Sex Gets Real 212: Secret fantasies, hating a partner’s body, & virgins

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Did you miss Explore More Summit 2018? Not to worry. All of the talks are available for you to bring home, plus some yummy bonuses! See your options and explore your more in life, love, and sex: exploremoresummit.com.

It’s time for more listener questions.

You know I love talking with super smart awesome folks on the show, and I also adore fielding your questions. So that’s what we’re doing this week – your questions.

Jon thinks he might be bisexual. What should he do?

Pete wants to try pegging, but he is up in Alaska without any shops nearby. Where can he and his partner get everything they need for newbie pegging? Of course, I recommend the SpareParts Joque and also dildos by Tantus.

Ronman7 wrote in because he is in love and feeling happy with the woman in his life. The problem is he has a secret fantasy and he doesn’t know what it means. Should he act on it? How can he be monogamous AND also true to this fantasy he carries?

Anonymous wrote in because she just can’t feel attracted to her boyfriend, especially after seeing pictures of him when he had a more “traditionally attractive” body. Anonymous feels entitled to a partner whose body looks a certain way, so what can she do? I’ll boil my advice down to one thing: leave him. He deserves better.

Sassy Cassie is a 21 year old who struggles with body image and has never had sex. She things her body image issues are keeping her from diving into the sexual adventures she wants to experience, so how can she find more confidence in her body?

And finally, Dismay is a 19 year old who finds herself being disgusted about sex. She feels guilty when she masturbates, and she isn’t sure if she’s asexual, demisexual, or something else. What’s with the strong, intense reaction about sex? What can she do?

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About Host Dawn Serra:

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: This episode is brought to you by the Explore More Summit. Yes, Explore More Summit 2018 is over, but you can still grab the talks, the actual hundreds of pages of workbooks and self-reflective exercises, the group calls and a whole lot more. So many of the attendees have finished their survey talking about their experiences. Oh. my God! It’s so good. One person said, “My biggest takeaway is that taking the time to check in with myself through mindfulness or just sitting in silence with myself is so important. Allowing myself to be seen, messy bits and all, is liberating. Rethinking the stories I tell myself about how I connect to others is essential.”

I also really loved this takeaway that, “Transparency versus honesty is huge and the realization as I was listening to the talks that I’m on a good path. My boundaries are stronger. My emotional awareness is better. I’m aware of where I need more work.” Another person said, “To embrace the messy! Understanding that hating myself isn’t a part of my identity and that it can leave if I try.” If you want to get the Explore More talks, which there’s 29-hour long conversations, then head to exploremoresummit.com and check out your options.

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!

Hey, you! This week, it’s just you and me. I was actually really excited last night when I was thinking about the fact that this week, it just gets to be me and all of your questions. I haven’t done that in a little while. I’ve been missing it because I’ve just been so busy with the Explore More Summit and all kinds of other projects that I’m working on. So getting a chance to actually just talk to you and to read through everything you sent to me, it felt so good knowing I got to do that this week. 

Dawn Serra: Patreon supporters, if you support at the $3 level or above, of course, you get bonus content every single week – patreon.com/sgrpodcast. This week, I am doing a bonus recording all about incels. Unfortunately, we had that tragic incident in Toronto, where a person who identified as an incel – an involuntary celibate – killed a whole bunch of people with his van. There have been all kinds of articles coming out about men in the involuntary celibate community and the differences between women and men. Yes, that’s a gender binary. But, patriarchy, sexism, here we are, and the very different behaviors. I’m going to be talking all about that in the Patreon bonus this week. There will be some ranting. There will be some anger. There will be some hard truths. But if you want to tune in for that, all you have to do is head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast and support it at $3 level or above. Or, if you already do, just tune in. 

There are loads of questions waiting for me and I am so excited to get to them. Let’s just dive in and see where we end up. Jon wrote in with a very short question which just says, “I feel like a bisexually inclined man and don’t know what to do.” 

Dawn Serra: Well, Jon, you don’t have to do anything. I think that’s one of the great things about our identity. Our identity is our identity. Whether we do or don’t do, it doesn’t change that identity. So we don’t have to do anything. We don’t have to earn our queerness or our bisexuality or a transness or whatever it is about us that might feel new or different. The question is, what do you want to do? If you feel like you are bisexual and you’re in a relationship that works for you, then keep being in that relationship that works for you. If you aren’t sure where to go or how to start exploring, then I think finding some community and some resources around bisexuality could be an incredible way to just experience some permission and some validation. 

Also, just know that bisexuality is highly invisible in our culture. Everyone either assumes you’re straight or you’re gay. If you identify as bisexual, there’s going to be a lot of people who make assumptions about who you are and your identity based on what they see. That’s just kind of a cultural norm for us. So do expect to feel like your identity is being erased depending on the relationships you are or you are not in. But, fundamentally, it just comes down to if you’re bisexual, awesome! You literally don’t have to do anything in order to prove that or to validate it. The same with any other kind of identity, it just gets to be something that’s for you. It doesn’t have to be something others consume or hear about or know. It doesn’t have to be something you share or experiment with, unless you want to. 

So Jon, I think the question is less, “I don’t know what to do” and more, “What would you like to do?” What would be interesting or pleasurable or fun for you in this space? Then do that to see what happens. Because the sky’s the limit and your identity is not invalidated by anything that you choose to do or not do. Enjoy it and write yourself that permission slip.

