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Are you a witch, a slut, or a feminist?
Then this episode is for you because Slutist founder Kristen J. Sollée is here to chat with me, Dawn Serra, about her new book by ThreeL Media, “Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive.”
I’m not sure how much I’ve talked about it on the show, but I spent several years in my early twenties in a very close-knit witches coven. We met weekly, we did rituals for self-growth and world peace, and it was one of the most profound times of healing in my life. So, this book delighted the witch-of-old in me and the sex geek of now. I mean, you have to hear what “flying on a broomstick” really meant. It involves dildos.
When we think about people who have been cast as witches or sluts throughout the ages, like midwives and sex workers, we see people who had power and knowledge that often men didn’t have. Kristen and I have so many thoughts about this. It’s not a coincidence that the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of people killed over the years for witchcraft were women, usually over 40.
There is this deep fear of the feminine run wild. There is this deep fear that if women and feminine folks were in control than everything in the world would be destroyed. Hear Kristen and I geek out about that.
I also ask Kristen about cis men who are “reclaiming” the word slut in solidarity with women. Her response is hysterical and perfect.
We also talk about the power of ritual in our everyday lives as well as for sex and intention. There is SO much good stuff in this episode.
Follow Dawn on Instagram.
About Kristen J. Sollée:
Kristen J. Sollée is a lecturer at The New School and the founding editrix of Slutist, a sex positive site that delves into the intersections between sex, feminism, and the occult. Sollée’s signature college course, “The Legacy of the Witch” follows the witch across history, pop culture, and politics, from the Venus of Willendorf to The Love Witch. Her critically-acclaimed book, Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive, was published by Stone Bridge Press in 2017.Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real
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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.
Hey, listeners. Oh my god. Okay, I am so excited about so many things. First off, we did our live-taping of Sex Gets Real to celebrate our 200th episode, and the fact that the show is about to cross 4 million downloads. It was so much fun. So, on the episode coming up in the next week or two, you will get to hear the live-taping which includes questions and answers, and thoughts happening live in a group setting. It was so much fun. To all of you who showed up, thank you for helping me celebrate, and for lending your wisdom and being a part of it all. It was amazing and I think I want to do it again.
Dawn Serra: I’m also really excited because Explore More is happening again in 2018. And this is one of my favorite things to create. There’s going to be, I think, 29 speakers starting April 23rd for 10 days, and it’s totally free. If you sign up and you watch it on each of the days that the talks air, you not only get to see all of these amazing experts for free, but you also get free workbooks and participate in community discussions around emotional intelligence, and mental health, love and kink. Oh my god, it’s going to be so rich and juicy and different this year. We’re talking all about play and creativity and connection.
So if you want to be a part of it, go to exploremoresummit.com and sign up. If you have signed up for previous summits, you do have to sign up again. And, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that a week or two ago, I had mentioned that I was doing a super soft launch. And then we found out that the website wasn’t working. So if you have previously to now sign up for Explore More Summit 2018. If you signed up sometime in early March, and you didn’t get an email confirmation from me, then you probably need to sign up again. So, I apologize for that. We caught it when it was too late and oops.
Dawn Serra: Anyway, this episode is with Kristen Sollée, who is one of the founders of Slutist, which you may have had some chances to read online. Also, Kristen has a new book out called “Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive” and we had so much fun. A lot of you might not know that back in my early 20s, I was a practicing witch in a really tight-knit coven. It was one of the most profound experiences of healing of my life. And so, reading this book just brought back so many memories of all of the studying that I used to do and the experiences with ritual and community that I had. But we also talked all about, I don’t know, things like cis men using the word slut and what that means. And, the fact that witch hunts and witch burnings and killings are still happening in the world today, why the phrase “witches” and now the phrase “sluts”, and the phrase “feminist” are all used to weaponize against the feminine. It’s a geek-tastic chat.
So, let me tell you all about Kristen, and then we will jump in. Also Patreon listeners, Kristen and I, for our bonus chat, talk all about money as energy which means money as power and why sex workers are seen as so dangerous because of this power that they wield. Sex worker, Susie Q said this but, sex workers have the ability to make you hand over that money and that energy simply with the movement of their body. So there is tremendous terrifying power in that. And so, if you support at $3 or above on Patreon, you can hear that bonus chat and all of the other bonus chats. And a huge thank you! Somebody just pledged $50 a month to support the show, I literally screamed and ran around the house. They also are going to start getting free sex goodies from me because that’s what you get when you support at that level. So head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast if you want to hear the bonus chat with Kristen and/or if you want to support the show, even $1 is amazingly helpful for me. So, thank you.
Dawn Serra: So Kristen Sollée is a lecturer at the new school and the founding editrix of Slutist, a sex positive site that delves into the intersections between sex, feminism, and the occult. Sollée’s signature question course, The Legacy of the Witch, follows the witch across history, pop culture, and politics. From the Venus of Willendorf to the Love Witch, her critically acclaimed book, which is “Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive” was published by Stone Bridge Press in 2017. So here is my chat with Kristen Sollée all about witches.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Kristen. I am really excited to talk about witches, sluts, feminists with you today.
