Sex Gets Real 226: Period sex, who we find sexy, and #NotAllMen

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What if period sex is awful? How can we find different kinds of people sexy? And why so many men feel attacked when people talk about…well, men.

There was a little change of plan at the last minute, which means this week I’m fielding a bunch of your emails. Want to hear your question read on the air? Just hit Send a Note in the navigation!

We start with Alyssa, who wants to know where to find a trusted sacred intimate. I get this question pretty frequently, so I offer a few tips and tidbits about starting your search.

I received an email in the #NotAllMen vein, which leads me to gushing about Scene On Radio’s “Seeing White” series from last year as well as their brand new series on “Men”. I cannot recommend this series enough, and it speaks perfectly to Eric’s feels about our conversations around men on the show.

S.C. needs help with changing the bodies they find desirable, especially male/masculine bodies. What can they do to shift the bodies they find sexy? Patreon supporter Steph offers some advice, which I add to. (And Todd wrote in feeling upset about prior advice in this very space.) As I mention in my feedback to Todd, if you don’t follow Andrew Gurza, I highly recommend it for a variety of reasons.

sex banter fan is grateful for the permission around friend zones and having friends who are dudes. Just because we want something different from a friend, and we feel disappointed, it doesn’t mean we should throw it all away in a rage.

Finally, KD needs help with period sex. I have lots of thoughts, plus I’ve opened this question up on Patreon for folks to answer.

Follow Dawn is 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.

Hey, you! Welcome to this week’s episode of Sex Gets Real. I’m actually recording this at the last minute because the episode that was supposed to come out this week is with Donna Zuckerberg, who is Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook’s sister. She wrote a book called “Not All Dead White Men,” all about Red Pill communities, pickup artists, the alt right. It’s a wonderful conversation, an incredible book. 

Dawn Serra: Just before I went to schedule the episode, I remember the conversation that I had with Donna about what happened to her when she started posting and writing about her analysis of the Red Pill community, which included doxing and death threats and all sorts of other wonderful online violence that women are, unfortunately, subject to for sharing opinions and critical analysis of these communities. So I decided I needed to postpone the episode so that I could do a couple of things to help protect my family and myself from the inevitable onslaught that would come as soon as that episode hit the airwaves. 

I also have the immense pleasure of just recording an interview with Dr. Lori Brotto, about her new book, “Better Sex Through Mindfulness” and that will air in two weeks. This week, because we’re doing this a little bit last minute is me and a whole bunch of your emails, which you know I love. I love hearing from you. So this week should be super fun. I’ve gotten some really interesting comments recently as well as some questions. So we’ll just see where we end up.

As always, if you support the show at $3 and above on Patreon, you can get bonus content every single week about all sorts of things. Sometimes it’s bonus conversations with guests, additional listener questions, erotica, all you have to do is go to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show there. Also, if you support at $5 a month and above, you can help me field listener questions. So one of my very generous supporters is going to be featured in one of the answers that I offer this week because they helped me with a question that came in. So you’ll hear all about that very soon. In the meantime, let’s jump in and see where we end up with some of these emails. 

Dawn Serra: So the first question that I got came in from Alyssa and it says, “Hi, Dawn! I just wanted to reach out and gain knowledge on the process you went through to find a sacred intimate. I’ve been looking into a similar experience to reconnect within and would love some advice on how to go about seeking out an expert. Hope to hear from you soon. Alyssa.” 

I get questions about this a lot and the short answer is it’s going to take a little bit of time and a leap of faith because laws, unfortunately, in the United States as well as some other countries, are a little bit in a gray area around this work, depending on the state and the locality. For some, working with a sexological bodyworker or a surrogate or a sacred intimate is not really illegal, but also kind of in a weird space. In other places, it’s illegal depending on the activities that are happening. So it’s hard to get information because based on the current laws in the United States, people who give advice on how to find sexuality experts, like people who do hands on work, can be charged with sex trafficking. So it has gotten very difficult for safe information to get spread. On the internet, lots of websites have been pulled down and places where people would share information to stay safe, have been compromised. It’s unfortunately, really, really terrible for all of us. We all lose because of these sex negative laws. 

Dawn Serra: That said, there are some wonderful places that you can go to start a little bit of your research. The Urban Tantra Professional Training, that’s run by Barbara Carellas, is a fantastic resource. They have a directory of professionals from around the world. Alyssa, you did not share where you were from. So you could be from Sweden or New Zealand or any number of other places and the Urban Tantra Professional Directory is going to be full of people who do a variety of working with clients, including sacred intimate and pro-doms and sexological bodyworkers. So I would recommend checking that out because Barbara’s program is amazing. 

There’s also a Sacred Intimacy Program and a sexological body work program out of the West Coast. So if you can find a sexological bodyworker or a sacred intimate that’s come out of the Sacred Intimate Program, that I believe is out of Washington. Those can be ways to just get a feel for who’s actually gone through a little bit of training. Now, that’s not to say that people without training aren’t to be trusted. But it is to say, there are an awful lot of folks out there who hang a sign up saying that they’re an expert in something as an excuse to get their hands on someone’s body.

