence of feet may not be as arousing or as interesting. It’s a critical core part of your sexual experience.
Dawn Serra: Now, liking feet now has been associated with a fetish. It’s not a need, but it’s something that you like. But I think if we really boil fetish down to its core, that’s ultimately what it was intended to mean. Now, we’vemainstreamized it a little bit to just mean like, “I really enjoy the feel of latex, but I don’t need it. But it’s still my ‘fetish.’” Fetishes can be for all kinds of different things – for people, for behaviors, for certain body types, for certain body pieces, for certain types of visual stimulation, for certain words. I mean, it can be anything really.
I think what it’s so important for us to do is we don’t ever want to shame ourselves for our fetishes or our fantasies. But we do need to examine them. We have a responsibility. We have a responsibility in this world, especially when we’re sex positive folks, to examine our fetishes and our fantasies because we don’t exist in a vacuum. If our fantasies and fetishes are racist, are ableist, are fatphobic or are thin-fetishized, if they are misogynistic and sexist, we need to recognize that and name it, and examine it and pull it apart, and ask ourselves why. This might change the fetish or the fantasy, which a lot of people don’t want to do.
Dawn Serra: Also, so many of us are so cruel to ourselves and already have so much shame around our sexuality, that doing that self-reflection and that self-inquiry can feel really threatening. Because we’ve just barely accepted ourselves for whatever this fetish or fantasy is or we keep it very much a secret. Then to start examining, can trigger all sorts of insecurities and fears and shame. That’s work that we have to do.
If we want to create a world that is anti-oppressive, that is liberated, that is justice-oriented, that is sexually expressive and open, then each of us have a responsibility to look at our fetishes and fantasies, and to understand what they actually mean and where they’re coming from. And hold ourselves accountable. We can certainly be open about having them, and we can acknowledge where they come from. But we have to be able to have that discussion.
Dawn Serra: Kitty Stryker actually has an article that she wrote that I’ll link to for this episode called “Your Favorite Fantasy is Problematic.” She talks all about her fantasies, some of which are a little triggering and definitely have some race and misogyny undertones. But she’s just being very upfront, like, “Hey, I’ve got these fantasies. Lots of us do.” Then she starts breaking down rape fantasies, and why rape fantasies, one, are super common, especially for folks who have been socialized as women. So when it’s common, we shouldn’t be ashamed of it. It’s just what’s in our makeup. But, two, when we really start examining it, it’s very common to have a rape fantasy where this a very attractive, smoldering, powerful individual just can’t get enough of us, and comes in and takes us. That’s usually what a rape fantasy is like.
Sometimes rape fantasies where someone has tied you up and kidnapped you, and you can’t see them. But they’re doing these things to you that feel amazing even if you don’t want to admit it. But there’s still pleasure being centered. Your pleasure being centered. It’s very rare to hear or see people talking about being the rapist in these fantasies. It’s not unheard of, but it’s much less common.
Dawn Serra: So when we start really breaking that down, what does that show us? We’re talking about not having sexual agency, about not having to speak up for ourselves, about not having to vocalize our needs. Kitty starts really breaking down how all of this is fed by misogyny and sexism. We have a responsibility to know that about ourselves. We don’t have to judge ourselves for it. But we do need to understand where these things are coming from. I think that takes us back to what you’re talking about, Kelsey.
Now, a type can be a preference where, “I really enjoy folks who are tall,” or “I really enjoy folks who, let’s say, have a little meat on them or a little stocky. Something I can grab on to,” or “I really enjoy people who have a great sense of humor.” But generally, if we have a healthy kind of preference, we’re going to allow other types of people to still be attractive and exist in our world. Whereas with a fetish, we’re more likely to just want this one type of person and to reject any other type of person or body or race.
