Sex Gets Real 208: Sexual liberation & intersectional sex ed with Roan Coughtry

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What is intersectional sex ed? What does sexual liberation look like?

This week, I’m joined by Roan Coughtry, a super rad sex educator who believes in having big conversations about how our pleasure and our bodies are impacted by the larger systems of our culture.

We talk about Roan’s beautiful personal statement for Trans Day of Visibility and how Roan started finding language for their gender and identity. We also explore what it means to be masculine and femme.

Then, we roll around in intersectional sex education and what it brings to the table beyond comprehensive sex ed. Because we all know whatever’s being taught now isn’t working.

And, sexual liberation – what does that mean to Roan? What can we imagine beyond where we are? Would consent even be a conversation we needed to have if we were all free?

We also geek out about queer trans love stories and the ways queer trans folks have been portrayed in movies. We need more diversity! More stories! More trans actors!

Follow Dawn on Instagram.

In this episode, Roan and I talk about:

• How Roan found the language for their gender and sexuality, their journey towards queer trans identity. I love how fluid and open they were to the possibilities as they arose.
• What “my masculinity is femme” means to Roan and why they consciously don’t use the label “femme.”
• Using language, which is fairly static and seen as certain, to label and define our humanity, which is ever-changing and fluid. We geek out about language as something that sets us free and creates community but that also can box us in and trap up.
• Ways queer community can police other people’s identity and gender, and the fear of losing your queer card or your gay card or your trans card if you don’t present a certain way.
• Pop culture and queer trans love stories of times past, plus what Roan would love to see more of.
• What would be different for young queer and trans kids to have nuanced, complex stories with trans and queer actors portraying the parts? We hope we see that someday.
• Shout out to Jen Richards and the online show, Her Story!
• What intersectional sex education is and how it’s different from abstinence-only sex education and comprehensive sex education? Roan’s description is beautiful Intersectional sex ed for all.
• We cannot separate our identities – our race, our religion, our gender, our ability or disability, our thinness or fatness, our class – from the ways we experience our bodies and our desires. To ignore that is to offer an incomplete experience of sex, pleasure, and desire.
• Who has agency over their bodies? Who does society see as having agency over their bodies? Who historically has had agency taken away? These are conversations we must have as we talk about sex and pleasure.
• How does Roan define sexual liberation?
• What if we had a deep, authentic relationship with our body that wasn’t defined by society and other? What happens when we’re attuned to our own desire? Such huge questions and what power we lose when we are shamed for our bodies and desires.
• We are imagining a new future, a liberated future, and what that could be for us. What is your vision?

About Roan Coughtry:

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: This episode is brought to you by the Explore More Summit, an online free conference that kicks off April 23 and runs for ten days. We have rich delicious discussions about sex, kink, pleasure, bodies, emotional intelligence, mental health… God! Everything that it takes to make relationships thrive and for us to feel better in our lives. If you want to grab your free spot head to exploremoresummit.com and join in the fun. I would love to see you there.

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!

Dawn Serra: Hey, you! Dawn Serra here with another episode of Sex Gets Real. This week, I have an incredible sex educator joining me, Roan Coughtry. We talk all about sexual liberation and trans day of visibility, what it means to come into a non-binary and trans identity. Roan’s story is so incredible. We also geek out about intersectional of sex ed. We know abstinence-only sex ed isn’t really sex ed. Usually, most people talk about comprehensive sex ed. But what does it mean to go even beyond that – to intersectional sex education? We spend a lot of time rolling around in some really yummy ideas about the ways that our bodies and our pleasure and desire are connected to so many of the other issues in the world. 

Our Patreon bonus chat is delightful. I get so many emails from cis guys who like watching trans women porn and who masturbate to the idea of trans women. Often they want to know, does this make me gay? They also want to know is this super problematic? So Roan and I roll around all in the politics of desire and shame and what it means when cis dudes are secretly masturbating to trans women. So if you support at the $3 level or above, head over to patreon.com/sgrpodcast and check out that yummy bonus. 

Dawn Serra: Who is Roan? Well, Roan Coughtry is a writer, facilitator and hailing artists based out of Atlanta, Georgia. With a background in social work, integrated energy work and social justice organizing, they’re passionate about kindling the connection between healing, embodied practice and liberation. For seven years, they’ve served as a gender and sexuality consultant for the UN, where they write and research on violence prevention. 

They’re a lead producer of Sex Down South, a sexuality conference in Atlanta spearheaded by and centering folks of color and queer folks. They’ve helped organize conferences such as “Facing Race” and “Money For Our Movements.” They’re co-founder of the National Sexual Liberation Collective and they provide weekly live streams on comprehensive sex ed for the innovative platform, “O.school,” where I am too! Roan facilitates conversations around the country on gender, race, sexuality, spirituality and violence prevention. They also provide coaching and healing Sessions for clients. So here is my conversation with Roan Coughtry, and then head to Patreon, supporters ,and check out our yummy bonus. 

Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Roan. I am really excited to have this conversation with you.

Roan Coughtry: Yes. It’s so good to be on here.

Dawn Serra: Yay! So you are a fellow O.schooler? 

Roan Coughtry: Yes. 

Dawn Serra: You do all kinds of really interesting streams about bodies and queer identity and all sorts of good stuff. Have you had a favorite stream so far?