Dawn Serra: This next question comes from Pete and the subject line is “Pegging?” “My partner and I are interested in trying pegging and don’t really know what to get and where to get it. We live in Alaska with no sex shops nearby, so we would need to be able to purchase online. Any brands that you recommend would be great and what size to start out as I have little experience with butt stuff. Thank you in advance and love your show.”

Well, Pete, how exciting for trying new things. I hope that it is a fun adventure for you. I would just want to start by saying that if you have little experience with butt stuff, I would highly recommend starting with fingers. If you and your partner have not yet tried doing anal play using fingers, that can be a really great place to start. I’m not sure if you have or not. It’s not in your email, but get yourself some nitrol or some latex gloves and lots of delicious silicone lube. Then do all kinds of playing with sensations and fingers and just see what it’s like for you to be penetrated and to receive. If that feels yummy, then upgrading to a dildo and a strap on is probably a great next step. If you’ve already done that, that might be where you are now.

Dawn Serra: As far as strap ons, it really depends on the wearers body. Lots of strap ons are not friendly to people who are in bigger bodies or who have tummies. Just depending on the shape and the size of the person who’s wearing the strap on, there is a wide range available. Now, I personally love the SpareParts Joque Harness. It’s washable and it comes in sizes that are straight sizes, so zero to 14 in women’s clothes. Then they have another size that’s for plus sizes. The plus size one fits me great and has all kinds of adjustable features that are really comfortable for me. I would highly recommend a SpareParts strap on and I personally like the Joque. They have lots to choose from. Pretty much all of the feminist sex toy stores out there – She Bop and Smitten Kitten and Self Serve and Sugar and Lotus Blooms and Shag, Pleasure Chest – they’re all going to carry a SpareParts harness. 

As far as what dildos to use, there are lots of companies that make all kinds of fantastic dildos. Funkit Toys is a really good one and anything that’s by Fun Factory. Although, they mostly specialize in vibrators. When I think of good harness-based dildos, I think Tantus. All of Tantus’ – that’s hard to pluralize – Tantus’ toys are body safe and medical grade silicone. They have lots of different sizes of dildos to choose from and pretty much all of their dildos have a flared base, which is important. You have to make sure whatever you’re putting in your butt has a flared base or a really big handle so that things don’t get lost in your ass. That’s not a fun trip to the ER. I personally use the Sport Tantus Inc dildo that’s called “The Sport.” It’s a little bit long and it’s a little bit thin. That’s great for my body and also great for the person who’s receiving. They also have much smaller sized dildos that are called “The Silk.” So they have a Silk Small and a Silk Medium. Then they have uncut dildos and larger dildos and curved dildos. “Slow Long Drive” is one of their dildos that has a nice curve on. That could be good for your prostate. But they have lots and lots and lots to choose from and many of the body safe feminist sex toy stores carry Tantus as well. You can either just order straight from the Tantus website. 

Dawn Serra: Just a note, if you listen to this episode when it drops – which is going to be on Sunday, May 6 – Tantus is actually celebrating their birthday this week and they have 40% off store wide. So this is not a partnership or an advertisement. I’m just mentioning it because I noticed it when I went on their website to record this episode. Their sale goes through May 6 at 11:59 PM. The very end of May 6th. If you hear this on May 6 when this episode drops and you want a dildo, you can go to tantusinc.com. They have a great big banner on their website that says, “Happy Birthday! 40% off storewide with this code.” So, Pete, if you hear this, then that might be a good way to get yourself a dildo for a strap on. Then, of course, any of the sex shops that I mentioned before, they will have all kinds of dildos to choose from. 

I would recommend going with something that is a little bit smaller in girth because you can always upgrade later. That also allows for more experimenting with just movement and intensity. Once you figure out what it is that you like, you can upgrade and go bigger or go longer or go shorter or whatever it is. But just use fingers to start and see how that feels. If multiple fingers are comfortable for you, then maybe a little bit bigger of a dildo will work. If one or two fingers is like, “Uhh. That’s good,” then maybe a little bit more of a slender dildo like “The Sport” by Tantus would be a good place to start. But just make sure you’re using lots of lube. If you’re using a silicone dildo and you want to use silicone lube, make sure you put a condom over it. Otherwise, you’ll need to make sure you have a nice gel, water-based lube. You want something that’s really nice and thick when you’re doing ass play. And have fun! So thank you so much, Pete. I hope that you get all kinds of butt happiness.

Dawn Serra: This next email I just want to give a little bit of warning for. If you experience a lot of body shame or you feel insecure about being in a body that is either fat or that someone has shamed you for, you might not want to listen to this question. It’s rather insensitive. I appreciate that they wrote in with this kind of honesty so we could have this conversation. But just know that if you’re easily triggered around weight and people judging weight, you probably want to skip ahead a couple of minutes because this one’s a little bit tough to hear. 