Dawn Serra: So you definitely want to get referrals where you can, follow sex workers on social media and learn a little bit more about them. I think that’s a really great way to connect with people. There are a number of escorts and sacred intimate and sexological bodyworkers with thriving online presence. TT Baum has been a guest on the show. He is a sacred intimate. He’s connected with lots of other sacred intimates. 

So if I were you, I would do a little bit of research into some of the certification programs and finding the directories for people who have finished those programs. It lends just a little bit of legitimacy, no guarantees. Also, finding people who are doing the work and who are sharing openly on social media and then seeing who they are connected to that can lead you to beautiful web of other professionals who are working in this space and hopefully, to someone who is near you wherever you are in the world. And then you just have to have some conversations. Really, it’s about once you find someone that you think seems like a good fit, sending an email, letting them know who you are, what it is that you want to work through, asking some questions about them, they will, of course, depending on where you are in the world, be understandably cautious. 

Dawn Serra: So do expect to disclose some information about yourself to help let them know that you are safe and that you are someone who can be trusted to meet in person. You may have to offer some referrals and do that kind of getting to know you thing that you often do when you’re online dating and meeting someone for the first time. Just know it might take a couple of tries to find someone that’s a good fit and that can offer you what you’re looking for, the kind of support and expertise that you would really like. It’s like any kind of professional service. There might be ten really awesome chiropractors or ten really awesome massage therapists or ten really awesome sacred intimates. Maybe only a couple of them actually feel like a really great fit for you. 

So give yourself the time to really go out and have some conversations and do a little bit of research. And find someone that feels wonderful because then the experience can be so, so healing, in my personal experience, which is not universal. But I hope that gives you a jumping off point, Alyssa. I hope that you find someone that can help you on your journey to do something that feels important and valuable to you and where you want to end up. So thank you so much for listening to the show and for writing in with this question because it’s a very popular one that I get all the time.

Dawn Serra: Alex and I recently went on a roadtrip over the Canadian Rockies. We just needed a little time away. Then we spend some time with family and came back. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously smoky because, as I’m sure many of you know, if you’re on the west coast, there are fires all over the place in Washington and Oregon and Alberta and BC. So it was quite a smoky drive. But the reason that that’s important is on our drive, we listened to all 14 hours of the Scene on Radio Podcast season about “Seeing White.” Now, if you have not yet heard this podcast, I can not recommend it enough. It is incredible and it’s confronting whiteness and the ways that the United States has been built on a system of value and prizing whiteness above all other things. 

Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a really deep dive into questions around white people and white supremacy and white identity politics and all of this racial inequality that we’re experiencing now and looking back 400 years all the way through now with a number of experts and wonderful interviews. The reason that I bring that up is because a listener question that I’m about to read to you likens itself very much to one of the themes that was revealed in the Scene on Radio Seeing White series. Now, the new season is all about men and patriarchy and sexism and misogyny. They’ve only had a couple of episodes trickle out so far from that season. The nice thing about the Seeing White series is that it was aired last year, so you can listen to all 14 at once. We’re having to wait a couple of weeks between episodes on men. 

Dawn Serra: But one of the things that was discussed in Seeing White was that to be white is to want to be seen as an individual. One of the reasons why white people tend to feel so uncomfortable with their whiteness being named and pointed at is because of this loss of autonomy, this “don’t group me in with everyone else, I’m not like them,” and this wanting to say, “I’m a unique, complex human being that has reasons and motivations for the things that I’ve done and where I’ve been and the traumas I’ve experienced and how life’s been hard for me.” When we hear white people XYZ, white people often get really angry and frustrated. Because they don’t want to be lumped in. Now, people who are black or who are Asian or who are Latinx don’t often get that luxury. 

One of the things that Chenjerai, who is a guest expert on the– He’s a scholar who’s on this series talks about is that, as a black man, when he achieved his PhD, he felt like he was really representing black people. And that when he does something bad, he feels like it reflects negatively on black folks. There’s this kind of immense responsibility of being hyperaware of the ways that your individual behavior reflects on an entire group. As a woman, I have certainly experienced that and I know queer people feel the same way and sex workers and it’s really complicated. 

Dawn Serra: When you come from fat folks, when you come from a group that is historically denied resources and access to power and safety, you have this sense of responsibility and burden on your shoulders that if I, as a woman, get emotional and cry, then it’s going to reinforce this trope and the stereotype that “women are too emotional.” I’m hypersensitive to that. Similarly, when I am able to make a really strong argument and when I’m really able to prove a valid point about sexism or patriarchy, it feels like I’m helping women everywhere. But men, #NotAllMen, react in a very similar way to the way that white people do around being labeled white. Now, the series Seeing White spends 14 hours looking at 400 years of history and trends and breaking down some epically massive structural and cultural and organizational systems of power. It is so nuanced and it’s fantastic, especially for white people to listen to. 

The reason that I bring that up is because as Alex and I were listening, we had so many aha moments. One of them being, “Woah! White folks get super butt hurt about the whole white people thing because they want to be seen as individuals, not as representative of this monolithic group.” Often, that is attributed with racism and oppression and abuse and slavery and all of these things that feel like me, as a human being, this individual didn’t have any part of. We see that similarly too when women and queer folks and feminists talk about men. Then this #NotAllMen stuff starts coming up because individual men feel really uncomfortable when they’re grouped in with this large cultural mass of what men do in culture, which is generally high rates of violence, both in domestic situations and in larger situations and so many other things. 