Roan Coughtry: Oh, God. That’s such a good question. Actually, some of my– When I was streaming about being gay, being queer for the holidays, I think that was some of the best interaction I’ve gotten from people and just some of the most juicy conversations that came out of those streams. I did one at the end of November and another one in December. People just loved those times. I had all sorts of things to talk about and all sorts of stories to share about being queer and trans for around the holidays. So, yeah. Those are a couple that come to mind. But honestly, I’ve loved all of them so far. It’s been really fun.

Dawn Serra: Something about the holidays brings out the stories.

Roan Coughtry: Oh. Yeah. It really does.

Dawn Serra: We just recently had transphobia visibility and you wrote this beautiful post on your Facebook. If it feels okay for you, I’d love to read a section of it so that listeners can hear it, and then we can roll around a little bit in your story. 

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. Absolutely. 

Dawn Serra: Okay. So you wrote, “I’m trans. Been trans since birth. Only realized it six-ish years ago because social conditioning runs deep. I’m non-binary. I use he and they pronouns. I’m not on hormones or having top surgery. I still use he and they pronouns. My masculinity is femme. Gender is complex and also a myth. Not everyone can be visible. Visibility isn’t always safe. We all deserve respect and to not be harmed, especially trans women, especially trans folks of color. I’m grateful to every single trans person out there and to all of our trancestors who led us here. We are medicine for a fucked up society.” When I read that the first time, it gave me chills. It’s so beautiful.

Roan Coughtry: Thank you.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I get lots of questions from people all of the time who are trying to find the words for their identity. There’s a lot of distress around either not being sure or having venture for a really long time, and then realizing it doesn’t fit anymore. So I’d love to just hear a little bit about your story and finding the language, if you even have, and how you got to here.

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. I resonate with a lot of that. I mean, what I shared in my post… I’ve been trans since I was born. But it was only fairly recently in my life – I’m 34 now – fairly recently in my life that I realized that in my body and even realized that it was an option to be who I am. I grew up in a really tiny town, rural area, mountain area. I didn’t have many possibility models when it came to gender. And so, yeah. Then the other piece that was confusing– I was just talking about this on a stream the other day. 

The other thing that was confusing for my gender, it was my sexuality. I tend to be attracted to all genders and a lot of my attraction is toward men, masculinity. End of the day, I’m kind of gay boy-oriented. But when I was growing up and feeling attraction for a lot of people, but including boys and men, I just assumed, “Okay. I must be a straight woman.” I was assigned female. I was told I was a girl. I just assumed, “Well, I guess that fits,” even though it never really fit. It wasn’t until my early, mid-20s when I started exploring queerness and exploring my sexuality and realizing that I was not straight. It was a couple more years, maybe three more years, before I really started unpacking my own gender. 

Roan Coughtry: It’s a funny story. Actually, I was– I had just moved to a new town and I was meeting people. I was at a new friend’s house who was having a gathering. I just felt so at home with this group of people. This group of people that I just met. I was like, “Oh. This is great.” I’m really sinking into this community. I just feel so… I’ve just resonated so deeply with these people. And then toward the end of the evening, I look around and every single person except for “me” was trans. It didn’t even really dawn on me until the end of the night. That’s when it really hit me that– I had trans friends for a few years, at that point. But when I had that profound of a reaction of just feeling so deeply at home, was when it really sunk in “Okay. Maybe Roan, maybe you should look at your own gender and see what’s going on there.” So specifically, I’m non-binary. I identify as trans. I identify as non-binary. My gender is very fluid.

Part of what I think took me so long to embrace my own gender identity and my hesitation of identifying as trans for a long time was that I only ever saw and knew of, very binary models of being trans. So either born male, and then transitioning to female or born female and transitioning to male. I didn’t feel like a woman and I also didn’t really feel like a man. I was just like, “Well, I must be tomboy, whatever, whatever.” I never really took it that seriously . It wasn’t until I actually met another… Specifically, I met another trans man who was not on hormones and did not have surgery and wasn’t planning on doing either one of those. That opened up space in my head and in my heart of like, “Oh. there are other ways of being a trans man.” Then I met a non-binary person for the first time. And then I started meeting more gender queer people. I was like, “Oh. There are other gender.” My head kind of exploded. I just deeply resonated with many of those identities and different aspects of different identities. 

Roan Coughtry: Language is a funny thing. Language is so limiting. One of my many, many jobs is as a writer and an editor and I’m constantly grappling with how limiting language can be. And so, yeah. I appreciate your comments earlier about just how hard it can be to find words. And find words to really explain our identities, especially around gender. Right now, I identify as non-binary trans because it fits the best. With the deep knowledge in my body that my gender is really fluid and it ebbs and flows on any given day. Sometimes I do feel like a man and other times, more rarely, but sometimes parts of me do feel like a woman. Usually, it’s all these beautiful places in between and outside of that.

Dawn Serra: One of the lines that I love so much because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and talking about the construct of masculinity lately and just– One, toxic masculinity, but also how masculinity, by definition in our culture, is often just not feminine. So I really like your “My masculinity is femme” and I’d love it if you could just tell me a little bit more about what that means for you, personally. 

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. Thank you for asking that. Actually, I hesitated putting that line in there because it’s complicated. My own experience does not represent a lot of people’s experience. I’m always a little cautious of walking that line between putting my truth out there, and then the ways that can be… Especially for us trans folks. The way that individual narratives can just be taken and turned into, “Oh. Well, that must be everybody’s experience,” kind of thing.

