Sex Gets Real 216: Boring sex, calling masturbation cheating, & stolen sex toys

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Your questions. Answered.

Katie has a new fat fling. She really likes him, but he talks about diets and weight loss a lot. She’s been learning about diet culture, health at every size, and fact activism, so she needs help on how to set some boundaries with him to prevent discussions about the very things she’s trying to overcome.

Loving Husband has lost his sex drive. On top of that, his wife only wants sex in the missionary position, and he feels so bored and uninspired by the sex they do have. Could that have an impact on his sex drive? And how can he talk to his wife about making things more interesting?

A listener from a previous episode was very angry with my response and sent several angry, pissy emails to me as a result. So I take a few minutes to talk about my process and how grateful I am for the generosity and kindness most of you extend to me.

Jake’s girlfriend thinks masturbation and porn constitute cheating. But Jake really loves masturbating and he doesn’t know how to talk her about his desire to have a sexual relationship with himself. Is it cheating? And what does he need to do to set their pending marriage up for success?

AnaBanana was ghosted, but not before the guy who ghosted her kept a bunch of her BDSM toys. She’s asked for them back and hasn’t gotten a response. Should she keep pursuing them or are they a lost cause?

Follow Dawn on Instagram.

About Host Dawn Serra:

Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real

1. Listen and subscribe on iTunes
2. Check us out on Stitcher
3. Don’t forget about I Heart Radio’s Spreaker
4. Pop over to Google Play
5. Use the player at the top of this page.
6. Now available on Spotify. Search for “sex gets real”.
7. Find the Sex Gets Real channel on IHeartRadio.

Episode Transcript

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

Hey, everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Sex Gets Real. I, unfortunately, have a little bit of a cold so you might hear some sniffles throughout this episode. I got back from China this week. It was a really stressful trip, which is probably why on the flight home, I started feeling a little tickle and have now been battling a cold for several days. So, yay, immune system. I am super excited to be home and so excited to be recording for you today. 

Dawn Serra: I’m going to be fielding your questions because so many of them have been flooding in, which is ridiculously exciting. I love it so much. For Patreon supporters, if you support at the $3 level or above, then you get access to bonus content every single week. This week, I’m going to be talking all about Chris Hardwick and Chloe Dykstra. Chloe wrote an article on Medium a couple of days ago detailing some long emotional abuse that she suffered as well as some sexual assault when she was partnered with Chris Hardwick, which many of you know from the Talking Dead on AMC and nerd culture, in general. There has been quite the discussion going on. So this week’s bonus is going to be a little discussion about that brouhaha. This week is just you, me, some questions are really pissy, angry listener, who has decided sending me multiple emails detailing his feelings is the way to handle this. We will be diving into all kinds of questions about bodies and relationships and sex. Let’s get started. 

Katie wrote in with a subject line of, “New fat fling.” The email says, “Hi, Dawn! First, I just wanted to say I love your show. I have been listening for a few months after I heard your interview on the Food Psych podcast–” For those of you who haven’t heard Food Psych yet – with Christy Harrison – you must go check it out. If you’re interested in anti-diet, culture and Health at Every Size and all that good stuff. Christy is mind blowing and the show that she puts on. Anyway, I was a guest on that at the end of last year. Katie goes on to say, “I really appreciate your perspective and the compassion you bring to these fun, but sometimes difficult conversations. Anyway, I am a fat cis woman, who recently started seeing a new fat cis man. It’s going pretty well so far, except he semi-regularly make comments about trying to lose weight or avoiding certain things because they will “make him fatter” and other comments. He has not made any comments like that about me or my body. I have been immersed in HAES, body positivity and fat activism for the last year or so. He is the first person I have dated since starting this journey. 

Dawn Serra: I fully believe in body autonomy. So I don’t want to tell him what he should or shouldn’t do with regard to his weight. However, I do want to make it clear that I don’t support intentional weight loss for myself, nor will I give kudos to others for losing weight. I also want to tell him that his diet-y comments are slightly triggering for me and I would appreciate it if he refrained from talking about that with me. Do you have any tips for how to bring this up gently? It feels like such a gigantic topic because it is such a radical departure from mainstream culture. I don’t know how to fully get the point across without going into lecture mode. I would greatly appreciate any insight you have on this. Thanks again for all the work you do.”