Dawn Serra: So it just felt really appropriate to share that because I got an email and it says, “There are many wrongs in the world. And there are many social norms that suck and brought us to where we are today. Some men suck. Some social norms are vile. Yes, they truly are. But you come off like a man hater. We aren’t all dicks. We aren’t all sexual predators. We aren’t all pigs.” 

What’s coming through so much here is the sensitivity around being a man that is hearing generalizations about men and taking it deeply personally, the way that white folks often too when race gets brought up. White folks are raised to be colorblind and not see color. So when someone points out our whiteness, especially when we haven’t really started doing anti-racism work, it can feel so uncomfortable and confronting. I think that happens a lot with dudes hearing these generalizations that have lots and lots and lots of numbers and research and validity to them for eons. What’s really interesting is in the Seeing White podcast for season two, they go back about 400 years. That’s really when the concept of whiteness was created. Before that, race wasn’t really a thing. It didn’t really exist. Cultures certainly existed. But this concept of blackness and browness and whiteness came into existence about 400 years ago because of slave trade.

Dawn Serra: But with season three of Scene on Radio, where they’re tackling men, they’re having to go back 10,000 years. That’s an awful lot of history to unpack. But there are trends. That’s one of the things they’re talking about in this fantastic podcast series. So if you can’t tell, I’m totally in love with it. One of the things that they’re trying to unpack is what about the biology? What about the overarching trends? How did patriarchy start? Where has the power been historically, systemically, culturally through all of these many eons and centuries and how has it shifted and how does that impact us now?

For those of you who are listening, who are part of a more dominant group, perhaps you are white, perhaps you are a cis man, perhaps you are able-bodied, perhaps you’re in a thin body – whatever it is – it’s going to feel really itchy and uncomfortable and squeaky. You’re going to feel like, “But not me,” when you hear people talking about these larger structures and systems and cultural trends. The work to do when that comes up, is not to turn it around on the person that’s talking about those trends, especially if that person comes from a minority group or a more oppressed group to say, “Hey, I’m not like that.” That’s just taking away from the work that actually needs to be done. A lot of people talk about spiritual bypassing that white folks do. It’s very similar. 

Dawn Serra: Talking about the things that men have historically done and continue to do is so important if we want to achieve a place of liberation and freedom, where we all feel safe in our bodies, where we all feel like we can interact in a way that feels free and safe, where we don’t have to be scared of saying the wrong thing or being followed home or being killed for turning someone down. We see things in the news almost every single day about this. There is so much data that supports who’s committing the violence, who’s doing all these things that are just keeping us all so stuck, especially when we’re talking about toxic masculinity. 

Start listening to this new season on Scene on Radio about men and masculinity and do some work around gender and figure out why it is the way that it is. To everybody listening, if you haven’t heard Scene on Radio yet, totally go check it out. They are doing some really rad stuff in the world.

Dawn Serra: sex banter fan wrote in with a subject: “Friend Zone Guilt.” “Hey, Dawn! Love the show and what you provide. I can’t believe that you’re nearing five years doing this and that I’ve been listening for nearly three. What a ride? I just want to say I loved Episode 224. Holy crap! Why had I been shouldering this guilt and believing the narrative that you can’t have close friends with heterosexual guys as a bifemale. Friends were telling me that it was my fault for ‘leading on’ this individual who I knew I was not romantically interested in. When I thought I was developing an honest, close friendship, he felt hurt and betrayed when my feelings had not changed. We no longer talk and the whole situation sucks. I guess along the lines of what you guys were saying, there is this shitty expectation that emotional and communicative intimacy with a person is indicative of sexual or romantic interest. I could go on and on, but you and your guests always say it so much better. So thanks heaps! sex banter fan.”

Yay! Thank you so much for writing in, sbf. I appreciate you listening and I’m glad that that resonated. I think that so many of us have stories like that of developing deep, meaningful, playful, interesting relationships, only to find out that that person was secretly hoping it would turn sexual, they wanted more and when they’re not able to sit in their disappointment, it turns to anger and then we lose the whole thing. That, unfortunately, is just a reality of where we are right now and it’s super shitty. I wish better for all of us. Because if all of us could have so many other kinds of relationships in our life, when we feel so much more supported and loved and seen and accepted and… Oh, I could go on and on too! But I’m glad that the friend zone conversation really hit for you because, yeah, it is such a real thing. 

Dawn Serra: So I hope to anybody out there who has ever felt “friend zoned,” that you take a look at what it means to be in relationship with someone and how we might do better, how we can have more kinds of relationships. And we’re allowed to feel disappointed and hurt. But that doesn’t mean that we have to cut things off or get angry and feel like we were being led on. Sometimes we just have feelings and sometimes those feelings end up hurting. Then we get on and we move past it and we heal and we grow. Hopefully, we still have those really important people in our lives. Because if we don’t, what a loss. So thank you so much sbf. I hope that was helpful to other people, too. We need to talk about this more.