Dawn Serra: Yeah.

Roan Coughtry: So femme is this beautiful identity that I would never claim for myself. I would never say, “Oh. I’m femme,” at this point in my life because I’m aware of how I’m perceived by the world. In general, I move around in the world and people perceive me as more masculine of center. I think, on any given day, I’m probably read by regular folks out in the world as maybe a butch lesbian or something or a man or for people who may be aware of trans people they would probably read me as trans masculine. That’s just because of the way that I dress and because I have short hair. Sometimes it’s the way that I carry myself, but I can be real gay boy in the way that I carry myself, too. I mean, it depends on the day. 

But energetically, the way that I express myself outside of my clothing choices is actually pretty femme. Again, I wouldn’t identify as femme because I know the impact– I wouldn’t claim that identity because I know of how I’m typically perceived by the world and that just doesn’t feel like mine to claim. And I don’t experience the same kind of treatment from the world that most femmes do – things like feminine visibility, things like constant harassment. I could go on and on.

Roan Coughtry: Definitely, aspects of my identity are femme as an adjective rather than as a identity. They’re very femme is kind of an adjective. It is mostly my masculinity. Mostly, my most masculine parts are super just very, very femme. Very feminine. Interestingly, my more feminine parts or the parts of me that are more woman, close to woman are much more masculine. That’s just the way my gender seems to work in my body. It’s still something that I’m unpacking. It’s still something that I love geeking out with other people around and hearing stories as I continue to explore my own gender. But, yeah. I think it’s definitely a… I don’t know. I could geek out for a while about masculinity too, but I’ll stop there.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Something that I’ve just been thinking about a lot lately because of some of the conversations I’ve been having which… Sometimes I get to have– No. I won’t say sometimes. Nearly daily, I get to have really awesome conversations with really awesome people. My brain is just constantly being sexed with all of the ideas and the thoughts and the shift in how I perceive the world. 

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is around language, and then the ways that we experience our humanity and how words are static and we attribute static, singular, certain definitions to them. Then we try to use these things that are pretty static to our experiences of life and humanity and our bodies, which are constantly changing. Every single day, I’ve changed as a human because of the interactions I have and the thoughts I think and what my body is doing that day. So, yeah. 

Dawn Serra: It’s this weird thing of our language is constantly expanding because I think we’re starting to realize that there’s so many different ways we can be and still at its core. Language is somewhat limiting. At least, I don’t think in the foreseeable future, will language have the fluidity that our experiences have and so we’re going to have to constantly be just grappling and shifting and finding better words and different ways to use them. I think that makes some people comfortable because it’s like, “Oh. I can just keep finding new ways to express myself.” I think for other people, it makes them deeply uncomfortable because they want the certainty of, “This is just how it is and I don’t have to keep thinking or working on it.”

Roan Coughtry: Right. Absolutely. I mean, language defines how we experience the world. If we only have one word in our language for the word love… We only have one word in our language for that, for so many hundreds of different kinds of experiencing that emotion or that act and that really dictates then, how we experience the thing. 

Yeah. Language is just so fascinating. I feel like you’re hitting the nail on the head with – we have so many static words for something that is so fluid that is just so deeply ever changing and changeable. So then things like identity can be really liberating when I find words to describe my identity that really put voice to certain parts of me. It can be so deeply liberating. At the same time it can trap me. I can become overidentified with that identity to a point where I feel like I can’t ebb and flow out of that. 

Roan Coughtry: Honestly, part of the way– One of the things I struggle with that I’ve heard other trans folks talk about is presenting the way that I present myself in the world. Especially since I’m not on hormones. I’m not having surgery. I’m not aiming in those directions anytime soon. I don’t often express the more– I don’t dress as femme as I might otherwise because of this idea of static identity. It’s a little more intimidating to actually be out there and as fluid publicly in my gender as I might like to be. 

Because even within queer and trans community there can be this idea of like, “Oh. Well, if you’re this way, then you have to present this way,” or “If you’re that way, you have to present that way.” And if you look different on any given day, like, “Oh!” It can raise eyebrows. It can be a thing where people can– I know I carry this fear that’s mostly unfounded, but comes from somewhere. That this fear that “Oh. My trans card will be taken away if I’m overly femme on Sunday and I am not on hormones and haven’t had surgery,” and all these things like, “Oh. Well, I must just actually be cis after all.” A lot of us just internalized brainwashing. There is some truth of how we can be, as communities, how we can really unintentionally limit what’s okay and what’s not okay to express just by what we validate.

Dawn Serra: Yes. Yeah. I had that fear too around losing my queer card, when after 13 years of being in relationships with cis women and then with trans individuals, I fell in love with cis man. It was, at the time, I thought, I’m going to lose everything. I’m going to be kicked out. I’m not going to get invited to the parties anymore. My friends are going to start treating me the way that I’ve seen them treat so many of their straight friends. It was before the word queer had really taken on what it has been over the last couple of years. That was a place where I spent several months just silently sitting in my fear. I think that happens to so many of us. I had to get to this place of, “Well, one, I can’t just keep sitting here wondering because I’m suffering. And, two, if I just have some conversations with people I love, then maybe I’ll feel a little bit better.” Of course, my friends accepted me and didn’t think differently of me. Of course, I was fine. I know that’s not everybody’s experience. But my friends were and are just these beautifully accepting open people. They love me no matter what words or identities I’m using. 

