Sex Gets Real 224: Entering the friendzone & male submission

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What even is the friendzone, how can a man come to terms with his submissive desires, and questioning desirability politics.

This week it’s just you and me before we have another tsunami of awesome guests.

First up, Angela wrote in with a question about friendzones. Why are they even a thing? Why did her friend suddenly close her out after she denied his advances without any conversation or warning?

Friendzones are bullshit, so I weigh in on the lies that are “friendzones”. Plus, WendyCorduroy’s Tumblr post on what the friendzone rhetoric has done to her is powerful stuff. And, be sure to check out this thoughtful response to a guy who claimed he was “friendzoned” on Scarleteen.

Looking for a therapist who understands intersectionality and oppression? The Establishment has this great little resource to get you asking potential therapists questions that might reveal whether they’re a good fit for you or not.

KinkyCarl wrote in because he wants to explore submission, but has trouble opening up to his wife about the depth of his desires. How can he explore submission for himself and bring her along, too?

DNA wrote in sharing some thoughts about dating people in larger bodies, and that brings me to some thoughts on desirability and ways we can open ourselves to so much more love and friendship.

If you haven’t seen Nanette by Hannah Gadsby yet, GET THEE TO NETFLIX and watch it immediately. I share my thoughts about one particular part of her show – the predatory Lolita stories we’ve ignored and accepted by men in the arts and positions of power. Not. Any. More.

Follow Dawn on Instagram.

About Host Dawn Serra:

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Episode Transcript

Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So, welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.

Hello, it is just you and me this week. Next week’s episode is with Stella Harris and her new book “Tongue Tied,” which is all about sexual communication and relationship communication. Stella is fantastic. So that will be a delightful conversation. But for this week, it’s going to be you and me going through your questions and some thoughts and interesting things I’ve encountered. In fact, it is so hard to be sitting here recording right now, because I just got access to the documentary, “The Artist and The Pervert,” which centers around Mollena Williams and her master/husband, Derspousemeister. And, if you follow Mollena Williams, you know the antics that they get up to. 

This entire documentary is about his compositions and his contribution to the music field and also their master/slave dynamic, and the ways that they express an experience their sexuality. I’m like 15 minutes in and it was just like, “If I sit here and watch the whole hour and 30, I’m going to run out of time to talk to you.” So, I will just have to finish it later and tell you all about it. Because I was one of the funders on Kickstarter and I’m so excited to get to see it. And so far, the first 15 minutes are delightful. 

Dawn Serra: I also want to just share, I haven’t told anybody this other than Alex. But I just got my acceptance letter into the Body Trust Provider Certification Program, which is a seven-month intensive program, all about becoming a certified body trust provider through BeNourished. It’s going to be a really intense program all around body justice and diet culture. And, of course, what I want to bring to that work is a focus on pleasure and sexuality. When we become disconnected from our bodies because of our relationships, to food, and eating disorders, and weight, and all the stigma and weirdness that comes with that. It directly impacts the ways that we experience sex and the erotic, and so I want to marry those two, because it’s so personal to me. 

So I’m really excited about being a part of cohort five. And I will be down in Portland and a couple of weeks for their week long kickoff for the training. So yeah, that was the big celebratory moment when that came in yesterday. So, there’s all kinds of really, really fascinating things that I really want to talk to you about this week. And we’re going to just dive into a listener question from Angela. 

Dawn Serra: So Angela wrote, “Hi, Dawn, you are awesomesauce.” That word is so funny. “First, I can’t believe I’m writing to you after all of this time of listening to you. You’ve taught me so much. And I love the big ideas you’re always sharing. You’re so kind. You’ve helped me so much and you don’t even know me. So, thank you from podcast land. 

Here’s my question: I’m in my early 20s. I’m a cis woman who’s questioning her sexuality. I don’t really feel upset about that. But what I do feel upset about is that a longtime friend of mine, who is a cis guy is claiming that I friendzoned him. I’m feeling confused because for the past few years, our friendship has been so important to me, and it felt really mutual. But recently, he started acting weird and tried to kiss me. When I told him no, he got really angry. And I get it, rejection sucks. But why didn’t he talk to me about whatever it was, instead of just trying to kiss me? Now things are weird. Basically, he stopped talking to me and he’s hanging around with this other woman that we both know that in the past, he said he finds super annoying. But I just feel sad, because I feel like I’ve now lost a friend and I’m angry that he threw the friendzone thing in my face. What even is that? Anyway, I would love your opinion on friendzones. Is there a way to avoid this? Why is it even a thing? I feel heartbroken. But also, I didn’t do anything wrong, which is really, really confusing. So, thank you so much for reading this and for everything you do. Angela.”