Dawn Serra: Again, with our types, our types do not exist in a vacuum. They are informed by the cultural soup that we are living in. So if you have a type – you prefer blondes, you really like tall men – these are all classic symbols of sexism and heteronormativity. Advertising telling you what’s sexy. Advertising telling you that men should be tall and strapping, and that women should be petite and blonde and youthful. We need to examine those things and challenge ourselves. We have a responsibility as sex positive individuals to do that.
It sounds, to me, Kelsey, your co-worker has an incredibly racist fantasy and an incredibly racist understanding of women. He has thoroughly bought into this exoticized and fetishized ideal that you explain. Probably, that Asian women are demure. Probably, that Asian women are petite. Probably, that Asian women are going to be very grateful to the Western man. These very toxic, toxic messages, as you well know, and he’s expressing them.
Dawn Serra: I think that sometimes people just have to move through the shame. I know that the first couple of times I really got confronted around my transphobia and racism, I felt tons of shame. But I had to feel that shame in order to move through to a place where I was starting to actually confront and ask myself questions. I had to feel ashamed because I was. They are terrible things. They’re painful, harmful, oppressive things to be carrying. I have to be able to feel that shame and hold that shame in order to start actually moving through it.
I think, for you, set the boundary. Say, “Asian women are exoticized and fantasized. What I keep hearing from you are really racist comments. I would really appreciate it if you didn’t say this about Asian women anymore around me.” He might find that super terrifying and confronting, and it might piss him off a lot. But that’s not your problem. You get to set that boundary.
Dawn Serra: Let’s all challenge ourselves in examining these things. Also, read Kitty’s article. I think that it’s a really interesting thing for all of us to think about. I will post that on dawnserra.com for this episode, which is 156. Thanks so much for listening, Kelsey, and for writing in, and for being so sweet and supportive. I super appreciate it, and good luck with your racist co-worker.
Micah wrote in with a question that has to do with some conversations that I’ve had with Conner Habib. I think it builds really nicely on the Kelsey question. Micah says, “Hey Dawn. I really love your show, and I’ve enjoyed listening to you grow as an interviewer. I particularly love the empathy you show when you answer a question. I have listened to Conner on a couple of other podcasts, “magic and occult” being one of them. I really like the difficult yet highly relevant discussions that he wants to have.
Dawn Serra: Today, I went back to listen to all the Conner podcasts I have right in a row, and yours was the last of the bunch. I listened to your intro a couple of times. You nailed what we need to be more willing to do as a culture in that introduction. I can definitely see that you’re having the conversations that ask your listeners to sit with a little discomfort as they listen and process things. You do it in a positive way that invites people and gives them permission, as you would say, to really give some thought to what you’re presenting.
I’d love to get more of your thoughts on the podcast about the idea of how we can free ourselves from the idea of impossibility that Conner has talked about. For example, if a person talks about open relationships, as just raising the topic for general conversation, another person might reply, “I could never be in an open relationship. I could never allow my partner to look at another person like that.” The impossibility extends to even conversing about the topic. Is it that we’re scared that we might consider something possible, as opposed to impossible that we will be forced to do it? Is it that we are scared that if we consider something as possible, then our partners might see that as the green light to go and do it, and we don’t want that to happen? I’d love to hear some of your thoughts or to have some more guests to consider this issue. Micah.”
Dawn Serra: I love this question, Micah. Thank you so much. Conner always gives me lots of food for thought. One of the things that I really love about Connor is I don’t always agree with everything that he’s sharing. As a trauma survivor, as somebody who has a vulva, as someone who’s been socialized as a woman, there’s a lot of things that aren’t factored into some of the conversations that Conner and I have had.
But one of the things I love about Connor is that he very much thinks deeply and asks very hard questions. Then he challenges himself to imagine a future beyond our current world. A lot of us are so focused on, “Let’s just get 45 out of the White House. Let’s just make sure that our elected officials are liberal. Let’s just focus on these smaller timeframes of how do we just get a more sex positive person into the White House.” But Connor really wants to think beyond all of our social constructs, to a world where we have unlearned everything. Where our society looks completely different. Maybe there’s no police state. Maybe there is a much different type of organized government, if government at all. Where none of us have any shame whatsoever about our bodies or sexuality.