When I first came out as lesbian years ago – I mean, this was like in the early 2000s – I did that thing that so often we do when we are finally, “Whoa! I just discovered this thing about me! Now, every single moment of my life is going to be rainbows and dyke stickers. I’m going all in.” I think there’s this fear often have people of like, “Holy crap! I’ve been married for 20 years and I think I might be bi” or “I think I might be trans or gender non-conforming. That must mean everything has to be torn down and I lose everything.” So I love and appreciate so much how your story is that it took years of being in your queerness before you found this trans identity, and then more time to even meet a non-binary person and think, “Hey. Maybe that’s me of this gradual opening and discovery.” That I think it’s just really inviting for people to hear of, we don’t have to tear everything down and start over or end the relationships we’re in. We can just go on this journey and see where we go.

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. A lot of mine is definitely been just… I mean, I think that’s in a way the way a lot of my life moves is, I am very busy and doing all the things and there’s also a slowness to my life in terms of just things will unfold when they’re supposed to unfold. I have learned, more or less – sometimes less – but more or less, to just trust that and to not try to push it and not try to force it because when I have, that’s when I get– Ironically, when I try to force something and force my knowing of something is when I become most disconnected for myself. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. That’s some wisdom. Whether it’s porn or mainstream media, everyone has ideas about what it means to be a man – how much hair you should have on your face or your head, how your genitals should work and what kinds of sex you should be having. Of course, everything about this show is all about dismantling those things. Case in point, this episode with Roan Coughtry, where we unpack what it even means when we’re talking about masculinity. But there’s a big difference between these ideological conversations and actually existing and thriving in your body in a world that tells you you’re not good enough as is. 

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Dawn Serra: hims does that very thing. No waiting room. No awkward doctor visits. No lines. And everything is shipped directly to your door at quite a savings. So if you’re a guy out there who’s feeling like, “I really do want to do something for myself,” around skin care, hair loss or sexual wellness, then check out hims because they are centering you. You can try hims for a month today for just $5. We’ll get you started for just five bucks while supplies last. You can see the website for full details. This would cost hundreds of dollars if you went to the doctor or a pharmacy. So go to forhims.com/SGR – for Sex Gets Real – ED. That’s forhims.com/SGRED. Check it out.

So you did an old school stream recently on queer, trans love stories in media and pop culture and your story of, Woah! I was in this room of trans folks and I felt so at home. Maybe that’s important.” And then, “Holy crap! I just met a trans person who was not on hormones and isn’t going to have surgery.” And then, “Oh, my God. There’s a non-binary person.” Of like, “Holy crap! I didn’t know what my options were because I had never seen them represented before.” So pop culture can do some pretty awesome things when it comes to showing us the art of the possible. What are some of the ways that you’ve seen queer and trans love stories portrayed to now and what would you love to see more of? 

Roan Coughtry: Ooh. Yeah. Well, I do want to start this conversation with the caveat that I have a terrible memory. I did that stream with my dear chosen fam and bestie Jess St. Louis, who has a wonderful memory. We watch a lot of movies together and she is great at remembering names of movies and remembering characters. I am fairly terrible at that. I can thank my dad for that amazing memory skill. Yeah. Knowing that I will probably forget most of the names of the movies that I’m thinking of. God! I wish I had seen any kind of queer stories growing up. I had no… Really, no relationship to any kind of queerness growing up except to know that gays and lesbians existed and were usually treated terribly. And then, I don’t even think I’ve really learned about transgender until I was in my late teens. 

Then I left my hometown and was exposed to some more things, which was great. But in terms of media, I didn’t really seek queerness in any media. God! I think… What’s that movie? Oh. GI Jane was one of the queerest movies that I had ever seen as a teenager growing up and she’s not even queer. She’s just in the army and doing this training for the SEALs or whatever. Then there’s an allegation that she might be gay at some point in the movie that is proven false. It wasn’t– I think that was maybe one of the first movies that I saw where there was an allegation that she was gay and that would have been terrible. But I don’t think anybody was explicitly saying, “Oh. Lesbians are gross“ or anything along those lines. So even in the context of that, it was like, “Oh. A step further of maybe lesbians aren’t gross,” in my head. I mean, very, very few possibility models. This was how low the bar was.”

Roan Coughtry: Then, more recently, fast forward 10-15 years, my friend and I have had a wonderful tradition of watching gay movies together. The bar is still pretty damn low. One thing we were saying on our stream, because we were talking specifically about trans identities in movies and trans love stories. God! The bar is at, “Oh. The trans person doesn’t die. That’s wonderful. That’s just so… Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that folks of color were saying the same thing of, “Oh. Well, there’s one person of color in the movie and they didn’t die. That’s great.” It’s always… It’s been this history of marginalized communities of just a.) not being represented or b.) if we are, it’s either a caricature or some terrible depiction or the evil character. How many times does the bad guy in a James Bond movie or any kind of action movie, how many times is it a very effeminate man? That’s also evil. Evil is associated with femininity. Shocking. 

So these layers of, okay. If there is someone represented, is it a caricature? Is it the bad guy or some kind of just offensive depiction of who we are? Or do they die? Even really beautiful portraits of amazing people, like “Boys Don’t Cry,” are also themed around violence and the death of a… It’s themed around the violence that we experience which is on the one hand great to get those stories out there, so mainstream folks know the violence that we face. And it just perpetuates this one single narrative. I would love to see more. 