Dawn Serra: Angela, I hate that. I’m so sorry you’re going through that. That is such a hard, weird thing. And there’s a lot of reasons for it existing. But just know you are not alone and it is heartbreaking. It is hard to lose a friend. That is something that in our culture, we don’t tend to focus a lot about. We’ve got all these movies and songs about breaking up with someone that we’re in a romantic relationship with and the heartbreak that comes with that in the mourning and all of that grief. But we don’t really have very many narratives for the real true heartbreak and loss that can come with parting ways with a friend. 

For many of us, our friends are our family. They are the people that we are most intimate with, that we are most vulnerable with. And the people that we date and have sex with are nice supplements to that depth. But for many of us, friendship is actually where the real heart and soul of our lives come from and to lose that, is significant. So the first thing I just want to say is give yourself a chance to mourn. Give yourself a chance to grieve. Let it be what it needs to be because it is a loss. It’s a big loss. It can hurt for a long time when we lose someone that we care about like that. 

Dawn Serra: I just recently came across this piece on Tumblr by Wendy Corduroy called Thoughts on The Friendzone, and it’s a personal little post that this person wrote. And I want to share it because, Angela, I think you will connect with it and I think a lot of other people out there going to connect with it and then it’s going to lead me into talking about this a little bit more. 

So Wendy Corduroy says, “Thoughts on the friend zone: When I was five years old, my best friend was a boy named Kyle, who didn’t know how to knock on doors. So he made dinosaur noises outside my window to wake me up in the summer until I demonstrated how to ball his fists and slam them against my doors. We collected caterpillars in my trailer park and built them houses while we traded Pokemon cards. He wasn’t the only one. There was Ben and Mitch and Noah. But Kyle’s the only one who hurt me. Because when he tried to kiss me and I asked him why, he told me, ‘Because you’re a girl and I’m a boy. Shouldn’t we like each other?’ I missed him so much. And I wondered why he couldn’t just be my friend like he always was. In the first grade, there was Rich and Joseph, and I got sent to detention with them almost every day with a smile on my face. We built block towers and sang to my teachers Lion King soundtracks when she turned the lights off during lunchtime. One day they got in a fistfight over me at recess, and I wondered why they felt they needed to share my friendship like it was something they owned.”

Dawn Serra: “In the second grade, Zach and I played Yugioh under our desks during free time and I got moved for talking to him constantly. Everyone in the class would tease him and I for talking, asking when we were going to date already, asking him if he’d kissed me. He stopped being my friend. When I was eleven, I met a chubby boy with the name of a color, who wore puffy vests and unwashed t-shirts, with greasy hair and bright blue eyes, and a smile that had hurt. People didn’t like him because he was silly but I liked him because he was silly and I was also silly. He became my friend the day he bought me five giant roses and asked me to be his girlfriend. And I politely declined, but promised him I’d be his best friend. Because I’d always wanted a best guy friend that stuck around. We burnt our feet on the concrete during the summer and walked home with the sunset silhouetted us. He talked often about how he loved me, but never blamed me for being me. Even though he refused to move on. That boy dyed his hair jet black and sat on the end of my bed playing songs to me on guitar. And all that pent up rage from before didn’t show until the first time he slapped me across the face and called dumb cunt.” 

“In the seventh grade, there was a boy named Ryan, who sat next to me on the bus and talk to me about manga. He asked me personal invasive questions, but I didn’t mind because it was attention. I was dating another guitarist with curly brown hair, who was much more kind tempered than the other. And Ryan mentioned how much of an asshole he was every day. I wondered why – why does he think the love of my life is an asshole? But whenever I asked him, he told me, ‘Girls only date assholes. There’s no room for nice guys like me.’ And I wondered if he was so nice, why did he say such mean things? He never stopped with me. Taking me to movies hanging out with me. You know, being friendly. I thought we were friends. But then, how many times that I thought that before? How many times that I bonded with a boy only for them to ask me if I wanted to make out. How come when I told Ryan I was coming hang out as a lesbian, he stopped being my friend and said ‘Damn it. The one girl I really wanted to pound into a mattress and she’s only interested in chicks.’” 

Dawn Serra: “There was a boy my junior year who stayed up all night with me until the sun rose. Talking about life, past loves, hopes, dreams beneath a million twinkling stars spanning forever. He brushed long brown hair out of his eyes and listened to me talk about the history that made me. Then he asked me if I’d ever consider dating a guy and complained how he’d never get laid. When I told him no a couple hundred times, he found new girls to listen to. I would sit on the couch and play Zelda with Dakota. And he talked about all my favorite games with me. He was the closest thing to support I had. And the letters and poems he wrote me were always so kind and friendly. But, he put his arms around me on the couch, no matter how many times I told him I was uncomfortable, he’d still come over every day and do it. ‘Don’t you know how it feels to love someone and not have them love you back? Don’t you know what it feels like to be friendzone?’” 