Yay! Katie, thank you for writing in with this. This is a question that I get a lot from people, both on my group calls for Explore More Summit and in the Facebook group for Explore More Summit. I’ve even gotten it a few times here on the show, different variations of it. But, many of us are surrounded by people who like to talk about diets and weight loss, whether it’s in the workplace, in our families and the people that we’re seeing. It’s kind of everywhere, which is why it’s this big, huge beast that feels impossible to slay. 

Dawn Serra: So I appreciate that you really want to respect his journey and his body and the decisions that he makes for himself. It’s super fair for you to establish this agreement around the conversations that you want to be a part of and the type of life that you want to cultivate for yourself. Like any difficult conversation, I think approaching it with a couple of different things in mind can help. 

The first is understand that often, when we have conversations that feel really sensitive or awkward, we might have to have them multiple times. So no matter how the conversation goes, you’re probably going to have to have this conversation more than once. Because that’s probably going to show up in a variety of ways as he figures out how to navigate conversations with you in ways that feel good for both of you. I think it’s important whenever we really sit down to have a conversation with someone, especially around something like bodies or sex, know that it’s probably going to take a little bit of time to really find your way to your new normal. 

Dawn Serra: The other thing is give people an opportunity to opt in to the conversation at a time when you both feel well-resourced. So instead of just jumping into the conversation, it can help to let someone know, “Hey. I’ve been thinking about this thing. I could really use your help with it. But I think it’s going to take us a little bit of time and just roll around in it. So let me know when it would feel really good for you for us to have a conversation about diets and weight because I’ve got some questions and I could really use some input from you. So maybe we can do that tonight. Maybe we can do it this weekend. But let me know.” If they’re like, “No. I want to talk about it now.” Because for a lot of us that have anxiety, putting things off like that can feel torturous. 

So just go in knowing that giving them the option to decide on a time. It might not be right after work. It might not be right before work. It might not be when you’re both really tired. So just being really conscious in giving people a chance to opt in can also help set you up for success because then people feel like they had a choice in the matter.

I think the bottomline really comes down to some techniques that I learned from the relationship skills workbook. It’s similar to non-violent communication, but not exactly the same, in that if you really talk about your feelings and the sensations you get in your body and your experience of the things that he’s talking about, those are inarguable, unless he’s going to be the kind of person who gaslights you. But if you can say, “When I hear talk about weight loss, my chest starts hurting. When I hear people making morality statements about food being good or bad, I get a really upset tummy. And I’ve been experiencing a whole bunch of tension in my shoulders because I’m scared that more of that talk is going to come up.” Those are all inarguable. They are literally your unique experience of those comments and those kinds of discussions. 

Dawn Serra: And then going from there and being able to point out the specific types of behaviors and comments that are tough for you and what you would like to have happen, of either, “I want these kinds of conversations” or “I don’t want these kinds of conversations,” make sure that you end it with a really clear request that makes it feel like he can win, he can participate in this and that you do value his input. So you might even want to ask some questions about his experience and let him know you’re happy to talk about your experience if he has ever has any questions and to let him know you’ve been doing all kinds of learning and research over the past year and it’s totally shifted your way of thinking. But you don’t ever want him to feel pressured to go on a similar journey. And that you appreciate his body in whatever form it happens to take. 

There’s so many ways that you can make this a really nourishing, nurturing, yes, awkward conversation. But I think when you lead with, “Here’s all the things I’m feeling in my body. Here’s the emotions that come up for me when these things get said or when these types of conversations are happening. Here’s what I would like to have happen. So that you feel like you can be you and I feel like I can be me and I’m not secretly growing resentful or shutting down. Because you don’t even know that that’s how that makes me feel.” 

Dawn Serra: Just expect that regardless of how well and how gracefully you might enter into that conversation, he is allowed to have feelings about it. And the feelings might be really uncomfortable. He might feel scared or frustrated or attacked because it is a really sensitive topic that, for many us, we’ve invested decades of our lives in. And to hear someone who’s pushing back against that, it might be a first for him and that might feel very, very unusual. Usually, when people feel uncertain, they go to either anger or defensiveness. 