Roan Coughtry: Well, the one that still sticks out and it’s definitely not a perfect movie, by any means. But the one that sticks out is a trans love story. It’s the movie “Boy Meets Girl,” where this trans woman is– It’s just like a typical love story and she happens to be trans. And so being trans as a theme through the movie, but it’s not fetishized. It’s not exoticized, for the most part. She’s deeply desired by multiple people and not in a fetishized way. She’s actually just… She’s the best character of the movie and people crush on her. People want to be with her. It’s got a queer theme of her and this other woman. So this lesbian-trans narrative. There’s just a lot of– And she doesn’t die. Actually, gets the relationship she wants at the end of the movie. It’s a beautiful story. Again, not perfect. There are definitely things I would critique. The other major thing is it’s always… It’s pretty much all the major characters are white. 

I would love to see building off of that. Baby steps building off of that. I would love to see more love stories or happy stories or beautiful stories of trans people thriving. I would love to see stories of non-binary people. I would love to see stories of people whose gender is beautifully trans or queer in some way, but that not being the capital theme of the movie. Like having it just be, “Oh. Well, this person happens to be trans and they’re also living their life like anybody.” Played by a trans person. Let’s hire some more trans actors.

Dawn Serra: Yes. Please.

Roan Coughtry: But just normalizing rather than exoticizing or fetishizing. Not just talking about the violence and not just talking about what we face. I would love to see more trans folks of color as leading roles like movies about them. Again, have that not being fetishized or exoticized. Trans folks with disabilities. All of these intersections that we don’t… Once we get trans people– Trans people are now more in the media. And it’s mostly white, binary, trans people. So again, it’s a really limiting narrative. Not dissimilar from everything else in Hollywood. Right? 

Dawn Serra: Right. 

Roan Coughtry: So I guess just more folks like my communities. More folks like my beloved’s that we don’t necessarily see ourselves in any mainstream story. And I wonder what that would have been like. I just think back on that and wonder who I would have become sooner, if I had seen stories like that as a kid. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. To even have known that it was an option.

Roan Coughtry: Right. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I remember when “Boys Don’t Cry” came out. It was right around the time that I was starting to come into my queerness and I remember watching that movie. One, of course, it’s terribly tragic. But, two, feeling so attracted to their expression of gender, to the way that Hilary Swank was presenting in that film and being like, “Whoa. What does this mean that I totally wish I was Chloë Sevigny.” There’s something here.

Roan Coughtry: Yup.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. And it was so great to see “Sense8” having a trans character in a lesbian relationship. 

Roan Coughtry: Yes.

Dawn Serra: And you’re right. For many years, I went to the Rehoboth Queer Film Festival in Delaware. My friends and I, there was a group of ten of us that went… Well, they went many more years than I did. But I went for a couple of years with them. We would inevitably be like, “Alright. We’re going in for our two or three movies today. When we get home, we’re going to need to decompress.” Because all of the movies were sad and depressing and about families that rejected you if you came out and losing your kids and being killed. I mean, there was just literally so much death and/or AIDS. AIDS is going to kill you. 

I just went to the Vancouver Queer Film Festival this past summer and it was such a different experience because the vast majority of the films were sweet and real and complex and had a diverse range of– I attribute this to the curators of the film festival as well. But, there was just cute, quirky love stories that just happened to be between a Muslim lesbian and a Mexican lesbian. There were these cute stories of queerness down in an indigenous community in Mexico. It was so different because I was enjoying and delighting in the films and not feeling when I walked out, soul crushed. What a wonderful thing. And why isn’t there more of that just available to people outside of film festivals?

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. That’s the complexity that I’m craving and that’s what really helps. I mean, complexity, in general, is not something we hold well as a society. 

Dawn Serra: Fact.

Roan Coughtry: We’re pretty much wanting the opposite of that. This simplicity that isn’t possible, that doesn’t exist and actually gets us into trouble, in my opinion, contributes to a lot of violence both internally and collectively. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. 

Roan Coughtry: So it’s those film festivals that hold such beautiful, nuanced stories and not much in the mainstream. There’s just not that many storylines out there. The thing, also, it makes me think about just trauma in the process of healing through trauma and its cyclical ways that we heal through trauma. 

Giving voice to trauma is so important and giving voice to these stories of trauma is so important. We’re a traumatized community. Many… Multiple communities of people who have just experienced so many levels of trauma from society and from these systems. And so putting voice to that is necessary and essential. There’s a point, also, where we have to be in our joy as well. Celebrating our joy and stretching into our joy. When we can’t stretch into our joy, leaning into stories from other people that have stretched into their joy. If all that’s getting out there is the stories of trauma, that’s not full healing. That’s getting stopped at some point. And so it’s not that these stories aren’t being told. But then, it’s that funneling system of what actually makes it to the mainstream and whose stories actually get heard at the end of the day because of what sells, and then capitalism and we could just go on and on.

Dawn Serra: That’s a wormhole.

Roan Coughtry: Yup.

Dawn Serra: Cause you’re right. There are people creating media around this. You know, I love Jen Richards’ online show, “HerStory,” about trans women.