“When I meet guys who talk about the friendzone, who talked about the girls who don’t give nice guys like them a chance, I always want to say, ‘When I was 10 years old, I met a girl whose brown hair fell across her shoulders and whose eyes sparkled with the sunlight when the sunlight hit them, whose voice was like velvet, whose scent was like mountain smoke, who made me dizzier than a fly climbing a sugar hill. And I’m 18 years old, and I still love her and she knows and she doesn’t love me. But my first thoughts upon hearing her rejection were not, ‘What a bitch.’ Were not, ‘She just wants a douchebag and not a nice girl like me.’ Were not, ‘I’m I’m going to keep pushing until she dates me.’ My first thoughts were, ‘She is the best friend I have ever had and I am the best she’s ever had. And I would hate to take that away from her.’

Dawn Serra: “So before you play the victim, Mr. Nice Guy, before you angrily throw your fedora on the ground and blame the girl you claim to adore so much. Put yourself in the shoes of a girl who thought she made a wonderful friend, only to find out that he just wanted her for sex. That if he just wanted her for a relationship, that he just wanted her to be an object to win – a prize. A girl whose trust you’ve just shattered. Maybe she friends owned you, but you girlfriendzoned her first.”

So I will post a link to that so you can read it in the show notes and, of course, on sexgetsreal.com/ep224/ – for this episode. It really hit me, I had saved it. And when you wrote in, Angela, I thought that’s the perfect opportunity to share that beautiful post. Because it demonstrates so much the harm that is caused by this ridiculous expectation around, one, that friendzone is even a thing and, two, the pressure that is put on us from the youngest of ages; to follow these very heterosexual heterocentric scripts around boy meets girl, falls in love. 

Dawn Serra: There is tremendous pressure because of toxic masculinity placed on boys and men to prove their worth as human beings through the acquisition of sex and relationships. It’s also the result of not being given the skills to honestly talk about feelings and to be able to sit in feelings that are uncomfortable – without feeling like there’s something wrong or we have to act out. Of course, when we develop intense feelings for someone and they say, “I don’t feel the same way,” that’s going to feel hard. That’s going to hurt. It’s going to be disappointing because we had wanted something and that person doesn’t want it back. But, because we aren’t taught how to be resilient around rejection and all of the myriad of ways that we can have love and relationships with other human beings, there’s just the singular narrative around romance and the access that women are expected to give men around their bodies and their time and their labor. It leads to this really, really terrible, terrible toxic exchange. 

I would argue that anyone who considers themselves “a nice guy,” who is just really being nice to someone in the hopes that they’ll eventually sleep with you – you’re not actually nice. That’s manipulative, and it’s coercive, and it’s not clear, and it’s lying by omission. And it’s okay to develop feelings for someone and to decide, “I don’t think I’m ready to share that.” But to then burden upon it, these expectations of, If I do a certain amount of nice things, then this person owes me love or sex,” is not a healthy relationship and is not what love looks like at all. 

Dawn Serra: So Angela, I just want to say to you, I’m so sorry that this happened, you did nothing wrong. You did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s a hard place to be in and you will be the one that’s vilified. You will be the one that in some way is painted as having strung him along. And unfortunately, that is just the toxicity that is this very, very obsessive relationship that we have in Western culture, specifically, around romance and nice guys being owed access, and just all the bullshit. So, keep doing what you’re doing and be you, and honor that and grieve the loss of this relationship. And also just think about the types of people and the types of relationships you do want in your life moving ahead. Because you do deserve someone who is fun and going to listen to you and believes you, and wants to spend time with you – without expecting access to your body and without turning on you when you say, “Here’s how I feel.”

So to everybody listening out there, if you’ve ever been “friendzoned” then I would invite you to really take a look at was that really a friendship? Were you really showing up because you genuinely wanted to have this kind of an exchange or was there a secret, underlying hope and expectation that entire time? We need to not only learn how to be more honest with ourselves, but we need to be teaching our young people how to stand and experience these emotions in a way that honors them without diminishing them. And also lets them know, boundaries are a sign of love and respect. The more that we can dance with each other’s boundaries and redefine the ways that we connect and love each other, the more love and connection we have in our lives. Holy crap, who doesn’t want incredible, incredible friends who see you and laugh with you, go to events with you, hold you up when you’re at your lowest and celebrate when you’re at your highest, and love you in all the places in between? Who doesn’t want multiple people that can hold you for a variety of reasons and offer you a variety of advice, instead of just hoping that someday they’ll want to fall into bed with you and have sex and then that’s the end. Thank you so much for listening, Angela, and for your very kind letter. 