So just know, he might react that way and say, “You know, that’s okay. I know this is a tough thing. If you need some time, we can circle back to this. It doesn’t change how I feel about you. I still want to be in this relationship. I know it’s not easy and that’s okay.” Then it makes it clear to him that you also respect the fact that he has those feelings and that he doesn’t have to be different or do something different. It creates that culture of, “We can be imperfect and we can be uncomfortable and still love each other.” 

Dawn Serra: There’s a thousand other things in my head when I read your question, but I want to try and keep it as short as possible. So I think just knowing that it’s going to feel awkward and if you can do it in a way that just makes it really clear you’re coming from your perspective and the only thing you’re asking him to do differently is the way that he shares those things with you. He’s Welcome to share those things with other people or think those things and that you want this to be a thing where both of you feel really good in whatever bodies you show up in. I mean, that can only be a really great thing. Feelings are inevitable. It doesn’t indicate any kind of skill on your part, if he has tough feelings about this conversation. Because it’s a tough topic. 

I love that you’re thinking about this and that you want to care for him as well as care for yourself. That’s such a beautiful thing. I hope that it goes really well and the two of you have all kinds of delicious conversations after this one that lead really interesting places. So thank you so much, Katie, for listening to the show and for writing in. I would love an update on how it goes and if I think of anything else, I will let you know in my reply to you via email. So thank you so much. Let’s move on to the next listener question.

Dawn Serra: Loving Husband wrote in with a subject line of “Bedroom problems.” “Dawn, let me start by saying I am a huge fan. I’m typing this on my cell phone, so please forgive any stupid autocorrect. Now, let’s get to the gist. I love my wife. She’s the best thing to happen to me. We have been married for nine wonderful years. She is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on and I will always believe that. My problem is twofold. One I have completely lost my sex drive. I love sex. I love orgasms. But honestly, I could take sex or leave it right now. I need to know how to get that drive back. I want for my wife to be happy more than anything. I want to pleasure her in any way and every way possible. But sex has become a chore. 

Now, onto problem two. When my wife and I do have sex, it’s incredibly boring. It is simple missionary all the time. When I did have my sex drive, I was bored out of my mind. She would just lay there silently telling me that she loved it afterwards. I love, love, love going down on her, but she refuses to return the favor. She was orally raped when she was younger and the taste makes her sick. That is understandable and valid. I get that. I completely understand that. But I desire more than just missionary. Perhaps, boredom is part of my loss in my sex drive. She won’t get on top because she’s too self-conscious and afraid that she’s doing it wrong. She won’t do doggy because it hurts her arms. I want to try pegging but that too is too taboo for her. Dawn, please help. I’m getting desperate. This is and has been affecting our marriage for a long time and that breaks my heart. Sincerely, Loving Husband.”

Dawn Serra: I can hear the pain in your words Loving Husband. That’s not an easy place to be. The truth is, there is not an easy answer. The way forward is going to be uncomfortable and awkward and uncertain. There are no guarantees about what’s going to come next. But a willingness to show up and to have challenging, vulnerable conversations and to get creative could mean really incredible things for the two of you. It’s just, can the two of you find that curiosity and that patience around something that has felt really charged for a while? So the first thing I want to say is, if you haven’t been checked out yet by a doctor, then I would recommend doing that. A loss in your sex drive might be hormonal. It might be something else going on. Just make sure that everything checks out physically with your physician or whatever clinic you go to. 

And then from there, I think it’s important to remember that for almost all of us, sex is only delicious when the context is good. There are so many different places where, depending on the context, it might be either the biggest turnoff in the world or the biggest turn on in the world. Who’s around? How might we get caught? What’s the punishment? How am I feeling in my body? What’s the weather like? What happened in that day? And how stressed am I? How much rest did I get? All of those things can impact our sex drive. If you have been feeling bored and uncertain and frustrated for a long period of time, that’s a pretty big contextual piece of the puzzle that probably is having an impact on your sex drive. 