Kristen Sollée: Thanks so much for having me. Me too.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, so I just want to start. Listeners of the show may not know this, because I don’t talk about it a lot. But in my early 20s, I was in a coven. That was probably one of the most important experiences of my entire life.
Kristen Sollée: Wow, I love that.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. And so, back in the day read like all the witchy books and went to all kinds of different pagan circles and witch meetups. And finally found the one that worked for me and had this little coven that I was in for a few years. It was some of the most profound healing that I’ve ever done.
Kristen Sollée: Oh, yeah.
Dawn Serra: And reading your book just brought– So many of the books you quote or books that I had read back in the day. So it felt so wonderful and familiar. And it also made me miss it so much. There’s just so much wonderfulness in here.
Kristen Sollée: I’m so glad to hear that and that you have the experience, because it’s more fun to talk to someone who’s been digging into the witchy stuff for a while.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, it’s not something I talk about very often. So ta-dah! Hey, listeners, guess what?
Kristen Sollée: You’re a witch.
Dawn Serra: I was in a coven. Yeah, it’s really interesting. The evolution of my relationship with that word. It’s certainly changed – it was my core identity for a long time. And it’s not a word that I’ve used for myself in a long time, but it’s a space that I love and respect deeply for the possibilities that it offers. And I think that’s so much what your book is about, not only that, “Witches, Sluts, Feminists” are the vilification of women and all the things that they represent – that’s anti patriarchy. But also, the place to find healing and community and wisdom about self.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. And that was one of the reasons I even wrote it for my own purposes, my selfish purposes of spending so much time within those communities and with my own communities, which are part of that larger circle and how those three circles intersect. It was wonderful to just get to interview so many dozens of people from all walks of life who either identify us witches, sluts, or feminists or all three.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So I would love for us to start with where you started with the book. You opened with the sentiment that the names and the punishments might have changed over the years. But so many of the oppressive attitudes and behaviors towards women from the earliest witch hunts still persist today. And I’d love for you to explain to listeners a little bit some of the threads that you’ve seen that are being carried across generations even as the language changes.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. Well, you still see women and non-binary folks, and trans folks fighting for bodily autonomy, particularly, folks on the feminine spectrum. You still see people, women in particular, again, persecuted for their perceived or actual sexual expression. No matter what they do, really, it’s just all a matter of perception. If you perceive a woman is being too slutty, being too forward, being too scantily-clad or not offering herself up enough. It’s all in the realm of something that’s allowed to be judged in our culture and persecuted. And that’s been the case for hundreds and hundreds of years.
So, it’s different than the witch persecutions. We’re not hanging hundreds of thousands of women right now. But, the same attitudes and beliefs – a lot of really deeply misinformed beliefs often propagated by patriarchal religions, patriarchal government – is still at the root of the issues we’re facing today.
Dawn Serra: And, I think even manifest in interesting ways like when we think about people who have been cast as witches or sluts in – throughout the ages, like midwives who had power and knowledge that often many men didn’t have, or sex workers who were always labeled as whores and sluts, even today. It’s really interesting because listeners know, I just attended a medical conference recently. One of the things that just like killed me was that there was 20 sessions on how heterosexual cis women have the highest rates of sexual pain, sexual dissatisfaction, and the lowest rates of pleasure and orgasm. And that, lesbian and queer women have the highest rates of sexual satisfaction and the highest rates of orgasm, but they couldn’t connect those two. It was like they were two separate silos.
Kristen Sollée: That’s just ridiculous.
Dawn Serra: Which is ridiculous to have rooms full of doctors and psychologists – not able to see these pieces fit together. I saw that so much in what you were talking about around witches, sluts, and feminists and this… I don’t know, just the mystery narrative and the power narrative. And the ways that even today in medicine, female pleasure is mysterious and misunderstood, and women can’t be trusted. We see it even in places where we think we shouldn’t.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the medical religious establishment was what was driving the witch hunts and it seems today, that connection between the government and the medical establishment – how they’re in cahoots as well, that’s what’s driving so much of the problems we’re facing today too. Yeah, that’s that’s absolutely true.
Dawn Serra: Something else that I’ve been kicking out a lot about lately, and I’m just so… It’s a place where I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about and grappling with and it came up so much in every instance that was in your book was, there’s this deep fear of the feminine run wild. There’s fear that if women and feminine folks were let loose without restriction, everything in sight would be gobbled up in the world as we know it would be destroyed, which frankly, would be awesome. But for masculine folks, that’s terrifying. And so, I’ve been examining how every definition of masculinity is simply a rejection of everything that is feminine.
Kristen Sollée: Pretty much, yeah.
Dawn Serra: Right. And so, to cast women as a witch or a slut, is to weaponize all the things that masculinity is just inherently terrified of.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah, absolutely.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So, as you were thinking about femininity and the ways that’s been weaponized, what are some of the things that either surprised you or that were connections that you like, “Whoa, that makes so much sense,” as you were doing the research and talking to people? Where were some of your biggest aha moments?