The email says, “Hi, Dawn! I would like to remain anonymous. I love my boyfriend. We are poly. He supports me in every way, except he has two parts of him I cannot seem to accept. He is in a fat body. He showed me photos of when he was really fit before we dated. I’ve made attempts to accept him, but I feel frustrated. I’m less attracted to him now than I was when we met. When he works out, he instantly loses weight. I have BDD, so I clearly have a distorted sense of weight.” Which is binge eating disorder, I believe. “But I’m 23 and I want a hot fit guy. He doesn’t need to be perfect, but I’m in the gym four to five times a week to better myself and I want the same. Another part of this is that he snores really loud when he doesn’t work out and it keeps me awake at night. I’m at a loss of what to do. I know I’m a jerk, but this just is not working for me.” 

Dawn Serra: To the person who wrote in, I think the kindest thing you can do for your boyfriend is leave them because your boyfriend deserves better than this. Your boyfriend deserves someone who doesn’t see him as something that has to be changed in order to be desirable and lovable. You need to do some serious work. Whether or not you want to do that work is totally on you. But figuring that out while you’re with him is unfair to him. To expect him to change or to be different is monumentally shitty. 

Our bodies change. He may have had a body that looked a certain way and now his body looks another way and in another point in his life, it might look something else. If you don’t have any tolerance for that, then I suspect you’re going to have a really, really hard time as you get older and as the bodies change in ways that you can’t control and that you may not like. I also think that it’s really, really important for you to sit with, “I go to the gym 4 to 5 times a week to better myself.” Bettering yourself how? Is bettering yourself being in a body that you find more attractive? Is it being a certain weight? Is it caring for your mental health? Or is it buying into the desirability politics that only certain types of bodies are hot and worthy? Your boyfriend probably has lots of things that he does to better himself. They might just not look like your ways. If you don’t have tolerance for that, then he doesn’t deserve the treatment and the – I’m sure, either spoken or unspoken – judgments that you’re passing about it. 

Dawn Serra: I know you mentioned that you have a distorted view of weight. I think getting support from someone like Be Nourished could be really helpful for you around this. But your boyfriend and nobody, literally nobody in your life owes you a certain kind of body. I think unpacking the things that you believe makes someone hot is important work. “I want a hot fit guy.” Well, a lot of the stories that contribute to hot fit guys also contributed to the eating disorders that so many people have and to the distorted views of weight that so many people have. It’s a really shitty culture that we live in that distill the wholeness of someone down to this number or the size of them. There are some people in the world who are in fat bodies who are doing tremendous things, who are changing lives, who are saving people, who are creating innovative projects and solutions to some of our biggest problems. If you don’t want to be with someone who has a lot to offer just because of how their body is, then they deserve better than that. That might not be easy to hear, but it is the truth. 

We should not stay in a relationship with someone who we are pushing to change their body or telling them that they aren’t going to the gym enough or eating the right kinds of food because those are all based on really, really, really shitty, violent myths and cultural stories that we have that actually cause lasting damage to people. You need to sit with that and do whatever you can to not contribute to that violence. Because the violence that is telling people who are in fat bodies, they’re not good enough, they’re not desirable, leads to all kinds of deeply harmful behaviors like eating disorders and harm and depression and disconnection. That is not what this world needs. 

Dawn Serra: I think, to be very frank, your boyfriend deserve something better. It’s not this. If you do love your boyfriend, as you said you did at the beginning of your message, then you will end the relationship. Then you will do work on yourself. Because none of us deserve to be in a relationship with someone who’s just tolerating us, who’s just tolerating our body, hoping that it changes or gets better. The pain of that lasts– It can last a lifetime. I mean, there was something that my ex said to me towards the end of our relationship years ago that is still one of the most painful things that has ever been said to me. It’s around this very thing. So spare your boyfriend that pain and that shame because being in a relationship with someone who, even if it’s not spoken, has this low level disappointment around their body. He knows. He senses it. And he’ll start internalizing that at some point. That will do significant damage to the relationships that he has down the road. That’s not fair to any of those people either. 

So you need to do some serious work and decide how do you want to treat the people you’re in a relationship with and what do you need to unpack and heal in yourself? Because everyone’s bodies change. Your body is going to change. And whether it’s acquiring a disability which is inevitable, disability is inevitable and natural and just what happens to our bodies. illness, weight gain, weight loss, all kinds of stuff, that is going to happen to you and the people that you’re in a relationship with. If that causes you so much disappointment that you’ve decided, “I just can’t be attracted to you anymore,” then that’s not on your boyfriend. That is absolutely 100% on you. 

Dawn Serra: So do that work and spare your boyfriend from the abuse that will come with you silently and/or verbally judging him. Calling yourself a jerk doesn’t help. You actually need to do the work. I would recommend getting with somebody from the Be Nourished Body Trust Program or somebody who does counseling around eating disorders and Health at Every Size, someone like Summer Innanen or Rebecca Scritchfield or Melissa Toler or Christy Harrison and starting to unpack some of these stories before they really cause lasting damage to the people around you. 

Take care of you and sit in that truth knowing that it’s shared with love and a belief that you can confront these things and that both of you deserve better than this tolerating that’s happening right now. Thank you so much for writing in and thank you to all of you who listened, even if that was hard. We will move on to something now.