Dawn Serra: Sex thrives on creativity. Our sexual energy is ultimately just about creativity and creation and movement and fire and connection and pleasure. I’m wondering where are all the other places in your life where you’re tapping into those things? Where you’re tapping into pleasure and play and curiosity and creativity and connection? Because often, when we invite more of those things in, it helps to feed the erotic. But we have to be able to feed the erotic. It doesn’t just show up for us. Now, for many of us, our sex drive is just a given for large portions of our life or for certain kinds of relationships. For many of us, as we age, as our relationships lengthen, as life becomes more complicated, as our bodies change, sex becomes something that we have to cultivate intentionally. It doesn’t just spontaneously happen. 

So I’m also wondering, when it comes to your sex drive, what are all the things that you’re doing to help create conditions that foster erotic energy and delight and ecstasy and pleasure? And how often are you prioritizing those things? It doesn’t have to only be sexual. It can be all of these other access points and paths to these things that can help fill you up with joy and a meaning and delicious erotic energy. 

Dawn Serra: So there has to be that deliberate planning and cultivation and ritual for many of us. I mean, you’ve heard me many times, probably on the podcast, recommend people schedule their sex. And there’s a reason for that. It’s really, really easy for us to be distracted by a thousand other things. If sex is important to you, in all the forms that that can take, then you have to take specific steps to cultivate that. What is your sexual relationship with yourself? How are you pleasuring yourself? How are you expanding your erotic landscape for you and just for you? I think, often, what happens in relationship – and this is not a personal slight to you, Loving Husband. It’s definitely a cultural story – is we expect our partners to become sex vending machines, essentially. We’re told that if we end up in an intimate loving relationship with someone, that they’re responsible for giving us sex. That’s kind of the deal. And that’s just not how it works. Human beings aren’t sex vending machines just because they decide they love you and cohabitate with you. 

It’s your responsibility to also be meeting your own sexual needs. What are all the ways that you can be sexually creative on your own? What are all of the ways that you can engage in solo sex and fantasy play and writing or reading erotica and touching yourself in delicious ways and maybe doing your own ass play. I know that it’s different with a partner or a spouse. That sex is one of the ways that we can bond and connect and it feels good. We get all that yummy oxytocin and dopamine. Those are very real things. There’s also so many opportunities for you, Loving Husband, to be cultivating this fire and this heat and this creativity and this joy for yourself, if your wife doesn’t want to change the way that she approaches sex. 

Dawn Serra: That said, I do think there’s so many ways that we can talk about sex in less charged ways in our relationships. If you haven’t checked out my Sex Map Game yet, I highly recommend it. It can be a really fun way to start talking about sex in a way that’s different than the ways that you and your wife have probably circled around sex a thousand times before. How can you introduce curiosity and play and joy into your conversations about sex, so that it becomes more creative? She doesn’t want to do doggy because it hurts her arms, I totally get that. Have the two of you come up with ways to stack a whole bunch of pillows and creative ways or yoga bolsters or rolled towels, so that she literally doesn’t have to hold her body weight up at all? That’s certainly an option. Leaning over the sofa with all the cushions piled up under her chest and her tummy, so that all she has to do is just relax and enjoy. You can’t change the way that she feels about her body. You can’t “fix” the self-consciousness. That has to be something she decides she wants to do. If she doesn’t ever want to do it, then that’s okay, too. That’s her experience of her body. 

So I think instead, what needs to happen is getting really curious about her experiences, her fantasies, inviting her curiosity about yours, the two of you reminiscing about things that you used to love to do when you first met and reminiscing about things that might be possible in the future and creating a space where it’s not about the actual sex the two of you are having, but instead about the ways that you can share with each other, the ways that you can talk about sex, the ways that you can imagine new futures and new possibilities. And that might mean hiring a professional to help out. So investing in a sex coach or a sex therapist or a relationship therapist, someone that can get that dialogue going to get you unstuck from the cycle you’ve been in, could be really, really important. Don’t rule that out. If creating new dialogue and finding new ways to connect is important to you, then it might mean bringing in a third party. Because sometimes we just get so stuck and so resentful and so scared and so unsure, that we completely lock down. It makes it very difficult to shift the conversation without someone else stepping in to really shake things out.