This next question came in and it’s one of the questions that I posted on Patreon, looking for some listener feedback from folks who support the show and Steph, who’s one of the supporters, weighed in with some thoughts. I’ll share that and then my own. So S.C. wrote in with a subject line of “Tackling preferences and my desire map.” Now, I got a pissy email about this topic recently that I will share in just a minute and we’ll unpack this a little bit further. But let’s do S.C.’s email and Steph’s advice and walk through that, and then we’ll get to the pissiness in a minute. 

Dawn Serra: So it says, “Hey, Dawn! First, I just have to say that your show is an amazing source of discussion on sex and relationships that is insightful as well as compassionate. It’s safe to say that I am not the only one who healthfully benefited from your show. I’m reaching out to you regarding preferences, specifically my own. I am a single, white, straight, petite cisgendered woman in her late 20s. I’m also someone who is committed to intersectional feminism, body positivity and fat acceptance. After some introspection on my dating life, I realized that my preferences – tall, blond, broad, square-jaw, intellectual, intelligent, brawny men – directly reflect social and cultural norms and have probably been shaped by such norms that I’ve come to know to be problematic through my activist study and practice. 

Though I have dated and had relationships with men outside of my preferences, I have wished and do fantasize about meeting and having a life partner who fits the preferences. However, after coming to realize that my preferences are fed and maybe are re-feeding norms that I believe to be unethical, this is something that I want to fix. 

Dawn Serra: In Episode 220, you discussed desire maps and deprogramming norms, shaped preferences and instilled stories about rerouting your desire map. This rerouting of my desire map is something that I’m really trying to work on. I have for some time been successful and filling my feeds and social media consumption with a diversity of women and femme self-identified bodies. Yet in my personal suit to reroute my desire map, I’m having difficulty doing so with male and masculine self-identified bodies. I was wondering if you have any advice regarding this and rerouting those desire maps. Also, I was curious to know if you had any suggestions beyond diversifying social feeds and media consumption for doing that work. I really appreciate the time you’re taking to read this and thanks for all of the fantastic work that you do. With love and well wishes, S.C.”

So here is what Steph said: “Diversifying. Definitely diversifying social media was a big help to me, especially Instagram where it’s visual. Watching different types of porn will help because there is a hotness to someone having a great time and being totally in the moment that just does not require a specific body type. Reading stories and erotica for diverse bodies and repetition and time should be prescribed. It takes practice. So be gentle with yourself and patient.”

Dawn Serra: One of the other things that I wanted to offer is if you’ve been following me for a while, then you know I put on the Explore More Summit every year. Last December, I had a special breakout edition of the Explore More Summit called the Bodies Edition, where the entire time all we talked about was fat activism, fat acceptance, diet culture… Desirability politics came up a whole bunch. Caleb Luna was one of the speakers and Caleb spoke so beautifully to this space of finding ways to move into new spaces, of feeling different kinds of bodies are delicious and sexy. Sonalee Rashatwar spoke at the 2017 Explore More Summit and she had a whole bunch of stuff to say about it as well. If you’re interested in hearing those talks, you can go to exploremoresummit.com. There’s a section in the navigation that’s Previous Summits. Then you can take a look and see what the options are for both the Bodies Edition and for 2017.

So I would say, listen to their wisdom and also check out Caleb Luna’s writing. Caleb does amazing work in this space. All kinds of essays on desirability politics and fat acceptance and male and masculine bodies, queer bodies – all kinds of great yummy stuff. So check out Caleb Luna. I also just want to say thank you so much, Steph, for your wisdom and your suggestion. I especially appreciate how you ended it. Repetition and time should be prescribed. Agreed.

Dawn Serra: Some of the stories that were confronting when it comes to who gets to be sexy have literally been inscribed in us, from the earliest of ages. From the time we are capable of actually paying attention to the world around us, we’re absorbing the images that are on television, that are in the magazines that we see on the shelves in the stores and in our parents’ houses. It’s everywhere. So these stories often have very deep, deep, deep roots and we’ll do work and feel like we’ve moved forward, and then we hit another place where there’s still a deeper little root to the story and we got to work through that. Then we feel like we’ve made progress, then we hit another one and we just have to keep peeling that onion over and over and over again. 

That takes time and practice and patience, exactly like Steph said. I totally agree with the power of shifting what we’re consuming. It doesn’t sound like it’s that important, but I just had this phenomenal experience that really proved to me what happens over multiple years when you really are diversifying what you’re consuming. I have eliminated all mainstream magazines from my life, which was really hard at first because I was a magazine addict way back in the day. Oh my God! I love magazines so much. I have completely eliminated them entirely from my life. 

Dawn Serra: My social media feed, especially as Steph mentioned – Instagram, are full of nothing but a rich diversity of bodies. Older bodies, disabled bodies with a wide variety of disabilities, some that have colostomy bags, some that are in wheelchairs, some that use other types of walking aids and breathing apparatus, fat bodies and oh so much. There are so many men in fat bodies that are fucking rocking Instagram. I mean, Chubstr is a great place to start. The founder of Chubstr, Dr. Bruce Sturgell, spoke at the Explore More Summit Bodies Edition. So check out just like what Bruce is doing with Chubstr and follow that account and follow everyone else that they’re following. They have all– Everything on their site is with male models who are in bigger bodies, a variety of shapes and sizes. There’s also a whole bunch of other super rad dudes who are rocking fashion in all sizes and shapes of bodies. I follow a whole bunch of them. So feel free to just take a look at who I’m following on Instagram to find some, too. 