Dawn Serra: There are so many other things that I want to say about friendzoning. There’s a wonderful piece on Scarleteen about friendzones that specifically to the person who’s been friendzoneded. And there’s some wonderful advice in there. So I’ll link to that as well. I think it’ll give you, and everyone listening, a chance to just really reframe what being a friend and “being friend zoned,” which is such a violent term is. So, check that out and spread the word and take care of you. God, I’m sorry it happened. 

So The Establishment just put out a piece a couple of days ago called “How to Find a Therapist Who Understands Oppression and Intersectionality.” I will of course link to it in the show notes and on dawnserra.com for this episode. But I just wanted to read a couple of tidbits because it’s so important. One of the things that I’m constantly sharing on the show is finding a therapist or a counselor or someone who can help you process your life and be with your feelings, and be with your questions; and help you to heal and find new depth to yourself is so important. This is true for everybody. And men, I am especially talking to you. Therapy is a crucial part of all of us leveling up and healing. But one of the things that I’ve mentioned in the past, too, is that there are some problems with modern mental health. 

Dawn Serra: Most therapists are white. A 2003 study revealed that 83% of psychologists are white, 5% are black, 5% are LatinX, 4% are Asian-America. And Native Americans, and indigenous folks didn’t even register, because there were so few. And then, when you talk about queer and trans and sex positive – the numbers are are equally bleak. It’s really important to find people in the mental health field, who understand the issues that go on for people of color, for queer people, for trans people. for kinky people. It can take some time and some auditions to find a therapist who really gets it. So, this guy that’s in The Establishment asks four different questions that you should pose to therapists that help you find people who get it. So I’m going to share those questions with you and their pro tip after each one. And then, there’s some language afterwards about why that’s an important question and I highly recommend that you check it out. 

So the first question you should be asking a therapist when you’re looking for one is, why do you do what you do? And the pro tip is if you ask a therapist, why they got into counseling and they reply, “I just wanted to help people.” Run. And then they go on to talk about the self-serving savior complex and why, “I just wanted to help people” is not the answer that you really want from a therapist that’s aware and intersectional. 

Dawn Serra: The second question is how do you do what you do? And the pro tip is if a therapist can’t cite the spiritual healers, philosophers, theorists, therapists, and even revolutionaries who inform their work – Run. A big part of that is because so much of the research in the field of psychology and mental health has been based on cis white dudes and colonizers prescribing what mental health should look like to the rest of the world. Almost all of the studies have involved white cis folks only as the participants, so the data is deeply skewed. For therapists who aren’t aware of that – Run. 

Number three, who and what informs your understanding of oppression? Pro tip: if a therapist can’t define intersectionality or at the very least make an educated guess – Run. Because we don’t need to spend our sessions trying to justify our experiences or teach our therapists. They need to be doing that work themselves. 

Dawn Serra: The final question is, how will you hold space for me when we discuss my oppression? Pro tip: if your therapist isn’t willing to lean into discomfort – Run. So there’s some really, really great stuff in this article about why all of these questions are so important. But I just particularly love that the answer to all of them if your therapist can answer those questions is run. And there are a lot of people doing incredible work in these spaces, especially therapists that are somatic experiencing therapists, also art therapists, and narrative therapy therapists.

Often people that are in narrative therapy and also doing somatic experiencing are people who have started grappling with some of these bigger questions around intersectionality and depression and intergenerational trauma and epigenetics. And so, finding people who get that is so important, so that we’re not retraumatizing and expanding all kinds of emotional needs when we’re in our sessions. 

That said, once you do find a really great therapist – it’s so life changing. So I hope for all of you, whether it’s just for you or it’s to help a relationship that you’re in – hire professionals when you have access and you’re able to, to help you. And, if money is an issue, find groups that you can join and be a part of or find people who run online support spaces. There’s a lot of options and a lot of therapists, especially who are keyed into intersectionality who offer sliding scales. So please take advantage of that, because we could all use more support, especially with the world the way that it is right now. 

Dawn Serra: I have not yet had a chance to talk about this on the show. But, can we just take a quick minute to be in awe of Hannah Gatsby’s Nanette on Netflix? Holy shit. Alex and I watched it back in June, shortly after it came out, and we were both stunned to silence. We both cried. We talked about it for days. I am still processing it. And, I think it’s such an important thing to watch. So I’m sure many of you listening have already seen it. And if you haven’t, get the to either a device with a Netflix or someone that you know that has a device connected to a Netflix and watch it. It is redefining comedy. 