Dawn Serra: You might not ever be able to change her. You can certainly invite in conversation and you can model that vulnerability. I think it’s also really important to make sure that you approach conversations with your wife without expectation. If you approach these conversations expecting that your wife is going to do something different or change, she will sense that and that will cause her to shut down even further. So you are going to have to do some work on yourself to just really think about, if I want more creativity and more ecstasy, more pleasure and more joy in my life, how can I do that for me? What are all the ways I can touch myself? What are all the rituals of solo pleasure I can engage in? What are the toys I might be interested in? What’s all the porn and erotica and anything else that would make you just feel more connected with yourself and your body and your pleasure? By modeling that, that might open her up so that she doesn’t feel like she’s your only outlet for this. That’s an incredible burden for a partner to carry sometimes. 

I think there’s a lot of opportunity here around one, just getting yourself medically checked out and two, finding new ways to have both these conversations with yourself and your wife and investing in getting a third party to just help guide you on this. Because it sounds like the two of you have gotten quite stuck in where you are. All is not lost. But there’s definitely going to be some discomfort and some change that’s necessary. It’s probably not going to look anything like you think it’s going to look like. And it’s probably not going to look anything like she thinks it’s going to look like. You’re just going to have to find a way to leave space for that possibility, and then decide for yourself what needs do I need to get met and how can I meet those for myself? And if I can’t meet those myself and my partner can’t meet those, then where does that leave us? Because certainly staying in a marriage where there’s lots of growing resentment is not good for either of you, either. 

Dawn Serra: So get as creative as you can, get as curious as you can, invite in as many vulnerable conversations that are playful and easy as you can, that don’t have anything to do with your own sex life, but just sex in general – movie sex scenes, all those kinds of things – to help teach the two of you how to talk about those things to feel a little bit more ease. And then you can start turning it into something that makes the two of you a little bit more interested in making it personal. Because there’s a thousand different positions and modifications and furniture and accoutrement and toys that you can get that would help your wife with feeling comfortable in her body and the position she’s in. But there’s a lot of things that need to happen, I think, before you get there. So good luck Loving Husband. Thank you so much for listening. I wish you the very best. 

This was a little bit of a departure and I’m feeling a little bit sassy about this. So, all of you know that for years now, I’ve been listening to or I’ve been answering your questions. Every single time I get an email, I know that it’s just a small snapshot of a much more nuanced and big issue and life in person and experience. So all I have to go off of is one, history and experience. The thousands of emails – probably, more than that – at this point that I have received and read, the comments that I get on social media and in response to the questions that I answer, and then the questions themselves, which are sometimes quite short, a sentence or two and are sometimes many, many paragraphs offering lots of backstory. 

Dawn Serra: But as part of being someone who offers advice and receives questions from strangers, one of the things that is an important part of my job is looking very carefully at the language that people use when they talk about whatever it is that they’re writing in with. I also do this as a coach. Often, the things that go unsaid are the most important or the things that get rushed over are the most important. So I tuned in and zero in on certain phrases that then inform me on how I might answer a question or what direction I might take with something. It’s really fascinating. Especially because I know that my experiences and my advice aren’t going to fit everybody. And that’s the beautiful part of having so many different types of podcasts that talk about sex and relationships. I’m not for everybody. Dance Savage isn’t for everybody. God knows. And the same is true for a thousand other podcasts that are out there. All I can do is my best with what I get.

What’s really interesting is within the past couple of weeks, I’ve gotten feedback from two different listeners whose questions I answered. They felt like I either didn’t get the full picture or I didn’t quite understand what they were going for and the responses were vastly different. So the first was from a listener who had written in about not fighting her boyfriend’s body hot. I was pretty firm in my response to that and the unfairness of how I felt she was handling it. She actually wrote back to me after hearing my answer and was deeply apologetic and said she totally understands how I reacted based on what she wrote. She wanted to offer more input and more information about what was driving some of her behavior and some of her beliefs and some of the things that she has been working on and trying that weren’t in the email. It was a really beautiful explanation. It was also very apologetic that she didn’t provide more so that I could get a better picture in responding with my thoughts and feedback. 

Dawn Serra: That’s pretty typical for the types of people who listen to this show. That if they send something in and I reply and they realize they left something out or they misworded something, almost always it’s, “Oh my God! I should have told you this thing, too. I’m sorry I didn’t send that in the first email. Thank you so much for your labor.”