I have talked about how I recently went to the ASDAH Conference in Portland, which is the Association for Size, Diversity and Health. It was a conference where, easily, over 50% of the attendees have bodies that defied our social conventions for what’s an acceptable kind of body. There were so many people in different size, bodies and age, bodies with all kinds of different disabilities and shapes and sizes. Some were small fat and some were super fat, some were in the middle. I can honestly say that if I had been in that space five years ago, I would have been really uncomfortable. There would have been a part of me that felt like, “Whoa! I’m not the fattest person in the room.” And that feels awesome. But I also still would have had this kind of tense judgment going on, where I was evaluating the bodies and ascribing value to them based on what they could or couldn’t do or what they could or couldn’t fit in. There would have still been this part of me that just felt really uncomfortable with how many bodies were in that space that weren’t attempting to conform or were conforming to “what is expected.” 

Dawn Serra: Now that I’ve had all these years of just filling my eyes and my brain and my life with activities and people and visuals that support all of these kinds of bodies, being in that space felt like being at Disneyland. I mean, it was so exciting and rewarding and I could see so much incredible richness and beauty in all of these different body types and the ways that they were showing up in the space and taking care of themselves and the ways that they moved and dressed. It honestly just felt utterly, totally normal.

Being able to recognize that, for me, that was a shift that felt really good. I want more of that for all of us. I want us to be able to look at bodies that are a range of sizes, especially on the larger end of the spectrum. Just because we don’t see them represented by mainstream media and to be able to just feel like, “Yeah. Fuck yeah. That’s a body and a rad one.” There we go. That’s the end. 

Dawn Serra: So S.C., I know you said that you have already been working on cultivating a different kind of social media experience for yourself, as well as regular media. Keep doing that work and really go out of your way. If you’re specifically struggling with male and masculine identified bodies, do whatever you can to just fill your feeds with them to give yourself an opportunity to see all of these different sized bodies in motion and in dress and in positions so that it becomes your normal. 

They’ve done a number of studies that have shown even ten minutes of being exposed to a richer variety of bodies shifts our empathy and gives us an opportunity to feel more open and more connected to those bodies. But it does take a lot of time to confront the stories, especially the ones that we were so invested in and have told ourselves. 

Dawn Serra: I think a big part of the desirability stuff is often we feel like we will have more access to social currency and resources based on what our partners look like, which means we also understand, on some level, that if we are partnered with someone who does not fit social convention, we recognize that we will lose access to certain resources and spaces. That is a place to do some work. That is the place where we really have to sit in that discomfort. Because if we can name that and understand that, then suddenly, the real true harm and violence and oppression that people in certain bodies are moving through in this world becomes very visible. 

Because imagine yourself walking down the street with that ideal you’ve had for a while. The envy and the jealousy and the access that you would automatically get because of the conformity aspect. When you imagine yourself walking down the street, with say, the most wonderful, intelligent, sexy, beautiful human being and he happens to be in a fat body, the ways that people are going to look at you both and the ways that people are going to treat the both of you are going to be real different. It’s a shitty reality that people in fat bodies and disabled bodies and older bodies have to live every single day. But also doing some of that work could start helping to shift things. 

Dawn Serra: If you do have the means to work with a coach like Christy Harrison or myself or Summer Innanen or Isabel Foxen Duke or Be Nourished, anyone who’s in this space of confronting diet culture and the stories we tell ourselves about bodies. It might be really helpful to do some one-on-one work to be able to unpack that a little bit or finding a therapist who is HAES informed. And just be patient with yourself. It’s not easy to do this, but it is important. I love that you’re really examining your values and what supports your values and what conflicts with your values and realizing that there’s some work that needs to be done. 

Also, if there’s a way for you to go to fat activist events, mostly those are women and queer folks and non-binary folks, but there are some men that show up to those events, especially if you keep an eye on Chubstr and the events that they do, those are specifically curated for men. So if you were to just start making friends with people in those spaces and following bloggers and being able to engage in conversation, the more that we can see that humanity and the more that we can see, “Whoa! These people are so fucking rad.” They’re doing such incredible work in the world and they’re challenging so many things. I mean, how can we not fall in love with them on some level? 

Dawn Serra: I love Steph’s suggestion, especially around the porn and then the repetition and the time. Just know that the fact that you’re asking these questions is huge. So keep asking yourself those questions and keep revisiting this and confronting it and examining it and playing with it. Try different fantasies on. See where you can go with it. If there’s a way for you to play, I think that would make it so much easier rather than beating yourself up over this. When we feel terrible or ashamed, it’s much harder to change, than if we feel curious and open and excited and mindful and present. So thank you so much for this incredible question, S.C. Thank you to Steph for helping to answer it. 