Dawn Serra: Ronman7 wrote in with a subject line of, “Hidden and confused feelings.” “Hi, Dawn! I’m a mid-40s professional, educated man who was divorced five years ago, father of teens and has dated many women since and even in a relationship with who I believe is my chapter two. I have a very good sex life, full of open and honest communication except for one deep secret. The thing is, I was once on a cruise with my family and after working out, walked into a steam room where a man started masturbating next to me. It kind of turned me on. Since then, I have watched many videos of friends masturbating together, both women and men, mutually playing and I love it. I cannot imagine myself ever kissing, holding hands or being affectionate with a man. Not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because I just love women that way. However, if there was a faceless man or I could mutually masturbate, touch, suck and even bottom to – I’ve always liked prostate play – I would love to try it. I sense I will never live this out as I am truly in love with my female partner and would never cheat. Not ever. But what is this? Am I repressed? Bisexual? Gay? I don’t care about labels and I’m liberal in that regard. But what is it? How does a monogamous man with such curiosities live this way? What happens with such curiosities when the actual act isn’t worth the loss of an amazing partner? I am a loyal listener, so please feel free to mention my screen name and topic on air.”

Yay for sexy fantasies! I mean, I just really want to start with that. I mean, there are so many fantasies that I have that are really hot and I’m not sure I ever want to live them out. But they sure get me off. That’s kind of the point. Some of our fantasies can be delicious to live out. Some of them can stay something that’s wonderful for us to savor and to get off to and to feel those intense feelings for and we don’t ever have to do anything about them. It’s our choice. We just have to reconcile with whatever that choice is. So if watching people masturbate and thinking about mutually masturbating with others is hot for you, it gets to be hot for you. It doesn’t have to be something that means something or that you would do something differently about. It can just be a thing that’s hot because masturbation is hot and watching people masturbate, it can be hot, especially when it’s mutual. Masturbating in front of others can be hot, especially when it’s mutual and they really are into it. Of course, that turns you on. I mean, people being in pleasure and touching their bodies, regardless of what genitals they have, it’s a hot thing. Because it’s vulnerable and beautiful and unique and different and weird. All of those things, of course, with titillate and tantalize and turn us on. 

Dawn Serra: I’m not sure that it has to be anything. It can just be something that is really effing hot and that super gets you off that can exist in your mind and in your body as a way you experience your own masturbation while being in this wonderful relationship with this person who you said you think is your chapter two. You can also potentially talk to this person and maybe live out some mutual masturbation fantasies together or maybe watch porn of people masturbating while you masturbate together. There’s all different kinds of ways that you could incorporate this masturbation fantasy with your partner without it ever having to be cheating. If it’s not something that you feel you want to end your relationship over and it’s not something that your relationship currently make space for, let it be exactly what it is. 

Let that tension be something that you love and savor. Let that wonder be something that fuels your fantasies and makes your experience of your body even better. It’s not something you have to be ashamed of. We’re allowed to have our own erotic experiences and fantasies in our head. We don’t have to share all the things with the people in our lives. We can fantasize about other people in situations that maybe they’re not open to or ready for and that doesn’t make us bad people. Especially if when we’re with them, we can be really present. You get to savor yourself in your fantasies, though. 

Dawn Serra: It’s only you who can tell yourself whether or not you’re bisexual or gay. It sounds like you really, really love a sexual relationship with women. So maybe you’re bisexual. Maybe your pansexual. Maybe you’re queer. Who knows? You get to decide whether or not having a label on your identity in that way is important. If it’s not, then just let that experience be hot and those fantasies be hot and enjoy them. You’re allowed to do that without feeling like it’s something to be ashamed of. And you don’t have to act on it. If at some point acting on that feels really important to you, then you can have a conversation with your partner about ways that you might be able to make that happen. Who knows? Maybe they would find something like that super hot, too. You won’t know until you ask.

But, yeah. It doesn’t have to mean anything. It can be exactly what it is. I think, one of the hard things in our culture is that so much around fantasy is something that we either should be really ashamed of or that we secretly want. Maybe and maybe not. Maybe it’s literally the best spank bank material ever. Keeping it that way is the yummiest thing because for life, you might have this amazing fantasy that when you turn to it, you feel so aroused and turned on. What a lovely gift to give yourself. So, I don’t think you have to do anything about it. I don’t think that it necessarily means anything about who you are, other than this is a thing that turns you on.

As for how does a monogamous man with such curiosities live in this way, you just have to decide what’s important for you, and then live that way. You can be curious and it won’t kill you. You can think about this endlessly and it won’t kill you. You can talk to your partner and see how they feel about living out some of the fantasies and it won’t kill you. It might be uncomfortable. It might be awkward. It might be messy. But that’s all for you to play with. So play with it and see where you can go with it and savor it for what it is because it doesn’t have to be anything else. Thank you so much for writing in Ronman7 and for listening. I hope that that masturbation fantasy serves you well. 

Dawn Serra: I want to just take a really quick minute to say I hate going to the doctor. I hate it. I do it when I have to, but I hate it. I have had terrible experiences with medical professionals and I don’t like so many of the ways that I get treated. It’s also just such a time suck. Oh, my God! Hours, sometimes, of sitting in waiting rooms and waiting around for a four-minute consult. Oh, my God! I used to have to hate taking all that time off of work because they would eat into my vacation time. But anyway. 