And then there’s this other email that I got. So I got an email a couple of weeks ago that you’ll remember if you’ve been listening to the show. The email included a line about involuntary muscular contractions. “Isn’t this the true telltale sign a woman is coming?” That’s the word for word question in the email. “Isn’t this the true telltale sign a woman is coming?” So I responded to specifically the language in that question around there is no telltale sign and that the only telltale anything is to listen and trust your partner. I have since gotten more than one angry emails from this particular listener. Basically saying that they’re disgusted with me and insulted and that they feel I owe them an apology. They want to know what’s wrong with me. My favorite is that it ends with “Christ’s sakes!” 

Dawn Serra: There’s a second email that came in saying, “Me and my friends are laughing at what an idiot you are,” basically. All I can do is laugh. One, because fragile masculinity is showing clearly. And two, I think most people who listen to the show know that I can only give advice based on the exact words that are provided in the emails that I get. I can’t guess on backstory or intent. I can only go off of what was provided. So if was provided was crap, then my answer might not feel like it fits your situation. 

To those of you who listen and offer generosity and graciousness when I answer, if it doesn’t feel like a great fit or maybe information was missing, I appreciate you. And to the listener, who has now sent me several very angry and harassing emails, I suppose I should feel flattered that I am staying in conversation as much as I am. If it hurt that deeply, then I think there’s probably some work that needs to be done on your end. So good luck. 

Thank you to all of you who are always so generous and kind and supportive of me in the fact that I am always doing my best and that I am doing this all of this labor for all of you for free, basically. And thank you to those of you who support the show Patreon because you really do make it possible. It’s really expensive to do this. As you know, finding sponsors for the show is really tough. So this is really genuinely a costly labor of love on my part. To those of you who see that and appreciate it, I feel that every single day and I just want to say thank you. To those of you who get butt hurt, I hope you like hurting butts cause it’s no skin off my back. You got your emails going to auto-spam at this point.

Dawn Serra: So moving on. Jake wrote in with a question about relationships. It says, “Dawn, love the show. The Patreon extras are amazing as well…” Yay! Thank you so much Jake for supporting me on Patreon. So Jake goes on to say, “So my girlfriend. She considers looking at porn to be cheating. What are your thoughts? She also doesn’t want me to masturbate. She says that what she’s for. Although, I think she’s gotten over this or at least hasn’t said as much about it when I’ve joked about doing it, as that’s one thing that I do sometimes in the shower. She’s more into sex than I am, I’ll admit. Yeah. I know. The guy is usually a horndog, but I was fine with masturbation and really enjoyed it before she came along. We are each other’s first. We’re getting married next year. She’s 27 and I’m 24. She says I don’t initiate sex much and I don’t. I don’t know why exactly. But what do you think of semi-asexuality?” (coughing) Excuse me. 

“I’m not really into porn per se. But when eye her plus size clothing advertisements in the mail – and she knows that I do that – she doesn’t consider that porn. But what if I wanted to look at good ethical porn? She wouldn’t like it if I did. And I haven’t. Because she said it’s cheating her and I really don’t want to hurt her in any way. But I am curious about getting a better sense of my sexuality. I don’t know if that makes any sense. But thanks for all you do. Jake.”

Dawn Serra: Well, Jake, I have lots of thoughts about this. I think you probably already know what my thoughts are, if you’ve been listening to this show for a while. So I really appreciate you writing in with your question and, of course, for supporting the show on Patreon. This is a tough one because I don’t believe that viewing porn is cheating. I don’t believe masturbation is cheating. I believe that what you do with your body in order to experience your pleasure and to enjoy this vessel that you basically have ownership of – temporarily – is yours to be able to do. What you do on your own with your body is your business. While people in our life might disagree, they don’t really get a say in whatever form that is. Whether that’s getting a tattoo or coloring your hair or eating certain foods or what weight you are or how often you masturbate or what kinds of fantasies you enjoy or what kinds of porn you watch, those are all about you enjoying and delighting in you. 

I think that’s a really important part of our sexuality and our sexual experience. I love that you say, “I was fine with masturbation and really enjoyed it before she came along.” That’s a beautiful thing. What an incredible, beautiful thing to be able to delight in your body on your terms and to find pleasure and joy there. Far too many of us don’t have that luxury because we carry around so much shame. So the fact that that’s a part of your history and a part of where you want to be now I think it’s really important. 