Roan Coughtry: I haven’t seen it. My friend was raving about it.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. It’s so good. It’s so good. So many of the films at the Queer Film Fest All, it’s so frustrating that the big name distributors like Paramount and Warner Brothers and stuff, they won’t pick those stories up. They’ll go to Sundance and if we’re lucky enough that one of the queer stories gets a whole bunch of awards, then they might pick it up. But otherwise, it’s lots of self-funded Kickstarter-y type things, which are great that that’s an option. But then, it tends to only get distributed among that person’s community and it’s not seeping into the living rooms of people who maybe don’t have access to communities like that and we desperately need that.

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. For sure.

Dawn Serra: I was looking over your website and you were talking about the fact that you teach intersectional sex education. For so many of the people who are listening, they have heard me talk about abstinence-only sex education – which I can’t even – legal sex education and comprehensive sex education and the importance of teaching emotional intelligence and body wisdom and all that kind of stuff. But I loved that you had this phrase intersectional sex education. I would love to hear a little bit more about what that is and what types of education you’re bringing into the spheres of sexuality through that. 

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. I think that it’s from this place of, “I never got this kind of education.” So I’m like, “Why are people talking about this?” And it stems from this collective that I’m a part of called “The Sexual Liberation Collective,” and the way that we approach education that we do with communities. But it’s really looking at we’re all sexed bodies. We are born in a society that is largely sexually repressed, but also obsessed with sex in this really unhealthy way, like systemically as a society.

Just as bodies in this world and in this society, we are sexed. People make assumptions about our bodies. We’re interpreted certain ways. We have desires. Even if those desires are not sexual, we have desires. So there’s that piece. Then, also, our bodies are raced and classed and gendered. We can’t separate any of these other identities away from our bodies, too. The identities we hold for ourselves, and then the identities that other people put on us without knowing us just by looking at us. When we’re talking about the body and when we’re talking about body healing, we can’t, in my opinion, teach one of those without talking about the rest of them. 

Roan Coughtry: So the ways that we experience or don’t experience any kind of sex ed growing up, and then the ways that we’re taught to relate to our bodies and the ways that we’re taught to relate to our desires and our sexuality is my experience of how I was taught to be in my body growing up and how I was taught to feel about the desires that I had. How I was taught to feel about my body is highly linked to my race as a white person. It’s highly linked to my class background. And this working class community is highly linked to gender, obviously, in the way I was just assigned female and assumed female and highly linked to the fact that I don’t have any disabilities. I’m highly linked to the fact that I have been a thin person my whole life, and then relatively tall. So carrying all that privilege. 

All of these ways that these broader systems in my society impacted how I learned to just be in my body and feel comfortable or uncomfortable in my body, how dissociated or not I was from my body. And then, also, desires. What kind of desires were okay? It’s this idea that we can’t separate any of those things and that we do a disservice to people when we try to educate without also talking about how it’s tied to everything else. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. 

Roan Coughtry: Because what I was taught was different than what other folks were taught. Also, religion. I didn’t mention religion, yet. But that has a huge impact. So whatever kind of religious identities or communities we grow up in or spiritual communities or identities, it can have a huge impact. 

I think the thing that gets me most jazzed about sex ed is– I could do the STI trainings and the safer sex talks and all that, and those are great. But I really, really love holding space to talk about the emotional piece like what you mentioned around boundaries and consent and how that fit. Like what do we do and all this emotional, relational piece that is not often included. Really good, comprehensive sex ed will include that. And then going further and talking about, “Okay. But how is this different for you and for you and for you and for you and for me? How is that different? Because of who we are and because of all these systems of oppression that we live under that just highly impact our experiences and day-to-day life.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I’m just like, “There’s so much I want to say!” Yeah. I have a lot of listeners of this show who are from the Middle East. So far, I’ve only ever gotten messages from men. So many of them reach out and say, “Hey, I’m in Iran,” “I’m in Pakistan,” “I’m in Iraq” and “I live in communities where we literally can’t talk about this. I can’t say these words and I don’t know how to get okay with my pleasure.” And that’s important. It’s important to be able to name that people in different places around the world, from different religions and in different bodies are experiencing all of these things very differently. Even in a single country like the United States or Canada, I think it’s so important for us to recognize that the way that indigenous folks experience their bodies in the world are different than the way that black folks experience their body in the world and are different from the ways that Muslim folks and queer folks and trans folks. 

I think people are scared of acknowledging differences because it can be dangerous to point out other. But I also think there’s richness in that, which is what you’re speaking to of, we’re in bodies, yes, and so we universally share the fact that we’re inhabiting these bodies. We can probably make some assumptions that most of us want to feel safe and seen and loved and to be able to express ourselves. But then, the ways that everyone around us is making decisions and using language about our experiences, for us, the way we’re categorized, of course, that’s going to impact how we experience pleasure and whether or not we can set boundaries and whether or not we feel like we can we have the power to say something in the moment. I mean, it’s so important. 

Dawn Serra: So I love that you’ve given language to this sex education. It’s not only about wealth and wisdom of self and permission and being able to share, but it’s also recognizing that the way I experience the world as a fat person is different than the way that maybe you experience the world being in a thin body. We can talk about both of those things without it taking away from. I love that you’ve got this language and you’re offering this training. It’s so desperately needed.