There are a lot of people who have expressed all kinds of support and also criticisms for it. And, one of the things that I want to hold is that everything can’t be for everybody and that we need lots and lots of different people, with lots of different perspectives – all moving us in a direction of change. And so, I personally am completely in awe of what Hannah has created. I particularly really love the part of the piece that’s around Picasso. And so, I just want to share this little tidbit. For anybody who hasn’t seen Nanette or if you haven’t, you just want to be nostalgic with me. I’ve been reading all kinds of articles about the special and Hannah Gatsby, and the diagnosis that Hannah got around being on the autism spectrum and really, really interesting stuff. But anyway, one of the things that comes out in the special is that Hannah is someone who went to school for art history, and is very knowledgeable about art and starts talking about Picasso. 

Dawn Serra: So in his 40s, the painter who was married and famous and at the height of his artistic career, had an affair with a teenage girl named Marie-Therese Walter. And, Hannah Gatsby starts challenging us – does it matter? And yes, it does. Picasso later said of his affair about Walter that it was perfect, “I was in my prime and she was in her prime.” And, Hannah goes on to explain the obvious, which is that no girl is in her prime in her teens. No girl is in her prime in her teens. To Picasso, a woman’s prime was nothing more than the prime of her attractiveness to him. And I think that that’s really important for us to just sit with because so many people who have created art, both in the painting world and also in the film world, have– Roman Polanski is one of them. David Bowie is another – have engaged in sexual relationships with very young, very young girls. It’s something that we have been trained to ignore and to overlook, because it’s art and they’re eccentric. And that’s not acceptable. 

When we take a look back at all of the things that brought us to where we are today, it makes sense why, one, the MeToo movement is happening. But also why so many of us have been assaulted, abused, raped, and experienced violence, it’s because for hundreds of years, this very thing has been happening. That Picasso’s seeing a young teenage girl, when he’s in his 40s, is being in her prime, simply because he wanted her and feeling entitled to that because of his want. As Hannah goes on to say, a 17 year old girl is never, ever in her prime, not ever. 

Dawn Serra: I just wanted to hold that. Because that is a story, that Lolita story that has impacted us in so many ways, culturally, and the ways that we value youth. Not because youth is better. But because youth is often going to come with a lack of boundaries, a lack of self awareness, an inability to advocate or to say no, to be impressionable, to be controlled, to have power over. Those are all things that men and boys are taught are good to find people that you can have that power over. And I just think that one of the things that Hannah does so brilliantly, is peel the layers of that onion back until we get to this raw throbbing center of discomfort and dis ease, and good. That’s where I want us to see us go with comedy and with art. 

We need to be uncomfortable. If we want to have healthier, more connected relationships, we need to feel awkward and mess up. If we want to find our way towards erotic and sexual experiences that really truly serve us and not what everybody else told us we need to do. We need to be uncomfortable and to experience hurt. And to be able to tolerate that because being around other humans means mistakes. We also have to be able to grapple with our power and the stories that we’ve been given. And that, to me, is how we start getting to massive amounts of pleasure and connection, and love and sex. Until we start doing that work, it’s just a performance. So I just want to say Hannah Gatsby. Oh, God. I am in awe of you and I love what you have done. And to anybody who’s listening, if you have not seen it yet – Do it.

Dawn Serra: So Patreon supporters, if you support at the $3 level and above, you get access to bonus content every week. If you support at the $5 level and above, you get to help me field listener questions. So this next question from Kinky Carl is one of the questions that’s up on Patreon. If you have thoughts or advice you’d like to share, and potentially have me read on the air in a future episode, you can head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast and support the show at $5. And then you can weigh in on this question plus lots of other questions that I’ve posted there. 

So Kinky Carl wrote in with a subject line of “Feelings of Submission.” “I am a married man with a few kinks. My wife says she supports me but I still find it difficult to really open up that side of myself. She knows I enjoy ass play – nothing extreme. And she knows I have some bisexual leanings and together we have found some enjoyment in light bondage. All that being said, I find myself very interested in some sensual femme Dom, not into the borderline abusive play options but pegging, more deliberate bondage, and forced bisexual play. Basically, the lighter end of male submission, to the degree that I can feel submissive but loved rather than abused, if that makes sense. All in all, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject as a whole and how I might continue this journey of self exploration. Not only on my own terms, but more so with my wife. Any and all advice is welcome. Thank you in advance. Kinky Carl. PS. Love the show, by the way.”