Dawn Serra: So he is thinking big, huge, vision-type questions that are hundreds or thousands of years in the future. But he talks about how we can’t possibly know what we’re aiming for unless we do that. How can we decide what issues we should focus on? What types of things we need to confront in ourselves if we don’t know what our vision is for a totally liberated anti oppressive world? I think that’s very rare. I think 99.9% of us are so focused on a future that’s just within the next couple of years or a couple of decades, that we’re not really clear on our vision for what this world looks like if everyone was liberated.
Coming back to your question, Micah, about impossibility, for a lot of us… I don’t know if this is gendered or not. My thought is that it might be. But here’s a perfect example. Dylan used to talk about how her wife had fantasies that she wouldn’t share with Dylan. Because in her wife experience, whenever her wife shared a secret fantasy with Dylan, Dylan’s response would be, “Wow, that sounds really hot. Let’s do that.” “Hey, when do you want to do that?” “Hey, are you ready to do the thing? Because that’s really hot.” And/or just try and make it happen.
Dawn Serra: So there’s this assumption, often for folks who are feminine or socialized as women, that by simply saying something, it’s an invitation. I know this is absolutely true. If you are out at a bar and there’s some cis women talking to some cis men, and if the subject of sex comes up, the cis women might really just genuinely be talking about sex, but because of how we’re socialized, the cis men actually are seeing that as an invitation. That, potentially, these women want to have sex with them. It’s the same. There’s been so many studies that show that folks that have been socialized as men or masculine interpret eye contact as an invitation. Whereas, folks who are socialized as women, for them, eye contact is just simply, “I’m looking around the room and our eyes meet. I am not in any way interested in you or thinking anything whatsoever about you. I am just looking at the room.” There’s wonderful articles about that.
I think, for a lot of people, because of their lived experience, especially if you are socialized as female, you have the experience that when something is verbalized, it immediately gets met with, “Oh. We can do that. When are we going to do that? I’d love to do that. How can we make that happen?” What that teaches us is it’s not safe to share things or to consider possibilities. But it’s because many of us are just terrible communicators. We don’t ask for clarity. We don’t ask for more information. We don’t circle back and ask how somebody feels about what they shared. We’re so afraid of having honest, open conversations, and actually asking for clarity that we just make these leaps and assumptions. Again, this is like the antithesis of consent culture.
Dawn Serra: For a lot of people, impossibility is a way of staying safe. If I bring up my sexual fantasy, and now every time we talk about sex, my partner asks if we can do that thing, that doesn’t feel safe for me. That feels really gross, actually. So now I’m not going to share my things anymore. When the question comes up, it’s going to be a lot easier for me to just say no and shut it down because then I don’t have to do the emotional labor of constantly tending to you asking again and again. I think for a lot of us, too. We’re raised in a culture that just has so much shame. So few of us actually have language for our experiences and for what we want. So few of us know how to navigate really challenging situations with grace That even the thought of doing something that might be messy is too painful to bear. If I think about this, then that may mean my partner wants to do it. But if my partner wants to do it, what if that means then we have all these super uncomfortable conversations? I just don’t know if I even have the spoons for that. Our life is super stressful. I can’t think about it. I’m shutting it down.
There’s a lot of work that has to happen culturally, for us to move out of that impossibility model and to feel safe to even have these conversations. It’s some of what you said that we’re scared that we might be forced to do it because I think a lot of us have been taught that we will constantly be questioned. If I say, “Hey, that pegging video was kind of hot.” “I don’t know. Maybe I’d want to do that someday.” If now, every couple of weeks or every couple of days or every couple of months, my partner’s like, “Hey, we’re going to do that pegging thing,” without actually asking about my experience and my feelings and just assuming, that’s a terrible feeling. That’s so much emotional labor.