Now, on to the somewhat irritated email I got in a very similar vein. Todd wrote in with two emails in quick succession. So Todd’s first email says, “Conflicting advice.” “In Episode 224, I challenge you to listen to the response you give to DNA with a fresh ear. You contradict yourself hard. ‘Don’t date these people until you’ve done the work on yourself.’ But then you say, ‘Don’t limit yourself and date folks outside your norm.’” 

Dawn Serra: Then, a few minutes later, Todd wrote back in with “More” as the subject line. It says, “I listened to your response to DNA in 224 again and I don’t think I can adequately convey how confusing your words are to me. Don’t use someone as an experiment. Get out there and do it outside your comfort zone. Until a person has an experience, it is an experiment and no amount of book learning or therapy will teach someone how to swim if they’ve never seen more than one cup of water.” 

Todd, I appreciate you sharing your confusion. I’m sure you’re not alone. I’m sure other people are confused about that, too. There’s nuance within this. I think that it’s a really, really important thing for us to examine. There’s a big difference between “I’m going to open myself up and try these things and it feels exciting and it feels new and I’m really open to it” versus “I’m forcing myself to do this thing because I feel like I should or because someone told me to or because I’ve run out of options.” 

Dawn Serra: There are a lot of people who, whether it’s someone in a fat body or someone with a disability or hell, even trying to figure out if you’re bi or queer, who treat other human beings as a means to an end of, “I just need to check this box and say I did the thing” or “Try this out and see if I like it” without ever really giving the other person an opportunity to be realized as fully human, as someone who’s going to have feelings about being used in that way, especially if it hasn’t been made clear upfront. But that’s what’s happening.

So what my advice is really offering is it is important for us to try new things and to step outside of our comfort zone and to have conversations with people that maybe we wouldn’t normally talk to or to go on some dates. But if it really is an experiment to the point where you’re not really sure if this is going to freak you out or if you can be bothered to see them fully human, we need to be able to articulate that on the front end so that folks, especially people who are experiencing violence and oppression literally every day, have the opportunity to decide whether or not they want to opt into that experience. 

Dawn Serra: There are so many ways that we can start shifting and I just talked about this when I was answering S.C.’s question. There are so many ways that we can be opening our hearts and opening our minds and shifting the ways that we experience the world. I can promise you that if you spend three or four years filling every single thing that you see with people that are in a really rich diversity or rich variety of bodies like I have, when you finally do go into a space that’s full of folks like that, it’s going to feel real different than if it was just a thought exercise. 

We don’t want to do things that are going to potentially be using other human beings where we’re going to show up and then expect this person who literally gets told that they should die and that they shouldn’t even be alive and that they shouldn’t leave the house that way and that they’re a joke of a human being and all the things that people in fat bodies here and disabled bodies, those folks shouldn’t be required to do the emotional labor that it might take you to get over your discomfort. It’s a both. And it’s an end and there’s nuance. Sometimes we’re going to get it wrong and we’re going to hurt someone. When we do, we have to take responsibility for that. But, unfortunately, especially with online dating, there’s this tendency to just disappear and ghost. That is such a hurtful thing.

Dawn Serra: So how can we do both? How can we be meeting new people and making friends with and filling our feeds with and exposing ourselves to all kinds of new identities and bodies and experiences? Where can we be reading deep analysis and really personal vulnerable stories like Roxane Gay’s “Hunger” book? Or even something like the fat activist studies where we can really start to understand the lived experience of what it’s like to maybe move through the world in these bodies. That’s important work to do rather than “I’m just going to go try this thing and if I’m super uncomfortable, I’m just going to reject this person to their face or bail in the heat of the moment or say something wildly, wildly hurtful.” 

I think a prime example is, if you don’t follow Andrew Garza, you should. Andrew frequently posts the shitastic, ableist shit that people say to him when they see him in person. Online, they’re like, “Yeah. I’m good that you’re on a wheelchair. I’m good that you are disabled. I’m good that you can’t do these certain things.” Then the second they see him in person, some of the stuff that people have said to him, no human being should ever have to hear in their life. And he hears it all the time, over and over and over again. That is not how we do this. Follow Andrew and see the shit that people do. Listen to Virgie Tovar talking about the crap that she’s been through on dates and the things that people have said to her. 

Dawn Serra: We have to be doing the work inside of ourselves to be confronting our oppression. We need to be working with people who are not oppressed and suffering to really start unpacking this. We have to be putting ourselves in situations where we’re encountering people with a wide variety of experiences and stories, where there’s not all this pressure about falling in love and being sexual. How many fat friends do you have? How many disabled friends do you have? How many friends from different cultures and colors do you have? 

If you’re living a pretty homogenous life, then you probably need to start expanding your circle and doing that work, long before you try and get naked with someone. Yes, it can seem contradictory. But that’s because what I’m inviting is thoughtfulness and nuance. It has to be both. Trying new things is great, but not when we’re putting the burden and the potential harm on people who are already being harmed. 