Dawn Serra: Yay. Thank you so much Kinky Carl. And I love your question. This is wonderful that, one, you’re kind of opening up and exploring these things for yourself. And you’re finding language for things that seem arousing to you and that you want to explore. But also that your wife is supportive, and she knows about some of the things that you’re interested in. It sounds like there needs to be some more ongoing conversation and questions and space. Because this is all really exciting and it sounds like you’re on the right path. 

So, the first thing that I would offer is, there are so many incredible resources around submission. And I know that there are some things that are unique to different kinds of bodies when we deal with submission. Of course, you can be someone of any gender. And, if you’ve got a penis and you want to be submissive and have a cage on said penis, that can be a wonderfully submissive thing that is for a man or a woman or someone who is gender-queer or gender non-conforming. 

Dawn Serra: So, the exciting thing about wanting to explore this submission is that regardless of what your gender is, there’s all kinds of really wonderful opportunities to learn about what other people have done and how they’ve expressed and experienced it. I think one of the best resources that you can start with is “The Ultimate Guide to Kink” by Tristan Taormino. It’s an anthology that’s full of all kinds of essays, including a femme Dom essay by Midori. And also some essays around submission. That might give you, not only you, something to really lean into and learn and think about. But that could be a fun thing to also read with your wife. What if the two of you made a date night where you decided to read Midori’s ForteFemme Dom Chapter to each other, and you took turns reading a couple of paragraphs and then discussing, and doing the same thing around submission? What if you read some pieces on submission by Sugar Butch and Sinclair Sexsmith, and kind of share those things. 

So more than anything, what I’m hearing is you have a desire to really honor this part of yourself and to learn more. And I would recommend doing that with books and also with feminist porn and just seeing what kinds of yummy stuff is being made really thoughtfully by feminist pornographers out there. There are a billion, that’s probably an underestimate, Tumblr sites that have all kinds of sexy clips and scenes for femme Dom, and submission, and BDSM, and kink. While it might take some time to really find something that fits your aesthetic… Oftentimes, when I want to find a really hot pegging little clip, I have to look at a couple hundred before I find one that really feels essential to me, and it’s the kind of thing that I want to share. And then when I find it, it’s so exciting and so hot to be able to say, “This is what I’m thinking about,” and then send that off. 

Dawn Serra: So give yourself a chance to explore and say, “Not this” and “Definitely that.” I would also recommend either finding a yes, no, maybe list. You can get one if you sign up for the Sex Gets Real newsletter or Sunny Megatron and Ken Melvoin- Berg have this guide that’s called Rough BS. And it’s an acronym. So each of those letters stand for different types of kinky activities to help you negotiate what it is that you want. And then, if you have access to any kind of kinky community or any kind of feminist sex shop near you, they will of course, have kink one-on-one nights and dominance and submission courses. That could be a really great way for you to actually be in person and seeing some of these things play out. But, I would say give yourself an opportunity to just do a whole bunch of reading and research, and get really clear on some of the things you’re interested in. And then also find fun ways to involve your wife. She doesn’t have to like all of the things. She might only want to be doing some of the things some of the time. But the more that the two of you can collaborate on those yummy fantasies, and find ways to make it super yummy and enjoyable for her and also super yummy and enjoyable for you– And it might look nothing like you thought, but that’s the beauty of being able to share these creations, then wonderful things can happen from there. 

The one thing that I would caution, and this tends to get a lot of people into a place of a lot of suffering, is the more you start really solidifying a fantasy in your head and making it really, really specific, and being something you think about a lot without sharing it with your partner or your wife and kind of getting to collaborate on it – The harder that it’s going to feel for, one, her to be able to live up to the expectation and, two, for you to avoid disappointment. I think sometimes we cling so tightly to that one specific fantasy, and when it doesn’t feel that way, in real life, it feels like it was a failure. Instead, being able to say, “A lot of these things turn me on,” and, “Yeah, I fantasize about these things. But this essence is what I really want to create with you. This feeling of serving you or of being gently and tenderly loved, while I’m explored.” And then to be able to create in that space, that gives you so much more opportunity for something real and connecting and delicious has to happen. 

Dawn Serra: Also, it’s worth talking to your wife, too, about – if there are certain things that you’re really interested in and she’s just like, “Not for me. I’m not into that right now.” Have conversations about what would it be like for you to play with a platonic kink partner or for you to work with a professional dominatrix or a femme dome, and to be able to craft some experiences so that you can just try them out. If she’s not okay with that, the two of you can talk about it, if she is okay with it, the two of you can talk about it. But just know, there’s lots and lots and lots of options. And you’re in a place right now, Kinky Carl, that is super exciting. Because you’re finding words for these fantasies and these urges, and you’re right on the cusp of, I think, learning so much more and creating so many more opportunities for some really hot, fun things to happen. So just just invite your wife along. And I know that can feel really, really vulnerable. You said you find it difficult to be really open about that side of yourself. So find small ways to tiptoe towards it, whether it’s writing things out and sharing it with her that way, or watching a movie or some porn together, and then talking about the parts that you liked and hearing the parts that she liked. 