Dawn Serra: I know that I had a lover at some point, who thought that they were in a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” open situation. So he took a lover and later found out that that was not the case. They did not have an open “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” situation. They had just been talking about it. Or, at least, that was the perspective from his partner.
I also think that a lot of us aren’t ready to confront a lot of things in ourselves. So having a conversation can make us go into really uncomfortable places. If we feel like we might have an emotional response, if we might start crying because that feels really challenging, if we’ve been betrayed in that space before, we are not a society that is good with emotions. There’s so many reasons why we just shut it down. And it’s to keep ourselves safe. It’s to prevent having to constantly defend. That just means that all of us need to be better at listening, at empathy, at holding space, at not taking other people’s words and running with them without clarifying.
Dawn Serra: I think if we can all become much better communicators, and if we can– I think the real key is if we can be better at just holding space for other people’s fantasies and emotions and feelings around sex without feeling like it’s an invitation or something that we have to step into, then all of us are going to feel a lot more safe about entertaining possibilities. I think we have a long way to go before we get there. But if everyone listening starts practicing that, then we can be better partners. We can be better friends. We can have these bigger conversations, even if they feel scary or confronting because we know people are going to hold space for it.
I loved that you asked this, Micah. My brain’s feeling like a thousand miles a minute. There’s so many other thoughts that I have. But I also don’t want to just spend all my time talking about this on this show. I love your suggestion of maybe having someone on who can dig into this with me with a little bit more depth. I will put that on my list. I will either have Conner back or I’ve got a couple of therapists and psychologists that I want to have on the show, especially if we’re talking about socialization of gender and masculinity. That might be the perfect question to talk to them about, too. Thank you so much for listening, and I’m so glad that you loved the Conner interview. I will let him know. I’m sure he will love that.
Dawn Serra: We have time for one last question, and it’s from Stephanie. “I love your podcast. You’re my hero. I love your confidence, and I wish I had an ounce of it. My boyfriend has an issue with premature ejaculation. Literally, he can only move five times before he finishes. We went to the doctor, and they put him on a low dose med that does nothing for the issue. He tries to please me first, but I have a hard time finishing because my mind tends to be everywhere, but at the moment.”
“I don’t know why this is happening. I’m so attracted to him in every single way. I’m a very sexual person. I always have been, and I have no problem getting myself off when I’m alone. But it’s very difficult to get off when I’m not alone. I have not told him that because he already feels so terrible. And so I fake it. This has been a lifelong issue for him. I would love your suggestions. Anything. I’m literally willing to do anything. I hate my body, so I don’t feel sexy in it. I’ve gained a lot of weight after a surgery. We love each other very much, and I can’t stand the thought of this being a major problem. I want to see what it’s actually like to make love to him for even five minutes. I need this to happen. Help! Much love to you, Stephanie.”
Dawn Serra: First of all, thank you so much for listening to the show and for writing in Stephanie, I appreciate you trusting me with these questions because they’re big ones. There’s so much pain in your email. I want to start first with something that you read at the end, which is, “I hate my body. I don’t feel sexy in my body. I’ve gained a lot of weight after surgery.” You don’t have to love your body. I know everybody’s going to tell you that you do. And it’s great when you do. But you don’t have to. You do not have to love your body in order to have wonderful pleasure and wonderful sexual experiences.
Also, we move in and out of these feelings. You might hate your body from head to toe right now. But there’s probably going to come a point in time when there’s parts of yourself that you really enjoy. You may not love all of it. I don’t love every single inch of me most of the time. But I want to just give you some permission in that space of, you can experience pleasure and you deserve pleasure. Even if you hate the way your body looks.
Dawn Serra: You can also start challenging that a little bit. What if instead of loving your body, you just tried to find a little bit of comfort and ease in your body? What if you just had a little bit more space to not have these thoughts around how you feel about your body? Maybe even just finding a neutral place where you don’t think lots of hateful thoughts, and you don’t really think anything. I think that can often be such a beautiful place of ease for us as if we just didn’t even think about it.