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. To be clear, too, I did not come up with this language at all. But yeah. I don’t hear much of it. I hear some people talking about it and not that many. I think what you said about power, too. You mentioned power. That’s a major piece of it. When we’re talking about sex, sex ed and just sex in general, if we’re being real, we’re acknowledging huge power dynamics and we have to talk about… If we’re talking about assault, if we’re talking about boundaries, if we’re talking about consent, there are themes of power throughout all of that of, do we have power over our own bodies? Do we have agency over our own bodies? How can we assert agency? How do we be mindful of times that our agency might be taken away? That kind of thing. And then, when we go deeper, how can we talk about that without acknowledging the systemic power of who actually has agency over their bodies? Who society recognizes is having agency over their own bodies? And who historically has not had agency over their bodies as recognized by society? Right. 

The other interesting thing is when in terms of acknowledging difference, I have seen most often that it seems to be white liberal folks who seem to be the most afraid of acknowledging difference because it comes from this colorblindness of, “Oh. We just shouldn’t talk about it.” Like everyone’s– We’re all one, right? That feels safer. And that is often– So many of the folks spearheading sex ed work and getting more sex education out there in the mainstream. A lot of the major players in those fields are white liberal folks. And there can be this fear that’s deeply embedded in white liberalism of just being afraid to name difference, when difference is actually essential to the conversation.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Because if we can name the difference, then we can’t actually help people to access the resources that they need or maybe that they’re not getting or to name the things. I mean, access to resources is a huge thing. If I can’t access housing, then how the hell am I going to find a way to have yummy, pleasurable erotic experiences? If I can’t access condoms or hormone therapy or just a place where people aren’t commenting on my bodies and how am I ever going to feel safe to explore my body as a place of joy? I mean, people manage it. But we have to be able to talk about that. It’s just so…

I want to believe that because of the internet and social media and people doing work like yourself, that for young people, it’s changing. That they’re starting to have some access to this. But there was never a single point in all of my years of school that, one, anybody ever talked about pleasure. That anybody ever would have talked about trauma and oppression and – I don’t know – bullying. It was never mentioned. It was kind of that thing like if we don’t talk about it, then nobody will notice.

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. It’s a very sweep it under the rug kind of mentality. And then the default is the oppressive systems at the end of the day. If we’re not naming the things, then the things are just going to persist.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. A lot of the work that you do is around sexual liberation. I would love it if we could just start with how do you define sexual liberation?

Roan Coughtry: Such a good question. I feel like it’s different every time that I talk about it.

Dawn Serra: Perfect. I love it. Let’s see what version we get today.

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. To me, sexual liberation is being free and empowered in my own body, to be connected to my desires and whether those desires are sexual and whether they’re non-sexual, it’s having that agency over my own body, having that deep connection to my own body, having a relationship with my own body that feels authentic and genuine and that hasn’t been defined for me by society. I mean, I see sexual liberation when I think of a sexually liberated society. When I really dream into that of what would that be like? I see it as being a society where we can all embrace our desires without shame and without fear and with the utmost consent, consent being prioritized, where we’re not yuckking each other’s yum, in terms of desire like, “I’m into this. You’re into that. Great. We don’t have to like each other’s thing,” and we don’t have to shame it either. 

It comes back to consent so many times. So much of it is around consent and just having agency over our own bodies that we’re not having to survive in a society where we’re taught our bodies are not our own or so many of us are taught our bodies are not our own. And then the folks that are, that don’t experience that kind of oppression, then they’re brainwashed with this kind of entitlement that’s also just deeply harmful, obviously harmful to everyone else, but harmful to them, too. Everybody suffers. 

Roan Coughtry: I also see sexual liberation is deeply entwined with all other forms of liberation. Because we’re talking about the body and the collective that I’m a part of the geek out about this all the time in terms of one of the most effective ways of keeping a population of people oppressed is disconnecting them from their own bodies. Our bodies hold wisdom. Our bodies hold deep, deep intuition and gut instinct and our bodies know what we want. Our bodies are going with it– What the Audre Lorde was writing about how our bodies being this place where deep desire is born. And when we’re in tune with our own desire… What the hell can we accomplish when we’re in tune with our own desire? We accomplish revolutions when we’re in tune with our own desire. And so, it’s a super effective strategy to have a society where we’re shamed for our bodies, we’re shamed for our desires, we’re shamed for sexualities.

Everybody, not just queer and trans people, but everybody pretty much, I would say, is in some way, probably shamed, unless their desires fit in this tiny, tiny little narrow version of what’s acceptable and their bodies are absolutely perfect… And then you still hear, these people have body shame. It’s so pervasive. It’s hugely effective of just creating a society full of people that are– When we’re disconnected from our bodies, we’re disconnected from this deep internal source of power, of this deep well spring of power. And so, that’s also why sexual liberation is so important to me not as the most important form of liberation, but an integral, interconnected liberation that we need to focus on along with all of the other fights for liberation that we’re in.

Dawn Serra: Yeah. I think there’s something really important around not only being able to connect into our inherent wisdom and the things that our bodies are capable of, also being able to just really stand in self and know, “I’m inherently worthy and I’m inherently enough,” and to be able to be in community with others. I think it’s so important, too. I think that’s another place where – thanks capitalism and colonialism – we’ve been really struggling as human beings is feeling so isolated. I just have to imagine that– I mean, I have some experience with this, so it’s not like just pure fantasy. But I have to believe that if almost all of us were taught to trust our bodies and to listen to our bodies and we were given the tools and the skills that we needed to be emotionally intelligent and empathetic, to be able to know, “Hey. when I have this feeling come up, that’s really, really tough to be in, maybe I was rejected, I’m going to survive and I’m still lovable. And I have community that can hold me through that,” there would be such a shift. Because instead of the power grab and instead of the, “I need access to your body in order to reinforce my worth,” so many different things would change. 