There’s ways to not have to rip yourself open and say, “Here’s my most vulnerable truth.” And instead, start like, “Well, these things sound kind of good. And I’m kind of interested in this. How about you?” When you find some common ground then maybe opening up a little bit more. And being able to say, “This is really scary for me. I don’t want you to feel judged and I don’t want this to be something that causes a disruption for us. I want this to be a place of connection and joy,” even if you’re not sure how you feel about it. That can help lay the groundwork, as well, for whatever sharing comes after that. 

Dawn Serra: So it sounds like you’re so on the right track. And there are a bajillion wonderful people out in the world who have created all kinds of yummy stuff. Midori even has a video – an instructional video on femme Dom that you and your wife might want to check out. That’s through vivid, I believe, and Tristan Taramino, I think, was the director on that. So, start looking for resources from people like Tristan, Sinclair Sexsmith, Midori, and Madison Young. And even if you’re reading something like Madison Young’s Memoir Daddy, if Madison’s experience of submission, triggers interesting things for you and the only real difference is maybe something’s happening with her vulva. And you’re like, “Well, I’m not interested in that. But maybe pegging.” These things have all kinds of overlap. There’s a lot of ways you can be creative around it. So, don’t limit yourself to only looking for male submission information. Look for great stuff around submission. And then, use your imagination and your collaboration with your wife to create something delicious. 

So listeners, if you have other advice or resources that you want to offer Kinky Carl, feel free to write in to me. And if you want to support the show at $5, you can also put your advice on Patreon and then I might read it on a future show. So good luck, Kinky Carl, and enjoy all of your delicious, sensual submission that you’re interested in. And I hope you and your wife create something wonderful. Just know it’s going to feel vulnerable and that’s an okay thing.

Dawn Serra: I have one last listener question for this week and it is from DNA. The subject line is “Different Bodies.”

“I just listened to an episode that you posted on June 15. You responded a listener who contended that people are just attracted to whoever they’re attracted to. And if they don’t like fat women, that’s just the way it is. And your advice to that was spot on. I’m a cis male who recently started dating some curvy women when I had only dated thin women before. I realized, “Wow, I really like them.” It’s opened me up to connect with some very cool people I might have dismissed before. I learned that my attractions can be so much more expansive. Why would anyone want to limit their pleasure in this way? Yes, we’re attracted to who we’re attracted to. But I agree with you that we can challenge what this means. Who would say no to meeting more cool people and having more fun by opening your mind and heart?” 

Dawn Serra: Thank you so much, DNA. You’re so right. And I think there’s this really important, wonderful thing in this of – when we start unpacking desirability politics, it starts revealing all kinds of really interesting things underneath. We’ve been trained to find certain kinds of bodies more attractive than others. That is not inherent, it is not just the way that it is. Throughout time, the bodies that have been found attractive have changed drastically. And it’s largely driven by whatever is most challenging for the elite to achieve. 

So when you’re experiencing famine and food is hard to come by, the elite will feel that being in a fat body is the most desirable thing. Because that’s something that’s nearly impossible for anyone to achieve, except for the people who have the most resources. When you then shift into a more abundant culture or society, and everyone has access to food and to resources, then what becomes challenging is body modification around the rejection of that abundance. And so, the people with resources then really start fetishizing and wanting to control bodies as a response to that. Also as Virgie Tovar said, so much around thinness and smallness, specifically for women, and also for queer folks is about submission. So when we start really unpacking that, there’s some fascinating things underneath. 

Dawn Serra: I just had an experience at the ASDA conference where I was in a space with 250 people, most of whom were therapists, and dietitians, and clinicians, were over 50% of the people that attended were in fat bodies. And fat bodies come in such a range of sizes and shapes and abilities. It was incredible to be among that rich variety of bodies and then the rest were in thin bodies or non-fat bodies. And a couple of years ago, I would say maybe five or seven years ago, if I had been in that conference, I would have been so uncomfortable by being around all the fat bodies even though I am in a fat body. Because I was still deeply, deeply invested in thinness as the ideal in feeling like there was something wrong with my body and I had failed in some way. And so, seeing all of that body variety would have been deeply unsettling. 