Dawn Serra: So thanks for writing, Todd. I’m sure you’re not the only one who was a little bit confused by that. I could feel your frustration, there was a little bit of pissyness that came through and that’s okay. I have certainly been there. I’ve certainly felt that. In fact, I feel it all the time about all kinds of things. I appreciate the opportunity to get to address that with a little bit more detail. And like I mentioned for S.C., totally check out– If this is something you’re genuinely curious about, it’s not just something that you’re kind of nitpicking because you wanted to nitpick, if you’re genuinely curious, check out a lot of the work that Caleb Luna is doing. Ashleigh Shackelford has written about desirability politics and the burden that can place on fat people. Sonalee Rashatwar has written about it. There are some fantastic people who are much smarter than me, writing and living in these spaces where we can all learn and grow and become more compassionate and empathetic about it. So thank you so much and we will jump into the next question.

This last question is one that I am going to post on Patreon. So for folks who are supporting at $5 and above at patreon.com/sgrpodcast, You can weigh in on this question and I’ll share your thoughts and answers on a future episode. So KD wrote in with a subject line of “Can we talk about period sex?” “Hi, Dawn! First of all, I love your podcast. I’ve been listening on and off for years and I just love the way you talk about sex, relationships, bodies and everything else. I’ve tried listening to other sex podcasts and always come back to yours because your outlook on life and the content you produce is so powerful and inspiring. You’ve helped me begin to look at my body and my ability in a different light. My sex life and relationships have improved because of that. So thank you for all of the work you do and thank you for maintaining such a safe, positive space for so many people including me. 

Dawn Serra: Okay. Now, onto the reason I’m emailing you. I haven’t listened to every episode you’ve made, although I’m getting there. So forgive me if you’ve already answered this. But can we talk about period sex? I am a period having woman in a heterosexual relationship with a wonderful older man. We have a really fantastic sex life filled with all different kinds of sex and it’s wonderful. The only thing we haven’t really taken the plunge into is period sex. When I do have my period, we still engage in other types of sex besides intercourse like kissing, nipple play and me giving him lots of great blowjobs. But as far as actual intercourse goes, no dice. 

We’ve talked about it and my partner is open to it and I want to be open to it. But there’s just something holding me back. I’ve read so many articles and advice columns about periods sex. I’ve heard the whole put down a towel and go for it narrative over and over again, but I am still concerned. I’ve been hesitant about having intercourse too close to the start or end of my period because I’m afraid I will spontaneously get my period in the middle of sex.

Dawn Serra: There are so many thoughts running through my head when I think of having period intercourse. I’m afraid of making a mess. I’m afraid it may hurt. I’m afraid he’ll change his mind and be grossed out. But most of all, I’m afraid I won’t be able to relax and enjoy the experience. I’m just worried all I will be able to think about and focus on is whether or not I’m bleeding everywhere and whether it feels good for my partner and what he’s thinking. 

These feelings are so unlike the way I approached every other aspect of my sex life and I’m not sure how to tackle it. Believe me, it’s something I want to tackle. I honestly love having sex with my partner so much, but not having intercourse with him for eight plus straight days out of every month just plain sucks. Especially when I often find myself incredibly horny when I have my period. Do you have any advice for how to get out of my head and just enjoy the experience of period sex? How do I stop worrying and just try it? Thank you, Dawn. KD.” 

So again, this question is going to go up on Patreon. If you’ve got stories or experiences you want to share around period sex and you support the show at $5, you can go way in over there. But I’m going to share my thoughts.

Dawn Serra: First is, you are not alone in this. This is a very sensitive, awkward place for so many people and it used to be for me. I still have some like, “Yeah. Today’s a day when I don’t want to do certain things.” Other days, it’s like, “Let’s go for it.” It totally just depends on my mood. But I hear you. It’s something that not a lot of people talk about and that we don’t really have many movies or stories or porn kind of showing. Although if you ever get a chance to see ErikaLust’s vampire short, it’s all about this vampire that eats out this woman on her period. It’s actually really hot and really cute and really cheeky. It’s super funny. So, totally check it out. If you haven’t seen it yet. I think you’ll like it.

There’s a lot of what you’re saying that makes a lot of sense. The first thing I want to offer is you mentioned that your partner is older than you. I would venture to guess that they know themselves enough, if you’re having this amazing sex with each other, to be able to let you know this might gross me out. I had a lover years ago who one drop of blood would send him literally into a full faint. So we had to be super careful about period sex. He wouldn’t even open his eyes. It was a little bit ridiculous, but I guess we’re all different. But, if I was even remotely close to or at the very tail end of my period and there was even one drop of blood on the condom, he would totally freak out and have to lay down and close his eyes. I’d have to do all the cleanup because he’d freak, but he knew that about himself. He warned me at the time. He was like, “I can’t handle this. It makes me faint. It’s a thing. I’m 40. This is just how it is.” And he knew that. 

Dawn Serra: I’ve had other partners in the past who’ve been like, “Eh. It’s not my favorite thing.” And then partners who were like, “Who fucking gives a shit? We’re going to have fun.” Because guess what? When you’re on your period, it’s like extra lube. There’s all kinds of extra wetness and slickness going on. So generally, if we’re talking about intercourse and someone’s using a penis to penetrate you, it’s probably going to feel even better.