Kristen Sollée: There were so many. Let me see. I’m really interested in how the satanic woman has been crafted through the origin story of Adam and Eve, and how that still pervades our consciousness today, even if you don’t identify as a Christian or a Jew or something. That origin story cast women as the cause of humankind’s downfall. And from that, you get more and more insidious, more and more fear of the feminine, and fear of women desiring knowledge or power. Just the way that gets, like you said, weaponize, but for a whole host of reasons that seem really unrelated – governments just wanting to shore up their power. Okay, what can we do? Who can we scapegoat women? It’s not really a direct correlation. You would think just all these different ways. Or the medical establishment, they’re like, “Midwives are not licensed healers. So even if we don’t really believe their satanic, let’s use them as the scapegoat for who we need to get rid of in order to shore up our ranks of medical doctors.” Just the same thing like in the 1800s, because abortion was illegal – sorry, it was legal United States and then illegal in the late 1800s.
The American Medical Association, part of the reason I’ve read according to scholars who do research on this, particularly that they were saying abortion should be banned was to get rid of midwives. Not specifically because at the time, they really cared so much. So like today, no one really wants to give any money toward women’s health care or women’s reproductive health or knowledge or education or even for adoption purposes. There’s no money for that. There’s just discussion about what you can’t do with your body.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. It’s like thinking, too, about this millennials old fear of the feminine specifically in Eurocentric cultures and white settler culture is – explained so much, too, where like if the feminine is inherently the antithesis of what we believe we should be wanting when it comes to power and control, then of course trans women would be the most dangerous.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah, I see that. The rates of violence and fear around trans femininity.
Dawn Serra: Exactly. Because it’s like we have to take power away from the feminine and then to have someone choose that, that’s how it’s seen, of course, is right to have one choose that is like the ultimate betrayal to patriarchy. Oh my gosh. Language was something that was heavily policed, especially during – Well, all the time – but essentially during the witch trials. And, you had pointed out how so many of the women that were killed or persecuted as witches were simply women who were using language freely. They used language they wanted to, they spoke in ways that were deemed unfit for women, they dared to use their voice.
I think that’s so fascinating that when we’re really examining the reasons that so many women were put to death or were harmed and tortured, often it has nothing to do with the actual mystical powers, but more about everyday power that they didn’t want women having.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah, very, very, very true. The language policing as I have in that chapter, I sort of show the parallel between the way it continues today. Again, this is a theme that history repeats itself. And the way these women back in the day were persecuted, like you said, for their language. It’s funny, even just a verbal litter was an excuse, like a woman muttering or not clearly speaking when spoken to or something. I mean, it seems absurd. But there’s just the number of times that the female speech came up as an idea as something that would betray your allegiance with Satan. If you weren’t speaking in the right way, that means you’re a witch and you’re with the devil. It’s kind of fascinating.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, that language policing, I think, is so interesting and so dangerous. And it’s been used against so many different communities to further oppress. And so, I think it’s such an important point where we start noticing whose language is being policed and by whom.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah, and what’s their intention? I mean, there’s language policing on the right, on the left, in the center. Sometimes I think it’s for good reason and good cause, and other times, it feels like definitely a tool of oppression. So, very delicate matter there.
Dawn Serra: It is because I think you’re so right. Being able to name language and the ways that it harms is a really important tool for working for justice. Also, recognizing the ways that language is used to remove access to resources, to deny personal truths. I think we’re constantly seeing now especially the ways that women’s bodies are being told they don’t know truth – like, “Your pain isn’t as bad as you say it is. We can’t believe you,” or, “We don’t believe that you mean yes or no when you say it,” because women aren’t to be trusted. And so those underlying beliefs that drive so many of the really terrible behaviors that then happen against us.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah, like your speech is not the same as male speech it. It’s not given the same weight. And then at the same time, what I think is important, also, is that there’s so much magic in language and so much power in language that can be accessed by anyone. So, I think reclaiming language or even using language how you see fit for whether it’s social justice means or certain self empowerment means is so important.
Dawn Serra: Here’s an exclusive clip from Sunny Megatron and Ken Melvoin-Berg at Explore More 2018. Oh my god, they’re amazing.
Ken Melvoin-Berg: You can’t solve everything through communication. For example, if I use a single tail whip and I hit somebody in a love handle instead of on their rear end, talking about that isn’t going to make me feel better for missing the mark. I feel like a bad top because I didn’t – it might be the wind, the door opened up or something, or I just went a little bit too far to the right and that’s not something you can correct, but you still have to own it. And that’s part of being a responsible top is figuring out, there are just certain times when you can’t apologize. You can’t prevent what that damage was and you may not be able to correct it. But you do need to acknowledge it.
Dawn Serra: Head to exploremoresummit.com if you want to sign up to hear the rest of the talks.
Dawn Serra: Okay, so language is something that I think is an awesome place for us to ask new questions. And slut is a word that we have, of course, discussed on the show in a multitude of ways. I had Kate Lister from Whore of Yore on talking all about some of the history behind the term slut. You had some great sections in your book about the word slut. So I’d love to just start with you sharing your feelings around the word slut.
Kristen Sollée: Sure. Fully aware that everyone’s lived experience will color how they feel about it and whether or not they can or should use it. I personally, have always just been really drawn to the word and self-identify as a slut since I was very young. I grew up in a way that it was cool, it was dangerous. It was where I wanted to be, you know? So, that carried through and I think a lot of my friends also identify that way, whatever their gender identity is, they’re still sluts like a band of sluts. It’s not just cis women, of course. And yeah, I think I started to look into it more seriously because it was just a fun thing for me. But the word has been weaponized and used to oppress and hurt so many women in particular, that I wanted to dig deeper.