But now, because of all of the people that I follow and the ways I’ve curated my social media, so many of those bodies felt so rich and delicious – bodies of every single size. From the smallest ones, up to the biggest ones. Those bodies all felt so rich and important and wonderful to be around. And I just had this expansiveness of the humanity that was in the room with was so visible and recognizable, and I would not have been able to have seen that several years ago. Because I was still so invested and what was being sold to me as being the thing that I needed to want. And you’re right. Now I have so many more opportunities for relationship and friendship, and richness, and connection. Because I have that expansiveness in me. I have challenged some of those stories. 

Dawn Serra: So I invite all of us to do that. Why do we turn away from disabled bodies? Why do we see fat bodies as this really negative monstrous thing, when in fact, they’re just bodies in a variety of shapes and sizes? Most of our preferences come from outside of us. When we look at someone’s body and think, “That’s hot,” almost all of those are coming from external sources – messages we’ve received from the youngest of ages, from our parents, and the types of friends they had, and the bodies they wanted to the shows we watched and who was getting cast. And for some of us, we then flip and start fetishizing and appreciating the opposite of what we are given because we’re attracted to the taboo. 

There’s all kinds of really, really fascinating things in there. But the bottom line is, we can change that. We can absolutely change that. And it can open us up – if we’ve only ever been told that ice cream comes in vanilla and chocolate, and that those are the things we need to love the most, and then all other flavors of ice cream are bad. We limit ourselves to just those two flavors of ice cream. But holy crap, what if we actually started tasting and rolling those textures around in our mouth and trying them. We might not like all the flavors, but we can appreciate the variety. And find ones that really worked for us. 

Dawn Serra: The only other thing I want to offer is that we should never force someone to tolerate our unlearning, right? We’re not doing other people any favors by tolerating their fat body or trying to unpack our fat phobia by being with someone in a fat body. That’s gross and abusive, and fat people deserve to be with people who are like, “Your body is rad. I’m not trying to unlearn anything. I just get it.” And the same with people who are in disabled bodies. If you are experiencing disability of some kind, to have someone like, “Well, I’m trying to face my ableism and I’m deeply uncomfortable with it. But here I am, look at what a good person I am.” That’s a shitty experience. But to have someone who’s really done that work, and to be able to say, “You’re a rad human being,” and, “Okay, you’re in a chair. Cool. I like your chair. It’s rad. It helps you go places,” or whatever it is – those are the kinds of mutual exchanges we want. 

So if you really are starting to do the work of confronting stories around desirability, do that work with yourself. Do that work with the help of a therapist. Do that work with the help of a support group or with friends who are going through the same thing. Don’t subject the person who is in the marginalized body to that really uncomfortable, “I’m not really okay with this. But I’m trying to pretend to be okay with this because I know I’m supposed to,” thing – that feels terrible to be on the receiving end of. To know that you’re just merely being tolerated is a shitastic thing. So, do the work and then be amazed at the depth and the wealth of so much of the diversity that exists in our human experience. 

So thank you, DNA, so much for, one, writing in and listening. But, two, for also just saying to yourself, “Hey, maybe I should date some folks that are the types of folks I wouldn’t date before,” and then finding it was awesome. I think that’s such an important thing to invite all of us to do. And not just with sexual and romantic partners – with friends, with creative colleagues, with all the people in our lives. 

Dawn Serra: When we have new stories and rich discussions and people who have had vastly different experiences than us, we can have such beautiful human experiences. And I want so much more of that for all of us. So thank you so much, DNA. And thank you to you, listener, for tuning in. 

So next week, I’ve got an interview with Stella Harris coming up. And then the week after that, I am interviewing Donna Zuckerberg, all about red pillars and misogyny. It’s going to be really interesting because she kind of looks at these dudes who are like, “Red pill MRA bullshit,” through the lens of historical facts and history, and the ways that they manipulate history. Side note she’s also Mark Zuckerberg’s sister from Facebook. Yes, that Mark Zuckerberg. 

Dawn Serra: So I’ve got Donna Zuckerberg coming up and Stella Harris. I am interviewing a Ev’Yan Whitney soon about the erotic, Jess Baker from Landwhale. There are so many interviews I have lined up over the next couple of weeks. It’s a little bit overwhelming, but I’ll have interviews through the rest of the year by September. So there you go. 

So thank you so much for tuning in. If you’re a Patreon supporter, head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast. I love hearing from you. So please go to dawnserra.com and write to me. I love your questions. I love your thoughts. I love your stories. Hearing from you is such a wonderful gift and I want more. So please send that my way. Let me know where you’re stuck, what you’re struggling with. And I would love to be able to support you. So until next week, I am Dawn Serra and I will talk to you soon.

Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses. 

As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?