What that really comes down to is one, do you trust him to tell you whether or not he feels like he can handle it? If for some reason he does get grossed out, maybe the two of you can set some parameters around how to handle that. It’s like poop with anal. Sometimes shit happens and then you have to decide how you’re going to deal with it and if you can both tolerate that or not. But there are also all kinds of other things that you can do to help. 

Dawn Serra: My experience of period sex is even if I’m on my heaviest day, yes, it’s going to get a little bit messy, you might end up with some blood on both of your thighs or your tummies. But once the intercourse actually starts I found that my period is like, “Oh. Wait. You do what you got to do. And then I’ll start back up again afterwards.” I have also had my periods start because of sex. So it can go either way. That said, usually when it starts it’s just like one or two little, teeny spots. It’s not a big deal. They don’t even notice. It’s just when I’m wiping later, the lube away. It’s like, “Oh. There’s a little bit of pink. I guess I’m starting my period now.”

Putting a towel down is a great idea. You know what else is a great idea? Shower sex. If you’re into shower sex and your partner is too, that can be a really great way to start on this journey. The water is just washing everything away. What’s it like to get fingered? When you’re on your period? What’s it like for them to use a toy on you while you’re on your period? You don’t have to go straight to intercourse. There’s all kinds of other things you can do. What’s it like for you – have you tried? – putting a tampon in, taking a shower and then letting him go down on you? With a tampon in after a shower, no reason if you’re fluid bonded or even if you’re not using a barrier for him to go down on you. Try that. Wear gloves and see what it’s like for him to finger you. There’s lots of little steps that you can take both with location and with activity before you get to the intercourse. That might give you an idea of how it feels and what your body is going to be like when you’re in that situation. 

Dawn Serra: Now, all of us who have periods have very different experiences of our periods. For me, I tend to get a little bit of cramping on the second day that sucks for like an hour. And then for the whole rest of my period, I’m pretty much just like, “Meh.” It’s messy, but I don’t have pain. Other people have incredibly painful periods for the length of them, with lots of different feelings and sensitivities in their nipples. So you Have to evaluate your body and what it’s capable of.

My thought for you, what it comes down to, is try a couple of baby steps before you get there. Try it in the shower. Try it with toys. See how that goes for both of you? What’s it like for your partner when he’s confronted with a toy that now has some blood on it after he’s fucked you into oblivion and you’re feeling amazing? If that doesn’t creep him out, then it’s probably not going to creep him out when his dick’s got some blood on it and his thighs too. And trust him. Know that sometimes maybe it is going to feel a little bit more gross than others. But my guess is there’s all kinds of sex you’re having where occasionally it’s a little bit messy or a little bit awkward and the two of you are just like, “Oops. That was a little bit messy. Wasn’t expecting that” and you’re fine with it. The same thing can be true of period sex. 

You’ve probably built it up so much at this point that you just feel super scared. So how can you just take a little bit of time to be in your body and to breathe and to let him touch you with just his fingers and to see if that can be an erotic experience where you’re not overthinking it? And then try the next thing and the next and build your way up to it.

Dawn Serra: Period sex, in my experience, is super fun. There are certainly times when I’m like, “Eh. Not feeling it.” I’m either crampy or I just feel like we’re fantastically funky. But, for the most part, every time I’ve had period sex, it’s been really fun. The mess hasn’t been super extraordinary. Maybe only once or twice has it been like, “Whoa. It looks like somebody was killed in this bed.” But, again, my partner opts in and says they can handle it. I got to trust that and then it’s all about me and what I’m up for and how I’m feeling. So experimenting and figuring out what your body is like in that situation is super important. It might be exactly the thing that makes your period feel even better. Maybe it helps relieve cramps. Maybe it helps your flow to slow down. Maybe it does the opposite. The only way you’re going to know is to try. 

Now, you can experiment on your own. So if you’re not quite ready to take that on with your partner, what’s it like for you to masturbate on your period? How messy is it when you use toys on yourself when you’re on your period? Do some tests and see what that’s like. If that super squeaks you out, then you probably don’t want to add your partner right now. But if that feels okay and if the mess isn’t so bad or if doing it in the shower feels really good and you’re like, “Okay. I’m kind of okay with that,” great! Then maybe now it’s time to add your partner in. 

Dawn Serra: So, in the end, I think my advice is just it’s super valid to feel this way. You are not alone. Period sex can feel really weird for a lot of people. The way forward, I think, is going slow and getting curious and seeing what happens and how things feel. If you find that it does actually feel really good and it’s not as messy as you thought, you’re probably going to want a heck of a lot more. So have some conversation with your partner and make a little plan that seems really fun and playful for you and report back. Of course, if I hear anything from the Patreon supporters, I will let you know on a future episode what they said. 

So to everybody listening, thank you so much for writing. I love hearing from you. Please head to dawnserra.com and fill out the contact form if you’ve got any questions or comments you want me to field. I’m also interviewing Ev’Yan Whitney and Jes Baker next week for future episodes. So there are some huge, awesome, exciting conversations coming up. If you support the show on Patreon at $3 and above, make sure you head over to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to get your bonus content for the week. Of course, feel free to follow me @Dawn_Serra on Twitter and Instagram. I would love to interact with you there. Until next week. This is Dawn Serra. Enjoy your week. Bye!

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

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