Over the past decade, I really looked at both sides and some people that say, “Never use it. It’s only going to hurt you. It’s going to be turned around on you. You can’t control it.” Then other people are literally like, “Everyone should use it.” And of course, there’s no one answer. And I think that’s the thing. It’s not like there’s a battle for or against. I think it’s a multiplicity of tactics and angles here when you think about this language. But I think that’s hard for a lot of people to carry – multiple points of view in their mind. So it’s either yes or no bad or good, you know?
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I agree. Because I think there’s like… You kind of tie it to the way that queer has been really reclaimed and taking a lot of the power back, and how queer has become this really powerful common word that is an umbrella term for people who have any non-hetero, non-cis identity. And for so long, it was a word that caused tremendous harm and so there can be so much power in reclaiming it. Then also recognizing certain communities, certain identities like black communities, certainly and black women, the way that slut is leveraged against them still can cause so much harm. So you’re right. It’s complicated and people don’t like that.
Kristen Sollée: Right, right. So yeah, for me, yes. But with the caveat that I know, I would never push that on. I think that’s – a lot of people were misinformed about the slut walk, and they thought, “Oh, the point is that everyone can use the word slut as they like.” Well, no. That’s not really the point. It’s much deeper than that. It’s not just about one word, but I think it’s misunderstood a lot. So yeah, I’m all for sluts and slutism, and just sort of that sexual freedom however you want to define it. But I get that sometimes that’s not – maybe there’s the argument that there’s just too much pain in that language. And maybe we need new language, so I can see both sides, but I’m still never giving up slut. Sorry. Sorry, not sorry.
Dawn Serra: So, I have some feelings around this and I’d love to hear what your thoughts are. What are your thoughts or feelings around men who are reclaiming the term slut in solidarity?
Kristen Sollée: What? Who are these men? I don’t know these men. Tell me about these men.
Dawn Serra: I know some.
Kristen Sollée: Oh, okay.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, yeah. So, I think your reaction tells us a little bit about it. Is it something that men should be using or reclaiming? Or is this a space for the people who have been harmed by it to be able to leverage it that way?
Kristen Sollée: Well, I think it works much better in that sense. I think it just sounds silly for certain folks to use it, but I’m certainly not against it. I mean, I would definitely crack a smile and think it’s funny. But if those folks think they’re doing some serious allyship, I don’t know. Maybe we need to rethink your tactics or something.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, that’s pretty much how I feel.
Kristen Sollée: There you go.
Dawn Serra: I want to put it out there because I know I have seen in a number of sex positive circles, cis men specifically and to be even more specific, white cis men who are wanting to use that term as a term of power. I want people to listen to the reactions that we’re having here because there’s something tender about that. When you’ve never been the one who received systemic and multi-generational harm from the word, to claim that word, I think, is very complicated.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. I think even just identifying myself like I’ve had certain sexual situations where someone gets the wrong idea and they think, “Oh, yes. Slut means you’re ready anytime I want you to be ready,” and sexual assault. It’s real. Just even by identifying with that word, even though a ton of other people do, it’s still dangerous to walk around saying, on the Internet and in your personal life, or whatever. People assume a lot of terrible things. So yeah. There is definitely some tenderness there. At the same time, I have a sense of humor – that’s on me. But also, I don’t know. I mean, totally queer man, gay man. Yeah, but slut it up. That’s totally yours. But I don’t cis straight guys. I think that’s just funny. But, you know, prove me wrong. I don’t know. If I meet one of these guy sluts, we can sit down and talk about it
Dawn Serra: Have a conversation,
Kristen Sollée: Right.
Dawn Serra: Okay, so one of my favorite, favorite things – and this is something that I had not learned at any point during all of my witchy studies back in the day – so either I was reading the wrong books or I wasn’t picking up what they were putting down. But you laid it out beautifully in your book which was, there are some folks who believe that part of the imagery that we get of witches flying around on broomsticks – it comes from the broomstick as dildo and flying as a hallucinogenic lube. So, I would love for you to tell us a little bit more about this part of the research because, boy, does it delight me.
Kristen Sollée: Oh, it was the most fun thing to write about because some of it, it was so – it was very depressing. You need to really give it that space to breathe and this is like, “Oh great. We can talk about getting high and masturbating. Thank God.” Or supposedly, but so the evidence is spotty. So we have some of these extent documents from trials that say, “These inquisitors are going through an accused witch’s home and they find a pipe or a rod or a cooking fork and then a stash of flying ointment.” Then they even note that the supposed witch would grease it up and gallop and, “Amble through thick and thin,” one of them says.
There’s, of course, all these wood cuts with the witches flying on broomsticks or cooking forks. And yeah, there’s multiple folks that say based on these little bits of reportage from that era that indeed, the midwives, herbalists, the witches would cultivate these sort of psychoactive agents with to tortura, belladonna, DMT. And because if you ingested those orally, you would die. You would have to put them through another orifice. What else would you use to do that, but a household object that you have lying around. It’s the same as using your shower head, right? You think about moms in the 50s, what do they have? So yeah, it’s still debated, but I think the lore is pretty great. I really hope that it is 100% true across the board. I mean, it could have been just a few witches who were doing that, but who cares? It’s pretty fantastic. It just goes to show that people are really scared about women getting high and masturbating.