Of course, we have to be able to talk about violence and racism and ableism and all of those things, but when I just really think about what would blossom from a place of all of us, from the youngest of ages, being given permission to know and experience our bodies free from trauma and harm and to be deep in community that could hold us, so that even when things did really hurt or we really messed up, knowing, “All these people have my back. And even though this person said no, it has nothing to do with my worth whatsoever.” The ways that we would relate– I feel like consent wouldn’t even really have to be a conversation because it would just be an inherent experience of, “I want to be in community with these people. So, of course, I want to care for them.”

Roan Coughtry: Right. We talked about consent so much because it doesn’t exist. It’s not the norm. So then, we have to talk about it like, “God. What would that be like to live in a society where it was just given or it was just automatic?”

Dawn Serra: And I think that’s so… I think that’s where so much of the work is for each and every person who’s listening. I’ve been having so many conversations lately because of the Explore More Summit and the podcast and a whole bunch of the reading that I’ve been doing, and so many of these really wise people, who the majority of their awesome wisdom is coming from black queer feminist, it’s just like we have to be able to envision what’s beyond liberation if we want to make sure we’re headed in that direction. And so, for everybody listening, what is that vision? When you think that you’re most liberated and free and everybody else’s most liberated and free, what might that be like? What conversations won’t we have to have because we’ll just tend to each other so beautifully? And what conversations will we have with ease and joy? I love that your definition of sexual liberation invites in these really rich, beautiful visionary conversations.

Roan Coughtry: Yeah. Yes. I mean, that’s what gives me life. That’s what keeps me doing this work is having those visions and sharing those visions and hearing other people’s visions. So, yeah. It’s beautiful. 

Dawn Serra: Yeah. Well, we are about to go record our little bonus conversation for Patreon and we’re going to talk about the politics of our fantasies. Because before we started recording, you and I were talking about some of the emails that I get from cis men who watch and masturbate to trans women porn and some of the questions they have. So if you’re a Patreon supporter, head over to hear our bonus chat. We’re going to talk about the politics of fantasies and cis dudes getting off on trans women porn. But before we do that, I would love it if you would share with everyone how they can stay in touch with you, how they can find you online. Any cool things you’ve got coming up maybe with O.school because I’m sure they’re going to want to stay in touch after hearing this.

Roan Coughtry: Yes. Absolutely. You can follow me at @roancoughtry on all social media. That’s R-O-A-N-C-O-U-G-H-T-R-Y. That’s my handle for Instagram, Twitter. You can find me on Facebook – Roan Coughtry, Sex Educator, I think. And then my website is roancoughtry.com. So stay tuned for that. I’ve got some other projects that I am going to be launching before too long. Yeah. I’m one of the Pleasure Pros on O.school. You can find me streaming multiple times a week. Usually, this April, this month, I’m going to be– Well, April into May actually, I’m going to be streaming every Thursday at 3pm Eastern Time on recognizing emotional manipulation and abuse. Specifically talking about emotional abuse because it’s harder to recognize often and a lot of people are impacted by it. And so talking about both recognizing signs and symptoms and recovering and preventing. And then, a bunch of other streams on O.school in between. 

I’m also going to be facilitating the Queer Jam, which if anyone has not heard of it, check it out. It’s run by this organization called Yes! So you can go to yesworld.org/queerjam2018, I think. It’s this beautiful retreat, kind of week-long retreat out in the mountains of Santa Cruz. One of the most transformative experiences I have been a part of. I’ve done a few of these jams and it’s absolutely profound and weaves a lot of what we’ve been talking about in this conversation in terms of liberation and healing and the personal and the systemic. Just a really beautiful space. So check that out. Yeah. I’m sure there’s more, but like I said, I have a terrible memory. So that is me.

Dawn Serra: Well, I will of course have all of those links in the show notes for this episode as well as at dawnserra.com. So be sure to check that out–

Roan Coughtry: Oh, my God. Sorry. One more. Sex Down South, a conference that I help run.

Dawn Serra: Oh, my God. It’s so good. Oh. It’s so good. Everybody go to Sex Down South.

Roan Coughtry: It’s great. Check it out. It’s in September.

Dawn Serra: Yay! Sex Down South. So I’ll have that link too in the show notes and at dawnserra.com. Roan, thank you so much for being here with me and just rolling around in these really big conversations and ideas. I appreciate it. 

Roan Coughtry: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for all the hard work that you’re doing.

Dawn Serra: Thanks! To everybody listening, if you have questions for me that you want me to field on a future episode, head to dawnserra.com. There is a contact form. I love hearing from all of you. Of course, Patreon supporters, head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to check out the bonus chats from this week and all the other weeks. If you support at the $3 level or above, you get access to all that yummy extra content. I just got my first $50 a month supporter. High ten to the person who’s supporting the show. They’re going to be getting monthly boxes full of sex goodies from me as a thank you. So supporting the show from $1 up is amazing. We’re going to go record our bonus chat. So thank you to everyone who listened. I’ll talk to you next week.