Why am I talking about doctors? Well, because this week’s episode is sponsored by hims, which is if you didn’t know, an online service that actually helps men deal with issues around wellness like hair loss. One of the things that they’re doing is making it super easy, specifically for men and masculine folks, to get support around the things that help bring them wellness. So one of the things that they work around is with hair loss. They shared this really interesting statistic with me that 66% of men lose their hair by the age of 35. Now, I turned 40 this year and my hair is actually thinning a lot these days. It’s something that’s actually top of mind for me. They are sponsoring this episode and giving you all an amazing discount. 

Dawn Serra: The thing that’s really cool about hims is you get to do everything online. You literally don’t have to take time off. You don’t have to go anywhere. They set you up with an appointment with a real physician that takes place online in just a couple of minutes. You talk to them about what it is that you’re going through. Then if they feel like it’s a good solution for you, then they will give you a prescription for medical grade solutions around hair loss and erections. Then they mail it to you. It saves you money, actually, because it’s generic equivalents to name brand prescriptions. There’s no waiting room. There’s no awkward sitting around in the waiting room for forever. It’s super easy. Everything, of course, is going online these days, including our wellness. If you want to check it out, everything is shipped directly to your house. Since I hate going to the doctors, anything that I can do, that means I can get medical level information without actually having to go and sit in one of those waiting rooms that smells weird and makes me freak out because there’s needles around and I hate it! Anyway… 

You can go to hims and get a discount, if you want to do something about hair loss. Order now because my listeners get a trial month of hims for just $5, today, right now, while supplies last. You can see the website for full details. This would cost hundreds if you went to the doctor or a pharmacy. But you can go to forhims.com/real. That’s F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash real. forhims.com/real that gets you to the Sex Gets Real page, and then get you that $5 offer. So if you are experiencing thinning hair or hair loss and you are a guy that’s looking for a solid solution that connects you with a doctor and actual prescription medicine that gets mailed to your house, then check out hims. I think you’re going to like what they have. I really appreciate them generously supporting Sex Gets Real. Not a lot of organizations want to talk about sex, so I appreciate you hims. Thank you for being a part of this and offering my listeners access to stuff that helps them feel better in their bodies and in their lives. Back to listener questions.

Dawn Serra: I don’t know if it’s a cruel twist of fate or if it just works, but this next email from Sassy Cassie, is the opposite of that email earlier about the person who was shaming their boyfriend’s body. Sassy Cassie wrote in about body image and virgins. It says, “Hi, Dawn! I’ve been binge listening to your show for the last couple of weeks and I have adored every second of it–” Yay! Thank you. “I’m a 21 year old who struggles with body image. I’ve always been borderline plus size and larger than my friends. I’m a very sexual person, but I’ve never actually done the deed. I’ve always felt like people who are interested in me really aren’t and that they’re just interested in me because they feel bad for me. Because my body image gets the best of me. I’ve been thinking this for a long time and I’ve just started to open up about it. Do you have any tips of gaining confidence, so that I can finally explore the fantasies and the kinks I’ve been dying to try? Thanks so much in advance.”

Oh, yes, Sassy Cassie! The first is don’t end up in a relationship like the one that I read an email for earlier because you deserve someone who loves and savors your body and sees it for all of the pleasure potential that it is, without any kind of apology or expectation that it’d be different. That is absolutely possible. There are people out in the world who like and enjoy all kinds of different bodies and sizes and shapes. I know that the messages we get from the culture around us are that there’s only one kind of body that’s sexy, that gets to be hot. But that’s actually not true. There are so many people who love bigger bodies and plus size bodies and fat bodies and who love getting to explore the expanse of flesh and softness. 

Dawn Serra: So the work, as I know you already know, is really about you. At 21, oh God, if I could sort of ask questions like this when I was 21, I probably would have gotten to the place I’m in a decade sooner. Because I didn’t really start confronting some of these stories until I was like 30, early 30s. I spent most of my 20s feeling really inadequate and being in relationships with people who weren’t great fits for me because I was coming at it from a scarcity mindset. I believed people couldn’t actually like me because of my body, so I should take what I could get. That’s a pretty terrible way to be in relationship with others. 

How can you gain confidence? I think the first place it has to start is in surrounding yourself and filling your life with images and people who have bodies that are a diverse range of sizes and abilities. Go on a media diet. One of the first things that I ever did when I first really started trying to confront these stories I had about my body was I used to obsess over fashion magazines. I mean, I was subscribed to probably ten magazines at one point. I was reading– Well, I don’t even want to really want to name them, but pretty much all the big glossy magazines that you can get about celebrity and fashion and style, I subscribed to and I stopped reading them completely. I cut them completely out of my life. I also filled every single part of my social media feeds with people who do body acceptance work, who are plus size models, who are just in fat bodies and show it off because they are proud of it, all kinds of different influencers – I hate that word, anyway – all kinds of different influencers. It has made such a significant impact on me that my Instagram feed is probably 90% people who are in a variety of bodies that aren’t just the culturally prescribed thin ideal. 