Dawn Serra: Right, yeah. Pleasure and drugs and total sovereignty over self is terrifying.
Kristen Sollée: Right, absolutely.
Dawn Serra: It just makes me so happy because I know one of the things that I have seen in other ancient literature and art was a woman – I want to say it’s a painting from the 1500s – but it’s a woman who has crafted a strap-on out of a very crusty baguette and lubed it up and was penetrating another woman with her fashion strap-on using a baguette.
Kristen Sollée: That is stunning.
Dawn Serra: I agree. I think it’s amazing. Get your jollies off, ancient folks.
Kristen Sollée: There were very few bits of queer lore within the witch trials that are written down because they probably were to weirded to write anything down. But, there definitely was a story of a nun seducing some of her other nuns with a strap-on and she got accused of witchcraft. I believe, when they went to go to trial, the guys didn’t get how they could be having sex without a man so they let them free. There were some glorious bright moments in this dark spot of history, I guess.
Dawn Serra: Bless your heart. There’s just so many interesting, I don’t know, I love the idea of these women lubing up their whatever it is and go to town, and then telling each other about it and like, “Here, try some of this ointment when your husband’s gone.” And an underground of pleasure in a world that didn’t want to believe women were capable of that.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. And the way you find it enough and enough different sources, I really believe it must have been somewhat a normal practice, you know?
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Something else that you shared in the book was around the way that the Salem Witch frenzy that happened with the Puritans was very non-sexual in nature, especially when compared to the European approach to witchcraft and all of the cues that they were demons. So, can you talk a little bit about the sexualization of witches that you were seeing in your research around Europe versus what you found for the settlers in the Americas?
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. I mean, and this does go back to Puritanism. So the Puritans were somewhat puritanical about sex as it were. And, the European witch hunts were a lot more, of course, driven by that bloody Catholic lore that we don’t have in the Protestant side of things. So, the hammer of the witches was – it’s like lurid erotic fiction almost. These inquisitors were writing about how you could find a witch and what witches would do, how they’d have sex with devils, and how they would steal penises and keep them in a box. All these very lurid things Then again, of course, women who were named as fornication or adultresses or midwives or anything dealing with the reproductive system or this female sexual organs – those were all more likely to be linked to the devil and linked to witchcraft, etc.
So yeah, that was really what was going on in Europe. Then, things seem to shift a bit or they just go deeper underground, because we know they don’t go away. But in Salem, particularly Salem, there was a lot about interfamilial conflict, and land, and money. And of course, there were young girls going into fits and so that’s not necessarily sexual. They’re pre-pubescent. Maybe there’s like a level of somewhat what they used to call hysteria. Like, you’re so repressed around you that all you can do is foam at the mouth and shake around and– Whether they were pretending or having a game or trying to gain some sort of power when they felt powerless is still debated. No one knows for sure. But, it’s very interesting that there wasn’t that kind of discussion of riches, dancing naked in the woods and masturbating in the Americas as there were in the European trials.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, it was really interesting. One of the things that I thought was really juicy was when you were talking about the witch trials that were happening in Salem. It’s interesting when you think about the power that one suddenly gains if you are having these fits, if all of a sudden you’re thrashing about and you’re screaming and you’re frothing, and then it seems as if you’re possessed and everyone wants to know who did this to you and how did this happen? Suddenly, you have a voice and you have a voice and power to name others and there is no greater power than to, of course, name others and take their power away. And how that was leveraged on poor or older or ugly or women.
Kristen Sollée: Yes, absolutely. I mean, the main victims of the witch trials across the board is women over 40 – waning fertility. That’s usually how the witches were weeded out like, “Who’s old and not able to provide children for the community? Okay, she’s a witch.” Who’s disposable? But, I think it’s really interesting. Salem is still so fascinating because there were so many takes on it and there’s so much misinformation.
One of my favorite reviews was from a Salem tour guide. He was saying that he likes to read these books just to see you know what misinformation is in there, because it’s just so common to believe all kinds of lies about Salem. He was like, “I actually really didn’t find anything in yours. Yours is just is actually true.” I’m like, “Oh, thank God. I did my research.” But that means a lot, because we even go up there. There’s different museums that have a different take. Some people are still saying it was – the poisonous bread, the air got poisoning or whatever. It’s very interesting how many different takes on Salem still exists. Whereas the other witch trials, everyone kind of gets it.