If you’re getting married next year, I think there needs to be some pretty big conversations that happen before that marriage. Because these kinds of conversations and behaviors are the things that could spell a really toxic relationship down the road. I don’t want that to happen to you after you get into all of the legal mess that comes with marriage and divorce. 

Dawn Serra: So set yourself up for success before you get into that married place by having some conversations around this. I think it’d be really interesting to know why she feels this way. How does she feel about her body? How does she delight in her body? What’s her experience of masturbation? What are the messages she learned growing up about it? Why does she think that you enjoying your body is a betrayal of her? Why does she think that you consuming content that helps you to delight in your body and you’re experience of pleasure impact her? And would she still feel the same way where she injured or sick or in a situation where she was so stressed that she just really didn’t want sex for a while? Because she’s setting herself up with this, “I’m your vessel for sex,” because if at some point she isn’t able to or doesn’t want to, that’s going to create a whole bunch of pressure and guilt on her that’s just completely effing unnecessary. I think this is a great time to introduce some real talk. It might be uncomfortable. She might not like it. Because what I’m hearing is that a lot of what you want butts up against some pretty, strongly held beliefs that she has. 

But I also don’t think entering into a marriage with someone who doesn’t want you to have a solo sexual experience of your own body is going to lead to very healthy places down the road. So how can the two of you turn this into a place of curiosity, joy and delight, where you talk about all the messages you grew up with about bodies and masturbation and she shares the same, and then you compare and you talk about where those stories came from? 

Dawn Serra: Also, talk about the culture. Like what are all of the examples of masturbation and porn that you’ve seen in pop culture and in media? Are those things true to your personal experiences? I think the more that you can have this really rich, interesting dialogues back and forth, the more it’s going to start revealing the why around why she feels the way she does and the why around why it’s important for you. Then the two of you can connect around that. 

Change doesn’t happen overnight. I think making a demand or an ultimatum also isn’t going to get you anything other than perhaps the end of a relationship? Because the second that she starts feeling judged or forced, she’s just going to shut down and go into defensive mode. So again, Jake, how can you turn this into a place of play and genuinely finding out about all the stories that she subscribes to and believes and where they came from and who taught those things to her and to share those things about your body too, of why this is something you delight in and why it feels so good and why you enjoy it and why it makes you a person that can show up better for her and your relationship and all of the things that helped give you that sense of self and pleasure.

Dawn Serra: I like very much that you don’t want to do something that would hurt her. If she has said, “I believe this to be cheating,” then I think that it’s a very ethical thing to do to then say, “Okay. I won’t do this thing that you feel is cheating.” I also think that there is room here for a conversation around why that’s not fair. Especially because for you, around porn and masturbation, it’s just about you and your body and wanting to experience pleasure and delight and maybe relief of some stress and to have a little bit of “you” time. Much like other people do with long, languid baths or reading. 

So everything that you wrote makes a lot of sense. I do think that it’s a little bit of a complicated situation. So many women are trained in our culture to see masturbation is shameful and gross to see men who masturbate and use porn as delinquent and uncaring and as cheaters. Certainly, people who are assholes do those things too, but really good people do them as well. So it’s just not as black and white as a lot of people would like it to be. Most women in our culture have been taught that touching yourself and delighting in yourself is either amoral or just a hold over until a human being can step in and give you the real thing. Those are incredibly toxic messages. But they’re seductive and they’re filled with fear. It’s no wonder that she holds on to these messages. Lots of people do. It doesn’t have anything to do with her. It has everything to do with social stories and myths and media and, of course, all of the bigger bigger bigger systems like patriarchy and capitalism. 

Dawn Serra: But use this as a place for connection and just really let her know this is important to you. She might have feelings about that. And that’s okay. She can have those feelings, but you get to delight in your body. That gets to be an important part of who you are and how you move through life. If she wants to feel disappointed and frustrated and disgusted about that, that’s okay. She can. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is important to you. So you can process both of those things, but separately. 

I just want to wish you good luck. I think there’s so much room here for growth and connection and to have really, really delicious conversations that move you towards something where you feel like you can really enjoy yourself and delight in porn and touching yourself without her feeling like you’re taking something away from her. And maybe, listening to this episode together is a way to start that conversation. 