So I’d encourage you to do some work in that place. Just surround yourself with some body positive activists, specifically people who are fighting against fatphobia. People like Virgie Tovar, like Jes Baker, who writes under The Militant Baker, Dances with Fat, following a lot of these fat positive activists on Instagram and Facebook, and seeing these dialogues for how to exist in a body that the world has told us is undesirable. Our bodies change throughout our lives for so many different reasons. So gaining a lot of weight after a surgery is super normal. Other people lose lots of weight and hate it because they have no boobs or hips. Other people lose mobility or lose limbs.
Dawn Serra: Learning a little bit of resilience around the body that’s changing, whether it’s post baby, post surgery or aging, all of us are in bodies that are going to change. The only alternative is death. So all of us are in bodies that will change.
I have so much compassion for you around hating your body. That is a relationship that I have for a long time. And it doesn’t get fixed overnight. It doesn’t get fixed in a couple of years. But you can just begin to have a little bit of space around that, and you don’t have to get to a place of love. That’s impossible for a lot of us. Elle Chase just came up with a book called, “Curvy Girl Sex,” that’s super body positive and invites lots of different positions and pleasure no matter what your body looks like. So do that work for yourself. Give yourself permission to just be in these feelings and to have just a little bit of curiosity.
Dawn Serra: Now, going to your boyfriend and his speed with ejaculation. One, that’s super common. Actually, there’s such a range in the ways that people ejaculate when they have a penis. It’s kind of astounding. Some people don’t come for 40 or 50 minutes. That can be a really terrible problem for partners, for a lot of different reasons, depending on the framing. Some people don’t like if it’s a couple of seconds, and some people really don’t like if it’s a super long thing because it can be exhausting and frustrating for a lot of people. We have lots of different feelings about the timing as if there’s a magic time, and there’s not. There’s so much pressure on folks who have a penis to have this ideal ejaculation time.
We aren’t taught that sex can be many, many different things. We aren’t taught that after ejaculation, sex can continue. We aren’t taught that having a soft cock can mean amazing sex. There are so many things that we aren’t taught because there’s this really, really narrow narrative.
Dawn Serra: Now, I understand wanting to have this physical connection with your boyfriend and wanting to have these experiences. Even if you’re not verbalizing your disappointment, he’s picking up on it. It’s probably pretty clear to him that you want something other than what he’s giving you. And that pressure can feel super terrible no matter what the issue is. If someone’s just low level dissatisfied with how your body looks, you’re going to pick up on that. Trust me. So the same with how his penis is functioning.
I think the bigger issue is not with how quickly he’s ejaculating. I think it’s more that he tries to please you first, but you have a hard time finishing because your mind tends to be everywhere but there. That is a really difficult place to be in for both of you. He’s feeling insecure. He’s feeling like his body is a failure. He’s trying to please you. So he’s trying to do all of this stuff from a place of feeling inadequate and shame. You’re struggling because achieving orgasm with a partner is something that is not easy for you. Coming alone is super easy, but coming with a partner is a place where you seem to be feeling like you’re unable to or where you struggle. Your mind is thinking about a thousand different things.
Dawn Serra: This is not an equation for a super enjoyable mutual experience. I mean, both of you are someplace super different. You’re both focusing on this goal and so desperate for this goal and doing nothing but feeling disappointed. And I get it. This is not because of you. This is because of what we’ve been taught sex should be and should look like. We tie our worth and our loveability to having certain types of sex. So this is just a terrible, painful place for both of you.
Now, one of the things I would recommend is working with someone like a sex coach, which is something that I do. I do work with both couples and people in relationships and individuals around their various struggles and insecurities. Working with a coach who can actually help you unpack some of this and try new things could be really important. Also, finding a therapist that can help with a lot of the insecurity, the pain, the miscommunication.