Dawn Serra: Right. You also tied something that I think is really fascinating and that you were talking about how Puritan men hanged their wives, their sisters, their mothers, their female landowners, their healers, their sluts, their heretics, their unmarried and outspoken women. Basically, just anybody who they wanted to eliminate or who had power or that denied them something that they wanted and how it created this public spectacle of murder. That kind of set the stage for a growing America, and to then see that spectacle of murder go int Jim Crow era and the lynchings, and now the murder of black bodies and trans women. There’s kind of never been a time since white folks colonized the Americas that murder hasn’t been something that’s turned into a big communal spectacle.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely, yes. It still goes on today in a different way. The Internet is our town square. So, it’s fascinating to see that lineage of brutality play out in so many different ways, which is why I think this subject is so important. It’s not just about women. It’s not just about white European women – this is especially like witch hunts that go on today around the world. And that’s why I think the subjects are fascinating because you can use it as an access point to talk about so many other really important issues.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, agreed. For people who are listening and aren’t aware, you quote this in the book and some of the reviews of your book include other statistics like 500 “witches” were killed in Tanzania each year, and that there’s these witch children in Gambia and witch camps in Ghana. 2000 people accused of witchcraft who have been murdered in northeastern India over the last 15 years, most of whom are women. 600 elderly women who were killed in 2011. The witch rhetoric and the killing of women has not subsided the world over. We might look at it a little differently here in the U.S. But, worldwide women are still paying the price.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah, yeah. It’s the same issues going on. It’s a land conflict. It’s an older woman trying to live her life and people are just scapegoating her for whatever issues they have. So yeah, it’s the same. It’s a shockingly similar sequence of events.
Dawn Serra: Ritual is something that I love talking about. I frequently recommend to listeners who write in with a variety of questions around waning desire and struggles with connection, and even struggles with self-care and self-trust – the power of ritual, to create magical spaces where new opportunities are available. So, I’d love to talk a little bit about some of the research you did about ritual and also ways that you have ritual in your life.
Kristen Sollée: Sure. Well, as far as ritual in the book, there’s not too much because I wanted to make that distinction between we’re talking a lot about the witch archetype and myth and history in pop culture, politics, and witchcraft. Although I interviewed many practitioners and I am a practitioner, I wanted that not to be centered because that’s huge too. You can talk about that for 10,000 more pages. So I don’t really – although in the end section, I have some interviews and I have a few little suggested spells and personal rituals you can do to increase self-love or work on your sacral chakra or sensuality, etc.
So, there’s not a ton in the book. But I did interview a lot of folks and stuff that didn’t make it in or their own personal how-to’s for having a better sex life or having more self-love or manifesting their goals through sex magic. And for me, I mean, I got this book deal through sex magic, I believe. It works, for sure. And you don’t need anybody else but yourself to do it right. Shout out to shock rubs. I don’t know if you… But, I think ritual is so important. The writing ritual for me is very powerful – set my space, ground myself, have my intention for the next hour that I’m going to write. I think there’s something so magical about creating in all genres. So everything is a ritual.
Kristen Sollée: It’s funny people, especially in the “Western world,” there’s such a sacred, profane dualism. There’s ritual everywhere. It’s not just at a church or synagogue or mosque, you know? I mean, I feel there’s ritual in every part of my day – magical ritual. Obviously there’s sort of mundane rituals like brushing your teeth or something. But, there could be magic in even the smallest things that you don’t even think about. Because we’re not taught to see that.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think what’s so interesting is so many of the ways that witches, sluts, and feminists have been vilified over the years have been around the rituals of coming together in a space that was meant just for them or around rituals of birth and death or around rituals of sex work and pleasure. And, they may not have the language to call it a ritual, but when women come together to talk about their collective freedom and we’re talking about feminism, that has been such a vilified thing painted as being inherently anti-man, anti-family. So, I think it’s just interesting when we give ourselves the chance to have language around intention, that power is.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. I mean, the greatest times of my life, the most nourishing or with a community of like-minded women, mostly. And, of course, people will be afraid of it. The patriarchy would think it’s dangerous because it is. That’s where you get your most power – tapping into others who have dealt with similar experiences and sort of figuring out how to heal yourself so you can heal the community around you.
Dawn Serra: So for people who are interested in learning a little bit about sex magic or maybe even trying their hand at it a little bit, what are some basics that you think they can just sit with and think about?
Kristen Sollée: Yeah. Well, I will do a plug for my friend. He has his book out and it has a lot of awesome basics for newbies. It’s called “Craft: How to Be a Modern Witch” by Gabriela Herstick and it’s out on Penguin Books. It’s awesome. And that’ll give you some real – if you want to dig a little deeper and figure out what color correspondences are there that’ll help you or what herbal correspondences etc or oils or even Taro. But, as far as my advice I would say, get really basic and think about things like the space that you– take masturbation because it’s harder to involve someone else. You have to have consent, you have to make sure they’re on the same magical page as you. That can be hard. So let’s not even go there.
Think about your own time with yourself – getting in touch with yourself literally physically. And, consecrating your space. Think about even candles. I’m sure you already do something that is witchy or intentional to change your state or change your emotional pallet. I think it’s about amplifying what you already do and finding what works for you and what’s comfortable. Because I think a lot of people feel weird just reading about some random correspondence or spell that someone made up 50 years ago and thinking, “Oh, that’ll make everything great in my life.” I mean, I’m not in an initiated tradition, I’m not knocking them. But for me, I never found one that resonated with me because I feel like I need to practice more organically, and sort of create my own magic and my own rituals. It doesn’t mean I don’t dip into a lot of traditional forms. But in the end, you have to decide the kind of witchcraft that’s right for you, just like you have to decide what kind of sex works for you. It’s a lot of trial and error. Luckily, it’s easier to do on your own than having to involve other people. But, just the idea that pleasure is sacred and self-love is sacred, and we don’t get nearly enough of it because they’re both so stigmatized.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, the power of learning our bodies and finding our pleasure, and then doing it with intention. There’s a lot of autonomy and sovereignty in those acts and so there’s a reason why we’re taught that our genitals are gross and dirty, and shouldn’t be touched. Because there’s power in it.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely, yeah. They can keep us from living our best lives by doing that, you know? So you can be if you’re disconnected from your body or it’s like, there’s no such thing. It’s like, mind, body – it’s all one thing. Let’s be real here. It’s all hormones and chemicals and blood and guts, you know? That’s my scientific view based on my research. And yeah, I think everyone’s probably done a little sex magic that they just don’t really aware of it yet.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think anytime you go in with that intention and that openness to see what happens, that’s magic.