Dawn Serra: Sure. I have people who are friends with me and family members with me who do have bodies more closer to that narrow ideal. But the vast majority of what I’m consuming on a daily basis is people who are in tall bodies and fat bodies and short bodies and disabled bodies and older bodies and bodies of every single color and nationality. It’s given me so much more space in recognizing, “Whoa! My body is just like so many of the people that I’m looking at and admiring, that I’m loving the clothes on.” At first, it was really uncomfortable for me. At first, I had this like, “Oh, my God! I can’t believe people that have bodies like mine are letting them being seen.” I felt deeply uncomfortable about it. I had to grapple with that. Now, it’s a source of joy. I’m actually quite shocked when I see media that only has thin, able bodies in it. I mean, it genuinely shocks me when I see these pictures anymore because I’m like, “Whoa! That’s so much of the same and that’s not at all what my experience is anymore.”

So start by surrounding yourself with images of people in a variety of bodies. Pour over the Adipositivity website. Substantial Jones is a photographer, if you’re not familiar with her, who captures naked and mostly naked fat bodies on film. Her website has thousands of pictures of naked fat bodies doing all kinds of incredible things. At first, I really was like, “Uh, God.” I was confronting some of my own fatphobia and bias. Now, I see them and I think, “Wow. That is incredible.” The most incredible thing about it is in so many of these pictures, these people have also brought their partners in. In fact, Adipositivity had a lover’s version of the calendar that was just all people who were with their lover naked doing these incredible things. I think that just goes to show no matter what your body looks like, you are going to be able to experience connection and pleasure on a variety of levels, especially when you can open yourself up to that possibility. 

Dawn Serra: Let’s talk about that piece a little bit. There are so many different ways of gaining confidence and finding our ways towards whatever our version is of living in our body. We have to untell a lot of stories. And that can take time. It can also be really painful. But it’s so worth it to savor and to enjoy and to delight in the fact that your body, exactly as it is right now, is capable of some pretty awesome pleasure. You can touch it and it feels good. You can touch yourself in all kinds of different ways and delight in all kinds of different sensations. And that is magic. So how can you enjoy more of that? 

Also, I think being in community with people who are in a variety of bodies is really, really helpful. Finding fat acceptance and body positive community either in Facebook groups or in other online spaces or even in meet ups. There’s a fat girls hiking club in Portland and one here in Vancouver. Just being around people who are like, “I want to be outside and moving my body and laughing and having fun.” Yeah, all of us are in a variety of fat bodies. So what? That’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty awesome. 

Dawn Serra: You also have to find ways to start, really, I think, looking at and seeing your body. We spend an awful lot of time trying to hide from ourselves to ignore the things that we don’t like. So what are some rituals that you could create that would help you to just make friends or to just be a little bit neutral with those parts? It’s not about love. You do not have to love every part of your body in order to achieve XYZ. You don’t have to love your body ever. I think the most important thing is finding body neutrality. Can we just exist in our bodies and delight in the sensations and have that be it? Then we can focus on so many other things like the things we want to be creating and thinking and connecting with people, instead of spending all this time either hating our bodies or loving our bodies. Equally, they take up time and energy. So let’s put our time and energy into other things like pleasure and creativity and creating. 

Something else that I know I’ve said on this show many times and I’ll say it again. Something that shocked me deeply the first time someone said it to me – it was The Militant Baker in one of her blogs about nine things nobody will tell fat girls – when people see you with your clothes on, they pretty much know what you look like with your clothes off. You’re not hiding anything. I don’t care how “flattering” you think your clothes are. Whether you wear black all the time or horizontal stripes or whatever it is, things that “hide certain parts,” when people see you, they pretty much know what they’re getting when you take your clothes off, as far as just size and weight go. So if someone’s choosing to be with you, it’s because they are opting in. They know, generally, the size and shape of your body. You’re not tricking anybody. When you go to get naked, they already have opted into that experience. That was a hard pill for me to swallow. Oh! I had to have several experiences with people before I really started getting that. Like, “Oh. They’re not surprised when I take my clothes off,” because they already knew. 

Dawn Serra: I mean, sure there’s little things here and there like scars or stretch marks or hairs that they may not have known, but that’s on everybody. To expect something different is unrealistic. But fill your feed. Surround yourself with people in a variety of bodies who are doing this work. Read all the articles that you can by people like Melissa Faello, Melissa Toler, Ragen Chastain. Give yourself lots of language and permission to just be here and exploring the stories that you carry, so that you can decide which stories do I want to continue carrying and which ones would I like to sit down? And then know that, at some point, you’re going to be faced with a choice of, “Do I do this vulnerable thing and take this leap and trust that this person is saying they want to be here? And so, I guess I have to just believe them and do the thing.” Or, am I going to close myself off because I’m scared and I’m not ready for that? and say no, because I don’t believe you.” Neither one is wrong. But one has the potential to lead you to some really interesting things and the other one has the potential to just keep you safe. 

You may encounter some people like the question that I read earlier in this episode who do judge you for your body. I can tell you the more community you have around yourself, the more people who understand the politics of diet culture and weight bias and weight stigma, the more you’re going to have people who have your back and who say, “F that! You deserve so much better.” Hopefully, at some point, you also find that language. If somebody at this point in my life shamed me for my body, sure, it would hurt. But let me tell you, I would have some things to say. In the past, in my early 20s, I would have stayed silent and I would have let it devastate me. I probably would have made terrible choices to try and make up for the fact that I thought I was the broken one. So do whatever you can to avoid that. Because that’s a terrible, terrible, terrible thing to have to live through. You deserve so much more.