Dawn Serra: Another really powerful thing, you might also want to check out Meg-John Barker’s new book with Justin Hancock called “Enjoy Sex.” It turns sex and the way we think about it completely on its head. There’s exercises and questions throughout the book. It’s all about rewriting how we experience each other and pleasure and ourselves. I think it’s a really powerful, important book. It seems basic when you first start reading it. But that’s because at a foundational level, all of us have these really skewed terrible understandings of sex that are so narrow.
What I want to recommend to you, Stephanie, is, one, have a conversation with your boyfriend. Let him know that you’re feeling uncomfortable in your body, that you understand he wants so much to please you, and then just really go back to basics. What does sex mean to you? What does sex bring to your life? What needs is it meeting? Is it touch? Is it validation? Is it desire? Is it feeling connected to him in a special way? Is it a stress relief? Really, at a very basic level, what does sex mean? What needs is it meeting? Then when you talk about pleasure, what are all the different ways that you can experience pleasure in your body, both on your own and with your boyfriend? Does it feel good when he kisses your neck? Does it feel good when you use his toys on you? Does it feel good when he uses his fingers? Does it feel good when you touch him? What would happen if you were to give him a blowjob and he were to finish? Then he were to flip you over and give you an hour-long erotic massage and finger you and use toys on you and do all these incredible things that you find pleasurable, so that you can have this mutual experience.
Dawn Serra: It can even be short, like five minutes, like you said, where it doesn’t have to be about a goal of orgasming. It doesn’t have to be a goal of having intercourse or making love for a certain amount of time. The more you can move away from those goals, the more that you can focus on pleasure and just enjoying the experience, whatever it looks like, even if it’s not what you think it should look like, the more you build the potential for different results. What you want is something different. You don’t want to be stuck in this place of feeling inadequate. Your boyfriend doesn’t want to be stuck in this place of feeling inadequate. So you have to do something different. Even if that’s scary, even if that’s painful, even if that makes you angry, have those feelings. But then try and find fun ways to have new connections, to have new pathways to pleasure that work for the both of your bodies.
Maybe the answer is you two having a really good time and laughing and feeling good. He orgasms, and you two keep touching and kissing and playing and feeling good. It’s not a point of shame. It’s a point of celebration because he had this pleasure moment. Then maybe it ends with you masturbating, and you getting yourself off while he watches or while he holds you. That is sex. That is connection. That is pleasure. That is beautiful. So open yourself up to more options that aren’t about the goals. Because as long as that goal and that pressure is there, his experience in his body is not going to change and your frustration is not going to change. In fact, the danger is to keep pushing for this cycle, the disconnection is just going to grow and grow and grow, and that’s the opposite of what it is that you want.
Dawn Serra: If you’d like to work with me and do some one-on-one coaching, please hit me up. You can go to dawnserra.com. There’s a work with me page, and there’s a little intake questionnaire for people who are looking for coaching. I do have a couple of spots available. But at a minimum, Stephanie, check out Meg-John Barker’s book, “Enjoy Sex,” with Justin Hancock. I will have a link to it in the show notes, and also at dawnserra.com/ep156 for Episode 156. I want to wish you luck. Be patient. Give yourself permission. You’re on the right track by asking these questions. Now, you just have to try doing things a little bit differently and see where you end up. Thank you so much.
To everybody listening, thank you so much. I’m going to have a super fun interview with Suzie Q next week, and of course, the PJ party, April 17. Anyone who has pledged and supports on Patreon, there will be more fun things for later this year that I’ve got planned from private videos to more live chats and PJ parties. I’m actually planning an exclusive episode in about a month that’s only going to be for people who pledge on Patreon, so it will not go up on iTunes. It will not be available anywhere else, except for Patreon supporters. So be sure you go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to get in on all of the action and all of the fun. Thank you so much for listening. I’m Dawn Serra with Sex Gets Real. I will talk to you next week.