Kristen Sollée: Yup. We need to conceive of that word in new ways. It’s not just the kind of silly thing that a lot of people think of, especially if you’re an atheist or skeptic or whatever. There’s still so much magic that you can tap into. It’s not necessarily about believing in deities or anything outside of yourself.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I’m so glad you said that. Because I’ve been using that word a lot more lately, pretty intentionally. I’ve been doing a lot of studying in the psychology of play, and also the ways that we manifest joy in our lives. I’m really interested in some of the movements that are happening specifically for marginalized communities around black joy and black men smile. And the ways that joy and play have been basically said, this isn’t for adults, this is only for kids. I think that there’s magic in our joy and there’s magic in our play, because that’s fundamentally where we are the most creative and open and connected to self and others. I think that is magic.
Kristen Sollée: Yes, absolutely. There’s freedom there. That’s where the source of all our power lies, right?
Dawn Serra: Right. I think it’s so worth pointing out that it’s not about getting something from other or controlling other or needing to be certain about other which is, I think, where we then get into trouble with men and patriarchy and colonialism, is there’s this need to control. But when it’s fundamentally about self and not about other, really beautiful things can then start happening in community but from a place of connection not domain and control.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah, it’s non hierarchical. I mean that, to me, is the only true witchcraft is non-hierarchical. Your power comes from within and from your community that you choose. Your chosen family.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. There was this other interesting thing that you were writing about the book, which came to capitalism. Let’s just talk about capitalism and feminism and also, all of the beautiful ways that we are now being sold on witchiness. There was this really interesting thing that you said that sparked a thought. It’s an incomplete one, but I’d love to jam on it a little bit with you. You said, “Because mainstream economic, religious, medicinal, cultural and political structures arguably don’t offer much in the way of affordable and effective self-care.” And then you went on to talk about the allure of weariness, and I was thinking about that.
The ways that government and religion, and medicine and politics and culture devalue women’s pain and women’s health and women’s bodies. So, of course, women turn to all kinds of alternative “non-scientific” methods for trying to manage their stress and their pain because they don’t feel seen. But then, there’s this interesting thing that happens with profiting off of that which – I kind of super hate Goop and Gwyneth Paltrow’s company.
Kristen Sollée: I’ll throw out my head in with.
Dawn Serra: And I think it’s for this reason, there’s this shiny capitalism profiteering off of knowing that women are suffering and want these remedies.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. Yeah. But then, there’s the other side where this can all be free, because money isn’t energy. I’m talking more independent retailers or healers or whatever. And there’s such a hard – there’s a delicate balance between that sort of goopy event. That’s just a perfect word for it, too. It sounds exactly as I feel about it. Then, wanting to have the people who are doing the real healing, get money for it and be compensated so they can keep doing it and spread their message, you know? It’s hard.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, it is. It’s complicated and it’s messy, and people don’t like that. But, I just want us to name it because I think there’s a temptation by people who– Now, I love me science. I love math. I love all that hardcore stuff. I have to be able to hold the space for the possibilities that may be certain things in life will never have adequate proof, certain aspects to humanity can’t be measured. And when we make fun of people, specifically, usually women or marginalized communities who rely on Earth-based traditions, there’s some huge problems that happen there.
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. Yeah, there’s so much de-valuing of that.
Dawn Serra: Exactly. So, they should be able to make money off of these things. But how do we do it in a way that’s community-building and ethical and not kind of the re-assertion of oppression?
Kristen Sollée: Absolutely. Because there can be abusive tactics in any form, in any sort of genre of healing. So yeah, I mean, it’s still not cool if someone has a very serious disease and then someone is saying, “Oh, I’ll totally heal you with crystals.” I still think there’s quackery in all fields. So, skepticism is sometimes good and then sometimes it’s just disguised sexism or racism. So it’s hard and what works for one person won’t work for another. So I think that it’s a really interesting dilemma to think about.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So, because you have the opportunity to look at pop culture and the pop culture of witches, which I loved so much. I love that you were talking about The Craft and The Witches of Eastwick. Also, taking a really hard look back to the 1400s and even beyond, and the ways that women and earth traditions were brutalized and having had all of these conversations about witchiness and slutness and feminism. What have you really learned or what’s settled into your bones since writing the book and having all these conversations?
Kristen Sollée: That this is all coming up for a reason. There’s so many other books similarly related. There’s this – it’s not a trend just because some guy in an office decided to make it a trend. I think this is a real bubbling-up of a really necessary message that connects sexual freedom and unnecessarily the fight for sex workers rights, and sexual expression, and consent. Really thinking about gender oppression and the way the gender binary has been so destructive, and the way masculinity and femininity have been weaponized in different ways.