Dawn Serra: So get a coach that’s in HAES – the Health at Every Size – or get a coach like Summer Innanen that helps you breakup with diet culture. Follow all of these people on social media. Fill your feed with fat, naked, glorious bodies. The best hashtag on Instagram is #bodieslikeoceans. I learned that from Vivienne McMaster, who’s a photographer that talks all about body trust. Totally check out Vivienne McMaster, as well. But hashtag #bodieslikeoceans, beautiful, beautiful stuff. 

So Sassy Cassie, I wish you luck. Know that you have so much ahead of you and so much time to explore and to experiment and to try things out for yourself. But do whatever you can to create the conditions that make it easier for you to then start seeing your body with a little bit more ease and kindness. Thank you so much for listening and good luck. I hope that’s helpful. Take care of you. I hope, in the very near future, you find something delicious to do within your body that feels sexy and fantasy-filled. 

Dawn Serra: Okay. We have one more email. The email is a little bit long. The advice will be a little bit short. But I want to read it because I know that this person is not the only one out there who has feelings like this. So we’ll just dive in. Dismay wrote, “This might be a doozy. I don’t even know anymore.” “Dawn, of course, there are no words to describe how you have already changed my world. Thank you. I’m a 19 year old cis female. I’m a freshman in college, but I have never had sex before. Though I have done a few sexual things. Not many. I know that I am still pretty young and I have all of my years left to figure out who I am. But some things have been bothering me to the point of mental exhaustion. 

I have a horrible anxiety when it comes to intimate relationships and sex. The times I have done intimate things with people, I have spaced out, I’ve had anxiety attacks that lasted for days – sometimes weeks afterwards. I feel guilty for any sexual actions that I do try. When I drink, I get a feeling of relief and I actually want to have someone to do something with. I masturbate too and the guilt follows there sometimes. But I’m trying to introduce toys and techniques that are more about the process than the orgasm. 

Dawn Serra: I have wonderful friends. One studying to be a sex educator and the reason I am emailing you now, who encouraged me to have more confidence and to feel less guilty about life. Talking about sex with them is awesome. Hands down one of my favorite pastimes. But I feel there may be more to my lack of sexual experience than just confidence. I do not have any recollections of sexual trauma growing up, but I do have bouts of absolute disgust for intimacy, indifference and then craving for it. I have thought about maybe I’m asexual, but that gives me a certain sense of dread. I don’t want to be asexual.

My feeling of loneliness is prominent and I still do sometimes want beautiful mutual sex. I thought maybe I was demisexual, but the times I feel disdain are so strong, it almost seems like it’s not a problem with my sexuality, but more a problem with me. Is there a reason I feel so guilty? I’m not religious, but I did grow up in a Catholic household, until my family just collectively decided to stop going to church. My parents are supportive, open minded and we’re all feminists. I’m scared to not only be with someone and have sex, but I am so scared that I’m going to be this lonely and confused for a long, long time. I want to explore and have fun wild sex with partners. I’m super sorry if this is too much. I will listen to you for the rest of my podcast days. I know this is a bummer. If you’ve already covered this on the show, that I will find it very soon and you don’t have to bother again with an explanation. But I think, maybe, I will actually let myself live because of the way you discuss love as human. Thank you again so much. Dismay.” 

Dawn Serra: Well, first of all, Dismay, thank you so much for sharing this with us. Thank you for letting me witness you and hold it. I know you’re not alone. That guilt, those feelings of shame, so real. So many of us have it. You’re right. At 19, some of that could just be from lack of experience. Some of it could be the culture we live in. But our culture bakes in shame around sex and pleasure. We’re taught from the youngest of ages, especially as women, that our genitals are gross, that the smells they make are bad, that we shouldn’t be masturbating, that it’s somebody else’s responsibility to give us an orgasm and all of this pleasure stuff is outside of ourselves. And so it can often leave us feeling really disgusted with our bodies and ourselves. 

I think the most important thing for you, Dismay, is to find a sex positive therapist or counselor who can help you just unpack this and to have someone along on the journey with you, so that you don’t have to do it alone and feel so isolated and lonely. You are not the only one who has these feelings. God! I had so much shame around my masturbation, especially in middle school in high school and even early into college. I remember talking with my roommate, when I was a freshman in college, about masturbation and trying to pretend I wasn’t guilty and ashamed whenever I did and trying to pretend I was super cool. I suspect she was doing the same thing of trying to pretend she was totally okay with it. But I know that whenever I masturbated, I always had these intense feelings of guilt and shame afterwards. But that didn’t stop me from doing it because it felt good. But I did have those feelings and those fears that someone would find out or think I was weird or catch me. 

Dawn Serra: I mean, I think so much of that just comes from our sex negative culture that gives us these really mixed meanings around to be cool and hot these days is to be having all the casual sex and doing all the hookups and being all the sexual performance that we can possibly fit in and doing all the hookups with all the chill. But that’s just as much of a harmful narrative and a performance as the sex negativity and completely cutting ourselves off from sexuality and feeling like our bodies are disgusting or sinful. 