Dawn Serra: So thank you so much for writing in, Jake. I know I didn’t get your asexuality question. But I do want to just note that I read that and I will be having an asexuality expert on in a couple of months. I have been courting a few and hopefully, we’ll have one on soon. Stay tuned for a much more in depth conversation around gray-sexuality and asexuality. I am super excited to get someone on the show to talk about that in depth. So I will let an expert in that talk about that. Then you can see if you see echoes of yourself in that conversation. So thank you so much, Jake and good luck. 

Okay. Before I go record the Patreon bonus all about Chris Hardwick and Chloe Dykstra, which if you want to hear you can go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. If you support at the $3 level and above, you get access to every single week bonus material, including this week’s discussion about emotional abuse and sexual assault within the nerd community with Chris Hardwick and Chloe Dykstra. So check that out.

Dawn Serra: I’ve got one last question for this episode from AnaBanana. The subject line is “Ghosted.” It’s a very short email that just says, “I was going out with what I thought was a nice guy. We went out for five months. Little by little, he stopped texting or calling. The thing is I left some of my sex toys at his house. I already called him once and texted for them. No answer. Should I keep bugging him? Or should I say goodbye to my BDSM toys?” Then a crying emoji. 

Man that sucks, AnaBanana. Like so hard. I think it just depends on a couple of factors like how expensive were they? How important are they to you? Are they something that you really invested in? If so, then I would definitely keep reaching out and change the tone a little bit of, “I don’t appreciate that you’re basically holding these things that are important to me hostage,” which is just a fancy way of saying theft. We need to talk about how these are going to get returned. If you want a postage paid box or whatever it is. But I mean, let them know that at this point he has actually stolen from you by not returning these things. 

Dawn Serra: If they’re not super important to you and they weren’t super expensive, then I would just sadly let them go. But I think you just have it aside. Like what’s it worth? What’s the labor worth for you? If it was some of my favorite stuff, then I would certainly write a letter and call more. Not in a stalky way, but just in a, “These are my thing. You owe them to me. You have stolen them. I would like them returned. Let’s talk about a way to do that. If you don’t want to see me, that’s fine. We can come up with alternatives.” It can be messy to rope in friends, but if you have any mutual friends that you could also just offer to send to his house for them, so that you don’t have to see him, that might be an option. 

Basically, you– Unfortunately, you’re going to have to bend over backwards to try and make this as easy on him as possible. And then just decide where do you want to go from there? I mean, stern letters and phone calls are only going to work if he’s even remotely open to it. I think that’s super shitty. But such is breakups, especially with someone who… I mean, I think we know where his integrity is. If you went out for five months and little by little, he just stopped texting and calling, that doesn’t have a lot of integrity in how he went about deciding that the relationship wasn’t working. So instead of actually having an adult conversation – that was maybe uncomfortable and there would be feelings around – he just tried to disappear. He probably doesn’t have a whole lot of courage. He probably doesn’t care very much about being fair, because if he did, he would have handled this very differently. 

Dawn Serra: I’m thinking you’re probably not going to see them again. Then you just have to decide how much labor do you want to put into trying to get these things back, just how valuable and how much of a loss would it be. But I think that it is a very fair thing to let him know that, at this point, he’s holding on to stolen property and that’s really not okay and you would like him to rectify that situation. And then give him lots of options for being able to do that – dropping off a postage paid box at his house or sending a friend over or meeting him in a neutral location like McDonald’s or whatever it is. But I’m so sorry AnaBanana. I hope that you either get them back or whatever you get to replace them stay in your possession. Because losing BDSM toys and toys of any kind sucks. It sucks so bad. I’m so sorry and good luck. I hope you get them.

To everybody who listened, thank you so much for tuning in despite my coughs and cold. I am off to record the Patreon bonus and then I will, of course, be back next week. I am going to go have a coughing fit now. If you have questions yourself you want to send in or comments, of course, please head to dawnserra.com. There is a contact form where you can write in either anonymously or leave your name and email. I do try to write back whenever I field your questions. Of course, you can follow the show on Facebook and on Twitter, where you can interact with me and the episode content as well. Thank you so much for being here with me. I hope you have a great week and we’ll talk to you next time. Bye.