I feel like these ideas are so much more important than maybe I even thought years ago. I think I believe the hype-nische weirdo stuff. And I’m a nische weirdo. But no, this is the real deal. This is big picture stuff. I don’t think this is such a marginal idea, that all these things are connected and important for us to think about in terms of moving forward for the health of the human race.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, oh my god. I love that and I think you’re so right. There’s new access to information that has long been known is swirling around the edges. I think that’s really interesting.
Kristen Sollée: Yeah. I mean, one thing that stands out to me is a recent study. So we’re talking here about in the book, if you have ideas about witches talking about the spirit of the plant or with the flying ointment – you’re taking in the spirit of these hallucinogenic herbs or whatever. And, to some people, that sounds crazy. Then I saw a recent study, it was Scientific American about how plants were injected with sedatives or the same numbing agents that you would use during surgery, and they completely stopped moving. When it wore off, they would begin to move again in their normal way.
So, there’s this idea of this plant consciousness that if you’ve said that – yesterday before the article came out, you’re crazy and then, “Okay, yeah. Plant consciousness. Hello.” It’s just knowing that there is so much in the world that can’t be explained and jumping to this sort of hyper-rationalist. A point of view is not always the best, obviously. I also, like you said love science and math and the positive approach to the world – observable phenomenon. Yes, it’s important. We can’t totally not ground ourselves in that. But, there’s a lot of stuff that we have known for centuries, millennia, that we’ve either been forced to ignore or it’s been hidden from us. Now we’re able to maybe learn more and more – relearn these things. I think that’s so important.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I do too. I don’t know, giving people the opportunity to explore and to do so safely so that they can – what is the wisdom about our bodies and our experiences that we’ve been forced to deny or to silence? What are ways that we can create community and ritual to start peeling back all of those layers and to find that innate understanding of self, desire, and pleasure, and all the things that we were built for? I think there’s terror to the systems and power for all of us to do that. Because it means we would start rejecting a lot of the things that have been dictated to us as truth.
Kristen Sollée: That’s very true. Yeah, we have to be constantly in a state of panic and feeling that we’re not enough to be good capitalists citizens. We have to keep buying things to keep our psyches sedated. And yeah, it’s true with all the other structural issues we have. The more and more people find out about this stuff – and I feel like that’s what’s happening with young generations. I only say that as a person who teaches 18 year old freshman in college and I see them, and they’re so much more of a bullshit detector in a way. Thank God for the Internet, it’s done horrible things too. But I feel very hopeful that there is a young generation, especially with this gun control stuff that’s happening. You can just see that there was a lot of calling out the bullshit and more than maybe their husband in a little while. I mean, there always has been this but with young, young people. It’s like, “Oh, wow. This is kind of cool.”
Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think what’s interesting is the way that social media helps to amplify voices that were previously silent. If we had had young queer kids or young black kids or young Muslim kids trying to organize in the past, they wouldn’t have had a way to communicate or even be seen. So, now we’re having an opportunity to see that and it’s creating, I think, this ground swell of momentum, which is so beautiful and important. But it’s also going to be deeply uncomfortable.
Kristen Sollée: Oh, yeah. I mean, I feel that’s why we feel like, “Unless I’m uncomfortable, I’m probably not really learning something.”
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Oh my god. Well, you said this really wonderful thing that if you’re up for it, I would love for us to expand on in our Patreon chat. So listeners, let’s see if Kristen’s up for this. You said the words, “Money is power.” So I would love it, for our little bonus chat, we talked about sex work.
Kristen Sollée: Oh, yeah. Sure, absolutely.
Dawn Serra: Okay. So listeners, if you’re a Patreon supporter, then be sure you head over to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. Because after we wrap this up, Kristen and I are going to pop over there and talk for a few minutes about sex work and witchiness and slutting it up around money because that’s always so fun to geek out about. But, I would love it, Kristen, if you could share with everybody how they could find you online and grab the book, and also follow along with all your adventures.
Kristen Sollée: Sure. So on Twitter, I’m @slutist – SLUTIST, which is also the name of the sex positive that feminist, culty-site I run. And on Instagram, I’m @kristenkorvette. That’s Korvette with a K – KRISTENKORVETTE. And then, my website is kristensollee that’s kristensollee.com and that’s about it. That’s my online profile.
Dawn Serra: Alrighty. Well, I will have links, of course, to the book and also all of Kristen’s social media and Slutist, so that you can check out all the yummy, slutty, occulty goodness that’s out in the world that they’re working on. So, please add to the show notes and also head to Patreon to hear what’s coming up next.
Kristen, I want to thank you so much for geeking out with me about all things witchy, and slutty, and feminist-y. This was fun.
Kristen Sollée: Thank you so much. This was great.
Dawn Serra: Awesome. To everybody listening, of course, you know I love hearing from you. If you have any questions or stories that you want to share and potentially have featured on the show in a future episode, just go to dawnserra.com and use the contact form there. You can write in anonymously if you’d like. Otherwise, I will of course talk to you next week. This is Dawn Serra. 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/sgrpodcast 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 pleasure?