It’s a mind fuck. I mean, it’s truly a mind fuck. It’s no wonder so many of us have so many feelings of guilt and shame and frustration and disconnection. It’s no wonder so many of us dissociate from our bodies and tune out and don’t know what we want. Because nobody’s teaching us these skills. Nobody is teaching us these skills when we’re kids, about how to sit in the discomfort, how to have tough conversations, to delight and savor and explore our bodies. Whether we want to have sexual experiences with others or not, our bodies are our own to savor and know and understand the edges of and there is something beautiful in that. But, again, who teaches us that? No one. Most of us stumble our way towards that. If we’re lucky, maybe somebody talked to us about it when we are a teenager.

Dawn Serra: As for being asexual or a demisexual, there are lots of incredible resources out there for people who are on the a– Well, all of us are on the ace spectrum because it goes from sexual to asexual, but anyway. If you feel like you could be asexual, asexual people can have incredible sex lives. Asexual people can have incredible relationships that are full of intimacy and meaning. Asexual people can masturbate and orgasm and do all the things that sexual people can do. It’s just that the experience of their wanting to be sexual with another person or even to have a sexual relationship with themselves is not there. For people who look at someone and say, “God, I really want to fuck them,” asexual people, depending on where they fall in the asexuality spectrum – from demisexual and greysexual, all the way to asexual – probably wouldn’t have that thought or would rarely have it. But that’s not to say that they aren’t enjoying sex when they have it. And that they’re not masturbating. 

I talked to somebody who is asexual at a panel discussion that I gave last year and they came up to me and they were like, “I have a really fulfilling sex life. I masturbate all the time. And it feels really good when I masturbate. I choose to have sex with my partners sometimes. But I’m asexual. What that means for me is, I don’t really ever want or crave sex with my partners. But I choose to do it because it’s important to them. And I love masturbating.” So there’s all different kinds of ways that asexual people have sexual relationships with themselves and/or intimate relationships with themselves and others. It might be a place for you to just find some ace community and to see if that maybe feels like it fits. 

Dawn Serra: If it doesn’t, if you do have sexual desire for other people or romantic desire for other people and you want that, but you have these intense feelings of guilt and shame, I think that’s the perfect place for doing some counseling and some therapy. Lots of us have that. Lots of us have to unpack it. There’s lots of reasons why that could be. Being able to have someone just really hold that space with you and to ask those questions and to help you process those feelings could be a tremendous shift in the burden that it sounds like you’re carrying. 

Also, just know, I totally felt that guilt and that shame and that disgust, at certain points, when I was 18, 19, 20 years old. I mean, it’s just where I was. So it’s okay if that’s where you are, too. I think the more that you could– I love that you have sex educator friend that you talk to about sex. I think doing more of that is really important. But that lived experience piece is what’s often so missing. We can theorize and talk about all the things we want. To actually be in our bodies and experiencing the pleasure that they’re capable of, that’s different. So maybe read some books about solo sex and pleasure in your body. Girl Sex 101 could be a really great one to start with. It’s super accessible and talks about masturbating and all kinds of other demisexual things. 

Dawn Serra: Take yourself through these rituals of just, “Where is my limit with the shame and the guilt? If I am naked and I touch my breasts, how do I feel? If I’m not naked and I put my hands over my vulva, how do I feel? If I masturbate in these positions or while I’m watching these things, how do I feel? Where are the edges of the guilt and the shame? Because there’s probably certain experiences you have in your body that don’t have any guilt or shame associated with them. And then clearly, there are some that do. So where do you bump up against that? If you can play and get curious with that, you might learn a little bit more about it and which edges you’re ready to lean into and which ones you’re not. Where is there just a little bit of guilt and shame? And where is there a lot? What happens if you just hang out at that little bit place for a while. 

Again, a therapist, a counselor, even a coach could super help you around this. You are not alone in this. Lots of people experience it. The culture we’re in bakes that chain straight in, especially if we’re women. It doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. It means that all the stories and the lack of support that are around you are broken. So good luck. Keep talking to your sex educator friends. Stay super curious. Give yourself time to just, “Maybe this is just where I am right now,” and know you won’t forever be there. We are constantly changing even when we feel the most stuck. 

Dawn Serra: The fact that you can even articulate this is pretty awesome. Because I never could have articulated this at 19. I was too invested in pretending I knew what I was doing and pretending like I was okay with everything to have actually had this kind of language, even in my quietest, most self-reflective moments, I would not have had the language. The fact that you do and you’re asking these questions is tremendous. Just be tender with yourself as much as you can and get support where you can, whether it’s through school in a peer program or a counseling program or even online counseling. Just make sure that the person you’re talking to is super sex positive. Do whatever you can to explore on your own. Find those edges and play with them. Thank you so much for writing in, Dismay. I wish you the best of luck. Thank you for trusting me with your questions and your story. 

Of course, to everybody listening, I am about to go record kind of a ranty rant about incels and involuntary celibacy. If you want to pop over to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to check that out, please do so. If you want to send in a question for me to read on air at some point, you can go to dawnserra.com. There’s a contact form there and you can submit questions anonymously or not, totally up to you. But if you’ve got something you’d like me to cover on air, either a topic, a person you’d love to hear me talk to or a personal question you want my help with, you can go there and write to me because every single email I get from you all feels like Christmas. I love it. So thank you so much for being here with me and for listening. I will be talking to you next week. Bye!